iT€r&#© HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, FROM 1789 to 1814. BY A. F. MIGNET. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : PRINTED FOR HUNT AND CLARKE, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. MDCCCXW I. ISAAC FOOT LIBRARY LONDON : PRINTED BY C. II. REYNELL, BROAn STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. INTRODUCTION. PAGE Character of the French revolution ; its results ; its progress - - - - - 1 Successive forms of the monarchy - - - 5 Louis XIV and Louis XV - - - - 1 1 State of intelligence, of the finances, of the power and wants of the people, when Louis XVI ascended the throne : his character - - - - 1 7 Maurepas prime minister ; his policy - - - 19 He chooses popular and reforming ministers ; with what object - - - - - - 20 Turgot, Malesherbes, Necker ; their plans ; they encoun- ter the opposition of the court and the privileged orders; their failure - • - - - 21 Death of Maurepas - - - - - 24 Influence of the queen Marie Antoinette - - 24 Courtier ministers succeed the popular ministers - 24 Calonne and his system - - - - - 25 Brienne ; his character ; his attempts - - - 27 Distressed condition of the finances ; opposition of the as- sembly of notables ; opposition of the parliament ; opposition of the provinces - - - - 29 VOL. I. A U CONTENTS. PACiF; Retirement of Brienne ; second ministry of Necker - 34 Convocation of the states-general - - -35 How the revolution had become inevitable - - 39 CHAPTER I. Opening of the states-general - - - - 4 1 Opinions of the court, of the ministry, of the different bodies of the realm, touching the states - - 44 Verification of the powers ; question of the vote by order or by poll - - - - - - 46 The order of the commons forms itself into the national assembly - - - - - 57 The court causes the hall of the state to be closed ; oath of the Tennis Court - - - - - 60 The majority of the order of the clergy re-unites itself to the order of the commons - - - -66 Royal sitting of the 23rd June ; its inutility - - 67 Projects of the court; events of the 12th, 13th, and 14th July; retirement of Necker; insurrection of Paris ; formation of the national guard ; siege and capture of the Bastile - - - - 71 The consequences of the 14th July ... 107 Decrees of the night of the 14th August * - 108 Character of the revolution which had been operated - 110 CHAPTER II. State of the constituent assembly - - - 112 Party of the high clergy and the noblesse ; Maury and Cazales 113 Party of the minister and of the two chambers ; Mounier, Lally-Tollendal 115 CONTENTS. HI PAUB The popular party ; the triumvirate of Bamave, Duport, and Lameth ; its position ; influence of Sieves ; Mira- beau, leader of the assembly at this epoch - - 1 1 7 The party of Orleans - - - - - 123 Constitutional labours; declaration of rights; perma- nence and unity of the legislative body ; royal sanc- tion ; the external agitation which it produces - 124 Project of the court ; banquet of the garde-du-corps - 134 Insurrection of the 5th and 6th October - - 139 The king comes to live in Paris - - - 147 CHAPTER III. Consequences of the events of October - - - 150 Change of the provinces into departments ; organization of the administrative and municipal authorities on the system of the popular sovereignty, and of election - 153 Finances ; all the means which were resorted to found insufficient ; the benefices of the clergy proclaimed national property - - - - - 157 The sale of the benefices of the clergy leads to the assignats ._---- 163 Civil constitution of the clergy ; opposition of the bishops 165 Anniversary of the 14th July ; abolition of tithes ; federa- tion of the Champ-de-Mars - - - 177 New organization of the army; opposition of the officers 185 The schism of the civil constitution of the clergy - 198 Clubs 191 Death of Mirabeau - - - - - 196 During all this period the separation of the parties be- comes more and more decided - - - 199 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE Politics of Europe before the French Revolution - 201 The system of alliance adopted by the different states - 203 General coalition against the revolution ; motives of each power ------ 204 Declaration of Mantua ----- 205 Flight to Varennes ; arrest of the king ; his suspension - 206 The republican party, for the first time, separates itself from the constitutional-monarchy party - - 210 This last re-establishes the king - - - 214 Declaration of Pilnitz - - - - -217 The king accepts the constitution ; end of the constituent assembly ; opinion upon it - - - - 221 CHAPTER V. First interviews of the legislative assembly with the king 230 State of parties _____ 235 The Feuillants rely on the support of the middle classes, the Girondists on that of the people - - 236 The emigration and the refractory clergy ; decree against them ; the king's veto - 240 Declarations of war - 250 The Girondist ministry ; Dumouriez and Roland - 259 Declaration of war against the king of Hungary and Bo- hemia ------ 264 Disasters of our armies ; order for a camp of reserve of 20,000 men below Paris ; decree of banishment against the priests who had not taken the oaths - - 269 The king's veto ; fall of the Girondist ministry - - 272 Insurrectionary petition of the 20th June in favour of the decrees, and demanding the return of the minis- ters to their places ----- 278 CONTENTS. V TAOE Last efforts of the constitutional party ... 282 The duke of Brunswick's manifesto - 294 Events of the 10th August - - - - 299 Military insurrection of La Fayette against the conspira- tors of the 10th August ; its failure - - - 315 Division of the assembly and of the new commune - 319 Danton 321 Invasion of the Prussians - 323 Massacres of the 2nd September ... 326 Campaign of the Argonne - 329 Causes of the events that occurred under the legislative 335 CHAPTER VI. First measures of the convention ; manner in which it was composed - 339 Rivalry of the Girondists and Mountainists ; strength and views of these two parties - - - - 34 1 Robespierre ; the Girondists accuse him of aiming at the dictatorship - - - - - -347 Marat - - - - - - - 351 New accusation against Robespierre by Louvet ; Robes- pierre's defence ; the convention passes to the order of the day - - - - - - 356 The Mountainists, victorious in the struggle, demand the trial of Louis XVI 361 Opinions of the parties relative to this ... 365 The convention determines on the trial of Louis XVI, and that he shall be judged by it - - 368 Louis XVI at the Temple ; his answers in presence of the convention ; his defence ; his condemnation ; his courage and serenity in his last moments ; his qualities and defects as a monarch .... 3/5 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGK The political and military situation of France - - 389 England, Holland, Spain, Naples, and all the circles of the empire agree to the coalition - 397 Dumouriez, after the conquest of Belgium, attempts an expedition into Holland - 394 He endeavours to re-establish the constitutional monarchy 401 Reverses of our armies ----- 403 Struggles of the Mountainists and Girondists - - 403 Conspiracy of the 10th March - 404 Insurrection in La Vendde, and its progress - - 406 Defection of Dumouriez - 409 The Girondists are accused of being his accomplices - 416 New conspiracies against them - - - - 418 Establishment of the commission of twelve, to undo the plans of the conspirators - 420 Insurrections of the 2Jth and 31st May against the com- mission of twelve - - - - - 42 1 It is suppressed - - - - - - 423 Insurrection of the 2nd June against the twenty-two principal Girondists - - - - - 431 They are arrested - 438 The entire defeat of that party - 438 HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. INTRODUCTION. Character of the French revolution ; its results ; its progress. — Successive forms of the monarchy. — Louis XIV and Louis XV. — State of intelligence, of the finances, of the power and wants of the people, when Louis XIV ascended the throne ; — his character. — Maurepas, prime minister ; his policy. — He chooses popular and reforming ministers ; with what object. — Turgot, Malesherbes, Necker ; their plans ; they encounter the opposition of the court and the privileged orders ; their failure. — Death of Maurepas. — Influence of the queen Marie Antoinette. — Courtier ministers succeed the popular ministers. — Calonne and his system. — Brienne ; his character ; his attempts. — Distressed condition of the finances ; opposition of the assembly of notables ; opposition of the parliament ; opposition of the provinces. — Retirement of Brienne ; second ministry of Necker. — Convocation of the states-general. — How the revolution had become in- evitable. I shall take a rapid view of the French re- volution, an event which introduced a new VOL. I. b 2 HISTORY OF THE state of society in Europe, as the English revolution had been the epoch of a new system of government. This revolution has not merely modified the political power of the nation, but has entirely changed its interior constitution. The forms of society which had sprung up in the middle ages still existed. The territory was divided into hostile pro- vinces, and the population into rival classes. The noblesse, although still preserving its distinctions, had lost all its power ; the peo- ple possessed no rights ; the royal authority was restrained by no limits ; and France was abandoned to the confusion of arbitrary admi- nistration, partial governments, and privileged bodies. For this disordered state of things, the revolution has substituted one more con- formable to the principles of justice, and better adapted to the spirit of our times. Privilege gave way to equality, and arbitrary power was replaced by the regulations of law ; the distinctions of classes, and the provincial barriers, were annihilated ; industry was freed from the control of corporations and wardens ; agriculture from tythes and feudal services; and property from the system of entails. In a word, France, as respects her FRENCH REVOLUTION. o territory, her laws, and her population, was consolidated and united. Such reforms could not be effected without encountering great difficulties ; and transient evils necessarily followed in the train of solid and enduring ameliorations. The privileged classes wished to prevent, Europe tried to subdue, the revolution ; and thus, forced into the struggle, it could neither measure its efforts nor moderate its triumphs. Resistance from within led to the sovereignty of the multitude, and aggression from without to the military domination. Nevertheless, in spite of anarchy and despotism, the object has been attained ; ancient society has been destroyed during the revolution, and a new spirit established under the empire. When reform has become necessary, and the period for its accomplishment has arrived, attempts to stifle tend only to hasten its pro- gress. Happy would it be for mankind, could they properly estimate these changes ; if they who possess too much, would yield up a portion of their abundance ; and they who have too little, would be content with what they really needed. Revolution would then be divested of its horrors ; and the his- torian, instead of having to record a series of 4 HISTORY OF THE evils and excesses, would only have to de- scribe human nature become more wise, more free, and more happy. But the page of his- tory offers no example of such prudent sacri- fices : they who should have made, have refused to make them ; and they who have demanded, have in their turn imposed them. Thus good has been found operating like evil, by the means and with the violence of usurpa- tion. As yet, there has been no sovereign but force. In retracing the history of this important period, from the opening of the states-general to the year 1814, I shall define the several crises of the revolution, at the same time that I describe its progress. We shall see how, after having begun under the happiest auspi- ces, it degenerated so violently ; in what manner it changed France into a republic ; and how upon the ruins of the republic the empire was elevated. These different phases resulted almost necessarily from the irresisti- ble operation of the events which produced them. It would be rash indeed to affirm that the course of events could not have been dif- ferent ; but still the causes which produced the revolution, and the passions which it called into action, were such as to lead most FRENCH REVOLUTION. O naturally to that which was its actual pro- gress and termination. Before entering into these details, let us enquire into the circum- stances which produced the convocation of the states-general, the immediate cause of the revolution ; and in tracing these preliminaries, I hope to shew that it was alike impossible to avoid or control it. At no period since its establishment had the French monarchy any permanency in its form, or any fixed and recognised powers and prerogatives. Under the first races, the crown was elective, the nation was sovereign, and the king simply a military chieftain, de- pending on the common deliberations as to the decrees he should enact, or the measures he should undertake. The nation elected its chief; it exercised the legislative power in the Champs de Mars, under the presidency of the monarch, and the judicial power as to the courts-leet, under the direction of one of his officers. The royal democracy gave way, during the prevalence of the feudal system, to a royal aristocracy. The sovereignty as- cended ; the grandees despoiled the people of this power, as they themselves were after- wards despoiled of it by the prince. At this 6 HISTORY OF THE epoch the monarch had become hereditary, — not however as king, but as the possessor of the royal fief ; the legislative power belonging to the grandees in the parliaments of the barons, and the judicial authority to the vas- sals in the seignorial courts. By degrees the sovereign power was still further concen- trated ; and in the same manner as it had passed from a great to a small number, it passed in the last resort from a small number to a single individual. The unceasing efforts of the monarchs during many ages had bat- tered down the feudal edifice, and raised themselves on its ruins : they had invaded the fiefs, subjugated the vassals, and sup- pressed the parliaments of the barons ; they had annulled or subjugated the seignorial courts, assumed the legislative power, and made the parliaments of lawyers exercise their judicial functions in subservience to their will. The states-general, which they had sum- moned only on occasions of pressing necessity to grant them subsidies, and which were composed of the three orders of the nation — ■ the clergy, the noblesse, and the tiers-etat, (third estate), had never had a regular exist- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 7 ence. Summoned occasionally during the progress of the royal prerogative, they were first governed, and afterwards suppressed by it. The vigorous and obstinate resistance which the kings experienced in their projects of aggrandizement, sprang much less from these assemblies, which they had called into existence, and on which they had arbitrarily conferred their rights, than from the grandees, who defended against royal encroachment, first, their sovereignty, and next, their politi- cal importance. From Philip Augustus to Louis XI they struggled for the preservation of their own power ; from Louis XI to Louis XIV, to become the ministers of the royal power. The Fronde was the last campaign of the aristocracy. Under Louis XIV absolute monarchy was definitively established, and ruled without opposition. This shews that despotism is more recent than oligarchy, and oligarchy more recent than liberty. The lat- ter, in whatever manner we consider it, has been justly re-established in our days. If we make the nature of governments a ques- tion of time, it is the most ancient ; of justice, it is founded on the rights of man ; of power, it is actually established. 8 HISTORY OF THE The government of France, from the reign of Louis XIV to the revolution, was arbitrary rather than despotic ; for the monarchs had much greater power than they exercised : their immense authority was resisted only by the feeblest barriers. The crown disposed of the person by lettres-de-cachet ; of property, by confiscations ; of income, by imposts. It is true, certain bodies possessed a means of defence, which they called privileges ; but these privileges were seldom respected. The parliament had the privilege of consenting to or refusing an impost ; but the king enforced registration by a bed of justice [lit de justice] and punished its members by letters of exile. The noblesse were exempt from imposts ; the clergy had the privilege of taxing themselves by voluntary grants. Some of the provinces had the privilege of compounding for these imposts, and others, that of making the as- sessment themselves. Such were the small guarantees of France ; and even these were still turned to the advantage of the favoured classes, and to the oppression of the people. France, thus enslaved, was also most wretchedly organized : the excesses of power were less insupportable than their unequal FRENCH REVOLUTION. distribution. Divided into three orders, which were again subdivided into several classes, the nation was abandoned to all the evils of despotism, and all the miseries of inequality. The noblesse were divided into courtiers, who lived on the favours of the prince, or — in other words— on the labours of the people, and who obtained either the government of the provinces, or high stations in the army ; up- starts, who directed the administration, and were appointed to intendancies, and made a trade of the provinces ; lawyers, who admi- nistered justice, and monopolized its appoint- ments ; and territorial barons, who oppressed the country by the exercise of their private feudal privileges, which had displaced the general political rights. The clergy were divided into two classes, of which one was destined for the bishoprics and abbacies and their rich revenues, the other to apostolic la- bours and to poverty. The tiers-etat, borne down by the court and harassed by the no- blesse, was itself separated into corporations, which retaliated upon each other the evils and the oppression which they endured from their superiors. They possessed scarcely a 10 HISTORY OF THE third part of the soil, upon which they were compelled to yield feudal services to their lords, tithes to the priests, and imposts to the king. In compensation for so many sacri- fices, they enjoyed no rights, had no share in the administration, and were admitted to no public employments. This order of things could not continue for ever ; and it was the prince himself who was destined to bring it to a crisis. His extrava- gance had exhausted his means, and destroyed the equilibrium between his necessities and his revenues ; by patronising genius, he had invited examination into his government, and conferred the power of intelligence on the enslaved and humiliated tiers-etat ; incessantly requiring new imposts, he had made himself dependant, first on those who authorized, and next on those who contributed them ; and he provoked the resistance of the nation, after having emboldened the opposition of the par- liaments. It is thus that courts are tempted to indulge in the prodigality which arbitrary power places within their reach ; that extrava- gance leads to exhaustion, and exhaustion to reform. It is always from this very exube- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1 1 ranee of power that a government creates its necessities, and by these necessities that its power is finally subverted. Louis XIV had stretched the springs of ab- solute monarchy too far, and exercised them too violently. Irritated by the troubles of his youth, smitten with the love of domination, he swept away all resistance, forbade all opposition; that of the aristocracy, which was manifested by revolt ; that of the parlia- ments, which was shown in remonstrances ; and that of the Protestants, which exercised itself by a liberty of conscience which the church deemed heretical, and the court held to be factious. Louis XIV subdued the grandees by calling them to court, where they received in pleasures and in royal favour the price of their dependance. The parlia- ment, which hitherto had been the instrument of the crown, wished now to become a coun- terpoise to it ; and the prince haughtily im- posed on it a submission and silence of sixty years. The revocation of the edict of Nantes was the finishing stroke to these acts of des- potism. But arbitrary power is not content barely with non-resistance : we must, more- over, admire and imitate it. Having annihi- 12 HISTORY OF THE lated free-agency, it persecutes the conscience, for it must be in action, and hunt out victims when they no longer present themselves. The immense power of Louis XIV was exer- cised at home against heretics, abroad against Europe ; oppression found ambitious men to counsel it, soldiers to serve it, successes to encourage it ; the wounds of France were covered with laurels, and its groans were stifled by the songs of victory. But, in the end, men of genius died, victories ceased, industry emigrated, money disappeared ; and he saw full well that tyranny, even in its success, exhausts its means, and that it de- vours in advance the resources of the future. The death of Louis XIV was the signal for re-action : it produced a sudden change from intolerance to incredulity, and from the spirit of obedience to the spirit of discussion. The court prosecuted wars which were ruinous without being brilliant ; it engaged in a silent contest with opinion, an avowed one with the parliament. Anarchy was introduced into its bosom, the government fell into the hands of mistresses, the sovereign power was rapidly declining, and opposition was every day making new progress. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 13 The position and the system of the parlia- ments had changed. The royal authority had invested them with a power which they now turned against it. As soon as the ruin of the aristocracy was completed by their common efforts, the parliaments, like all allies after victory, separated themselves from their royal associate. The parliament sought to domi- neer over the crown, and the crown endea- voured to crush an instrument which, in ceas- ing to be useful, had become dangerous. This struggle, favourable to the monarch under Louis XIV, alternating with successes and re- verses under Louis XV, terminated only at the revolution. From its very nature, the parlia- ment had only been called on to serve as an instrument. As the exercise of its prero- gative, and its ambition as a body, had in- duced it to succour the feeble and oppose the strong, it served, in turn, the crown against the aristocracy, and the nation against the crown. Hence it became so popular during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, although it opposed the court only in the spirit of rivalry. Opinion demanded no account of its motives ; it did not applaud its ambition, but its resis- tance; and it supported the parliament, be- 14 HISTORY OF THE cause by the parliament it had been defended. Emboldened by these encouragements, it be- came formidable to the sovereign authority. After having stemmed the will of the most imperious and the best obeyed of sovereigns ; after having opposed itself to the seven years' war ; after having obtained the control of the financial operations, and the destruction of the Jesuits, its resistance became so energetic and so frequent, that the court, everywhere encountering its interposition, found that it must either obey or subdue it. The court therefore put in execution the plan of disor- ganization proposed by the chancellor Mau- peou. This intrepid man, who, to use his own expression, had offered to rescue the crown from the hands of its jailor, replaced this hostile by a devoted parliament, and enforced the same change through all the magistracy of France, which had followed the example of that of Paris. But the time for manoeuvres of state policy had passed away. Arbitrary power was so discredited, that the king hazarded the exer- cise of it with distrust, and encountered even the opposition of the court. A new power had sprung up, the power of Opinion, which, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 15 without being recognised, was not, therefore, the less felt, and whose decrees were already becoming sovereign. The nation, hitherto nothing, resumed its rights by degrees ; first it influenced power, and then participated in it. This is the march of all bodies which raise themselves : before being admitted into the government, they act on it externally, and from the right of control they pass to that of co-operation. The epoch at which the tiers* Hat was to have a share in the government had arrived. It had in other times made fruitless, because premature, attempts. It was then too little emancipated, it had no- thing of that which establishes superiority and confers power ; for we can vindicate our rights only so far as we are able to enforce them. Thus it occupied the third order only in in- surrections, as it did in the states- general. Everything was done with it, nothing for it. Under the feudal tyranny the tiers-Hat had served the kings against the lords, and under the ministerial and fiscal tyranny it had served the grandees against the kings ; but in the first case it was only employed by the crown, and in the second by the aristocracy. The struggle was declared in a sphere, and 16 HISTORY OF THE for interests, not its own. When the gran- dees were finally prostrated at the epoch of the Fronde, the tkrs-ttat laid down its arms ; which proves how secondary was the part it acted. After an age of absolute submission, it re- appeared in the arena, but on its own account. The past recurs no more ; and it was as little possible for the noblesse to recover from their defeats, as at the present day it would be for absolute monarchy to rise up from its over- throw. Another antagonist of the court was necessary ; for there must always be one, since power never can be without a candidate. The tkrs-ttat, whose wealth, firmness, and intelligence, were daily increasing, was des- tined to combat and dispossess it. The par- liament did not constitute a class, but a body, and in this new contest could assist in the dis- placement of power, but could not appropriate it to itself. The court itself had favoured the progress of the tkrs-ttat, and had contributed to the diffusion of intelligence, the great source of its power. The most absolute of princes had aided the efforts of genius, and, without in- tending it, had created public opinion. In FRENCH REVOLUTION. 17 encouraging panegyric, he had prepared for censure ; for he could not solicit examination in his favour, without inducing it also to his disparagement. When praises were ex- hausted, discussion began ; and the philoso- phers of the eighteenth century succeeded to the scholars of the seventeenth. Everything became the object of their research and their reflections, — governments, and religion, and laws, and their abuses ; they discovered the rights, pointed out the wants, and proclaimed the wrongs of mankind. A vigorous and en- lightened public opinion was formed, which acted upon the government, and whose voice could not be stifled. It even converted those whom it attacked ; courtiers through their politeness, power from necessity, submitted to its decisions ; and the age of reform was pre- pared by the age of philosopy, as this had been prepared by that of the fine arts. This was the condition of France when Louis XVI ascended the throne. Finances which neither the regenerating administration of the cardinal de Fleury, nor the bankrupt administration of the abbe Terray, could re- tore ; the royal authority deranged, parlia- ments intractable, public opinion imperious ; vol. i. c 18 HISTORY OF THE such were the embarrassments which the new reign inherited from its predecessors. Of all princes, Louis XVI was he whose intentions and whose virtues were best adapted to his times. He was weary of arbitrary power, and anxious to abandon it ; he was irritated by the burthensome licentiousness of the court of Louis XV, and he was a man of pure manners and inexpensive habits ; ameliorations now become indispensable, were loudly demand- ed ; and he felt the public necessities, and made it his glory to satisfy them. But it was as difficult to operate good as to continue evil ; for he must have the power to make the privileged class submit to reforms, or the nation to abuses ; and Louis XVI was neither a regenerator nor a despot. He was wanting in that sovereign will which alone accom- plishes great changes in states, and which is as necessary for the monarch who would limit, as for him who would aggrandize his power. Louis XVI had just views, and amiable dis- positions ; but he was without decision of cha- racter, and had no perseverance in his measures. His projects of amelioration encountered obstacles which he had not foreseen, and which he could not vanquish. Thus he fell by his FRENCH REVOLUTION. 19 attempts at reform, as another would have fallen by his refusal. His reign, up to the period of the states-general, was a long tissue of ameliorations which produced no result. His choice of Maurepas as prime-minister, when he ascended the throne, contributed greatly to stamp this character of irresolution on his reign. Young, strongly impressed with his duties and his insufficiency, he had recourse to the experience of an old man, who had been disgraced under Louis XV, for opposition to his mistresses. But instead of a sage, he found a courtier, whose counsels extended their pernicious influence through his whole life. Maurepas cared little for the good of France, and the glory of his master ; he was attentive only to win his favour. He rendered the mind of Louis XVI uncertain, his character irreso- lute ; he habituated him to half-measures, to changes of system, to inconsistent exertions of power, and, above all, to the necessity of doing everything by another, and nothing by himself. Maurepas had the choice of the ministers. These maintained themselves in his favour, as he maintained himself in that of the king. Frivolous in everything that concerned the 20 HISTORY OF THE government, he did not judge of systems of administration by their utility, or of ministers by their conduct, but both the one and the other by the temper of the court. In fear of endangering his own power, he kept from the administration men of strong connexions, and called into it new men, who required his aid to maintain their places and effect their reforms. Thus he successively introduced to the di- rection of affairs Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker. But they had too many conditions to fulfil. If they essayed amelioration, they in- curred the displeasure of the courtiers or the privileged ; if they continued abuses, they roused the people to discontent ; if they won the favour of the monarch, they alarmed the minister ; and in all these we see so many causes of their deposition. Thus these popu- lar ministers gave way to courtier-ministers, who were just as unable to keep their places. Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker, attempt- ed useful reforms, each in the department of state which had been the special object of his labours. Malesherbes, descended from a family of lawyers, inherited the virtues with- out the prejudices of a parliamentarian. With FRENCH REVOLUTION. 21 a liberal mind he combined the most amiable dispositions. Oppression appeared to him at once illegal and wicked. He wished to restore to every one his rights, to the accused the power of being defended, to Protestants liberty of conscience, to writers the freedom of the press, and to all Frenchmen security of per- son ; he proposed the abolition of torture, the re-establishment of the edict of Nantes, the suppression of kttres de cachet, and that of the censorship. Turgot, possessing a vigorous and comprehensive understanding, an energy and firmness of character very uncommon, at- tempted the realization of projects still more extensive. He .joined himself with Males- herbes, in order to effect, with his support, the establishment of a system of adminis- tration which should restore unity in the government and equality in the state. This virtuous citizen was constantly employed in ameliorating the condition of the people. He undertook alone that which the revolution afterwards effected, the suppression of privi- leges and feudal services. He proposed to deliver the country from the tax of feudal ser- vice (corvee), the provinces from their bar- riers, commerce from internal duties, industry 22 HISTORY OF THE from its restraints, and finally to make the nobility and the clergy contribute to the im- posts in the same proportion as the tiers-etat. This great minister, of whom Malesherbes said, " he had the head of Bacon and the heart of V Hopital" wished, by means of provincial assemblies, to familiarize the nation with public life, and prepare it for the return of the states-general. Necker, a stranger, a banker, and a steward rather than a statesman, showed himself less bold than Turgot : he had been called to the administration to supply the court with money, and he availed himself of its necessities to procure the liberties of the people. He restored the finances by means of order, and made the provinces concur in a proportionate manner in their administration. His ideas were just and comprehensive, and consisted in putting the receipts on a level with the expenditure, and in reducing the latter ; in employing imposts in ordinary times, and loans when imperious circumstances made it necessary to draw on the future for the uses of the present ; in making the provincial as- semblies assess the imposts ; and, in order to facilitate the negotiation of loans, in render- ing a clear and regular statement of accounts. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 23 This system was founded on the nature of a loan, which, having need of credit, requires publicity of administration ; and on that of an impost, which, having need of consent, confers a voice in the distribution of it. Whenever the government is in want, and requires money, if it address itself to lenders, it must exhibit the state of its finances ; if it address itself to con- tributors, it must grant them a share of power. Thus the loans led to the publication of the budget, and imposts to the states-general . two events, of which the first placed the ruling power under the jurisdiction of opinion, the second under that of the people. But Necker, less impatient indeed for re- forms than Turgot, although he wished to compensate the abuses which his predecessor would have destroyed, was equally unsucess- ful. Under the regime of partial privileges and general slavery, all objects of public good were impracticable. These different ministers encountered invincible obstacles, and they quitted power. Turgot had discontented the courtiers by his ameliorations, offended the parliament by the abolition of corvtes, alarmed the old minister by the ascendancy which his virtue had given him over Louis XVI. 24 HISTORY OF THE Louis XVI abandoned every thing, saying at the same time, that he and Turgot were the only persons who wished the good of the people : so much reason is there to envy the condition of kings ! Necker, without exciting regret so vivid, experienced the same fate. His economy had disgusted the courtiers ; the labours of the provincial assemblies had incurred the disapprobation of the parliaments, who wished to preserve for themselves the monopoly of resistance ; and the prime-minister could not pardon him an appearance of credit. The death of Maurepas followed shortly after the retreat of Necker. The queen re- placed him in the favour of the sovereign, and inherited all his influence over him. This amiable but weak prince was incapable of directing himself. His wife, young, beautiful, active, ambitious, took into her hands in a great measure the reins of government. Yet we may say that the daughter of Maria Theresa had too little of her mother ; her love of domination was mixed with much frivolity, and she distributed the power which she had thus assumed, to men who caused the ruin of the state and her own. Maurepas, who dis- trusted courtier-ministers, had always chosen FRENCH REVOLUTION. 25 popular ministers ; it is true that he had not supported them, but still, if he accomplished no good, he aggravated no evil. After his death, courtier-ministers succeeded to popular ministers, and rendered inevitable, by their mal-administration, the crisis which the others wished to prevent by their reforms. This difference in the choice of ministers is very remarkable, and led by a change of men to a change of measures in the administration. The revolution dates from this epoch ; the abandonment of reforms, and the return of licentiousness, accelerated its approach and embittered its violence. Calonne was called from the intendancy of a province to the general control of the finances. This department of state, the most important of all, had become exceedingly difficult to fill. There had been already two successors to Necker, neither of whom could supply his place, when it was put into the hands of Calonne. Calonne was daring, acute, eloquent ; a man of accomplished manners, and of a fertile but superficial genius. Whether by accident or design, he adopted a system of administration completely opposed to that of his predecessor. Necker had counsel- 26 HISTORY OF THE led economy ; Calonne boasted prodigality. Necker had fallen by the courtiers ; Calonne wished to maintain his power by them. His sophisms were supported by largesses ; he convinced the queen by splendid entertain- ments, and the great lords by pensions ; he created vast activity in the finances, in order to induce a belief in the justness of his views by the number and facility of his operations ; and he deceived even the capitalists by the punctuality with which at first he made his payments. He continued loans after the peace, and exhausted the credit which the wise conduct of Necker had obtained for the government. Arrived at this point, deprived of a resource which he had not the skill to husband, to prolong his power he resorted to imposts. But to whom should he address himself? The people could pay nothing, the privileged would offer nothing. But the emergency admitted not of indecision ; and Calonne, trusting to its novelty, convened an assembly of the notables. A resort to the assistance of others is the crisis of a system of prodigality. The minister, who has been raised by largesses, cannot maintain his power by begging. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 27 The notables, chosen by the government from the high classes, was a ministerial as- sembly, having no proper existence or man- datory authority. It was thus that Calonne, to avoid the parliament or states-general, ad- dressed himself to an assembly more sub- ordinate, and which he thought would there- fore be more manageable. But composed of the privileged, it was little disposed to make sacrifices. It became still less so when it beheld the abyss into which a devouring ad- ministration had plunged itself. It discovered with dismay, that within a few years loans had been raised to the amount of one thousand six hundred and forty-six millions of francs, and that there was in the revenue an annual deficit of a hundred and forty millions. This discovery was the signal for the fall of Calonne. He retired, and was succeeded by the arch- bishop of Toulouse, Brienne, his antagonist in the assembly. Brienne believed that the majority of the notables were devoted to his purposes, because they had joined him in combating Calonne. But the privileged felt as little disposition to make sacrifices to him as to his predecessor : they had seconded his 28 HISTORY OF THE attacks, which were in their interest, and not his ambition, to which they were strangers. The archbishop of Toulouse, who has been accused of acting without a plan, could not in fact have had one. It was not possible to continue the extravagance of Calonne, and it was too late to return to the economizing schemes of Necker. Economy, which at a former epoch, was a means of safety, was no longer so in this. He must either have re- course to imposts, and the parliament opposed itself to them ; or to loans, and credit was exhausted ; or to sacrifices on the part of the privileged, and they would not make them. Brienne, whose whole object through life had been to obtain the ministry, and the difficulty of whose position was only equalled by the feebleness of his means, attempted every- thing, and succeeded in nothing. He pos- sessed a mind active, but without force, a character impetuous, but without persever- ance. Bold before the execution of a plan, but feeble afterwards, he lost himself by his irresolution, his want of forecast, and his change of measures. He had only bad parts to take, but he did not know how to decide FRENCH REVOLUTION. 29 upon one and follow it up. This was the true error of his policy. The assembly of notables shewed itself very unmanageable and parsimonious. After having approved the establishment of the provincial assemblies, a regulation in the corn-trade, the suppression of corvees, and a new tax on stamps, it dissolved itself. It spread through all France what it had dis- covered concerning the necessities of the throne, the misrule of the ministers, the di- lapidations of the court, and the irremediable miseries of the people. Brienne, deprived of this assistance, recurred to imposts, as a re- source which had for some time been aban- doned. He demanded the registration of two edicts, that of stamps, ana one for a territorial subsidy. But the parliament, which was then in its full vigour, in the full career of its ambition, and to which the financial em- barrassments of the government offered a cer- tain means of increasing its power, refused the registration. Banished to Troyes, it be- came weary of exile ; and the minister recalled it, on condition that it would accept the edicts. But this was only a suspension of hostilities : the necessities of the crown soon rendered 30 HISTORY OF THE the struggle more active and rancorous. The minister had new demands of mone}' to make; his existence was attached to the success of several successive loans, to the amount of four hundred and forty millions ; it was ab- solutely necessary to obtain the registration of them. Brienne expected the opposition of the par- liament. He therefore made them register this edict in a bed of justice ; and in order to appease the magistracy and public opinion, in the same sitting the Protestants were re- established in their rights, and Louis XVI promised the annual publication of the state of the finances, and the convocation of the states-general before the expiration of five years. But these concessions were insuffi- cient; the parliament refused the registration, and opposed itself to the tyranny of the mi- nisters. Some of its members, and among others the duke of Orleans, were exiled. The parliament, by a decree, protested against the lettres de cachet, and demanded the recall of its members. The decree was quashed by the king, and confirmed by the parliament. The war between them raged with increasing violence. The magistracy of Paris was sup- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 31 ported by all the magistracy of France, and encouraged by public opinion. It proclaimed the rights of the nation, its own incompe- tency in matters of impost, and — become li- beral by interest, rendered generous by op- pression, it resisted the arbitrary detentions, and demanded the regular convocation of the states-general. After this act of courage, it decreed that its own members should be ir- removeable, and the incompetence of any one who should usurp its functions. This bold manifesto was followed by the arrest of two parliamentarians, Epremenil and Goislard, by the reform of the body, and the establish- ment of a cour plhribre. Brienne had found that the opposition of the parliament was systematic, and that it was renewed at each demand for subsidies, or each authorization of a loan. Exile was only a momentary remedy, which suspended opposition — without destroying it. He pro- jected therefore the reducing of this body to judicial functions ; and he associated with him- self Lamoignon, the keeper of the seals, in the execution of this enterprise. Lamoig- non was a bold statesman ; he had audacity, and with the energetic perseverance of Man- 32 HISTORY OF THE peou he combined a greater share of reflec- tion and integrity. But he miscalculated the force of power, and the extent of what it was possible to accomplish in his time. Maupeou had renewed the parliament by a change in its members ; Lamoignon wished to disorgan- ize it. The former of these expedients, had it been successful, could have produced only a temporary repose ; the latter ought to have produced a final result, since it would have destroyed the power which the other was con- tent with displacing. But the reform of Mau- peou was transient, and that of Lamoignon could not be effected. The execution of this last scheme was nevertheless sufficiently well- conducted. In one day all the magistracy of France was displaced, in order to make way for the new judicial organization. The keeper of the seals divested the parliament of Paris of its political attributes, in order to clothe with them a cour pleniere, ministerially composed ; and he reduced its judicial com- petence in favour of the bailiwicks, whose cognizance he extended. But public opinion was indignant; the chatelet protested; the provinces rose in rebellion ; and the cour plenihre could neither form itself nor act. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 33 Troubles broke out in Dauphiny, in Brittany, in Provence, in Flanders, in Languedoc, and in Beam. The ministry, instead of the regu- lar opposition of the parliaments, encountered an opposition still more vigorous and facti- ous; — the noblesse, the commons, the pro- vincial states, and even the clergy, made a part of it. Brienne, harassed by the want of money, had convoked an extraordinary as- sembly of the clergy, which immediately voted an address to the king, requiring from him the abolition of his cour plenitre, and the prompt convocation of the states-general. They alone could repair the disorder of the finances, re-assure the public creditor, and put an end to these conflicts of authority. The archbishop of Sens, by his contest with the parliament, had adjourned the finan- cial difficulty, by creating a difficulty of power. As soon as this last ceased, the other re-appeared, and determined the retire- ment of the minister. Alike unsuccessful in obtaining either imposts or loans, unable to make use of the cour plhiibre, and unwilling to recal the parliament, Brienne tried a last resource, and promised the states-general. But this was the termination of his career. vol. r. d 34 HISTORY OF THE He had been called to the department of finance to remedy embarrassments, which he had augmented ; to find money, which he had not been able to obtain. So far from this, he had exasperated the nation, stimulated into resistance the several bodies of the state, compromised the authority of the government, and rendered the convocation of the states- general (in the opinion of the court the worst means of getting supplies) inevitable. He yielded. The occasion of his fall was a sus- pension of the payment of the rentes of the state, which was in fact the commencement of a bankruptcy. This minister has been the most decried, because he came the last. Heir to the faults and the embarrassments of the post, he had to struggle against the diffi- culties of his position with the feeblest means. He tried intrigue, oppression ; he exiled the parliament, suspended it, disorganized it; everything was an obstacle in his way — nothing aided him. After enduring a long- series of attacks, he fell, from lassitude and feebleness — I dare not say from want of skill ; for, had he been much more skilful and saga- cious — had he been a Richelieu or a Sully — he would still have fallen. It was no longer in FRENCH REVOLUTION. 35 the power of any individual either to obtain money, or to exercise oppression ; and we must say, in acquittal of Brienne, that the position from which he was unable to extricate himself, he had not made, and that his only error was presumption in accepting it. He perished by the mal administration of Calonne, as Calonne had profited, in his dilapidations, by the confidence which Necker had inspired. The one destroyed the credit — the other, wishing to re-establish it by force, destroyed the authority — of government. The states-general had become the only means of government, and the last resource of the throne. It had been demanded with em- ulation by the parliament and the peers of the realm, on the 13th July 1787 ; by the states of Dauphiny, in the assembly of Vizille ; by the clergy, in its assembly of Paris. The provincial states had prepared the public mind for it ; the notables had been its harbingers. The king, after having promised, on the 18th December 1787, the convocation within five years, on the 8th August 1788, fixed the opening for the 1st May 1789. Necker was recalled, the parliament re-established, the 36 HISTORY OF THE cour plenihe abolished, the bailiwicks de- stroyed, the provinces satisfied ; and the new minister made every arrangement for the election of the deputies, and for the holding of the states. At this juncture, a great change took place in the opposition, which had hitherto been una- nimous. The administration under Brienne had encountered the resistance of all the bodies of the state, because it had wished to oppress them. It incurred under Necker the resist- ance of these same bodies, who were wishing to secure the power for themselves, and op- pression for the people. From being despotic, it had become national ; and still they had opposed it. The parliament had maintained a contest of authority, and not of public good ; the noblesse had re-united themselves to the tiers-Hat, rather against the government than in behalf of the people. Each of these bodies had demanded the states-general, in the hope— the parliament of ruling them as they had done in 1614, and the noblesse of resuming their lost power. Thus the magistracy proposed, as the model for the states-general of 1789, their form in 1614, and opinion abandoned it ; the noblesse FRENCH REVOLUTION. 37 refused to consent to the double representation of the commons, and division sprang up be- tween these two orders. This double representation was demanded by the intelligence of the epoch, by the neces- sity of reform, by the importance which the tiers-etat had acquired. It had been already admitted into the provincial assemblies. Bri- enne, before leaving the ministry, having made an appeal to writers, in order to know what would be the best mode of composing and holding the states-general, the celebrated pamphlet of Sieves on the tiers-etat, and that of Entraigues on the states-general, were added to the works on the rights of the people. Opinion declaring itself more decidedly every day, Necker, wishing to satisfy it, and not daring, — desirous of conciliating all orders, of obtaining the approbation of all parties— once more convoked the notables. He had be- lieved that they would consent to the doubling of the tiers ; they refused it, and he was com- pelled to decide, in defiance of them, that which he should have decided without them. Necker did not know how to avoid contest by settling all difficulties in advance. He did not take the initial measure on the doubling of 38 HISTORY OF THE the tiers, as in the sequel he did not take it on the vote by order or by poll. When the states-general were assembled, the solution of this second question, on which depended the fate of power and that of the people, was abandoned to force. Although Necker had been unable to pre- vail on the notables to adopt the doubling of the tiers, he procured its adoption by the council. He obtained the admission of cures into the order of the clergy, and of protestants into that of the tiers. The assemblies of the burghers were convoked for the elections ; every one exerted himself to procure the nomination of men of his own party, and to publish pamphlets and papers expressive of his own opinion. The parliament had little 'influence in the elections ; the court none at all. The noblesse chose some popular depu- ties ; but the most part were devoted to the interests of their order, and as opposed to the tiers-etat as to the oligarchy of the great fami- lies of the court. The clergy nominated bishops and abbots favourable to their privileges, and cures favourable to the popular cause, which was their own. Finally, the tiers-etat chose men enlightened, firm, and unanimous in their FRENCH REVOLUTION. 39 views. The opening of the states-general was appointed for the 5th May 1789. Thus was brought about the revolution. The court tried in vain to prevent it, as in the sequel it tried vainly to quash it. Under the direction of Maurepas, the king appointed popular ministers, and made essays of reform ; under the direction of the queen, he appoint- ed courtier ministers, and made essays of authority. Oppression was as little success- ful as reform. After having uselessly resorted to the courtiers for economy, to the parliaments for imposts, to the capitalists for loans, he had recourse to a new class of contributors, and made an appeal to the privileged. He de- manded from the notables, composed of the noblesse and the clergy, a participation in the changes of the state, which they refused. Then only he addressed himself to all France, and convened the states-general. He treated with bodies before treating with the nation ; and it was only on the refusal of the first, that he appealed to a power of which he dreaded the interposition and the support. He preferred partial assemblies, which, being isolated, would be secondary to a general as- sembly, which, representing all the interests 40 HISTORY OF THE of the realm, would combine all its power. Up to this great epoch, each year saw the necessities of the government increase, and resistance extend itself. The opposition passed from the parliament to the noblesse, and from the noblesse to the clergy, and from them all to the people. In proportion as each of them participated in power, it commenced its op- position, until all these particular oppositions were confounded in one great national oppo- sition, or dwindled into nothing before it. The states-general only decreed a revolution which was already accomplished. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 41 CHAPTER I. Opening of the states-general. — Opinions of the court, of the ministry, of the different bodies of the realm touching the states. — Verification of the powers ; question of the vote by order or by poll. — The order of the commons forms itself into the national assembly. — The court causes the hall of the states to be closed ; oath of the tennis-court. — The ma- jority of the order of the clergy re-unites itself to the order of the commons. — Royal sitting of the 23d June ; its inuti- lity. — Projects of the court ; events of the 12th, 13th, and 14th July ; retirement of Necker ; insurrection of Paris ; formation of the national guard ; siege and capture of the Bastille. — The consequences of the 14th July. — Decrees of the night of the 4th August. — Character of the revolution which had been operated. The 5th of May 1789 was appointed for the opening of the states-general. The watching, a religious ceremonial, preceded their instal- lation. The king, his family, his ministers, the deputies of the three orders, went in pro- cession from the church of Notre-Dame to the church of St. Louis, to hear mass at the opening ; they beheld with intoxication the return of this national solemnity, of which 42 HISTORY OF THE France had been so long deprived. It bore the aspect of a festival. An immense multi- tude, from all parts, had resorted to Ver- sailles ; the occasion was magnificent, the pomp of decoration had been lavished with prodigality ; the chauntings of music, the be- nevolent and satisfied air of the kins:, the beauty and noble deportment of the queen, and above all, the common expectations, in- spired and animated all minds. Nevertheless they beheld with pain, the etiquettes, the costume, and the subordination of the states which had been observed in 16 14. The clergv, in cassocks, large cloaks and square bonnets, or in a purple robe and lawn sleeves, occupied the first place. Then came the noblesse, habited in black, having the vest and facing of silver cloth, the cravat of lace, and the hat with a white plume, turned up after the fa- shion of Henry IV. The modest tiers-Hat were in the last place, clothed in black, a short cloak, muslin cravat, and the hat with- out plumes or loops. At the church the same distinctions were observed, as to the places of the three orders. The next day the royal sitting was held in the hall of the privy treasury. The galleries FRENCH REVOLUTION. 43 of the amphitheatre were filled with specta- tors. The deputies were called and intro- duced by the government according to the order established in 1614. The clergy were led to the right, the noblesse to the left, and the commons, in front of the throne, were placed at the bottom of the hall. The most animated applauses announced the deputa- tion of Dauphine ; that of Crepi in Valois, of which the duke of Orleans made a part ; and that of Provence. M. Neckerwas also greeted on his entering with general enthusiasm. The public favour attached itself to all those who had contributed to the convocation of the states-general. ' When the deputies and mi- nisters had taken their places, the king made his entrance, followed by the queen, the princes, and a brilliant retinue. The hall resounded with plaudits on his arrival. Louis XVI seated himself on his throne, and when he had put on his hat, the three orders covered themselves at the same time. The commons, contrary to the usage of the ancient states, imitated, without hesitation, the clergy and the noblesse. The time had passed away when it was necessary for the third estate to stand uncovered and speak upon its knees. 44 HISTORY OF THE They waited in the most profound silence for the king's address; they were anxious to ascertain the real dispositions of the govern- ment to the states. Whether it would assi- milate the new assembly to those which had been formerly held, or whether that import- ance would be attached to it which the neces- sities of the state, and the magnitude of cir- cumstances, required. " Gentlemen," said the monarch, with emotion, " this day, which my heart has so anxiously expected, has at length arrived, and I see myself surrounded by the repre- sentatives of the nation I have the glory to command. A long interval has elapsed since the last holding of the states-general ; and the convocation of these assemblies appears to have fallen into desuetude. I have not hesi- tated to re-establish a usage from which the realm may derive new energy, and which may open out to the nation new sources of prospe- rity." These first words, which promised much, were followed only by explanations upon the debt, and announcements of reduc- tion in the expenditure. The king, instead of wisely tracing out to the states the march which they ought to follow, invited the orders FRENCH REVOLUTION. 40 to act in harmony with each other, told them the necessities of the state, declared his ap- prehensions of innovation, and complained of the inquietude of the public mind without announcing any measure which might satisfy it. He was nevertheless loudly cheered when he ended by these words, which painted well his intentions. " Everything which you can expect from the tenderest regard for the pub- lic welfare, everything which you can demand from a sovereign, the fast friend of his people, you may, you ought to hope from my senti- ments. May, gentlemen, a happy union reign in this assembly, and may this epoch become henceforward memorable for the happiness and prosperity of the realm ! This is the desire of my heart, the most ardent of my wishes ; this is, in a word, the reward which I expect for the rectitude of my intentions, and my affection for my people." Barentin, the keeper of the seals, spoke next. His harangue was a mere rhetorical declamation on the subject of the states-ge- neral, and on the favours of the king. After a long preamble, he adverted to the questions of importance. " His majesty," he said, "in granting a double representation in favour of 46 HISTORY OF THE the most numerous of the three orders, that on which the burden of impost principally falls, has not changed the form of the ancient deliberations. Although the vote by poll, producing only a single result, appears to have the advantage of manifesting more clearly the general will, the king has been desirous that this new form should be put in operation only by the free consent of the states-general and with the approbation of his majesty. But in whatever way we pronounce upon this question, whatever distinctions be made among the different objects which may come under discussion, we cannot doubt that the most perfect agreement will unite the three orders relative to the imposts." The government was not opposed to the vote by poll in matters respecting money, because it was more expe- ditious, whilst on political questions it de- clared itself in favour of the vote by the three orders severally, because this was better adapted to prevent innovation. The govern- ment wished to attain its object, subsidies, without permitting the nation to attain its object also, which was reform. The manner in which the keeper of the seals defined the privileges- of the states-general, manifested FRENCH REVOLUTION. 47 still more the intentions of the court. He reduced them, in some degree, to the exa- mination of the impost, in order to vote it ; to the discussion of a law upon the press, in order to impose restrictions on it ; and to the reform of the civil and criminal legislation. He proscribed all other changes, and he ex- claimed, " Just demands have been acceded to ; the king has not been influenced by in- discreet murmurs, he has deigned to cover them with his indulgence ; he has pardoned even the expression of these false and strange maxims, in favour of which they would sub- stitute pernicious chimeras for the unalterable principles of monarchy. You will reject, gentlemen, with indignation, these dangerous innovations, which the enemies of the public weal would confound with the happy and necessary changes which would produce that regeneration which is the first wish of his majesty." This harangue manifested either great igno- rance of the wishes of the nation, or great hardihood in combating them. The assembly expected another language from M. Necker. He was the popular minister, he had obtained 48 HISTORY OF THE the double representation, and they had hoped that he would approve the vote by poll, by which alone the tiers-etat could avail itself of its numbers. But he spoke with great re- serve and caution ; his harangue, which lasted three hours, was a long budget of finances ; and when, after having wearied the assembly, he touched upon the question which occupied all minds, he left it undecided, that he might neither commit himself with the court nor the people. The government had very imperfectly comprehended the importance of the states - general. The return of this assembly, in itself announced a great revolution. Ardently wished for by the nation, they reappeared at an epoch when the ancient monarchy had fallen, and when they alone were capable of reforming the state, and purveying for the necessities of the throne. The embarrass- ments of the time, the nature of their sum- mons, the choice of their members, everything declared that they were no longer convoked as contributors, but as legislators. The right of regenerating France was accorded them by the decree of opinion, devolved on them by FRENCH REVOLUTION. 