THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
If the American war was the greatest event in modern times, in view of
ultimate results, the French Revolution may be considered the most
exciting and interesting to the eye of contemporaries. The wars which
grew out of the Revolution in France were conducted on a scale of much
greater magnitude, and embroiled all the nations of Europe. A greater
expenditure of energies took place than from any contest in the annals
of civilized nations. Nor has any contest ever before developed so
great military genius. Napoleon stands at the head of his profession,
by general consent; and it is probable that his fame will increase,
rather than diminish, with advancing generations.
It is impossible to describe, in a few pages, the great and varied
events connected with the French Revolution, or even allude to all the
prominent ones. The causes of this great movement are even more
interesting than the developments.
[Sidenote: Causes of the French Revolution.]
The question is often asked, could Louis XVI. have prevented the
catastrophe which overturned his throne? He might, perhaps, have
delayed it; but it was an inevitable event, and would have happened,
sooner or later. There were evils in the government of France, and in
the condition of the people, so overwhelming and melancholy, that they
would have produced an outbreak. Had Richelieu never been minister;
had the Fronde never taken place; had Louis XIV. and XV. never
reigned; had there been no such women as disgraced the court of France
in the eighteenth century; had there been no tyrannical kings, no
oppressive nobles, no grievous taxes, no national embarrassments, no
luxurious courts, no infidel writings, and no discontented
people,--then Louis XVI. might have reigned at Versailles, as
Louis XV. had done before him. But the accumulated grievances of two
centuries called imperatively for redress, and nothing short of a
revolution could have removed them.
Now, what were those evils and those circumstances which, of
necessity, produced the most violent revolutionary storm in the annals
of the world? The causes of the French revolution may be generalized
under five heads: First, the influence of the writings of infidel
philosophers; second, the diffusion of the ideas of popular rights;
third, the burdens of the people, which made these abstract ideas of
right a mockery; fourth, the absurd infatuation of the court and
nobles; fifth, the derangement of the finances, which clogged the
wheels of government, and led to the assembling of the States General.
There were also other causes: but the above mentioned are the most
prominent.
[Sidenote: Helvetius--Voltaire.]
Of those philosophers whose writings contributed to produce this
revolution, there were four who exerted a remarkable influence. These
were Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot.
Helvetius was a man of station and wealth, and published, in 1758, a
book, in which he carried out the principles of Condillac and of other
philosophers of the sensational, or, as it is sometimes called, the
sensuous school. He boldly advocated a system of undisguised
selfishness. He maintained that man owed his superiority over the
lower animals to the superior organization of the body. Proceeding
from this point, he asserted, further, that every faculty and emotion
are derived from sensation; that all minds are originally equal; that
pleasure is the only good, and self-interest the only ground of
morality. The materialism of Helvetius was the mere revival of pagan
Epicurianism; but it was popular, and his work, called _De l'Esprit_,
made a great sensation. It was congenial with the taste of a court and
a generation that tolerated Madame de Pompadour. But the Parliament of
Paris condemned it, and pronounced it derogatory to human nature,
inasmuch as it confined our faculties to animal sensibility, and
destroyed the distinctions between virtue and vice.
His fame was eclipsed by the brilliant career of Voltaire, who
exercised a greater influence on his age than any other man. He is the
great apostle of French infidelity, and the great oracle of the
superficial thinkers of his nation and age. He was born in 1694, and
early appeared upon the stage. He was a favorite at Versailles, and a
companion of Frederic the Great--as great an egotist as he, though his
egotism was displayed in a different way. He was an aristocrat, made
for courts, and not for the people, with whom he had no sympathy,
although the tendency of his writings was democratic. In all his
satirical sallies, he professed to respect authority. But he was never
in earnest, was sceptical, insincere, and superficial. It would not be
rendering him justice to deny that he had great genius. But his genius
was to please, to amuse a vain-glorious people, to turn every thing
into ridicule, to pull down, and substitute nothing instead. He was a
modern Lucian, and his satirical mockery destroyed reverence for God
and truth. He despised and defied the future, and the future has
rendered a verdict which can never be reversed--that he was vain,
selfish, shallow, and cold, without faith in any spiritual influence
to change the world. But he had a keen perception of what was false,
with all his superficial criticism, a perception of what is now called
_humbug_; and it cannot be denied that, in a certain sense, he had a
love of truth, but not of truth in its highest development, not of the
positive, the affirmative, the real. Negation and denial suited him
better, and suited the age in which he lived better; hence he was a
"representative man," was an exponent of his age, and led the age. He
hated the Jesuits, but chiefly because they advocated a blind
authority; and he strove to crush Christianity, because its professors
so often were a disgrace to it, while its best members were martyrs
and victims. Voltaire did not, like Helvetius, propose any new system
of philosophy, but strove to make all systems absurd. He set the ball
of Atheism in motion, and others followed in a bolder track: pushed
out, not his principles, for he had none, but his spirit, into the
extreme of mockery and negation. And such a course unsettled the
popular faith, both in religion and laws, and made men indifferent to
the future, and to their moral obligations.
[Sidenote: Rousseau.]
