LECTURES

ON THE

FRENCH REVOLUTION

MACMILLAN AND CO. , Limited

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LECTURESON THEFRENCH REVOLUTION

BY

JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG-ACTON

First Baron ACTON

D. C. L. , LL. D. , ETC. ETC. 

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

EDITED BYJOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, C. R. , Litt. D. 

HONORARY FELLOW OF ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE

AND

REGINALD VERE LAURENCE, M. A. 

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITEDST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON1910

PREFATORY NOTE

The following Lectures were delivered by Lord Acton as RegiusProfessor of Modern History at Cambridge in the academical years1895-96, 1896-97, 1897-98, 1898-99. The French Revolution, 1789-95, was in those years one of the special subjects set for the HistoricalTripos, and this determined the scope of the course. In addition somediscussion of the literature of the Revolution generally took placeeither in a conversation class or as an additional lecture. Suchconnected fragments of these as remain have been printed as anappendix. For the titles of the Lectures the editors are responsible. 

 J. N. F. R. V. L. 

 _August 10, 1910_

CONTENTS

LECT. PAGE

 I. The Heralds of the Revolution 1

 II. The Influence of America 20

 III. The Summons of the States-General 39

 IV. The Meeting of the States-General 57

 V. The Tennis-Court Oath 68

 VI. The Fall of the Bastille 77

 VII. The Fourth of August 94

 VIII. The Constitutional Debates 109

 IX. The March to Versailles 126

 X. Mirabeau 141

 XI. Sieyès and the Constitution Civile 159

 XII. The Flight to Varennes 174

 XIII. The Feuillants and the War 193

 XIV. Dumouriez 210

 XV. The Catastrophe of Monarchy 224

 XVI. The Execution of the King 240

 XVII. The Fall of the Gironde 256

XVIII. The Reign of Terror 269

 XIX. Robespierre 284

 XX. La Vendée 301

 XXI. The European War 317

 XXII. After the Terror 331

Appendix: The Literature of the Revolution 345

Index 375

I

THE HERALDS OF THE REVOLUTION

The revenue of France was near twenty millions when Lewis XVI. , finding it inadequate, called upon the nation for supply. In a singlelifetime it rose to far more than one hundred millions, while thenational income grew still more rapidly; and this increase was wroughtby a class to whom the ancient monarchy denied its best rewards, andwhom it deprived of power in the country they enriched. As theirindustry effected change in the distribution of property, and wealthceased to be the prerogative of a few, the excluded majority perceivedthat their disabilities rested on no foundation of right and justice, and were unsupported by reasons of State. They proposed that theprizes in the Government, the Army, and the Church should be given tomerit among the active and necessary portion of the people, and thatno privilege injurious to them should be reserved for the unprofitableminority. Being nearly an hundred to one, they deemed that they werevirtually the substance of the nation, and they claimed to governthemselves with a power proportioned to their numbers. They demandedthat the State should be reformed, that the ruler should be theiragent, not their master. 

That is the French Revolution. To see that it is not a meteor from theunknown, but the product of historic influences which, by their unionwere efficient to destroy, and by their division powerless toconstruct, we must follow for a moment the procession of ideas thatwent before, and bind it to the law of continuity and the operationof constant forces. 

If France failed where other nations have succeeded, and if thepassage from the feudal and aristocratic forms of society to theindustrial and democratic was attended by convulsions, the cause wasnot in the men of that day, but in the ground on which they stood. Aslong as the despotic kings were victorious abroad, they were acceptedat home. The first signals of revolutionary thinking lurk dimly amongthe oppressed minorities during intervals of disaster. The Jansenistswere loyal and patient; but their famous jurist Domat was aphilosopher, and is remembered as the writer who restored thesupremacy of reason in the chaotic jurisprudence of the time. He hadlearnt from St. Thomas, a great name in the school he belonged to, that legislation ought to be for the people and by the people, thatthe cashiering of bad kings may be not only a right but a duty. Heinsisted that law shall proceed from common sense, not from custom, and shall draw its precepts from an eternal code. The principle of thehigher law signifies Revolution. No government founded on positiveenactments only can stand before it, and it points the way to thatsystem of primitive, universal, and indefeasible rights which thelawyers of the Assembly, descending from Domat, prefixed to theirconstitution. 

Under the edict of Nantes the Protestants were decided royalists; sothat, even after the Revocation, Bayle, the apostle of Toleration, retained his loyalty in exile at Rotterdam. His enemy, Jurieu, thoughintolerant as a divine, was liberal in his politics, and contracted inthe neighbourhood of William of Orange the temper of a continentalWhig. He taught that sovereignty comes from the people and reverts tothe people. The Crown forfeits powers it has made ill use of. Therights of the nation cannot be forfeited. The people alone possess anauthority which is legitimate without conditions, and their acts arevalid even when they are wrong. The most telling of Jurieu's seditiouspropositions, preserved in the transparent amber of Bossuet's reply, shared the immortality of a classic, and in time contributed to thedoctrine that the democracy is irresponsible and must have its way. 

Maultrot, the best ecclesiastical lawyer of the day, published threevolumes in 1790 on the power of the people over kings, in which, withaccurate research among sources very familiar to him and to nobodyelse, he explained how the Canon Law approves the principles of 1688and rejects the modern invention of divine right. His book explainsstill better the attitude of the clergy in the Revolution, and theirbrief season of popularity. 

The true originator of the opposition in literature was Fénelon. Hewas neither an innovating reformer nor a discoverer of new truth; butas a singularly independent and most intelligent witness, he was thefirst who saw through the majestic hypocrisy of the court, and knewthat France was on the road to ruin. The revolt of conscience beganwith him before the glory of the monarchy was clouded over. His viewsgrew from an extraordinary perspicacity and refinement in the estimateof men. He learnt to refer the problem of government, like the conductof private life, to the mere standard of morals, and extended furtherthan any one the plain but hazardous practice of deciding all thingsby the exclusive precepts of enlightened virtue. If he did not knowall about policy and international science, he could always tell whatwould be expected of a hypothetically perfect man. Fénelon feels likea citizen of Christian Europe, but he pursues his thoughts apart fromhis country or his church, and his deepest utterances are in the mouthof pagans. He desired to be alike true to his own beliefs, andgracious towards those who dispute them. He approved neither thedeposing power nor the punishment of error, and declared that thehighest need of the Church was not victory but liberty. Through hisfriends, Fleury and Chevreuse, he favoured the recall of theProtestants, and he advised a general toleration. He would have thesecular power kept aloof from ecclesiastical concerns, becauseprotection leads to religious servitude and persecution to religioushypocrisy. There were moments when his steps seemed to approach theborder of the undiscovered land where Church and State are parted. 

He has written that a historian ought to be neutral between othercountries and his own, and he expected the same discipline inpoliticians, as patriotism cannot absolve a man from his duty tomankind. Therefore no war can be just, unless a war to which we arecompelled in the sole cause of freedom. Fénelon wished that Franceshould surrender the ill-gotten conquests of which she was so proud, and especially that she should withdraw from Spain. He declared thatthe Spaniards were degenerate and imbecile, but that nothing couldmake that right which was contrary to the balance of power and thesecurity of nations. Holland seemed to him the hope of Europe, and hethought the allies justified in excluding the French dynasty fromSpain for the same reason that no claim of law could have made itright that Philip II. Should occupy England. He hoped that his countrywould be thoroughly humbled, for he dreaded the effects of success onthe temperament of the victorious French. He deemed it only fair thatLewis should be compelled to dethrone his grandson with his own guiltyhand. 

In the judgment of Fénelon, power is poison; and as kings are nearlyalways bad, they ought not to govern, but only to execute the law. Forit is the mark of barbarians to obey precedent and custom. Civilisedsociety must be regulated by a solid code. Nothing but a constitutioncan avert arbitrary power. The despotism of Lewis XIV. Renders himodious and contemptible, and is the cause of all the evils which thecountry suffers. If the governing power which rightfully belonged tothe nation was restored, it would save itself by its own exertion; butabsolute authority irreparably saps its foundations, and is bringingon a revolution by which it will not be moderated, but utterlydestroyed. Although Fénelon has no wish to sacrifice either themonarchy or the aristocracy, he betrays sympathy with severaltendencies of the movement which he foresaw with so much alarm. Headmits the state of nature, and thinks civil society not the primitivecondition of man, but a result of the passage from savage life tohusbandry. He would transfer the duties of government to local andcentral assemblies; and he demands entire freedom of trade, andeducation provided by law, because children belong to the State firstand to the family afterwards. He does not resign the hope of makingmen good by act of parliament, and his belief in public institutionsas a means of moulding individual character brings him nearly intotouch with a distant future. 

He is the Platonic founder of revolutionary thinking. Whilst his realviews were little known, he became a popular memory; but somecomplained that his force was centrifugal, and that a church can nomore be preserved by suavity and distinction than a state by libertyand justice. Lewis XVI. , we are often told, perished in expiation ofthe sins of his forefathers. He perished, not because the power heinherited from them had been carried to excess, but because it hadbeen discredited and undermined. One author of this discredit wasFénelon. Until he came, the ablest men, Bossuet and even Bayle, revered the monarchy. Fénelon struck it at the zenith, and treatedLewis XIV. In all his grandeur more severely than the disciples ofVoltaire treated Lewis XV. In all his degradation. The season of scornand shame begins with him. The best of his later contemporariesfollowed his example, and laid the basis of opposing criticism onmotives of religion. They were the men whom Cardinal Dubois describesas dreamers of the same dreams as the chimerical archbishop ofCambray. Their influence fades away before the great change that cameover France about the middle of the century. 

From that time unbelief so far prevailed that even men who were notprofessed assailants, as Montesquieu, Condillac, Turgot, wereestranged from Christianity. Politically, the consequence was this:men who did not attribute any deep significance to church questionsnever acquired definite notions on Church and State, never seriouslyexamined under what conditions religion may be established ordisestablished, endowed or disendowed, never even knew whether thereexists any general solution, or any principle by which problems ofthat kind are decided. This defect of knowledge became a fact ofimportance at a turning-point in the Revolution. The theory of therelations between states and churches is bound up with the theory ofToleration, and on that subject the eighteenth century scarcely roseabove an intermittent, embarrassed, and unscientific view. Forreligious liberty is composed of the properties both of religion andof liberty, and one of its factors never became an object ofdisinterested observation among actual leaders of opinion. Theypreferred the argument of doubt to the argument of certitude, andsought to defeat intolerance by casting out revelation as they haddefeated the persecution of witches by casting out the devil. Thereremained a flaw in their liberalism, for liberty apart from belief isliberty with a good deal of the substance taken out of it. The problemis less complicated and the solution less radical and less profound. Already, then, there were writers who held somewhat superficially theconviction, which Tocqueville made a corner-stone, that nations thathave not the self-governing force of religion within them areunprepared for freedom. 

The early notions of reform moved on French lines, striving to utilisethe existing form of society, to employ the parliamentary aristocracy, to revive the States-General and the provincial assemblies. But thescheme of standing on the ancient ways, and raising a new France onthe substructure of the old, brought out the fact that whatever growthof institutions there once had been had been stunted and stood still. If the mediæval polity had been fitted to prosper, its fruit must begathered from other countries, where the early notions had beenpursued far ahead. The first thing to do was to cultivate the foreignexample; and with that what we call the eighteenth century began. TheEnglish superiority, proclaimed first by Voltaire, was furtherdemonstrated by Montesquieu. For England had recently created agovernment which was stronger than the institutions that had stood onantiquity. Founded upon fraud and treason, it had yet established thesecurity of law more firmly than it had ever existed under the systemof legitimacy, of prolonged inheritance, and of religious sanction. Itflourished on the unaccustomed belief that theological dissensionsneed not detract from the power of the State, while politicaldissensions are the very secret of its prosperity. The men ofquestionable character who accomplished the change and had governedfor the better part of sixty years, had successfully maintained publicorder, in spite of conspiracy and rebellion; they had built up anenormous system of national credit, and had been victorious incontinental war. The Jacobite doctrine, which was the basis ofEuropean monarchy, had been backed by the arms of France, and hadfailed to shake the newly planted throne. A great experiment had beencrowned by a great discovery. A novelty that defied the wisdom ofcenturies had made good its footing, and revolution had become aprinciple of stability more sure than tradition. 

Montesquieu undertook to make the disturbing fact avail in politicalscience. He valued it because it reconciled him with monarchy. He hadstarted with the belief that kings are an evil, and not a necessaryevil, and that their time was running short. His visit to WalpoleanEngland taught him a plan by which they might be reprieved. He stillconfessed that a republic is the reign of virtue; and by virtue hemeant love of equality and renunciation of self. But he had seen amonarchy that throve by corruption. He said that the distinctiveprinciple of monarchy is not virtue but honour, which he oncedescribed as a contrivance to enable men of the world to commit almostevery offence with impunity. The praise of England was made lessinjurious to French patriotism by the famous theory that explainsinstitutions and character by the barometer and the latitude. Montesquieu looked about him, and abroad, but not far ahead. Hisadmirable skill in supplying reason for every positive fact sometimesconfounds the cause which produces with the argument that defends. Heknows so many pleas for privilege that he almost overlooks the classthat has none; and having no friendship for the clergy, he approvestheir immunities. He thinks that aristocracy alone can preservemonarchies, and makes England more free than any commonwealth. He laysdown the great conservative maxim, that success generally depends onknowing the time it will take; and the most purely Whig maxim in hisworks, that the duty of a citizen is a crime when it obscures the dutyof man, is Fénelon's. His liberty is of a Gothic type, and notinsatiable. But the motto of his work, _Prolem sine matre creatam_, was intended to signify that the one thing wanting was liberty; and hehad views on taxation, equality, and the division of powers that gavehim a momentary influence in 1789. His warning that a legislature maybe more dangerous than the executive remained unheard. The _Esprit deslois_ had lost ground in 1767, during the ascendancy of Rousseau. Themind of the author moved within the conditions of society familiar tohim, and he did not heed the coming democracy. He assured Hume thatthere would be no revolution, because the nobles were without civiccourage. 

There was more divination in d'Argenson, who was Minister of ForeignAffairs in 1745, and knew politics from the inside. Less acquiescentthan his brilliant contemporary, he was perpetually contriving schemesof fundamental change, and is the earliest writer from whom we canextract the system of 1789. Others before him had perceived theimpending revolution; but d'Argenson foretold that it would open withthe slaughter of priests in the streets of Paris. Thirty-eight yearslater these words came true at the gate of St. Germain's Abbey. As thesupporter of the Pretender he was quite uninfluenced by admiration forEngland, and imputed, not to the English Deists and Whigs but to theChurch and her divisions and intolerance, the unbelieving spirit thatthreatened both Church and State. It was conventionally understood onthe Continent that 1688 had been an uprising of Nonconformists, and aWhig was assumed to be a Presbyterian down to the death of Anne. Itwas easy to infer that a more violent theological conflict would leadto a more violent convulsion. As early as 1743 his terrible foresightdiscerns that the State is going to pieces, and its doom was socertain that he began to think of a refuge under other masters. Hewould have deposed the noble, the priest, and the lawyer, and giventheir power to the masses. Although the science of politics was in itsinfancy, he relied on the dawning enlightenment to establish rationalliberty, and the equality between classes and religions which is theperfection of politics. The world ought to be governed not byparchment and vested rights, but by plain reason, which proceeds fromthe complex to the simple, and will sweep away all that interposesbetween the State and the democracy, giving to each part of the nationthe management of its own affairs. He is eager to change everything, except the monarchy which alone can change all else. A deliberativeassembly does not rise above the level of its average members. It isneither very foolish nor very wise. All might be well if the king madehimself the irresistible instrument of philosophy and justice, andwrought the reform. But his king was Lewis XV. D'Argenson saw solittle that was worthy to be preserved that he did not shrink fromsweeping judgments and abstract propositions. By his rationalism, andhis indifference to the prejudice of custom and the claim ofpossession; by his maxim that every man may be presumed to understandthe things in which his own interest and responsibility are involved;by his zeal for democracy, equality, and simplicity, and his dislikeof intermediate authorities, he belongs to a generation later than hisown. He heralded events without preparing them, for the best of all hewrote only became known in our time. 

Whilst Montesquieu, at the height of his fame as the foremost ofliving writers, was content to contemplate the past, there was astudent in the Paris seminary who taught men to fix hope andendeavour on the future, and led the world at twenty-three. Turgot, when he proclaimed that upward growth and progress is the law of humanlife, was studying to become a priest. To us, in an age of science, ithas become difficult to imagine Christianity without the attribute ofdevelopment and the faculty of improving society as well as souls. Butthe idea was acquired slowly. Under the burden of sin, men accustomedthemselves to the consciousness of degeneracy; each generationconfessed that they were unworthy children of their parents, andawaited with impatience the approaching end. From Lucretius and Senecato Pascal and Leibniz we encounter a few dispersed and unsupportedpassages, suggesting advance towards perfection, and the flame thatbrightens as it moves from hand to hand; but they were without masteryor radiance. Turgot at once made the idea habitual and familiar, andit became a pervading force in thoughtful minds, whilst the newsciences arose to confirm it. He imparted a deeper significance tohistory, giving it unity of tendency and direction, constancy wherethere had been motion, and development instead of change. The progresshe meant was moral as much as intellectual; and as he professed tothink that the rogues of his day would have seemed sanctified modelsto an earlier century, he made his calculations without counting thewickedness of men. His analysis left unfathomed depths for futureexplorers, for Lessing and still more for Hegel; but he taught mankindto expect that the future would be unlike the past, that it would bebetter, and that the experience of ages may instruct and warn, butcannot guide or control. He is eminently a benefactor to historicalstudy; but he forged a weapon charged with power to abolish theproduct of history and the existing order. By the hypothesis ofprogress, the new is always gaining on the old; history is theembodiment of imperfection, and escape from history became thewatchword of the coming day. Condorcet, the master's pupil, thoughtthat the world might be emancipated by burning its records. 

Turgot was too discreet for such an excess, and he looked to historyfor the demonstration of his law. He had come upon it in histheological studies. He renounced them soon after, saying that hecould not wear a mask. When Guizot called Lamennais a malefactor, because he threw off his cassock and became a freethinker, Scherer, whose course had been some way parallel, observed: "He little knowshow much it costs. " The abrupt transition seems to have beenaccomplished by Turgot without a struggle. The _Encyclopædia_, whichwas the largest undertaking since the invention of printing, came outat that time, and Turgot wrote for it. But he broke off, refusing tobe connected with a party professedly hostile to revealed religion;and he rejected the declamatory paradoxes of Diderot and Raynal. Hefound his home among the Physiocrats, of all the groups the one thatpossessed the most compact body of consistent views, and who alreadyknew most of the accepted doctrines of political economy, althoughthey ended by making way for Adam Smith. They are of supremeimportance to us, because they founded political science on theeconomic science which was coming into existence. Harrington, acentury before, had seen that the art of government can be reduced tosystem; but the French economists precede all men in this, thatholding a vast collection of combined and verified truths on matterscontiguous to politics and belonging to their domain, they extended itto the whole, and governed the constitution by the same fixedprinciples that governed the purse. They said: A man's most sacredproperty is his labour. It is anterior even to the right of property, for it is the possession of those who own nothing else. Therefore hemust be free to make the best use of it he can. The interference ofone man with another, of society with its members, of the state withthe subject, must be brought down to the lowest dimension. Powerintervenes only to restrict intervention, to guard the individual fromoppression, that is from regulation in an interest not his own. Freelabour and its derivative free trade are the first conditions oflegitimate government. Let things fall into their natural order, letsociety govern itself, and the sovereign function of the State will beto protect nature in the execution of her own law. Government must notbe arbitrary, but it must be powerful enough to repress arbitraryaction in others. If the supreme power is needlessly limited, thesecondary powers will run riot and oppress. Its supremacy will bear nocheck. The problem is to enlighten the ruler, not to restrain him; andone man is more easily enlightened than many. Government byopposition, by balance and control, is contrary to principle; whereasabsolutism might be requisite to the attainment of their higherpurpose. Nothing less than concentrated power could overcome theobstacles to such beneficent reforms as they meditated. Men who soughtonly the general good must wound every distinct and separate interestof class, and would be mad to break up the only force that they couldcount upon, and thus to throw away the means of preventing the evilsthat must follow if things were left to the working of opinion and thefeeling of masses. They had no love for absolute power in itself, butthey computed that, if they had the use of it for five years, Francewould be free. They distinguished an arbitrary monarch and theirresistible but impersonal state. 

It was the era of repentant monarchy. Kings had become the first ofpublic servants, executing, for the good of the people, what thepeople were unable to do for themselves; and there was a reformingmovement on foot which led to many instances of prosperous andintelligent administration. To men who knew what unutterable sufferingand wrong was inflicted by bad laws, and who lived in terror of theuneducated and inorganic masses, the idea of reform from above seemedpreferable to parliamentary government managed by Newcastle and North, in the interest of the British landlord. The economists are outwardlyand avowedly less liberal than Montesquieu, because they areincomparably more impressed by the evils of the time, and the need ofimmense and fundamental changes. They prepared to undo the work ofabsolutism by the hand of absolutism. They were not its opponents, but its advisers, and hoped to convert it by their advice. Theindispensable liberties are those which constitute the wealth ofnations; the rest will follow. The disease had lasted too long for thesufferer to heal himself: the relief must come from the author of hissufferings. The power that had done the wrong was still efficient toundo the wrong. Transformation, infinitely more difficult in itselfthan preservation, was not more formidable to the economists becauseit consisted mainly in revoking the godless work of a darker age. Theydeemed it their mission not to devise new laws, for that is a taskwhich God has not committed to man, but only to declare the inherentlaws of the existence of society and enable them to prevail. 

The defects of the social and political organisation were asdistinctly pointed out by the economists as by the electors of theNational Assembly, twenty years later, and in nearly all things theyproposed the remedy. But they were persuaded that the only thing toregenerate France was a convulsion which the national character wouldmake a dreadful one. They desired a large scheme of popular education, because commands take no root in soil that is not prepared. Politicaltruths can be made so evident that the opinion of an instructed publicwill be invincible, and will banish the abuse of power. To resistoppression is to make a league with heaven, and all things areoppressive that resist the natural order of freedom. For societysecures rights; it neither bestows nor restricts them. They are thedirect consequence of duties. As truth can only convince by theexposure of errors and the defeat of objections, liberty is theessential guard of truth. Society is founded, not on the will of man, but on the nature of man and the will of God; and conformity to thedivinely appointed order is followed by inevitable reward. Relief ofthose who suffer is the duty of all men, and the affair of all. 

Such was the spirit of that remarkable group of men, especially ofMercier de la Rivière, of whom Diderot said that he alone possessedthe true and everlasting secret of the security and the happiness ofempires. Turgot indeed had failed in office; but his reputation wasnot diminished, and the power of his name exceeded all others at theoutbreak of the Revolution. His policy of employing the Crown toreform the State was at once rejected in favour of other counsels; buthis influence may be traced in many acts of the Assembly, and on twovery memorable occasions it was not auspicious. It was a central dogmaof the party that land is the true source of wealth, or, as Asgillsaid, that man deals in nothing but earth. When a great part of Francebecame national property, men were the more easily persuaded that landcan serve as the basis of public credit and of unlimited assignats. According to a weighty opinion which we shall have to consider beforelong, the parting of the ways in the Revolution was on the day when, rejecting the example both of England and America, the French resolvedto institute a single undivided legislature. It was the Pennsylvanianmodel and Voltaire had pronounced Pennsylvania the best government inthe world. Franklin gave the sanction of an oracle to the constitutionof his state, and Turgot was its vehement protagonist in Europe. 

A king ruling over a level democracy, and a democracy ruling itselfthrough the agency of a king, were long contending notions in thefirst Assembly. One was monarchy according to Turgot, the other wasmonarchy adapted to Rousseau; and the latter, for a time, prevailed. Rousseau was the citizen of a small republic, consisting of a singletown, and he professed to have applied its example to the governmentof the world. It was Geneva, not as he saw it, but as he extracted itsessential principle, and as it has since become, Geneva illustrated bythe Forest Cantons and the Landesgemeinde more than by its owncharters. The idea was that the grown men met in the market-place, like the peasants of Glarus under their trees, to manage theiraffairs, making and unmaking officials, conferring and revokingpowers. They were equal, because every man had exactly the same rightto defend his interest by the guarantee of his vote. The welfare ofall was safe in the hands of all, for they had not the separateinterests that are bred by the egotism of wealth, nor the exclusiveviews that come from a distorted education. All being equal in powerand similar in purpose, there can be no just cause why some shouldmove apart and break into minorities. There is an implied contractthat no part shall ever be preferred to the whole, and minoritiesshall always obey. Clever men are not wanted for the making of laws, because clever men and their laws are at the root of all mischief. Nature is a better guide than civilisation, because nature comes fromGod, and His works are good; culture from man, whose works are bad inproportion as he is remoter from natural innocence, as his desiresincrease upon him, as he seeks more refined pleasures, and stores upmore superfluity. It promotes inequality, selfishness, and the ruin ofpublic spirit. 

By plausible and easy stages the social ideas latent in parts ofSwitzerland produced the theory that men come innocent from the handsof the Creator, that they are originally equal, that progress fromequality to civilisation is the passage from virtue to vice and fromfreedom to tyranny, that the people are sovereign, and govern bypowers given and taken away; that an individual or a class may bemistaken and may desert the common cause and the general interest, butthe people, necessarily sincere, and true, and incorrupt, cannot gowrong; that there is a right of resistance to all governments that arefallible, because they are partial, but none against government of thepeople by the people, because it has no master and no judge, anddecides in the last instance and alone; that insurrection is the lawof all unpopular societies founded on a false principle and a brokencontract, and submission that of the only legitimate societies, basedon the popular will; that there is no privilege against the law ofnature, and no right against the power of all. By this chain ofreasoning, with little infusion of other ingredients, Rousseau appliedthe sequence of the ideas of pure democracy to the government ofnations. 

Now the most glaring and familiar fact in history shows that thedirect self-government of a town cannot be extended over an empire. Itis a plan that scarcely reaches beyond the next parish. Either onedistrict will be governed by another, or both by somebody else chosenfor the purpose. Either plan contradicts first principles. Subjectionis the direct negation of democracy; representation is the indirect. So that an Englishman underwent bondage to parliament as much asLausanne to Berne or as America to England if it had submitted totaxation, and by law recovered his liberty but once in seven years. Consequently Rousseau, still faithful to Swiss precedent as well as tothe logic of his own theory, was a federalist. In Switzerland, whenone half of a canton disagrees with the other, or the country with thetown, it is deemed natural that they should break into two, that thegeneral will may not oppress minorities. This multiplication ofself-governing communities was admitted by Rousseau as a preservativeof unanimity on one hand, and of liberty on the other. Helvétius cameto his support with the idea that men are not only equal by nature butalike, and that society is the cause of variation; from which it wouldfollow that everything may be done by laws and by education. 

Rousseau is the author of the strongest political theory that hadappeared amongst men. We cannot say that he reasons well, but he knewhow to make his argument seem convincing, satisfying, inevitable, andhe wrote with an eloquence and a fervour that had never been seen inprose, even in Bolingbroke or Milton. His books gave the first signalof a universal subversion, and were as fatal to the Republic as to theMonarchy. Although he lives by the social contract and the law ofresistance, and owes his influence to what was extreme and systematic, his later writings are loaded with sound political wisdom. He owesnothing to the novelty or the originality of his thoughts. Takenjointly or severally, they are old friends, and you will find them inthe school of Wolf that just preceded, in the dogmatists of the GreatRebellion and the Jesuit casuists who were dear to Algernon Sidney, intheir Protestant opponents, Duplessis Mornay, and the Scots who hadheard the last of our schoolmen, Major of St. Andrews, renew thespeculations of the time of schism, which decomposed and dissected theChurch and rebuilt it on a model very propitious to politicalrevolution, and even in the early interpreters of the AristotelianPolitics which appeared just at the era of the first parliament. 

Rousseau's most advanced point was the doctrine that the people areinfallible. Jurieu had taught that they can do no wrong: Rousseauadded that they are positively in the right. The idea, like mostothers, was not new, and goes back to the Middle Ages. When thequestion arose what security there is for the preservation oftraditional truth if the episcopate was divided and the papacy vacant, it was answered that the faith would be safely retained by the masses. The maxim that the voice of the people is the voice of God is as oldas Alcuin; it was renewed by some of the greatest writers anterior todemocracy, by Hooker and Bossuet, and it was employed in our day byNewman to prop his theory of development. Rousseau applied it to theState. 

The sovereignty of public opinion was just then coming in through therise of national debts and the increasing importance of the publiccreditor. It meant more than the noble savage and the blameless SouthSea islander, and distinguished the instinct that guides large massesof men from the calculating wisdom of the few. It was destined toprove the most serious of all obstacles to representative government. Equality of power readily suggests equality of property; but themovement of Socialism began earlier, and was not assisted by Rousseau. There were solemn theorists, such as Mably and Morelly, who weresometimes quoted in the Revolution, but the change in the distributionof property was independent of them. 

A more effective influence was imported from Italy; for the Italians, through Vico, Giannone, Genovesi, had an eighteenth century of theirown. Sardinia preceded France in solving the problem of feudalism. Arthur Young affirms that the measures of the Grand Duke Leopold had, in ten years, doubled the produce of Tuscany; at Milan, Count Firmianwas accounted one of the best administrators in Europe. It was aMilanese, Beccaria, who, by his reform of criminal law, became aleader of French opinion. Continental jurisprudence had long beenovershadowed by two ideas: that torture is the surest method ofdiscovering truth, and that punishment deters not by its justice, itscelerity, or its certainty, but in proportion to its severity. Even inthe eighteenth century the penal system of Maria Theresa and JosephII. Was barbarous. Therefore no attack was more surely aimed at theheart of established usage than that which dealt with courts ofjustice. It forced men to conclude that authority was odiously stupidand still more odiously ferocious, that existing governments wereaccursed, that the guardians and ministers of law, divine and human, were more guilty than their culprits. The past was branded as thereign of infernal powers, and charged with long arrears of unpunishedwrong. As there was no sanctity left in law, there was no mercy forits merciless defenders; and if they fell into avenging hands, theirdoom would not exceed their desert. Men afterwards conspicuous bytheir violence, Brissot and Marat, were engaged in this campaign ofhumanity, which raised a demand for authorities that were not vitiatedby the accumulation of infamy, for new laws, new powers, a newdynasty. 

As religion was associated with cruelty, it is at this point that themovement of new Ideas became a crusade against Christianity. A book bythe Curé Meslier, partially known at that time, but first printed byStrauss in 1864, is the clarion of vindictive unbelief; and anotherabbé, Raynal, hoped that the clergy would be crushed beneath the ruinsof their altars. 

Thus the movement which began, in Fénelon's time, with warnings andremonstrance and the zealous endeavour to preserve, which produced onegreat scheme of change by the Crown and another at the expense of theCrown, ended in the wild cry for vengeance and a passionate appeal tofire and sword. So many lines of thought converging on destructionexplain the agreement that existed when the States-General began, andthe explosion that followed the reforms of '89, and the ruins of '93. No conflict can be more irreconcilable than that between aconstitution and an enlightened absolutism, between abrogation of oldlaws and multiplication of new, between representation and directdemocracy, the people controlling and the people governing, kings bycontract and kings by mandate. 

Yet all these fractions of opinion were called Liberal: Montesquieu, because he was an intelligent Tory; Voltaire, because he attacked theclergy; Turgot, as a reformer; Rousseau, as a democrat; Diderot, as afreethinker. The one thing common to them all is the disregard forliberty. 

II

THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICA

The several structures of political thought that arose in France, andclashed in the process of revolution, were not directly responsiblefor the outbreak. The doctrines hung like a cloud upon the heights, and at critical moments in the reign of Lewis XV. Men felt that acatastrophe was impending. It befell when there was less provocation, under his successor; and the spark that changed thought into actionwas supplied by the Declaration of American Independence. It was thesystem of an international extra-territorial universal Whig, fartranscending the English model by its simplicity and rigour. Itsurpassed in force all the speculation of Paris and Geneva, for it hadundergone the test of experiment, and its triumph was the mostmemorable thing that had been seen by men. 

The expectation that the American colonies would separate was an oldone. A century before, Harrington had written: "They are yet babes, that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their mother-cities;but such as I mistake if, when they come of age, they do not weanthemselves; which causes me to wonder at princes that like to beexhausted in that way. " When, in 1759, the elder Mirabeau announcedit, he meant that the conquest of Canada involved the loss of America, as the colonists would cling to England as long as the French werebehind them, and no longer. He came very near to the truth, for thewar in Canada gave the signal. The English colonies had meditated theannexation of the French, and they resented that the king's governmentundertook the expedition, to deprive them of the opportunity forunited action. Fifty years later President Adams said that thetreatment of American officers by the British made his blood boil. 

The agitation began in 1761, and by the innovating ideas which itflung abroad it is as important as the Declaration itself, or thegreat constitutional debate. The colonies were more advanced thanGreat Britain in the way of free institutions, and existed only thatthey might escape the vices of the mother country. They had noremnants of feudalism to cherish or resist. They possessed writtenconstitutions, some of them remarkably original, fit roots of animmense development. George III. Thought it strange that he should bethe sovereign of a democracy like Rhode Island, where all powerreverted annually to the people, and the authorities had to be electedanew. Connecticut received from the Stuarts so liberal a charter, andworked out so finished a scheme of local self-government, that itserved as a basis for the federal constitution. The Quakers had a planfounded on equality of power, without oppression, or privilege, orintolerance, or slavery. They declared that their holy experimentwould not have been worth attempting if it did not offer some veryreal advantage over England. It was to enjoy freedom, liberty ofconscience, and the right to tax themselves, that they went into thedesert. There were points on which these men anticipated the doctrinesof a more unrestrained democracy, for they established theirgovernment not on conventions, but on divine right, and they claimedto be infallible. A Connecticut preacher said in 1638: "The choice ofpublic magistrates belongs unto the people, by God's own allowance. They who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is intheir power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power andplace unto which they call them. " The following words, written in1736, appear in the works of Franklin: "The judgment of a wholepeople, especially of a free people, is looked upon to be infallible. And this is universally true, while they remain in their propersphere, unbiassed by faction, undeluded by the tricks of designingmen. A body of people thus circumstanced cannot be supposed to judgeamiss on any essential points; for if they decide in favour ofthemselves, which is extremely natural, their decision is just, inasmuch as whatever contributes to their benefit is a generalbenefit, and advances the real public good. " A commentator adds thatthis notion of the infallible perception by the people of their trueinterest, and their unerring pursuit of it, was very prevalent in theprovinces, and for a time in the States after the establishment ofAmerican independence. 

In spite of their democratic spirit, these communities consented tohave their trade regulated and restricted, to their own detriment andthe advantage of English merchants. They had protested, but they hadended by yielding. Now Adam Smith says that to prohibit a great peoplefrom making all they can of every part of their own produce, or fromemploying their stock and industry in the way that they judge mostadvantageous for themselves, is a manifest violation of the mostsacred rights of mankind. There was a latent sense of injury whichbroke out when, in addition to interference with the freedom of trade, England exercised the right of taxation. An American lately wrote:"The real foundation of the discontent which led to the Revolution wasthe effort of Great Britain, beginning in 1750, to prevent diversityof occupation, to attack the growth of manufactures and the mechanicarts, and the final cause before the attempt to tax withoutrepresentation was the effort to enforce the navigation laws. " WhenEngland argued that the hardship of regulation might be greater thanthe hardship of taxation, and that those who submitted to the onesubmitted, in principle, to the other, Franklin replied that theAmericans had not taken that view, but that, when it was put beforethem, they would be willing to reject both one and the other. He knew, however, that the ground taken up by his countrymen was too narrow. Hewrote to the French economist, Morellet: "Nothing can be betterexpressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you preferliberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, etc. , even to civilliberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour. "

These early authors of American independence were generallyenthusiasts for the British Constitution, and preceded Burke in thetendency to canonise it, and to magnify it as an ideal exemplar fornations. John Adams said, in 1766: "Here lies the difference betweenthe British Constitution and other forms of government, namely, thatliberty is its end, its use, its designation, drift and scope, as muchas grinding corn is the use of a mill. " Another celebrated Bostonianidentified the Constitution with the law of Nature, as Montesquieucalled the Civil Law, written Reason. He said: "It is the glory of theBritish prince and the happiness of all his subjects, that theirconstitution hath its foundation in the immutable laws of Nature; andas the supreme legislative, as well as the supreme executive, derivesits authority from that constitution, it should seem that no laws canbe made or executed that are repugnant to any essential law inNature. " The writer of these words, James Otis, is the founder of therevolutionary doctrine. Describing one of his pamphlets, the secondPresident says: "Look over the declaration of rights and wrongs issuedby Congress in 1774; look into the declaration of independence in1776; look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley; look intoall the French constitutions of government; and, to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's _Common Sense_, _Crisis_, and _Rights ofMan_. What can you find that is not to be found in solid substance inthis 'Vindication of the House of Representatives'?" When these menfound that the appeal to the law and to the constitution did not availthem, that the king, by bribing the people's representatives with thepeople's money, was able to enforce his will, they sought a highertribunal, and turned from the law of England to the law of Nature, andfrom the king of England to the King of kings. Otis, in 1762, 1764and 1765, says: "Most governments are, in fact, arbitrary, andconsequently the curse and scandal of human nature; yet none are ofright arbitrary. By the laws of God and nature, government must notraise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of thepeople or their deputies. There can be no prescription old enough tosupersede the law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who hasgiven all men a right to be free. If a man has but little property toprotect and defend, yet his life and liberty are things of someimportance. " About the same time Gadsden wrote: "A confirmation of ouressential and common rights as Englishmen may be pleaded from chartersclearly enough; but any further dependence on them may be fatal. Weshould stand upon the broad common ground of those natural rights thatwe all feel and know as men and as descendants of Englishmen. "

The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferringabstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit ofthe Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievancedifficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. Theclaim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it wasunjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The sufferingthat would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than thesuffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain andremote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience andloyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifestprinciple on the other--a principle so sacred and so clear asimperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their familiesand their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escapefrom actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. Thatwas the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, thelight that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as acomparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that theexistence of society must be staked to prevent even the leastconstructive infraction of its sovereign right. "A free people, " saidDickinson, "can never be too quick in observing nor too firm inopposing the beginnings of alteration either in form or reality, respecting institutions formed for their security. The first kind ofalteration leads to the last. As violations of the rights of thegoverned are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner as to touchindividuals but slightly. Every free state should incessantly watch, and instantly take alarm at any addition being made to the powerexercised over them. " Who are a free people? Not those over whomgovernment is reasonably and equitably exercised; but those who liveunder a government so constitutionally checked and controlled thatproper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised. Thecontest was plainly a contest of principle, and was conducted entirelyon principle by both parties. "The amount of taxes proposed to beraised, " said Marshall, the greatest of constitutional lawyers, "wastoo inconsiderable to interest the people of either country. " I willadd the words of Daniel Webster, the great expounder of theConstitution, who is the most eloquent of the Americans, and stands, in politics, next to Burke: "The Parliament of Great Britain asserteda right to tax the Colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it wasprecisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. Theamount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistentwith liberty, and that was in their eyes enough. It was against therecital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any sufferingunder its enactment, that they took up arms. They went to war againsta preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They saw inthe claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power. "

The object of these men was liberty, not independence. Their feelingwas expressed by Jay in his address to the people of Great Britain:"Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem aunion with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness. "Before 1775 there was no question of separation. During all theRevolution Adams declared that he would have given everything torestore things as before with security; and both Jefferson and Madisonadmitted in the presence of the English minister that a few seats inboth Houses would have set at rest the whole question. 

In their appeal to the higher law the Americans professed the purestWhiggism, and they claimed that their resistance to the House ofCommons and the jurisprudence of Westminster only carried forward theeternal conflict between Whig and Tory. By their closer analysis, andtheir fearlessness of logical consequences, they transformed thedoctrine and modified the party. The uprooted Whig, detached from hisparchments and precedents, his leading families and historicconditions, exhibited new qualities; and the era of compromise madeway for an era of principle. Whilst French diplomacy traced the longhand of the English opposition in the tea riots at Boston, Chatham andCamden were feeling the influence of Dickinson and Otis, withoutrecognising the difference. It appears in a passage of one ofChatham's speeches, in 1775: "This universal opposition to yourarbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen. It was obviousfrom the nature of things, and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the confirmed habits of thinking, from the spirit of Whiggismflourishing in America. The spirit which now pervades America is thesame which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money inthis country, is the same spirit which roused all England to action atthe Revolution, and which established at a remote era your liberties, on the basis of that grand fundamental maxim of the Constitution, thatno subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent. Tomaintain this principle is the common cause of the Whigs on the otherside of the Atlantic, and on this. It is the alliance of God andNature, immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven. Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vaindeclarations of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperiousdoctrines of the necessity of submission will be found equallyimpotent to convince or enslave your fellow-subjects in America. "

The most significant instance of the action of America on Europe isEdmund Burke. We think of him as a man who, in early life, rejectedall generalities and abstract propositions, and who became the moststrenuous and violent of conservatives. But there is an interval when, as the quarrel with the Colonies went on, Burke was as revolutionaryas Washington. The inconsistency is not as flagrant as it seems. Hehad been brought forward by the party of measured propriety andimperative moderation, of compromise and unfinished thought, whoclaimed the right of taxing, but refused to employ it. When he urgedthe differences in every situation and every problem, and shrank fromthe common denominator and the underlying principle, he fell into stepwith his friends. As an Irishman, who had married into an IrishCatholic family, it was desirable that he should adopt no theories inAmerica which would unsettle Ireland. He had learnt to teachgovernment by party as an almost sacred dogma, and party forbidsrevolt as a breach of the laws of the game. His scruples and hisprotests, and his defiance of theory, were the policy and theprecaution of a man conscious of restraints, and not entirely free inthe exertion of powers that lifted him far above his tamersurroundings. As the strife sharpened and the Americans made way, Burke was carried along, and developed views which he never utterlyabandoned, but which are difficult to reconcile with much that hewrote when the Revolution had spread to France. 

In his address to the Colonists he says: "We do not know how toqualify millions of our countrymen, contending with one heart for anadmission to privileges which we have ever thought our own happinessand honour, by odious and unworthy names. On the contrary, we highlyrevere the principles on which you act. We had much rather see youtotally independent of this crown and kingdom, than joined to it by sounnatural a conjunction as that of freedom and servitude. We view theestablishment of the English Colonies on principles of liberty, asthat which is to render this kingdom venerable to future ages. Incomparison of this, we regard all the victories and conquests of ourwarlike ancestors, or of our own times, as barbarous, vulgardistinctions, in which many nations, whom we look upon with littlerespect or value, have equalled, if not far exceeded us. Those whohave and who hold to that foundation of common liberty, whether onthis or on your side of the ocean, we consider as the true and theonly true Englishmen. Those who depart from it, whether there or here, are attainted, corrupted in blood, and wholly fallen from theiroriginal rank and value. They are the real rebels to the fairconstitution and just supremacy of England. A long course of war withthe administration of this country may be but a prelude to a series ofwars and contentions among yourselves, to end at length (as suchscenes have too often ended) in a species of humiliating repose, whichnothing but the preceding calamities would reconcile to the dispiritedfew who survived them. We allow that even this evil is worth the riskto men of honour when rational liberty is at stake, as in the presentcase we confess and lament that it is. "

At other times he spoke as follows:--"Nothing less than a convulsionthat will shake the globe to its centre can ever restore the Europeannations to that liberty by which they were once so much distinguished. The Western world was the seat of freedom until another, more Western, was discovered; and that other will probably be its asylum when it ishunted down in every other part. Happy it is that the worst of timesmay have one refuge still left for humanity. If the Irish resistedKing William, they resisted him on the very same principle that theEnglish and Scotch resisted King James. The Irish Catholics must havebeen the very worst and the most truly unnatural of rebels, if theyhad not supported a prince whom they had seen attacked, not for anydesigns against their religion or their liberties, but for an extremepartiality for their sect. Princes otherwise meritorious have violatedthe liberties of the people, and have been lawfully deposed for suchviolation. I know no human being exempt from the law. I considerParliament as the proper judge of kings, and it is necessary that theyshould be amenable to it. There is no such thing as governing thewhole body of the people contrary to their inclination. Whenever theyhave a feeling they commonly are in the right. Christ appeared insympathy with the lowest of the people, and thereby made it a firm andruling principle that their welfare was the object of all government. 

"In all forms of government the people is the true legislator. Theremote and efficient cause is the consent of the people, either actualor implied, and such consent is absolutely essential to its validity. Whiggism did not consist in the support of the power of Parliament orof any other power, but of the rights of the people. If Parliamentshould become an instrument in invading them, it was no better in anyrespect, and much worse in some, than any other instrument ofarbitrary power. They who call upon you to belong wholly to the peopleare those who wish you to belong to your proper home, to the sphere ofyour duty, to the post of your honour. Let the Commons in Parliamentassembled be one and the same thing with the Commons at large. I seeno other way for the preservation of a decent attention to publicinterest in the representatives, but the interposition of the body ofthe people itself, whenever, it shall appear by some flagrant andnotorious act, by some capital innovation, that those representativesare going to overleap the fences of the law and to introduce anarbitrary power. This interposition is a most unpleasant remedy; butif it be a legal remedy, it is intended on some occasion to beused--to be used then only when it is evident that nothing else canhold the Constitution to its true principles. It is not in Parliamentalone that the remedy for parliamentary disorders can be completed;hardly, indeed, can it begin there. A popular origin cannot thereforebe the characteristic distinction of a popular representative. Thisbelongs equally to all parts of government, and in all forms. Thevirtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consists in itsbeing the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was notinstituted to be a control upon the people. It was designed as acontrol for the people. Privilege of the crown and privilege ofParliament are only privilege so long as they are exercised for thebenefit of the people. The voice of the people is a voice that is tobe heard, and not the votes and resolutions of the House of Commons. He would preserve thoroughly every privilege of the people, because itis a privilege known and written in the law of the land; and he wouldsupport it, not against the crown or the aristocratic party only, butagainst the representatives of the people themselves. This was not agovernment of balances. It would be a strange thing if two hundredpeers should have it in their power to defeat by their negative whathad been done by the people of England. I have taken my part inpolitical connections and political quarrels for the purpose ofadvancing justice and the dominion of reason, and I hope I shall neverprefer the means, or any feelings growing out of the use of thosemeans, to the great and substantial end itself. Legislators can dowhat lawyers can not, for they have no other rules to bind them butthe great principles of reason and equity and the general sense ofmankind. All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; theymay alter the mode and application, but have no power over thesubstance, of original justice. A conservation and secure enjoyment ofour natural rights is the great and ultimate purpose of civil society. 

"The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into theworld is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happinessof another. I would give a full civil protection, in which I includean immunity from all disturbance of their public religious worship, and a power of teaching in schools as well as temples, to Jews, Mahometans, and even Pagans. The Christian religion itself arosewithout establishment, it arose even without toleration, and whilstits own principles were not tolerated, it conquered all the powers ofdarkness, it conquered all the powers of the world. The moment itbegan to depart from these principles, it converted the establishmentinto tyranny, it subverted its foundation from that very hour. It isthe power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very littlepositive good in this, or perhaps in anything else. It is not only soof the State and statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions ofthe rich: they are the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained bytheir superfluity. They are under an absolute, hereditary, andindefeasible dependence on those who labour and are miscalled thepoor. That class of dependent pensioners called the rich is soextremely small, that if all their throats were cut, and adistribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give abit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. It is notin breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of nature andconsequently the laws of God, that we are to place our hope ofsoftening the divine displeasure. It is the law of nature, which isthe law of God. "

I cannot resist the inference from these passages that Burke, after1770, underwent other influences than those of his reputed masters, the Whigs of 1688. And if we find that strain of unwonted thought in aman who afterwards gilded the old order of things and wavered as totoleration and the slave trade, we may expect that the same causeswould operate in France. 

When the _Letters of a Pennsylvanian Farmer_ became known in Europe, Diderot said that it was madness to allow Frenchmen to read suchthings, as they could not do it without becoming intoxicated andchanged into different men. But France was impressed by the event morethan by the literature that accompanied it. America had made herselfindependent under less provocation than had ever been a motive ofrevolt, and the French Government had acknowledged that her cause wasrighteous and had gone to war for it. If the king was right inAmerica, he was utterly wrong at home, and if the Americans actedrightly, the argument was stronger, the cause was a hundredfoldbetter, in France itself. All that justified their independencecondemned the Government of their French allies. By the principle thattaxation without representation is robbery, there was no authority soillegitimate as that of Lewis XVI. The force of that demonstration wasirresistible, and it produced its effect where the example of Englandfailed. The English doctrine was repelled at the very earliest stageof the Revolution, and the American was adopted. What the French tookfrom the Americans was their theory of revolution, not their theory ofgovernment--their cutting, not their sewing. Many French nobles servedin the war, and came home republicans and even democrats byconviction. It was America that converted the aristocracy to thereforming policy, and gave leaders to the Revolution. "The AmericanRevolution, " says Washington, "or the peculiar light of the age, seemsto have opened the eyes of almost every nation in Europe, and a spiritof equal liberty appears fast to be gaining ground everywhere. " Whenthe French officers were leaving, Cooper, of Boston, addressed them inthe language of warning: "Do not let your hopes be inflamed by ourtriumphs on this virgin soil. You will carry our sentiments with you, but if you try to plant them in a country that has been corrupt forcenturies, you will encounter obstacles more formidable than ours. Ourliberty has been won with blood; you will have to shed it in torrentsbefore liberty can take root in the old world. " Adams, after he hadbeen President of the United States, bitterly regretted the Revolutionwhich made them independent, because it had given the example to theFrench; although he also believed that they had not a single principlein common. 

Nothing, on the contrary, is more certain than that Americanprinciples profoundly influenced France, and determined the course ofthe Revolution. It is from America that Lafayette derived the sayingthat created a commotion at the time, that resistance is the mostsacred of duties. There also was the theory that political power comesfrom those over whom it is exercised, and depends upon their will;that every authority not so constituted is illegitimate andprecarious; that the past is more a warning than an example; that theearth belongs to those who are upon it, not to those who areunderneath. These are characteristics common to both Revolutions. 

At one time also the French adopted and acclaimed the American notionthat the end of government is liberty, not happiness, or prosperity, or power, or the preservation of an historic inheritance, or theadaptation of national law to national character, or the progress ofenlightenment and the promotion of virtue; that the private individualshould not feel the pressure of public authority, and should directhis life by the influences that are within him, not around him. 

And there was another political doctrine which the Americanstransmitted to the French. In old colonial days the executive and thejudicial powers were derived from a foreign source, and the commonpurpose was to diminish them. The assemblies were popular in originand character, and everything that added to their power seemed to addsecurity to rights. James Wilson, one of the authors and commentatorsof the constitution, informs us that "at the Revolution the same fondpredilection, and the same jealous dislike, existed and prevailed. Theexecutive, and the judicial as well as the legislative authority, wasnow the child of the people, but to the two former the people behavedlike stepmothers. The legislature was still discriminated by excessivepartiality. " This preference, historic but irrational, led upnaturally to a single chamber. The people of America and theirdelegates in Congress were of opinion that a single Assembly was everyway adequate to the management of their federal concerns, and when theSenate was invented, Franklin strongly objected. "As to the twochambers, " he wrote, "I am of your opinion that one alone would bebetter; but, my dear friend, nothing in human affairs and schemes isperfect, and perhaps this is the case of our opinions. "

Alexander Hamilton was the ablest as well as the most conservative ofthe American statesmen. He longed for monarchy, and he desired toestablish a national government and to annihilate state rights. TheAmerican spirit, as it penetrated France, cannot well be describedbetter than it was by him: "I consider civil liberty, in a genuine, unadulterated sense, as the greatest of terrestrial blessings. I amconvinced that the whole human race is entitled to it, and that it canbe wrested from no part of them without the blackest and mostaggravated guilt. The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummagedfor among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with asunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of theDivinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. "

But when we speak in the gross of the American Revolution we combinedifferent and discordant things. From the first agitation in 1761 tothe Declaration of Independence, and then to the end of the war in1782, the Americans were aggressive, violent in their language, fondof abstractions, prolific of doctrines universally applicable anduniversally destructive. It is the ideas of those earlier days thatroused the attention of France, and were imported by Lafayette, Noailles, Lameth, and the leaders of the future revolution who hadbeheld the lowering of the British flag at Yorktown. The America oftheir experience was the America of James Otis, of Jefferson, of _TheRights of Man_. 

A change followed in 1787, when the Convention drew up theConstitution. It was a period of construction, and every effort wasmade, every scheme was invented, to curb the inevitable democracy. Themembers of that assembly were, on the whole, eminently cautious andsensible men. They were not men of extraordinary parts, and the geniusof Hamilton failed absolutely to impress them. Some of their mostmemorable contrivances proceeded from no design, but were merely halfmeasures and mutual concessions. Seward has pointed out thisdistinction between the revolutionary epoch and the constituent epochthat succeeded: "The rights asserted by our forefathers were notpeculiar to themselves. They were the common rights or mankind. Thebasis of the Constitution was laid broader by far than thesuperstructure which the conflicting interests and prejudices of theday suffered to be erected. The Constitution and laws of the FederalGovernment did not practically extend those principles throughout thenew system of government; but they were plainly promulgated in theDeclaration of Independence. "

Now, although France was deeply touched by the American Revolution, itwas not affected by the American Constitution. It underwent thedisturbing influence, not the conservative. 

The Constitution, framed in the summer of 1787, came into operation inMarch 1789, and nobody knew how it worked, when the crisis came inFrance. The debates, which explain every intention and combination, remained long hidden from the world. Moreover, the Constitution hasbecome something more than the original printed paper. Besidesamendments, it has been interpreted by the courts, modified byopinion, developed in some directions, and tacitly altered in others. Some of its most valued provisions have been acquired in this way, andwere not yet visible when the French so greatly needed the guidinglessons of other men's experience. Some of the restrictions on thegoverning power were not fully established at first. 

The most important of these is the action of the Supreme Court inannulling unconstitutional laws. The Duke of Wellington said to Bunsenthat by this institution alone the United States made up for all thedefects of their government. Since Chief Justice Marshall, thejudiciary undoubtedly obtained immense authority, which Jefferson, andothers besides, believed to be unconstitutional; for the Constitutionitself gives no such power. The idea had grown up in the States, chiefly, I think, in Virginia. At Richmond, in 1782, Judge Wythesaid: "Tyranny has been sapped, the departments kept within their ownspheres, the citizens protected, and general liberty promoted. Butthis beneficial result attains to higher perfection when, those whohold the purse and the sword differing as to the powers which each mayexercise, the tribunals, who hold neither, are called upon to declarethe law impartially between them, if the whole legislature--an eventto be deprecated--should attempt to overleap the boundaries prescribedto them by the people, I, in administering the justice of the country, will meet the united powers at my seat in this tribunal, and, pointingto the Constitution, will say to them: 'Here is the limit of yourauthority; hither shall you go, but no further. '" The Virginianlegislature gave way, and repealed the act. 

After the Federal Constitution was drawn up, Hamilton, in theseventy-eighth number of the _Federalist_, argued that the powerbelonged to the judiciary; but it was not constitutionally recogniseduntil 1801. "This, " said Madison, "makes the judiciary departmentparamount, in fact, to the legislature, which was never intended, andcan never be proper. In a government whose vital principle isresponsibility, it never will be allowed that the legislative andexecutive departments should be completely subjected to the judiciary, in which that characteristic feature is so faintly seen. " Wilson, onthe other hand, justified the practice on the principle of the higherlaw: "Parliament may, unquestionably, be controlled by natural orrevealed law, proceeding from divine authority. Is not this superiorauthority binding upon the courts of justice? When the courts ofjustice obey the superior authority, it cannot be said with proprietythat they control the inferior one; they only declare, as it is theirduty to declare, that this inferior one is controlled by the other, which is superior. They do not repeal an act of Parliament; theypronounce it void, because contrary to an overruling law. " Thus thefunction of the judiciary to be a barrier against democracy, which, according to Tocqueville, it is destined to be, was not apparent. Inthe same manner religious liberty, which has become so much identifiedwith the United States, is a thing which grew by degrees, and was notto be found imposed by the letter of the law. 

The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and thestate governments by the powers they have ceded. It is the oneimmortal tribute of America to political science, for state rights areat the same time the consummation and the guard of democracy. So muchso that an officer wrote, a few months before Bull Run: "The people inthe south are evidently unanimous in the opinion that slavery isendangered by the current of events, and it is useless to attempt toalter that opinion. As our government is founded on the will of thepeople, when that will is fixed our government is powerless. " Thoseare the words of Sherman, the man who, by his march through Georgia, cut the Confederacy into two. Lincoln himself wrote, at the same time:"I declare that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its owndomestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, isessential to that balance of powers on which the perfection andendurance of our political fabric depend. " Such was the force withwhich state rights held the minds of abolitionists on the eve of thewar that bore them down. 

At the Revolution there were many Frenchmen who saw in federalism theonly way to reconcile liberty and democracy, to establish governmenton contract, and to rescue the country from the crushing preponderanceof Paris and the Parisian populace. I do not mean the Girondins, butmen of opinions different from theirs, and, above all, Mirabeau. Heplanned to save the throne by detaching the provinces from the frenzyof the capital, and he declared that the federal system is alonecapable of preserving freedom in any great empire. The idea did notgrow up under American influence; for no man was more opposed to itthan Lafayette; and the American witness of the Revolution, Morris, denounced federalism as a danger to France. 