49 the budget, and they found in the enormity of abuses, and in the encouragement of the people, the power to undertake and accom- plish this great task. To the monarch it was of the last impor- tance that he should associate himself in their labours. He would thus have been able to restore his power, and to guarantee himself from a revolution, by operating it himself. Had he taken the first step in these changes, and. prescribed with firmness, but with jus- tice, the new order of things ; had he, realizing the wishes of France, defined the rights of the citizens, the prerogatives of the states-general, the limits of the royal power ; had he renoun- ced arbitrary sway for himself, inequality for the noblesse, privileges for corporate bodies ; finally, had he executed all the reforms which were demanded by opinion, and which were executed by the constituent assembly, this resolution would have prevented the destruc- tive dissensions which afterwards blazed forth. But it is rarely that we find a prince who consents to a participation in his power, and who is sufficiently enlightened to yield up that which he will be compelled to part with. Nevertheless, Louis XVI would have done it, vor.. I. e 50 HISTORY OF THE had he been less under the dominion of his household, and had he followed his own inspi- rations. But the greatest anarchy reigned in the councils of the king. When the states- general assembled, no measure had been taken ; no precautions had been provided for the pre- vention of disputes. Louis XVI floated irre- solute between his ministry, directed by Necker, and his court, directed by the queen and some princes of his family. The minister, satisfied with having obtained the double representation of the tiers-etat, dreaded the indecision of the king, and the discontent of the court. Not sufficiently ap- preciating the importance of the revolution, which he contemplated rather as a statesman than as a citizen, he suffered events to take their own course, and flattered himself that he should be able to conduct them, without hav- ing done anything to prepare them. He felt that the ancient organization of the states could be no longer maintained ; that the ex- istence of the three orders, having each the right of refusal, was a barrier to the execution of reforms, and the march of the administra- tion. He hoped, after the proof of this triple opposition, to reduce the number of the orders, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 51 and procure the adoption of the English go- vernment, by uniting the clergy and the noblesse in one chamber, and the tkrs-ttat in another. He did not see that, the struggle once begun, his interposition would be un- availing; that half-measures would suit no one ; that the weak, by their obstinacy, and the strong, by their natural weight, would refuse this mediating system. Concessions only satisfy before the victory is won. The court, far from wishing to invest the states-general with a regular form, was desi- rous of annulling them. It preferred the accidental resistance of the great bodies of the realm, to a participation of authority with a. permanent assembly. The separation of the orders favoured its views ; it reckoned upon fomenting their discord, and preventing their effectual co-operation. Formerly they had never produced any result, from the defects of their organization ; the court hoped the more confidently that the same farce would be acted over again, as the two first orders were little disposed to concur in the reforms solicited by the last. The clergy wished to preserve their privileges, and their opulence ; they foresaw very clearly that they should 52 HISTORY OF THE have many sacrifices to make, and few advan- tages to gain. The noblesse, on their part, in resuming a political independence which they had long since lost, were ignorant that they would have much more to yield up to the people, than to demand from the sovereign. It was almost entirely in favour of the people that the new revolution was about to operate, and the two first orders were induced to coalesce with the court against it, as not long before they had coalesced with it against the court. Interest alone produced this change of party, and they re-united themselves to the monarch without attachment, as they had defended the people without regard for the public good. No efforts were spared to maintain the noblesse and the clergy in these dispositions. The deputies of these two orders were seduced by every species of flattering attention. A committee of the most illustrious individuals composing this party, sat at the house of the countess de Polignac ; their principal mem- bers were admitted there. It was here that they gained over d'Epremenil and d'Entragues, two of the most ardent defenders of liberty in the parliament before the states-general, and who became afterwards its most decided op- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 53 ponents. It was here that the costume of the deputies of the different orders was regulated, and that they endeavoured to separate them, first by etiquette, then by intrigue, and lastly by force. The remembrance of the ancient states-general governed the court ; it believed that it would be able to regulate the present by the past, to restrain Paris by the army, the deputies of the commons by those of the noblesse, to control the states by dividing the orders, and to separate the orders by reviving the ancient usages, which elevated the no- blesse and depressed the commons. It was thus that, after the first sitting, they believed that by granting nothing they had placed ob- stacles in the way of everything. The day after the opening of the states, the noblesse and the clergy met in their respective chambers, and formed themselves. The commons, to which the double representation had made the hall of the states more suitable, as furnishing better accommodation, waited there for the two other orders ; regarded its situation as provisional, its members as pre- sumptive deputies, and adopted a system of inaction until the two others should join it. Then commenced a memorable struggle, of 54 HISTORY OF THE which the issue was to decide whether the revolution should be accomplished or inter- dicted. The future condition of France de- pended on the separation or the re-union of the orders. Most opportunely this important question arose contemporaneously with that of the verification of the powers. The popular deputies justly contended that the verification should be made in common, since, even in rejecting the re-union of the orders, it could not be questioned but that each order had an interest in examining the powers of the other two. The privileged deputies con- tended, on the other hand, that the orders having a distinct existence, the verification should be several. They felt that a single operation in common would thenceforward render all separation impossible. The commons, at this delicate epoch, acted with the greatest circumspection, wisdom, and firmness. It was by a series of efforts, which were not always without peril, by successes slow and indecisive, by struggles constantly reviving, that they attained their object. That system of inaction which they adopted from the commencement, was the wisest and most certain plan : there are FRENCH REVOLUTION. 55 occasions when we have only to know how to wait, to be triumphant. The commons were unanimous, and they alone constituted a numerical half of the states-general ; the noblesse had among them popular dissidents ; the majority of the clergy, composed of some bishops, friends of peace, and a numerous class of curates, which was the tiers-etat of the church, were favourably disposed towards the commons. Inaction ought, therefore, to lead to a re-union. This was what the tiers- etat hoped, what the bishops dreaded, and what induced them to offer themselves as mediators. But this mediation led to no result, since the noblesse would not consent to vote by poll, nor the commons to vote by order. Thus these conciliatory conferences, after having been vainly prolonged, were broken oft" by the noblesse, who declared themselves for the separate verification. The day after this hostile determination, the commons resolved to declare themselves the assembly of the nation, and, in the name of the God of peace, and of the public welfare, invited the clergy to a re-union with them. The court, alarmed by this measure, inter- posed, to induce the states to resume their f)6 HISTORY OF THE conferences. The first commissioners, to effect reconciliation, had had to settle the differences of the orders ; the ministry charg- ed itself with settling the differences of the commissioners. By this means the states depended on a commission, and the commis- sion had for its arbitrator the council of the prince. But these new conferences had no happier termination than the former ; they were protracted to a great length, without any of the orders yielding to the other, and the noblesse ended by breaking them off in confirming all its resolutions. Five weeks had elapsed in these useless parleys. The tiers-etat, seeing that the mo- ment was come to constitute itself as a sub- stantive body, that longer delay would indis- pose the nation, whose confidence it had obtained by the refusal of the privileged orders, determined to act, and displayed the same moderation and firmness which it had manifested in its inertia. Mirabeau an- nounced that a deputy of Paris had a motion to make ; and Sieves, naturally timid, but of an enterprising mind, who had the authority of superior knowledge, and who, more than any other person, was calculated to move for FRENCH REVOLUTION. 57 a decision, demonstrated the impossibility of agreement, the urgency of the verification, the justice of making it in common, and he made the assembly decree that the noblesse and the clergy should be invited to meet in the hall of the states, in order to assist in the verification, which would take place whether they were absent or present. The measure of the general verification was followed by another still more energetic. The commons, after having terminated the verification, upon the motion of Sieyes, con- stituted themselves the National Assembly. By this bold measure, the most numerous of the three orders, and the only one whose powers had been legalized, declared itself the representation of France, and rejected the two others till they had undergone the verifi- cation, settled the questions hitherto unde- cided, and changed the assembly of the states into the assembly of the people. The regime of the orders disappeared in the political powers, and this was the first step towards the abolition of the classes in the private re- gime. This memorable decree of the 17th June was pregnant with the night of the 4th August; but it was necessary to defend the 58 HISTORY OF THE measures which they had dared to decide, and it was to be apprehended that they would not be able to maintain such a determination. The first decree of the national assembly was an act of sovereignty. In proclaiming the indivisibility of the legislative power, it had placed the privileged under its depen- dence. It remained to control the court in the matter of imposts. It declared their ille- gality; voted, nevertheless, the provisional receipt of them, so long as it should be as- sembled, and their cessation if it should be dissolved ; in consolidating the public debt, it re-assured the capitalists ; in appointing a committee of subsistence, it provided for the wants of the people. This firmness and forecast inspired the en- thusiasm of the nation. But they who di- rected the court felt that the divisions which had been fomented among the orders had failed in their object, and that to obtain this object they must have recourse to other arti- fices. The royal authority appeared to them alone capable of prescribing the maintenance of the orders, which the opposition of the noblesse had failed to accomplish. They availed themselves of an excursion to Marly, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 59 to withdraw Louis XVI from the prudent and pacific counsels of Necker, and prevail on him to adopt hostile projects. This prince, equally accessible to good and evil counsels, surrounded by a court abandoned to the spirit of party, being supplicated by the interests of his crown, and in the name of religion, yielded to their artifices, and promised every- thing. They decided that he should present himself in state to the assembly ; that he should quash their decrees ; that he should command the separation of the orders, as con- stitutive of the monarchy ; and should him- self fix all the reforms which the states-gene- ral were operating. From that time the se- cret council occupied the government, and it no longer carried on its operations in secret. Barentin, the keeper of the seals, the count of Artois, the prince of Conde, the prince of Conti, alone conducted the plots which they concerted. Necker lost all influence; he had proposed to the king a conciliating plan, which could not now, indeed, avail, although it might have succeeded before the struggle had reached its present animosity. He had advised another meeting in the royal presence, in which should have been granted the vote 60 HISTORY OF THE by poll in matters of impost, and that by order should still have been permitted to subsist in matters of privilege, and private interest. This measure, which was unfavour- able to the people, since it would have tended to maintain abuses by investing the clergy and the noblesse with the power of prevent- ing their abolition, would have been followed by the establishment of two chambers for the next states-general. Necker loved half- measures, and wished to operate, by gradual concessions, a political change which should have been effected at a single stroke. The time was come when its rights must be granted to the nation, or it would take them itself. His project of a royal sitting, although very insufficient, was changed into a state manoeuvre by the new council. This council believed that the injunctions of the throne would intimidate the assembly, and that France would be satisfied by some promises of reform : it did not know that the last hazard to which the royal power should be exposed, is that of disobedience. State manoeuvres in general are suddenly disclosed, and surprise those whom they are intended to strike. It was not so in this case: FRENCH REVOLUTION. 61 the preparations contributed to prevent its success. It was apprehended that the clergy- would recognize the assembly, by uniting themselves to it ; and to prevent this decisive measure, instead of hastening the royal sit- ting-, the hall of the states was closed, in order to suspend the assembly till it should take place. The preparations required by the presence of the monarch were made the pretext. Bailly then presided over the as- sembly. This virtuous citizen, without seek- ing for them, had obtained all the honours of the rising spirit of liberty. He was the first president of the assembly, as he had been the first deputy of Paris, and was to be its first mayor. He was beloved by his friends, re- spected by his enemies ; and though endowed with virtues the most bland and enlightened, he possessed in a high degree the courage of duty. Apprized by the keeper of the seals, on the night of the 20th June, of the suspen- sion of the sittings, he shewed himself faith- ful to the wish of the assembly, and did not shrink from disobeying the court. The next day, at the hour appointed, he appeared at the hall of the states, found it invaded by an armed force, and protested against this act of 62 HISTORY OF THE despotism. Meantime the deputies arrive, the uproar increases, all are resolved to brave the perils of a re-union. The most indignant wish to go and hold the assembly at Marly, immediately under the windows of the prince ; some one cries out the "Tennis-Court." This proposition is applauded ; the deputies go there in a body ; Bailly is at their head ; the crowd follows them with enthusiasm ; the soldiers come to escort them ; and there, in an empty hall, the deputies of the commons, standing, with their hands upraised, and their hearts full of the sanctity of their mission, swear, with the exception of one individual, that they will not separate until they have given a constitution to France. This solemn oath, taken on the 20th June, in the face of the nation, was followed, on the 22nd, by an important triumph. The assembly, always deprived of the place of its sittings, — no longer able to meet at the tennis-ground, which the princes had occupied in order that it might be refused, assembled at the church of St. Louis. It was in this sitting that the majority of the clergy united themselves to it, in the midst of the most patriotic transports. Thus the measures taken to intimidate the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 63 assembly raised its courage, and hastened that re-union which they were designed to pre- vent. It was by two checks that the court preluded the famous sitting of the 23rd June. It arrived at length. A numerous guard surrounded the hall of the states ; the gate was opened to the deputies, but closed to the public. The king appeared surrounded by all the circumstance of power. He was received, contrary to custom, in profound silence. His harangue fanned to its extremity the spirit of discontent, by the tone of authority with which he dictated measures disapproved by opinion and by the assembly. The king com- plained of a disagreement excited by the court itself; he condemned the conduct of the assembly, which recognised only the order of the tiers-Hat, he quashed all its resolutions ; prescribed the conservation of the orders, im- posed reforms, and determined their limits, enjoined upon the states-general their accept- ance, threatened to dissolve them, and to do alone what the good of the realm might re- quire, if he encountered any opposition from them. After this scene of authority, which was very little suitable to the occasion, and which 64 HISTORY OF THE in truth was alien to his own feelings, he commanded the deputies to separate, and withdrew. The clergy and the noblesse obeyed. The deputies of the people, im- moveable, silent, indignant, did not quit their seats. They remained some time in this at- titude, and Mirabeau, suddenly breaking the silence, " Sirs," he said, " I confess that what you have heard might be for the good of the country, were not the presents of despotism always dangerous. What means this insulting dictation ; the display of arms, the violation of the national temple, in order to command you to be happy ! Who is it that makes this command ? your proxy ! Who gives you imperious laws ? your proxy ! he who ought to receive them from you, from us, gentlemen, who are invested with a political and inviolable priesthood ; from us, from whom twenty-five millions of people expect certain happiness, because it ought to be con- sented to, given and received by all. But the liberty of your deliberations is chained down; a military force environs the assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation ? Is Catiline at our gates? I demand that you, clothing yourselves in your dignity and your FRENCH REVOLUTION. 05 legislative authority, be firm in the sacred- ness of your oath ; it does not permit us to separate till we have made the constitution." The grand master of the ceremonies, seeing that the assembly did not separate, was about to remind it of the order of the king. " Go," exclaimed Mirabeau ; " tell your master that we are here by the order of the people, and that we shall depart only at the point of the bayonet." " You are to-day," added Sieves, with calmness, " what you were yesterday ; let us deliberate!" and the assembly, full of resolution and majesty, proceeded to its de- liberation. Upon the motion of Camus, it persevered in all its decrees ; and upon that of Mirabeau, it decreed the inviolability of its members. On this memorable occasion, the royal au- thority was lost. The initiation of laws as well as the moral power passed from the mo- narch to the assembly. Necker, whose re- tirement had been decreed in the morning, was in the evening entreated to remain, by the queen and the monarch. This minister had disapproved of the royal sitting, and, in refusing to assist at it, had conciliated anew the confidence of the assembly, which he had VOL. I. F 66 HISTORY OF THE forfeited by his hesitation. The period of disgrace was for him the period of popularity. He became then, by his refusal, the ally of the assembly, which declared itself his de- fender. It is at all epochs necessary to have a leader, whose name shall be the standard of a party ; so long as the assembly had to struggle against the court, that man was Necker. At the first sitting, that part of the clergy, which had re-united itself to the assembly in the church of St. Louis, resumed its seats in it; a few days after, forty-seven members of the noblesse, among whom was the duke of Orleans, also effected their re-union, and the court saw itself compelled to solicit the no- blesse and the minority of the clergy to cease from a separation which was become unavail- ing. The deliberation became general, the orders ceased to exist in point of right, and very soon disappeared in point of fact. They had preserved, even in the common hall, dis- tinct places, which were, however, soon con- founded ; the vain pre-eminence of particular bodies vanished in the presence of the na- tional authority. The court, after having tried in vain to pre- vent the formation of the assembly, was no FRENCH REVOLUTION. 67 longer able, even by associating with it, to direct its labours. It might, nevertheless, by prudence and good faith, have repaired its errors, and made the assembly forget its attacks. There are times when we can vo- lunteer sacrifices, there are others when we can claim nothing but the merit of submitting to them. The monarch, at the opening of the states-general, had the power to make the constitution himself: he must now receive it from the assembly, and, if he had submitted to this position, his condition would infallibly have been ameliorated. But, recovered from the first surprise of defeat, the advisers of Louis XVI determined to resort to the employment of bayonets, after having failed in that of authority. They persuaded him that obedi- ence to his orders, the security of his throne, the maintenance of the laws of the realm, the happiness even of his people, required that he should reduce the assembly to sub- mission ; that this last, situated at Versailles, in the vicinity of Paris, two towns which had declared in its favour, ought to be subdued by force ; that he must either remove or dissolve it ; that this determination was urgent in order to arrest it in its progress ; and that it 68 HISTORY OF THE was necessary, in the execution of these measures, to call in, without delay, the as- sistance of the troops, to intimidate the as- sembly, and control Versailles and Paris. While these plots were being contrived, the deputies opened their legislative labours, and prepared the constitution so impatiently ex- pected, and which they thought should be no longer retarded. Addresses to them were poured in from Paris and the principal towns of France, congratulating them on their wis- dom, and encouraging them to pursue the work of regenerating France. In the mean time, the troops arrived in great numbers ; Versailles presented the appearance of a camp ; the hall of the states was environed with guards, and entrance prohibited to the citizens ; Paris was surrounded by different bodies of the army, who seemed posted there to be ready, as occasion might require, for a siege or a blockade. These immense military pre- parations, trains of artillery arriving from the frontiers, the presence of foreign regiments, whose obedience was unlimited, everything announced some sinister project. The people Were agitated, the assembly rushed to inform the throne, and demand from it the return of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 69 the troops. Upon the proposition of Mira- beau, it made an address to the king, re- spectful and firm ; but which was unavailing. Louis XVI declared, that he alone was com- petent to judge of the necessity of assembling these troops, or of causing their return ; that this was only an army of precaution, in order to prevent troubles and to guard the assembly. He offered, moreover, to transfer the assembly to Noyon or Soissons, that is, to place it be- tween two armies, and deprive it of the sup- port of the people. Paris was in the greatest fermentation ; this immense town was unanimous in its de- votion to the assembly. The perils by which the representatives of the nation were me- naced, its own, and the deficiency in the means of subsistence, disposed it to an in- surrection ; the capitalists, from motives of interest, and in the fear of a bankruptcy ; men of intelligence, and the whole of the middle class, from patriotism ; the people, pressed by their wants, ascribing their suffer- ings to the privileged and the court, desirous of agitation and of novelty, had embraced with enthusiasm the cause of the revolution. It is difficult to conceive the convulsion which 70 HISTORY OF THE agitated the capital of France ; it started from the repose and the silence of servitude, it was surprised by the novelty of its situation, and it was absolutely drunk with liberty and enthusiasm. The press inflamed the public mind, the journals spread the deliberations of the assembly, and thus in some degree as- sisted at its sittings ; the people discussed in the open air, in public places, the questions which were then agitated in its bosom. It was at the Palais-Royal in particular that the assembly of Paris was held. It was always filled by a multitude, which seemed per- manent, and which was incessantly renewed. A table served as a tribune, any citizen for an orator; there they harangued upon the dangers of the country, and excited it to re- sistance. Already, upon a motion made at the Palais-Royal, the prison of the Abbaye had been forced, and the grenadiers of the French guards, who had been imprisoned for refusing to draw upon the people, had been brought out in triumph. This uproar, how- ever, produced no effect; a deputation had solicited, in favour of the prisoners, the in- terest of the assembly, which had recom- mended them to the clemency of the king ; FRENCH REVOLUTION. 71 they were remitted to prison, and they re- ceived their pardon. But this regiment, one of the most brave and complete, was become favourable to the popular cause. Such were the dispositions of Paris when Necker was removed from the ministry. The court, after having established troops at Ver- sailles, at Sevres, at the Champ-de-Mars, at St. Denis, thought itself able to execute its plan. It commenced by the exile of Necker, and a complete change in the ministry. The marshal de Broglie, Lagallissonniere, the duke of Vauguyon, the baron de Breteuil, and the intendant Foulon, were appointed to succeed Puis^gur, Montmorin, Luzerne, Saint-Priest, and Necker. The last received, on Saturday, the 11th July, while at dinner, a note from the king, commanding him to quit the realm immediately. He very calmly finished his dinner, without taking any notice of the order he had received, then got into a carriage with madame Necker, as if going to Saint-Ouen, and took the road for Brussels. The following day, the 12th of July, about four in the afternoon, intelligence was spread in Paris of the disgrace of Necker, and his departure into exile. This measure was con- 72 HISTORY OF THE sidered as the execution of the plot, of which they had observed the preparations. In a few moments, the town was in an uproar ; crowds collected from all parts, more than ten thousand persons met at the Palais-Royal, agitated by this new act of despotism, ready for the most desperate measures, and not knowing where to begin. A young man, more hardy than the rest, an habitual ha- ranguer of the mob, Camille Desmoulins, ascended the tribune, having a pistol in one hand, and exclaiming : — " Citizens, there is not a moment to lose ; the removal of Necker is the tocsin for a St. Barthelemy of patriots ! This evening all the Swiss and German bat- talions are coming out of the Champ-de-Mars to slaughter us ! There remains for us only one resource ; let us rush to arms." They mani- fested their approval, by the most deafening acclamations. He proposed to take cockades, in order to recognise and defend themselves. f Will ye," said he, " have green, the colour of hope, or red, the colour of the free order of Cincinnatus ?" " Green, green," re-echoed the multitude. The speaker descended from the tribune, attached a branch of a tree to his hat ; they all imitated him ; the chesnut- trees FRENCH REVOLUTION. 73 of Paris were almost despoiled of their leaves, and this troop went in tumult to the house of the sculptor Curtius. They took the busts of Necker and the duke of Orleans, for it was reported that he also was exiled ; they covered them with crape, and carried them in triumph. They traversed the streets St. Martin, St. Denis, St. Honore, and gained fresh accessions at every step. The people compel all those whom they meet to pull off their hats. The horse patrol being found in their route, the crowd take them for an escort ; they advance to the place Vendome, where they carry the two busts in procession round the statue of Louis XVI. A detachment of the German Royals arrives, wishes to disperse the popu- lace, is put to flight by showers of stones, and the multitude continues its course till it ar- rives at the place Louis XV. But there it is attacked by the dragoons of the prince of Lambesc ; it resists for some moments, is broken ; the carrier of one of the busts, and a soldier of the French guards are killed ; the people are dispersed, a part flying towards the quays, others falling back upon the bou- levards, the remainder throwing themselves 74 HISTORY OF THE into the Tuileries by the turning bridge. The prince of Lambesc pursues them into the garden, with a drawn sabre, at the head of his troops ; he charges an unarmed multitude, while promenading peaceably along. In this charge, an old man is wounded by a stroke of a sabre ; the people defend themselves with the seats, they mount upon the terraces ; the indignation becomes general, and the call to arms resounds through every quarter, in the Tuileries, in the Palais-Royal, in the city, and in the faubourgs. The regiment of the French guards was, as we have already seen, well-disposed towards the people ; they had confined it in its bar- racks. The prince of Lambesc, fearing, ne- vertheless, that it might take a part, gave orders to sixty dragoons to go and place themselves in front of its depot, situated in the Chaussee-D'Antin. The soldiers of the guards, already discontented at being retained prisoners, became indignant at the sight of those strangers, with whom they had had a quarrel a few days before; they wished to run to arms, and their officers, alternately employing menaces and prayers, with great difficulty restrained them. But they would FRENCH REVOLUTION. 75 hear nothing more, when some of them came to announce the charge at the Tuileries, and the death of one of their comrades, they seized their arms, broke the gratings, ranged themselves in line of battle at the entrance of the barracks in front of the dragoons, and gave the word, " Qui viveV " The Royal Germans." "Are ye for the tiers-etatV* " We are for those who give us orders." The French guards instantly fired upon them, and killed nine of their men, wounded three, and put the rest to flight. They then marched forward in the charging pace with their bay- onets in advance to the place Louis XV, placed themselves between the Tuileries and the Champs-Elysees, the people and the troops, and guarded this post all the night. The soldiers of the Champ-de-Mars imme- diately received orders to advance. When they had arrived in the Champs-Elysees, the French guards received them with musket- shots. Orders were given them to engage, but they refused ; the Petits-Suisses were the first to give this example, which the others followed. The officers, in despair, ordered a retreat : the troops retired towards the Grille de Chaillot, whence they presently assembled 76 HISTORY OF THE in the Champ-de-Mars. The defection of the French guards, and the refusal even of the foreign troops to march upon the capital, secured^ the failure of the projects of the court. During this evening, the people went to the Hotel-de-Ville, and demanded that the tocsin should be sounded, the districts assembled, and the citizens armed. Some electors met at the Hotel-de-Ville, and they took the au- thority into their hands. They rendered, during these days of insurrection, the greatest services to their fellow-citizens, and the cause of liberty, by their courage, prudence, and activity ; but in the first confusion of the in- surrection they could scarcely obtain a hear- ing. The tumult was at its height ; every man obeyed the dictates of his passion. Among the well intentioned citizens, were also suspicious characters, who sought in insurrection only the means of disorder and pillage. Troops of labourers, employed by the government in the public works, the most part without a home, without a character, burnt down the barriers, infested the streets, plundered several houses; these were the men who were called brigands. The nights FRENCH REVOLUTION. 77 the 12th and 13th passed in tumult and alarm. The departure of Necker, which had cre- ated an insurrection in Paris, did not produce a less effect at Versailles, and in the assem- bly ; the surprise and discontent were there the same. The deputies met early in the morning in the hall of the states ; they were sullen, but their sadness had more of indigna- tion than dejection. " At the opening of the sitting," said a deputy, " many addresses of adherence to the decrees were listened to in sullen silence by the assembly, less attentive to the reading than to their own thoughts." Mounier first spoke ; he denounced the dis- missal of ministers dear to the nation, the choice of their successors ; he proposed an address to the king to demand their recall, to shew him the danger of violent measures, the misfortunes that might follow the approach of the troops, and to tell him that the assembly was solemnly opposed to an infamous bank- ruptcy. At these words, the emotion of the assembly, hitherto constrained, burst forth in clapping of hands and shouts of approbation. Lally-Tollendal, the friend of Necker, then advanced with a sorrowful air, demanded a 78 HISTORY OF THE hearing, and pronounced a long and eloquent panegyric on the exiled minister ; he was listened to with the profoundest interest ; his grief corresponded with the public sorrow, the cause of Necker was then that of the country. The noblesse itself made common cause with the members of the tiers-hat, whether it considered the peril as being com- mon, or feared that it should incur the same blame as the court, unless it should disap- prove its conduct, or that it was carried along by the general sympathy. A noble deputy, the count of Virieu, gave the example. " Assembled for the constitu- tion," was his language, "let us make the constitution ; let us bind closer our mutual bonds of connexion ; let us renew, confirm, consecrate, the glorious resolutions of the 1 7th June ; let us unite ourselves to this cele- brated resolution of the 20th of the same month. Let us all swear, yes, all, all the orders united, to be faithful to these illustrious resolutions, which alone can now save the realm." "The constitution shall be made," added the duke de la Rochefoucault, "or we will be no more." But the agreement was still more unanimous when the insurrection at FRENCH REVOLUTION. 79 Paris was announced to the assembly, the excesses which had been the sequel of it, the barriers burnt down, the electors assembled at the Hotel-de-Ville, the confusion in the capital, and the citizens ready to be attacked by the troops, or to slaughter themselves. There was only one cry in the hall ; " Let the remembrance of our momentary divisions be effaced ; let us unite our efforts for the salvation of the country." They sent imme- diately a deputation to the king, composed of twenty -four members, among whom were all the deputies of Paris ; the archbishop of Vienne, president of the assembly, was at its head. It was to represent to the king the dangers which menaced the capital and the realm, the necessity of sending away the troops ; and of confiding the protection of the city to burgess militia ; and if they obtained from the king these demands, they were to send a deputation to Paris to announce this consoling intelligence. But this deputation very soon returned with an unsatisfactory answer. The assembly then saw that it had only itself to depend on, and that the projects of the court were irrevocably fixed. Far from 80 HISTORY OF THE being discouraged, it became only the more firm, and instantly decreed unanimously the responsibility of the actual ministers, and of all advisers of the king, of whatever rank or state they might be; it voted an address of regret to Necker, and the disgraced ministers ; it declared that it would not cease to insist on the removal of the troops, and the establish- ment of the burgess militia ; it placed the public debt under the safeguard of French honour, and confirmed all its preceding reso- lutions. After these measures, it took another not less necessary. Apprehending that in the night the court might close the hall of the states with soldiers, in order to disperse the assembly, it established itself in permanence till a new order should be made : it decided that a part of the deputies should sit during the night, and that another should come to relieve it early in the morning. To lessen the fatigue of a continual presidence to the vene- rable archbishop of Vienne, they nominated a vice-president, to supply his place at these extraordinary times. The choice fell on La- fayette, who held the sitting during the night. The night passed without deliberation, the deputies being upon their seats, silent, but FRENCH REVOLUTION. 81 calm and serene. It was by these actions, by these public remonstrances, by these reso- lutions, by this unanimous enthusiasm, by this sustained wisdom, by this unshaken course of conduct, that the assembly rose more and more to the height of its dangers and its mission. At Paris the insurrection assumed, on the 13th, a more regular character; in the morning the people presented themselves at the Hotel- de-Ville ; they sounded the tocsin of the com- mon-house, and that of all the churches ; drums were beat along the streets to summon the citizens. They collected in the public places ; they formed themselves into troops, under the name of the volunteers of the Palais- Royal, volunteers of the Tuileries, of the Bazoche, of the Arquebuse. The districts reunited themselves ; each of them voted two hundred men for their defence. They only wanted arms ; they searched every place where they hoped to find any ; they seized upon those they found among the gunsmiths and sword- cutlers, giving receipts for them ; they went to the Hotel-de-Ville to demand arms there ; the electors, always assembled, answered in vain that they had none ; they, by some means or other were resolved to have them. The vol. i. o 82 HISTORY OF THE electors then sent for the head of the city, M. de Flesselles, provost of the merchants, who alone understood the military state of the capital, and whose authority among the peo- ple might be of great service in so difficult a conjuncture. He arrived amid the applauses of the multitude. "My friends" said he, "lam your father , you shall be satisfied." A permanent committee formed itself at the Hotel-de-Ville, to take measures touching the common safety. About the same time it was announced that the house of the Lazarists, which contained a large quantity of grain, had been plundered, that the Garde-Meuble had been forced in order to take from it the ancient armour, that the shops of the gunsmiths had been pillaged. The greatest excesses on the part of the mul- titude were apprehended ; it was let loose, and it appeared difficult to restrain its impe- tuosity. But this was a moment of enthu- siasm and disinterestedness. It even disarmed, itself, men of suspicious character ; the corn found at the house of the Lazarists was carried to the market-hall. It robbed no private houses ; the carriages, the chariots filled with provisions, moveables, household furniture, stopped at the gate of the city, were conducted FRENCH REVOLUTION. 83 to the Place de Greve, now become a vast magazine ; the multitude constantly crowded together, ever repeating their demand for Arms ! It was almost one o'clock, the provost of the merchants announced the speedy arrival of twelve thousand muskets of the manufac- ture of Charleville, which would very shortly be followed by thirty thousand more. This assurance appeased for a time the people, and the committee proceeded with a little more calmness to the organization of the burgess militia. In less than four hours, the plan was digested, discussed, adopted, printed, and posted up. They decided, that till new orders, the Parisian guard should consist of forty-eight thousand men. All the citizens were invited to inscribe their names and be- come a part of it ; each district had its bat- talion, each battalion its captains ; they offered the command of this burgess army to the duke d'Aumont, who demanded twenty-four hours to make his decision. In the meantime the marquis of Salle was nominated second in command. The green cockade was then re- placed by the red and blue cockade, which were the colours of the capital. The districts declared their concurrence in the measures 84 HISTORY OF THE which the permanent committee had taken. The clerks of the Chatelet, those of the Palais, the medical students, the soldiers of the watch, and what was still more important, the French guards, offered their services to the assembly ; patrols were formed to scour the streets. But the people were waiting impa- tiently for the result of the promises of the provost of merchants ; the muskets did not arrive, the evening was approaching, and they dreaded in the night an attack of the troops ; they believed that they were betrayed, when they learned that five thousand pounds of powder had been secretly removed from Paris, and that the people at the barriers had seized it. By-and-by chests arrived inscribed — artillery ; this calmed the effervescence ; the people escorted them to the Hotel-de-Ville, believing them to contain the expected mus- kets of Charleville : they opened them and found them filled with old linen and bits of wood. Then the people clamoured at the treachery, and broke forth in murmurs and menaces against the committee and the pro- vost of the merchants. He excused himself by saying that he had been deceived, and in order to gain time, or to disengage himself FRENCH REVOLUTION. 85 from the multitude, he sent them to Char- treux to seek for arms there ; but there were none, and they returned more jealous and furious. The committee saw then that they had no other resources for arming Paris and for di- vesting the mob of its suspicions, than by having pikes forged ; they ordered the imme- diate fabrication of fifty thousand. To prevent the excesses of the preceding night, the town was illuminated, and patrols scoured it in every direction. Next day those who had not been able to obtain arms came to demand them again from the committee very early in the morning, re- proaching it with its refusal and evasions on the preceding evening. The committee had in vain sought for arms ; none had come from Charleville, none had been found at Char- treux, even the arsenal was empty. The people, who would no longer receive any excuse, which believed itself more and more betrayed, went in a body to the Hotel of the Invalids, which contained a considerable de- pot of arms. It manifested no fear of the troops established in the Champ-de-Mars, penetrated into the hotel in spite of the re- 86 HISTORY OF THE monstrance of the governor M. de Sombreuil, found twenty-eight thousand muskets con- cealed in the cellars, seized them, took the sabres, the spears, the cannon, and carried off the whole in triumph. The cannon was posted at the entrance to the faubourgs, at the castle of the Tuileries, upon the quays, upon the bridges, for the defence of the capital against the invasion of the troops, which they were expecting every moment. During this morning the alarm was given, that the regiments posted at St. Dennis were on their march, and that the cannon of the Bastille was pointed upon the street St. An- toine. The committee took measures imme- diately on this discovery, placed citizens to defend this side of the town, and sent a de- putation to the governor of the Bastille to engage him to withdraw his cannon, and not to commit any act of hostility. This activity, the apprehension which the fortress inspired, hatred of the abuses it protected, the ne- cessity of occupying a point so important, and of no longer leaving it to their enemies in a moment of insurrection, directed the at- tention of the multitude to this point. From nine in the morning to two in the afternoon, RENCH REVOLUTION. 87 there had been only one cry from one end of Paris to the other, To the Bastille ! To the Bas- tille ! The citizens assembled there from all parts of the town in groups, armed with mus- kets, pikes, sabres ; the crowd which already surrounded it was considerable ; the senti- nels of the place were posted, and the bridges raised as in a period of war. A deputy from the district of St. Louis- de-la-Culture, called Thuriot de la Rosiere, demanded an interview with the governor, M. Delaunay. Admitted into his presence, he summoned him to change the direction of the cannon. The governor answered that the pieces were at all times placed on the towers ; that he had it not in his power to get them down ; and that, finally, informed of the dis- turbed condition of Paris, he had made them retire some paces and to point from the em- brasures. Thuriot with difficulty succeeded in penetrating farther, and examining if the state of the fortress was as satisfactory for the town as the governor affirmed. He found as he advanced, three pieces of cannon directed upon the avenues of the place, and ready to play on those who should attempt to force it. About forty Swiss and twenty-four invalids 88 HISTORY OF THE 1 were under arms. Thuriot urged them as well as the 6tat-major of the place, in the name of honour and of the country, nor to shew themselves enemies of the people. The officers and the soldiers all swore not to use their arms unless they were attacked. Thuriot then ascended the towers, and from thence beheld an immense multitude ap- proaching from all parts, and the faubourg St. Antoine advancing en masse. Already from without they were alarmed that Thuriot did not return, and they demanded him with loud cries. To re-assure the people, he shewed himself on the platform of the for- tress, and shouts of applause rang from the garden of the Arsenal. He descended, re- joined his friends, made known the result of his mission, and then presented himself be- fore the committee. But the multitude impatiently demanded the surrender of the fortress. From time to time these words rose from the multitude : We want the Bastille ! We must have the Bas- tille ! Two men suddenly sprang from the crowd, rushed upon a sentinel, and struck the chains of the great bridge with a hatchet. The soldiers called out to them to retire, FRENCH REVOLUTION. &9 and threatened to fire. But they continued their blows, broke the chains, let down the bridge, and threw themselves forward with the multitude. They advanced toward the second bridge in order to batter it down also. The garrison made a discharge of musketry and dispersed them. Nevertheless, they re- turned to the attack, and during several hours all their efforts were directed against the second bridge, the approach to which was defended by a constant fire from the place. The people, furious at this obstinate resist- ance, tried to break the gates with blows of the hatchet, and to set fire to the guard-house. The garrison then made a discharge of case- shot, murderous to the besiegers, and which killed or wounded a great many ; this only infuriated them ; they had, at their head, men who, like Elie and Hulin, possessed extra- ordinary courage and audacity, and they con- tinued the siege with impetuosity. The committee of the Hotel-de-Ville was in the greatest anxiety. The siege of the Bastille appeared to it a rash enterprise. It received from time to time news of the dis- asters which were happening at the foot of the fortress. It was placed between the dan- 90 HISTORY OF THE ger from the troops if they were victorious, and that of the multitude, which was de- manding from it ammunition to carry on the siege. As they could not give what they did not possess, they were accused of treachery ; they had sent two deputations to procure the suspension of hostilities, and invite the go- vernor to confide the keeping of the place to the citizens ; but in the midst of tumults, of shouts, of the discharge of musketry, they could not make themselves heard ; they sent a third with a drum and a flag of truce, for the purpose of being more easily recognized, but they were not more successful. Neither side would hear anything. Despite its en- deavours and its activity, the assembly of the Hotel-de-Ville was still exposed to the sus- picions of its party. The provost of the mer- chants especially excited the greatest distrust. "He has already," said one, "made many shifts in this business." " He advises us," said another, " to open a trench, that he may gain time, and we may lose everything." — " Comrades," exclaimed an old man, " what have we to do with these traitors ? March, follow me, and in less than two hours the Bastille shall be taken." FRENCH REVOLUTION. 91 The siege had continued more than four hours, when the French guards arrived with cannon. Their arrival changed the face of the combat. The garrison urged the governor to surrender. The unfortunate Delaunay, fearing the lot which awaited him, would now have blown up the fortress, and buried him- self under its ruins, and those of the faubourg. He advanced in desperation, with a lighted match in his hand, towards the powder. The garrison itself seized him, hoisted a white flag upon the platform, reversed their muskets, and lowered their cannon in token of peace. But the assailants, fighting and advancing on, con- tinued to exclaim, " Let down the bridges!" A Swiss officer demanded, across the battle- ments, leave to capitulate, and march out with the honours of war. "No, no!" cried the multitude. The same officer made a proposal to lay down their arms, if the be- siegers would promise to spare their lives. " Let down the bridge," answered the fore- most of the assailants, " no harm will befal you." On this assurance, they opened the gate, let down the bridge, and the besiegers threw themselves into the Bastille. Those who were at the head of the multitude wished 92 HISTORY OF THE to save from its vengeance the governor, the Swiss, and the invalids ; but the cry was : " Give them up to us, give them up to us ! They have fired on their fellow-citizens , and they deserve to be hanged'" The governor, some Swiss, and some of the invalids, were torn from the protection of their defenders, and put to death by the implacable mob. The permanent committee was ignorant of the result of the combat. The hall of its sittings was encumbered by a furious multi- tude, which menaced the provost of the mer- chants and the electors. Flesselles began to be uneasy in his situation. He was pale, anxious ; exposed to reproaches and the most furious menaces ; they had forced him from the hall of the committee to the hall of the general assembly, where an immense number of citizens had assembled. " Let him come, let him follow us," had been called out from all parts. " This is too much," said Flessel- les, " let us march since they wish it ; let us go where I am expected." But he had scarcely arrived in the great hall, when the attention of the multitude was arrested by cries of " Victory! Victory! Liberty /" These were the conquerors of the Bastille, whose FRENCH REVOLUTION. 93 arrival was thus announced. Presently they themselves entered the hall, presenting a spec- tacle the most popular and the most imposing. The most distinguished among them were carried in triumph, and crowned with laurels. They were escorted by more than fifteen hun- dred men, their eyes gleaming, their hair in disorder, bearing all kinds of arms, crowding one upon another, and making the boards re- sound with the stamping of their feet. One carried the keys of the Bastille, and the flag ; another the "orders," suspended from the bayonet at the end of a musket ; and a third held up in his bloody hand the collar of the governor. It was in this form that the train of the conquerors of the Bastille, followed by an immense multitude which inundated the Place and the quays, entered the hall of the Hotel-de-Ville, to inform the committee of their triumph, and to decide on the fate of the prisoners who remained. Some individuals wished to leave the decision to the committee, but others cried out, " no quarter to the pri- soners ! no quarter to men who have fired on their fellow-citizens." The commandant La Salle, the elector Moreau de St. Meiy, the 94 HISTORY OF THE courageous Elie, succeeded however in ap- peasing the wrath of the multitude, and in obtaining a general amnesty. But then came the turn of the unfortunate Flesselles : they pretended that a letter, found upon Delaunay, proved his treason, which they had already suspected. " I amuse," said he to him, " the Parisians, with cockades and promises : hold out till this night : you shall have relief." The people crowded round the board. The more mode- rate demanded that his person should be seized, and that he should be committed to the prisons of the Chatelet; but others op- posed this proposal, contending that he ought to be sent to the Palais-Royal, to be judged there. This last was the general wish. " To the Palais- Royal ! To the Palais-Royal!" re- echoed from every part of the crowd. ''Ah, well! be it so, gentlemen," answered Fles- selles, with the most tranquil air ; " let us go to the Palais -Royal." At these words, he descended from the raised part of the hall, sprang into the midst of the mob, which opened as he marched forward, and which followed without doing him any violence. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 95 But at the corner of the quay Pelletier, a stranger advanced towards him, and shot him dead with his pistol. After these scenes of arming, of tumult, of battle, of vengeance, the Parisians, who apprehended an attack during the night, as the intercepted letters indicated, made due disposition for receiving the enemy. The entire population laboured in fortifying the town. They formed barricadoes, they threw up entrenchments, broke up the pavement, forged pikes, cast bullets. The women car- ried stones to the tops of the houses to crush the soldiers. The national guard distributed themselves at the different posts. Paris re- sembled an immense workshop, and a vast camp, and the whole of the night was passed under arms, and in momentary expectation of battle. While the insurrection of Paris was as- suming this character of fury, of permanence, of success, what were they doing at Ver- sailles? The court was preparing to realize its designs against the capital and the as- sembly. The night of the 14th to the 15th, was fixed for the execution of its plan. Br£- teuil, the prime-minister, had promised to re- 96 HISTORY OF THE store the royal authority in three days. The commandant of the army assembled at Paris, the marshal de Broglie, had received unlimited powers of every species. On the 15th, the declaration of the 23rd June was to be re- newed, and the assembly, after having been compelled to accept it, was to be dissolved. Forty thousand copies of this declaration were ready for distribution through the kingdom; and in order to subserve the urgent necessities of the treasury, they had manufactured more than a hundred millions of government notes. The movement of Paris, far from disturbing the court, favoured its views. To the very last moment, it considered this as a transient disturbance which would be easily repressed ; it did not believe either in its perseverance or in its success, and it did not appear possible that a mob of citizens would be able to resist an army. The assembly knew all these projects. For two days it sat without interruption in the midst of disquietude and alarms. It was in a great measure ignorant of what was passing at Paris. At length intelligence arrived that the insurrection had become general, and that Paris was marching upon Versailles, whilst FRENCH REVOLUTION. 97 the troops were putting themselves in motion against the capital. They imagined that they heard the cannon, and listened to assure themselves. On the fourteenth, in the even- ing, they believed that the king was to de- part during the night, and that the assembly was abandoned to the mercy of the foreign regiments. This last apprehension was not without foundation ; a carriage was constantly in attendance, and for many successive days the body-guards did not put off their clothes. Moreover, at the Orangery, the most alarm- ing scenes were passing. The foreign troops were prepared, by the distribution of wine and presents, for their expedition, and every thing induced the belief that the decisive moment had come. In spite of the approach and the increase of the danger, the assembly shewed itself immovable, and pursued its first resolutions. Mirabeau, who had first demanded the dis- missal of the troops, moved a new deputation. It was on the point of departure, when a deputy, the viscount Noailles, arriving from Paris, made known to the assembly the pro- gress of the insurrection, announced the pil- lage of the Invalides, the arming of the VOL. 1. H 98 HISTORY OF THE multitude, and the siege of the Bastille. Another deputy, Wimpfen, came to add to the recital, that of the personal dangers he had incurred, and declared that the fury of the people augmented with its dangers. The assembly proposed to establish couriers in order that they might get intelligence from Paris every two hours. In the meantime, two electors, MM. Ga- nilh, and Bancal-des-Issarts, sent by the committee of the Hotel-de-Ville in deputa- tion to the assembly, confirmed everything which it had learnt. They began by stating the measures which the electors had taken for the good order and defence of the capital ; they announced the misfortunes which had happened at the foot of the Bastille, the use- lessness of the deputations to the governor, and said, that the fire of the garrison had scattered death about the environs of the fortress. At this recital, a cry of indignation rose from the midst of the assembly, and a second deputation was immediately sent to carry to the king this grievous intelligence. The first returned with a very unsatisfactory answer at six o'clock in the evening. The king, on learning these disastrous events, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 99 which presaged others still more so, appeared to be greatly affected. He had struggled against the part he had been compelled to take. " You tear my heart more and more," said he to the deputies, " by the recital you make of the misfortunes of Paris. It is not possible to believe that the orders which have been given to the troops are the occa- sion of them. You know the answer I have given to your preceding deputation ; I have nothing to add to it." This answer consisted in the promise of sending from Paris the troops of the Champ-de-Mars, and in the orders given to the general officers to put themselves at the head of the burgess-guard in order to direct it. Such measures were insufficient to remedy the dangerous situation in which it was placed, and hence the assem- bly was neither satisfied nor re-assured. A short time after, the deputies D'Ormesson and Duport came to announce to the assembly the capture of the Bastille, the death of Flesselles, and that of Delaunay. A third deputation to the king was proposed, to de- mand again the removal of the troops. " No," said Clermont Tonnerre ; "leave them the night 1 00 HISTORY OF THE for consultation ; kings, as well as other men, must purchase experience." It was in this state that the assembly passed the night. In the morning, a new deputation was nominated to shew the monarch the calamities which would ensue from a longer refusal. It was then that Mirabeau, arresting the deputies as they were departing, — " Tell him boldly, tell him," he exclaimed, " that the hordes of foreigners by whom we are surrounded have received yesterday the visit of princes, of princesses, of favourites, of court ladies, and their caresses, and their exhortations, and their presents ; tell him, that these foreign satellites, gorged with money and wine, have predicted, in their impious revelry, the en- slavement of France, and that their brutal wishes invoke the destruction of the national assembly ; tell him, that in the palace itself the courtiers have danced to the sound of this barbarous music, and that such orgies were the harbingers of St. Bartholomew ! tell him, that the Henry, whose blessings are pro- claimed by the universe, he of his ancestors whom he should take for a model, brought food into rebel Paris, which he besieged in FRENCH REVOLUTION. 101 person ; but that his ferocious councillors sent back the corn which commerce had brought into his faithful but famished capital." But at this instant the king appeared in the midst of the assembly. The duke of Liancourt, availing himself of that access to the sovereign which his office of grand master of the ward- robe gave him, apprised him during the night of the defection of the French guards, and of the attack and capture of the Bastille. At this news, of which his councillors had left him in ignorance, "It is a revolt T ex- claimed the astonished monarch. " No, sir, it is a revolution*" This excellent citizen had represented to him the perils to which he was exposed by the projects of the court, the fears, the exasperation of the people, the bad dis- position of the troops ; and the king had de- termined to present himself to the assembly, to reassure it of his intentions. This news inspired, in the first instance, transports of joy. But Mirabeau represented to his col- leagues the folly of their abandoning them- selves to such premature expressions of ap- plause. "Let us wait," said he, "till his majesty make known to us the good disposi- tion which is announced on his part. The 102 HISTORY OF THE blood of our brethren flows at Paris. Let a mournful respect be the first reception of the monarch of an unhappy people ; the silence of the people is the lesson of kings." The assembly resumed the sullen attitude, which, for three days, it had never abandoned. The king appeared without guards, and without any other retinue than that of his brothers. He was received with the profoundest silence ; but when he had declared that he was one with the nation, and that, relying upon the affection and fidelity of his subjects, he had given orders for the troops to retire from Paris and Versailles, — when he had pro- nounced these touching words, "Well, then, it is to you that I confide myself," plaudits were heard from every quarter ; the members of the assembly rose spontaneously, and re- conducted the monarch to the chateau. Versailles and Paris rang with joy. The sentiment of security succeeded the agitation of fear, and the people passed from animosity to gratitude. Louis XVI, restored to himself, felt how important it was to go in person to the capital, in order to reconquer its affection, and conciliate for himself the popular power. He caused it to be announced to the assembly, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 103 that he would recall Necker, and make his appearance on the following day at Paris. The assembly had already nominated a depu- tation of a hundred members to go before the king into the capital. It was received with enthusiasm. Bailly and La Fayette, who made a part of it, were nominated— the first, mayor of Paris, the other, commander of the burgess-guard. They deserved these popular acknowledgments, the one by his long and difficult presidency of the assembly, the other by his glorious conduct in the two worlds. This last, the friend of Washington, and one of the principal authors of American in- dependence, on his return to his country, had first pronounced the name of the states- general, had united himself to the assembly with the minority of the noblesse, and had shewn himself subsequently one of the most zealous partisans of the revolution. The two new magistrates proceeded, on the 17th, to receive the king at the head of the municipality and the Parisian guard. " Sire," said Bailly to him, " I bring to your majesty the keys of your good city of Paris ; they are the same as those presented to Henry IV ; he had reconquered his people, here the people 104 HISTORY OF THE have reconquered their king." From the place Louis XV to the Hotel-de-Ville, the king traversed the passage formed by the national guard, arranged in three or four lines, armed with muskets, pikes; lances, scythes, and staves. Their visages still wore a sombre as- pect, and the cry, frequently repeated, of Vive la nation! was the only one heard. But when Louis XVI descended from the carriage ; when he had received from the hands of Bailly the tri-coloured cockade, and that without guards, surrounded by the multitude ; when he had entered without distrust the Hotel-de-Ville, applauses and cries of Vive le roi ! burst from all parts. The reconciliation was entire ; Louis XVI received the greatest testimonies of affec- tion. After having sanctioned the new magis- tracies, and after having approved the choice of the people, he set out again for Versailles, his return to which was not regarded without inquietude, in consequence of the preceding disturbances. The assembly awaited him in the avenue of Paris, and accompanied him to the chateau, where the queen, with her chil- dren, came to throw themselves into his arms. The counter-revolutionary ministers, and all the authors of the designs which had failed, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 105 quitted the court. The count of Artois, the prince of Conde, the prince of Conti, the family of Polignac, took their departure from France, and began the first emigration. Necker returned in triumph; this moment was the finest of his life, and few men have enjoyed such. Minister of the nation, dis- graced for it, recalled by it, he was met everywhere on his route from Bale to Paris with marks of the gratitude and intoxicating joy of the people. His entry into Paris was a day of festival. But this day, which was the crown of his popularity, was also the termi- nation of it. The multitude, always agitated and always furious against those who had had a hand in the projects of the 14th July, had destroyed with implacable fury, Foulon, the intended minister, and his nephew Berthier. Indignant at these executions, fearing that others might become victims, wishing in par- ticular to save the baron of Basenval, com- mander of the army of Paris under the marshal de Broglie, and who was detained prisoner, Necker demanded a general amnesty, and obtained it from the assembly of electors. This measure was imprudent at this moment of jealousy and exultation. Necker did not ] 06 HISTORY OF THE know the people ; he did not know with what facility they suspect their leaders, and crush their idols. They feared that he was wishing to withdraw their enemies from the penalties they had incurred ; the districts assembled themselves, the illegality of the amnesty, pro- nounced by an assembly without authority, was violently attacked, and the electors them- selves revoked it. It was doubtless desirable to counsel the people to calmness, and recall them to mercy ; but the best means was to demand, instead of a release of the accused, a tribunal which would remove them from the murderous jurisdiction of the mob. There are cases in which the greatest humanity is not that which appears to be so. Necker, with- out obtaining anything, let loose the people against himself, and the districts against the electors ; from henceforward he began to struggle with the revolution, of which he hoped to make himself the master, because he had been, for an instant, its hero. But he very quickly undeceived himself. A man is a thing of very little moment in a revolution, which removes masses ; the movement hurries him along, or abandons him ; he must either advance before it, or be crushed by its pres- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 107 sure. In no times is the subordination of men to things more clearly perceived : revolutions employ many leaders, they surrender only to one. The consequences of the 14th July were immense. The movement of Paris communi- cated itself to the provinces : the lower class- es especially, in imitation of those of the capital, organised themselves into municipa- lities for their government, and into national guards for their defence. Authority, as well as force, were entirely displaced ; the royal power had lost them by its defeat, and the nation had acquired them ; the new magis- trates were alone powerful, and alone obeyed ; the old ones having become the objects of jea- lousy. In the towns, the people were arrayed against these last, and against the privileged, whom they supposed, not without reason, to be the enemies of the change which they were wishing to operate. In the country, they set fire to the castles, and the peasants burnt the titles of their lords. It is very difficult in a moment of victory not to abuse our power. But it was important, in order to appease the people, to reform abuses ; so that, in wishing to retain them, they might not confound pro- 108 HISTORY OF THE perty with privilege : orders had disappeared, arbitrary power was destroyed, and their an- cient accompaniment, inequality, remained also to be suppressed. This was the way in which it was necessary to proceed to the esta- blishment of the new order of things ; these preliminaries were the work of a single night. The assembly had addressed to the people proclamations which might restore tranquil- lity. The erection of the Chatelet into a tribu- nal charged with the trial of the conspirators of the 14th July, by satisfying the multitude, had contributed to the restoration of order. It remained to enact a measure still more im- portant, the abolition of privileges. On the night of the 4th August, the duke of Noailles gave the signal for it ; he proposed the re- demption of the feudal rights, and the sup- pression of the personal servitudes. This mo- tion began the sacrifices of all the privileged, it set up among them a rivalry of voluntary surrenders and patriotism. The contagion became general ; in a few hours they decreed the cessation of all the abuses. The duke du Chatelet proposed the redemption of all the tithes, and their change into a pecuniary tax ; the bishop of Chartres, the suppression of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 109 the exclusive right of the chase ; the count of Virieu, that of pigeon-houses and dove-cotes ; and, in succession, the abolition of seignorial jurisdictions; the venality of the office of the magistracy ; of pecuniary immunities, and of the inequality of imposts ; of the perquisites of the cures ; of the annats of the court of Rome ; of the plurality of benefices ; of pen- sions obtained without titles, were proposed and admitted. After the sacrifices of private persons, came those of corporate bodies, of towns, of provinces ; the wardenships and freedom of companies were abolished. A deputy of Dauphiny, the marquis of Blacons, pronounced, in his own name, a solemn re- nunciation of its privileges. The other pro- vinces imitated Dauphiny ; and the towns followed the example of the provinces. A medal was struck to preserve the memory of this day, and the assembly decreed to Louis XVI the title of Restorer of French liberty. This night, which an enemy of the revolu- tion called at the time the St. Bartholomew of property, was only the St. Bartholomew of abuses. It cleared away the rubbish of feudality ; it delivered the person from the remnants of servitude ; lands from seignorial 110 HISTORY OF THE dependance ; soccage properties from the ra- vages of game, and the exaction of tithes. In destroying seignorial jurisdictions, the rem- nants of private power, it conducted to the regime of public power ; in destroying the ve- nality of magistrate offices, it presaged gra- tuitous justice. It was the transition from a condition in which everything belonged to in- dividuals, to another, in which everything ought to belong to the state. This night changed the aspect of the realm ; it rendered all Frenchmen equal ; it opened the way for all to arrive at employment ; to aspire after property ; to exercise industry ; finally, this night was a revolution as important as the in- surrection of the 14th July, of which it was the consequence. It gave the people the con- trol of society, as the other had given it that of the government ; and permitted it to pre- pare the new constitution by destroying the old one. The march of the revolution had been very rapid, and in a very short time had produced mo st important results. Had it not been opposed, it would have been less prompt and less complete. Each refusal became the occasion of new successes: it overthrew FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1 1 1 intrigue, resisted authority, triumphed over force, and, at the moment at which we have arrived, the whole edifice of absolute mo- narchy had been shaken by the mismanage- ment of its supporters. The 17th June had annihilated the three orders, and changed the states-general into the assembly of the na- tion ; the 23d June had been the termination of the moral influence of the crown — the 14th July, that of its material power ; the assembly had inherited the one, and the people the other ; finally, the 4th August was the com- pletion of this first revolution. The epoch which we have described is conspicuously de- tached from the others : within its short pe- riod, the seat of power was displaced, and all the preliminary changes were effected. The epoch which follows is that in which the new regime is discussed and established, and in which the assembly, after having been des- tructive, becomes constituent. 