Quite a different man was Rousseau. He was not a mocker, or a
leveller, or a satirist, or an atheist. He resembled Voltaire only in
one respect--in egotism. He was not so learned as Voltaire, did not
write so much, was not so highly honored or esteemed. But he had more
genius, and exercised a greater influence on posterity. His influence
was more subtle and more dangerous, for he led astray people of
generous impulses and enthusiastic dispositions, with but little
intelligence or experience. He abounded in extravagant admiration of
unsophisticated nature, professed to love the simple and earnest,
affected extraordinary friendship and sympathy, and was most
enthusiastic in his rhapsodies of sentimental love. Voltaire had no
cant, but Rousseau was full of it. Voltaire was the father of Danton,
but Rousseau of Robespierre, that sentimental murderer who as a judge,
was too conscientious to hang a criminal, but sufficiently
unscrupulous to destroy a king. The absurdities of Rousseau can be
detected in the ravings of the ultra Transcendentalists, in the
extravagance of Fourierism, in the mock philanthropy of such apostles
of light as Eugene Sue and Louis Blanc. The whole mental and physical
constitution of Rousseau was diseased, and his actions were strangely
inconsistent with his sentiments. He gave the kiss of friendship, and
it proved the token of treachery; he expatiated on simplicity and
earnestness in most bewitching language, but was a hypocrite, seducer,
and liar. He was always breathing the raptures of affection, yet never
succeeded in keeping a friend; he was always denouncing the
selfishness and vanity of the world, and yet was miserable without its
rewards and praises; no man was more dependent on society, yet no man
ever professed to hold it in deeper contempt; no man ever had a
prouder spirit, yet no man ever affected a more abject humility. He
dilated, with apparent rapture, on disinterested love, and yet left
his own children to cold neglect and poverty. He poisoned the weak and
the susceptible by pouring out streams of passion in eloquent and
exciting language, under the pretence of unburdening his own soul and
revealing his own sorrows. He was always talking about philanthropy
and generosity, and yet seldom bestowed a charity. No man was ever
more eloquent in paradox, or sublime in absurdity. He spent his life
in gilding what is corrupt, and glossing over what is impure. The
great moral effect of his writings was to make men commit crimes under
the name of patriotism, and permit them to indulge in selfish passion
under the name of love.
[Sidenote: Diderot.]
But more powerful than either of these false prophets and guides, in
immediate influence, was Diderot; and with him the whole school of
bold and avowed infidels, who united open atheism with a fierce
democracy. The Encyclopedists professed to know every thing, to
explain every thing, and to teach every thing, they discovered that
there was no God, and taught that truth was a delusion, and virtue but
a name. They were learned in mathematical, statistical, and physical
science, but threw contempt on elevated moral wisdom, on the lessons
of experience, and the eternal truths of divine revelation. They
advocated changes, experiments, fomentations, and impracticable
reforms. They preached a gospel of social rights, inflamed the people
with disgust of their condition, and with the belief that wisdom and
virtue resided, in the greatest perfection, with congregated masses.
[Sidenote: General Influence of the Philosophers.]
They incessantly boasted of the greatness of philosophy, and the
obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that successive
developments of human nature, without the aid of influences foreign to
itself, would gradually raise society to a state of perfection. What
they could not explain by their logical formularies, they utterly
discarded. They denied the reality of a God in heaven, and talked
about the divinity of man on earth, especially when associated masses
of the ignorant and brutal asserted what they conceived to be their
rights. They made truth to reside, in its greatest lustre, with
passionate majorities; and virtue, in its purest radiance, with felons
and vagabonds, if affiliated into a great association. They flattered
the people that they were wiser and better than any classes above
them, that rulers were tyrants, the clergy were hypocrites, the
oracles of former days mere fools and liars. To sum up, in few words,
the French Encyclopedists, "they made Nature, in her outward
manifestations, to be the foundation of all great researches, man to
be but a mass of organization, mind the development of our sensations,
morality to consist in self-interest, and God to be but the diseased
fiction of an unenlightened age. The whole intellect, being
concentrated on the outward and material, gave rise, perhaps, to some
improvements in physical science; but religion was disowned, morality
degraded, and man made to be but the feeble link in the great chain of
events by which Nature is inevitably accomplishing her blind designs."
From such influences, what could we expect but infidelity, madness,
anarchy, and crimes?
The second cause of the French revolution was the diffusion of the
ideas of democratic liberty. Rousseau was a republican in his
politics, as he was a sentimentalist in religion. Thomas Paine's Age
of Reason had a great influence on the French mind, as it also had on
the English and American. Moreover, the apostles of liberty in France
were much excited in view of the success of the American Revolution,
and fancied that the words "popular liberty," "sovereignty of the
people," the "rights of man," "liberty and equality," meant the same
in America as they did when pronounced by a Parisian mob. The French
people were unduly flattered, and made to believe, by the demagogues,
that they were philosophers, and that they were as fit for liberty as
the American nation itself. Moreover, it must be confessed that the
people had really made considerable advances, and discovered that
there was no right or justice in the oppressions under which they
groaned. The exhortations of popular leaders and the example of
American patriots prepared the people to make a desperate effort to
shake off their fetters. What were rights, in the abstract, if they
were to be ground down to the dust? What a mockery was the watchword
of liberty and equality, if they were obliged to submit to a despotism
which they knew to be, in the highest degree, oppressive and
tyrannical?
[Sidenote: Sufferings of the People.]
Hence the real and physical evils which the people of France endured,
had no small effect in producing the revolution. Abstract ideas
prepared the way, and sustained the souls of the oppressed; but the
absolute burdens which they bore aroused them to resistance.
[Sidenote: Degradation of the People.]
These evils were so great, that general discontent prevailed among the
middle and lower classes through the kingdom. The agricultural
population was fettered by game laws and odious privileges to the
aristocracy. "Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars
and herds of deer, were permitted to go at large through spacious
districts, in order that the nobles might hunt as in a savage
wilderness." Numerous edicts prohibited weeding, lest young partridges
should be disturbed, and mowing of hay even, lest their eggs should be
destroyed. Complaints for the infraction of these edicts were carried
before courts where every species of oppression and fraud prevailed.
Fines were imposed at every change of property and at every sale. The
people were compelled to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, to
press their grapes in his press, and bake their bread in his oven. In
consequence of these feudal laws and customs, the people were very
poor, their houses dark and comfortless, their dress ragged and
miserable, their food coarse and scanty. Not half of the enormous
taxes which they paid reached the royal treasury, or even the pockets
of the great proprietors. Officers were indefinitely multiplied. The
governing classes looked upon the people only to be robbed. Their cry
was unheard in the courts of justice, while the tear of sorrow was
unnoticed amid the pageantry of the great, whose extravagance,
insolence, and pride were only surpassed by the misery and degradation
of those unfortunate beings on whose toils they lived. Justice was
bought and sold like any other commodity, and the decisions of judges
were influenced by the magnitude of the bribes which were offered
them. Besides feudal taxes, the clergy imposed additional burdens, and
swarmed wherever there was plunder to be obtained. The people were so
extravagantly taxed that it was no object to be frugal or industrious.
