VIII. THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE
Recall of Necker.--Reassembling the Notables.--Pamphlet of the Abbé Sièyes.--Vote of the King's Brother.--His supposed Motive.--The Basis of Representation.--Arrangements for the Meeting of the States.--Statement of Grievances.--Mirabeau: his Menace.--Sympathy of the Curates with the People.--Remonstrance of the Nobles.--First Riot.--Meeting of the States-General.--New Effort of the privileged Classes.
The king again turned to Necker, as one strong in the confidence of the people. The announcement of his recall filled France with enthusiasm. Guns were fired, bells rung, and masses of people surged through the streets of Paris and of Versailles, shouting exultingly. It was the 24th of August, 1788. Necker's first exclamation, at the intimation of his recall, was, "Ah! that I could recall the fifteen months of the Archbishop of Toulouse." He found but two hundred and fifty thousand francs ($50,000) in the treasury. Though disorder and ruin had made rapid progress, the reputation of Necker was such that he immediately had loans offered him, and the public funds rose thirty per cent.[78]
Preparations were immediately made for the assembling of the States-General, and the public announcement was given that it was to be convened on the 27th of April. There had been no meeting of the States-General for one hundred and seventy-five years, and the question now rose, How shall the members be elected? who shall be voters? of how many shall the body be composed? what proportion shall be from the privileged and what from the unprivileged class? The learned bodies and popular writers were invited to express their views upon these points. Thousands of political pamphlets immediately appeared, and every mind in the nation was roused.[79] The all-important and most agitating question was, What proportion shall the people occupy in this assembly? The unprivileged class composed ninety-eight hundredths of the nation; the privileged class two hundredths. And yet the privileged class demanded inexorably that they should have two thirds of the representatives, and the people one third. This would place the people in a hopeless minority, and leave them entirely at the mercy of the privileged class.
To settle these agitating questions the Notables were again summoned on the 6th of September, 1788. It was the same body which Calonne had called together. Parliament had firmly declared in favor of allowing the people a representation of but one third, giving the nobles a third and the clergy a third. The king and Necker were fully assured that such an arrangement could by no means satisfy the nation--that it would be a mockery of the people which would only exasperate them. They hoped that these Notables, carefully selected, though from the aristocracy, would be willing to give ninety-eight of the people at least an equal voice with two of the aristocracy.
The Abbé Sièyes had written a pamphlet which had produced a profound impression throughout France. He thus asked, and answered, three questions: "What is the Third Estate? The whole people. What has it hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become something."
But the Notables were now alarmed, and a warm discussion ensued between the advocates of ancient traditions and of national justice. One alone of the several committees into which the Notables were divided voted in favor of allowing the people an equal representation with the privileged classes. Monsieur, afterward Louis XVIII., was chairman of that committee. When the king was informed of this vote he remarked, "Let them add my vote: I give it willingly."[80] After a month's session, the Notables, on the 12th of December, having accomplished nothing, vanished, to appear no more forever.
The question was still unsettled, and the clamor was growing louder and more exciting. It was a vital struggle. To give the people an equal voice was death to aristocratic usurpation. To give the privileged class two votes, to the people one, hopelessly perpetuated abuses. The question could only be settled by the authority of the king. On the 27th of December Necker made a report to the king recommending that the unprivileged class should send the same number of delegates as the privileged.[81] In accordance with this report, on the 24th of January, 1789, the royal edict was issued.[82] The dissatisfaction on the part of the nobles amounted almost to rebellion. In Brittany the nobles, who had sent in a strong protest, refused to send any delegates to the States-General, hoping probably that the nobles and the clergy generally would follow their example, and that thus the measure might be frustrated.
But events ran onward like the sweep of ocean tides. Nothing could retard them. Preparations were made for the elections. Among the people every man over twenty-five years of age who paid a tax was allowed to vote.[83] A more sublime spectacle earth has rarely witnessed. Twenty-five millions of people suddenly gained the right of popular suffrage. Between five and six millions of votes were cast. The city of Paris was divided into sixty districts, each of which chose two electors, and these electors were to choose twenty deputies. The people were also enjoined to send in a written statement of their grievances, with instructions to the deputies respecting the reforms which they wished to have introduced. These statements of grievances, now existing in thirty-six compact folio volumes, present appalling testimony to the outrages which the people had for ages been enduring. With propriety, dignity, and marvelous unanimity of purpose the people assembled at the polls.[84]
There were a few of the nobles who were in favor of reform. In Provence the nobility in their provincial parliament protested against the royal edict, declaring that such innovations as were contemplated tended to "impair the dignity of the nobility." One of their number, Count Mirabeau, ventured to remonstrate against this arrogance, and to advocate the rights of the people. He was a man of extraordinary genius and courage, and before no mortal or assemblage of mortals could his eye be compelled to quail. He persisted and stood at bay, the whole Parliament, in a tumult of rage, assailing him. With amazing powers of vituperative eloquence he hurled back their denunciations, and glared upon them fiercely and unconquerably. He was a man of Herculean frame, with a gigantic head, thickly covered with shaggy locks, and he would have been an exceedingly handsome man had not his face been horribly scarred with the small-pox. He was a man of iron nerve and soul, and knew not what it was to fear any thing. Like most of the noblesse and the higher clergy, he had lived a dissolute life. The parliamentary assembly, in a storm of wrath, expelled him from their body. He left the house, but in departing, in portentous menace, exclaimed:
"In all countries and in all times the aristocrats have implacably pursued every friend of the people; and with tenfold implacability if such were himself born of the aristocracy. It was thus that the last of the Gracchi perished by the hands of the Patricians. But he, being struck with the mortal stab, flung dust toward heaven and called on the avenging deities; and from this dust there was born Marius--Marius, not so illustrious for exterminating the Cimbri, as for overturning in Rome the tyranny of the nobles."[85]
Mirabeau now threw himself into the arms of the Third Estate. That he might more perfectly identify himself with them, he hired a shop, it is said, in Marseilles, and put up his sign--Mirabeau, Woolen-draper. By such influences he was elected deputy by the Third Estate both at Aix and at Marseilles. With enthusiasm was he elected--with ringing of bells, booming of cannon, and popular acclaim. He decided to accept the election of Aix. His measureless audacity was soon called into requisition to repel the haughtiness of the court.[86]
The nobles had obtained the decision that the people should not be allowed the secret ballot, but should vote with an audible voice. They cherished the hope that inferior people so dependent upon the higher and wealthy classes, would not venture openly to vote in opposition to the wishes of their superiors.[87] It was thought that the nobles might thus be able to control the popular election. To render this more certain, the people, in their primary assemblies, were only to choose electors; and these electors were to choose the delegates. Thus then was a double chance for intimidation and bribery.
But the people had made progress in intelligence far beyond the conceptions of the nobles. They had an instinctive perception of their rights, and, in the presence of their frowning lords, unawed, yet respectfully, they chose electors who would be true to the popular cause.[88] Thus the nobles not only failed in introducing an aristocratic element into the popular branch, but, much to their chagrin, they found a very powerful popular party thrown into the order of the clergy.[89] The higher offices in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which gave the possessor vast revenue and no labor, were generally in the hands of nobles, haughty, intolerant, united in all their sympathies with their brethren of the privileged class. But the curates, the pastors of the churches, who preached, and visited the rich, and instructed the children, working hard and living in penury, came from the firesides of the people. They were familiar with the sufferings of their parishioners, and their sympathies were warmly with them. Many of these curates were men of unaffected piety. Nearly every writer upon the Revolution is compelled to do them justice.[90]
It had been decided that the States-General should consist of twelve hundred members. The people were consequently to choose six hundred, and the clergy and nobility six hundred. But, as the three orders held their elections separately, the two privileged classes were entitled to three hundred each. Two hundred curates were chosen as representatives of the clergy. And though these parish ministers were much overawed by their ecclesiastical superiors, and would hardly venture openly to vote in contradiction to their wishes, still both nobles and bishops understood that they were in heart with the people. There was also a very small minority among the nobles who were advocates of the popular cause, some from noble impulses, like La Fayette, and some from ignoble motives, like the Duke of Orleans. Thomas Jefferson, who was at this time in Paris, wrote four days after the opening of the States-General to Mr. Jay, "It was imagined the ecclesiastical elections would have been generally in favor of the higher clergy; on the contrary, the lower clergy have obtained five sixths of these deputations. These are the sons of peasants, who have done all the drudgery of the service for ten, twenty, and thirty guineas a year, and whose oppressions and penury, contrasted with the pride and luxury of the higher clergy, have rendered them perfectly disposed to humble the latter."
These facts, and the harmony with which the inexperienced multitude took this first great step toward national regeneration, excited throughout aristocratic Europe amazement and alarm. Kings and nobles alike trembled. All the states of Europe, like France, were oppressed by feudal despotism. All the people of Europe might, like the French, demand reform. The formidable aspect which this popular unity of thought and action presented struck such terror that many of the leading nobles of France combined, among whom was Count d'Artois, brother of the king, afterward Charles X., and wrote a menacing letter to the king, to induce him to break his pledge and forbid the meeting of the States.[91]
It was now, however, too late to retract. The train was in motion and could not be stopped. The meeting had been appointed for the 27th of April, but was postponed until the 4th of May. Another effort, and one still more desperate, was now made to prevent the meeting. By bribery, secret agents, and false rumors, a riot was fomented in Paris. It was apparently judged that if fifty thousand men could be turned loose into the streets, starving and without work, to pillage and destroy, it would authorize the concentration of the army at Paris; the deluded rioters could be easily shot down, and it could plausibly be affirmed that public tranquility required the postponement of the meeting of the States. The mob was roused by secret instigators. Guns were skillfully placed here and there, which they could seize. Two cart-loads of paving-stones were placed in their way. For twenty-four hours a tumultuous mass of people were left to do as they pleased, apparently waiting for the tumult to gain strength.
But the effort was a failure; it proved but an artificial mob, and the outbreak almost died of itself. One house, that of M. Reveillon, was sacked, and the wine-bottles from his cellar distributed through the streets. At length the soldiers were called in, and at the first discharge of the guns the riot was quelled. How many were shot down by the discharge of grapeshot is uncertain. The court made a foolish endeavor to exaggerate the disturbance, and represented that the people were ferocious in violence. Others, on the popular side, represented that multitudes were assembled from curiosity to see what was going on, that the streets were swept with grapeshot, and that hundreds of innocent spectators were cut down. M. Bailly, on the contrary, says, that the rioters fled as soon as the soldiers appeared, and that no one was injured.
The court did not venture to prosecute inquiries respecting the outbreak.[92]
The cold winds of winter were now sweeping over France. All the industrial energies of the nation were paralyzed. The loss of the harvest had created a general famine, and famine had introduced pestilence. Men, women, and children, without number, wandered over the highways, and by a natural instinct flocked to Paris. The inhabitants of the city looked appalled upon these multitudes, with haggard faces and in rags, who crowded their pavements. They could not be fed, and starving men are not willing to lie down tranquilly and die when they have strong arms to seize that food which the rich can obtain with money. The eloquent and impassioned writers of the day had fully unveiled to the nation the abuses which it had for ages endured, and yet the people, with wonderful patience and long-suffering, were quietly waiting for the meeting of the States-General, as the only means for the redress of their grievances.
On the 4th of May, 1789, the States-General were convened at Versailles. The clergy and the nobility appeared, by royal decree, magnificently attired in purple robes emblazoned with gold, and with plumed hats. The deputies of the Third Estate were enjoined to present themselves in plain black cloaks and slouched hats, as the badge of their inferiority.[93] On Saturday, the 2d of May, the king gave a reception, in the magnificent audience-chamber of the palace, to the delegates. When one of the nobles or of the high clergy presented himself both of the folding doors were thrown open as his name was announced; but when one of the Third Estate was presented one door only was thrown back. This studied indignity was of course annoying to men who were really the most distinguished in the realm, and who were conscious of their vast superiority to the corrupt and decaying aristocracy.[94]
On the Paris Avenue at Versailles there was an immense hall called the Salle des Menus, which no longer exists. It was sufficiently large to contain the twelve hundred deputies, and in whose spacious galleries and wide side-aisles four thousand spectators could be assembled. It was a magnificent hall, and was ornamented for the occasion with the highest embellishments of art. Here the king could meet all the deputies of the three orders. But the nobles and the clergy had already formed the plan still to keep the power in their own hands by insisting that the States should meet in three separate chambers and give three separate votes. Thus three hundred nobles and three hundred clergy would give two votes, and six hundred of the people but one. This was the last chance for the privileged class to retain their domination, and this battle they would fight to desperation. The people were equally determined not to be thus circumvented. The privileged class, resolved upon the accomplishment of their plan, had prepared for themselves two smaller halls, one for the nobility and one for the clergy.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 77: Brienne, in addition to the Archbishopric of Toulouse, was appointed Archbishop of Sens, and Louis XVI. obtained for him from Pius VI. a cardinal's hat. The Cardinal of Loménie as he was then called, subsequently returned to France, where he was arrested, and, Feb. 19, 1794, was found dead on the floor of his cell, in the 67th year of his age.--Enc. Am.]
[Footnote 78: Alison, Hist. of Europe, vol. i., p. 63.]
[Footnote 79: "For, behold, this monstrous twenty-million class, hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to agree about the sheering of, is now also arising with hopes! It has ceased or is ceasing to be dumb. It speaks through pamphlets. It is a sheer snowing of pamphlets, like to snow up the government thoroughfares."--Carlyle, vol. i., p. 112.]
[Footnote 80: Labaume, vol. ii., p. 323.
It was supposed that the Count of Provence, afterward Louis XVIII., was then intriguing to gain popularity, that he might dethrone his brother and take his place. "Le Comte de Provence," writes Villaumé, "intrigoit et profitait des fautes du roi, pour se frayer un chemin vers le trône."--Hist. de Rev. Fr., par Villaumé, vol. i., p. 13.]
[Footnote 81: Rapport fait au Roi dans son Conceil, le 27 Décembre, 1788.]
[Footnote 82: The edict convening the States contained the following sentiments: "We have need of the concourse of our faithful subjects to aid in surmounting the difficulties arising from the state of the finances, and establishing, in conformity with our most ardent desire, a durable order in the parts of government which affect the public welfare. We wish that the three estates should confer together on the matters which will be exhibited for their examination. They will make known to us the wishes and grievances of the people in such a way that, by a mutual confidence and exchange of kindly offices between the king and the people, the public evils should, as rapidly as possible, be remedied.
"For this purpose we enjoin and command that immediately upon the receipt of this letter, you proceed to elect deputies of the three orders, worthy of confidence from their virtues and the spirit with which they are animated; that the deputies should be furnished with powers and instructions sufficient to enable them to attend to all the concerns of the state, and introduce such remedies as shall be deemed advisable for the reform of abuses, and the establishment of a fixed and durable order in all parts of the government, worthy of the paternal affections of the king, and of the revolutions of so noble an assembly."--Calonne, Etat de la France, p. 315.]
[Footnote 83: Michelet, vol. i., p. 75.]
[Footnote 84: "I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) who live without government, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under the pretense of governing, they have divided their nations into two classes--wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate."--Thomas Jefferson. Life by Henry S. Randall, vol. i., p. 464.]
[Footnote 85: Tils Adoptif, vol. v., p. 256.]
[Footnote 86: Art. Mirabeau, Biographie Moderne.]
[Footnote 87: "The popular assemblies were to vote by acclamation (à haute voix). They did not suppose that inferior people in such a mode of election, in presence of the nobles and Notables, would possess sufficient firmness to oppose them--enough assurance to pronounce other names than those which were dictated to them."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 76.]
[Footnote 88: "The long-looked-for has come at last; wondrous news of victory, deliverance, enfranchisement, sounds magical through every heart. To the proud strong man it has come whose strong hands shall be no more gyved. The weary day-drudge has heard of it; the beggar with his crust moistened in tears. What! to us also has hope reached--down even to us? Hunger and hardship are not to be eternal? The bread we extorted from the rugged glebe, and with the toil of our sinews reaped, and ground, and kneaded into loaves, was not wholly for another then, but we shall cut of it and be filled?"--Carlyle, vol. i., p. 118.]
[Footnote 89: "The prelates and dignified clergy felt the utmost disquietude at the number of curés and ecclesiastics of inferior rank who attended them as members of the States-General. It was evident, from their conversation, habits, and manners, that they participated in the feelings of the Tiers Etat, with whom they lived in constant communication; and that the unjust exclusion of the middling ranks from the dignities and emoluments of the Church had excited as much dissatisfaction in the ecclesiastical classes as the invidious privileges of the noblesse had awakened in the laity."--Alison's History of Europe, vol. i., p. 68.]
[Footnote 90: Michelet, vol. i., p. 77. Desodoards, vol. i., p. 135. Rabaud, vol. i., p. 41. De Tocqueville, Old Régime, vol. i., p. 144.]
[Footnote 91: Michelet, vol. i., p. 78. Mémoire présenté au Roi par Monseigneur Compte d'Artois (Charles X.), M. le Prince de Condé, M. le Duc de Bourbon, M. le Duc d'Enghien, et M. le Prince de Conti.]
[Footnote 92: It has been denied that the nobles were guilty of this act. For proof see Mémoires de Bensenval, tome ii., p. 347; L'OEuvre des Sept Jours, p. 411; Exposé Justificatif; Bailly's Mémoires, tome ii., p. 51. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne writes: "If the agents of despotism devised this infernal stratagem, as was afterward believed, it makes one crime more to be added to all those of which despotism had already become guilty."]
[Footnote 93: "A hall had been hastily got ready; the costumes were determined upon, and a humiliating badge had been imposed upon the Tiers Etat. Men are not less jealous of their dignity than of their rights. With a very just pride the instructions forbade the deputies to condescend to any degrading ceremonial."--Thiers, vol. i., p. 35.]
[Footnote 94: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 43.]
IX. ASSEMBLING OF THE STATES-GENERAL
Opening of the States-General.--Sermon of the Bishop of Nancy.--Insult to the Deputies of the People.--Aspect of Mirabeau.--Boldness of the Third Estate.--Journal of Mirabeau.--Commencement of the Conflict.--First Appearance of Robespierre.--Decided Stand taken by the Commons.--Views of the Curates.--Dismay of the Nobles.--Excitement in Paris.--The National Assembly.--The Oath.
On the 4th of May, 1789, the day of the opening of the States-General, a solemn procession took place. Nearly all Paris flocked out to Versailles, which is but ten miles from the metropolis, and countless thousands from the surrounding regions crowded the avenues of the city of the court. The streets were decorated with tapestry. The pavements, balconies, and house-tops were covered with spectators. Joy beamed from almost every face,[95] for it was felt that, after a long night, a day of prosperity was dawning. The court, the clergy, and the nobles appeared in extraordinary splendor; but, as the procession moved along, it was observed that the eyes of the multitude, undazzled by the pageant of embroidered robes and nodding plumes, were riveted upon the six hundred deputies of the people, in their plain garb--the advance-guard of freedom's battalions. They were every where greeted, as they moved along, with clapping of hands and acclaim which seemed to rend the skies.
"Rapturous, enchanting scene!" exclaims Ferrières, "to which I faintly strive to do justice. Bands of music, placed at intervals, filled the air with melodious sounds. Military marches, the rolling of the drums, the clang of trumpets, the noble chants of the priests, alternately heard without discordance, without confusion, enlivened this triumphal procession to the temple of the Almighty."