112 HISTORY OF THE CHAPTER II. State of the constituent assembly. — Party of the high clergy and the noblesse ; Maury and Cazales. — Party of the minister and of the two chambers ; Mounier, Lally-Tollendal. — The popular party ; the triumvirate of Barnave, Duport, and Lameth, its position ; influence of Sieyes ; Mirabeau, lea- der of the assembly at this epoch — The party of Orldans. — Constitutional labours ; declaration of rights ; permanence and unity of the legislative body ; royal sanction, the exter- nal agitation which it produces. — Project of the court, ban- quet of the garde-du-corps. — Insurrection of the 5th and 6th October — The king comes to live in Paris. The national assembly, composed of the elite of the nation, was full of intelligence, of honest purposes and views for the public welfare ; it was not, however, quite free from parties and disagreements : but the mass was under the dominion neither of private interests, nor parti- cular individuals ; and it was this, that, upon a conviction always unshackled, frequently spon- taneous, settled deliberations and secured its popularity. Let us see what were the divisions of views and interests that prevailed among them. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 113 The court had in the assembly a party, that of the privileged, which for some time main- tained silence, and took only a retarding part in the discussions. This party was composed of those who, at the dispute of the orders, declared against the re-union. In spite of their momentary agreements with the com- mons in the late circumstances, the aristo- cratic classes had interests contrary to those of the national party. Thus the noblesse and the high clergy were in constant opposition with it, except on certain days, when per- sonal feelings were silenced in the general enthusiasm. These non-contents of the revo- lution, who could neither prevent it by their sacrifices, nor arrest it by their adherence, systematically resisted all its reforms. Their principal organs were two men, no way dis- tinguished by their birth or dignities, but who had the superiority of talent. Maury and Cazales might be said to represent the clergy and the noblesse. These two orators of the privileged, ac- cording to the intentions of their party, which did not believe in the permanence of the changes, sought less to defend themselves than to protest ; and, in all their discussions, vol. r. i 114 HISTORY OF THE their object was not to instruct, but to em- barrass the assembly. Each of them, in the part he acted, manifested the peculiarities of his genius and character. Maury made long- harangues ; Cazales vivid sallies. The former preserved in the tribune the habits of the preacher and academician ; he discoursed on legislative matters without comprehending them, never seizing on the true point of a question, nor even the most advantageous for his party; displaying audacity, erudition, address, a brilliant and sustained facility, but never a profound conviction, a settled judgment, a genuine eloquence. The abbe" Maury spoke as soldiers fight : no one knew how to contradict more frequently, or more preseveringly than he did ; no one could bet- ter supply the place of good reasons by cita- tions and sophisms, and of the excursions of genius by the forms of oratory. He had no lack of talent; but he wanted truth, its vivify- ing principle. Cazales was in all respects the very opposite of Maury: his genius was prompt and unerring; his elocution was as easy, but more animated ; there was a frankness in all his movements ; his reasons were always the best. No rhetorician, he took on ques- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 115 tions which interested his party the ground of justice, and left to Maury the topics of decla- mation. With the exactness of his views, the ardour of his character, and the good use of his talents, he had only the faults which were incident to his position. Maury, to the errors of his genius, added those which were inseparable from his cause. Necker and the ministry had also a party, but it was less numerous than the other, be- cause it was a moderate party. France was then divided into the privileged, who op- posed the revolution, and the men of the peo- ple, who wished to have it entire. There was no place between them for a mediating party. Necker had declared for the English constitution, and all those who shared his views, whether from conviction or ambition, rallied round him. Of this number, were Mounier, a man of strong judgment and in- flexible character, who considered this system as the type of representative governments; Lally-Tollendal, as fully convinced as he, and more persuasive ; Clermont-Tonnerre, the friend and associate of Mounier and Lally, who participated in the qualities and views of them both ; finally, the minority of the no- 116 HISTORY OF THE blesse, and a party of the bishops, who hoped to become members of the upper chamber, if the ideas of Necker should be adopted. The leaders of this party, who were subse- quently called the monarchists, wished to ef- fect the revolution by accommodation : at each epoch, they endeavoured to prevail on the more powerful to act with the weaker. Previous to the 14th July, they demanded of the court and the privileged classes to satisfy the wants of the commons ; after this epoch, they demanded of the commons to come to an accommodation with the court and the privi- leged. They thought that it was necessary to preserve to each party its action in the state, that parties displaced are parties dis- contended, and that we must create for them a legal existence, under pain of being exposed to interminable struggles from them. But that which they did not see, was the inappo- siteness of their ideas in a moment of exclu- sive passion. The struggle was commenced, the struggle which was to lead to the triumph of a system, and not to an arrangement. It was a victory which had replaced the three orders by a single assembly, and it was very difficult to break trie unity of this assembly, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 117 in order to arrive at the government of two chambers. The moderate party had not been able to obtain this government from the court ; there was no more reason why they should obtain it from the people : to the one it had appeared too popular, for the other it was too aristocratic. The rest of the assembly consisted of the national party. The men who at a subse- quent period wished to commence a second revolution when the first had been achieved, as Robespierre, Petion, Buzot, &c, were as yet unknown. At this epoch the extremes on this side were Duport, Barnave, and Lameth, who formed a triumvirate, whose opinions were prepared by Duport, supported by Barnave, and whose measures were di rected by Alex. Lameth. There was something very remarkable, and which proclaimed the spirit of equality of the epoch, in the intimate union of an advocate belonging to the middle class, of a counsellor belonging to the parlia- mentary class, and of a colonel belonging to the court, who renounced the interests of their order, to associate in views of public good and of popularity. This party placed itself at once in a position a little in advance 1 IB HISTORY OF THE of that at which the revolution had arrived. The 14th July had been the triumph of the middle class ; the constituent was its assem- bly ; the national guard its armed force ; the mayoralty its popular power. Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, applied themselves to this class, and were, the one its orator, the other its general, and the third its magistrate. The party Duport, Barnave, and Lameth, possessed the principles, and sustained the interests of this epoch of the revolution : being com- posed of young men of ardent patriotism, who came upon the theatre of public affairs with superior qualities, fine talents, and high rank, and who, to the ambition of liberty, added that of occupying the first rank, this party placed itself at first a little in advance of the revolution of the 14th July. It took its point d'appui in the assembly among the members of the extreme left ; out of the assembly, among the clubs ; in the nation, among the party of the people who had co-operated at the 14th July, and who did not wish that the bour- geoisie alone should profit by the victory. In putting itself at the head of those who had no leaders, and who, being a little out of the government, were aspiring to enter it, it did FRENCH REVOLUTIOiN. 119 not cease to belong to this first epoch of the revolution. It formed a species of domocra- tic opposition in the middle class itself, differ- ing from its leaders only upon points of little importance, and voting with them on almost every question. There was among these popular men an emulation of patriotism, rather than a difference of party. Duport, who had a strong head, and who acquired a premature experience of the con- duct of the political passions in the struggles which the parliament had sustained against the ministry, and which he had in a great measure directed, knew that a people re- poses when it has conquered its rights, and that its passions subside only when it is at rest. In order to hold the rein over those who governed in the assembly, the mayoralty, the militias ; in order to prevent the public acti- vity from slackening, and the people, of whom there might one day be need, from being disbanded, he conceived and executed the famous confederation of clubs. This in- stitution, like everything which impresses a great movement on a nation, did much evil and much good. It encumbered the legal authority when it was sufficient, but it also 120 HISTORY OF THE gave an immense energy to the revolution. When attacked on all sides, it could save it- self only at the expense of the most violent efforts. In a word, the founders had not cal- culated all the consequences of this associ- ation. It was, in their estimation, simply a piece of machinery which was to sustain or to wind up without danger the motion of the public machine, when it tended to slacken or to cease. They did not believe that they were labouring for the party of the multitude. After the flight of Varennes, they abandoned it, and exerted themselves against it, through the assistance of the assembly and the middle class, which the death of Mirabeau had left without a leader. At this epoch it was ne- cessary promptly to fix the constitutional re- volution, for to prolong it had only been to conduct to the republican revolution. The mass of the assembly consisted of men of correct, well-trained, and even superior minds ; its leaders were two men, strangers to the tiers-Hat, and adopted by it. Without the abbe Sieves, the operations of the con- stituent assembly had been less concentra- ted ; without Mirabeau, its conduct had been less energetic, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 121 Sieves was one of those men who, in ages of enthusiasm, found a sect, and in an age of intelligence, exercise the ascendant of a pow- erful understanding. Solitude and philoso- phic speculation had ripened it for a happy- moment ; his ideas were new, vigorous, vari- ous, but little systematic. Society had in particular been the object of his examination; he had followed its progress, and decomposed its machinery. The nature of government appeared to him less a question of right than a question of epoch. Although cool and de- liberate, Sieves had the ardour which inspires the investigation of truth, and the passion which gives its discovery ; thus he was abso- lute in his notions, despising the ideas of others because he found them incomplete, and only in his eyes the half-truth, which was error. Contradiction irritated him; he would have wished to make himself known entirely, and he could not with all the world. His disciples transmitted his systems to others, a circumstance which gave him a cer- tain air of mysteriousness, and rendered him the object of a sort of adoration. He had the authority which complete political science bestows, and the constitution could have 122 HISTORY OF THE sprung from his head, all armed like the Minerva of Jupiter, or the legislation of the ancients, if in our times every one had not wished to assist in it, or to judge of it. Ne- vertheless, with some modification, his plans were generally adopted, and he had in the committees far more disciples than fellow- labourers. Mirabeau had the same ascendant in the tribune which Sieves had in the committee ; he was a man who wanted only an occasion to be great. At Rome, in the prosperous days of the republic, he would have been a Gracchus, in its decline a Catiline ; under the Fronde, a cardinal de Retz ; and in the decrepitude of a monarchy, or in a state of things in which he could only exercise his immense faculties in turbulence, he would have distinguished, by the vehemence of his passions, and his acts of authority, a life passed in committing disorders, and in suf- fering them. For this ceaseless activity he wanted employment, and the revolution gave it. Accustomed to the struggle against des- potism, irritated by the scorn of a noblesse, which did not value him and which rejected him from its bosom ; sagacious, bold, elo- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 123 quent, Mirabeau felt that the revolution would be his work and his life. He was adapted for the wants of his age. His thoughts, his voice, his action, were those of an orator ; in perilous circumstances he was capable of con- trolling the motions of an assembly ; in diffi- cult discussions, he had the tact to terminate them ; in a word, he had the power to keep down ambition, to silence hostility, to dis- concert rivalry. This powerful man, in the midst of agitations, abandoning himself at one time with perfect ease to the impetuosity, at another to the playfulness of strength, exer- cised over the assembly a sovereign sway. He soon obtained an immense popularity, which he never lost ; and he who shunned all regards at his entrance into the states, at his death was carried to the Pantheon, in the midst of mourning of the assembly and of France. Without the revolution, Mirabeau had failed in his destiny ; for it is not sufficient to be a great man, it is necessary that he should come at the proper season. The duke of Orleans, to whom a party has been assigned, had very little influence in the assembly : he voted with the majority, and not the majority with him. The personal attachment of some of its members, his name, 124 HISTORY OF THE the fears of the court, the popularity which his opinions gained him, hopes rather than conspiracies, have magnified his revolution- ary reputation. He had neither the endow- ments nor the faults of a conspirator; he may have aided, by his money and his name, some popular movements which would have taken place without him, and which had other objects than his elevation. An error still common is, to ascribe this, the greatest of revolutions, to some secret and petty manoeuvres; as if, at such an epoch, the whole people could serve as the instru- ment of one man! The assembly had acquired the whole power, the municipalities supported its au- thority, the national guard obeyed it. It was divided into committees, in order to faci- litate its labours, and to be sufficient for them. The royal power, though existing by right, was in some sort suspended, since it was not obeyed, and the assembly had the duty of supplying the royal functions by the exercise of its own. Thus, independently of the committees charged with the preparation of its labours, it had others also nominated to exercise a useful surveillance without. A committee of subsistence was occupied on the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 125 supply of provisions, an object so important in a year of famine ; a committee of relations corresponded with the municipalities and the provinces ; a committee of investigation re- ceived the depositions against the conspirators of the 14th July. But the special subjects of its attention were the finances and the constitution, subjects which the recent crisis had compelled them to adjourn. Having provided for the temporary supply of the treasury, the assembly, although be- come sovereign, consulted by an examination of the reports, the wish of its committees. It then proceeded in its regulations with a method, an extent and a freedom of discus- sion, which should have procured for France a constitution conformable to justice and its wants. America, at the moment of its inde- pendence, had consecrated, in a declaration, the rights of man, and those of the citizen. It is always thus that we commence. A people springing from slavery feels the neces- sity of proclaiming its rights, before even laying the foundation of its government. Those Frenchmen who had assisted in this revolution, and who co-operated in our own, proposed a similar declaration as a preamble 126 HISTORY OF THE of our laws. This idea was pleasing- to an assembly of legislators and philosophers, which was not controlled by any limit, since there existed no institutions, and which pro- ceeded on the primitive and fundamental ideas of society ; for it was the offspring of the eighteenth century. Although this decla- ration contained only general principles, and confined itself to the exposition in maxims of what the constitution ought to enact into laws, it was very proper to exalt the views and infuse a sentiment of dignity and importance into the minds of the citizens. Upon the proposition of La Fayette, the assembly had already commenced this discussion, when the events of Paris, and the decrees of the 4th August, had compelled it to interrupt it ; the assembly afterwards renewed and terminated it, in consecrating the principles which served as a table of the new law, and which was the taking possession of the right in the name of humanity. These general grounds being laid, the as- sembly occupied itself in the organization of the legislative power. This object was one of the most important ; it had to fix the nature of its functions, and to establish its FRENCH REVOLUTION. 127 relations with the king. In this discussion, the assembly had simply to determine the future condition of the legislative power. As to itself, invested with the constituent autho- rity, it was placed above its own decrees, and no intermediate power could suspend or hinder its mission. But what should be the form of the deliberating body in future sessions ? Should it remain indivisible, or should it be decomposed into two chambers ? If this last form should be adopted, what ought to be the nature of the second chamber? Should it be an aristocratic assembly or a moderating senate ? In a word, the delibe- rating assembly, whatever it should be, should it be permanent or periodical, and should the king divide with it the legislative power ? Such were the difficulties which agitated the assembly and Paris during the month of September. We shall easily understand the manner in which these questions were decided, if we consider the position of the assembly, and its ideas respecting the sovereignty. The king was in its eyes only the hereditary agent of the nation, to whom belonged neither the right of canvassing its representatives, nor 128 HISTORY OF THE that of directing them, nor that of suspending them. Thus it refused him the initiation of laws, and the dissolution of the assembly. It did not think that the legislative body should be dependent on the king ; it was moreover apprehensive, that in granting to the govern- ment too strong an influence over the assem- bly, or in case of the latter not keeping itself always united, the prince might avail himself of the intervals when he was alone, to en- croach upon the other powers, and perhaps even to destroy the new order of things. They wished therefore to oppose to an autho- rity always active, an assembly always sub- sisting, and they decreed the permanence of the legislative body. On the question of its indivisibility or its division, the discussions were very animated. Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, wished, besides a chamber of representatives, to have a senate whose members should be nominated by the king on the presentation of the people. They thought that this was the only means of moderating the power, and even of preventing the tyranny of a single assembly. Their partisans were those members who enter- tained their ideas, or those who hoped to FRENCH REVOLUTION. 129 make a part of the upper chamber. The majority of the assembly would have wished, not a peerage, but an aristocratic assembly of which it should elect the members. They could not then be heard, Mounier's party refusing to co-operate in a project which would have revived the orders, and the aris- tocrats rejecting a senate which would have confirmed the ruin of the noblesse. The greater number of the deputies of the clergy and of the commons advocated the unity of the assembly. It appeared illegal to the po- pular party to constitute legislators for life ; they believed that the high chamber would either become the instrument of the court and the aristocracy, and so be dangerous, or that it would unite itself to the commons, and in that case be useless. Thus the no- bility from discontent, the national party from the spirit of absolute justice, concurred in rejecting the high chamber. This determination of the assembly has been severely censured. The partisans of the peerage have ascribed all the evils of the revolution to its absence, as if it were possible that any body, whatever it might be, could have arrested its march. It was not the VOL. I. k 1 30 HISTORY OF THE constitution which gave it the character it had ; this was merely one of the events which sprang from the struggle of parties. What could the upper chamber have done between the court and the nation ? Had it declared for the first, it could neither have directed nor have saved it ; in favour of the second, it could not have strengthened it ; and in either case its suppression had been infallible. We move rapidly in such seasons, and whatever im- pedes our progress is a nuisance. In England, the House of Lords, although it showed itself sufficiently pliant, was suspended during the crisis. These different systems have each their epoch ; revolutions are made by a single chamber, and are terminated by two. The royal sanction excited very strong de- bates within the assembly, and very violent agitation without. It was required to deter- mine the share of the monarch in the making of laws. The deputies were almost all agreed upon one point : they were unanimous in granting him the right of sanction or refusal of laws ; but one party wished this right to be absolute, the other party that it should be temporary. At bottom, these were the same thing ; for it was not possible for the prince FRENCH REVOLUTION. 131 to prolong his refusal indefinitely, and the veto, although absolute, would have been only- suspensive. But this power, vested in a sin- gle man, of thwarting the work of the people, appeared exorbitant out of the assembly, especially where it was least understood. Paris was not yet recovered from the agi- tation of the 14th July; it was at the debut of the popular government, and it experienced both its freedom and its disorders. The assembly of electors, who, during the tumults, had taken the place of the provisional muni- cipality, had just been replaced. A hundred and twenty-four members, nominated by the districts, were constituted legislators and re- presentatives of the commune. While they were preparing a plan of municipal organi- zation, everybody wished to command ; for in France the love of liberty in some measure the love of power. The committees acted apart from the mayor ; the assembly of representa- tives raised themselves in opposition to the committees, and the districts against the as- sembly of representatives. Each of the sixty districts took upon itself the legislative power, and gave the executive power to its com- mittees. Thev considered as subordinate to 132 HISTORY OF THE them the members of the general assembly, and they took upon themselves the right of quashing their resolutions. This idea of sovereignty of the constituent over his dele- gate made rapid progress. All those who did not participate in authority united them- selves in assemblies, and abandoned them- selves to deliberations. The soldiers debated at the Oratoire, the journeymen-tailors at the Colonnade, the barbers at the Champs Ely- s6es, the domestics at the Louvre. But it was at the Palais-Royal in particular, that the most animated discussions took place ; they examined the matters which occupied the debates of the national assembly, and controlled its discussions. The famine also occasioned tumults, and these were not among the least dangerous. Such was the state of Paris, when the discussions upon the veto began. The appre- hensions excited by granting this right to the king were extreme. They said, that the fate of liberty depended on this decision, and that the veto alone would reduce everything to the ancient regime. The multitude, who were ignorant of the nature and the limits of power, wished that the assembly, in which they FRENCH REVOLUTION. 133 trusted, should have all power, and that the king, whom they mistrusted, should have none ; every instrument left at the disposition of the court seemed a counter-revolutionary lever. The Palais-Royal was in agitation ; menacing letters were written to members of the assembly, who, like Mounier, had de- clared for the absolute veto ; it was threatened to abandon them as unfaithful representatives, and to march upon Versailles. The Palais- Royal sent a deputation to the assembly, and demanded from the commune, that the depu- ties should be declared revocable, and that they should be made at all times dependent on the electors. The commune was firm, resisted the demands of the Palais-Royal, and took measures to prevent the tumults. The national guard, which was very well dis- posed, seconded these efforts. La Fayette had acquired its confidence ; it carried the uniform, and adopted the discipline, of which the French guards had given the example, and it imbibed from its leader a love of order, and respect for the laws. But the middle class, which composed it, had not yet exclu- sively taken possession of the popular govern- ment. The multitude enrolled on the 14th July 134 HISTORY OF THE were not altogether ejected ; the agitation from without made the debates on the veto very stormy. A question in itself simple, ac- quired thus considerable importance, and the minister, seeing how pernicious might be the effect of an absolute decision ; feeling, more- over, that, in point of fact, the veto absolute and the veto suspensive were the same thing, declared the king to be content with the latter, and to desist from the former. The as- sembly decreed that the refusal of the kingr's sanction could not be prolonged beyond two legislatures, and this decision satisfied the multitude. The court availed itself of the agitation of Paris to realize other projects ; for some time they had been experimenting on the dispo- sition of the king. He had at first refused to sanction the decrees of the 4th August, al- though they were constitutional, and that he could from that avoid promulgating them. After having accepted them upon the observa- tion of the assembly, he renewed the same difficulties relative to the declaration of rights. The object of the court was to make Louis XVI appear as oppressed by the as- sembly, and compelled to submit to measures FRENCH REVOLUTION. 135 he was unwilling to accept ; it bore its situa- tion impatiently, and wished to regain its ancient authority. Flight was the only means, and it was necessary to make it legitimate ; nothing could be done in the presence of the assembly, and in the vicinity of Paris. The royal authority had fallen on the 23rd June, military display on the 14th July; there re- mained only civil war. As it was difficult to make the king decide, they waited till the last moment to involve him in flight, and his uncertainty defeated their plan. They were to retire to Metz, near Boille, to the middle of his army, to call around the monarch the no- blesse, the troops that were still faithful, and the parliaments ; to declare the assembly and Paris rebellious, to invite them to obedience or to enforce it ; and if they could not restore the ancient absolute regime, to confine them- selves at least to the declaration of the 20th June. On the other hand, if the court had power to induce the departure of the king from Versailles, the partisans of the revolution had the interest to bring him to Paris ; it was as important to these last that he should evade nothing, as it was to the others that he should undertake something ; the faction of Orleans, if there existed one, would naturally be de- 136 HISTORY OF THE sirous to push the king to flight by intimida- tion, in the expectation that the assembly would nominate its leader lieutenant-general of the realm ; finally, the people, wanting bread, would hope that the residence of the king at Paris would remove or diminish the famine. All these causes existing, there wanted only an occasion for insurrection, and the court furnished it. Under the pretext of guarding itself from the movements of Paris, it summoned the troops to Versailles ; doubled the gardes-du-corps of service, and brought up the dragoons and regiment of Flanders. This display of military force gave rise to the most vivid apprehensions ; a report of some counter-revolutionary blow was spread, and the flight of the king, and the dissolution of the assembly, were announced. At the Lux- embourg, at the Palais-Royal, at the Champs- Elysees, unknown uniforms were observed, white or yellow cockades. The enemies of the revolution manifested a joy which they had not for some time displayed ; the court, by its conduct, confirmed suspicion, and de- feated the object of all its preparations. The officers of the regiment of Flanders, en- dured very impatiently by the town of Ver- sailles, were entertained at the chateau, and FRENCH REVOLUTION. 137 admitted to the parties of the queen. The court was anxious to assure itself of their devotions. A fete was given them by the guards of the king ; the officers of dragoons, and chasseurs, who were at Versailles, those of the Swiss guards, of the Hundred Swiss, of the provost-marshal's guard, and the staff of the national guard, were invited to it. They chose for the banquet-room the grand saloon, for the exhibition of plays and other entertainments, exclusively destined to the most solemn festivals of the court, and which, since the marriage of the second brother of the king, had been opened only for the em- peror Jeseph II. The king's band of mu- sicians was ordered to assist at this festival, the first which the guards had ever given. During the banquet, they drank with enthu- siasm the health of the royal family ; that of the nation was omitted or rejected. At the second service, the grenadiers of France, the Swiss, and the dragoons, were introduced, in order to witness this spectacle, and participate in the sentiments which animated the guests. Their transports increased every moment; suddenly the king was announced, he entered the hall of the banquet in a hunting-dress, 138 HISTORY OF THE followed by the queen, who held the dauphin in her arms. Acclamations of attachment and devotion rang through the saloon ; with naked swords in hand, they drank to the health of the royal family ; and at the moment when Louis XVI was retiring, the band struck up the air, O Richard! O mon roil Vunivers i 1 abandonne ! The scene assumed then a character sufficiently significant. The jovial clamour and the profusion of wine banished all reserve. They sounded the charge ; stag- gering, they scaled the boxes as if advancing to an assault, white cockades were distribu- ted, the tri-coloured cockade is said to have been trodden under foot, and this troop then spread itself among the galleries of the chateau, where the ladies of the court over- whelmed them with congratulations, and de- corated them with ribbons and cockades. Such was the famous banquet of the 1st Oc- tober, which the court had the imprudence to renew on the 3rd. We cannot but deplore its fatal want of foresight : it knew neither how to submit to its destiny, nor how to change it. The assembling of a military force, far from preventing the aggression of Paris, provoked it. The banquet did not render the deyo- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 139 tedness of the soldiers more certain, while it increased the disaffection of the multitude. To guard itself, there was no necessity for so much ardour, nor for flight so much prepara- tion ; but the court never took the proper measures for the success of its designs, or it took only half measures, and delayed its final decision till it was too late. At Paris the news of the banquet and the ap- pearance of the black cockades, produced the greatest fermentation. From the 4th, secret rumours, counter-revolutionary invitations, the apprehension of conspiracies, indignation against the court, the increasing fear of fa- mine, everything announced a revolution ; the multitude already turned its attention to- wards Versailles. On the 5th, the insurrec- tion broke out in a manner at once violent and resistless ; the absolute want of bread was the signal for it. A young woman enter- ing a guard-house seized a drum, and ran along the streets beating it, and crying, Bread! bread! She was soon surrounded by a crowd of women. Thi« mob advanced towards the Hotel-de-Ville, thickening as it went along : it forced the horse-guard, which was at the gates of the commune, penetrated to the in- 140 HISTORY OF THE terior, and demanded bread and arms ; it forced the gates, seized the arms, sounded the tocsin, and prepared to march on Ver- sailles. Presently, the people en masse raised the same shout, and the cry To Versailles I became general. The women went first, under the conduct of Maillard, one of the volunteers of the Bastille. The people, the national guard, and the French guards, wished to follow. The commandant, La Fayette, opposed this departure a long time, but it was in vain ; and neither his efforts nor his popularity could triumph over the obstinacy of the multitude. For seven hours he ha- rangued and retained them. Finally, impa- tient of so much delay, disregarding his remonstrances, they were beginning to march without him ; when feeling that it was now his duty to lead, as it had been before to arrest their career, he obtained from the commune the authority for his departure, and gave the signal for it at seven o'clock in the evening. The agitation at Versailles, though less im- petuous, was not less substantial ; the national guard and the assembly were restless and irritated. The double banquet of the body- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 141 guard ; the approbation which the queen had manifested towards it, in saying, "I was en- chanted by the pleasures of Thursday ;" the re- fusal of the king to consent to the declaration of the Rights of Man, his concerted tempo- rizations, and the want of food, excited the alarm of the representatives of the people, and filled them with suspicions. Petion, hav- ing denounced the banquet of the guards, was summoned by a royalist deputy to prove his denunciation, and make known the guilty. " Let us declare expressly that everything which is not the king, is subject, and respon- sible," exclaimed Mirabeau, in a voice of thunder; ''and I will furnish the proofs." These words, which pointed at the queen, silenced the right side. This angry discussion was followed by others, not less animated, upon the refusal of the sanction, and upon the famine of Paris. A deputation was about being sent to the king, to demand from him the simple and unmodified consent to the Rights of Man, and to conjure him to facilitate the provisioning of the capital by every means in his power, when they announced the arrival of the women, headed by Maillard. 142 HISTORY OF THE Their unexpected appearance, for they had arrested all the couriers who could have an- nounced it, excited the terror of the court. The soldiers of Versailles stood to their arms, and surrounded the chateau j but the inten- tions of the women were not hostile. Maillard, their leader, had persuaded them to present themselves as supplicants, and it was in this attitude that they exposed in succession their griefs to the assembly and to the king. Thus the first hours of this tumultuous evening were very calm ; but it was impossible that the causes of trouble and hostility should not break out between this disorderly multitude and the body-guards, the object of so much irritation. These were placed in the court of the chateau, in front of the national guard and the regiment of Flanders. The interval which separated them was filled with women and volunteers of the Bastille. In the midst of the confusion which inevitably resulted from such an approximation, a quarrel be- gan : this was the signal of disorder and of battle. An officer of the guards struck a Parisian soldier with his sabre, and in re- turn was immediately shot in the arm. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 143 The national guard took part against the body-guards ; the fray became very violent, and would have been sanguinary, but for the night, which was unfavourable for such a struggle, and for the order which the body- guards received, first, to cease from firing, and then to retreat. But as they were ac- cused of having been the aggressors, the fury of the multitude was for some time excessive ; it rushed into their hotel ; two of them were wounded, and another was with great diffi- culty saved. During this disorder the court was in con- sternation ; the flight of the king was delibe- rated upon ; the carriages were ready : a piquet of the national guard perceived them at the gate of the Orangery, and made them enter after having closed the gate. The king, moreover, whether he was ignorant of the designs of the court, or whether he did not deem them practicable, refused to escape. Fears mingled themselves with his pacific intentions, since he would neither repel ag- gression, nor have recourse to flight. Van- quished, he apprehended the same fate as had befallen Charles the First in England ; absent, he apprehended that the duke of 144 HISTORY OF THE Orleans might obtain the lieutenancy of the kingdom. But in the mean time, the rain, fatigue, and the inaction of the body-guard, slackened the fury of the multitude, and La Fayette arrived at the head of the Parisian army. j His presence restored security to the court, and the answers of the king to the deputa- tion of Paris satisfied the multitude and the army. In a short time, the activity of La Fayette, the good spirit and discipline of the Parisian guard, re-established order every- where. The calm re-appeared. This assem- blage of women and volunteers, overcome by weariness, slid quietly away ; and the national guards were, some intrusted with the defence of the chateau, the rest re- ceived among their brethren in arms of Ver- sailles. The royal family, re-assured after the alarms and fatigues of this anxious night, abandoned themselves to repose at two o'clock in the morning. At five o'clock, La Fayette, after having visited the outposts, which had been intrusted to him, finding the service well executed, the town calm, the mob either dispersed or asleep, himself took a slight rest. Towards the hour of six, some individuals FRENCH REVOLUTION. 145 of the mob, more elevated, and earlier awake, rambled round the chateau. They found an open grate ; informed their companions of it, and entered by this aperture. Unfor- tunately, the inner posts had been left to the body-guard, and refused to the Parisian army ; and this fatal refusal caused all the misfortunes of this night. The inner guard had not even been doubled ; it had scarcely visited the grates ; and the service was, in ordinary times, negligently performed. These men, agitated by all the passions which had urged them to Versailles, perceived one of the body-guard at a window, and assailed him with abuse. He drew upon them and wounded one. They then rushed' upon the rest of guard, who defended the chateau foot by foot, and devoted themselves like heroes ; one of them apprised the queen, whom the assailants especially menaced ; she fled half naked to the king: the tumult and danger were extreme in the chateau. La Fayette, being informed of the invasion of the royal residence, mounted his horse, and directed his course as rapidly as possible to the scene of danger. He found upon the spot vol. i. l 146 HISTORY OF THE the body-guard, surrounded by a furious mob, determined to massacre them. He threw himself into the midst, called to his assis- tance some French guards, who were not far distant, and having dispersed the assailants, and saved the body-guard, precipitated him- self into the chateau. He found it already succoured by the grenadiers of the French guards, who, at the first rumour of the tu- mult, had run thither, and protected the royal guard against the fury of the Parisians. But the scene was not yet terminated ; the mob, re-assembled in the marble court, under the balcony of the king, demanded him with loud cries : the king appeared. They insisted upon his departure for Paris : he promised to go there with his family ; and on this deter- mination they covered him with applause. The queen was resolved to follow him ; but the opposition was so strong against her, that the journey was not without danger. It was necessary to reconcile the multitude to her. La Fayette proposed to accompany her to the balcony : after some hesitation, she consent- ed ; they appeared together ; and in order to make himself understood by this tumultu- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 147 ous assembly, in order to overcome its ani- mosities, to revive its enthusiasm, La Fay- ette kissed, with the profoundest respect, the hand of the queen : the multitude responded by acclamations. It still remained to make the peace of the body-guard. La Fayette advanced with one of them, placed upon his head his own tri-coloured cockade, and embraced him in the view of the mob, who shouted Long live the body-guard I Thus ended this scene ; the royal family set out for Paris, escorted by the army and by its guards mixed with it. The insurrection of the 5th and 6th Octo- ber was a true popular movement : we must not seek for any secret causes of it, or ascribe it to concealed ambition ; it was provoked by the imprudence of the court. The banquet of the body-guard, the rumours of the flight, the fear of civil war, and the famine, alone carried Paris upon Versailles. If particular instigators, which the most interested in proving the fact have left doubtful, contri- buted to produce the movement, they changed neither its direction nor its object. This event destroyed the ancient regime of the 148 HISTORY OF THE court ; it took away its guard ; it transported it from the royal town to the capital of the revolution, and placed it under the surveil- lance of the people. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 140 CHAPTER III. Consequences of the events of October. — Change of the pro- vinces into departments ; organization of the administrative and municipal authorities on the system of the popular so- vereignty, and of election. — Finances ; all the means which were resorted to found insufficient ; the benefices of the clergy proclaimed national property. — The sale of the be- nefices of the clergy leads to the assignats. — Civil constitution of the clergy; opposition of the bishops. — Anniversary of the 14 th July; abolition of titles ; federation of the Champ- de-Mars. — New organization of the army ; opposition of the officers. — The schism of the civil constitution of the clergy. — Clubs. — Death of Mirabeau. — During all this period the separation of the parties becomes more and more decided. The period which forms the subject of this chapter, was less remarkable for its events, than for the more decided separation of par- ties which it developed. In proportion as changes were effected in the state or the laws, those whose interests or opinions were struck at declared themselves against them. The revolution had been opposed from the commencement of the states-general by the court ; from the re-union of the orders, and 150 HISTORY OF THE the abolition of privileges, by the noblesse ; from the establishment of a single assem- bly, and the rejection of the two chambers, by the minister and the partisans of the English government. It had, moreover, for adversaries, after the departmental organiza- tion, the old provinces ; after the decree upon the property and the civil constitution of the clergy, the whole ecclesiastical body ; after the new military laws, all the officers of the army. It seems, that the assembly should not have attempted so many changes at the same time, in order not to create to itself so many enemies ; but its general plans, its wants, and the underplots even of its ad- versaries, required all these alterations. The assembly, after the 5th and 6th Oc- tober, had its emigration, as the court had after the 14th July. Mounier and Lally- Tollendal left it, and despaired of liberty, at the moment that their ideas ceased to be followed. Too absolute in their plans, they would have wished the people, after having delivered the assembly on the 14th July, to cease altogether from acting, which was entirely to misunderstand the sequency of revolutions. When they had once em- ployed the people, it became very difficult FRENCH REVOLUTION. 151 to disband them ; and the most prudent plan would have been not to oppose but to regulate their intervention. Mounier retired to Dau- phiny, his province, which he endeavoured to stir up against the assembly. He had the in- consistency to complain of one insurrection, and then to provoke another, when it could only profit another party ; for his own was too feeble to sustain itself against the ancient regime and the revolution. In spite of his influence in Dauphiny, whose movements he had formerly directed, Mounier could not es- tablish there a centre of durable resistance* although the assembly was diverted by it from destroying the ancient departmental organization, which might have served for the frame-work of a civil war. After the 5th and 6th October, the national representation had followed the king into the capital, which their common presence had very much contributed to calm. The people were satisfied to possess their king ; the mo- tives which excited its effervescence had ceased ; their distrust also had greatly abated; and at Paris the counter-revolutionary pro- jects became difficult. The duke of Orleans, who, right or wrong, was considered as the 152 HISTORY OF THE spring of the revolution, was sent away ; he had consented to accept a mission to England. La Fayette was determined to preserve order : the national guard, which was animated by the best spirit, acquired every day new habits of discipline and obedience ; the municipality was emerging from the confusion of its es- tablishment, and beginning to have authority. There remained only one cause of trouble, the famine : in spite of the zeal and foresight of the committee charged with the purveying of provisions, mobs daily menaced the public tranquillity. The multitude, so liable to error at a period of suffering, murdered a baker named Francois, who had been unjustly de- signated as a forestaller. Martial law was then proclaimed, which authorized the mu- nicipality to employ force in dispersing these assemblages of people, after having first sum- moned them to retire. The power was in the hands of a class interested in preserving order : the commons and the national guards were subject to the assembly, obedience to the law being the passion of the epoch. The de- puties, on their part, aspired only to perfect the constitution and effect the reorganization of the state. They had the more reason to FRENCH REVOLUTION. 153 be expeditious, that the enemies of the as- sembly availed themselves of what remained of the ancient regime to throw embarrassments in its way; thus it answered to each of their attempts by a decree, which, in changing the ancient order of things, deprived them of one of their means of attack. It began by distributing the realm in a manner more equal and more regular. The provinces, which had seen with regret the loss of their privileges, formed small states, of which the extent was too great, and the administration too independent: it was im- portant to reduce their dimensions, to change their names, and to subject them to the same regime. The assembly adopted in this re- spect the project conceived by Sieves, and presented by Thouret, in the name of the committee, which was occupied in this matter for two months. France was divided into eighty-three de- partments, nearly equal in extent and in po- pulation ; the departments were divided into districts, the districts into cantons. They regulated their administration in a manner uniform and hierarchical. The department had an administrative council, composed of 1 54 HISTORY OF THE thirty-six members ; and an executive di- rectory, consisting of five : as their names in- dicate, the functions of the one were to de- cide, of the other to act. The district was organized in the same manner : although upon a smaller scale, it had a council and a directory, which were less numerous, and which relieved the superior council and di- rectory. The canton, consisting of five or six parishes, was instituted for electoral pur- poses, and not administrative ; the acting citi- zens (and in order to become such, it was necessary to pay a contribution equivalent to three days' labour) assembled in the canton to nominate their deputies and magistrates. Everything in the new plan was submitted to election ; but this had many gradations. It appeared imprudent to intrust to the mul- titude the choice of delegates, and illegal not to let them concur in it : they escaped this difficulty by the double election. The acting citizens of the canton designated the electors, who in their turn nominated the members of the national assembly, the administrators of the department, those of the district, and the judges of the tribunals. A criminal tri- bunal was established for every department, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 155 a civil tribunal for each district, and a tri- bunal of peace for each canton. Such was the institution of the depart- ment; it remained to regulate that of the commune. The administration of this last was confided to a general council and a mu- nicipality, composed of members whose num- ber was proportionate to the population of the town. The municipal officers were no- minated immediately by the people, and were alone able to call out the assistance of an armed force. The commune was the first degree of the civil association, the kingdom as a whole was the last ; the department was intermediate between the commune and the state, between the universal interests and in- terests purely local. The execution of this plan, which organized the sovereignty of the people, which made all the citizens concur in the election of their magistrates, which confided to them their pe- culiar administration, and distributed them into parts ; which in permitting to the estate to move itself in one body, maintained the correspondence of the parts and prevented their isolation, excited the discontent of some of the provinces. The states of Languedoc 156 HISTORY OF THE and Brittany protested against the new di- vision of the realm ; and the parliament of Metz, of Rouen, of Bordeaux, of Toulouse, on their part, opposed the operations of the assembly which suppressed the chambers of vacations, abolished the orders, and declared incompetent the commissions of the states. The partisans of the ancient regime seized every means of arresting its progress : the noblesse excited the provinces, the parliaments made resolutions, the clergy issued mandates, and writers availed themselves of the liberty of the press to attack the revolution. Its two principal enemies were the nobles and the bishops. The parliament, having no root in the nation, formed only a magistracy, whose attacks they put an end to by destroying it ; instead of which the noblesse and the clergy had means of action which survived their in- fluence as a body. The misfortunes of these two classes were caused by themselves : after having harassed the revolution in the assembly, they at last attacked it by open force ; the clergy by internal insurrections, the noblesse by arming Europe against it. They hoped much from anarchy, which caused, it is true, great evils to France, but which was far from FRENCH REVOLUTION. 157 bettering their situation. Let us see how the hostility of the clergy was induced ; and for this purpose it will be necessary to resume the inquiry a little farther back. The revolution had been commenced by financial difficulties, and had not yet been able to remove the embarrassments which had produced it. Moreover, important ob- jects had occupied the time of the assembly. Called on no longer to supply the wants of the administration, but to constitute the state, it had from time to time, suspended its le- gislative discussions, to satisfy the most urgent wants of the treasury. Necker had proposed provisional means, which had been adopted with confidence, and almost without discussion. Notwithstanding this readiness, he did not see, with satisfaction, the finances subservient to the constitution, and the minister to the as- sembly. A first loan of thirty millions, decreed on the 9th August, had not succeeded ; a sub- sequent loan of eighty millions, decreed on the 27th of the same month, had been insufficient. The imposts were reduced or abolished, and they produced almost nothing from the diffi- culty of collecting them. It became useless to recur to the public confidence, which 1£8 HISTORY OF THE ' refused its aid ; and, in September, Necker proposed an extraordinary contribution of a fourth of the national income payable at once ; each citizen was to fix it himself, employing only this simple formula of oath, and which well depicts these first times of loyalty and patriotism : " I declare with truth," &c. It was then that Mirabeau obtained Tor Necker the decree of a true financial dicta- torship. He spoke of the urgent wants of the state, of the labours of the assembly, which did not permit it to discuss the plan of the minister, and which forbade it from ex- amining any other ; of the skill of Necker, who promised the success of his own ; and he pressed the assembly to throw upon him the responsibility of success, by adopting it with confidence. As some did not approve of the plans of the minister, as others sus- pected the intentions of Mirabeau in this matter, he ended this harangue, one of the most eloquent which he had pronounced, by shewing the menacing bankruptcy, and by exclaiming, " Vote this extraordinary subsidy, and it may be sufficient ! Vote it, because if you have doubts upon the means, you cannot have any upon the necessity, and FRENCH REVOLUTION. 159 upon the impossibility of replacing it ; vote it, because the public circumstances will not suffer any delay, and that we should be ac- countable for every delay. Beware of de- manding time ; misfortune never grants it. . . . With regard to a ridiculous motion of the Palais-Royal, of a laughable insurrection which never had any importance except in weak imaginations, or in the perverse machinations of designing men, you have lately heard these furious words : Catiline is at the gates of Rome, and we deliberate! And indeed there was around us neither Catiline, nor perils, nor factions, nor Rome ; but now the bankruptcy, the hideous bankruptcy, is here ; it threatens to swallow up yourselves, your property, your honour ; and you deliberate !" Mirabeau had subdued the assembly, and they voted the patriotic contribution amid universal plaudits. But this resource produced only a momen- tary relief. The finances of the revolution depended on a hardier and more gigantic measure : it was necessary not only to sub- sist the revolution, but also to fill up the im- mense deficit which retarded its march, and menaced its future designs. There remained only one means, that of declaring national 160 HISTORY OF THE the property of the church, and of selling it for the use of the state. The public interest also required it, and they could do it with justice, the clergy not being the proprietors, but simply the administrators of its benefices, which were given to the religion, not to the priests. The nation in charging itself with the expenses of the altar, and the sup- port of its ministers, could therefore appro- priate these benefices, and obtain a tonce a great financial resource, and a great political result. It was important to have no longer in the state an independant body, especially if it were ancient ; for, in a time of revolu- tion, whatever is ancient is an enemy. The clergy, by its formidable hierarchy, and its opulence, would have maintained itself a separate republic in the realm. This form was suitable for the ancient regime : when there was no state but only bodies, each order had provided for its organization and its existence. The clergy had its decretals, the noblesse its law of fiefs, the people its municipalities; everything was independent, because everything was private; but now, when the functions became public, it was FRENCH REVOLUTION. 161 consistent to make of the priesthood a ma- gistracy, as had already been done with the royal power ; and in order to render them dependent on the state, it was necessary to pay them, and to take from the monarch his domains, from the clergy its benefices, re- placing them by adequate salaries. Let us see how they conducted this grand operation, which destroyed the ancient ecclesiastical regime. One of the most urgent necessities was the abolition of tithes. As it was an impost paid to the clergy by the inhabitants of the coun- try, the sacrifice was to turn to the profit of those who had been crushed by it. Thus, after having, on the night of the 4th August, declared them redeemable, they suppressed them without equivalent, on the 11th of the same month ; the clergy at first resisted, but they had afterwards the good sense to consent to this measure. The archbishop of Paris aban- doned tithes in the name of all his brethren, and by this act of prudence he showed him- self faithful to the practices of the privileged, on the night of the 4th August, but this was the term of his sacrifices. A short time after, the discussion began on VOL. I. m 162 HISTORY OF THE the property of the ecclesiastical benefices. Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, proposed to the clergy to renounce it in favour of the na- tion, which would employ it in the support of the altars, and the payment of its debt. He proved the justice and the propriety of this measure ; he showed the great advan- tages which would result from it to the state. The benefices of the clergy amounted to many thousand millions of francs : in charging itself with its debts, with the ecclesiastic service, with that of the hospitals, and with the endow- ment of its ministers, there still remained sufficient to satisfy all the public rents, as well perpetual as for life, and to re-imburse the expenditure of the offices of judicature. The clergy struggled against this proposition. The discussion was very animated ; it was proved, despite of its resistance, that the clergy were not the proprietors, but simply the depositaries of the benefices consecrated to the altars by the piety of the kings and the faithful, and that the nation, in furnish- ing the means of supporting this service, was entitled to resume possession of the benefices. The decree which put them in its possession was carried the 2d December. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1G3 From that moment the hatred of the clergy to the revolution broke forth. They had been less intractable than the noblesse at the com- mencement of the states-general, in the hope of preserving their wealth: afterwards they showed themselves not less opposed to the new regime. Nevertheless, as the decree put the ecclesiastical property at the disposal of the nation, without its being as yet divested, this hatred did not break out at once. For some time the administration was in its con- fidence, and it hoped that the property would be put in pledge for the debt, but that it would not be sold, It was, in fact, difficult to effect this sale, which nevertheless could not be put off, as the treasury, subsisting only by anticipation by getting its bills discounted, began to lose all credit from the excessive amount of its issues. This is the way in which they brought mat- ters to a termination, and proceeded to the new financial arrangement. The wants of this and the following year, required a sale of property to the amount of four hundred millions of francs. To facilitate it, the mu- nicipality of Paris entered into a considerable recognizance, and the municipalities of the 104 HISTORY OF THE realm followed the example of that of Paris. They undertook to pay into the treasury the purchase-money of the estates which they received from the state to sell out to private individuals ; but they had no money, and they could not put down the price, inasmuch as they had as yet no buyers. What were they to do then ? they furnished municipal bills, in order to pay the public creditors, until they should have acquired the funds necessary to redeem these bills. When they had proceeded so far, they found that instead of these municipal bills, it would be better to create exchequer bills, which had a forced currency, and which might discharge the functions of money : the operation was sim- plified by generalising it. Thus assignats came into existence. This discovery very greatly facilitated the operations of the revolution, and enabled the state to effect the sale of the ecclesiastical property : the assignats, which were a means of payment for the state, became a pledge for the creditors, and moreover a real money. In this manner, the creditor who received them was not bound to pay himself in lands for that which he had furnished in money ; FRENCH REVOLUTION. 165 but sooner or later the assignats must arrive in the hands of men disposed to realize them, and then they should be destroyed at the same time that the pledge ceases. To the fulfilment of their object, a forced circulation was necessary : that they should be solid, the quantity sold was limited to the value of the benefices put in sale ; that they might not be liable to a sudden change, they carried interest ; the assembly wished to give them from the moment of the issue all the consis- tency of money. It hoped that the money which had vanished in a period of distrust, would presently reappear, and that the assig- nats would circulate concurrently with it. The pledge rendered them as safe, and the interest more advantageous ; but this in- terest which had great inconveniences, dis- appeared at the next issue. Such was the commencement of this paper money, sent out in the first instance with so much neces- sity and prudence, which enabled the revolu- tion to accomplish such great objects, and which was discredited by causes, which sprung- less from its nature than the use which was subsequently made of it. When the clergy saw the administration of 166 HISTORY OF THE their benefices transferred to the municipalities the sale of four hundred millions which they were about to make of them, the creation of a paper money which facilitated its divest- ment, and rendered it definitive, they omitted no means to obtain the intervention of the Deity in behalf of their riches. As a last re- source, the clergy offered to realize in their name, a loan of four hundred millions, which was rejected, because otherwise their right of property would have been recognized anew, after it had been decided that they had none. They then sought by every means to control the operations of the municipalities : at mid- day they excited the catholics against the protestants ; in the pulpit they alarmed their consciences, in the confessional they treated the sale as sacrilege, and on the tribune they endeavoured to create suspicions on the senti- ments of the assembly. They originated, as much as possible, religious questions, in or- der, by this means, to compromise and to confound the cause of their own interest with that of religion. Already when the abolition of monastic vows, the abuses and inutility of which were then recognised by all the world, even by the clergy, the bishop of Nancy had FRENCH REVOLUTION. 167 proposed in an incidental and crafty manner, that the catholic religion should be the only public worship ; the assembly cried out against the motives which had suggested this proposition, and rejected it. But the same proposition was presented anew in another sitting ; and after the most stormy debates, the assembly declared that from reverence to the Supreme Being, and the catholic religion, the only one which was maintained at the expense of the state, it ought not to pro- nounce upon the question which was sub- mitted to it. Such were the dispositions of the clergy when the assembly began the interior organi- zation. They waited impatiently for this occa- sion of exciting a schism. This project, which has done so much mischief, proposed to re-constitute the church upon its ancient basis, and to restore the purity of its creed : it was not the work of philosophers, but of austere christians, who wished to build up a church upon the basis of the constitution, and to make them both concur in promoting the welfare of the state. The reduction of the bishopricks to the number of the de- partments, the conformity of the ecclesiastical 168 HISTORY OF THE with the civil boundaries, the nomination of the bishops by the electors, who should choose the administrators and the deputies, the sup- pression of chapters, and the replacing of canons by curates, — such was this plan. No part of it made any encroachment on the dog- mas or the worship of the church. For a long time the bishops and the other eccle- siastics were nominated by the people ; and as to the diocesan limits, it was an operation purely material, and which had nothing to do with religion ; the support of the members of the clergy was moreover generously provided ; and if the high dignitaries saw their revenues diminished, the cures, who formed the most numerous and most useful class, obtained an augmentation of theirs. But a pretext was wanting, and that of the civil constitution of the clergy was greedily seized. At the opening of the discussion, the archbishop of Aix protested against the principles of the ecclesiastical committee. According to him it was inconsistent with discipline that the bishops should be insti- tuted by the civil authority or divested by it ; and at the moment when the decree was put to the vote, the bishop of Clermont recapi- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 169 tulated the principles expounded by the arch- bishop of Aix, and he left the hall at the head of all the dissident members. The de- cree passed; but the clergy declared war against the revolution. From this moment, the ecclesiastical body joined in the strictest league with the dissi- dent noblesse. Reduced to a common con- dition, the two privileged classes employed all their efforts to prevent the execution of the reforms. Scarcely were the departments formed, when they sent to them delegates, to reunite the electors, and attempt new no- minations. Their hope was not to obtain a favourable choice, but to create divisions be- tween the assembly and the departments. This project was denounced from the tribune ; and as soon as it was known, it failed. Its authors then tried another scheme : the term of the commissions given to the deputies of the states-general was at hand, their power was to last only one year, according to the vote of the bailliages; the aristocrats availed themselves of this expiration to obtain a new election of the assembly. Had they suc- ceeded, they would have gained a great ad- vantage ; and it was for this reason that they 170 HISTORY OF THE themselves invoked the sovereignty of the people. " Undoubtedly," answered Chapelier, to their arguments, " all sovereignty resides in the people, but this principle has no ap- plication under the present circumstances. This would be to destroy the constitution and liberty rather than renew the assembly, even before the constitution is completed ; such is, in fact, the hope of those who wish to see the constitution and liberty perish, and to see the distinction of the orders spring up again, the prodigality of the public revenue, and the abuses which march in the train of despotism." All eyes at this moment were directed to the right side, and rested on the abbe Maury : " Send these gentlemen then to the Ckdtelet," he abruptly exclaimed, " or if you do not know them, say nothing about them." " It is im- possible," continued Chapelier, " that the constitution should be the work of more than one assembly. Besides, the ancient electors no longer exist; the bailiwicks are confounded in the departments ; the orders are no longer separate. The clause of the limitation of the power loses its value; it is therefore contrary to the principles of the constitution, that the deputies, whose authority is affected only by FRENCH REVOLUTION. 171 it, should not continue in this assembly ; their oath commands them to remain here, and the public interest requires it." " We are environed by sophisms," replied the abb6 Maury; "for how long have we been a national convention ? They speak of the oath we have taken on the 20th June, without dreaming that it cannot subvert that which we have taken to our constituents. And since, gentlemen, the constitution is achieved, it remains for us only to declare, that the king possesses the plenitude of the executive power ; we are here only to assure to the French people the right of influencing its legislation, to establish the principle, that taxes shall be consented to by the people, — in a word, to assure our liberty. Yes, the constitution is made, and I oppose myself to every decree which limits the rights of the people over their representatives. The foun- ders of liberty ought to respect the liberty of the nation. It is above us, and by putting- limits to the national authority we destroy our own." Applauses resounded from the right side at these words of the abbe Maury. Mirabeau im- mediately ascended the tribune. " They de- 172 HISTORY OF THE mand," says he, " how long the deputies of the people have become the national conven- tion? I answer, it was on that day when, finding their seat of assembly surrounded by soldiers, they proceeded to sit in the first place where they could assemble themselves, in order to swear that they would perish rather than betray and abandon the rights of the nation. Our powers, such as they were, on that day changed their nature. Whatever may be the powers we have exercised, our efforts, our labours, have legitimated them. The adherence of the nation has sanctified them. You recall the words of that great man of antiquity, who had neglected the le- gal forms to save his country. Summoned by a factious tribune, to say, if he had ob- served the laws : he answered, ' I swear that I have saved the country!' Gentlemen, (turn- ing himself to the deputies of the commons,) I swear that you have saved France !" The entire assembly rose in a spontaneous move- ment, and declared, that its session should end only when its work was accomplished. Counter-revolutionary attempts also mul- tiplied out of the assembly. It was endea- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 173 voured to seduce or to disorganize the army, but the assembly adopted the wisest measures to meet this emergency. It attached the troops to the revolution by rendering the gradation and promotion independent of the court and of titles of nobility. The count d'Artois, who had taken refuge at Turin, formed a cor- respondence with Lyons and the south ; but the emigration not having at this epoch reached the consistency abroad which it subsequently attained, and having no point cVappui in the in- terior, all his projects failed. The attempts of the clergy at insurrection in Languedoc were without effect; they induced some troubles of short duration, but which did not lead to a religious war. It requires some time to form a party, and still more is ne- cessary to determine it on serious combat. A design less impracticable, was that of carry- ing off the king, and taking him to Peronne. The marquis of Favras had taken upon him- self the execution of this enterprise, when it was discovered. The court of the Chatelet condemned to death this intrepid adventurer, who failed in his project, because he had made too much preparation. The escape of 174 HISTORY OF THE the king, after the events of October, could only be effected furtively, as he afterwards went to Varennes. The court was in an equivocal and em- barrassed position ; it encouraged every en- terprise, it undertook none ; it felt more than ever its weakness; and eagerly desirous of extricating itself, it feared to make any at- tempt, since success seemed so difficult. Thus it excited resistance without openly co- operating in it. With some it dreamed of the ancient regime, with others it sought only to moderate the revolution. Mirabeau had lately treated with it. Having been one of the principal authors of the reform, he wished to consolidate it by chaining down faction; his object was to convert the court to the revolution, and not to deliver up the revolution to the court. The support which he offered was constitutional ; he could not in fact propose any other, for his power sprang from his popularity, and his popularity from his principles. But he erred in endea- vouring to purchase it ; if his immense ne- cessities had not compelled him to accept money, and sell his councils, he had been no more blameable than the unalterable La FRENCH REVOLUTION. 175 Fayette, Lameth, and the Girondists, who successively conferred with it. But neither the one nor the other ever acquired the ab- solute confidence of the court, which had re- course to them only in the last resort; it tried, by means of them, to suspend the revolution ; and, by means of the aristocracy, to destroy it. Of all the popular leaders, Mirabeau was perhaps the one who exercised the greatest ascendancy over the court, because he was the most insinuating and the most energetic. In the midst of all these conspiracies and intrigues, the assembly laboured without in- termission at the constitution. The popular torrent, after having spent its fury upon the ancient regime, fell gradually into its old channel. New banks confined it on every side ; the government of the revolution es- tablished itself promptly ; the assembly had given to the new regime its monarch, its na- tional representation, its territorial division, its armed force, its municipal and administra- tive powers, its popular tribunals, its cur- rency, its clergy ; it had discovered a pledge for its debt, and a means of transferring pro- perty without injustice. All the new magistracies were held for li- 176 HISTORY OF THE mited periods. Under the absolute monarchy, power flowed from the throne ; its function- aries were nominated by the king. Under the constitutional monarchy, all power flowed from the people ; its functionaries were no- minated by the people. The throne alone was transmissible ; the other powers were neither the property of a man nor of a family, and were neither for life nor hereditary. The legislation of this period depended on a single principle — the sovereignty of the nation. Even the judicial functions had this character of mobility; the jury, a democratic institu- tion, common in former times all over the continent, and which in England alone had survived the encroachments of the feudal sys- tem or the throne, was introduced in criminal causes. In civil cases, special judges were nominated ; they established permanent tri- bunals, with two degrees of jurisdiction, so as to give a remedy against error, and a court of cassation for the preservation of the fun- damental forms of the law. But the judges were elective and temporary. This great power, when it springs from the throne, to be independent ought to be irremovable ; but it may be temporary when it is derived FRENCH REVOLUTION. 177 from the people, because being dependent on all, it is dependent on no one. In another very important matter — the right of peace and war, the assembly decided a new and delicate question, and did it in a manner prompt, certain, and just, after one of the most luminous and eloquent discussions which had adorned its sittings. As war and peace belong rather to action than to will, contrary to the ordinary rule, the assembly gave the initiative power to the king. He, who was most in the way of knowing the propriety of war or peace, ought to propose it, but it was for the legislative body to make a final determination. The 14th July was approaching, a day which was the anniversary of the nation's deliverance ; they prepared to celebrate it by a solemnity which should elevate the souls of the citizens, and bind them in closer bonds. A confederation of the whole realm was to take place in the Champ-de-Mars, and there, in the open air, the deputies sent by the eighty-three departments, the national repre- sentation, the Parisian guard, the monarch, were to take the oath to the constitution. As a prelude to this patriotic festival, the popular VOL. I. N 1 78 HISTORY OF THE members of the noblesse proposed the abolition of titles, and the assembly hastened to renew a sitting similar to the 4th August. Titles, armorial bearings, liveries, orders of chivalry, were abolished, and vanity lost its privileges, as power had already done. This sitting led to a universal equality, and put words in accordance with things, by destroying these trappings of other times. Titles had formerly designated functions ; armorial bearings had distinguished powerful families ; liveries had been invented for the armies of vassals ; the orders of chivalry had defended the state against the foreigner, or Europe against Islamism ; but at the present day nothing of this remains. Titles had lost their reality and their suitableness : the no- blesse, after having ceased to be a magistracy, had ceased even to be an illustration, and power as well as glory was to spring from plebeian ranks. But whether the aristocracy was more attached to its titles than its privi- leges, or whether it had been waiting only for a pretext to declare itself openly, this last measure, more than any other, led to its emi- gration and its attacks. It was to the no- blesse what the civil constitution had been for FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1 79 the clergy, an occasion rather than a cause of hostility. The 14th July arrived; the revolution had few days more triumphant; the weather alone did not correspond with this magnificent fete. The deputies from all the departments were presented to the king, who welcomed them with great affability. He received also the most touching testimonies of affection, but it was as a constitutional king. " Sire," said the leader of the Breton deputation, putting one knee on the ground, and presenting his sword to him, " I replace in your hands the faithful sword of the brave Bretons ; it shall be stained only by the blood of your enemies." Louis XVI raised him, embraced him, re- placed the sword in his hands. " It will never be better," answered he, " than in the hands of my affectionate Bretons ; I have never doubted of their affection and fidelity. Assure them that I am the father, the brother, the friend of all Frenchmen." " Sire," added the deputy, " all Frenchmen cherish you, and will cherish you, because you are a citizen king." It was in the Champ-de-Mars that the federation took place. The immense prepara- 180 HISTORY OF THE tions for this festival were with difficulty com- pleted. All Paris had assisted for several weeks, in order that everything should be ready on the 14th. At seven o'clock in the morning, the assemblage of electors, of re- presentatives of the commune, the presidents of the districts, the national assembly, the Parisian guard, the deputies of the army, the federates of the departments, went in pro- cession from the place of the Bastile. The presence of all the national bodies, the float- ing banners, the patriotic inscriptions, the varied costumes, the sounds of music, the joy of the people, produced a grand effect. The procession traversed the town, and passed the Seine, across a bridge of boats, which had been thrown over in the evening, to the sound of a discharge of artillery. It entered the Champ-de-Mars, through a triumphal arch, decorated with patriotic inscriptions. Each body, hailed with applauses, placed itself in the situation destined for it. The vast site of the Champ-de-Mars was surrounded by steps of green turf rising one above another, occupied by four hundred thousand spectators ; in the middle rose an altar, constructed according to the manner of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 181 the ancients ; around the altar, in a vast am- phitheatre, were seen the king, his family, the assembly, and the municipality ; the federates of the departments were placed in order un- der their banners ; the deputies of the army were in their ranks, and under their colours ; the bishop of Autun ascended the altar in pontifical robes ; four hundred priests, clothed in white surplices, and decorated with floating tri-coloured cinctures, proceeded to the four corners of the altar. Mass was celebrated amidst the sound of military instruments ; the bishop of Autun then blessed the oriflamme, and the eighty- three banners. A profound si- lence now ensued in this vast enclosure ; and La Fayette, nominated this day commandant- general of all the national guards of the realm, advanced first to take the civic oath. He was carried, in the arms of grenadiers, on to the altar of the country, in the midst of the acclamations of the people ; he then, in an elevated voice, in his own name, in the name of the troops, and of the federates, spoke as follows : " We swear to be for ever faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king ; to maintain with all our power the constitution decreed by the national assembly, and ac- 182 HISTORY OF THE cepted by the king ; and to remain united to all Frenchmen by indissoluble ties of frater- nity." Discharges of artillery, shouts of Long live the nation ! Ions: live the king ! the clash- ing of arms, the sounds of music, instantly mingled in one unanimous and prolonged ca- dence. The president of the assembly took the same oath, and all the deputies repeated it at the same time. Louis XVI then rising, " I," said he, " the king of France, swear to employ all the powers delegated to me by the constitutional act of the state, to maintain the constitution decreed by the national assem- bly, and accepted by me." The queen being then led forward, and raising the dauphin in her arms, and shewing him to the people, said, "Here is mv son; he unites with me in the same sentiments." At the same instant the banners were lowered, the acclamations of the people were heard in one loud and prolonged shout. Subjects believed in the sincerity of the monarch, and the monarch in the attach- ment of his subjects ; and this happy day was terminated by a solemn chant of thanksgiving. The festival of the federation was prolonged some time longer : plays, illuminations, balls, were given by the city of Paris to the deputies FRENCH REVOLUTION. 183 of the departments. A dance was celebrated on the very spot where formerly had stood the Bastille. Gratings, bars, ruins, were scattered here and there, and over the gate was written this inscription, which contrasted finely with the ancient destination of this abode — Dancing here. " They danced, in fact," says a contemporary, " with joy, with security, on the very spot where had flowed so many tears — where courage, genius, and innocence had so often breathed forth their groans— where the cries of despair had so often been stifled." After the fetes were ter- minated, medals were struck to perpetuate the remembrance of them, and the federates re- turned to their departments. The federation had only suspended the hos- tilities of the parties ; they recommenced them by small intrigues, as well within the assembly as without. The duke of Orleans had returned from his mission, or, to speak more properly, from his exile. The informa- tion which charged Mirabeau with being the au- thor of the riots of the 5th and 6th October, had been conducted by the court of the Chatelet. This process, which had been suspended, was now resumed . The court by this attack gave 184 HISTORY OF THE another proof of its improvidence ; for it should either have been able to prove the ac- cusation, or it should not have made it. The assembly, which had determined to acquit them, even if they had proved guilty, declared that there were no grounds for the charge ; and Mirabeau, after a most brilliant invective against this procedure, forced the right side into silence, and stood triumphant from an accusation which had been raised only to frighten him. They did not content themselves by merely attacking single deputies, but they tried to subvert the assembly itself. The court in- trigued against it ; the right side pushed it to exaggeration. "We love its decrees," said the abbe Maury; "we must have three or four more of them." Hired libellers stood at its very gates, selling pamphlets to excite against it the suspicions of the people ; the ministers censured and opposed its march. Necker, always haunted by the remembrance of his former ascendancy, addressed memorials to the assembly, combating its decrees, and offering: it his councils. This minister could not reconcile himself to a secondary part ; he did not want to follow the plans of the assem- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 185 bly, but to impose his own upon it. The times were changed ; and finally, convinced or wearied by the ill success of his efforts, Necker retired, and traversed in obscurity the provinces through which, a short time before, he had been carried in triumph — a good ex- ample of the uncertainty of popular favour. In revolutions, individuals are easily forgotten, because the people see much of them, and live fast. If they would not have the people ungrateful, thev should never cease for an in- stant to serve them in their own way. On the other hand, the noblesse, who had found a new subject of discontent in the abo- lition of titles, continued their counter-revolu- tionary attempts. As they failed in exciting the people to rebellion, since these, not being pri- vileged, found the new changes very advanta- geous, they tried another scheme, which ap- peared more certain — they left the kingdom in order that they might afterwards re-enter it, after having engaged Europe in their quarrel. But while the emigration was organizing ;— while it was seeking foreign enemies to fight the revolution, it continued to cherish discon- tent within the bosom of the country. The troops had been for some time canvassed by 180 HISTORY OF THE opposite parties, as has been said before. The new military code was favourable to the soldiers : the promotions were formerly given to the noblesse, it now gave them to se- niority. The greater part of the officers were attached to the ancient regime, and they did not conceal their sentiments. Compelled to take the oath of fidelity to the nation, to the laiv, and to the king, which was become the common oath, some quitted the army, and thickened the ranks of emigration ; others sought to gain over the soldiers to their party. General Bouille was of this number : after having a long time refused the civic oath, he at length took it with this intention. He had under his command a considerable number of troops ; he was near the frontier of the north, active, resolute, attached to the king, an enemy of the revolution, such as it had now become, though a partisan of reform, which consequently made him suspected at Coblentz. He kept his army apart from the citizens, to preserve it faithful and free from the spirit of insubordination which they com- municated to the troops ; he knew, also, how to preserve, by a discreet conduct, and by the ascendancy of a high character, the conn- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 187 dence and the attachment of the soldiers. It was not the same in other quarters : the offi- cers were the objects of general abuse, — they were accused of diminishing* the pay, of ren- dering no account of the military chest ; opi- nion was also busy among them. These combined causes excited rebellion on the part of the soldiers : that of Nancy produced much alarm, and was almost the signal of a civil war. Three regiments — that of Chateau - vieux, that of Maistre-de-camp, and that of the king, rose against their commanders. Bouille received orders to march upon them, which he did, at the head of the garrison and the national guards of Metz. After consider- able resistance, he succeeded in reducing them. The assembly congratulated him ; but Paris, which saw in the soldiers patriots, and in Bouille a conspirator, was roused into commotion by the news. Mobs were formed, who demanded the impeachment of the mi- nisters who had given Bouille orders to march against Nancy. Nevertheless, La Fayette succeeded in dissipating their discontents, assisted by the assembly, which, seeing itself between a counter-revolution and an anarchy, 188 HISTORY OF THE opposed itself to both of them with as much sagacity as courage. The aristocrats triumphed in the difficulties which embarrassed the national assembly. According to them, the assembly must either make itself dependent on the multitude, or be deprived of its support ; and in either case the passage to the ancient regime appeared sufficiently short and easy. The clergy aided them with all their efforts ; the sale of their property, which they had hindered as much as possible, was going on at prices even higher than those which had been estimated. The people, delivered from tithes, and re- assured upon the subject of the national debt, were far from lending themselves to the resentments of the bishops ; from the civil constitution of the clergy, they had employed it in exciting a schism ; this decree of the assembly had, as we have seen, touched neither their discipline nor their creed. The king sanctioned it ; but the bishops, who wished to conceal their interests under the mantle of religion, declared that it was an encroachment upon the spiritual power. The pope, consulted upon this measure, which was FRENCH REVOLUTION. 189 purely political, had refused his assent, not- withstanding the earnest request of the king, and sustained, by his encouragement, the opposition of the bishops. These decided that they could not concur in the establish- ment of the civil constitution ; that those, who were to be suppressed, should protest against this uncanonical act ; that every creation of a bishop, made without the con- sent of the pope, should be considered null, and that the metropolitans should refuse institution to bishops nominated according to civic forms. In wishing to break this confederacy, the assembly strengthened it. If it had aban- doned the dissident priests to themselves, they would, notwithstanding their efforts, have found no elements of a religious war. But the assembly decreed that the priests should swear to be faithful to the nation, the law, and the king, and to maintain the civil constitution of the clergy. The refusal of this oath was to lead to the appointing new incumbents to their sees or cures. The as- sembly hoped that the high clergy from interest, the inferior clergy from ambition, would adopt this measure. The bishops, on 190 HISTORY OF THE the other hand, believed that all the ecclesi- astics would follow their example, and that by refusing to swear, they would leave the state without the forms of worship, and the people without priests. The result disap- pointed the anticipations of both parties. The majority of the bishops and cures of the assembly refused the oath ; but some bishops, and many curates took it. The non-conform- ing incumbents were ejected, and the electors nominated their successors, who received canonical institution from the bishops of Autun and Lida ; but the deposed ecclesi- astics refused to abandon their functions ; they declared their successors intruders ; the sacraments administered by them null ; the christians who were bold enough to acknow- ledge them, excommunicated. They did not quit their diocese ; they issued charges ; they excited disobedience to the laws ; and thus what had been an affair of interest, became first an affair of religion, and afterwards an affair of party. There was a double clergy, the one constitutional, the other refractory ; they had each their partisans, and treated each other as rebels or heretics. Religion became, according to their passions and their FRENCH REVOLUTION. 191 interests, an instrument or an obstacle ; and when the priests became fanatics, the revo- lutionists became infidels. The people, who had not yet arrived at this malady of the higher classes, lost, in the towns especially, the faith of their forefathers, from the im- prudence of those who placed it between the revolution and public worship. " The bishops," said the marquis de Ferrieres, " in whom we will suspect no blame, refused to make any arrangement ; and by their cul- pable intrigues closed every avenue to recon- ciliation, sacrificing the catholic religion to a foolish infatuation, and an unworthy attach- ment to their wealth." The countenance of the people was sought by all parties ; they were conciliated as the sovereign of the time. Having tried to act upon them through the medium of religion, clubs, another medium at that time all-pow- erful, were put in operation. Clubs were, at this epoch, private unions, in which were discussed the measures of government, the affairs of the state, and the decrees of the assembly : their deliberations had no autho- rity, but they were not without influence. The first club had its origin with the Breton 192 HISTORY OF THE deputies, who met together to concert their proceedings. When the national representa- tion was transferred from Versailles to Paris, the Breton deputies, and those who thought with them, held their sittings in the ancient convent of the Jacobins, which gave its name to their union. It was at first only a prepa- ratory assembly ; but as everything which exists extends itself, the Jacobin club did not content itself with influencing the assem- bly, it became desirous of acting also upon the municipality and the multitude, and ad- mitted, as associates, the members of the commune, and persons who were merely citi- zens. Its organization became more regular, its action more powerful ; new societies were affiliated in the provinces, and it raised by the side of legal power another power, which began by counselling, and ended by direct- ing it. The club of Jacobins, in putting off its first philosophic character, had been abandoned by a part of its founders. These established a club upon the original plan, under the name of the club of eighty-nine. Sieves, Chapelier, La Fayette, La Rochefoucault, directed it, as Lameth and Barnave directed FRENCH REVOLUTION. 193 that of the Jacobins. Mirabeau shared in the deliberations of both, and was equally sought after by each of them. These clubs, of which one exercised its influence in the assembly, the other among the people, were attached to the new order of things, though in different degrees. The aristocrats wished to attack the revolution with its own arms : it raised royalist clubs, to oppose the popular clubs. The first of them, established under the name of the Impai^tialists, soon fell to the ground, because it addressed itself to the opi- nions of no party. Having re-appeared under the name of the Monarchic club, it had among its members all those whose views it repre- sented. Wishing to gain the favour of the people, it made distributions of bread among them ; but far from accepting them, the peo- ple considered this establishment as a coun- ter-revolutionary manoeuvre ; it disturbed their sittings, and compelled them to change their place of meeting several times. Finally, this club became the occasion of so much commotion, that the municipal authority was obliged to put an end to it. The distrust of the multitude was extreme : the departure of the aunts of the king, of vol. i. o 194 HISTORY OF THE which it exaggerated the importance., in- creased its inquietude, and made it suppose that his own was in preparation. Their sus- picions were not without foundation, and gave rise to a sort of commotion of which the coun- ter-revolutionists wished to avail themselves to carry off the king. This project failed through the determination and address of La Fayette. While the multitude were marching off to Vincennes to demolish the tower, which, ac- cording to their notion, communicated with the Tuileries, and was to serve for the escape of the king, more than six hundred persons, armed with spears and poniards, attacked the Tuileries, for the purpose of carrying him off. La Fayette, who had gone to Vincennes at the head of the national guard to disperse the mob, arrived in time to disarm the counter- revolutionists, after having quieted the po- pular assemblage, and regained, by his se- cond expedition, the confidence which he had lost by the first. This attempt increased more than ever an apprehension, that Louis XVI intended, if possible, to effect his escape. Thus, when he wished some time after to go to St. Cloud, he was prevented by the mob, and by his own FRENCH REVOLUTION. 195 guard, in spite of the efforts of La Fayette, who tried to make them respect the laws, and the liberty of the monarch. The assem- bly, on its part, after having decreed the in- violability of the prince, after having regu- lated his constitutional guard, having assigned the regency to the nearest male heir of the crown, declared that his flight out of the realm would be a forfeiture. The increase of emigration, its declared objects, the menacing attitude of the European cabinets, very na- turally induced the apprehension that the king would adopt such a determination. It was then, for the first time, that the assembly wished to arrest the progress of emigration by a decree ; but such a decree was very difficult to be framed. If they should punish those who left the realm, they would violate the maxims of liberty con- secrated in the declaration of rights ; if they should not put some restraints on emigration, they would expose France to peril, since the nobles were quitting it for a moment only to invade it. In the assembly, besides those who were favourable to emigration, there were some who saw only the right, others who saw only the danger ; and according to 196 HISTORY OF THE his manner of viewing the question, every one declared for, or against the restraining law. Those who demanded the law, wished it to be mild ; but, at the moment, there was only one practicable, and the assembly re- coiled before it. This law, upon the arbitrary designation of a committee of three members, was to pronounce the civil death of the fu- gitive, and the confiscation of his property. " The groans which are heard at the reading of this project," exclaimed Mirabeau, "prove that this law is "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco, and cannot be enrolled among the decrees of the national assembly of France. I declare that I should feel myself absolved from every oath of fidelity towards those who could be base enough to nominate a dictatorial commission. The popularity at which I aspire, and which I have the honour to enjoy, is not a tottering reed ; it is in the earth that I wish to strike its roots, upon the bases of justice and liberty." The external situation was not then sufficiently alarming to demand such a measure of security and revolutionary defence. Mirabeau did not long enjoy a popularity of which he believed himself so secure. This FRENCH REVOLUTION. 197 sitting was his last ; he ended in a few days a life worn out by passion and toil. His death was a public calamity ; all Paris assisted at his funeral. France was in mourning ; and his remains were deposited in the burial-ground which was thenceforth consecrated to the great men in the name of a grateful country. He had no suc- cessor in power and popularity, and for a long time the eyes of the assembly, in all difficult discussions, were directed to the seat from which he had been used to issue that sove- reign word which was to terminate their debates. Mirabeau, after having aided this revolution by his audacity in its time of peril, by his powerful intellect since its victory, died perhaps not unseasonably for his fame. He was meditating vast designs ; he wished to reinforce the throne and to consolidate the revolution, two things very difficult at such a time. It is to be feared that the royal power, if he had rendered it independent, would have subdued the revolution, or if he had failed, that the revolution would have abolished the royal power. Perhaps it is impossible to adapt an ancient power to a new order of things ; perhaps it is necessary 198 HISTORY OF THE that a revolution should be prolonged in order to become legitimate, and that the throne in recovering itself should acquire the novelty of other institutions. From the 5th and 6th October 1789, to the month of April 1791, the national assem- bly completed the re-organization of France ; the court abandoned itself to petty intrigues and projects of escape ; the privileged classes sought new means of power, those which they formerly possessed having been succes- sively taken away. They seized every occa- sion of disorder which circumstances fur- nished, to restore the ancient regime by the aid of anarchy. At the opening of the par- liaments, the noblesse protested against the "committee of vacations;" when the pro- vinces were abolished, it protested against the orders ; when the departments were formed, it tried new elections ; when the old writs expired, it required the dissolution of the assembly ; when the new military code was decreed, it provoked the defection of the soldiers ; finally, all these means of opposition failing to effect its designs, it emigrated, in order to excite Europe against the revolution. On the other hand, the clergy, discontented FRENCH REVOLUTION. 199 by the loss of their property still more than by the ecclesiastical constitution, wished to destroy the new order by insurrections, and to produce insurrections by a schism. Thus it was that, during this epoch, the parties separated more and more, and that the two classes, the enemies of the revolution, pre- pared the elements of civil and of foreign war. 200 HISTORY OF THE CHAPTER IV. Politics of Europe before the French revolution. — The system of alliance adopted by the different states. — General coalition against the revolution ; motives of each power. — Declaration of Mantua. — Flight to Varennes ; arrest of the king ; his suspension. — The republican party, for the first time, sepa- rates itself from the constitutional-monarchy party. — This last re-establishes the king. — Declaration of Pilnitz. — The king accepts the constitution ; end of the constituent assem- bly ; opinion upon it. The French revolution cnanged the politics of Europe ; it terminated the struggle of kings with each other, and began that of kings with the people. This last would not have oc- curred so soon, had the sovereigns themselves not provoked it. They wished to put down the revolution, and they extended it ; for in the contest it was sure to be triumphant. Europe then arrived at the end of the political system which had governed it. The existence of the different states, after having been in everything internal under the feudal govern- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 201 ment, was now become in everything external under the monarchical government. The first epoch had terminated about the same time for all the great nations of Europe. Then, the kings who had been so long at war with their vassals because they were in contact with them, met on the borders of their own states, and warred against each other. As no domination could become universal, neither that of Charles V nor that of Louis XIV, the weaker states always leaguing against the more powerful ; after various vicissitudes of superiority and alliance, a species of European equilibrium was established. It will not be useless to know what was its condition before the revolution, that we may better appreciate the events that followed. Austria, England, and France, were the three great powers of Europe. Interest leagued together the two first against the third. Austria dreaded France in the Beloric provinces, England feared her on the sea. The rivalry of power or commerce brought them frequently into contest ; they endea- voured to humble or despoil each other. Spain, since its throne had been occupied by a prince of the house of Bourbon, had been 202 HISTORY OF THE allied with France against England. This was indeed a decayed power ; exiled into the corner of the continent, depressed under the system of Philip II, deprived by the family compact of the only enemy which could preserve it in a state of wholesome vigilance, it had preserved on the sea only a remnant of its former superiority. But France had other allies on all the quarters of Austria ; in the north Sweden, in the east Poland and the Porte, in the south the Germanic circles, in the west Prussia, and in Italy the kingdom of Naples. These powers, dreading the en- croachments of Austria, were the natural allies of France. Piedmont, placed between the two, was sometimes for the one, sometimes for the other ; the cabinet of Turin resembled an adventurer, who lets out his services ac- cording to circumstances. Holland was allied to England or France, as the party of the stadtholder or that of the people prevailed in the republic. The Swiss were neutral. Two powers had sprung up in the north, of which the one, Prussia, entering into this equilibrium, deranged it by the preponderance it had acquired, and of which the other, Rus- sia, was on account of its recent establish- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 203 ment entirely out of the European relations. Prussia had been changed from a simple electorate to a kingdom by Frederic William, who had given it an army, and by his son Frederick the Great, whose talents had so greatly aggrandized its power. Russia, placed in the third line, began to overflow upon Europe and to derange its equilibrium. It had invaded Poland, it menaced the Porte, and, as its only means of action were con- quest, it meditated also the occupation of Turkey. Such was the state of Europe when the French revolution began. The potentates, who hitherto had no enemy but themselves, suddenly encountered in this event a common antagonist. The ancient relations of war or alliance, already deranged during the seven years' war, then ceased entirely : Sweden reunited itself to Russia, and Prussia to Austria. There were only kings on one side and a people on the other, until the latter were joined by those whom its example or the faults of the princes gave it for auxiliaries. A general coalition was soon formed against the French revolution : Austria entered it in the hope of aggrandizement; England, to 204 HISTORY OF THE avenge herself for the American war ; Prus- sia, to strengthen absolute power which was menaced, and to find employment for her army ; the circles of Germany to regain for some of their members the feudal rights of which the abolition of the feudal regime had deprived them in Alsace ; the king of Sweden, who was created the champion of arbitrary power, that he might re-establish it in France as he had already done in his own country ; Russia, that she might effect without trouble the partition of Poland, while Europe was oc- cupied elsewhere ; finally, all the sovereigns of the house of Bourbon, from regard to their own power or from family attachments. The emigrants encouraged them in these projects, and incited them to the invasion. According to them, France was without an army, or at least without leaders, without money, aban- doned to disorder, weary of the assembly, attached to the ancient regime, and without either means or desire to defend itself. They came in numbers to take part in this easy campaign, and they formed themselves into an organised corps, under the prince of Conde" at Worms, and under the count d'Artois at Coblentz. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 205 The count d'Artois especially accelerated the determinations of the cabinets ; the em- peror Leopold was in Italy ; he passed over to him, accompanied by Calonne, who was his minister, and the count Alphonse de Dur- fort, who had been his agent at the court of the Tuileries, and who had reported to him the authority of the king that he should treat with Leopold. The conference was held at Mantua, and the count de Durfort went to Louis XVI to carry, in the name of the em- peror, a secret declaration, by which the ap- proaching- aid of the coalition was announced to him. Austria was to march thirty-five thou- sand men upon the frontier of Flanders, the circles fifteen thousand upon Alsace, the Swiss fifteen thousand upon the frontier of the Lyonese, the king of Sardinia fifteen thousand upon that of Dauphiny. Spain was to in- crease its army of Catalonia to twenty thou- sand ; Prussia was well disposed toward the coalition ; the king of England was to make a part of it as elector of Hanover. All these troops were to be put in motion at the same time, about the end of July. The house of Bourbon were then to make a protest, the 206 HISTORY OF THE powers to publish a manifesto ; but up to that moment it was important to keep this de- sign secret, to avoid all partial insurrection, and not to make any attempt at escape. Such were the contents of this famous decla- ration of Mantua, of the 20th May 1791. Louis XVI, whether he was unwilling to place himself at the mercy of foreigners, or whether he dreaded the ascendant which the count d'Artois, if he should return at the head of a victorious emigration, would take in the government which he would have established, chose rather to restore the monarchy by his own efforts. He had in general Bouille a partisan devoted and active, who equally condemned the emigration and the assembly, and who promised him a refuge and a support in his army. For some time a secret correspondence had been carried on between him and the king ; Bouille prepared everything for his reception. Under the pre- text of a movement of the enemy's troops on the frontier, he established a camp at Mont- medy ; he placed detachments upon the route the king was to follow, to serve as an escort ; and, as he must have a motive for FRENCH REVOLUTION. 207 these dispositions, he pretended that they were for protecting the military chest des- tined for the payment of the army. The royal family, on its part, kept all the preparations for departure in profound se- crecy; few persons were acquainted with them, no circumstance betrayed them. Louis XVI and his queen, on the contrary, did every- thing to remove suspicion, and the 20th June, in the night, at the moment fixed for depar- ture, they quitted the chateau, one by one, in disguise. They escaped the vigilance of the guards and met each other upon the boule- vard, where a carriage was waiting for them, and instantly started on the road for Chalons and Montm^dy. In the morning, at the news of this escape, Paris was seized with stupor ; presently in- dignation followed, groups of people began to form, and the tumult went on increasing. Those who had not prevented the flight were accused of having favoured it ; distrust spared neither La Fayette nor Bailly. They saw in this event the invasion of France, the triumph of the emigration, the return of the ancient regime, or rather a long civil war. But the discretion of the assembly soon restored 208 HISTORY OF THE calmness and security to the public mind. It took all the measures necessary to meet an emergency so pressing. A meeting being instantly held, it summoned to its bar the ministers and the authorities ; calmed the people by a proclamation ; took precautions to maintain the public tranquillity ; assumed the executive power ; charged the minister of foreign affairs, Montmorin, to make known to the powers of Europe its pacific intentions ; sent commissaries to the troops, to assure itself of their fidelity, and to receive their oath no longer in the name of the king, but in its own. Finally, it issued orders to the departments for the arrest of all who should be leaving the realm. " Thus in less than four hours," said the marquis de Ferreres, "the assembly saw itself invested with all the powers : the government went on, the public tranquillity experienced not the smallest shock, and Paris and France learned by this experience, so dangerous to royalty, that in almost all cases the monarch is a stranger to the government which is administered in his name." Meanwhile Louis XVI and his queen were arriving at the termination of their journey. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 209 The success of the first part of the journey, the distance from Paris, rendered the king less reserved and more confident ; he had the imprudence to shew himself, and was re- cognised and arrested at Varennes. In an instant, all the national guards were on foot, the officers of the detachments posted by Bouille, wished in vain to deliver the king, the dragoons and the hussars feared or re- fused to second them. Bouille, apprised of this fatal accident, hastened thither himself at the head of a regiment of cavalry. But it was too late; when he arrived at Varennes the king had left it several hours, his squa- drons were fatigued and refused to proceed any farther, the national guards were every- where in arms, and after the bad success of his enterprise, he had no alternative but to quit the army and France. The assembly, on learning the arrest of the king, sent as commissaries to be in attendance on his person three of its members, Petion, Latour-Maubourg, and Barnave ; they joined the royal family at Epernay, and returned with it. It was during this journey that Barnave, touched by the good sense of Louis XVI, the attentive and conciliating manners of Marie Antoinette, and the humiliated con- vol. i. p 210 HISTORY OF THE dition of all this royal family, testified for his sovereign the most lively interest, and gave him from that day his counsel and his sup- port. This assemblage, on arriving at Paris, traversed an immense multitude, which raised no cry of approbation or discontent, but ob- served a long reproachful silence. The king was provisionally suspended ; a guard was appointed for him as well as the queen ; commissaries were nominated to in- terrogate him. All parties were in commo- tion : some wished to maintain him on his throne in spite of his attempted flight ; others pretended that he had abdicated, by con- demning, in a manifesto addressed to the French on his departure, both the revolution and the acts that emanated from him during this epoch, which he had called a period of captivity. The republican party now began to appear. Hitherto it had been dependent or concealed, because it had had no substantive existence, or no pretext for manifesting itself. The struggle which had begun at first between the assembly and the court, then between the constitution- alists and the aristocrats, and lastly between the constitutionalists themselves, now commenced between the constitutionalists and the repub- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 211 licans. Such is in times of revolution the in- evitable march of events. The partisans of the order of things newly established then united themselves, renouncing the differences which were not without inconvenience even when the assembly was all-powerful, and which became perilous, at the moment when the emigration threatened it on one side, and the multitude on the other. Mirabeau was no more ; the centre upon which this great man relied, and which constituted the lea ambitious portion of the assembly and the most attached to principles, might, in uniting under the Lameths, establish Louis XVI and the constitutional assembly, and oppose itself to the excesses of the people. This alliance was effected : the Lameths had a secret understanding with d'Andr6 and the principal members of the centre, conferred with the court, and opened the club of Feuil- lants, to oppose to that of the Jacobins. The Jacobins could not be without leaders; they had combated under Mirabeau against Mounier, under the Lameths against Mirabeau, under Potion and Robespierre they fought against the Lameths. The party that wished a second revolution had constantly supported the ex- treme partisans of the revolution already ac- 212 HISTORY OF THE complished, because it was thus hastening the struggle they wished for, and the victory they anticipated. At this epoch, from being sub- ordinate it become independent ; it struggled no longer for others, and the opinions of others, but for itself and under its own banner. The court, by its multiplied faults, by its imprudent machinations, and, in the last place, by the flight of the monarch, had given it an opportu- nity to avow its objects, and the Lameths in abandoning it had left it to its true leaders. The Lameths experienced in their turn the reproaches of the multitude, which saw only their alliance with the court, without examin- ing its conditions. But supported by all the constitutionalists, they were the strongest party in the assembly, and it was important to them to re-establish the king as soon as possible, in order to put an end to a dangerous controversy ; for the republican party were authorised to demand the forfeiture of the throne so long as the suspension should con- tinue. The commissaries charged with in- terrogating Louis XVI dictated to him them- selves a declaration, which they presented in his name to the assembly, and which soothed the irritation excited by his flight. The re- porter declared, in the name of the seven com- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 213 mittees charged with the examination of this great question, that there were no grounds for placing Louis XVI in judgment, nor to pronounce the forfeiture against him. The discussion which followed this report was long and animated ; the efforts of the ' republican party, in spite of their obstinacy, failed. The greater part of their orators spoke ; they wanted a deposition, or a regency which was an approximation to it. Barnave, after having combated all their suggestions, ended his har- angue in these remarkable words : " Regen- erators of the empire, pursue your course without deviation. You have shown that you had the courage to destroy the abuses of power s you have shown that you could replace them by wise and happy institutions ; prove that you have the sagacity to protect and maintain them. The nation is about to exhibit a grand proof of force and courage ; it has solemnly produced, and by a spontaneous movement, everything which it can oppose to the attacks with which we are menaced. Continue the same precautions, that our limits, our fron- tiers, may be powerfully defended. But, at the moment we are manifesting our power, let us also prove our moderation ; let us offer 214 HISTORY OF THE peace to the world, disquieted by events which are passing among us ; let us present an oc- casion of triumph to those who in foreign lands have taken an interest in our revolution ! They cry out to us from all places : You have been powerful ; "be wise, be moderate ; that will be the crown of your glory ; it is thus that you will show that in all varieties of circum- stances, you know how to employ talents, various means, and all the virtues." The assembly agreed in the sentiments of Barnave. But, in order to calm the people, and to provide for the future security of France, it decreed that the king should ipso facto ab- dicate the crown, if he retracted his oath to the constitution after having taken it, if he should put himself at the head of an army to make war on the nation, or should suffer any one to do it in his name; that then, becoming a simple citizen again, he should cease to be inviolable, and be subject to accusation for acts subsequent to his abdication. The day that this decree was adopted by the people, the leaders of the republican party excited the multitude to resistance. But the place of the sittings was surrounded by the national guard, and the assembly FRENCH REVOLUTION. 2i5 could neither be invaded nor intimidated. The agitators, unable to prevent the decree, roused the people against it. They drew up a petition, in which they denied the compe- tency of the assembly, appealed from it to the sovereignty of the people, considered Louis XVI as a private citizen, since he had fled, and demanded a substitute for him. This pe- tition, drawn up by Brissot, author of the Patriote Fran^ais, and president of the com- mittee of investigation of the city of Paris, was carried to the Champ-de-Mars, and placed upon the altar of the country : an immense multitude came to sign it. The assembly ap- prised of this, summoned the municipality to its bar, and enjoined it to watch over the pub- lic tranquillity. La Fayette marched against this mob, and succeeded in dispersing it the first time without the effusion of blood. The municipal officers posted themselves at the Invalids ; but on the same day the multitude returned in greater numbers, and with more resolute determination : Danton, and Camille- Desmoulins harangued it, even from the altar of the country. Two invalids, whom they took for spies, were massacred, and their heads placed on pikes. The insurrection be- 216 HISTORY OF THE came alarming ; La Fayette returned again to the Champ-de-Mars at the head of twelve hundred national guards. Bailly accompa- nied him, and caused the red flag to be un- furled ; he then addressed to the multitude the summons required by law, but they re- fused to retire, denying his authority, and ex- claiming Down with the red flag ! and assail- ing the national guard with stones. La Fay- ette ordered his men to fire, but into the air ; the multitude was not intimidated, and re- commenced its attack ; then La Fayette, com- pelled by the obstinacy of the insurgents, or- dered a second discharge, but it was real and destructive. The multitude, struck with ter- ror, fled, leaving numbers dead upon the field of Federation. The disturbance ceased, order was re-established, but blood had flowed, and the people never pardoned La Fayette or Bailly the hard necessity to which it had driven them. This was a real struggle, in which the republican party, which was neither sufficiently strong nor sufficiently supported, was defeated by the constitutional party. This attempt of the Champ-de-Mars was the prelude of the popular movements which came to a head on the 10th August. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 217 While this was passing in the assembly and in Paris, the emigrants, whom the flight of Louis XVI had filled with hope, were seized with consternation on his arrest. Monsieur, who had escaped at the same time as his bro- ther, and who had been more fortunate than he, arrived alone at Brussels with the powers and title of regent. The emigrants thought then no longer but of the assistance of Europe ; the officers quitted their colours, two hundred and eighty-six members of the assembly pro- tested against its decrees, in order to legiti- mate the invasion ; Bouille wrote a menac- ing letter, in the absurd hope of intimidating the assembly, and at the same time to charge himself with the sole responsibility of his escape ; finally, the emperor, the king of Prus sia, and the count d'Artois, met at Pilnitz, where they concluded the famous treaty of the 27th July, which prepared for the inva- sion of France, and which, instead of ameli- orating the condition of Louis XVI, would have compromised it, if the unbending wis- dom of the assembly had not pursued its de- signs in spite of the menaces of, the multitude and those of Europe. In the declaration of Pilnitz, the sovereigns considered the cause of Louis XVI as their 218 HISTORY OF THE own ; they required that he should be free to go wherever he pleased, that is, to join their standard ; that he should be replaced on his throne; that the assembly should be dis- solved ; that the princes of the empire, having possessions in Alsace, should be re-established in their' feudal rights. In case of refusal they menaced France with a war, in which all the powers would concur who had guaranteed the French monarchy. This declaration, far from discouraging, only irritated the assembly and the people ; they demanded in what right the princes of Europe interfered in our govern- ment ; in what right they gave orders to a great people, and imposed conditions upon it; and since the sovereigns appealed from them to force, they prepared themselves for resis- tance. The frontiers were put in a state of defence, a hundred thousand of the national guard were levied, and they waited with as- surance the attacks of the enemy, well con- vinced that the French people would be in- vincible, animated by the spirit of the revolu- tion and within their own frontiers. Meanwhile the assembly was approaching the termination of its labours ; the civil re- lations, the public contributions, the nature of crimes, their mode of prosecution, the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 219 means for their amendment, and their pe- nalties, had been as wisely regulated as the general and constitutional regulations. Equality had been introduced into inheritance, the taxes, and punishments ; it remained only to unite all the constitutional decrees into one body, in order to present them for the accept- ance of the king. The assembly began to be weary of its labours, and its divisions ; the people themselves, who in France soon get tired of anything that continues long, desired a new national representation ; the convocation of the electoral colleges was appointed for the 25th September. Unfortunately, the members of the existing assembly could not make a part of that which was to follow ; they had decreed this before the flight to Varennes. On this important question, the disinterestedness of some, the rivalship of others, the projects of anarchy on the part of the aristocrats, and of domination on the part of the republicans, had hurried away the assembly. In vain Duport had said : " Since we are glutted with principles, how is it that v we are not advised that stability is also a principle of government ? Shall we expose the French nation, whose temper is fickle 220 HISTORY OF THE and headstrong, to a new revolution, every two years, in laws and opinions ?" This was what the privileged class and the Jacobins wished, though with different objects. In all similar questions the assembly either erred or was overcome. When it debated concerning the ministry, it decided, contrary to the opinion of Mirabeau, that no deputy could be a minister ; when it debated on the re-election, the assembly decided against its own members that they could not be re- elected ; it was in the same spirit that it in- terdicted them from accepting for four years any appointment conferred by the prince. This mania of disinterestedness went so far as to induce La Fayette to lay down the command of the national guard, and Bailly the mayoralty. Thus this remarkable epoch ended entirely with the constituent assembly, and nothing remained of it under the legis- lative. The collection of the constitutional decrees into a single body suggested the idea of re- vising them ; but this attempt at revision excited extreme discontent, and ended in al- most nothing ; it would not do by an after- stroke to render the constitution more aristo- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 221 • cratic, from a fear lest the people wished to make it more popular. In order to check the sovereignty of the nation, and at the same time not to disavow it, the assembly de- clared that France had the right of reviewing its constitution, but that it would be prudent not to use that right for thirty years. The constitutional act was presented to the king by sixty deputies ; the suspension was removed : Louis XVI resumed the exercise of his power, and the guard which the law had given him was under his command. Restored to his freedom, the constitution was submitted to him. After several days ex- amination : " I accept the constitution," he wrote to the assembly; " I pledge myself to maintain it from every danger within, to de- fend it against every attack from without, and to procure it to be executed by every means which it puts in my power. I de- clare that, instructed by the adherence which the great majority of the people gives to the constitution, I renounce at the conclusion the objections I had made during its progress ; and that being responsible only to the nation, no other, when I thus renounce them, has the right to make any complaint. 