Every thing beyond the merest necessaries of life was seized by
various tax-gatherers. In England, severe as is taxation, three
fourths of the produce of the land go to the farmer, while in France
only one twelfth went to the poor peasant. Two thirds of his earnings
went to the king. Nor was there any appeal from this excessive
taxation, which ground down the middle and lower classes, while the
clergy and the nobles were entirely exempted themselves. Nor did the
rich proprietor live upon his estates. He was a non-resident, and
squandered in the cities the money which was extorted from his
dependents. He took no interest in the condition of the peasantry,
with whom he was not united by any common ties. Added to this
oppression, the landlord was cruel, haughty, and selfish; and he
irritated by his insolence as well as oppressed by his injustice. All
situations in the army, the navy, the church, the court, the bench,
and in diplomacy were exclusively filled by the aristocracy, of whom
there were one hundred and fifty thousand people--a class insolent,
haughty, effeminate, untaxed; who disdained useful employments, who
sought to live by the labor of others, and who regarded those by whose
toils they were enabled to lead lives of dissipation and pleasure, as
ignoble minions, who were unworthy of a better destiny, and unfit to
enjoy those rights which God designed should be possessed by the whole
human race.
The privileges and pursuits of the aristocratic class, from the king
to a lieutenant in his army, were another cause of revolution.
Louis XV. squandered twenty million pounds sterling in pleasures too
ignominious to be even named in the public accounts, and enjoyed
almost absolute power. He could send any one in his dominions to rot
in an ignominious prison, without a hearing or a trial. The odious
_lettre de cachet_ could consign the most powerful noble to a dungeon,
and all were sent to prison who were offensive to government. The
king's mistresses sometimes had the power of sending their enemies to
prison without consulting the king. The lives and property of the
people were at his absolute disposal, and he did not scruple to
exercise his power with thoughtless, and sometimes inhuman cruelty.
[Sidenote: Derangement of Finances.]
But these evils would have ended only in disaffection, and hatred, and
unsuccessful resistance, had not the royal finances been deranged. So
long as the king and his ministers could obtain money, there was no
immediate danger of revolution. So long as he could pay the army, it
would, if decently treated, support an absolute throne.
But the king at last found it difficult to raise a sufficient revenue
for his pleasures and his wars. The annual deficit was one hundred and
ninety million of francs a year. The greater the deficit, the greater
was the taxation, which, of course, increased the popular discontent.
Such was the state of things when Louis XVI. ascended the throne of
Hugh Capet, (1774,) in his twentieth year, having married, four years
before, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, empress of
Austria. He was grandson of Louis XV., who bequeathed to him a debt of
four thousand millions of livres.
The new king was amiable and moral, and would have ruled France in
peaceful times, but was unequal to a revolutionary crisis. "Of all the
monarchs," says Alison, "of the Capetian line, he was the least able
to stem, and yet the least likely to provoke, a revolution. The people
were tired of the arbitrary powers of their monarch, and he was
disposed to abandon them; they were provoked at the expensive
corruptions of the court, and he was both innocent in his manners, and
unexpensive in his habits; they demanded reformation in the
administration of affairs, and he placed his chief glory in yielding
to the public voice. His reign, from his accession to the throne to
the meeting of the States General, was nothing but a series of
ameliorations, without calming the public effervescence. He had the
misfortune to wish sincerely for the public good, without possessing
the firmness necessary to secure it; and with truth it may be said
that reforms were more fatal to him than the continuance of abuses
would have been to another sovereign."
[Sidenote: Maurepas--Turgot--Malesherbes.]
He made choice of Maurepas as his prime minister, an old courtier
without talent, and who was far from comprehending the spirit of the
nation or the genius of the times. He accustomed the king to half
measures, and pursued a temporizing policy, ill adapted to
revolutionary times. The discontents of the people induced the king to
dismiss him, and Turgot, for whom the people clamored, became prime
minister. He was an honest man, and contemplated important reforms,
even to the abolition of feudal privileges and the odious _lettres de
cachet_, which were of course opposed by the old nobility, and were
not particularly agreeable to the sovereign himself.
Malesherbes, a lawyer who adopted the views of Turgot, succeeded him,
and, had he been permitted, would have restored the rights of the
people, and suppressed the _lettres de cachet_, reënacted the Edict of
Nantes, and secured the liberty of the press. But he was not equal to
the crisis, with all his integrity and just views, and Necker became
financial minister.
[Sidenote: Necker--Calonne.]
He was a native of Geneva, a successful banker, and a man who had won
the confidence of the nation. He found means to restore the finances,
and to defray the expenses of the American war. But he was equally
opposed by the nobles, who wanted no radical reform, and he was not a
man of sufficient talent to stem the current of revolution. Financial
skill was certainly desirable, but no financiering could save the
French nation on the eve of bankruptcy with such vast expenditures as
then were deemed necessary. The nobles indeed admitted the extent of
the evils which existed, and descanted, on their hunting parties, in a
strain of mock philanthropy, but would submit to no sacrifices
themselves, and Necker was compelled to resign.
M. de Calonne took his place; a man of ready invention, unscrupulous,
witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of promises, he
succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and pursued a plan
directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. He encouraged the
extravagance of the court, derided the future, and warded off pressing
debts by contracting new ones. He pleased all classes by his
captivating manners, brilliant conversation, and elegant dress. The
king, furnished with what money he wanted, forgot the burdens of the
people, and the minister went on recklessly contracting new loans, and
studiously concealing from the public the extent of the annual
deficit.
