THE FIELD OF THE FEDERATION.
I could not sleep all night.
I had seen so much since my arrival, and had been in company with so
many great men—Mirabeau, Robespierre, Lameth, Laclos, Chemier, Talma,
David, Laharpe, Danton, Marat, Desmoulins, Anacharsis Clootz, and
Herbert—that their names continued to ring in my soul like an alarm
bell.
And through them all passed the beautiful amazon in her red robe; and
that seemed so strange to me, coming as I had for the first time from
the Forest of Argonne, and feeling, as it were, in another world, or
else in a state of furious delirium.
I arose at daybreak. Alas! the morning was dark and rainy-looking;
thick black clouds were chasing each other over the sky once so
pure and brilliant, but now changing its opinions, and becoming
aristocratic.
I awoke M. Drouet. I was astonished that any one could sleep on the
night heralding in such a day. He jumped up and dressed himself. We
took our guns, and descended.
We soon joined our friends of St. Menehould and Islettes, formed
rank, and marched to the Champ de Mars.
At the door of Sainte Honoré, we met the orator of the human race,
who had passed the night at the Cordeliers.
He had with him a body of men, Poles, Russians, Turks, Persians, all
in their national costumes. He took them to the federation of France
before he took them to the federation of the world.
We marched by the river’s side, and soon arrived at the Champ de Mars.
A hundred and sixty thousand people were seated on the slopes, a
hundred and fifty thousand on the plain itself, and yet there was
sufficient space left to accommodate fifty thousand of the National
Guard.
A second amphitheatre in a semi-circle formed in the space between
Chaillot and Passy accommodated more than a hundred thousand people.
Anacharsis Clootz was right. This looked well for a federation of the
world.
We crossed the river by the wooden bridge thrown over it at Chaillot,
and passing under the Arc de Triomphe, entered the Champ de Mars, and
arranged ourselves in front of the altar of the country. The honors
were for the provincial National Guard.
We were removed only a hundred paces from the raised seats destined
for the King, the Queen, and the National Assembly.
All in a moment it began to rain. It was now eight o’clock, and as
the King and Queen were not expected till ten, there was plenty of
time to get both wet and cold. Some of the National Guards began
to dance a farandole to keep the warmth in them; the example was
contagious, the muskets were stacked, and each man choosing a partner
from among the female spectators, the extraordinary spectacle of two
thousand people dancing at one time commenced.
At half-past ten the cannon announced the arrival of the King, and
the drum recalled each man to his post. The female dancers were
re-conducted to their friends, and the guard presented arms.
The carriages of the King, Queen, and other dignitaries of the realm
came at a foot pace. They stopped at the raised benches; the King,
descending first, gave his hand to the Queen, and they took their
respective places, accompanied by the Assembly.
Now, not only had the day, but the moment arrived.
Stationed close to the benches, of which we had an excellent view, I
had been awaiting with impatience the arrival of the King and Queen,
of whose personal appearance I had formed my own ideas, which I am
bound to say were very far from the truth.
The King was not sufficiently kingly. The Queen was too much a queen.
While the King was bowing to the people, and seating himself in the
midst of the cries of “Vive le Roi!” M. de Talleyrand, the lame
bishop, the Mephistopheles to another Faust, whose name was Napoleon,
proceeded, attended by two hundred priests, to the altar of the
country. All wore tri-colored sashes.
The regimental bands strike up, but are scarcely heard. But forty
pieces of cannon, discharged at the same time, command silence.
The taking of the oath followed.
Three hundred thousand hands are uplifted at one and the same time on
the Champ de Mars. The rest of France was joined in spirit to those
who swore in the name of all.
They had hoped that the King would descend from his seat, mount the
altar, and there, holding up his hand, swear in the sight of all his
people.
They were mistaken. The King swore from his seat, placed in the
shadow—in fact, almost hidden. The idea that struck the hearts of
all, was that the King swore with regret, and without intending to
keep the oath that he had taken.
This was the oath that all knew beforehand, but which few could hear,
thanks to the fashion in which the King spoke:—
“I, King of the French, swear to the nation to employ all the power
which has been delegated to me by constitutional law, in maintaining
the constitution and executing the laws.”
Ah, King, King! it is with greater heart and better faith that your
people have sworn.
The Queen did not swear; she sat in a reserved seat, with the
Dauphin and the princesses. On hearing the King’s voice trembling
and hesitating she smiled, a singular light gleaming in her eyes the
while.
M. Drouet, as well as myself, remarked that smile, and he frowned.
“Ah, M. Drouet,” said I, “I like not that smile! And I never could
have believed that that beautiful Queen could have smiled in such a
fashion.”
“The Queen’s smile matters little,” replied M. Drouet. “The King has
sworn—that is the great point. The oath is registered at this moment
in the hearts of twenty-five millions of Frenchmen. It will be worse
for him if the oath be not kept.”
* * * * *
Every time that I have been to Paris since that day, I have paid a
visit to the Champ de Mars, the only monument left of the Revolution.
The last time I made the pilgrimage was in 1853. I had come to buy
the History of the French Revolution, by Michelet.
I seated myself on a hillock, and much in the same way as M.
Chateaubriand on the ruins of Sparta, cried out in a loud voice,
three times, “Leonidas! Leonidas! Leonidas!” I read aloud the
following lines of the eloquent historian, which chimed in so well
with my own thoughts:—
“The Champ de Mars is the sole monument left of the Revolution.
The Empire has the Arc de Triomphe. Royalty has its Louvre and its
Invalides. The feudal Church of 1,200 has its throne in Notre Dame.
“But the Revolution has alone for its monument an empty space.
“This monument is sand, and desert as the plains of Arabia. A mound
to the right, a mound to the left, like those which the Gauls erected
in memory of their fallen heroes.
“Though the plain be dry, and the grass be withered, still a day will
come when it shall be again clothed in green.
“For mingled with this earth is the sweat of the brow of those who
on a sacred day raised these hills—on a day when, awakened by the
cannon of the Bastille, France poured in from the north and south—on
a day when three millions as one man swore eternal peace.
“Ah! poor Revolution, so confiding in the first blush of thy youth,
thou hast invited the world to love and peace.
“Oh, my enemies! said’st thou, there are no longer enemies.
“Thou heldest out thine hand to all—thou hast offered the cup to
drink to the peace of nations, but they would not.”