1 ' 222 HISTORY OF THE • This letter excited the most vivid applause. La Fayette demanded and obtained a decree for an amnesty in favour of all who had been prosecuted for the departure of the king, or for offences relative to the revolution. On the following morning the king came in person to accept the constitution in the assembly ; the mob followed him with its acclamations ; he was received with enthusiasm by the deputies and the tribunes, and this day he obtained anew the confidence and the affec- tion of the people. Finally, the 29th Sep- tember was appointed for the dissolution of the assembly : the king was present at its sittings : his speech was frequently inter- rupted with plaudits ; and when he said, " For you, gentlemen, who in a long and laborious career have manifested an indefati- gable zeal, there still remains a duty to fulfil, when you shall have dispersed over the sur- face of this empire ; it is to explain to your fellow-citizens the true meaning of the laws you have made for them, to recal to them those who disavow them, to purify, to unite all opinions by the example you will give them of the love of order and of submission to the laws," — '''Yes, yes!" re-echoed with FRENCH REVOLUTION. 223 one voice from all the deputies. — " I depend on it that you will be the interpreters of my sentiments to your fellow-citizens." — " Yes, yes!"—" Tell it faithfully to all, that the king will always be their first and most faithful friend ; that he has need of being loved by them ; that he knows how to be happy only with them and by them ; the hope of con- tributing to their prosperity will sustain my courage, as the satisfaction of having suc- ceeded will be my most sweet reward/' — " It is the harangue of a Henry IV," said a voice ; and Louis departed in the midst of the most brilliant testimonies of affection. Thouret arose, and with a powerful voice addressing himself to the people ; " The con- stituent assembly," he said, "declares that its mission is accomplished, and that it ter- minates at this moment its sittings." Thus ended this first and glorious assembly of the nation ; it was courageous, enlightened, just, and had only one passion, that of the law. It accomplished in two years, by its efforts and by an unwearied perseverance, the great- est revolution which a single generation of mankind ever witnessed. In the midst of its labours it put down despotism and an- 224 HISTORY OF THE archy, by defeating the intrigues of the aristocracy and maintaining the subordination of the people. Its single error was in not confiding the conduct of the revolution to those who had made it ; it divested itself of power like those legislators of antiquity, who exiled themselves from their country after having given it a constitution. A new assem- bly did not apply itself to the consolidation of the work of its predecessor, and the re- volution which required only to be com- pleted was recommenced. The constitution of 1791 was founded on principles which suited the ideas and the situations of France ; this constitution was the work of the middle class, at that time the most powerful ; for, as we know, the pre- vailing force is always that which seizes upon the institutions: but when it belongs to an individual, it is despotism ; to certain persons, it is a privilege ; to all, it is right : this last state is the term of society as it is its origin. France had finally arrived at it, after having passed through the feudal system, which was the aristocratic institution, and through ab- solute power, which was the monarchic in- stitution. Equality was consecrated among FRENCH REVOLUTION. 225 the citizens, and delegation was recognised as the constitutional mode of exercising their power : such were, under the new regime, the condition of the people and the form of the government. In this constitution the people were the source of all power, but they exercised none ; they had only the primary election, and its members were chosen by men taken from the most intelligent portion of the community. This composed the assembly, the tribunals, the administrations, the municipalities, the militias, and possessed thus all the force and all the powers of the state. It was there- fore alone proper to exercise them, since it alone had the intelligence necessary for the conduct of the government. The people were not yet sufficiently advanced to take a share of the power ; it was only by accident and transiently that power fell into their hands ; they received the civic education, and were ac- customed to government in the primary assem- blies, according to the true object of society, which is not to give its advantage as a pa- trimony to a class, but to make all participate in them as soon as they are capable of ac- quiring them. This was the principal cha- VOL. I. Q 226 HISTORY OF THE racter of the revolution of 1791 ; in propor- tion as any one became fit to possess the right, he was admitted to it ; the constitution enlarged its frame with the progress of civiliza- tion, which every day called a greater num- ber of men to the administration of the state. It is thus that it established the true equality, of which the real character is admissibility, as that of inequality is exclusion. In ren- dering power moveable by election, it made a public magistracy of it : while aristocratic privilege, by rendering it hereditary, made it a private property. The constitution of 1791 established homo- geneous powers, which reciprocally corres- ponded, without interfering with each other ; nevertheless, it must be admitted that the royal authority was too subordinate to the popular power. It never happens otherwise ; sovereignty, from whatever quarter it comes, when it limits itself, always establishes but a feeble counterpoise. A constituent assembly weakens the royal power ; a legislating king restrains the prerogatives of an assembly. This constitution was, nevertheless, less de- mocratic than of the United States, which has been found practicable, notwithstanding the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 227 extent of the territory, which proves that it is not the form of institutions, but rather the as- sent which they obtain, or the disagreement they excite, which permits or prevents their establishment. In a new country, after a re- volution of independance, as in America, every constitution is possible ; there is only one hos- tile party, the mother country, and when that is vanquished the struggle ceases, because defeat is followed by expulsion. It is not the same with social revolutions, among a people which has had a long existence. Changes attack interests, interests form parties, parties enter on a struggle ; and the more victory spreads, the more resentments increase : this happened to France. The work of the as- sembly perished less from its defects than from the blows of faction. Placed between the aristocracy and the multitude, it was attacked by one party and usurped by the other. This latter would not have become sovereign, if civil war and the foreign coalition had not re- quired its intervention and its aid. To defend the country, it was necessary that the govern- ment should be in its hands : then it made its revolution, as the middle class had done 228 HISTORY OF THE before. It had its 16th July, which was the 10th August; its constituent, which was the convention ; its government, which was the committee of public safety ; but, as we shall see, without the emigration, it never would have been master of the republic . FRENCH REVOLUTION. 229 NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY; CHAPTER V. First interviews of the legislative assembly with the king. — State of parties. — The Feuillants rely on the support of the middle classes, the Girondists on that of the people. — The emigration and the refractory clergy ; decree against them ; the king's veto. — Declarations of war. — The Girondist min- istry ; Dumouriez and Roland. — Declaration of war against the king of Hungary and Bohemia. — Disaster of our ar- mies ; order for a camp of reserve of 20,000 men below Paris : decree of banishment against the priests who had not taken the oaths. — The king's veto : fall of the Girondist min- istry. — Insurrectionary petition of the 20th June in favour of the decrees, and demanding the return of the ministers to their places. — Last efforts of the constitutional party. — The duke of Brunswick's manifesto. — Events of the 10th August. — Military insurrection of La Fayette against the conspirators of the 10th August ; its failure. — Division of the assembly and of the new commune. — Danton. — Invasion of the Prussians. — Massacres of the 2nd September. — Cam- paign of the Argonne. — Causes of the events that occured under the legislative. The new assembly commenced its sittings on the first October 1791, and at once de- 230 HISTORY OF THE clared itself the national legislative assembly From the moment of its opening, it had occa- sion to shew its attachment to the actual or- der of things, as well as its respect for the founders of French liberty. The book of the constitution was solemnly presented to the new body by the archivist Camus, at the head of twelve of the oldest members of the national representation. The assembly stood uncovered while its members received the con- stitutional act, and vowed by its contents, amidst the applauses of the crowd which oc- cupied the tribunes, to live freemen or to die. The assembly next voted thanks to the mem- bers of the constituent assembly, and forth- with commenced its labours. But its first relations with the king did not possess the same character of union or confi- dence. The court which undoubtedly hoped to regain under the legislative, the ascendancy which it had lost under the constituent as- sembly, was not sufficiently cautious in the management of a popular assembly which was restless and jealous of its rights, and which passed at that time for the highest in the state. The assembly sent a deputation of sixty members to the king, to announce FRENCH REVOLUTION. 231 that it was constituted. The king did not re- ceive them in person, but directed the minister of justice to say, that he could not give them an audience till the following day at noon. A dismissal so unceremonious as this, and the communication between the sovereign and the national representatives thus rendered indi- rect by the intervention of a minister, deeply wounded the deputation. Accordingly, when it was ushered into the presence of Louis XVI, Ducastel, who was president of the deputation, addressed him thus laconically : " Sire, the national legislative assembly is definitely con- stituted, and it has appointed us to inform you of this." Louis XVI replied in a still colder tone, " I cannot attend your assembly before Friday." This conduct of the court was very injudicious, and ill calculated to conciliate towards it the affection of the popular party. The assembly approved of the manner in which the president of the deputation had ex- pressed himself, and very speedily allowed itself an act of reprisal. The ceremonial with which the king was to be received by the assembly was founded upon preceding regu- lations. An arm-chair after the fashion of a throne was reserved for him : he was ad- 232 HISTORY OF THE dressed by the titles of sire and majesty, and the deputies, who stood up uncovered on his entrance, sat down, put on their hats, and rose up again, following with deference all the movements of the king. Some violent and turbulent spirits thought these condescen- sions unworthy of a sovereign assembly. The deputy Grangeneuve moved that the words sire and majesty should be replaced by the higher and more constitutional title of " king of the French." Couthon went even farther, and proposed to give the king a simple arm-chair, exactly similar to that of the president. These demands excited some slight signs of dis- approbation on the part of several members, but the majority eagerly joined in them. " I trust," said Guadet, " that the French nation will always regard with far higher veneration, the simple arm-chair on which sits the presi- dent of the representatives of the people, than the gilded seat which supports the chief of the executive power. I shall say nothing, gentlemen, of the titles of sire and majesty, I am only astonished that the national assem- bly should never have hesitated as to whether it should preserve them. The word sire sig- nifies seigneur: it belonged to the feudal FRENCH REVOLUTION. 233 government, which no longer exists. As to that of majesty, it ought only to be employed in speaking of God or of the people." The previous question was called for, but feebly : these different propositions were put to the vote, and adopted by a considerable majority. Nevertheless as such a decree ap- peared hostile, the constitutional opinion was against it, and blamed so rigorous an applica- tion of its principles. The day following, those who had called for the previous question, de- manded the abandonment of the resolutions of the previous sitting. A report spread, at the same time, that the king would refuse to be present at any meeting of the assembly, if the decree were kept in force, and it was accor- dingly annulled. These little disputes be- tween two powers who mutually dreaded the usurpations, the pride, and the ill-will of each other, ended here for the present. All recol- lection of them was entirely effaced by the appearance of Louis XVI among the legisla- tive body, by whom he was received with the highest respect and the most lively enthusi- asm. His discourse chiefly tended to the pacifi- cation of parties in general : he pointed out 234 HISTORY OF THE to the assembly the points which demanded its attention; the finances, the civil laws, commerce, industry, and the consolidation of the new form of government ; he promised to employ all his endeavours to recall the army to order and discipline, to put the realm in a state of defence, and to give such favourable ideas of the French revolution, as would tend to conciliate the favourable opinion of Europe. He added the following words which were loudly applauded : " Gentlemen, in order that your important labours and your zeal should produce all the good which may be naturally expected of them, there ought ever to exist between the legislative body and the monarch a constant harmony and an unalterable con- fidence. The enemies of our common repose will be but too ready to seek to disunite us : but let the love of our country bind us toge- ther, and the interest of the public render us inseparable ; thus will the power of the nation be enabled to exert itself without opposition ; the administration be no longer tormented by visionary terrors ; the property and the belief of all shall be equally protected, and none shall have any longer a pretext for deserting a land where the laws shall be in force, and FRENCH REVOLUTION. 235 where the rights of all shall be respected." Unfortunately there were two classes separate from the revolution, which refused to com- bine with it, and whose efforts in the interior of France, and in Europe generally, prevented the fulfilment of these words of peace and wisdom. Wherever there are any parties displaced in a state, there must always be a struggle : and they force their opponents to adopt against them measures of hostility. Thus the internal troubles excited by the priests who had not taken the oaths, the war- like meeting of the emigrants, and the pre- parations for the coalition, soon carried the legislative farther than the constitution al- lowed, or than the assembly itself contem- plated. The composition of this assembly was wholly popular. All ideas having been turned to the revolution, neither the court, the nobles, nor the clergy, exercised any influence over the elections. There were not in that assembly, as in the preceding, any partisans of absolute power or peculiar privileges. The two fac- tions of the left who had separated towards the conclusion of the constituent, still formed part of the assembly, but they were greatly 236 HISTORY OF THE diminished both in numbers and in power. The popular minority of the other assembly became the majority of this. The regulation which forbade the election of constituents al- ready chosen, the necessity which they were under of selecting their deputies from among those who had rendered themselves most re- markable by their conduct and opinions, and above all the active influence of the clubs, led • to this result. Opinions and parties soon dis- covered themselves. There were a right, a centre, and a left as in the constituent, but possessing a character altogether different. The right, which was composed of firm and decided constitutionals, formed the Feuil- lant party. Its principal organs were Dumas, Ramond, Vaublanc, Beugnot, &c. It had some relations with the court through Bar- nave, Duport, and Alexander Lameth, who were its former leaders ; but their counsels were rarely followed by Louis XVI, who abandoned himself with more confidence to guidance of those who were about him. It relied for support without doors on the club of the Feuillants, and on the middle classes. The national guard, the army, the directory of the department, and in general, all the consti- FRENCH REVOLUTION. '237 tutecl authorities, were favourable to this fac- tion. But it was no longer the ruling party in the assembly, and it speedily lost a post equally as essential, that of the municipality, which was occupied by the antagonists of the left. These formed the party called the Girondists, who served in the revolution as a connecting link between the middling and the lower classes. This party at that time entertained no levelling projects : but it was inclined to support the revolution by all means, in dis- tinction to the constitutionals, who proposed to support it only according to law. At the head of this faction were the brilliant orators of the department of the Gironde, from which it drew its name, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne\ and the provengal Isnard whose eloquence was still more glowing than theirs. Its prin- cipal leader was Brissot, who had been a member of the municipality of Paris during the preceding session, and who now belonged to the assembly. The opinions of Brissot who wished for a complete reform, his great activity of mind, which exerted itself by turns in the journal called The Patriot, in the rostrum of the assembly, and at the club of the Jacobins, 238 HISTORY OF THE and his accurate and extensive acquaintance with the situation of foreign powers, combined to give him great influence at a moment when France was divided between the strife of par- ties, and a war against Europe. Condorcet's influence was of another description : he owed his ascendancy to the profoundness of his views and his strong powers of reason, which raised him to something like the rank of Sieves in this second revolutionary generation. Petion, the character of whose mind was calm and decided, was the man of action of the party. His tran- quil air, his flowing eloquence, and his acquaintance with the moods of the people, speedily raised him to the municipal magis- tracy, which Bailly had exercised on behalf of the middling classes. The left side had in the assembly the heads of a faction which went beyond the main party in opinion, of which the members, such as Chabot, Bazire, and Merlin, were to the Gi- rondists, what Petion, Buzot, and Robespierre, had been to the left side of the constituent assembly. This was the commencement of the democratic faction, out of doors, which served as auxiliaries to the Girondists, and re- gulated the affiliation of the clubs and of the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 239 multitude. Robespierre in the society of Ja- cobins, where he established his empire after quitting the assembly ; Danton, Camille Des- moulins, and Fabre d'Eglantine at the Corde- liers, where they had founded a club of reform- ers still more violent than the Jacobins, com- posed of persons belonging to the trading classes ; together with the brewer Santerre, in the faubourgs, where the popular force resided, were the real chiefs of that faction, which trusted for its support to an entire class of the population, and aspired to the founda- tion of a government of its own. But this party only fought as it were under orders, and it required very pressing circumstances to have brought about its triumph. This was the real party of the Champ-de-Mars. The centre of the legislative was sincerely attached to the new order of things. It held, except in a few immaterial points, the same opinions, and had the same wish for concili- atory measures, as the centre of the constituent assembly ; but its power was very different : it was no longer at the head of a class, by means of which it possessed the power of over- ruling in a wise and firm manner all the violent and turbulent parties existing. The dangers 240 HISTORY OF THE which threatened the public, by awakening a sense of the necessity of relying for support upon violent opinions within, and on parties without, completely annulled the centre. It soon became the appanage of the strongest faction, as happens in the case of all moderate parties, and sunk under the influence of the left. The situation of the assembly was a very difficult one; for that which preceded it had left behind parties which it had evidently been unable to pacify. In the very commencement of its sittings, it found itself compelled to at- tend to these ; and its attention was to be confined to combating them. The emigration was making alarming progress ; the king's two brothers, the prince of Conde and the duke of Bourbon, had protested against the acceptance of the act of the constitution by Louis XVI, in other words, against the sole means of conciliation ; they asserted that the king had not the power of alienating the rights of the ancient monarchy ; and their protest, which soon circulated through France, produced a great effect on their partisans. The officers left the army, the nobles abandoned their cha- teaux, and whole companies deserted, to enrol themselves in the regiments on the frontiers. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 241 Distaffs were sent to those who remained be- hind ; and those who refused to emigrate were threatened with being degraded to the class of the people, when the nobility should return victorious. What was styled External France was formed in the Austrian Low Countries, and in the neighbouring electorates. The counter-revolution was openly prepared at Brussels, at Worms, and at Coblentz, not only under the protection of the foreign courts, but even with their assistance. The emigrant ambassadors were received, while those of the existing French government were either sent home, or ill received, or in some instances im- prisoned, as in the case of M. Duverger ; and French travellers or merchants suspected of patriotism, or admiration of the revolution, were subjected to the distrust of all Europe. Several powers had declared themselves openly : among these were Sweden, Russia, and Spain, which last was then governed by the marquis of Blanca-Florida, who was entirely devoted to the cause of the emigrants. At the same time Prussia kept up her army, in expectation of a war ; the line of Sardinian and Spanish troops assembled on the French frontiers, was increased by supplies from the VOL. I. R 242 HISTORY OF THE Alps and the Pyrenees ; and Gustavus, the in- tended chief of the coalition, was collecting a Swedish army. The refractory ecclesiastics lost no oppor- tunity of exciting in the country a diversion which might prove useful to the emigrants. "The priests, and more especially the bishops," says the marquis of Ferrieres, " employed all the resources of fanaticism to rouse the lower classes, both in town and country, against the civil constitution of the clergy." The bishops commanded the priests no longer to celebrate divine service in the same churches with the constitutional clergy, lest the people should confound the two modes of worship, and the two orders of priesthood. " Independently," he adds, " of the circular letters addressed to the curates, instructions designed for the people were distributed through the country. In these it was stated, that it was not allowable for any one to receive the sacra- ment from the hands of the constitutional priests, who were designated as intruders ; that all who participated in them became guilty, by their mere presence, of a mor- tal sin ; that those who were married by the intruders should not be regarded as FRENCH REVOLUTION. 243 married ; that they would draw down a curse on themselves and on their children ; that no one was to hold communication with them, nor with those who had separated themselves from the church ; that the mu- nicipal officers who installed them became apostates like themselves ; that even at the moment of installation, the ringers of the bells and the sacristans were to abandon their duty. — These fanatical addresses produced the effect expected by the bishops, and re- ligious troubles broke out in all quarters." The revolt took place chiefly in the de- partments of Calvados, of Gevaudan, and of La Vendue. These provinces were not much disposed to welcome the revolution, because the middling and enlightened class was far from numerous there, and the populace was firmly attached to the clergy and nobility, upon whom they depended. The Girondists, in alarm, were disposed to adopt vigorous measures against the emigration and the dis- sident clergy who attacked the established order of things. Brissot proposed to stop the emigration by renouncing the system of mildness and forbearance which had till then been followed with regard to it. He divided 244 HISTORY OF THE the emigrants into three classes : 1 st, the principal chiefs, at the head of whom he placed the king's two brothers ; 2nd, the functionaries who abandoned their places and their country, and endeavoured to seduce their colleagues ; and 3rd, private individuals, who through terror of their lives, hatred of the revolution, or other motives, quitted their country, without, however, taking up arms against her. He demanded, that laws of the severest kind should be enforced against the two first classes, and insisted that it would be the very reverse of good policy to shew itself indulgent towards the latter. As for the unconsecrated and seditious ecclesiastics, several Girondists were disposed to be con- tent with subjecting them to a stricter system of scrutiny ; but others pretended that there was but one sure measure to be adopted with regard to them, and that the only means of crushing the spirit of sedition was to banish them from the realm. " All methods of conciliation," said the impetuous Isnard, " are now useless : I ask, what has been hitherto the result of so many reiterated par- dons? Your enemies have only augmented their boldness in proportion to your in- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 245 diligence; and they will never cease to in- jure you until they have no longer the means. They must either be victors or vanquished : to this it must come at last ; and any man who cannot see this great truth, I hold to be politically blind." The constitutionals were opposed to all these measures ; they did not attempt to deny the danger, but they regarded such laws as arbitrary. They said, that before all things the constitution ought to be respected, and that measures of precaution were all that were necessary at that period ; that it was sufficient to protect the nation against the emigrants ; and that, in order to punish the dissident priests, some real conspiracies ought to be discovered on their part. They re- commended that the law should be kept inviolate, even towards the enemy, lest once engaged in that career, it might be impossible to stop ; and lest the revolution should be annihilated, like the old government, by its own unjust deeds. But the assembly, judg- ing the safety of the state more important than a strict observance of the law, seeing danger in hesitation, and being besides led on by feelings which produce prompt steps, was 246 HISTORY OF THE not stayed by these considerations. On the 30th October, it adopted by general consent a decree relative to the king's eldest brother, Louis Stanislaus Xavier. This prince was required, in the terms of the constitution, to return to France within two months ; if not, at the expiration of the delay granted him, he was declared to be deprived of his rights to the regency : but there was not the same unanimity relative to the decrees against the emigrants and the priests. On the 9th No- vember, the assembly decided that all French- men assembled beyond the frontiers were re- garded as suspected of conspiracy against their country ; that if, on the the 1st January 1792, they were still met in a body, they should be treated as conspirators, become liable to the punishment of death, and that after condemnation for contumacy, the re- venues arising from their property should be confiscated for the benefit of the nation, without, however, prejudicing the rights of their wives, their children, and their lawful creditors. On the 29th of the same month, a similar decision was made with regard to the refractory ecclesiastics, who were bound to take the oath of civism, under pain of being FRENCH REVOLUTION. 247 deprived of their pensions, and of being de- clared suspected of revolt against the law. If they refused it anew, they were to be strictly watched ; and if there arose any religious troubles in their communes, they were to be carried to the principal town of the department ; and if they were found to have had any share in preaching disobedience, they were rendered subject to detention. The king sanctioned the first decree respect- ing his brother, but put his veto on the two others. He had disavowed the emigration a short time before, by the steps he had publicly taken ; and he had written to the emigrant princes to recall them to the realm. He had entreated them to take this step in the name of the tranquillity of France, and of the at- tachment and obedience which they owed to him as their brother and their king ; and he said, in finishing his letter: " I shall consider myself bound to you all my life, if you will spare me the necessity of acting in opposition to you, by the invariable resolution I have taken, of maintaining all that I have said." His prudent suggestions were not followed by the desired result ; but Louis XVI, though he condemned the conduct of the emigrants, was 248 HISTORY OF THE unwilling to give his sanction to any measures taken against them : he was supported in his refusals by the constitutionals, and by the directory of the department. This kind of support proved useful to him, at a moment when he appeared in the eyes of the people an accomplice of the emigrants, when he excited the discontent of the Girondists, and separated himself from the assembly. He ought to have strenuously united himself with them, as he invoked the constitution against the emigrants in his letters, and against the revolutionists by the use of his prerogative. His situation could only become strong by subscribing with all his heart to the first revolution, and in identi- fying his own cause with that of the people. But the court was not sufficiently resigned ; and expected always more favourable times, which prevented it from acting with the requi- site, firmness, and led it to look for hope on all sides. The court continued to keep up rela- tions with Europe, and was at times disposed to allow of foreign intervention : it intrigued with the ministers against the popular party, and made use of the Feuillants, though with much distrust, against the Girondists. Its principal resources at this period were in the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 249 petty intrigues of Bertrand de Molleville, who was at the head of the council. He had es- tablished a French Club, of which he paid the members ; he bought the applauses of the tri- bunes of the assembly, and hoped by this spurious kind of revolution, to destroy the real one. His plan was to play the parties against one another, and to annul the effects of the constitution, while literally observing its pro- visions. By this system of conduct the court had the imprudence to weaken the constitutionals, whom it should have reinforced ; and favoured, at their expence, the nomination of Petion to the mayoralty. In consequence of the disin- terestedness with which the preceding assem- bly had been seized, all those who had exer- cised under it any popular employments suc- cessively resigned them. La Fayette had given up the command of the national guard, and Bailly the mayoralty ; the constitutional party proposed La Fayette as his successor in this first post of the state, which put the power of exciting or preventing an insurrection, and consequently Paris itself into the hands of him who occupied it. Up to this time it had be- longed to the constitutionals, who by means 250 HISTORY OF THE of it, had repressed the movement of the Champ-de-Mars. They had lost the direction of the assembly ; the command of the national guard. They lost besides the municipality. The court gave to Petion, the Girondist candi- date, all the votes of which it could dispose. " M. de la Fayette/' said the queen to Ber- trand de Molleville, "only wishes to be mayor of Paris in order to be afterwards mayor of the palace. — Petion is a Jacobin and a rebublican, but he is too great a fool ever to be capable of becoming the head of a party." This nomina- tion soon became decisive in favour of the Gi- rondists. The latter did not content themselves with the acquisition of the mayoralty. France could not long remain in that dangerous and provisional condition : the decrees, which justly or not, were to serve for the defence of the revolution, and which had been rejected by the king, were not replaced by any mea- sure of government ; the ministry discovered either treacherous intentions, or an evident in- difference to the state of the nation. This led the Girondists to accuse the minister for foreign affairs, Delessart, of compromising the honour and security of the state by his nego- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 251 tiations with foreign powers, by his delays and by his ignorance ; they also strongly charged Du Portail, the minister at war, and Bertrand de Molleville, minister of marine, with neg- lecting to put the frontiers and the coasts in a state of defence. The conduct of the electors of Treves, of Mentz, and of the bishop of Spire, who favoured the military assemblies of the troops, excited generally, strong and deep indignation. The diplomatic committee pro- posed to make a declaration to the king, that the nation would see with satisfaction a requi- sition issued to the neighbouring princes to disperse the meetings in three weeks ; and that he should assemble the force necessary to compel them to respect the rights of nations. The assembly wished, by this important step, to induce Louis XVI to take a solemn engage- ment, and to signify to the diet of the empire assembled at Ratisbon, as well as to all the other courts of Europe, the firm intentions of France. Isnard ascended the tribune to support this project : " Let us," said he, " on this occasion, feel the due dignity of our mission ; let us speak to the king, to his ministers, and to all Europe with the firmness which becomes us. 252 HISTORY OF THE Let us tell our ministers that hitherto, the na- tion is by no means satisfied with the conduct of any of them ; that henceforth they have only to choose between the gratitude of the people and the vengeance of the laws ; and that by the word responsibility, we mean death. Let us tell the king, that his interest lies in de- fending the constitution ; that he reigns only by the people, and for the people ; that the nation is his' sovereign, and that he is subject to the law. Let us proclaim to Europe, that the French nation, if it draw the sword, will cast away the scabbard; that it will only goto regain it crowned with the laurels of victory ; that if cabinets engage kings in a war against the people, we will engage the people in a war, even to death, against kings. Let us tell her, that all the combats in which nations en- gage at the command of despots — [Here the speaker was interrupted by shouts of applause, and cried out] — Do not applaud ! do not ap- plaud ! but respect my enthusiasm, it is that of liberty. Let us, I say, tell Europe, that all the wars in which nations engage at the com- mand of despots, resemble the blows which two friends, instigated by a perfidious enemy, aim at each other in the dark ; when the light FRENCH REVOLUTION. 253 of day appears, they throw away their arms, they embrace, and punish him who deceived them; so if, at the moment when hostile armies are struggling with ours, the light of philosophy flash on their eyes, both nations will embrace in the sight of dethroned tyrants, of consoled earth, and satisfied heaven." The assembly decreed, with transport and unanimity, the proposed measure, and des- patched a message to the king. Vaublanc was the organ of that deputation. " Sire," said he to Louis XVI, " scarcely had the as- sembly cast its eyes on the situation of the realm, when it perceived that the troubles which still agitate it, have their source in the criminal attempts of the French emigrants. Their audacity is supported by the German princes, who disregard the treaties signed be- tween them and France, and affect to forget that they owe to this empire the treaty of Westphalia, which guarantees their rights and their security. These hostile preparations, these threats of invasion, require armaments which absorb immense sums, which the nation would have poured with joy into the hands of its creditors. " It is for you, sire, to put an end to them ; 254. HISTORY OF THE ! it is for you to hold, in addressing foreign powers, the language which becomes the so- vereign of the French people ! Tell them, that every country which continues preparations against France, must be numbered among her enemies ; that we will religiously regard our oath of attempting no conquests ; that we offer to live with them in brotherly neighbourhood, and to grant them the inviolable friendship of a free and powerful people ; that we will re- spect their laws, their customs, and their con- stitutions ; but that we require in return that ours should be respected ! Tell them, lastly, that if the princes of Germany continue to countenance preparations directed against the French, the French will carry into their coun- try, not fire and the sword, but liberty ! It is for them to calculate what may be the con- sequence of this awakening of the nations !" Louis XVI replied, that he would take into deep consideration the message of the assem- bly ; and a few days afterwards, he came to announce in person his resolutions on the sub- ject. They were agreeable to the general wish. The king declared, amidst general ap- plause, that he would signify to the elector of Treves, and to the other electors, that if before FRENCH REVOLUTION. 255 the 15th January, all hostile meetings, and all hostile dispositions on the part of the refugee French should not have ceased in their states, he would regard them as enemies. He added, that he would write to the emperor, in order to engage him, as the head of the empire, to interpose his authority to avert the evils, which any longer obstinacy on the part of some mem- bers of the Germanic body might occasion. " If these declarations, gentlemen, are not attended to," added he, " it only remains for me to propose war ; war, in which a people who has solemnly renounced foreign conquest, never engages without necessity ; but which a free and generous nation knows how to un- dertake when its own security and its own honour demand it !" The steps taken by the king, relative to the princes of the empire, were supported by mili- tary preparations. A new minister at war had replaced Du Portail. Narbonne, chosen from the party of the Feuillants, young, active, and ambitious of signalizing himself by the triumph of his party, and by his defence of the revolu- tion, immediately inarched to the frontiers. A hundred and fifty thousand men were re- quired ; the assembly voted on this occasion 256 HISTORY OF THE twenty millions of extraordinary funds ; three armies were formed under the command of Rochambeau, of Luckner, and La Fayette ; and finally Monsieur, count of Provence, the count d'Artois, and the prince of Conde were accused and decreed guilty of attempts and con- spiracy against the general security of the state and the constitution. Their properties were se- questrated ; and the term which had formerly been fixed for the return of Monsieur to France, being expired, he was deprived of all right to the regency. The elector of Treves, who did not expect the step which was taken, engaged to disperse the meetings, and to allow them no longer to take place. All this, however, was confined to a pretence of disbanding the troops. Aus- tria gave orders to marshal Bender to defend the elector if he were attacked, and ratified the conclusions of the diet of Ratisbon. The lat- ter demanded the restoration of the possession- ary princes ; it refused to allow that they should be indemnified in money for the loss of their rights ; and left to France the choice only of the re-establishment of feudality in Alsace, or war. These two resolutions of the cabinet of Vienna were of a very hostile nature. Her FRENCH REVOLUTION. 257 troops marched upon our frontiers, and proved clearly that France was not to trust to her in- action. Fifty thousand men were stationed in the Low Countries ; six thousand were posted in the Brisgaw, and thirty thousand were dis- patched from Bohemia. This formidable army of observation could, at a moment's notice, be rendered an army of attack. The assembly felt that there was an urgent necessity of compelling the emperor to de- cide. It considered the electors but as borrowed names under which he acted, and the emigrants as his instruments ; for prince Kaunitz regarded as legitimate the league of sovereigns united for the security and the honour of their crowns. The Girondists, therefore, were desirous of anticipating this dangerous adversary, and of preventing him from having time to prepare himself. They required him to explain, before the 10th February, in a clear and precise manner, his real intentions with regard to France. They attacked, at the same time, those ministers on whom they could not count in case of war ; the incapa- city of Delessart, and the intrigues of Molle- ville, especially afforded ground for such at- tacks. Narbonne was the only one spared. vol. i. s 258 HISTORY OF THE They were seconded by the divisions of the council, which was half aristocratical, by Bertrand de Molleville, Delessart, &c. ; and half constitutional, by Narbonne and Cahier de Gerville, minister of the interior. Men so opposite in intentions and talents could never be expected to agree. Bertrand de Molleville had lively contests with Narbonne, who wished his colleagues to adopt a frank and decided tone, and to render the assem- bly the principal support of the throne. Nar- bonne failed in the struggle, and his fall pro- duced the disorganization of this ministry. The Girondists accused Bertrand de Molle- ville and Delessart; the former had enough of ingenuity to defend himself; but the latter was carried before the high court of Orleans. The king, intimidated by the violent con- duct of the assembly towards the members of his council, and especially by the decree of accusation against Delessart, had no re- source left but to choose his new ministers from the victorious party. An alliance with the actual rulers of the revolution was the only thing which could save at once liberty and the throne. It would restore concord to the assembly, the chief power, and the mu- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 259 nicipality ; and if their union were maintained, the Girondists would perform, with the aid of the court, what they judged, after the rupture, they could only have accomplished without it. The members of the new mi- nistry were La Coste, for the navy ; Claviere, for the finances ; Duranthon, for justice ; De Grave, who was soon replaced by Servan, minister at war ; Dumouriez for foreign affairs ; and Roland for the interior. The two latter were the most remarkable and the most important men of the council. Dumouriez was forty-seven years of age at the commencement of the revolution ; up to that time he had lived amidst intrigues, which he was too fond of employing at a period when small means ought only to have been used in aid of great ones, and not to supply their place. The first part of his political life was spent in discovering those by whom he might rise, and the second those who were able to support his elevation. A courtier before 1789, a constitutional under the first assembly, a Girondist under the second, a Jacobin under the republic, he was eminently the creature of the time. But he had all the resources of great men : an en- 260 HISTORY OF THE terprising disposition, indefatigable activity, and prompt, accurate, and extended views ; extraordinary impetuosity in action, and un- bounded confidence in success : he was be- sides frank, ingenious, clever, bold, equally fitted for the council and the field ; full of expedients, astonishing for the readiness of his invention, and knowing how to submit to the misfortune of a difficult position, until he could change it. It must be admitted, however, that these fine qualities were in- jured by several defects. He was rash, thoughtless, and extremely capricious, both in his opinions and his means, in consequence of his continual thirst for action ; but the great fault of Dumouriez was his want of all political principle. In a period of revolution nothing is to be accomplished unless the in- dividual is the man of a party — if a man be ambitious, he must see farther than the object he seeks to obtain — and, unless his will be stronger than that of his partisans, he will fail. It was thus with Cromwell and Bona- parte : while Dumouriez, after having been the servant of parties, believed he should con- quer them all by his intrigues. He wanted the passion of his time ; it is this which com- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 261 pletes a man, and which alone can render him the governing spirit of his age. Roland was a contrast to Dumouriez. His was a character which liberty found ready made, as if she had herself moulded it. The manners of Roland were simple, his morals severe, and hit opinions tried : he loved liberty with enthusiasm, and he was equally capable of disinterestedly consecrat- ing to her cause the whole of his existence, or of perishing for its sake without ostentation and without regret. He was a man worthy of being born in a republic, but misplaced in a revolution ; he was ill-fitted for the agitations and the struggles of parties ; his talents were not great ; his disposition was somewhat un- bending ; he neither knew how to appreciate nor to manage men ; and though laborious, intelligent, and active, he would have figured little without the aid of his wife. .All that was wanting in him, she supplied ; force and elevation of mind, ability and foresight. Madame Roland was the soul of the Giron- dists ; she was the point round which assem- bled those brilliant and courageous men, to discuss the wants and the dangers of their country : it was she who roused those whom -62 HISTORY OF THE she knew to be able in action, and directed to the tribune the efforts of those whom she knew to be eloquent. The court named this ministry the sans culotte ministry. The first time that Roland appeared at the palace, with strings in his shoes and a round hat, which were against the rules of etiquette, the master of the ceremonies refused to admit him. But forced at length to allow him to pass, pointing to Roland, he thus addressed Dumouriez: " What, sir! without buckles in his shoes /" — " Aye, sir, all is lost!"" replied Dumouriez with the ut- most coolness. Such were still the prejudices of the court. The first measure of the new ministry was war. The situation of France was daily becoming more and more dangerous, and she had everything to fear from the evil dispositions of Europe. Leopold was dead, and that event was likely to hasten the re- solutions of the cabinet of Vienna. His young successor, Francis II, it was probable would be less pacific or less prudent than he had been. Austria moreover was assembling troops, tracing camps, and appointing gene- rals : she had violated the territory of Basle, and placed a garrison in Porentruy, to obtain FRENCH REVOLUTION. 263 an entrance to the department of Doubs. There remained therefore no doubt with re- gard to her projects. The meetings of troops at Coblentz had recommenced in greater numbers : the cabinet of Vienna had but mo- mentarily dispersed the emigrants scattered through the Belgian provinces, in order to prevent the invasion of that country, which it was not yet in a state to oppose ; but all this was done only to save appearances, for it suffered a staff of general officers to remain at Brussels wearing the royal uniform and mounting the white cockade. The answers of prince Kaunitz to the explanations de- manded were by no means satisfactory. He even refused to treat directly, and the baron of Cobentzel was charged with replying, that Austria refused to depart from the conditions she had imposed. The re-establishment of the monarchy on the basis of the royal sitting of the 23rd June, the restoration of the pro- perty of the clergy, of the lands of Alsace with all their rights to the German princes, and of Avignon and the Venaissin territory to the pope ; such was the ultimatum of Austria. All possibility of agreement was thus at an end, and the maintenance of peace 264 HISTORY OF THE was no longer to be expected. France was threatened with the fate which Holland had undergone, or perhaps with that of Poland : all that now remained to be decided on was, whether to wait for, or commence the war, — ■ to profit by the enthusiasm of the people, or to suffer it to subside into coldness : the real author of a war is not he who declares it, but he who renders it necessary. Louis XVI presented himself on the 20th of April to the assembly, accompanied by all his ministers. " I come, gentlemen," said he, " in the midst of the national assembly, on occasion of one of the most important subjects which can occupy the attention of the repre- sentatives of the nation. My minister for foreign affairs will read to you the report which he has made in my council on our po- litical situation." Dumouriez then rose : he exposed the causes of complaint which France had against the house of Austria : the object of the conferences of Mantua, Reichenback and Pilnitz : the coalition which Austria had formed against the French revolution : her warlike preparations, which continued to as- sume a more formidable aspect: the undis- guised protection which she accorded to bo- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 265 dies of the emigrants : and finally, the intole- rable conditions of her ultimatum ; and after a Ions: series of considerations, founded on the hostile conduct of the king of Hungary and Bo- hemia, (Francis II was not yet elected emperor) on the pressing circumstances in which the na- tion stood, on its formal and pronounced resolu- tion never to suffer any attack or any outrage on its rights, and on the honour and good faith of Louis XVI, who was the depositary of the dig- nity and the security of France — he advised war against Austria. Louis XVI then said, with a voice somewhat tremulous with emotion : " You have just heard, gentlemen, the result of the negotiations which I have engaged in with the court of Vienna. The conclusions of that report have been sanctioned by the una- nimous voice of all the members of my coun- cil, and I have myself adopted them. They are agreeable to the wishes which have been often expressed by the national assembly, and to the sentiments which have been manifested by many of my subjects from various parts of the realm : all prefer war to witnessing the dignity of the French people longer outraged, and the security of the nation threatened. It was my duty, previously to adopting this mea- 266 HISTORY OF THE sure, to exert my utmost efforts for the main- tenance of peace. I now come, in the terms of the constitution, to propose to the national assembly war against the king of Hungary and Bohemia." Several marks of applause fol- lowed the king's speech ; but the solemnity of the circumstance and the weight of the de- cision had penetrated all the assembly with a deep and silent emotion. As soon as the king retired, the assembly determined on a meet- ing in the evening, in which the war was re- solved on almost unanimously. Thus was begun with the chief of the confederated powers that war, which lasted a quarter of a century, which confirmed the revolution trium- phantly, and which changed the whole face of Europe. The whole of France received the news with joy. The war communicated a new excitement to the people, already so agitated. The districts, the municipalities, and popular societies, sent addresses : men were raised, voluntary contributions were offered, pikes were made, and the whole nation seemed to rise up to wait the onset of Europe, or to invade her. But enthuisasm, which in the end assures victory, does not at first supply FRENCH REVOLUTION. 267 the want of organization. Accordingly, there were no troops at the opening of the campaign but the regular soldiers, until the new levies should have been formed. The following is the state of the French forces in these respects. The vast frontier from Dunkirk to Huningen was separated into three great divisions. On the left, from Dunkirk to Philippeville, the army of the north, consisting of about forty thousand foot and eight thousand horse, was under the command of the marshal cle Roch- ambeau. La Fayette commanded the centre army, composed of forty-five thousand foot and seven thousand horse, and ranging from Philippeville to the lines of Weissembourg. Lastly, the army of the Rhine, consisting of thirty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse, was led by the marshal Luckner, who occupied the space extending from the lines of Weissembourg to Basle. The frontier of the Alps and Pyrenees was intrusted to general Montesquiou, whose army was very small ; but that portion of France was not yet exposed to danger. The marshal de Rochambeau was of opinion that the army should remain on the defensive and keep the frontiers. Dumouriez, on the contrary, wished to act on the offensive and to 268 HISTORY OF THE begin the attack, as France had first declared war, in order to profit by the advantage of being first ready. He was very enterprising: and as he directed the military operations, though minister for foreign affairs, he pro- cured the adoption of his plan. It consisted in a rapid invasion of Belgium. That province had attempted, in 1790, to shake off the Aus- trian yoke, and after having been for a short period victorious, it had been conquered by superior force. Dumouriez imagined that the patriots of Brabant would favour the attack of the French, as a means of freedom for them- selves. He planned a triple invasion for this end. The two generals Dillon and Biron, who commanded in Flanders under Rochambeau, received orders to march, the one with four thousand men from Lille upon Tournai, the other with ten thousand from Valenciennes upon Mons. At the same time La Fayette with a part of his army quitted Metz, and led his army to Namur, by forced marches through Stenai, Sedan, Mezieres and Givet. But this plan presupposed in the soldiers habits which they had not yet acquired, and demanded a union of opinion and method very difficult to find among the chiefs. Besides, the invading columns were not strong enough FRENCH REVOLUTION. 2G9 for such an enterprise. Scarcely had Dillon left the frontier and met the enemy, when a panic terror seized the troops. The cry through all the ranks, was Sauve qui pent ! and he was dragged away by his own troops and massacred. The same thing took place, and accompanied by the same circumstances, in the army of Biron, who was alike obliged to retire in disorder to his former position. This sudden flight, which had been common to both columns, must either be ascribed to the dread of the enemy, experienced by troops who had never been in action, to distrust of their chiefs, or to the suggestions inspired by evil-disposed persons who hinted suspicions of treachery. La Fayette, on arriving at Bouvines, after having inarched fifty leagues in a few days and over bad roads, was informed of the dis- asters of Valenciennes and Lille : he saw that the object of the invasion had failed, and thought with reason that there was nothing better to be done than to effect a retreat. Rochambeau complained of the precipitation and irregularity of the measures which had been prescribed to him in the most absolute manner. As he did not feel disposed to be- 270 HISTORY OF THE come a passive machine, obliged to act a part at their discretion which ought to be his own, he resigned his post. From that moment our army resumed the defensive. The force on the frontier was now divided into two armies only ; of which the one, under the command of La Fayette, extended from the sea to Longevy ; and the other from the Moselle to Jura was under the orders of Luckner. La Fayette put the left wing of his army under the command of Arthur Dillon, and his right joined that of Luckner, who had Biron for his lieutenant on the Rhine. It was in this position that the troops waited for those of the coalition. These first checks, however, augmented the disunion of the Feuillants and the Giron- dists. The generals ascribed the failures to the plan of Dumouriez. The ministry threw the blame of them upon the generals, who had all been put in their places by Narbonne, and belonged to the constitutional party. On the other hand, the Jacobins accused the coun- ter-revolutionists to have occasioned the rout by their cries of Sauve qui pent! Their joy, which they did not attempt to conceal, and their hopes of soon seeing their confederates FRENCH REVOLUTION. 271 in Paris, the emigrants returned, and the old regime established, confirmed these suspi- cions. It was thought that the court, which had raised the mercenary body-guard of the king from eight hundred men to six thousand, and who had framed it of chosen counter-revo- lutionists, was acting in concert with the coali- tion. A secret committee, of which even the existence was not proved, was denounced as the Austrian committee. Public distrust was at its height. The assembly immediately adopted party measures : it had entered into the war, and thenceforth was obliged to regulate its conduct much less after the rules of justice than those which seemed to be prescribed by the safety of the state. It established itself permanent : it disbanded the king's mercenary body-guard : the renewal of the religious troubles led it to issue a decree of banishment against the re- fractory clergy, in order no longer to have at once to combat a revolution and to appease revolts. To repair the late defeats, and that an army of reserve might be stationed near the capital, it adopted, on the motion of Servan the minister of war, the formation of a camp of twenty thousand men, to be placed below 272 HISTORY OF THE Paris and selected from the departments. The assembly endeavoured at the same time to exalt the general enthusiasm by revolutionary fetes, and began to enrol the populace by arming them with pikes, judging that no assistance could be superfluous at a moment of such imminent danger. All these measures were not adopted with- out some opposition from the constitutionals. They opposed the establishment of the camp of twenty thousand men, which they regarded as a party army called in against the national guard and the throne. The staff of the guard protested, and the recomposition of this corps was speedily accomplished to the profit of the ruling party. Into the new national guard there were introduced companies armed with pikes. The constitutionals were still more discontented with this measure, which intro- duced the lower classes into their ranks, and appeared to them a plan for annulling the middle classes by the populace. Lastly, they condemned in an open manner the banishment of the priests, which was according to them nothing less than a decree of proscription. Louis XVI had behaved for some time in a colder manner to his ministers, who, on their FRENCH REVOLUTION. 