But such a policy could not long be adopted successfully, and the
people were overwhelmed with amazement when it finally appeared that,
since the retirement of Necker in 1781, Calonne had added sixteen
hundred and forty-six millions of francs to the public debt. National
bankruptcy stared every body in the face. It was necessary that an
extraordinary movement should be made; and Calonne recommended the
assembling of the Notables, a body composed chiefly of the nobility,
clergy, and magistracy, with the hope that these aristocrats would
consent to their own taxation.
He was miserably mistaken. The Notables met, (1787,) the first time
since the reign of Henry IV., and demanded the dismissal of the
minister, who was succeeded by Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse.
He was a weak man, and owed his elevation to his influence with women.
He won the queen by his pleasing conversation, but had no solid
acquirements. Occupying one of the highest positions in his church, he
yet threw himself into the arms of atheistical philosophers. A man so
inconsistent and so light was not fit for his place.
However, the Notables agreed to what they had refused to Calonne. They
consented to a land tax, to the stamp duty, to provincial assemblies,
and to the suppression of the gratuitous service of vassals. These
were popular measures, but were insufficient. Brienne was under the
necessity of proposing the imposition of new taxes. But the Parliament
of Paris refused to register the edict. A struggle between the king
and the parliament resulted; and the king, in order to secure the
registration of new taxes, resorted to the _bed of justice_--the last
stretch of his royal power.
[Sidenote: States General.]
During one of the meetings of the parliament, when the abuses and
prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning upon the
word _états_, (statements,) exclaimed, "It is not statements but
States General that we want."
From that moment, nothing was thought of or talked about but the
assembling of the States General; to which the minister, from his
increasing embarrassments, consented. Moreover, the court hoped, in
view of the continued opposition of the parliament, that the Tiers
État would defend the throne against the legal aristocracy.
All classes formed great and extravagant expectations from the
assembling of the States General, and all were doomed to
disappointment, but none more than those who had most vehemently and
enthusiastically called for its convocation.
The Archbishop of Toulouse soon after retired, unable to stem the
revolutionary current. But he contrived to make his own fortune, by
securing benefices to the amount of eight hundred thousand francs, the
archbishopric of Sens, and a cardinal's hat. At his recommendation
Necker was recalled.
On Necker's return, he found only two hundred and fifty thousand
francs in the royal treasury; but the funds immediately rose, thirty
per cent., and he was able to secure the loans necessary to carry on
the government, rich capitalists fearing that absolute ruin would
result unless they came to his assistance.
Then followed discussions in reference to the Tiers État, as to what
the third estate really represented, and as to the number of deputies
who should be called to the assembly of the States General. "The Tiers
État," said the Abbé Sièyes, in an able pamphlet, "is the French
nation, _minus_ the noblesse and the clergy."
It was at last decided that the assembly should be at least one
thousand, and that the number of deputies should equal the
representatives of the nobles and clergy. The elections, were
carelessly conducted, and all persons, decently dressed, were allowed
to vote. Upwards of three millions of electors determined the choice
of deputies. Necker conceded too much, and opened the flood-gates of
revolution. He had no conception of the storm, which was to overwhelm
the throne.
On the 4th of May, 1789, that famous Assembly, which it was hoped
would restore prosperity to France, met with great pomp in the
cathedral church of Notre Dame, and the Bishop of Nancy delivered the
sermon, and, the next day, the assembly was opened in the hall
prepared for the occasion. The king was seated on a magnificent
throne, the nobles and the clergy on both sides of the hall, and the
third estate at the farther end. Louis XVI. pronounced a speech full
of disinterested sentiments, and Necker read a report in reference to
the state of the finances.
[Sidenote: The Tiers État.]
The next day, the deputies of the Tiers État were directed to the
place allotted to them, which was the common hall. The nobles and
clergy repaired to a separate hall. It was their intention, especially
in view of the great number of the deputies, to deliberate in distinct
halls. But the deputies insisted upon the three orders deliberating
together in the same room. Angry discussions and conferences took
place. But there was not sufficient union between the nobles and the
clergy, or sufficient energy on the part of the court. There happened
also to be some bold and revolutionary spirits among the deputies, and
they finally resolved, by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one to
ninety, to assume the title of _National Assembly_, and invited the
members of the other chamber to join them. They erected themselves
into a sovereign power, like the Long Parliament of Charles I.,
disregarding both the throne and the nobility.
Some of the most resolute of the nobles urged the king to adopt
vigorous measures against the usurpation of the third estate; but he
was timid and irresolute.
The man who had, at that time, the greatest influence in the National
Assembly was Mirabeau, a man of noble birth, but who had warmly
espoused the popular side. He was disagreeable in his features,
licentious in his habits, and a bankrupt in reputation, but a man of
commanding air, of great abilities, and unrivalled eloquence. His
picture has been best painted by Carlyle, both in his essays and his
history of the revolution.
The National Assembly contained many great men, who would never have
been heard of in quiet times; some of great virtues and abilities, and
others of the most violent revolutionary principles. There were also
some of the nobility, who joined them, not anticipating the evils
which were to come. Among them were the Dukes of Orleans,
Rochefoucault, and Liancourt, Count Lally Tollendal, the two brothers
Lameth, Clermont Tonnerre, and the Marquis de La Fayette, all of whom
were guillotined or exiled during the revolution.
[Sidenote: Commotions.]
The discussions in the Assembly did not equal the tumults of the
people. All classes were intoxicated with excitement, and believed
that a new era was to take place on earth; that all the evils which
afflicted society were to be removed, and a state of unbounded
liberty, plenty, and prosperity, was about to take place.
In the midst of the popular ferments, the regiment of guards,
comprising three thousand six hundred men, revolted: immense bodies of
workmen assembled together, and gave vent to the most inflammatory
language; the Hotel of the Invalids was captured; fifty thousand pikes
were forged and distributed among the people; the Bastile was stormed;
and military massacres commenced. Soon after, the tricolored cockade
was adopted, the French guards were suppressed by the Assembly, the
king and his family were brought to Paris by a mob, and the Club of
the Jacobins was established. Before the year 1789 was ended, the
National Assembly was the supreme power in France, and the king had
become a shadow and a mockery; or, rather, it should be said that
there was no authority in France but what emanated from the people,
and no power remained to suppress popular excesses and insurrections.
