to collect, but he was ready to move, with the Assembly, to some town
at a distance from the turbid capital. The royal message was tipped
with irony, and the deputies, in spite of Mirabeau, resolved not to
discuss it. After this first thrust Lewis flung away the scabbard.
That day, at council, it was noticed that he was nervous and uneasy,
and disguised his restlessness by feigning sleep. At the end, taking
one of the ministers aside, he gave him a letter for Necker, who was
absent. The letter contained his dismissal, with an order for
banishment.
Necker, who for some days had known that it must come, was at dinner.
He said nothing to his company, and went out, as usual, for a drive.
Then he made for the frontier, and never stopped till he reached
Brussels. Two horsemen who had followed, keeping out of sight, had
orders to arrest him if he changed his course. He travelled up the
Rhine to his own country, on the way to his home by the lake of
Geneva. At the first Swiss hotel he found the Duchess de Polignac. He
had left her at Versailles, the Queen's best friend and the heart of
the intrigue against him; and she was now ruined and an exile, and the
forerunner of the emigration. From her, and from the letters that
quickly followed, forwarded by the Assembly, he learned the events
that had happened since his fall, learned that he was, for one
delirious moment, master of the king, of his enemies, and of the
country.
The astounding news that Necker heard at "The Three Kings" at Bale was
this. His friends had been disgraced with him, and the chief of the
new ministry was Breteuil, who had been the colleague of Calonne and
Vergennes, and had managed the affair of the Diamond Necklace. He had
directed the policy of those who opposed the National Assembly,
holding himself in the twilight, until strong measures and a strong
man were called for. He now came forward, and proposed that the nobles
should depart in a body, protesting against the methods by which the
States-General had been sunk in the National Assembly. In one day he
brought round twenty-six of the minority to his views. A few remained,
who would make a light day's work for a man of conviction and
resource. But resolute as Breteuil was, the Parisian democracy acted
with still greater quickness and decision, and with a not less certain
aim. On the 12th it became known that Necker had been sent out of the
country, and that the armaments were in the hands of men who meant to
employ them against the people. Paris was in disorder, but the middle
class provided a civic guard for its protection. There were encounters
with the troops, and some blood was shed.
New men began to appear who represented the rising classes: Camille
Desmoulins, a rhetorical journalist, with literary but not political
talent, harangued the people in the garden of the Palais Royal; and
one of the strong men of history, Danton, showed that he knew how to
manage and to direct the masses.
The 13th was a day wasted by Government, spent by Paris in busy
preparation. Men talked wildly of destroying the Bastille, as a sign
that would be understood. Early on July 14 a body of men made their
way to the Invalides, and seized 28,000 stand of arms and some cannon.
At the other extremity of Paris the ancient fortress of the Bastille
towered over the workmen's quarter and commanded the city. Whenever
the guns thundered from its lofty battlements, resistance would be
over, and the conquered arms would be unavailing.
The Bastille not only overshadowed the capital, but it darkened the
hearts of men, for it had been notorious for centuries as the
instrument and the emblem of tyranny. The captives behind its bars
were few and uninteresting; but the wide world knew the horror of its
history, the blighted lives, the ruined families, the three thousand
dishonoured graves within the precincts, and the common voice called
for its destruction as the sign of deliverance. At the elections both
nobles and commons demanded that it should be levelled with the
ground.
As early as the 4th of July Besenval received notice that it would be
attacked. He sent a detachment of Swiss, that raised the garrison to
one hundred and thirty-eight, and he did no more. During the morning
hours, while the invaders of the Invalides were distributing the
plundered arms and ammunition, emissaries penetrated into the
Bastille, under various pretexts, to observe the defences. One
fair-spoken visitor was taken to the top of the dreaded towers, where
he saw that the guns with which the embrasures had bristled, which
were beyond the range of marksmen, and had Paris at their mercy, were
dismantled and could not be fired.
About the middle of the day, when this was known, the attack began. It
was directed by the _Gardes Francaises_, who had been the first to
mutiny, and had been disbanded, and were now the backbone of the
people's army. The siege consisted in efforts to lower the drawbridge.