On their arrival at the church, the three orders were seated on benches placed in the nave. The king and queen occupied thrones beneath a canopy of purple velvet sprinkled with golden fleur de lis. The princes and princesses, with the great officers of the crown and the ladies of the palace, occupied conspicuous positions reserved for them by the side of their majesties. After the most imposing ceremonies, and music by a majestic choir, "unaccompanied by the din of instruments," the Bishop of Nancy preached a sermon enforcing the sentiment that religion constitutes the prosperity of nations.[96]
It was a noble discourse, replete with political wisdom and Christian philosophy. The two can never be dissevered. In glowing colors he depicted the vices of the financial system, and showed the misery and demoralization which it necessarily brought upon the people. "And it is," said he, "in the name of a good king, of a just and feeling monarch, that these miserable exactors exercise their acts of barbarism." This sentiment, so complimentary to the personal character of the king, so denunciatory of the institutions of France, was received with a general burst of applause, notwithstanding the sacredness of the place, and the etiquette of the French court, which did not allow applause in the presence of the king even at the theatre.[97] With these religious ceremonies the day was closed.
The next day, May 5th, the court and all the deputies of the three orders were assembled in the great hall, to listen to the instructions of the king. And here, again, the deputies of the people encountered an insult. A particular door was assigned to them, a back door which they approached by a corridor, where they were kept crowded together for several hours, until the king, the court, the nobles, and the clergy had entered in state at the great door, and had taken their seats. The back door was then opened, and the deputies of the people, in that garb which had been imposed upon them as a badge of inferiority, were permitted to file in and take the benches at the lower end of the hall which had been left for them.[98]
As they entered, the galleries were filled with spectators. The king and queen were seated upon a throne gorgeously decorated. The court, in its highest splendor, nearly encircled the throne. The nobility and the clergy, with plumes and robes of state, occupied elevated seats. All eyes were fixed upon the deputies as they entered one by one, plainly dressed, with slouched hat in hand. Mirabeau, in particular, attracted universal observation. He was not only by birth and blood an aristocrat, but he was an aristocrat in taste and manners. The spirit of revenge had driven him into the ranks of the people. As he strode along the aisle to his seat, he turned a threatening glance to the plumed and embroidered noblesse, from whose seats he had been driven, and a smile, haughty and bitterly menacing, curled his lips.[99]
The king's speech was favorably received. He appeared before the representatives with dignity, and recited very appropriately the cordial and conciliatory words which Necker had placed in his mouth. On finishing his speech, he sat down and put on his plumed hat. The clergy and the nobles, in accordance with custom, did the same. But to their astonishment, the Third Estate also, as by an instinctive simultaneous movement, placed their slouched hats upon their heads. The nobles, amazed at what they deemed such insolence of the people, shouted imperiously, "Hats off, hats off!" But the hats remained, as if glued to the head. The king, to appease the tumult, again uncovered his head. This necessitated the nobles and the clergy to do the same. Immediately the Third Estate followed their example, and, for the remainder of the session, all sat with uncovered heads.[100] When the last States-General met, the Third Estate were compelled to throw themselves upon their knees in the presence of the king, and to address him only upon their knees.[101]
When Necker arose to speak, all eyes were riveted and all ears were on the alert. As the organ of the king and his council, the minister was to communicate the real opinions and intentions of the court. The clergy and the nobility were agreeably disappointed; but the people, on their back benches, listened silent and sorrowful. They heard none of those noble ideas of equality and liberty which they were ready to receive with enthusiastic acclaim. Necker was evidently trammeled by the king, the court, and the nobles, now uniting in the feeling that the rising power of the Third Estate must be repressed. Thus ended the second day.
Mirabeau had commenced a journal, to contain, for popular information, a record of the proceedings of the States-General. The court promptly issued a decree prohibiting the publication of this journal, and also prohibiting the issuing of any periodical without permission of the king. A rigid censorship of the press was thus re-established, and the deputies were excluded from all effectual communication with their constituents. This was another measure of folly and madness. It led individual members to issue written journals, which were read in the saloons, the clubs, and at the corners of the streets to excited multitudes, and it induced thousands to crowd the spacious galleries of the hall to listen to the debates. Thus the speakers were animated by the presence of four thousand of the most earnest of the people, eager to applaud every utterance in behalf of popular liberty. The public mind was also increasingly irritated by the petty persecution; so much so, that at length the king thought it not safe to enforce the decree, and the defiant Mirabeau soon resumed the publication of his journal, under the title of Letters to my Constituents.[102]
The next day the deputies of the Third Estate at the appointed hour repaired to the hall; but they found there none either of the clergy or of the nobles. These two parties, resolved to perpetuate the division of orders, had met in their respective halls and had organized as distinct bodies. The Third Estate, assuming the name of the Commons, abstained from any organic measures and waited to be joined by their colleagues. Thus matters continued for several days. Every effort was made on the part of the clergy and nobles to ensnare the Commons into some measure which would imply their organization as the Third Estate, but all was in vain. Assuming that they were a meeting of citizens assembled by legitimate authority to wait for other citizens that they might organize a political assembly, they merely chose a temporary chairman for the preservation of order, and waited.[103]
Here, then, the vital question was to be decided whether the States-General should compose one body where the majority should rule, or three separate bodies where two could unite, a perpetual majority, against one. Upon this question the whole issue of reform was suspended. All equally understood the bearings of the question, and all equally saw that there was no room for compromise. It was a death-struggle. If united in one assembly the people would have a majority, and could maintain popular rights. If there were three bodies the people would be in a hopeless minority, having two against them. The attention of all France was engrossed by the conflict, and the nation, with all its interests paralyzed, began to grow impatient of the delay. "The nobles," M. Bailly writes, "decreed that the deliberation by order, and the power of each order to put a veto on the proceedings of the other two, were part of the very constitution of the monarchy, and that they must maintain them as the defenders of the throne and freedom. What a strange decree! The representatives of about two hundred thousand individuals, or more, who are nobles take upon themselves to decide, and in their own favor, a question that concerns twenty-five millions of men. They assume for themselves the right of the veto; they declare the powers and the principles of the constitution; and who are they more than others who thus declare?"[104]
During this protracted conflict the higher clergy cunningly devised the following plan to place the Commons in a false position: They sent an imposing delegation, headed by the Archbishop of Aix, with a pathetic allusion to the miseries of the people, and entreated the Commons to enter into a conference to assuage their sufferings. The snare was shrewdly contrived. If the Commons assented, it was the commencement of business with three chambers; if they refused, the clergy would apparently be those alone who regarded the starving population. For a moment there was much embarrassment.
A young man rose in the Assembly, who was unknown to nearly all the members, and in a calm, distinct, deliberate voice, which arrested universal attention, said:
"Go, tell your colleagues that we are waiting for them here to aid us in assuaging the sorrows of the people; tell them no longer to retard our work; tell them that our resolution is not to be shaken by such a stratagem as this. If they have sympathy for the poor, let them, as imitators of their Master, renounce that luxury which consumes the funds of indigence, dismiss those insolent lackeys who attend them, sell their gorgeous equipages, and with these superfluities relieve the perishing. We wait for them here."[105]
The snare was adroitly avoided. There was a universal hum of approval, and all were inquiring the name of the young deputy. This was the first public appearance of Maximilian Robespierre.[106]
At last, on the 27th of May, twenty-two days after the convening of the States, the Commons sent a deputation to the halls of the clergy and of the nobility, urging them, in the name of the God of peace, to meet in the hall of the Assembly to deliberate upon the public welfare. This led to a series of conferences and of suggested compromises from the king and the court which continued for a fortnight, and all of which proved unavailing. At last, on the 10th of June, Mirabeau arose, and said,
"A month is passed.[107] It is time to take a decisive step. A deputy of Paris has an important motion to make. Let us hear him."
The Abbé Sièyes[108] then rose and proposed to send a last invitation to the other orders to join them; and, if they refused, to proceed to business, not as a branch of the convention, but as the whole body. The proposition was received with enthusiasm. This was on Wednesday. As the next day, Thursday, was appropriated to religious solemnities, Friday, the 12th, was fixed upon as the day in which this important summons was to be sent.[109]
This last appeal was sent in the following words, which the committee from the Commons were charged to read to the clergy and the nobles, and a copy of which they were to leave with them:
"Gentlemen, we are commissioned by the deputies of the Commons of France to apprise you that they can no longer delay the fulfillment of the obligation imposed on all the representatives of the nation. It is assuredly time that those who claim this quality should make themselves known by a common verification of their powers, and begin at length to attend to the national interest, which alone, and to the exclusion of all private interests, presents itself as the grand aim to which all the deputies ought to tend by one general effort. In consequence, and from the necessity which the representatives of the nation are under to proceed to business, the deputies of the Commons entreat you anew, gentlemen, and their duty enjoins them to address to you, as well individually as collectively, a last summons to come to the hall of the States, to attend, concur in, and submit like themselves to the common verification of powers. We are, at the same time, directed to inform you that the general call of all the bailliages convoked will take place in an hour; that the Assembly will immediately proceed to the verification, and that such as do not appear will be declared defaulters."
This summons, so bold and decisive, excited not a little consternation in both of the privileged bodies. The curates among the clergy received the message with applause, and were in favor of immediate compliance. But their ecclesiastical superiors held them in check, and succeeded in obtaining an adjournment.
The Commons waited the hour, and then proceeded to the examination of the credentials of the deputies. This occupied three days. On the first day three of the curates came from the clergy and united with them. They were received with enthusiasm. On the second day six came, on the third ten, and then it was announced that one hundred and forty were coming in a body. This excited thorough alarm with all the high dignitaries of Church and State. "The aristocracy," says Thiers, "immediately threw itself at the feet of the king. The Duke of Luxembourg, the Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, the Archbishop of Paris, implored him to repress the audacity of the Tiers Etat and to support their rights which were attacked. The Parliament proposed to him to do without the States, promising to assent to all the taxes. The king was surrounded by the princes and the queen. This was more than was requisite for his weakness. They hurried him off to Marly in order to extort from him a vigorous measure."
This state of things had secured perfect reconciliation between the court and the aristocracy. The lines were now distinctly drawn; the king, nobles, and clergy on one side, the people on the other. The excitement in Paris during this protracted conflict was very great. A large wooden tent was erected in the garden of the Palais Royal, where a crowd was almost constantly gathered to receive the news brought by couriers from Versailles. At every street corner, in every café, the subject was discussed. Almost every hour produced a pamphlet. "There were thirteen issued to-day," writes Arthur Young, "sixteen yesterday, ninety-two last week." In the mean time the court was concentrating the troops from all parts of the kingdom around Paris and Versailles, and a hundred pieces of field artillery menaced the two cities.
It was now necessary to give the Assembly a name, a name which should define its functions. The assumption that they were the nation would be bold and defiant. The admission that they were but a branch of the national representation would be paralyzing. The Assembly was impelled to prompt and decisive action by the apprehension, universally entertained, that the court might employ the army, now assembled in such force, to arrest the principal deputies, dissolve the States, and, if the people of Paris manifested any opposition, to surround the city and starve them into subjection. Sièyes, in a celebrated pamphlet which he had issued to prepare the public mind for this movement, had said, "The Third Estate alone, they affirm, can not form the States-General. Well! so much the better; it shall compose a National Assembly." A body which, by universal admission represented ninety-six hundredths of the nation, might with propriety take the name of National.[110]
Upon the morning of the 17th of June, after a long and animated discussion of the preceding day, the Commons met to decide this all-important question. The king, the court, and the aristocracy were greatly alarmed. If this bold, resolute body were the nation, what were they? Nothing. The people were intensely excited and animated. Thousands in every conceivable vehicle flocked out from Paris to Versailles. The galleries of the vast hall, rising like an amphitheatre, were crowded to their utmost capacity. The building was surrounded and the broad avenues of Versailles thronged with the excited yet orderly multitude.
The members had but just assembled when the president, Bailly, was summoned to the chancellor's office to receive a message from the king. It was well understood that this message would be a regal prohibition for them to do any thing without the concurrence of the three orders. The Assembly immediately, with firmness, postponed the reception of the message until the vote then before them was taken. Again they were interrupted by a communication from the nobles, who in their alarm made a desperate endeavor to thwart the proceedings. But the Assembly calmly and firmly proceeded, and by a vote of four hundred and one against ninety declared themselves the National Assembly.
In the presence of four thousand spectators the deputies then arose, and with uplifted hands took the oath of fidelity. As with simultaneous voice they pronounced the words "We swear," a burst of acclamation rose from the galleries, which was caught by those outside the door and rolled along the streets like reverberating thunder. "Vive le Roi! Vive l'Assemblée Nationale!" was the cry which came from gushing hearts, and thousands in intensity of emotion bowed their heads and wept.
A more heroic deed than this history has not recorded. It was a decisive movement. It gave the people an organization and arrayed them face to face against royalty and aristocracy. The king, the court, the nobles, and the higher clergy were all against them. They were surrounded with armies. They were unarmed and helpless, save in the righteousness of their cause. They were menaced with all the terrors of exile, the dungeon, and the scaffold; but, regardless of all these perils, faithful to the sacred cause of popular liberty, they pledged in its support their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Even Alison, the unrelenting foe of popular rights, the untiring advocate of aristocratic assumption, is constrained to say,
"It is impossible to refuse a tribute of admiration to those intrepid men, who, transported by a zeal for liberty and the love of their country, ventured to take a step fraught with so many dangers, and which, to all appearance, might have brought many to prison or the scaffold. Few situations can be imagined more dignified than that of Bailly, crowning a life of scientific labor with patriotic exertion, surrounded by an admiring assembly, the idol of the people, the admiration of Europe."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 95: "Like the nation, I was full of hope, hope that I then could not suppose vain. Alas! how can one now think without tears on the hopes and expectations then every where felt by all good Frenchmen, by every friend of humanity!"--Necker on the French Revolution.]
[Footnote 96: "The Tiers Etat numbered among its members a great proportion of the talent and almost all the energy of France. The leading members of the bar, of the mercantile and medical classes, and many of the ablest of the clergy were to be found in its ranks."--Alison, vol. i., p. 69.]
[Footnote 97: France and its Revolutions, by Geo. Long, Esq., p. 2.]
[Footnote 98: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 47.]
[Footnote 99: Madame de Staël.]
[Footnote 100: Histoire Parlementaire, vol. i., p. 356.]
[Footnote 101: "Who would believe that this mad court remembered and regretted the absurd custom of making the Third Estate harangue on their knees? They were unwilling to dispense from this ceremony expressly, and preferred deciding that the President of the Third Estate should make no speech whatever."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 88.]
[Footnote 102: Procès verbal des électeurs redigé par Bailly et Duveyrier, t. i., p. 34.]
[Footnote 103: "The chairman was M. Bailly, a simple and virtuous man, an illustrious and modest cultivator of the sciences, who had been suddenly transported from the quiet studies of his closet into the midst of civil broils. Elected to preside over a great assembly, he had been alarmed at his new office, had deemed himself unworthy to fill it, and had undertaken it solely from a sense of duty. But, raised all at once to liberty, he found within him an unexpected presence of mind and firmness. Amid so many conflicts, he caused the majesty of the assembly to be respected, and represented it with all the dignity of virtue and reason."--Thiers, vol. i., p. 42.]
[Footnote 104: Indignantly Desodoards exclaims, "The descendants of the Sicumbrians, or of I know not what savages, who ages ago came prowling from the forests of Germany, could they assume at the end of eighteen centuries that their blood was more pure than that which flowed in the veins of the descendants of the Gauls, or the Romans, the ancient inhabitants of France? Do they pretend that they are nobles because they are conquerors? Then we, being now more powerful, have only to drive them across the Rhine, and in our turn we shall be conquerors and consequently nobles."-Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, Citoyen Français.]
[Footnote 105: "What a spectacle for France! Six hundred inorganic individuals, essential for its regeneration and salvation, sit there on their elliptic benches longing passionately toward life, in painful durance, like souls waiting to be born. Speeches are spoken, eloquent, audible within doors and without. Mind agitates itself against mind; the nation looks on with ever deeper interest. Thus do the Commons deputies sit incubating."--Carlyle, vol. i., p. 148.]
[Footnote 106: Bailly's Mémoires, t. i., p. 114.--Dumont, Souvenirs, etc., vol. i., p. 59.]
[Footnote 107: "A month lost! One month in open famine. Observe that in this long expectation the rich kept themselves motionless, and postponed every kind of expenditure. Work had ceased. He who had but his hands, his daily labor to supply the day, went to look for work, found none--begged--got nothing--robbed. Starving gangs overran the country."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 93.]
[Footnote 108: The Abbé Sièyes was one of the deputies sent by the Third Estate from Paris, and the only clergyman in their delegation.]
[Footnote 109: Sièyes' motion was to summon the privileged. By vote of the Assembly the word was changed to invite.--France and its Revolutions, by G. Long, Esq., p. 12.
"The Assembly," writes M. Bailly, its president, "deliberating after the verification of its powers, perceives that it is already composed of representatives sent directly by ninety-six hundredths, at least, of the whole nation. Nothing can be more exact than this assertion. The four hundredths that are absent, but duly summoned, can not impede the ninety-six hundredths that are present.
"The Assembly will never lose the hope of uniting in its bosom all the deputies that are now absent; will never cease to call upon them to fulfill the obligation that has been imposed upon them of concurring with the sitting of the States-General. At whatever moment the absent deputies may present themselves in the session about to open, the Assembly declares beforehand that it will hasten to receive them, to share with them, after the verification of their powers, the continuance of the great labors which can not but procure the regeneration of France."]
[Footnote 110: Necker estimated the Third Estate at ninety-eight hundredths of the population.]
X. THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
First Acts of the Assembly.--Confusion of the Court.--Hall of the Assembly closed.--Adjournment to the Tennis-court.--Cabinet Councils.--Despotic Measures.--The Tennis-court closed.--Exultation of the Court.--Union with the Clergy.--Peril of the Assembly.--The Royal Sitting.--Speech of the King.
The first measure adopted by the National Assembly was worthy of itself. It was voted that the taxes already decreed, though not legally assessed by the consent of the nation, should be punctiliously paid. Instead of repudiating the enormous public debt, they appropriated it as their own and placed it under the safeguard of the nation. They then appointed a committee immediately to attend to the distresses of the people, and to devise measures for their relief. How vast the contrast between this magnanimity of the people and the selfishness and corruption of the court, as developed through ages! Thus terminated the eventful 17th of June, 1789, which may almost be considered the birthday of the nation of France. Before this event the people had hardly a recognized existence. Though the cradle of its infancy has been rocked with storms, and though in its advancing manhood it has encountered fearful perils and the sternest conflicts, yet its progress is surely onward to dignity and repose.
At an early hour the Assembly adjourned. Couriers from the hall hastened to expectant Paris with the glad tidings. The most fervid imagination can not conceive the joyful enthusiasm which the intelligence excited in the metropolis and throughout France. The king and his court were at this time a few miles from Versailles, in the Palace of Marly. The clergy and the nobles, in consternation, sent a committee of their most prominent members to implore the interposition of the royal power.[111] But the king had not sufficient nerve for so decisive an act. It was urged that the nobility and the clergy should immediately combine in forming a united body which should constitute an upper house; and thus naturally the kingdom would have fallen into a monarchy like that of England, with its House of Lords and its House of Commons. This would have been a most salutary reform, and would have prepared the way for the gradual and safe advance of the nation from servitude to freedom. But, with madness almost inconceivable, the high nobility with contempt repelled all idea of union.[112] They deemed it a degradation to form a permanent association with the lower clergy and with men who had been within a few centuries ennobled by a decree of the king. Thus the formation of two separate chambers was rendered impossible by the folly of those very men whose existence depended upon it. Thus all was confusion and dismay with the nobles and the clergy, while unanimity and vigor pervaded every movement of the Assembly.[113]
In this state of affairs a large proportion of the clergy, composing nearly all the parish ministers, were in favor of uniting with the Assembly. The Duke of Orleans also, among the nobility, led a small minority of the nobles in advocacy of the same measure. But the court generally entreated the king immediately to dissolve the Assembly, by violence if needful. The popular excitement in Paris and in Versailles became intense. The only hope of the people was in the Assembly. Its dissolution left them hopeless and in despair. The king was vacillating, intensely anxious to crush the popular movement, now become so formidable, but still fearing to adopt those energetic measures by which alone it could be accomplished. He at length decided, in accordance with that system of folly with which the court seems to have been inspired, to resort to the very worst measure which could have been adopted. On Friday the 17th of June the majority of the clergy, consisting of a few prelates and about one hundred and forty curates, resolved to withdraw from the dignitaries of the Church and unite with the people, in the Assembly, the next day. The prospect of such an accession to the popular branch struck consternation into the ranks of the privileged classes. A delegation of bishops and nobles in the night hastened to the king at Marly, and persuaded him to interfere to prevent the junction.