The Assembly published proclamations against acts of violence; but it
was committed in a contest with the crown and aristocracy, and
espoused the popular side. A famine, added to other horrors, set in at
Paris; and the farmers, fearing that their grain would be seized, no
longer brought it to market. Manufactures of all kinds were suspended,
and the public property was confiscated to supply the immediate wants
of a starving and infuriated people. A state was rapidly hastening to
universal violence, crime, misery, and despair.
[Sidenote: Rule of the People.]
The year 1790 opened gloomily, and no one could tell when the
agitating spirit would cease, or how far it would be carried, for the
mob of Paris was rapidly engrossing the power of the state. One of the
first measures of the Assembly was to divest the provinces of France
of their ancient privileges, since they were jealous of the
sovereignty exercised by the Assembly, and to divide the kingdom into
eighty-four new departments, nearly equal in extent and population. A
criminal tribunal was established for each department and a civil
court for each of the districts into which the department was divided.
The various officers and magistrates were elected by the people, and
the qualification for voting was a contribution to the amount of three
days' labor. By this great stop, the whole civil force in the kingdom
was placed at the disposal of the lower classes. They had the
nomination of the municipality, and the control of the military, and
the appointment of judges, deputies, and officers of the National
Guard. Forty-eight thousand communes, or municipalities, exercised all
the rights of sovereignty, and hardly any appointment was left to the
crown. A complete democratic constitution was made, which subverted
the ancient divisions of the kingdom, and all those prejudices and
interests which had been nursed for centuries. The great extension of
the electoral franchise introduced into the Assembly a class of men
who were prepared to make the most impracticable changes, and commit
the most violent excesses.
The next great object of the Assembly was the regulation of the
finances. Further taxation was impossible, and the public necessities
were great. The revenue had almost failed, and the national debt had
alarmingly increased,--twelve hundred millions in less than three
years. The capitalists would advance nothing, and voluntary
contributions had produced but a momentary relief. Under these
circumstances, the spoliation of the church was resolved, and
Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was the first to propose the confiscation
of the property of his order. The temptation was irresistible to an
infidel and revolutionary assembly; for the church owned nearly one
half of the whole landed property of the kingdom. Several thousand
millions of francs were confiscated, and the revenues of the clergy
reduced to one fifth of their former amount.
This violent measure led to another. There was no money to pay for the
great estates which the Assembly wished to sell. The municipalities of
the large cities became the purchasers, and gave promissory notes to
the public creditors until payment should be made; supposing that
individuals would buy in small portions. Sales not being effected by
the municipalities, as was expected and payment becoming due, recourse
was had to government bills. Thus arose the system of _Assignats_,
which were issued to a great amount on the security of the church
lands, and which resulted in a paper circulation, and the
establishment of a vast body of small landholders, whose property
sprung out of the revolution, and whose interests were identified with
it. The relief, however great, was momentary. New issues were made at
every crisis, until the over issue alarmed the reflecting portion of
the community, and assignats depreciated to a mere nominal value. At
the close of the year, the credit of the nation was destroyed, and the
precious metals were withdrawn, in a great measure, from circulation.
Soon after, the assembly abolished all titles of nobility, changed the
whole judicial system, declared its right to make peace and war, and
established the National Guard, by which three hundred thousand men
were enrolled in support of revolutionary measures.
[Sidenote: National Federation.]
On the 14th of July, the anniversary of the capture of the Bastile,
was the celebrated National Federation, when four hundred thousand
persons repaired to the Champ de Mars, to witness the king, his
ministers, the assembly, and the public functionaries, take the oath
to the new constitution; the greatest mockery of the whole revolution,
although a scene of unparalleled splendor.
Towards the close of the year, an extensive emigration of the nobles
took place; a great blunder on their part, since their estates were
immediately confiscated, and since the forces left to support the
throne were much diminished. The departure of so many distinguished
persons, however, displeased the Assembly, and proposals were made to
prevent it. But Mirabeau, who, until this time, had supported the
popular side, now joined the throne, and endeavored to save it. His
popularity was on the decline, when a natural death relieved him from
a probable execution. He had contributed to raise the storm, but he
had not the power to allay it. He exerted his splendid abilities to
arrest the revolution, whose consequences, at last, he plainly
perceived. But in vain. His death, however, was felt as a public
calamity, and all Paris assembled to see his remains deposited, with
extraordinary pomp, in the Pantheon, by the side of Des Cartes. Had he
lived, he might possibly have saved the lives of the king and queen,
but he could not have prevented the revolution.
[Sidenote: Flight of the King.]
Soon after, the royal family, perceiving, too late, that they were
mere prisoners in the Tuileries, undertook to escape, and fly to
Coblentz, where the great body of emigrants resided. The unfortunate
king contrived to reach Varennes, was recognized, and brought back to
Paris. But the National Assembly made a blunder in not permitting him
to escape; for it had only to declare the throne vacant by his
desertion, and proceed to institute a republican government. The crime
of regicide might have been avoided, and further revolutionary
excesses prevented. But his return increased the popular ferments, and
the clubs demanded his head. He was suspended from his functions, and
a guard placed over his person.
On the 29th of September, 1791, the Constituent Assembly dissolved
itself; having, during the three years of its existence enacted
thirteen hundred and nine laws and decrees relative to the general
administration of the state. It is impossible, even now, to settle the
question whether it did good or ill, on the whole; but it certainly
removed many great and glaring evils, and enacted many wise laws. It
abolished torture, the _lettres de cachet_, the most oppressive
duties, the privileges of the nobility, and feudal burdens. It
established a uniform system of jurisprudence, the National Guards,
and an equal system of finance. "It opened the army to men of merit,
and divided the landed property of the aristocracy among the laboring
classes; which, though a violation of the rights of property, enabled
the nation to bear the burdens which were subsequently imposed, and to
prosper under the evils connected with national bankruptcy,
depreciated assignats, the Reign of Terror, the conscription of
Napoleon, and the subjugation of Europe."