Apart from the Constitution, the political thought of Americainfluenced the French next to their own. And it was not allspeculation, but a system for which men died, which had provedentirely practical, and strong enough to conquer all resistance, withthe sanction and encouragement of Europe. It displayed to France afinished model of revolution, both in thought and action, and showedthat what seemed extreme and subversive in the old world, wascompatible with good and wise government, with respect for socialorder, and the preservation of national character and custom. Theideas which captured and convulsed the French people were mostlyready-made for them, and much that is familiar to you now, much ofthat which I have put before you from other than French sources, willmeet us again next week with the old faces, when we come to theStates-General. 

III

THE SUMMONS OF THE STATES-GENERAL

The condition of France alone did not bring about the overthrow of themonarchy and the convulsion that ensued. For the sufferings of thepeople were not greater than they had been before; the misgovernmentand oppression were less, and a successful war with England hadlargely wiped out the humiliations inflicted by Chatham. 

But the confluence of French theory with American example caused theRevolution to break out, not in an excess of irritation and despair, but in a moment of better feeling between the nation and the king. TheFrench were not mere reckless innovators; they were confidingfollowers, and many of the ideas with which they made their venturewere those in which Burke agreed with Hamilton, and with his ownillustrious countrymen, Adam Smith and Sir William Jones. When he saidthat, compared to England, the government of France was slavery, andthat nothing but a revolution could restore European liberty, Frenchmen, saying the same thing, and acting upon it, were unconsciousof extravagance, and might well believe that they were obeyingprecepts stored in the past by high and venerable authority. Beyondthat common ground, they fell back on native opinion in which therewas wide divergence, and an irrepressible conflict arose. We have todeal with no unlikely motives, with no unheard of theories, and, onthe whole, with convinced and average men. 

The States-General were convoked because there was no other way ofobtaining money for the public need. The deficit was a record of badgovernment, and the first practical object was the readjustment oftaxes. From the king's accession, the revival of the old and neglectedinstitution had been kept before the country as a remedy, not forfinancial straits only, but for all the ills of France. 

The imposing corporation of the judiciary had constantly opposed theCrown, and claimed to subject its acts to the judgment of the law. Thehigher clergy had raised objections to Turgot, to Necker, to theemancipation of Protestants; and the nobles became the most active ofall the parties of reform. But the great body of the people had bornetheir trouble in patience. They possessed no recognised means ofexpressing sentiments. There was no right of public meeting, noliberty for the periodical press; and the privileged newspapers wereso tightly swaddled in their official character that they had nothingto say even of an event like the oath in the Tennis Court. Thefeelings that stirred the multitude did not appear, unless theyappeared in the shape of disorder. Without it France remained anunknown quantity. The king felt the resistance of the privileged andinterested classes which was the source of his necessity, but he wasnot apprehensive of a national opposition. He was prepared to rely onthe Third Estate with hopefulness, if not with confidence, and to paya very high price for their support. In a certain measure theirinterest was the same. The penury of the State came from the fact thatmore than half the property of France was not taxed in its proportion, and it was essential for the government to abolish the exception, andto bring nobles and clergy to surrender their privilege, and pay likethe rest. To that extent the object of the king was to do away withprivilege and to introduce equality before the law. So far the Commonswent along with him. They would be relieved of a heavy burden if theyceased to pay the share of those who were exempt, and rejected thetime-honoured custom that the poor should bear taxation for the rich. An alliance, therefore, was indicated and natural. But the extinctionof privilege, which for monarchy and democracy alike meant fiscalequality, meant for the democracy a great deal more. Besides the moneywhich they were required to pay in behalf of the upper class and fortheir benefit and solace, money had to be paid to them. Apart fromrent for house or land, there were payments due to them proceedingfrom the time, the obscure and distant time, when power went withland, and the focal landholder was the local government, the ruler andprotector of the people, and was paid accordingly. And there wasanother category of claims, proceeding indirectly from the samehistoric source, consisting of commutation and compensation forancient rights, and having therefore a legal character, founded uponcontract, not upon force. 

Every thinking politician knew that the first of these categories, thebeneficial rights that were superfluous and oppressive, could not bemaintained, and that the nobles would be made to give up not only thatform of privilege which consisted in exemption from particular taxes, but that composed of superannuated demands in return for work nolonger done, or value given. Those, on the other hand, which were notsimply mediæval, but based upon contract, would be treated as lawfulproperty, and would have to be redeemed. Privilege, in the eyes of thestate, was the right of evading taxes. To the politician it meant, furthermore, the right of imposing taxes. For the rural democracy ithad a wider significance. To them, all these privileges were productsof the same principle, ruins of the same fabric. They were relics andremnants of feudalism, and feudalism meant power given to land anddenied to capital and industry. It meant class government, thenegation of the very idea of the state and of the nation; it meantconquest and subjugation by a foreign invader. None denied that manygreat families had won their spurs in the service of their country;everybody indeed knew that the noblest of all, Montmorency, bore thearms of France because, at the victory of Bouvines, where theirancestor was desperately wounded, the king laid his finger on thewound and drew with his blood the lilies upon his shield. When wecome, presently, to the Abbé Sieyès, we shall see how firmly menbelieved that the nobles were, in the mass, Franks, Teutonic tyrants, and spoilers of the Celtic native. They intended that feudalism shouldnot be trimmed but uprooted, as the cause of much that was infinitelyodious, and as a thing absolutely incompatible with public policy, social interests, and right reason. That men should be made to bearsuffering for the sake of what could only be explained by very earlyhistory and very yellow parchments was simply irrational to ageneration which received its notion of life from Turgot, Adam Smith, or Franklin. 

Although there were three interpretations of feudal privilege, andconsequently a dangerous problem in the near future, the first stepwas an easy one, and consisted in the appeal by the Crown to theCommons for aid in regenerating the State. Like other princes of histime, Lewis XVI. Was a reforming monarch. At his accession, his firstchoice of a minister was Machault, known to have entertained a vastscheme of change, to be attempted whenever the throne should beoccupied by a serious prince. Later, he appointed Turgot, the mostprofound and thorough reformer of the century. He appointedMalesherbes, one of the weakest but one of the most enlightened ofpublic men; and after having, at the Coronation, taken an oath topersecute, he gave office to Necker, a Protestant, an alien, and arepublican. When he had begun, through Malesherbes, to removereligious disabilities, he said to him, "Now you have been aProtestant, and I declare you a Jew"; and began to prepare a measurefor the relief of Jews, who, wherever they went, were forced to paythe same toll as a pig. He carried out a large and complicated schemeof law reform; and he achieved the independence of revolted America. In later days the Elector of Cologne complained to an _émigré_ thathis king's policy had been deplorable, and that, having promotedresistance to authority in the Colonies, in Holland, and in Brabant, he had no claim on the support of European monarchs. 

But the impulse in the direction of liberal improvement wasintermittent, and was checked by a natural diffidence and infirmity ofpurpose. The messenger who was to summon Machault was recalled as hemounted his horse. Turgot was sacrificed to gratify the queen. Necker's second administration would have begun a year and a halfearlier, but, at the last moment, his enemies intervened. The warminister, Saint Germain, was agreeable to the king, and he wished tokeep him. "But what can I do?" he wrote; "his enemies are bent on hisdismissal, and I must yield to the majority. " Maurepas, at his death, left a paper on which were the names of four men whom he entreated hismaster not to employ. Lewis bestowed the highest offices upon themall. He regarded England with the aversion with which Chatham, and atthat time even Fox, looked upon France, and he went to war in the justhope of avenging the disgrace of the Seven Years' War, but from nosympathy with the American cause. When he was required to retrench hispersonal expenditure, he objected, and insisted that much of the lossshould be made to fall on his pensioners. The liberal concessionswhich he allowed were in many cases made at the expense, not of theCrown, but of powers that were obstructing the Crown. By the abolitionof torture he incurred no loss, but curbed the resources of opposingmagistrates. When he emancipated the Protestants and made a SwissCalvinist his principal adviser, he displeased the clergy; but hecared little for clerical displeasure. The bishops, finding that hetook no notice of them, disappeared from his _levée_. He objected tothe appointment of French cardinals. English travellers at Versailles, Romilly and Valpy, observed that he was inattentive at mass, andtalked and laughed before all the court. At the Council he would fallasleep, and when the discussion was distasteful, he used to snorelouder than when he slept. He said to Necker that he desired theStates-General because he wanted a guide. When, in 1788, afterskirmishing with magistrates and prelates, he took the memorableresolution to call in the outer people, to compel a compromise withthe class that filled his court, that constituted society, that ruledopinion, it was the act of a man destitute of energy, and gifted withan uncertain and indistinct enlightenment. And Necker said, "You maylend a man your ideas, you cannot lend him your strength of will. "

The enterprise was far beyond the power and quality of his mind, butthe lesson of his time was not lost upon him, and he had learntsomething since the days when he spoke the unchanging language ofabsolutism. He showed another spirit when he emancipated the serfs ofthe Crown, when he introduced provincial and village councils, when hepronounced that to confine local government to landowners was tooffend a still larger class, when he invited assistance in reformingthe criminal code in order that the result might be the work, not ofexperts only, but of the public. All this was genuine conviction. Hewas determined that the upper class should lose its fiscal privilegeswith as little further detriment as possible. And, to accomplish thisnecessary and deliberate purpose, he offered terms to the Commons ofFrance such as no monarch ever proposed to his subjects. He declaredin later days, and had a right to declare, that it was he who hadtaken the first step to concert with the French people a permanentconstitution, the abolition of arbitrary power, of pecuniaryprivilege, of promotion apart from merit, of taxation without consent. When he heard that the Notables had given only one vote in favour ofincreased representation of the Third Estate, he said, "You can addmine. " Malouet, the most high-minded and sagacious statesman of theRevolution, testifies to his sincerity, and declares that the kingfully shared his opinions. 

The tributary elements of a free constitution which were granted byLewis XVI. , not in consultation with deputies, not even always withpublic support, included religious toleration, Habeas Corpus, equalincidence of taxes, abolition of torture, decentralisation and localself-government, freedom of the press, universal suffrage, electionwithout official candidates or influence, periodical convocation ofparliament, right of voting supplies, of initiating legislation, ofrevising the constitution, responsibility of ministers, doublerepresentation of the Commons at the States-General. All theseconcessions were acts of the Crown, yielding to dictates of policymore than to popular demand. It is said that power is an object ofsuch ardent desire to man, that the voluntary surrender of it isabsurd in psychology and unknown in history. Lewis XVI. No doubtcalculated the probabilities of loss and gain, and persuaded himselfthat his action was politic even more than generous. The Prussianenvoy rightly described him in a despatch of July 31, 1789. He saysthat the king was willing to weaken the executive at home, in order tostrengthen it abroad; if the ministers lost by a better regulatedadministration, the nation would gain by it in resource, and a limitedauthority in a more powerful state seemed preferable to absoluteauthority which was helpless from its unpopularity and the irreparabledisorder of finance. He was resolved to submit the arbitrary_government of his ancestors to the rising forces of the_ day. Theroyal initiative was pushed so far on the way to established freedomthat it was exhausted, and the rest was left to the nation. As theelections were not influenced, as the instructions were not inspired, the deliberations were not guided or controlled. The king abdicatedbefore the States-General. He assigned so much authority to the newlegislature that none remained with the Crown, and its powers, thuspractically suspended, were never recovered. The rival classes, thatonly the king could have reconciled and restrained, were abandoned tothe fatal issue of a trial of strength. 

In 1786 the annual deficit amounted to between four and five millions, and the season for heroic remedies had evidently come. The artful andevasive confusion of accounts that shrouded the secret could not bemaintained, and the minister of finance, Calonne, convoked theNotables for February 1787. The Notables were a selection of importantpersonages, chiefly of the upper order, without legal powers orinitiative. It was hoped that they would strengthen the hands of thegovernment, and that what they agreed to would be accepted by theclass to which they belonged. It was an experiment to avert the evilday of the States-General. For the States-General, which had not beenseen for one hundred and seventy-five years, were the features of abygone stage of political life, and could neither be revived as theyonce had been, nor adapted to modern society. If they imposed taxes, they would impose conditions, and they were an auxiliary who mightbecome a master. The Notables were soon found inadequate to thepurpose, and the minister, having failed to control them, wasdismissed. Necker, his rival and obvious successor, was sent out ofthe way, and the Archbishop of Toulouse, afterwards of Sens, who wasappointed in his place, got rid of the Assembly. There was nothingleft to fall back upon but the dreaded States-General. Lafayette haddemanded them at the meeting of the Notables, and the demand was nowrepeated far and wide. 

On August 8, 1788, the king summoned the States-General for thefollowing year, to the end, as he proclaimed, that the nation mightsettle its own government in perpetuity. The words signified that theabsolute monarchy of 1788 would make way for a representative monarchyin 1789. In what way this was to be done, and how the States would beconstituted, was unknown. The public were invited to offersuggestions, and the press was practically made free for publicationsthat were not periodical. Necker, the inevitable minister of the neworder of things, was immediately nominated to succeed the Archbishop, and the funds rose 30 per cent in one day. He was a foreigner, independent of French tradition and ways of thought, who not onlystood aloof from the Catholics, as a Genevese, but also from theprevailing freethinkers, for Priestley describes him as nearly theonly believer in religion whom he found in intellectual society atParis. He was the earliest foreign statesman who studied andunderstood the modern force of opinion; and he identified publicopinion with credit, as we should say, with the city. He took theviews of capitalists as the most sensitive record of publicconfidence; and as Paris was the headquarters of business, hecontributed, in spite of his declared federalism, to that predominanceof the centre which became fatal to liberty and order. 

Necker was familiar with the working of republican institutions, andhe was an admirer of the British model; but the king would not hear ofgoing to school to the people whom he had so recently defeated, andwho owed their disgrace as much to political as to militaryincapacity. Consequently Necker repressed his zeal in politics, andwas not eager for the States-General. They would never have beenwanted, he said, if he had been called to succeed Calonne, and had hadthe managing of the Notables. He was glad now that they should serveto bring the entire property of the country, on equal terms, under thetax-gatherer, and if that could have been effected at once, by anoverwhelming pressure of public feeling, his practical spirit wouldnot have hungered for further changes. 

The _Third_ Estate was _Invoked_ for a _great fiscal_ operation. If itbrought the upper class to the necessary sense of their ownobligations and the national claims, that was enough for the keeper ofthe purse, and he would have deprecated the intrusion of otherformidable and absorbing objects, detrimental to his own. Beyond thatwas danger, but the course was clear towards obtaining from thegreater assembly what he would have extracted from the less if he hadheld office in 1787. That is the secret of Necker's unforeseenweakness in the midst of so much power, and of his sterility when thecrisis broke and it was discovered that the force which had beencalculated equal to the carrying of a modest and obvious reform was asthe rush of Niagara, and that France was in the resistless rapids. 

Everything depended on the manner in which the government decided thatthe States should be composed, elected, and conducted. To pronounce onthis, Necker caused the Notables to be convoked again, exposed theproblem, and desired their opinion. The nobles had been lately activeon the side of liberal reforms, and it seemed possible that theirreply might relieve him of a dreaded responsibility and prevent aconflict. The Notables gave their advice. They resolved that theCommons should be elected, virtually, by universal suffrage withoutconditions of eligibility; that the parish priests should be electorsand eligible; that the lesser class of nobles should be representedlike the greater. They extended the franchise to the unletteredmultitude, because the danger which they apprehended came from themiddle class, not from the lower. But they voted, by three to one, that each order should be equal in numbers. The Count of Provence, theking's next brother, went with the minority, and voted that thedeputies of the Commons should be as numerous as those of the twoother orders together. This became the burning question. If theCommons did not predominate, there was no security that the otherorders would give way. On the other hand, by the important innovationof admitting the parish clergy, and those whom we should callprovincial gentry, a great concession was made to the popular element. The antagonism between the two branches of the clergy, and between thetwo branches of the _noblesse_, was greater than that between theinferior portion of each and the Third Estate, and promised acontingent to the liberal cause. It turned out, at the proper time, that the two strongest leaders of the democracy were, one, an ancientnoble; the other, a canon of the cathedral of Chartres. The Notablesconcluded their acceptable labours on December 12. On the 5th themagistrates who formed the parliament of Paris, after solemnlyenumerating the great constitutional principles, entreated the king toestablish them as the basis of all future legislation. The position ofthe government was immensely simplified. The walls of the city hadfallen, and it was doubtful where any serious resistance would comefrom. 

Meantime, the agitation in the provinces, and the explosion of pent-upfeeling that followed the unlicensed printing of political tracts, showed that public opinion moved faster than that of the two greatconservative bodies. It became urgent that the Government should cometo an early and resolute decision, and should occupy ground that mightbe held against the surging democracy. Necker judged that the positionwould be impregnable if he stood upon the lines drawn by the Notables, and he decided that the Commons should be equal to either ordersingly, and not jointly to the two. In consultation with astatesmanlike prelate, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, he drew up andprinted a report, refusing the desired increase. But as he satanxiously watching the winds and the tide, he began to doubt; and whenletters came, warning him that the nobles would be butchered if thedecision went in their favour, he took alarm. He said to his friends, "If we do not multiply the Commons by two, they will multiplythemselves by ten. " When the Archbishop saw him again at Christmas, Necker assured him that the Government was no longer strong enough toresist the popular demand. But he was also determined that the threehouses should vote separately, that the Commons should enjoy noadvantage from their numbers in any discussion where privilege was atstake, or the interest of classes was not identical. He hoped that thenobles would submit to equal taxation of their own accord, and that hewould stand between them and any exorbitant claim of equal politicalpower. 

On December 27 Necker's scheme was adopted by the Council. There wassome division of opinion; but the king overruled it, and the queen, who was present, showed, without speaking, that she was there tosupport the measure. By this momentous act Lewis XVI. , without beingconscious of its significance, went over to the democracy. He said, inplain terms, to the French people: "Afford me the aid I require, sofar as we have a common interest, and for that definite andappropriated assistance you shall have a princely reward. For youshall at once have a constitution of your own making, which shalllimit the power of the Crown, leaving untouched the power and thedignity and the property of the upper classes, beyond what isinvolved in an equal share of taxation. " But in effect he said; "Letus combine to deprive the aristocracy of those privileges which areinjurious to the Crown, whilst we retain those which are offensiveonly to the people. " It was a tacit compact, of which the terms andlimits were not defined; and where one thought of immunities, theother was thinking of oppression. The organisation of society requiredto be altered and remodelled from end to end to sustain a constitutionfounded on the principle of liberty. It was no arduous problem toadjust relations between the people and the king. The deeper questionwas between the people and the aristocracy. Behind a political reformthere was a social revolution, for the only liberty that could availwas liberty founded on equality. Malouet, who was at this momentNecker's best adviser, said to him: "You have made the Commons equalin influence to the other orders. Another revolution has to follow, and it is for you to accomplish it--the levelling of onerousprivilege. " Necker had no ambition of the kind, and he distinctlyguarded privilege in all matters but taxation. 

The resolution of the king in Council was received with loud applause;and the public believed that everything they had demanded was nowobtained, or was at least within reach. The doubling of the Commonswas illusory if they were to have no opportunity of making theirnumbers tell. The Count of Provence, afterwards Lewis XVIII. , hadexpressly argued that the old States-General were useless because theThird Estate was not suffered to prevail in them. Therefore he urgedthat the three orders should deliberate and vote as one, and that theCommons should possess the majority. It was universally felt that thiswas the real meaning of the double representation, and that there wasa logic in it which could not be resisted. The actual power vested inthe Commons by the great concession exceeded their literal and legalpower, and it was accepted and employed accordingly. 

The mode of election was regulated on January 24. There were to bethree hundred deputies for the clergy, three hundred for the nobles, six hundred for the Commons. There were to be no restrictions and noexclusions; but whereas the greater personages voted directly, thevote of the lower classes was indirect; and the rule for the Commonswas that one hundred primary voters chose an elector. Besides thedeputy, there was the deputy's deputy, held in reserve, ready in caseof vacancy to take his place. It was on this peculiar device ofeventual representatives that the Commons relied, if their numbers hadnot been doubled. They would have called up their substitutes. Therights and charters of the several provinces were superseded, and allwere placed on the same level. 

A more sincere and genuine election has never been held. And on thewhole it was orderly. The clergy were uneasy, and the nobles moreopenly alarmed. But the country in general had confidence in what wascoming; and some of the most liberal and advanced and outspokenmanifestations proceeded from aristocratic and ecclesiasticalconstituencies. On February 9 the Venetian envoy reports that theclergy and nobles are ready to accept the principle of equality intaxation. The elections were going on for more than two months, fromFebruary to the beginning of May. 

In accordance with ancient custom, when a deputy was a plenipotentiarymore than a representative, it was ordained that the preliminary ofevery election was the drawing up of instructions. Every corner ofFrance was swept and searched for its ideas. The village gave them toits elector, and they were compared and consolidated by the electorsin the process of choosing their member. These instructions, thecharacteristic bequest to its successors of a society at the point ofdeath, were often the work of conspicuous public men, such as Malouet, Lanjuinais, Dupont, the friend of Turgot and originator of thecommercial treaty of 1786; and one paper, drawn up by Sieyès, wascirculated all over France by the duke of Orleans. 

In this way, by the lead which was taken by eminent and experiencedmen, there is an appearance of unanimity. All France desired theessential institutions of limited monarchy, in the shape ofrepresentation and the division of power, and foreshadowed the charterof 1814. There is scarcely a trace of the spirit of departingabsolutism; there is not a sign of the coming republic. It is agreedthat precedent is dead, and the world just going to begin. There areno clear views on certain grave matters of detail, on an Upper House, Church and State, and primary education. Free schools, progressivetaxation, the extinction of slavery, of poverty, of ignorance, areamong the things advised. The privileged orders are prepared for avast surrender in regard to taxes, and nobody seems to associate theright of being represented in future parliaments with the possessionof property. On nine-tenths of all that is material to a constitutionthere is a general agreement. The one broad division is that theCommons wish that the States-General shall form a single unitedAssembly, and the other orders wish for three. But on this supremeissue the Commons are all agreed, and the others are not. An ominousrift appears, and we already perceive the minority of nobles andpriests, who, in the hour of conflict, were to rule the fate ofEuropean society. From all these papers, the mandate of united France, it was the function of true statesmanship to distil the essence of asufficient freedom. 

These instructions were intended to be imperative. Nine years before, Burke, when he retired from the contest at Bristol, had defined theconstitutional doctrine on constituency and member; and Charles Sumnersaid that he legislated when he made that speech. But the ancientview, on which instructions are founded, made the deputy the agent ofthe deputing power, and much French history turns on it. At first thedanger was unfelt; for the instructions were often compiled by thedeputy himself, who was to execute them. They were a pledge even morethan an order. 

The nation had responded to the royal appeal, and there was agreementbetween the offer and the demand. The upper classes had opposed andresisted the Crown; the people were eager to support it, and it wasexpected that the first steps would be taken together. The comparativemoderation and serenity of the Instructions disguised the unappeasableconflict of opinion and the furious passion that raged below. 

The very cream of the upper and middle class were elected; and theCourt, in its prosperous complacency, abandoned to their wisdom thetask of creating the new institutions and permanently settling thefinancial trouble. It persisted in non-interference, and had no policybut expectation. The initiative passed to every private member. Themembers consisted of new men, without connection or partyorganisation. They wanted time to feel their way, and missed amoderator and a guide. The governing power ceased, for the moment, toserve the supreme purpose of government; and monarchy transformeditself into anarchy to see what would come of it, and to avoidcommitting itself on either side against the class by which it wasalways surrounded or the class which seemed ready with its alliance. 

The Government renounced the advantage which the elections and thetemperate instructions gave them; and in the hope that the elect wouldbe at least as reasonable as the electors, they threw away theirgreatest opportunity. There was a disposition to underrate dangersthat were not on the surface. Even Mirabeau, who, if not a deepthinker, was a keen observer, imagined that the entire mission of theStates-General might have been accomplished in a week. Few men saw theambiguity hidden in the term Privilege, and the immense differencethat divided fiscal change from social change. In attacking feudalism, which was the survival of barbarism, the middle class designed tooverthrow the condition of society which gave power as well asproperty to a favoured minority. The assault on the restricteddistribution of power involved an assault on the concentration ofwealth. The connection of the two ideas is the secret motive of theRevolution. At that time the law by which power follows property, which has been called the most important discovery made by man sincethe invention of printing, was not clearly known. But the undergroundforces at work were recognised by the intelligent conservatives, andthey were assuming the defensive, in preparation for the hour whenthey would be deserted by the king. It was therefore impossible thatthe object for which the States-General were summoned should beattained while they were divided into three. Either they must bedissolved, or the thing which the middle-class deputies could notaccomplish by use of forms would be attempted by the lower class, their masters and employers, by use of force. 

Before the meeting Malouet once more approached the minister withweighty counsel. He said: "You now know the wishes of France; you knowthe instructions, you do not know the deputies. Do not leave allthings to the arbitrament of the unknown. Convert at once the demandsof the people into a constitution, and give them force of law. Actwhile you have unfettered power of action. Act while your action willbe hailed as the most magnificent concession ever granted by a monarchto a loyal and expectant nation. To-day you are supreme and safe. Itmay be too late to-morrow. "

In particular, Malouet advised that the Government should regulate theverification of powers, leaving only contested returns to the judgmentof the representatives. Necker abided by his meditated neutrality, andpreferred that the problem should work itself out with entire freedom. He would not take sides lest he should offend one party without beingsure of the other, and forfeit his chance of becoming the acceptedarbitrator. Whilst, by deciding nothing, he kept the enemy at bay, theupper classes might yet reach the wise conclusion that, in the midstof so much peril to royalty and to themselves, it was time to placethe interest of the state before their own, and to accept the dutiesand the burdens of undistinguished men. 

Neither party could yield. The Commons could not fail to see that timewas on their side, and that, by compelling the other orders to mergewith them, they secured the downfall of privilege and played the gameof the court. The two other orders were, by the imperative mandate ofmany constituencies, prohibited from voting in common. Theirresistance was legitimate, and could only be overcome by theintervention either of the Crown or the people. Their policy mighthave been justified if they had at once made their surrender, and hadaccomplished with deliberation in May what had to be done with tumultin August. With these problems and these perils before them, theStates-General met on that memorable 5th of May. Necker, preferringthe abode of financiers, wished them to meet at Paris; and four orfive other places were proposed. At last the king, breaking silence, said that it could be only at Versailles, on account of his hunting. At the time he saw no cause for alarm in the proximity of the capital. Since then, the disturbances in one or two places, and the openlanguage of some of the electors, had begun to make him swerve. 

On the opening day the queen was received with offensive silence; butshe acknowledged a belated cheer with such evident gladness and withsuch stately grace that applause followed her. The popular groups ofdeputies were cheered as they passed--all but the Commons of Provence, for they had Mirabeau among them. He alone was hissed. Two ladies whowatched the procession from the same window were the daughter ofNecker and the wife of the Foreign Minister, Montmorin. One thoughtwith admiration that she was a witness of the greatest scene in modernhistory; and the other was sad with evil forebodings. Both were right;but the feeling of confidence and enthusiasm pervaded the crowd. Nearrelations of my own were at Rome in 1846, during the excitement at thereforms of the new Pope, who, at that moment, was the most popularsovereign in Europe. They asked an Italian lady who was with them whyall the demonstrations only made her more melancholy. She answered:"Because I was at Versailles in 1789. "

Barentin, the minister who had opposed Necker's plans and viewed theStates-General with apprehension and disgust, spoke after the king. Hewas a French judge, with no heart for any form of government but theancient one enjoyed by France. Nevertheless he admitted that jointdeliberation was the reasonable solution. He added that it could onlybe adopted by common consent; and he urged the two orders to sacrificetheir right of exemption. Necker perplexed his hearers by recedingfrom the ground which the Chancellor had taken. He assured the twoorders that they need not apprehend absorption in the third if, whilevoting separately, they executed the promised surrender. He spoke astheir protector, on the condition that they submitted to the commonlaw, and paid their taxes in arithmetical proportion. He implied, butdid not say, that what they refused to the Crown would be taken by thepeople. In his financial statement he under-estimated the deficit, andhe said nothing of the Constitution. The great day ended badly. Thedeputies were directed to hand in their returns to the Master ofCeremonies, an official of whom we shall soon see more. But the Masterof Ceremonies was not acceptable to the Commons, because he hadcompelled them to withdraw, the day before, from their places in thenave of the church. Therefore the injunction was disregarded; and theverification of powers, which the Government might have regulated, wasleft to the deputies themselves, and became the lever by which themore numerous order overthrew the monarchy, and carried to an end, inseven weeks, the greatest constitutional struggle that has ever beenfought out in the world by speech alone. 

IV

THE MEETING OF THE STATES-GENERAL

The argument of the drama which opened on May 6, 1789, and closed onJune 27, is this:--The French people had been called to the enjoymentof freedom by every voice they heard--by the king; by the notables, who proposed unrestricted suffrage; by the supreme judiciary, whoproclaimed the future Constitution; by the clergy and the aristocracy, in the most solemn pledges of the electoral period; by the Britishexample, celebrated by Montesquieu and Voltaire; by the more cogentexample of America; by the national classics, who declared, with ahundred tongues, that all authority must be controlled, that themasses must be rescued from degradation, and the individual fromconstraint. 

When the Commons appeared at Versailles, they were there to claim aninheritance of which, by universal consent, they had been wrongfullydeprived. They were not arrayed against the king, who had been alreadybrought to submission by blows not dealt by them. They desired to maketerms with those to whom he was ostensibly opposed. There could be noreal freedom for them until they were as free on the side of thenobles as on that of the Crown. The modern absolutism of the monarchhad surrendered; but the ancient owners of the soil remained, withtheir exclusive position in the State, and a complicated system ofhonours and exactions which humiliated the middle class and pauperisedthe lower. The educated democracy, acting for themselves, might havebeen content with the retrenchment of those privileges which put themat a disadvantage. But the rural population were concerned with everyfragment of obsolete feudalism that added to the burden of theirlives. 

The two classes were undivided. Together they had elected theirdeputies, and the cleavage between the political and the socialdemocrat, which has become so great a fact in modern society, wasscarcely perceived. The same common principle, the same comprehensiveterm, composed the policy of both. They demanded liberty, both in theState and in society, and required that oppression should cease, whether exercised in the name of the king or in the name of thearistocracy. In a word, they required equality as well as liberty, andsought deliverance from feudalism and from absolutism at the sametime. And equality was the most urgent and prominent claim of the two, because the king, virtually, had given way, but the nobles had not. 

The battle that remained to be fought, and at once commenced, wasbetween the Commons and the nobles; that is, between people doomed topoverty by the operation of law, and people who were prosperous attheir expense. And as there were men who would perish from want whilethe laws remained unchanged, and others who would be ruined by theirrepeal, the strife was deadly. 

The real object of assault was not the living landlord, but theunburied past. It had little to do with socialism, or with high rents, bad times, and rapacious proprietors. Apart from all this was the hopeof release from irrational and indefensible laws, such as that bywhich a patrician's land paid three francs where the plebeian's paidfourteen, because one was noble and the other was not, and it was anelementary deduction from the motives of liberal desire. 

The elections had made it unexpectedly evident that when one part ofterritorial wealth had been taken by the State, another would be takenby the people; and that a free community, making its own laws, wouldnot submit to exactions imposed of old by the governing class on adefenceless population. When the notables advised that every manshould have a vote, this consequence was not clear to them. It wasperceived as things went on, and no provision for aristocraticinterests was included in the popular demands. 

In the presence of imminent peril, the privileged classes closed theirranks, and pressed the king to resist changes sure to be injurious tothem. They became a Conservative party. The court was on their side, with the Count d'Artois at its head, and the queen and her immediatecircle. 

The king remained firm in the belief that popularity is the best formof authority, and he relied on the wholesome dread of democracy tomake the rich aristocrats yield to his wishes. As long as the Commonsexerted the inert pressure of delay, he watched the course of events. When at the end of five tedious and unprofitable weeks they begantheir attack, he was driven slowly, and without either confidence orsympathy, to take his stand with the nobles, and to shrink from theindefinite change that was impending. 

When the Commons met to deliberate on the morning of the 6th of May, the deputies were unknown to each other. It was necessary to proceedwith caution, and to occupy ground on which they could not be divided. Their unanimity was out of danger so long as nothing more complex wasdiscussed than the verification of powers. The other orders resolvedat once that each should examine its own returns. But this vote, whichthe nobles carried by a majority of 141, obtained in the clergy amajority of only 19. It was evident at once that the party ofprivilege was going asunder, and that the priests were nearly as wellinclined to the Commons as to the _noblesse_. It became advisable togive them time, to discard violence until the arts of conciliationwere exhausted and the cause of united action had been pleaded invain. The policy of moderation was advocated by Malouet, a man ofpractical insight and experience, who had grown grey in the service ofthe State. It was said that he defended the slave trade; he attemptedto exclude the public from the debates; he even offered, inunauthorised terms, to secure the claims, both real and formal, of theupper classes. He soon lost the ear of the House. But he was a man ofgreat good sense, as free from ancient prejudice as from moderntheory, and he never lost sight of the public interest in favour of aclass. The most generous proposals on behalf of the poor afterwardsemanated from him, and parliamentary life in France began with hismotion for negotiation with the other orders. 

He was supported by Mounier, one of the deepest minds of that day, andthe most popular of the deputies. He was a magistrate of Grenoble, andhad conducted the Estates of Dauphiné with such consummate art andwisdom that all ranks and all parties had worked in harmony. They haddemanded equal representation and the vote in common; they gave totheir deputies full powers instead of written instructions, onlyrequiring that they should obtain a free government to the best oftheir ability; they resolved that the chartered rights of theirprovince should not be put in competition with the new and theoreticrights of the nation. Under Mounier's controlling hand the prelate andthe noble united to declare that the essential liberties of men areensured to them by nature, and not by perishable title-deeds. Travellers had initiated him in the working of English institutions, and he represented the school of Montesquieu; but he was anemancipated disciple and a discriminate admirer. He held Montesquieuto be radically illiberal, and believed the famous theory whichdivides powers without isolating them to be an old and a commondiscovery. He thought that nations differ less in their character thanin their stage of progress, and that a Constitution like theEnglish applies not to a region, but to a time. He belonged tothat type of statesmanship which Washington had shown to be sopowerful--revolutionary doctrine in a conservative temper. In thecentre of affairs the powerful provincial betrayed a lack of sympathyand attraction. He refused to meet Sieyès, and persistently denouncedand vilified Mirabeau. Influence and public esteem came to him atonce, and in the great constructive party he was a natural leader, andpredominated for a time. But at the encounter of defeat, his austereand rigid character turned it into disaster; and as he possessed butone line of defence, the failure of his tactics was the ruin of hiscause. Although he despaired prematurely, and was vociferouslyrepentant of his part in the great days of June, parading hissackcloth before Europe, he never faltered in the conviction that theinterests of no class, of no family, of no man, can be preferred tothose of the nation. Napoleon once said with a sneer: "You are stillthe man of 1789. " Mounier replied: "Yes, sir. Principles are notsubject to the law of change. "

He desired to adopt the English model, which meant: representation ofproperty; an upper house founded upon merit, not upon descent; royalveto and right of dissolution. This could only be secured by activeco-operation on the part of all the conservative elements. To obtainhis majority he required that the other orders should come over, notvanquished and reluctant, but under the influence of persuasion. Mirabeau and his friends only wished to put the nobles in the wrong, to expose their obstinacy and arrogance, and then to proceed withoutthem. The plan of Mounier depended on a real conciliation. 

The clergy were ready for a conference; and by their intervention thenobles were induced to take part in it. There, on May 23, theArchbishop of Vienne, who was in the confidence of Mounier, declaredthat the clergy recognised the duty of sharing taxes in equalproportion. The Duke of Luxemburg, speaking for the nobles, made thesame declaration. The intention, he said, was irrevocable; but headded that it would not be executed until the problem of theConstitution was solved. The nobles declined to abandon the mode ofseparate verification which had been practised formerly. And when theCommons objected that what was good in times of civil dissension wasinapplicable to the Arcadian tranquillity of 1789, the others werenot to blame if they treated the argument with contempt. 

The failure of the conference was followed by an event which confirmedNecker in the belief that he was not waiting in vain. He receivedovertures from Mirabeau. Until that time Mirabeau had been notoriousfor the obtrusive scandal of his life, and the books he had writtenunder pressure of need did not restore his good name. People avoidedhim, not because he was brutal and vicious like other men of his rank, but because he was reputed a liar and a thief. During one of hisimprisonments he had obtained from Dupont de Nemours communication ofan important memoir embodying Turgot's ideas on local government. Hecopied the manuscript, presented it to the minister as his own work, and sold another copy to the booksellers as the work of Turgot. Afterwards he offered to suppress his letters from Prussia if theGovernment would buy them at the price he could obtain by publishingthem. Montmorin paid what he asked for, on condition that he renouncedhis candidature in Provence. Mirabeau agreed, spent the money on hiscanvass, and made more by printing what he had sold to the king. During the contest, by his coolness, audacity, and resource, he soonacquired ascendency. The nobles who rejected him were made to feel hispower. When tumults broke out, he appeased them by his presence, andhe moved from Marseilles to Aix escorted by a retinue of 200carriages. Elected in both places by the Third Estate, he came toVersailles hoping to repair his fortune. There it was soon apparentthat he possessed powers of mind equal to the baseness of his conduct. He is described by Malouet as the only man who perceived from thefirst where the Revolution was tending; and his enemy Mounier avowsthat he never met a more intelligent politician. He was always readyto speak, and always vigorous and adroit. His renowned orations wereoften borrowed, for he surrounded himself with able men, mostlyGenevese, versed in civil strife, who supplied him with facts, mediated with the public, and helped him in the press. Rivarol saidthat his head was a gigantic sponge, swelled out with other men'sideas. As extempore speaking was a new art, and the ablest men readtheir speeches, Mirabeau was at once an effective debater--probablythe best debater, though not the most perfect orator, that hasappeared in the splendid record of parliamentary life in France. Hisfather was one of the most conspicuous economists, and he inheritedtheir belief in a popular and active monarchy, and their preferencefor a single chamber. 

In 1784 he visited London, frequented the Whigs, and supplied Burkewith a quotation. He did not love England, but he thought it aconvincing proof of the efficacy of paper Constitutions, that a fewlaws for the protection of personal liberty should be sufficient tomake a corrupt and ignorant people prosper. 

His keynote was to abandon privilege and to retain the prerogative;for he aspired to sway the monarchy, and would not destroy the powerhe was to wield. The king, he said, is the State, and can do no wrong. Therefore he was at times the most violent and indiscreet of men, andat times unaccountably moderate and reserved; and both parts werecarefully prepared. As he had a fixed purpose before him, but neitherprinciple nor scruple, no emergency found him at a loss, orembarrassed by a cargo of consistent maxims. Incalculable, and unfitto trust in daily life, at a crisis he was the surest and mostavailable force. From the first moment he came to the front. On theopening day he was ready with a plan for a consultation in common, before deciding whether they should act jointly or separately. Thenext day he started a newspaper, in the shape of a report to hisconstituents, and when the Government attempted to suppress it, hesucceeded, May 19, in establishing the liberty of the press. 

The first political club, afterwards that of the Jacobins, wasfounded, at his instigation, by men who did not know the meaning of aclub. For, he said to them, ten men acting together can make a hundredthousand tremble apart from each other. Mirabeau began with caution, for his materials were new and he had no friends. He believed thatthe king was really identified with the magnates, and that the Commonswere totally unprepared to confront either the court or theapproaching Revolution. He thought it hopeless to negotiate with hisown doomed order, and meant to detach the king from them. When thescheme of conciliation failed, his opportunity came. He requestedMalouet to bring him into communication with ministers. He told himthat he was seriously alarmed, that the nobles meant to pushresistance to extremity, and that his reliance was on the Crown. Hepromised, if the Government would admit him to their confidence, tosupport their policy with all his might. Montmorin refused to see him. Necker reluctantly consented. He had a way of pointing his nose at theceiling, which was not conciliatory, and he received the hated visitorwith a request to know what proposals he had to make. Mirabeau, purplewith rage at this frigid treatment by the man he had come to save, replied that he proposed to wish him good morning. To Malouet he said, "Your friend is a fool, and he will soon have news of me. " Neckerlived to regret that he had thrown such a chance away. At the time, the interview only helped to persuade him that the Commons knew theirweakness, and felt the need of his succour. 

Just then the expected appeal reached him from the ecclesiasticalquarter. When it was seen that the nobles could not be constrained byfair words, the Commons made one more experiment with the clergy. OnMay 27 they sent a numerous and weighty deputation to adjure them, inthe name of the God of peace and of the national welfare, not toabandon the cause of united action. The clergy this time invoked theinterposition of Government. 

On the 30th conferences were once more opened, and the ministers werepresent. The discussion was as inconclusive as before, and, on June 4, Necker produced a plan of his own. He proposed, in substance, separateverification, the crown to decide in last instance. It was a solutionfavourable to the privileged orders, one of which had appealed to him. He wanted their money, not their power. The clergy agreed. TheCommons were embarrassed what to do, but were quickly relieved; forthe nobles replied that they had already decided simply to try theirown cases. By this act, on June 9, negotiations were broken off. 

The decision had been taken in the apartments of the Duchess ofPolignac, the queen's familiar friend, and it made a breach betweenthe court and the minister at the first step he had taken since theAssembly met. Up to this point the aristocracy were intelligible andconsistent. They would make no beginning of surrender until they knewhow far it would lead them, or put themselves at the mercy of ahostile majority without any assurance for private rights. Malouetoffered them a guarantee, but he was disavowed by his colleagues in away that warned the nobles not to be too trusting. 

Nobody could say how far the edifice of privilege was condemned tocrumble, or what nucleus of feudal property, however secured bycontract and prescription, would be suffered to remain. The noblesfelt justified in defending things which were their own by law, bycenturies of unquestioned possession, by purchase and inheritance, bysanction of government, by the express will of their constituents. Inupholding the interest, and the very existence, of the class theyrepresented, they might well believe that they acted in the spirit oftrue liberty, which depends on the multiplicity of checking forces, and that they were saving the throne. From the engagement to renouncefiscal exemption, and submit to the equal burden of taxation, they didnot recede, and they claimed the support of the king. Montlosier, whobelonged to their order, pronounced that their case was good and theirargument bad. Twice they gave the enemy an advantage. When they sawthe clergy waver, they resolved, by their usual majority of 197 to 44, that each order possessed the right of nullification; so that theywould no more yield to the separate vote of the three Estates than totheir united vote. Evidently the country would support those whodenied the veto and were ready to overrule it, against those who gaveno hope that anything would be done. Again, when they declined theGovernment proposals, they isolated themselves, and became anobstruction. They had lost the clergy. They now repulsed the minister. Nothing was left them except their hopes of the king. They ruined himas well as themselves. It did not follow that, because they supportedthe monarchy, they were sure of the monarch. And it was a gravermiscalculation to think that a regular army is stronger than anundisciplined mob, and that the turbulent Parisians, eight miles off, could not protect the deputies against regiments of horse and foot, commanded by the gallant gentlemen of France, accustomed for centuriesto pay the tax of blood, and fighting now in their own cause. 

There was nothing more to be done. The arts of peace were exhausted. Adeliberate breach with legality could alone fulfil the nationaldecree. The country had grown tired of dilatory tactics and prolongedinaction. Conciliation, tried by the Commons, by the clergy, and bythe Government, had been vain. The point was reached where it wasnecessary to choose between compulsion and surrender, and the Commonsmust either employ the means at their command to overcome resistance, or go away confessing that the great movement had broken down in theirhands, and that the people had elected the wrong men. Inaction anddelay had not been a policy, but the preliminary of a policy. It wasreasonable to say that they would try every possible effort beforeresorting to aggression; but it would have been unmeaning to say thatthey would begin by doing nothing, and that afterwards they wouldcontinue to do nothing. Their enemy had been beforehand with them inmaking mistakes. They might hazard something with less danger now. 

Victory indeed was assured by the defection among the nobles and theclergy. Near fifty of the one, and certainly more than one hundred ofthe others, were ready to come over. Instead of being equal, theparties were now two to one. Six hundred Commons could not control thesame number of the deputies of privilege. But eight hundred deputieswere more than a match for four hundred. Therefore, on June 10, theCommons opened the attack and summoned the garrison. Mirabeau gavenotice that one of the Paris deputies had an important motion tosubmit. The mover was more important than the motion, for this was theapparition of Sieyès, the most original of the revolutionarystatesmen, who, within a fortnight of this, his maiden speech, laidlow the ancient monarchy of France. He was a new member, for the Pariselections had been delayed, the forty deputies took their seats threeweeks after the opening, and Sieyès was the last deputy chosen. Heobjected to the existing stagnation, believing that there was no dutyto the nobles that outweighed the duty to France. He proposed that theother orders be formally invited to join, and that the House shouldproceed to constitute itself, and to act with them if they came, without them if they stayed away. The returns were accordinglyverified, and Sieyès then moved that they should declare themselvesthe National Assembly, the proper name for that which they claimed tobe. 

In spite of Malouet, and even of Mirabeau, on June 17 this motion wascarried by 491 to 90. All taxes became dependent on the Assembly. Thebroad principle on which Sieyès acted was that the Commons were reallythe nation. The upper classes were not an essential part of it. Theywere not even a natural and normal growth, but an offendingexcrescence, a negative quantity, to be subtracted, not to be addedup. That which ought not to exist ought not to be represented. Thedeputies of the Third Estate appeared for the whole. Alone they weresufficient to govern it, for alone they were identified with thecommon interest. 

Sieyès was not solicitous that his invitation should be obeyed, forthe accession of the other orders might displace the majority. Thosewho possessed the plenitude of power were bound to employ it. Byaxiomatic simplicity more than by sustained argument Sieyès masteredhis hearers. 

V

THE TENNIS-COURT OATH

We saw last week that much time was spent in fruitless negotiationwhich ended in a deadlock--the Commons refusing to act except inconjunction with the other orders, and the others insisting on theseparate action which had been prescribed by their instructions and bythe king. 

The Commons altered their policy under the influence of Sieyès, whoadvised that they should not wait for the others, but should proceedin their absence. In his famous pamphlet he had argued that they werereally the nation, and had the right on their side. And his theory wasconverted into practice, because it now appeared that they had notonly the right, but the power. They knew it, because the clergy werewavering. Thursday, June 18, the day after the proclamation of theNational Assembly, was a festival. On Friday the clergy divided on thequestion of joining. The proposal was negatived, but twelve of itsopponents stated that they would be on the other side if the vote incommon extended only to the verification of returns. The minority atonce accepted the condition, and so became the majority. Othersthereupon acceded, and by six o'clock in the evening 149 ecclesiasticsrecorded their votes for the Commons. That 19th of June is a decisivedate, for then the priests went over to the Revolution. The Commons, by a questionable and audacious act, had put themselves wrong witheverybody when the inferior clergy abandoned the cause of privilegeand came to their rescue. 

The dauphin had lately died, and the royal family were living inretirement at Marly. At ten o'clock in the evening of the vote, theArchbishops of Paris and Rouen arrived there, described the event tothe king, and comforted him by saying that the prelates, all but four, had remained true to their order. They were followed by a verydifferent visitor, whom it behoved the king to hear, for he was a mandestined to hold the highest offices of State under many governments, to be the foremost minister of the republic, the empire, and themonarchy, to predominate over European sovereigns at Vienna, overEuropean statesmen in London, and to be universally feared, and hated, and admired, as the most sagacious politician in the world. 

Talleyrand came to Marly at dead of night, and begged a secretaudience of the king. He was not a favourite at court. He had obtainedthe see of Autun only at the request of the assembled clergy ofFrance, and when the pope selected him for a cardinal's hat, Lewisprevented his nomination. He now refused to see him, and sent him tohis brother. The Count d'Artois was in bed, but the bishop was hisfriend, and was admitted. He said it was necessary that the Governmentshould act with vigour. The conduct of the Assembly was illegal andfoolish, and would ruin the monarchy unless the States-General weredissolved. Talleyrand would undertake, with his friends, some of whomcame with him and were waiting below, to form a new administration. The Assembly, compromised and discredited by the recent outbreak, would be dismissed, a new one would be elected on an alteredfranchise, and a sufficient display of force would prevent resistance. Talleyrand proposed to reverse the policy of Necker, which he thoughtfeeble and vacillating, and which had thrown France into the hands ofSieyès. With a stronger grasp he meant to restore the royalinitiative, in order to carry out the constitutional changes which thenation expected. 

The count put on his clothes, and carried the matter to the king. Hedetested Necker with his concessions, and welcomed the prospect ofgetting rid of him for a minister of his own making taken from his owncircle. He came back with a positive refusal. Then Talleyrand, convinced that it was henceforth vain to serve the king, gave noticethat every man must be allowed to shift for himself; and the countadmitted that he was right. They remembered that interview aftertwenty-five years of separation, when one of the two held in his handsthe crown of France, which the other, in the name of Lewis XVIII. , came to receive from him. 

The king repulsed Talleyrand because he had just taken a momentousresolution. The time had arrived which Necker had waited for, the timeto interpose with a Constitution so largely conceived, so exactlydefined, so faithfully adapted to the deliberate wishes of the people, as to supersede and overshadow the Assembly, with its perilous tumultand its prolonged sterility. He had proposed some such measure earlyin May, when it was rejected, and he did not insist. But now thepolicy unwisely postponed was clearly opportune. Secret advice camefrom liberal public men, urging the danger of the crisis, and thecertainty that the Assembly would soon hurry to extremes. Mirabeauhimself deplored its action, and Malouet had reason to expect astouter resistance to the revolutionary argument and the suddenascendency of Sieyès. The queen in person, and influential men atcourt, entreated Necker to modify his constitutional scheme; but hewas unshaken, and the king stood by him. It was decided that thecomprehensive measure intended to distance and annul the Assemblyshould be proclaimed from the throne on the following Monday. 

This was the rock that wrecked the Talleyrand ministry, and itdestroyed more solid structures than that unsubstantial phantom. Theplan was statesmanlike, and it marks the summit of Necker's career. But he neglected to communicate with men whom he might well havetrusted, and the secret was fatal, for it was kept twelve hours toolong. As the princes had refused the use of their riding-school, therewere only three buildings dedicated to the States-General, instead offour, and the Commons, by reason of their numbers, occupied the greathall where the opening ceremony was held, and which had now to be madeready for the royal sitting. 

Very early in the morning of Saturday, June 20, the president of theAssembly, the astronomer Bailly, received notice from the master ofceremonies that the hall was wanted, in order to be prepared forMonday, and that the meetings of the Commons were meanwhile suspendedfor that day. Bailly was not taken by surprise, for a friend, who wentabout with his eyes open, had warned him of what was going on. But theAssembly had formally adjourned to that day, the members wereexpecting the appointed meeting, and the message came too late. Baillydeemed that it was a studied insult, the angry retort of Government, and the penalty of the recent vote, and he inferred, most erroneouslyas we know, that the coming speech from the throne would be hostile. Therefore he gave all the solemnity he could to the famous scene thatensued. Appearing at the head of the indignant deputies, he was deniedadmission. The door was only opened that he might fetch his papers, and the National Assembly that represented France found itself, byroyal command, standing outside on the pavement, at the hour fixed forits deliberations. 

At that instant the doubts and divisions provoked by the overridinglogic of Sieyès disappeared. Moderate and Revolutionist felt the sameresentment, and had the same sense of being opposed by a power thatwas insane. There were some, and Sieyès among them, who proposed thatthey should adjourn to Paris. But a home was found in the empty TennisCourt hard by. There, with a view to baffle dangerous designs, andalso to retrieve his own waning influence, Mounier assumed the lead. He moved that they should bind themselves by oath never to separateuntil they had given a Constitution to France; and all the deputiesimmediately swore it, save one, who added "Dissentient" to his name, and who was hustled out by a backdoor, to save him from the fury ofhis colleagues. This dramatic action added little to that which hadbeen done three days earlier. The deputies understood that aConstituent Assembly must be single, that the legislative power had, for the purpose, been transferred to them, and could not be restrainedor recalled. Their authority was not to be limited by an upper house, for both upper houses were absorbed; nor by the king, for theyregarded neither his sanction nor his veto; nor by the nation itself, for they refused, by their oath, to be dissolved. 

The real event of the Tennis Court was to unite all parties againstthe crown, and to make them adopt the new policy of radical andindefinite change, outdoing what Sieyès himself had done. Themismanagement of the court drove its friends into the van of themovement. The last Royalist defender of safe measures had vanishedthrough the backdoor. 

Malouet had tendered a clause saving the royal power; but it wasdecided not to put it, lest it should be refused. Mirabeau, in whoseeyes the decree of the 17th portended civil war, now voted, reluctantly, with the rest. 

Whilst the Assembly held its improvised and informal meeting atVersailles, the king sat in council at Marly on Necker's magnanimousproposal. After a struggle, and with some damaging concessions, theminister carried his main points. They were gathering their papers, and making ready to disperse, when a private message was brought tothe king. He went out, desiring them to wait his return. Montmorinturned to Necker and said, "It is the queen, and all is over. " Theking came back, and adjourned the council to Monday at Versailles. Andit was in this way that the report of what had happened that morningtold upon the Government, and the enthusiasm of the Tennis Courtfrustrated the pondered measures of the most liberal minister inEurope. For it was, in truth, the queen, and in that brief interval itwas decreed that France, so near the goal in that month of June, should wade to it through streams of blood during the twenty-five mostterrible years in the history of Christian nations. 

The council of ministers, which was adjourned in consequence of themeeting in the Tennis Court, went over to the _noblesse_, and restoredin their interest the principles of the old régime. It resolved thatthe king should rescind the recent acts of the Assembly; shouldmaintain inviolate the division of orders, allowing the option ofdebate in common only in cases where neither privilege nor theConstitution were affected; that he should confirm feudal rights andeven fiscal immunities, unless voluntarily abandoned, and should denyadmission to public employment irrespective of class. Necker'sadversaries prevailed, and the ancient bulwarks were set up again, infavour of the aristocracy. 

Still, a portion of the great scheme was preserved, and theconcessions on the part of the crown were such that some weeks earlierthey would have been hailed with enthusiasm, and the consistent logicof free institutions exercises a coercive virtue that made many thinkthat the King's Speech of June 23 ought to have been accepted as thegreater charter of France. That was the opinion of Arthur Young; ofGouverneur Morris, who had given the final touches to the AmericanConstitution; of Jefferson, the author of the _Declaration ofIndependence_; and afterwards even of Sieyès himself. 

On this account, Necker wavered to the last moment, and on the Tuesdaymorning prepared to attend the king. His friends, his family, hisdaughter, the wonder of the age, made him understand that he could notsanction by his presence, at a solemn crisis, an act which reversedone essential half of his policy. He dismissed his carriage, took offhis court suit, and left the vacant place to proclaim his fall. Thatevening he sent in his resignation. His significant absence; theperemptory language of the king; the abrogation of their decrees, which was effectual and immediate, while the compensating promiseswere eventual, and not yet equivalent to laws; the avowed resolve toidentify the Crown with the nobles, struck the Assembly withconsternation. The removal of the constitutional question to the listof matters to be debated separately was, in the existing conditionsof antagonism, the end of free government. And indeed the positionoccupied by the king was untenable, because the division of ordersinto three Houses had already come to an end. For on Monday the 22nd, in the Church of St. Lewis, 149 ecclesiastical deputies, theArchbishops of Bordeaux and Vienne at their head, had joined theCommons. It was a step which they were legally authorised andcompetent to take, and the Revolution now had a majority not only ofindividual votes, but of orders. It was a forlorn hope, therefore, toseparate them by compulsion. 

Lewis XVI. Ended by declaring that he was determined to accomplish thehappiness of his people, and that if the deputies refused toco-operate he would accomplish it alone; and he charged them towithdraw. The Commons were in their own House, and, with the majorityof the clergy, they resumed their seats, uncertain of the future. Their uncertainty was all at once auspiciously relieved. Dreux Brézé, the master of ceremonies, reappeared, and as he brought a message fromthe king he wore his plumed hat upon his head. With clamorous outcrieshe was told to uncover, and he uttered a reply so insolent that hisson, describing the scene in public after many years, declined torepeat his words. Therefore, when he asked whether they had heard theking's order to depart, he received a memorable lesson. Mirabeauexclaimed, "Yes, but if we are to be expelled, we shall yield only toforce. " Brézé answered, correctly, that he did not recognise Mirabeauas the organ of the Assembly, and he turned to the president. ButBailly rose above Mirabeau, and said, "The nation is assembled here, and receives no orders. " At these words the master of ceremonies, asif suddenly aware of the presence of majesty, retired, walkingbackwards to the door. It was at that moment that the old orderchanged and made place for the new. For Sieyès, who possessed the goodgift of putting a keen edge to his thoughts, who had begun his careerin Parliament ten days before by saying, "It is time to cut thecables, " now spoke, and with superb simplicity thus defined theposition: "What you were yesterday you are now. Let us pass to theorder of the day. " In this way the monarchy, as a force distinct froma form, was not assailed, or abolished, or condemned, but passed over. Assault, abolition, condemnation were to follow, and already therewere penetrating eyes that caught, in the distance, the first gleam ofthe axe. "The king, " said Mirabeau, "has taken the road to thescaffold. "

The abdication of prerogative, which the king offered on June 23, wentfar; but the people demanded surrender in regard to privilege. TheAssembly, submitting to the geometrical reasoning of Sieyès and to thesurprise of the Tennis Court, had frightened him into an alliance withthe nobles, and he linked his cause to theirs. He elected to stand orfall with interests not his own, with an order which was powerless tohelp him, which could make no return for his sacrifice in theirbehalf, which was unable for one hour to defend itself, and was aboutto perish by its own hand. The failure of June 23 was immediatelyapparent. The Assembly, having dismissed Dreux Brézé, was not molestedfurther. Necker consented to resume office, with greatly increasedpopularity. Under the influence of the royal declaration forty-sevennobles, being a portion only of the Liberal minority, went over to theCommons, and Talleyrand followed at the head of twenty-five prelates. Then the king gave way. He instructed the resisting magnates to jointhe National Assembly. In very sincere and solemn terms they warnedhim that by such a surrender he was putting off his crown. The Countd'Artois rejoined that the king's life would be in danger if theypersisted. There was one young nobleman rising rapidly to fame as agracious and impressive speaker, whom even this appeal to loyal heartsfailed to move. "Perish the monarch, " cried Cazalès, "but not themonarchy!"