Yielding to their importunities he consented to shut up the hall of Assembly the next day, and to guard the entrance with soldiers, so that there might be no meeting. As an excuse for this act of violence it was to be alleged that the hall was needed for workmen to put up decorations, in preparation for a royal sitting which was to be held on Monday. The king thus gained time to decide upon the measures which he would announce at the royal sitting.[114]
At six o'clock in the morning of Saturday, placards were posted through the streets of Versailles announcing this decree. At seven o'clock, M. Bailly, president of the Assembly, received a note from one of the officers of the king's household, informing him of the decision. The Assembly had adjourned the evening before to meet at eight o'clock in the morning. It was, of course, proper that such a communication should have been made, not to the president at his lodgings, but to the assembled body. It was a stormy morning; sheets of rain, driven by a fierce wind, flooded the streets. At the appointed hour the president, accompanied by several deputies, approached the hall. They found the door guarded by a detachment of the royal troops, and a large number of the representatives assembled before it. Admission was positively refused, and it was declared that any attempt to force an entrance would be repelled by the bayonet.[115]
The Assembly and the people were greatly alarmed: measures of violence were already commenced. Their immediate dissolution was menaced, and thus were to perish all hopes of reform. The rain still fell in torrents. There was no hall in Versailles to which they could resort. Some proposed immediately adjourning to Paris, where they could throw themselves upon the protection of the masses. This measure, however, was rejected as too revolutionary in its aspect. One suggested that there was in the city an old dilapidated tennis-court, and it was immediately resolved to assemble upon its pavements. The six hundred deputies, now roused to the highest pitch of excitement and followed by a vast concourse of sympathizing and applauding people, passed through the streets to the unfurnished tennis-court. Here, with not even a seat for the president, the Assembly was organized, and Bailly, in a firm voice, administered the following oath, which was instantly repeated in tones so full and strong, by every lip, as to reach the vast concourse which surrounded the building:
"We solemnly swear never to separate, and to assemble wherever circumstances shall require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established, and founded on a solemn basis."
Every deputy then signed this declaration excepting one man; and this Assembly so nobly respected private liberty as to allow him to enter his protest upon the declaration.
It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and the Assembly, having immortalized the place as the cradle of liberty, adjourned.
The next day was the Sabbath, and Monday had been appointed for the royal sitting. The excitement of the court at Marly now amounted almost to a tumult of consternation. Necker, the minister, was proposing measures of conciliation, and had drawn up a plan which would probably have been accepted by the people, for none then wished for the overthrow of the monarchy.[116] All the leaders in the Assembly were united in the desire to preserve the monarchical form of government. Surrounded as they were by thrones, England, not America, was their model. They wished for a constitutional monarchy where the voice of the people should be heard, and where all the citizens should live in the enjoyment of equal rights. Their wishes were wise and noble. Necker, closeted in council with the king and his cabinet, had at last brought the king and the majority of the cabinet over to his views, when an officer of the household came in and whispered to the king. The king immediately arose, and, requesting the council to await his return, left the room.
"This can only be a message from the queen," said M. de Montmorin to Necker; "the princes of the blood have got her to interfere, and persuade the king to adjourn his decision."
It was so. After half an hour the king returned, declined giving his assent to the plan till after another meeting, and dismissed the council. The royal sitting was also postponed until Tuesday.
On Monday, the 22d, the king held another council at Versailles. His two brothers, Count of Provence (Louis XVIII.) and Count d'Artois (Charles X.), with four other dignitaries of the privileged class, met with the council and took an active part in their deliberations. The project of Necker was here discussed and almost indignantly rejected. And yet the most earnest Royalists admit that it was extremely favorable to the privileged class, and no Republican can read it without being surprised that so much could then have been yielded by the people to aristocratic assumption.[117] But still this plan, in which Necker had gone to the utmost extreme of concession to propitiate the court, was peremptorily rejected, and another, insulting in its tone, imperious in its exactments, and utterly despotic in its principles, was adopted, and the Assembly was to be sternly dissolved. Necker remonstrated in vain, and at last, in mortification and despair, declared that he could not countenance such a message by his presence, and that he should be under the necessity of resigning his ministry. The feeble, vacillating king was in judgment and in heart with Necker, as were also one or two other of the ministers; but the queen, inheriting the spirit of Austrian despotism, acting through the two brothers of the king and the majority of the court, carried her point. This agitated discussion continued until midnight of Sunday, and then it was too late to propose the defiant message for the next day. The royal sitting was consequently postponed until Tuesday.[118]
To prevent the Assembly from meeting in the tennis-court on Monday, where the curates could join them, the Count d'Artois sent word to the keeper that he wished for the tennis-court on that day to play. On Monday morning, when the Assembly, according to its adjournment, met at the door, they found the entrance guarded, and they were excluded under the plea that the Count d'Artois wished for the room for his own amusement. Thus an Assembly, now consisting of seven or eight hundred of the most illustrious men of France, the representatives of twenty-five millions of people, were driven again into the streets, because a young nobleman wished for their room that he might play a game of ball.
Some of the younger deputies, exasperated by such treatment, were in favor of forcing an entrance. But armed bands, all under aristocratic officers, were parading the streets, bayonets glittered around the hall, and fifty thousand troops were within summons. The court did not disguise its merriment as it again contemplated the Assembly wandering houseless like vagabonds in the street. The nobles now felt exultant. They had compelled the king to adopt their plan. The Assembly was to be dismissed in disgrace, and an ample force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery was at hand to carry out their arrogant decree. They no longer feared the Assembly. They no longer hesitated openly to deride them.[119]
These representatives of the people, thus insulted beyond all endurance, were for a time in great perplexity. It so happened, however, that the curates who had voted to unite with the Third Estate, about one hundred and forty in number,[120] with the Archbishop of Vienne at their head, had met in the Church of St. Louis, intending to go from there in procession to join the Assembly. They immediately sent to the Commons an invitation to repair to the church where they were assembled, and, taking themselves the choir, left the nave for their guests. The clergy then descended and united with the Commons, where they were received with shouts, embracings, and tears. It was a solemn hour, and emotions too deep for utterance agitated all hearts. Fearful perils were now accumulating. Rumors had reached the ears of the deputies that the court intended the violent dissolution and dispersion of the Assembly. Thus would end all hopes of reform. The troops marching and countermarching, the new regiments entering the city, the hundred pieces of field artillery approaching, the cannon frowning before the door of their hall, the exultant looks and defiant bearing of their foes, all were portents of some decisive act.[121]
The morning of the 23d of June arrived. It was dark and stormy. At the appointed hour, ten o'clock, the members repaired to the hall of the Assembly to meet the king and court. In various ways they had received intimations of the measures which were to be adopted against them, and anxiety sat upon every countenance. As they approached the hall they found that the same disrespect which they had received on the 5th of May was to be repeated with aggravations. The court wished to humiliate the Commons; they did but exasperate them. The front entrance was reserved as before for the clergy and the nobles. The Commons were guided to a side door not yet opened, where they were left crowded together in the rain. They made several endeavors to gain admission, but could not, and at last sought refuge from the storm in an adjoining shed.[122]
In the mean time the two privileged classes approached with an unusual display of pompous carriages and gorgeous liveries. Files of soldiers protected them, bands of music greeted them, and with the most ostentatious parade of respect they were conducted to their seats. Then the side door was thrown open, and the Commons, with garments drenched and soiled, filed in to take the back benches left for them. They found the aristocracy in their seats, as judges awaiting the approach of criminals. The nobles and the high clergy could not repress their feelings of exultation. The Commons were now to be rebuked, condemned, and crushed.[123]
Military detachments patrolled the streets and were posted around the hall. Four thousand guards were under arms, and there were besides several regiments in the vicinity of Versailles, within an hour's call. A tumultuous mass of people from Paris and Versailles surged around the building and flooded all the adjoining avenues. As the carriage of the king and queen, surrounded by its military retinue, approached, no voice of greeting was heard. The multitude looked on silent and gloomy. The king was exceedingly dejected, for his judgment and heart alike condemned the measures he had been constrained to adopt. The queen was appalled by the ominous silence, and began to fear that they had indeed gone too far. When a few voices shouted "Vive le Duc d'Orleans!" she correctly interpreted this greeting of her implacable foes as an intended insult, and was observed to turn pale and almost to faint.
The king entered the hall with the queen, his two brothers, and his ministers, excepting Necker. The absence of Necker so exclusively arrested all thoughts, that the royal pageant was disregarded. Here again the monarch was received in silence, interrupted only by faint applause from the nobles.
The king hardly knew how to utter the arrogant, defiant words which had been put into his mouth. It was the lamb attempting to imitate the roar of the lion. He addressed a few words to the Assembly, and then placed his declaration in the hands of one of his secretaries to be read.[124]
It declared his intention to maintain the distinction of the three orders, and that they should vote separately; that they might occasionally meet together, with the consent of the king, to vote taxes. The decree of the Commons, constituting a National Assembly, was pronounced illegal and null. The deputies were forbid to receive any instructions from their constituents. No spectators were allowed to be present at the deliberations of the States-General, whether they met together or in different chambers. No innovation was to be allowed in the organization of the army. Nobles, and nobles only, were to be officers. The old feudal privileges were to remain unaltered. No ecclesiastical reforms were to be allowed, unless sanctioned by the clergy.[125]
Such were the prohibitions. Then came the benefits. The king promised to sanction equality of taxation, whenever the clergy and the nobles should consent to such taxation. The king promised to adopt any measures of finance and expenditure which the States-General should recommend, if he judged such measures compatible with the kingly dignity. He invited the States--which, be it remembered, were to be assembled in three chambers, the clergy and the nobility being thus able to outvote the Commons by two votes to one--to propose measures for abolishing lettres de cachet, measures which should not interfere with the power of repressing sedition, and of secretly punishing those whose relatives would be dishonored by their being brought to trial. They were also invited to seek the means of reconciling liberty of the press with the respect due to religion and to the honor of the citizens. In conclusion, the king threatened that if the Commons refused obedience to these declarations he would immediately dissolve the States, and again take the reins of government entirely into his own hands. This address was closed with the following words:
"I command you, gentlemen, immediately to disperse, and to repair to-morrow morning to the chambers appropriate to your order."[126]
The king then, with his attendant court, left the hall. A large part of the nobility and nearly all the bishops followed him. Exultation beamed upon their faces, for they supposed that the National Assembly was now effectually crushed.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 111: Michelet, vol. i., p. 105.]
[Footnote 112: "The party which professed to be the defender of the throne spoke with infinite disdain of the authority of the King of England. To reduce a King of France to the miserable condition of the British monarch was, in the bare conception, heinous and treasonable."--Considerations on the French Revolution, by Madame de Staël.]
[Footnote 113: Madame de Staël, vol. i., p. 106.]
[Footnote 114: Michelet, vol. i., p. 106.
The Marquis of Ferrières, a deputy of the nobles and an earnest advocate of aristocratic assumption, writes in his Mémoires: "The court, unable any longer to hide from themselves the real truth that all their petty expedients to separate the orders served only to bring on their union, resolved to dissolve the States-General. It was necessary to remove the king from Versailles, to get Necker and the ministers attached to him out of the way. A journey to Marly was arranged. The pretext was the death of the dauphin. The mind of the king was successfully worked upon. He was told it was high time to stop the unheard-of enterprises of the Third Estate; that he would soon have only the name of a king. The Cardinal Rochefoucault and the Archbishop of Paris threw themselves at the feet of the king and supplicated him to save the clergy and protect religion. The Parliament sent a secret deputation proposing a scheme for getting rid of the States-General. The keeper of the seals, the Count d'Artois, the queen, all united. All was therefore settled, and an order from the king announced a royal sitting and suspended the States under the pretense of making arrangements in the hall."]
[Footnote 115: "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."--Carlyle, vol. i., p. 156.
"Is it decent," writes M. Bailly in his Memoirs, "that the members of the National Assembly, or even the deputies of the Commons, as you may still please to consider them, should thus be apprised of the intentions of the king, of the suspension of their own sittings, only by the public criers and by notices posted on the wall, as the inhabitants of a town would be made acquainted with the shutting up of a theatre?"]
[Footnote 116: "It is quite certain that, mixed with a little personal vanity, the most sincere wish for the happiness of France, and the happiness of mankind, was the ruling motive with Necker."--Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth, vol. i., p. 287.
"Let us not forget that at that period the whole Assembly was Royalist, without excepting a single member."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 108.]
[Footnote 117: For a full detail of this project see OEuvres de Necker, vol. vi., p. 119. Necker is condemned by Michelet with merciless severity for presenting a project which, though it secured a few reforms, still allowed the despotic court such sway. But if the minister could not carry even this project, what could he have done with one making still greater demands? The British government, with its king and its houses of lords and commons, was Necker's model; though he still allowed the court powers which would not be tolerated by the people of Great Britain for an hour. But the French court looked with contempt upon the limited powers of the king and the nobles of England, and would consent to no approximation to the government which prevailed there. The Tiers Etat would have been more than satisfied with the English Constitution. No one then desired the overthrow of the monarchy.]
[Footnote 118: Smyth, Lectures on French Revolution, i., 192; Michelet, i., 110.]
[Footnote 119: Michelet, i., 110.]
[Footnote 120: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, p. 53, says that the clergy voted for union one hundred and forty-nine voices against one hundred and twenty-six.]
[Footnote 121: "The nobility that I converse with," writes Arthur Young, "are most disgustingly tenacious of all old rights, however hard they may bear upon the people. They will not hear of giving way in the least to the spirit of liberty beyond the point of paying equal land-taxes, which they hold to be all that can with reason be demanded."
"It was only very late," writes Wm. Smyth, "and when too late, that they reached even this point."]
[Footnote 122: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, i., 56.]
[Footnote 123: Id., 57; Michelet, i., 112.]
[Footnote 124: Hist. Parl., vol. ii., p. 15.]
[Footnote 125: "The nobles having applauded the article consecrating feudal rights, loud, distinct voices were heard to utter, 'Silence there!'"--Michelet, vol. i., p. 115.]
[Footnote 126: Mr. Alison strangely says that "These decrees contained the whole elements of rational freedom, abolished pecuniary privileges, regulated the expenses of the royal household, secured the liberty of the press, regulated the criminal code, and the personal freedom of the subject."--Alison, Hist. of Europe, vol. i., p. 74. The French people did not think so. See Michelet's indignant rejection of the mockery of these decrees.--Mich., Hist. Fr. Rev., vol. i., p. 115. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, member of the Assembly, writes, "In these benefits which the king was thus promising to the nation, no mention was made either of the constitution so much desired, or of the participation of the States-General in all acts of legislation, or of the responsibility of ministers, or of the liberty of the press; and almost every thing which constitutes civil liberty was passed over in total silence. Nevertheless, the pretensions of the privileged orders were maintained, the despotism of the ruler was sanctioned, and the States-General were abased and subject to his power."--Hist. of Rev. of Fr., vol. i., p. 56.
The Marquis of Ferrières writes, "The hall was surrounded by soldiers and by guards. Every thing about the throne was silent and melancholy. The declaration itself satisfied no one; and the king spoke rather like a despot who commanded than a monarch who discussed with the representatives of his people the interests of a great nation."]
XI. REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES
Speech of Mirabeau.--Approach of the Soldiers and Peril of the Assembly.--Elation of the Queen.--Triumph of Necker.--Embarrassment of the Bishops and the Nobles.--Letter of the King.--The Bishops and Nobles join the Assembly.--Desperate Resolve of the Nobles.--The Troops sympathizing with the People.
As the king, followed by the nobles and the clergy, left the hall, the Commons remained in their seats. The crisis had now arrived. There was no alternative but resistance or submission, rebellion or servitude. For a moment there was an entire silence. But the spirit of indomitable determination glowed on every cheek. Mirabeau was the first to rise. In a few of those impassioned sentences, which pealed over France like clarion notes, he exclaimed,
"Why this dictatorial language, this train of arms, this violation of the national sanctuary? Who is it who gives commands to us--to us to whom alone twenty-five millions of men are looking for happiness? Let us arm ourselves with our legislative authority, remember our oath--that oath which does not permit us to separate until we have established the constitution!"[127]
While he was yet speaking the Marquis of Brézé, one of the officers of the king, perceiving that the Assembly did not retire, advanced into the centre of the hall, and, in a loud authoritative voice, a voice at whose command nearly fifty thousand troops were ready to march, demanded,
"Did you hear the commands of the king?"
"Yes, sir," responded Mirabeau, with a glaring eye and a thunder tone which made Brézé quail before him, "we did hear the king's command; and you, who have neither seat nor voice in this house, are not the person to remind us of his speech. Go, tell those who sent you that we are here by the power of the people, and that nothing shall drive us hence but the power of the bayonet."[128]
The officer, the marquis, turned to the president, as if inquiring his decision.
"The Assembly," said M. Bailly, "resolved yesterday to sit after the royal session. That question must be discussed."
"Am I to carry that answer to the king?" inquired the marquis.
"Yes, sir," replied the president. The marquis departed. Armed soldiers now entered the hall accompanied by workmen to take away the benches and dismantle the room. Soldiers surrounded the building and the life-guard advanced to the door. But a word from the president arrested the workmen, and they stood with their tools in their hands contemplating with admiration the calm majesty of the Assembly. The body-guard had now formed a line in front of the hall, and the position of its members was full of peril. It was expected that all the prominent deputies would be arrested. A vote was then passed declaring the person of each member of the Assembly inviolable, and pronouncing any one guilty of treason who should attempt to arrest any one of the representatives of the nation.
In the mean time the nobility were in exultation. They deemed the popular movement now effectually crushed. In a crowd they hastened to the residences of the two brothers of the king, the Count of Provence and Count d'Artois, with their congratulations. They then repaired to the queen and assured her that the work was done and that all was safe. The queen was much elated, and received them with smiles. Presenting to them her son, the young dauphin, she said, "I intrust him to the nobility."
But at this very moment loud shouts were heard in the streets, swelling in a roar of tumult from countless voices, which penetrated the inmost apartments of the Palace of Versailles. All were eager to ascertain the cause. The whole body of the people by a simultaneous movement had gathered around the apartments of M. Necker, and were enthusiastically applauding him for refusing to attend the royal sitting.
This manifestation of popular feeling was so decisive, that alarm took the place of joy. Even the fears of the queen were aroused, and Necker was promptly sent for. He entered the palace accompanied by a crowd of many thousands who filled the vast court-yard. Both king and queen entreated Necker to withdraw his resignation, the king good-naturedly saying, "For my part I am not at all tenacious about that declaration."
Necker willingly complied with their request.[129] As he left the palace he informed the multitude that he should remain at his post. The announcement was received with unbounded demonstrations of joy. As the exultant shouts of the populace resounded through the castle, Brézé entered to inform the king that the deputies still continued their sitting, and asked for orders. The king impatiently walked once or twice up and down the floor, and then replied hastily, "Very well! leave them alone."
