THE TIDE RISES.
The Queen was right in not viewing events in the same light as those
who surrounded her.
Firstly, the struggle was between the Assembly and the Court. The
Assembly won the day.
Then it was between the Constitutionals and the Aristocrats.
The Constitutionals won the day. Now it was to be between the
Constitutionals and the Republicans.
It is true that the Republicans had only just begun to appear, but
in their first birth they formed this terrible principle—_No more
monarchy!_
You will remember that the commissioners had been appointed by the
Assembly to examine Louis XVI.
These three declared, in the name of their seven committees, that
they had found no reason to put Louis XVI on his trial.
The Assembly took the opinion of the commissioners, but the Jacobin
Club refused its sanction to the Assembly. The Assembly had then
above it a high chamber, which could annihilate its decisions with
its veto.
In order to understand the situation and the events about to take
place, it is necessary to say that at this juncture there were
opposed to each other, three distinct parties.
The Royalists who wished the King absolute—that is to say, without
the Constitution; the Constitutionals, who wished the King with
a Constitution; and the Republicans, who wished neither King nor
Constitution, but a republic.
The Assembly, as we have said, voted that there was no necessity to
put the King on trial.
But, through concession to the public feeling, it had voted two
measures—one preventive, the other repressive.
This was the repressive measure.
“That Bouillé, and all servants, officers, couriers, and accomplices
in the flight, should be prosecuted.”
This was the preventive measure:—
“That if a king breaks his oath, or attacks, or does not defend, his
people, he shall be cast from his throne, become a simple citizen,
and be tried for the offences committed previous to his degradation.”
The repressive measure was one of those timid ones proper to a
decayed Assembly, which feels that its power is crumbling away.
During some days, or, rather, nights, the Jacobin sitting became
stormy.
During the sitting, in which the true culprit—that is to say,
the King—was left alone, in order to arrest and punish the minor
offenders—that is to say, Bouillé, Fersen, the gardes du corps, and
Madame de Tourzel,—M. Robespierre asked in vain to have the report
distributed, and the discussion adjourned.
As it was known in advance that the discussion would be stormy,
Robespierre went to the club. He had been accused, at the Assembly,
of republicanism, and—mark this well,—on the 13th of July 1791,
Robespierre did not disdain to again avow himself a Republican.
On that evening, we all went to the Jacobins; M. Duplay and myself in
the superior hall, and the three women and Félicién in the inferior,
where a society was held, called the Society of the Two Sexes.
During my absence from Paris, Robespierre had acquired a great
popularity, to which he had succeeded by degrees. He had still the
same voice, though, perhaps, he spoke a little stronger than the
last time that I had heard him; and I fancied that I noted a marked
progress in his intonation, but still the same spinning-out of his
facts.
He had just finished his discourse, when a great disturbance was
heard. It was the Cordeliers’ Club, which, in the persons of Danton
and Legendre, had made an irruption among the Jacobins.
They were neither vague nor lengthy in their demands.
Danton, in an outburst of ironic thunder, demanded how the Society
dared to take upon itself to pronounce reformed opinions before
the nation had done so? Legendre directly attacked the King—called
to reason the societies who, working in an underground manner,
undermined the decisions of the Assembly, and terminated in saying,
“What I say is for the good of the Assembly itself.”
There was almost a menace expressed in these last words. Keeping
calm and cold during Robespierre’s speech, M. de Laclos, the
intendant of the Duc d’Orleans, applauded vehemently Danton and
Legendre.
The Constitutionals of the Assembly got up, and went out.
Danton and Laclos conferred together an instant in a whisper; then a
voice was heard, crying, “Open the doors for the public deputies!”
The doors opened, and there entered the fraternal Society of the
Halles, and the Society of the Two Sexes, which held its meetings
in the Lower Hall. They carried addresses against the Assembly, or,
rather, against the monarchy.
Preoccupied with Danton and Legendre, I lost a part of the thread of
what passed at the tribune. A young surgeon read a letter, which had
been written in the Palais Royal in the presence of three hundred
persons. A bishop threw himself into his arms, and urged him to
oppose the deputies. Robespierre looked on with his sardonic smile;
Danton, Legendre, and Laclos with a hateful grin.
Robespierre saw not what was going on on the other side of Paris,
but probably Danton knew; and that was what he was recounting in
a whisper to Laclos, and what Laclos was listening to with such
attention.
On the other side of Paris was a club—a fraternal society,—in the
midst of which rested a young man, who was secretary to the club,
in oblivion. This young man one day emerged from his obscurity, to
raise around him a gigantic storm, after which he again subsided into
mediocrity. The name of this young man was Callieu.