Lewis underwent the humiliation of revoking, on June 27, what he hadceremoniously promulgated on the 23rd, because there was a fatalsecret. Paris was agitated, and the people promised the deputies tostand by them at their need. But what could they effect at Versaillesagainst the master of so many legions? Just then a mutiny broke out inthe French guards, the most disciplined body of troops in the capital, and betrayed the key to the hollow and unstable counsels of theGovernment. The army could not be trusted. Necker suspected it asearly as February. In the last week of June, the English, Prussian, and Venetian envoys report that the crown was disabled because it wasdisarmed. The regiments at hand would not serve against the nationalrepresentatives. It was resolved to collect faithful bands of Swiss, Alsatians, and Walloons. Ten foreign regiments, near 30, 000 men inall, were hurried to the scene. They were the last hope of royalism. Trusty friends were informed that the surrender was only to last untilthe frontier garrisons could be brought to Versailles. D'Artoisconfided to one of them that many heads must fall. And he uttered thesinister proverb which became historic in another tragedy: If you wantan omelette you must not be afraid of breaking eggs. 

VI

THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE

After the dramatic intervention of the Marquis de Brézé, the king'sspeech of June 23 was never seriously considered by the Assembly. Yetthe concessions, which it made to the spirit of political progress, satisfied philosophic observers, and there had been no time in Englishhistory where changes so extensive, proceeding from the Crown, wouldhave failed to conciliate the people. It was a common belief in thosedays, expressly sanctioned by the Economists, that secondaryliberties, carried far enough, are worth more than formal securitiesfor the principle of self-government. One is of daily use andpractical advantage; the other is of the domain of theory, dubiouslybeneficial, and without assurance of enlightenment and justice. Awise, honest, and intelligent administration gives more to men thanthe established reign of uncertain opinion. These arguments had moreweight with philosophers than with the deputies, for it was alreadydecided that they must make the Constitution. All the king offered, and a great deal more, they intended to take. Much that he insisted onpreserving they were resolved to destroy. The offer, at its best, wasvitiated by the alloy: for the most offensive privileges, immunities, and emoluments of rank were to be perpetuated, and it was againstthese that the fiercest force of the revolutionary movement wasbeating. In order that they might be abolished, the nation tenderedits indefeasible support, its unconquerable power, to itsrepresentatives. 

If the Assembly, content with the advantage gained over the king, hadsurrendered unconditionally to the nobles, and assented, for a fewpolitical reforms, to the social degradation of the democracy, theywould have betrayed their constituents. On that consideration theywere compelled to act. They acted also on the principle, which was notnew, which came down indeed from mediæval divines, but which was newlyinvested with universal authority, that the law is not the will of thesovereign that commands, but of the nation that obeys. It was the verymarrow of the doctrine that obstruction of liberty is crime, thatabsolute authority is not a thing to be consulted, but a thing to beremoved, and that resistance to it is no affair of interest orconvenience, but of sacred obligation. Every drop of blood shed in theAmerican conflict was shed in a cause immeasurably inferior to theirs, against a system more legitimate by far than that of June 23. UnlessWashington was an assassin, it was their duty to oppose, if it mightbe, by policy, if it must be, by force, the mongrel measure ofconcession and obstinacy which the Court had carried against theproposals of Necker. That victory was reversed, and the success of theCommons was complete. They had brought the three orders into one; theyhad compelled the king to retract his declaration and to restore hisdisgraced minister; they had exposed the weakness of their oppressors, and they had the nation at their back. 

On June 27, in the united Assembly, Mirabeau delivered an address ofmingled triumph and conciliation, which was his first act ofstatesmanship. He said that the speech from the throne contained largeand generous views that proved the genuine liberality of the king. Hedesired to receive them gratefully without the drawbacks imposed byunthinking advisers, and to respect the just rights of the _noblesse_. He took the good without the evil, extricating Lewis from hisentanglement, and tracing the line by which he might have advanced togreat results. "The past, " he said, "has been the history of wildbeasts. We are inaugurating the history of men; for we have no weaponbut discussion, and no adversary but prejudice. "

Their victory brought loss as well as gain to the Commons, and therewas reason to think that the counsel of Sieyès, to let the otherorders take their own separate course, was founded on wisdom. Theiropponents, joining under compulsion, had the means as well as the willof doing them injury. 

For the clergy there was a brief season of popular favour. The countrypriests, sprung from the peasantry, and poorly off, shared many oftheir feelings. The patronage of the State went to men of birth; andone of these, the Archbishop of Aix, had proclaimed his belief that, if anybody was to be exempt from taxation, it ought to be theimpoverished layman, not the wealthy ecclesiastic. When it chancedthat the Committee of Constitution was elected without any member ofthe clergy upon it, the Commons raised a cry that they should beintroduced in their proportion. They, in a fraternal spirit, refused. And the second Committee, the one that actually drew up the scheme, was composed of three churchmen to five laymen. The nobles were notreconciled, and refused to unite with men of English views in a Toryparty. To them, the separation of orders was a fundamental maxim ofsecurity, which they had inherited, which they were bound to handdown. They looked on debate in common as provisional, as an exception, to be rectified as soon as might be. They kept up the practice of alsomeeting separately. On July 3 there were one hundred and thirty-eightpresent; and on the 11th there still were eighty. They refused to votein the divisions of the joint Assembly, because their instructionsforbade. The scruple was sincere, and was shared by Lafayette; butothers meant it as a protest that the Assembly was not lawfullyconstituted. Therefore, July 7, Talleyrand moved to annul theinstructions. They could not be allowed to control the Assembly; theyought not to influence individuals. The constituencies contribute to adecision; they cannot resist it. Whatever the original wish of theelectors, the final act belonged to the legislature. The king himself, on June 27, had declared the imperative mandates unconstitutional. But the deputies, in declaring themselves permanent, had cutthemselves adrift from their constituents. The instructions had becomethe sole security that the Constitution would remain within the limitslaid down by the nation, the sole assurance against indefinite change. They alone determined the line of advance, and gave protection tomonarchy, property, religion, against the headlong rush of opinion, and the exigencies of popular feeling. 

Sieyès, who expected no good from the co-operation of the orders whichhe condemned, and who thought a nobleman or prelate who did not votebetter than one who voted wrong, urged that the question did notaffect the Assembly, but the constituencies, and might be left tothem. He carried his amendment by seven hundred to twenty-eight. 

Meantime the party that had prevailed on June 23 and had succumbed onthe 27th was at work to recover the lost position. Lewis had retainedthe services of Necker, without dismissing the colleagues who baffledhim. He told him that he would not accept his resignation now, butwould choose the time for it. Necker had not the acuteness tounderstand that he would be dismissed as soon as his enemies feltstrong enough to do without him. A king who deserted his friends andreversed his accepted policy because there was no force he coulddepend on, was a king with a short shrift before him. He became thetool of men who did not love him, and who now despised him. 

The resources wanting at the critical moment were, however, withinreach, and the scheme proposed to the Count d'Artois by the wilybishop a few nights before was revived by less accomplished plotters. On July 1 it became known that a camp of 25, 000 men was to be formednear Versailles under Marshal de Broglie, a veteran who gathered hislaurels in the Seven Years' War, and soon the Terrace was crowded withofficers from the north and east, who boasted that they had sharpenedtheir sabres, and meant to make short work of the ambitious lawyers, the profligate noblemen, and unfrocked priests who were ruining thecountry. 

In adopting these measures the king did not regard himself as theoriginator of violence. There had been disturbances in Paris, and atVersailles the archbishop of Paris had been assaulted, and compelledto promise that he would go over to the Assembly. The leader on theother side, Champion de Cicé, archbishop of Bordeaux, came to him, andentreated him not to yield to faction, not to keep a promise extortedby threats. He replied that he had given his word and meant to keepit. 

Forty years later Charles X. Declared that his brother had mounted thescaffold because, at this juncture, he would not mount his horse. Intruth Lewis believed that the deputies, cut off from Paris by visiblebattalions, would be overawed, that the army of waverers would beaccessible to influence, to promises, remonstrances, and rewards, thatit would be safer to coerce the Assembly by intimidation than todissolve it. He had refused to listen to Talleyrand; he still rejectedthe stronger part of his scheme. By judicious management he hoped thatthe Assembly might be brought to undo its own usurping and unwarrantedwork, and that he would be able to recover the position he had takenup on June 23, the last day on which his policy had been that of afree agent. 

Necker knew no more than everybody else of the warlike array. On July7 thirty regiments were concentrated; more were within a few days'march, and the marshal, surrounded by an eager and hurried staff, surveyed his maps of suburban Paris at his headquarters at Versailles. 

The peril grew day by day, and it was time for the Assembly to act. They were defenceless, but they relied on the people of Paris and onthe demoralisation of the army. Their friends had the command ofmoney, and large sums were spent in preparing the citizens for anarmed conflict. For the capitalists were on their side, looking tothem to prevent the national bankruptcy which the Court and the nobleswere bringing on. And the Palais Royal, the residence of the Duke ofOrleans, was the centre of an active organisation. Since the king hadproved himself incompetent, helpless, and insincere, men had looked tothe Duke as a popular prince of the Blood, who was also wealthy andambitious, and might avail to save the principle of monarchy, whichLewis had discredited. His friends clung to the idea, and continued toconspire in his interest after the rest of the world had been repelledby the defects of his character. For a moment they thought of his son, who was gifted for that dangerous part as perfectly as the father wasunfit, but his time was to be in a later generation. 

The leading men in the Assembly knew their position with accuracy, anddid not exaggerate the danger they were in. On July 10 their shrewdAmerican adviser, Morris, wrote: "I think the crisis is past withouthaving been perceived; and now a free Constitution will be the certainresult. " And yet there were 30, 000 men, commanded by a marshal ofFrance, ready for action; and several regiments of Swiss, famed forfidelity and valour, and destined, in the same cause, to become stillmore famous, were massed in Paris itself under Besenval, the trustedsoldier of the Court. 

On July 8, breaking through the order of debate, Mirabeau rose and theaction began--the action which changed the face of the world, and theimperishable effects of which will be felt by every one of us, to thelast day of his life. He moved an address to the king, warning himthat, if he did not withdraw his troops, the streets of Paris wouldrun blood; and proposing that the preservation of order should becommitted to a civic guard. On the following day the Assembly votedthe address, and on the 10th the Count de Clermont Tonnerre, at thehead of a deputation, read it to the king. On the morning of Saturday, 11th, his reply was communicated to the Assembly. He had had threedays to hasten his military preparations. At Paris, the agitators andorganisers employed the time in arranging their counter measures. 

The king refused to send away troops which there had been good reasonto collect, but he was ready to move, with the Assembly, to some townat a distance from the turbid capital. The royal message was tippedwith irony, and the deputies, in spite of Mirabeau, resolved not todiscuss it. After this first thrust Lewis flung away the scabbard. That day, at council, it was noticed that he was nervous and uneasy, and disguised his restlessness by feigning sleep. At the end, takingone of the ministers aside, he gave him a letter for Necker, who wasabsent. The letter contained his dismissal, with an order forbanishment. 

Necker, who for some days had known that it must come, was at dinner. He said nothing to his company, and went out, as usual, for a drive. Then he made for the frontier, and never stopped till he reachedBrussels. Two horsemen who had followed, keeping out of sight, hadorders to arrest him if he changed his course. He travelled up theRhine to his own country, on the way to his home by the lake ofGeneva. At the first Swiss hotel he found the Duchess de Polignac. Hehad left her at Versailles, the Queen's best friend and the heart ofthe intrigue against him; and she was now ruined and an exile, and theforerunner of the emigration. From her, and from the letters thatquickly followed, forwarded by the Assembly, he learned the eventsthat had happened since his fall, learned that he was, for onedelirious moment, master of the king, of his enemies, and of thecountry. 

The astounding news that Necker heard at "The Three Kings" at Bâle wasthis. His friends had been disgraced with him, and the chief of thenew ministry was Breteuil, who had been the colleague of Calonne andVergennes, and had managed the affair of the Diamond Necklace. He haddirected the policy of those who opposed the National Assembly, holding himself in the twilight, until strong measures and a strongman were called for. He now came forward, and proposed that the noblesshould depart in a body, protesting against the methods by which theStates-General had been sunk in the National Assembly. In one day hebrought round twenty-six of the minority to his views. A few remained, who would make a light day's work for a man of conviction andresource. But resolute as Breteuil was, the Parisian democracy actedwith still greater quickness and decision, and with a not less certainaim. On the 12th it became known that Necker had been sent out of thecountry, and that the armaments were in the hands of men who meant toemploy them against the people. Paris was in disorder, but the middleclass provided a civic guard for its protection. There were encounterswith the troops, and some blood was shed. 

New men began to appear who represented the rising classes: CamilleDesmoulins, a rhetorical journalist, with literary but not politicaltalent, harangued the people in the garden of the Palais Royal; andone of the strong men of history, Danton, showed that he knew how tomanage and to direct the masses. 

The 13th was a day wasted by Government, spent by Paris in busypreparation. Men talked wildly of destroying the Bastille, as a signthat would be understood. Early on July 14 a body of men made theirway to the Invalides, and seized 28, 000 stand of arms and some cannon. At the other extremity of Paris the ancient fortress of the Bastilletowered over the workmen's quarter and commanded the city. Wheneverthe guns thundered from its lofty battlements, resistance would beover, and the conquered arms would be unavailing. 

The Bastille not only overshadowed the capital, but it darkened thehearts of men, for it had been notorious for centuries as theinstrument and the emblem of tyranny. The captives behind its barswere few and uninteresting; but the wide world knew the horror of itshistory, the blighted lives, the ruined families, the three thousanddishonoured graves within the precincts, and the common voice calledfor its destruction as the sign of deliverance. At the elections bothnobles and commons demanded that it should be levelled with theground. 

As early as the 4th of July Besenval received notice that it would beattacked. He sent a detachment of Swiss, that raised the garrison toone hundred and thirty-eight, and he did no more. During the morninghours, while the invaders of the Invalides were distributing theplundered arms and ammunition, emissaries penetrated into theBastille, under various pretexts, to observe the defences. Onefair-spoken visitor was taken to the top of the dreaded towers, wherehe saw that the guns with which the embrasures had bristled, whichwere beyond the range of marksmen, and had Paris at their mercy, weredismantled and could not be fired. 

About the middle of the day, when this was known, the attack began. Itwas directed by the _Gardes Françaises_, who had been the first tomutiny, and had been disbanded, and were now the backbone of thepeople's army. The siege consisted in efforts to lower the drawbridge. After several hours the massive walls were unshaken, and the place wasas safe as before the first discharge. But the defenders knew thatthey were lost. Besenval was not the man to rescue them by fightinghis way through several miles of streets. They were not provisioned, and the men urged the governor to make terms before he was compelled. They had brought down above a hundred of their assailants, withoutlosing a man. But it was plain that the loss neither of a hundred norof a thousand would affect the stern determination of the crowd, whilst it might increase their fury. Delauney, in his despair, seizeda match, and wanted to fire the magazine. His men remonstrated andspoke of the dreadful devastation that must follow the explosion. Theman who stayed the hand of the despairing commander, and whose namewas Bécard, deserved a better fate than he met that day, for he wasone of the four or five that were butchered. The men beat a parley, hoisted the white flag, and obtained, on the honour of a Frenchofficer, a verbal promise of safety. 

Then the victors came pouring over the bridge, triumphant over ahandful of Swiss and invalids--triumphant too over thirteen centuriesof monarchy and the longest line of kings. Those who had served inthe regular army took charge of as many prisoners as they couldrescue, carried them to their quarters, and gave them their own bedsto sleep in. The officers who had conducted the unreal attack, andreceived the piteous surrender, brought the governor to the Hôtel deVille, fighting their way through a murderous crowd. For it was longbelieved that Delauney had admitted the people into the first court, and then had perfidiously shot them down. In his struggles he hurt abystander, who chanced to be a cook. The man, prompted, it seems, lessby animosity than by the pride of professional skill, drew a knife andcut off his head. Flesselles, the chief of the old municipality, appointed by the Crown, was shot soon after, under suspicion of havingencouraged Delauney to resist. 

Dr. Rigby, an Englishman who was at the Palais Royal, has describedwhat he saw. First came an enormous multitude bearing aloft the keysof the conquered citadel, with the inscription, "The Bastille istaken. " The joy was indescribable, and strangers shook his hand, saying, "We too are free men, and there will never more be war betweenour countries. " Then came another procession, also shouting andrejoicing; but the bystanders looked on with horror, for the trophiescarried by were the heads of murdered men. For the nation had becomesovereign, and the soldiers who fired upon it were reckoned rebels andtraitors. The foreign envoys were all impressed with the idea that thevengeance wrought was out of all proportion with the immensity of thething achieved. At nightfall the marshal gave orders to evacuateParis. Besenval was already in full retreat, and the capital was nolonger in the possession of the king of France. 

Meanwhile the National Assembly, aware of the strength of popularfeeling around them, were calm in the midst of danger. Theirs was adiminished part, while, almost within sight and hearing, history wasbeing unmade and made by a power superior to their own. On the morningof the 14th they elected the Committee of Eight who were to draw upthe Constitution. Mounier and the friends of the English model stillprevailed. By evening their chance had vanished, for the English modelincludes a king. 

Late in the day Noailles brought authentic news of what he hadwitnessed; and the Assembly learned, in agitated silence, that thehead of the governor of the impregnable Bastille had been displayed ona pike about the streets of Paris. Lafayette took the chair, while thePresident hurried with Noailles to the palace. They made no impressionthere. Lewis informed them that he had recalled his troops, and thenhe went to bed, tranquil, and persistently ignoring what it was thathad been done, and what it was that had passed away. 

But in the morning, when the Assembly met in disorder, and were aboutto send one more deputation, it was found that a change had takenplace in the brief hours of that memorable night. At two o'clock theking was roused from sleep by one of the great officers of thehousehold. The intruder, La Rochefoucauld, Duke de Liancourt, was nota man of talent, but he was universally known as the most benevolentand the most beneficent of the titled nobles of the realm. He made hismaster understand the truth and its significance, and how, in thecapital that day, in every province on the morrow, the authority ofgovernment was at an end. And when Lewis, gradually awaking, exclaimed, "But this is a great revolt!" Liancourt replied, "No, sir, it is a great Revolution!" With those historic words the faithfulcourtier detached the monarch from his ministers, and obtained controlover him in the deciding days that were to follow. Guided by the duke, and attended by his brothers, but without the ceremonious glories ofregality, Lewis XVI. Went down to the Assembly and made hissubmission. In the pathetic solemnity of the scene, the deputiesforgot for a moment their righteous anger and their more righteousscorn, and the king returned to the palace on foot, in a suddenprocession of triumph, amnestied and escorted by the entire body. 

The struggle was over, and the spell was broken; and the Assembly hadto govern France. To establish order a vast deputation repaired to theHôtel de Ville, where Lally Tollendal delivered an oration thrillingwith brotherhood and gladness, and appeared, crowned with flowers, before the people. 

To cement the compact between Paris and Versailles, Bailly, the firstpresident, was placed at the head of the new elective municipality, and the vice-president, Lafayette, became commander of the NationalGuard. This was the first step towards that Commune which was toexercise so vast an influence over the fortunes of France. It cameinto existence of necessity, when the action of Government wasparalysed, and the space which it occupied was untenanted. 

The National Guard was an invention of great import, for it was thearmy of society distinct from the army of the state, opinion in armsapart from authority. It was the middle class organised as a force, against the force above and the force below; and it protected libertyagainst the Crown, and property against the poor. It has been eversince the defence of order and the ruin of governments; for, as it wasthe nation itself, nobody was bold enough to fight it. Before thealtar of Notre Dame Lafayette took the oath of fidelity to the people, and not to the king. He never displayed real capacity for peace orwar; but in the changes of a long life he was true to the earlyconvictions imbibed in Washington's camp. 

On their return from Paris the great deputation reported that thepeople demanded the recall of Necker. At last the king dismissedBreteuil, and charged the Assembly to take charge of a letter to thebanished statesman. His banishment had lasted five days; it was nowthe turn of his enemies. On the same night, July 16, the baffledintriguers went into exile. Lewis himself sent his brother away, forthe safety of himself and of the dynasty. The others followed. Thequeen was compelled to dismiss Madame de Polignac, whom she had tooconfidently trusted, and she was left alone amongst her enemies. Thiswas the first emigration. The remaining nobles announced that theyabandoned resistance, and the Assembly was at last united. The fightwas lost and won, and the victor claimed the spoils. 

But the Assembly was not the victor, and had contributed little to theportentous change between the dismissal of Necker and the despatch ofthe fleet messenger with his recall. Whilst the deputies served thenational cause by talking, there were plainer men at Paris who haddied for it. The force that risked life and conquered was not atVersailles. It was Paris that held the fallen power, the power ofgoverning itself, the Assembly, and France. The predominance of thecapital was the new feature that enabled the monarchy to pass into aRepublic. 

The king had become a servant of two masters. Having recanted beforehis master at Versailles, it became necessary that he should submithimself to the new and mysterious authority at the Hôtel de Ville. Hehad yielded to representative democracy. He had to pay the samerecognition to direct democracy. It was not safe to leave the Orleansstronghold entirely in their hands. Between the ministry that was goneand the ministry to come, Lewis acted by the advice of Liancourt. 

Early on July 17 he made his will, heard mass, received communion, andset out to visit his good city. The queen remained behind, with allher carriages ready, in order that, at the first signal, she might flyfor her life. At the barrier the king's eye fell, for the first time, on innumerable armed men, who lined the streets for miles, and worestrange colours, and did not own him as their chief. Neither theNational Guard, nor the dense crowd behind them, uttered a sound ofwelcome. Not a voice was raised, except for the nation and itsdeputies. 

The peace made between the king and the Assembly did not count here. All men had to know that there was a distinct authority, to which afurther homage was due, even from the sovereign. At the Hôtel de Villethe homage was paid. There the king confirmed the new mayor, andapproved what had been done, and he showed himself to the people withthe new cockade, devised by Lafayette, to proclaim that the royalpower which had ruled France since the conversion of Clovis ruledFrance no more. He made his way home amid acclamations, regulated bythe commander of the National Guard, like the gloomy and menacingsilence in which he had been received. 

A new reign commenced. The head of the great house of Bourbon, theheir of so much power and glory, on whom rested the tradition of LewisXIV. , was unfit to exert, under jealous control, the narrow measure ofauthority that remained. For the moment there was none. Anarchy in thecapital gave the signal for anarchy in the provinces, and anarchy atthat moment had a terrible meaning. 

The deputies who came to Paris, to share the enthusiasm of the moment, failed to notice the fact that the victorious army which gave libertyto France and power to the Assembly was largely composed of assassins. Their crimes disappeared in the blaze of their achievements. Theirsupport was still needed. It seemed too soon to insult the patriot andthe hero by telling him that he was also a ruffian. The mixedmultitude was thereby encouraged to believe that the slaughter of theobnoxious was a necessity of critical times. The Russian envoy wroteon the 19th that the French people displayed the same ferocity as twocenturies before. 

On the 22nd, Foulon, one of the colleagues of Breteuil, and hisson-in-law Berthier, also a high official, were massacred bypremeditation in the streets. Neither Bailly, nor Lafayette with allhis cohorts, could protect the life of a doomed man; but a dragoon whohad paraded with the heart of Berthier was challenged, when he camehome to barracks, and cut down by a comrade. 

Lally Tollendal brought the matter before the Assembly. His fatherinherited the feelings of an exiled Jacobite against HanoverianEngland. He was at Falkirk with Charles Edward, and charged with theIrish Brigade that broke the English column at Fontenoy. During theSeven Years' War he commanded in India, and held Pondicherry for tenmonths against Coote. Brought home a prisoner, he was released onparole, that he might stand his trial. He was condemned to death; andhis son, who did not know who he was, was brought to the place ofexecution, that they might meet once on earth. But Lally stabbedhimself, and lest justice should be defrauded, he was brought out todie, with a gag in his mouth to silence protest, some hours before thetime. 

The death of Lally is part of the long indictment against the Frenchjudiciary, and his son strove for years to have the sentence reversed. He came over to England, and understood our system better than any ofhis countrymen. Therefore, when Mounier, who was no orator, broughtforward his Constitution, it was Lally who expounded it. By hisemotional and emphatic eloquence he earned a brief celebrity; and inthe Waterloo year he was a Minister of State, _in partibus_, at Ghent. He became a peer of France, and when he died, in 1830, the namedisappeared. Not many years ago a miserable man, whom nobody knew andwho asked help from nobody, died of want in a London cellar. He wasthe son of Lally Tollendal. 

It is said that when, on July 22, he denounced the atrocities inParis, he overdid the occasion, speaking of himself, of his father, ofhis feelings. Barnave, who was a man of honour, and alreadyconspicuous, was irritated to such a pitch that he exclaimed: "Wasthis blood, that they have shed, so pure?"

Long before Barnave expiated his sin upon the scaffold he felt andacknowledged its enormity. But it is by him and men like him, and notby the scourings of the galleys, that we can get to understand thespirit of the time. Two men, more eminent than Barnave, show it stillmore clearly. The great chemist Lavoisier wrote to Priestley that ifthere had been some excesses, they were committed for the love ofliberty, philosophy, and toleration, and that there was no danger ofsuch things being done in France for an inferior motive. And this isthe view of Jefferson on the massacres of September: "Many guiltypersons fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent. These I deplore as much as anybody. But--it was necessary to use thearm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree--was ever such a prize won with solittle innocent blood?" There is a work in twelve stout volumes, written to prove that it was all the outcome of the Classics, and dueto Harmodius, and Brutus, and Timoleon. 

But you will find that murder, approved and acknowledged, is not anepidemic peculiar to any time, or any country, or any opinion. We neednot include hot-blooded nations of the South in order to define it asone characteristic of modern Monarchy. You may trace it in the Kingsof France, Francis I. , Charles IX. , Henry III. , Lewis XIII. , LewisXIV. , in the Emperors Ferdinand I. And II. , in Elizabeth Tudor andMary Stuart, in James and William. Still more if you consider a classof men, not much worse, according to general estimate, than theirneighbours, that is, the historians. They have praise and hero-worshipfor nearly every one of these anointed culprits. The strong man withthe dagger is followed by the weaker man with the sponge. First, thecriminal who slays; then the sophist who defends the slayer. 

The royalists pursued the same tradition through the revolutionarytimes. Cérutti advised that Mirabeau and Target should be removed bypoison; Chateaubriand wished to poniard Condorcet, and Malesherbesadmired him for it; the name of Georges Cadoudal was held in honour, because his intended victim was Napoleon; La Rochejaqueleinentertained the same scheme, and made no secret of it to the general, Ségur. Adair found them indignant at Vienna because Fox had refused tohave the Emperor murdered, and warned him of the plot. 

Those who judge morality by the intention have been less shocked atthe crimes of power, where the temptation is so strong and the dangerso slight, than at those committed by men resisting oppression. Assuredly, the best things that are loved and sought by man arereligion and liberty--they, I mean, and not pleasure or prosperity, not knowledge or power. Yet the paths of both are stained withinfinite blood; both have been often a plea for assassination, and theworst of men have been among those who claimed to promote each sacredcause. 

Do not open your minds to the filtering of the fallacious doctrinethat it is less infamous to murder men for their politics than fortheir religion or their money, or that the courage to execute the deedis worse than the cowardice to excuse it. Let us not flinch fromcondemning without respite or remission, not only Marat and Carrier, but also Barnave. Because there may be hanging matter in the lives ofillustrious men, of William the Silent and Farnese, of Cromwell andNapoleon, we are not to be turned from justice towards the actions, and still more the thoughts, of those whom we are about to study. 

Having said this, I shall endeavour, in that which is before us, tospare you the spectacles that degrade, and the plaintive severity thatagitates and wearies. The judgment I call for is in the conscience, not upon the lips, for ourselves, and not for display. "Man, " saysTaine, "is a wild beast, carnivorous by nature, and delighting inblood. " That cruel speech is as much confirmed by the events that arecrowding upon us as it has ever been in royal or Christian history. 

The Revolution will never be intelligibly known to us until wediscover its conformity to the common law, and recognise that it isnot utterly singular and exceptional, that other scenes have been ashorrible as these, and many men as bad. 

VII

THE FOURTH OF AUGUST

We come to-day to the most decisive date in the Revolution, the fallof the social system of historic France, and the substitution of theRights of Man. 

When the Assembly was fully constituted, it had to regulate itsprocedure. Sir Samuel Romilly, a friend of Dumont, and occasionally ofMirabeau, sent over an account of the practice of the BritishParliament, with the cumbrous forms, the obstacles to prompt action, the contrivances to favour a minority, and to make opposition nearlyequal to government. The French required more expeditious methods. They had a single Assembly with a known and well-defined commission, and the gravest danger of the hour was obstruction and delay. Everymember obtained the right of initiative, and could submit a motion inwriting. The Assembly might, after debate, refuse to consider it; butif not arrested on the threshold, it might be discussed and voted andpassed in twenty-four hours. The security for deliberation was in theBureaux. The Assembly was divided into thirty groups or committees, ofnearly forty members each, who met separately, the Assembly in themorning, the Bureaux in the evening. This plan ensured thorough andsincere discussion, for men spoke their genuine thoughts, where therewas no formality, no reporter, no stranger in the gallery. The Bureauxwere disliked and suspected by the excluded public. The electorate, experiencing for the first time the sensation of having deputies atwork to do their will, desired to watch them, and insisted on themaster's right to look after his man. Representation was new; and toevery reader of Rousseau, of Turgot, or of Mably, it was an object ofprofound distrust. The desire to uphold the supremacy of the deputingpower over the deputed, of the constituent over his member, wasdistinctly part of the great literary inheritance common to them all. As the mandate was originally imperative, the giver of the mandateclaimed the right of seeing to its execution. The exercise of powersthat were defined and limited, that were temporary and revocable, called for scrutiny and direct control. 

The Bureaux did not last, and their disappearance was a disaster. Party, as the term is used in the constitutional vocabulary, was notyet developed; and no organisation possessed the alternate power ofpresenting ministers to the Crown. The main lines that divided opinioncame to light in the debates of September, and the Assembly fell intofactions that were managed by their clubs. The President held officefor a fortnight, and each new election indicated the movement ofopinion, the position of parties, the rise of reputations. The unitedAssembly did honour to the acceding orders. The first presidents wereprelates and men of rank. Out of six elections only one fell to acommoner, until the end of September, when the leader of the LiberalConservatives, Mounier, was chosen, at what proved a moment of danger. In the same way, the thirty chairmen of the Bureaux were, withscarcely an exception, always taken from the clergy or the nobles. 

As Mounier, with his friends, had dominated in the constitutionalcommittee of thirty, and was now paramount in the new committee ofeight, there was some prospect of a coalition, by which, in return fortheir aid in carrying the English model, the nobles would obtain easyterms in the liquidation of privilege. That is the parliamentarysituation. That is the starting-point of the transactions that we havenow to follow. 

During the days spent in making terms between the king, the Assembly, and the capital, the provinces were depending on Paris for news, foropinions, and direction. They were informed that the Parisians hadmade themselves masters of the royal fortress, and had expelled theroyal authority; that the king and the Assembly had accepted andapproved the action; that there was no executive ministry, either oldor new; and that the capital was providing for its own security andadministration. The towns soon had imitations of the disorders thathad been so successful, and quickly repressed them; for the towns werethe seat of the middle class, the natural protectors of acquiredproperty, and defenders of order and safety. In country districts theprocess of disintegration was immediate, the spontaneous recovery wasslow. For the country was divided between the nobles who were rich, and their dependents who were poor. And the poverty of one class wasultimately due to innumerable devices for increasing the wealth of theother. And now there was nobody in authority over them, nobody to keeppeace between them. 

The first effect of the taking of the Bastille, the effacement ofroyalty, the suspension of the ministerial office, was the rising ofthe cottage against the castle, of the injured peasant against theprivileged landlord, who, apart from any fault of his own, byimmemorial process of history and by the actual letter of the law, washis perpetual and inevitable enemy. The events of the week betweenJuly 11 and 17 proclaimed that the authorised way to obtain what youwanted was to employ the necessary violence. If it was thorough andquick enough, there would be no present resistance, and no subsequentcomplaint. And if there was some excess in the way of cruelty andretribution, it was sure of amnesty on the ground of intolerableprovocation and of suffering endured too long. The king had acceptedhis own humiliation as if it had been as good as due to him. He couldnot do more for others than for himself. His brief alliance with thearistocracy was dissolved. He was powerless for their defence, as theywere for their own. By their formal act of submission to the Assemblyon July 16, they acknowledged that their cause was lost with theBastille. They neglected to make terms with the enemy at their homes. 

The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult but thedesign. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence ofcalculating organisation. The managers remain studiously concealed andmasked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first. They had been active in the riots of Paris, and they were again activein the provincial rising. The remnant of the upper classes formed apowerful minority at Versailles; and if they acted as powerfulminorities do, if they entered into compacts and combinations, theycould compound for the loss of fiscal immunity by the salvation ofsocial privilege. The people would continue to have masters--masters, that is, not of their own making. They would be subject to powersinstituted formerly, whilst the Government itself obtained itscredentials for the day, and there would still be an intermediate bodybetween the nation and the sovereign. Wealth artificially constituted, by means of laws favouring its accumulation in a class, anddiscouraging its dispersion among all, would continue to predominate. 

France might be transformed after the likeness of England; but thevery essence of the English system was liberty founded on inequality. The essence of the French ideal was democracy, that is, as in America, liberty founded on equality. Therefore it was the interest of thedemocratic or revolutionary party that the next step should be takenafter the manner of the last, that compulsion, which had answered sowell with the king, should be tried on the nobles, that the methodsapplied at Paris should be extended to the Provinces, for there thenobles predominated. A well-directed blow struck at that favoured andexcepted moment, when the country was ungoverned, might alter forever, and from its foundation, the entire structure of society. Liberty had been secured; equality was within reach. The politicalrevolution ensured the prompt success of the social revolution. Suchan opportunity of suppressing compromise, and sweeping the historicalruin away, had never been known in Europe. 

While the local powers were painfully constituting themselves, therewas a priceless interval for action. The king had given way to themiddle class; the nobles would succumb to the lower, and the ruraldemocracy would be emancipated like the urban. This is the secondphase of that reign of terror which, as Malouet says, began with theBastille. Experience had shown the efficacy of attacking castlesinstead of persons, and the strongholds of feudalism were assailedwhen the stronghold of absolutism had fallen. 

It is said that one deputy, Duport, a magistrate of the parliament ofParis, had 400, 000 francs to spend in raising the country against thenobles at the precise moment of their weakness. The money was scarcelyneeded, for the rioters were made to believe that they were acting inobedience to the law. One of their victims wrote, August 3, toClermont Tonnerre that they were really sorry to behave in that wayagainst good masters, but they were compelled by imperative commandsfrom the king. He adds that seven or eight castles in hisneighbourhood were attacked by their vassals, all believing that theking desired it. The charters and muniments were the main object ofpillage and destruction, for it was believed that claims which couldnot be authenticated could not be enforced. Often the castle itselfwas burnt with the parchments it contained, and some of the ownersperished. 

The disorders raged in many parts of France. A district east andsouth-east of the centre suffered most. Those provinces had continuedlong to be parts of the Empire; and we shall see hereafter what thatimplies. The peasants of Eastern France rose up in arms to overthrowthe ancient institutions of society, which the peasants of the Westgave their lives to restore. 

Rumours of all this desolation soon penetrated to the Assembly, and onAugust 3 it was officially reported that property was at the mercy ofgangs of brigands, that no castle, no convent, no farm-house was safe. A committee moved to declare that no pretext could justify therefusal to pay the same feudal dues as before. Duport proposed thatthe motion be sent back to the Bureaux. The Assembly came to noconclusion. In truth, the thing proposed was impossible. The Commons, who now prevailed, could not, after sitting three months, re-impose, even provisionally, burdens which were odious, which theirInstructions condemned, and which they all knew to be incapable ofdefence. There had been time to provide: the crisis now found themunprepared. The Court advised the nobles that nothing could save thembut a speedy surrender. They also were informed, by Barère; that someof his friends intended to move the abolition of fiscal and feudalprivilege. They replied that they would do it themselves. Virieu, whoafterwards disappeared in a sortie, during the siege of Lyons, said toa friend: "There are only two means of calming an excited populace, kindness and force. We have no force; we hope to succeed by kindness. "They knew that precious time had been lost, and they resolved that thesurrender should be so ample as to be meritorious. It was to be notthe redress of practical grievances, but the complete establishment ofthe new principle, equality. 

At a conference held on the evening of August 3 it was agreed that theself-sacrifice of the ancient aristocracy of France, and theinstitution in its place of a society absolutely democratic, should bemade by the Duke d'Aiguillon, the owner of vast domains, who was aboutto forfeit several thousands a year. But on August 4 the first tospeak was Noailles; then d'Aiguillon, followed by a deputy fromBrittany. You cannot repress violence, said the Breton, unless youremove the injustice which is the cause of it. If you mean to proclaimthe Rights of Man, begin with those which are most flagrantlyviolated. They proposed that rights abandoned to the State should beceded unconditionally, and that rights abandoned to the people shouldbe given up in return for compensation. They imagined that thedistinction was founded on principle; but nobody ever ascertained thedividing line between that which was property and that which wasabuse. The want of definiteness enabled the landlords afterwards toattempt the recovery of much debatable ground, and involved, afterlong contention, the ultimate loss of all. 

The programme was excessively complicated, and required years to becarried out. The nobles won the day with their demand to becompensated; but Duport already spoke the menacing words: "Injusticehas no right to subsist, and the price of injustice has no right tosubsist. " The immensity of the revolution, which these changesimplied, was at once apparent. For it signified that liberty, whichhad been known only in the form of privilege, was henceforwardidentified with equality. The nobles lost their jurisdiction; thecorporation of judges lost their right of holding office by purchase. All classes alike were admitted to all employments. When privilegefell, provinces lost it as well as orders. One after the other, Dauphiné, Provence, Brittany, Languedoc, declared that they renouncedtheir historic rights, and shared none but those which were common toall Frenchmen. Servitude was abolished; and on the same principle, that all might stand on the same level before the law, justice wasdeclared gratuitous. 

Lubersac, bishop of Chartres, the friend and patron of Sieyès, movedthe abolition of the game laws, which meant the right of preserving onanother man's land. It was a right which necessarily followed themovement of that night; but it led men to say that the clergy gaveaway generously what belonged to somebody else. It was then proposedthat the tithe should be commuted; and the clergy showed themselves aszealous as the laity to carry out to their own detriment the doctrinethat imposed so many sacrifices. 

The France of history vanished on August 4, and the France of the newdemocracy took its place. The transfer of property from the upperclass to the lower was considerable. The peasants' income wasincreased by about 60 per cent. Nobody objected to the tremendousloss, or argued to diminish it. Each class, recognising what wasinevitable, and reconciled to it, desired that it should be seen howwillingly and how sincerely it yielded. None wished to give time forothers to remind them of inconsistency, or reserve, or omission, inthe clean sweep they had undertaken to make. In their competitionthere was hurry and disorder. One characteristic of the time was to beunintelligent in matters relating to the Church, and they did not knowhow far the clergy was affected by the levelling principle, or that intouching tithe they were setting an avalanche in motion. At onemoment, Lally, much alarmed, had passed a note to the Presidentbegging him to adjourn, as the deputies were losing their heads. Thedanger arose, as was afterwards seen, when the Duke du Chateletproposed the redemption of tithe. 

The nobles awoke next day with some misgiving that they had gone toofar, and with some jealousy of the clergy, who had lost less, and whohad contributed to their losses. On August 7 Necker appeared beforethe Assembly and exposed the want of money, and the need of a loan, for the redistribution of property on August 4 did nothing to theimmediate profit of the Exchequer. But the clergy, vying with theirrivals in generosity, had admitted the right of the nation to applyChurch property to State uses. 

On the following day the Marquis de Lacoste proposed that the new debtshould be paid out of the funds of the clergy, and that tithe shouldbe simply abolished. He expressed a wish that no ecclesiastic shouldbe a loser, and that the parish clergy should receive an accession ofincome. The clergy offered no resistance, and made it impossible forothers to resist. They offered to raise a loan in behalf of the State;but it was considered that this would give them a position of undueinfluence, and it would not have satisfied the nobles, who saw the wayto recover from the clergy the loss they had sustained. In this debatethe Abbé Sieyès delivered his most famous speech. He had nofellow-feeling with his brethren, but he intended that the titheshould enrich the State. Instead of that it was about to be givenback to the land, and the landowners would receive a sum of nearlythree millions a year, divided in such a way that the richest wouldreceive in proportion to his wealth. It would indemnify the laity. Notthey, but the clergy, were now to bear the charge of August 4. Therewas one deputy who would be richer by 30, 000 francs a year upon thewhole transaction. The landlords who had bought their estates subjectto the tithe had no claim to receive it. As all this argument washeard with impatience, Sieyès uttered words that have added no littleto his moral stature: "They fancy that they can be free and yet not bejust!" He had been, for three months, the foremost personage in thenation. He was destined in after years, and under conditions strangelyaltered, to be once more the dictator of France. More than once, without public favour, but by mere power of political thinking, hegoverned the fortunes of the State. He never again possessed the heartof the people. 

The Assembly deemed it a good bargain to restore the tithe to theland; and the clergy knew so well that they had no friends that, onAugust 11, they solemnly renounced their claim. In this way theAssembly began the disendowment of the Church, which was the primitivecause of the Reign of Terror and the Civil War. 

All these things are an episode. The business of the Assembly, fromthe end of July, was the Constitution. The first step towards it wasto define the rights for which it exists. Such a declaration, suggested by America, had been demanded by the electors in several ofthe instructions, and had been faithfully reproduced by Mounier, July9. It appeared, on the following day, that Lafayette had already gotthe required document in his pocket. Another text was produced, tendays later, by Sieyès, and another by Mounier, which was a revision ofLafayette's. Several more came out soon after. 

On July 27 the archbishop of Bordeaux, in laying down the outline ofthe new institutions, observed that it was necessary to found them onprinciples defined and fixed. On the same day Clermont Tonnerrebrought forward his analysis of the available ideas contained in theinstructions. He went at once to the heart of the matter. Someinstructions, he said, contemplated no more than the reform ofexisting institutions, with the maintenance of controlling traditionand the historic chain. Others conceived an entirely new system oflaws and government. The distinction between the two was this, thatsome required a code of principles which must be the guide inpreparing the Constitution; the others wished for no such assistance, but thought it possible to bind past and future together. The mainconflict was between the authority of history and the Rights of Man. The Declaration was the signal of those who meant to rescue Francefrom the ancestors who had given it tyranny and slavery as aninheritance. Its opponents were men who would be satisfied with goodgovernment, in the spirit of Turgot and the enlightened reformers ofhis time, who could be happy if they were prosperous, and would neverrisk prosperity and peace in the pursuit of freedom. 

Those who imagined that France possessed a submerged Constitution thatmight be extracted from her annals had a difficult task. Lanjuinaisdesired to sail by a beacon and to direct the politics of 1789 by acharter of 864. There was a special reason, less grotesque than thearchæology of Lanjuinais, which made men averse to the Declaration. Liberty, it was said, consists in the reign of the national will, andthe national will is known by national custom. Law ought to springfrom custom, and to be governed by it, not by independent, individualtheory that defies custom. You have to declare the law, not to makeit, and you can only declare what experience gives you. The bestgovernment devised by reason is less free than a worse governmentbequeathed by time. Very dimly, ideas which rose to power in otherdays and evolved the great force of nationality, were at work againsta system which was to be new and universal, renouncing the influenceboth of time and place. The battle was fought against the men of thepast, against a history which was an unbroken record of the defeatand frustration of freedom. But the declaration of rights was moreneedful still against dangers on the opposite side, those that werecoming more than those that were going out. People were quite resolvedto be oppressed no more by monarchy or aristocracy, but they had noexperience or warning of oppression by democracy. The classes were tobe harmless; but there was the new enemy, the State. 

No European knew what security could be needed or provided for theindividual from the collected will of the people. They were protectedfrom government by authority or by minority; but they made themajority irresistible, and the _plébiscite_ a tyranny. 

The Americans were aware that democracy might be weak andunintelligent, but also that it might be despotic and oppressive. Andthey found out the way to limit it, by the federal system, whichsuffers it to exist nowhere in its plenitude. They deprived theirstate governments of the powers that were enumerated, and the centralgovernment of the powers that were reserved. As the Romans knew howmonarchy would become innocuous, by being divided, the Americanssolved the more artful problem of dividing democracy into two. 

Many Frenchmen were convinced that Federalism would be the reallyliberal policy for them. But the notion was at once pushed aside byMounier, and obtained no hearing. And the division of powers, which hesubstituted, was rejected in its turn. They would not admit that oneforce should be checked and balanced by another. They had no resourcebut general principles, to abolish the Past and secure the Future. Bydeclaring them, they raised up an ideal authority over the governmentand the nation, and established a security against the defects of theConstitution and the power of future rulers. The opponents of theDeclaration fought it on the proposal to add a declaration of duties. The idea was put forward by the most learned of the deputies, theJansenist Camus, and the clergy supported him with energy. TheAssembly decided that a system of rights belonged to politics, and asystem of duties to ethics, and rejected the motion, on the morning ofthe 4th of August, by 570 to 433. 

This was the deciding division on the question of the Rights of Man. After some days, absorbed by the crisis of aristocracy, the distractedand wearied Assembly turned again from the excitement of facts andinterests to the discussion of theory. A new committee of five wasappointed to revise the work of the committee of eight, which dealtwith the entire Constitution. 

On August 17 Mirabeau reported their scheme. His heart was not in it;and he resented the intrusion of hampering generalities and moralitiesinto the difficult experimental science of government. He advised thatthe Constitution should be settled first, that the guide should followinstead of preceding. The Assembly rejected the proposals of itscommittees, and all the plans which were submitted by the celebrities. The most remarkable of these was by Sieyès, and it met with favour;but the final vote was taken on a less illustrious composition, whichbore no author's name. The selected text was less philosophical andprofound, and it roused less distant echoes than its rival; but it wasshorter, and more tame, and it was thought to involve fewer doubtfulpostulates, and fewer formidable consequences. Between the 20th and26th of August it was still further abridged, and reduced fromtwenty-four propositions to the moderate dimension of seventeen. Theseomissions from a document which had been preferred to very remarkablecompetitors are the key to the intentions of the National Assembly, and our basis of interpretation. 

The original scheme included a State Church. This was not adopted. Itdistinguished the inequality of men from the equality of rights. Thiswas deemed self-evident and superfluous. It derived the mutual rightsof men from their mutual duties--and this terrestrial definition alsodisappeared, leaving the way open to a higher cause. The adopted codewas meagre and ill-composed, and Bentham found a malignant pleasurein tearing it to pieces. It is, on the whole, more spiritual than theone on which it was founded, and which it generally follows; and itinsists with greater energy on primitive rights, anterior to the Stateand aloof from it, which no human authority can either confer orrefuse. It is the triumphant proclamation of the doctrine that humanobligations are not all assignable to contract, or to interest, or toforce. 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man begins with an appeal to heaven, and defines them in the presence, and under the auspices, of AlmightyGod. The Preamble implies that our duties towards Him constitute ourrights towards mankind, and indicates the divine origin of Law, without affirming it. The Declaration enumerates those rights whichare universal, which come from nature, not from men. They are four:Liberty, Property, Security, and Self-defence. Authorities areconstituted, and laws are made, in order that these original, essential, and supreme possessions of all mankind may be preserved. 

The system of guarantees is as sacred as the rights which theyprotect. Such are the right of contributing by representatives tolegislation and taxation, religious toleration, the liberty of thepress. As the rights are equal, the power of ensuring them must beequal. All men alike have a share in representation, all alike areadmissible to office, all must be taxed in the same proportion. Thelaw is the same for all. The principle of equality is the idea onwhich the Declaration most earnestly insists. Privilege had just beenoverthrown, and the duty of providing against indirect means for itsrecovery was the occupation of the hour. That this may be secured, allpowers must be granted by the people, and none must be exercised bythe people. They act only through their agents. The agent whoexercises power is responsible, and is controlled by the sovereignauthority that delegates it. Certain corollaries seem to follow:restricted suffrage, progressive taxation, an established church, aredifficult to reconcile with equality so profoundly conceived. But thisis not explicit. Questions regarding education, poverty, revision, are not admitted among the fundamentals and are left to futurelegislation. The most singular passage is that which ordains that noman may be molested for his opinions, even religious. It would appearthat Toleration was that part of the liberal dogma for which thedeputies were least prepared. 

The Declaration passed, by August 26, after a hurried debate, and withno further resistance. The Assembly, which had abolished the past atthe beginning of the month, attempted, at the end, to institute andregulate the future. These are its abiding works, and the perpetualheritage of the Revolution. With them a new era dawned upon mankind. 

And yet this single page of print, which outweighs libraries, and isstronger than all the armies of Napoleon, is not the work of superiorminds, and bears no mark of the lion's claw. The stamp of Cartesianclearness is upon it, but without the logic, the precision, thethoroughness of French thought. There is no indication in it thatLiberty is the goal, and not the starting-point, that it is a facultyto be acquired, not a capital to invest, or that it depends on theunion of innumerable conditions, which embrace the entire life of man. Therefore it is justly arraigned by those who say that it isdefective, and that its defects have been a peril and a snare. 

It was right that the attempt should be made; for the extinction ofprivilege involved a declaration of rights. When those that wereexclusive and unequal were abandoned, it was necessary to define andto insist on those that were equal and the property of all. Afterdestroying, the French had to rebuild, and to base their new structureupon principles unknown to the law, unfamiliar to the people, absolutely opposed to the lesson of their history and to all theexperience of the ages in which France had been so great. It could notrest on traditions, or interests, or any persistent force ofgravitation. Unless the idea that was to govern the future wasimpressed with an extreme distinctness upon the minds of all, theywould not understand the consequences of so much ruin, and suchirrevocable change, and would drift without a compass. The countrythat had been so proud of its kings, of its nobles, and of its chains, could not learn without teaching that popular power may be taintedwith the same poison as personal power. 

VIII

THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATES

When the Assembly passed the Rights of Man, they acted in harmony forthe last time. Agreement on first principles did not involve agreementin policy, and in applying them to the Constitution, a week later, thedivision of parties appeared. 

From the tennis court to the great constitutional debate, theModerates, who may be called the Liberals, were predominant. Mounierwas their tactician, Clermont Tonnerre and Lally Tollendal were theirorators, Malouet was their discreet adviser. They hoped, by thedivision of powers and the multiplication of checks, to make theircountry as free as England or America. They desired to control theRepresentatives in three ways: by a Second Chamber, the royal veto, and the right of dissolution. Their success depended on the support ofMinisters and of reconciled Conservatives. Whilst the Constitution forthem was a means of regulating and restraining the national will, itwas an instrument for accomplishing the popular will for their rivalsrising to power on the crest of the wave. 

The Democrats refused to resist the people, legitimately governingitself, either by the English or the American division of power. Therewas little concentration yet of the working class in towns, for theindustrial age had hardly dawned, and it was hard to understand thatthe Third Estate contained divergent interests and the material of acoming conflict. The managers of the democratic party were Duport, Lameth, and Barnave, aided sometimes by Sieyès, sometimes byTalleyrand, and by their sworn enemy Mirabeau. 

The nobles, weak in statesmanship, possessed two powerful debaters:Cazalès, who reminded men of Fox, but who, when not on his legs, hadlittle in him; and Maury, afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of Paris, a man whose character was below his talents. Numbering nearly a thirdof the Assembly, and holding the balance, it was in their power tomake a Constitution like that of 1814. 

How these three parties acted in that eventful September, and what inconsequence befell, we have now to consider. 

The five weeks from August 27 to October 1 were occupied with theconstitutional debates. They were kept within narrow limits by theRights of Man, which declared that the nation transmits all powers andexercises none. On both sides there were men who were impatient ofthis restriction, and by whom it was interpreted in contrary ways. Some wished for security that the national will should always prevail, through its agents; the others, that they should be able to obstructit. They struggled for an enlarged construction, and strove to breakthe barrier, in the republican or the royalist direction. 

The discussion opened by a skirmish with the clergy. They observed thesignificant omission of a State church in the Declaration of Rights, and feared that they would be despoiled and the Church disestablished. The enthusiasm of the first hour had cooled. One after another, ecclesiastics attempted to obtain the recognition of Catholicism. Eachtime the attempt was repulsed. The clergy drifted fast into the temperwhich was confessed by Maury when he said, "The proposed measure wouldenable the Constitution to live: we vote against it. "

The scheme of the Committee was produced on August 31, and wasexplained by Lally in a speech which is among the finest compositionsof the time. He insisted on the division of the legislative, and theunity of the executive, as the essentials of a free government. Onthe following day Mirabeau spoke on the same side. He said that thedanger was not from the Crown, but from the representatives; for theymay exclude strangers and debate in secret, as the English law allows, and these may declare themselves permanent, and escape all control. Through the king, the public possesses the means of holding them incheck. He is their natural ally against usurping deputies, and thepossible formation of a new aristocracy. The legislature enjoys atemporary mandate only. The perpetual representative of the people isthe king. It is wrong to deny him powers necessary for the publicinterest. It is the partial appearance of a view that was expanded byNapoleon. 

Mounier defended his plan on September 4. On several points there wasno large variety of opinion. It was practically admitted that therecould be no governing without Parliament, that it must meet annually, that its acts require the royal assent, that it shall be electedindirectly, by equal districts, and a moderate property franchise. Mounier further conceded that the Constitution was not subject to theroyal veto, that Ministers should not be members of the Assembly, thatthe Assembly, and not the king, should have the initiative ofproposing laws, and that it should have the right of refusingsupplies. The real question at issue was whether the representativesof the people should be checked by an Upper House, by the king's powerof dissolution, and by an absolute or a temporary veto. 

Mounier had private friends among his opponents, and they opened anegotiation with him. They were prepared to accept his two Houses andhis absolute veto. They demanded in return that the Senate should haveonly a suspensive veto on the acts of the representatives, that thereshould be no right of Dissolution, that Conventions should be heldperiodically, to revise the Constitution. These offers were a sign ofweakness. The Constitutional party was still in the ascendant, and onAugust 31 the Bishop of Langres, the chief advocate of a House ofLords, was chosen President by 499 to 328. If the division of thelegislature into two was sure of a majority, then the proposed bargainwas one-sided, and the Democrats would have taken much more than theygave. Mounier, counting on the support of those whose interest wasthat he should succeed, rejected the offer. He had already beenforced, by the defection of friends, to abandon much that he wouldhave wished to keep; and the plan which he brought forward closelyresembled that under which France afterwards prospered. 

Nevertheless, the failure of that negotiation is a fatal date inconstitutional history. With more address, and a better knowledge ofthe situation, Mounier might have saved half of the securities hedepended on. He lost the whole. The things he refused to surrender atthe conference were rejected by the Assembly; and the offers he hadrejected were not made again. When the legislature was limited to twoyears, the right of dissolution lost its value. The right of revisionwould have caused no more rapid changes than actually ensued; forthere were fourteen Constitutions in eighty-six years, or afundamental revision every six or seven years. Lastly, the veto of theSenate had no basis of argument, until it was decided how the Senateshould be composed. 

The disastrous ruin of the cause was brought on by want of management, and not by excess of conservatism. Mounier inclined to an hereditaryHouse of Peers; and that, after August 4, was not to be thought of. But he knew the difficulty, and, however reluctantly, gave way. And heattached undue importance to the absolute veto; but that was not thepoint on which the conference broke up. He was supported by Lafayette, who dreaded as much as he did the extinction of the royal power; attimes by Mirabeau, whom he detested. Even Sieyès was willing to havetwo Houses, and even three, provided they were, in reality, one House, deliberating in three divisions, but counting all the votes in common. He also proposed that there should be a renewal of one-third at atime; so that there would be three degrees of the popular infusion andof proximity to Mother Earth. 

Mounier, with some of his friends, deserves to be remembered amongthe men, not so common as they say, who loved liberty sincerely; Imean, who desired it, not for any good it might do them, but foritself, however arduous, or costly, or perilous its approach might be. They subordinated the means to the end, and never regarded conditionalforms as an emanation of eternal principles. Having secured the Rightsof Man, they looked with alarm at future legislation, that could notimprove, and might endanger them. They wished the Constituent Assemblyto bind and bar its successors as far as possible; for none would everspeak with so much authority as the genuine voice of the entirepeople. 

By an extraordinary fortune, the nation, this time, had respondedwisely. It was certain that it would not always do so well. It hadpassions; it had prejudices; it was grossly ignorant; it was notdisinterested; and it was demoralised by an evil tradition. The Frenchwere accustomed to irresponsible power. They were not likely toconsent that the power in their hands should be inferior to that whichhad been exercised over them, or to admit that an entire people is notabove the law which it obeys. It was to be expected that they wouldendeavour by legislation to diminish those securities for the minorityand the weaker cause which were appointed by the Rights of Man. Opinion was changing rapidly, and had become more favourable toviolence, more indulgent to crime. A draft project of the Rights ofMan had appeared, in which the writer avowed that, by the law ofnature, a man may do what he likes in the pursuit of happiness, and, to elude oppression, may oppress, imprison, and destroy. 