After several hours the massive walls were unshaken, and the place was
as safe as before the first discharge. But the defenders knew that
they were lost. Besenval was not the man to rescue them by fighting
his way through several miles of streets. They were not provisioned,
and the men urged the governor to make terms before he was compelled.
They had brought down above a hundred of their assailants, without
losing a man. But it was plain that the loss neither of a hundred nor
of a thousand would affect the stern determination of the crowd,
whilst it might increase their fury. Delauney, in his despair, seized
a match, and wanted to fire the magazine. His men remonstrated and
spoke of the dreadful devastation that must follow the explosion. The
man who stayed the hand of the despairing commander, and whose name
was Becard, deserved a better fate than he met that day, for he was
one of the four or five that were butchered. The men beat a parley,
hoisted the white flag, and obtained, on the honour of a French
officer, a verbal promise of safety.
Then the victors came pouring over the bridge, triumphant over a
handful of Swiss and invalids--triumphant too over thirteen centuries
of monarchy and the longest line of kings. Those who had served in
the regular army took charge of as many prisoners as they could
rescue, carried them to their quarters, and gave them their own beds
to sleep in. The officers who had conducted the unreal attack, and
received the piteous surrender, brought the governor to the Hotel de
Ville, fighting their way through a murderous crowd. For it was long
believed that Delauney had admitted the people into the first court,
and then had perfidiously shot them down. In his struggles he hurt a
bystander, who chanced to be a cook. The man, prompted, it seems, less
by animosity than by the pride of professional skill, drew a knife and
cut off his head. Flesselles, the chief of the old municipality,
appointed by the Crown, was shot soon after, under suspicion of having
encouraged Delauney to resist.
Dr. Rigby, an Englishman who was at the Palais Royal, has described
what he saw. First came an enormous multitude bearing aloft the keys
of the conquered citadel, with the inscription, "The Bastille is
taken." The joy was indescribable, and strangers shook his hand,
saying, "We too are free men, and there will never more be war between
our countries." Then came another procession, also shouting and
rejoicing; but the bystanders looked on with horror, for the trophies
carried by were the heads of murdered men. For the nation had become
sovereign, and the soldiers who fired upon it were reckoned rebels and
traitors. The foreign envoys were all impressed with the idea that the
vengeance wrought was out of all proportion with the immensity of the
thing achieved. At nightfall the marshal gave orders to evacuate
Paris. Besenval was already in full retreat, and the capital was no
longer in the possession of the king of France.
Meanwhile the National Assembly, aware of the strength of popular
feeling around them, were calm in the midst of danger. Theirs was a
diminished part, while, almost within sight and hearing, history was
being unmade and made by a power superior to their own. On the morning
of the 14th they elected the Committee of Eight who were to draw up
the Constitution. Mounier and the friends of the English model still
prevailed. By evening their chance had vanished, for the English model
includes a king.
Late in the day Noailles brought authentic news of what he had
witnessed; and the Assembly learned, in agitated silence, that the
head of the governor of the impregnable Bastille had been displayed on
a pike about the streets of Paris. Lafayette took the chair, while the
President hurried with Noailles to the palace. They made no impression
there. Lewis informed them that he had recalled his troops, and then
he went to bed, tranquil, and persistently ignoring what it was that
had been done, and what it was that had passed away.
But in the morning, when the Assembly met in disorder, and were about
to send one more deputation, it was found that a change had taken
place in the brief hours of that memorable night. At two o'clock the
king was roused from sleep by one of the great officers of the
household. The intruder, La Rochefoucauld, Duke de Liancourt, was not
a man of talent, but he was universally known as the most benevolent
and the most beneficent of the titled nobles of the realm. He made his
master understand the truth and its significance, and how, in the
capital that day, in every province on the morrow, the authority of
government was at an end. And when Lewis, gradually awaking,
exclaimed, "But this is a great revolt!" Liancourt replied, "No, sir,
it is a great Revolution!" With those historic words the faithful
courtier detached the monarch from his ministers, and obtained control
over him in the deciding days that were to follow. Guided by the duke,
and attended by his brothers, but without the ceremonious glories of
regality, Lewis XVI. went down to the Assembly and made his
submission. In the pathetic solemnity of the scene, the deputies
forgot for a moment their righteous anger and their more righteous
scorn, and the king returned to the palace on foot, in a sudden
procession of triumph, amnestied and escorted by the entire body.
