The reign of terror historically and biographically treated

Front matter

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Contents

CHAP. I. — Condition of France previous to the Revolution, Louis XIV. Louis XV. Licentiousness of tlie Nobility, the Clergy, and the oppressed state of the Common People. Prodigality of the Monarchs and their Mistresses. Madame Pompadour, Madame Diibarri. Immense Revenues of the Church. Lettres-de-cachet, &.c. Louis XVI., his character. Troubled Slate of Finances. Meeting of the States-General. Division between the Deputies of the Tiers-Etat, or common people, and the Deputies of the Noblesse and Clergy, The Oath of the Tennis Court. Plots of the Court. Mirabeau. The Palais Royal, Excited state of Paris on the 11th July, 1789. Camille Desmoulines. Fracas between the soldiers and the populace, Sunday, the 12th of July, Increase of popular excitement, Scenes at the Hotel-de-Ville, All Paris in commotion, a universal demand for arms, and the cry of" to the Bastille !" Attack by the populace upon the Bastille. Its defence. Arming, Tumult and Vengeance, The Bastille taken. Death of De Launay and of M. de Flesselles, Destruction of the Bastille, The tidings of these events as received at Versailles by the Court and the National Assembly, Eloquence of Mirabeau, The King's visit to the Assembly, Marie Antoinette. Rejoicings of the Parisians, etc.

CHAP, II.— The King's visit to Paris, La Fayette commander of the National Guard. M. Bailli, mayor of Paris. M. Necker. Popular excitement. Massacre of Foulon and his son-in-law. Massacres and horrors perpetrated in the Provinces. Destruction of Chateaux and Property. Cruelties practised. Newspapers. Marat. A description of him. Formation of the Jacobin Club, its affiliated Societies. Further atrocities in the Provinces. Duke of Orleans, his wealth, his vices, debaucheries. Hi,s manner of gaining popularity, Mirabeau, his birth, his passions and impetuosity; his expenses, imprisonment, intrigues, description of his person, his talents. He becomes a leader in the Assembly. Scorned by the Nobility. Paris yet agitated. The Palais-Royal, Barbers. Tailors. Servants, Tumults and Famine. The populace suspicious of the Court. Arrival of the Flanders Regiment at Versailles, and banquet given to them by the King's Life-Guards. Splendor, Music. Abundance, Toasts offensive to the people, and bacchanalian orgies. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette present at these orgies. Wild enthusiasm of the Life- Guards at the appearance of the King and Q.ueen. Cockades distributed. Indignation of the Parisians in consequence of this Banquet. The prodigality of it considered an insult to the public distress. Rumors of con.spiracy and counter-revolution. The cry of "Bread ?" in the streets of Paris. Crowds at the bakers' shops. Insurrection of the 5th of October. The cry of "To Versailles!" Commotion. Fishwomen. Maillard, Immense concourse. The march to Versailles. La Fayette's life threatened. The mob at Versailles. They attack the Palace, Pursue the Q.ueen. Massacre of the Life-Guards. Jourdan. La Fayette. Tumult. The cry of "The King to Paris!" The Q,ueen shows herself on the balcony. Grotesque procession and return of the mob to Paris; surrounding the carriages of the Royal Family, etc. 37 — 61

CHAP. III. — Accusations by La Fayette against the Duke of Orleans. Murder of Denis Frangois, a baker, by the mob. Robespierre, some account of him. Execution of the Marquis de Favras. Confiscation of church property. Assignats. Efforts to dissolve the National Assembly, which declares itself permanent till the constitution is completed. All titles of nobility abolished. The fete of the Fcederation, on the 14th of July 1790, the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille; festivities, illuminations, rejoicings. The royal family prevented by a mob from S b CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Condition of France previous to the Revolution — Louis XIV. — Louis XV.— Licentiousness of the Nobihty, the Clergy, and the oppressed state of the Common People — Prodigahty of the Monarchs and their Mistresses — Madame Pompadour — Madame Dubarri — Immense Revenues of the Church — Lettres-de-Cachet, &c. — Louis XVI. — His character— Troubled State of Finances — Meeting of the States-General — Division between the Deputies of the Tiers-Etat, or Common People, and the Deputies of the Noblesse and Clergy — the Oath of the Tennis Court — Plots of the Court — Mirabeau — The Palais Royal— Excited State of Paris on the 11th of July. 1789 — Camille Desmoulins— Fracas between the Soldiers and the Populace— Sunday, the r2th of July— Increase of Popular Excitement — Scenes at the Hotel-de-Ville — All Paris in commotion, a universal demand for arms, and the cry of " to the Bastille !" — Attack by the Populace upon the Bastille — Its Defence — Arming, Tumult and Vengeance — The Bastille taken — Death of De Launay and of M. de Flesselles — Destruction of the Bastille — ^The Tidings of these Events as received at Versailles by the Court and the National Assembly — Eloquence of Miribeau — The King's Visit to the Assembly — Marie Antoinette— Rejoicings of the Parisians, &c.