The man who wrote thus quickly acquired a dread ascendancy over thepeople, and was able to defy police and governments and assemblies, for it was the beginning of Marat. Lists of proscription werecirculated; threatening letters poured in on the deputies; and Paris, at the end of August, was preparing to march upon Versailles, to expelobnoxious members, and, when they ceased to be inviolable, to put themon their trial. These were first-fruits of liberty, and the meed andreward of Liberals. No man can tell in what country such things wouldremain without effect. In France it was believed that civic couragewas often wanting. De Serre, the great orator of the Restoration, onceaffirmed, from the tribune, that the bulk of the representatives hadalways been sound. He was interrupted by a furious outcry, andchallenged by his legitimist audience to say whether he included theConvention, which, by a majority, condemned the king to death. Hisanswer, very famous in parliamentary history, was, "Yes, even theConvention. And if it had not deliberated under poniards, we shouldhave been spared the most terrible of crimes. "

The opposition presented a united front, but was rent by many stagesof gravitation towards Democracy. They also were generally anxious toestablish political freedom, even by the greatest sacrifices. Byfreedom they meant, first, deliverance from known and habitual causesof oppression. True, there might be others; but they were less clearand less certain. All European experience proclaimed that theexecutive constantly masters the legislative, even in England. It wasabsurd to suppose that every force that, for centuries, had helped tobuild up absolutism, had been destroyed in two months. They would riseagain from the roots, and the conflict would be constantly renewed. 

The salvation seemed to lie in the principle that all power is derivedfrom the people, and that none can exist against the people. Thepopular will may be expressed by certain forms; it cannot be arrestedby obstacles. Its action may be delayed; it cannot be stopped. It isthe ultimate master of all, without responsibility or exemption, andwith no limit that is not laid down in the Rights of Man. The limitsthere defined are sufficient, and individual liberty needs no furtherprotection. Distrust of the nation was not justified by the manner inwhich it had chosen and instructed its deputies. 

In studying this group of public men, men to whom the future belonged, we are forced to admit the element of national character. Nophilosophy is cheaper or more vulgar than that which traces allhistory to diversities of ethnological type and blend, and is everpresenting the venal Greek, the perfidious Sicilian, the proud andindolent Spaniard, the economical Swiss, the vain and vivaciousFrenchman. But it is certainly true that in France the liberty of thepress represents a power that is not familiar to those who know itsweakness and its strength, who have had experience of Swift andBolingbroke and Junius. Maury once said, "We have a free press: wehave everything. " In 1812, when Napoleon watched the grand armycrossing the Niemen to invade Russia, and whistled the tune ofMalbrook, he interrupted his tune to exclaim, "And yet all that is notequal to the songs of Paris!" Chateaubriand afterwards said that, withthe liberty of the press, there was no abuse he would not undertake todestroy. For he wrote French as it had never been written, and themagnificent roll of his sentences caught the ear of his countrymenwith convincing force. When, in 1824, he was dismissed from theForeign Office, his friend, the editor of the _Journal des Débats_, called on the Prime Minister Villèle and warned him, "We haveoverthrown your predecessor, and we shall be strong enough tooverthrow you. " Villèle replied, "You succeeded against him by aid ofroyalism: you cannot succeed against me but by aid of revolution. "Both prophecies came true. The alliance of Chateaubriand with thenewspaper turned out the Ministry in 1827, and the Monarchy in 1830. 

In September 1789, the liberty of the press was only four months old, and the reign of opinion was beginning on the Continent. They fanciedthat it was an invincible force, and a complete security for humanrights. It was invaluable if it secured right without weakening power, like the other contrivances of Liberalism. They thought that when menwere safe from the force above them, they required no saving from theinfluence around them. Opinion finds its own level, and a man yieldseasily and not unkindly to what surrounds him daily. Pressure fromequals is not to be confounded with persecution by superiors. It isright that the majority, by degrees, should absorb the minority. Thework of limiting authority had been accomplished by the Rights of Man. The work of creating authority was left to the Constitution. In thisway men of varying opinions were united in the conclusion that thepowers emanating from the people ought not to be needlessly divided. 

Besides Sieyès, who found ideas, and Talleyrand, who found expedients, several groups were, for the time, associated with the party which wasmanaged by Duport. There were some of the most eminent jurists, eagerto reform the many systems of law and custom that prevailed in France, who became the lawgivers of successive Assemblies, until theycompleted their code under Napoleon. Of all the enemies of the oldmonarchical _régime_, they were the most methodical and consistent. The leader of the Paris Bar, Target, was their most active politician. When he heard of a plan for setting the finances in order he said, "Ifanybody has such a plan, let him at once be smothered. It is thedisorder of the finances that puts the king in our power. " TheEconomists were as systematic and definite as the lawyers, and theytoo had much to destroy. Through Dupont de Nemours their theoriesobtained enduring influence. 

There were two or three of the future Girondins who taught that thepeople may be better trusted than representatives, and who were readyto ratify the Constitution, and even to decide upon the adoption oflaws, by the popular vote. And there were two men, not yet distinctlydivided from these their future victims, who went farther inopposition to the Rights of Man, and towards the confusion of powers. In their eyes, representation and delegation were treason to truedemocracy. As the people could not directly govern itself, theprinciple exacted that it should do so as nearly as possible, by meansof a perpetual control over the delegates. The parliamentary voteought to be constantly brought into harmony with the wish of theconstituency, by the press, the galleries and the mob. To actconsciously in opposition to the delegating power was a breach oftrust. The population of Paris, being the largest collected portion ofsovereign power, expresses its will more surely than deputies atsecond hand. Barère, who was one of these, proposed an ingenious planby which every law that passed remained suspended until after the nextelections, when the country pronounced upon it by imperative mandate. Thus he disposed of royal veto and dissolution. 

Robespierre would not suspend the law, but left it to the nextlegislature to rectify or revoke the errors of the last. He arguedthat powers require to be checked in proportion to the danger theypresent. Now the danger from a power not representative exceeds thatfrom a power that represents, and is better acquainted with the needsand wishes of the mass. A nation governs itself, and has a singlewill, not two. If the whole does not govern the part, the part willgovern the whole. Robespierre conceived that it was time to constitutepowers sufficient to conquer the outward foe, and also the inward; onefor national safety, and one for national progress, and the elevationof the poor at the expense of the minorities that have oppressed them. He stands at the end of the scale, and the idea of liberty, as it runsthrough the various sets of thought, is transformed into the idea offorce. From Sieyès to Barnave, from Barnave to Camus, from Camus toBuzot, and from Buzot the Girondin to Robespierre the Jacobin whokilled the Girondins, we traverse the long line of possible politics;but the transitions are finely shaded, and the logic is continuous. 

In the second week of September the Constitution of Mounier wasdefeated by the union of these forces. The main question, theinstitution of a Senate, was not seriously debated. It was feared asthe refuge of the defeated classes, and was not defended by thoseclasses themselves. They were not willing that a new aristocracyshould be raised upon their ruins; and they suspected that Governmentwould give the preference to that minority of the nobles who went overin time, and who were renegades in the eyes of the rest. It was feltthat a single Chamber is stronger in resistance to the executive thantwo, and that the time might come for a senate when the fallenaristocracy had ceased to struggle, and the Crown was reconciled toits reduced condition. 

On September 9 the President of the Assembly, La Luzerne, bishop ofLangres, was driven by insult to resign. The next day the Assemblyadopted the single Chamber by 499 to 89, the nobles abstaining. 

On September 11 the decisive division took place. Mounier had insistedon the unlimited right of veto. The debate went against him. It wasadmitted on his own side that the king would, sooner or later, have toyield. The others agreed that the king might resist until twoelections had decided in favour of the vetoed measure. He might rejectthe wish of one legislature, and even of two; he would give way to thethird. The Ministers themselves were unable to insist on the absoluteveto in preference to the suspensive thus defined. A letter from theking was sent to the Assembly, to inform them that he was content withthe temporary veto. Mounier did not allow the letter to be read, thatit might not influence votes. He was defeated by 673 to 325. TheConservatives had deserted him when he defended the Upper House; andnow the king deserted him when he defended the rights of the Crown. Itwas a crushing and final disaster. For he fell, maintaining the causeof aristocracy against the nobles, and the cause of prerogativeagainst the monarch. The Democrats triumphed by 410 votes one day, and350 the next. The battle for the Constitution on the English model wasfought and lost. 

On September 12 Mounier and his friends retired from the Committee. Anew one was at once elected from the victorious majority. At thiscritical point a secret Council was held, at which the royalistsadvised the king to take refuge in the provinces. Lewis refused tolisten to them. The majority, elated with success, now called on himto sanction the decrees of August 4. His reply, dated September 18, is drawn up with unusual ability. He adopted the argument of Sieyès onthe suppression of tithe. He said that a large income would be grantedto the land, and that the rich, who ought to contribute most, would, on the contrary, receive most. Small holders would profit little, while those who possessed no land at all would now be mulcted forpayment of the clergy. Instead of relieving the nation, it wouldrelieve one class at the expense of another, and the rich at theexpense of the poor. 

The Assembly insisted that the abolition of feudalism was part of theConstitution, and ought to receive an unconditional sanction. But theypromised to give most respectful attention to the remarks of the king, whenever the decrees came to be completed by legislation. The royalsanction was accordingly given on the following day. Thereupon theAssembly made a considerable concession. They resolved, on September21, that the suspensive veto should extend over two legislatures. Thenumbers were 728 to 224. 

The new Committee, appointed on the 15th, took a fortnight to completetheir scheme, on the adopted principles that there should be oneChamber, no dissolution, and a power of retarding legislation withoutpreventing it. On the 29th it was laid before the Assembly by theirreporter, Thouret. The voice was the voice of Thouret, but the handwas the hand of Sieyès. At that juncture he augured ill of theRevolution, and repented of his share in it. His Declaration of Rightshad been passed over. His proposal to restore the national credit bythe surrender of tithe had been rejected. His partition of theAssembly, together with partial renewal, which is favourable to theexecutive, by never allowing the new parliament to rise, like a giantrefreshed, from a general election, had encountered no support. Itremained that he should compose the working machinery for hisessential doctrine, that the law is the will of him that obeys, not ofhim that commands. To do this, the Abbé Sieyès abolished the historicProvinces, and divided France into departments. There were to beeighty, besides Paris; and as they were designed to be as nearly aspossible equal to a square of about forty-five miles, they differedwidely in population and property. They were to have an average ofnine deputies each: three for the superficial area, which wasinvariable; three, more or less, for population; and again three, moreor less, according to the amount which the department contributed tothe national income. In this way territory, numbers and wealth wererepresented equally. 

Deputies were to be elected in three degrees. The taxpayers, in theirprimary assemblies, chose electors for the Commune, which was thepolitical unit, and a square of about fifteen miles; the communalelectors sent their representatives to the department, and theseelected the deputy. Those who paid no taxes were not recognized asshareholders in the national concern. Like women and minors, theyenjoyed the benefit of government; but as they were not independent, they possessed no power as active citizens. By a parallel process, assemblies were formed for local administration, on the principle thatthe right of exercising power proceeds from below, and the actualexercise of power from above. 

This is mainly the measure which has made the France of to-day; andwhen it became law, in December, the chief part of the newConstitution was completed. It had been the work of these two months, from August 4 to September 29. The final promulgation came two yearslater. No legislative instrument ever failed more helplessly than thisproduct of the wisdom of France in its first parliamentary Assembly, for it lasted only a single year. 

Many things had meanwhile occurred which made the constructive designof 1789 unfit to meet the storms of 1792. The finances of the Statewere ruined; the clergy and the clerical party had been driven intoviolent opposition; the army was almost dissolved, and war broke outwhen there was not a disciplined force at the command of Government. After Varennes, the king was practically useless in peace, andimpossible in times of danger and invasion; not only because of thedegradation of his capture and of his imprisonment on the throne, butbecause, at the moment of his flight, he had avowed his hostility tothe institutions he administered. 

The central idea in the plan of September 29, the idea of smallprovinces and large municipalities, was never appreciated and neveradopted. Sieyès placed the unit in the Commune, which was the name hegave to each of the nine divisions of a department. He intended thatthere should be only 720 of these self-governing districts in France. Instead of 720, the Assembly created 44, 000, making the Commune nolarger than the parish, and breaking up the administrative system intodust. The political wisdom of the village was substituted for that ofa town or district of 35, 000 inhabitants. 

The explanation of the disastrous result is as much in the Court as inthe Legislature, and as much in the legislation that followed as inthe policy of the moment in which the great issues were determined, and with which we are dealing. No monarchical constitution couldsucceed, after Varennes; and the one of which we are speaking, theobject of the memorable conflict between Mounier and Sieyès, is notidentical with the one that failed. The repudiation of the Englishmodel did not cause the quick passage from the Constitution of 1791 tothe Republic. Yet the scheme that prevailed shows defects which mustbear their portion of blame. Political science imperatively demandsthat powers shall be regulated by multiplication and division. TheAssembly preferred ideas of unity and simplicity. 

The old policy of French parliaments nearly suggested a court ofrevision; but that notion, not yet visible in the Supreme Court of theUnited States, occurred to Sieyès long after. An effective Senatemight have been founded on the provincial assemblies; but the ancientprovinces were doomed, and the new divisions did not yet exist, orwere hidden in the maps of freemasonry. 

Power was not really divided between the legislative and theexecutive, for the king possessed no resource against the majority ofthe Assembly. There was no Senate, no initiative, no dissolution, noeffective veto, no reliance on the judicial or the Federal element. These are not defects of equal importance; but taken together, theysubverted that principle of division which is useful for stability, and for liberty is essential. 

The reproach falls not only on those who carried the various measures, but also on the minority that opposed them. Mounier encouraged thesuspicion and jealousy of Ministers by separating them from theAssembly, and denying to the king, that is to them, the prerogative ofproposing laws. He attributed to the absolute veto an importance whichit does not possess; and he frustrated all chance of a Second Chamberby allowing it to be known that he would have liked to make ithereditary. This was too much for men who had just rejoiced over thefall of the aristocracy. In order to exclude the intervention of theking in favour of a suspensive veto, he accepted the argument that theConstitution was in the hands of the Assembly alone. When Lewis raiseda just objection to the decrees of August 4, this argument was turnedagainst him, and the Crown suffered a serious repulse. 

The intellectual error of the Democrats vanishes before the moralerror of the Conservatives. They refused a Second Chamber because theyfeared that it would be used as a reward for those among them to whosedefection they partly owed their defeat. And as they did not wish theConstitution to be firmly established, they would not vote formeasures likely to save it. The revolutionists were able to count ontheir aid against the Liberals. 

The watchword came from the Palace, and the shame of their policyrecoils upon the king. Late in September one of his nobles told himthat he was weary of what he saw, and was going to his own country. "Yes, " said the king, taking him aside; "things are going badly, andnothing can improve our position but the excess of evil. " On thisaccount Royer Collard, the famous _Doctrinaire_, said, in later times, that all parties in the Revolution were honest, except theConservatives. 

From the end of August the Paris agitators, who managed the mob inthe interest of a dynastic change directed a sustained pressureagainst Versailles. Thouret, one of the foremost lawyers in theAssembly, who was elected President on August 1, refused the honour. He had been warned of his unpopularity, and gave way to threats. Yielding to the current which, as Mirabeau said, submerges those whoresist it, he went over to the other side, and soon became one oftheir leaders. The experience of this considerable man is an instanceof the change that set in, and that was frequent among men withoutindividual conviction or the strength of character that belongs to it. 

The downward tendency was so clearly manifest, the lesson taught bysuccessful violence against the king and the aristocracy was soresolutely applied to the Assembly, that very serious politicianssought the means of arresting the movement. Volney, who was no orator, but who was the most eminent of the deputies in the department ofletters, made the attempt on September 18. He proposed that thereshould be new elections for a parliament that should not consist ofheterogeneous ingredients, but in which class interests should bedisregarded and unknown. He moved that it should represent equality. They reminded him of the oath not to separate until France was aconstitutional State, and the protest was ineffectual. But inintellectual France there was no man more perfectly identified withthe reigning philosophy than the man who uttered this cry of alarm. 

On October 2 the first chapters of the Constitution were ready for theroyal assent. They consisted of the Rights of Man, and of thefundamental measures adopted in the course of September. Mounier, thenew President, carried to the king the articles by which his cause hadbeen brought to its fall. Lewis undertook to send his reply; and fromMounier came no urging word. They both fancied that delay waspossible, and might yet serve. The tide had flowed so slowly in May, that they could not perceive the torrent of October. On the day ofthat audience of the most liberal of all the royalists, the respitebefore them was measured by hours. 

All through September, at Paris, Lafayette at the head of the forcesof order, and the forces of tumult controlled by the Palais Royal hadwatched each other, waiting for a deadly fight. There were frequentthreats of marching on Versailles, followed by reassuring messagesfrom the General that he had appeased the storm. As it grew louder, he made himself more and more the arbiter of the State. TheGovernment, resenting this protectorate, judged that the danger ofattack ought to be averted, not by the dubious fidelity and the moredubious capacity of the commander of the National Guard, but by thedirect resources of the Crown. They summoned the Flanders regiment, which was reputed loyal, and on October 1 it marched in, a thousandstrong. The officers, on their arrival, were invited by their comradesat Versailles to a festive supper in the theatre. The men wereadmitted, and made to drink the health of the king; and in the midstof a scene of passionate enthusiasm the king and queen appeared. Thedemonstration that ensued meant more than the cold and decent respectwith which men regard a functionary holding delegated and notirrevocable powers. It was easy to catch the note of personal devotionand loyalty and the religion of the Cavalier, in the cries of thesearmed and excited royalists. The managers at Paris had theiropportunity, and resolved at once to execute the plot they had longmeditated. 

Whilst the Executive, which alone upheld the division of powers andthe principle of freedom, was daily losing ground at the hands of itsenemies, of its friends, and at its own, a gleam of hope visited theforlorn precincts of the Court. Necker had informed the Assembly thathe could not obtain a loan, and he asked for a very large increase ofdirect taxation. He was heard with impatience, and Mirabeau, who spokefor him, made no impression. On September 26 he made another effort, and gained the supreme triumph of his career. In a speech that wasevidently unprepared, he drew an appalling picture of the comingbankruptcy; and as he ended with the words "These dangers are beforeyou, and you deliberate!" the Assembly, convulsed with emotion, passedthe vote unanimously, and Necker was saved. None knew that there couldbe such power in man. 

In the eighteen months of life that remained to him, Mirabeauunderwent many vicissitudes of influence and favour; but he was able, in an emergency, to dominate parties. From that day the Court knewwhat he was, and what he could do; and they knew how his imperiousspirit longed to serve the royal cause, and we shall presently see whoit was that attempted to flatter and to win him when it was too late, and who had repelled him when it might yet have been time. 

We have reached the point at which the first part of the Revolutionterminates, and the captivity of the monarch is about to begin. Theevents of the next two days, October 5 and 6, form a complete andcoherent drama, that will not bear partition, and must occupy thewhole of our attention next week. 

IX

THE MARCH TO VERSAILLES

The French Revolution was approved at first by the common judgment ofmankind. Kaunitz, the most experienced statesman in Europe, declaredthat it would last for long, and perhaps for ever. Speaking lesscautiously, Klopstock said: "I see generations crushed in thestruggle; I see perhaps centuries of war and desolation; but at last, in the remote horizon, I see the victory of liberty. " Even at St. Petersburg the fall of the Bastille was hailed with frantic joy. Burkebegan by applauding. He would not listen to Tom Paine, who had beenthe inspirer of a revolution himself, and who assured him that theStates-General would lead to another. He said, afterwards, that theRights of Man had opened his eyes; but at Holland House they believedthat the change came a few days earlier, when the Church was attacked. The Americans were not far from the opinion of Burke. By the middle ofthe summer Jefferson thought that all that was needful had beenobtained. Franklin took alarm at the events of July. Washington andHamilton became suspicious soon after. 

For the September decrees were directed not only against the Englishmodel, but still more against the American. The Convention of 1787 hadconstructed a system of securities that were intended to save theUnion from the power of unchecked democracy. The National Assemblyresolutely swept every security away. Nothing but the Crown was leftthat could impede the direct operation of the popular will, or thatcould make the division of powers a reality. Therefore the Liberalparty looked to the king as much as the Conservative, and wished asmuch as they, and even more than they, to strengthen his hands. Theirtheory demanded a divided legislature. Having lost that, they fellback on Montesquieu, and accepted the division of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. These theoretic subtleties wereunintelligible to the people of France. Men who were as vehement forthe king in October as they had been vehement against him in Juneappeared to them to be traitors. They could not conceive that theauthority which had so long oppressed them, and which it had requiredsuch an effort to vanquish, ought now to be trusted and increased. They could not convince themselves that their true friends were thosewho had suddenly gone over to the ancient enemy and oppressor, whoseown customary adherents seemed no longer to support him. 

Public opinion was brought to bear on the Assembly, to keep up therepression of monarchy which began on June 23. As the Crown passedunder the control of the Assembly, the Assembly became more dependenton the constituencies, especially on that constituency which had themaking of French opinion, and in which the democratic spirit wasconcentrated. After the month of August the dominant fact is thegrowing pressure of Paris on Versailles. In October Paris laid itshand on its prey. For some weeks the idea of escaping had beenentertained. Thirty-two of the principal royalists in the Assemblywere consulted, and advised that the king should leave Versailles andtake refuge in the provinces. The late minister, Breteuil, theAustrian ambassador, Mercy, were of the same opinion, and they carriedthe queen with them. But Necker was on the other side. 

Instead of flight they resolved upon defence, and brought up theFlanders regiment, whose Colonel was a deputy of the Left. In themorning the Count d'Estaing, who held command at Versailles, learntwith alarm that it had been decided to omit the health of the nation. The Prussian envoy writes that the officers of the Guards, who hadnot yet adopted the Tricolor, displayed the utmost contempt for it. Itrequired no exaggeration to represent the scene in a light odious tothe public. When Madame Campan came home and described with admirationwhat she had just beheld, Beaumetz, a deputy, and friend ofTalleyrand, became very grave, and took his leave, that he might makeup his mind whether he should not emigrate at once. Hostile witnessesreported the particulars to the press next day, and it was stated, figuratively or literally, that the Royal Guards had trampled thenational colours under foot. Marat came over to inquire, and CamilleDesmoulins says that he hurried back to Paris making as much noise asall the trumpets of the Last Day. 

The feast had been held on a Thursday. On the Sunday, October 4, Pariswas in a ferment. The insult to the nation, the summoning of troops, the projected flight, as was now supposed, to the fortress of Metz, were taken to mean civil war, for the restoration of despotism. At thePalais Royal the agitators talked of going out to Versailles, topunish the insolent guards. On the evening of Sunday, one district ofthe city, the Cordeliers, who were governed by Danton, were ready tomarch. The men of other districts were not so ready for action, or sozealous to avenge the new cockade. To carry the entire population morewas required than the vague rumour of Metz, or even than thesymbolical outrage. 

There was hunger among the 800, 000 inhabitants of Paris, between lastyear's corn that was exhausted, and the new harvest that was not yetground. Nobody, says Dumont, could wonder if so much suffering led totumult. The suffering was due to poverty more than to scarcity; butLafayette asserted that above £2000 a week were paid to bakers, or tomillers, to create discontent by shortening supplies. There werepeople who thought that money spent in this way would rouseindignation against the incompetent and inactive Assembly. Uponsixteen days in the course of September the bakers' shops had to beguarded by troops. The reduced noble families were putting down theirestablishments; and 200, 000 passports were issued to intending_émigrés_ in the two months following the fall of the Bastille. 

The primary offender, responsible for subsistence, was themunicipality of the capital; and their seat of office was the firstobject of attack. Early on the Monday morning a multitude of excitedwomen made their way into the Hôtel de Ville. They wanted to destroythe heaps of papers, as all that writing did them no good. They seizeda priest, and set about hanging him. They rang the tocsin, bringingall the trained battalions and all the ragged bands of the city to thePlace de Grève. They carried away several hundreds of muskets, andsome useless cannon; and they fetched torches, that they might burnthe building to the ground. It was the headquarters of the electedmunicipality; but the masses were becoming conscious that they werenot the Third Estate, that there was a conflict of interest betweenproperty and labour, and they began to vent their yet inarticulaterage upon the middle class above them. It presently appeared thatthese revolutionary heroines, knitting companions of the futureguillotine, were not all infuriated or implacable. Parcels ofbanknotes that they took away were brought back; the priest was leftunhung; the torches that were to have lighted the conflagration wereextinguished without difficulty. They were easily persuaded that theirproper sphere of action was Versailles, with its Assembly, that wasable to do everything, and did nothing for the poor. They played thegenuine part of mothers whose children were starving in their squalidhomes, and they thereby afforded to motives which they neither sharednor understood the aid of a diamond point that nothing couldwithstand. It was this first detachment of invading women that allowedStanislas Maillard to lead them away. 

Maillard was known to all the town as a conqueror of the Bastille. Later, he acquired a more sinister celebrity. But on that 5th ofOctober, as the calculating controller of dishevelled tumult, he lefton those who saw him an impression of unusual force. Whilst hemustered his army in the Champs Elysées, and recruiting parties weresent through the streets, an emissary from the Hôtel de Villehastened to warn the Government at Versailles. He was able to announcethat the National Guard were coming. 

Lafayette appeared late upon the scene, and did nothing to hinder theexpedition of Maillard. He thought the danger contemptible, andbelieved that there were resources at Versailles enough to stop it, although there were seven or eight thousand women and some hundreds ofmen among them. Both Necker and Mounier, the President of theAssembly, confirm the fact. 

When the news of what they must be prepared for reached ministers, theking was out shooting, some miles away, and nothing could be donewithout him. The queen was found at the Trianon, which she never sawagain. An officer who came on foot from Paris told the king of hisdanger. He refused his name, but stated that there was no man in theservice who had greater reason to complain. A mounted messengerarrived from the Minister of the Interior, and Lewis took horse andgalloped to Versailles. The streets were already crowded withdisorderly people, and shots were fired as he rode by. 

The roads from Paris to Versailles cross the Seine at three points, and the general officers who were in the ministry declared that theymight be defended with the troops that were at hand. St. Priest, theMinister of the Interior, advised the king to meet the army of Parisat Sèvres, and order it to retire. If they refused, he thought thatthey could be beaten. 

Necker was against giving battle, and two important colleagues werewith him. He was ready to take the king to Paris, seeing theobjections, as he always did to every proposal, but hoping that publicopinion, stimulated by the presence of the Court, which had not beenseen there for generations, would sustain the Crown against theAssembly. He had held that opinion from the first, and he refused tobe answerable for civil war. Lewis, unable to decide, went to consultthe queen. She would be sent away, with her children, if there was afight. She declared that she would remain if the king remained, andwould not allow him to incur dangers which she did not share. Thisresolution made it impossible for him to adopt a manly or spiritedcourse. The Council broke up without deciding anything. 

Whilst this was going on, between three and four in the afternoonMaillard reached Versailles with his column of women. Their qualityhad deteriorated by the recruits made on the way, and there had been alarge accession of ferocity. Besides the women who followed Maillardfrom the Hôtel de Ville, some of whom believed that hunger is causedby bad government, and can be appeased by good, others displayed theaprons in which they meant to carry the queen to Paris, bit by bit. And there was a group, more significant than either, who were wellsupplied with money, to be distributed among the soldiers of theFlemish regiment, and who effectually performed their office. 

Maillard, who had prevented depredation by the way, made straight forthe Assembly, and was admitted with a deputation of his followers. They arrived at a moment of excitement. The king had accepted thenineteen paragraphs of the Constitution, with the proviso that heretained the executive power undiminished. He had put off the Rightsof Man until it should be seen how they were affected by the portionsof the constitution yet to pass. The reply was not countersigned by aminister; and the deputies saw in it an attempt to claim the right ofmodifying the fundamental laws. They brought up the imprudences of thedinner of welcome, and argued that there must be a plot. 

Mirabeau had never stood in a more difficult position. He clung to themonarchy, but not to the king. He was ready to serve the Count ofProvence, or even the Duke of Orleans, but not a feeble executive; andhe judged that, as things were going, there would soon be no king toserve. Through his friend La Marck he had attempted to terrify theCourt, and to induce them to accept his services. La Marck hadrepresented to the queen the immense value of the aid of such a man;and the queen had replied, decisively, that she hoped they wouldnever fall so low as to need help from Mirabeau. 

He defended the king's answer on the ground he had held before, thatthe Declaration ought to follow the Constitution, and ought not toprecede it. Speaking of the scene at the officers' dinner, he saidthat the king was inviolable--the king, and no other person. Theallusion was so clear that the royalists were reduced to silence. TheAssembly resolved that the king should be requested to give hisassent, unconditionally. Before the deputation had left, Maillardentered the Assembly. 

Mirabeau had received early notice of the intended attack by a largebody of Parisians, and had advised Mounier to adjourn in time. Mounierfancied that Mirabeau was afraid, and said that every man must die athis post. When Maillard appeared with a few women, he allowed him tospeak. As the orator of the women whom he had brought from the Hôtelde Ville, Maillard asked for cheap bread, denounced the artificialfamine and the Royal Guards. When rebuked by Mounier for using theterm "citizens, " he made a very effective point by saying that any manwho was not proud to be a citizen ought at once to be expelled. But headmitted that he did not believe all the imputations that were made byhis followers; and he obtained a cheer for the Royal Guard byexhibiting a regimental cocked hat with the tricolor cockade. 

The Assembly gave way, and sent Mounier at the head of a deputation toinvite the king's attention to the demands of his afflicted subjects. Whilst the deputies, with some of the women, stood in the rain, waiting for the gates to be opened, a voice in the crowd exclaimedthat there was no want of bread in the days when they had a king, butnow that they had twelve hundred they were starving. So that therewere some whose animosity was not against the king, but against theelect of the people. 

The king at once conceded all that Mounier asked for his strangecompanions, and they went away contented. Then their friends outsidefell upon them, and accused them of having taken bribes; and again itbecame apparent that two currents had joined, and that some hadhonestly come for bread, and some had not. Those who had obtained theking's order for provisioning Paris, and were satisfied, went back tobring it to the Hôtel de Ville. They were sent home in a royalcarriage. Maillard went with them. It was fully understood that withall his violence and crudity he had played a difficult part well. 

Mounier remained at the Palace. He was not eager to revisit the sceneof his humiliation, where vociferous women had occupied the benches, asking for supper, and bent on kissing the President. He wished theking now to accept the Rights of Man, without waiting for theappointed deputation from the Assembly. Although they were in part hiswork, he was no longer wedded to them as they stood, and thought, likeMirabeau, that they were an impediment. But a crisis had arrived, andthis point might be surrendered, to save the very existence ofmonarchy. He waited during many eventful hours, and returned after tenat night to find that the bishop of Langres, disgusted with the scenebefore him, had adjourned the Assembly. Mounier instantly convokedthem, by beat of drum. He had other things to speak of besides theRights of Man; for he knew that an invader more formidable thanMaillard with his Amazonian escort was approaching. 

For the later weeks of September Lafayette had cast his influence onthe side of those who designed to strengthen the executive. He hadrestrained his men when they threatened to come to support theNational Assembly. To yield to that movement was to acknowledgedefeat, and loss of available popularity and power. When he came tothe Hôtel de Ville and found that his army was resolved to go, heopposed the project, and for many hours held his ground. The men whomhe commanded were not interested on their own account in the dailyallowance of food. Their anger was with the Royal Guards, and theirpurpose was to take their place. Then there would be less danger ofresistance to the decrees, or of flight to the provinces. 

Lafayette could not appear before the king at their head withoutevident hostility and revolt; for their temper was threatening, and hewas rapidly losing control. By delay and postponement he gainedsomething. Instead of arriving as an assailant, he came as adeliverer. When he remonstrated, his soldiers said that they meant noinjury to the king, but that he must obey or abdicate. They would maketheir general Regent; but if he refused to put himself at their head, they would take his life. They told him that he had commanded longenough, and now he must follow. He did not yield until the tumult hadrisen high, and the strain on his authority was breaking. 

Early in the afternoon the watchers who followed the march of thewomen from the rare church towers reported that they had crossed theSeine without opposition. It was known, therefore, that the road wasopen, that the approach of the army would be under cover of thecontingent that had preceded, that there was no danger of collision. 

About four o'clock Lafayette sent word to the Hôtel de Ville--for hismen would not allow him out of sight--that it was time to give him hisorders, as he could not prevent the departure. They were brought tohim where he sat in the saddle in the Place de Grève, and he read themwith an expression of the utmost alarm. They contained all thatambition could desire, for the four points which he was directed toinsist on made him Dictator of France. But it was added that theorders were given because he demanded them. Lafayette never producedthat document; and he left it to the commissaries sent with him tourge the one demand in which he was interested, the establishment ofthe Court at Paris. 

He started about five o'clock, with nearly 20, 000 men. From thebarrier by which he left Paris he sent a note in pencil to reassurethe Government as to his intentions. It was a march of seven hours. At the passage of the Seine, he sent on an officer with furtherexplanations; and he declared that he was coming under compulsion, andwould have gone back if the bridge had been held in force. BeforeVersailles he halted his men, and made them take the oath of fidelityto the king and the Assembly. 

The news of his coming had been received with terror. A man, dressedlike a workman, who had been on the march with him, hurried forward tothe Palace, and was at once admitted. It was the future Duke deRichelieu, twice, in after years, Prime Minister. What he told of themood of the men added to the alarm. Another Council was held, at whichthe majority were in favour of flight. "Sir, " said St. Priest, "if yougo to Paris, it may cost you your crown. " "That advice, " said Necker, "may cost you your head. " Nobody doubted that flight signified civilwar. But St. Priest carried his point, and rode off to prepareRambouillet for the royal family. As he knew that the decision was thegravest that could be taken, and that Necker's words were probablytrue, he dropped into a walk, and was overtaken by his wife. From herhe learnt that the hazardous decision had been reversed, and that theking would remain at Versailles. His interview with the deputation ofwomen had had a momentary success, and provoked cries of "Vive leRoi!" Thereupon Necker recovered the lost ground, with the aid ofLiancourt, who first brought the king to Paris in the summer. Thecarriages, which were ready, were countermanded. Later on, they wereagain sent for, but this time they were stopped by the people. 

The confusion of counsel was such that one of the ministers afterwardsdeclared that, if the Duke of Orleans had appeared and pressed hisdemands, he would have obtained everything. It is said that themanagers of his party saw this, and showed him his opportunity, duringthe panic that preceded Lafayette. It is even stated that they broughthim to the very door of the council chamber, and that he flinched, with the regency within reach of his hand. When the National Guardarrived, his chances vanished. 

Lafayette never was able to prove the Duke's complicity in the crimeof that night. When the Duke asked him what evidence he had, hereplied that if he had had evidence he would have sent him for trial;but that he had enough reason for suspicion to require that he shouldleave the country. Thrice the Duke, forcibly encouraged by Mirabeau, refused to go. Thrice the general insisted, and the Duke started forEngland. Mirabeau exclaimed that he would not have him for a lackey. Along inquiry was held, and ended in nothing. The man who knew thosetimes best, Roederer afterwards assured Napoleon that, if there was anOrleanist conspiracy, Orleans himself was not in it. 

The women who invaded Versailles were followed by groups of men of thesame description as those who committed the atrocities which followedthe fall of the Bastille. As night fell they became formidable, skirmished with the guard, and tried to make their way into thePalace. At first, when his captains asked for orders to disperse thecrowd, Lewis, against the advice of his sister, replied that he didnot make war on women. But the men were armed, and evidentlydangerous. The command, at Versailles, was in the hands of d'Estaing, the admiral of the American war, who at this critical moment showed nocapacity. He refused to let his men defend themselves, and orderedthem to withdraw. St. Priest grew impatient. Much depended on theirhaving repressed the riot without waiting to be rescued by the army ofParis. He summoned the admiral to repel force by force. D'Estaingreplied that he waited the king's orders. The king gave none. Theminister then said: "When the king gives no orders, a general mustjudge and act for himself. " Again the king was silent. Later, the sameday, he adopted the words of St. Priest, and made them his own. Hesaid that the Count d'Estaing ought to have acted on his ownresponsibility. No orders are needed by a man of spirit, whounderstands his duty. It was the constant wish of Lewis XVI. To be inthe hands of stronger men, who would know how to save him in spite ofhimself. 

Mounier had obtained his unqualified assent to the Rights of Man, andurged him to seize the moment to take refuge in some faithfulprovince. It was the dangerous, but the honourable course, and therewas hope that the Assembly, standing by him, would prevent an outbreakof war. He conveyed the royal message to the Assembly, at a nightsitting, much hindered by the continued presence of the visitors fromParis. Just then Lafayette arrived, with his overwhelming force. Heassured Mounier and his friends that the men he commanded would now beeasy to satisfy. But he said nothing of the real purpose of hispresence there. From the Assembly he passed on to the king. Leavinghis 20, 000 men behind him in the darkness, he appeared at the Palacegate, accompanied only by the commissaries from the Hôtel de Ville. 

The Swiss behind the bars warned him to reflect what he was about todo. For he was entering a place crowded with men passionately excitedagainst the revolutionary general, who, whether he came to save or todestroy, was no longer a subject, but a master. The general told themto let him in. As he passed, a voice called out, "There goesCromwell. " Lafayette stood still and answered, "Cromwell would nothave come alone. " Madame de Staël watched him as he entered the royalpresence. His countenance, she says, was calm. Nobody ever saw itotherwise. Lewis received him with a sensation of relief, for he feltthat he was safe. At that moment the sovereign indeed had perished, but the man was safe. The language of Lafayette was respectful andsatisfactory. He left to his companions the disagreeable duty ofimposing terms, and they exposed to the king the object of thisstrange interposition of the middle class in arms. He replied that hehad already sanctioned the Rights of Man, that the minister wouldarrange with the municipality for the provisioning of Paris, that hehimself would trust his person to the custody of the National Guard. The fourth, and only essential matter, the transfer of the Court toParis, was left unsettled. That was to be the work reserved for themorrow. Word was sent to the Hôtel de Ville that all was well. 

Lafayette, holding the issue in his hands, betrayed no impatience, andabstained from needless urging. His men undertook the outer line ofdefence, but the Palace itself was left to the Royal Guards. The kingdid not at once realise the position, and attempted to combine the oldorder with the new. For the remainder of the night there was a dividedcommand and an uncertain responsibility. Between Lafayette outside andD'Estaing within, there was an unguarded door. 

The general believed that he had done enough, and would easily gatherthe ripe fruit in the morning. Having informed the President of theAssembly, still ostensibly sitting, that order was restored, he wenthome to bed. He had had a long and trying day. His rest was destinedto be short. Before daybreak a small band of ruffians, of the kindwhich the Revolution furnished as a proper instrument forconspirators, made their way by the garden entrance into the Palace. Those who aimed at the life of the king came upon a guard-room full ofsleeping soldiers, and retired. The real object of popular hatred wasthe queen, and those who came for her were not so easily turned fromtheir design. Two men on guard who fired upon them were dragged intothe street and butchered, and their heads were borne as trophies tothe Palais Royal. Their comrades fled for safety to the interior ofthe Palace. But one, who was posted at the door of Marie Antoinette, stood his ground, and his name, Miomandre de Sainte Marie, lives as ahousehold word. One of the queen's ladies, whose sister has left arecord of the scene, was awakened by the noise and opened the door. She saw the sentry, his face streaming with blood, holding a crowd atbay. He called to her to save the queen and fell, with the lock of amusket beaten into his brain. She instantly fastened the lock, rousedthe queen, and hurried her, without stopping to dress, to the king'sapartment. 

The National Guard from Paris, who were outside, had not protected thetwo first victims; but then they interfered, and the GardesFrançaises, who had been the first mutineers, and had become the solidnucleus of the Parisian army, poured into the Palace. As they had madetheir expedition of the day before for no other purpose than to drivethe royal troops away and to take their place, none could tell whatthe meeting of the two corps would be, and the king's men barricadedthemselves against the new comers. But an officer reminded the GardesFrançaises of the day when the two regiments had withstood theEnglish, side by side, and theirs had been rescued by the Gardes duCorps. So they called out, "Remember Fontenoy"; and the othersanswered the challenge and unbarred the door. 

By the time that Lafayette appeared, roused from untimely slumber, hismen were masters of the Palace, and stood between the royal family andthe raging mob of baffled murderers. He made the captured guardsmensafe; but although he was in supreme command, he did not restore orderoutside. The last of the four points he had been instructed to obtain, the removal of the Court to his custody at the Tuileries and his ownpermanent elevation to a position superior to the throne, was not yetconceded. Until that was settled, the loyalty of his forces wasrestrained. Nobody was arrested. Men whose hands were red with theblood of Varicourt and Miomandre were allowed to defy justice, and afurious crowd was left for hours without molestation under the windowsof the king. The only cry left for them to raise was "Paris, " and itwas sure in time to do its work. The king could not escape, forLafayette held every gate. He could not resist, for Lafayettecommanded every soldier. The general never pressed the point. He wastoo cautious to attend the council where the matter was considered, asif the freedom of choice was left. This time Necker had his way, andhe came forward and announced to the assembled people that the Courtwas about to move to Paris. Lewis, who had wandered, helpless andsilent, between his chair and the balcony, spoke at last, andconfirmed it. 

In that moment of triumph Lafayette showed himself a man of instinctand of action. The multitude had sufficiently served his purpose; buttheir own passions were not appeased, and the queen personified tothem all the antagonistic and unpopular forces. The submission of theking was a foregone conclusion: not so the reconciliation of thequeen. He said to her, "What are your Majesty's intentions?" Sheanswered, "I know my fate, I mean to die at the feet of the king. "Then Lafayette led her forward, in the face of the storm, and, as nota word could be heard, he respectfully kissed her hand. The populacesaw and cheered. Under his protectorate, peace was made between theCourt and the democracy. 

In all these transactions, which determined the future of France, theAssembly had no share. They had had no initiative and no counsel. Their President had not known how to prevent the irruption of thewomen; he had supplied them with bread, and had been unable to turnthem out until the National Guard arrived. After two in the morning, when he heard that all was quiet at the Palace, he adjourned thesitting. Next day he proposed that they should attend the king in abody; but Mirabeau would not allow it to be done. One hundred deputiesgave a futile escort to the royal family, and the Assembly followedsoon after. The power was passing from them to the disciplined peopleof Paris, and beyond them and their commander to the men who managedthe masses. Their reign had lasted from July 16 to October 6. 

It took seven hours to bring the royal family from Versailles toParis, at a foot pace, surrounded by the victorious women, who cried:"We bring the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy. " And theywere right. Supplies became abundant; and the sudden change encouragedmany to believe that the scarcity had not been due to economic causes. 

X

MIRABEAU

The transfer of the Government to Paris, which degraded and obscuredthe king, at once made the queen the foremost person in the State. Those days of October are an epoch in her character as well as in herlife, and we must turn our thoughts to her, who had so much influenceand so much sorrow, and who beyond all women in European history, excepting one, has charmed and saddened mankind. She had provedinferior to her position during the years of her prosperity, and haddisgraced herself, even in her mother's eyes, by her share in thedismissal of Turgot. The Court was filled with stories injurious toher good name, and the calumny of the diamond necklace showed soclearly what a Prince of the Church thought her capable of, stakinghis existence on his belief, that her own sister suspected her, andthey remained long estranged. Her frivolity was unchecked by religion;but a year or two before her misfortunes began, she became moreserious; and when they were about to end, a priest found his way intothe prison, and she was prepared to die. At first, she was dreaded asthe most illiberal influence near the throne, and the Parliament ofParis denounced her as the occult promoter of oppression. In thedecisive days of June 1789 she induced Lewis to sacrifice to the causeof aristocracy the opportune reforms that might have retrieved hisfortunes. The emigration left her to confront alone the vengeance ofthe people. The terrific experience of October, when she saw death sonear, and was made to feel so keenly the hatred she inspired, soberedin a moment the levity of her life, and brought out higher qualities. It was on that day that she began to remind those around her whosedaughter she was. Ignorant as she was and passionate, she could neverbecome a safe adviser. But she acquired decision, vigour, andself-command, and was able sometimes to strengthen the wavering mindof her husband. Too brave to be easily frightened, she refused atfirst the proffered aid of Mirabeau; and when, too late, she bent herpride to ask for it, she acted with her eyes open, without confidenceor hope. For the surging forces of the day, for the idea that mighthave saved her, the idea of a government uniting the best propertiesof a monarchy with the best properties of a republic, she had neithersympathy nor understanding. Yet she was not wedded to the maxims thathad made the greatness of her race, and the enmity of the princes andthe _émigrés_ saved her from the passions of the old _régime_. Condéspoke of her as a democrat; and she would have been glad to exchangethe institutions of 1791 for something like the British constitutionas it existed in those Tory days. She perished through her insinceritymore than through the traditional desire for power. When the king wasbeheaded, the Prince Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg, reputed the mostsagacious and enlightened among the prelates of the empire, was heardto say, "It ought to have been the queen. " We who see farther mayallow the retribution that befell her follies and her errors to arrestour judgment. 

Marie Antoinette's negotiation with Mirabeau, and the memorableendeavour of Mirabeau to restore the constitutional throne, is thecentral feature in the period now before us. 

By the compulsory removal to Paris the democracy became preponderant. They were strengthened by the support of organized anarchy outside, and by the disappearance of their chief opponents within. Mounier wasthe first to go. The outrage at Versailles had occurred while hepresided, and he resigned his seat with indignation. He attempted torouse his own province against the Assembly, which had betrayed itsmandate, and renounced its constituents; but Dauphiné, the home andbasis of his influence, rejected him, and he went into exile. Hisexample was followed by Lally Tollendal and a large number of moderatemen, who despaired of their country, and who, by declining furtherresponsibility, helped to precipitate the mischief they foresaw. 

The constitutional cause, already opposed by Conservatives, was nowdeserted by the Liberals. Malouet remained at his post. He had beenless prominent and less eager than Mounier, and he was not so easilydiscouraged. The Left were now able to carry out in every departmentof the State their interpretation of the Rights of Man. They weregoverned mainly by two ideas. They distrusted the king as amalefactor, convicted of the unpardonable sin of absolutism, whom itwas impossible to subject to too much limitation and control; and theywere persuaded that the securities for individual freedom which arerequisite under a personal government are superfluous in a popularcommunity conducting its affairs by discussion and compromise andadjustment, in which the only force is public opinion. The two viewstended to the same practical result--to strengthen the legislativepower, which is the nation, and weaken the executive power, which isthe king. To arrest this tendency was the last effort that consumedthe life of Mirabeau. The danger that he dreaded was no longer thepower of the king, but the weakness of the king. 

The old order of things had fallen, and the customary ways and forceswere abolished. The country was about to be governed by newprinciples, new forms, and new men. All the assistance that orderderives from habit and tradition, from local connection and personalcredit, was lost. Society had to pass through a dangerous and chaoticinterval, during which the supreme need was a vigorous administration. That is the statesmanlike idea which held possession of Mirabeau, andguided him consistently through the very tortuous and adventurouscourse of his last days. He had no jealousy of the Executive. Ministers ought to be chosen in the Assembly, ought to lead theAssembly, and to be controlled by it; and then there would be nomotive to fear them and to restrict their action. That was an idea notto be learnt from Montesquieu, and generally repudiated by theoristsof the separation of powers. It was familiar to Mirabeau from hisexperience of England, where, in 1784, he had seen the country come tothe support of the king against the parliament. Thence he gathered theconception of a patriot king, of a king the true delegate andmandatory of the nation, in fact of an incipient Emperor. If hisschemes had come to anything, it is likely that his democratic monarchmight have become as dangerous as any arbitrary potentate could be, and that his administration would have proved as great an obstacle toparliamentary government as French administration has always beensince Napoleon. But his purpose at the time was sincerely politic andlegitimate, and he undertook alone the defence of constitutionalprinciples. During the month of September Mirabeau raised the questionof a parliamentary Ministry, both in the press and in the Assembly. Heprepared a list of eminent men for the several offices, assigning tohimself a seat in the Cabinet without a portfolio. It was a plan tomake him and Talleyrand masters of the Government. The Ministers ofthe day did not trust him, and had no wish to make way for him, andwhen, on November 6, he proposed that Ministers be heard in theNational Assembly, the Archbishop of Bordeaux instigated Montlosierand Lanjuinais to oppose him. Both were men of high character, andboth had some attainments; and in their aversion for him, and for hisevident self-seeking, they carried a motion forbidding deputies totake office. By this vote, of November 7, which permanently excludedMirabeau from the councils of the king, the executive was deprived ofauthority. It is one of the decisive acts of the Constituent Assembly, for it ruined the constitutional monarchy. 

Mirabeau was compelled to rely on a dissolution as the only prospectof better things. He knew that the vote was due as much to his own badname as to a deliberate dislike of the English practice. The questionfor him now was whether he could accomplish through the Court what wasimpossible through the Assembly. He at once drew up a paper, exhortingthe king to place himself at the head of the Revolution, as itsmoderator and guide. The Count of Provence refused to submit his plansto the king, but recommended him for the part of a secret adviser. Just then an event occurred, which is mysterious to this day, butwhich had the effect of bringing Mirabeau into closer relations withthe king's brother. At Christmas, the Marquis de Favras was arrested, and it was discovered that he was a confidential agent of the Prince, who had employed him to raise a loan for a purpose that was neverdivulged--some said, to carry off the king to a frontier fortress, others suspected a scheme of counter-revolution. For the electoral lawexcluded the ignorant and the indigent from the franchise, limitingthe rights of active citizenship to those who paid a very moderate sumin taxes. It was obvious that this exclusion, by confining power toproperty, created the raw material for Socialism in the future. Someday a dexterous hand might be laid on the excluded multitudecongregated at Paris, to overthrow the government of the middle class. The Constituent Assembly was in danger of being overtrumped, and wasnecessarily suspicious. 

By Mirabeau's advice, the Count of Provence at once made a publicdeclaration of sound revolutionary sentiments, and disavowed Favras. His speech, delivered at the Hôtel de Ville, was well received and herose in popular favour. Meantime, his unhappy confederate was triedfor treason against the nation, and found guilty. Favras askedwhether, on a full and explicit confession, his life would be spared. He was told that nothing could save him. The judge exhorted him to diein silence, like a brave man. The priest who assisted him afterwardsprofessed that he had saved the life of the Count of Provence. Favrasunderwent his fate with fortitude, keeping his secret to the end. Theevidence which would have compromised the prince was taken away, andno historian has seen it. The fatal documents were restored to himwhen he became king by the daughter of the man who had concealed them. 

For some weeks the Count of Provence was ambitious of power, andallowed Mirabeau to put him forward as a kind of Prime Minister, orfor a position analogous to that of the Cardinal-nephew inseventeenth-century Rome. He had ability, caution, and, for themoment, popularity; but he was irresolute, indolent, and vain. Ifanything could be made of him, it was clear that the active partnerwould be Mirabeau. He was neither loved nor trusted by the king andqueen, and with such a confederate at his elbow he might becomeformidable. Necker devised a plan by which his scheming was easilyfrustrated. The king appeared before the Assembly, withoutpreliminaries, and delivered an unexpected statement of policy, adopting the entire work of the Revolution, as far as it had gone, andpraising in particular the recent division of Provinces intodepartments. 

Every step, until that day, had been taken reluctantly, feebly, undercompulsion. Every concession had been a defeat and a surrender. OnFebruary 4, under no immediate pressure, Lewis deliberately took thelead of the movement. It was an act, not of weakness, but of policy, not a wound received and acquiesced in, but a stroke delivered. TheAssembly responded by at once taking the civic oath to maintain theConstitution. As that instrument did not yet exist, none could saywhat the demonstration would involve. It was adopted for the sake ofcommitting the remnant of the privileged orders who yielded underprotest. 

Mirabeau's aristocratic brother threw away his sword, saying thatthere was nothing else for a gentleman to do, when the king abandonedhis sceptre. Mirabeau himself was indignant with what he called apantomime; for he said that Ministers had no right to screen their ownresponsibility behind the inviolate throne. He saw that his patron wasingeniously set aside and stranded, and he conceived that his ownprofound calculations were baffled. Yet the perspicacity that heseldom wanted failed him at that moment. For the reconciliation ofthe people with the king, the executive triumphing in its popularity, guiding the Revolution to its goal, was the exact reproduction of hisproposals, and was borrowed from his manifestoes. 

The significance of this was at once felt by the foreign advisers ofthe queen. Mercy Argenteau, who had been Austrian ambassadorthroughout the reign, and who was a faithful and intelligent friend, suggested that if they sincerely accepted the policy, they would dowell to take the politician with it, that the Count of Provence couldbe best disabled by depriving him of his prompter, that the magic isnot in the wand but in the hand that waves it. The queen hesitated, for Mirabeau had threatened her in the last days at Versailles, and itwas not yet proved that he was not concerned in the attempt to murderher. She declared that nothing would induce her to see him, and shewished for somebody who could undertake to manage him, and who wouldbe responsible for his conduct. Mercy, regardless of her scruples, sent for La Marck, who was at his Belgian home, opposing the Emperor, and fostering a Federal republic, and who in consequence was not infavour with Marie Antoinette. La Marck was intimate with Mirabeau, andkept him in pocket money. He undertook the negotiation, with littlehope of a profitable result; and at his house Mercy and Mirabeau had asecret meeting. They parted, well pleased with each other. Mirabeauadvised that the king should leave Paris, and the advice bore fruit. Mercy did not declare the intentions of the Court, and Mirabeaucontinued to act in his own way, treating with Lafayette for money oran embassy, and attacking the clergy, with whose cause Lewis was moreand more identified. To this interval belongs the famous scene wherehe exclaimed that from the place where he stood he could see thewindow from which a king of France fired on his Protestant subjects. Maury, not perceiving the snare, bounded from his seat, and cried out, "Nonsense! it is not visible from here. "

When he made that speech it is clear that Mirabeau was not exertinghimself to secure confidence at Court; and for some weeks in springthe negotiation hung fire. At length, La Marck convinced the queenthat his friend had been falsely accused of the crime of October, andthe king proposed that he should be asked to write down his views. Heperemptorily rejected La Marck's advice that the Ministers should beadmitted to the secret. He avowed to Mercy that he intended soon tochange them for men who could co-operate with Mirabeau; but he wasresolved not to place himself at once irrevocably in the power of aman in whom he had no confidence, and who was only the subject of anexperiment. Consequently, Mirabeau's first object of attack was theMinistry, and the king's forces were divided. The position was a falseone from end to end; but this hostility to Necker served to disguisethe reality. On the 10th of May, 1790, he drew up a paper which LaMarck carried to the queen, and which at once had the effect of makingthe Court zealous to complete the bargain. La Marck asked Mirabeauwhat were his conditions. He replied that he would be happy on £1000 ayear, if his debts could be paid; but he feared that they were tooheavy for him to expect it. On inquiry, it turned out that they were alittle over £8000. Lewis XVI. Offered to clear them off, to give him£3000 a year while the Assembly lasted, and a million francs downwhenever it came to an end. 

In this way both parties were secure. Mirabeau could not play false, without losing, not only his income, but an eventual sum of £40, 000. The king could not cast him off without wasting the considerable sumpaid to his creditors. The Archbishop of Toulouse undertook thedelicate task of dealing with them; and meeting his debtor constantly, a strange intimacy arose between the two men. 

Mirabeau, wild with the joy of his deliverance, forgot all prudenceand precaution. He took a town house and a country house; he boughtbooks and pictures, carriages and horses, and gave dinner-parties atwhich six servants waited on his guests. After a few months he wantedmoney, and more was given without question. The Government proposed atlast to buy him an annuity, with one-fourth of the capital which wasto fall due at the dissolution; but the intention was not carried out. The entire sum that Mirabeau received, up to his death, from the kingamounted to about £12, 000. In return, between June 1 and February 16he wrote fifty-one notes for the Court discussing the events of theday, and exposing by degrees vast schemes of policy. When they came tobe known, half a century ago, they added immeasurably to his fame, andthere are people who compare his precepts and prescriptions with thelast ten years of Mazarin and the beginning of the Consulate, with thefirst six years of Metternich or the first eight of Bismarck, or, on adifferent plane, with the early administration of Chatham. 

Mirabeau himself was proud of his new position, and relied on thiscorrespondence to redeem his good name. He was paid to be of his ownopinion. The king had gone over to him; he had changed nothing in hisviews to meet the wishes of the king. His purpose throughout had beenthe consolidation of representative monarchy on the ruins ofabsolutism. To the king in league with privilege he was implacablyopposed. To the king divested of that complicity he was a convincedand ardent friend. 

The opportunity of proving his faith was supplied by Captain Cook. Inhis last voyage the navigator visited the island since named after hislieutenant Vancouver, and sailed into Nootka Sound, to which, in hisreport, he drew the attention of the Government. Three or four yearsbefore, the Spaniards had been there, and had taken formal possession;and the Russians, spreading southward along the coast, acknowledgedtheir right, and withdrew. But the place was far north of the regionsthey actually occupied; and English adventurers, with the sanction ofthe Government, settled there, and opened a trade in peltry withChina. After a year or two, the Spaniards came in force, and carriedthem off, with their ships and their cargoes; and claiming the entirePacific seaboard from Cape Horn to Alaska, they called on the EnglishMinisters to punish their intruding countrymen. They also equipped afleet of forty sail of the line, assuring the British _chargéd'affaires_ that it was only to protect themselves against theRevolution. Pitt was not lulled by these assurances, or by thedelivery of the confiscated ships. He had authorised the proceedingsof the traders with the intention of resisting the Spanish claimbeyond the limits of effective occupation. He now demanded reparation, and fitted out a fleet superior to that with which Nelson crushed thecombined navies of France and Spain. Under the treaty of 1761 Spaindemanded the support of France. If the French armed, as the Spaniardswere arming, there was reason to hope that England, in so very dubiousa question, would listen to terms; and if France refused to stand by amanifest engagement, Spain would be free to seek new friends. TheEmperor sustained the appeal. It would be well for him if England wasdiverted from the concerns of Eastern Europe, and if France wasoccupied in the West. The French Ministers admitted their obligationand began to arm. 