The next day, Wednesday, June 24th, the Assembly met in its hall and transacted business as quietly as if there had been no interruption. The clergy, who had joined them in the Church of St. Louis, still resolutely continued with them, notwithstanding the prohibition, and this day one half of the remaining clergy joined the Assembly. A few individuals from the nobles had also gone over. These two bodies thus broken were now quite powerless, and were fast sinking into insignificance. Thousands continually thronged the galleries and the aisles of the National Assembly, while no one seemed to turn a thought to the two chambers where the few remaining clergy and the nobles were separately lingering.
The next day, June 26th, after a long and exciting debate, in which the overwhelming majority of the nobles resolved to remain firm in opposition to union, forty-seven of their number, led by the Duke of Orleans and La Fayette, and embracing many of the most eminent for talent and virtue, repaired to the Assembly, where they were received with hearty demonstrations of joy. One of the nobles, Clermont Tonnere, speaking in behalf of the rest, said,
"We yield to our conscience, but it is with pain that we separate from our colleagues. We have come to concur in the public regeneration. Each of us will let you know the degree of activity which his mission allows him."[130]
The king now wrote a letter to his "faithful clergy" and his "loyal nobility," urging them to join the Assembly without further? delay. In compliance with this request, the next day, June 27th, the remaining portion of the nobility and of the clergy entered the hall and united with the Third Estate. The Marquis of Ferrières, who was one of the nobles who at this time united with the Assembly, records,
"It was now a grievous mortification and affliction to the nobility to join the Third Estate. The Vicomte de Noailles assured the nobles that the union would be but temporary; that the troops were coming up, and that in fifteen days every thing would be changed. The king sent a second letter assuring the nobles that the safety of the state and his own personal security depended upon the union. The assembly of nobles rose in a tumultuous manner, they were joined by the minority of the clergy, and entered in silence the hall of the Tiers Etat."
But the nobles and the dignitaries of the Church had hardly entered the hall of the Assembly ere they regretted the step. The Assembly was proceeding energetically in the formation of a constitution which would sweep away abuses. "Many of the nobles," says Ferrières, with wonderful frankness, "would have quitted the Assembly, but a partial secession would have done nothing. They were assured that the troops were coming up, were praised for the resistance they had already made, and were urged that they must dissemble a little longer. And, indeed, thirty regiments were now marching upon Paris. The pretext was public tranquillity; the real object the dissolution of the Assembly." Many petty artifices were resorted to still to keep up the appearance of distinct orders. The very day of the junction they endeavored to eject M. Bailly, a citizen, from the presidency, and to place a clerical noble, the Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, in the chair. The movement was promptly checked.[131] They for some time entered in a body after the openings of the sittings, and stood together, declining to sit down with the deputies. But M. Bailly, by his prudence and firmness, upheld the rights of the Assembly, and maintained the dignity of his post. It was indeed a strange spectacle for France to see a plain citizen, illustrious only in virtue and talent, presiding over the proudest nobles and the highest dignitaries of the Church.
The leading members of the Assembly were patriots seeking reform, not revolution. It was expected that this union would promote harmony.
"How honorable," said Mirabeau, "will it be for France that this great revolution has cost humanity neither offenses nor crimes." After describing the sanguinary scenes which accompanied the revolutions in England and America, he continued, "We, on the contrary, have the happiness to see a revolution of the same nature brought about by the mere union of enlightened minds with patriotic intentions. Our battles are only discussions. Our enemies are only prejudices that may indeed be pardoned. Our victories, our triumphs, so far from being cruel, will be blessed by the very conquered themselves.
"History too often records actions which are worthy only of the most ferocious animals; among whom, at long intervals, we can sometimes distinguish heroes. There is now reason to hope that we have begun the history of man, the history of brothers, who, born for mutual happiness, agree even when they vary, since their objects are the same and their means only are different."
This triumph of the Third Estate exasperated the privileged classes, and they were eager for revenge. It was evident that their exclusive power was imperiled, and they resolved, at whatever expense of bloodshed, to secure the dissolution of the Assembly. It soon became manifest to all that violence was meditated; that a secret conspiracy was ripening; that the nobles had united with the Assembly merely to subserve a momentary purpose, and that the Assembly was to be dispersed by force, the leaders punished, and that all who should interfere for their protection were to be shot down.[132]
"I could never ascertain," writes Necker, "to what lengths their projects really went. There were secrets upon secrets; and I believe that even the king himself was far from being acquainted with all of them. What was intended was probably to draw the monarch on, as circumstances admitted, to measures of which they durst not at first have spoken to him. With me, above all others, a reserve was maintained, and reasonably, for my indisposition to every thing of the kind was decided."
The nobles again became arrogant and defiant. Openly they declared their intentions to crush the Assembly, and boasted that with an army of fifty thousand men they would bring the people to terms.[133] Loaded cannon were already placed opposite the hall, and pointed to the doors of the Assembly. This state of menace and peril excited the Parisians to the highest pitch, and united all the citizens high and low to defend their rights. The French soldiers, who came from the humble homes of the people, sympathized in all these feelings of their fathers and brothers. The women, as they met the soldiers in the streets, would ask, "Will you fire upon your friends to perpetuate the power of your and our oppressors?" Ere long there came a very decisive response, "No! we will not." Thus the soldiers who had been collected to overawe the capital were soon seen in most friendly intercourse with the citizens, walking with them arm in arm, comprehending the issues which now agitated the nation, and evidently ready to give their energies to the defense of the popular cause.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 127: The curate, M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, one of the most illustrious members of the Assembly, and who finally perished on the guillotine, writes, "These memorable expressions have been since engraved upon the bust of Mirabeau which was executed for the society of Friends to the Constitution. A print of this hath been struck off, in which we behold, not the downcast look of a cunning conspirator, but the ardent air and attitude of a noble-hearted man, who sincerely meant the welfare of his country; and such a man was Mirabeau."]
[Footnote 128: Michelet, vol. i., p. 116. "In the middle of the night Bailly was called up and privately informed that Necker disapproved of the measures adopted, and that he would not attend the sitting, and would probably be dismissed. It had been settled between Bailly and the Assembly that no reply should be made to the king whatever he might say to them. It was afterward intimated to Bailly by the king, that he wished no reply to be made. And under these most unfortunate circumstances the royal sitting opened."--Lectures on the French Revolution, by William Smyth, vol. i., p. 269.]
[Footnote 129: Michelet, vol. i., p. 118.]
[Footnote 130: Thiers, Fr. Rev., vol. i., p. 51.]
[Footnote 131: Bailly's Mem., vol. i., p. 252, 257, 260.]
[Footnote 132: For abundant proof of the conspiracy, see Memoirs of Marmontel, a man of letters and of elegant attainments, who resided in Paris at this time.]
[Footnote 133: "Before the Revolution the number of noble families in France did not exceed 17,500. Reckoning five individuals to a family there might have been about 90,000 nobles. The disasters of the Revolution must have reduced them to less than 40,000."--L'Europe après le Congrès d'Aix la Chapelle, by Abbé de Pradt, note at the end of chap. ix.]
XII. THE TUMULT IN PARIS
Marshal Broglie.--Gatherings at the Palais Royal.--Disaffection of the Soldiers.--Imprisonment and Rescue.--Fraternization.--Petition to the Assembly.--Wishes of the Patriots.--Movement of the Troops.--Speech of Mirabeau.--New Menaces.--Declaration of Rights.--Dismissal of Necker.--Commotion in Paris.--Camille Desmoulins.--The French Guards join the People.--Terror in Paris.--Character of the King.
Notwithstanding the National Assembly was thus organized, rumors filled the air that the junction was but transient, and that the court was making preparation for some deed of violence. The citizens of Paris were in a great ferment, all business was at a stand, the poorer classes had no employment, and their families were actually perishing from hunger. Troops were continually parading the streets, and an army of fifty thousand men, now placed under the command of the veteran Marshal Broglie, encircled the city of Versailles. The spacious garden of the Palais Royal in Paris, surrounded by the most brilliant shops in Europe, was the general rendezvous of the populace anxiously watching the progress of events. The people in their misery had nothing to do but to meet together to hear the news from Versailles. Often ten thousand men were assembled in the garden, where impassioned orators harangued them upon their rights and upon their wrongs. The Duke of Orleans, with his boundless wealth, encouraged every insurrectionary movement. He was willing so far to renounce aristocratic privileges as to adopt a constitution like that of England, if he, as the head of the popular party, could be placed upon the throne, from which he hoped to eject his cousin Louis XVI.
It soon became evident that there was a Tiers Etat in the army as well as in the state. The French Guards, consisting of three thousand six hundred picked men, in the highest state of discipline and equipment, were stationed at Paris. They began to echo the murmurs of the populace. The declaration of the king had informed them that no reform whatever was to be tolerated in the army; that the common soldier was to be forever excluded from all promotion. The privates and subalterns were doomed to endure all the toil of the army and its most imminent perils, but were to share none of its honors or emoluments. The troops were governed by young nobles, generally the most dissolute and ignorant men, who merely exhibited themselves upon the field on parade days, and who never condescended even to show themselves in the barracks.
The discontent of the soldiers reached the ears of their officers. Apprehensive that by association with the people the troops might become allied to them by a common sympathy, the officers commanded the guards no longer to go into the streets, and consigned them to imprisonment in their barracks. This of course increased their exasperation, and, being left to themselves and with nothing to do, they held meetings very much like those which they had attended in the Palais Royal, and talked over their grievances and the state of the monarchy.[134] Patriotic enthusiasm rapidly gained strength among them, and they took an oath that they would not fire upon the people. The colonel of the regiment arrested eleven of the most prominent in this movement and sent them to the prison of the Abbaye, where they were to await a court-martial and such punishment as might be their doom. This was the 30th of June.[135] On the evening of that day, as a vast and agitated multitude was assembled at the Palais Royal, listening to the speakers who there, notwithstanding reiterated municipal prohibitions, gave intelligence of all that was passing at Versailles, tidings came of the arrest of the soldiers. A young man, M. Lourtalot, editor of a Parisian paper, mounted a chair and said,
"These are the brave soldiers who have refused to shed the blood of their fellow-citizens. Let us go and deliver them. To the rescue!"
There was an instantaneous cry, rising from a thousand voices in the garden and reverberating through the streets, "To the Abbaye!" The throng poured out of the gate, and, seizing axes and crowbars as they rushed along, every moment increasing in numbers, soon arrived at the prison, six thousand strong. There was no force there which could for a moment resist them. The doors were speedily battered down, the soldiers liberated and conducted in triumph to the Palais Royal. Here they were provided with food and lodging, and placed under the protection of a citizens' guard.
While on their way to the Palais Royal a squadron of cavalry was ordered to charge upon the people. They approached at full gallop, and then, regardless of their officers, reined in their horses, and, lifting their caps, with true French politeness saluted their citizen-friends. There was then a scene of fraternization such as the French metropolis alone can exhibit. Men and women ran out from the houses and the shops presenting to the dragoons goblets of wine, shouting "Vive le Roi! Vive la Nation!"[136]
The people were still disposed to love their king. They instinctively felt that his sympathies were with them. Thus far they desired only reform, not the overthrow of the monarchy. The court, however, were instructed by these scenes that they could not rely upon the French Guards to execute the bloody mandates they were about to issue. Hence vigorous efforts were immediately adopted to concentrate in the metropolis an efficient force of foreign mercenaries, Swiss and German troops, who would be less scrupulous in shooting down and trampling under iron hoofs the French people. The Parisians distinctly understood this movement, and one can hardly conceive of a measure more exasperating. It is worthy of record that the citizens, ascertaining that they had liberated one soldier who was accused of what they deemed a crime, immediately sent that one back to his prison cell.
The next day, July 1st, the populace at the Palais Royal, who were thus far under the guidance of the most virtuous, intelligent, and influential citizens, sent a committee to the National Assembly at Versailles urging them to interpose with the king for a pardon for the soldiers. This was a movement quite unexampled. The citizens, heretofore deprived of all political rights, had never before ventured to make their wishes known to their rulers. Even then it was considered by the privileged classes in the Assembly very impudent.[137] The Assembly very prudently sent back word to the Parisians, exhorting them to refrain from all acts of violence, and assuring them that the maintenance of good order was essential to the prosperity of their cause.[138] At the same time the Assembly sent a deputation to the king imploring his clemency for the soldiers.
Troops were, however, still rapidly approaching the city from different parts of the kingdom. The nobles and the higher clergy were throwing every possible obstruction in the way of either deliberation or action by the Assembly, and it was manifest to all that a conspiracy was in progress for its violent dissolution.[139]
The courtiers could not conceal their exultation, and began openly to boast that their hour of triumph was at hand. Fifteen regiments of Swiss and German troops were now between Paris and Versailles. It was supposed that they, without reluctance, would fire upon French citizens. It was very evident that the court was studiously endeavoring to foment disturbances in Paris, that an appeal to the military might be necessary. On the other hand, the leaders of the revolution were doing every thing in their power to keep the people calm. A very able pamphlet was circulated through the city, containing the following sentiments:
"Citizens! the ministers, the aristocrats, are endeavoring to excite sedition. Be peaceful, tranquil, submissive to good order. If you do not disturb the precious harmony now reigning in the National Assembly, a revolution the most salutary and the most important will be irrevocably consummated, without causing the nation blood or humanity tears."
One is bewildered in learning that these sentiments came from the pen of Jean Paul Marat![140]
The next day, the 2d of July, the king returned an answer to the deputation from the Assembly, that the soldiers should be pardoned as soon as order was re-established in the capital. Upon the receipt of the message at the Palais Royal, the guards were taken back to prison, from whence they were speedily released by a pardon from the king.
On the 3d of July, M. Bailly having resigned the presidency of the Assembly, the Archbishop of Vienne, one of the high clergy, who had warmly espoused the popular cause, was chosen president, and the Marquis de la Fayette, equally devoted to popular rights, was elected vice-president. Thus the two most important offices of the Assembly were conferred upon men selected from the highest ranks of the privileged class. But this act of conciliation did not in the least degree conciliate men who were determined at every hazard to perpetuate despotism.
The aspect of affairs was every hour becoming more threatening. New regiments of foreigners were continually marching into the metropolis, and occupying all the avenues which conducted to Paris and Versailles. Squadrons of horse were galloping through the streets and heavy artillery rumbling over the pavements of both the cities. The Elysian Fields, the Place Louis XV., the Field of Mars, presented the aspect of an encampment. Sentinels were placed around the French Guards, who were confined in their barracks, to prevent them from holding any intercourse with the citizens or with the other soldiers.[141] Versailles was encompassed by armies, and a battery of artillery was pointed at the very doors of the Assembly.
On Friday, the 10th of July,[142] Mirabeau rose in the Assembly, and proposed that the discussion of the Constitution should be suspended while a petition was sent to the king urging the removal of these menacing armies.
"Fresh troops," said he, "are daily advancing; all communications are intercepted. All the bridges and promenades are converted into military posts. Movements, public and secret, hasty orders and counter-orders, meet all eyes. Soldiers are hastening hither from all quarters. Thirty-five thousand men are already cantoned in Paris and Versailles. Twenty thousand more are expected. They are followed by trains of artillery; spots are marked for batteries; every communication is secured, every pass is blocked up; our streets, our bridges, our public walks are converted into military stations. Events of public notoriety, concealed facts, secret orders, precipitate counter-orders--in a word, preparations for war strike every eye and fill every heart with indignation."
At the same time a pamphlet was circulated through Paris, stating that the king was to hold another royal sitting on the 13th; that he had determined to enforce his declarations of the 23d of June; that the National Assembly was to be dissolved by violence, its leaders arrested, and Necker to be driven from the kingdom.
The tidings excited great consternation in the city, and the crowd in the Palais Royal began to talk of arming in self-defense. In the evening of that day an artillery company, which had been posted at the Hôtel des Invalides, came to the Palais Royal to fraternize with the people there. The citizens gave them a supper in the Elysian Fields, where they were joined by many troops from other regiments, and the friendly festivities were continued late into the hours of the warm summer night.[143]
This speech of Mirabeau was received with applause, and a deputation of twenty-four members was sent with a petition to the king. The address was drawn up by Mirabeau, and is of world-wide celebrity.[144]
"It is not to be dissembled," says Bailly, "that Mirabeau was in the Assembly its principal force. Nothing could be more grand, more firm, more worthy of the occasion than this address to the king. The great quality of Mirabeau was boldness. It was this that fortified his talents, directed him in the management of them, and developed their force. Whatever might be his moral character, when he was once elevated by circumstances he assumed grandeur and purity, and was exalted by his genius to the full height of courage and virtue."
Though Necker earnestly advised the removal of the troops, the king, now in the hands of his worst counselors, returned to the Assembly almost an insulting answer. He affirmed that the troops were mustered for the maintenance of public order and for the protection of the Assembly; and that if the members of the Assembly were afraid of their protectors, they might adjourn to Noyon or to Soissons, cities some fifty or sixty miles north of Paris, where, removed from the protection of the capital, they would have been entirely at the mercy of their enemies.[145]
"We have not," Mirabeau indignantly retorted, "asked permission to run away from the troops, but have requested that the troops may be removed from the capital."
Upon the reception of this answer from the king, La Fayette presented the Assembly a declaration of rights based upon that Declaration of American Independence which is almost the gospel of popular liberty. It is probable that Thomas Jefferson, who was then in Paris, aided La Fayette in preparing this paper. It affirmed that nature has made all men free and equal, that sovereignty resides in the nation, and that no one can claim authority which does not emanate from the people.
On the evening of this day, Saturday, July 11th, as Necker was dressing for dinner, he received a note announcing his dismissal. A confidential letter from the king at the same time informed him that the monarch was unable to prevent his removal, and urged the minister to leave the kingdom without delay, and not to communicate to any one the knowledge of his dismissal lest it should excite public disturbance.[146] Necker, true to the confidence thus reposed in him, quietly dined, and then taking his carriage, as if for an evening drive with his wife, took the direction to the Netherlands, the nearest frontier, and pressed on rapidly through the night.
The next day was the Sabbath, July 12th. Early in the morning an extraordinary degree of activity was observed among the troops. Infantry and artillery were marching and countermarching through the streets of Paris and Versailles. The next day, Monday, was secretly appointed for the great coup d'état, in which the National Assembly was to be dispersed, and the citizens of Paris, if they manifested any resistance, were to be mown down by grapeshot. Redoubts were thrown up upon the heights of Montmartre, where cannon could be placed which would command the metropolis. Enormous placards were posted, enjoining the people to remain at home and not to assemble in the streets. The numerous staff of Marshal Broglie were galloping in all directions, disgusting the people with their insolent and consequential airs.[147] A battery of cannon was placed at the Sevres bridge, cutting off all direct communication between Versailles and Paris. The Place of Louis XV. was filled with troops, presenting the aspect of an encampment. In the adjoining Elysian Fields the Swiss Guards, with four pieces of artillery, were drawn up in battle array.
The people wondered what all this meant. At an early hour the garden of the Palais Royal was filled with an anxious and inquiring crowd. About ten o'clock an unknown person announced that Necker was dismissed, and that a new ministry was organized, composed of members of most determined hostility to popular reform. These tidings explained the formidable military display, and excited universal alarm and indignation. A young man, Camille Desmoulins, sprung upon a table, his dress disarranged, his hair disheveled, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming with indignation and tears, and, with a pistol in each hand to protect himself from the police, shouted,
"To arms! to arms! This dismissal is but the precursor to another St. Bartholomew. This night the Swiss and German troops are to march to our massacre. We have but one resource; it is to defend ourselves."
The impassioned cry was immediately echoed by the multitude, "To arms! to arms!" A rallying sign was needed. Desmoulins plucked a green leaf from a tree and attached it to his hat. Instantly all the chestnut-trees which embellished the garden were stripped of their foliage, and the leaf became the pledge of union. The flash of a moment had brought the whole body of the populace into a recognized uniform and a rude organization.