" The people," says the greatest of French statesmen, " never revolt from fickleness, or the mere desire of change. It is the impatience of suffering which alone has this effect." Subsequent events have not falsified the maxim of Sully, though they have shown that it requires modification. If the condition of the lower orders in France, anterior to the Revolution, is examined, it will not be deemed surprising that a convulsion should have arisen ; and if humanity sees much to deplore in the calamities it produced, it will find much consolation in the grievances it has removed.*

The government of France, from the reign of Louis XIV. to the Revolution, was arbitrary rather than despotic ; for the monarchs had much greater power than they exercised ; their immense authority was resisted only by the feeblest barriers. The crown disposed of the person by lettres-de-^^achet ; of property by confiscations ; of income, b^ imposts. In this enslaved state was the kingdom^lmd also most wretchedly organized. Divided into three orders, which were again subdivided into several classes, the nation was abandoned to all the evils of despotism, and all the miseries of inequality. The nobility were divided into courtiers who lived on the favor of the prince, or, in other words, on the labors of the people ; and who obtained either the governments of the provinces, or high stations in the army — upstarts, who directed the administration, and made a trade of the provinces ; lawyers who administered justice, and monopolized its appointments ; and territorial barons, who oppressed the country by the exercise of their private feudal privileges, which had displaced the general political right. The clergy were divided into two classes, of which one was destined for the bishopricks and abbacies, and their rich revenues, the others to apostolic labors, and to poverty. The tiers-etat, (the third estate, or common people,) borne down by the court, and harassed by the nobility, was itself separated into corporations, which retaliated upon each other the evils and the oppression they received from their superiors. They possessed scarcely a third part of the soil, upon which they were compelled to pay feudal services to their lords, tithes to the priests, and imposts to the king. In compensation for so many sacrifices, they enjoyed no

♦ Alison's History of Eirope.

rights, had no share in the administration, and were admitted to no public employments.*

Louis XIV., by his lavish prodigality, in supporting his courtiers and mistresses, carrying on expensive wars, and his personal splendor, plunged the financial affairs of the nation into difficulties ; and he himself saw, before the close of his career, that tyranny, even in its success, exhausts its means, and that it devours in advance the resources of the future. Under his successor, Louis XV., anarchy was introduced into the bosom of the court, the government feill into the hands of mistresses, the sovereign power rapidly declined, and opposition was every day making new progress. The most celebrated of this monarch's mistresses were Madame de Pompadour and the Countess Dubarri. Madame de Pompadour, whose maiden name was Jane Antoinette Poissan, was married at an early age to Lenormand d'Etoiles, but the king became enamoured of her, and money silenced her husband. The king at first provided her with a house at Versailles; but afterwards gave her apartments in the chateau, where each year her extravagances increased. Though avaricious by instinct, Louis was prodigal through weakness ; he gave her six estates, besides splendid hotels in Paris, Fontainebleu, and Compeigne, where she amassed such a considerable quantity of furniture and other valuables, that, after her death, the sale occupied each day during the space of twelve months. He gave her a pension of fifteen hundred thousand livres, besides daily presents ; independently of which she had six hundred thousand livres to enable her to have her table always served for the reception of her royal lover, who also created her Marchioness of Pompadour. She possessed the talent of amusing the indolent king, who frequently remarked that she made the time pass quickly; and she conceived the most ingenious artifices to divert him. He finally resigned the reins of government into her

* Mignet's History of the French Revolution.

hand ; she nominated ministers, and was the distributer of all the royal gifts and government employments. Private profligacy increased at court, public disorders augmented throughout the kingdom. There were troubles in the church, schisms among the bishops, agitations among the magistracy, discord among families, and disturbances among the people.