On May 14, just after the first negotiation between Mirabeau and theCourt, the matter came before the Assembly. It was a common beliefthat war would strengthen the executive. The democratic leadersrepudiated the Family Compact, and resented an alliance which was notnational but dynastic and of the essence of those things which theywere sweeping away. They sent pacific messages to the British embassy, and claimed for the representative assembly the right of pronouncingon peace and war. 

Mirabeau, unlike many others, regarded a European war as a danger tothe throne. But he was preparing for civil war, and meant to securethe army and navy on the royal side. He demanded for the king theexclusive right of declaring war and making peace. That is theprinciple under a constitution where the deputies make the Ministers. In France, Ministers were excluded from parliament and the principledid not apply. Barnave answered Mirabeau, and defeated him. On May 22, in the most powerful constitutional argument he ever delivered, Mirabeau insisted that, if the ultimate decision rested with theAssembly, it could act only on the proposition of the Crown. Inlegislation, the king had no initiative. Mirabeau established theroyal initiative in peace and war. It was the first-fruit of thesecret compact. The new ally had proved not only that he was capableand strong, but that he was faithful. For by asking more than he couldobtain he had incurred, for the moment, a great loss of credit. Theexcess of his unwonted royalism made him an object of suspicion fromthat day. To recover the ground, he issued an amended version of hisfirst speech; but others printed the two texts in parallel columns, and exposed the fraud. He had rendered an important service, and itwas done at serious cost to himself. The event cemented the alliance, and secured his position with the king. 

The Assembly voted a solemn declaration, that France would never makewar for conquest, or against freedom. After that, Spain had little tohope for, and Pitt became defiant. Negotiations lasted till October. The Assembly appointed a Committee on Foreign Affairs, in whichMirabeau predominated, casting all his influence on the side of peace, and earning the gratitude and the gold of England. At last, themutinous temper of the Brest fleet settled the question. 

The great Bourbon alliance was dissolved, and Pitt owed a signaltriumph to the revolutionary spirit and the moderating influence ofMirabeau. His defence of the prerogative deserved a reward, and he wasreceived in a secret audience by Marie Antoinette. The interview tookplace at St. Cloud, July 3. The statesman did not trust his newfriends, and he instructed the nephew who drove him, in disguise, tothe back door, to fetch the police if he did not reappear inthree-quarters of an hour. The conversation was satisfactory, andMirabeau, as he kissed the queen's hand, declared with chivalrousfervour that the monarchy was saved. He spoke sincerely. The comedianand deceiver was not the wily and unscrupulous intriguer, but theinexperienced daughter of the Empress-queen. She never believed in histruth. When he continued to thunder against the Right, the king andqueen shook their heads, and repeated that he was incorrigible. Thelast decision they came to in his lifetime was to reject his plans infavour of that which brought them to Varennes. But as the year woreon, they could not help seeing that the sophistical free-lance andgiver of despised advice was the most prodigious individual force inthe world, and that France had never seen his like. Everybody nowperceived it, for his talent and resource increased rapidly, since hewas steadied by a definite purpose, and a contract he could neverafford to break. The hostile press knew of his visit to St. Cloudthree days after it occurred, and pretended to know for how manymillions he had sold himself. They were too reckless to obtain belief, but they were very near the truth; and the secret of hiscorrespondence was known or guessed by at least twenty persons. 

With this sword hanging over him, with this rope round his neck, inthe autumn and winter of 1790, Mirabeau rose to an ascendancy in whichhe outweighed all parties. He began his notes by an attempt toundermine the two men who stood in his way. Lafayette was too strongfor him. On the first anniversary of the Bastille he received anovation. Forty thousand National Guards assembled from all parts ofFrance for the feast of Federation. At an altar erected in the Champde Mars, Talleyrand celebrated his last Mass, and France sanctionedthe doings of Paris. The king was present, but all the demonstrationwas for the hero of two hemispheres, on his white charger. In Novembera new Ministry took office, composed of his partisans. Mirabeauattempted a coalition, but Lafayette did not feel the need of hisfriendship. He said, "I have resisted the king of England in hispower, the king of France in his authority, the people in its rage; Iam not going to yield to Mirabeau. "

Necker was less tenacious of office, and rather than consent to anincreased issue of _assignats_, resigned, much to his honour, andretired obscurely. Mirabeau triumphed. He had opposed the _assignats_at first, although Clavière defended them in his newspaper. He nowchanged his attitude. He not only affirmed that the Church lands wouldbe adequate security for paper, making it equivalent to gold, but hewas willing that the purchase money should be paid in _assignats_, doing away with bullion altogether. But the cloven hoof appeared whenhe assured the king that the plan which he defended would fail, andwould involve France in ruin. He meant that it would ruin theAssembly, and would enable the king to dissolve. The sameMachiavellian purpose guided him in Church questions. He was at hearta Liberal in matters of conscience, and thought toleration too weak aterm for the rights inseparable from religion. But he wished theconstitutional oath to be imposed with rigour, and that the priestsshould be encouraged to refuse it. He declined to give a pledge thatthe Assembly would not interfere with doctrine, and he prepared toraise the questions of celibacy and of divorce in order to aggravatethe irritation. He proposed to restore authority by civil war; and theroad to civil war was bankruptcy and persecution. Meantime, the courtof inquiry vindicated him from aspersions connected with the attack onVersailles; as chairman of the Diplomatic Committee, he was thearbiter of foreign policy. Necker and all his colleagues save one hadgone down before him; he was elected President of the Jacobins inNovember, and when he asked for leave of absence, the Assembly, on themotion of Barnave, requested him not to absent himself. Montmorin, theonly member of Necker's Ministry who remained at his post, madeovertures to him, and they came to an understanding. The mostremarkable of all the notes to the king is the one that records theirconversation. They agreed on a plan of united action. Mirabeauthereupon drew up the 47th note, which is a treatise of constitutionalmanagement and intrigue, and discloses his designs in their last phasebut one, at Christmas 1790. 

Mirabeau never swerved from the fundamental convictions of 1789, andhe would have become a republican if Lewis had gone over to thereactionary _émigrés_. But he wished him to retire to some provincialtown, that he might not be in the power of the Assembly, and might beable to disperse it, backed by the growing anger of the country. Meantime, opinion was to be worked and roused by every device. He sethimself strenuously to form a central party out of the various groupsof deputies. Montmorin was in friendly touch with some of them, and hehad the command of money. Mirabeau laboured to gain over others. Lateone night he had a long conference with Malouet, whom he dazzled, andwho influenced a certain number of votes. 

On the other hand, the action of Montmorin extended to Barnave. Itseemed reasonable to suppose that a combination which reached fromBarnave on the Left to Malouet on the Right would be strong enougheither to retrieve its errors, or to break it up, in conjunction withthe Court. 

At the end of January, 1791, Mirabeau became President for the firsttime, and he occupied the chair with unforeseen dignity anddistinction. He had attained the summit of his career. Just then, theking's aunts announced their departure for Rome. There was muchdiscontent, because, if they could be detained, it would be more easyto keep the king at Paris. Mirabeau made the Assembly feel thatinterference with the princesses would be contemptible. Twice theywere stopped on their way, and twice released. Everybody saw what thisimplied, and Paris was agitated. A tumult broke out in the Tuileriesgarden, which Mirabeau, summoned from table, at once appeased. He wasconfident in his strength, and when the Assembly discussed measuresagainst emigration, he swore that he would never obey a body guilty ofinquisitorial dictation. He quelled the murmurs of the Left byexclaiming, "_Silence aux trente voix!_" This was the date of hisbreach with the Democrats. It was February 28, and he was to dine withthe Duke d'Aiguillon. When he came, the door was shut in his face. ByLa Marck's advice, he went that night to the Jacobins, hoping todetach the club from the leaders. But he had shown his hand, and hisenemies knew how to employ their opportunity. Duport and Lamethattacked him with extreme violence, aiming at his expulsion. Thediscussion is not reported. But three of those who were present agreethat Mirabeau seemed to be disconcerted and appalled by the strengthof the case against him, and sat with the perspiration streaming downhis face. His reply was, as usual, an oratorical success; but he didnot carry his audience with him, and he went home disheartened. TheJacobin array stood unbroken. 

On March 4, Lord Gower wrote that the governing power was passing toMirabeau. But on the same day he himself avowed to La Marck that hehad miscalculated, and was losing courage. On the 25th there was adebate on the Regency, in which he spoke with caution, and dissembled. That day the ambassador again wrote that Mirabeau had shown that healone was fit for power. Then the end came. Tissot, meeting him soonafter the scene at the Jacobins, thought that he looked like a dyingman. He was sinking under excess of work combined with excess ofdissipation. When he remonstrated with his brother for getting drunk, the other replied, "Why grudge me the only vice you have notappropriated?" It was remembered afterwards, when suspicion arose, that he had several attacks of illness during that month of March. Onthe 26th he was brought in to Paris from his villa in an alarmingcondition. La Marck's interests were concerned in a debate on mineralproperty which was fixed for the following day. Fortified with a gooddeal of Tokay, Mirabeau spoke repeatedly. It was the last time. Hecame back to his friend and said, "Your cause is won, but I am lost. "When his danger became known, it seemed that nothing had occurred todiminish public confidence, or tarnish the lustre of his fame. Thecrowd that gathered in the street made it almost impossible toapproach his door. He was gratified to know that Barnave had called, and liked to hear how much feeling was shown by the people of Paris. After a consultation, which was held on April 1, he made up his mindto die, and signed his will. Talleyrand paid him a long visit, andtook away a discourse on the law of Inheritance, which he read in theAssembly before the remains of his friend were cold, but which did notdeserve the honour, being, like about thirty of his speeches, the workof a stranger. The presence of Talleyrand, with whom he hadquarrelled, was welcome to Mirabeau, who, though not a believer, didnot wish it to be thought that he had rejected the consolations ofreligion. The parish priest came, but, being told of the prelate'spresence, went away; and a report spread that the dying sinner hadreceived the ministrations of a more spiritual ecclesiastic than theBishop of Autun. 

Mirabeau never knew how little the royal personages whom he servedesteemed his counsels; and he died believing that he alone could havesaved the monarchy, and that it would perish with him. If he hadlived, he said that he would have given Pitt trouble, for there was achange in his foreign policy. On January 28 he still spoke of theeternal fraternity of England; but in March he was ready to call outthe fleet, in the interest of Russia, and was only prevented by theattack of which he died. Whether he supported England against Spain, or Russia against England, his support was paid for in gold. To hisconfederates, his illness was a season of terror. If an enemydisguised as a creditor caused seals to be set upon his papers, adiscovery must have ensued that would ruin many reputations andimperil many lives. He clung to the secret documents on which heintended that his fame should rest. On the day of his death, when theywere deposited with La Marck, the secretary who had transcribed themstabbed himself. On the morning of Saturday, April 2, there was nohope, and Mirabeau asked for opium. He died before the prescriptionwas made up. Several doctors who made the post-mortem examinationbelieved that there were marks of poison; but when they were warnedthat they would be torn to pieces, and the king also, they held theirpeace. 

Odious as he was, and foredoomed to fail, he was yet the supremefigure of the time. Tocqueville, who wrote the best book, or one ofthe two best books, on the subject, looking to the permanent result, describes the Revolution as having continued and completed the work ofthe monarchy by intensifying the unity of power. It is more true tosay that the original and essential spirit of the movement wasdecentralisation--to take away from the executive government, and togive to local authorities. The executive could not govern, because itwas obliged to transmit orders to agents not its own, whom it neitherappointed nor dismissed nor controlled. The king was deprived ofadministrative power, as he had been deprived of legislative power. That distrust, reasonable in the old régime, ought to have ceased, when the Ministers appointed by the king were deputies presented bythe Assembly. That was the idea by which Mirabeau would have preservedthe Revolution from degenerating through excess of decentralisationinto tyranny. As a Minister, he might have saved the Constitution. Itis not to the discredit of the Assembly that the horror which his lifeinspired made his genius inefficient, and that their labours failedbecause they deemed him too bad for power. 

If Mirabeau is tried by the test of public morals, the only standardof political conduct on which men may be expected to agree, theverdict cannot be doubtful. His ultimate policy was one vast intrigue, and he avowedly strove to do evil that good might come. The thing ishardly less infamous in the founder of the Left Centre than in Mauryand his unscrupulous colleagues of the Right. There was at no time aprospect of success, for he never had the king or the queen for onemoment with him. 

The answer is different if we try him by a purely political test, andask whether he desired power for the whole or freedom for the parts. Mirabeau was not only a friend of freedom, which is a term to bedefined, but a friend of federalism, which both Montesquieu andRousseau regarded as the condition of freedom. When he spokeconfidentially, he said that there was no other way in which a greatcountry like France could be free. If in this he was sincere, and Ibelieve that he was sincere, he deserves the great place he holds inthe memory of his countrymen. 

XI

SIEYÈS AND THE CONSTITUTION CIVILE

Before coming to the conflict between Church and State, with which thelegislation of 1790 closes, I must speak of a man memorable far beyondMirabeau in the history of political thought and political action, whois the most perfect representative of the Revolution. I mean the AbbéSieyès. As a priest without a vocation, he employed himself withsecular studies, and mastered and meditated the French and the Englishwriters of the age, politicians, economists, and philosophers. Learning from many, he became the disciple of none, and was thoroughlyindependent, looking beyond the horizon of his century, and fartherthan his own favourites, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Turgot. Heunderstood politics as the science of the State as it ought to be, andhe repudiated the product of history, which is things as they are. NoAmerican ever grasped more firmly the principle that experience is anincompetent teacher of the governing art. He turned resolutely fromthe Past, and refused to be bound by the precepts of men who believedin slavery and sorcery, in torture and persecution. He deemed historya misleading and useless study, and knew little of its examples andits warnings. But he was sure that the Future must be different, andmight be better. In the same disdainful spirit he rejected Religion asthe accumulated legacy of childhood, and believed that it arrestedprogress by depreciating terrestrial objects. Nevertheless he had theconfidence of Lubersac, Bishop of Tréguier, and afterwards ofChartres, who recommended him to the clergy of Montfort as theirdeputy. 

Sieyès preferred to stand for the Third Estate at Paris, where he waselected last of all the candidates. One of his preliminary tractscirculated in 30, 000 copies, and had promptly made him famous, for itwas as rich in consequences as the ninety-five theses of Wittenberg. His philosophy of history consisted in one idea. Barbarians had comedown from Germany on the people of civilised and imperial Gaul, andhad subjugated and robbed them, and the descendants of the invadingrace were now the feudal nobles, who still held power and profit, andcontinued to oppress the natives. This identification of privilegednoble with conquering Frank was of older date; and in this century ithas been made the master-key to modern history. When Thierrydiscovered the secret of our national development in the remarks ofWamba the Witless to Gurth, under the Sherwood oaks, he applied to usa formula familiar to his countrymen; and Guizot always defined Frenchhistory as a perpetual struggle between hostile nations until theeighteenth century made good the wrong that was done in the fifth. 

Right or wrong, the theory of Sieyès was adopted by his most learnedsuccessors, and must not be imputed to ignorance. His argument is thatthe real nation consisted of the mass of men enjoying no privilege, and that they had a claim for compensation and reprisal against thosewho had been privileged to oppress and to despoil them. The ThirdEstate was equal to the three Estates together, for the others had noright to be represented. As power exercised otherwise than by consent, power that does not emanate from those for whose use it exists, is ausurpation, the two first orders must be regarded as wrongdoers. Theyought to be repressed, and the means of doing harm taken from them. 

Although Sieyès neither wrote well nor spoke well, yet within afortnight of his maiden speech he had vanquished the ancient order ofthings in France. The Court, the Church and the _Noblesse_ had gonedown before the imposing coherence of his ideas. He soon lostconfidence in the Assembly, as it fell under the control of intrudingforces, and he drew back into an attitude of reserve and distrust. Many of his measures were adopted, but he deemed that they were spoiltin the process, and that men who sought popular applause were aversefrom instruction. 

Sieyès was essentially a revolutionist, because he held that politicaloppression can never be right, and that resistance to oppression cannever be wrong. And he was a royalist, not as believing in theproprietary right of dynasties, but because monarchy, justly limitedand controlled, is one of many forces that secure the liberty which isgiven by society and not by nature. He was a Liberal, for he thoughtliberty the end of government, and defined it as that which makes menmost completely masters of their faculties, in the largest sphere ofindependent action. He was also a democrat, for he would revise theconstitution once in a generation; and he described the law as thesettled will of those who are governed, which those who govern have noshare in making. But he was less a democrat than a Liberal, and hecontrived scientific provision against the errors of the sovereignnation. He sacrificed equality by refusing the vote to those who paidno taxes, and he preferred an elaborate system of indirect andfiltered election. He broke the direct tide of opinion by successiverenewals, avoiding dissolution. According to his doctrine, the genuinenational will proceeds from debate, not from election, and isascertained by a refined intellectual operation, not by coarse andobvious arithmetic. The object is to learn not what the countrythinks, but what it would think if it was present at the discussioncarried on by men whom it trusted. Therefore there is no imperativemandate, and the deputy governs the constituent. He mitigateddemocracy by another remarkable device. The Americans have made theguardians of the law into watchers on the lawgiver, giving to thejudiciary power to preserve the Constitution against the legislature. Sieyès invented a special body of men for the purpose, calling themthe constitutional jury, and including not judges, for he suspectedthose who had administered the ancient law of France, but the _élite_of veteran politicians. 

Thus, although all power emanates from the nation alone, and verylittle can be delegated to an hereditary and irresponsible monarch, heintended to restrict its exercise at every point, and to make surethat it would never be hasty, or violent, and that minorities shouldbe heard. In his sustained power of consistent thinking, Sieyèsresembles Bentham and Hegel. His flight is low, and he lacks grace anddistinction. He seems to have borrowed his departments fromHarrington, the distilled unity of power from Turgot, the rule of themass of taxpayers over the unproductive class above them, from thenotion that labour is the only source of wealth, which was common toFranklin and Adam Smith. But he is profoundly original, and thoughmany modern writers on politics exceed him in genius and eloquence andknowledge, none equal him in invention and resource. When he was outof public life, during the Legislative Assembly, he acted as adviserto the Girondins. Therefore he became odious to Robespierre who, afterthe fall of Danton, turned against him, and required Barère to seewhat he could be charged with. For, he said, Sieyès has more to answerfor as an enemy to freedom than any who have fallen beneath the law. 

The Abbé's nerves never quite recovered from the impressions of thattime. When he fell ill, forty years later, and became feverish, hesent down to tell the porter that he was not at home, if Robespierreshould call. He offered some ideas for the Constitution of 1795, whichfound no support. He patiently waited till his time came, and refuseda seat on the Directory. In 1799, when things were at the worst, hecame back from the embassy at Berlin, took the command, and renderedeminent service. He had no desire for power. "What I want, " he said, "is a sword. " For a moment he had thought of the Duke of Brunswick andthe Archduke Charles; at last he fixed on Joubert, and sent him tofight Suworow in Italy. If he had come home crowned with victory, theremnant of the National Assembly was to have been convoked, to placethe daughter of Lewis on her father's throne. 

At Novi, in the first action, Joubert fell, and Moreau commanded theretreat. Sieyès now applied to him. Moreau was not yet the victor ofHohenlinden. His ascendancy was doubtful, and he hesitated. They wereconferring together when news came that Bonaparte had escaped fromEgypt, and would soon be at Paris. Sieyès exclaimed, ratherimpudently, "Then France is saved!" Moreau retorted, "I am not wanted. That is the man for you. " At first Bonaparte was reserved, and took somuch time to feel his way that Sieyès, who was the head of thegovernment, called him an insolent fellow who deserved to be shot. Talleyrand brought them together, and they soon came to anunderstanding. The conspiracy of Brumaire would have failed at thedeciding moment but for the Abbé. For Bonaparte, when threatened withoutlawry, lost his head, and Sieyès quietly told him to drive out thehostile deputies. Thereupon the soldier, obeying the man of peace, drew his sword and expelled them. 

Everybody now turned to the great legislator of 1789 for theConstitution of the hour. With incomparable opportunities forobservation, he had maturely revolved schemes for the government ofFrance on the lines of that which was rejected in 1795. He refused towrite anything; but he consented to dictate, and his words were takendown by Boulay de la Meurthe, and were published long after, in avolume of which there is no copy at Paris or in London. 

What I have just said will give you a more favourable view of Sieyèsthan you may find in books. The Abbé was not a high-minded man, and hehas no friends in his own country. Some dislike him because he was apriest, some because he was an unfrocked priest. He is odious toroyalists as a revolutionist, and to republicans as a renegade. I havespoken of him as a political thinker, not as a writer, an orator, oran administrator. Mr. Wentworth Dilke and Mr. Buckle[1] have pointedout something more than specks in the character of Burke. Even if muchof what they say is true, I should not hesitate to acknowledge him asthe first political intellect of his age. Since I first spoke ofSieyès, certain papers have come to light tending to show that he wasas wicked as the rest of them. They would not affect my judgment onhis merit as a thinker. 

 [1] Dilke, _Papers of a Critic_, vol. Ii. Pp. 309-384; Buckle, _History of Civilisation_, ed. J. M. Robertson, pp. 258-269. 

In this oracular manner the Constitution of 1799 came into existence, and it was not his fault that it degenerated in the strong hands ofNapoleon. He named the three Consuls, refusing to be one himself, andhe passed into ceremonious obscurity as president of the Senate. 

When the Emperor had quarrelled with his ablest advisers he regrettedthat he had renounced the aid of such an auxiliary. He thought himunfit to govern, for that requires sword and spurs; but he admittedthat Sieyès often had new and luminous ideas, and might have beenuseful to him beyond all the ministers of the Empire. Talleyrand, whodisliked Sieyès, and ungenerously reproached him with cupidity, spokeof him to Lord Brougham as the one statesman of the time. The best ofthe political legacy of the Revolution has been his work. Otherspulled down, but he was a builder, and he closed in 1799 the era whichhe had opened ten years before. In the history of political doctrine, where almost every chapter has yet to be written, none will be morevaluable than the one that will show what is permanent and progressivein the ideas that he originated. 

 * * * * *

It was the function of the constituent Assembly to recast the laws inconformity with the Rights of Man, to abolish every survival ofabsolutism, every heirloom of inorganic tradition, that wasinconsistent with them. In every department of State they were obligedto make ruins, to remove them, and to raise a new structure from thefoundation. The transition from the reign of force to the reign ofopinion, from custom to principle, led to a new order throughconfusion, uncertainty, and suspense. The efficacy of the comingsystem was nowhere felt at first. The soldiers, who were so soon toform the finest army ever known, ran away as soon as they saw a shotfired. The prosperous finances of modern France began with bankruptcy. But in one division of public life the Revolution not only made a badbeginning, but went on, step by step, to a bad end, until, by civilwar and anarchy and tyranny, it had ruined its cause. The majority ofthe clergy were true to the new ideas, and on some decisive occasions, June 19 and August 4, promoted their victory. Many prelates wereenlightened reformers, and even Robespierre believed that the inferiorclergy were, in the bulk, democratic. Nevertheless the Assembly, by aseries of hostile measures, carefully studied, and long pursued, turned them into implacable enemies, and thereby made the Revolutionodious to a large part of the French people. 

This gradual but determined change of front, improbable at first, andevidently impolitic, is the true cause of the disastrous conflict inwhich the movement of 1789 came to ruin. Had there been noecclesiastical establishment to deal with, it may be that thedevelopment of Jacobin theory, or the logic of socialism, would haveled to the same result. As it was, they were secondary causes of thecatastrophe that was to follow. That there was a fund of activeanimosity for the church, in a generation tutored by Voltaire, Diderot, Helvétius, Holbach, Rousseau and Raynal, none could doubt. But in the men of more immediate influence, such as Turgot, Mirabeauand Sieyès, contempt was more visible than resentment; and it was byslow degrees that the full force of aversion predominated over liberalfeeling and tolerant profession. But if the liberal tendency had beenstronger, and tolerant convictions more distinct, there were manyreasons which made a collision inevitable between the Church and theprevailing ideas. The Gallican Church had been closely associated withthe entire order of things which the Assembly, at all costs, wasresolved to destroy. For three centuries from the time when theybecame absolute the French kings had enjoyed all the higher patronage. No such prerogative could be left to the Crown when it becameconstitutional, and it was apparent that new methods for theappointment of priest and prelate, that a penetrating change in thesystem of ecclesiastical law, would be devised. 

Two things, chiefly, made the memory of monarchy odious: dynastic warand religious persecution. But the wars had ended in the conquest ofAlsace, and in the establishment of French kings in Spain and Naples. The odium of persecution remained; and if it was not always assignableto the influence of the clergy, it was largely due to them, and theyhad attempted to renew it down to the eve of the Revolution. Thereduction of the royal power was sure to modify seriously the positionof men upon whom the royal power, in its excess, had so much relied, and who had done so much to raise up and to sustain it. People hadcome to believe that the cause of liberty demanded, not theemancipation, but the repression of the priesthood. These wereunderlying motives; but the signal was given by financial interests. The clergy, being a privileged order, like the nobles, were involvedin the same fate. With the nobles, at the same night sitting of August4, they surrendered the right of taxing, and of not being taxed. 

When the principle of exemption was rejected, the economists computedthat the clergy owed 100 millions of arrears. Their tithes wereabolished, with a promise of redemption. But this the landowners wouldnot suffer, and they gained largely by the transaction. It followedthat the clergy, instead of a powerful and wealthy order, had tobecome salaried functionaries. Their income was made a charge on theState; and as the surplice fees went with the abolished tithe, theservices of the parish priest to his parishioners were gratuitous. Itwas not intended that the priests should be losers, and the bargainwas a bad one for the public. It involved an expenditure of at leasttwo millions a year, at a time when means were wanting to pay thenational creditor. The consequences were obvious. The State, havingundertaken to remunerate the inferior clergy out of a falling revenue, had a powerful motive to appropriate what remained of the Churchproperty when the tithes were lost. That resource was abundant for thepurpose. But it was concentrated in the hands of the higher clergy andof religious orders--both under the ban of opinion, as nobles or ascorporations. Their wealth would clear off the debts of the clergy, would pay all their salaries and annuities, and would strengthen thepublic credit. After the first spoliation, in the month of August, these consequences became clear to all, and the secularisation ofChurch property was a foregone conclusion. 

On October 10 Talleyrand moved that it be appropriated by the State. He computed that after ample endowment of the clergy, there would be apresent and increasing surplus of £2, 000, 000 a year. It was difficultfor the clergy to resist the motion, after the agreement of August, that the State should make provision for them. The Archbishop of Parishad surrendered the tithe to be disposed of by the nation; and heafterwards added the gold and silver vessels and ornaments, to thevalue of several millions. Béthizy, Bishop of Usez, had declared theChurch property a gift of the nation, which the nation alone couldrecall. Maury, loosely arguing, admitted that property is the productof law; from which it followed that it was subject to modification bylaw. It was urged in reply that corporate property is created by law, but not private, as the individual has his rights from nature. Theclergy complained that the concessions of August were applied to theirdestruction in November, but they suffered by their change of front. Boisgelin, Archbishop of Aix, proposed a practical and statesmanlikearrangement. As the credit of the Church stood better than the creditof the State, he offered to advance £16, 000, 000 as a loan to theGovernment on the security of Church property, which it would thusbecome impossible for the Assembly to tamper with. The State would berescued from its present difficulties; the Church would secure theenjoyment of its wealth for the future. 

By restoring the finances, and the authority of government, it wasbelieved that this plan would ensure the success of the Revolution, and would prevent the collapse that was already threatening. Necker, for a moment, was fascinated. But his wife reminded him that thiscompact would establish Catholicism for ever as the State Church inFrance, and he broke off the conference. Talleyrand's motion wasaltered and reproduced in a mitigated form; and on November 26, 1789, 568 votes to 346 decided that the possessions of the clergy were atthe disposal of the nation. On December 19 it was resolved that thesum of 16 millions should be raised by the sale of the new nationalproperty, to be the basis for an issue of paper money. That was thebeginning of the _assignats_ that rendered signal service at first, and fell rapidly after two years. It was made apparent that more wasat work below the surface than the financial purpose. There was thedesire to break up a powerful organisation, to disarm the aristocraticepiscopate, and to bind the individual priest to the Revolution. Therefore Malouet made no impression when he urged that they weretaking on themselves the maintenance not only of the priesthood, butof the poor; and that no surplus would be available as long as therewas a Frenchman starving. 

In August, 1789, a committee on Church questions had been appointed, and in February, as it did not agree, its numbers were increased, andthe minority was swamped. Thereupon they reported against thereligious orders. Monasticism for some time had been declining, andthe monks fell, in a few years, from 26, 000 to 17, 000. Nine religiousorders disappeared in the course of twelve years. On February 13, 1790, the principle that the civil law supported the rule against themonk was abandoned. Members of monastic orders were to depart freelyif they liked, and to remain if they liked. Those who elected to leavewere to receive a pension. The position of those who remained wasregulated in a series of decrees, adverse to the system, butfavourable to the inmate. It was not until after the fall of thethrone that all monastic orders were dissolved, and all theirbuildings were seized. 

When the property of the Church became the property of the State, thecommittee drew up a scheme of distribution. They called it the CivilConstitution of the Clergy, meaning the regulation of relationsbetween Church and State under the new Constitution. 

The debate began on May 29, and the final vote was taken on July 12. The first object was to save money. The bishops were rich, they werenumerous, and they were not popular. Those among them who had beenchosen by the Church itself for its supreme reward, the Cardinal'shat--Rohan, Loménie de Brienne, Bernis, Montmorency andTalleyrand--were men notoriously of evil repute. Here then theCommittee proposed to economise, reducing the number by fifty, andtheir income to a thousand a year. Each of the departments, justcreated, was to become a diocese. There were no archbishops. This wasnot economy, but theory. By putting all bishops on the same level, they lowered the papacy. For the Jansenists influenced the Assembly, and the Jansenists had, for a century, borne persecution, and hadlearnt to look with aversion both on papacy and prelacy, under whichthey had suffered, and they had grown less averse to presbyterianism. As they took away the patronage from the king, and did not transfer itto the Pope who was a more absolute sovereign than the king, andbesides was a foreigner, they met the difficulty by the principle ofelection, which had been upheld by high authorities, and had played agreat part in earlier times. The bishop was to be chosen by thedepartmental electors, the parish priest by the district electors; andthis was to be done in the Church after Mass. It was assumed, but notordained, that electors of other denominations would thereby beexcluded. But at Strasburg a bishop was elected by a Protestantmajority. In conformity with the opinion of Bossuet, the right ofinstitution was taken away from Rome. 

It was the office of the king to negotiate with the Pope, and hemight have saved the Revolution, the limited monarchy, and his ownlife, if he had negotiated wisely. The new dioceses, the new revenues, were afterwards accepted. The denial of papal institution was in thespirit of Gallicanism; and the principle of election had a greattradition in its favour, and needed safeguards. Several bishopsfavoured conciliation, and wished the measure to be discussed in aNational Council. Others exhorted the Pope to make no concession. Lewis barely requested him to yield something; and when it becameclear that Rome wished to gain time, on August 24 he gave hissanction. At the same time he resolved on flight, relying onprovincial discontent and clerical agitation to restore his throne. 

On November 27 the Assembly determined to enforce acceptance of theCivil Constitution. Every ecclesiastic holding preferment orexercising public functions was required to take an oath of fidelityto the Constitution of France, sanctioned by the king. The termsimplicitly included the measure regarding the Church, which was nowpart of the Constitution, and which a large majority of the bishopshad rejected, but Rome had not. Letters had come from Rome which weresuppressed; and after the decree of November and its sanction by theking on December 26, the Pope remained officially silent. 

On the 4th of January 1791 the ecclesiastical deputies were summonedto take the prescribed oath. No conditions or limitations wereallowed, Mirabeau specially urging rigour, in the hope of reaction. When the Assembly refused to make a formal declaration that it meantno interference with the exclusive domain of religion, the greatmajority of clerical deputies declined the oath. About sixty took itunconditionally, and the proportion out of doors was nearly the same. In forty-five departments we know that there were 13, 426 conformingclergy. It would follow that there were about 23, 000 in the whole ofFrance, or about one-third of the whole, and not enough for theservice of all the churches. The question now was whether the Churchof France was to be an episcopal or a presbyterian Church. Fourbishops took the prescribed oath; but only one of them continued toact as the bishop of one of the new sees. Talleyrand refused hiselection at Paris, and laid down his mitre and the ecclesiasticalhabit. Before retiring, he consecrated two constitutional bishops, andinstituted Gobel at Paris. He said, afterwards, that but for him theFrench constitutional Church would have become presbyterian, andconsequently democratic, and hostile to the monarchy. 

Nobody could be more violently opposed to royalism than some of theelected prelates, such as Fauchet, Bishop of Calvados, who acted withthe Girondins and perished with them, or Grégoire, the Bishop ofBlois, Grégoire was the most conspicuous, and is still the best knownof the constitutional clergy. He was a man of serious convictions, andas much sincerity as is compatible with violence. With much generalinformation, he was an inaccurate writer, and in spite of the couragewhich he manifested throughout the Reign of Terror, an unimpressivespeaker. He held fast to the doctrines of an elementary liberalism, and after the fall of the Terrorists he was active in the restorationof religion and the establishment of toleration. He was absent on amission, and did not vote for the death of the king; but he expressedhis approval, and dishonoured his later years by dissembling anddenying it. Gobel, the Bishop of Paris, was far inferior to Grégoire. Hoping to save his life, he renounced his office under the Convention, after having offered his retractation to the Pope for £12, 000. For atime it was believed that the clergy of the two churches couldco-exist amicably, and a moderate pension was granted to thenonjurors. But there was disorder and bloodshed at Nîmes, and in otherparts of France, and it was seen that the Assembly, by itsecclesiastical legislation, had created the motive and the machineryfor civil war. The nonjuring clergy came to be regarded as traitorsand rebels, and the mob would not suffer them to celebrate mass in theonly church that remained to them at Paris. Bailly said that when thelaw has spoken conscience must be silent. But Talleyrand and Sieyèsinsisted on the principle of toleration, and succeeded in causing theformula to be adopted by the Assembly. It was not observed, and wasentirely disregarded by the second legislature. 

The Civil Constitution injured the Revolution not only by creating astrong current of hostile feeling in the country, but by driving theking to seek protection from Europe against his people. The scheme ofnegotiation which led to the general war in 1792, having been delayedby disunion among the powers and the extreme caution of the EmperorLeopold, began in the midst of the religious crisis in the autumn of1790. The problem for us is to discover why the National Assembly, andthe committee that guided it, did not recognise that its laws weremaking a breach in the established system of the Church, whetherGallican or Roman, that they were in flagrant contradiction with thefirst principles of the Revolution; and why, in that immense explosionof liberal sentiment, there was no room for religious freedom. Theybelieved that there was nothing in the scheme to which the Pope wouldnot be able to consent, to avoid greater evils, if the diplomacy ofthe king was conducted wisely. What was conceded by Pius VII. ToBonaparte might have been conceded by Pius VI. To Lewis XVI. Thejudgment of Italian divines was in many instances favourable to thedecree of the National Assembly, and the College of Cardinals was notunanimous against it. Their opinions found their way to Paris, andwere bought up by Roman agents. When the Concordat of 1801 wasconcluded, Consalvi rejoiced that he had done so well, for he wasempowered, if necessary, to make still greater concessions. Therevolutionary canonists were persuaded that the Pope, if he rejectedthe king's overtures, would be acting as the instrument of thearistocratic party, and would be governed by calculated advantage, notby conscience. Chénier's tragedy of Charles IX. Was being played, andrevived the worst scenes of fanatical intolerance. The hatred itroused was not allayed by the language of Pius VI. In the spring of1791, when, too late to influence events, he condemned the CivilConstitution. For he condemned liberty and toleration; and therevolutionists were able to say that there could be no peace betweenthem, and that Rome was the irreconcilable adversary of the firstprinciples on which they stood. The annexation of the papal dominionsin France was proposed, in May 1791, when the rejection of the CivilConstitution became known. It was thrown out at first, and adoptedSeptember 14. We shall see, later on, that the conflict thusinstituted between the Revolution and the Church hastened the fall ofthe throne, and persecution, and civil war. 

I have repeatedly pointed to the jealousy of the executive as a sourceof fatal mischief. This is the greatest instance of the harm it did. That the patronage could not be left in the hands of the kingabsolutely, as it was by the Concordat of Leo X. , was obvious; but ifit had been given to the king acting through responsible ministers, then much of the difficulty and the danger would have been overcome, and the arrangement that grew out of the Concordat of Napoleon wouldhave been anticipated. That idea was consistently rejected, and, stranger still, the idea of disestablishment and separation was almostunperceived. A whole generation later, under the influence of Americanand Irish examples, a school of Liberals arose among French Catholicswho were as distinct from the Gallicans as from the Ultramontanes, andpossessed the solution for the perpetual rivalry of Church and State. For us, the great fact is that the Revolution produced nothing of thesort, and went to ruin by its failure in dealing with the problem. 

XII

THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES

The direct consequence of the ecclesiastical laws was the flight ofthe king. From the time of his removal to Paris, in October 1789, menbegan to study the means by which he might be rescued, and hisministers were ready with the necessary passports. During the summerof 1790, which he spent at St. Cloud, various plans were proposed, andconstantly rejected. The queen was opposed to them, for she said:"What can the king do, away from Paris, without insight, or spirit, orascendancy? Say no more about it. " But a change came over them onAugust 24, when the Civil Constitution was sanctioned. As soon as itwas voted in July, Mirabeau informed Lewis that he undertook to conveyhim, publicly, to Rouen, or Beauvais, or Compiègne, where he would beout of reach, and could dissolve the Assembly and proclaim a bettersystem of constitutional laws. Civil war would inevitably follow; butMirabeau believed that civil war would lead to the restoration ofauthority, if the king put himself in the hands of the Marquis deBouillé, the general commanding at Metz. Bouillé had acquired a highreputation by his success against the English in the West Indies, andhe increased it at this moment by the energy with which he suppresseda mutiny in the garrison of Nancy. _For_ the service thereby renderedto the State and the cause of order, he received, under pressure fromMirabeau, the thanks of the Assembly. The king begged him to nurse hispopularity as he was reserved for greater things. This is the firstintimation of the secret; and it is confirmed by the PrincessElizabeth, within a week of the sanction given to the CivilConstitution. But although, in that month of September, Lewis began tomeditate departure from Paris, and accepted the general proposed tohim, he did not adopt the rest of the scheme which would have made himdependent on Mirabeau. At that moment his strongest motive was thedesire to be released from the religious entanglement; and he hoped torestore the Church to its lost position on condition of buying up the_assignats_ with the property of the suppressed orders. It had beencomputed that the Church would be able to save the public credit by asacrifice of forty millions, or to ruin the revolutionary investor byrefusing it. Therefore the king would not entertain the proposals ofMirabeau, who was not the man to execute a policy favourable to theinfluence of the priesthood. It was committed to a differentpolitician. 

Breteuil, the rival of Necker, was the man preferred to Mirabeau. Hewas living at Soleure as the acknowledged head of the Royalists whoserved the king, and who declined to follow the princes and the_émigrés_ and their chief intriguer Calonne. Breteuil was nowconsulted. He advised the king to depart in secret and to take refugein a frontier fortress among faithful regiments, within reach ofAustrian supports. In this way Breteuil, not Mirabeau, would bemaster, and the restoration would have been in favour of the old_régime_, not of the constitutional monarchy. On one point only thetwo advisers agreed: Breteuil, like Mirabeau, recommended Bouillé asthe man of action. His reply was brought by the Bishop of Pamiers, aneighteenth-century prelate of the worldly sort, who was afterwardsselected to be the minister of finance if Brunswick had conquered. OnOctober 23 the bishop was sent to Metz to initiate Bouillé. 

In point both of talent and renown, Bouillé was the first man in thearmy as the emigration had left it. He served reluctantly under thenew order, and thought of making himself a new career in Russia. Buthe was ambitious, for he had been always successful, and the emissaryfrom the king and from Breteuil opened a tempting future. He proposedthree alternatives. The king was to choose between Valenciennes, whichwould be the safest and swiftest journey; Besançon, within reach ofthe friendly Swiss who were under agreement to supply a large force ondemand; and Montmédy, a small fortified town close to the frontier, and not far from Luxemburg which was the strongest of the imperialfortresses. All this meant plainly Montmédy. Besançon was so far thatthere was time to be overtaken, and Valenciennes was not in Bouillé'sterritory. Nothing could be done before the spring, for the emperorwas not yet master of his revolted provinces; and a longcorrespondence was carried on between the general at Metz, and CountFersen at Paris, who acted for Lewis XVI. And controlled the whole. AtChristmas, Bouillé sent his eldest son to Paris to arrange detailswith him. 

During the first months of 1791, which were the last of his life, theascendancy of Mirabeau rose so rapidly that the king wavered betweenhim and Breteuil. In February, La Marck appeared at Metz, to layMirabeau's bolder plan before the soldier on whose sword its executionwas to depend. Bouillé at once preferred it to Breteuil's and wasready to carry it out. But Fersen was so confident in pledging himselfto contrive the departure from Paris at night and in secret, he was soresolute and cool, that he dispelled all doubts, and early in March heannounced that the king had finally decided for Montmédy. Hishesitation was over, and Mirabeau was rejected. Lewis could not havetaken his advice without surrendering his own main object, therestoration of the Gallican Church. It was the essence of Mirabeau'spolicy to sacrifice the priesthood. His last counsels were given onFebruary 23, five weeks before he died. He advised that the king, whendriving out, should be forced by the people to go home; or betterstill, that a mob should be gathered in the court of the Tuileries toprevent him from going out. He hoped that such an outrage would causethe Assembly to secure greater liberty of movement, which would servehis purpose at the proper time. 

The opportunity was found on April 18, when it became known that theroyal family were moving to St. Cloud. Easter was at hand; and atEaster, the king of France used to receive communion in public. ButLewis could not receive communion. He was responsible for the CivilConstitution which he had sanctioned, and for the schism that wasbeginning. With that on his conscience he was required to abstain, aspeople would otherwise infer that neither he nor the priest whoabsolved him saw anything to regret in the rising storm. Therefore toavoid scandal it was well to be out of the way at the time. The royalfamily were stopped at their very door, as Mirabeau had desired. Formore than an hour they sat in the carriage, hooted and insulted by themob, Lafayette vainly striving to clear the way. As they returned tothe palace, the queen indiscreetly said to those about them: "You mustadmit now, gentlemen, that we are not free. " The case for flight wasstrengthened by the events of that day, except in the eyes of somewho, knowing the suggestion of Mirabeau, suspected a comedy, andwondered how much the king had paid that a howling mob might call hima fat pig to his face. 

The emperor could no longer refuse aid to his sister without thereproach of cruelty. He was now requested to move troops near enoughto the frontier to justify Bouillé in forming a camp in front ofMontmédy, and collecting supplies sufficient for the nucleus of aroyal army. He was also asked to advance a sum of money for firstexpenses. Leopold, who scarcely knew Marie Antoinette, showed extremereserve. His hands were not free in the East. He sympathised with muchof the work of the Revolution; and he was not sorry to see Franceweakened, even by measures which he disapproved. His language wasdiscouraging throughout. He would promise nothing until they succeededin escaping; and he believed they could not escape. The queen resolvedto discover whether the gross indignity to which she had beensubjected had made some softening impression on her brother; and theCount de Durfort was sent to seek him in his Italian dominions, withample credentials. The agent was not wisely chosen. He found Leopoldat Mantua, conferring with the Count d'Artois, and he fell into thehands of Calonne. On his return he produced a paper in twenty-oneparagraphs, drawn up by Calonne, with the emperor's replies, showingthat Leopold would invade France in the summer, with 100, 000 men, thatthe royal family were to await his coming, and that, in effect, he hadaccepted the programme of the _émigrés_. 

The queen was persuaded that she would be murdered if she remained atParis while her brother's forces entered France. She believed that the_émigrés_ detested her; that they were prepared to sacrifice herhusband and herself to their own cause; and that if their policytriumphed, the new masters would be worse than the old. She wrote toMercy that it would become an intolerable slavery. She resolved toincur the utmost risk rather than owe her deliverance to d'Artois andhis followers. Marie Antoinette was right in her estimate of feelingin the _émigré_ camp. Gustavus III. Spoke for many when he said, "Theking and queen, personally, may be in danger; but that is nothing to adanger that threatens all crowned heads. "

After their arrest at Varennes, Fersen was amazed at the indecent joyof the French in Brussels, of whom many avowed their satisfaction thatthe king and queen were captured. For the plan concerted with Bouilléwas to serve monarchy, not aristocracy. In her passionate resistanceto the party of d'Artois, Condé, and Calonne, the queen felt herselfthe champion of popular royalism. In the language of the day, she wasfor a counter-constitution, they for a counter-revolution. There was apersonal question also. The queen relied on Breteuil to save her fromCalonne, whom she suspected of having tampered with the king'sconfessor to learn Court secrets. When she saw the answer from Mantua, she at once knew his hand. If that was her brother's policy, it wastime to make a rush for freedom. The Jacobin yoke could be borne, notthe yoke of the _émigrés_. Breteuil warned them to lose no time, ifthey would escape from thraldom to their friends. When MarieAntoinette resolved that flight with the risk of capture would bebetter than rescue by such hands, she knew but half the truth. Thedocument brought back from Mantua by Durfort was a forgery. Itgoverned history for 100 years; and the genuine text was not publisheduntil 1894. And we know now that Calonne, behind the back of the Countd'Artois, fabricated the reply which lured the king and queen to theirfate. On June 9 Mercy wrote that they were deceived. In their terrorand uncertainty, they fled. The first motive of Lewis had been thehorror of injuring a religion which was his own. When he signed thedecree imposing the oath on the clergy, which began the persecution, he said, "At least, it is not for long. "

The elections to the next Assembly were appointed for July 5. If thefirst Assembly was allowed to accomplish its work, all that had beendone to discredit one party and to conciliate another, all the fruitof Mirabeau's expensive intrigues, would be lost. The finaldetermination that sent them along the road to Varennes was thetreason hatched at Mantua. They ran the gauntlet to the Argonne in thecause of limited monarchy, to evade revolution and reaction. That wasthe spirit in which Mirabeau urged departure, and in which Bouillécame to the rescue; and it is that which made the queen odious to theexpatriated nobles. But it was not the policy of Breteuil. He refusedto contemplate anything but the restoration of the unbroken crown. Theposition was ambiguous. Contrary forces were acting for the moment incombination. Between the reactionary statesman and the constitutionalgeneral, there was no security in the character of the king. 

The calculation on which the flight to Montmédy was undertaken wasnot, in itself, unreasonable. There was a strong party in the Assemblywith which it was possible to negotiate. In the Rhone district, alongthe Loire, in parts of western and southern France, hundreds ofthousands of the most intrepid men on earth were ready to die for thealtar and the throne. But they were not willing to expose themselvesfor a prince in whose hands the best cause was doomed to fail, andwhose last act as king was to betray his faithful defenders. Instigated by Bouillé, the queen asked her brother to lend someregiments to act with the royal forces as auxiliaries in case ofresistance. She wished for 30, 000 men. That is the significant factthat justifies the postmaster of St. Ménehould and the patriots ofVarennes. The expedition to Montmédy was a first step towards civilwar and foreign invasion. That is what these men vaguely understoodwhen they stopped the fugitives. 

For the management of the journey the best advice was not alwaystaken. Instead of two light carriages, the royal party insisted ontravelling in one large one, which Fersen accordingly ordered. Theroute by Rheims would have been better, because Varennes was off thepost road. But Varennes was preferred on the ground that Rheims wasthe coronation city, and the king might be recognised. The shortestway to Montmédy passed through Belgian territory; but it was thoughtdangerous to cross the frontier. It was urged that a military displayon the road would lead to trouble, but it was decided that it wasnecessary beyond Châlons. Bouillé's advice was not always sound, butthere was one point on which it proved fatal to reject it. He wishedthe travellers to be accompanied by an experienced officer, whom heknew to be masterful, energetic, and quick in an emergency. The kingthought of several, but the queen was disinclined to have a strangerin the carriage. But she asked for three able-bodied officers, to beemployed as couriers, adding that they need not be unusuallyintelligent. In those words the coming story is told. The threecouriers answered too faithfully the specified qualification. 

The departure had been fixed for the second week of June. Bouilléstill hoped for a movement among the imperialists, and he requested adelay. On the 16th he was informed that the royal family would startat midnight on the 20th. He had sent one of his colonels, the Duke deChoiseul, to Paris for the last instructions. Choiseul's horses wereto fetch the king at Varennes, and he was to entertain him in hishouse at Montmédy. He had the command of the farthest detachment ofcavalry on the road from Montmédy to Châlons, and it was his duty toclose up behind the royal carriage, to prevent pursuit, and to gatherall the detachments on the road, as the king passed along. He wouldhave arrived at the journey's end with at least 400 men. His lastorders were to convey the king across the frontier, if Bouillé shouldfall. The great abbey of Orval was only a few miles away, and it wasthought that, at the last moment, it might be found safer than thehostile soil of France. 

Choiseul was not equal to the difficult part he had to perform. He setout for his post on the Monday afternoon, carrying with him amarshal's baton, which had belonged to his uncle, and the queen'shairdresser, Léonard. For Thursday was the solemn festival of CorpusChristi, when a military mass would be celebrated in the camp, and, inthe presence of the assembled army, Bouillé was to be made a marshalof France. The queen could not be allowed to appear at such a functionwithout the artist's help, and he was hurried away, much against hiswill, without a word of explanation. The king's sister learned thesame day what was before her. There had been an idea of sending her onwith the children, or with the Countess of Provence. The Princess, whowas eminently good, and not always gracious, did not enjoy theconfidence of the queen. She was one of those who regarded concessionas surrender of principle, and in the rift between the Princes andMarie Antoinette she was not on the side of compromise. Provence cameto supper, and the brothers met for the last time. That night theirways parted, leading the one to the guillotine, and the other to thethrone which had been raised by Napoleon above every throne on earth. The Count and Countess of Provence both started at the same time asthe rest, and reached Belgium in safety. 

Fersen, directing matters with skill and forethought, made onemistake. Two attendants on the royal children were taken, in a hiredcarriage, to Claye, the second stage on the eastern road; and it wastheir driver who made known, on his return, which way the fugitiveshad taken. 

When everybody was in bed, and the lights were out, the royal familywent out by a door that was not in use, and got into a hackney coach. The last to come was the queen, who had been frightened by meetingLafayette. Afterwards she asked him whether he had recognised her. Hereplied that if he had met her not once but thrice, he could neverhave recognised her, after what she had told him the day before; forshe had said that they were not going away. Bailly, who was at home, ill, had taken alarm at the persistent rumours of departure, and urgedLafayette to redouble his precautions. After a last inspection thegeneral assured the mayor that Gouvion was on guard, and not a mousecould escape. The journalists, Marat and Fréron, had also been warned. Fréron went to the Tuileries late at night, and satisfied himself thatall was quiet. Nobody took notice of a coachman, chatting and takingsnuff with a comrade, or guessed that it was the colonel of RoyalSwedes, who in that hour built himself an everlasting name. It wastwelve when the queen arrived; and the man, who had made her heartbeat in happier years, mounted the box and drove away into thedarkness. Their secret was known, and their movements had beenobserved by watchful eyes. The keeper of the wardrobe was intimatewith General Gouvion. She had warned him in good time, and had givennotice to persons about the queen that she knew what was going on. Thealarm was given at two in the morning, but that she might not becompromised it was given by devious ways. A traveller from Marseilleswas roused at his lodgings by a friendly voice. He refused to get up, and went to sleep again. Some hours later the visitor returned, andprevailed with the sleeper. He came from the palace, and reported thatthe king was gone. They took the news to one of the deputies, whohastened to Lafayette, while the man from the palace disappeared. Lafayette, as soon as he was dressed, conferred with the mayor andwith the president of the Assembly, Beauharnais, the first husband ofthe Empress Josephine, and they persuaded him that nothing could avertcivil war but the capture of the king. Thereupon Lafayette wrote anorder declaring that Lewis had been carried off, and calling on allgood citizens to bring him back. He believed that too much time hadbeen lost; but nothing less than this, which was a warrant for arrest, would have appeased the rage of the people at his lack of vigilance. He despatched his officers, chiefly towards Lille. One of them, Romeuf, whom he directed to follow the road to Valenciennes, wasstopped by the mob, and brought before the Assembly. There he receiveda new commission, with authority to make the king a prisoner. As herode out, after so much delay, he learned that the fugitives had beenseen on the road to Meaux, and that they had twelve hours' start. 

There is much in these transactions that is strangely suspicious. Lafayette did not make up his mind that there was anything to be doneuntil others pressed him. He sent off all his men by the wrong roads, while Baillon, the emissary of the Commune, struck the track at once. He told Romeuf that it was too late, so that his heavy day's ride wasonly a formality. Romeuf, who was the son of one of his tenants, gotinto many difficulties, and did not give his horse the spur until thenews was four hours old. At Varennes he avowed that he had never meantto overtake them, and the king's officers believed him. Gouvion, second in command of the guard, knew by which door the royal partymeant to leave, and he assured the Assembly that he had kept watchover it, with several officers, all night. Lewis had even authorisedMme. De Tourzel to bring Gouvion with her, if she met him on her wayto the carriage. Burke afterwards accused Lafayette of having allowedthe departure, that he might profit by the arrest. Less impassionedcritics have doubted whether the companion of Washington was preparinga regency, or deemed that the surest road to a republic is by a vacantthrone. 

The coach that was waiting beyond the gates had been ordered for aRussian lady, Madame de Korff, who was Fersen's fervent accomplice. She supplied not only the carriage, but £12, 000 in money, and apassport. As she required another for her own family, the Russianminister applied to Bailly. The mayor refused, and he was obliged toask Montmorin, pretending that the passport he had just given had beenburnt by mistake. The numbers and description tallied, but thedestination was Frankfort. As the travellers quitted the Frankfortroad at Clermont, the last stage before Varennes, this was atransparent blunder. Half an hour had been lost, but the first stage, Bondy, was reached at half-past one. Here Fersen, who had sat by hiscoachman, flourishing the whip, got down, and the family he hadstriven so hard to save passed out of his protection. He wished totake them all the way, and had asked Gustavus for leave to travel inthe uniform of the Swedish Guard. But Lewis would not allow him toremain, and underrated the value of such an escort. Fersen took thenorth road, and reached Belgium without difficulty. In the followingwinter he was again at the Tuileries. As a political adviser he wasunfortunate, for he was one of those concerned in the Brunswickproclamation which cost the king his crown. 

The travellers pursued their way without molestation to Châlons, andthere, as they were about to meet their faithful soldiery, theyfancied that the danger was over. In reality the mischief was alreadydone, and by their own fault their fate was sealed. As they were sureto be pursued, safety depended on celerity. The point of peril wasVarennes, for a good horseman at full speed might ride 146 miles inless than thirteen hours, and would arrive there about nine at night, if he started at the first alarm. It was calculated that the royalfamily, at 7-1/2 miles an hour, would reach Varennes between 8 and 9. The margin was so narrow that there was no time to lose. The kingthought it sufficient to reach Bouillé's outposts before he could beovertaken, and they would be met a stage beyond Châlons. To secure themeeting it was necessary to keep time. The hours were exactlydetermined; and as the agreement was not observed, the troopers wereuseless. Before Châlons four hours had been lost--not by accident, asthe royalist legend tells, for Valory the outrider testifies that ittook but a few minutes to repair. Bouillé knew the ignoble cause ofhis own ruin and of so much sorrow, but never revealed it. When hecame to England he misled questioners, and he exacted an oath from hisson that he would keep the miserable secret for half a century. Theyounger Bouillé was true to his word. In 1841 he confided to a friendthat the story whispered at the time was true, and that the kingstopped a couple of hours at Étoges, over an early dinner at the houseof Chanilly, an officer of his household, whose name appears in hiswill. When people saw what came of it, there was a generous conspiracyof concealment, which bewildered posterity, until Bouillé's tale wastold. 

At Pont de Somme-Vesle, 8 or 9 miles beyond Châlons, Choiseul was incommand. His men had been badly received at St. Ménehould, and theirpresence perturbed the country people. Nobody believed the pretencethat so many horsemen were required to protect the passage oftreasure, and they began to suspect that the treasure was the queenherself, flying to Austria. Choiseul took alarm; for if the kingarrived in the midst of sedition, the worst might be expected. He hadbeen positively instructed that the king would pass at half-past two. Fersen had said that he might rely on it, and there was to be acourier riding an hour ahead. When three o'clock came, without anysign of king or courier, Choiseul resolved to move away, hoping thathis departure would allay the ferment and secure safe passage. He sentLéonard forward, with instructions to the officers in command at St. Ménehould, Clermont, and Varennes, that all seemed to be over for theday, and that he was starting to join Bouillé; and after some furtherwatching, he withdrew with all his men. For this Bouillé afterwardsdemanded that he should be tried by court-martial. 

It had been settled that if the king did not appear at Bondy byhalf-past two in the morning, the courier who had preceded him was topush on, and warn the officers that there was no more to be done. Asno courier made his appearance in the afternoon, it was certain thatthe fugitives had got out of Paris, where the danger lay. If Choiseulfound it necessary to move his men, he was to leave a staff officer, Goguelat, to wait the king's coming, and to be his guide. But Choiseultook Goguelat with him, leaving no guide; and instead of keeping onthe high road, to block it at a farther point, he went off intobyways, and never reappeared until all was over at Varennes. His erroris flagrant, but it was due to the more tragic folly of his master. Not long after he had abandoned his post the king arrived, and passedunhindered. Again he changed horses without resistance at the nextpost-town, which was St. Ménehould, and went on to Clermont enArgonne. Some of the bystanders thought they had recognised him underhis disguise, and the loudest of them was Drouet, who, as postmaster, had just had a quarrel with one of the officers, and was in thedangerous mood of a man who has his temper to recover. The towncouncil assembled, and on hearing the grounds of his suspicion, commissioned him to follow the travellers and stop their flight. Theydid not doubt that Lewis was about to throw himself into the arms ofAustria. It was not his first intention, for he hoped to make a standat Montmédy; but the prospect of effective action on French soil haddiminished. 