What was Callieu doing in this fraternal society? Almost nothing. He
prepared an address against the Assembly, signed “_The People!_”
On the day before that evening—how I came to forget to mention it,
I cannot think,—the 12th of July, there was a great disturbance in
Paris. All hats were waving in a burst of enthusiasm.
On Sunday, the 10th, the body of Voltaire ought to have been removed
to the Pantheon, but the weather was unpropitious; and there was no
fête in Paris, on account of the rain. The removal of Voltaire’s
corpse was therefore postponed till the morrow.
The triumphal procession entered by the barrier of Charenton; and
accompanied by an immense crowd, drawn by horses presented by the
Queen, the bier crossed Paris, and stopped at the house where the
author of the “Philosophic Dictionary” had died.
There they sang choruses to his glory. The Calas family, led by
Madame de Vilette, laid down crowns on the sarcophagus, before the
temple of Flora, which was closed, on the pretence of the absence of
Madame de Lamballe.
On the 12th, Voltaire entered the Pantheon. On the 13th, in the
morning, they played a sacred drama, with a grand chorus and
orchestra, in Notre Dame. It was entitled, “Le Prise de la Bastille.”
In the evening, Danton and Legendre came to the Jacobins, and turned
out the Constitutionals; whilst at the club on the other side of
Paris they were signing an address against the Assembly.
On the 14th, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, when a
drama was performed on the subject, the Bishop of Paris performed
mass at the altar of the country in the midst of the rain.
Each day now brought an event. On the evening of the 15th, the
Assembly voted not only that the King should be brought to judgment,
but that his offices should be suspended until he agreed to _swear to
the Constitution_.
The Constitutionals carried it.
The Assembly knew so well that it had committed an unpopular act,
that it demanded to be protected by Lafayette and 5,000 men, without
counting the National Guard and the pikes of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
The crowd which could not enter—and their name was legion—took up
a position on the other side of the citizen guard, who made a ring
round the Riding Hall.
The moment the vote became known to the crowd, they yelled “Treason!”
and re-entered Paris by its three great arteries, the Boulevards, the
Rue St. Honoré, and the street which is now known by that name. They
then began to shut the theatres and the houses of play and pleasure,
and in consequence of the disturbance, the police themselves closed
two or three theatres.
Little work was done in these days of ebullition. M. Duplay sent me
to see what was going on at the Assembly; I returned to announce to
him the triumph of the King.
“Good!” said he. “Let us get over supper quickly, and then off to the
Jacobins. There will be a disturbance there this evening.”
M. Duplay was right.
Robespierre was in the tribune. He attacked, in the midst of
vociferous plaudits, the vote of the Assembly. When he had finished,
M. Laclos took his place. You must not forget that Laclos was the
intendant of the Duc d’Orleans. He demanded that a bulletin should be
issued, proclaiming the forfeiture.
“There will be,” said he, “ten million signatures.”
“Yes, yes!” cried the spectators, with one voice. “Ten, fifteen,
twenty millions! The women and children, even, shall be compelled to
sign!”
A powerful voice shook the nation. It was Danton’s. For some days the
Cordeliers had fraternized with the Jacobins, and Danton walked with
Robespierre.
“Only,” said Danton, in a low voice, “let us have no women. They are
generally Royalists. They would vote for the deposal of a King only
in order to raise up another.”
Saying these words, he stared fixedly at the author of “Liaisons
Dangereuses.” Not a smile nor a frown ruffled the habitually stern
features of Laclos.
Perceiving the silence kept by the Duke of Orleans’ man, he added,
“And more, I prefer an address to the adopted societies to a public
one.”
Laclos said nothing, but appeared as if listening to something
outside the building.
All at once, a large mass of people entered the club. They were what
were called the Bucks of the Palais Royal, dragging with them about
fifty young women of questionable character.
“Ah, ah!” murmured Danton. “’Tis a planned affair!”
All the newly-arrived mixed with the Jacobins, crying, “The
forfeiture—the forfeiture!”
Laclos ascended the tribune.
“You see,” said he, “’tis the people—the people who desire the
forfeiture. A petition is necessary, of which I approve.”
All this immense crowd, who probably had the word, cried with one
voice, “The petition—the petition!”
Then, with uproarious enthusiasm, the petition was voted. It was
agreed that the next day, at eleven o’clock, the Jacobins should meet
and hear the reading of it, after which it would be brought to the
Champs de Mars, where it was to be signed by the populace, and thence
forwarded to the adopted societies.
During this tumult, M. Duplay had taken hold of my arm, and drew me
sharply on one side. He then pointed me out a woman standing outside
one of the tribunes, who appeared to be taking the greatest possible
interest in what was passing.
“Look at that woman,” said he; “it is the Citizen Roland Platrière—a
good patriot.”