Madame de Pompadour, after ruling France for twenty years, finished her days at the palace of Versailles, in the year 1764. Four years after, Louis became attached to the young and beautiful wife of the Count Dubarri, whose prodigality was equally excessive with that of Pompadour. She always used gold plate, and possessed a cup of that metal of enormous value, which was given her by the king. She had a carriage which cost fifty-two thousand francs. The king gave her a boquet of diamonds valued at three hundred thousand francs, and also a dressing-table of massive gold, surmounted by two cupids of the same metal holding a crown enriched with precious stones, and so ingeniously disposed that she could not look on the mirror without beholding herself crowned. Independently of these prodigalities, she gave at play drafts for large sums at sight, which the court-banker paid with greater exactitude than the governmental expenses. To meet the exigencies of her husband and brother-in-law, she drew more than eighteen millions from the treasury, and squandered the public funds as her desires or caprices prompted.* Her extravagance continued until the death of the king in 1774, when the unfortunate Louis XVI. ascended the throne.

Ever since the days of Louis XIV., the nobility and gentry had been in the habit of running into scandalous and enormous expenses, which, instead of paying, they availed themselves of their influence at court to be exempted from satisfying the claims of their creditors, whom they found various means of harassing, tormenting or evading. Every petty privilege

* The Queens and Royal Favorites, by Mrs. Bush.

was kept up with an invidious industry. All places of honor or profit in church and state, were occupied, as were also those in the navy and army, by the nobility ; and the roturier, as he was called by way of contempt, learned from infancy to hate a race of men who seemed born only to humiliate and oppress the simple citizen. Under the most familiar and affable outward show that the nobleman might choose to exhibit towards individuals of the third-estate, there was invariably something to remind the latter of their relative situation and his nobility. Such was the case in the common affairs of society, and in case of any injury received, redress was out of the reach of the roturier ; for if he appealed to the king in council, he had ten chances to one against him, decision being generally in favor of the nobleman. So strong wasr the prejudice of rank against the common order of people, that, however wealthy families of the latter might be, they were strictly kept out of the circles of the court and aristocracy. Glaring were the expenses and luxury of the court, where the prodigality of Louis XIV. was equalled, but not imitated. " The fourteenth Louis was great even in his follies ; he wac an encourager of merit and talent of every descrip tion, and, by a kind of theatrical manceuvre, rendere(? his court the envy and admiration of all Europe. The palace of Versailles was the grandest in Europe, itr.. gardens the most magnificent ; the flatterers who sur rounded him compared his age with that of Augustus.. and in so doing pleased the vanity of the nation a^ much as they pleased the king. But the court of Ver sailles, in its latter days, paid not the slightest regard for public opinion ; it had all the cost, but none of the glory that marked the reign of the Grand Monarque : it rioted, revelled, and the people were taxed to sup port its improvidence as formerly. Overburthen^.d with these taxes, the people, throughout the reign of Louis XV., had repeatedly called for amelioration, hnt their remonstrances were unheeded by the court, which felt no inclination to retrench or economize '

nor were the many abuses of the laws, of which loud complaints rose from the suffering people, reformed in the slightest. The expenses of the government continued to increase, and the burthen upon the people increased in proportion.

Besides, the immense revenues of the church, amounting to near twenty-five millions sterling, were for the greater part disbursed in paying the high clergy, who were enormously rich, or to maintain indolent and luxurious monks ; and a very small proportion applied to the payment of the poor and virtuous curates, who did all the hard duties of the church, though they received so few of its good things. Many of the high clergy entered into all the fashionable vices of the age, one of which was to turn religion itself into ridicule ; at the same time they neglected most of those moral duties which are imposed upon every member of society, but more particularly on men whose care it ought to be to instruct and improve others by precept and example. Their selfishness in matters of interest was but ill calculated to conciliate the minds of their fellow citizens, who considered that if men in a state of celibacy required so much money, and were so tenacious of its possession, those who had families to maintain, and were obliged to pay them, were in but a pitiable state.