An army of more than a hundred thousand souls was in an hour enlisted, inspired with deathless enthusiasm, and crying out for leaders and for weapons. The movement was now in progress which was to scatter like chaff the battalions of foreign mercenaries, and to prostrate in dust and ashes the court and the throne. But alas for man! the flame which cheers the fireside may lay palaces and temples and happy homes in ruins. A new power had arisen, and it proved to be as blind and ignorant as it was resistless. Had the populace been imbued with Christian principles and intelligence, blessings only would have resulted from their sway.
In this wild hour of turmoil the multitude were bewildered, and knew not what to do. They had no arms, and no recognized leaders except the National Assembly at Versailles, from whom they were now cut off by detachments of troops.
Near by there was a museum of wax figures. Some men ran to the spot and brought out busts of Necker and of the Duke of Orleans, who was also, it was said, threatened with exile. Decorating these busts with crape they bore them aloft through the streets with funeral honors. As the procession, rapidly increasing to many thousands, approached the Place of Louis XV., a detachment of German troops were marched up to charge them. But these soldiers had but little spirit for their work, and they were speedily put to flight by a shower of stones. A company of dragoons then made a charge. The unarmed procession was broken and put to flight in all directions. The busts were hacked to pieces by the sabres of the soldiers, and one man, a French guardsman, who disdained to run, was cut down and killed.
The French Guards were all this time locked up in their barracks, and the Prince of Lambesc had stationed a squadron of German dragoons in front of their quarters to prevent them coming to the aid of the people. But nothing now could restrain them. They broke down and leaped over the iron rails, and fiercely attacked the hated foreigners. The dragoons fled before them, and the Prince of Lambesc, who commanded, fell back upon the garden of the Tuileries, and, entering the gates, charged upon the people who were there. One old man was killed and the rest were put to flight.
The French Guards, however, immediately drew up in battle array, and placed themselves between the citizens and the royal troops. In the mean time a formidable array of Swiss and German troops had been collected in the Field of Mars. They received orders to march to the Place Louis XIV. and dislodge the French Guards. In obedience to the command they marched to the spot, and then reversing their arms, positively refused to fire upon their comrades.[148]
The populace, however, unconscious of the support which they were receiving from the soldiers, were in a state of phrensy. The women and children, who had been passing the pleasant day in the recreations of the Elysian Fields, and who had fled shrieking before the horses and the sabres of the dragoons, speedily carried the tidings of the assault to every part of the city. An indescribable scene of tumult ensued. The multitude were running to and fro in search of arms. Upon all the steeples every bell rang the alarm. A population of nearly a million of souls was agitated by the most intense emotions of indignation and terror.[149]
"It would be difficult," writes Bertrand de Moleville, "to paint the disorder, fermentation, and alarm that prevailed in the capital during this dreadful day. A city taken by storm and delivered up to the soldiers' fury could not present a more dreadful picture. Imagine detachments of cavalry and dragoons making their way through different parts of the town at full gallop to the posts assigned them; trains of artillery rolling over the pavements with a monstrous noise; bands of ill-armed ruffians and women, drunk with brandy, running through the streets like furies, breaking the shops open, and spreading terror every where by their howlings, mingled with frequent reports of guns or pistols fired in the air; all the barriers on fire; thousands of smugglers taking advantage of the tumult to hurry in their goods; the alarm-bells ringing in almost all the churches; a great part of the citizens shutting themselves up at home, loading their guns and burying their money, papers, and valuable effects in cellars and gardens; and during the night the town paraded by numerous patrols of citizens of every class, and even of both sexes, for many women were seen with muskets or pikes upon their shoulders. Such is the exact picture of the state of Paris on the 12th of July."
To add to the alarm, a letter which had been intercepted from Marshal Broglie was printed and circulated through the city, in which the marshal wrote to the Prince of Condé that the greater part of the National Assembly were hungry wolves, ready to devour the nobility; that with fifty thousand troops he would quickly disperse them and the crowd of fools who applauded them.[150]
As the sun went down and darkness enshrouded the city, the tumult increased, and the night was passed in sleeplessness, terror, and bewilderment. All were apprehensive that the dawn would usher in a dreadful day. A report of the agitated state of the metropolis was carried to the Assembly at Versailles, exciting very great anxiety in the minds of the patriots deliberating there. The nobles rejoiced. They earnestly desired such violence on the part of the people as should compel the king to restore the ancient order of things by the energies of grapeshot and the bayonet.[151]
M. Bailly, a man of unblemished character, whose purity and whose patriotism never can be questioned, gives the following testimony to the integrity of Louis XVI.:
"Despotism is what never entered into the head of the king. He never had any wish but the happiness of his people, and this was the only consideration that could be ever employed as a means of influencing him. If any acts of authority were to be resorted to, he was never to be persuaded but by showing him that some good was to be attained or some evil avoided. I am convinced that his authority was never considered by him, nor did he wish to maintain it but as the best means of supporting and securing the tranquillity and peace of the community. As we are now speaking of the causes that produced this regeneration of the country, let us state the first to be the character of Louis XVI. A king less of a good man and ministers more adroit, and we should have had no revolution."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 134: "The French Guards, those generous citizens, rebels to their masters, in the language of despotism, but faithful to the nation, are the first to swear never to turn their arms against her."--M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 62.
Mr. Alison calls this the "revolt and treason of the French Guards." The same occurrence assumes very different aspects as seen from different stand-points.]
[Footnote 135: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne.]
[Footnote 136: Hist. Parlementaire, vol. ii., p. 32. Michelet, vol. i., p. 127.]
[Footnote 137: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 15.]
[Footnote 138: Thiers, vol. i., p. 61.]
[Footnote 139: "While on this subject I can not refrain from remarking on the impolitic conduct of the nobles and the bishops. As they aimed only to dissolve the Assembly, to throw discredit on its operations, when the president stated a question they left the hall, inviting the deputies of their party to follow them. With this senseless conduct they combined an insulting disdain, both of the Assembly and of the people who attended the sittings. Instead of listening, they laughed and talked aloud, thus confirming the people in the unfavorable opinion which it had conceived of them; and instead of striving to recover the confidence and the esteem of the people, they strove only to gain their hatred and contempt."--Ferrières, t. ii., p. 122.]
[Footnote 140: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 15.]
[Footnote 141: France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq.]
[Footnote 142: Some authorities say the 9th.]
[Footnote 143: France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq., vol. i., p. 25.]
[Footnote 144: It is said that this famous address to the king was composed by M. Dumont, the leading ideas having been communicated to him by Mirabeau. A few extracts will give one an idea of the spirit of the piece.
"In the emotions of your own heart, sire, we look for the true safety of the French. When troops advance from every quarter, when camps are forming around us, when the capital is besieged, we ask one another with astonishment, 'Hath the king distrusted the fidelity of his people? What mean these menacing preparations? Where are the enemies of the state and of the king that are to be subdued?'
"The danger, sire, is urgent, is universal, is beyond all the calculations of human prudence.
"The danger is for the provinces. Should they once be alarmed for our liberty we should no longer have it in our power to restrain their impetuosity.
"The danger is for the capital. With what sensations will the people, in their state of indigence, and tortured with the keenest anguish, see the relics of its subsistence disputed for by a throng of threatening soldiers?
"The danger is for the troops. They may forget that the ceremony of enlisting made them soldiers, and recollect that nature made them men.
"The danger, sire, is yet more terrible. And judge of its extent by the alarms which bring us before you. Mighty revolutions have arisen from causes far less striking.
"Sire, we conjure you, in the name of our country, in the name of your own happiness, and your own glory, to send back your soldiers to the posts from which your counselors have drawn them. Send back that artillery," etc.]
[Footnote 145: The Marquis of Ferrières acknowledges the insincerity of the court in the king's answer. "The Assembly saw," he writes, "through the snare that was spread for them. They would have lost all their hold if they had once removed themselves from the security which the vicinity of Paris afforded. Inclosed between the two camps (of Flanders and Paris) they would have found themselves at the mercy of the court."--See also Hist. Phil. de la Rev. de France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, vol. i., p. 150.]
[Footnote 146: Madame de Staël's Considerations, etc., ch. xii.]
[Footnote 147: Alison, vol. i., p. 73.]
[Footnote 148: Miguet, vol. i., p. 50. Thiers, vol. i., p. 62.]
[Footnote 149: The following journal kept by the king during these stormy days singularly illustrates the weakness of his character. We give it as found in the interesting work, Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros.
"July 1st, 1789, Wednesday. Nothing; deputation from the States. Thursday 2d. Mounted horseback at the gate Du Main to hunt a stag at Port Royal; took one. Friday 3d. Nothing. Saturday 4th. Hunted a buck at Boutard; took one and shot twenty-nine game. Sunday 5th. Vespers and benediction. Monday 6th. Nothing. Tuesday 7th. Hunted a stag at Port Royal; took two. Wednesday 8th. Nothing. Thursday 9th. Nothing; deputation from the States. Friday 10th. Nothing; answer to the deputation from the States. Saturday 11th. Nothing; departure of M. Necker. Sunday 12th. Nothing; departure of M. Montmorin, St. Priest and Luzerne. Sunday 12th. Nothing; took medicine."
Such was the record of the predecessor of Napoleon upon the throne of France when the monarchy was tottering to its foundations.]
[Footnote 150: France and its Revolutions, by Geo. Long, Esq., vol. i., 23.]
[Footnote 151: "During this day of mourning and consternation the conspirators gave loose to a guilty joy. At Versailles, in that orangery where were lodged, or, to speak more properly, dispersed in ambuscade, the German troops of Nassau, princes, princesses, favorites, male and female, were entertaining themselves with the music of the martial instruments. They were loading the soldiers with caresses and presents; and the latter, amid their brutal orgies, were pleasing themselves with the thought of dispersing the National Assembly, and of subjugating the kingdom. Calamitous night! when the courtiers were dancing to that foreign music, and enjoying the idea of the massacre."--M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 66.]
XIII. STORMING THE BASTILLE
The Assembly petitions the King.--Resolves of the Assembly.--Narrative of M. Dumont.--Scenes in Paris.--The People organize for Self-defense.--The new Cockade.--The Abbé Lefebvre d'Ormesson.--Treachery of the Mayor, Flesselles.--Character of De Launey, Governor of the Bastille.--Sacking the Invalides.--The Bastille Assailed.--Assassination of De Launey and of Flesselles.
It will be remembered that in the election of deputies to the States-General Paris had been divided into sixty sections, each of which chose two electors. These hundred and twenty electors, composed of the most wealthy and influential citizens of Paris, immediately met and passed the night deliberating respecting the anarchy into which the city was so suddenly plunged. There were two foes whom the city had now equally to dread--the court and the mob; the princes, bishops, and nobles of the realm, with the armies and the resources of the kingdom, on the one hand, and the starving multitude, infuriated by misery and brutalized by ages of misrule, on the other. These were the two foes against which the Revolution ever had to struggle. The mob triumphed in the Reign of Terror. Napoleon rescued the Revolution from their bloody hands. The princes, with the aid of all the despotisms of Europe, triumphed at Waterloo, and the Revolution was crushed for a time.
Early on Monday morning, July 12th, the electors sent a deputation to the National Assembly at Versailles soliciting the establishment of a citizens' guard for the preservation of order. They gave a true and of course a terrible description of the tumult prevailing in the city.[152]
The Assembly immediately sent a committee of twenty-four members to the king, entreating him to withdraw the foreign troops from the capital. But the queen and the court had now obtained such an ascendency over the feeble-minded king that he was constrained to send a reply that he should make no change whatever in his measures, and that the Assembly could accomplish no useful purpose by interfering with matters in the metropolis.
This was the day on which it was supposed armed bands were to march to disperse the Assembly. It was publicly stated at Versailles that a parliament composed of the nobles was to be suddenly organized at Versailles, that all the deputies of the Third Estate were to be tried for treason, that those members of the clergy and of the nobility who had declared in their favor were to be consigned to perpetual imprisonment, and that those who had been particularly active in the cause of popular liberty were to be sent to the scaffold.[153]
In preparation for this event, the day before (Sunday, 12th), the new ministry, bitterly hostile to the popular cause, had taken their seats in the king's cabinet; Necker, a fugitive, was hastening into the Netherlands; fifty thousand troops under Marshal Broglie, the most determined advocate of aristocratic privilege, crowded the environs of Paris and Versailles; and the troops on the 12th had been ordered to those movements which were preliminary to the great event.[154]
Under such perilous circumstances the Assembly, with a heroism which was truly sublime, determined, if they must perish, to perish in the discharge of duty. No impartial man can read the record of these days without paying the tribute of admiration to those men who thus periled liberty and life in the cause of popular rights. "I have studied history extensively," says De Tocqueville, "and I venture to affirm that I know of no other revolution at whose outset so many men were imbued with a patriotism as sincere, as disinterested, as truly great."[155]
When the Assembly received the answer of the king refusing to withdraw the troops, the only response it could make was in the passing of resolutions. Unintimidated by menaces which might well appal the stoutest heart, they resolved,
1. That M. Necker carried with him the regrets of the nation.
2. That it was the duty of the king immediately to remove the foreign troops.
3. That the king's advisers, of whatever rank, were responsible for present disorders.
4. That to declare the nation bankrupt was infamous.[156]
These were bold resolves. The third, it was well understood, referred to the queen and to the two brothers of the king. The fourth branded with infamy the measure which the court had already adopted in virtually proclaiming bankruptcy and in making payments only in paper.[157] After passing these resolutions the members of the Assembly were in such peril that they deemed it best to keep together for mutual protection. They voted their session permanent, and for seventy-two hours, day and night, continued in their seats, one half deliberating while the other half slept upon their benches. La Fayette, who was one of the most resolute of this Spartan band, relieved the venerable president in the labors of the chair.[158]
During the whole of Monday, even the king knew not what was passing in Paris; and the Assembly, all communication being cut off between Versailles and the metropolis, were in a state of most painful suspense. Every moment they dreaded receiving the news that the city was attacked, and the clangor of martial bands and arms around them led them momentarily to expect the entrance of a military force for their arrest. During the night of the 13th but little business was done, and the wearied members remained talking in groups or dozing in their seats.
Tuesday morning, July 14th, dawned--ever-memorable day. The Assembly, in the most perplexing anxiety, resumed its labors of preparing a constitution. During the whole day no definite tidings could be received from the city, and yet the booming of cannon was heard proclaiming serious and sanguinary trouble. M. Dumont, who wrote under the nom de plume of Groenvelt,[159] thus describes the scene of which he was an eye-witness:
"But it was in the evening (of July 14th) that the spectacle exhibited by the Assembly was truly sublime. I shall not attempt to describe the various emotions of joy, grief, and terror which at different moments agitated those who were merely spectators and strangers in the Assembly. But the expression is improper; we were none of us strangers. For myself, I felt as a Frenchman, because I felt as a man. Nothing could be more distracting than our uncertainty concerning the state of Paris, from whence no person was suffered to stir. The Viscount de Noailles[160] after repeated interruptions had contrived at last to get away; but the intelligence which he brought served only to quicken our impatience and increase our alarms.
"He knew that a multitude of people in search of arms had forced their way into the Hospital for Military Invalids; that the Bastille was besieged; that there had been already much bloodshed; that the troops encamped in the Field of Mars were expected every moment to march to the relief of that fortress, which could not be effected without deluging all Paris in blood.
"At this dreadful news the Assembly was penetrated with horror. A number of the members started from their seats by a kind of involuntary impulse, as if determined to hasten to the defense of their fellow-citizens. Others were for immediately bursting into the king's presence to remonstrate with him on what had happened; to say to him 'Behold the fruits of your counsels; hear the cries of your victims; see the destruction which is about to overwhelm your capital; say, are you the king or the murderer of your people?'
"But these tumultuous emotions gave place to the more temperate measure of sending a numerous deputation to the king, to represent to him the calamities which threatened Paris, and again to conjure him to remove the army. A long time elapsed, and the deputation did not return. No one could account for the delay. In the mean time there came a message that two deputies from the body of electors at Paris desired admittance. They were instantly ordered in. Not a breath was heard; every ear was attentive: every eye was strained; every mind was upon the rack. From some unaccountable mistake it was some time before they entered. Never was impatience wrought up to a higher pitch. At last they appeared at the bar."[161]
But let us leave the Assembly listening at midnight of the 14th to the narrative of the deputies from Paris, while we enter the city to witness the transactions there. At three o'clock Monday morning tumultuous masses of men were filling the streets. The barriers, at which a tax had been levied upon all articles of food and other merchandise which entered the city, had been seized, set on fire, and were now blazing. It was expected every moment that the troops would enter to sweep the streets with grapeshot; and from every steeple the tocsin was pealing, summoning the people to arms. Thousands of those who thronged the city, houseless wanderers, were haggard and wan with famine, and knew not where to get a mouthful of bread.
There was a rumor that in the convents of the Lazarites a vast amount of wheat was hoarded up. Resistless, like an inundation, the hungry multitude poured in at the doors and filled the convent from attic to cellar. They found vast quantities of wine in the vaults and more than fifty cart-loads of wheat. They drank the wine freely, fed themselves, and sent the wheat to the market to be distributed. But they would allow no stealing. One wretch who was detected as a thief was immediately hung by the populace![162]
They then ransacked the city in pursuit of arms. Every sword, musket, and pistol from private residences was brought forward. The shops of the gunsmiths furnished a small supply. The royal arsenal, containing mainly curiosities and suits of ancient armor, was ransacked, and, while all the costly objects of interest were left untouched, every available weapon was taken away. The prison of La Force was filled with debtors. The populace broke down the doors and liberated these unfortunate men, incarcerated for no crime. The prison of the Chatelet was filled with convicts. These felons, hearing of the tumult and of the release of the prisoners of La Force, rose upon their keepers and endeavored to batter down their doors. The same populace, called upon by the keepers of the Chatelet, entered the court-yard of the prison, and, with pike and bayonet, drove the convicts back again to their cells.
Crowds were assembled around the Hôtel de Ville, where the electors had met, demanding arms and the immediate establishment of a citizen's guard. But the electors moved with great caution. They did not feel authorized to establish the guard without the approval of the Assembly; and the Assembly had not ventured to adopt the measure without the consent of the king.
The excitement at last became so intense, and the importunity so pressing, that the electors referred the people to the mayor of the city. Flesselles, the mayor, was an officer of the crown, but he immediately obeyed the summons of the people, and came to the Hôtel de Ville. Here he feigned to be entirely on their side, declared that he was their father, and that he would preside over their meetings only by the election of the people. This announcement was received with a burst of enthusiasm. It was immediately decided that a citizen's guard should be established.
Paris then contained nearly a million of inhabitants, and almost every able-bodied man was eager to mount guard for the protection of the city. There was no want of men, but as yet there was no efficient organization, and there were no arms. The electors were very anxious to avoid insurrection, and at first wished only for a guard simply strong enough to protect the city. They therefore decreed that each of the sixty districts should elect and arm two hundred of its most respectable citizens. These twelve thousand men would constitute a very admirable police, but a very poor army. Matters, however, were so rapidly approaching a crisis, and the peril so fast increasing, that on the afternoon of the same day it was decided that this citizen's guard should consist of forty-eight thousand men, and that the colors of the cockade should be blue and red. La Fayette proposed that they should add white, the old color of France, saying, "I thus give you a cockade which will go round the world."
The electors then appointed a committee to watch day and night over the safety of the city. Thus a new and independent government, with its strong army of defense, entirely detached from the throne, was established in a day. It was the sudden growth of uncontrollable events, which no human wisdom had planned. "But to whom," said the mayor, Flesselles, "shall the oath of fidelity be taken?" "To the Assembly of the citizens," an elector promptly replied.