The Legislative Assembly, composed of inexperienced men,--country
attorneys and clerks for the most part, among whom there were not
fifty persons possessed of one hundred pounds a year,--took the place
of the Constituent Assembly, and opened its sittings on the 1st of
October.
In the first assembly there was a large party attached to royal and
aristocratical interests, and many men of great experience and
talents. But in the second nearly all were in favor of revolutionary
principles. They only differed in regard to the extent to which
revolution should be carried.
The members of the right were called the _Feuillants_, from the club
which formed the centre of their power, and were friends of the
constitution, or the limited monarchy which the Constituent Assembly
had established. The national guard, the magistrates, and all the
constituted authorities, were the supporters of this party.
[Sidenote: The Girondists and the Jacobins.]
The _Girondists_, comprehending the more respectable of the
republicans, and wishing to found the state on the model of antiquity,
formed a second party, among whom were numbered the ablest men in the
assembly. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Guadet, and Isnard, were
among the leading members.
There was also a third party, headed by Chabot, Bazin, and Merlin,
which was supported by the clubs of the _Jacobins_ and the
_Cordeliers_. The great oracles of the Jacobins were Robespierre,
Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois; while the leaders of the Cordeliers
were Danton and Desmoulins. Robespierre was excluded, as were others
of the last assembly, from the new one, by a sort of self-denying
ordinance which he himself had proposed. His influence, at that time,
was immense, from the extravagance of his opinions, the vehemence of
his language, and the reputation he had acquired for integrity.
Between these three parties there were violent contentions, and the
struggle for ascendency soon commenced, to end in the complete triumph
of the Jacobinical revolutionists.
In the mean time, the restrictions imposed on the king, who still
enjoyed the shadow of authority, the extent of popular excesses, and
the diffusion of revolutionary principles, induced the leading
monarchs of Europe to confederate together, in order to suppress
disturbances in France. In July, the Emperor Leopold appealed to the
sovereigns of Europe to unite for the deliverance of Louis XVI.
Austria collected her troops, the emigrants at Coblentz made warlike
demonstrations, and preparations were made for a contest, which,
before it was finished, proved the most bloody and extensive which has
desolated the world since the fall of the Roman empire.
The Constituent Assembly rejected with disdain the dictation of the
various European powers; and the new ministry, of which Dumourier and
Roland were the most prominent members, prepared for war. All classes
in France were anxious for it, and war was soon declared. On the 25th
of July, the Duke of Brunswick, with an army of one hundred and
forty-eight thousand Prussians, Austrians, and Hessians, entered the
French territory. The spirit of resistance animated all classes, and
the ardor of the multitude was without a parallel. The manifesto of
the allied powers indicated the dispositions of the court and
emigrants. Revolt against the throne now seemed necessary, in order to
secure the liberty of the people, who now had no choice between
victory and death. On the 25th of July, the Marseillais arrived in
Paris, and augmented the strength and confidence of the insurgents.
Popular commotions increased, and the clubs became unmanageable. On
the 10th of August, the tocsin sounded, the _générale_ beat in every
quarter of Paris, and that famous insurrection took place which
overturned the throne. The Hotel de Ville was seized by the
insurgents, the Tuileries was stormed, and the Swiss guards were
massacred. The last chance for the king to regain his power was lost,
and Paris was in the hands of an infuriated mob.
The confinement of the king in the Temple, the departure of the
foreign ambassadors, the flight of emigrants, the confiscation of
their estates, the massacres in the prisons, the sack of palaces, the
fall and flight of La Fayette, and the dissolution of the Legislative
Assembly, rapidly succeeded.
[Sidenote: The National Convention.]
On the 21st of September, the National Convention was opened, and was
composed of the most violent advocates of revolution. It was ruled by
those popular orators who had the greatest influence in the clubs. The
most influential of these leaders were Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.
Danton was the hero of the late insurrection; was a lawyer, a man of
brutal courage, the slave of sensual passions, and the idol of the
Parisian mob. He was made minister of justice, and was the author of
the subsequent massacres in the prisons. But, with all his ferocity,
he was lenient to individuals, and recommended humanity after the
period of danger had passed.
[Sidenote: Marat--Danton--Robespierre.]
Marat was a journalist, president of the Jacobin Club, a member of the
convention, and a violent advocate of revolutionary excesses. His
bloody career was prematurely cut off by the hand of a heroine,
Charlotte Corday, who offered up her own life to rid the country of
the greatest monster which the annals of crime have consigned to an
infamous immortality.
Robespierre was a sentimentalist, and concealed, under the mask of
patriotism and philanthropy, an insatiable ambition, inordinate
vanity, and implacable revenge. He was above the passion of money,
and, when he had at his disposal the lives and fortunes of his
countrymen, lived upon a few francs a day. It is the fashion to deny
to him any extraordinary talent; but that he was a man of domineering
will, of invincible courage, and austere enthusiasm appears from
nearly all the actions of his hateful career.
It was in the midst of the awful massacre in the prisons, where more
than five thousand perished to appease the infatuated vengeance of the
Parisian mob, that the National Convention commenced its sittings.
Its first measure was, to abolish the monarchy, and proclaim a
republic; the next, to issue new assignats. The two preceding
assemblies had authorized the fabrication of twenty-seven hundred
millions of francs, and the Convention added millions more on the
security of the national domains. On the 7th of November, the trial of
the king was decreed; and, on the 11th of December, his examination
commenced. On his appearance at the bar of the Convention, the
president, Barrere, said, "Louis, the French nation accuses you; you
are about to hear the charges that are to be preferred. Louis, be
seated."
