their scheme, on the adopted principles that there should be one
Chamber, no dissolution, and a power of retarding legislation without
preventing it. On the 29th it was laid before the Assembly by their
reporter, Thouret. The voice was the voice of Thouret, but the hand
was the hand of Sieyes. At that juncture he augured ill of the
Revolution, and repented of his share in it. His Declaration of Rights
had been passed over. His proposal to restore the national credit by
the surrender of tithe had been rejected. His partition of the
Assembly, together with partial renewal, which is favourable to the
executive, by never allowing the new parliament to rise, like a giant
refreshed, from a general election, had encountered no support. It
remained that he should compose the working machinery for his
essential doctrine, that the law is the will of him that obeys, not of
him that commands. To do this, the Abbe Sieyes abolished the historic
Provinces, and divided France into departments. There were to be
eighty, besides Paris; and as they were designed to be as nearly as
possible equal to a square of about forty-five miles, they differed
widely in population and property. They were to have an average of
nine deputies each: three for the superficial area, which was
invariable; three, more or less, for population; and again three, more
or less, according to the amount which the department contributed to
the national income. In this way territory, numbers and wealth were
represented equally.
Deputies were to be elected in three degrees. The taxpayers, in their
primary assemblies, chose electors for the Commune, which was the
political unit, and a square of about fifteen miles; the communal
electors sent their representatives to the department, and these
elected the deputy. Those who paid no taxes were not recognized as
shareholders in the national concern. Like women and minors, they
enjoyed the benefit of government; but as they were not independent,
they possessed no power as active citizens. By a parallel process,
assemblies were formed for local administration, on the principle that
the right of exercising power proceeds from below, and the actual
exercise of power from above.
This is mainly the measure which has made the France of to-day; and
when it became law, in December, the chief part of the new
Constitution was completed. It had been the work of these two months,
from August 4 to September 29. The final promulgation came two years
later. No legislative instrument ever failed more helplessly than this
product of the wisdom of France in its first parliamentary Assembly,
for it lasted only a single year.
Many things had meanwhile occurred which made the constructive design
of 1789 unfit to meet the storms of 1792. The finances of the State
were ruined; the clergy and the clerical party had been driven into
violent opposition; the army was almost dissolved, and war broke out
when there was not a disciplined force at the command of Government.
After Varennes, the king was practically useless in peace, and
impossible in times of danger and invasion; not only because of the
degradation of his capture and of his imprisonment on the throne, but
because, at the moment of his flight, he had avowed his hostility to
the institutions he administered.
The central idea in the plan of September 29, the idea of small
provinces and large municipalities, was never appreciated and never
adopted. Sieyes placed the unit in the Commune, which was the name he
gave to each of the nine divisions of a department. He intended that
there should be only 720 of these self-governing districts in France.
Instead of 720, the Assembly created 44,000, making the Commune no
larger than the parish, and breaking up the administrative system into
dust. The political wisdom of the village was substituted for that of
a town or district of 35,000 inhabitants.
The explanation of the disastrous result is as much in the Court as in
the Legislature, and as much in the legislation that followed as in
the policy of the moment in which the great issues were determined,
and with which we are dealing. No monarchical constitution could
succeed, after Varennes; and the one of which we are speaking, the
object of the memorable conflict between Mounier and Sieyes, is not
identical with the one that failed. The repudiation of the English
model did not cause the quick passage from the Constitution of 1791 to
the Republic. Yet the scheme that prevailed shows defects which must
bear their portion of blame. Political science imperatively demands
that powers shall be regulated by multiplication and division. The
Assembly preferred ideas of unity and simplicity.
The old policy of French parliaments nearly suggested a court of
revision; but that notion, not yet visible in the Supreme Court of the
United States, occurred to Sieyes long after. An effective Senate
might have been founded on the provincial assemblies; but the ancient
provinces were doomed, and the new divisions did not yet exist, or
were hidden in the maps of freemasonry.
Power was not really divided between the legislative and the
executive, for the king possessed no resource against the majority of
the Assembly. There was no Senate, no initiative, no dissolution, no
effective veto, no reliance on the judicial or the Federal element.
These are not defects of equal importance; but taken together, they
subverted that principle of division which is useful for stability,
and for liberty is essential.
The reproach falls not only on those who carried the various measures,
but also on the minority that opposed them. Mounier encouraged the
suspicion and jealousy of Ministers by separating them from the
Assembly, and denying to the king, that is to them, the prerogative of
proposing laws. He attributed to the absolute veto an importance which
it does not possess; and he frustrated all chance of a Second Chamber
by allowing it to be known that he would have liked to make it
hereditary. This was too much for men who had just rejoiced over the
fall of the aristocracy. In order to exclude the intervention of the
king in favour of a suspensive veto, he accepted the argument that the
Constitution was in the hands of the Assembly alone. When Lewis raised
a just objection to the decrees of August 4, this argument was turned
against him, and the Crown suffered a serious repulse.