Every thinking man saw clearly that matters were approaching a fearful crisis. Marshal Broglie, proud and self-confident, was at Versailles in constant conference with the court, and having at his command fifty thousand men, abundantly armed and equipped, all of whom could in a few hours be concentrated in the streets of Paris. Bensenval had assembled his force of several thousand Swiss and German troops, cavalry and artillery, in the Field of Mars. The enormous fortress of the Bastille, with its walls forty feet thick at its base and ten at the top, rising with its gloomy towers one hundred and twenty feet in the air, with cannon, charged with grapeshot, already run out at every embrasure to sweep the streets, commanded the city. It was garrisoned by about eighty French soldiers; but, as it was feared that they could not be wholly relied upon, forty Swiss troops were thrown in as a re-enforcement who would be as blindly obedient as the muskets they shouldered. Every moment rumors were reaching the city that Marshal Broglie was approaching with all his troops. Still no arms or ammunition could be obtained.
In this state of things a report was brought that a large quantity of powder had been embarked in a boat from the Hôtel des Invalides, and was floating down the Seine to be conveyed to Versailles. The people immediately ran to the Electors, and obtained an order to have the powder seized and brought to the hotel. It was promptly done. A heroic clergyman, the Abbé Lefebvre, who had great influence over the populace, assumed the perilous task of guarding the powder in one of the lower rooms of the Hôtel de Ville and distributing it among the people. For forty-eight hours this brave man guarded his dangerous treasure in the midst of fire-arms and the surging of the multitude. A drunken man at one time staggered in smoking amid the casks.[163]
Guns only were wanting now. It was well known that there were large stores of them somewhere in the city, but no one knew where to find them.
The mayor, Flesselles, who the people now began to suspect was deluding them merely to gain time for the royal troops to enter the city, being urged to point out the dépôt, said that the manufactory at Charleville had promised to send him thirty thousand guns, and that twelve thousand he was momentarily expecting. Soon a large number of boxes were brought, marked "guns." The mayor ordered them to be stored in the magazine till he should have time to distribute them. But the impatient people so urged the electors that they broke open the boxes and found them filled with rubbish. Was the mayor deceiving them? many anxiously inquired. Flesselles, much embarrassed, sent the people to two monasteries where he said guns were concealed; but the friars promptly threw open the doors, and no arms were to be found.
It soon became evident that Flesselles was trifling with the people, hoping to keep them unarmed until the troops should arrive to crush them mercilessly. He was well known as a dissolute man, hostile to popular liberty, and was undoubtedly a traitor, and a spy at the Hôtel de Ville, acting in communication with the court.[164]
The electors now ordered thirty thousand pikes to be manufactured. Every smith was immediately employed, every forge was glowing, and for thirty-six hours, day and night, without intermission, the anvils rang till the pikes were finished. All this day of Monday the people thought only of defending themselves, but night again came, another night of terror, tumult, and sleeplessness.
The Bastille was the great terror of Paris. While that remained in the hands of their enemies, with its impregnable walls and heavy guns commanding the city, there was no safety. As by an instinct, during the night of the 13th, the Parisians decided that the Bastille must be taken. With that fortress in their hands they could defend themselves and repel their foes. But how could the Bastille be taken? It was apparently as unassailable as Gibraltar's rock. Nothing could be more preposterous than the thought of storming the Bastille. "The idea," says Michelet, "was by no means reasonable. It was an act of faith."
The Bastille stood in the very heart of the Faubourg St. Antoine, enormous, massive, and blackened with age, the gloomy emblem of royal prerogative, exciting by its mysterious power and menace the terror and the execration of every one who passed beneath the shadow of its towers. Even the sports of childhood dare not approach the empoisoned atmosphere with which it seemed to be enveloped.
M. de Launey was governor of the fortress, He was no soldier, but a mean, mercenary man, despised by the Parisians. He contrived to draw from the establishment, by every species of cruelty and extortion, an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. He reduced the amount of fire-wood to which the shivering inmates were entitled; made a great profit on the wretched wine which he furnished to those who were able to buy, and even let out the little garden within the inclosure, thus depriving those prisoners who were not in dungeon confinement of the privilege of a walk there, which they had a right to claim. De Launey was not merely detested as Governor of the Bastille, but he was personally execrated as a greedy, sordid, merciless man. Linguet's Memoirs of the Bastille had rendered De Launey's name infamous throughout Europe. Such men are usually cowards. De Launey was both spiritless and imbecile. Had he not been both, the Bastille could not have been taken.[165]
Still the people had no guns. It was ascertained that there was a large supply at the Hôtel des Invalides, but how could they be taken without any weapons of attack? Sombrueil, the governor, was a firm and fearless man, and, in addition to his ordinary force, amply sufficient for defense, he had recently obtained a strong detachment of artillery and several additional cannon, showing that he was ready to do battle. Within fifteen minutes march of the Invalides, Bensenval was encamped with several thousand Swiss and German troops in the highest state of discipline, and provided with all the most formidable implements of war. Every moment rumors passed through the streets that the troops from Versailles were on the march, headed by officers who were breathing threatenings and slaughter.
With electric speed the rumor passed through the streets that there was a large quantity of arms stored in the magazine of the Hôtel of the Invalides. Before nine o'clock in the morning of the 14th, thirty thousand men were before the Invalides; some with pikes, pistols, or muskets, but most of them unarmed. The curate of St. Etienne led his parishioners in this conflict for freedom. As this intrepid man marched at the head of his flock he said to them, "My children, let us not forget that all men are brothers." The bells of alarm ringing from the steeples seemed to invest the movement with a religious character. Those sublime voices, accustomed to summon the multitude to prayer, now with their loudest utterance called them to the defense of their civil and religious rights.[166]
Sombrueil perceived at once that the populace could only be repelled by enormous massacre, and that probably even that, in the phrensied state of the public mind, would be ineffectual. He dared not assume the responsibility of firing without an order from the king, and he could get no answer to the messages he sent to Versailles. Though his cannon charged with grapeshot could have swept down thousands, he did not venture to give the fatal command to fire. The citizens, with a simultaneous rush in all directions, leaped the trenches, clambered over the low wall--for the hotel was not a fortress--and, like a resistless inundation, filled the vast building. They found in the armory thirty thousand muskets. Seizing these and six pieces of cannon they rushed, as by a common instinct, toward the Bastille to assail with these feeble means one of the strongest fortresses in the world--a fortress which an army under the great Condé had in vain besieged for three and twenty days![167]
De Launey, from the summit of his towers, had for many hours heard the roar of the insurgent city. As he now saw the black mass of countless thousands approaching, he turned pale and trembled. All the cannon, loaded with grapeshot, were thrust out of the port-holes, and several cart-loads of paving-stones, cannon-balls, and old iron had been conveyed to the tops of the towers to be thrown down to crush the assailants. Twelve large rampart guns, charged heavily with grape, guarded the only entrance. These were manned by thirty-two Swiss soldiers who would have no scruples in firing upon Frenchmen. The eighty-two French soldiers who composed the remainder of the garrison were placed upon the towers, and at distant posts, where they could act efficiently without being brought so immediately into conflict with the attacking party.
A man of very fearless and determined character, M. Thuriot, was sent by the electors at the Hôtel de Ville to summon the Bastille to surrender. The draw-bridge was lowered, and he was admitted. The governor received him at the head of his staff.
"I summon you," said Thuriot, "in the name of the people, in the name of honor, and of our native land."
The governor, who was every moment expecting the arrival of troops to disperse the crowd, refused to surrender the fortress, but replied that he was ready to give his oath that he would not fire upon the people, if they did not fire upon him. After a long and exciting interview, Thuriot came forth to those at the Hôtel de Ville who had sent him.
He had hardly emerged from the massive portals, and crossed the draw-bridge of the moat, which was immediately raised behind him, ere the people commenced the attack. A scene of confusion and uproar ensued which can not be described. A hundred thousand men, filling all the streets and alleys which opened upon the Bastille, crowding all the windows and house-tops of the adjacent buildings, kept up an incessant firing, harmlessly flattening their bullets against walls of stone forty feet thick and one hundred feet high.[168]
The French soldiers within the garrison were reluctant to fire upon their relatives and friends. But the Swiss, obedient to authority, opened a deadly fire of bullets and grapeshot upon the crowd. While the battle was raging an intercepted letter was brought to the Hôtel de Ville, in which Bensenval, commandant of the troops in the Field of Mars, exhorted De Launey to remain firm, assuring him that he would soon come with succor.[169] But, fortunately for the people, even these foreign troops refused to march for the protection of the Bastille.
The French Guards now broke from their barracks, and, led by their subaltern officers, came with two pieces of artillery in formidable array to join the people. They were received with thunders of applause which drowned even the roar of the battle. Energetically they opened their batteries upon the fortress, but their balls rebounded harmless from the impregnable rock.
Apparently the whole of Paris, with one united will, was combined against the great bulwark of tyranny.[170] Men, women, and boys were mingled in the fight. Priests, nobles, wealthy citizens, and the ragged and emaciate victims of famine were pressing in the phrensied assault side by side.[171] The French soldiers were now anxious to surrender, but the Swiss, sheltered from all chance of harm, shot down with deliberate and unerring aim whomsoever they would. Four hours of the battle had now passed, and though but one man had been hurt within the fortress, a hundred and seventy-one of the citizens had been either killed or wounded. The French soldiers now raised a flag of truce upon the towers, while the Swiss continued firing below. This movement plunged De Launey into despair. One hundred thousand men were beleaguering his fortress. The king sent no troops to his aid; and three fourths of his garrison had abandoned him and were already opening communications with his assailants. He knew that the people could never pardon him for the blood of their fathers and brothers with which he had crimsoned their streets--that death was his inevitable doom. In a state almost of delirium he seized a match from a cannon and rushed toward the magazine, determined to blow up the citadel. There were a hundred and thirty-five barrels of gunpowder in the vaults. The explosion would have thrown the Bastille into the air, buried one hundred thousand people beneath its ruins, and have demolished one third of Paris.[172] Two subaltern officers crossed their bayonets before him and prevented the accomplishment of this horrible design.
Some wretches seized upon a young lady whom they believed to be the governor's daughter, and wished, by the threat of burning her within view of her father upon the towers, to compel him to surrender. But the citizens promptly rescued her from their hands and conveyed her to a place of safety. It was now five o'clock, and the assault had commenced at twelve o'clock at noon. The French soldiers within made white flags of napkins, attached them to bayonets, and waved them from the walls. Gradually the flags of truce were seen through the smoke; the firing ceased, and the cry resounded through the crowd and was echoed along the streets of Paris, "The Bastille surrenders." This fortress, which Louis XIV. and Turenne had pronounced impregnable, surrendered not to the arms of its assailants, for they had produced no impression upon it. It was conquered by that public opinion which pervaded Paris and which vanquished its garrison.[173]
The massive portals were thrown open, and the vast multitude, a living deluge, plunging headlong, rushed in. They clambered the towers, penetrated the cells, and descended into the dungeons and oubliettes. Appalled they gazed upon the instruments of torture with which former victims of oppression had been torn and broken. Excited as they were by the strife, and exasperated by the shedding of blood, but one man in the fortress, a Swiss soldier, fell a victim to their rage.
The victorious people now set out in a tumultuous procession to convey their prisoners, the governor and the soldiers, to the Hôtel de Ville. Those of the populace whose relatives had perished in the strife were roused to fury, and called loudly for the blood of De Launey. Two very powerful men placed themselves on each side of him for his protection. But the clamor increased, the pressure became more resistless, and just as they were entering the Place de Grève the protectors of the governor were overpowered--he was struck down, his head severed by a sabre stroke, and raised a bloody and ghastly trophy into the air upon a pike.
In the midst of the great commotion two of the Swiss soldiers of the Bastille, whom the populace supposed to have been active in the cannonade, were seized, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts to save them, and hung to a lamp-post. A rumor passed through the crowd that a letter had been found from the mayor, Flesselles, who was already strongly suspected of treachery, directed to De Launey, in which he said,
"I am amusing the Parisians with cockades and promises. Hold out till the evening and you shall be relieved."[174]
Loud murmurs rose from the crowd which filled and surrounded the hall. Some one proposed that Flesselles should be taken to the Palais Royal to be tried by the people. The clamor was increasing and his peril imminent. Pallid with fear he descended from the platform, and, accompanied by a vast throng, set out for the Palais Royal. At the turning of the first street an unknown man approached, and with a pistol shot him dead. Infuriate wretches immediately cut off his head, and it was borne upon a pike in savage triumph through the streets.
The French Guards, with the great body of the people, did what they could to repress these bloody acts. The French and Swiss soldiers took the oath of fidelity to the nation, and under the protection of the French Guard were marched to places of safety where they were supplied with lodgings and food. Thus terminated this eventful day. The fall of the Bastille broke the right arm of the monarchy, paralyzed its nerves of action, and struck it a death blow. The monarch of France, from his palace at Versailles, heard the distant thunders of the cannonade, and yet inscribed upon his puerile journal "Nothing!"[175]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 152: "Thus Paris, without courts of justice, without police, without a guard, at the mercy of one hundred thousand men who were wandering idly in the middle of the night, and for the most part wanting bread, believed itself on the point of being besieged from without and pillaged from within; believed that twenty-five thousand soldiers were posted around to blockade it and cut off all supplies of provisions, and that it would be a prey to a starving populace."--Memoirs of Marmontel.]
[Footnote 153: Hist. Phil. de la Rev. Fr., par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t. i., p. 148.]
[Footnote 154: Professor William Smyth, in his very able and candid lectures, delivered at the University of Cambridge, England, though his sympathies are with the court in this conflict, writes:
"On the whole, it appears to me that there can be no doubt that a great design had been formed by the court for the dissolution of the National Assembly and the assertion of the power of the crown. That military force was to have been produced, and according to the measure of its success would, in all probability, have been the depression of the spirit of liberty, even of national liberty, then existing in France. Less than this can not well be supposed; much more may be believed."--Lectures on the French Revolution, vol. i., p. 251.]
[Footnote 155: The Old Régime and the Revolution, by M. de Tocqueville, p. 190.]
[Footnote 156: Michelet, vol. i., p. 136.]
[Footnote 157: "They were going to make payments with a paper money, without any other guarantee than the signature of an insolvent king."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 137.]
[Footnote 158: "A list of the proscribed had been drawn up in the committee of the queen. Sixty-nine deputies, at the head of whom were placed Mirabeau, Sièyes, and Bailly, were to be imprisoned in the citadel of Metz, and from thence led to the scaffold, as guilty of rebellion. The signal agreed upon for this St. Bartholomew of the representatives of the people was the change of the ministry."--Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 15.]
[Footnote 159: Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth, vol. i., p. 241.]
[Footnote 160: Louis, Viscount of Noailles, was a deputy of the nobles. With La Fayette, Rochefoucault, and others he warmly espoused the cause of popular liberty. He voted in favor of uniting with the National Assembly, and was the first to exhort the clergy and the nobility to renounce their privileges, as injurious to the common weal. When the Revolution sank degraded into the hands of low and worthless men, he retired from the public service; but when Napoleon came to the rescue, he again entered the army, and was subsequently killed in a battle with the English.--Enc. Am., Art. Noailles.]
[Footnote 161: "The better part of the Assembly," writes Ferrières, "strangers to all the intrigues which might be going forward, was filled with alarm at the sad reports that were circulating, and terrified at the designs of the court, which they were assured went to the seizing of Paris, the dissolution of the Assembly, and the massacre of the citizens. In the mean time the partisans of the court concealed their joy under an appearance of indifference. They came to the sittings to see what turns the deliberations would take, to enjoy their triumph, and the humiliation of the Assembly. The Assembly they looked upon as annihilated."]
[Footnote 162: Michelet, vol. i., p. 38; Geo. Long, Esq., vol. i., p. 28.]
[Footnote 163: "This heroic man was the Abbé Lefebvre d'Ormesson. No man rendered a greater service to the Revolution and the city of Paris."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 140.
"A patriot, in liquor, insisted on sitting to smoke on the edge of one of the powder-barrels. There smoked he, independent of the world, till the Abbé purchased his pipe for three francs, and pitched it far."--Carlyle, vol. i., p. 191.]
[Footnote 164: Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Revolution Française, vol. ii., p. 365.]
[Footnote 165: Michelet, vol. i., p. 156.]
[Footnote 166: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 16.]
[Footnote 167: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 66.]
[Footnote 168: "Its walls, ten feet thick at the top of its towers, and thirty or forty at the base, might long laugh at cannon-balls. Its batteries, firing down upon Paris, could in the mean time demolish the whole of the Marais and the Faubourg St. Antoine. Its towers pierced with windows and loop-holes, protected by double and triple gratings, enabled the garrison in full security to make a dreadful carnage of its assailants."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 143.]
[Footnote 169: Thiers, vol. i., p. 69.]
[Footnote 170: "Old men," says Michelet, "who have had the happiness and the misery to see all that has happened in this unprecedented half century, declared that the grand and national achievements of the Republic and the Empire had, nevertheless, a partial non-unanimous character. But that the 14th of July alone was the day of the whole people."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 144.]
[Footnote 171: Histoire Des Montagnards par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 17.]
[Footnote 172: Michelet, vol. i., p. 156.]
[Footnote 173: "Properly speaking the Bastille was not taken, it surrendered. Troubled by a bad conscience, it went mad, and lost all presence of mind."--Michelet, vol. i., p. 156.]
XIV. THE KING RECOGNIZES THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Rout of the Cavalry of Lambesc.--Tidings of the Capture of the Bastille reach Versailles.--Consternation of the Court.--Midnight Interview between the Duke of Liancourt and the King.--New Delegation from the Assembly.--The King visits the Assembly.--The King escorted back to his Palace.--Fickleness of the Monarch.--Deputation sent to the Hôtel de Ville.--Address of La Fayette.--La Fayette appointed Commander of the National Guard.
While these scenes were transpiring in Paris, the court, but poorly informed respecting the real attitude of affairs, were preparing, on that very evening, with all the concentrated troops of the monarchy, to drown the insurrection in Paris in blood, to disperse the Assembly, consigning to the dungeon and the scaffold its prominent members, and to rivet anew those shackles of despotism which for ages had bound the people of France hand and foot.
M. Berthier, one of the high officers of the crown, aided by his father-in-law, M. Foulon, under minister of war, was intensely active marshaling the troops, and giving orders for the attack. Conscious of the opposition they must encounter, and regardless of the carnage which would ensue, they had planned a simultaneous assault upon the city at seven different points. Entertaining no apprehension that the Bastille could be taken, or that the populace, however desperate, could present any effectual resistance to the disciplined troops of the crown, they were elated with the hope that the decisive hour for the victory of the court had arrived.
The queen could not conceal her exultation. With the Duchess of Polignac, one of the most haughty of the aristocratic party, and with others of the court, she went to the Orangery, where a regiment of foreign troops were stationed, excited the enthusiasm of the soldiers by her presence, and caused wine and gold to be freely distributed among them. In the intoxication of the moment the soldiers sang, danced, shouted, clashed their weapons, and swore eternal fidelity to the queen.[176]
But these bright hopes were soon blighted. A cloud of dust was seen, moving with the sweep of the whirlwind through the Avenue of Paris. It was the cavalry of Lambesc flying before the people. Soon after a messenger rushed breathless into the presence of the court, and announced that the Bastille was taken, and that the troops in Paris refused to fire upon the people. While he was yet speaking another came with the tidings that De Launey and Flesselles were both slain. The queen was deeply affected and wept bitterly. "The idea," writes Madame Campan, "that the king had lost such devoted subjects wounded her to the heart." The court party was now plunged into consternation. The truth flashed upon them that while the people were exasperated to the highest pitch, the troops could no longer be depended upon for the defense of the court.
The masses, enraged by the insults and aggressions of the privileged classes, still appreciated the kindly nature of the king, and spoke of him with respect and even affection. Efforts were made by the court to conceal from Louis the desperate state of affairs, and at his usual hour of eleven o'clock he retired to his bed, by no means conscious that the sceptre of power had passed from his hands.