The charges consisted of the whole crimes of the revolution, to which
he replied with dignity, simplicity, and directness. He was defended,
in the mock trial, by Desèze, Tronchet, and Malesherbes; but his blood
was demanded, and the assembly unanimously pronounced the condemnation
of their king. That seven hundred men, with all the natural
differences of opinion, could be found to do this, shows the excess of
revolutionary madness. On the 20th of January, Santerre appeared in
the royal prison, and read the sentence of death; and only three days
were allowed the king to prepare for the last hour of anguish. On the
24th of January, he mounted the scaffold erected between the garden of
the Tuileries and the Champs Élysées, and the fatal axe separated his
head from his body. His remains were buried in the ancient cemetery of
the Madeleine, over which Napoleon commenced, after the battle of
Jena, a splendid temple of glory, but which was not finished until the
restoration of the Bourbons, who converted it into the beautiful
church which bears the name of the ancient cemetery. The spot where
Louis XVI. offered up his life, in expiation of the crimes of his
ancestors, is now marked by the colossal obelisk of red granite, which
the French government, in 1831, brought from Egypt, a monument which
has witnessed the march of Cambyses, and may survive the glory of the
French nation itself.
[Sidenote: General War.]
The martyrdom of Louis XVI. was the signal for a general war. All the
powers of Europe united to suppress the power and the principles of
the French revolutionists. The Convention, after declaring war against
England, Holland, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies,
the Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont,--all of which had combined
together,--ordered a levy of three hundred thousand men, instituted a
military tribunal, and imposed a forced loan on the rich of one
thousand millions, and prepared to defend the principles of liberty
and the soil of France. The enthusiasm of the French was unparalleled,
and the energies put forth were most remarkable. Patriotism and
military ardor were combined, and measures such as only extraordinary
necessities require were unhesitatingly adopted.
A Committee of Public Safety was appointed, and the dictatorship of
Danton, Marat, and Robespierre commenced, marked by great horrors and
barbarities, but signalized by wonderful successes in war, and by
exertions which, under common circumstances, would be scarcely
credited.
This committee was composed of twenty-five persons at first, and
twelve afterwards; but Robespierre and Marat were the leading members.
The committee assigned to ruling Jacobins the different departments of
the government. St. Just was intrusted with the duty of denouncing its
enemies; Couthon for bringing forward its general measures; Billaud
Varennes and Collot d'Herbois with the management of departments;
Carnot was made minister of war; and Robespierre general dictator.
This committee, though required to report to the Convention, as the
supreme authority, had really all the power of government. "It named
and dismissed generals, judges, and juries; brought forward all
public measures in the Convention; ruled provinces and armies;
controlled the Revolutionary Tribunal; and made requisitions of men
and money; and appointed revolutionary committees, which sprung up in
every part of the kingdom to the frightful number of fifty thousand.
It was the object of the Committee of Public Safety to destroy all who
opposed the spirit of the most violent revolutionary measures. Marat
declared that two hundred and sixty thousand heads must fall before
freedom was secure; the revolutionary committees discovered that seven
hundred thousand persons must be sacrificed."
[Sidenote: Reign of Terror.]
Then commenced the Reign of Terror, when all the prisons of France
were filled with victims, who were generally the most worthy people in
the community, and whose only crime was in being obnoxious to the
reigning powers. Those who were suspected fled, if possible, but were
generally unable to carry away their property. Millions of property
was confiscated; the prisons were crowded with the rich, the elegant,
and the cultivated classes; thousands were guillotined; and universal
anarchy and fear reigned without a parallel. Deputies, even those who
had been most instrumental in bringing on the Revolution, were
sacrificed by the triumphant Jacobins. Women and retired citizens were
not permitted to escape their fear and vengeance. Marie Antoinette,
and the Princess Elizabeth, and Madame Roland, were among the first
victims. Then followed the executions of Bailly, Mayor of Paris;
Barnave, one of the most eloquent and upright members of the
Constituent Assembly; Dupont Dutertre, one of the ministers of
Louis XVI.; Lavoisier, the chemist; Condorcet, the philosopher;
General Custine; and General Houchard; all of whom had been the allies
of the present dominant party. The Duke of Orleans, called _Égalité_,
who had supported the revolt of the 10th of August, and had voted for
the execution of the king, shared the fate of Louis XVI. He was the
father of Louis Philippe, and, of all the victims of the revolution,
died the least lamented.
The "Decemvirs" had now destroyed the most illustrious advocates of
constitutional monarchy and of republican liberty. The slaughter of
their old friends now followed. The first victim was Danton himself,
who had used his influence to put a stop to the bloody executions
which then disgraced the country, and had recognized the existence of
a God and the rights of humanity. For such sentiments he was denounced
and executed, together with Camille Desmoulins, and Lacroix, who
perished because they were less wicked than their associates. Finally,
the anarchists themselves fell before the storm which they had raised,
and Hebert, Gobet, Clootz, and Vincent died amid the shouts of general
execration. The Committee of Public Safety had now all things in their
own way, and, in their iron hands, order resumed its sway from the
influence of terror. "The history of the world has no parallel to the
horrors of that long night of suffering, because it has no parallel to
the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed so hideous a form,
because licentiousness never required so severe a punishment."
The Committee of Public Safety, now confident of its strength, decreed
the disbanding of the revolutionary army, raised to overawe the
capital, and the dissolution of all the popular societies which did
not depend on the Jacobin Club, and devoted all their energies to
establish their power. But death was the means which they took to
secure it, and two hundred thousand victims filled the prisons of
France.
[Sidenote: Death of Robespierre.]
At last, fear united the members of the Convention, and they resolved
to free the country of the great tyrant who aimed at the suppression
of all power but his own. "Do not flatter yourselves," said Tallien to
the Girondists, "that he will spare you, for you have committed an
unpardonable offence in being freemen." "Do you still live?" said he
to the Jacobins; "in a few days, he will have your heads if you do not
take his." All parties in the assembly resolved to overthrow their
common enemy. Robespierre, the chief actor of the bloody tragedy,
Dumas, the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Henriot, the
commander of the National Guard, Couthon and St. Just, the tools of
the tyrant, were denounced, condemned, and executed. The last hours of
Robespierre were horrible beyond description. When he was led to
execution, the blood flowed from his broken jaw, his face was deadly
pale, and he uttered yells of agony, which filled all hearts with
terror. But one woman, nevertheless, penetrated the crowd which
surrounded him, exclaiming, "Murderer of my kindred! your agony fills
me with joy; descend to hell, covered with the curses of every mother
in France."