273 side, appeared to exact more at his hands : they urged him to permit about his person priests who had taken the oaths, in order to give an example in favour of the constitutional religion and to remove a pretext for troubles : but this he constantly refused, being deter- mined to make no concessions in matters of religion. The last decrees put a term to his union with the Girondists ; he remained seve- ral days without alluding to them and with- out declaring his opinion on the point. It was then that Roland wrote to him his famous letter on his constitutional duties, and urged him, for the sake of calming the minds of the people, and of confirming his own authority, to declare himself frankly the king of the revolution. That letter still farther irritated Louis XVI, who was already resolved to break with the Girondists. He was supported by Dumouriez, who abandoned his party, and who had formed with Duranthon and Lacoste, a schism in the ministry against Roland, Servan, and Claviere. But, like a man at once am- bitious and able, Dumouriez recommended Louis XVI to dismiss the ministers of whom he had to complain, and to sanction at the same time the decrees, in order to confirm his VOL. I. T 274 HISTORY OF THE popularity. He represented the one against the priest as a measure of precaution in their favour, as banishment was likely to remove them from a proscription which would pro- bably be more deplorable : and he engaged to prevent the revolutionary consequences of the camp of 20,000 men, by despatching to the army battalions of them in proportion as they arrived. On these conditions, Dumouriez offered to undertake the office of minister at war, and to sustain the attacks of his own party ; but Louis XVI dismissed the ministers and rejected the decrees, and Dumouriez went off to the army, after having rendered himself suspected. The assembly declared that Ro- land, Servan, and Claviere, carried with them the regrets of the nation. The king chose his new ministry from the ranks of the Feuillants : Scipio Chambonnas took the foreign affairs ; Terrier Monteil, the interior ; Beaulieu, the finances ; Lajarre, the war department ; and Locoste and Duranthon remained for the time in charge of justice and of the navy. All these persons were without name or credit, and their party itself was approaching the term of its 'existence, the state of the constitution, during the ex- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 275 istence of which alone it could maintain an ascendancy, was acquiring daily more and more a revolutionary aspect. How could a moderate party maintain itself between two violent and belligerent factions, of which the one was advancing from without to destroy the revolution, while the other was resolved, at all hazards, to defend it ? The Feuillants were a superfluous party in this state of things. The king, who saw their weakness, seemed to count no longer on anything but on the state of Europe ; and he despatched Mallet Dupan, charged with a secret mission to the coalition. In the mean time all those whom the tide of popular opinion had gone beyond, and who belonged to the earlier days of the revolution, combined to second this slight retrograde movement. The monarchists, at the head of whom were Lally-Tollendal and Malouet, two of the principal members of the party of Mounier and Necker ; the Feuillants, who were headed by the old triumvirate, Duport, Lameth, and Barnave ; lastly, La Fayette, whose constitutional reputation was immense, endeavoured to repress the clubs, to confirm the order of the laws and the power of the 276 HISTORY OF THE king. The Jacobins were eagerly in motion at this period : their influence became enor- mous ; and they took the lead of the popu- lar party. The ancient party, framed of the middle classes, was the only one which could have opposed or repressed them ; but it was quite disorganized and its power was daily declining. It was to raise this party again that La Fayette wrote, on the 16th June, from the camp at Maubeuge, a letter to the as- sembly, in which he denounced the Jacobin faction : he demanded that an end should be put to the reign of the clubs ; he required the independence and the security of the constitu- tional throne, and urged the assembly in his own name, in that of his army, and of all the friends of liberty, to adopt for the safety of the state only such measures as should be sanctioned by the law. This letter excited lively contests between the right and left side of the assembly. Though its motives were only pure and constitutional, it seemed on the part of a young general at the head of his army, a step imitative of Cromwell ; and from that moment the reputation of La Fayette, which had till then been respected even by his adversaries, began to be attacked. Be- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 277 sides, regarding such a step merely in a poli- tical view, it was imprudent. The Girondist party, driven from the ministry, and arrested in its plans for the public welfare, required no farther excitation ; and it was quite wrong in La Fayette, even for the interests of his party, to have employed his influence so uselessly. The Girondist party endeavoured, for its own security and that of the revolution, to regain its power, without however ceasing to employ constitutional means. Its object was not then, as it was at a later period, to dethrone the king, but to make him its own centre. For that purpose it had recourse to the imperious peti- tions of the multitude. The employment of this kind of popular violence was highly to be condemned : but all parties were placed in so extraordinary a situation, that each adopted an illegitimate means of support : the court the support of Europe, and the Girondists that of the people. The populace was in the greatest agitation. The leaders of the faubourgs, among whom were the deputy Chabot, San- terre, Gonchon, and the marquis of Saint Hurugues, had been for some days preparing the people for a similar revolutionary act to that which had failed at the Champ-de-Mars. 278 HISTORY OF THE The 20th June, the anniversary of the oath of the Tennis-court, was approaching. Under pretence of celebrating, by a civic fete, that memorable day, and of planting a May-pole in honour of liberty, an assemblage of about eight thousand armed men on the 20th June left the faubourg Saint Antoine, and marched towards the hall of the assembly. The procurator-syndic, Roederer, came with the intention of informing the assembly of the meeting ; and in the mean time the insurgents arrived at the doors of the hall. Their chiefs required to be allowed to present a petition and to file off before the assembly. Violent debates now took place between the members on the right, who refused to receive a petition from men in arms, and those on the left, who thought that according to certain precedents they ought to be admitted. It was difficult to oppose the wishes of an immense and en- thusiastic multitude, which was seconded by the majority of the representatives. The de- putation was introduced. The speaker who represented it expressed himself in the lan- guage of menace. He said that the people were roused, and ready to employ all their powers — powers which were included in the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 279 declaration of rights, resistance to oppression : he said, that its opposers, if such there were in that assembly, ought to purge the land of freedom of their presence and depart to Cob- lentz : and then coming at once to the object of the insurrectionary petition : " The execu- tive power," added he, "is not in accordance with you ; and of this we ask no other proof than the dismissal of the patriot ministers. It is thus, then, that the happiness of a free people is to depend on the caprice of a king • But ought this king to have any other will than that of the law? The people think not. Such is its opinion, which may well weigh against that of crowned despots. The opinion of the people is the genealogical tree of the nation : and. before that sturdy oak the feeble reed must bend ! We complain, gentlemen, of the inactivity of our armies : we insist on your discovering the cause : and if it proceed from the executive power, we require that it should be annihilated !" The assembly told the petitioners that their demand should be taken into consideration : it next exhorted them to respect the laws and the constituted authorities, and allowed them to file off through the midst of the members. 280 HISTORY OF THE ' The crowd, which by this time had swelled to the number of thirty thousand men, mingled with women, children, national guards, and persons armed with pikes, displaying banners and signals of a decidedly revolutionary cha- racter, traversed the hall, singing the famous chorus, ctf ira! and shouting, " The nation for ever ! Long live the Sans-culottes ! Down with the veto !" The multitude was led by Santerre and the marquis of St. Hurugues. On leav- ing the assembly, the crowd marched towards the palace, with the petitioners at its head. The outer gates were thrown open by order of the king : the crowd then poured into the palace, and entered the apartments. They were demolishing the doors by blows with axes, when Louis XVI ordered them to be opened, and presented himself to the multi- tude attended only by a few persons. The stormy wave of the crowd was arrested for an instant by his appearance ; but those who were without, continued still to advance, not being withheld by respect for the presence of the king. Louis XVI was prudently placed in the opening of a window. Never did he discover more courage and true greatness of mind than on that melancholy day. Sur- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 281 rounded by national guards, who served as a barrier to keep off the crowd, and seated on a chair which was placed on a table to allow him to breathe more freely, and be seen more distinctly by the people, he preserved a calm and undaunted countenance : he replied with decision to the loud cries of those who de- manded his sanction to the decrees : " This is neither the form in which it ought to be de- manded of me, nor the moment to obtain it." Having had the courage to refuse what was the main object of the insurrection, he thought it unnecessary to refuse a token unimportant to him, but which in the eye of the multitude was the signal of liberty : he placed on his head a red cap which was presented to him on the point of a pike. The multitude was highly pleased with this mark of condescen- sion. A few moments after, he was loaded with applauses, when, almost stifled with heat and thirst, he drank without hesitation out of a glass which was handed to him by a half intoxicated labourer. In the mean time Verg- niaud, Isnard, and several deputies of the Gironde, had hastened to the spot to protect the king, to harangue the people, and put an end to these disgraceful scenes. The as- 282 HISTORY OP THE sembly, which had just risen, reassembled in haste, alarmed at this irruption, and des- patched several successive deputations to Louis XVI, to serve as a safeguard to him. At last, Petion the mayor arrived ; and stand- ing on a chair, harangued the populace, exhort- ing them to retire without tumult, a command which they obeyed. These singular insur- gents, whose only aim was to obtain the de- crees and new ministers, withdr w without having transgressed the bounds of their mis- sion, but at the same time without having accomplished it. The 20th June excited the constitutional opinion against the authors of it. The violation of the royal residence, the insults offered to Louis XVI, the illegality of a petition presented amidst the violence of a multitude and with a show of arms, were grounds of strong reproach against the popular party. The latter found itself for an instant reduced to act on the de- fensive, for besides having been guilty of a tumult, it had in reality received a check. The constitutionals resumed the tone of an offended and ruling party ; but this did not last long, for they were not seconded by the court. The national guard offered to assem- FRENCH REVOLUTrON. 283 ble for the protection of the person of Louis XVI, and the duke of Rochefoucault Lian- court, who commanded at Rouen, wished to carry him to Rouen, and place him in the midst of the troops who were devoted to him. La Fayette proposed to conduct him to Com- piegne, and to place him at the head of his army ; but Louis XVI refused all these offers. He imagined that the agitators would be dis- gusted with the failure of their late attempt : and as he looked for his deliverance to the confederate powers, he was unwilling to avail himself of the constitutionals, because it would in that case have been necessary to treat with them. La Fayette, however, made a new attempt in favour of the legitimate monarchy. After having provided for the command of his army, and collected addresses against the late events, he set out for Paris, and presented himself unexpectedly on the 28th June, at the bar of the assembly. He demanded in his own name, and in that of the army, the punish- ment of those who had figured in the attempt of the 20th June, and the destruction of the sect of the Jacobins. This step excited va- rious sensations among the members of the 284 HISTORY OF THE assembly ; the right side applauded him greatly, but the left side opposed his sentiments and conduct. Guadet moved an inquiry whether he were not culpable in having quitted his army, and in thus coming to dictate laws to the assembly. Some remains of former res- pect induced the meeting to reject the motion of Guadet ; and after a tumultuous debate, it admitted La Fayette to the honours of the meeting ; but this was all that the assembly would do. La Fayette's hopes now turned towards the national guard, which had so long been devoted to him ; and he trusted with the aid of its members, to succeed in putting an end to the clubs, dispersing the Jacobins, restoring to Louis XVI all the au- thority which the law had conferred on him, and giving security to the constitution. The revolutionary party was in a state of stupe- faction, and dreaded the worst results, from the boldness and the activity of this redoubt- able adversary of the Champ-de-Mars. But the court, which feared that the constitution- als might triumph, was itself the cause of the failure of La Fayette's projects : he had an- nounced a review, which the court prevented by its influence with the royalist officers. The FRENCH REVOLUTION. 285 grenadiers and the chasseurs, select corps, which were still better disposed than the others, were to meet before his house, and from thence to march against the clubs ; but not more than thirty men made their appear- ance. Having thus vainly attempted to rally in the cause of the constitutional and of the general security, the court and the national guard, and finding himself deserted by all those whom he came to succour, La Fayette returned to the army, after losing all the re- mains which had been left him of popularity and influence. This effort was the last sign of life on the part of the constitutional party. The assembly then naturally returned to the consideration of the state of France, which had not changed. The extraordinary com- mission of twelve, presented through Pastoret a very discouraging picture of the state and the divisions of parties. Jean Debry, in the name of the same commission, proposed to announce, for the sake of maintaining tran- quillity in the public mind, which was ex- tremely agitated, that the assembly should declare the moment when the crisis became imminent, by the words " Our country is in danger /" and that then measures for the pub- 28G HISTORY OF THE lie safety should be adopted. The discussion opened by the consideration of this important proposition. Vergniaud, in a speech which produced a great effect on the assembly, painted all the dangers to which, at that mo- ment, the country was exposed. He stated that it was in the name of the king that the emigrants were assembled, that the sove- reigns were leagued, that foreign armies were marching on our frontiers, and that our inter- nal disturbances took place. He accused him of weakening the national energy by his refusals, and of thus delivering up France to the coalition. He quoted that article of the constitution which declared that if the king placed himself at the head of an army and directed its forces against the nation, or if he did not oppose any similar enterprise which should be attempted in his name, he should be regarded as having abdicated the monarchy. He then supposed that Louis XVJ should have volun- tarily opposed the true means of defending the country, and " In this case," said he, " should we not have a right to say to him : O king ! who doubtless didst believe, like the tyrant Lysander, that truth is no better than a lie, and that men were to be amused FRENCH REVOLUTION. 287 with oaths as children are amused with play- things ; you who have only feigned a love of the laws, in order to maintain the power of braving them ; and love of the constitution, lest you should have been hurried from the throne, where you wish to remain only to destroy it ; do you think now to deceive us by any more of your hypocritical protesta- tions ? Do you think to flatter us with forget- fulness of our misfortunes by your artificial excuses ? Was it in order to defend us that you opposed foreign soldiers by troops whose inferiority did not leave a chance of doubt as to their defeat ? Was it to defend us that you rejected all the propositions for fortifying the interior ? Was it for our defence that you countenanced the act of a general who vio- lated the constitution, and chilled the courage of those who served it ? Did the constitution leave you the choice of your ministers for our happiness, or for our ruin ? Did it appoint you the head of our armies for our glory, or our shame? Did she leave you, in short, the right of sanctioning measures, a civil list, and so many prerogatives, in order that you might constitutionally ruin the constitution and the empire ? No, no ! Man, whom the generosity 288 HISTORY OF THE of Frenchmen has been unable to touch, and whom love of despotism alone can warm- — you are no longer any part of that consti- tution you have so unworthily violated — of that people you have so unworthily be- trayed!" In the situation of the Girondist party, it no longer counted on anything but the de- position of the king. Vergniaud, indeed, expressed himself as yet but in the language of supposition ; but all the popular party as- cribed to Louis XVI in reality the projects which, in the mouth of Vergniaud, were only assumptions. A few days afterwards, Brissot expressed himself still more plainly: "The dangers which surround us," said he, " are the most extraordinary which have been known in past ages. Our country is in danger, not for want of troops, not because these troops want courage, because her frontiers are ill fortified, and her resources scanty — No ! she is in dan- ger because her forces are paralyzed. And who has paralyzed them? A single individual ; the very man whom the constitution raised into its chief, and whom perfidious advisers have rendered its enemy! You have been told to dread the kings of Hungary and Prussia FRENCH REVOLUTION. ' 289 — I tell you that the main strength of these sovereigns is in our own court ; there it is that they must be first conquered. You have been told to give a blow to the refractory priests without the realm — but I tell you that a blow aimed at the Tuileries will reach at once all these priests. You have been told to attack all intriguers, all conspirators, and all the factious — I tell you that all these will disappear, if vengeance reach them through the Tuileries ; for that cabinet is the point to which all their machinations tend, where all their plots are concocted, and from whence all impulses spring ! The nation is the puppet of this cabinet. This is the secret of our situ- ation and the source of our evils ; and there it is to 'which the remedy must be applied." The Gironde in this manner prepared the assembly- for the question of deposal. But the great question relative to the dangers of the country was previously decided on. The three united committees declared that it was then time to take measures for the public safety, and the assembly then proclaimed the solemn formula, "Citizens, the country is in danger /" Upon this all the civil authorities immediately placed themselves in a state of vol* r. u 290 HISTORY OF THE permanent surveillance ; all the citizens fit to bear arms, and who had already performed the functions of national guards, were put on active service ; every one was called on to de- clare what arms and ammunition he had in his possession ; pikes were given to those who could not carry guns ; battalions of volunteers were enrolled in the public squares, in the midst of which banners were planted, bearing the words "Citizens, the country is in danger!" and a camp was formed at Soissons. All these measures of defence, now become in- dispensable, carried to its height the excita- tion of the revolutionary frenzy. An oppor- tunity of remarking it was afforded by the anniversary of the 14th July, during which the sentiments of the multitude and of the federates of the departments burst forth with- out disguise. Petion was the object of the popular idolatry, and bore away all the ho- nours of the federation. A few days previous, he had been dismissed from his place, on ac- count of his conduct on the 20th June, by the directory of the department and by the council; but the assembly had restored him to his func- tions, and the sole cry uttered on the day of the federation was "Petion or death!" A few FRENCH REVOLUTION. 291 battalions of the national guard, such for ex- ample as that of the Filles St. Thomas, having still discovered some attachment to the court, became the objects of popular distrust and resentment. A dispute was fomented in the Champs Elysees, between the grenadiers of the Filles St. Thomas and the federates of Marseilles, in which several grenadiers were wounded. The crisis rose higher every day ; the war party could no longer endure that of the constitution. The attacks on La Fayette grew more numerous ; he was pursued by the journalists and denounced in the assembly. At length, hostilities commenced ; the club of the Feuillants was closed ; the companies of the grenadiers and chasseurs of the national guard, who were the support of the middling class, were broken ; the troops of the line and the Swiss soldiers were removed from Paris, and the catastrophe of the 10th Au- gust was openly preparing. The march of the Prussians, and the mani- festo of Brunswick, contributed to hasten this movement. Prussia had united with Austria and the German princes against France, This coalition, which was joined by the court of Turin, was formidable, though it 292 HISTORY OF THE did not include all the powers which at first had signified an intention of joining it. The death of Gustavus, who had been named to the chief command of the army of invasion, had detached Sweden from it ; the appoint- ment of the count d'Aranda, a man of pru- dence and moderation, as Spanish minister, in the room of the marquis of Blanca-Florida, had prevented Spain from entering into the league ; and Russia and England, though they secretly approved the attacks of the Eu- ropean coalition, had not yet co-operated in them. After the military events, of which an account has been given, there was rather a system of mutual observation adopted than of warfare. During this time, La Fayette had accustomed his army to habits of disci- pline and devotion to the service ; and Du- mouriez, placed under Luckner at the camp of Maulde, had trained for action the troops intrusted to him, by slight skirmishes and daily successes. They had thus formed the basis of a good army, a thing rendered abso- lutely necessary by the need of organization and confidence required to repel the ap- proaching invasion of the confederates. The duke of Brunswick conducted it. He FRENCH REVOLUTION. 293 had the entire command of the hostile army, composed of seventy thousand Prussians, and sixty-eight thousand Austrians, Hessians, and emigrants. The following was the plan of invasion : — The duke of Brunswick was to pass the Rhine at Coblentz with the Prus- sians, march up the left bank of the Moselle, attack the frontier of France in its central point, as being most accessible, and advance to the capital by Longwy, Verdun, and Chalons. The prince of Hohenlohe was to pursue operations on his left, in the direction of Metz and Thionville, with the Hessians and corps of emigrants; while general Clairfait was to cover his right with the Austrians and another corps of emigrants ; he was then to overthrow La Fayette, who was placed be- tween Sedan and Mezieres, to cross the Meuse, and march by Rheims and Soissons upon Paris. In this manner the enemy was to ad- vance concentrically on the capital from the middle and the two sides — from the Moselle, from the Rhine, and from the Low Countries. Other bodies of the army, placed on the Rhenish frontier, and on that of the extreme north, were, by attacking our troops on these sides, to facilitate the central invasion. 294 HISTORY OF THE On the 25th July, the day on which the army first put itself into motion, and left Coblentz, the duke of Brunswick published a manifesto in the name of the emperor and the king of Prussia. He reproached those ivfw had usurped the reins of administration in France with having troubled its good order, and overthrown its legitimate government ; with having been guilty of attempts against the king's person and family, and of violence daily renewed ; with having arbitrarily with- held the rights and possessions of the German princes in Alsace and Lorraine ; and, lastly, with having crowned that measure by de- claring an unjust war against his majesty the emperor, and by attacking his provinces in the Low Countries. He declared, that the allied sovereigns had taken up arms in order to put an end to anarchy in France, to arrest the attacks upon the altar and the throne, to render to the king the security and the liberty of which he had been deprived, and to put him in a situation for exercising his legitimate authority. In consequence, he declared the national guards and the authorities responsible for all these disorders, until the arrival of the troops of the coalition. He summoned them FRENCH REVOLUTION. 295 to return to their ancient fidelity. He said that the inhabitants of the towns which ven- tured to defend themselves should be punished immediately as rebels, according to the rigour of war, and their houses demolished or burnt: that if the city of Paris did not restore the king to his full liberty, or refused him the respect due to his rank, it would be upon the heads of, — and the combined princes would render personally responsible for such fail- ure, to be judged by military law, and without hope of pardon, — all the members of the national assembly, of the department, of the district, of the municipality, and of the national guard ; that if the palace were forced or insulted, the princes would take an exem- plary and memorable vengeance, by giving up Paris to plunder and to total destruction. He promised, on the contrary, that he would engage to employ the good offices of the confederate princes with Louis XVI in fa- vour of the inhabitants of Paris, and obtain for them the pardon of their errors and offences, if they promptly obeyed the orders of the coalition. This violent and impolitic manifesto, which disguised neither the designs of the emigrants nor those of Europe ; which spoke of a great \ 29G HISTORY OF THE people with a tone of contempt and in a style of command altogether extraordinary ; which threatened it openly with all the miseries of an invasion, and above all with despotism and vengeance, roused the spirit of the whole nation. This more than anything else has- tened the fall of the throne, and opposed the success of the. coalition. There was but one wish, one cry of resistance, from one end of \ France to the other ; "and whoever had not joined in it would have been regarded as guilty of impiety towards his country and the sacred cause of its independence. The popular party, which was thus forced, as it were, to triumph, saw no other means than that of an- nulling the monarchy, and in order to annul it, to depose the king. But every individual in the party wished to arrive at this end in his own way : the Gironde, by a decree of the as- sembly ; the chiefs of the multitude, by insur- rection. Dan ton, Robespierre, Camille-Des- moulins, Fabre d'Eglantine, Marat, &c. formed a displaced faction, who wanted a revolution which should carry them from the midst of the people into the assembly and the munici- pality. They were, besides, the real chiefs of the new movement which was about to arise, through the means of the lower class FRENCH REVOLUTION. 297 of society, against the middle class, to which the Girondists belonged, both by their situa- tion and by their habits. A division began from this time betwixt those who only wished to abolish the court in the actual state of things, and those who wished to introduce the multitude in place of it. The latter did not relish the delays of a discussion. Agitated with all the revolu- tionary frenzy, they made ready for an attack, for which the preparations had been openly made a long time previously. Their enterprise was several times projected and suspended. On the 26th July an insur- rection was to have broken out ; but it was ill contrived, and Petion prevented it. When the Marseillois federates arrived to join the camp at Soissons, the inhabitants of the fau- bourgs were to meet them, and all were to march suddenly upon the palace. This insur- rection also failed. The arrival of the Mar- seillois however encouraged the disturbance of the capital, and conferences were held between them and the federate chiefs at Charenton for the overthrow of the throne. The divisions of the city were in a state of great agitation : that of Mauconseil was the first which declared 298 HISTORY OF THE itself in a state of insurrection, and it caused this fact to be notified to the assembly. The dethronement of the king was discussed in the clubs, and on the 3rd August Petion the mayor came to demand it of the legislative body, in the name of the commune and the sections. The petition was referred to the extraordinary committee of twelve. On the 8th the question was discussed whether La Fayette should be accused : but some remains of courage were left in the assembly, the majority of which sustained his cause with warmth, and not without some danger to themselves. He was acquitted : but all those who had given their votes for him were hissed, pursued, and mal- treated by the populace, on leaving the hall. The following day the general effervescence was extreme. The constitutionals complained of the excesses of the previous night : they insisted that the federates should be sent to Soissons, and that measures should be adopted to secure the tranquillity of Paris, and the freedom of their deliberations. The Girondists defended the federates. While this was pass- ing, news arrived that the section of the Quinze-Vingts had declared that if the reso- lution of dethronement were not pronounced FRENCH REVOLUTION. 299 that very day, the tocsin should be sounded at midnight, the drums should beat the generate, and the palace should be attacked. This determination had been transmitted to all the forty-eight sections, and had been approved of by all, with the exception of one only. The assembly summoned the procura- tor syndic of the department, who stated that he had all the good-will that could be desired, but that he wanted power ; and the mayor, who replied that at a moment when the sec- tions had resumed their sovereignty, he could exercise no influence over the people but that of persuasion. The assembly then separated without having resolved upon any measure. The insurgents fixed the day for the attack on the palace for the 10th August. The chief place of assembling was in the faubourg St. Antoine. In the evening, after a very stormy meeting, the Jacobins proceeded thi- ther in a body : and the insurrection was then organised. It was determined to annul the department : to dismiss Petion, in order to free him from the duties of his place and from all responsibility : and, lastly, to replace the general council of the commune by an insur- rectionary municipality. The agitators went 300 HISTORY OF THE at the same time through all the sections of the faubourgs and into all the barracks of the Breton and Marseillois federates. The court had been for some time apprised of the danger, and had put itself into a state of defence. Perhaps at this moment the king thought he might not only make a resis- tance but even re-establish himself entirely. The interior of the palace was occupied by the Swiss guards, to the number of eight or nine hundred : by officers of the disbanded guard, and by a troop of gentlemen and royal- ists, who had assembled there armed with pistols, sabres, and swords. The commander of the national guard Mandat had marched to the palace with his staff to defend it ; and had given orders to the battalions the most attached to the constitution to take arms. The ministers were also with the king: the syndic of the department had gone thither, and Petion had been sent for to inform the court of the state of Paris, to obtain his au- thority for repelling force by force, and for the sake of keeping him as a hostage. At midnight a shot was heard, the tocsins sounded, the generale was beat, the insurgents assembled and ranged themselves : the mem- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 301 bers of the sections annulled the municipality, and named a provisional council for the com- mune, which went off to the H6tel-de-Ville to direct the insurrection. On the other side the battalions of the national guard marched up to the palace, and were placed in the courts and at the principal posts, with the gendar- merie on horseback, while the Swiss guards and the volunteers guarded the apartments. The palace was defended in the best manner. In the mean time several deputies, awakened by the tocsin, had hastened to the hall of the legislative body, and had opened a discussion at which Vergniaud presided. Upon hearing that Petion was detained at the Tuileries, and that he wished to be dismissed, they sum- moned him to the bar of the assembly to give an account of the state of Paris. On receiv- ing that order, he was released at the palace : he appeared before the assembly, who restored him to his functions : but he had scarcely reached the H6tel-de-Ville, when he was put under the guard of three hundred men, by order of the new commune. The latter, who wished for no other authority, in such a day of disorder, than the insurrectionary authori- ties, sent for the commandant Mandat to give 302 HISTORY OF THE an account of the preparations at the palace. Mandat hesitated to obey, but not knowing that the municipality was changed, and his duty binding him to obey its. orders, he set out for the H6tel-de-Ville. On entering, he saw new faces, and he grew pale. He was then accused of having authorized the troops to fire on the people ; he hesitated, was sent to the Abbey, and, as he left the hall, the mul- titude assassinated him on the steps of the H6tel-de-Ville. The commune then gave the command of the national guard to Santerre. The court thus found itself deprived of its most resolute and influential defender. The presence of Mandat, and the order he had re- ceived to employ force in case of need, were necessary to induce the national guard to fight. The sight of the nobles and the royalists had greatly cooled their enthusiasm. Mandat himself, before his departure, had entreated the queen to dismiss that troop, which was regarded as a troop of aristocrats : but she replied with asperity — " These gentlemen are come to defend us, and we count upon them." A division had already arisen among the de- fenders of the palace, when Louis XVI re- viewed them at five o'clock in the morning. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 303 He first went over the soldiers at the interior posts, all of whom were animated with the liveliest zeal : he was followed by madame Elizabeth, the dauphin, and the queen, whose Austrian lip and eagle nose, which were fuller than usual, gave her an air of great majesty. The king was very melancholy : "I will not," said he, " separate my cause from that of my good citizens, we will save ourselves or perish to- gether." He next descended into the courts followed by some general officers. As soon as he arrived, the troops began to move ; the cry of Vive le roi ! was heard, and was repeated by the national guard ; to which the artillery and the battalion of the Red-Cross replied by a shout of Vive la nation ! At the same mo- ment arrived two new battalions, armed with guns and pikes, who, as they filed off before the king to take their station on the terrace of the Seine, cried out, Vive la nation ! Vive Petion! The king continued the review, not without being affected by this sad omen. He was received with the strongest demon- strations of attachment by the battalions of the Filles St. Thomas, and of the Petits Peres, who occupied the terrace which runs along the palace wall. While he was cros- 304 HISTORY OF THE sing the garden to visit the posts of the Pont- Tournant, the battalions with pikes pursued him with the cry of — " Down with the veto! Down with the traitor f and when he returned, they quitted their position, placed themselves near the Pont-Royal, and pointed their guns against the palace. Two other battalions posted in the courts followed their example, and placed themselves on the square of the Carrousel in a menacing attitude. The king on his return to the palace was pale and cast down; and the queen said, "All is over: that kind of review has done more harm than good." While all this was passing at the Tuileries, the insurgents were advancing in several co- lumns : they had passed the whole night in uniting and organizing their forces. In the morning they forced the arsenal and distri- buted the arms among themselves. The co- lumn of the faubourg St. Antoine, which was about fifteen thousand strong, and that of the faubourg St. Marceau, consisting of about five thousand, had begun their march at five in the morning. The crowd increased on its passage. A troop had been placed by the directory of the department on the Pont- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 305 Neuf, in order to prevent the junction of the assailants from the two sides of the river : but the commune ordered it to quit that post, and the passage of the bridge was now free. The advanced guard of the faubourgs, com- posed of the Marseiilois and Breton federates, had already issued from the Rue St. Honored, had ranged itself in battle array on the Place du Carrousel, and pointed its cannon against the palace. It was at this moment that the procurator syndic, Rcederer, who had not quitted the Tuileries during the whole night, presented himself to them, and stated that it was impossible that such a multitude could have access to the king, or to the national assembly ; and recommended them to name twenty deputies, and charge them with their demands : but to this suggestion they refused to listen. He then addressed the national troops, and read to them the article of the law which enjoined them in case of attack to repel force by force : but a very small portion only of the national guard appeared disposed to this, and the gunners made no reply but by discharging their cannon. Rcederer, seeing that the insurgents were everywhere success- ful, that they were masters of the commune, vol. r. x 306 HISTORY OF THE that they disposed of the multitude and even of the troops, returned in all haste to the palace, at the head of the executive direc- tory. The king was holding a council with the queen and ministers. A municipal officer had just spread an alarm, by stating that the co- lumns of the insurgents were approaching the Tuileries. " Well — and what do they want ?" said Joly, the keeper of the seals. " The de- thronement of the king," replied the officer. " Let the assembly pronounce the vote then," added the minister. ' ' But after the dethrone- ment," said the queen, "what is to happen?" The municipal officer bowed, without answer- ing. At the same moment Rcederer entered, who augmented the consternation of the court by announcing that the danger was extreme ; that the bands of the insurgents were intrac- table ; that the national guard was not to be trusted, and that the royal family would ex- pose itself to infallible ruin, if the members of it did not place themselves in the midst of the legislative assembly. The queen at first re- jected this advice with the utmost scorn. " I would rather," said she, " be nailed to the walls of this palace than leave it." Then FRENCH REVOLUTION. 307 addressing herself to the king, and presenting him with a pistol: "There, sir," said she, " now is the moment to show your courage." The king remained silent. " You wish then, madam," added Roederer, " to render your- self responsible for the death of the king, of yourself, of your children, and of all who are now assembled in this palace to defend you." These words decided the king : he arose to go to the assembly, and the queen followed him : in departing, he said to the ministers and to the defenders of the palace, — ■" Gentlemen, there is no longer anything to be done here." Ac- companied by his family and some persons belonging to his household, Louis XVI cros- sed the garden of the Tuileries in the midst of two lines of Swiss guards and battalions of the Filles Saint Thomas and Petits Peres ; but, when he arrived at the gate of the Feuil- lants, an immense multitude crowded the passage, and refused to give way before him* His escort had much trouble in conducting him to the hall of the assembly, where he ar- rived amidst the abuse, threats, and vocife- rations of the multitude. A justice of peace* who preceded the king, came to announce his arrival to the legislative 308 HISTORY OF THE body, which was deliberating at this moment on the propriety of despatching a deputation to the palace. The members who sat nearest the door immediately went out to receive Louis XVI. "Gentlemen," said the king, on entering the hall ; " I am come among you to prevent the commission of a great crime. I shall always consider myself and my family in safety while we are in the midst of you. " — " Sire," replied Vergniaud, who was in the chair; "you may rely upon the firmness of the national as- sembly : its members have sworn to die in support of the rights of the people and of the constituted authorities." The king then took a seat by the side of the president. But Chabot recollecting that the assembly could not deliberate in presence of the king, Louis XVI passed with his family and his ministers into the box of the reporters of the assembly, which was behind the president, and from whence all that passed could be seen and heard. After the departure of the king, all motives to resistance had ceased. Besides, the means of defence themselves had diminished with the departure of three hundred Swiss, and three hundred national guards, who had FRENCH REVOLUTION. 309 escorted Louis XVI. The gendarmes had quitted their posts amidst cries of Vive la na- tion/ The national guard was disposed to take part with the assailants : but the enemy was in sight ; and though the cause of com- bat existed no longer, the combat itself did not the less take place. The columns of the insurgents surrounded the palace. The Mar- seillois and the Bretons, who occupied the first line, had forced the royal gate of the Carrousel, and penetrated into the courts of the castle. They had at their head an old soldier named Westermann, a verv courageous and resolute man, and the friend of Dan ton. He ranged his troop in the order of battle and advanced towards the artillery, who, at his desire, joined the Marseillois with their can- non. The Swiss guard stood at the windows of the palace in motionless attitudes. The two troops stood for some time eyeing each other, without beginning the attack. Some of the assailants even advanced in token of brotherhood, and the Swiss guards threw cartridges from the windows in sign of peace. They even penetrated to the vestibule, where they found other defenders of the palace : a barrier separated the parties. There it was 310 HISTORY OF THE that the combat began ; but it is impossible to say on which side the aggression was first offered. The Swiss guards then opened a destructive fire upon the insurgents, who soon dispersed. The square of the Carrousel was soon cleared. But the Marseillois and the Bretons speedily returned with renewed force : the Swiss guards were cannonaded and sur- rounded ; and after holding out as long as they could, they were defeated, pursued, arid exterminated. It was no longer a combat, but a massacre ; and, in the palace, the mul- titude gave themselves up to all the excesses of victory. The assembly was during this time in a state of lively alarm. The first reports of the cannon had spread consternation among them. As the discharges of artillery grew more fre- quent, their agitation redoubled. At one moment the members of the assembly gave themselves up for lost. An officer entered the hall precipitately, crying out, " To your places, legislators ! the hall is forced." Some deputies rose up to leave the assembly. *' No no," cried the others ; " this is our post." The tribunes then shouted, " The national assem- bly for ever!" and the assembly returned the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 311 shout by crying, " The nation for ever /" At last shouts were heard without of " Victory ! victo- ry!" and the fate of the monarchy was decided. The assembly immediately issued a pro- clamation for the purpose of restoring tran- quillity, and conjuring the people to respect justice, their magistrates, the rights of man, liberty and equality. But the multitude and its chiefs had the entire power, and were determined to exert it. The new municipa- lity presented itself to the assembly, claiming the recognition of its powers. It was pre- ceded by three banners, on which were in- scribed the words, " Our Country — Liberty — and Equality." The harangue of its members was imperious, and concluded by demanding the dethronement of the king, and a national convention. Deputations succeeded each other, and all expressed the same wish, or rather, to use a more appropriate phrase, they all communicated the same order. The assembly found itself constrained to yield. Nevertheless, it was reluctant to take upon itself the dethronement of the king. Verg- niaud mounted the tribune in the name of the Committee of Twelve, and said : " I come to propose to you a very rigorous measure ; but 312 HISTORY OF THE T leave you to judge how important it is that you should immediately adopt it." This measure consisted in the convocation of a national convention ; in the dismissal of the ministers, and the suspension of the king's authori y. The assembly adopted it unani- mously. The Girondist ministers were re- called ; the famous decrees were put in force; and commissaries were sent to the army to ensure their fidelity. Louis XVI, to whom the assembly had at first assigned the Luxembourg as a residence, was now transferred to the Temple, as a prisoner, by the all-powerful commune, under the pretext, that it was impossible, without taking such a step, to be sure of his person. At length, the 23d September was fixed for the opening of the extraordinary sitting, which was to decide the fate of the monarchy. But the latter had in fact ceased on the 10th August, —on that' day which witnessed the insurrec- tion of the mob against the middle classes and the constitutional monarchy; just as, on the 14th July, that of the middle classes abolished the privileged orders and the absolute power of the crown. The 10th August witnessed the first commencement of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 313 the dictatorial and absolute power of the revolution. As circumstances became more and more difficult, there arose a great strug- gle, which required an increased energy; and that energy misdirected, because popular, rendered the dominion of the lower classes uneasy, oppressive, and cruel. The question then changed its nature altogether ; it had no longer for its end general liberty, but the public safety ; and the conventional period, from the end of the constitution of 1791, till the time when the constitution of the year 3 established the directory, was only a long campaign of the revolution against parties, and against Europe. It was scarcely possible that it should have been otherwise. " The revo- lutionary movement once established," says M. de Maistre,* " France and the monarchy could only have been saved by jacobinism. — • Our posterity, who will be sufficiently indif- ferent about our sufferings, and who will dance upon our graves, will laugh at our ig- norance ; they will easily console themselves for the excesses which we have witnessed, * Considerations on France. 314 HISTORY OF THE and which have preserved the integrity of this line kingdom." The departments approved of the events of the 10th August. The army, which was always somewhat slower to feel the influence of the revolution, was still royalist and con- stitutional ; nevertheless, as the troops were subordinate to the parties, they would neces- sarily submit without difficulty to the prevail- ing opinion. The generals of the second rank, such as Dumouriez, Custines, baron Keller- mann, and Labourdonnaie, were disposed to approve the recent changes. They had not yet taken any side, but they thought a revolu- tion of this kind would procure them advance- ment. It was not thus with the generals in chief. Luckner was undecided, between the insurrection of the 12th August, (which he styled a little accident which had occurred at Paris,) and his friend La Fayette. The latter, the chief of the constitutional party, attached to his oath in the minutest points, wished still to defend the fallen monarchy, and a consti- tution which no longer existed. He was at the head of thirty thousand men, who were attached to his cause and to his person. His FRENCH REVOLUTION. 315 head-quarters were near Sedan. In his plans of resistance in favour of the constitution, he joined the municipality of that town, and the directory of the department of Ardennes, in order to establish a civil centre, round which all the departments might rally. The three commissaries, Kersaint, Antonnelle, and Pe- raldy, sent by the legislative to his army, were arrested and imprisoned in the tower of SMan. The motive assigned for that measure was, that the assembly, having been made to act upon compulsion, the members who had accepted such a mission could only be the chiefs or the instru- ments of the faction which had subjugated the national assembly and the king. The troops and the civil authorities afterwards renewed their oath of fidelitv to the constitution, and La Fayette endeavoured to widen the circle of the insurrection of the army against the po- pular insurrection. Perhaps at this moment general La Fayette thought too much of the past, of the law, and of the oaths which had been generally taken, and not enough of the truly singular situation in which France then stood. He saw only the dearest hopes of the friends of liberty de- stroyed, the invasion of the state by the mul- 3 1 6 HISTORY OF THE titude, and the Jacobin reign of anarchy ; but he did not see the fatality of a situation which rendered indispensable the triumph of these last comers of the revolution. It was scarcely possible that the middle class, which had shown itself strong enough to throw down the monarchy, and vanquish the privileged classes, but which had reposed since that victory, could repel the emigrants and the whole of Europe. For this a new movement — a new faith, were required : there was wanting a class, nume- rous, fresh, and ardent, which should regard the 10th August with the same enthusiasm as the middle class regarded the 14th July. This class La Fayette could not join ; he had opposed it under the constituent assembly, in the Champ-de-Mars, before and after the 20th June. He could neither continue to act his former part, nor defend the existence of a party, which had justice on its side, though events were against it, without compromising the fate of his country, and the results of a revolution, to which he was so sincerely at- tached. His resistance, if farther prolonged, would have produced a civil war between the army and the people, at a moment when it was not clear that their united efforts would FRENCH REVOLUTION. 317 be sufficient to withstand the invasion of foreign powers. It was now the 19th August, and the army of invasion, which had left Coblentz on the 30th July, marched up the Moselle, and ad- vanced upon that frontier. The troops were disposed, in consideration of the general dan- ger, to return to their obedience to the national assembly ; Luckner, who had at first approved of the conduct of La Fayette, now retracted with tears and oaths before the munici- pality of Mentz ; and La Fayette himself felt that he must yield to a destiny too powerful to be resisted. He quitted his army, taking upon himself the whole responsibility of that insur- rection. ' He was accompanied by Bureau de Pusy, Latour-Maubourg, Alexander Lameth, and several officers of his staff. He directed his steps across the enemy's posts towards Holland, proposing from thence to proceed to the United States, his second country ; but he was discovered by the Austrians and arrested, together with his companions. In violation of all the rights of nations, he was treated as a prisoner of war, and shut up in the prisons of Magdeburg and Olmutz. During four years of the severest captivity, suffering all kinds of 318 HISTORY OF THE privations, ignorant of the fate of liberty, and of his country, and having before him only a long and discouraging prospect of imprison- ment, he displayed the most heroic courage. He was offered his liberty at the price of a few retractions, but he preferred remaining buried in his dungeon, to abandoning, in any one point, the sacred cause which he had embraced. The lives of few, in our time, have been as pure as that of La Fayette ; few characters have been loftier, few popular persons have better deserved, or longer preserved public esteem. After having fought for liberty in America, by the side of Washington, he wished to establish it as he had 'done in France ; but this grand part could not be acted in our revolution. When a nation seeks its liberty, without being troubled by internal dissensions, and when it has only foreigners for its enemies, it may find a deliverer, and may produce, in Switzerland a William Tell, in the Low Countries, a prince of Orange, or in America, a Washington ; but when a peo- ple pursues liberty in spite of some among itself, and opposed by others, amidst factions ; such a people can only produce Cromwells or FRENCH REVOLUTION. 319 Bonapartes, who rise into the dictators of revolutions, after the struggles and exhaustion of parties. La Fayette was the general of the middle ranks, whether at the head of the national guard, under the constituent assem- bly, or at that of the army, under the legisla- tive assembly, He was raised by this class, and with this his part was to end. It must be said of him, that, though he may have com- mitted some errors, he never had but one object — liberty ; and never employed but one means of attaining it — the law. The manner in which, while still young, he devoted himself to the deliverance of both worlds, his glorious conduct, and his invariable constancy, will cause him to be honoured by posterity, in the eyes of which, no man, as in party-times, has two reputations, but must depend upon his own. The actors in the scenes of the 10th August were daily more and more divided, and could not agree upon the results which that revolu- tion was to have. That audacious party which had seized upon the commune, desired through the commune to govern Paris; by means of Paris, the national assembly; and, through the assembly, France. After having obtained the 320 HISTORY OF THE removal of Louis XVI to the Temple, this party ordered the demolition of all the statues of our kings, and of all the emblems of royalty. The department had formerly exercised a check over the municipality : this was abro- gated in order to render the latter independent ; the law exacted certain conditions to qualify for an active citizen, which the party abolished by a decree, in order that the multitude might be introduced into the government of the state. It demanded, at the same time, the establish- ment of an extraordinary tribunal, to try the conspiratoi^s of the 10th August. As the assem- bly did not seem sufficiently pliant, but endea- voured by its proclamations to recall the people to more just and moderate sentiments, it received from the Hdtel-de-Ville messages of the most threatening description. "Asa citizen," said a member of the commune, " and as a magistrate of the people, I come to announce to you, that this night, at midnight, the tocsin shall sound, and the generate shall be beaten. The people are tired of remaining unavenged ; dread, lest they rise to avenge themselves!" — " If before three or four hours," said another, " the foreman of the jury be not named, if the jury be not in readiness to act, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 321 the most fearful consequences await Paris." To avoid these new disasters, the assembly was compelled to appoint an extraordinary criminal tribunal. This tribunal condemned a few persons ; but it appeared too slow for the wishes of the commune, who had con- ceived the most terrible projects. The commune had at its head Marat, Panis, Sergent, Duplain, Lenfant, Lefort, Jourdeuil, Collot-d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Tallien, &c. : but the principal head of the party was at that time Danton, who more than any other had co-operated in the events of the 10th August. During the whole of that night, he had been running from the sections to the barracks of the Marseillois and the Bretons, and from thence to the faubourgs. He had directed the operations of the revolutionary commune as one of its members, and had been afterwards appointed a member for the administration of justice. Danton was a revolutionist of the most vio- lent kind. No means appeared to him wrong, provided they were useful; and, according to his creed, all that was possible was lawful. Danton, who has been styled the Mirabeau of the populace, bore some resemblance to that VOL. i. y 322 HISTORY OF THE tribune of the higher orders ; he had marked features, a strong voice, impetuous gestures, a bold style of eloquence, and a commanding manner. Their vices were the same : but those of Mirabeau were the vices of a patri- cian, those of Danton of a democrat : what was bold in the conceptions of Mirabeau might be traced in Danton, but bearing a dif- ferent character, as belonging to a different class and period of the revolution. Over- whelmed with debts and harassed by wants, of an ardent temperament, of licentious mo- rals, and abandoning himself by turns to his passions or his party, he was formidable in his politics when the question was how to ar- rive at his end, but he became indifferent as soon as it was attained. This powerful dema- gogue presented a mixture of discordant vices and qualities. Though he had sold himself to the court, he was not mercenary : for there are characters which can elevate even a mean action. He was an exterminator without ferocity ; inexorable with regard to the mass, but humane and even generous towards indi- viduals.* A revolution was to him a game, * At the time when the commune was meditating the mas- sacres of the 2nd September, he saved all who came to him : and of his own accord he discharged from prison, Duport, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 323 in which the conqueror, if he desired it, gained the life of the vanquished. The welfare of his party in his eyes went before the law — even before humanity : this explains his attempts after the 10th August, and his return to mo- derate measures when he believed the repub- lic firmly established. At this period the Prussians, advancing in the order of invasion which has been already mentioned, crossed the frontier, after a march of twenty days. The army of Sedan was without a leader, and unable to cope with forces so superior and so well organized. On the 20th August, Longwy was surrounded by the Prussians ; on the 21st it was bombarded, and on the 24th it capitulated. On the 30th the enemy arrived before Verdun, surrounded it, and commenced the bombardment. In case of the capture of Verdun, the road to the capi- tal lay open. The taking of Longwy and the near approach of so much danger, threw Paris into a state of the greatest agitation and alarm. The executive council, composed of the minis- ters, was called to the committee for the gene- ral defence, to deliberate on the best measures to be taken in so perilous a conjuncture. Bamave and Ch. Lametl), who were in some shape his per- sonal antagonists. 324 HISTORY OF THE Some voted for waiting until the enemy should appear under the walls of the capital : others proposed to retire to Saumur. " You know," said Danton, when his turn came to speak, " that France lies in Paris : if you abandon the capital to our invaders, you give up your- selves, and you give up France to them. It is in Paris that we must maintain our position, by all the means that can be devised ; I cannot consent to the plan which proposes to remove you from it. The second project seems to me equally unadvisable. It is impossible to think of fighting under the walls of the capital : the 10th August has divided France into two par- ties, of which the one is attached to monarchy, while the other desires a republic. The latter of which, it is useless to dissemble, the mino- rity in the state, is the only one on which you can depend when we come to the combat. The other will refuse to march ; it will agitate Paris in favour of the foreigners, while your defenders, placed betwixt two fires, are losing their lives in repelling tfiem. If they fail, as it seems to me certain they will, the loss of France and your ruin are decided : if, contrary to all expectation, they return victors over the coalition, their victory will be a defeat to you ; font will have cost you thousands of brave men, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 325 while the royalists, already more numerous than you, will have lost nothing of their strength or their influence. My advice is, therefore, that in order to disconcert their measures, we must frighten the royalists. "The committee, which understood the sense of these terrible words, was in consternation. " Yes; I repeat," con- tinued Danton, "that we must frighten them." And as the committee seemed by its silence and its affright to reject the proposition, Dan- ton entered into arrangements with the com- mune ; he wished to repress his enemies by means of terror: and, by engaging the multi- tude to render itself his accomplice, to leave the revolution no other hope or refuge but in victory. Domiciliary visits were performed with the most melancholy and imposing ac- companiments : and a great number of persons were imprisoned, on the ground of their rank, their opinions, or their conduct. These un- fortunate persons were mainly selected from the two dissident classes of the clergy and the nobility, who were accused of conspiracy under the legislative assembly. All the citi- zens who were fit to carry arms were enrolled in regiments in the Champ-de-Mars, and were sent off on the 1st September to the 326 HISTORY OF THE frontier. The generate was beaten, the tocsin sounded, and cannons fired : and Danton, presenting- himself to the assembly to detail the measures which had been taken for the preservation of the country, said : " The can- non you hear is not the alarm-gun : it an- nounces our onset upon our enemies. To vanquish them — to lay them prostrate, what is it that we require ? The first qualification is boldness — the second boldness — the third bold- ness.'" The news of the taking of Verdun ar- rived in the night between the 1st and 2nd September : the commune seized that mo- ment when Paris, in alarm, fancied the enemy at the gates, to execute its terrible designs. The cannon was again fired, the tocsin sounded, the barriers were closed, and the massacres began. The prisoners, shut up at the Carmelites, at the Abbey, at La Force, the Conciergerie, &c, were butchered, during three days, by a band of about three hundred murderers, under the orders and in the pay of the com- mune. These men, inspired by a silent fana- ticism, prostituting to the ends of murder the sacred forms of justice, sometimes judges and sometimes executioners, seemed less the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 327 ministers of vengeance than the performers of a labour to be done : they massacred without fury, but without remorse — with all the con- fidence of fanatics, and the obedience of hang- men. If any extraordinary circumstance sometimes touched them, and recalled them to sentiments of humanity, they relented but for a moment, and soon resumed their cruel work. Thus, some victims were saved, but these were few in number. The assembly wished to put a stop to these cruel massacres, but could not. The ministry was as impotent as the assembly : the terrible commune alone was all-powerful, and directed everything. Petion the mayor had been deposed from office. The soldiers who guarded the prisoners dared not resist the murderers, and suffered them to do their work of death : the populace looked on as indifferent spectators or accom- plices, and the rest of the citizens did not even venture to manifest their horror. There would be room for surprise that a crime so enormous and so long in duration should have been conceived, executed, and permitted, if we did not know all that the policy or fanati- cism of parties leads its votaries to commit, and all that fear induces men to support. 328 HISTORY OF THE But the punishment of that fearful outrage was visited upon the heads of its authors. The greater number of them perished in the tempest they had raised, and by the violent means they had employed. It is seldom that party men do not experience the fate which they have made others undergo. The executive council, which was directed as to military measures by general Keller- mann, sentforward the newly raised battalions to the frontier. They had wished to place an able commanding officer on the point chiefly threatened ; but the choice was embarrassing. Among the generals who had declared them- selves in favour of the late political events, Kellermann did not appear fit for a higher command than a secondary one, and the council contented itself with putting him in the place of the undecided and inept Luckner. Custine was but little acquainted with the art of war ; he was an excellent officer for a bold undertaking, but unfit for the command of a great army, on which the destinies of France were to depend. The same reproach, as to military incapacity, was applicable to Biron, to Labourdonnaie, and to others, who were left in their former ranks with the troops FRENCH REVOLUTION. 