The Duke of Liancourt, whose office as grand master of the wardrobe, allowed him to enter the chamber of the king at any hour, was a sincere friend of Louis. He could not see him rush thus blindly to destruction, and, accordingly, entering his chamber and sitting down by his bedside, he gave him a truthful narrative of events in Paris. The king, astonished and alarmed, exclaimed, "Why, it is a revolt!" "Nay, sire," replied Liancourt, "it is a revolution!"
The king immediately resolved that he would the next morning, without any ceremony, visit the National Assembly, and attempt a reconciliation. The leading members of the court, now fully conscious of their peril, were assembled in the saloons of the Duchess of Polignac, some already suggested flight from the realm to implore the aid of foreign kings. The Assembly was still, during these midnight hours, deliberating in great anxiety. Many of the members, utterly exhausted by their uninterrupted service by day and by night, were slumbering upon the benches. It was known by all that this was the night assigned for the great assault; and a rumor was passing upon all lips that the hall of the Assembly had been undermined that all the deputies might be blown into the air.
Paris at this hour presented a scene of awful tumult. It was momentarily expected that the royal troops would arrive with cavalry and artillery, and that from the heights of Montmartre bomb-shells would be rained down upon the devoted city. Men, women, and children were preparing for defense. The Bastille was guarded and garrisoned. The pavements were torn up, barricades erected, and ditches dug. The windows were illuminated to throw the light of day into the streets. Paving stones and heavy articles of furniture were conveyed to the roofs of the houses to be thrown down upon the assailing columns. Every smith was employed forging pikes, and thousands of hands were busy casting bullets. Tumultuous throngs of characterless and desperate men swept through the streets, rioting in the general anarchy. The watch-words established by the citizen patrols were "Washington and Liberty." Thus passed the night of the 14th of July in the Chateau of Versailles, in the hall of the Assembly, and in the streets of Paris.
At two o'clock in the morning of the 15th the Assembly ceased its deliberations for a few hours, and the members, though the session was still continued, sought such repose as they could obtain in their seats. At eight o'clock the discussions were resumed. It was resolved to send a deputation of twenty-four members, again to implore the king to respect the rights of the people, and no longer to suffer them to be goaded to madness by insults and oppression. As the deputation was about to leave, Mirabeau rose and said, "Tell the king that the foreign hordes surrounding us received yesterday the caresses, encouragement, and bribes of the court; that all night long these foreign satellites, gorged with money and wine, in their impious songs have predicted the enslavement of France, and have invoked the destruction of the National Assembly; tell him that in his very palace the courtiers have mingled dancing with these impious songs, and that such was the prelude to the massacre of St. Bartholomew."
He had hardly uttered these words ere the Duke of Liancourt entered and announced that the king was coming in person to visit the Assembly. The doors were thrown open, and, to the astonishment of the Assembly, the king, without guard or escort and accompanied only by his two brothers, entered. A shout of applause greeted him. In a short and touching speech the king won to himself the hearts of all. He assured them of his confidence in the Assembly; that he had never contemplated its violent dissolution; and that he sincerely desired to unite with the Assembly in consulting for the best interests of the nation. He also declared that he had issued orders for the withdrawal of the troops both from Paris and Versailles, and that, hereafter, the counsels of the National Assembly should be the guide of his administration.[177]
This conciliatory speech was received by the mass of the deputies with rapturous applause. The aristocratic party were, however, greatly chagrined, and, retiring by themselves, with whispers and frowns gave vent to their vexation; but the general applause drowned the feeble murmurs of the nobles. Nearly the whole Assembly rose in honor of the king as he left, and, surrounding him in tumultuous joy, they escorted him back to his palace. A vast crowd from Paris and Versailles thronged the streets, filling the air with their loyal and congratulatory shouts. The queen, who was sitting anxiously in her boudoir, heard the uproar and was greatly terrified. Soon it was announced to her that the king was returning in triumph: she stepped out upon a balcony and looked down upon the broad avenue filled with a countless multitude. The king was on foot; the deputies encircled him, interlacing their arms to protect him from the crowd, which was surging tumultuously around with every manifestation of attachment and joy.
The people really loved the kind-hearted king; but they already understood that foible in his character which eventually led to his ruin. A woman of Versailles pressed her way through the deputies to the king and, with great simplicity, said,
"Oh, my king! are you quite sincere? Will they not make you change your mind again?"
"No," replied the king, "I will never change."
The feeble Louis did not know himself. He was then sincere; but in less than an hour he was again wavering, being undecided whether to carry out his pacific policy of respecting the just demands of the people, or to fly from the realm, and invoke the aid of foreign despots, to quench the rising flame of liberty in blood. It was well known that the queen, the brothers of the king, and the Polignacs, were the implacable foes of reform, and that it was through their councils that the Assembly and the nation were menaced with violence.[178]
As soon as the queen was seen upon the balcony, with her son and daughter by her side, the shouts of applause were redoubled. But now murmurs began to mingle with the acclaim. A few execrations were heard against the obnoxious members of the court. Still the general voice was enthusiastic in loyalty; and when the queen descended to the foot of the marble stairs and threw herself into the arms of the king, every murmur was hushed, and confidence and happiness seemed to fill all hearts.[179]
A cabinet council was immediately held in the palace to deliberate respecting the next step to be taken. The Assembly returned to their hall and immediately chose a deputation of one hundred members, with La Fayette at their head, to convey to the municipal government at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris the joyful tidings of their reconciliation with the king. A courier was sent in advance to inform of the approach of the delegation.
It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. The deputation left Versailles accompanied by an immense escort of citizen-soldiers, and followed by a crowd which could not be numbered. They were received in Paris with almost delirious enthusiasm. Throughout the whole night the citizens, men, women, and children, had been at work piling up barricades, tearing up the pavements, and preparing with every conceivable weapon and measure of offense and defense to meet the contemplated attack from the artillery and cavalry of the crown. Fathers and mothers, pallid with terror, had anticipated the awful scenes of the sack of the city by a brutal soldiery. Inexpressible was the joy to which they surrendered themselves in finding that the king now openly avowed himself their friend and espoused the popular cause. Windows and balconies were crowded, the streets were strewn with flowers, and the deputies were greeted with waving of handkerchiefs and cheers.
At the Place Louis XV. the deputies left their carriages and were conducted through the garden of the Tuileries, greeted by the music of martial bands, to the vestibule of the palace. There they were met by a committee of the municipality, with one of the clergy, the Abbé Fauchet, at its head, who accompanied them to the Hôtel de Ville.
La Fayette addressed the electors, informing them of the king's speech, and describing the monarch's return to his palace in the midst of the National Assembly and of the people of Versailles, "protected by their love and their inviolable fidelity." Lally Tollendal, who was remarkable for his eloquence, then addressed the electors and the assembled multitude. He spoke of the king, whom he loved, in the highest terms of eulogy, and in a strain so persuasive and spirit-stirring that he was immediately crowned with a wreath of flowers, and, in a tumult of transport, was carried in triumph to the window to receive the applause of the thousands who filled the streets. Love for the king seemed to be an instinct with the populace. Shouts of "Vive le Roi!" rose from the vast assembly, which were reverberated from street to street through all the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis.
The king had authorized the establishment of the National Guard, but the guard was yet without a commander-in-chief. The government of Paris also, by the death of Flesselles, had no head. There was in the hall of the Assembly a bust of La Fayette which had been presented by the United States to the city of Paris. It stood by the side of the bust of Washington. As the momentous question was discussed, who should be intrusted with the command of the National Guard, a body which now numbered hundreds of thousands and was spread all over the kingdom, Moreau de St. Mèry, Chairman of the Municipality, rose, and, without uttering a word, silently pointed to the bust of La Fayette. The gesture was decisive. A general shout of acclaim filled the room. He who had fought the battles of liberty in America was thus intrusted with the command of the citizen-soldiery of France. M. Bailly was then chosen successor of Flesselles, not with the title of Prévôt des Marchands, but with the more comprehensive one of Mayor of Paris.
On the 27th of September the banners of the National Guard, each one of which had been previously consecrated in the church of its district, were all taken to the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, and there, with the utmost pomp of civil, military, and religious ceremonies, were consecrated to the service of God and the nation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 174: It has not subsequently appeared that there was any conclusive evidence of the existence of this letter.]
[Footnote 175: Histoire Des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 17.]
[Footnote 176: The Duchess of Polignac was the most intimate friend of the queen. Though enjoying an income from the crown of two hundred and ninety thousand francs ($58,400) annually, she was deemed, when compared with others of the nobles, poor. The queen had assigned her a magnificent suite of apartments in the Palace of Versailles at the head of the marble stairs. The saloons of the duchess were the rendezvous of the court in all its plottings against the people. Here originated that aristocratic club which called into being antagonistic popular clubs all over the kingdom.--Madame Campan, vol. i., p. 139; Weber, vol. ii., p. 23.]
[Footnote 177: Hist. Phil. de la Rev. Fr., par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, vol. i., p. 165; M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 69; Hist. Parlem., vol. ii., p. 117.]
[Footnote 178: Necker, speaking of the plots of the court, writes, "I could never ascertain certainly what design was contemplated. There were secrets and after-secrets, and I am convinced that the king himself was not in all of them. It was intended, perhaps, according to circumstances, to draw the monarch into measures which they did not dare to mention to him beforehand."--Vol. ii., p. 85.]
[Footnote 179: Madame Campan's Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, vol. ii., p. 48.]
XV. THE KING VISITS PARIS
Views of the Patriots.--Pardon of the French Guards.--Religious Ceremonies.--Recall of Necker.--The King visits Paris.--Action of the Clergy.--The King at the Hôtel de Ville.--Return of the King to Versailles.--Count d'Artois, the Polignacs, and others leave France.--Insolence of the Servants.--Sufferings of the People.--Persecution of the Corn-dealers.--Berthier of Toulon.--M. Foulon.--Their Assassination.--Humane Attempts of Necker.--Abolition of Feudal Rights.
The new government was now established, consolidated with power which neither the court nor the people as yet even faintly realized. The National Assembly and the municipality of Paris were now supreme. A million of men were ready to draw the sword and spring into the ranks to enforce their decrees. The king was henceforth but a constitutional monarch; though by no means conscious of it, his despotic power had passed away, never to be regained. The Revolution had now made such strides that nothing remained but to carry out those plans which might be deemed essential for the welfare of France. The Revolution thus far had been almost bloodless. And had it not been for the interference of surrounding despots, who combined their armies to rivet anew the chains of feudal aristocracy upon the French people, the subsequent horrors of the Revolution, in all probability, never would have occurred. Men of wisdom and of the purest patriotism were at the head of these popular movements. Every step which had been taken had been wisely taken. The object which all sought was reform, not revolution--the reign of a constitutional monarchy, like that of England, not the reign of terror.
A republic was not then even thought of. A monarchy was in accordance with the habits and tastes of the people, and would leave them still in sympathy with the great family of governments which surrounded them. La Fayette, Talleyrand, Sièyes, Mirabeau, Bailly, and all the other leaders in this great movement, wished only to infuse the spirit of personal liberty into the monarchy of France.
But when all the surrounding despotisms combined and put their armies in motion to invade France, determined that the French people should not be free, and when the aristocracy of France combined with these foreign invaders to enslave anew these millions who had just broken their chains, a spirit of desperation was roused which led to all the woes which ensued. We can not tell what would have been the result had there not been the combination of these foreign kings, but we do know that the results which did ensue were the direct and legitimate consequence of that combination.
It will be remembered that the French Guards, espousing the popular side, had refused to fire upon the people. This disobedience to the royal officers was, of course, an act of treason. The Duke of Liancourt, speaking in behalf of the king, said, "The king pardons the French Guards." At the utterance of the obnoxious word pardon, a murmur of displeasure ran through the hall. Some of the guards who were present immediately advanced to the platform, and one, as the organ of the rest, said, firmly and nobly,
"We can not accept a pardon. We need none. In serving the nation we serve the king; and the scenes now transpiring prove it."
The laconic speech was greeted with thunders of applause, and nothing more was said about a pardon. The lower clergy, who were active in these movements, were not unmindful of their obligations to God. The whole people seemed to sympathize in this religious sentiment. At the suggestion of the Archbishop of Paris a Te Deum was promptly voted, and the electors, deputies, and new magistrates, accompanied by an immense concourse of citizens, and escorted by the French Guards, repaired to the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, where the solemn chant of thanksgiving was devoutly offered. La Fayette and Bailly then took the oath of office.
Upon the return of the deputation to the Assembly at Versailles, Lally Tollendal reported that the universal cry of the Parisians was for the recall of Necker, with which minister the popular cause was held to be identified. A motion was immediately introduced to send a deputation to the king soliciting his recall. They had but just entered upon the discussion of this question when a message was received from Louis announcing the dismissal of the obnoxious ministers, accompanied by an unsealed letter addressed to Necker, summoning him to return to his post. Inspired by gratitude for this act, the Assembly immediately addressed a vote of thanks to the king.
The populace of Paris had expressed the earnest wish that the king would pay them a visit. During the afternoon and evening of the 16th, the question was earnestly discussed by the court at Versailles, whether the king should fly from the kingdom, protected by the foreign troops whom he could gather around him, and seek the assistance of foreign powers, or whether he should continue to express acquiescence in the popular movement and visit the people in Paris. The queen was in favor of escape. She told Madame Campan that, after a long discussion at which she was present, the king, impatient and weary, said, "Well, gentlemen, we must decide. Must I go away, or stay? I am ready to do either." "The majority," the queen continued, "were for the king's stay. Time will show whether the right choice has been made."[180]
The king was very apprehensive that in going powerless to Paris he might be assassinated. In preparation of the event, he partook of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and nominated his brother, subsequently Louis XVIII., Lieutenant of France, in case of his detention or death. Early the next morning, the 17th of July, he took an affecting leave of his weeping, distracted family, to visit the tumultuous metropolis. His pale and melancholy countenance impressed every observer. The queen, who was bitterly hostile to the movement, was almost in despair. She immediately retired to her chamber, and employed herself in writing an address to the Assembly, which she determined to present in person in case the king should be detained a prisoner.[181]
It was ten o'clock in the morning when the king left Versailles. He rode in an unostentatious carriage, without any guards, but surrounded by the whole body of the deputies on foot.[182]
It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the long procession arrived at the gates of the city. Thus far they had proceeded in silence. M. Bailly, the newly-appointed mayor, then, met him and presented him with the keys of the city, saying "These are the keys presented to Henry the Fourth. He had reconquered his people. Now the people have reconquered their king."
Two hundred thousand men, now composing the National Guard, were marshaled in military array to receive their monarch. They lined the avenue four or five men deep from the bridge of Sevres to the Hôtel de Ville. They had but 30,000 muskets and 50,000 pikes. The rest were armed with sabres, lances, scythes, and pitchforks. The Revolution thus far was the movement, not of a party, but of the nation. Even matrons and young girls were seen standing armed by the side of their husbands and fathers. The clergy, lower clergy, and some of the bishops, not forgetting that they were men and citizens, were there also in this hour of their country's peril, consecrating all their influence to the cause of freedom. They did not ingloriously take refuge beneath their clerical robes from the responsibilities of this greatest of conflicts for human rights. Shouts were continually heard swelling from the multitude of "Vive la Nation!" As yet not a voice had been heard exclaiming "Vive le Roi!" The people had again become suspicious. Rumors of the unrelenting hostility of the court had been circulating through the crowd, and there were many fears that the ever-vacillating king would again espouse the cause of aristocratic usurpation. Passing through these lines of the National Guard, with the whole population of Paris thronging the house-tops, the balconies, and the pavements, the king at length arrived, at four o'clock in the afternoon, at the Hôtel de Ville, the seat of the new government. He alighted from his carriage and ascended the stairs beneath a canopy of steel formed by the grenadiers crossing their bayonets over his head. This was intended not as a humiliation, but as a singular act of honor.[183]
The king took his position in the centre of the spacious hall, which presented an extraordinary aspect. It was crowded with the notabilities of the city and of the realm, and those near the centre with true French politeness dropped upon their knees, that those more remote might have a view of the king. Bailly then presented the king with the tricolored cockade. He received it, and immediately pinned it upon his hat. This was the adoption of the popular cause. It was received with a shout of enthusiasm, and "Vive le Roi!" burst from all lips with almost delirious energy. Tears gushed into the eyes of the king, and, turning to one of his suite, M. de Cubieres, he said, "My heart stands in need of such shouts from the people."
"Sire," replied Cubieres, "the people love your majesty, and your majesty ought never to have doubted it."
The king rejoined, in accents of deep sensibility, "The French loved Henry the Fourth; and what king ever better deserved to be beloved?"
The king could not forget that the affection of the people did not protect Henry from the dagger of the assassin. Moreau de St. Mèrry, president of the Assembly of Electors, in his address to the king, said, "You owed your crown to birth; you are now indebted for it only to your virtues."[184] The minutes of the proceedings of the municipality were then read, and the king, by silence, gave his assent to the appointment of La Fayette as Commander of the National Guard, of Bailly as Mayor of Paris, and to the order for the utter demolition of the Bastille. It was also proposed that a monument should be erected upon its site to Louis XVI., "the Regenerator of public liberty, the Restorer of national prosperity, the Father of the French people." These were, to the monarch, hours of terrific humiliation. He bore them, however, with the spirit of a martyr, struggling in vain to assume the aspect of confidence and cordiality.
When Bailly led him to the balcony, to exhibit him to the people with the tricolored cockade upon his hat, and shouts of triumph, like thunder-peals, rose from the myriad throng, tears flooded the eyes of the king, and he bowed his head in silence and sadness, as if presenting himself a victim for the sacrifice. Some one whispered to the monarch that it was expected that he would make an address. Two or three times he attempted it, but his voice was choked with emotion, and he could only, in almost inarticulate accents, exclaim, "You may always rely upon my affection!"
As the king returned through the vast throng to Versailles, the tide of enthusiasm set strongly in his favor. Shouts of "Vive le Roi!" almost deafened his ears. The populace bore him in their arms to his chariot. A woman threw herself upon his neck and wept with joy. Men ran from the houses with goblets of wine for his postillions and his suite. A few words from his lips then would have re-echoed through the crowd, and might have saved the monarchy. But Louis was a man of feeble intellect, and of no tact whatever. He was pleased with the homage which was spontaneously offered him, and, stolid in his immense corpulence, sat lolling in his chariot, with a good-natured smile upon his face, but uttered not a word. It was after nine o'clock in the evening when he returned to the palace at Versailles. The queen and her children met him on the stairs, and, convulsively weeping, threw themselves into his arms. Clinging together, they ascended to the saloon. There the queen caught sight of the tricolored cockade, which the king had forgotten to remove from his hat. The queen recoiled, and looking upon it contemptuously, exclaimed, "I did not think that I had married a plebeian." The good-natured king, however, forgot all his humiliations in his safe return, and congratulated himself that no violence had been excited.