The intellectual error of the Democrats vanishes before the moral
error of the Conservatives. They refused a Second Chamber because they
feared that it would be used as a reward for those among them to whose
defection they partly owed their defeat. And as they did not wish the
Constitution to be firmly established, they would not vote for
measures likely to save it. The revolutionists were able to count on
their aid against the Liberals.
The watchword came from the Palace, and the shame of their policy
recoils upon the king. Late in September one of his nobles told him
that he was weary of what he saw, and was going to his own country.
"Yes," said the king, taking him aside; "things are going badly, and
nothing can improve our position but the excess of evil." On this
account Royer Collard, the famous _Doctrinaire_, said, in later times,
that all parties in the Revolution were honest, except the
Conservatives.
From the end of August the Paris agitators, who managed the mob in
the interest of a dynastic change directed a sustained pressure
against Versailles. Thouret, one of the foremost lawyers in the
Assembly, who was elected President on August 1, refused the honour.
He had been warned of his unpopularity, and gave way to threats.
Yielding to the current which, as Mirabeau said, submerges those who
resist it, he went over to the other side, and soon became one of
their leaders. The experience of this considerable man is an instance
of the change that set in, and that was frequent among men without
individual conviction or the strength of character that belongs to it.
The downward tendency was so clearly manifest, the lesson taught by
successful violence against the king and the aristocracy was so
resolutely applied to the Assembly, that very serious politicians
sought the means of arresting the movement. Volney, who was no orator,
but who was the most eminent of the deputies in the department of
letters, made the attempt on September 18. He proposed that there
should be new elections for a parliament that should not consist of
heterogeneous ingredients, but in which class interests should be
disregarded and unknown. He moved that it should represent equality.
They reminded him of the oath not to separate until France was a
constitutional State, and the protest was ineffectual. But in
intellectual France there was no man more perfectly identified with
the reigning philosophy than the man who uttered this cry of alarm.
On October 2 the first chapters of the Constitution were ready for the
royal assent. They consisted of the Rights of Man, and of the
fundamental measures adopted in the course of September. Mounier, the
new President, carried to the king the articles by which his cause had
been brought to its fall. Lewis undertook to send his reply; and from
Mounier came no urging word. They both fancied that delay was
possible, and might yet serve. The tide had flowed so slowly in May,
that they could not perceive the torrent of October. On the day of
that audience of the most liberal of all the royalists, the respite
before them was measured by hours.
All through September, at Paris, Lafayette at the head of the forces
of order, and the forces of tumult controlled by the Palais Royal had
watched each other, waiting for a deadly fight. There were frequent
threats of marching on Versailles, followed by reassuring messages
from the General that he had appeased the storm. As it grew louder,
he made himself more and more the arbiter of the State. The
Government, resenting this protectorate, judged that the danger of
attack ought to be averted, not by the dubious fidelity and the more
dubious capacity of the commander of the National Guard, but by the
direct resources of the Crown. They summoned the Flanders regiment,
which was reputed loyal, and on October 1 it marched in, a thousand
strong. The officers, on their arrival, were invited by their comrades
at Versailles to a festive supper in the theatre. The men were
admitted, and made to drink the health of the king; and in the midst
of a scene of passionate enthusiasm the king and queen appeared. The
demonstration that ensued meant more than the cold and decent respect
with which men regard a functionary holding delegated and not
irrevocable powers. It was easy to catch the note of personal devotion
and loyalty and the religion of the Cavalier, in the cries of these
armed and excited royalists. The managers at Paris had their
opportunity, and resolved at once to execute the plot they had long
meditated.
Whilst the Executive, which alone upheld the division of powers and
the principle of freedom, was daily losing ground at the hands of its
enemies, of its friends, and at its own, a gleam of hope visited the
forlorn precincts of the Court. Necker had informed the Assembly that
he could not obtain a loan, and he asked for a very large increase of
direct taxation. He was heard with impatience, and Mirabeau, who spoke
for him, made no impression. On September 26 he made another effort,
and gained the supreme triumph of his career. In a speech that was
evidently unprepared, he drew an appalling picture of the coming
bankruptcy; and as he ended with the words "These dangers are before
you, and you deliberate!" the Assembly, convulsed with emotion, passed
the vote unanimously, and Necker was saved. None knew that there could
be such power in man.
In the eighteen months of life that remained to him, Mirabeau
underwent many vicissitudes of influence and favour; but he was able,
in an emergency, to dominate parties. From that day the Court knew
what he was, and what he could do; and they knew how his imperious
spirit longed to serve the royal cause, and we shall presently see who
it was that attempted to flatter and to win him when it was too late,
and who had repelled him when it might yet have been time.