Bouillé's command was narrowed. He could not trust his men; andLeopold did not stir. The basis of the scheme had crumbled. Whetherwithin the frontier or beyond it, success implied an Austrianinvasion. Bouillé's plan, from its inception, had no other meaning;and it was executed under conditions which placed Lewis morecompletely in the hands of the calculating emperor. It became more andmore apparent that his destination was not the camp of Montmédy, butthe abbey of Orval in Luxemburg. The men of St. Ménehould who resolvedto prevent his escape acted on vague suspicion, but we cannot saythat, as Frenchmen, they acted wrongly. They had no certainty, and noauthority; but while they deliberated a pursuing horseman rode intothe town, bringing what they wanted. An officer of the National Guard, Baillon, had got away from Paris early in the day, with orders fromBailly and Lafayette, and took the right road. He was delayed for twohours by an encounter with M. De Briges, one of the king's men, whomhe succeeded in arresting. To save time he sent forward a fresh rider, on a fresh horse, to stop the fugitives; and this messenger fromChâlons brought the news to St. Ménehould, not long after the coachhad rolled away. 

When Drouet started on the ride that made his fortune, he knew that itwas the king, and that Paris did not mean him to escape. An hour hadbeen lost, and he met his postboys returning from Clermont. From themhe learnt that the courier had given the word Varennes, and notVerdun. By a short cut, through the woods, he arrived just in time. Meantime St. Ménehould was seething; the commanding officer was putunder arrest, and his troops were prevented from mounting. One man, Lagache, warned by the daughter of his host that the treasure for thearmy chest had evaporated and the truth was out, sprung on his horseand opened a way through the crowd with a pistol in each hand. 

Drouet told the story to the National Assembly more to his ownadvantage, claiming to have recognised the queen whom he had seen atParis, and the king by his likeness on an _assignat_. On a later dayhe declined all direct responsibility, and said that he followed thecoach in consequence of orders forwarded from Châlons, not on his owninitiative or conjecture. When he gave the second version he was aprisoner among the Austrians, and the questioner before whom he stoodwas Fersen. At such a moment even a man of Drouet's fortitude mightwell have stretched a point in the endeavour to cast off odium. Therefore the account recorded by Fersen has not supplanted thepopular tradition. But it is confirmed by Romeuf, who says, distinctly, that the postmaster of St. Ménehould was warned by themessage sent on by Baillon. Romeuf's testimony, contained in theprotocols of the Assembly, where I have seen it, was omitted in the_Moniteur_, in order that nothing might deface the legend of theincautious traveller, the treacherous banknote, and the vigilantprovincial patriot, who was the idol of the hour as the man who hadpreserved his country from invasion and civil war. 

Clermont, like the other post towns, was agitated by the presence ofcavalry; and after the king had pursued his journey, the authoritiesdespatched a messenger to rouse Varennes. Passing the royal party atfull speed, he shouted something which they did not understand, butwhich made them think that they were detected. He was superseded bythe superior energy and capacity of Drouet, and plays no part in theadventure. There was an officer at Clermont who knew his business; buthis men deserted him, and he reached Varennes alone. At Varennes thetwo men in the secret, Bouillé's younger son and Raigecourt, were withthe horses, at the farther end of the town, over the bridge, keepingno look-out. They relied on Goguelat, on Choiseul, on d'Andouins whocommanded at St. Ménehould, on Damas at Clermont, and above all on thepromised courier, who was to ride an hour ahead to warn them in time. But they expected no warning that night. If there was any watchfulnessin them, it was put to sleep by Léonard, who had gone through an hourbefore with Choiseul's fatal letter. The king was arrested a fewhundred yards from their inn, and they were aware of nothing. Whenthey heard, they galloped away on the road to Stenay, where they knewthat the general was keeping anxious vigil. Drouet passed the carriagenear the entrance of the town, where the couriers were wrangling withthe postilions and looking about in the dark for the relays. With thehelp of half a dozen men who were finishing their wine at the inn, hebarricaded the bridge. 

There the king's passport betrayed him, for it was made out forFrankfort, and Varennes was not on the road to Frankfort. The partywere therefore detained and had to spend the night at the house ofSauce, municipal officer and grocer, while the drums beat, the tocsinrang, the town was roused with the cry of fire, and messengers weresent to bring in national guards from the country round. At firstSauce beguiled the king over a bottle of wine, and then introduced atravelled fellow-townsman who identified him. A scene of emotionfollowed, and loyal citizens pressed their sovereign in their arms. They talked of escorting him to Montmédy, a hundred strong, and Lewis, ready to believe them, declared he would be content with fifty. Asnight wore on, a number of officers collected: Choiseul and Goguelat, after their long ride from Pont de Somme-Vesle; the Count de Damasfrom Clermont; and at last Deslon, a captain of the German horse thatBouillé chiefly trusted. Choiseul's men, and some of those quarteredat Varennes, were faithful, and it was thought possible to clear thestreet. Urged by the queen, Damas wished to attempt it, and long afterhe assured an English friend that he regretted that he did not leadthe charge, in defiance of the king's optimism, and of his reluctanceto be saved by the sword. He said to Deslon in German, "Mount andattack!" But Deslon saw that it was too late. Goguelat threatened tocut his way out, and was unhorsed by a pistol shot. 

Drouet was master of the situation. It was he who managed thehesitating soldiers and the hesitating townsmen. At five in themorning Romeuf and Baillon arrived, with Lafayette's order, and thedecree of the sovereign Assembly. There was no more illusion thenabout pursuing the journey, and all the king's hope was that he mightgain time for Bouillé to deliver him. Bouillé was at Stenay, twentymiles off. He spent the night watching the road, with his arm throughhis horse's bridle. Long after every possible allowance for delay, hisson came up with the tidings of Varennes. The trumpets roused theRoyal Germans, but their colonel was hostile, and precious hours werelost. Bouillé gave all his money to his men, told them what manner ofexpedition they were on, told them that their king was a prisoner, andled them to the rescue. It was past nine when he reached the heightthat looks down on the valley of the Aire. The horses were tired, thebridge was barricaded, the fords were unknown. All was quiet atVarennes, and the king was already miles away on the road to Clermont. It was the end of a bright dream, and of a career which had been notedfor unvarying success. 

As the unhappy man, who had so narrowly missed the prize, turned hishorse's head in the direction of exile, he said to his son, "Do youstill praise my good fortune?" That evening he rode across thefrontier with a group of officers, and his men fired on him as hepassed. He issued an angry declaration, and composed a defence of hisconduct, saying that nobody had remained at his post except himself. But he knew that king and constitution were lost because he was not onthe spot, and had posted inexperienced men where his own presence wasneeded. He could not recover his balance, and became as unwise andviolent as the rest. The _émigrés_ did not trust him, and assigned himno active part in the invasion of the following year. His fame stoodhigh among the English who had fought him in the West Indies, and Pittoffered him the command in San Domingo, which the Duke of Portlandobliged him to relinquish. 

Lewis XVI. Was brought back to Paris by an insolent and ferociouscrowd, and looked back with gratitude to the equivocal civilities ofSauce. The journey occupied four days, during which the queen's hairturned grey. Three deputies, sent by the Assembly, met the dolorousprocession half way, and took charge of the royal family. The king atonce assured them that he had intended to remain at Montmédy, andthere to revise the Constitution. "With those words, " said Barnave, "we shall save the monarchy. " Latour Maubourg refused his turn in theroyal carriage, on the plea that his legs were too long for comfort, and advised the king to employ the time in domesticating hiscompanions. The advice partly succeeded, for Barnave was made afriend. Nothing could be made of Pétion, who states in his narrativethat the princess fell in love with him. General Dumas assumedcommand, and, by posting cavalry on one of the bridges, managed tobring the horses to a trot, and left the crowd behind. 

When they came to the forest of Bondy, the Hounslow Heath of France, aband of ruffians from the capital made a determined attack, and werewith difficulty beaten off. At last, Lefebvre, the future Marshal Dukeof Dantzick, met them with a company of grenadiers. As there wasdanger in the narrow streets of Paris, Lafayette took them roundthrough the Champs Elysées. Word had been passed that not a sign ofhatred or of honour should be given, and a horseman rode in front, commanding silence. The order was sullenly obeyed. The day before thisfunereal scene the Prussian envoy wrote home that the king might bespared, from motives of policy, but that nothing could save the queen. They had reached the terrace of the Tuileries when there was a rushand a struggle, in which Dumas lost his hat and his belt and hisscabbard, and nearly had his clothes torn from his back. A group ofdeputies came to his assistance, and no blood was shed. A carriagecame after, with Drouet conspicuous on high and triumphant. Hereceived a grant of £1200, and was elected to the Convention in thefollowing year. Taken prisoner by the Prussians, he impressed Goetheby his coolness in adversity. The Austrians took him at the siege ofMaubeuge, and he was exchanged for the king's daughter. In thecommunistic conspiracy of Babeuf he nearly lost his life, and for atime he lived in a cavern, underground. Napoleon gave him the Legionof Honour, made him subprefect of St. Ménehould, and was his guestwhen he visited Valmy. In the Hundred Days Drouet was again a deputy, and then vanished from sight and changed his name. When he died, in1824, his neighbours learned with surprise that they had lived withthe sinister contriver of the tremendous tragedy. 

XIII

THE FEUILLANTS AND THE WAR

Tuesday, June 21, the day on which the departure of the king becameknown, was the greatest day in the history of the Assembly. Thedeputies were so quick to meet the dangers of the situation, they wereso calm, their measures were so comprehensive, that they at oncerestored public confidence. By the middle of the day the tumult in thestreets was appeased, and the ambassadors were astonished at thetranquillity of Paris. They wrote home that all parties put asidetheir quarrels, and combined in a sincere endeavour to save the State. That was the appearance of things on the surface and for the moment. But the Right took no share in acts which they deemed a usurpation ofpowers calculated to supersede monarchy, and to make the crisis serveas the transition to a Republic. To the number of almost 300 theysigned a protest, declaring that they would take no further part inthe deliberations. Their leader, Cazalès, went away to Coblenz, andwas coldly received as a man who had yielded too much to parliamentaryopinions, whose services had been unavailing, and who repented toolate. 

The king's flight, while it broke up the Conservative party, calledthe Republican party into existence. For Lewis had left behind him amanifesto, meditated during many months, urging the defects of theConstitution, and denouncing all that had been effected since he hadsuffered violence at Versailles. Many others besides Lewis were awareof the defects, and desired their amendment. But the renunciation ofso much that he had sanctioned, so much that he had solemnly andrepeatedly approved, exposed him to the reproach of duplicity andfalsehood. He not only underwent the ignominy of capture and exposure;he was regarded henceforth as a detected perjurer. If the king couldnever be trusted again, the prospects of monarchy were hopeless. TheOrleans party offered no substitute, for their candidate wasdiscredited. Men began to say that it was better that what wasinevitable should be recognised at once than that it should beestablished later on by violence, after a struggle in which more thanmonarchy would be imperilled, and which would bring to the front themost inhuman of the populace. To us, who know what the next year wasto bring, the force and genuineness of the argument is apparent; butit failed to impress the National Assembly. Scarcely thirty membersshared those opinions, and neither Barère nor Robespierre was amongthem. The stronghold of the new movement was the Club of theCordeliers. The great body of the constitutional party remained trueto the cause, and drew closer together. Lameth and Lafayette appearedat the Jacobins arm in arm; and when the general was attacked fornegligence in guarding the Tuileries, Barnave effectually defendedhim. This was the origin of the Feuillants, the last organisation forthe maintenance of monarchy. They were resolved to save theConstitution by amending it in the direction of a strengthenedexecutive, and for their purpose it was necessary to restore the king. If his flight had succeeded, it was proposed to open negotiations withhim, for he would have it in his power to plunge France into foreignand domestic war. He was more formidable on the frontier than in thecapital. Malouet, the most sensible and the most respected of theroyalists, was to have been sent to treat, in the name of theAssembly, that, by moderating counsels, bloodshed might be averted, and the essentials of the Revolution assured. But, on the secondevening, a tired horseman drew rein at the entrance, and the joyousuproar outside informed the deputies before he could dismount that hecame with news of the king. He was the Varennes doctor, and he hadbeen sent at daybreak to learn what the town was to do with itsprisoners. 

The king, ceasing to be a danger, became an embarrassment. He couldnot at once be replaced on the throne. Without prejudging the future, it was resolved that he be detained at the Tuileries until theConstitution, completed and revised, was submitted to him for his freeassent. Thus, for ten weeks, he was suspended. The Assembly governedand legislated, without reference to his sanction; and the interregnumwas so prolonged that the monarchy could never recover. When, inSeptember, Lewis resumed his royal function, he was no longer anintegral element in the State, but an innovation and an experiment. Onthe day when, standing uncovered before the legislators, he promisedfidelity to their Constitution, it seemed natural to them, in thepresence of tarnished and diminished majesty, to sit down and puttheir hats on. The triumvirs, who had foiled Mirabeau, beganimmediately after his death to sustain the royal cause in secret. Montmorin called on Lameth before he was up, and began thenegotiation. Barnave frequented the house of Montmorin, but took carealways to come accompanied, in order to prevent a bribe. His two days'journey in the royal company confirmed him in his design. Havingreduced the prerogative when it was excessive, they revived it when ithad become too weak, and the king could no longer inspire alarm. Theyundertook to devise props for the damaged throne. "If not Lewis XVI. , "said Lafayette, "then Lewis XVII. " "If not this king, " said Sieyès, "find us another. " This was the predominant feeling. 

When an attack was made on the king at the Jacobins, all the deputiespresent, excepting six, seceded in a body, and founded a new club atthe Feuillants. On July 15, in a speech which was considered thefinest heard in France since Mirabeau, Barnave carried an overwhelmingvote in favour of monarchy. He said that the revolutionary movementcould go no farther without carrying away property. He dreaded thegovernment of the poor over the rich; for Barnave's politicalphilosophy consisted in middle-class sovereignty--government by thatkind of property which depends on constant labour, integrity, foresight, and self-denial, excluding poverty and opulence. Defeatedat the Jacobins and in the Assembly, the republicans prepared ademonstration on the Champ de Mars, where a petition was signed forthe dethronement of the king. The Assembly, fearing a renewal of thescenes at Versailles, commissioned Bailly and Lafayette to dispersethe meeting. On July 17 a collision ensued, shots were fired, andseveral petitioners were killed. The Jacobins, for the moment, werecrushed. Robespierre, Marat, even Danton, effaced themselves, andexpected that the Feuillants would follow up their victory. It seemedimpossible that men who had the resolution to shoot down theirmasters, the people of Paris, and were able to give the law, should beso weak in spirit, or so short of sight, as to throw away theiradvantage, and resume a contest on equal terms with conquered andinjured adversaries. 

The Feuillants were thenceforward predominant and held their grounduntil the Girondins overthrew them on March 18. It was the rule attheir club to admit none but active citizens, paying taxes andpossessing the franchise. The masses were thus given over to theJacobins. By their energy at the Champ de Mars, July 17, Lafayette andhis new friends had aroused the resentment of a vindictive party; andwhen they took no advantage of the terror they inspired, the terrordeparted, and the resentment remained. It was agreed that Malouetshould move amendments to the Constitution. The Feuillants were tooppose, and then to play into his hands. But Malouet was deserted byhis friends, the agreement was not carried out, and the revisionfailed in the Assembly. The Committees proposed that the famous decreeof November 7, by which no deputy could accept office, should berevoked. The exclusion was maintained, but ministers were allowed toappear and answer for their departments. No other important amendmentwas carried, and no serious attempt was made to adjust and harmonisethe clauses voted during two hurried years. Various reforms werevainly brought forward; and they indicate, as well as the suddenunderstanding between Malouet and Barnave, that the deputies hadlittle faith in the work they had accomplished. They were tired of it. They were no longer on the crest of the wave, and their power hadpassed to the clubs and to the press. They were about to disappear. Byan unholy alliance between Robespierre and Cazalès the members of theNational Assembly were ineligible to the Legislature that was tofollow. None of those who drew up the Constitution were to have ashare in applying it. The actual rulers of France were condemned topolitical extinction. Therefore the power which the Feuillantsacquired by their very dexterous management of the situation producedby the king's flight could not last; their radical opponents had timeon their side, and they had logic. 

Lewis, after his degradation, was an impossible king. And therepublicans had a future majority in reserve, whenever the excludedclass was restored to the right of voting which it had enjoyed in 1789before equality was a fundamental law, and which the Rights of Manenabled them to claim. And now the incident of Varennes supplied theenemies of the throne with a new argument. The wretched incompetenceof Lewis had become evident to all, and to the queen herself. She didnot hesitate to take his place, and when people spoke of the Court, itwas the queen they meant. The flight, and the policy that led to it, and that was renewed by the failure, was the policy of relying onforeign aid, especially that of the emperor. The queen was theconnecting link, and the chief negotiator. And the object she pursuedwas to constrain the French people, by means of the emperor'sinfluence on the Powers, either by the humiliating parade of power ata congress, or by invasion. That is what she was believed to becontriving, and the sense of national independence was added to themotive of political liberty to make the Court unpopular. Peopledenounced the Austrian cabal, and the queen as its centre. It wasbelieved that she wished to govern not only through the royalauthority restored, but through the royal authority restored byforeign oppressors. The Revolution was confronted with Europe. It hadbegun its work by insurrection, and it had to complete its work bywar. The beginning of European complications was the flight toVarennes. 

Early in September the Constitution was presented to Lewis XVI. Thegates were thrown open. The guards who were his gaolers werewithdrawn. He was ostensibly a free man. If he decided to accept, hisacceptance would be voluntary. The Emperor, Kaunitz, Malesherbes, advised him to accept. Malouet preferred, as usual, a judicious middlecourse. Burke was for refusal. He said that assent meant destruction, and he thought afterwards that he was right, for the king assented andwas destroyed. Burke was not listened to. He had become the adviser ofCoblenz, and great as his claims were upon the gratitude of both kingand queen, he was counted in the ranks of their enemies. Mercy, whotransmitted his letter, still extant in the archives of France, beggedthat it might not influence the decision. After ten days of leisurelyreflection, but without real hesitation, for everything had beenarranged with Lameth and Barnave, the leaders of the majority, Lewisgave his sanction to the Constitution of 1791, which was to last until1792, and the National Assembly was dissolved. Political delinquents, including the accomplices of Varennes, received an amnesty. 

By right of the immense change they made in the world, by their energyand sincerity, their fidelity to reason and their resistance tocustom, their superiority to the sordid craving for increase ofnational power, their idealism and their ambition to declare theeternal law, the States-General of 1789 are the most memorable of allpolitical assemblies. They cleared away the history of France, andwith 2500 decrees they laid down the plan of a new world for men whowere reared in the old. Their institutions perished, but theirinfluence has endured; and the problem of their history is to explainwhy so genuine a striving for the highest of earthly goods sodeplorably failed. The errors that ruined their enterprise may bereduced to one. Having put the nation in the place of the Crown, theyinvested it with the same unlicensed power, raising no security and noremedy against oppression from below, assuming, or believing, that agovernment truly representing the people could do no wrong. They actedas if authority, duly constituted, requires no check, and as if nobarriers are needed against the nation. The notion common among them, that liberty consists in a good civil code, a notion shared by sofamous a Liberal as Madame de Staël, explains the facility with whichso many revolutionists went over to the Empire. But the dreadfulconvulsion that ensued had a cause for which they were notresponsible. In the violent contradiction between the new order ofthings in France and the inorganic world around it, conflict wasirrepressible. Between French principles and European practice therecould be neither conciliation nor confidence. Each was a constantmenace to the other, and the explosion of enmity could only berestrained by unusual wisdom and policy. 

The dissolution of the Whig party in England indicates what might beexpected in the continental monarchies where there were no Whigs. Weshall presently see that it was upon this rock, in the nature ofthings, that the Revolution went to pieces. The wisest of thestatesmen who saw the evil days, Royer Collard, affirmed long afterthat all parties in the Revolution were honest, except the Royalists. He meant that the Right alone did wrong with premeditation and design. In the surprising revulsion that followed the return from Varennes, and developed the Feuillants, it was in the power of the Conservativesto give life to constitutional monarchy. That was the moment of theirdefection. They would have given much to save an absolute king: theydeliberately abandoned the constitutional king to his fate. 

The 1150 men who had been the first choice of France now pass out ofour sight. The 720 deputies of the Legislative Assembly were new andgenerally obscure names. Nobles, clergy, conservatives did notreappear, and their place was taken by the Feuillants, who, in theformer Assembly, would have belonged to the Left. The centre ofgravity shifted far in the revolutionary direction. The Constitutionwas made. The discussion of principles was over, and the dispute wasnot for doctrines but for power. The speakers have not the sameoriginality or force; they are not inventors in political science;they are not the pioneers of mankind. In literary faculty, if not inpolitical, they surpass their predecessors, and are remembered fortheir eloquence if not for statecraft. 

Reinhard, a German traveller who fell in with a group of the newdeputies on their way to Paris, fell under their charm, and resolvedto cast his lot with a country about to be governed by such men. Whilst he rose to be an ambassador and minister of foreign affairs, his friends were cut off in their prime, for they were the deputieswho came from Bordeaux, and gave the name of their department to theparty of the Gironde. By their parliamentary talents they quicklyobtained the lead of the new Assembly; and as they had few ideas andno tactics, they allowed Sieyès to direct their course. 

Robespierre, through the Jacobin Club, which now recovered much of theground it had lost in July, became the manager of the Extreme Left, which gradually separated from Brissot and the Girondins. The ministrywas in the hands of the Feuillants, who were guided by Lameth, whileBarnave was the secret adviser of the queen. She followed his counselswith aversion and distrust, looking upon him as an enemy, and longingto throw off the mask, and show him how he had been deceived. As shecould not understand how the same men who had depressed monarchydesired to sustain it, she played a double and ignoble part. Thetactics of the Feuillant advisers brought a revival of popular feelingin favour of the Court, which seemed inconceivable at the epoch of thearrest. King and queen were applauded in the streets, and at thetheatre the cry "Long live the king!" silenced the cry "Long live thenation!" This was in October 1791, before the Legislative Assembly haddivided into parties, or found a policy. 

When the Assembly summoned the _émigrés_ to return by the month ofJanuary, the king fully agreed with the policy though not with thepenalty. But when a Commission reported on the temper of the clergy, and described the mischief that was brewing in the provinces betweenthe priests of the two sections, and severe measures of repressionwere decreed against nonjurors, he interposed a veto. The FirstAssembly had disendowed the clergy, leaving them a pension. TheSecond, regarding them as agitators, resolved to proceed against themas against the _émigrés_. Lewis, in resisting persecution, wassupported by the Feuillants. But the Assembly was not Feuillant, andthe veto began its estrangement from the king. A new minister wasimposed on him. The Count Narbonne de Lara was the most brilliantfigure in the _noblesse_ of France, and he lived to captivate anddazzle Napoleon. Talleyrand, who thought the situation under theConstitution desperate, put forward his friend; and Madame de Staël, the queen of constitutional society, obtained for him the ministry ofwar. The appointment of Narbonne was a blow struck at the Feuillants, who still desired to reform the institutions, and who were resolute infavour of peace. At the same time, Lafayette laid down his command ofthe National Guard, and stood as a candidate to succeed Bailly in theoffice of mayor. But Lafayette had ordered the capture of the royalfamily, and could not be forgiven. The queen obtained the election ofPétion instead of Lafayette; and behind Pétion was Danton. What theFeuillants lost was added to the Girondins, not yet distinct from theJacobins; and as the Feuillants were for two chambers, for peace, andfor an executive independent of the single Assembly and vetoing itsdecrees, the policy of its opponents was to bring the king intosubjection to the Legislature, to put down the discontented clergy, and to make the emigration a cause for war. 

The new minister, Narbonne, was accepted as a war minister, while hisFeuillant colleague at the Foreign Office, Delessart, was obstinatelypacific. On December 14 Lewis came down to the Legislature, andannounced that he would insist that the _émigrés_ should receive noencouragement beyond the frontier. It was the first act of hostilityand defiance, and it showed that the king was parting with hisFeuillant friends. But Delessart spoilt the effect by keeping back thenote to the emperor for ten days, and communicating it then withprecautions. 

 * * * * *

Leopold II. Was one of the shrewdest and most cautious of men. He knewhow to wait, and how to give way. He had no wish that hisbrother-in-law should again be powerful, and he was not sorry thatFrance should be disabled by civil dissension. But he could notabandon his sister without dishonour; and he was afraid of thecontagion of French principles in Belgium, which he had reconciled andpacified with difficulty. Moreover, a common action in French affairs, action which might eventually be warlike, was a means of closing thelong enmity with Prussia, and obtaining a substitute for the familyalliance with France, which had become futile. Therefore he wasprepared, if they had escaped, to risk war for their restoration, andinduced the Prussian agent to sign an undertaking which went beyondhis instructions. 

When the disastrous news reached him from Varennes, Leopold appealedto the Powers, drew up an alliance with Prussia, and joined in thedeclaration of Pilnitz, by which France was threatened with thecombined action of all Europe unless the king was restored to aposition worthy of kings. The threat implied no danger, because it wasmade conditional on the unanimity of the Powers. There was one Powerthat was sure not to consent. England was waiting an opportunity toprofit by French troubles. It had already been seriously proposed byBouillé, with the approval of Lewis, to purchase aid from George III. By the surrender of all the colonies of France. Therefore Leopoldthought that he risked nothing by a demonstration which the _émigrés_made the most of to alarm and irritate the French people. But when theking freely accepted the Constitution, the manifesto of Pilnitz fellto the ground. If he was content with his position, it could not bethe duty of the Powers to waste blood and treasure in attempting toalter it. The best thing was that things should settle down in France. Then there would be no excitement spreading to Belgium, and no reasonwhy other princes should be less easily satisfied than Lewis himself. "The king, " said Kaunitz, "the king, good man, has helped us out ofour difficulty himself. " Still more, when he obtained a revival ofpopularity which seemed a marvel after the events of June, when hefreely vetoed acts which he disapproved, and appeared to be acting infull agreement with a powerful and still dominant party, the imperialgovernment hoped that the crisis was over. And this was the state ofthings in October and November. 

The _émigrés_, conscious of their repulse at Pilnitz, made it theirbusiness to undeceive the emperor, and to bring him back to the schemeof intervention. The Spanish Bourbons were with them, and had recalledtheir ambassador, and fitted out a fleet in the Mediterranean. Gustavus of Sweden was eager to invade France with a Swedish army tobe conveyed in Russian ships, and paid for in Mexican piastres, andwith Bouillé by his side. Catherine II. Gave every encouragement tothe German Powers to embroil themselves with France, and to leave herto deal uncontrolled with Poland and Turkey. The first to emigrate hadbeen the Comte d'Artois and his friends, who had conspired againstNecker and the new Constitution. They fled, because their lives werein danger. Others followed, after the rising of the peasants and thespoliation of August. As things grew more acute, and the settlement offeudal claims was carried out with unsparing hostility, the movementspread to the inferior _noblesse_. After the breach with the clergyand the secularisation of Church property, the prelates went intoexile, and were followed by their friends. In the winter of 1790-1791they began to organise themselves on the Rhine, and to negotiate withsome of the smaller Powers, especially Sardinia, for an invasion. Thelater arrivals were not welcomed, for they were men who had acceptedconstitutional government. The purpose of the true _émigrés_ was therestoration of the old order, of the ancient principles andinstitutions, not without reform, but without subversion. That was thebond between them, and the basis on which they sought the aid ofabsolute princes. They denied that the king himself, writhing in thegrip of democracy, had the right to alter the fundamental laws. Someof the best and ablest and most honourable men had joined their ranks, and they were instructed and inflamed by the greatest writer in theworld, who had been the best of Liberals and the purest ofrevolutionary statesmen, Edmund Burke. It was not as a reactionist, but as a Whig who had drunk success to Washington, who had dressed inblue and buff, who had rejoiced over the British surrender atSaratoga, who had drawn up the address to the Colonists, which is thebest State paper in the language, that he told them that it was lawfulto invade their own country, and to shed the blood of theircountrymen. 

The _émigrés_ of every grade of opinion were united in dislike of thequeen and in depreciation of the king, and they wished to supersedehim by declaring his brother Regent. They hoped to save them both; butthey thought more of principles than of persons, and were not to bediverted from their projects by consideration of what might happen atParis. When the emperor spoke of the danger his sister and her husbandwere running, Castelnau replied, "What does it matter, provided theroyal authority is preserved in the person of d'Artois?" They not onlyrefused obedience to Lewis, but they assiduously compromised him, andproclaimed that he meant the contrary of what he said, making areconciliation between him and his people impossible. Even hisbrothers defied him when in this extremity, he entreated them toreturn. It was the _émigré_ policy to magnify the significance of whatwas done at Pilnitz; and as they have convinced posterity that it wasthe announcement of an intended attack, it was easy to convince theircontemporaries at home. The language of menace was there, and Francebelieved itself in danger. How little the Princes concerned meant togive effect to it remained a secret. 

The French democracy might have found its advantage in thedisappearance of so many nobles; but as they were working, withapparent effect, to embroil the country with its neighbours, attemptswere made to compel their return, first by a threefold taxation, thenby confiscation, and at last, November 9, by threatening with deaththose who did not return. The nonjuring clergy were associated withthe _émigrés_ in the public mind as enemies and conspirators who werethe more dangerous because they remained at home. The First Assemblyhad provoked the hostility on the frontier; the Second provokedhostilities at home. The First had left nonjuring priests with apension, and the use of parish churches where successors had not beenappointed. The Legislative Assembly decreed, November 29, that in allcases where it seemed good to the authorities, they might be deprivedof their pensions and sent away. The great insurrection of the Westwas caused by this policy. It was religious rather than political, andwas appeased by the return of the priests. 

The head of the war party in the Assembly was Brissot, who was reputedto know foreign countries, and who promised certain success, as noreally formidable Power was ready to take the field. Meantime heendeavoured to isolate Austria, and Ségur was sent to Berlin, Talleyrand to London, to surround France with her natural allies. Brissot's text was the weakness and division of other countries; thefirst man who divined the prodigious resources and invincible energyof France was the declamatory Provençal Isnard. He spoke on November29, and this was his prophetic argument: the French people exhibitedthe highest qualities in war when they were treated as slaves bydespotic masters; there was no fear that they had degenerated inbecoming free men; only let them fight for principle, not for Statepolicy, and the force that was in them would transform the world. Hérault de Séchelles divulged the political motive of the war party. He said a foreign conflict would be desirable for internal reasons. Itwould lead to measures of precaution stronger than peace time wouldadmit, and changes otherwise impossible would then be justified by theplea of public safety. It is the first shadow cast by the coming reignof terror. But neither Girondin violence nor _émigré_ intrigue was thecause that plunged France into the war that was to be the mostdreadful of all wars. The true cause was the determination of MarieAntoinette not to submit to the new Constitution. At first she wishedthat France should be intimidated by a congress of the united Powers. She warned her friends abroad not to be taken in by the mockery of herunderstanding with the Feuillant statesmen; and when Leopold treatedthe accepted Constitution seriously, as a release from hisengagements, she accused him of betraying her. On September 8, justbefore accepting, Lewis, in confidence, wrote that he meant totolerate no authority in France besides his own, and that he desiredto recover it by foreign aid. 

The idea of an armed Congress persisted until the end of November. Butduring the week from the 3rd to the 10th of December the king andqueen wrote to the Powers, desiring them not to regard their officialacts, beseeching them to resist the demands they made in public and tomake war, and assuring them that France would be easily subdued andcowed. They hoped, by this treason, to recover their undivided power. All these letters were inspired, were almost dictated, by Fersen. 

As Leopold began to see more clearly what it was his sister meant, hemodified his pacific policy. On the 25th of October he speaks ofincreasing the royal authority by a counter-revolution in France. Onthe 17th of November he invites Prussia to help him with 20, 000 men. On the 10th of December he denounces the annexation by France of theGerman domains in Alsace. In conformity with this gradual change, Kaunitz became more rigid, and he made known that any assault on theElector of Treves, for the protection he gave to the warlike_émigrés_, would be resisted by the imperial forces. Each step was asshort as possible. The transition from peace to war, from pointlessremonstrance to vigorous defiance, was slow and gradual. It began latein October, when the real meaning of the acceptance of theConstitution became known, but down to the month of January the changewas not decisive, and the tone was still ambiguous. On the 3rd ofJanuary a letter from the queen at length carried the emperor over. Onthe way this appeal had converted Mercy, and Mercy, on January 7, wrote a letter which compelled Kaunitz to give way. Kaunitz had growngrey in the idea of the French alliance and of rivalry with Prussia. He laughed at Mr. Burke and the theory of contagion. He desired toperpetuate a state of things which paralyzed France, by the rivalrybetween the king and the democracy. To restore the king's power athome was to increase it abroad. Kaunitz was willing that it should bekept in check by the legislature; but a moment came when he perceivedthat the progress of the opposition, of the Jacobins as menindiscriminately called them, more properly of the Girondins, hadtransferred the centre of gravity. What had been cast down in theMonarch rose again in the Second Assembly, and the power of thenation, the nation united with its representatives, began to appear. 

Kaunitz, though he had no eye for such things, took alarm at last, andresolved that the way to depress France was to assist the king ofFrance. On January 5, after the queen's letter of December 16 had beenreceived, he declared that Austria would support the elector ofTreves, and would repel force by force, if he was attacked for theharbouring of _émigrés_. At the same moment Leopold resolved on anoffensive alliance with Prussia. He explained his change of policy bythe letters which showed him the true mind of the queen. On January 16Kaunitz still believed that the other Powers would refuse toco-operate. But Prussia was willing to accept the new alliance, ifAustria abandoned the new Polish Constitution of May 3. Leopold paidthe stipulated price. On February 7 he gave up the Poles, that hemight be strong against France. Already, January 25, Kaunitz hadtaken the deciding step, passing over from the defensive to attack. Hespeaks no more of the king's liberty of action. He demands restitutionof the papal territory at Avignon, annexed in consequence of thePope's action against the ecclesiastical laws. He requires that theGerman princes shall have their Alsatian domains given back to them, and that there shall be no trespass on the imperial dominions. And ingeneral terms he requires the restoration of monarchy. Again he wrote, in the same warlike and defiant spirit, on February 17, when thePrussian signature had been received, and when he expected English aidfor the preservation of Belgium. Meantime Simolin, the Russianminister who had been helpful in procuring the fatal passport, arrivedat Vienna with a last appeal from the queen. At that time she did notfeel that their lives were in jeopardy, but their power. To thefaithful Fersen she wrote that she hoped the enemy would strike home, so that the French, in their terror, might pray the king to intercede. 

Kaunitz, having despatched his ultimatum on the international groundsof quarrel, declined to interfere in internal affairs. But Simolin sawLeopold on the 25th, and then the emperor admitted what his chancellordenied, that the cause was the common cause of all crowned heads. Withthose significant words he quits the stage. Five days later he wasdead. 

Each step forward taken by Austria aggravated the warlike feeling inthe French legislature. But Delessart, through whom the governmentcommunicated with foreign powers, mitigated everything, and avoidedprovocation. Even the note of the 17th, which was delivered at Parison the 27th, produced no immediate commotion. But Narbonne thought thetime had come to carry into effect his policy of war, for the majoritywas now with him. He threatened to resign unless Bertrand retired, whowas the king's nominee among the six ministers; and he only withdrewhis threat at the instance of Lafayette and the other generals whowere to be in command. Lewis, indignant at this intrigue, dismissednot Bertrand, but Narbonne. The Girondins, in reply, impeachedDelessart, who was sent to prison, March 10, and perished there inSeptember. The Feuillant minister resigned. Robespierre, who divinedthe calculations of the Court, and feared that war might strengthenthe arm that bore the banner, resisted the warlike temper, and carriedthe Jacobins with him. On this issue Girondins and Jacobins separatedinto distinct parties. The Girondins inclined to an inevitableRepublic, because they distrusted the king; but they accepted theConstitution, and did not reject a king at low pressure, such as hadbeen invented by the Whigs. They were persuaded that, in case of war, Lewis would intrigue with the enemy, would be detected, and would beat their mercy. "It is well that we should be betrayed, " said Brissot, "because then we shall destroy the traitors. " And Vergniaud, whosedignity and elevation of language have made him a classic, pointed tothe Tuileries and said, "Terror has too often issued from that palacein the name of a despot. Let it enter, to-day, in the name of thelaw. " They suspected, and suspected truly, that the menacing note fromVienna was inspired at Paris. They formed a new ministry, withDumouriez at the Foreign Office. Dumouriez gave Austria a fixed termto renounce its policy of coercing France by a concert of Powers; andas Kaunitz stood his ground, and upheld his former statements ofpolicy, on April 20 Lewis declared war against his wife's nephew, Francis, king of Hungary. Marie Antoinette triumphed, through herinfluence on her own family. Formally it was not a war for herdeliverance, but a war declared by France, which might be turned toher advantage. To be of use to her, it must be unsuccessful; and inorder to ensure defeat, she betrayed to the Court of Vienna the planof operations adopted in Council the day before. 

XIV

DUMOURIEZ

As the war was more often a cause of political events than aconsequence, it will be convenient to follow up the progress ofmilitary affairs to the fall of Dumouriez, postponing the catastropheof monarchy to next week. 

On the 17th of February 1792 Pitt informed the House of Commons thatthe situation of Europe had never afforded such assurance of continuedpeace. He did not yet recognise the peril that lay in the new FrenchConstitution. Under that Constitution, no government could be deemedlegitimate unless it aimed at liberty, and derived its powers from thenational will. All else is usurpation; and against usurped authority, insurrection is a duty. The Rights of Man were meant for generalapplication, and were no more specifically French than themultiplication table. They were not founded on national character andhistory, but on Reason, which is the same for all men. The Revolutionwas essentially universal and aggressive; and although theseconsequences of its original principle were assiduously repressed bythe First Assembly, they were proclaimed by the Second, and roused thethreatened Powers to intervene. Apart from this inflaming cause themotives of the international conflict were indecisive. The emperorurged the affair of Avignon, the injury to German potentates who hadpossessions in Alsace, the complicity of France in the Belgiantroubles, and the need of European concert while the French denied thefoundations of European polity. 

Dumouriez offered to withdraw the French troops from the frontier, ifAustria would send no more reinforcements, but at that moment thequeen sent word of an intended attack on Liége. The offer seemedperfidious, and envenomed the quarrel. Marie Antoinette despatchedGoguelat, the man who was not at his post on the flight to Varennes, to implore intervention. She also gave Mercy her notions as to anAustrian manifesto; and in this letter, dated April 30, there is nosign of alarm, and no suggestion yet that France might be cowed by theuse of exorbitant menaces. Dumouriez, who desired war with Austria, endeavoured to detach Prussia from the alliance. He invited the kingto arbitrate in the Alsatian dispute, and promised deference to hisaward. He proposed that the prerogative should be enlarged, theprinces indemnified, the _émigrés_ permitted to return. FredericWilliam was unmoved by these advances. He relied on the annexation ofAlsace and Lorraine to compensate both allies, and he expected tosucceed, because his army was the most illustrious of all armies inEurope. He wished to restore the _émigrés_, who would support himagainst Austria, and the _émigrés_ looked to him to set up the orderof society that had fallen. "Better to lose a province, " they said, "than to live under a constitution. "

The allied army was commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, the mostadmired and popular prince of his time. His own celebrity disabledhim. Many years ago Marshal Macmahon said to an officer, since in highcommand at Berlin, that an army is best when it is composed ofsoldiers who have never smelt gunpowder, of experiencednon-commissioned officers, and of generals with their reputation tomake. Brunswick had made his reputation under the great king, and hefeared to compromise it. Want of enterprise made him unfit for hisposition, although nobody doubted his capacity. In France, theythought of him for the command of their armies, and even for a stillhigher post. In spite of the disasters I am about to describe, thePrussians believed in him, and he was again their leader when they metNapoleon. The army which he led across the Rhine fell short of thestipulated number by 35, 000 men. Francis, the new emperor, did notfulfil his engagements, and entered on the expedition with dividedcounsels. 

Kaunitz, who was eighty-two years of age, and knew the affairs ofEurope better than any other man, condemned the policy of his newmaster. He represented that they did not know what they were going tofight for; that Lewis had never explained what changes in theConstitution would satisfy him; that nothing could be expected fromdisaffection, and nothing could be done for a system which wasextinct. On August 2 he resigned office, and made way for men whospeculated on the dismemberment of France, and expected to see ashrunken monarchy in the north and a confederate republic in thesouth. 

The entire force brought together for the invasion amounted to about80, 000 men, of which half were Prussians. When they were assembled onthe Rhine, it became necessary to explain to the French people whythey were coming, and what they meant to do. Headquarters were atFrankfort, when a confidential emissary from Lewis XVI. , Mallet duPan, appeared on the scene. Mallet du Pan was neither a brilliantwriter like Burke and De Maistre and Gentz, nor an original andconstructive thinker like Sieyès; but he was the most sagacious of allthe politicians who watched the course of the Revolution. As aGenevese republican he approached the study of French affairs with noprejudice towards monarchy, aristocracy, or Catholicism. A Liberal atfirst, like Mounier and Malouet, he became as hostile as they; and histestimony, which had been enlightened and wise, became morose andmonotonous when his cause was lost, until the Austrian statesmen withwhom he corresponded grew tired of his narrowing ideas. He settled inEngland, and there he died. As he was not a man likely to propose afoolish thing, he was heard with attention. He proposed that theallies should declare that they were warring on Jacobinism, not onliberty, and would make no terms until the king regained his rightfulpower. If he was injured, they would inflict a terrible vengeance. 

Whilst Mallet's text was being manipulated by European diplomacy atFrankfort, Marie Antoinette, acting through Fersen, disturbed theircounsels. The queen understood how to control her pen, and to repressthe language of emotion. But after June 20 she could not doubt thatanother and a more violent outrage was preparing, and that therepublicans aimed at the death of the king. The terms in which sheuttered her belief outweighed the advice of the sober Genevese. "Saveus, " she wrote, "if it is yet time. But there is not a moment tolose. " And she required a declaration of intention so terrific that itwould crush the audacity of Paris. Montmorin and Mercy were convincedthat she was right. Malouet alone among royalist politicians expectedthat the measure she proposed would do more harm than good. Fersen, towhom her supplications were addressed, employed an _émigré_ namedLimon to draw up a manifesto equal to the occasion, and Limon, bearingcredentials from Mercy, submitted his composition to the alliedsovereigns. He announced that the Republicans would be exterminated, and Paris destroyed. Already Burke had written: "If ever a foreignprince enters into France, he must enter it as into a country ofassassins. The mode of civilised war will not be practised; nor arethe French, who act on the present system, entitled to expect it. "Mallet du Pan himself had declared that there ought to be nopernicious mercy, and that humanity would be a crime. In reality, thedifference between his tone and the fanatic who superseded him was nota wide one. 

The manifesto, which proceeded from the queen, which had the sanctionof Fersen, of Mercy, of Bouillé, was accepted at once by the emperor. The Prussians introduced some alterations, and Brunswick signed it onJuly 25. His mind misgave him at the time, and he regretted afterwardsthat he had not died before he set his hand to it. Mercy, when it wastoo late, wished to put another declaration in its place. The Prussianministers would not suffer the text to be published at Berlin. Theyallowed the author to fall into poverty and obscurity. He had acted inthe spirit of the _émigrés_. 

On July 27 the Princes issued a declaration of their own, to theeffect that not Paris only should suffer the extremity of martial law, but every town to which the king might be taken if he was removed fromthe capital. Breteuil, although he complained that the invadersexhibited an intolerable clemency, disapproved the secondproclamation. But Limon demanded the destruction of Varennes, and the_émigrés_ expected that severities should be inflicted on thepopulation as they went along. The idea of employing menaces so awfulas to inspire terror at a distance of 300 miles was fatal to those whosuggested it; but the danger was immediate, and the consequences ofinaction were certain, for the destined assailants of the Tuilerieswere on the march from Toulon and Brest. It was not so certain thatthe king would be unable to defend himself. The manifesto was adesperate resource in a losing cause, and it is not clear that wiserand more moderate words would have done better. The text was notpublished at Paris until August 3. The allies were too far away fortheir threats to be treated seriously, and they are not answerable forconsequences which were already prepared and expected. But theirmanifesto strengthened the hands of Danton, assured the triumph of theviolent sections, and suggested the use to which terror may be put inrevolutions. It contributed to the fall of the monarchy, and stillmore to the slaughter of the royalists three weeks later. The weaponforged by men unable to employ it was adopted by their enemies, andserved the cause it was intended to destroy. 

The Declaration united the French people against its authors. TheRepublicans whom it threatened and denounced became the appointedleaders of the national defence, and the cause of the Republic becameidentified with the safety of the nation. In order to withstand theinvasion, and to preserve Paris from the fate of Jerusalem, the armygave itself to the dominant faction. The royalist element vanishedfrom its ranks. Lafayette made one last attempt to uphold theConstitution, but his men repulsed him. He went over to imperialterritory, and was detained in prison as the guilty author of theRevolution. Dumouriez succeeded to his command, and adhered to the newgovernment. Out of 9000 officers in the king's service, 6000 hadresigned, and, for the most part, had emigrated. Their places werefilled by new men. In 1791, 100, 000 volunteers had been enrolled, andenjoyed the privilege of electing their own officers. This became thepopular force, and recruits preferred it to the line, where disciplinewas sterner and elected commanders were unknown. The men who now rosefrom the ranks proved better professional soldiers than the finegentlemen whom they replaced. Talent could not fail to make its way. Those volunteer officers of 1791 and 1792 included most of the menwhom the long war raised to eminence. Seventeen of the twenty-sixmarshals of Napoleon were among them. 

 * * * * *

On the 19th of August, four months after war had been declared, theallies entered France by the line of the Moselle. There was one Frencharmy to their left at Metz, and another to their right along Vauban'schain of fortresses, with an undefended interval between. To widen thegap they laid siege to Longwy, the nearest fortified place, and tookit, after a feeble resistance, on August 24. When the news spreadthere was a moment of alarm, and the Council of Defence proposed toretire from the capital. Danton declared that he would burn Paris tothe ground rather than abandon it to the enemy. Lavergne, who made sopoor a defence at Longwy, was afterwards condemned to death. He wasdisheartened by disaster, but his wife cried out that she would perishwith him, and the judges granted her prayer. She strove to give himcomfort and courage along the way, and they were guillotined together. 

From Longwy the Prussians advanced upon Verdun, which surrenderedSeptember 2, after one day's bombardment, and there was not a rampartbetween them and the capital. A few miles beyond Verdun the roads tothe west traversed the Argonne, a low wooded range of hills piercedin five places by narrow defiles, easy to defend. Then came the opencountry of Champagne, and the valley of the Marne, leading, without anatural or artificial obstacle, to Paris. 

On the 7th of September Pitt wrote that he expected Brunswick soon toreach his goal. There was no enemy in his front, while on his flankDumouriez clung to his frontier strongholds, persuaded that he wouldarrest the invasion if he threatened the Austrians at Brussels, wherethey were weakened by recent insurrection and civil war. The Frenchgovernment rejected his audacious project, and ordered him to move onChâlons, and cover the heart of France. At Sedan, Dumouriez could hearheavy firing at a distance, and knew that Verdun was attacked, andcould not hold out. He quickly changed his plan, postponing Belgium, but not for long, and fell back on the passes of the forest that hewas about to make so famous. "They are the Thermopylæ of France, " hesaid, "but I mean to do better than Leonidas. "

Brunswick, delaying his cumbrous march for ten days, while Breteuilorganised a new administration at Verdun, gave time for the French tostrengthen their position. Before moving forward, he pointed out onthe map the place where he intended to halt on the 16th, and men heardfor the first time the historic name, Valmy. On the 14th Clerfayt, with the Austrians, forced one of the passes, and turned the Frenchleft. At nightfall, Dumouriez evacuated his Thermopylæ moreexpeditiously than became a rival Leonidas, and established himselfacross the great road to Châlons, opposite the southern defile of theArgonne, which extends between Clermont and St. Ménehould, whereDrouet rode in pursuit of the king. His infantry encountered Prussiantroopers and ran away. Ten thousand men, he wrote, were put to flightby fifteen hundred hussars. 

Napoleon said, at St. Helena, that he believed himself to be bolderthan any general that ever lived, but he would never have dared tohold the position that Dumouriez took up. He was outnumbered, three toone. He had been outmanoeuvred, and driven from his fastness by themost enterprising of the allied generals; and his recruits refused toface the enemy. He never for a moment lost confidence in himself, forthe time wasted at Verdun had given him the measure of his opponents. He summoned Kellermann, with the army of Metz, and Beurnonville, with10, 000 men, from Lille, and they arrived, just in time, on the 19th. Beurnonville, when his telescope showed him a regular army in order ofbattle, took alarm and fell back, thinking it must be Brunswick. Itproved to be Dumouriez; and on the morning of September 20 he was atthe head of 53, 000 men, with the allies gathering in his front. ThePrussians had come through the woods by the pass he had abandoned, andas they turned to face him, they stood with their backs to the greatCatalaunian plain, which was traversed by the high road to Paris. Theyhad been for a month in France, and had met with no resistance. Lafayette had deserted. The military breakdown was so apparent thatthe colonel of infantry, as he marched out of Longwy, threw himselfinto the river, and the governor of Verdun blew out his brains. 

Clerfayt's success on the 14th and the rout of the following dayraised the hopes of the Germans, and they wrote on the 19th that theywere turning the enemy, and were sure of destroying him, if he wasrash enough to wait their attack. From his prison at LuxemburgLafayette urged them onward, and hinted that Dumouriez might beinduced to unite with them for the rescue of the king. 

Therefore, on the morning of September 20, when the mist rose over theFrench army drawn up on the low hills before them, there was joy inthe Prussian camp, and the battalions that had been trained atPotsdam, under the eye of the great king, to the admiration of Europe, received for the first time the republican fire. They were 34, 000. Kellermann opposed them with 36, 000 men, and 40 guns against 58. Itsoon appeared that things were not going as the invaders had expected. The French soldiers were not frightened by the cannonade. Beurnonvillerode up to one of his regiments and told them to lie down, to makeway for shot. They refused to obey whilst he exposed himself onhorseback. After time had been allowed for artillery to produce itseffect on republican nerve, the Prussian infantry made ready toattack. Gouvion St. Cyr, the only general of his time whom Napoleonacknowledged as his equal, believed that the French would not havestood at close quarters. But the word to advance was never given. 

The secret of war, said Wellington, is to find out what is going on onthe other side of the hill. When Brunswick rode over the field somedays later, a staff officer asked him why he had not moved forward. Heanswered, "Because I did not know what was behind the hill. " There wasDumouriez's reserve of 16, 000 men. He had sent to the front as many aswere needed to fill Kellermann's line, and left to his colleague thepart for which he was fitted. For his conduct that day Kellermann wasnamed a marshal of the Empire and duke of Valmy; but the whole worldwas aware that the event was due to the brain of the man in thebackground. When the French had lost 300 men without wavering, thePrussians ceased firing, and broke off the engagement. Their loss wasonly 184. Yet this third-rate and mediocre action is counted, withWaterloo and Gettysburg, among the decisive battles of history; andGoethe was not the only man there who knew that the scene before himwas the beginning of a new epoch for mankind. With 36, 000 men and 40guns the French had arrested the advance of Europe, not by skilfultactics or the touch of steel, but by the moral effect of theirsolidity when they met the best of existing armies. The nationdiscovered that the Continent was at its mercy, and the war begun forthe salvation of monarchy became a war for the expansion of theRepublic. It was founded at Paris, and consolidated at Valmy. Yet nomilitary event was less decisive. The French stood their groundbecause nobody attacked them, and they were not attacked because theystood their ground. The Prussians suffered a strategic, though not atactical defeat. By retiring to their encampment they renounced thepurposes for which they went to war, the province they occupied, andthe prestige of Frederic. They no longer possessed the advantage ofnumbers, and without superior numbers there could be no dash forParis. 

The object of the invasion was unattainable by force, but somethingmight be got by negotiation, if it was undertaken before force haddefinitely failed. They were losing heavily, by disease and want, while French recruits were pouring in. Therefore Dumouriez wished fortime. The king's secretary had been captured, and he sent him withovertures, representing that the intended advance upon Paris washopeless, and that Prussia had more interests in common with Francethan with Austria. Frederic William at once surrendered the originaldemands. He made no stipulations now regarding the future governmentof France or the treatment of the _émigrés_. He only demanded thatLewis should be restored, in such manner as might seem good to France, and that the propaganda of revolution should be put an end to. Thatpropaganda was one of the weapons by which the French checked andembarrassed the champions of European absolutism, and it was obviousthat it would receive encouragement from their success at Valmy. Andit was a point of honour to speak for the imprisoned monarch. But ithad become a vain thing. Dumouriez produced a newspaper with thedecree of the new Assembly abolishing monarchy. It was hard to saywhat the allies were now doing on French soil. "Only do something forthe king, " said Brunswick, "and we will go. " The Austrians would besatisfied if he was only a stadtholder. Kellermann promised that peacemight be obtained if he was sent back to the Tuileries. It was all toolate. The Prince, in whose behalf the allies invaded France, was now ahostage in the power of their enemies; all that they could obtain wasa pledge not to carry the revolution into foreign countries. Theirposition grew more dangerous every day, and Dumouriez grew stronger. 

At the end of September Frederic William abandoned Lewis to his fate. He had contributed to his dethronement by entering France, and hecontributed to his execution by leaving it. He did not feel that hehad deserved so prodigious a humiliation. If the Austrians had joinedas they promised with 100, 000 men, the march upon the capital wouldhave been conceivable with energetic commanders. And the king couldjustly say that he had favoured spirited schemes, and had been baffledby the faltering commander-in-chief. He attempted, by throwing outhints of neutrality, to escape without further loss. Dumouriezcalculated that every attack would weld the allies more closelytogether, and refrained from molesting them. Early in October theyevacuated the conquered province, and retreated to the Rhine, pursuedby a few random shots, while Dumouriez hastened to Paris, to be hailedas the saviour of his country. 

 * * * * *

The invasion of 1792 roused a crouching lion; and the French, aftertheir easy and victorious defence, went over to the attack. Whilst theinvaders were standing still, too weak to advance and too proud towithdraw, the conquest of Europe began. The king of Sardinia, as thefather-in-law of the Comte d'Artois, had thrown himself into thecounter-revolutionary policy, and the scheme for attacking Lyons. Ofall European monarchs, since the murder of Gustavus, he was the mosthostile. An army under Montesquieu occupied Savoy and Nice withoutresistance, and the people readily adopted the new system. A weeklater Custine seized the left bank of the Rhine, where diminutivesecular and ecclesiastical territories, without cohesion, were an easyprey. The Declaration of Rights, said Gouverneur Morris, proved quiteas effectual as the trumpets of Joshua. Mentz fell, October 21, andCustine occupied Frankfort and replenished his military chest. Thisexcursion into the middle of the Empire was not authorised by Statepolicy. The idea was already taking shape that the safety of Francerequired the defensible and historic, or, as they unscientificallycalled it, the natural frontier of the Rhine, and that the grandconflict with Austria should be transferred to Italy. Germany was anation of armed men, and was best let alone. In Italy, the Austrianswould have only their own resources for war. Their most vulnerablepoint was the outlying principality of Belgium, so distant from Viennaand so near to Paris. 

Dumouriez was now at liberty to deliver the stroke by which he hadhoped to stop the invasion, as Scipio drove Hannibal from Italy bylanding in Africa. By carrying the war in that direction he wouldoccupy the Imperialists, and would not excite the resentment ofPrussia. The country had not long been pacified, and it presented theunusual feature that Conservatives and Liberals alike were patrioticand rebellious. As a place where disaffection would assist war, it wasthere that the process of European revolution would properly begin. OnOctober 19 Dumouriez assumed the command of 70, 000 men, in the regionhe had held before his flank march to the Argonne. One of hislieutenants was the Peruvian adventurer Miranda, whose mission it wasto apply the movement in Europe to the rescue of Spanish America. Theother was known as Prince Égalité, senior, whose wonderful future wasalready foreseen both by Dumouriez and Danton. 

During the operations in Champagne the Austrians had begun the siegeof Lille, and at the turning of the tide they withdrew across thefrontier, and took up a strong position at Jemmapes, in front of Mons, with 13, 000 men. Clerfayt, again, was at their head; and when, onNovember 6, he saw the French army approaching, nearly 40, 000 strong, like Nelson in the hour of death he appeared in all his stars and goldlace, that his men, seeing him, might take heart. He was defeated, andthe next evening, at the theatre of Mons, Dumouriez was acclaimed bythe Flemish patriots. A week later he was at Brussels, and before theend of the month he was master of Belgium. Holland was undefended, andhe proposed to conquer it; but Antwerp was already in the power of theFrench, and his government feared that England would come to thedefence of the Dutch. They directed him to march upon Cologne andcomplete the conquest of the Rhine. 

By a decree of November 19 the Convention proffered sympathy andsuccour to every people that struck a blow for freedom; but the clovenhoof of annexation soon appeared, and it was avowed that the war wouldbe carried on, that the financial needs of France might be supplied, at the expense of the populations which the French arms delivered. These things offended the political, if not the moral sense ofDumouriez. He became alienated from the Convention; and as Englandwent to war on the death of the king, there was no consideration ofpolicy protecting Holland. The invasion was undertaken, andimmediately failed. The Austrians, under the duke of Coburg, who onthat day founded the great fortunes of his house, came back in force, and gave battle at Neerwinden, close to the fields of Landen and ofRamillies. Here, March 18, Clerfayt crushed Dumouriez's left wing, andrecovered the Belgic provinces as suddenly as he had lost them fourmonths earlier. 