"Happily," he said, "no blood has been shed; and it is my firm determination that never shall a drop of French blood be spilled by my order."[185]
While these scenes were transpiring on this the 17th of July, the Count d'Artois, second brother of the king, the Condés, the Polignacs, and most of the other leaders of the aristocratic party fled from France. The conspiracy they had formed had failed, the nation had risen against them, and no reliance could be placed on the vacillating king. Their only hope now was to summon the combined energies of foreign despotisms to arrest the progress of that liberty in France which alike threatened all their thrones. The palace was now forsaken and gloomy as a tomb. For three days the king sadly paced the deserted halls, with none of his old friends to cheer or counsel him but Bensenval and Montmorin. His servants, conscious that he had fallen from his kingly power, became careless even to insolence. Even the French Guard mounted guard at Versailles only on orders received from the Electors at Paris.[186]
On the 19th Bensenval presented an order for the king to sign. A footman entered the cabinet, and looked over the king's shoulder to see what he was writing. Louis, amazed at such unparalleled effrontery, seized the tongs to break the head of the miscreant. Bensenval interposed to prevent the undignified blow. The king clasped the hand of his friend, and, bursting into tears, thanked him for the interposition. Thus low had fallen the descendant of Louis XIV. in his own palace at Versailles.[187]
There was now, in reality, no government in France. The kingly power was entirely overthrown, and the National Assembly had hardly awoke to the consciousness that all power had passed into its hands. Even in Paris, the municipality, now supreme there, had by no means organized an efficient government. Famine desolated the kingdom. Ages of misrule had so utterly impoverished the people that they were actually dying of starvation. "Bread! bread!" was every where the cry, but bread could not be obtained. Many boiled grass and fern-roots for sustenance. Every where the eye met wan and haggard men in a state of desperation. The king, constitutionally humane, felt deeply these woes of his subjects. With a little apparent ostentation, quite pardonable under the circumstances, he occasionally walked out and administered relief with his own hands to the haggard beggary he every where met. He was by nature one of the kindest of men, but he had hardly a single quality to fit him to be the ruler of a great people. A nation was on the brink of famine, and the monarch was giving gold to beggars instead of introducing vigorous measures for relief.
As the National Assembly met on the morning of the 18th of July, reports were brought from all parts of violence and riots. The most vigorous efforts were adopted by the Electors in Paris to supply the city with food. Nearly a million of people were within its walls. Vast numbers had crowded into the city from the country, hoping to obtain food. No law could restrain such multitudes of men, actually dying of hunger. As it was better to die by the bullet or the bayonet than by starvation, they would, at all hazards, break into the dwellings of the wealthy, and into magazines, to obtain food, unless food in some other way could be provided for them. The disorders of the times had put a stop to all the enterprises of industry, and thus the impoverished millions were left without money, without employment, and without food.
In one of the villages near Paris it was reported that a rich farmer had concealed a large quantity of grain, to enrich himself by its sale at an exorbitant price. A haggard multitude of men, women, and children surrounded his dwelling, and threatened to hang the farmer unless he delivered up his stores. The Assembly hastily sent a deputation of twelve members to attempt to save the unfortunate corn-dealer's life.[188] While engaged in this business, a delegation entered from the Faubourg San Antoine, stating that the wretched inhabitants of that faubourg had for the last five days been without work and without bread, and entreating that some measure might be devised to save them from starvation. Nine thousand dollars were immediately subscribed by the deputies for their relief. Four thousand of this sum were given by the Archbishop of Paris.
The rage of the people, during these days of distress, was particularly directed against those whom they deemed monopolists, who were accused of keeping from the market the very sources of life. The sufferings of the people and their desperation were so intense that it was necessary to send military bands from the city of Paris to convoy provisions through the famishing districts. The peasants, who saw their children actually gasping and dying of hunger, would attack the convoys with the ferocity of wolves, and, though it seemed absolutely necessary to resist them even unto death, no one could severely blame them.
There were two men, M. Foulon and M. Berthier, who were conspicuous members of the court, and who had both been very active in their hostility to the popular cause. Upon the overthrow of the Necker ministry, these men were called into the new ministry, antagonistic to the people. It was reported that M. Foulon, who was the father-in-law of M. Berthier, had frequently said, "If the people are hungry, let them eat grass. It is good enough for them; my horses eat it."[189] He is also stated to have uttered the terrible threat, "France must be mowed as we mow a meadow." He was reputed to be a man of great wealth, and had long been execrated by the people. These brutal remarks, which have never been proved against him, but which were universally believed, and which were in entire harmony with his established character, excited the wrath of the people to the highest pitch.[190]
Berthier, his son-in-law, even the Royalists confess to have been a very hard-hearted man, unscrupulous and grasping.[191] Though fifty years of age he was an atrocious libertine, and seemed to exult in the opportunity of making war upon the Parisians, by whom he was detested. He showed "a diabolical activity," says Michelet, "in collecting arms, troops, every thing together, and in manufacturing cartridges. If Paris was not laid waste with fire and sword it was not his fault."[192]
Both Berthier and Foulon were now at the mercy of the people. Neither the court nor the royal army had any power to protect them, and murmurs loud and deep fell upon their ears. Berthier attempted to escape from France to join the Royalists who had already emigrated. Fleeing by night and hiding by day, in four nights he reached as far as Soissons. Foulon adopted the stratagem of a pretended death. He spread the report that he had died suddenly of apoplexy. He was buried by proxy with great pomp, one of his servants having by chance died at the right moment. He then repaired to the house of a friend, where he concealed himself. He would have been forgotten had he not been so utterly execrated by all France. Those who knew him best hated him the worst. His servants and vassals detected the fraud, and, hunting him out, found him in the park of his friend.
"You wanted to give us hay," said they; "you shall eat some yourself."
The awful hour of blind popular vengeance had come. They tied a truss of hay upon his back, threw a collar of thistles over his neck, and bound a nosegay of nettles upon his breast. They then led him on foot to Paris, to the Hôtel de Ville, and demanded that he should be fairly tried and legally punished. At the same time Berthier was arrested as he was hastening to the frontier.
The municipality were in great perplexity. They had no power to sit in judgment as a criminal court. The old courts were broken up and no new ones had as yet been established. It was six o'clock in the morning when he was presented at the Hôtel de Ville. The news of his arrest spread rapidly through Paris, and the Place de Grève was soon thronged with an excited multitude. Foulon was universally known as well as execrated. La Fayette was anxious to send him to the protection of a prison, that he might subsequently receive a legal trial for his deeds of inhumanity.
"Gentlemen," said La Fayette to the people, "I can not blame your indignation against this man. I have always considered him a great culprit, and no punishment is too severe for him. He shall receive the punishment he merits. But he has accomplices, and we must know them. I will conduct him to the Abbaye, where we will draw up charges against him, and he shall be tried and punished according to the laws."[193]
The people applauded this speech, and Foulon insanely joined with them in the applause. This excited their suspicion that some plot was forming for his rescue. A man from the crowd cried out,
"What is the use of judging a man who has been judged these thirty years?"
This cry was Foulon's death-warrant. It kindled anew the flame of indignation and it now burned unquenchably. The enraged populace clamored for their victim. The surgings of the multitude were like the tumult of the ocean in a storm. The countless thousands pressed on, sweeping electors, judges, and witnesses before them, and Foulon was seized, no one can tell by whom or how, till at last he was found in the street with a cord around his neck, while the mob were attempting to hang him upon a lamp-post. Twice the iron cut the cord, and the old man on his knees begged for mercy. But the infuriated populace were unrelenting. A third rope was obtained, and the poor man was soon dangling lifeless in the air.
While these scenes were transpiring Berthier was brought into the city. He was in a cabriolet, that the people might have a sight of their inhuman persecutor. A frightful mob surrounded him, filling the air with menaces and execrations. A placard was borne before him with this inscription in large letters:
"He has devoured the substance of the people; he has been the slave of the rich and the tyrant of the poor; he has robbed the king and France; he has betrayed his country."[194]
The miserable wretch was dragged up the steps of the Hôtel de Ville. But the mob was now in the ascendency. There was no longer law or even semblance of authority. An attempt was made by the National Guard to convey him to the Abbaye; but the moment they appeared with their prisoner in the street the crowd fell irresistibly upon him. Seizing a gun, he fought like a tiger; but he soon fell, pierced with bayonets.[195] A dragoon tore out his heart, and carried it dripping with blood to the Hôtel de Ville, saying, "Here is the heart of Berthier!"[196] The man attempted an extenuation of his ferocity by declaring that Berthier had caused the death of his father. His comrades, however, deemed such brutality a disgrace to their corps. They told him that he must die, and that they would all fight him in turn until he was killed. He was killed that night.[197]
These deeds of violence excited the disgust of Bailly, the mayor, and La Fayette. Having such evidence that both the municipality and the National Guard were impotent, both La Fayette and Bailly tendered their resignations.
They were, however, prevailed upon to continue in office by the most earnest solicitations of the friends of France.[198]
A report was spread throughout the kingdom that the fugitive princes and nobles were organizing a force on the frontiers for the invasion of France, that the armies of foreign despots were at their command, and that all the Royalists in France were conspiring to welcome them. The panic which pervaded the kingdom was fearful. France, just beginning to breathe the atmosphere of liberty, was threatened with chains of slavery more heavy than had ever been worn before. The energies of a semi-enfranchised people were roused to the utmost vigor. Every city, and every village of any importance, organized a municipal government in sympathy with the municipality in Paris. The peasantry in the rural districts, hating the nobles who had long oppressed them, attacked and burned their castles. There was a universal rising of the Third Estate against the tyranny of the privileged classes, assailing that tyranny with the only instrument at its command--blind brutal force. In one week three millions of men assumed the military character, and organized themselves for the defense of the kingdom. The tricolored cockade became the national uniform.
The National Assembly, intently occupied in framing a constitution, was greatly disturbed by reports of these wide-spread acts of violence; yet daily delegations arrived with vows of homage from the different provinces, and with their recognition of the authority of the national representatives.
Necker was in exile at Basle. He had left the Polignacs in pride and power at Versailles; they now were fugitives. One morning one of the Polignacs hastened to Necker's apartment and informed him of the overthrow of the court and the triumph of the people. Necker had just received these tidings when a courier placed in his hand the letter of the king recalling him to the ministry. The grandest of triumphs greeted him from the moment his carriage entered France until he was received with a delirium of joy in the streets of Paris. The people, who had with lawless violence punished Foulon and Berthier, who had conspired so inhumanly for the overthrow of their liberties, were determined that others, who with equal malignity had conspired against them, should also be condemned. Necker humanely resolved that an act of general amnesty should be passed. Many of his friends assured him that it was not safe to attempt to secure the passage of such a measure; that the crimes of the leaders of the court were too great to be thus easily forgotten; that the indignant nation, finding Necker pleading the cause of the court, would think that he had been bought over; and that thus he would only secure his own ruin. But Necker, relying upon his popularity, resolved to make the trial. On the 29th of July he repaired to the Hôtel de Ville. As he passed through the streets and entered the spacious hall, he was received with rapturous applause. Deeming his popularity equal to the emergence, he demanded a general amnesty. In the enthusiasm of the moment it was granted by acclamation. Necker retired to his apartments delighted with his success; but before the sun had set he found himself cruelly deceived. The Assembly, led by Mirabeau, remonstrated peremptorily against this usurpation of power by the Municipality of Paris, asserting that that body had no authority either to condemn or to pardon. The measure of amnesty was annulled by the Assembly, and the detention of the prisoners confirmed.
The great question which now agitated the Assembly was, what measures were to be adopted to bring order out of the chaos into which France was plunged. All the old courts were virtually annihilated. No new courts had been organized with the sanction of national authority. The nobles and all their friends, in conference with the emigrants and foreign despots, were conspiring to reinstate the reign of despotic power. The people were in a state of terror. The degraded, the desperate, the vicious, in banditti hordes, were sweeping the country, burning and pillaging indiscriminately. It was proposed to publish a decree enjoining upon the people to demean themselves peaceably, to pay such taxes and duties as were not yet suppressed, and to yield obedience for the present to the old laws of the realm, obnoxious and unjust as they undeniably were.
While this question was under discussion, the Viscount de Noailles and the Duke d'Aguillon, both distinguished members of the nobility, ascended the tribune and declared that it was vain to attempt to quiet the people by force, that the only way of appeasing them was by removing the cause of their sufferings. They then, though both of them members of the privileged class, nobly avowed the enormity of the aggressions under which, by the name of feudal rights, the people were oppressed, and voted for the repeal of those atrocities.
It is a remarkable fact that in this great revolution the boldest and ablest friends of popular rights came out from the body of the nobles themselves. Some were influenced by as pure motives as can move the human heart. With others, perhaps, selfish and ambitious motives predominated. Among the most active in all these movements, we see La Fayette, Talleyrand, Sièyes, Mirabeau, and the Duke of Orleans. But for the aid of these men, whatever may have been the motives which influenced the one or the other, the popular cause could not have triumphed. And now we find, in the National Assembly, two of the most distinguished of the nobles rising and themselves proposing the utter abolition of all feudal rights.
It was the 4th of August, 1789, when this memorable scene was enacted in the National Assembly, one of the most remarkable which ever transpired on earth. The whole body of the nobles seems to have been seized with a paroxysm of magnanimity and disinterestedness. One of the deputies of the Tiers Etat, M. Kerengal, in the dress of a farmer, gave a frightful picture of the sufferings of the people under feudal oppression.[199] There was no more discussion. No voice defended feudality. The nobles, one after another, renounced all their prerogatives. The clergy surrendered their tithes. The deputies of the towns and of the provinces gave up their special privileges, and, in one short night, all those customs and laws by which, for ages, one man had been robbed to enrich another were scattered to the winds. Equality of rights was established between all individuals and all parts of the French territory. Louis XVI. was then proclaimed the restorer of French liberty. It was decreed that a medal should be struck off in his honor, in memory of that glorious night. And when the Archbishop of Paris proposed that God's goodness should be acknowledged in a solemn Te Deum, to be celebrated in the king's chapel, in the presence of the king and of all the members of the National Assembly, it was carried by acclamation. During the whole of this exciting scene, when sacrifices were made such as earth never witnessed before; when nobles surrendered their titles, their pensions, and their incomes; when towns and corporations surrendered their privileges and pecuniary immunities; when prelates relinquished their tithes and their benefices; not a solitary voice of opposition or remonstrance was heard. The whole Assembly--clergy, nobles, and Tiers Etat--moved as one man. "It seemed," says M. Rabaud, "as if France was near being regenerated in the course of a single night. So true it is that the happiness of a people is easily to be accomplished, when those who govern are less occupied with themselves than with the people."[200]
It subsequently, however, appeared that this seeming unanimity was not real. "The impulse," writes Thiers, "was general; but amid this enthusiasm it was easy to see that certain of the privileged persons, so far from being sincere, were desirous only of making matters worse." This was the measure which the unrelenting nobles adopted to regain their power. Finding that they could not resist the torrent, they endeavored to swell its volume and to give impulse to its rush, that it might not only sweep away all the rubbish which through ages had been accumulating, but that it might also deluge every field of fertility, and sweep, in indiscriminate ruin, all the abodes of industry and all the creations of art. It was now their sole endeavor to plunge France into a state of perfect anarchy, with the desperate hope that from the chaos they might rebuild their ancient despotism; that the people, plunged into unparalleled misery, might themselves implore the restoration of the ancient régime.
This combination of the highest of the aristocracy and of the clergy to exasperate the mob immeasurably increased the difficulties of the patriots. The court party, with all its wealth and influence--a wealth and influence which had been accumulating for ages--scattered its emissaries every where to foster discord, to excite insurrection, to stimulate the mob to all brutality, that the Revolution might have an infamous name through Europe, and might be execrated in France. In almost every act of violence which immediately succeeded, the hand of these instigators from palaces and castles was distinctly to be seen. Indeed, it was generally supposed that even Berthier and Foulon were wrested from the protection of La Fayette by emissaries of the court. And the British government was so systematically assailed for exciting disturbances in France, that the Duke of Dorset, British embassador at the time, found it necessary to present a formal contradiction of the charge.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 180: Madame Campan, Memoirs, p. 251.]
[Footnote 181: "She got this address by heart," writes Madame Campan. "I remember it began with these words, 'Gentlemen, I come to place in your hands the wife and family of your sovereign. Do not suffer those who have been united in Heaven to be put asunder on earth.' While she was repeating this address her voice was often interrupted by her tears, and by the sorrowful exclamation, 'They will never let him return.'"]
[Footnote 182: The Parliamentary History, vol. ii., p. 130, records that 100 deputies accompanied the king; Thiers states 200; Louis Blanc, 240; Michelet, 300 or 400. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, a member of the Assembly, says that the whole body of the deputies accompanied the king; and M. Ant. Fantin Desodoards, an eye-witness, writes, "L'Assemblée National, entière l'accompagnait à pied dans son costume de ceremonie," vol. i., p. 34. The probability is that 100 were chosen, but all went.]
[Footnote 183: Michelet, vol. i., p. 173.]
[Footnote 184: Histoire de la Revolution Française, par Louis Blanc, vol. ii., p. 420.]
[Footnote 185: Madame Campan, Memoirs, etc., ii., 59.]
[Footnote 186: Michelet, 186.]
[Footnote 187: Michelet, 175.]
[Footnote 188: "He was saved only by a deputation of the Assembly, who showed themselves admirable for courage and humanity, risked their lives, and preserved the man only after having begged him of the people on their knees."--Michelet, p. 186.]
[Footnote 189: Bertrand de Moleville testifies that this was an habitual expression in the mouth of Foulon.--Annals, vol. i., p. 347.]
[Footnote 190: "The old man (Foulon) believed, by such bravado, to please the young military party, and recommend himself for the day he saw approaching, when the court, wanting to strike some desperate blow, would look out for a hardened villain."--Michelet, vol. ii., p. 10.]
[Footnote 191: Beaulieu's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 10.]
[Footnote 192: "Foulon had a son-in-law after his own heart--Berthier, the intendant of Paris, a shrewd but hard-hearted man, and unscrupulous, as confessed by the Royalists. A libertine at the age of fifty, in spite of his numerous family, he purchased on all sides, so it was said, little girls twelve years of age. He knew well that he was detested by the Parisians, and was but too happy to find an opportunity of making war upon them."--Michelet, p. 184.]
[Footnote 193: An appeal to the then existing courts would have secured the trial of Foulon by his own colleagues and accomplices, the ancient magistrates, the only judges then empowered to act. This was evident to all. See Michelet, p. 187.]
[Footnote 194: Deux Amis de la Liberté, vol. ii., p. 60.]
[Footnote 195: "These people," says Michelet, "whom Mirabeau termed so well the refuse of public contempt, are as if restored to character by punishment. The gallows becomes their apotheosis. They are now become interesting victims--the martyrs of monarchy; their legend will go on increasing in pathetic fictions. Mr. Burke canonized them and prayed on their tomb."--Historical View of the French Revolution, p. 190.]
[Footnote 196: Sir Archibald Alison, true to his instincts as the advocate of aristocratic usurpation, carefully conceals the character of these men, which drew down upon them the vengeance of the mob. Impartial history, while denouncing the ferocity of the mob, should not conceal those outrages which roused the people to madness.]
[Footnote 197: "It is an indisputable fact that the murder of Foulon and Berthier was not looked upon by the majority of the people of Paris with horror and disgust. So unpopular were these two men that their death was viewed as an act of justice, only irregular in its execution. Frenchmen were still accustomed to witness the odious punishment of torture and the wheel; and society may hence learn a lesson that the sight of cruel executions tends to destroy the feelings of humanity."--France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq., p. 47.]
[Footnote 198: "The people and the militia did actually throng around La Fayette, and promised the utmost obedience in future. On this condition he resumed the command; and subsequently he had the satisfaction of preventing many disturbances by his own energy and the zeal of the troops."--Thiers, vol. i., p. 76.]
[Footnote 199: "You would have prevented," said Kerengal, "the burning of the chateau, if you had been more prompt in declaring that the terrible arms which they contain, and which for ages have tormented the people, were to be destroyed. Let these arms, the title-deeds, which insult not only modesty but even humanity, which humiliate the human species by requiring men to be yoked to a wagon like beasts of labor, which compel men to pass the night in beating the ponds to prevent the frogs from disturbing the sleep of their voluptuous lords, let them be brought here. Which of us would not make an expiatory pile of these infamous parchments? You can never restore quiet to the people until they are redeemed from the destruction of feudalism."]
[Footnote 200: "That night, which an enemy of the Revolution designated at the time the Saint Bartholomew of property, was only the Saint Bartholomew of abuses."--Miguet, p. 54.]