Thus terminated the Reign of Terror, during which, nearly nineteen
thousand persons were guillotined; and among these were over two
thousand nobles and one thousand priests, besides immense numbers of
other persons, by war or the axe, in other parts of France.
But vigorous measures had been adopted to carry on the war against
united Christendom. No less than two hundred and eighty thousand men
were in the field, on the part of the allies, from Basle to Dunkirk.
Toulon and Lyons had raised the standard of revolt, Mayence gave the
invaders a passage into the heart of the kingdom, while sixty thousand
insurgents in La Vendée threatened to encamp under the walls of Paris.
But under the exertions of the Committee, and especially of Carnot,
the minister of war, still greater numbers were placed under arms,
France was turned into an immense workshop of military preparations,
and the whole property of the state, by means of confiscations and
assignats, put at the disposal of the government. The immense debts of
the government were paid in paper money, while conscription filled the
ranks with all the youth of the state. Added to all this force which
the government had at its disposal, it must be remembered that the
army was burning with enthusiastic dreams of liberty, and of
patriotism, and of glory. No wonder that such a nation of soldiers and
enthusiasts should have been able to resist the armies of united
Christendom.
[Sidenote: New Constitution.]
On the death of Robespierre, (July, 1794,) a great reaction succeeded
the Reign of Terror. His old associates and tools were executed or
transported, the club of the Jacobins was closed, the Revolutionary
Tribunals were suppressed, the rebellious faubourgs were subdued, the
National Guard was reorganized, and a new constitution was formed.
[Sidenote: The Directory.]
The constitution of 1798, framed under different influences,
established the legislative power among two councils,--that of the
_Five Hundred_, and that of the _Ancients_. The former was intrusted
with the power of originating laws; the latter had the power to reject
or pass them. The executive power was intrusted to five persons,
called _Directors_, who were nominated by the Council of Five Hundred,
and approved by that of the Ancients. Each individual was to be
president by rotation during three months, and a new director was to
be chosen every year. The Directory had the entire disposal of the
army, the finances, the appointment of public functionaries, and the
management of public negotiations.
But there were found powerful enemies to the new constitution. Paris
was again agitated. The National Guard took part with the disaffected,
and the Convention, threatened and perplexed, summoned to its aid a
body of five thousand regular troops. The National Guard mustered in
great strength, to the number of thirty thousand men, and resolved to
overawe the Convention, which was likened to the Long Parliament in
the times of Cromwell. The Convention intrusted Barras with its
defence, and he demanded, as his second in command, a young officer of
artillery who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon. By his
advice, a powerful train of artillery was brought to Paris by a
lieutenant called _Murat_. On the 4th of October, 1795, the whole
neighborhood of the Tuileries resembled an intrenched camp. The
commander of the Convention then waited the attack of the insurgents,
and the action soon commenced. Thirty thousand men surrounded the
little army of six thousand, who defended the Convention and the cause
of order and law. Victory inclined to the regular troops, who had the
assistance of artillery, and, above all, who were animated by the
spirit of their intrepid leader--_Napoleon Bonaparte_. The insurgents
were not a rabble, but the flower of French citizens; but they were
forced to yield to superior military skill, and the reign of the
military commenced.
Thus closed what is technically called the French Revolution; the most
awful political hurricane in the annals of modern civilized nations.
It closed, nominally, with the accession of the Directory to power,
but really with the accession of Napoleon; for, shortly after, his
victories filled the eyes of the French nation, and astonished the
whole world.
[Sidenote: Reflections.]
It is impossible to pronounce on the effects of this great Revolution,
since a sufficient time has not yet elapsed for us to form healthy
judgments. We are accustomed to associate with some of the actors
every thing that is vile and monstrous in human nature. But
unmitigated monsters rarely appear on earth. The same men who excite
our detestation, had they lived in quiet times might have been
respected. Even Robespierre might have retained an honorable name to
his death, as an upright judge. But the French mind was deranged. New
ideas had turned the brains of enthusiasts. The triumph of the
abstract principles of justice seemed more desirable than the
preservation of human life. The sense of injury and wrong was too
vivid to allow heated partisans to make allowances for the common
infirmities of man. The enthusiasts in liberty could not see in
Louis XVI. any thing but the emblem of tyranny in the worst form. They
fancied that they could regenerate society by their gospel of social
rights, and they overvalued the virtues of the people. But, above all,
they over-estimated themselves, and placed too light a value on the
imperishable principles of revealed religion; a religion which enjoins
patience and humility, as well as encourages the spirit of liberty and
progress. But whatever may have been their blunders and crimes, and
however marked the providence of God in overruling them for the
ultimate good of Europe, still, all contemplative men behold in the
Revolution the retributive justice of the Almighty, in humiliating a
proud family of princes, and punishing a vain and oppressive nobility
for the evils they had inflicted on society.
* * * * *
REFERENCES.--Alison's History of the French Revolution,
marked by his English prejudices, heavy in style, and
inaccurate in many of his facts, yet lofty, temperate, and
profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and takes
different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the
most difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of
his affected and abominable style. Lamartine's History of
the Girondists is sentimental, but pleasing and instructive.
Mignet's History is also a standard. Lacretelle's Histoire
de France, and the Memoirs of Mirabeau, Necker, and
Robespierre should be read. Carlyle's Essays on Mirabeau and
Danton are extremely able. Burke's Reflections should be
read by all who wish to have the most vivid conception of
the horrors of the awful event which he deprecated. The
Annual Register should be consulted. For a general list of
authors who have written on this period, see Alison's index
of writers, prefixed to his great work, but which are too
numerous to be mentioned here.