The struggle was over, and the spell was broken; and the Assembly had
to govern France. To establish order a vast deputation repaired to the
Hotel de Ville, where Lally Tollendal delivered an oration thrilling
with brotherhood and gladness, and appeared, crowned with flowers,
before the people.
To cement the compact between Paris and Versailles, Bailly, the first
president, was placed at the head of the new elective municipality,
and the vice-president, Lafayette, became commander of the National
Guard. This was the first step towards that Commune which was to
exercise so vast an influence over the fortunes of France. It came
into existence of necessity, when the action of Government was
paralysed, and the space which it occupied was untenanted.
The National Guard was an invention of great import, for it was the
army of society distinct from the army of the state, opinion in arms
apart from authority. It was the middle class organised as a force,
against the force above and the force below; and it protected liberty
against the Crown, and property against the poor. It has been ever
since the defence of order and the ruin of governments; for, as it was
the nation itself, nobody was bold enough to fight it. Before the
altar of Notre Dame Lafayette took the oath of fidelity to the people,
and not to the king. He never displayed real capacity for peace or
war; but in the changes of a long life he was true to the early
convictions imbibed in Washington's camp.
On their return from Paris the great deputation reported that the
people demanded the recall of Necker. At last the king dismissed
Breteuil, and charged the Assembly to take charge of a letter to the
banished statesman. His banishment had lasted five days; it was now
the turn of his enemies. On the same night, July 16, the baffled
intriguers went into exile. Lewis himself sent his brother away, for
the safety of himself and of the dynasty. The others followed. The
queen was compelled to dismiss Madame de Polignac, whom she had too
confidently trusted, and she was left alone amongst her enemies. This
was the first emigration. The remaining nobles announced that they
abandoned resistance, and the Assembly was at last united. The fight
was lost and won, and the victor claimed the spoils.
But the Assembly was not the victor, and had contributed little to the
portentous change between the dismissal of Necker and the despatch of
the fleet messenger with his recall. Whilst the deputies served the
national cause by talking, there were plainer men at Paris who had
died for it. The force that risked life and conquered was not at
Versailles. It was Paris that held the fallen power, the power of
governing itself, the Assembly, and France. The predominance of the
capital was the new feature that enabled the monarchy to pass into a
Republic.
The king had become a servant of two masters. Having recanted before
his master at Versailles, it became necessary that he should submit
himself to the new and mysterious authority at the Hotel de Ville. He
had yielded to representative democracy. He had to pay the same
recognition to direct democracy. It was not safe to leave the Orleans
stronghold entirely in their hands. Between the ministry that was gone
and the ministry to come, Lewis acted by the advice of Liancourt.
Early on July 17 he made his will, heard mass, received communion, and
set out to visit his good city. The queen remained behind, with all
her carriages ready, in order that, at the first signal, she might fly
for her life. At the barrier the king's eye fell, for the first time,
on innumerable armed men, who lined the streets for miles, and wore
strange colours, and did not own him as their chief. Neither the
National Guard, nor the dense crowd behind them, uttered a sound of
welcome. Not a voice was raised, except for the nation and its
deputies.
The peace made between the king and the Assembly did not count here.
All men had to know that there was a distinct authority, to which a
further homage was due, even from the sovereign. At the Hotel de Ville
the homage was paid. There the king confirmed the new mayor, and
approved what had been done, and he showed himself to the people with
the new cockade, devised by Lafayette, to proclaim that the royal
power which had ruled France since the conversion of Clovis ruled
France no more. He made his way home amid acclamations, regulated by
the commander of the National Guard, like the gloomy and menacing
silence in which he had been received.