329 under their command. There remained only Dumouriez, against whom the Girondists still felt some rancour, and whose ambitious views, whose tastes, and character of adventurer, led him to be suspected, even by those who ren- dered ample justice to his superior talents. However, as he was the sole general capable of so important a position, the executive council gave him the command of the army of the Moselle. Dumouriez had hastened from the camp of Maulde to that of Sedan. He assembled a council of war, of which the general opinion was, that it would be advisable to retire towards Chalons or Rheims, and to remain covered by the Marne. Instead of following this dangerous advice, which would have dis- couraged the army, surrendered Lorraine to the enemy, as well as three bishoprics, with a part of Champagne, and laid open the road to Paris, Dumouriez conceived a project wor- thy of a man of genius. He saw that he must, by a bold march, direct his troops upon the forest of Argonne, and that there they would infallibly stop the enemy. That forest had four outlets ; that of Chene Popu- leux on the left, of the Croix aux Bois and 330 HISTORY OF THE Grandpr6 in the centre, and of the Islets on the right, which opened or closed the passage into France. The Prussians were at a dis- tance of six leagues only, and Dumouriez had twelve to get over, as well as his plans of occupation to conceal, before he could seize upon his position. He did this in a very bold and able manner. General Dillon, who directed his corps on the Islets, occupied them with seven thousand men : Dumouriez arrived at Grandpre, and there established a camp of thirteen thousand men : the Croix aux Bois and the Chene Populeux were in like manner taken, and guarded by several troops. On this occasion he wrote to Servan, the minister at war: " Verdun is taken: I wait the arrival of the Prussians. The camp of Grandpre and that of the Islets are the Ther- mopylae of France : but I shall be more fortu- nate than Leonidas" In that position, Dumouriez was able to stop the enemy, and at the same time await the succours which were sent him from all parts of France. The battalions of volun- teers joined the camps pitched in the interior, from which positions they were sent off to join the army of Dumouriez, after having re- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 331 ceived the first elements of organization. At the frontier of Flanders, Beurnonville had re- ceived orders to advance with nine thousand men to join the right wing of the army of Du- mouriez at Rhetel, on the 13th September. Duval, with seven thousand men, was to be at the Chene Populeux on the 7th ; and Keller- raann was on his way from Metz on his right, with twenty-two thousand men to reinforce him. It was only necessary to gain time. The duke of Brunswick, after gaining pos- session of Verdun, passed the Meuse in three columns. General Clairfait commenced opera- tions on his right, and the prince of Hohenlohe on his left. Despairing of forcing Dumouriez to quit his position by attacking him in front, he endeavoured to dislodge him from it by as- sailing him behind. Dumouriez had been so imprudent as to place all his forces at Grand- pr6 and the Islets, and to have left the Chtine Populeux and the Croix aux Bois feebly de- fended, which indeed were much less impor- tant avenues. The Prussians seized them, and were on the point of dislodging him in his camp atGrandpre, and compelling him to surrender. Even after committing that capital error, which annulled the effect of his first manoeuvres, he 332 FRENCH REVOLUTION. did not despair of his situation. He quitted his camp during the night of the 14th Sep- tember, passed the Aisne, from which he might have been prevented by the enemy, made a retreat as able as his march on the Argonne had been, and succeeded in carrying his entire force into the camp of Sainte-Mene- houlde. He had already retarded the inarch of the Prussians on the Argonne; the season as it advanced began to bring bad weather ; he had only to maintain his position until the arrival of Kellermann and Beurnonville, by whom he was to be joined, and the success of the campaign became certain. The troops had become accustomed to action, and the army amounted to seventy thousand men on the arrival of Beurnonville and Kellermann, which took place on the 17th The Prussian army had followed the move- ments of Dumouriez. On the 20th, it attacked Kellermann at Valmy, in order to cut off from the French army the power of retreating upon Chalons. The cannonading commenced warmly on both sides. The Prussians next marched in columns upon the heights of Valmy, in expectation of carrying them. Kellermann also formed his infantry in columns, and gave FRENCH REVOLUTION. 333 them orders not to fire, but to wait for the enemy that they might charge at the point of the bayonet. He gave these orders amidst cries of " Vive la nation ! " and this cry, re- peated from one end of the line to the other, surprised the Prussians still more than the steady aspect of our troops. The duke of Brunswick directed his battalions, which were already in some disorder, to retire : the can- nonading was kept up till evening; the Aus- trians tried a new attack, but were repulsed. The day was gained : and the almost insig- nificant success of Valmy produced on our troops, and throughout France, the effect of the most complete victory. From this period also may be dated the discouragement and retreat of the enemy. The Prussians had engaged in this campaign as if it had been a review, in which light it had been represented to them by the emi- grants. They were unprovided with stores or provisions ; instead of an unprotected country, they found daily a more and more vigorous resistance : the continual rains had laid open the roads, the soldiers marched in mud up to their knees, and for four days to- gether they had no other nourishment than 334 HISTORY OF THE boiled corn. The diseases produced by the muddy water, the want of stores, and the rain, had occasioned the greatest ravages in the army. The duke of Brunswick recom- mended a retreat, against the opinion of the king of Prussia and the emigrants, who wished to risk a battle and seize upon Chalons. But as the fate of the Prussian monarchy de- pended upon his army, and the loss of that army would be rendered certain by its defeat, the advice of the duke of Brunswick pre- vailed. Negociations were opened ; and the Prussians, relaxing from their first demands, no longer contended for any other terms than the re-establishment of the king upon the consti- tutional throne. But the convention had just assembled, the republic had been proclaimed, and the executive council replied, that the French republic could not listen to any proposi- tions until the Prussian troops had entirely quitted the French territories. The Prussians there- fore effected their retreat on the evening of the 30th September, which was feebly op- posed by Kellermann, whom Dumouriez sent in pursuit of them, while he himself advanced to Paris to enjoy his victory and to concert plans for the invasion of Belgium. The French FRENCH REVOLUTION. 335 troops re-entered Verdun and Longwy; and the enemy, after having- traversed the Ar- dennes and Luxembourg, repassed the Rhine at Coblentz towards the end of October. This campaign had been marked by general successes. In Flanders the duke of Saxe- Teschen had been compelled to raise the siege of Lille, after seven days bombard- ment, contrary, for its length and its useless cruelty, to all the usages of war. On the Rhine, Custine had seized upon Treves, Spire, and Mentz : towards the Alps, general Mon- tesquiou had invaded Savoy, and general An- selme the county of Nice. Our armies, victori- ous in all quarters, had everywhere assumed the offensive, and the revolution was saved. If the description of a state which had just arisen from a grand crisis were written, in which it was related that there were in that state an absolute government whose authority had been restrained ; two privileged classes which had lost their supremacy ; an immense popula- tion, which had already freed itself by means of its civilization and its intelligence, but which, having no political rights, was obliged by re- peated refusals to conquer them for itself: if it were added — the government, after op- 336 HISTORY OF THE posing that revolution, has ended by sub- mitting to it, but the privileged classes have constantly opposed it, — the following is the conclusion to which we should come from such data : — ■ The government will have its regrets, the people their distrust, and the privileged orders will attack the new order of things, each in its own way. The nobility not being able to do so from within, on account of its weakness, will emigrate, in order to raise up foreign powers who will make preparations for an attack : the clergy, who would by emigrating lose their means of action, will remain in the country, where they will stir up enemies against the revolution. The people, threat- ened from without, and compromised within, irritated against the emigrants who are arming foreigners to attack the country ; against those foreigners who would attack their indepen- dence, and the clergy who are seeking to rouse up the country, will treat as their enemies at once the clergy, the emigrants, and the foreigners. They will first demand that a careful watch should be held over these re- fractory priests, and next their banishment ; the confiscation of the property of the emi- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 337 grants ; and lastly, war against the coalition of Europe. The first authors of the revolution will condemn such of its measures as violate the law : those, on the contrary, who follow them, will only see in such measures the safety of the country, and discord will break out between those who prefer the constitution to the state, and those who prefer the state to the constitution. The monarch, influenced by his interests as king, his attachments, and his conscience, to reject such a system of policy, will seem to be an accomplice in the counter-revolution, because he will appear to protect it. The revolutionists will then attempt to gain the support of the king by intimidating him, and, failing in this endea- vour, they will overthrow his power. Such was the history of the legislative as- sembly. The internal troubles produced the decree against the priests ; the threats of foreign invasion, that against the emigrants : the coalition of foreign powers, the war against Europe, and the first defeat of our armies, that of the camp of twenty thousand men. The refusal on the part of Louis XVI to sup- port these decrees, caused him to be sus- pected by the Girondists : the divisions vol. r. z 338 HISTORY OF THE between the latter and the constitutionals, the one of which parties wished to be legis- lators as in time of peace, the other enemies as in time of war, disunited the partisans of the revolution. On the part of the Girondists, the question of liberty depended on victory, and victory on the decrees. The 20th of June was an attempt to force the acceptance of them ; but having failed in its effect, they believed it would be necessary either to renounce the re- volution or the throne, which produced the events of the 10th August. Thus, had it not been for the emigration which brought about the war, and the schism which pro- duced the troubles, the king would probably have agreed to the constitution, and the re- volutionists would not have been able to establish a republic. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 339 NATIONAL CONVENTION. CHAPTER VI. First measures of the convention ; manner in which it was composed. — Rivalry of the Girondists and the Mountain- ists ; strength and views of these two parties. — Robes- pierre ; the Girondists accuse him of aiming at the dictator- ship. — Marat. — New accusation against Robespierre by Louvet ; Robespierre's defence ; the convention passes to the order of the day. — The Mountainists, victorious in the struggle, demand the trial of Louis XVI. — Opinions of the parties relative to this. — The convention detennines on the trial of Louis XVI, and that he shall be judged by it. — Louis XVI at the Temple ; his answers in presence of the convention ; his defence ; his condemnation ; his courage and serenity in his last moments ; his qualities and defects as a monarch. The convention was formed on the 20th September 1792, and commenced its deli- berations on the 21st. In its first sitting it abolished royalty and proclaimed the re- public. On the 22nd, it appropriated to it- self the revolution, by declaring that it would 340 HISTORY OF THE no longer date from the fourth year of liberty, but from the first year of the French republic. After taking these first measures, which were voted with acclamation and a sort of rivalry of democracy and enthusiasm between the two parties, who were divided at the close of the legislative assembly, the convention, in- stead of commencing its labours, gave itself up to intestine disputes. The Girondists and the Mountainists, before constituting the new revolution, wished to know to which of their parties it was to belong ; and even the enormous dangers of their situation could not prevent their mutual struggles. They had more than ever to fear the hostile attempts of Europe. One part of the sovereigns having attacked France before the 10th August, there was every reason to believe that the others would declare themselves against her after the fall of the monarchy, the detention of Louis XVI, and the massacres of September. In the interior, the number of enemies of the revolution had augmented. To the partisans of the ancient regime, of the aristocracy, and the clergy, were now joined those of constitu- tional royalty, those to whom the fate of Louis XVI was a subject of lively solicitude, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 341 and those who did not believe that unbounded liberty was practicable, especially under the control of the multitude. Amidst so many obstacles and adversaries, at a moment when even their union would not have proved too strong for their opponents, the Girondists and Mountainists attacked each other with the utmost inveteracy. Indeed the two parties were incompatible, and the junction of their chiefs was hopeless ; so numerous were the causes of discord arising from their rivalry of power and the opposite nature of their designs. The Girondists had been forced by events to be republicans. The station which was most suitable to them was that of constitu- tionals ; the uprightness of their intentions, their dislike of the multitude, their repug- nance to violent measures, and especially the prudence which recommended only the adop- tion of such measures as were possible, all com- bined to rank them in this class ; but it was not allowed them to remain what they had at first declared themselves. They had followed the downward slope which led to the esta- blishment of the republic, and they had by degrees become accustomed to that form of 342 HISTORY OF THE government ; and though they still desired it ardently and sincerely, they severely felt the difficulty of establishing and consolidating it. The thing appeared to them grand and splen- did ; but they saw that the men were wanting. The multitude had neither the intelligence nor the habits fitted to such a mode of ad- ministering the public affairs. The revolution brought about by the constituent assembly was still more legitimate, because it was practicable, rather than because it was just : it had its constitution and its citizens. But a new revolution, which called the lower classes to the government of the state, could not be durable ; it must necessarily affect too many interests, and could only have momen- tary defenders ; for though the lower class might govern and act well for a time, it could not do so always. However, it was on this class that the party ought to have depended in consenting to this second revolution. The Girondists did not do this, and consequently placed themselves altogether in a false posi- tion j they lost the assistance of the constitu- tionals without gaining that of the democra- tic party, and thus possessed the voice of neither the higher nor the lower ranks of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 343 society ; and formed a half party, which was soon overthrown, because it was without a base. The Girondists after the 10th August stood between the middle class and the mul- titude, as the Monarchists, or the party of Necker and Mounier, had done after the 14th July between the privileged and middle classes. The Mountainists, on the contrary, desired a republic which should be directed by the people. The chiefs of their party, offended at the credit which the Girondists enjoyed, endeavoured to overthrow them, and to seat themselves in their place ; they were less en- lightened and less eloquent, but more saga- cious, more decided, and by no means scru- pulous in themeans they employed. The very extreme of democracy seemed to them the very best form of government ; and what they called the people, that is to say, the lowest class, was the object of their constant flat- teries, and of their most ardent solicitude. No party was ever more dangerous or more con- sistent ; it laboured for those at the head of whom it was combating. At the opening of the conventional sittings, the Girondists occupied the right, and the 344 HISTORY OF THE Mountainists the top of the left, from whence came the name by which they have been styled. The Girondists were the strongest in the assembly: the elections in the departments had been generally favourable to the party. A great number of the members of the legis- lative assembly had been re-elected ; and all the members who had belonged to the depu- tation of the Gironde or the commune of Paris, before the 10th August, returned with the same opinions. Others entered the as- sembly without system, without party, without attachments, and without rancour ; these formed what at that time was called the plain, or the marais. This part of the assembly, which felt no interest in the struggles of the Gironde and the Mountain, ranged itself on the side it considered the most just, as long as it was al- lowed to be moderate, that is to say, as long as its members had no reasons to fear for their own personal safety. The Mountain was composed of the depu- ties of Paris who had been elected under the influence of the commune of the 10th August, and of some very decided republicans in the provinces : it was afterwards strengthened by tne addition of all whom the circumstances of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 345 the time exalted into enthusiasm, or whom fear associated with its members. But though infe- rior in number in the convention, it was not on this account less powerful even at that period. It reigned absolute in Paris ; the commune was devoted to it, and that commune had contrived to make itself the first authority in the state. The Mountainists had attempted to govern the other departments of France, by establishing between the municipality of Paris, and the other municipalities throughout the kingdom, a correspondence of plans and conduct ; they had not however completely succeeded, and the departments were in a great measure favourable to their adversaries, who cultivated their kindly feelings towards them by means of pamphlets and journals sent through the minister Roland, whose house was styled by the Mountainists, un bureau d esprit public, and his friends, des intrigants. But besides the affiliation of the communes, which sooner or later was sure to succeed, the Jacobins were affiliated to them. This club, which was the most influential, as being the oldest and the most general, changed its spirit with every crisis without changing its name ; 346 HISTORY OF THE it was a kind of frame-work, which was all ready for the use of the ruling party, who ex- cluded from it all its opponents. That of Paris was the metropolis of Jacobinism, and governed the others with almost sovereign sway. The Mountainists had a complete mastery over these clubs : they had already banished the Girondists from them by means of denunciations and affronts, and had re- placed the members belonging to the middle classes by sans-culottes. The only support of the Girondists was the ministry, which, being opposed by the commune, was powerless in Paris. The Mountainists disposed, on the other hand, of all the effective force of the capital ; of the public mind by means of the Jacobins, of sections and faubourgs through the sans-culottes, and of the insurrections through the municipality. The first measure of the parties, after hav- ing decreed the republic, was to oppose each other. The Girondists were indignant at the massacres of September, and witnessed with horror on the benches of the convention the men who had recommended or commanded them. Two, especially, of the members ex- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 347 cited their horror and disgust ; Robespierre, whom they suspected of aspiring to the ty- ranny, and Marat, who from the commence- ment of the revolution had declared himself in his writings the apostle of massacre. They denounced Robespierre with more animosity than prudence: he was not yet sufficiently dangerous to incur an accusation of aspiring to the dictatorship. His enemies, by reproach- ing him with designs which were unlikely to have occurred to him, and which in any case it was impossible to prove, themselves aug- mented his popularity and his importance. Robespierre, who aftewards played so ter- rible a part in the revolution, began now to figure in its principal ranks. Till this time, in spite of all his efforts, he had had supe- riors in his own party : under the constituent assembly, its famous chiefs : under the legis- lative, Brissot and Petion : in the events of the 10th August, Danton. On all these occa- sions he had constantly declared himself against those whose fame or popularity of- fended him. Amidst the celebrated person- ages of the first assembly, being unable to render himself remarkable in any other way than by the singularity of his opinions, he had 348 HISTORY OF THE figured as a violent reformer : in the second, he appeared as a constitutional, because his rivals were innovators ; and he had harangued in favour of peace at the Jacobins' club, be- cause his rivals were clamorous for war. After the 10th of August he endeavoured, in this club, to destroy the Girondist party and to supplant Danton, always associating the cause of his vanity to that of the multitude. This man, whose talents were but of an or- dinary kind, and whose disposition was vain, owed to his inferiority his late appearance on the stage, which, in revolutions, is al- ways a great advantage ; his ardent self- love kept alive his constant aim at the prin- cipal rank in the revolution and led him to work wonders to obtain it, and to venture everything to maintain himself there. Robes- pierre had all the qualities of a tyrant : a mind which was without grandeur, but which, ne- vertheless, was not vulgar : the advantage of having but one passion, the external appear- ances of patriotism, a deserved reputation for being above corruption, an austere life, and an inclination for blood. He was a living proof, that, amidst civil troubles, it is not by means of talents, but conduct, that poli- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 349 tical successes are gained ; and that obstinate mediocrity is more powerful than the irregu- larity of genius. It must also be allowed that Robespierre possessed the support of an im- mense and fanatical sect, of which he had demanded the government and maintained the principles, since the close of the constituent assembly. That sect derived its origin from the 18th century, of which it represented certain opinions ; it took for its political sym- bol the absolute sovereignty of the Social Contract of J. J. Rousseau, and in matters of belief the deism contained in the Savoyard Vicar's Confession of Faith ; and succeeded for a brief space in realizing them in the con- stitution of 1793, and in the worship of the Supreme Being. There was, indeed, in the various epochs of the revolution more system and more fanaticism than is generally believed. Whether it was that the Girondists foresaw from afar the rule of Robespierre, or whether they allowed themselves to be seduced by their resentment, they accused him of a crime which is the heaviest that can exist in a re- public. Paris was agitated by the spirit of faction : the Girondists wished to carry a law against those who stirred up disorders and 350 HISTORY OF THE violence, and at the same time give the convention an independant strength gathered from the eighty-three departments ; they even charged a commission, which they caused to be named, with the presentation of a report on the subject. The Mountain attacked this measure as injurious to Paris ; the Gironde defended it, declaring at the same time that a project of a triumvirate had been formed by the deputation of Paris. " I was born at Paris," said Osselin : "I am a deputy of that city. A party has been announced as having sprung up among us, which wishes for dicta- tors, triumvirs, and tribunes. I assert that such a party must either be profoundly igno- rant or utterly wicked, to have conceived such a project. Let our anathema be launched against that part of the deputation of Paris which shall venture to conceive such an idea !" " Yes," cried Rebequi of Marseilles, " yes, there exists in this assembly a party which aspires to the dictatorship, and the chief of that party I shall name — it is Robespierre ! Behold the man whom I denounce to you !" Barbaroux supported this denunciation by his testimony : he had been one of the prin- cipal actors in the 10th August : he was the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 351 head of the Marseillois, and possessed a pro- digious influence in the south. He assured the assembly that at the period of the events of the 10th August, the assistance of the Marseillois being sought by both of the parties who then divided the capital, he had been brought to Robespierre ; that there he had been recommended to join those citizens who had acquired the greatest share of popularity, and that Panis had pointedly indicated Robespierre by name, as the virtuous man who ivas one day to be the dictator of France. Barbaroux was a man of energy. The right side possessed several members who agreed with him in opinion that it was absolutely necessary either to vanquish their adversaries, or to submit to be vanquished by them : they wished that in making use of the convention against the commune, the departments should be opposed to Paris ; and that no measures should be kept with enemies who were then weak, but who, if time were allowed them, might become strong : however, the majority dreaded a rupture, and was opposed to such decided measures. The accusation against Robespierre was un- attended by any consequences, but it fell 352 HISTORY OF THE back upon Marat, who had recommended the dictatorship in his newspaper called the Friend of the People, and extolled the massacres. When he appeared in his place to justify himself, the assembly seemed to feel a move- ment of horror : Down ! Down ! was shouted from all parts. Marat remained unmoved. In an interval of silence he cried — " I have in this assembly a great number of personal en- emies."—" We are all so! All!" — "I call the assembly to show some sense of shame. I exhort its members to refrain from these fu- rious clamours and indecent menaces against a man who has served them and the cause of liberty more than they imagine : let them at least listen for once !" This man then ex- plained to the convention, which listened as if stupified by his boldness and coolness, his opinions relative to the proscriptions and the dictatorship. For a long time he had suc- ceeded in avoiding the public animadversion and the orders of arrest which had been pub- lished against him. His sanguinary publica- tions alone appeared, in which he demanded the heads of individuals, and prepared the multitude for the massacres of September. There is no kind of folly which may not come FRENCH REVOLUTION. 353 into the head of a man, and what is worse, which may not be for a moment realized. Marat had several ideas which were unalter- able. The revolution had its enemies, and, according to him, in order to insure its dura- tion, these were to be destroyed ; he thought no means more obvious than to exterminate them, and to name a dictator, whose func- tions should be limited to proscription ; he preached openly these two doctrines, without cruelty, but with an air of cynicism equally regardless of the rules of decency and the lives of men, and despising as weak-minded all who styled his projects atrocious instead of regarding them as profound. The revolu- tion has numbered among its actors many more atrocious than he, but none exercised a more fatal influence upon the period in which he lived; he depraved the morals of the ex- isting parties, which were already sufficiently lax, and to him were owing the two ideas which the committee for the public safety re- alized at a later period, through its commis- saries or its government — the extermination of multitudes, and the dictatorship. The accusation against Marat led to no consequences, any more than that against VOL. I. a A 354 HISTORY OF THE Robespierre ; the former inspired more dis- gust, but less hatred than the latter : some regarded him merely as a madman ; others considered these debates but as party quarrels, and not as objects of interest for the republic. Besides, it appeared dangerous to attempt the purification of the convention, or to issue a decree against one of its members : it was a delicate step to take. Danton did not discul- pate Marat. " I do not love him," said he : " I have had experience of his temper, which is furious, peevish and unsocial. But why should we seek in his writings the language of a faction ? Is the general agitation to be ascribed to any other cause than the move- ment of the revolution?" Robespierre as- serted on his side that he knew very little of Marat; that previously to the 10th August he had held only a single conversation with him, after which Marat, of whose violent opinions he did not approve, had found his political views so narrow, as to have pub- lished in his journal, that he had neither the views nor the boldness of a statesman. But it was himself who was the object of general attack, because he was far more dreaded. The first accusation of Rebecqui FRENCH REVOLUTION. 355 and of Barbaroux had failed. A short time after, the minister Roland published a report on the state of France, and on that of Paris, in which he condemned the massacres of Sep- tember, the encroachments of the commune, and the intrigues of the agitators. "When the wisest and most intrepid defenders of our liberty," said he, " are rendered odious or suspected ; when principles of revolt and car- nage are openly professed and applauded in our assemblies, and when clamours are raised against the convention itself, I cannot doubt that partisans of the old regime, or false friends of the people, concealing their madness or their wickedness under the mask of patriotism, have conceived the plan of overthrowing the actual system of things, in hopes of raising themselves upon its ruins and our corpses, and of tasting the savour of blood, of gold, and of cruelty!" He quoted, as a confirma- tion of his report, a letter, in which the vice- president and the second section of the civil tribunal informed him, that he and the most illustrious members of the Girondist party were threatened ; that according to the ex- pression of their enemies, there must be yet another bleeding, and that these men would hear of no one but Robespierre. 35G HISTORY OF THE At these words the latter flew to the tri- bune to justify himself. " No one," said he, " will dare to accuse me to my face." — " / will" cried Louvet, one of the most resolute men of the Girondist party. " Yes, Robespierre" continued he, regarding him fixedly ; "it is I who accuse thee !" Robespierre, whose counte- nance had till then been firm, was now moved : he had once measured his powers at the Jacobins with this redoubtable adversary, whom he knew to be clever, impetuous, and regardless of consequences. Louvet immedi- ately addressed the assembly, and in an eloquent extempore speech, he spared neither the acts nor the names of his opponent's partisans : he followed Robespierre to the Jacobins, to the commune, and to the elec- toral assembly, where he represented him as " calumniating the most virtuous patriots ; offering the basest flatteries to a few hundred citizens, first called " the people of Paris," then absolutely, "the people," next, "the sovereign people;" repeating the eternal enumeration of his own merits, his perfections, and his virtues, and never failing, after he had proclaimed the strength, the greatness, and the sovereignty of the people, to protest that he was the people FRENCH REVOLUTION. 357 also." He described him as hiding himself on the 10th August, and afterwards command- ing the conspirators of the commune. He then came to the massacres of September, and cried out, "The revolution of the 10th August belongs to us all." He next added, addressing himself to some Mountainists of the commune, " But the revolution of the 2nd September is yours ! it is yours only ! and have you not taken the glory of it to your- selves ? They themselves, with ferocious contempt, styled us but the patriots of the 10th August! With ferocious pride they dignified themselves with the title of patriots of the 2nd September ! Well, let that dis- tinction remain to them ; a distinction worthy of the courage peculiar to them ! let it re- main to them for our lasting justification, and for their eternal disgrace ! These pretended friends of the people wished to throw upon the people the horrors with which the first week of September was sullied. They have unworthily calumniated them : the people of Paris know how to fight, but they know not how to assassinate ! They were, indeed, seen in a body before the palace of the Tuile- ries on the grand day of the 10th August; 358 HISTORY OF THE but it is false that they were seen before the prisons on the horrible day of the 2nd September. Within their walls, how many executioners were there ? Two hundred, perhaps not even two hundred ; and without them, how many spectators might be coun- ted, attracted by a truly incomprehen- sible curiosity ? The double at most of that number. But it is said, if the people did not participate in these murders, why did it not prevent them ? Why ? because the tutelary authority of Petion was chained up, and Roland spoke in vain : because the minister of justice, Danton, spake not at all : because the presidents of the forty-eight sections ex- pected requisitions, which the commandant- general did not issue : because the municipal officers, arrayed in their official scarfs, pre- sided at these atrocious executions. — But the legislative assembly ! — The legislative as- sembly ! Representatives of the people, ye will avenge it ! The impotency to which your predecessors were reduced, is, even amidst so many crimes, the greatest of those for which we must punish the ferocious madmen whom I denounce to you." Then returning to Ro- bespierre, Lou vet represented his ambition, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 359 his intrigue, and his extreme ascendancy over the populace, and concluded this furious phi- lippic by a series of facts, each preceded by the redoubtable formula — " Robespierre, I ac- cuse thee!" Louvet descended from the tribune amidst loud applauses ; and Robespierre rose to de- fend himself, pale and assailed with murmurs. Whether from his confusion, or from dread of the prejudice which his adversary's harangue might have excited, he demanded a delay of eight days. At the end of that time, he ap- peared, less as an accused person than as a triumphant antagonist : he repelled with irony the reproaches of Louvet, and entered into a long apology for his own conduct. It must be allowed that the facts were vague ; he had therefore little difficulty in extenuating or dis- proving them. The galleries were prepared to applaud him : and the convention itself, which saw in the accusation but a personal quarrel, and which was not afraid, to use an expression of Barrere's, of " the man of a day, a small undertaker of tumults,'" was disposed to put an end to these debates. Accordingly when Robespierre said in conclusion — " For my part, I shall adopt no personal measures : 360 HISTORY OF THE I have renounced the obvious advantage of re- plying to the calumnies of my adversaries by more redoubtable denunciations : I have there- fore chosen to suppress the offensive part of my justification : I renounce the vengeance with which I should have had a just right of pursuing my adversaries : I ask no other re- venge than the return of peace, and the tri- umph of liberty ! " — he was applauded, and the convention passed to the order of the day. In vain would Louvet have replied, the as- sembly refused to hear him : Barbaroux also proposed himself as an accuser, and Lan- juinais opposed the order of the day without succeeding in renewing the discussion. The Girondists themselves supported it : they had committed a fault in permitting the accusa- tion, and they committed another in not main- taining it. The Mountainists gained the day, since they were not conquered, and Robes- pierre was brought nearer the performance of the part from which he was still so far distant. A man very soon becomes, in revolutions, what he is believed to be : and the Mountain- ist party took him for its chief, because the Girondist attacked him as such. But what was still more important than FRENCH REVOLUTION. 361 these personal attacks, was the discussion on the means of government, and on the manage- ment of the authorities and of parties. The Girondists failed, not only against individuals, but against the commune. None of their measures succeeded ; they were either ill proposed or badly seconded. They ought to have reinforced the government, replaced the municipality, maintained their popularity among the Jacobins and governed them, gained the multitude or prevented it from acting, and they did nothing of all this. One of their number, Buzot, proposed to give the convention a guard of three thousand men, drawn from the departments. This proposal, which would have at all events preserved the independence of the assembly, was not warmly enough supported to be adopted. Thus the Girondists attacked the Mountain- ists without being able to weaken them ; the commune, without subjecting it; and the fau- bourgs, without annulling them. They ir- ritated Paris by calling in the assistance of the departments, without after all obtaining it : thus acting against the rules of the most ordi- nary prudence. Their adversaries profited ably by this cir- 362 HISTORY OF THE cumstance. They secretly spread a report which could not fail to compromise the Gi- rondists : this was that they wished to trans- port the republic to the south, and abandon the rest of the empire. Upon this began the reproach of federalism which was afterwards so fatal. The Girondists despised it, because they did not see all its dangers : but it was necessarily accredited, as their party became feebler, and their enemies more audacious. What had given room for this opinion was the project to defend the country behind the Loire, and to transfer the government to the south, in case the north was invaded and Paris forced : and next, the predilection which they discovered for the provinces, and their fury against the agitators of the capital. Nothing is easier than to disfigure and pervert a measure, by changing the time at which it was first conceived, or to find in expressions of disapprobation against the disorders of a city, a design to league against it all the other cities of the state. Accordingly, the Girond- ists were exhibited to the multitude as fede- ralists. While they were denouncing the commune, and accusing Robespierre and Marat, the Mountainists caused the unity and FRENCH REVOLUTION. 363 indivisibility of the republic to be decreed : this was one method of attacking them, and bringing down suspicion upon their party, though they supported these propositions with so much eagerness, that they appeared to regret not having themselves originated them. But a circumstance apparently foreign to the debates of both parties, was still more favourable to the Mountainists. Encouraged as they already were by the failure of the attempts against them made by their anta- gonists, they waited only for an opportunity to become assailants in their turn. The con- vention was wearied with these long discus- sions : those of its members whom they did not concern, those even, in the two parties who did not occupy the principal ranks, felt the necessity of concord, and desired that all should occupy themselves with the affairs of the republic. There was an apparent truce, and the attention of the assembly was for a moment arrested by the new constitution, from which the Mountainist party diverted it, in order to decide on the fate of the dethroned prince. To this the chiefs of the extreme left were induced by several motives : they did 364 HISTORY OF THE not wish that the Girondists and the moderate party of the plain who directed the constitu- tional committee, the one party through Petion, Condorcet, Brissot, Vergniaud, and Gensonne; and the other through Barr6re, Sieves, and Thomas Paine, should organize the republic. They would have established the government of the middle classes, only rendering it somewhat more democratic than that of 1791, while they, on the contrary, as- pired to erect the mob into the governing power. But they could only arrive at their end by gaining the ascendancy, and this they could only obtain by prolonging the revolu- tionary state of France. Besides the neces- sity of preventing the establishment of legal order by a terrible stroke of policy, such as the condemnation of Louis XVI, which should move all passions, and rally round them all the violent partisans, by showing them to be the faithful guardians of the republic, they hoped to draw out the sentiments of the Gi- rondists, who did not conceal their wish to save Louis XVI, and thus to ruin them in the opinion of the mob. There were doubtless a great number of the Mountainists who on this occasion acted from the most honest motives, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 365 and purely as republicans, in whose eyes Louis XVI appeared criminal as far as re- garded the revolution : a dethroned king was dangerous to a rising democracy. But this party would have shown itself more merciful, if its views had not extended to the destruc- tion of the Gironde, as well as to that of Louis XVI. For some time past the public mind had been prepared for the trial of the king. The Jacobin club re-echoed with invectives against him : reports the most injurious to his cha- racter were spread : and his condemnation was demanded as a security for liberty. The popular societies of the departments addressed the convention to the same effect : the sec- tions presented themselves at the bar of the assembly, and men who had been wounded on the 10th August were marched into the midst of the members, crying for vengeance on Louis Capet. Louis XVI was no longer indicated but by the surname of the ancient head of his race : his title of king was in- tended to be replaced by his family name. Both party motives and popular animosity were united against that unfortunate prince. Those who two months before would have re- 306 HISTORY OF THE jected the idea of subjecting him to any other punishment than dethronement, were now plunged into a state of apathy : so speedily in such a crisis do people lose their right of holding an opinion ! The discovery of the iron chest above all redoubled the fanaticism of the multitude, and increased the weakness of the defenders of the king. After the 10th August, there were found, in the offices of the civil list, papers proving the secret relations kept up by Louis XVI with the malcontent priests, the emigrants, and the powers of Europe. In a report drawn up by order of the legislative assembly, he had been accused of attempting to betray the state and over- throw the revolution. He was reproached with having written on the 16th April 1791, to the bishop of Clermont, that if he recovered his former poiver, he would re-establish the an- cient government in its former state; — to have proposed the war only to accelerate the march of his liberators ; — to have corresponded with men who wrote to him in this strain : "War will force all the powers to join against the factious and wicked men who now tyrannize over France, in order that their punishment may serve as an example to all those who FRENCH REVOLUTION. 367 may be tempted to trouble the peace of em- pires. You may count on one hundred and fifty thousand men, composed of Prussians, Austrians, and Imperials, and on an army of twenty thousand emigrants ;" — to have been in reality in accordance with his brothers, whose conduct he affected publicly to disapprove : and lastly, to have constantly opposed the revolution. New proofs were brought in support of all these accusations. There was found at the Tuileries, behind a panel of wainscot, a hole bored in the wall, and closed by an iron door. This secret place was pointed out to the mi- nister Roland, and in it were found a detail of all the plots and intrigues of the court against the revolution; projects tending to strengthen the constitutional power of the king with the popular chiefs, and to bring back the old regime with the aristocrats : the manoeuvres of Talon, the arrangements with Mirabeau, the accepted propositions of Bouille, and some new intrigues framed under the legislative. This discovery enhanced the general fury against Louis XVI. The bust of Mirabeau was broken in pieces at the Jacobins, and the convention hid with a 368 HISTORY OF THE cloth that which stood in the hall where its sittings were held. There had been doubts in the assembly for some time, whether the prince could be tried ; and whether having been dethroned, he could be any farther pursued. There was no tri- bunal which could pronounce sentence upon him, no kind of punishment which could be inflicted : accordingly false interpretations were resorted to, of the inviolability which had been accorded to Louis XVI, in order to condemn him in a legal manner. The great- est error of parties, after that of being unjust, is that of not wishing to seem so. The com- mittee of legislation, charged with a report on the question whether Louis XVI could be tried, and tried by the convention, pronounced in the affirmative. The deputy Mailhe raised his voice against the opinion of his inviola- bility : but as this opinion had governed the preceding epoch of the revolution, he pre- tended that Louis" XVI had been inviolable as king, but not as a private individual. He maintained that the nation, which could not lose his guarantee to acts of power, had sup- plied the inviolability of the monarch by the responsibility of his ministers ; but that FRENCH REVOLUTION. 369 where Louis XVI had acted as a private in- dividual, his responsibility falling upon no one, he ceased to be inviolable. Mailhe thus limited the constitutional safeguard, accorded to Louis XVI, to his acts as king. He de- cided that Louis XVI might be tried, his de- thronement not being a punishment, but merely a change of government ; — that he should be judged in virtue of the law in the penal code relative to traitors and conspirators ; lastly, that he should be tried by the con- vention, without following the procedure of other tribunals; because the convention re- presenting the people, the people compre- hending the interests of all classes, and the interests of all being justice, it was impossible that the national tribunal could violate justice, and of course useless that it should be sub- jected to its forms. Such was the chain of sophisms by means of which the committee transformed the convention into a tribunal. The party of Robespierre showed itself much more consistent, in urging only reasons of state, and rejecting forms as illusory. The discussion commenced on the 13th November, six days after the report of the committee. The partisans of the king's in- VOL. i. b B 370 HISTORY OF THE violability, though they considered Louis XVI as guilty, maintained that he could not be tried. The principal among these was Moris- son : he asserted that the inviolability was general; that the constitution had provided for much more than the secret hostilities of Louis XVI —for an open attack on his part — and even in this case had decreed only his de- thronement ; that the nation had thus, as it were, made him pledge his sovereignty ; that the duty of the convention was to change the government, and not to try Louis XVI ; that, withheld by rules of justice, it was so also by the usages of war, which did not allow an enemy to be destroyed after the victory, but only during the combat ; that besides, the republic had no interest in the condemnation of Louis XVI ; that it ought to confine itself to ordaining measures of security with regard to him, to keep him a prisoner, or to banish him from France. This opinion was that of the right side of the convention. The Plain shared the opinion of the committee ; but the Mountainists at once denied the inviolability, and rejected the trial of Louis XVI. " Citizens," said Saint-Just; "I undertake to prove that the opinion of Morisson, who FRENCH REVOLUTION. 371 believes in the inviolability of the king, and that of the committee, who require him to be judged as a citizen, are equally wrong. I maintain that the king should be judged as an enemy ; that our business is not so much to try him as to oppose him : that standing for nothing in the contract which unites French- men, the forms of procedure are not in the civil law, but in the law of the right of na- tions ; that delays and consideration are in this case a real imprudence ; and that, after the fault of retarding the moment for giving us laws, the most fatal would be that which should lead us to temporize with the king." Then referring the whole question to con- siderations of enmity and policy, Saint-Just added: "The same men who are about to judge Louis, have a republic to form; — those who attach any importance to the just chas- tisement of a king, will never found a repub- lic. Citizens, if the Roman people, after six hundred years of virtue and of hatred to kings ; if Great Britain, after the death of Cromwell, saw kings revive notwithstanding the energy of its people, what ought not to be feared among us by all good citizens and friends of liberty, at seeing the axe tremble in your 372 HISTORY OF THE hands, and a people forced, in the very first day of its freedom, to respect the remem- brance of its chains ! " This sanguinary party, which wished to re- place the king's sentence by a violent state manoeuvre, and instead of adhering to law or its forms, to punish Louis XVI like a van- quished prisoner, and make hostilities survive even after victory, formed a very small mino- rity in the convention ; but out of doors it was powerfully supported by the Jacobins and the commune. In spite of the terror it already inspired, its murderous counsels were rejected by the convention, and the partisans of inviolability insisted courageously, in their turn, upon the grounds of the general interest, at the same time that they urged the rules of justice and humanity. They maintained, that the same men could not be both judges and legislators, accusers and jury. They wished, moreover, that a lustre should be shed over the rising republic, derived from those great vir- tues, generosity and forgiveness ; they wished to follow the example of the people of Rome, who conquered their liberty for themselves, and kept it five hundred years, because they showed themselves magnanimous ; because FRENCH REVOLUTION. 373 they banished the Tarquins, instead of put- ting them to death. On political grounds, they showed the consequences of the king's condemnation as regarded the anarchist party, who would thus be rendered more audacious, and as regarded Europe, that the powers who were then neuter, would thereby be forced to join the coalition against the republic. But Robespierre, who during this long pleading discovered a boldness and an obsti- nacy which presaged from afar his future power, appeared in the tribune to support the opinion of Saint-Just ; to reproach the conven- tion with having again rendered doubtful what the insurrection had decided, and with at- tempting, by the pity a defence would excite, and the publicity it would occasion, to raise the fallen royalist party. "The assembly," said Robespierre, "has been seduced, un- known to itself, from the real question before us. Here there is no trial contemplated ; Louis is not accused, and you are not his judges ; you are, and only can be, statesmen. You have not to pronounce a sentence for or against a man, but you have a measure of public safety to adopt, an act of national care to undertake. A dethroned king in a republic 374 HISTORY OF THE can only do two things — either he troubles the tranquillity of the state, and endangers its liberty, or he adds security to both. "Louis was king; the republic is founded; the great question which occupies you is de- cided in these few words, — Louis is not to be tried ; he has been tried already : he is con- demned, or the republic is not absolute." He demanded that the convention should de- clare Louis XVI a traitor to the French, guilty towards humanity, and condemn him forthwith to death in virtue of the insurrection. The Mountainists, through their violent propositions, and the popularity which they had out of doors, rendered the king's con- demnation in some measure inevitable. By making an extraordinary advance before the other parties, they forced the latter to follow them, though at a distance. The constituti- onal majority, composed of a large part of the Girondists, who durst not venture to pro- nounce Louis XVI inviolable, and of the Plain, decided on the motion of Petion, and against the opinion of the fanatical Mountainists and that of the partisans of inviolability, that Louis XVI should be judged by the convention. Robert Lindet then made his report respect- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 375 ing Louis XVI, in the name of the commission of twenty-one ; the declaratory of the crimes imputed to him was prepared, and the con- vention ordered the prisoner to the bar. Louis had been shut up at the Temple upwards of four months : he did not enjoy his liberty there, as originally contemplated by the le- gislative assembly, when it assigned him the Luxembourg for his residence. The dis- trustful commune guarded him strictly ; but he was resigned to his fate, and prepared him- self for the worst, discovering neither impa- tience, regret, nor resentment. He had no other attendant but a single servant, Clery, who was at the same time the attendant of all his family. During the first months of his detention, he had not been separated from the latter, and he experienced some consolation from the society of his family : he encouraged and consoled his wife and sister ; he officiated as preceptor to the young Dauphin, and showed him the example of the behaviour of a man in misfortune, and an imprisoned sov- ereign. He read a great deal, and particu- larly in the History of England by Hume : he there found many instances of deposed kings, and one among others condemned by the 37 G HISTORY OF THE multitude. It is very natural for us to seek for fates similar to our own. But the conso- lations he found in the society of his family were not of long duration : he was separated from them as soon as the question of his trial was agitated. The commune wished to pre- vent the prisoners from concerting together their justification; and the surveillance exer- cised towards Louis XVI became every day more exact and more severe. In the meanwhile Santerre received orders to conduct Louis XVI to the bar of the conven- tion. He went to the Temple, accompanied by the mayor, who communicated to the king his mission, and asked if he would consent to go down to the convention. Louis hesitated a moment, and then said, " This is only another piece of violence ; to this also I must yield." Accordingly he resolved to appear before the convention, whose power he did not refuse to acknowledge, as Charles I did that of his judges. As soon as his approach was an- nounced, " Representatives," said Barrere, " you are now about to exercise the right of national justice; let your manner be conformable to your new functions." Then turning towards the tribunes, " Citizens," FRENCH REVOLUTION. 377 said he, " remember the terrible silence which accompanied Louis when he was brought back from Varennes — a silence which was the precursor of the judgment of kings by the nations." The countenance of Louis, on entering the hall, was firm and manly, and he looked round upon the assembly with an air of resolution. As he stood at the bar, the presi- dent said to him, with a faltering voice, " Louis, the French nation accuses you : you are now about to hear the reading of the act declaratory of the charges. Louis, sit down." A seat had been placed for him ; he sat down. During this long interrogatory, he discovered great calmness and presence of mind. He replied to each question with readiness, and generally in a touching and triumphant man- ner. He replied to the reproaches addressed to him relative to his conduct anterior to the 14th July, by reminding the assembly that his power was not then limited ; — before the journey to Varennes, by the decree of the constituent assembly, which had declared itself satisfied with his answers ; — lastly, be- fore the 10th August, by throwing the respon- sibility of all the public acts upon the ministers, and denying all the secret intrigues which had 378 HISTORY OF THE been attributed to him. These denials did not destroy, in the eyes of the convention, facts of which the greater number were proved by papers in the handwriting, or bearing the signature of Louis ; but he made use of the right which is common to every accused person. It was on this principle that he denied the existence of the iron chest, and of all the papers which had been presented to him. Louis XVI appealed to a law of safeguard, which the convention did not acknowledge, and the convention wished to assure itself of the counter-revolutionary attempts, which Louis XVI refused to avow. When Louis XVI returned to the Temple, the convention debated on the demand he had made of a defender. It was in vain that some Mountainists opposed the motion ; the con- vention determined that Louis XVI should have a counsel. He himself had mentioned Target and Tronchet: the former refused. It was then that the venerable Malesherbes offered himself to the convention to defend Louis XVI. " I have been twice called" (wrote Malesherbes) "to be counsel to him who was once my master, at a time when these functions were ambitiously sought by FRENCH REVOLUTION. 379 every one ; — I owe him the same service when these functions are considered dangerous by many." His demand was acceded to. Louis XVI, in his state of abandonment, was touched by this proof of devotion to his cause. When Malesherbes entered his chamber, he went up to him, embraced him, and said, " The sacri- fice you make for me is so much the more generous, as you expose your own life without a chance of saving mine." Malesherbes and Tronchet busied themselves with his defence uninterruptedly, and joined to their number M. Deseze. They endeavoured to reanimate the king's courage, but they found him very little disposed to hope. "■. They will take my life ; of that I am sure : but no matter ; let us busy ourselves with our process as if I were sure of gaining it : indeed, I shall gain it ; for the memory I leave behind me will be spotless." At length the day for the defence arrived. The speech was pronounced by M. Deseze. Louis was present ; the utmost silence reigned in the assembly and in the galleries. M. De- seze urged in favour of the accused monarch all the considerations of justice and innocence. He urged the inviolability which had been 380 HISTORY OF THE accorded to the king. He insisted that, as a king, he could not be tried; and that, as accusers, the representatives of the people could not be his judges. In this he advanced nothing which had not been maintained by a part of the assembly. But he principally directed the attention of the audience to the justification of Louis XVI, and attributed to him intentions that were constantly pure and irreproachable. He ended by these closing and solemn words : " Listen first to History, who will say to Fame — Louis, who ascended the throne at the age of twenty, carried with him there an example of morals, of justice, and of economy : he had no weaknesses, no corrupt- ing passions, and he was the constant friend of the people. The people desired that a dis- astrous impost should be abolished, and Louis abolished it : the people asked for the aboli- tion of servitudes, and Louis destroyed them : they demanded reforms, he consented to them : they wished to change the laws by which they were governed, he agreed to their demands : the people required that some millions of Frenchmen should recover their rights, and these he rendered to them ; the people asked for liberty, and he gave it to them. No one can FRENCH REVOLUTION. 381 dispute that Louis had the glory of preventing the demands of his people by making these sacrifices ; and he it is whom it has been proposed to . . . Citizens, I cannot go on ; I pause before History : remember that History will judge your judgment, and that her's will be that of ages to come V But the passions of the assembly were deaf, and incapable of all foresight. The Girondists were desirous of saving Louis XVI, but they dreaded the reproach of royalism, which already began to be addressed to them by the Mountainists. During the whole trial, their conduct was extremely wavering, they neither ventured to pronounce for or against the accused, and their indecision ruined themselves without serving him. At this moment his cause, which was no longer the cause of his throne but of his life, was their own. It was to be decided by an act of justice, or by an act of violence, whether the nation should return to the legal regime, or whether the revolutionary system were to be prolonged. The triumph of the Girondists, or the Mountainists, depended on the solution of this question. The latter made great efforts. They pretended that the following of 382 HISTORY OF THE forms was to give up the energy which should be displayed by a republic, and that the de- fence of Louis XVI was a monarchical lecture addressed to the nation. The Jacobins se- conded them powerfully, and deputations came to the bar of the convention to demand the death of the king. In the mean time the Girondists, who had not ventured to maintain the king's invio- lability, proposed a dexterous measure for preventing the execution of Louis XVI, by appealing from the sentence of the convention to the people. The extreme right still con- tinued to protest against the erection of the assembly into a tribunal. But the competence of the convention having been previously decided on, all efforts were turned in another direction. Salles proposed to declare Louis XVI guilty, and to leave to the primary as- semblies the application of the punishment. Buzot, fearing that in this way the convention would incur the reproach of weakness, was of opinion that it should itself pronounce the sentence, and appeal to the people from its own judgment. This advice was strongly opposed by the Mountainists, and even by a large number of moderate Constitutionals, who FRENCH REVOLUTION. 383 foresaw in the convocation of the primary assemblies all the horrors of a civil war. The assembly had unanimously voted Louis XVI guilty ; when the question of appeal to the people was suggested, 284 voted for, and 424 against it : 10 refused to vote. The next question was the terrible one of the punish- ment to be inflicted. Paris was in the highest state of agitation : the deputies were threat- ened even at the doors of the assembly : new popular excesses were looked for, and the club of the Jacobins echoed even to furious invective against Louis XVI and the party of the right. The Mountainist party, till then the weakest in the assembly, endeavoured to obtain a majority by means of terror ; equally decided, nevertheless, if they did not succeed, to sacrifice Louis XVI. At length, after forty hours of nominal appeal, the president Verg- niaud said, " Citizens, I have now to proclaim the result of the scrutiny. When justice has spoken, humanity ought to be heard in turn." There were 721 voters. The absolute majo- rity was 361. Sentence of death was pro- nounced by a majority of 26 votes. The opinions had been mixed : the Girondists had voted for sentence of death — with a provision 384 HISTORY OF THE of delay, indeed : the greater number of mem- bers on the right had voted for his imprison- ment or exile ; and some Mountainists voted with the Girondists. As soon as the result of the scrutiny was known, the president said, with an accent of grief — " / declare in the name of the convention that the punishment it decides against Louis Capet is death. 1 '' His de- fenders appeared at the bar, and seemed deeply moved. They endeavoured to recall the assembly to sentiments of pity, in consi- deration of the small number of voices by which he was condemned. But the question had been already discussed, and decided. '*■ Laws are framed only by means of a simple majority,'" said a Mountainist. " Yes" said a voice; " but decrees may be reformed, and the life of a man can never be recalled." Males- herbes wished to speak, but could not. His sobs stifled his voice, and the only words that were audible were broken and imploring. His grief touched the assembly. The Girondists now called for delay, as a last resource ; but they failed in this also, and the fatal sentence was pronounced. Louis expected this. When Malesherbes came in tears to announce to him his sentence FRENCH REVOLUTION. 385 of death, he found him sitting in darkness, his elbows resting on the table, and in a state of profound meditation. At the sound he made in entering, Louis XVI rose, and said, " For the last two hours I have been endea- vouring to discover whether during my reign I could ever accuse myself of deserving from my subjects the slightest reproach. Well, M. de Malesherbes, I swear to you, in all sincerity of heart and as a man about to ap- pear before God, that I have constantly desired the welfare of my people, and never formed a wish that was contrary to their happiness." Malesherbes endeavoured to persuade him that the delay required would not be refused, but Louis would not yield to the hope. He begged Malesherbes, as he was retiring, not to abandon him in his last moments ; Males- herbes promised to return, and did return several times, without ever being able to ob- tain admission to his presence. Louis asked frequently for him, and was grieved that he could not see him again. He received, with- out emotion, the news of his sentence, which was signified to him by the minister of justice. He asked three days to prepare himself for vol. r. c c 380 HISTORY OF THE appearing before God; he required besides to be assisted by a priest, whom he named, and to communicate freely with his wife and children. The two latter demands only were agreed to. The moment of the interview was terrible for that unfortunate family ; and that of their separation still more so. Louis, on quitting them, promised to see them again next day ; but on entering his chamber, he felt that the trial was too great for him, and as he walked about the room he said to himself — ■" I shall not go" This was his last struggle : he after- wards thought of nothing but his preparations for death. On the night preceding his exe- cution, he had a peaceful slumber. On being awaked at five o'clock by Clery, to whom he had given orders to that effect, he made his last testament. He received the communion, charged Clery with his last words, and with all that he was allowed to dispose of by will — a ring, a seal, and some hair. Already the drums began to beat, and a confused sound of cannons dragged along, and human voices were heard. At length Santerre ar- rived. " You are come for me," said Louis ; " I FRENCH REVOLUTION. 