Dumouriez had already resolved to treat with the Imperialists forcommon action against the Regicides. Five days after his defeat heinformed Coburg that, with his support, he would lead his army againstParis, disperse the Convention, and establish a constitutionalmonarchy without the _émigrés_. He promised that the better part ofhis force would follow him. The volunteers were Jacobinical; but theregulars were jealous of the volunteers, and would obey their general. As he felt his way, hostile officers watched him, and reported whatwas going on in the camp of the new Wallenstein. Twice the Jacobinsattempted to avert the peril. They invited Dumouriez to Paris, that hemight place himself at their head and overpower the Girondin majority, and they employed men to assassinate him. At last they sent theminister of war, accompanied by four deputies, to arrest him. Therewas to have been a fifth, but he did not arrive in time, and hisabsence saved France. For Dumouriez seized the envoys of theConvention, and handed them over to Coburg, to be hostages for thelife of the queen. The deputy who failed to appear was Carnot. Afterthat, Dumouriez was deserted by his men, and fled to the Austriancamp. He survived for thirty years. He became one of the shrewdestobservers of Napoleon's career, and was the confidential correspondentof Wellington on the art they understood so well. The future "king ofthe French, " who went over with him, remained true to his chief duringthe strange vicissitudes of their lives; and at the Restoration heasked that he should be made a marshal. "How could you think, " was theproud comment of Dumouriez, "that they have forgotten the Argonne?"

On the 20th of June in the following year Louis Philippe drove intotown from Twickenham to learn the news from the Low Countries. Hissons still know the spot where he found his old commandergesticulating on the pavement at Hammersmith, and learned from him howthe great war, which began with their victory at Valmy, had endedunder Napoleon at Waterloo. 

XV

THE CATASTROPHE OF MONARCHY

The calculations of the Girondins were justified by the event. Fourmonths after the declaration of war the throne had fallen, and theking was in prison. Next to Dumouriez the principal members of the newministry were the Genevese Clavière, one of Mirabeau's advisers, andthe promoter of the assignats, Servan, a meritorious officer, betterknown to us as a meritorious military historian; and Roland, whosewife shared, on a lower scale, the social influence and intellectualcelebrity of Madame de Staël. 

Dumouriez, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is one of the greatfigures of the Revolution. He was excessively clever rather thangreat, agreeable, and abounding in resource, not only cool in danger, as a commander should be, but steadfast and cheerful when hope seemedlost, and ready to meet the veterans of Frederic with undisciplinedvolunteers, and officers who were the remnant of the royal army. Without principle or conviction or even scruple, he had none of theinhumanity of dogmatic revolutionists. To the king, whom he despised, he said, "I shall often displease you, but I shall never deceive you. "He was not an accomplice of the conspiracy to compromise him and toruin him by war, and would have saved him if the merit and the rewardhad been his own. He did not begin well, in the arts either of war orpeace. He employed all his diplomacy, all his secret service money, inthe endeavour to make Prussia neutral. Nothing availed against theindignation of the Prussians at French policy, and their contempt forFrench arms. The officers received orders to make ready for a march toParis, and were privately told that it would be a mere parade. Thefirst encounter with Austrians on Belgian soil confirmed thispersuasion, for the French turned and fled, and murdered one of theirgenerals. 

Dumouriez's credit was shaken, and the Girondin leaders, who could notrely on him to make the coming campaign turn towards the execution oftheir schemes, revived the question of the clergy. On May 27 Vergniaudcarried a decree placing nonjurors at the mercy of local authorities, and threatening them with arbitrary expulsion as public enemies intime of national peril. If the king sanctioned, he would be isolatedand humiliated. If the king vetoed, they would have the means ofraising Paris against him, without waiting for the vicissitudes of waror the co-operation of Dumouriez. Madame Roland wrote a letter to theking, and her husband signed it, on June 10, representing that it wasfor the safety of the priests themselves that they should be sent outof the way of danger. Roland, proud of the composition, sent it to thepapers. The Girondin ministry was at once dismissed. Dumouriezremained, attempted to form an administration without the Girondincolleagues, but could not overcome the king's resistance to the act ofbanishment. On June 15 he resigned office, and took a command on thefrontier. The majority in the Assembly was still faithful to theConstitution of 1791, and opposed to further change; but the rejectionof their decree against the royalist clergy alienated them at thecritical moment. Lewis had lost ground with his friends; he hadangered the Girondins; and he had lost the services of the last manwho was strong enough to save him. 

On June 15 a high official in the administration of the department wasat Maubeuge, on a visit to Lafayette. His name was Roederer, and weshall meet him again. He rose high under Napoleon, and is one of thoseto whom we owe our knowledge of the Emperor's character, as well as ofthe events I am about to relate. His interview with the general wasinterrupted by a message from Paris. Lafayette was called away; andRoederer, from the next room, heard the joyful exclamations of theofficers. The news was the fall of the Girondin ministry; andLafayette, to strengthen the king's hands, wrote to the Assemblyremonstrating against the illiberal and unconstitutional tendencies ofthe hour. His letter was read on the 18th. A new ministry had beenforming, consisting of Feuillants and men friendly to Lafayette, oneof whom, Terrier de Montciel, enjoyed the confidence of the king. Onthe opposition side were the Girondins angry and alarmed at their fallfrom power, the more uncompromising Jacobins, Pétion at the head ofthe Commune, and behind Pétion, the real master of Paris, Danton, surrounded by a group of his partisans, Panis and Sergent in thepolice, Desmoulins and Fréron in the press, leaders of the populace, such as Santerre and Legendre, and above them all, the Alsatiansoldier, Westermann. 

With Danton and his following we reach the lowest stage of what canstill be called the conflict of opinion, and come to bare cupidity andvengeance, to brutal instinct and hideous passion. All these elementswere very near the surface in former phases of the Revolution. At thispoint they are about to prevail, and the man of action puts himselfforward in the place of contending theorists. Robespierre and Brissotwere politicians who did not shrink from crime, but it was in theservice of some form of the democratic system. Even Marat, the mostghastly of them all, who demanded not only slaughter but torture, andwhose ferocity was revolting and grotesque, even Marat was obedient toa logic of his own. He adopted simply the state of nature and theprimitive contract, in which thousands of his contemporaries believed. The poor had agreed to renounce the rights of savage life and theprerogative of force, in return for the benefits of civilisation; butfinding the compact broken on the other side, finding that the upperclasses governed in their own interest, and left them to misery andignorance, they resumed the conditions of barbaric existence beforesociety, and were free to take what they required, and to inflictwhat punishment they chose upon men who had made a profit of theirsufferings. Danton was only a strong man, who wished for a stronggovernment in the interest of the people, and in his own. In point ofdoctrine, he cared for little but the relief of the poor by taxing therich. He had no sympathy with the party that was gathering in thebackground, whose aim it was not only to reduce inequalities, but toinstitute actual equality and the social level. There was room beyondfor more extreme developments of the logic of democracy; but thegreatest change in the modern world was wrought by Danton, for it washe who overthrew the Monarchy and made the Republic. 

When Lewis dismissed his ministers, Danton exclaimed that the time hadcome to strike terror, and on June 20 he fulfilled his threat. It wasthe anniversary of the Tennis Court. A monster demonstration wasorganised, to plant a tree of liberty or to present a petition--inreality to overawe the Assembly and the king. There was an expectationthat the king would perish in the tumult, but nothing definite wassettled, and no assassin was designated. It was enough that he shouldgive way, abandon his priests, and receive his ministers from thepopulace. That was all the Girondins required, and they would assentto no more. The king would have to choose between them and theirtemporary confederates, the Cordeliers. If he gave way, he would bespared; if he resisted, he would be slain. It was not to beapprehended that he would resist and would yet come out alive. Theking understood the alternative before him, made his choice, andprepared to die. After putting his house in order, he wrote, on the19th, that he had done with this world. 

Lewis XVI. Had not ability to devise a policy or vigour to pursue it, but he had the power of grasping a principle. He felt at last that theground beneath his feet was firm. He would drift no longer, sought nocounsel, and admitted no disturbing inquiries. If he fell, he wouldfall in the cause of religion and for the rights of conscience. Theproper name for the rights of conscience is liberty, and therefore hewas true to himself, and was about to end as he had begun, in thecharacter of a liberal and reforming king. When the morning came, there was a moment of hesitation. The pacific rioters asked what wouldhappen if the guards fired upon them. Santerre, who was at their head, replied, "March on, and don't be afraid; Pétion will be there. " Theypresented their petition, defiled before the Assembly, and made theirway to the palace. It was not to be thought of that, after they hadbeen admitted by the representatives of the nation, an inferior powershould deny them access. One barrier after another yielded, and theypoured into the room where the king awaited them, in the recess of awindow, with four or five guards in front of him. They shielded himwell, for although there were men in the crowd who struck at him withsword and pike, he was untouched. Their cry was that he should restoreRoland and revoke his veto, for this was the point in common betweenthe Girondins and their violent associates. Legendre read an insultingaddress, in which he called the king a traitor. The scene lasted morethan two hours. Vergniaud and Isnard appeared after some time, andtheir presence was a protection. At last Pétion came in, borne alofton the shoulders of grenadiers. He assured the mob that the king wouldexecute the will of the people, when the country had shown that itagreed with the capital; he told them that they had done their duty, and then, with lenient arts, turned them out. 

That trying humiliation marks the loftiest moment in the reign ofLewis XVI. He had stood there, with the red cap of liberty on hispowdered head, not only fearless, but cheerful and serene. He had beenin the power of his enemies and had patiently defied them. He made nosurrender and no concession while his life was threatened. TheGirondins were not recalled, and the movement failed. For the momentthe effect was injurious to the revolutionary party, and useful to theking. It was clear that menace and outrage would not move him, andthat more was wanted than the half-hearted measures of the Gironde. 

The outrage of June 20 was a contumelious reply to Lafayette's letterof the 16th, and the time had come for more than the writing ofletters. His letter had been well received, and the Assembly hadordered it to be printed. The Girondins, by pretending that it couldnot be authentic, had prevented a vote on the question of sending itto the departments. He could count on the Feuillant majority, on theministry composed of his partisans, on his popularity with theNational Guard. As he was at the head of an army, his advice to theking to adopt a policy of resistance implied that he would support himin it. He now wrote once more, that he could never maintain his groundagainst the Prussians unless there was a change in the state of thingsin the capital. On the morning of June 28, immediately after hisletter, he appeared in the Assembly, and denounced the sowers ofdisorder who were disorganising the State. Having obtained a vote ofapproval, by 339 to 234, he appealed to the National Guard to stand byhim against his Jacobins. He summoned a meeting of his friends, butthe influence of the Court caused it to fail, and he was compelled toreturn to his camp, having accomplished nothing. He imagined onechance more. He now put forward his colleague, General Luckner, whowas incompetent but, not being a politician, was not distrusted, andthey were jointly to rescue the king, and bring him to a city ofrefuge. 

The revolutionists could now lay their plans without fear of the army. They summoned _fédérés_ from the departments for the anniversary ofJuly 14, and it was arranged that sturdy men should be sent from Brestand Marseilles to be at their orders when they struck the final blow. Paris could not be relied on. The failure there had been complete. OnJune 21, and on the 25th, the Cordeliers attempted to renew, withbetter effect, the attack which had been baffled by a divided purposeon the 20th. But their men would not move. The minister, Montciel, gave orders that the departments should not send _fédérés_ to Paris, and he succeeded in stopping all but a couple of thousand. Nothingcould be done until the contingents from the seaports arrived. Thecrisis was postponed, and some weeks of July were spent inparliamentary warfare. Here the Girondins had the lead; but theFeuillants were the majority in the Assembly, while the Jacobins weresupreme in Paris. The Girondins were driven into a policy bothtortuous and weak. The Republic would give power to one of theirenemies as the Monarchy gave it to the other. All they could do was toincrease hostile pressure on the king, in the hope of bringing him toterms with them. They oscillated between open attack and secretnegotiation and offers of defence. 

Lewis was inclined to accept a scheme for his deliverance which wasarranged by his ministers in conjunction with the generals. He was tohave been taken to Compiégne, within reach of the army. But the armymeant Lafayette, and Lafayette would only consent to restore the kingas the hereditary chief of a commonwealth, who should reign, butshould not govern. The queen refused to reign under such conditions, or to be saved by such hands. The security for her was in power, notin limitations to power. The sacred thing was the ancient Crown, notthe new Constitution. Lally Tollendal came over from England, conferred with Malouet and Clermont Tonnerre, and exhorted her toconsent. Morris, whose ready pen had put the American Constitutioninto final shape five years before, aided them in drawing up anamended scheme of government to be proclaimed when they should befree. But the strong will and stronger passion of the queen prevailed. When all was accurately combined, and the Swiss troops were on themarch to the rendezvous, the king revoked his orders, and on July 10the Feuillant ministry resigned, and the Girondins saw power once morewithin their grasp. They had vehemently denounced the king as thecause of all the troubles of the State, and on July 6 the assault hadbeen interrupted for a moment by a scene of emotion, when the bishopof Lyons obtained a manifestation of unanimous feeling in the presenceof the enemy. 

On July 11 the Assembly passed a vote declaring the country indanger, and on the 22nd it was proclaimed, to the sound of cannon. Itwas a call to arms, and placed dictatorial power in the hands ofgovernment. Different plans were proposed to keep that power distinctfrom the executive, and the idea which afterwards developed into theCommittee of Public Safety now began to be familiar. On July 14 theanniversary of the Bastille and of the Federation of 1790 wascelebrated on the Champ de Mars; the king went up to the altar, wherehe swore fidelity to the Constitution, with a heavy heart; and thepeople saw him in public for the last time until they saw him on thescaffold. It was near the end of July when the Girondins saw that theking would not take them back, and that the risk of a Jacobininsurrection, as much against them as against the throne, was fastapproaching. Their last card was a regency, to be directed by them inthe name of the Dauphin. Vergniaud suggested that the king shouldsummon four conspicuous members of the Constituent Assembly to hisCouncil, without office, to make up for the obscurity of his newministers. At that moment Brunswick's declaration became known, someof the forty-eight sections in which the people of Paris deliberateddemanded the dethronement of the king, and the Marseillais, arrivingon the 30th, five or six hundred strong, made it possible toaccomplish it. 

These events, coinciding almost to a day, conveyed power from theAssembly to the municipality, and from the Girondins to the Jacobins, who had the municipality in their hands, and held the machinery thatworked the sections. In a letter written to be laid before the king, Vergniaud affirmed that it was impossible to dissociate him from theallies who were in arms for his sake, and whose success would be sofavourable to his authority. That was the argument to which noroyalist could reply. The country was in danger, and the cause of thedanger was the king. The Constitution had broken down on June 20. Theking could not devote himself to the maintenance of a system whichexposed him to such treatment, and enabled his adversaries to disposeof all forces in a way that left him at the mercy of the mostinsolent and the most infamous of the rabble. He had not the instinctsof a despot, and would easily have been made content with reasonableamendments. But the limit of the changes he sought was unknown, unsettled, unexplained, and he was identified simply with the reversalof the Constitution he was bound by oath to carry out. 

The queen, a more important person than her husband, was more openlycommitted to reaction. The failure of the great experiment drove herback to absolutism. As she repudiated the _émigrés_ in 1791, so shenow repudiated the constitutionalists, and chose rather to perish thanto owe her salvation to their detested aid. She looked for deliveranceonly to the foreigners slowly converging on the Moselle. Her agentshad excluded a saving allusion to constitutional liberty in themanifesto of the Powers; and she had dictated the threats of vengeanceon the inhabitants of Paris. 

The king himself had called in the invaders. His envoy, concealed inthe uniform of a Prussian major, rode by the side of Brunswick. Hisbrothers were entering France with the heavy baggage of the enemies, and Breteuil, the agent whom he trusted more than his brothers, waspreparing to govern, and did in September govern, the provinces theyoccupied, under the shelter of their bayonets. For him the blow wasabout to fall--not for his safety, but for his plenary authority. Thepurpose of the allied sovereigns, and of the _émigrés_ who promptedthem, stood confessed. They were fighting for unconditionalrestoration, and both as invaders and as absolutists the king wastheir accomplice. The country could not make war with confidence, ifthe military power was in the hands of traitors. The king couldprotect them from the horrors with which they were threatened on hisaccount, not as the head of the executive, but as a hostage. He was adanger in his palace; he would be a security in prison. All this wasobvious at the time, and the effect it had was to disable and disarmthe friends of the constitutional king, so that no resistance wasoffered when the attack came, although it was the act of a very smallpart of the population. The Girondins no longer displayed a distinctpolicy, and scarcely differed from their former associates, of June, except by their wish to suspend the king, and not to dethrone him. Thefinal question, as to monarchy, regency, or republic, was to be leftto the Convention that was to follow. Pétion was persuaded that hewould soon be the Regent of France. He received a large sum of moneyfrom the Court; and it was in reliance on him, and on some lessconspicuous men, that the king and queen remained obstinately inParis. At the last moment Liancourt offered them a haven in Normandy;but Liancourt was a Liberal of the Constituante, and thereforeunforgiven. Marie Antoinette preferred to trust to Pétion andSanterre. 

Early in August the most revolutionary section of Paris decided thatthe king should be deposed. The Assembly rescinded the vote. Then thepeople of that section and some others made known that they wouldexecute their own decree, unless the Assembly itself made itunnecessary and accomplished legally what would otherwise be done bythe act of the sovereign people, superseding all powers and standingabove law. Time was to be allowed until August 9. If the king wasstill on the throne upon the evening of that day, the people of Pariswould sound the tocsin against him. 

On August 8 the Assembly came to a vote on the conduct of Lafayette, in abandoning his army in time of war to threaten his enemies at home. He was justified by 406 votes to 224. It was the last appearance ofthe Liberal party. Four hundred deputies, a majority of the entirebody, kept out of the way in the moment of danger, and allowed theGirondin and republican remnant to proceed without them. Theabsolution of Lafayette proclaimed the resolve not to dethrone theking. The Gironde had no constitutional remedy for its anxieties. Thenext step would be taken by the democracy of Paris, and their victorywould be a grave danger to the Gironde and a triumph for the extremerevolutionary faction. Up to this time they had struggled for mastery;they would now have to struggle for existence. They accepted what wasinevitable. After the flight of the Feuillants, the Gironde, nowsupreme in the legislature, capitulated to the revolution which theydreaded, and appeared without initiative or policy. 

On August 9 the Jacobin leaders settled their plan of action. Theirpartisans in each section were to elect three commissaries to act withthe Commune for the public good, and to strengthen, and, if necessary, eventually to supersede, the existing municipality. About one-half ofParis sent them, and they assembled in the course of the night at theHôtel de Ville, apart from the legal body. In the political science ofthe day the constituency suspended the constituted authorities andresumed all delegated powers. The revolutionary town-councillors, whonow came to the front, are the authors of the atrocities thatafflicted France during the next two years. They were creatures ofDanton. And as we now enter the company of malefactors and the Chamberof Horrors, we must bear this in mind, that our own laws punish theslightest step towards absolute government with the same supremepenalty as murder; so that morally the difference between the twoextremes is not serious. The agents are ferocious ruffians, and theleaders are no better; but they are at the same time influenced byrepublican convictions, as respectable as those of the _émigrés_. Thefunction of this supplementary Commune was not to lead theinsurrection or direct the attack, but to disable the defence; for thecommander of the National Guard received his orders from the Hôtel deVille, and he was a loyal soldier. 

The forces of the Revolution were not overwhelming. The men fromMarseilles and Brest were intent on fighting, and so were some fromthe departments. But when the tocsin rang from the churches soon aftermidnight, the Paris combatants assembled slowly, and the event mightbe doubtful. Ammunition was supplied to the insurgent forces from theHôtel de Ville, but not to the National Guard. It is extremelydangerous, said Pétion, to oppose one public force to another. At theTuileries there were less than a thousand Swiss mercenaries, who weresure to do their duty; one or two hundred gentlemen, come to defendthe king; and several thousand National Guards of uncertain fidelityand valour. Pétion showed himself at the palace, and at the Assembly, and then was seen no more. By a happy inspiration he induced Santerreto place him under arrest, with a guard of four hundred men to protecthim from the dangers of responsibility. He himself tells the story, and is mean enough to boast of his ingenuity. But if the mayor was atraitor and a coward, the commanding general, Mandat, knew his duty, and was resolved to do it. He prepared for the defence of the palace, and there was great probability that his men would fight. If they did, they were strong enough to repulse attack. Therefore, early in themorning of August 10, Mandat was summoned by his lawful superiors tothe Hôtel de Ville. He appeared before them, made his report, and wasthen taken to the revolutionary committee sitting separately. Hedeclared that he had orders to repel force by force, and that it wouldbe done. They required him to sign an order removing half of theNational Guard from the place they were to defend. Mandat refused tosave his life by an act of treachery, and by Danton's order he wasshot dead. He was in flagrant insurrection against the peoplethemselves and abetting constituted authorities in resistance to theirmaster. By this first act of bloodshed the defence of the palace wasdeprived of half its forces. The National Guards were without acommander, and, left to themselves, it was uncertain how many wouldfire on the people of Paris. 

Having disposed of the general commanding, the new Commune appointedSanterre to succeed him, and then took the place of the formerCommune. There was no obstacle now to the concentration and advance ofthe insurgents, and they appeared in the space between the Louvre andthe Tuileries, which was crowded with private houses. It was betweenseven and eight in the morning. All night long the royal familyexpected to be attacked, and the king did nothing. Some thousands ofSwiss were within reach, at Courbevoie, and were not brought up intime. At last, surrounded by his family, the king made a forlornattempt to rouse his guards to combat. It was an occasion memorablefor all time, for it was the last stand of the monarchy of Clovis. Hiswife, his children, his sister were there, their lives depending onthe spirit which, by a word, by a glance, he might infuse into thebrave men before him. The king had nothing to say, and the soldierslaughed in his face. When the queen came back, tears of rage werebursting from her eyes. "He has been deplorable, " she said, "and allis lost. " Others soon came to the same conclusion. Roederer wentamongst the men, and found them unwilling to fight in such a cause. Hewas invested with authority as a high official; and although theministers were present, it was he who gave the law. The disappearanceof Mandat and the hesitation of the artillery convinced him that therewas no hope for the defenders. 

There was a looker-on who lived to erect a throne in the place of theone that fell that day, and to be the next sovereign who reigned atthe Tuileries. In 1813 Napoleon told Roederer that he had watched thescene from a window on the Carrousel, and assured him that he had madea fatal mistake. Many of the National Guard were staunch, and theroyal forces were superior to those with which he himself conquered inVendémiaire. He thought that the defence ought to have beenvictorious. I do not suppose he seriously resented the blunder towhich he owed so much. Roederer was a clever man, and there is somereason to doubt whether he was single-minded in desiring to preventthe uncertain conflict. The queen was eager to fight, and spoke bravewords to every one. Afterwards, when she heard the cannonade from herrefuge in the reporter's box, she said to d'Hervilly: "Well, do youthink now that we were wrong to remain in Paris?" He answered, "Godgrant, madam, that you may not repent of it!" Roederer had detectedwhat was passing in her mind. Defeat would be terrible, for nothingcould save the royal family. But victory would also be a perilousthing for the revolution, for it would restore the monarchy in itspower, and the old nobles collected in the palace would gain too muchby it. They were indeed but a residue: 7000 had been expected toappear at the supreme moment; there were scarcely 120. Charette, thefuture hero of Vendée, was among them, unconscious yet of hisextraordinary gifts for war. 

Roederer, vigorously backed by his colleagues of the department, informed the king of what he had seen and heard, assured him that theTuileries could not be defended with the forces present, and thatthere was no safety except in the Assembly, the only authority thatwas regarded. It was but two days since the deputies, by an immensemajority, had approved the act of Lafayette. He thought they might betrusted to protect the king. As there was nothing left to fight for, he affirmed that those who remained behind would be in no danger. Hewould not allow the garrison to retire, and he left the Swiss, withoutorders, to their fate. Marie Antoinette resisted vehemently, and Lewiswas not easy to convince. At last he said that there was nothing to bedone, and gave orders to set out. But the queen in a fury turned uponhim, and exclaimed: "Now I know you for what you are!" Lewis told hisvalet to wait his return; but as they crossed the garden, where themen were sweeping the gravel, he remarked: "The leaves are fallingearly this year. " Roederer heard, and understood. 

A newspaper had said that the throne would not last to the fall of theleaf; and it was by those trivial but significant words that thefallen monarch acknowledged the pathetic solemnity of the moment, andindicated that the footsteps which took him away from his palace wouldnever be retraced. A deputation met him at the door of the Assembly, and he entered, saying that he came there to avert a great crime. TheFeuillants were absent. The Girondins predominated, and the president, Vergniaud, received him with stately sentences. From his retreat inthe reporter's box he placidly watched the proceedings. Vergniaud alsomoved that he be suspended, as he had been before, and that aConvention should be convoked, to pronounce on the future governmentof France. It was decided that the elections should be held without aproperty qualification. Roland and the other Girondin ministersreturned to their former posts, and Danton was appointed Minister ofJustice by 222 votes. For Danton was the victor. While Pétion kept outof the way, it was he who issued commands from the Hôtel de Ville, andwhen Santerre faltered, it was Danton's friend Westermann who broughtup his men to the tryst at the Carrousel. After the king was gone theymade their way into the Tuileries, holding parley with the defenders. If there had been anybody left to give orders, bloodshed might havebeen averted. But the tension was extreme; the Swiss refused tosurrender their arms; a shot was fired, and then they lost patienceand fell upon the intruders. In ten minutes they cleared the palaceand the courtyard. But the king heard the fusillade, and sent ordersto cease firing. The bearer of the order was d'Hervilly; but he hadthe heart of a soldier; and finding the position by no meansdesperate, he did not at once produce it. When he did, it was toolate. The insurgents had penetrated by the long gallery of the Louvre, near the river, and then there was no escape for the Swiss. They werekilled in the palace, and in the gardens, and their graves are underthe tall chestnuts. Of the women, some were taken to prison, and someto their homes. The conquerors slaked their thirst in the king's wine, and then flooded the cellars, lest some fugitive aristocrat should belurking underground. Their victims were between 700 and 800 men, andabout 140 of the assailants had fallen. 

The royalists did not at first perceive that the monarchy was at anend. They imagined that the king was again in the same condition asafter Varennes, only occupying the Luxembourg instead of theTuileries, and that he would be again restored, as the year before. The majority of the Legislature was loyal, and it was hoped thatFrance would resent the action of the capital. But Paris, representedby the intruding municipality, held its prey. The allowance promisedby the Assembly was suppressed, and the Temple was substituted for theLuxembourg which was deemed unsafe because of the subterraneangalleries. A sum of £20, 000 was voted for expenses, until theConvention in September disposed of the king. 

With no severer effort than the signing of an order, Lewis might havecalled up other regiments of Swiss, who would have made the strongholdof monarchy impregnable. And it would have been in his power, beforesunset that day, to march out of Paris at the head of a victoriousarmy, and at once to proclaim reforms which enlightened statesmen haddrawn up. His queen was active and resolute; but she had learnt, inadversity, to think more of the claims of authority and the historicright of kings. She shared Burke's passionate hatred for men whoseroyalism was conditional. At every step downward they were the authorsof their own disaster. The French Republic was not a spontaneousevolution of social elements. The issue between constitutionalmonarchy, the richest and most flexible of political forms, and theRepublic one and indivisible (that is, not federal), which is the mostrigorous and sterile, was decided by the crimes of men, and by errorsmore inevitably fatal than crime. There is another world for theexpiation of guilt; but the wages of folly are payable here below. 

XVI

THE EXECUTION OF THE KING

The constitutional experiment, first tried on the Continent underLewis XVI. , failed mainly through distrust of the executive and amechanical misconstruction of the division of power. Government hadbeen incapable, the finances were disordered, the army wasdisorganised; the monarchy had brought on an invasion which it was nowthe mission of the Republic to repel. The instinct of freedom made wayfor the instinct of force, the Liberal movement was definitelyreversed, and the change which followed the shock of the FirstEuropean Coalition was more significant, the angle more acute, thanthe mere transition from royal to republican forms. Unity of power wasthe evident need of the moment, and as it could not be bestowed upon aking who was in league with the enemy, it had to be sought in ademocracy which should have concentration and vigour for its dominantnote. Therefore supremacy was assured to that political party whichwas most alert in laying its grasp on all the resources of the State, and most resolute in crushing resistance. More than public interestswere at stake. Great armies were approaching, guided by vindictive_émigrés_, and they had announced the horrors they were prepared toinflict on the population of Paris. 

Beyond the rest of France the Parisians were interested in thecreation of a power equal to the danger, and were ready to be savedeven by a dictatorship. The need was supplied by the members of thenew municipality who expelled the old on the night of August 9. Theywere instituted by Danton. They appointed Marat their organ ofpublicity. Robespierre was elected a member of the body on August 11. It was the stronghold of the Revolution. Strictly, they were anillegal assembly, and their authority was usurped; but they weremasters of Paris, and had dethroned the king. The _Législative_, having accepted their action, was forced to obey their commandments, and to rescind its decrees at their pleasure. By convoking theconstituencies to elect a Convention, it had annulled itself. It wasno more than a dying assembly whose days were exactly numbered, andwhose credit and influence were at an end. 

Between a king who was deposed and an assembly that abdicated, theCommune alone exhibited the energy and force that were to save thecountry. Being illegitimate, they could quell opposition only byviolence; and they made it clear what violence they meant to use whenthey gave an office to Marat. This man had been a writer on science, and Goethe celebrates his sagacity and gift of observation in apassage which is remarkable for the absence of any allusion to hispublic career. But he considered that the rich have no right toenjoyments of which the masses are deprived, and that the guilt ofselfishness and oppression could only be expiated by death. A yearbefore he had proposed that obnoxious deputies should be killed bytorture, and their quarters nailed to the walls as a hint to theirsuccessors. He now desired to reconcile mercy with safety, anddeclared himself satisfied if the Assembly was decimated. Forroyalists, and men who had belonged to privileged orders, he had nosuch clemency. If, he said, the able-bodied men become soldiers andare sent to guard the frontier, who is to protect us from traitors athome? Either thousands of fighting men must be kept away from the armyin the field, or the internal enemy must be put out of the way. OnAugust 10 Marat began to employ this argument, and a company ofrecruits protested against being sent to the front whilst theirfamilies were at the mercy of the royalists. The cry became popularthat France would be condemned to fight her enemies with one arm, ifshe had to guard the traitors with the other. And this was the pleaprovided to excuse the crimes that were about to follow. It was theplea, but not the motive. If the intended destruction of royalistscould be represented as an act of war, as a necessity of nationaldefence, moderate men would be unable to prevent it without incurringreproach as unpatriotic citizens. 

When the Jacobins prepared the massacre in the prisons, their purposewas to fill France with terror and to secure their majority in theConvention. That is the controlling idea that governed the events ofthe next few weeks. After the decree which assigned the Luxemburgpalace as a residence to the king, the Commune claimed him; and he wasdelivered up to them, and confined in the Temple, the ancient fortressin which the Valois kept their treasure. They proceeded to suppressthe newspapers that were against them, disfranchised the voters whohad signed opposing or reactionary petitions, and closed the barriers. They threw their enemies into prison, erected a new tribunal for thepunishment of crimes against the Revolution, and supplied it with anew and most efficient instrument which executed its victimspainlessly, expeditiously, and on terms conforming to the precept ofequality. From the moment of his appearance at the Hôtel de Ville, theday after the fight was over, Robespierre became the ruling spirit andthe organiser, and it was felt at once that, behind the declamationsand imprecations of Marat, there was a singularly methodical, consistent, patient, and systematic mind at work, directing the actionof the Commune. 

The fall of Longwy was known at Paris on August 26. On that day theMinister of Justice, Danton, revised the list of prisoners;domiciliary visits were carried out, all over the city, to search forarms, and for suspected persons. Nearly 3000 were arrested by the28th, and a thing still more ominous was that many prisoners werereleased. Nobody doubted, nobody seriously denied, the significance ofthese measures. The legislature, seeing that this was not the merefrenzy of passion, but a deliberate and settled plan, dissolved theCommune, August 30, and ordered that it should be renewed by a freshelection. They also restored the governing body of the department, asa check on the municipality. They had the law and constitution ontheir side, and their act was an act of sovereignty. It was thecritical and deciding moment in the struggle between the Girondins andthe Hôtel de Ville. On the following day, August 31, the Assemblyrevoked the decree. Tallien read an address, drawn up by Robespierre, declaring that the Commune, just instituted by the people of Paris, with a fresh and definite mandate, could not submit to an assemblywhich had lost its powers, which had allowed the initiative to passaway from it. The Assembly was entirely helpless, and was too muchcompromised by its complicity since the 10th of August to resist itsmaster. Robespierre, at the Commune, threatened the Girondins withimprisonment, and, to complete their discomfiture, Brissot's paperswere examined, and Roland, Minister of the Interior, was subjected tothe same indignity. 

In the last days of August, whilst every house was being searched forfugitives, the primary elections were held. The Jacobins were muchopposed to the principle of indirect election, but they did notsucceed in abolishing it. They instituted universal suffrage for thefirst stage, and they gave to the primary assemblies a veto on thechoice of the second. For the rest, they relied on intimidation. The800 electors met at the bishop's palace on September 2. But here therewas no stranger's gallery, and it was requisite that the nominees ofthe people should act in the presence of the public that nominatedthem to do its work. Robespierre proposed that the electoral bodyshould hold its sittings at the Jacobin Club, in the full enjoyment ofpublicity. On the following day they met at the same place, andproceeded to the Jacobins. Their way led them over the bridge, where aspectacle awaited them which was carefully calculated to assist theirdeliberations. They found themselves in the presence of a great numberof dead men, deposited from the neighbouring prison. 

For this is what had happened. On the 2nd of September Verdun hadfallen. This was not yet known at Paris; but it was reported that thePrussians had appeared before the fortress, and that it could not holdout. Verdun was the last barrier on the road to Paris, and the firstscene of the war in Belgium made it doubtful whether the new levieswould stand their ground against battalions that had been drilled byFrederic. Alarm guns were fired, the tocsin sounded, the black flagproclaimed that the country was in danger, and the men of Paris weresummoned by beat of drum to be enrolled for the army of nationaldefence. 

Danton, who knew English, and read English books, seems to haveremembered a passage in Spenser, when he declared that France must besaved at Paris, and told his terrified hearers to be bold, to be bold, and again to be bold. Then he went off to see to the enrolments, andleft the agents of the Commune to accomplish the work appointed forthe day. Twenty-four prisoners at the Mairie were removed to theAbbaye, which was the old Benedictine monastery of St. Germain, inhackney coaches; twenty-two of them were priests. Lewis XVI. Hadfallen because he refused to proscribe the refractory clergy who wereaccused of spreading discontent. Beyond all men they were identifiedwith the lost cause, and it had been decided that they should bebanished. They were imprisoned in large numbers, as a first steptowards their expulsion. That group, escorted by Marseilles from theMairie to the Abbaye, were the first victims. The people, who did notlove them, let them pass through the streets without injury; but whenthey reached their destination, the escorting Marseillais began toplunge their swords into the carriages, and all but three were killed. Two made their way into a room where a commission was sitting, and, bytaking seats among the rest, escaped. Sicard, the teacher of the deafand dumb, was recognised and saved: and it is through him that we knowthe deeds that were done that day. They were directed by Maillard whoproceeded from the abbey to the Carmelites, a prison filled withecclesiastics, where he sent for the Register, and had them murderedorderly and without tumult. There was a large garden, and sixteen ofthe prisoners climbed over the wall and got away; fourteen wereacquitted; 120 were put to death, and their bones are collected in thechapel, and show the sabre cuts by which they died. 

During the absence of Maillard, which lasted three hours, certainunauthorised and self-constituted assassins appeared at the Abbaye andproposed to go on with the work of extermination which he had leftunfinished. The gaolers were obliged to deliver up a few prisoners, tosave time. When Maillard returned, he established a sort of tribunalfor the trial of prisoners, while the murderers, in all somethingunder 200, waited outside and slaughtered those that were given up tothem. In the case of the clergy, and of the Swiss survivors of the 4thof August, little formality was observed. At the Abbaye, and at LaForce, there were many political prisoners, and of these a certainnumber were elaborately absolved. Several prisons were left unvisited;but at Bicêtre and the Saltpêtrière, where only the most ignobleculprits were confined, frightful massacres took place. 

As this was utterly pointless and unmeaning, it has given currency tothe theory that all the horrors of that September were the irrationaland spontaneous act of some hundreds of gaolbirds, whose eyes werestained with the vision of blood, and who ran riot in their impunity. So that criminal Paris, not revolutionary Paris, was to blame. Inreality, the massacres were organised by the Commune, paid for by theCommune, and directed by its emissaries. We know how much the variousagents received, and what was the cost of the whole, from the 2nd ofSeptember to the 5th. At first, all was deliberate and methodical, andthe women were spared. Several were released at the last moment; somewere dismissed by the tribunal before which they appeared. Theexception is the Princess de Lamballe, who was the friend of thequeen. But as Madame de Tourzel was spared, the cause of her deathremains unexplained. Her life had not been entirely free fromreproach; and it has been supposed that she was in possession ofsecrets injurious to the duke of Orleans. 

But the problem is not to know why murderers were guilty of murder, but how they allowed many of their captives to be saved. One man madefriends with a Marseillais by talking in his native patois. When askedwhat he was, he replied, "A hearty royalist!" Thereupon Maillardraised his hat and said, "We are here to judge actions, not opinions, "and the man was received with acclamation outside by the thirstyexecutioners. Bertrand, brother of the royalist minister, had the samereception. Two men interrupted their work to see him home. They waitedoutside whilst he saw his family, and then went away, thanking him forthe sight of so much happiness, and refusing a reward. Anotherprisoner was taken to his house in a cab, with half a dozen drippingpatriots crowded on the roof, and hanging on behind. They would acceptnothing but a glass of spirits. Few men were in greater danger thanWeber, the foster-brother of the queen. He had been on guard at theTuileries, and was by her side on the funereal march across thegardens from palace to prison. As he well knew what she was leaving, and to what she was going, he was so overcome that Princess Elizabethwhispered to him to control his feelings and be a man. Yet he was oneof those who lived to tell the tale of his appearance before the dreadtribunal of Maillard. When he was acquitted, the expectant cut-throatswere wild with enthusiasm. They cheered him; they gave him thefraternal accolade; they uncovered as he passed along the line; and avoice cried, "Take care where he walks! Don't you see he has got whitestockings on?"

One acquittal is remembered beyond all the rest. In every school andin every nursery of France the story continues to be told howSombreuil, the governor of the Invalides, was acquitted by the judges, but would have been butchered by the mob outside if his daughter hadnot drunk to the nation in a glass filled with the warm blood of thelast victim. They were taken home in triumph. Sombreuil perished inthe Reign of Terror. His daughter married, and died at Avignon in1823, at the height of the royalist reaction. The fame of that heroicmoment in her life filled the land, and her heart was brought toParis, to be laid in the consecrated ground where she had worshippedas a child, and it rests under the same gilded canopy that covers theremains of Napoleon. Many people believe that this is one of thelegends of royalism which should be strung with the mock pearls ofhistory. No contemporary mentions it, and it does not appear before1801. Mlle. De Sombreuil obtained a pension from the Convention, butthis was not included in the statement of her claims. An Englishman, who witnessed the release of Sombreuil, only relates that father anddaughter were carried away swooning from the strain of emotion. Iwould not dwell on so well-worn an anecdote if I believed that it wasfalse. The difficulty of disbelief is that the son of the heroinewrote a letter affirming it, in which he states that his mother wasnever afterwards able to touch a glass of red wine. The point to bearin mind is that these atrocious criminals rejoiced as much in a man tosave as in a man to kill. They were servants of a cause, acting underauthority. 

Robespierre, among the chiefs, seems to have aimed mainly at thedestruction of the priests. Others proposed that the prisoners shouldbe confined underground, and that water should be let in until theywere drowned. Marat advised that the prisons should be burnt, withtheir inmates. "The 2nd of September, " said Collot d'Herbois, "is thefirst article of the creed of Liberty. Without it there would be noNational Convention. " "France, " said Danton, in a memorableconversation, "is not republican. We can only establish a Republic bythe intimidation of its enemies. " They had crushed the Legislature, they had given warning to the Germans that they would not save theking by advancing on the capital when it was in the hands of mencapable of such deeds, and they had secured a Jacobin triumph at theParis election. Marat prepared an address exhorting the departments toimitate their example, and it was sent out under cover from theMinistry of Justice. Danton himself sent out the same orders. Only onecopy seems to have been preserved, and it might have been difficult todetermine the responsibility of Danton, if he had not avowed to LouisPhilippe that he was the author of the massacres of September. 

The example of Paris was not widely followed, but the State prisonersat Orleans were brought to Versailles, and there put to death. Thewhole number killed was between thirteen and fourteen hundred. We havetouched low-water mark in the Revolution, and there is nothing worsethan this to come. We are in the company of men fit for Tyburn. I needspend no words in impressing on you the fact that these republicansbegan at once with atrocities as great as those of which the absolutemonarchy was justly accused, and for which it justly perished. What wehave to fix in our thoughts is this, that the great crimes of theRevolution, and crimes as great as those in the history of othercountries, are still defended and justified in almost every group ofpoliticians and historians, so that, in principle, the present is notaltogether better than the past. 

The massacre was successful at Paris, but not in the rest of France. Under its influence none but Jacobins were elected in the capital. President and vice-president of the Electoral Assembly wereRobespierre and Collot d'Herbois, with Marat for secretary. Robespierre was the first deputy returned, Danton was second, Collotthird, Manuel fourth, Billaud-Varennes fifth, Camille Desmoulinssixth, and Marat seventh, with a majority over Priestley, who waschosen in two departments, but refused the seat. The twentieth andlast of the deputies for Paris was the duke of Orleans. 

While the people of Paris sanctioned and approved the murders, it wasnot the same in the country. In many places the proceedings began withmass, and concluded with a Te Deum. Seventeen bishops were sent tothe Convention, and thirty-one priests. Tom Paine, though he could notspeak French, was elected in four places. Two-thirds were new members, who had not sat in the previous assemblies. Four-fifths of the primaryelectors abstained. 

The Convention began its sittings, September 20, in the Riding School, where the Législative had met; in the month of May 1793 it adjournedto the Tuileries. There were about fifty or sixty Jacobins. Themajority, without being Girondins, were prepared generally to follow, if the Girondins led. Pétion was at once elected president, and allthe six secretaries were on the same side. The victory of the Girondewas complete. It had the game in its hands. The party had littlecohesion and, in spite of the whispered counsels of Sieyès, no sort oftactics. Excepting Buzot, and perhaps Vergniaud, they scarcely deservethe interest they have excited in later literature, for they had noprinciples. Embarrassed by the helpless condition of the Législative, they made no resistance to the massacres. When Roland, Condorcet, Gorsas, spoke of them in public, they described them as a dreadfulnecessity, an act of rude but inevitable justice. Roland, Minister ofthe Interior, had some of the promoters to dine with him while thebloodshed was going on, and he proposed to draw a decent veil overwhat had passed. Such men were unfit to compete with Robespierre inruthless villainy, but they were equally unfit to denounce and toexpose him. That was the policy which they attempted, and by whichthey perished. 

The movement towards a permanent Republic was not pronounced, beyondthe barrier of Paris. The constituencies made no demand for it, exceptthe Jura. Two others declared against monarchy. Thirty-fourdepartments gave no instructions; thirty-six gave general or unlimitedpowers. Three, including Paris, required that constitutional decreesshould be submitted to popular ratification. The first act of theConvention was to adopt that new principle. By a unanimous vote, onthe motion of Danton, they decided that the Constitution must beaccepted by the nation in its primary assemblies. But some weekslater, October 16, when Manuel proposed to consult the people on thequestion of a Republic, the Convention refused. The abolition ofmonarchy was carried, September 21, without any discussion; for thehistory of kings, said Bishop Grégoire, is the martyrology of nations. On the 22nd the Republic was proclaimed, under the first impression ofthe news from Valmy, brought by the future king of the French. Therepulse of the invasion provoked by the late government coincided withthe establishment of the new. 

The Girondins, who were in possession, began with a series of personalattacks on the opposite leaders. They said, what everybody knew, thatMarat was an infamous scoundrel, that Danton had not made his accountsclear when he retired from office on entering the Convention, thatRobespierre was a common assassin. Some suspicion remained hangingabout Danton, but the assailants used their materials with so littleskill that they were worsted in the encounter with Robespierre. TheJacobins expelled them from their Club, and Louvet's motion againstRobespierre was rejected on November 5. Thus they were weakenedalready when, on the following day, the question of the trial of theking came on. It was not only the first important stage in the strifeof the parties, but it was the decisive one. The question whetherLewis should live or die was no other than the question whetherJacobin or Girondin should survive and govern. 

A mighty change occurred in the position of France and in the spiritof the nation, between the events we have just contemplated and thetragedy to which we are coming. In September the German armies were inFrance, and at first met with no resistance. The peril was evidentlyextreme, and the only security was the life of the king. Since thenthe Prussians and Austrians had been ignominiously expelled; Belgiumhad been conquered; Savoy had been overrun; the Alps and the Rhine asfar as Mentz were the frontiers of the Republic. From the German Oceanto the Mediterranean not an army or a fortress had been able toresist the revolutionary arms. The reasonable alarm of September hadmade way for an exorbitant confidence. There was no fear of all thesoldiery of Europe. The French were ready to fight the world, and theycalculated that they ran no graver risk than the loss of the sugarislands. It suited their new temper to slay their king, as it had beentheir policy to preserve him as a hostage. On the 19th of Novemberthey offered aid and friendship to every people that determined to befree. This decree, really the beginning of the great war, was causedby remonstrances from Mentz where the French party feared to beabandoned. But it was aimed against England, striking at the weakestpoint, and reducing its warlike power by encouraging Irishdisaffection. 

On the 12th of August Rebecqui had proposed that the king should betried by the Convention that was to meet, and that there should be anappeal to the people. On October 1 the question was brought before theConvention, and a Commission of twenty-four was appointed to examinethe evidence. They reported on the 6th of November; and from thatmoment the matter did not rest. On the following day, Mailhe, in thename of the jurists, reported that there was no legal obstacle, fromthe inviolability acknowledged by the Constitution. Mousson repliedthat since Lewis was deposed, he had no further responsibility. A veryyoung member sprang suddenly into notoriety, on the 13th, by arguingthat there was no question of justice and its forms; a king deserveddeath not for what he did, but for what he was. The speaker's name wasSt. Just. On November 20, before the debate had gone either way, Roland appeared, with news of an important discovery. The king had aniron safe in his palace, which the locksmith had betrayed. Roland hadfound that it contained 625 documents. A committee of twelve wasdirected to examine them, and they found the proofs of a great schemeof corruption, and of the venality of Mirabeau. On December 3 it wasresolved that the king should be tried by the Convention; the order ofproceedings was determined on the 6th, and on the 10th the indictmentwas brought in. On the next day Lewis appeared before his judges, andwas interrogated by the President. He said, in his replies, that heknew nothing of an iron safe, and had never given money to Mirabeau, or to any deputy. When he got back to prison the unhappy manexclaimed, "They asked questions for which I was so little preparedthat I denied my own hand. " Ten days were allowed to prepare thedefence. He was assisted by Malesherbes, by the famous juristTronchet, and by Desèze, a younger man, who made the speech. It wasunconvincing, for the advocates perceived, no better than theirclient, where the force and danger of the accusation lay. 

Everybody believed that Lewis had brought the invader into thecountry, but it was not proved in evidence. If the proofs sincepublished had been known at the time, the defence must have beenconfined to the plea that the king was inviolable; and the answerwould have been that he is covered by the responsibility of ministers, but responsible for what he does behind their back. At the last momentseveral Girondins proposed that sentence should be pronounced by thenation, in primary assemblies--an idea put forward by Faure onNovember 29. This was contrary to the spirit of representativedemocracy, which consults the electors as to men, and not as tomeasures properly the result of debate. It was consistent with thedirect action of Democracy, which was the theory of Jacobinism. Butthe Jacobins would not have it. By compelling the vote on the capitalquestion, they would ruin their adversaries. If the Girondins votedfor death, they would follow the train of the party that resolutelyinsisted on it. If they voted against, they could be accused ofroyalism. When the question "Guilty or not guilty?" was put, there wasno hesitation; 683 voted guilty, one man, Lanjuinais, answering thathe was a legislator, not a judge. The motion, to leave the penalty tothe people, which was made in the interest of the Girondins, not ofthe king, failed by 423 to 281, and ruined the party that contrivedit. The voting on the penalty began on the evening of January 17, andas each man gave his voice from the tribune, it lasted far into thefollowing day. Vergniaud declared the result; he said that there was amajority of five for death. Both parties were dissatisfied, andsuspected fraud. A scrutiny was held, and it then appeared that thosewho had voted simply for the capital penalty were 361, and that thosewho had voted otherwise were 360. Majority, 1. But when the final votewas taken on the question of delay, there was a majority of 70 forimmediate execution. 

That the decision was the result of fear has been stated, even byBrissot and Carnot. The duke of Orleans had written to the Presidentthat he could not vote at the trial of his kinsman. The letter wasreturned to him. He promised his son that he would not vote for death, and when they met again exclaimed, "I am not worthy to be yourfather!" At dinner, on the fatal day, Vergniaud declared that he woulddefend the king's life, even if he stood alone. A few hours later hevoted for death. Yet Vergniaud was soon to prove that he was not a manwhom intimidation influenced. The truth is, that nobody had a doubt asto guilt. Punishment was a question rather of policy than of justice. 

The army was inclined to the side of mercy. Custine had offered, November 23, to save Lewis, if Prussia would acknowledge the Republic. The offer was made in vain. Dumouriez came to Paris in January, andfound that there was nothing to be done. He said afterwards, "It istrue he was a perfidious scoundrel, but it was folly to cut his headoff. " The Spanish Bourbons made every effort to save the head of thehouse. They offered neutrality and mediation, and they empowered theiragent to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in opportune bribery. They promised, if Lewis was delivered up to them, that they wouldprevent him from ever interfering in French affairs, and would givehostages for his good behaviour. They entreated George III. To actwith them in a cause which was that of monarchy and of humanity. Lansdowne, Sheridan, and Fox urged the government to interpose. Grenville made known that peace would be preserved if France gave upher conquests, but he said not a word for the king. Information wasbrought to Pitt, from a source that could be trusted, that Dantonwould save him for £40, 000. When he made up his mind to give themoney, Danton replied that it was too late. Pitt explained to theFrench diplomatist Maret, afterwards Prime Minister, his motive forhesitation. The execution of the king of France would raise such astorm in England that the Whigs would be submerged. 

Lewis was resigned to his fate, but he expected that he would bespared, and he spoke of retiring to the Sierra Morena, or of seeking aretreat for his old age among the faithful republicans of Switzerland. When his advocates came to tell him that there was no hope, he refusedto believe them. "You are mistaken, " he said; "they would never dare. "He quickly recovered his composure, and declined to ask permission tosee his family. "I can wait, " he said; "in a few days they will notrefuse me. " A priest who applied for leave to attend him was sent toprison. As a foreigner was less likely to be molested, the king askedfor the _abbé_ Edgeworth, of Firmount, who had passed his life inFrance, but might be considered an Irishman. Garat, the Minister ofthe Interior, went to fetch him. On their way he said, "He was weakwhen in power; but you will see how great he is, now that he is inchains. "

On the following day Lewis was taken through a vast parade of militaryand cannon to the scaffold in the Place de la Concorde, a littlenearer to the Champs Elysées than the place where the obelisk of Luxorstands. He was nearly an hour on the way. The Spanish envoy had notmade terms with the agents who were attracted by the report of hisunlimited credit, and he spent his doubloons in a frantic attempt atrescue as the prisoner passed, at a foot pace, along the Boulevard. Anequivocal adventurer, the Baron de Batz, who helped to organise therising of Vendémiaire, which only failed because it encounteredBonaparte, had undertaken to break the line, with four or fivehundred men. They were to make a rush from a side street. But everystreet was patrolled and every point was guarded as the coach went bycarrying the prisoner. De Batz was true to the rendezvous, and stoodup waving a sword and crying, "Follow me and save the king!" It waswithout effect; he vanished in the crowd; one companion was taken andguillotined, but the police were able to report that no incident hadoccurred on the way. 

Not the royalists but the king served the royal cause on that 21st ofJanuary. Unequal to his duties on the throne, he found, in prison andon the scaffold, a part worthy of the better qualities of his race, justifying the words of Louis Blanc, "None but the dead come back. " Toabsolve him is impossible, for we know, better than his persecutors, how he intrigued to recover uncontrolled authority by bringing havocand devastation upon the people over whom he reigned. The crowningtragedy is not that which Paris witnessed, when Santerre raised hissword, commanding the drums to beat, which had been silenced by thefirst word of the dying speech; it is that Lewis XVI. Met his fatewith inward complacency, unconscious of guilt, blind to theopportunities he had wasted and the misery he had caused, and died apenitent Christian but an unrepentant king. 

XVII

THE FALL OF THE GIRONDE

The Constitution of 1791 had failed because it carried the division ofpowers and the reaction against monarchical centralisation so far asto paralyse the executive. Until the day when a new system should beorganised, a series of revolutionary measures were adopted, and bythese the Convention governed to the end. Immediately after the deathof Lewis XVI. They began to send out representatives with arbitrarypowers to the departments. The revolutionary tribunal was appointed inMarch to judge political cases without appeal; and the SecretCommittee of Public Safety in April, on the defeat and defection ofDumouriez. All this time, the Girondins had the majority. The issue ofthe king's trial had been disastrous to them, because it proved theirweakness, not in numbers, but in character and counsel. Roland at onceresigned, confessing the defeat. But they stood four months beforetheir fall. During that memorable struggle, the question was whetherFrance should be ruled by violence and blood, or by men who knew thepassion for freedom. The Girondins at once raised the real issue bydemanding inquiry into the massacres of September. It was a valid buta perilous weapon. There could be no doubt as to what those who hadcommitted a thousand murders to obtain power would be capable of doingin their own defence. 

The Girondins calculated badly. By leaving crime unpunished they couldhave divided their adversaries. Almost to the last moment Dantonwished to avoid the conflict. Again and again they rejected hisoffers. Open war, said Vergniaud, is better than a hollow truce. Theirrejection of the hand that bore the crimson stain is the cause oftheir ruin, but also of their renown. They were always impolitic, disunited, and undecided; but they rose, at times, to the level ofhonest men. Their second line of attack was not better chosen. Partypolitics were new, and the science of understanding the other side wasnot developed; and the Girondins were persuaded that the Montagnardswere at heart royalists, aiming at the erection of an Orleanistthrone. Marat received money from the Palais Royal; and Sieyès to thelast regarded him as a masked agent of monarchy. Danton himselfassured the young Duc de Chartres that the Republic would not last, and advised him to hold himself in readiness to reap, some day, whatthe Jacobins were sowing. 

The aim of the Jacobins was a dictatorship, which was quite a newsubstitute for monarchy, and the Orleans spectre was no more than anillusion on which the Gironde spent much of its strength. Inretaliation, they were accused of Federalism, and this also was afalse suspicion. Federal ideas, the characteristic of America, had thesanction of the greatest names in the political literature ofFrance--Montesquieu and Rousseau, Necker and Mirabeau. The onlyevident Federalist in the Convention is Barère. A scheme of federationwas discussed at the Jacobins on September 10, and did not come to avote. But the idea was never adopted by the Girondin party, or by anyone of its members, with the exception of Buzot. They favoured thingsjust as bad in Jacobin eyes. They inclined to decentralisation, tolocal liberties, to restraint on the overwhelming activity of Paris, to government by representatives of the sovereign people, not by thesovereign itself. All this was absolutely opposed to the concentrationof all powers, which was the prevailing purpose since the alarm ofinvasion and treason, and was easily confounded with the theory ofprovincial rights and divided authority, which was dreaded as thesuperlative danger of the time. That which, under the title ofFederalism, was laid to their charge, must be counted to their credit;for it meant that, in a limited sense, they were constitutional, andthat there were degrees of power and oppression, which even a Girondinwould resist. 

The Jacobins had this superiority over their fluctuating opponents, that they fell back on a system which was simple, which wasintelligible, and which the most famous book of the previousgeneration had made known to everybody. For them there was nouncertainty, no groping, and no compromise. They intended that themass of the people should at all times assert and enforce their will, over-riding all temporary powers and superseding all appointed agents. As they had to fight the world with a divided population, theyrequired that all power should be concentrated in the hands of thosewho acted in conformity with the popular will, and that those whoresisted at home, should be treated as enemies. They must put downopposition as ruthlessly as they repelled invasion. The better Jacobinwould not have denied liberty, but he would have defined itdifferently. For him it consisted not in the limitation, but thecomposition of the governing power. He would not weaken the state bymaking its action uncertain, slow, capricious, dependent on alternatemajorities and rival forces; but he would find security in powerexercised only by the whole body of the nation, united in theenjoyment of the gifts the Revolution had bestowed on the peasant. That was the most numerous class, the class whose interests were thesame, which was identified with the movement against privilege, whichwould inevitably be true to the new institutions. They were a minorityin the Convention, but a minority representing the unity and securityof the Republic, and supported by the majority outside. They drew tothemselves not the best or the most brilliant men, but those whodevoted themselves to the use of power, not to the manipulation ofideas. Many good administrators belonged to the party, among whomCarnot is only the most celebrated. Napoleon, who understood talentand said that no men were so vigorous and efficient as those who hadgone through the Revolution, gave office to 127 regicides, most ofwhom were Montagnards. 