These abuses, arising out of the disproportioned privileges of the nobility and clergy, who were exempted from contributing to the necessities of the state ; the unequal mode of levying the taxes ; and, above all, the total absorption of every right and authority in the person of the sovereign ; the danger to personal freedom from the tyranny of a lettre de cachet — these were too gross in their nature, and too destructive in their consequences, to have escaped deep thought on the part of reflecting persons, and hatred and dislike from those who suf^ fered more or less under the practical evils. The despotic power of the lettre-de-cachet, (a private letter, or mandate issued under the royal signet for the apprehension of individuals obnoxious to the Court,)

which gave the monarch the right of banishing or imprisoning his subjects at his wiJJ, and which had been basely used in many instances, was one of the abuses of thie royal authority against which popular indignation particularly expressed itself

Thus, by those general causes which had been increasing in force for so many centuries, the minds of men were prepared for a new order of things; and certainly our surprise at its violence and rapidity will be very considerably diminished, when we find so many causes operating in one direction, and that direction under the idea of procuring happiness and liberty. *

The aristocratic pride of the nobility was especially galling to the self-love of the commoners, who, immensely rich from commerce or banking, had all the means of luxury, pomp and display, that the others had, but found themselves still considered not upon an equality. The social tyranny of the noblesse, the old privileges that they maintained, was hateful to the new wealth — and to the new knowledge which the learned men of France had disseminated so generally throughout the middle classes. Every thing indicated the approach of no common revolution ; of a revolution destined to change, not merely the form of the government, but the distribution of property and the Whole social system; of a revolution, the effects of which were to be felt at every fireside in France. In the foremost of the Revolution were the moneyed men, and the men of letters — the wounded pride of wealth, and the wounded pride of intellect. An immense multitude, made ignorant and cruel by oppression, was raging in the rear. The success of republicanism in America, too, encouraged the spirit of revolution in France, and carried to the height the enthusiasm of speculative democrats, f

At the accession of the sixteenth Louis, France was beyond example wretched in the condition of her

* Pfeyfair, t Macaday.

finances, the evil having grown out of the luxury and improvidence of the two preceding monarchs. The revenue of the government amounted to twenty millions sterling (i?f90,000,000 in round numbers ;) but the expenditure exceeded the revenue about two millions and a half; (-$11,000,000.) Loans of money were effected, every new one attended with inconveniences; and nothing is more self-evident than that an accumulation of inconveniences must finish with destroying the system in which it arises — ^just as the man who has continual recourse to mortgaging his property, must finish in the end by ruining himself, however great his resources may have originally been. Ameliorations now became indispensable, were loudly demanded, and Louis XVI., who was a man of pure manners and inexpensive habits, felt the public necessities, and made it his glory to satisfy them. But it was as difficult to operate good as to continue evil. He had just views and an amiable disposition, but was without decision of character, and had no perseverance in his measures. His projects of amelioration encountered obstacles from his courtiers which he had not foreseen, and which he could not v^anquish.* His reign, up to the period of the States-General, was a long tissue of improvements, which produced no result. Turgot, Malesherbes, Neclier, Calonne and Brienne were successively chosen prime minister ; each failed in relieving the country of embarrassments, and it was finally evident that the States-General had become the only means of government, and the last resource of the throne. Accordingly the 5th of May, 1789, was appointed for the opening of the States-General, at the palace of Versailles, in a hall called the Menus Plaisirs, where the dresses be-

* " Besides the domestic and household expenses of the sovereign, which, so far as personal, were on the most moderate scale, the public mind was much more justly revolted at the large sum yearly squandered among the needy coiirtiens an^ dependents. The king had endeavoured to abridge this list of gratuities and pensions, but the system of corruption, which had prevailed for two centuries, waa not to be abolished in an instant." — Scott's Napoleon.

longing to the opera and the theatre of the palace had formerly been kept. On that day an immense multitude from all parts resorted to Versailles ; the occasion was magnificent, the pomp of decoration, the chantings of music, the benevolent and satisfied air of the King, the beauty and noble deportment of the Queen, and, above all, the common expectations, inspired and animated all minds. Of the commons, or tiers-etat, there were 661 deputies ; nobles 285 ; clergy 308 ; total 1254. The clergy and the nobility, at the very outset, refused to act in concert with the commons.