387 only requite a moment." He then gave his will to a municipal officer, asked for his hat, and said, in a firm tone of voice, " Let us go." The carriage took an hour to go from the Temple to the square of the Revolution. A double line of soldiers guarded the road, and more than 4000 men were under arms. Paris was in gloom. Among the citizens present at the execution, there were neither signs of approbation nor regret apparent : all were silent. On their arrival at the place of exe- cution, Louis descended from the carriage. He mounted, with a firm step, the ladder of the scaffold, and received on his knees the blessing of the priest, who then said to him, as it is generally believed : " Son of St Louis, ascend to heaven /" He allowed his hands to be tied, though with some reluctance ; and turning to the left of the scaffold — " I die in- nocent," said ,he ; "I forgive my enemies : and you, unfortunate people, . . . ." At this moment the signal for the drums to beat was given ; the sound of their roll drowned his voice, and the three executioners seized him. At ten minutes past ten he had ceased to exist. Thus perished, at the age of thirty-nine, after a reign of sixteen years and a half, passed 388 HISTORY OF THE in endeavouring to do good, the best, but weak- est, of monarchs ! The revolution was an in- heritance bequeathed to him by his ancestors. He was more fitted than any of those who pre- ceded him, to prevent or terminate it ; for he was capable of being a reformer before it broke out, or of being a constitutional monarch after it. He is perhaps the only prince who, in the absence of all other passions, had not even that of power; and who united the two qualities of a good king — the love of God and the love of his people. He perished, the victim of pas- sions which he did not share ; of the passions of those about him, to which he was a stran- ger ; and those of the multitude, which he had not excited. There are few kings who have left behind them so excellent a memory ; and history will say of him, that, with a little more strength of mind, he would have been the model of a king. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 389 CHAPTER VII. The political and military situation of France. — England, Hol- land, Spain, Naples, and all the circles of the Empire agree to the coalition. — Dnmouriez, after the conquest of Belgium, attempts an expedition into Holland. — He endeavours to re- establish the constitutional monarchy. — Reverses of our armies — Struggles of the Mountainists and Girondists. — Conpsiracy of the 10th March. — Insurrection in La Vendue, and its progress. — Defection of Dumouriez. — The Girondists are accused of being his accomplices. — New conspiracies against them. — Establishment of the commission of twelve to undo the plans of the conspirators. — Insurrections of the 27th and 31st May, against the commission of twelve. — It is suppressed. — Insurrection of the 2nd June against the twenty-two principal Girondists. — They are arrested. — The entire defeat of that party. The death of Louis XVI rendered the parties irreconcileable, and augmented the external enemies of the revolution. The republicans had to combat all Europe, to struggle with the numerous classes of malcontents, and with one another. But the Mountainists, who then directed the popular movements, 390 HISTORY OF THE believed themselves already too deeply en- gaged not to carry things to extremities. To terrify the enemies of the revolution ; to excite the fanaticism of the populace by harangues, by the presence of dangers, and by insurrec- tions ; to trust everything to the mob, both the government and the safety of the re- public ; to communicate to it the most ardent enthusiasm, in the name of liberty, of equality y and of fraternity ; to preserve it in this violent state of crisis, in order that they might avail themselves of its passions and its strength: such was the plan of Danton, and of the Mountainists, who had elected him as their chief. It was he who augmented the popular effervescence along with the growing dangers of the republic, and who established, under the name of revolutionary government, in place of true liberty, the despotism of the multitude. Robespierre and Marat went still farther, and attempted to erect into a durable government, what Danton had only regarded as a transitory one. The latter was only a political chief, whereas the others were genuine sectaries, of whom the first was ambitious, the other fanatical. The Mountainists by the catastrophe of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 391 the 21st January had obtained a great victory over the Girondists, who had a system of po- litics far more rigid than their own, and who wished to save the revolution without staining it with blood. But their humanity and their spirit of justice were useless, or rather inju- rious to them. They were accused of being enemies to the people, because they raised their voice against their excesses ; with being accomplices of the tyrant, because they wished to save Louis XVI ; and with betraying the republic, because they recommended modera- tion. It was with these reproaches that the Mountainists pursued them even into the midst of the convention, from the 21st Janu- ary to the 31st May, and the 2nd June. The Girondists were for a long time supported by the centre, which ranged itself on the side of the party of the right against the murders and the anarchy prevailing, and on the left as far as regarded measures of public safety. This mass, which, properly speaking, formed the spirit of the convention, displayed some cou- rage, and balanced the power of the Mountain and the commune, as long as it possessed among its members the intrepid and eloquent 392 HISTORY OF THE Girondists, who carried with them into their prisons and upon the scaffold all the firmness and the generous sentiments of the assembly to which they belonged. There was at one time a momentary ac- cordance among the various parties of the assembly. Lepelletier Saint Fargeau was poignarded by one Paris, a person who had once been a body-guard, for having voted the death of Louis XVI. The conventionals, re- united by their common danger, swore upon his tomb to forget their enmities, but they soon returned to hostilities. At Meaux some of the murderers of September were prosecu- ted, and of these all honourable republicans demanded the chastisement. The Mountain- ists, fearing that their own past misconduct might be examined, and that their adversaries might take advantage of a condemnation to attack them more openly, succeeded in stop- ping the prosecutions. This impunity em- boldened still more the chiefs of the multitude ; and Marat, who at this time had an incalcula- ble influence over the mob, stirred the popu- lace up to pillage the merchants, whom he accused of attempting to raise the price of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 393 victuals. He attacked, in his journal and at the Jacobins, in the most violent manner, the aristocracy of the middle classes, the traders, and the statesmen (as he styled the Girondists), in a word, all who, whether in public or in the assembly, opposed the dominion of the Sans-culottes and the Mountainists. There was something terrible in the fanaticism and the desperate obstinacy of these partisans. The name which they had given to the Giron- dists from the commencement of the conven- tion was that of intriguers, on account of the ministerial and undermining measures with which they opposed in the provinces the bold and open behaviour of the Jacobins. Accordingly, they denounced them regu- larly in the club. "At Rome, an orator said daily, We must destroy Carthage! Well, let a Jacobin mount the tribune daily, only to say these words, We must destroy the in- triguers. Who should resist us ? We fight against crimes and the ephemeral power of riches; but we have for us truth, justice, poverty, virtue. With such arms, the Ja- cobins will speedily say, We passed, and they were no longer." Marat, who had far more boldness than Robespierre, (whose hates 394 HISTORY OF THE and whose projects were as yet concealed under certain forms) was the patron of all the denouncers and of all the anarchists. Many Mountainists accused him of compromising their cause by the vehemence of his counsels, and by tempestuous excesses ; but the whole of the people who held Jacobin principles supported him even against Robespierre, who, on occasions where he differed with him, had rarely the advantage. The pillage, recom- mended in February in The Friend of the People, with regard to certain merchants, to serve as an example, took place, and Marat was denounced to the convention, who de- creed his accusation after a very stormy de- bate. But this decree led to no consequences, because the ordinary tribunals had no autho- rity. This double trial, of strength on one side, and of weakness on the other, took place in the course of the month of February. Shortly after, still more decisive events led the Girondists to their fate. The military situation of France had been hitherto cheering. Dumouriez had just crowned the brilliant campaign of Argonne by the conquest of Belgium. After the re- treat of the Prussians, he had gone to Paris, FRENCH REVOLUTION. 395 in order to concert the invasion of the Aus- trian Low Countries. He returned to the army on the 20th October 1792, and began the attack on the 28th. The plan which had been attempted so unsuccessfully, and with such a want of men and means in the begin- ning of the war, was resumed and executed with superior forces. Dumouriez at the head of the Belgian army, which was forty thou- sand strong, marched from Valenciennes upon Mons supported, on his right by the army of Ardennes, consisting of nearly sixteen thou- sand men, under general Valence, who came from Givet upon Namur ; and on his left by the army of the north, which consisted of eighteen thousand men, under general La- bourdonnaie, who advanced from Lille upon Tournai. The Austrian army posted before Mons awaited the attack in its intrench- ments. Dumouriez defeated the Austrians completely ; and the victory of Jemappes opened Belgium to the French, and began in Europe the ascendancy of our armies. After his victory of the 6th November, Dumouriez entered as a conqueror into Mons ; on the 14th into Brussels ; and on the 28th into Liege: Valence took Namur, Labourdonnaie obtained possession of Antwerp, and by the 396 HISTORY OF THE middle of December the invasion of the Low- Countries was entirely achieved. The French army, now master of the Meuse and the Scheldt, took up its winter-quarters ; after having driven the Austrians beyond the Roer, whom it might have driven beyond the Lower Rhine. From this moment dated the hostilities be- tween Dumouriez and the Jacobins ; a decree of the convention of the 15th December ab- rogated the Belgian customs, and organized the country in a democratical shape. The Jacobins sent on their part agents into Belgium, to propagate the revolution there, and to establish clubs in the country similar to those of the mother society ; and the Flemings, who had received us with enthu- siasm, were cooled by the requisitions de- manded of them, by the general pillage and the intolerable anarchy which the Jacobins brought along with them. All that party which had opposed the Austrian dominion, and which hoped to be free under the protection of France, found our rule much severer, and regretted having called in or supported us. Dumouriez, who had framed plans for the in- dependence of the Flemings, and of ambition for himself, returned to Paris to complain of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 397 such impolitic conduct, as it regarded con- quered countries. He now changed his be- haviour, which had been hitherto equivocal. He had omitted no method of keeping well with the two factions ; he had ranged himself under the banners of neither, in the hope of making use of the right through his friend Gensonn6, and of the Mountain through Danton and Lacroix, and thought to dazzle both the one and the other by the splendour of his victories. But in his second journey he attempted to arrest the progress of the Ja- cobins, and to save Louis XVI ; and, having failed of success, he returned to the army to commence his second campaign, extremely discontented, and determined to make his new victories serve to suspend the revolution and to change its system of government. All the French frontiers were to be attacked at this time by the powers of Europe. The military successes of the revolution, and the catastrophe of the 21st January, had caused the greater part of the governments, till then undecided or neutral, to enter into the coali- tion. England, which had been long pre- pared for a rupture, seized this occasion for appearing on the theatre of hostilities. The 398 HISTORY OF THE Tower of London was stored with arms; a fleet was ready to sail from Spithead ; the ministers had obtained eighty millions of francs for extraordinaries, and Pitt was at- tempting to profit by our revolution to secure the preponderance of Great Britain ; as Riche- lieu and Mazarin had profited by the crisis of England in 1640, to establish the dominion of the French throughout Europe. The cabinet of St. James's was moved by no motives but the interest of the English ; the consoli- dation of its power in its own country, and its exclusive command over India and the ocean : the achievement of the colonial revolution begun in opposition to it, and which it was desirous to extend to the possessions of the other maritime powers, in order that it might serve as a mediator between two worlds, now become independent of each other : such were the results it anticipated from the great concussion which had been given to the continent. On learning the fate of Louis XVI, the cabinet of St James's sent home the minister Chauvelin, and brought Holland along with it into the rupture with France : Holland being, since 1788, entirely subordinate to Eng- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 399 land. At the same time it made an appeal to the second levy of the coalition. Spain had just undergone a change of ministry ; the famous Godoy, duke of Alcadia, and after- wards prince of Peace, had been placed at the head of the government through the in- trigues of England and the emigrants. That power broke with the republic, after vainly interceding for Louis XVI and having esti- mated its neutrality at the price of the king's life. The Germanic confederation had en- tirely agreed upon war; and Bavaria, Suabia, and the Elector Palatine, joined the opinion of the belligerent circles of the Empire. Naples followed the example of the Holy See, which had already declared itself; and there remained no longer any other states neutral than Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. Russia was still occupied with her second division of Poland. The republic was thus menaced on all sides by all the best disciplined troops in Europe. It was soon to be obliged to combat 55,000 Austro-Sardinians from the Alps ; 50,000 Spaniards from the Pyrenees ; 66,000 Aus- trians or Imperials, reinforced by 38,000 Anglo-Batavians on the Lower Rhine and in 400 HISTORY OF THE Belgium ; 33,400 Austrians between the Meuse and the Moselle; 112,600 Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and Imperials, on the Middle and Upper Rhine. In order to make head against so many enemies, the conven- tion ordered a levy of 300,000 men. This measure for the defence of the exterior, was accompanied by a party measure of defence for the interior, of the country. At the mo- ment when the newly raised battalions were to quit Paris, and when they presented them- selves to the assembly, the Mountain required that an extraordinary tribunal should be esta- blished for the support of the revolution within, which these battalions were preparing to de- fend without, the frontiers. This tribunal, composed of nine members, was to judge with- out jury and without appeal. The Girondists opposed with all their might an institution at once so arbitrary and so redoubtable, but in vain ; for they seemed to favour the enemies of the republic, in rejecting a tribunal ordained to punish them. All that they gained by their opposition, was the introduction of a jury, the removal of violent partisans, and the weakening of its action, as long as they had any influence in the state. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 401 The principal efforts of the coalition were directed against the vast frontier, which stretches from the North Sea to Huningen. The prince of Cobourg was to attack, at the head of the Austrians, the French army upon the Roer and the Meuse, and to penetrate into Belgium, while the Prussians, on another point, were to march against Custine, to give him battle, to surround Mayence, and to renew the preceding invasion after taking it. These two armies of operation were upheld in their intermediate positions by considerable forces. Dumouriez, who was filled with his own ambitious plans of reaction, at a time when no one ought to have thought of any- thing but the danger with which France was surrounded, proposed to re-establish the mo- narchy of 1791, in spite of the convention, and in spite of Europe. That which Bouille" could not accomplish for an absolute, nor La- Fayette for a constitutional monarchy, and in more favourable times, Dumouriez hoped to achieve for a tumble-down and unsupported throne. Instead of remaining neuter between the factions, as circumstances would have dictated even to an ambitious general, Du- mouriez preferred rather to oppose, in order to subdue them. He thought to form a party VOL. I. D D 402 HISTORY OF THE out of France ; to enter Holland aided by the Batavian republicans, alike opposed to the stadtholder and the English interest ; to re- lieve Belgium from the influence of the Jaco- bins ; to unite these two countries into one independent state ; and, after having ac- quired the glory of a conqueror, to propose himself as their political protector. His next object was to intimidate the various parties ; to gain the confidence of the army; march upon the capital ; dissolve the convention ; close the popular societies ; re-establish the constitution of 1791, and give a king to France. This project, impracticable as it was in this fermented state of the revolution, appeared very feasible to the hot-headed and adventurous Dumouriez. Instead of defend- ing the line of attack, from Mayence to the Roer, he threw himself on the left of the operations, and entered Holland "at the head of an army of twenty thousand men. He ex- pected by a rapid march to penetrate into the centre of the United Provinces ; to take the opposing fortresses, and at Nimegue to be reinforced by twenty -five thousand men under general Miranda, who would have pre- viously rendered himself master of Maes- tricht. And an army of forty thousand men FRENCH REVOLUTION. 403 would be sufficient to observe the Austrians and protect his right. Dumouriez pushed on his Dutch expedi- tion with considerable vigour; he took Breda and Gertruydenberg, and was prepared to pass the Biesbos and repair to Dorft. But in the mean time the army on the right experienced the greatest disasters on the lower Meuse. The Austrians took the offensive, passed the Roer, and beat Miazinski at Aix-la-Chapelle ; made Miranda raise the blockade of Maestricht, which he had in vain bombarded ; crossed the Meuse, and put entirely to rout our army which had joined between Tirlemont and Louvain. Dumouriez received orders from the executive council to quit Holland with all speed, and to take the command of the troops in Belgium ; he was accordingly obliged to obey, and thus to lose a part of his wildest, yet dearest hopes. The Jacobins, on receiving the intelligence of all these reverses, became far more intrac- table than ever. Being unable to conceive the idea of a defeat without treachery, espe- cially after the brilliant and unexpected vic- tories of the former campaign, they attributed all military disasters to the combinations of party. They denounced the Girondist mi- 404 HISTORY OF THE nisters and generals, whom they believed to have joined with each other to ruin the re- public, and they determined upon their ruin. Rivalry mingled with suspicion, and they were as eager to overcome an exclusive do- minion as to defend a territory which was threatened : they commenced with the Giron- dists. As the multitude was not yet accus- tomed to the idea of proscribing their repre- sentatives, they at first resorted to a plan for getting rid of them ; they resolved to murder them in the convention when they should all be assembled ; and they fixed the night of the 10th March for the execution of their plan. The assembly had adopted permanent sit- tings, on account of the dangers with which the commonwealth was surrounded. The previous evening it was decided at the club of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, to sound the tocsin, to shut the barriers and to march in two divisions on the convention, and the houses of the ministers. At the hour agreed on they set out ; but several circumstances prevented the conspirators from succeeding. The Giron- dists, who had been prepared to expect the attack, did not go to the nightly sitting : the sections made some opposition to the plot, and Beurnonville, minister at war, marched FRENCH REVOLUTION. 405 against them at the head of a battalion of the federates of Brest : all these unforeseen ob- stacles, joined to the rain, which did not cease to fall the whole night, dispersed the conspirators. The following day Vergniaud denounced the committee of insurrection which had projected these murders, required that the executive council should be charged with making inquiry into the conspiracy of the 10th March, to examine the registers of the clubs, and to arrest the members of the insurrectionary committee. " We are march- ing," said he, "from crimes to amnesties, and from amnesties to crimes. A great number of our citizens have gone the length of con- founding seditious insurrections with the great insurrection of liberty ; of regarding the inso- lence of robbers as the explosion of energetic minds, and robbery as a measure calculated to secure the general safety. We have wit- nessed the development of the strange system of liberty from which maxims such as these are drawn. You are free, but think like us, lest we denounce you to the vengeance of the people : you are free, but bow your heads before the idol to which we offer incense, or we will denounce you to the vengeance of the people : you are free, but you are to join 40G HISTORY OF THE with us in persecuting men whose probity and understandings we dread, or we denounce you to the vengeance of the people! Citizens, it is to be feared that the revolution, like Saturn, may devour its own children, and engender, at length, despotism, with all its attendant calamities." These prophetic words produced some effect on the assembly ; but the measures proposed by Vergniaud led to nothing. The Jacobins had been arrested for a mo- ment in their course by the ill success of their first enterprise against their adversaries ; but the insurrection of La Vendee took place, and restored all their boldness. The war of La Vendee was an inevitable event in the re- volution. This country, which was backed by the sea and the Loire, traversed by few roads, and covered with villages, hamlets, and castlewards, had maintained its ancient state of feudal existence. In La Vendee there was neither education nor civilization, be- cause there was no middle class ; and there was no middle class, because there were few or no towns. The class of the peasants had not at this time acquired any other ideas than those communicated to them by the priests, and had kept its interests undivided from FRENCH REVOLUTION. 407 those of the nobles. These men, simple, robust, and devoted to the ancient order of things, understood nothing of a revolution, which was the result of opinions and wants altogether unknown to their situation. The nobles and the priests finding themselves a strong party in this quarter of the country, did not emigrate ; and there it was that, in reality, existed the partisans of the old regime ; because there it was that its doctrines and its society were to be found. It was certain that, sooner or later, France and La Vendee, coun- tries so different, and which had nothing in common but their language, should be in a state of war with each other : it was certain that the two kinds of fanaticism, the monarch- ical, and that which believed in the popular sovereignty, that of the priesthood and that of human reason, should raise their banners against each other, and bring about the tri- umph either of the old or new state of civili- zation. Partial troubles had arisen at various times in La Vendee. In 1792 the count de la Rou- airie had proposed a general rising, which had only failed in consequence of his own arrest ; but everything was prepared for an insur- rection, when the recruiting of the army by 408 HISTORY OF THE three hundred thousand men was undertaken : that levy became the signal of revolt. The Vendeans beat the gendarmerie at St. Flo- rens, and first took for their chiefs at divers points, Cathelineau the waggoner, Charette an officer in the navy, and Stoffiet the game- keeper. In a short time the insurrection spread throughout the whole country : nine hundred communes rose up at the sound of the tocsin, and then the noble chiefs Bon- champs, Lescure, Larochejaquelin, D'Elbee, and Talmont, joined the others. The troops of the line and the battalions of the national guard, which marched against the insurgents, were beaten. General Marce was overthrown at St. Vincent, by Stoffiet : general Gauvil- liers at Beaupreau, by D'Elbee and Bon- champs ; general Quetineau at Aubiers, by Larochejaquelin; and general Ligonnier, at Cholet. The Vendeans, now become masters of Chatillon, Bressuire, and Vihiers, deter- mined, before pushing their advantages farther, to give themselves a sort of organization. They formed three bodies, consisting of from ten to twelve thousand men each, after the distribu- tion of the Vendean territory into three branches of command ; the first under Bonchamps kept by the banks of the Loire, and received the FRENCH REVOLUTION. 409 name of the army of Anjou ; the second placed in the centre, was called the grand arm?/, and was commanded by D'Elbee ; and the third, in Lower La Vendee, became the army of the Marsh, under Charette. The insurgents es- tablished a council to decide the operations, and chose Cathelineau generalissimo. These arrangements, and that disposition of the country, allowed of ranging the insurgents in regiments, of dismissing them to their fields, or recalling them to serve under their banners. The news of this formidable rising made the convention take still more rigorous mea- sures with regard to the priests and the emi- grants. It outlawed the priests and nobles who participated in any assembling of per- sons, and took away the arms of all who had belonged to the privileged classes. The old emigrants were banished for life ; they were not allowed to re-enter France under pain of death ; and all their properties were confis- cated. On the door of each house the names of all who inhabitated it were to be written ; and the revolutionary tribunal, which had been adjourned, re-commenced its terrible func- tions. At the same time intelligence arrived of new disasters in our armies. Dumouriez, on 410 HISTORY OF THE his return to the army of Belgium, concen- trated his forces, in order to oppose the Austrian general, the prince of Cobourg. His troops were in a state of discouragement, and wanted everything : he addressed to the convention a threatening letter against the Jacobins who denounced him. After having inspired his army with some of the confidence it formerly had in its own success, by means of some small advantages, he hazarded a general engagement at Nerwind, and lost the battle. Belgium was evacuated ; and Du- mouriez, placed between the Austrians and the Jacobins, beaten by the one, and attacked by the other, resorted to the culpable expedi- ent of a defection, in order to realize his former projects. He had conferences with colonel Mack, and arranged with the Austrians to march upon Paris to re-establish the monar- chy, while he was to quit them upon the frontier, leaving them several strong places as a guarantee. It is likely that Dumouriez meant to place upon the throne the young duke of Chartres, who had distinguished himself in that campaign; while the prince of Cobourg hoped that if the counter-revolu- tion reached that point, it would go farther, and re-establish the son of Louis XVI, and FRENCH REVOLUTION. 4 1 1 the ancient monarchy together. A counter- revolution is not to be arrested, any more than a revolution ; when it is once com- menced, it must go on to the end. The Jaco- bins were very soon informed of the intentions of Dumouriez, who took no pains to conceal them ; whether it was that he wished to sound his troops, or to terrify his enemies, or whether he abandoned himself to the usual levity of his disposition, is uncertain. In order to make themselves still more certain of the facts, the club of the Jacobins sent to him a deputation, consisting of three of its members, named Proly, Pereira, and Dubuis- son. On being admitted into the presence of Dumouriez, they obtained of him more ac- knowledgments than they had even expected. " The convention," said he, "is an assembly of seven hundred and thirty-five tyrants. As long as I hold four inches of steel, I shall not allow it to reign and to pour forth human blood, by means of the revolutionary tribunal which it has just created. As to the re- public," added he ; " it is but an empty word ; I believed in it for three days ; but since the affair of Jemmapes, I have regretted every success I have obtained in so bad a cause. There is but one way of saving the country, 412 HISTORY OF THE and that is by the re-establishment of the con- stitution of 1791, and a king." — " Are you in your senses, general ?" cried Dubuisson : " the French hold the name of royalty, and the sound of the name of Louis XVI, in horror." — " But what matters the name ? Of what consequence is it whether the king is called Louis, James, or Philip ?" — " And your means, where are they?" — " My army — yes, my army will ac- complish all this ; and from my camp, or the security of a fortified place, will tell you that it demands a king." — "But your project compromises the safety of the prisoners in the Temple."— "The last of the Bourbons must be slain, even those at Coblentz, before France will want a king : and if Paris added this murder to those with which it is already dishonoured, I should immediately march upon the capital." After declaring himself with all this want of precaution, Dumouriez commenced the execution of his impracticable design : he found himself in a position truly difficult, his soldiers were sincerely attach- ed to him, but they were also devoted to their country. He was bound to give up strong places of which he was not the master, and it was to be supposed that the generals under his orders would act with regard to FRENCH REVOLUTION. 413 him as he had himself acted with La Fayette. His first attempt was not encouraging. After establishing his camp at St. Amaucl, he wished to seize upon Lille, Conde, and Va- lenciennes ; but in this attempt he failed. This piece of ill success led him to hesitate, and prevented him from commencing the attack. It was not thus with the convention, which acted with a promptitude, a boldness, a firm- ness, and a precision with regard to its object, which could not fail to render it victorious. When a party knows what its wishes are, and when these are promptly and decidedly fol- lowed up, it always succeeds : this was what was wanting in Dumouriez, this was what checked his boldness, and shook his partisans. As soon as the convention was informed of his projects, it summoned him to its bar : he refused to obey, but did not yet hoist the standard of revolt. The convention immedi- ately dispatched four of its representatives, Camus, Quinette, Lamarque, and Bancal, together with the minister at war, Beurnon- ville, to bring him before them or to arrest him in the midst of his army. Dumouriez received the commission at the head of his 414 HISTORY OF THE staff: they presented to him the decree of the convention, which he read, and returned it to them, saying that the state of his army did not admit of his quitting it. He offered to resign his post, and promised that, at a calmer time, he would himself demand an investiga- tion into his conduct, and give an explanation both of his designs and his actions. The com- missaries entreated him to submit, alleging the example of the ancient Roman generals. "We are always wrong when we quote," said he ; " and we degrade the history of the Romans, when we give the example of their virtues as an excuse for our crimes. The Romans did not murder Tarquin — the Romans had a well regulated republic and good laws : they had neither a club of Jacobins, nor a re- volutionary tribunal. We live in a time of anarchy ; a band of tigers desire my head, and I do not wish to give it them.". — " Citizen general," said Camus, " will you obey the decree of the national convention, and go to Paris ?"— " Not now."—" Well then I declare you suspended from your functions : you are no longer general ; and I command you to be taken into custody." — "This is too much!" cried Dumouriez : and ordered some German FRENCH REVOLUTION. 415 hussars to seize the commissaries, whom he delivered as hostages to the Austrians. After this act of revolt, it was no longer possible to hesitate. Dumouriez made a new attack upon Conde, but it was as unsuccessful as the former: he wished to induce the army to follow him in his defection, but it deserted him. The soldiers were much more likely to prefer the republic to their general ; for the attachment to the revolution was now in all its strength, and the civil power in all its energy. Dumouriez experienced, in declaring himself against the convention, the same fate which La Fayette had undergone when he declared himself against the constituent as- sembly. At that period, if a general had united the firmness of Bouille to the pa- triotism and the popularity of La Fayette, and the victories and resources of Dumouriez, he must have failed as they did. The revolution, with the movement which it caused, was necessarily stronger than parties, than gene- rals, or than Europe. Dumouriez passed into the Austrian camp with the duke of Chartres, colonel Thouvenot, and two squadrons of Berchiny ; the rest of his army joined the camp at Famars, and united with the troops under the command of Dampierre. 416 HISTORY OF THE The convention, on learning the arrest of the commissaries, established itself permanently, declared Dumouriez a traitor to his country, authorized every citizen to treat him as an outlaw, set a price upon his head, decreed the famous committee of public safety, and banished the duke of Orleans and all the Bourbons from the republic. Though the Girondists on this occasion had attacked Dumouriez as angrily as the Mountainists, they were nevertheless accused of being ac- complices in his desertion ; and thus was a new complaint added to all the rest. Their ene- mies daily became more powerful, and it was in moments of public danger that they were especially redoubtable. Till now in the long struggle which had been going on between the two parties, they had gained the victory on all points : they had stopped the prosecutions relating to the massacres of September : they had supported the usurpations of the commune : they had first obtained the trial and then the execution of Louis XVI : through their in- trigues the pillages of February and the conspiracy of the 10th March had remained unpunished : they erected the revolutionary tribunal, in spite of the Girondists : by means of repeated insults they had driven Roland from FRENCH REVOLUTION. 417 the ministry ; and they had triumphed over Dumouriez. It now only remained for them to take away from the Girondists their last asylum, the assembly : this they began to attempt on the 10th April, and they finished the work on the 2nd June. Robespierre attacked, by name, Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Potion, and Gensonn£, in the convention, and Marat denounced them in the popular assemblies. He wrote in his quality of president of the Jacobins an address to the departments, in which he called for the thunder of petitions and accusations against the traitors and unfaithful delegates, who had desired to save the tyrant by voting his imprisonment or the appeal to the people. The right side and the Plain of the convention felt that it was requisite to combine their forces. Marat was sent before the revolutionary tribunal. This intelligence excited the loudest rumours among the clubs, the mob, and the commune. In revenge, the mayor (Pache) came, in the name of the thirty-five sections and of the council-general, to demand the expulsion of the principal Girondists. Young Boyer Fonfrede required to be included in the proscription of his colleagues, and the members of the righ. and of the Plain rose up, crying out — All! all VOL I. E E 418 HISTORY OF THE of us ! This petition, though declared calum- nious, was the beginning of attacks from with- out against the convention, and prepared the minds of all for the ruin of the Gironde. The accusation of Marat was far from inti- midating the Jacobins, who accompanied him to the revolutionary tribunal. Marat was acquitted, and carried in triumph into the assembly. From this moment the avenues to the hall were occupied by audacious Sans- culottes ; and the tribunes of the Jacobins trenched upon those of the convention. The clubbists and the hirelings (tricoteuses) of Robespierre continually interrupted the orators of the right, and disturbed the deliberations : while out of doors all means were sought for to get rid of the Girondists. Henriot, com- mandant of the Sans-culotte section, excited for this purpose the battalions which were ready to depart for La Vendee. Guadet then saw that it was useless any longer to confine matters to complaints or harangues : he mounted the tribune and said : " Citizens, while virtuous men confine themselves to lamenting over the misfortunes of their coun- try, conspirators are endeavouring to ruin it. Like Caesar, they say — Let them speak, and let us act! Well, then — do so too. The evil lies FRENCH REVOLUTION. 419 in the impunity of the conspirators of the 10th March, in the existence of the authorities of Paris — authorities at once desirous of money and of power. Citizens, there is still time : you may yet save your country, and your honour which is compromised. I propose to annul the authorities of Paris, to replace within twenty- four hours the municipality by the presi- dents of the sections, to assemble the proxies of the convention at Bourges with the shortest possible delay, and to dispatch our decree into the departments by expresses." This motion of Guadet's served for a moment to surprise the Mountain. If the measures proposed had been adopted on the instant, the dominion of the commune and the projects of the conspirators were gone for ever : but it is also probable that the parties would have taken some steps, that civil war would have spread, that the convention would have been dissolved by the assembly of Bourges, all centre of action de- stroyed, and that the revolution would not have been strong enough to resist its own in- ternal struggles and the attacks of Europe : and this was what was feared by the moderate part of the assembly. In terror of anarchy if the commune was not repressed, and of the counter-revolution, if the multitude was not 420 HISTORY OF THE confined, the moderate party wished to main- tain a balance between the two extremities of the convention. This party composed the committees of general surety and public safety; it was directed by Barrere, who, like all well- meaning men of weak character, was the sup- porter of moderate measures, until terror made him an instrument of cruelty and tyranny. Instead of the decisive measures of Guadet, he proposed to name an extraordinary com- mission of twelve members charged with the examination of the conduct of the munici- pality, to discover the authors of the plots carried on against the national representation, and to secure their persons. This middle course was adopted : but it left the commune undisturbed, and the commune necessarily triumphed over the convention. The commission of twelve spread alarm among the members of the commune by its inquiries; it discovered a new conspiracy, which was to break out on the 22nd May ; ordered the arrest of several conspirators, among others, the secretary of the commune, Hebert, author of Phre Duchesne, who was seized in the very midst of the municipality. The commune, which at first was in a state of stupefaction, now took measures of opposi- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 421 tion. From this time there were no longer plots — there were insurrections. The coun- cil general, encouraged by the Mountainists, surrounded itself with the agitators of the capital : it spread a report that the twelve wished to purge the convention, and replace the tribunal which had acquitted Marat by a counter-revolutionary tribunal. The Ja- cobins, the Cordeliers, and the sections, now- established themselves permanently. On the 26th May the agitation began to be felt ; and on the 27th it became strong enough to lead the commune to open the attack. The com- mune presented itself to the convention, and demanded the liberty of Hebert, and the sup- pression of the twelve. It was followed by the deputies from the sections, who ex- pressed the same wish ; and the hall was surrounded by large assemblages. The sec- tion of the city even ventured to require that the twelve should be brought before the re- volutionary tribunal. Isnard, president of the assembly, replied in a tone of solemnity, " Listen to what I am now about to say. If once the convention is degraded ; if ever, through one of these insurrections, which have so frequently taken place since the 10th March, and of which the magistrates have not 422 HISTORY OF THE given notice to the assembly, it happened that a blow was struck at the national repre- sentation, I tell you in the name of the whole of France, that Paris would be annihilated ; yes, all France would take vengeance on the attempt, and soon it would be necessary to inquire on which bank of the Seine the capi- tal once stood." This reply became the sig- nal of a great tumult. "I declare to you also," cried Danton; " that so much impu- dence begins to be insufferable ; we will re- sist you." Then turning towards the right — " No more truces between the Mountain and the cowards who wished to save the tyrant." The greatest confusion now reigned in the hall ; the tribunes uttered cries against the right — the Mountainists broke out into me- naces ; every moment the deputations suc- ceeded each other from without, and the con- vention saw itself surrounded by an immense multitude. Some sectionaries of the Mail and the Butte des Moulins, commanded by Raffit, had placed themselves in the passages and avenues to defend it. The Girondists fought as long as they could against the de- putations and the Mountain. Threatened from within, and besieged from without, they FRENCH REVOLUTION. 423 attempted to make use of that violence to excite the indignation of the assembly. But Garat, the minister of the interior, deprived them of even that resource ; and on being called upon to render an account of the state of Paris, he assured the meeting that the con- vention had nothing to fear ; and the opinion of Garat, who passed for impartial, and whose conciliating disposition sometimes led him to take equivocal steps, emboldened the mem- bers of the Mountain. Isnard was compelled to quit the chair ; Herault de Sechelles re- placed him ; and this was the signal of vic- tory to the Mountainists. The new president replied to the petitioners whom Isnard had till then kept down — " The force of rea- son and the force of the people is the same thing : you ask us for a magistrate and justice ; the representatives of the people will render it to you." It was too late ; the right side was cast down ; several of its members had departed ; the petitioners had thrust themselves from the bar into the seats of the representatives, and thus mixing with the Mountainists, amidst cries and disorder, they all voted together the suppression of the twelve, and the enlargement of the prisoners. It was at half-past twelve, among the plan- 424 HISTORY OF THE dits of the tribunes and the people, that the decree was carried. Perhaps it might have been wise in the Gironde, considering that it was not in reality the strongest party, to have taken no farther notice of this deliberation. The movement of the preceding evening could have no other result than the suppression of the twelve, if other causes did not tend to prolong it. But, when the animosities of the parties had reached this point of violence, it was neces- sary that the quarrel should be decided — that the two parties should combat for victory, seeing that they could no longer bear each other ; — that they should march from victory to victory, and from victory to defeat, each day growing more and more hostile, till the stronger party should definitively triumph over the weaker. The next day the members of the right regained the field of battle in the convention ; they resumed the discussion on the decree of the preceding evening, as being illegally carried amidst tumult, and by force, and the commission was re-established. " You did yesterday," said Danton, " a great act of justice ; but I tell you, that if the com- mission preserves the tyrannical power it has exercised ; — if the magistrates of the people FRENCH REVOLUTION. 425 are not restored to their functions ; — if our good citizens have yet to dread arbitrary- arrests — then, after having proved to you that we surpass our enemies in prudence and wisdom, we will surpass them also in bold- ness and in revolutionary vigour." Danton was afraid to resume the combat, for he dreaded the triumph of the Mountainists as much as that of the Girondists ; accordingly he wished by turns to prevent the 31st May, and to moderate its results ; but he found himself reduced to join his own party during the combat, and to be silent after the victory. The agitation, which had been somewhat calmed by the suppression of the twelve, be- came threatening on the news of their re- establishment. The tribunes of the sections and popular societies, echoed with invectives, cries of danger, and appeals to the insurrec- tion. Hebert, after quitting prison, repaired to the commune. There was placed on his head a crown, which he placed upon the head of Brutus, and then flew to the Ja- cobins, to call for vengeance upon the twelve. Upon this, Robespierre, Marat, Danton, Chau- mette, and Pache, joined to organize a new movement. The insurrection was modelled on that of the 10th August: the 29th May 426 HISTORY OF THE was employed in preparing the public mind for it. On the 30th, the members of the electoral body, the commissaries of the clubs, and deputies from the sections, assembled at the Evech6, declared themselves in a state of insurrection, annulled the council general of the commune, and afterwards restored it, making the members take a new oath. Hen- riot received the title of commandant-general of the armed forces, and the Sans-culottes had forty sous per day, as long as they re- mained under arms. After these arrange- ments were decided on, early in the morning of the 31st the tocsin was sounded, the gent- rale beat, the troops assembled and marched upon the convention, which for some time had held its sittings in the palace of the Tuileries. The assembly had been sitting for some time ; it had met at the sound of the tocsin. The minister of the interior, the administrators of the department, and the mayor of Paris, had been successively called to the bar. Garat had reported the agitation of Paris, but appeared to feel no dread of dangerous conse- quences from it. Lhuillier, in the name of the department, had assured the assembly hat it was merely a moral insurrection. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 427 Pache, the mayor, came last, and in a most hypocritical manner disclosed the operations of the insurgents ; he pretended to have em- ployed all his efforts to maintain order ; he assured the assembly that the guard of the convention had been doubled, and that he had forbidden the alarm-guns to be fired. However, at the very moment he was speak- ing, the report of a girn was heard at a dis- tance. The general surprise and agitation were extreme. Cambon requested that all the assembly would join to avert the general danger; he implored the tribunes to be silent. "In such extraordinary circumstances," said he, " the only method of defeating the de- signs of ill-meaning persons is to cause the national convention to be respected." " I de- mand," said Thuriot, "that the commission of twelve be annulled on the instant." " And I demand," said Talien, " that the sword of the law be raised to smite the conspirators who shelter themselves in the very bosom of the convention." The Girondists, on their side, required that the audacious Henriot should be brought to their bar, for having fired the alarm guns without the order of the conven- tion. "If there is any struggle now," said Vergniaud, " the result will be the ruin of 428 HISTORY OF THE the republic, let either party gain the victory. Let all our members swear to die at their posts." The whole assembly then rose, and supported the opinion of Vergniaud. Dan ton flew to the tribune : " Annul the commission of twelve," cried he ; "the cannon has fired. If you are political legislators, so far from blaming the explosion of Paris, you will turn it to the profit of the republic, by reforming your errors, and cancelling the commission." And hearing some murmurs, he continued, "It is to those who possess some political talents that I address myself, and not to those foolish persons who allow their passions only to speak. I say to them, Consider the greatness of your object : it is to save the people from their enemies, from aristocrats, and from their own fury. If a few really dan- gerous men, no matter to what party they belong, wished afterwards to prolong a move- ment which would be useless when you had rendered justice to yourselves, Paris itself would reduce them into their proper insigni- ficance. I calmly demand the pure and simple suppression of the commission under its political view." The commission was violently attacked on one side, and feebly defended on the other. Barrere and the committee of FRENCH REVOLUTION. 429 public safety, who had created it, proposed its suppression for the sake of peace, and in order to prevent the assembly from being - put at the mercy of the multitude. The moderate Moun- tainists were disposed to stop at this measure, when the deputations arrived. The members of the department, those of the municipality, and the commissaries of the sections, on being admitted to the bar, not only demanded the suppression of the twelve, but likewise the chastisement of its members and of all the Girondist chiefs. The Tuileries were now blocked up by the insurgents, and the presence of their commis- saries in the hall of the convention emboldened the extreme Mountainists, who wished to de- stroy the Girondist party. Robespierre, their chief and their orator, then addressed the assembly: " Citizens, let us not lose this day in vain clamours and insignificant measures : this day is, perhaps, the last in which despo- tism may combat tyranny ! Let the faithful representatives of the people unite to secure their happiness !" He urged the convention to follow the plan suggested by the petitioners, rather than that proposed by the committee of public safety. "Conclude, then," cried Verg- niaud. — " I do, and against you ! against you 430 HISTORY OF THE who after the revolution of the 10th August wished to bring: to the scaffold those who had accomplished it ! against you who have never ceased to provoke the destruction of Paris! against you who wished to save the tyrant ! against you who conspired with Dumouriez ! against you who pursued with fury the same patriots whose heads Dumouriez demanded ! against you whose criminal projects of ven- geance have provoked the very cries of indig- nation of which you now wish to make a crime in those who are your victims ! Well then, my conclusion is a decree of accusation against all the accomplices of Dumouriez and those pointed out by the petitioners !" Not- withstanding the violence of this attack, the party of Robespierre did not obtain the victory. The insurrection had been only raised against the twelve ; and the committee of public safety which proposed its suppression, carried the day against the commune. The assembly adopted the decree of Barrere, which annulled the twelve, put the public force in permanent requisition, and which, to content the petition- ers, charged the committee of public safety with investigating the plots they had de- nounced. As soon as the multitude which surrounded the assembly was informed of these FRENCH REVOLUTION. 431 measures, they received them with acclama- tions, and dispersed. But the conspirators were not satisfied with this half triumph : they had gone on the 31st May still farther than on the 27th : and on the 2nd June they went still farther than on the 31st May. The insurrection became — instead of a moral one, as they styled it— -personal ; that is to say, it was no longer directed against a power, but against deputies : it escaped Dan- ton and the Mountain, and it fell to Robes- pierre, Marat, and the commune. On the night of the 31st, a Jacobin deputy said " that there had only been one half done, that the business ought to be finished, and that the people should not have time to cool." Henriot offered to place the armed force at the dispo- sal of the club. The insurrectional committee openly established itself near the convention. The whole of the 1st June was devoted to the preparation for a grand movement. The com- mune wrote thus to the sections : " Citizens, keep yourselves prepared : the dangers of your country impose this upon you as a laiv." In the evening Marat, who was the principal actor in the 2nd June, went to the Hdtel-de-Ville, mounted the clock, and sounded the tocsin : he advised the members of the council never 432 HISTORY OF THE to yield until they had obtained a decree of accusation against the traitors and the states- men. Some deputies met in the convention, and the conspirators proceeded thither to de- mand a decree against the proscripts : but they were not yet sufficiently strong to force it from the convention. All the night passed away in preparations : the tocsin sounded, the generate was beaten, and the crowds assembled. On Sunday morn- ing, towards eight o'clock, Henriot presented himself to the council-general, and declared to his accomplices, in the name of the insurgent people, that they would not lay down their arms till they had obtained the arrest of the conspirators among the deputies. He next put himself at the head of the vast multitudes who were in the square of the H6tel-de-Ville, addressed them, and gave them the signal to depart. It was near ten when the insur- gents arrived on the Place du Carrousel. Henriot surrounded the palace with devoted bands, and the convention was very soon sur- rounded by twenty thousand men, of whom the greater number did not know what they were required to do, and felt themselves more in- clined to defend than to attack the deputation. The greater part of the proscripts had FRENCH REVOLUTION. 433 remained absent from the assembly. Some, who were resolved to keep up their courage to the end, had come to brave the storm for the last time. As soon as the sitting com- menced, the intrepid Lanjuinais mounted the tribune : "I demand," said he, " to be al- lowed to ask why the generate is now beating in every part of Paris?" He was instantly interrupted by cries of Down ! Down ! He wants a civil war ! He wants the counter-revolu- tion! He calumniates Paris! He insults the people ! In spite of the menaces, outrages, and cries of the Mountain and the tribunes, Lanjuinais denounced the projects of the com- mune and of the factions: his courage aug- mented with the danger. "You accuse us," said he* " with calumniating Paris ! Paris is pure — Paris is good. Paris is oppressed by tyrants, who seek for blood and dominion !" These words became a signal for the most violent tumults ; several Mountainist deputies rushed to the tribune in order to drag Lan- juinais from it, but he clung to it, and in a tone of the most generous courage, cried out : " I require all the revolutionary authorities of Paris to be annulled: I demand that all they have done for the last three days be annulled ; I demand that all those who desire to arrosrate o VOL. I. 434 HISTORY OF THE to themselves a new authority contrary to the law, be outlawed, and that every citizen be authorized to treat them accordingly." He had scarcely finished, when the insurgent peti- tioners came to demand his arrest and that of his colleagues. "Citizens," said they in con- clusion, "the people are tired to see their happiness postponed : they leave it yet a mo- ment in your hands : save them then, or we declare that the people will save themselves !" The right called for the order of the day on the petition of the insurgents. The conven- tion passed to the order of the day. Upon this the petitioners left the hall in a threaten- ing attitude, the men quitted the galleries, the cry was heard To arms! and a great noise was going on without. Save the people from themselves, said a Mountainist, and save your colleagues by decreeing their provisional arrest. No ! No ! replied the right, and even a party of the left. We will all share their fate ! cried Lareveillere-Lepaux. The committee of pub- lic safety, charged with the report, and terrified at the greatness of the danger, proposed as on the 31st May a measure, in appearance conci- liatory, which should satisfy the insurgents without entirely sacrificing the proscribed. "The committee addresses itself," said Bar- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 435 rere, " to the patriotism and the generosity of the members accused : it asks of them the suspension of their power, by representing to them that it is the only means of staying the divisions which afflict the republic, and of bringing back peace to it." Several among them supported this measure. Isnard sus- pended himself: Lanth^nas, Dussaulx, and Fauchet, followed his example. Lanjuinais did not agree with him. " I have, I believe, till this moment," said he, " discovered some courage ; therefore neither look for suspension or dismission as far as I am concerned." Here he was violently interrupted, but he con- tinued : "When the ancients," said he, "pre- pared a sacrifice, they crowned the victim with 'flowers and garlands when they con- ducted it to the altar : the priest immolated, but did not insult it." Barbaroux was as firm as Lanjuinais. "I have sworn," said he, " to die at my post ; and I will keep my vow." The conspirators of the Mountain themselves rose up against the proposition of the com- mittee. Marat said that those who made sacrifices ought to be pure : and Billaud- Varennes demanded the judgment of the Girondists, and not their suspension. While this debate was taking place, a de- 436 HISTORY OF THE puty from the Mountain (Lacroix) hastily entered the hall, rushed^ to the tribune, de- clared that he had been insulted at the doors, that he had been prevented from leaving the house, and that the convention was no longer free. A great number of the Mountainists showed their indignation at the conduct of Henriot and his troops. Danton said, that the outraged national majesty should be vigorously avenged. Barrere proposed that the conven- tion should present itself to the people ; f Re- presentatives," said he, " command your own freedom, suspend your sitting, and make the bayonets which now surround you, bend before you." The whole of the convention then rose, and marched out, preceded by its ushers, and with the president at its head, who wore his head covered in token of his distress. On arriving at a passage which led to the Place de Carrousel, they found Henriot on horseback with a sabre in his hand "What demand the people?" said the pre- sident Herault de Sechelles to him ; "the con- vention is only occupied with their welfare." "Herault," replied Henriot, "the people are not risen up to listen to phrases ; they demand that twenty-four criminals begivenuptothem." " Let us all be given up," cried those who sur- FRENCH REVOLUTION. 437 rounded the president. Henriot then turned to his party, and cried " Cannoniers to your guns!" Two cannoas were immediately pointed at the convention, whioh drew back, entered the garden and crossed it, and then presented itself at several avenues, which were all equally closed. Everywhere the soldiers were under arms ; Marat went up and down their ranks, he excited, encouraged the insur- gents : " No weakness," said he, " and quit not your post until they shall have been given up to you." The convention then entered the hall, overwhelmed with the sense tof its own impotence and the uselessness of its efforts, and altogether subdued. The arrest of the proscripts was no longer opposed. Marat, the real dictator of the assembly, de- cided completely on the fate of its members. " Dussaulx," said he, " is an old dotard, in- capable of being the chief of a party ; Lan- thenas is a poor blockhead whom nobody cares about ; Ducos holds but a few erroneous opinions, and is unqualified to be chief of a counter-revolution. I demand that these be cepted, and that they be replaced by ValazeV' Accordingly Dussaulx, Lanthenas, and Ducos were retrenched from the list, and the name of Valaze added to it. The list was thus 438 HISTORY OF THE composed, though half of the assembly took no part in the decree. The following are the names of these illustrious proscripts. They decreed the arrest of the Girondists — Gensonne, Guadet, Brissot, Gorsas, Potion, Vergniaud, Salles, Barbaroux, Chambon, Buzot, Birotteau, Lidon, Rabaud, Lasource, Lanjuinais, Gran- geneuve, Lehardi, Lesage, Louvet, Valaze\ Lebrun the minister for foreign affairs, and Claviere, minister for contributions. The members of the twelve arrested were — Ker- velegan, Gardien, Rabaud - Saint - Etienne, Boileau, Bertrand, Vigee, Molleveau, Henri- Lariviere, Gomere, and Bergouin. The con- vention placed them in a state of detention at their own houses, and under the safeguard of the people. Immediately the countersign which had held the convention prisoners was given, and the multitude dispersed : but it must also be said that from this time there was no freedom in the assembly. Thus fell the party of the Gironde, a party which was illustrious for the great talents and courage of its members : a party which honoured the rising republic by its horror of blood, its hatred of crime, its disgust at anar- chy, its love of order, of justice, and liberty: FRENCH REVOLUTION. 439 a party which was unfortunately placed be- tween the middle class whose revolution it had combatted, and the multitude whose dominion it rejected. Condemned to inac- tivity, this party could only adorn the cer- tainty of defeat by a courageous struggle, and by a bold death. At that time its end might have been foreseen with certainty ; it had been driven from post to post : from the Jacobins by the invasion of the Mountainists ; from the commune by the dismissal of Petion ; from the ministry by the retreat of Roland and his colleagues ; and from the army by the defection of Dumouriez. It had no longer any hold but on the convention ; there it intrenched itself, struggled, and was overcome. Its enemies attempted by turns against it both plots and insurrections. Their plots gave rise to the commission of twelve, which appeared to give a momentary advan- tage to the Gironde, but which only the more violently excited its adversaries. The latter put the multitude in motion, and carried away from the Girondists, first their authority by destroying the commission of twelve, and then their political existence by proscribing their chiefs. The consequences of this disastrous event 440 FRENCH REVOLUTION. were contrary to the opinions of all : the Dan- tonists thought that the dissensions of party- would be terminated and a civil war broke out ; the moderate part of the committee of public safety thought that the convention would recover all its power, and it was sub- jugated ; the commune believed that the 31st May would obtain for it the ascendancy, which fell to Robespierre and some men de- devoted to his fortunes, or to the extreme, democracy. In short, another party was added to the vanquished parties, and conse- quently to the hostile parties ; and as the republic was raised against the constitutionals after the 10th August, the system of terror was adopted against the moderate party in the republic after the 31st May. END OF VOL. I. LONDON : PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. v DC i > ^ I h £ THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara t: THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. 1