A new reign commenced. The head of the great house of Bourbon, the
heir of so much power and glory, on whom rested the tradition of Lewis
XIV., was unfit to exert, under jealous control, the narrow measure of
authority that remained. For the moment there was none. Anarchy in the
capital gave the signal for anarchy in the provinces, and anarchy at
that moment had a terrible meaning.
The deputies who came to Paris, to share the enthusiasm of the moment,
failed to notice the fact that the victorious army which gave liberty
to France and power to the Assembly was largely composed of assassins.
Their crimes disappeared in the blaze of their achievements. Their
support was still needed. It seemed too soon to insult the patriot and
the hero by telling him that he was also a ruffian. The mixed
multitude was thereby encouraged to believe that the slaughter of the
obnoxious was a necessity of critical times. The Russian envoy wrote
on the 19th that the French people displayed the same ferocity as two
centuries before.
On the 22nd, Foulon, one of the colleagues of Breteuil, and his
son-in-law Berthier, also a high official, were massacred by
premeditation in the streets. Neither Bailly, nor Lafayette with all
his cohorts, could protect the life of a doomed man; but a dragoon who
had paraded with the heart of Berthier was challenged, when he came
home to barracks, and cut down by a comrade.
Lally Tollendal brought the matter before the Assembly. His father
inherited the feelings of an exiled Jacobite against Hanoverian
England. He was at Falkirk with Charles Edward, and charged with the
Irish Brigade that broke the English column at Fontenoy. During the
Seven Years' War he commanded in India, and held Pondicherry for ten
months against Coote. Brought home a prisoner, he was released on
parole, that he might stand his trial. He was condemned to death; and
his son, who did not know who he was, was brought to the place of
execution, that they might meet once on earth. But Lally stabbed
himself, and lest justice should be defrauded, he was brought out to
die, with a gag in his mouth to silence protest, some hours before the
time.
The death of Lally is part of the long indictment against the French
judiciary, and his son strove for years to have the sentence reversed.
He came over to England, and understood our system better than any of
his countrymen. Therefore, when Mounier, who was no orator, brought
forward his Constitution, it was Lally who expounded it. By his
emotional and emphatic eloquence he earned a brief celebrity; and in
the Waterloo year he was a Minister of State, _in partibus_, at Ghent.
He became a peer of France, and when he died, in 1830, the name
disappeared. Not many years ago a miserable man, whom nobody knew and
who asked help from nobody, died of want in a London cellar. He was
the son of Lally Tollendal.
It is said that when, on July 22, he denounced the atrocities in
Paris, he overdid the occasion, speaking of himself, of his father, of
his feelings. Barnave, who was a man of honour, and already
conspicuous, was irritated to such a pitch that he exclaimed: "Was
this blood, that they have shed, so pure?"
Long before Barnave expiated his sin upon the scaffold he felt and
acknowledged its enormity. But it is by him and men like him, and not
by the scourings of the galleys, that we can get to understand the
spirit of the time. Two men, more eminent than Barnave, show it still
more clearly. The great chemist Lavoisier wrote to Priestley that if
there had been some excesses, they were committed for the love of
liberty, philosophy, and toleration, and that there was no danger of
such things being done in France for an inferior motive. And this is
the view of Jefferson on the massacres of September: "Many guilty
persons fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent.
These I deplore as much as anybody. But--it was necessary to use the
arm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs,
but blind to a certain degree--was ever such a prize won with so
little innocent blood?" There is a work in twelve stout volumes,
written to prove that it was all the outcome of the Classics, and due
to Harmodius, and Brutus, and Timoleon.
But you will find that murder, approved and acknowledged, is not an
epidemic peculiar to any time, or any country, or any opinion. We need
not include hot-blooded nations of the South in order to define it as
one characteristic of modern Monarchy. You may trace it in the Kings
of France, Francis I., Charles IX., Henry III., Lewis XIII., Lewis
XIV., in the Emperors Ferdinand I. and II., in Elizabeth Tudor and
Mary Stuart, in James and William. Still more if you consider a class
of men, not much worse, according to general estimate, than their
neighbours, that is, the historians. They have praise and hero-worship
for nearly every one of these anointed culprits. The strong man with
the dagger is followed by the weaker man with the sponge. First, the
criminal who slays; then the sophist who defends the slayer.