After the first day, which was rather a day of ceremony than business, the deputies of the nobles, and of the dergy, retired to two adjoining halls of a smaller size, which were prepared for them ; the deputies of the third-estate, being the most numerous, remaining in the large hall, or hall of general assembly. This hall was capable of containing two thousand persons, so that there was room for the curious of all descriptions to witness their debates ; and a crowd of all ranks came every day from Paris to witness what passed, returning with the tidings to the capital ; consequently the debates and reasonings of the third-estate, so popular from the cause they tended to support, were widely spread abroad, and repeated and discussed with eagerness and enthusiasm by the whole Parisian population. The reasonings of the nobility and clergy, less popular from their nature, but not less eloquent, were little known, and inspired no interest.

Five weeks passed in useless debates concerning the form in which the estates should vote; during which period the tiers-etat showed, by their boldness and decision, that they knew the advantage which they held, and were sensible that the other bodies, if they meant to retain the influence of their situation in any shape, must unite with them ; and this came to pass accordingly. The tiers-etat were joined by the whole body of the inferior clergy, and by a few of the nobles, and on the 17th of June J 789, proceeded to constitute themselves the legislative body, exclusively competent

2* in itself to the entire province of legislation ; and renouncing the name of the Third-Estate, which reminded men that they were only one out of three bodies, they adopted, by a majority of 491 to 90, that of the National Assembly, and avowed themselves the sole representatives of the people of France.

This bold measure alarmed the Court; the aristocracy immediately threw themselves at the feet of the king, imploring him to repress the audacity of the tiers-etat, and to support their rights, which were attacked. They now proposed to do without the States-General, and solicited him to dissolve them, promising to assent to all the taxes. Louis surrounded by the princes and the queen, was hurried off to Marly, (a royal residence some distance from Versailles,) where they endeavoured to ex tort from him some rigorous measure against the effrontery, as they considered it, of the tiers-etat. Necker who had been recalled to the post of minister, attached to the popular cause, confined himself to useless remonstrances, the purport of which the king saw the justice of when his mind was left free, but the effect of which the Court soon took care to supplant in his mind. Necker, so soon as he saw the necessity for the interference of the royal authority, formed a plan, which was that the monarch, in a royal sitting, should command the union of the orders, but only for measures of general interest ; that he should assume to himself the sanction of all resolutions adopted by the States- General ; that he should condemn beforehand every institution hostile to moderate monarchy, such as that of a single assembly ; lastly, that he should promise the abolition of privileges, the equal admission of all Frenchmen to civil military appointments, &c.

The council had followed the king to Marly. There, Necker's plan, at first approved, was subjected to discussion. The council was suspended, resumed, and adjourned till the following day, in spite of the necessity that existed for immediate despatch. On the next day, fresh members were added to the council ; the brothers of the king were of the number. Necker's plan was modified; he resisted, made some concessions, but finding himself vanquished, returned to Versailles. A page came three times, bringing him notes containing new modifications ; his plan was whollydisfigured, and the royal sitting was fixed for the 22d of June.

It was as yet but the 20th ; and already the hall of the states was shut up, under the pretex't that preparations were requisite for the presence of the king. These preparations might have been made in half a day; but the higher order of the clergy had deliberated the day before upon joining the commons, and the court desired to frustrate this junction. An order of the king had been given, adjourning the sittings till the 22d, and, on the morning of the 20th, heralds, with trumpets, proclaimed through the streets of Versailles that there was to be a royal sitting on the 22d, and no meeting of the States-General till then. A letter to this purport was also sent to M. Bailli, (President of the Assembly,) by the Marquis de Breze, master of ceremonies. But the members determined not to be thus thwarted by the court, and called upon the president to meet. M. Bailli, conceiving himself bound to obey the resolutions of the body over which he presided, and which, on Friday, the 19th, had adjourned to the next day, repaired to the door of the hall. It was surrounded by soldiers of the French guard, who had orders to refuse admittance to every one, and inside the carpenters were at work. The deputies collected tumultuously ; they persisted in assembling ;* some proposed to hold a meeting under the very windows of the king, others proposed the Tennis-court. To the latter they instantly repaired. It was spacious, but the walls