We have reached the point at which the first part of the Revolution
terminates, and the captivity of the monarch is about to begin. The
events of the next two days, October 5 and 6, form a complete and
coherent drama, that will not bear partition, and must occupy the
whole of our attention next week.
IX
THE MARCH TO VERSAILLES
The French Revolution was approved at first by the common judgment of
mankind. Kaunitz, the most experienced statesman in Europe, declared
that it would last for long, and perhaps for ever. Speaking less
cautiously, Klopstock said: "I see generations crushed in the
struggle; I see perhaps centuries of war and desolation; but at last,
in the remote horizon, I see the victory of liberty." Even at St.
Petersburg the fall of the Bastille was hailed with frantic joy. Burke
began by applauding. He would not listen to Tom Paine, who had been
the inspirer of a revolution himself, and who assured him that the
States-General would lead to another. He said, afterwards, that the
Rights of Man had opened his eyes; but at Holland House they believed
that the change came a few days earlier, when the Church was attacked.
The Americans were not far from the opinion of Burke. By the middle of
the summer Jefferson thought that all that was needful had been
obtained. Franklin took alarm at the events of July. Washington and
Hamilton became suspicious soon after.
For the September decrees were directed not only against the English
model, but still more against the American. The Convention of 1787 had
constructed a system of securities that were intended to save the
Union from the power of unchecked democracy. The National Assembly
resolutely swept every security away. Nothing but the Crown was left
that could impede the direct operation of the popular will, or that
could make the division of powers a reality. Therefore the Liberal
party looked to the king as much as the Conservative, and wished as
much as they, and even more than they, to strengthen his hands. Their
theory demanded a divided legislature. Having lost that, they fell
back on Montesquieu, and accepted the division of legislative,
executive, and judicial powers. These theoretic subtleties were
unintelligible to the people of France. Men who were as vehement for
the king in October as they had been vehement against him in June
appeared to them to be traitors. They could not conceive that the
authority which had so long oppressed them, and which it had required
such an effort to vanquish, ought now to be trusted and increased.
They could not convince themselves that their true friends were those
who had suddenly gone over to the ancient enemy and oppressor, whose
own customary adherents seemed no longer to support him.
Public opinion was brought to bear on the Assembly, to keep up the
repression of monarchy which began on June 23. As the Crown passed
under the control of the Assembly, the Assembly became more dependent
on the constituencies, especially on that constituency which had the
making of French opinion, and in which the democratic spirit was
concentrated. After the month of August the dominant fact is the
growing pressure of Paris on Versailles. In October Paris laid its
hand on its prey. For some weeks the idea of escaping had been
entertained. Thirty-two of the principal royalists in the Assembly
were consulted, and advised that the king should leave Versailles and
take refuge in the provinces. The late minister, Breteuil, the
Austrian ambassador, Mercy, were of the same opinion, and they carried
the queen with them. But Necker was on the other side.
Instead of flight they resolved upon defence, and brought up the
Flanders regiment, whose Colonel was a deputy of the Left. In the
morning the Count d'Estaing, who held command at Versailles, learnt
with alarm that it had been decided to omit the health of the nation.
The Prussian envoy writes that the officers of the Guards, who had
not yet adopted the Tricolor, displayed the utmost contempt for it. It
required no exaggeration to represent the scene in a light odious to
the public. When Madame Campan came home and described with admiration
what she had just beheld, Beaumetz, a deputy, and friend of
Talleyrand, became very grave, and took his leave, that he might make
up his mind whether he should not emigrate at once. Hostile witnesses
reported the particulars to the press next day, and it was stated,
figuratively or literally, that the Royal Guards had trampled the
national colours under foot. Marat came over to inquire, and Camille
Desmoulins says that he hurried back to Paris making as much noise as
all the trumpets of the Last Day.
The feast had been held on a Thursday. On the Sunday, October 4, Paris
was in a ferment. The insult to the nation, the summoning of troops,
the projected flight, as was now supposed, to the fortress of Metz,
were taken to mean civil war, for the restoration of despotism. At the
Palais Royal the agitators talked of going out to Versailles, to
punish the insolent guards. On the evening of Sunday, one district of
the city, the Cordeliers, who were governed by Danton, were ready to
march. The men of other districts were not so ready for action, or so
zealous to avenge the new cockade. To carry the entire population more
was required than the vague rumour of Metz, or even than the
symbolical outrage.
There was hunger among the 800,000 inhabitants of Paris, between last
year's corn that was exhausted, and the new harvest that was not yet
ground. Nobody, says Dumont, could wonder if so much suffering led to
tumult. The suffering was due to poverty more than to scarcity; but
Lafayette asserted that above L2000 a week were paid to bakers, or to
millers, to create discontent by shortening supplies. There were
people who thought that money spent in this way would rouse
indignation against the incompetent and inactive Assembly. Upon
sixteen days in the course of September the bakers' shops had to be
guarded by troops. The reduced noble families were putting down their
establishments; and 200,000 passports were issued to intending
_emigres_ in the two months following the fall of the Bastille.