The royalists pursued the same tradition through the revolutionary
times. Cerutti advised that Mirabeau and Target should be removed by
poison; Chateaubriand wished to poniard Condorcet, and Malesherbes
admired him for it; the name of Georges Cadoudal was held in honour,
because his intended victim was Napoleon; La Rochejaquelein
entertained the same scheme, and made no secret of it to the general,
Segur. Adair found them indignant at Vienna because Fox had refused to
have the Emperor murdered, and warned him of the plot.
Those who judge morality by the intention have been less shocked at
the crimes of power, where the temptation is so strong and the danger
so slight, than at those committed by men resisting oppression.
Assuredly, the best things that are loved and sought by man are
religion and liberty--they, I mean, and not pleasure or prosperity,
not knowledge or power. Yet the paths of both are stained with
infinite blood; both have been often a plea for assassination, and the
worst of men have been among those who claimed to promote each sacred
cause.
Do not open your minds to the filtering of the fallacious doctrine
that it is less infamous to murder men for their politics than for
their religion or their money, or that the courage to execute the deed
is worse than the cowardice to excuse it. Let us not flinch from
condemning without respite or remission, not only Marat and Carrier,
but also Barnave. Because there may be hanging matter in the lives of
illustrious men, of William the Silent and Farnese, of Cromwell and
Napoleon, we are not to be turned from justice towards the actions,
and still more the thoughts, of those whom we are about to study.
Having said this, I shall endeavour, in that which is before us, to
spare you the spectacles that degrade, and the plaintive severity that
agitates and wearies. The judgment I call for is in the conscience,
not upon the lips, for ourselves, and not for display. "Man," says
Taine, "is a wild beast, carnivorous by nature, and delighting in
blood." That cruel speech is as much confirmed by the events that are
crowding upon us as it has ever been in royal or Christian history.
The Revolution will never be intelligibly known to us until we
discover its conformity to the common law, and recognise that it is
not utterly singular and exceptional, that other scenes have been as
horrible as these, and many men as bad.
VII
THE FOURTH OF AUGUST
We come to-day to the most decisive date in the Revolution, the fall
of the social system of historic France, and the substitution of the
Rights of Man.
When the Assembly was fully constituted, it had to regulate its
procedure. Sir Samuel Romilly, a friend of Dumont, and occasionally of
Mirabeau, sent over an account of the practice of the British
Parliament, with the cumbrous forms, the obstacles to prompt action,
the contrivances to favour a minority, and to make opposition nearly
equal to government. The French required more expeditious methods.
They had a single Assembly with a known and well-defined commission,
and the gravest danger of the hour was obstruction and delay. Every
member obtained the right of initiative, and could submit a motion in
writing. The Assembly might, after debate, refuse to consider it; but
if not arrested on the threshold, it might be discussed and voted and
passed in twenty-four hours. The security for deliberation was in the
Bureaux. The Assembly was divided into thirty groups or committees, of
nearly forty members each, who met separately, the Assembly in the
morning, the Bureaux in the evening. This plan ensured thorough and
sincere discussion, for men spoke their genuine thoughts, where there
was no formality, no reporter, no stranger in the gallery. The Bureaux
were disliked and suspected by the excluded public. The electorate,
experiencing for the first time the sensation of having deputies at
work to do their will, desired to watch them, and insisted on the
master's right to look after his man. Representation was new; and to
every reader of Rousseau, of Turgot, or of Mably, it was an object of
profound distrust. The desire to uphold the supremacy of the deputing
power over the deputed, of the constituent over his member, was
distinctly part of the great literary inheritance common to them all.
As the mandate was originally imperative, the giver of the mandate
claimed the right of seeing to its execution. The exercise of powers
that were defined and limited, that were temporary and revocable,
called for scrutiny and direct control.