* " The deputies stand grouped on the Paris road, on this umbrageous Avenue de Versailles ; complaining aloud of the indignity done them. Courtiers, it is supposed, look from their windows and giggle. The morning is none of the comfortablest ; raw ; it is even drizzling a little. But all travellers pause ; patriot gallery-men, miscellaneous spectators, increase the groups. Wild counsels alter* nate." — Carlyle.

dark and bare ; it had no roof, and was open to the weather. An arm-chair was offered to the president, who declined it, choosing rather to stand with the Assembly. A bench served for a desk. Two deputies were stationed at the door as door-keepers. The populace thronged round with enthusiasm. Complaints were raised on all sides against the suspension of the sittings, and various expedients were proposed to prevent it in future. The agitation increased, and the extreme parties began to work upon the imaginations of the hearers. It was proposed by M. Mounier that the deputies should bind themselves by an oath not to separate until they had given a constitution to France. This proposal was received with transport, and the form of the oath was drawn up. M. Bailli first took the oath, and then tendered it to the deputies. The oath was this : " The National Assembly, considering that they have been convoked to establish the constitution of the kingdom, to regenerate the public order, and fix the true principles of the monarchy ; that nothing can prevent them from continuing their deliberations, and completing the important work committed to their charge ; and that, wherever their members are assembled, there is the National Assembly of France — decree, that all the members now assembled shall instantly take an oath never to separate, and, if dispersed, to reassemble wherever they can, until the constitution of the kingdom and the regeneration of the public order are established on a solid basis ; and that this oath, taken by all and each singly, shall be confirmed by the signature of every member, in token of their unshakable resolution." This form pronounced in a loud and intelligible voice, was heard by the great crowd of spectators who thronged around and overhung the scene, looking down from a " wooden penthouse or roofed spectators' gallery, from wall-top, from adjoining roof and chimney."* The substance

* " A naked Tennis-court, as the pictures of that time still give it ; — on the floor not now an idle teeheeing, a snapping of balls and rackets ; but the bellowing din of an indignant national representation, scandalously exiled hither !" — Carlyle.

of the oath was repeated from one to another throughout the concourse, and when the deputies, with all their hands simultaneously outstretched towards their president, solemnly took the oath, applausive shouts rose in the air from all voices. The deputies then proceeded to sign the declaration which they had just made. Such was the celebrated oath of the Tennis-court.

The advisers of the King wished to thwart the proceedings of the Assembly, and having tried in vain to prevent the formation of it, they had now no course to take but, by associating with it, to endeavor to direct its labors. Failing in this, also, they persuaded the monarch that the security of his throne, required that he should reduce the Assembly to submission; that it was necessary, for this purpose, to call in, without delay, the troops to intimidate the Assembly, and keep down the populace of Versailles and Paris.

While these plots were being contrived by the court, the deputies were beginning their legislative labors, and preparing the constitution so impatiently expected by the people throughout France. Addresses to them poured in from Paris and the principal towns of the kingdom, congratulating them upon their wisdom, and encouraging them to pursue the work of regenerating the nation. In the meantime, the troops arrived in great numbers ; Versailles presented the appearance of a camp ; the hall of the estates was environed with guards, and entrance prohibited to the citizens ; Paris was surrounded by different bodies of the army, who seemed posted there to be ready; as occasion might require, for a siege or a blockade. These immense military preparations, trains of artillery arriving from the frontiers, the presence of foreign regiments — every thing announced some sinister project. The people were agitated ; the Assembly rushed to inform the throne, and demand from it the removal of the troops. Upon the proposition of Mirabeau, an address, respectful and firm, was tendered to the king, but it was unavailing. Louis XVI. declared that the assemblage of troops was for no other purpose than the maintenance of public tranquillity, and the protection due to the National Assembly. He offered, moreover, to transfer the Assembly to Noyon or Soissons, and that he would himself repair to Compeigne. With such an answer the Assembly could not be satisfied, and especially with the proposal to withdraw from the capital and to place itself between two camps. The Count de Crillon proposed that they should ♦' trust to the word of a king, who is an honest man."