The primary offender, responsible for subsistence, was the
municipality of the capital; and their seat of office was the first
object of attack. Early on the Monday morning a multitude of excited
women made their way into the Hotel de Ville. They wanted to destroy
the heaps of papers, as all that writing did them no good. They seized
a priest, and set about hanging him. They rang the tocsin, bringing
all the trained battalions and all the ragged bands of the city to the
Place de Greve. They carried away several hundreds of muskets, and
some useless cannon; and they fetched torches, that they might burn
the building to the ground. It was the headquarters of the elected
municipality; but the masses were becoming conscious that they were
not the Third Estate, that there was a conflict of interest between
property and labour, and they began to vent their yet inarticulate
rage upon the middle class above them. It presently appeared that
these revolutionary heroines, knitting companions of the future
guillotine, were not all infuriated or implacable. Parcels of
banknotes that they took away were brought back; the priest was left
unhung; the torches that were to have lighted the conflagration were
extinguished without difficulty. They were easily persuaded that their
proper sphere of action was Versailles, with its Assembly, that was
able to do everything, and did nothing for the poor. They played the
genuine part of mothers whose children were starving in their squalid
homes, and they thereby afforded to motives which they neither shared
nor understood the aid of a diamond point that nothing could
withstand. It was this first detachment of invading women that allowed
Stanislas Maillard to lead them away.
Maillard was known to all the town as a conqueror of the Bastille.
Later, he acquired a more sinister celebrity. But on that 5th of
October, as the calculating controller of dishevelled tumult, he left
on those who saw him an impression of unusual force. Whilst he
mustered his army in the Champs Elysees, and recruiting parties were
sent through the streets, an emissary from the Hotel de Ville
hastened to warn the Government at Versailles. He was able to announce
that the National Guard were coming.
Lafayette appeared late upon the scene, and did nothing to hinder the
expedition of Maillard. He thought the danger contemptible, and
believed that there were resources at Versailles enough to stop it,
although there were seven or eight thousand women and some hundreds of
men among them. Both Necker and Mounier, the President of the
Assembly, confirm the fact.
When the news of what they must be prepared for reached ministers, the
king was out shooting, some miles away, and nothing could be done
without him. The queen was found at the Trianon, which she never saw
again. An officer who came on foot from Paris told the king of his
danger. He refused his name, but stated that there was no man in the
service who had greater reason to complain. A mounted messenger
arrived from the Minister of the Interior, and Lewis took horse and
galloped to Versailles. The streets were already crowded with
disorderly people, and shots were fired as he rode by.
The roads from Paris to Versailles cross the Seine at three points,
and the general officers who were in the ministry declared that they
might be defended with the troops that were at hand. St. Priest, the
Minister of the Interior, advised the king to meet the army of Paris
at Sevres, and order it to retire. If they refused, he thought that
they could be beaten.
Necker was against giving battle, and two important colleagues were
with him. He was ready to take the king to Paris, seeing the
objections, as he always did to every proposal, but hoping that public
opinion, stimulated by the presence of the Court, which had not been
seen there for generations, would sustain the Crown against the
Assembly. He had held that opinion from the first, and he refused to
be answerable for civil war. Lewis, unable to decide, went to consult
the queen. She would be sent away, with her children, if there was a
fight. She declared that she would remain if the king remained, and
would not allow him to incur dangers which she did not share. This
resolution made it impossible for him to adopt a manly or spirited
course. The Council broke up without deciding anything.
Whilst this was going on, between three and four in the afternoon
Maillard reached Versailles with his column of women. Their quality
had deteriorated by the recruits made on the way, and there had been a
large accession of ferocity. Besides the women who followed Maillard
from the Hotel de Ville, some of whom believed that hunger is caused
by bad government, and can be appeased by good, others displayed the
aprons in which they meant to carry the queen to Paris, bit by bit.
And there was a group, more significant than either, who were well
supplied with money, to be distributed among the soldiers of the
Flemish regiment, and who effectually performed their office.
Maillard, who had prevented depredation by the way, made straight for
the Assembly, and was admitted with a deputation of his followers.
They arrived at a moment of excitement. The king had accepted the
nineteen paragraphs of the Constitution, with the proviso that he
retained the executive power undiminished. He had put off the Rights
of Man until it should be seen how they were affected by the portions
of the constitution yet to pass. The reply was not countersigned by a
minister; and the deputies saw in it an attempt to claim the right of
modifying the fundamental laws. They brought up the imprudences of the
dinner of welcome, and argued that there must be a plot.