The Girondins, vacillating and divided, would never have made theRepublic triumph over the _whole_ of Europe and the half of France. They were immediately confronted by a general war and a formidableinsurrection. They were not afraid of war. The great military powerswere Austria and Prussia, and they had been driven to the Rhine byarmies of thirty or forty thousand men. After that, the armies ofSpain and England did not seem formidable. This calculation proved tobe correct. The audacity of the French appeared in their declarationof war against the three chief maritime powers at once--England, Spain, and Holland. It was not until 1797, not for four years, thatthe superiority of the British fleet was established. They had longhoped that war with England could be avoided, and carried onnegotiations through a succession of secret agents. There was a notionthat the English government was revolutionary in character as it wasin origin, that the execution of the king was done in pursuance ofEnglish examples, that a Protestant country must admire men whofollowed new ideas. Brissot, like Napoleon in 1815, built his hopes onthe opposition. Mr. Fox could not condemn the institution of aRepublic; and a party that had applauded American victories over theirown countrymen might be expected to feel some sympathy with a countrywhich was partly imitating England and partly America. 

War with continental absolutism was the proper price of revolution;but the changes since 1789 were changes in the direction of a Whigalliance. When the Convention were informed that George III. Would nothave a regicide minister in the country, they did not debate thematter, but passed it over to a committee. They acted not only from asense of national dignity, but in the belief that the event was notvery terrible. The Girondins thought that the war would not be popularin England, that the Whigs, the revolutionary societies, and theIrish, would bring it to an early termination. Marat, who knew thiscountry, affirmed that it was an illusion. But there was no oppositionto the successive declarations of war with England, Holland, and theSpanish and Neapolitan Bourbons, which took place in February andMarch. Eight hundred million of _assignats_ were voted at once, to besecured on the confiscated property of the _émigrés_. France, at thatmoment, had only 150, 000 soldiers in the field. On February 24, adecree called out 300, 000 men, and obliged each department to raiseits due proportion. The French army that was to accomplish suchmarvels in the next twenty years, begins on that day. But the firstconsequence was an extraordinary diminution in the military power ofthe State. The Revolution had done much for the country people, andhad imposed no burdens upon them. The compulsory levy was the first. In most places, with sufficient pressure, the required men weresupplied. Some districts offered more than their proper number. 

On March 10, the Conscription was opened in the remote parishes ofPoitou. The country had been agitated for some time. The peasants, forthere were no large towns in that region, had resented the overthrowof the nobility, of the clergy, and of the throne. The expulsion oftheir priests caused constant discontent. And now the demand that theyshould go out, under officers whom they distrusted, and die for agovernment which persecuted them, caused an outbreak. They refused todraw their numbers, and on the following day they gathered in largecrowds and fell upon the two sorts of men they detested--thegovernment officials, and the newly established clergy. Before themiddle of March about three hundred priests and republican officialswere murdered, and the war of La Vendée began. And it was there, andnot in Paris, that liberty made its last stand in revolutionaryFrance. 

But we must see first what passed in the Convention under the shadowof the impending struggle. A committee had been appointed, October 11, to draw up a constitution for the Republic. Danton was upon it, buthe was much away, with the army in Belgium. Tom Paine broughtillumination from America, and Barère, generally without ideas of hisown, made others' plausible. The majority were Girondins, and withthem Sieyès was closely associated. On February 15, Condorcet producedthe report. It was the main attempt of the Girondins to consolidatetheir power, and for three months it occupied the leisure of theConvention. The length of the debate proved the weakness of the party. Robespierre and his friends opposed the work of their enemies, andtalked it out. They devoted their arguments to the preamble, the newformula of the Rights of Man, and succeeded so well that no part ofthe Constitution ever came to a vote. The most interesting portion ofthe debate turned upon the principle of religious liberty, which thedraft affirmed, and which was opposed by Vergniaud. Whilst thisineffectual discussion proceeded, the fight was waged decisivelyelsewhere, and the Jacobins delivered a counterstroke of superiorforce. 

Dumouriez's reverses had begun, and there was new urgency in thedemand for concentration. Danton came to an understanding withRobespierre, and they decided on establishing the revolutionarytribunal. It was to consist of judges appointed by the Convention totry prisoners whom the Convention sent before it, and to judge withoutappeal. Danton said that it was a necessary measure, in order to avertpopular violence and vengeance. He recommended it in the name ofhumanity. When the Convention heard Danton speak of humanity there wasa shudder, and in the midst of a dead silence Lanjuinais uttered theword "September. " Danton replied that there would have been nomassacres if the new tribunal had been instituted at the time. TheConvention resolved that there should be trial by jury, and that nodeputies should be tried without their permission. The object ofRobespierre was not obtained. He had meant that the revolutionarytribunal should judge without a jury, and should have jurisdictionover the deputies. The Girondins were still too strong for him. Danton next addressed himself to them. They agreed that there shouldbe a strong committee to supervise and control the government. OnMarch 25 they carried a list of twenty-five, composed largely of theirown friends, and, by thus subjecting the Assembly at large to acommittee, they once more recovered supreme power. Immediately after, the defection of Dumouriez was reported at Paris, and the Conventionrightly believed that they had narrowly escaped a great danger. ForDumouriez had intended to unite all the forces he could collect in theDutch and Belgian Netherlands, and to march into France at their head, to establish a government of his own. He had been in closecommunication with Danton, and the opportunity of attacking Danton wastoo good to be lost. On April 1 Lasource accused him of complicity inthe treason. The truce between them was at an end, and theconsequences were soon apparent. The committee of twenty-five was toobulky, and was made up from different parties. A proposal was made toreduce the number, and on April 6 a new committee of nine, the realCommittee of Public Safety, was elected, and no Girondins wereincluded in it. On the same day the first execution took place of aprisoner sentenced by the new tribunal. The two chief instruments ofthe revolutionary government were brought into action at the sametime. But they did not enable the Jacobins to reach their enemies inthe Assembly, for the deputies were inviolable. Everybody else was atthe mercy of the public accuser. 

The Girondins, having failed in their attack on Danton, now turnedagainst Marat, and by 220 to 132 votes sent him before therevolutionary tribunal to be tried for sedition. On the 24th he wasacquitted. Meantime his friends petitioned against the Girondins, anddemanded that twenty-two of them should be expelled. The petition wasrejected, after a debate in which Vergniaud refused to have the fateof his party decided by primary assemblies, on the ground that itwould lead to civil war. Vendée was in flames, and the danger ofexplosion was felt in many parts of France. 

Down to the month of May, the Girondins had failed in their attackson individual deputies, but their position in the Assembly wasunshaken. By their divisions, and by means of occasional majorities, especially by the uncertain and intermittent help of Danton, Robespierre had carried important measures--the RevolutionaryTribunal, the Committee of Public Safety, the employment ofcommissaries from the Convention to enforce the levies in eachdepartment. By a series of acceptable decrees in favour of theindigent, he had established himself and his friends as the authors ofa new order of society, against the representatives of the middleclass. The people of Paris responded by creating an insurrectionarycommittee to accomplish, by lawful pressure or otherwise, the purposeof the deputation which had demanded the exclusion of the twenty-two. On May 21 a commission of twelve was appointed to vindicate thesupremacy of the Convention against the municipality. The Girondinsobtained the majority. Their candidates received from 104 to 325votes. No Jacobin had more than 98. It was their last parliamentaryvictory. There was no legal way of destroying them. The work had to beleft to agitators like Marat, and the committee of insurrection. Whenthis came to be understood, the end was very near. The committee oftwelve, the organ of the Convention and of the moderate part of it, arrested several of the most violent agitators. On May 26, Robespierresummoned the people of Paris against the traitorous deputies. Next daythey appeared, made their way into the Convention, and stated theirdemands. The men were released, and the commission of twelve wasdissolved. But on the 28th the Assembly, ashamed of having yieldedtamely to a demonstration which was not overwhelming, renewed thecommission, by 279 votes to 239. 

A more decisive action was now resolved upon, and the Jacobinsprepared what they called a moral insurrection. They desired to avoidbloodshed, for the tenure by which the Revolutionary Tribunal existedwas that it prevented the shedding of blood otherwise than by legalforms. The Girondins, after expulsion, could be left to the enjoymentof all the securities of a trial by jury. Meanwhile, the Girondinscheme of Constitution was dropped, and five new members wereappointed to draw up a new one; and on May 30, for the first time, apresident was taken from the deputies of the Mountain. On May 31 theinsurrectionary masses invaded the Assembly. There was no actualviolence, and no resistance. The Girondins did nothing to defend theircause, and their commission of twelve was again dissolved. Thedeputies remained uninjured; but Roland fled, and his wife was sent toprison. Two days later, June 2, the victory of moral force wascompleted. The Tuileries were surrounded with cannon, the deputieswere not permitted to go out, and some of the Girondins agreed toresign their seats in order to prevent an outbreak. It was called avoluntary ostracism. 

In the extreme weakness of the party Lanjuinais alone spoke and actedwith courage and decision. Legendre went up to the Tribune while hewas speaking, and threatened to kill him. As Legendre was a butcher, Lanjuinais replied, "First decree that I am a bullock. " When Chabot, who had been a Capuchin, reviled the fallen statesmen, Lanjuinaisexclaimed, "The ancients crowned their victims with flowers, and thepriest did not insult them. " This brave man lived through it all, lived to witness the destruction of his enemies, to be the elect ofmany departments, and to preside over the Chamber that decreed thedownfall of Napoleon. At the last moment, an obscure supporter of theGirondins saw Danton, and called on him to interfere to save theConvention from violence. Danton answered that he could do nothing, for they had no confidence in him. It is a redeeming testimony. On theevening of June 2 the more conspicuous Girondins, without being sentto prison, were placed under arrest. In the capital, the victory ofthe Jacobins was complete. They had conquered by the aid of theinsurrectionary committee, to which no man was admitted who did notswear approval of the September murders. 

Rout and extermination ensued upon the fall of the Gironde. They hadbeen scrupulous not to defend themselves by force, and preferred theRepublic to their party. While some remained as hostages in the powerof the foe, others went away to see what France would think of themutilation of its parliament. Their strength was in departments, andin several departments the people were arming. In the west there wasno hope for them, for they had made the laws against which La Vendéerebelled. They turned to the north. In Normandy the royalists wereforming an army, under the famous intriguer, Puisaye. Between such aman and Buzot no understanding could subsist. There was no time forthem to quarrel, for the movement broke down at once. The people ofNormandy were quite indifferent. But there was one among them who hadspirit, and energy, and courage, and passion enough to change the faceof France. This extraordinary person was the daughter of M. D'Armont, and she passed into the immortality of history as Charlotte Corday. She was twenty-four. Her father was a royalist, but she had readRaynal, and had the classical enthusiasm which was bred by Plutarch inthose as well as in other days. She had refused the health of LewisXVI. , because, she said, he was a good man, but a bad king. Shepreferred to live with a kinswoman, away from her own family, and hermind was made up never to marry. Her bringing up had been profoundlyreligious, but that influence seems to have been weakened in her newhome. There is no trace of it during the five days on which a fiercelight beats. In her room they found her Bible lying open at the storyof Judith. From the 31st of May she had learnt to regard Marat as theauthor of the proscription of the Girondins, some of whom had appearedat Caen in a patriotic halo. When the troops were paraded, on July 7, those who volunteered for the march against Paris were so few that thehope of deeds to be done by armed men utterly vanished. It occurred toCharlotte that there may be something stronger than the hands and thehearts of armed men. The Girondins were in the power of assassins, ofmen against whom there was no protection in France but the dagger. Totake a life was the one way of saving many lives. Not a doubt evertouched her that it is right to kill a murderer, an actual andintending murderer, on condition of accepting the penalty. She told noone of the resolution in her mind, and said nothing that was pathetic, and nothing that was boastful. She only replied to Pétion's clumsypleasantries: "Citizen, you speak like that because you do notunderstand me. One day, you will know. " Under a harmless pretext shewent to Paris, and saw one of the Girondin deputies. In return forsome civility, she advised him to leave at once for Caen. His friendswere arrested, and his papers were already seized, but he told herthat he could not desert the post of duty. Once more, she cried, "Believe me, fly before to-morrow night!" He did not understand, andhe was one of the famous company that mounted the scaffold withVergniaud. Next morning, Saturday July 13, Charlotte purchased herdagger, and called on Marat. Although he was in the bath where hespent most of his time, she made her way in, and explained herimportunity by telling him about the conspirators she had seen inNormandy. Marat took down their names, and assured her that in a fewdays he would have them guillotined. At that signal she drove herknife into his heart. When the idiotic accuser-general intimated thatso sure a thrust could only have been acquired by practice, sheexclaimed, "The monster! He takes me for a murderess. " All that shefelt was that she had taken one life to preserve thousands. She wasknocked down and carried through a furious crowd to prison. At firstshe was astonished to be still alive. She had expected to be torn inpieces, and had hoped that the respectable inhabitants, when they sawher head displayed on a pike, would remember it was for them that heryoung life was given. Of all murderers, and of all victims, CharlotteCorday was the most composed. When the executioner came for thetoilette, she borrowed his shears to cut off a lock of her hair. Asthe cart moved slowly through the raging streets, he said to her, "Youmust find the way long. " "No, " she answered, "I am not afraid ofbeing late. " They say that Vergniaud pronounced this epitaph: "She haskilled us, but she has taught us all how to die. "

After the failure in Normandy, of which this is the surviving episode, Buzot and his companions escaped by sea to the Gironde. Having beenoutlawed, on July 28, they were liable to suffer death without atrial, and had to hide in out-houses and caverns. Nearly all weretaken. Barbaroux, who had brought the Marseillais, shot himself at themoment of capture, but had life enough to be carried to the scaffold. Buzot and Pétion outlived their downfall for a year. Towards the endof the Reign of Terror, snarling dogs attracted notice to a remotespot in the south-west. There the two Girondins were found, andrecognised, though their faces had been eaten away. Before he went outto die, Buzot placed in safety the letters of Madame Roland. Seventyyears later they came to light at a sale, and the suspected secret ofher life told in her _Memoirs_, but suppressed by the early editors, was revealed to the world. She had been executed on November 10, 1793, four days after the Duke of Orleans, and the cheerful dignity of herlast moments has reconciled many who were disgusted with herdeclamatory emphasis, her passion, and her inhumanity. Her husband wassafe in his place of concealment near Rouen; but when he heard, he ranhimself through with a sword-cane. The main group had died a few daysearlier. Of 180 Girondin deputies, 140 were imprisoned or dispersed, and 24 of these managed to escape; 73 were arrested at Paris, October3, but were not brought to trial; 21, among whom were manycelebrities, went before the revolutionary tribunal, October 24, and aweek later they were put to death. Their trial was irregular, even iftheir fate was not undeserved. With Vergniaud, Brissot, and theircompanions the practice began of sending numbers to the guillotine atonce. There were 98 in the five months that followed. 

During the agony of his party, Condorcet found shelter in alodging-house at Paris. There, under the Reign of Terror, he wrotethe little book on Human Progress, which contains his legacy tomankind. He derived the leading idea from his friend Turgot, andtransmitted it to Comte. There may be, perhaps, a score or two dozendecisive and characteristic views that govern the world, and thatevery man should master in order to understand his age, and this isone of them. When the book was finished, the author's part was played, and he had nothing more to live for. As his retreat was known to one, at least, of the Montagnards, he feared to compromise those who hadtaken him in at the risk of their life. Condorcet assumed a disguise, and crept out of the house with a Horace in one pocket and a dose ofpoison in the other. When it was dark, he came to a friend's door inthe country. What passed there has never been known, but the fugitivephilosopher did not remain. A few miles outside Paris he was arrestedon suspicion and lodged in the gaol. In the morning they found himlying dead. Cabanis, who afterwards supplied Napoleon in like manner, had given him the means of escape. 

This was the miserable end of the Girondin party. They were easilybeaten and mercilessly destroyed, and no man stirred to save them. Attheir fall liberty perished; but it had become a feeble remnant intheir hands, and a spark almost extinguished. Although they were notonly weak but bad, no nation ever suffered a greater misfortune thanthat which befell France in their defeat and destruction. They hadbeen the last obstacle to the Reign of Terror, and to the despotismwhich then by successive steps centred in Robespierre. 

XVIII

THE REIGN OF TERROR

The liberal and constitutional wave with which the Revolution beganended with the Girondins; and the cause of freedom against authority, of right against force was lost. At the moment of their fall, Europewas in arms against France by land and sea; the royalists werevictorious in the west; the insurrection of the south was spreading, and Précy held Lyons with 40, 000 men. The majority, who were mastersin the Convention, had before them the one main purpose of increasingand concentrating power, that the country might be saved from dangerswhich, during those months of summer, threatened to destroy it. Thatone supreme and urgent purpose governed resolutions and inspiredmeasures for the rest of the year, and resulted in the method ofgovernment which we call the Reign of Terror. The first act of thetriumphant Mountain was to make a Constitution. They had criticizedand opposed the Girondin draft, in April and May, and only the newdeclaration of the Rights of Man had been allowed to pass. All thiswas now re-opened. The Committee of Public Safety, strengthened by theaccession of five Jacobins, undertook to prepare a scheme adapted tothe present conditions, and embodying the principles which hadprevailed. Taking Condorcet's project as their basis, and modifying itin the direction which the Jacobin orators had pointed to in debate, they achieved their task in a few days, and they laid their proposalsbefore the Convention on June 10. The reporter was Hérault deSéchelles; but the most constant speaker in the ensuing debate wasRobespierre. After a rapid discussion, but with some seriousamendments, the Republican Constitution of 1793 was adopted, on June24. Of all the fruits of the Revolution this is the mostcharacteristic, and it is superior to its reputation. 

The Girondins, by their penman Condorcet, had omitted the name of God, and had assured liberty of conscience only as liberty of opinion. Theyelected the executive and the legislative alike by direct vote of theentire people, and gave the appointment of functionaries to those whomthey were to govern. Primary assemblies were to choose the Council ofMinisters, and were to have the right of initiating laws. The planrestricted the power of the State in the interest of decentralisation. The Committee, while retaining much of the scheme, guarded against theexcess of centrifugal forces. They elected the legislature by directuniversal suffrage, disfranchised domestic servants, and made theballot optional, and therefore illusory. They resolved that thesupreme executive council of twenty-four should be nominated by thelegislature from a list of candidates, one chosen by indirect votingin each department, and should appoint and control all ministers andexecutive officers; the legislature to issue decrees with force of lawin all necessary matters; but to make actual laws only under popularsanction, given or implied. In this way they combined direct democracywith representative democracy. They restricted the suffrage, abolishedthe popular initiative, limited the popular sanction, withdrew theexecutive patronage from the constituency, and destroyed secretvoting. Having thus provided for the composition of power, theyproceeded in the interest of personal liberty. The Press was to befree, there was to be entire religious toleration, and the right ofassociation. Education was to become universal, and there was to be apoor law; in case of oppression, insurrection was declared a duty aswell as a right, and usurpation was punishable with death. All lawswere temporary, and subject to constant revision. Robespierre, who hadbetrayed socialist inclinations in April, revoked his earlierlanguage, and now insisted on the security of property, proportionateand not progressive taxation, and the refusal of exemptions to thepoor. In April, an unknown deputy from the Colonies had demanded thatthe Divinity be recognised in the preamble, and in June, after theelimination of the Girondins, the idea was adopted. At the same time, inverting the order of things, equality was made the first of theRights of Man, and Happiness, instead of Liberty, was declared thesupreme end of civil society. In point of spiritual quality, nothingwas gained by the invocation of the Supreme Being. 

Hérault proposed that a Grand Jury should be elected by the entirenation to hear complaints against the government or its agents, and todecide which cases should be sent for trial. The plan belonged toSieyès, and was supported by Robespierre. When it was rejected, hesuggested that each deputy should be judged by his constituency, andif censured, should be ineligible elsewhere. This was contrary to theprinciple that a deputy belongs to the whole nation, and ought to beelected by the nation, but for the practical difficulty which compelsthe division into separate constituencies. The end was, that thedeputies remained inviolable, and subject to no check, although theoldest member, a man so old that he might very well have rememberedLewis XIV. , spoke earnestly in favour of the Grand Jury. 

The Constitution wisely rescinded the standing offer of support toinsurgent nations, and renounced all purpose of intervention oraggression. When the passage was read declaring that there could be nopeace with an invader, a voice cried, "Have you made a contract withvictory?" "No, " replied Bazire; "we have made a contract with death. "A criticism immediately appeared, which was anonymous, but in whichthe hand of Condorcet was easily recognised. He complained that judgeswere preferred to juries, that functionaries were not appointed byuniversal suffrage, that there was no fixed term of revision, that thepopular sanction of laws was reduced to a mere form. Condorcetbelieved that nearly all inequality of fortune, such as causessuffering, is the effect of imperfect laws, and that the end of thesocial art is to reduce it. There were others who objected that theConstitution did not benefit the poor. In regard to property, as inother things, it was marked by a pronounced Conservatism. It wasadopted by a national vote of 1, 801, 918 to 11, 610, and, with solemnrites, was inaugurated on August 10. No term was fixed for it to comeinto operation. The friends of Danton spoke of an early dissolution, but the Convention refused to be dissolved, and the Constitution wasnever executed. Although other acts of the legislature at that timeare still good law, French jurists do not appeal to the greatconstitutional law of June 24 and August 10, 1793. In the course ofthe autumn, October 10 and December 4, it was formally suspended, andwas never afterwards restored. France was governed, not by thisinstrument, but by a series of defining enactments, which createdextraordinary powers, and suppressed opposition. 

After the integrity of the Assembly, the next thing to perish was theliberty of the Press. The journalists could not claim the sanctitywhich had been violated in the representatives, and gave way. Maratremained, and exercised an influence in Paris which his activity onJune 2 increased. He had his own following, in the masses, and his ownbasis of power, and he was not a follower of either Danton orRobespierre. By his share in the fall of the Girondins he became theirequal. When he died, the vacant place, in the Press and in the street, was at once occupied by a lesser rival, Hébert. In a little time, Hébert acquired enormous power. Marat's newspaper had seldom paid itsway; but Hébert used to print 600, 000 copies of the _Père Duchesne_. Through his ally Chaumette, he controlled the municipality of Paris, and all that depended from it. Through Bouchotte and Vincent, hemanaged the War Office, with its vast patronage and command of money, and distributed his journal in every camp. To a man of order andprecision like Robespierre, the personage was odious, for he wasanarchical and corrupt, and was the urgent patron of incapablegenerals; but Robespierre could not do without his support in thePress, and was obliged to conciliate him. Between Hébert and Dantonthere was open war, and Danton had not the best of it. He had beenweakened by the overthrow of the Girondins whom he wished to save, andwas forced to abandon. In the Convention, he was still the strongestfigure, and at times could carry all before him. But when he lost hisseat on the governing Committee, and was without official information, he was no match at last for Robespierre. All through the summer he wasevidently waning, whilst the Confederates, Chaumette, Hébert, andVincent, became almost invincible. 

On the 10th of July the Committee of Public Safety, after acting as aCommittee of Legislation, was recomposed as an executive body. Therehad been fourteen members, there were now nine. Barère had the highestvote, 192; St. Just had only 126; and Danton was not elected. Theinfluence of Robespierre was supreme; he himself became a member, on avacancy, July 27. The fortunes of France were then at their lowest. The Vendeans were unconquered, Lyons was not taken, and the Austriansand English had broken through the line of fortresses, and were makingslowly for Paris. A few months saw all this changed, and those are theearlier months of the predominance of Robespierre, with his threepowerful instruments, the Committee of Public Safety, theRevolutionary Tribunal, and the Jacobin Club, which made him master ofthe Convention. On July 27, the day before he was elected to theCommittee, an important change occurred. For the first time, an orderwas sent from the Tuileries to the army on the frontier, in a quarterof an hour. This was the beginning of the semaphore telegraph, andscience was laying hold of the Revolution. On August 1, the metricalsystem was introduced, and the republican calendar followed; but weshall speak of it in another connection. 

In the middle of August, Prieur, an engineer officer, was elected tothe Committee, to conduct the business of war; but Prieur protestedthat he was the wrong man, and advised them to take Carnot. Therefore, August 15, very much against the wish of Robespierre, the organiser ofvictory joined the government. The Hébertists had proposed that theentire population should be forced into the army, more particularlythe richer class. Danton modified the proposal into somethingreasonable, and on August 23, Carnot drew up the decree which wascalled the _levée en masse_. It turned France into a nominal nation ofsoldiers. Practically, it called out the first class, from eighteen totwenty-five, and ordered the men of the second class, from twenty-fiveto thirty, to be ready. It is to Danton and Carnot that France owedthe army which was to overrun the Continent; and by the end of theyear the best soldiers in the world, Hoche, Moreau, Masséna, Bonaparte, were being raised to command. 

On August 9, an event occurred in the civil order which influenced thefuture of mankind as widely as the creation of the French army. Whilethe Committee of Public Safety was busy with the Constitution, theCommittee of Legislation was employed in drawing up a Code of CivilLaw, which was the basis of the Code Napoleon. Cambacérès, who, withthe same colleagues, afterwards completed the work, presented it inits first form on that day. Lastly, August 24, Cambon, the financialadviser of the Republic, achieved the conversion and unification ofthe Public Debt. 

These were the great measures, undertaken and accomplished by the menwho accepted the leadership of Robespierre, in the first weeks of hisgovernment. We come to those by which he consolidated his power. 

At the beginning of September, the Committee was increased by theadmission of Billaud-Varennes, and of Collot d'Herbois, of whom oneafterwards overthrew Danton, and the other, Robespierre. Theappointment of Collot was a concession to Hébert. The same party werepersuaded that the hands of government were weak, and ought to bestrengthened against its enemies. Danton himself said that every dayone aristocrat, one villain, ought to pay for his crimes with hishead. Two measures were at once devised which were well calculated toachieve that object. September 5, the Revolutionary Tribunal wasremodelled, and instead of one Revolutionary Tribunal, there werefour. And on September 17 the Law of Suspects was passed, enablinglocal authorities to arrest whom they pleased, and to detain him inprison even when acquitted. In Paris, where there had been 1877prisoners on September 13, there were 2975 on October 20. On September25, the mismanagement of the Vendean War, where even the Mentzgarrison had been defeated, led to a sharp debate in the Convention. It was carried away by the attack of the Dantonists; but Robespierresnatched a victory, and obtained a unanimous vote of confidence. Fromthat date to the 26th of July 1794, we count the days of hisestablished reign, and the Convention makes way for the Committee ofPublic Safety, which becomes a Provisional government. 

The party of violence insisted on the death of those whom theyregarded as hostages, the Girondins, for the rising in the south, thequeen for the rising in the west. An attempt to save the life of MarieAntoinette had been made by the government, with the sanction ofDanton. Maret was sent to negotiate the neutrality of minor ItalianStates by offering to release her. Austria, not wishing the Italiansto be neutral, seized Maret and his companion Sémonville, in thepasses of the Grisons, and sent them to a dungeon at Mantua. The queenwas sent to the Conciergerie, which was the last stage before theTribunal; and as her nephew, the emperor, did not relent, in Octobershe was put on her trial, and executed. The death of the queen isrevolting, because it was a move in a game, a concession by whichRobespierre paid his debts to men at that time more violent thanhimself, and averted their attack. We have already seen that theadvice she gave in decisive moments was disastrous, that she had nobelief in the rights of nations, that she plotted war and destructionagainst her own people. There was cause enough for hatred. But if weask ourselves who there is that comes forth unscathed from the trialsthat befell kings and queens in those or even in other times, andremember how often she pleaded and served the national cause againstroyalist and _émigré_, even against the great Irishman[2] whoseportrait of her at Versailles, translated by Dutens, was shown to herby the Duchess of Fitzjames, we must admit that she deserved a betterfate than most of those with whom we can compare her. 

 [2] Burke, _Reflections on the French Revolution_. 

That month of October, 1793, with its new and unprecedenteddevelopment of butchery, was a season of triumph to the party ofHébert. The policy of wholesale arrest, rapid judgment, and speedyexecution was avowedly theirs; and to them Robespierre seemed alethargic, undecided person who only moved under pressure. He was atlast moving as they wished; but the merit was theirs, and theirs thereward. One of them, Vincent, was of so bloodthirsty a dispositionthat he found comfort in gnawing the heart of a calf as if it was thatof a royalist. But the party was not made up of ferocious men only. They had two enemies, the aristocrat and the priest; and they had twopassions, the abolition of an upper class and the abolition ofreligion. Others had attacked the clergy, and others again hadattacked religion. The originality of these men is that they sought asubstitute for it, and wished to give men something to believe in thatwas not God. They were more eager to impose the new belief than todestroy the old. Indeed, they were persuaded that the old was hurryingtowards extinction, and was inwardly rejected by those who professedit. While Hébert was an anarchist, Chaumette was the glowing patriarchof irreligious belief. He regarded the Revolution as essentiallyhostile to Christian faith, and conceived that its inmost principlewas that which he now propounded. The clergy had been popular, for aday, in 1789; but the National Assembly refused to declare that thecountry was Catholic. In June 1792 the Jacobin Club rejected aproposal to abolish the State-Church, and to erect Franklin andRousseau in the niches occupied by Saints, and in December a memberspeaking against divine worship met with no support. On May 30, 1793, during the crisis of the Gironde, the procession of Corpus Christimoved unmolested through the streets of Paris; and on August 25, Robespierre presiding, the Convention expressly repudiated a petitionto suppress preaching in the name of Almighty God. 

On September 20, Romme brought the new calendar before the Assembly, at a moment when, he said, equality reigned in heaven as well as onearth. It was adopted on November 24, with the sonorous nomenclaturedevised by Fabre d'Eglantine. It signified the substitution of Sciencefor Christianity. Winemonth and fruitmonth were not more unchristianthan Julius and Augustus, or than Venus and Saturn; but the practicalresult was the abolition of Sundays and festivals, and the supremacyof reason over history, of the astronomer over the priest. Thecalendar was so completely a weapon of offence, that nobody caredabout the absurdity of names which were inapplicable to otherlatitudes, and unintelligible at Isle de France or Pondicherry. Whilethe Convention wavered, moving sometimes in one direction and thenretracing its steps, the Commune advanced resolutely, for Chaumettewas encouraged by the advantage acquired by his friends in Septemberand October. He thought the time now come to close the churches, andto institute new forms of secularised worship. Supported by a Germanmore enthusiastic than himself, Anacharsis Cloots, he persuaded thebishop of Paris that his Church was doomed like that of the Nonjurors, that the faithful had no faith in it, that the country had given itup. Chaumette was able to add that the Commune wanted to get rid ofhim. Gobel yielded. On November 7, he appeared, with some of hisclergy, at the bar of the Convention, and resigned to the people whathe had received from the people. Other priests and bishops followed, and it appeared that some were men who had gone about with masks ontheir faces, and were glad to renounce beliefs which they did notshare. Sieyès declared what everybody knew, that he neither believedthe doctrines nor practised the rites of his Church; and hesurrendered a considerable income. Some have doubted whether Gobel wasequally disinterested. They say that he offered his submission to thePope in return for a modest sum, and it is affirmed that he receivedcompensation through Cloots and Chaumette, to whom his solemnsurrender was worth a good deal. The force of his example lostsomewhat, when the bishop of Blois, Grégoire, as violent an enemy ofkings as could be found anywhere, stood in the tribune, and refused toabandon his ecclesiastical post. He remained in the Convention to theend, clad in the coloured robes of a French prelate. 

Three days after the ceremony of renunciation, Chaumette opened theCathedral of Notre Dame to the religion of Reason. The Conventionstood aloof, in cold disdain. But an actress, who played the leadingpart, and was variously described as the Goddess of Reason or theGoddess of Liberty, and who possibly did not know herself which shewas, came down from her throne in the church, proceeded to theAssembly, and was admitted to a seat beside the President, who gaveher what was known as a friendly accolade amid loud applause. Afterthat invasion, the hesitating deputies yielded, and about half of themattended the goddess back to her place under the Gothic towers. Chaumette decidedly triumphed. He had already forbidden religiousservice outside the buildings. He had now turned out the clergy whomthe State had appointed, and had filled their place with a Parisianactress. He had overcome the evident reluctance of the Assembly, andmade the deputies partake in his ceremonial. He proceeded, November23, to close the churches, and the Commune resolved that whoeveropened a church should incur the penalties of a suspect. It was thezenith of Hébertism. 

Two men unexpectedly united against Chaumette and appeared aschampions of Christendom. They were Danton and Robespierre. Robespierre had been quite willing that there should be men moreextreme than he, whose aid he could cheaply purchase with a fewcartloads of victims. But he did not intend to suppress religion infavour of a worship in which there was no God. It was opposed to hispolicy, and it was against his conviction; for, like his master, Rousseau, he was a theistic believer, and even intolerant in hisbelief. This was not a link between him and Danton who had no suchspiritualist convictions, and who, so far as he was a man of theory, belonged to a different school of eighteenth-century thought. ButDanton had been throughout assailed by the Hébertist party, and wasdisgusted with their violence. The death of the Girondins appalledhim, for he could see no good reason which would exempt him from theirrate. He had no hope for the future of the Republic, no enthusiasm, and no belief. From that time in October, his thoughts were turnedtowards moderation. He identified Hébert, not Robespierre, with theunceasing bloodshed, and he was willing to act with the latter, hisreal rival, against the raging exterminators. From the end ofSeptember he was absent in his own house at Arcis. At his return heand Robespierre denounced the irreligious masquerades, and spoke forthe clergy, who had as good a right to toleration as their opponents. 

When Robespierre declared that the Convention never intended toproscribe the Catholic worship, he was sincere, and was taking thefirst step that led to the feast of the Supreme Being. Danton actedfrom policy only, in opposition to men who were his own enemies. Chaumette and Hébert succumbed. The Commune proclaimed that thechurches were not to be closed; and early in December the worship ofReason, having lasted twenty-six days, came to an end. The wound waskeenly felt. Fire and poison, said Chaumette, were the weapons withwhich the priests attack the nation. For such traitors, there must beno mercy. It is a question of life and death. Let us throw up betweenus the barrier of eternity. The Mass was no longer said in public. Itcontinued in private chapels throughout the winter until the end ofFebruary. In April, one head of accusation against Chaumette was hisinterference with midnight service at Christmas. 

Robespierre had repressed Hébertism with the aid of Danton. Thevisible sign of their understanding was the appearance in December ofthe _Vieux Cordelier_. In this famous journal Camille Desmoulinspleaded the cause of mercy with a fervour which, at first, resembledsincerity, and pilloried Hébert as a creature that got drunk on thedrippings of the guillotine, Robespierre saw the earlier numbers inproof; but by Christmas he had enough of the bargain. The Convention, having shown some inclination towards clemency on December 20, withdrew from it on the 26th, and Desmoulins, in the last of his sixnumbers, loudly retracted his former argument. The alliance wasdissolved. It had served the purpose of Robespierre, by defeatingHébert, and discrediting Danton. In January, the _Vieux Cordelier_ceased to appear. 

Robespierre now stood between the two hostile parties--Danton, Desmoulins, and their friends, on the side of a regular government;Hébert, Chaumette, and Collot, returned from a terrible proconsulate, wishing to govern by severities. The energy of Collot gave new life tohis party, whilst Danton displayed no resource. Just then, Robespierrewas taken ill, and from February 19 to March 13 he was confined to hisroom. Robespierre was a calculator and a tactician, methodical in hisways, definite and measured in his ends. He was less remarkable fordetermination and courage; and thus two men of uncommon energy nowtook the lead. They were Billaud-Varennes and St. Just. When St. Justwas with the army, his companion Baudot relates that they astonishedthe soldiers by their intrepidity under fire. He adds that they had nomerit, for they knew that they bore charmed lives, and that cannonballs could not touch them. That was the ardent and fanatical spiritthat St. Just brought back with him. During his leader's illness heacquired the initiative, and proclaimed the doctrine that all factionsconstitute a division of power, that they weaken the state, and aretherefore treasonable combinations. 

On March 4, Hébert called the people to arms against the governmentof Moderates. The attempt failed, and Robespierre, by a largeexpenditure of money, had Paris on his side. At one moment he eventhought of making terms with this dangerous rival; and there is astory that he lost heart, and meditated flight to America. In thisparticular crisis money played a part, and Hébert was financed byforeign bankers, to finish the tyranny of Robespierre. On March 13 hewas arrested, Chaumette on the 18th; and on the 17th, Hérault deSéchelles, Danton's friend, on coming to the Committee of PublicSafety, was told by Robespierre to retire, as they were deliberatingon his arrest. On the 19th the Dantonists caused the arrest of Héron, the police agent of Robespierre, who instantly had him released. March24, Hébert was sent to the scaffold. On the way he lamented to Ronsinthat the Republic was about to perish. "The Republic, " said the other, "is immortal. " Hitherto the guillotine had been used to destroy thevanquished parties, and persons notoriously hostile. It was an easyinference, that it might serve against personal rivals, who were thebest of Republicans and Jacobins. The victims in the month of Marchwere 127. 

Danton did nothing to arrest the slaughter. His inaction ruined him, and deprived him of that portion of sympathy which is due to a man whosuffers for his good intentions. Billaud and St. Just demanded that heshould be arrested, and carried it, at a night sitting of theCommittee. Only one refused to sign. Danton had been repeatedly andamply warned. Thibaudeau, Rousselin, had told him what was impending. Panis, at the last moment, came to him at the opera, and offered him aplace of refuge. Westermann proposed to him to rouse the armed people. Tallien entreated him to take measures of defence; and Tallien waspresident of the Convention. A warning reached him from the very graveof Marat. Albertine came to him and told him that her brother hadalways spoken with scorn of Robespierre as a man of words. Sheexclaimed, "Go to the tribune while Tallien presides, carry theAssembly, and crush the Committees. There is no other road to safetyfor a man like you!" "What?" he replied; "I am to kill Robespierre andBillaud?" "If you do not, they will kill you. " He said to one of hisadvisers, "The tribunal would absolve me. " To another, "Better to beguillotined than to guillotine. " And to a third, "They will neverdare!" In a last interview, Robespierre accused him of havingencouraged the opposition of Desmoulins, and of having regretted theGirondins. "Yes, " said Danton, "it is time to stop the shedding ofblood. " "Then, " returned the other, "you are a conspirator, and youown it. " Danton, knowing that he was lost, burst into tears. AllEurope would cast him out; and, as he had said, he was not a man whocould carry his country in the soles of his shoes. One formidableimputation was to call him a bondsman of Mr. Pitt; for Pitt had saidthat if there were negotiations, the best man to treat with would beDanton. He was arrested, with Camille Desmoulins and other friends, onthe night of March 31. Legendre moved next day that he be heard beforethe Convention, and if they had heard him, he would still have beenmaster there. Robespierre felt all the peril of the moment, and theRight supported him in denying the privilege. Danton defended himselfwith such force that the judges lost their heads, and the tones of theremembered voice were heard outside, and agitated the crowd. TheCommittee of Public Safety refused the witnesses called for thedefence, and cut short the proceedings. The law was broken that Dantonand his associates might be condemned. 

There was not in France a more thorough patriot than Danton; and allmen could see that he had been put to death out of personal spite, andjealousy, and fear. There was no way, thenceforth, for the victor tomaintain his power, but the quickening of the guillotine. Reservingcompassion for less ignoble culprits, we must acknowledge that thedefence of Danton is in the four months of increasing terror thatsucceeded the 5th of April 1794, when Robespierre took his stand atthe corner of the Tuileries to watch the last moments of his partnerin crime. 

The sudden decline of Danton, and his ruin by the hands of menevidently inferior to him in capacity and vigour, is so strange anevent that it has been explained by a story which is worth telling, though it is not authenticated enough to influence the narrative. InJune 1793, just after the fall of the Girondins, Danton was married. His bride insisted that their union should be blessed by a priest whohad not taken the oaths. Danton agreed, found the priest, and went toconfession. He became unfitted for his part in the Revolution, droppedout of the Committees, and retired, discouraged and disgusted, intothe country. When he came back, after the execution of the queen, ofMadame Roland, and the Girondins, he took the side of the proscribedclergy, and encouraged the movement in favour of clemency. In this wayhe lost his popularity and influence, and refused to adopt the meansof recovering power. He neglected even to take measures for hispersonal safety, like a man who was sick of his life. At that time, seven of the priests of Paris, whose names are given, took it by turnsto follow the carts from the prison to the guillotine, disguised asone of the howling mob, for the comfort and consolation of the dying. And the abbé de Keravenant, who had married Danton, thus followed himto the scaffold, was recognised by him, and absolved him at the lastmoment. 

XIX

ROBESPIERRE

We reach the end of the Reign of Terror, on the 9th of Thermidor, themost auspicious date in modern history. In April Robespierre wasabsolute. He had sent Hébert to death because he promoted disorder, Chaumette because he suppressed religion, Danton because he had soughtto restrain bloodshed. His policy was to keep order and authority byregulated terror, and to relax persecution. The governing power wasconcentrated in the Committee of Public Safety by abolishing theoffice of minister, instead of which there were twelve Boards ofAdministration reporting to the Committee. That there might be norival power, the municipality was remodelled and placed in the handsof men attached to Robespierre. The dualism remained betweenrepresentation in the Assembly and the more direct action of thesovereign people in the Town Hall. When the tocsin rings, said amember of the Commune, the Convention ceases to exist. In other words, when the principal chooses to interfere, he supersedes his agent. Thetwo notions of government are contradictory, and the bodies thatincorporated them were naturally hostile. But their antagonism wassuspended while Robespierre stood between. 

The reformed Commune at once closed all clubs that were not Jacobin. All parties had been crushed: Royalists, Feuillants, Girondins, Cordeliers. What remained of them in the scattered prisons of Francewas now to be forwarded to Paris, and there gradually disposed of. Butthough there no longer existed an opposing party, there was still aclass of men that had not been reduced or reconciled. This consistedchiefly of deputies who had been sent out to suppress the rising ofthe provinces in 1793. These Commissaries of the Convention hadenjoyed the exercise of enormous authority; they had the uncontrolledpower of life and death, and they had gathered spoil without scruple, from the living and the dead. On that account they were objects ofsuspicion to the austere personage at the head of the State; and theywere known to be the most unscrupulous and the most determined of men. 

Robespierre, who was nervously apprehensive, saw very early where thedanger lay, and he knew which of these enemies there was most cause todread. He never made up his mind how to meet the peril; he threatenedbefore he struck; and the others combined and overthrew him. He hadhelped to unite them by introducing a conflict of ideas at a timewhen, apparently, and on the surface, there was none. Everybody was aRepublican and a Jacobin, but Robespierre now insisted on the beliefin God. He perished by the monstrous imposture of associating divinesanction with the crimes of his sanguinary reign. The scheme was notsuggested by expediency, for he had been always true to the idea. Inearly life he had met Rousseau at Ermenonville, and he had adopted theindeterminate religion of the "vicaire Savoyard. " In March 1792 heproposed a resolution, that the belief in Providence and a future lifeis a necessary condition of Jacobinism. In November, he argued thatthe decline of religious conviction left only a residue of ideasfavourable to liberty and public virtue, and that the essentialprinciples of politics might be found in the sublime teaching ofChrist. He objected to disendowment, because it is necessary to keepup reverence for an authority superior to man. Therefore, on December5, he induced the Club to break in pieces the bust of Helvétius. 

Although Rousseau, the great master, had been a Genevese Calvinist, nobody thought of preserving Christianity in a Protestant form. TheHuguenot ministers themselves did nothing for it, and Robespierre hada peculiar dislike of them. Immediately after the execution of Dantonand before the trial of Chaumette, the restoration of religion wasforeshadowed by Couthon. A week later it was resolved that the remainsof Rousseau, the father of the new church, should be transferred tothe Pantheon. 

On May 7, Robespierre brought forward his famous motion that theConvention acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being. His argument, stripped of parliamentary trappings, was this. The secret of the lifeof a Republic is public and private virtue, that is, integrity, theconsciousness of duty, the spirit of self-sacrifice, submission to thediscipline of authority. These are the natural conditions of puredemocracy; but in an advanced stage of civilisation they are difficultto maintain without the restraint of belief in God, in eternal life, in government by Providence. Society will be divided by passion andinterest, unless it is reconciled and controlled by that which is theuniversal foundation of religions. By this appeal to a higher powerRobespierre hoped to strengthen the State at home and abroad. In thelatter purpose he succeeded; and the solemn renunciation of atheismimpressed the world. It was very distinctly a step in the Conservativedirection, for it promised religious liberty. There was to be nofavour to churches, but also no persecution. Practically, theadvantage was for the Christian part of the population, andirreligion, though not proscribed, was discouraged. The Revolutionappeared to be turning backwards, and to seek its friends among thosewho had acquired their habits of life and thought under the fallenorder. The change was undoubted; and it was a change imposed by thewill of one man, unsupported by any current of opinion. 

A month later, June 8, the Feast of the Supreme Being was held withall the solemnity of which Paris was capable. Robespierre walked inprocession from the Tuileries to the Champ de Mars, at the head of theConvention. As the others fell back, he marched alone with his hairpowdered, a large nosegay in his hands, wearing the sky-blue coat andnankeens by which he is remembered, for they reappeared in the crisisof Thermidor. He had attained the loftiest summit of prosperity andgreatness that was ever given to man. Not a monarch in Europe couldcompare with him in power. All that had stood in his way during thelast five years had been swept to destruction; all that survived ofthe Revolution followed obedient at his heels. At the last election ofa President in the Convention there had been 117 votes; but 485 hadvoted for Robespierre, that he might parade at their head that day. Itwas there, in that supreme and intoxicating moment, that a gulf openedbefore him, and he became aware of the extremity of his peril. For hecould hear the hostile deputies in the front rank behind him, muttering curses and sneering at the enthusiasm with which he wasreceived. Those fierce proconsuls who, at Lyons, Nevers, Nantes, Toulon, had crushed all that they were now forced to venerate by theirmaster, vowed vengeance for their humiliation. They said that this wasto be a starting-point for divine right, and the excuse for a newpersecution. They felt that they were forging a weapon againstthemselves, and committing an act of suicide. The decree of the monthbefore would have involved no such dire consequences; but theelaborate and aggressive ceremonial was felt as a declaration of war. 

Experienced observers at once predicted that Robespierre would notlast long. He lost no time in devising a precaution equal to thedanger. He prepared what is known as the law of the 22nd of Prairial, which was presented by Couthon, and carried without a division on June10, two days after the procession. It is the most tyrannical of allthe acts of the Revolution, and is not surpassed by anything in therecords of absolute monarchy. For the decree of Prairial suppressedthe formalities of law in political trials. It was said by Couthon, that delays may be useful where only private interests are at stake, but there must be none where the interest of the entire public is tobe vindicated. The public enemy has only to be identified. The Statedespatches him to save itself. Therefore the Committee was empoweredto send whom it chose before the tribunal, and if the jury wassatisfied, no time was to be lost with witnesses, written depositions, or arguments. Nobody whom Robespierre selected for execution would beallowed to delay judgment by defence; and that there might be noexception or immunity from arbitrary arrest and immediate sentence, all previous decrees in matter of procedure were revoked. That articlecontained the whole point, for it deprived the Convention ofjurisdiction for the protection of its own members. Robespierre hadonly to send a deputy's name to the public accuser, and he would be inhis grave next day. The point had been so well concealed that nobodyperceived it. Afterwards, the deputies, warned by the great juristMerlin, saw what they had done, and on June 11, they stipulated thatno member should be arrested without leave of the Convention. Couthonand Robespierre were not present. On the 12th, by threatening that theCommittees would resign, they caused the decree of the previous day tobe rescinded, but they assured the Assembly that it was superfluous, and their design had been misunderstood. They maintained their text, and gained their object; but the success was on the other side. Thescheme had been exposed, and the Convention had resisted, for thefirst time. The opposing deputies had received warning, and showedthat they understood. From that moment they were on the watch, andtheir enemy shrank from employing against them a clause the validityof which he had denied. He gave them time to combine. Over the rest ofthe nation he exerted his new power without control. The victimsincreased rapidly in number. Down to the middle of June, in fourteenmonths, the executions had been about 1200. In seven weeks, after thelaw of Prairial, they were 1376; that is, an average of 32 in a weekrose to an average of 196. But the guillotine was removed to a distantpart of the city, where a deep trench was dug to carry away suchquantities of blood. 

During this time the Tribunal was not acting against men actually inpublic life, and we are not compelled to study its judgments, as ifthey were making history. Whilst inoffensive people were sufferingobscurely, the enemies of the tyrant were plotting to save themselvesfrom the dreadful fate they saw so near them. Nothing bound themtogether but fear and a common hatred for the obtrusive dogmatist atthe head of affairs; and it was not evident to each that they wereacting in the same cause. But there was a man among them, stillsomewhat in the background, but gifted with an incredible dexterity, who hurled Napoleon from power in 1815 and Robespierre in 1794. 

Fouché, formerly an Oratorian, had been one of the most unscrupulousdeputies on missions, and had given the example of seizing thetreasure of churches. For he said there were no laws, and they hadgone back to the state of nature. After the execution of Hébert he wasrecalled from Lyons; and Robespierre, whose sister he had asked inmarriage, defended him at the Jacobins on April 10. Being an unfrockedecclesiastic, he was elected president of the Club on June 6, as aprotest against the clerical tendencies of Robespierre. On the 11th, immediately after the procession, and the law of Prairial, Fouchéattacked him in a speech in which he said that it is to do homage tothe Supreme Being to plunge a sword into the heart of a man whooppresses liberty. This was the first opening of hostilities, and itseems to have been premature. Fouché was not supported by the club atthe time, and some weeks later, when Robespierre called him the headof the conspiracy against him, he was expelled. He was a doomed man, carrying his life in his hand, and he adopted more subtle means ofcombat. July 19, five days after his expulsion, Collot was electedPresident of the Convention. He and Fouché were united in sacred bandsof friendship, for they had put 1682 persons to death at Lyons. Aboutthe same day others joined the plotters, and on July 20, Barère, theorator of the Committee, who watched the turning of the tide, made anambiguous declaration portending a breach. No plan of operations hadbeen agreed upon, and there was yet time for Robespierre, now fullyawake to the approaching danger, to strike an irresistible blow. 

During the last few weeks the position of the country had undergone achange. On the 1st of June, Villaret Joyeuse had given battle to theEnglish off Ushant. It was the beginning of that long series of fightsat sea, in which the French were so often successful in single combat, and so often defeated in general actions. They lost the day, but notthe object for which they fought, as the supplies of American grainwere brought safely into port. That substantial success and theopportune legend of the Vengeur saved the government from reproach. Atthe end of the month St. Just brought news of the French victory overthe Austrians at Fleurus, the scene of so many battles. It was due toJourdan and his officers, and would have been lost if they had obeyedSt. Just; but he arrived in time to tell his own story. Many yearswere to pass before an enemy's guns were again heard on the Belgianfrontier. St. Just entreated his colleague to seize the opportunity, and to destroy his enemies while the people were rejoicing overvictory. It appeared, afterwards, that the battle of Fleurus, thegreatest which the French had won since the reign of Lewis XIV. , rendered no service to the government under whom it was fought. Thesoil of France was safe for twenty years, and with the terror ofinvasion, the need for terror at home passed away. It had been bornewhile the danger lasted; and with the danger, it came to an end. 

The Committee of Public Safety resented the law of Prairial; and whenasked to authorise the proscription of deputies refused. Robespierredid nothing to conciliate the members, and had not the majority. Andhe threatened and insulted Carnot. As the powers were then constitutedhe was helpless against his adversaries. The Commune and the Jacobinswere true to him; but the Convention was on its guard, and the twoCommittees were divided. Lists of proscription had been discovered, and those who knew that their names were upon them made no surrender. 

Two days after the speech which showed that Barère was wavering, whenCollot had been chosen President, and Fouché was at work underground, a joint sitting of both Committees was called at night. St. Justproposed that there should be a dictator. Robespierre was ready toaccept, but there were only five votes in favour--three out of elevenon one Committee, two out of twelve on the other. The Jacobins sent adeputation to require that the Convention should strengthen theexecutive; it was dismissed with words by Barère. One resourceremained. It might still be possible, disregarding the false move ofPrairial, to obtain the authority of the Convention for the arrest, that is, for the trial and execution of some of its members. They haddelivered up Danton and Desmoulins, Hérault and Chaumette. They wouldperhaps abandon Cambon or Fouché, Bourdon or Tallien, four monthslater. 

The Committees had refused Robespierre, and were in open revoltagainst his will. His opponents there would oppose him in theAssembly. But the mass of the deputies, belonging not to the Mountainbut to the Plain, were always on his side. They had no immediate causefor fear, and they had something to hope for. Seventy of their numberhad been under arrest ever since October, as being implicated in thefall of the Girondins. Robespierre had constantly refused to let thembe sent to trial, and they owed him their lives. They were still inprison, still in his power. To save them, their friends in theAssembly were bound to refuse nothing that he asked for. They wouldnot scruple to deliver over to him a few more ruffians as they haddelivered over the others in the spring. That was the basis of hiscalculation. The Mountain would be divided; the honest men of thePlain would give him the majority, and would purge the earth ofanother hatch of miscreants. On his last night at home he said to thefriends with whom he lived, "We have nothing to fear, the Plain iswith us. "

Whilst Robespierre, repulsed by the committees which had so longobeyed him, sat down to compose the speech on which his victory andhis existence depended, his enemies were maturing their plans. Fouchéinformed his sister at Nantes of what was in preparation. On the 21stof July he is expecting that they will triumph immediately. On the23rd he writes: "Only a few days more, and honest men will have theirturn. --Perhaps this very day the traitors will be unmasked. " It isunlike so sagacious a man to have written these outspoken letters, forthey were intercepted and sent to Paris for the information ofRobespierre. But it shows how accurately Fouché timed his calculation, that when they arrived Robespierre was dead. 

The importance of the neutral men of the Plain was as obvious to oneside as to the other, and the Confederates attempted to negotiate withthem. Their overtures were rejected; and when they were renewed, theywere rejected a second time. The Plain were disabled by considerationfor their friends, hostages in the grasp of Robespierre, and by theprospect of advantage for religion from his recent policy. They loadedhim with adulation, and said that when he marched in the procession, with his blue coat and nosegay, he reminded them of Orpheus. They eventhought it desirable that he should live to clear off a few more ofthe most detestable men in France, the very men who were makingadvances to them. They believed that time was on their side. Tallien, Collot, Fouché were baffled, and the rigid obstinacy of the Plainproduced a moment of extreme and certain danger. 

Whilst they hesitated, Tallien received a note in a rememberedhandwriting. That bit of paper saved unnumbered lives, and changed thefortune of France, for it contained these words: "Coward! I am to betried to-morrow. " At Bordeaux, Tallien had found a lady in prison, whose name was Madame de Fontenay, and who was the daughter of theMadrid banker Cabarrus. She was twenty-one, and people who saw herfor the first time could not repress an exclamation of surprise at herextraordinary beauty. After her release, she divorced her husband, andmarried Tallien. In later years she became the Princesse de Chimay;but, for writing that note, she received the profane but unforgottenname of Notre Dame de Thermidor. 

On the night of July 26, Tallien and his friends had a thirdConference with Boissy d'Anglas and Durand de Maillane, and at lastthey gave way. But they made their terms. They gave their votesagainst Robespierre on condition that the Reign of Terror ended withhim. There was no condition which the others would not have acceptedin their extremity, and it is by that compact that the government ofFrance, when it came into the hands of these men of blood, ceased tobe sanguinary. It was high time, for, in the morning, Robespierre haddelivered the accusing speech which he had been long preparing, and ofwhich Daunou told Michelet that it was the only very fine speech heever made. He spoke of heaven, and of immortality, and of publicvirtue; he spoke of himself; he denounced his enemies, naming scarcelyany but Cambon and Fouché. He did not conclude with any indictment, orwith any demand that the Assembly would give up its guilty members. His aim was to conciliate the Plain, and to obtain votes from theMountain, by causing alarm but not despair. The next stroke wasreserved for the morrow, when the Convention, by voting thedistribution of his oration, should have committed itself too far torecede. The Convention at once voted that 250, 000 copies of the speechshould be printed, and that it should be sent to every parish inFrance. That was the form in which acceptance, entire and unreservedacceptance, was expressed. Robespierre thus obtained all that hedemanded for the day. The Assembly would be unable to refuse thesacrifice of its black sheep, when he reappeared with their names. 

Then it was seen that, in naming Cambon, the orator had made amistake. For Cambon, having had the self-command to wait until theConvention had passed its approving vote, rose to reply. He repelledthe attack which Robespierre had made upon him, and turned the entirecurrent of opinion by saying, "What paralyses the Republic is the manwho has just spoken. "

There is no record of a finer act of fortitude in all parliamentaryhistory. The example proved contagious. The Assembly recalled itsvote, and referred the speech to the Committee. Robespierre sank uponhis seat and murmured, "I am a lost man. " He saw that the Plain couldno longer be trusted. His attack was foiled. If the Convention refusedthe first step, they would not take the second, which he was to askfor next day. He went to the Jacobin Club, and repeated his speech toa crowded meeting. He told them that it was his dying testament. Thecombination of evil men was too strong for him. He had thrown away hisbuckler, and was ready for the hemlock. Collot sat on the step belowthe president's chair, close to him. He said, "Why did you desert theCommittee? Why did you make your views known in public withoutinforming us?" Robespierre bit his nails in silence. For he had notconsulted the Committee because it had refused the extension ofpowers, and his action that day had been to appeal to the Conventionagainst them. The Club, divided at first, went over to him, gave himan ovation, and expelled Collot and Billaud-Varennes with violence andcontumely. Robespierre, encouraged by his success, exhorted theJacobins to purify the Convention by expelling bad men, as they hadexpelled the Girondins. It was his first appeal to the popular forces. Coffinhal, who was a man of energy, implored him to strike at once. Hewent home to bed, after midnight, taking no further measures ofprecaution, and persuaded that he would recover the majority at thenext sitting. 

Collot and Billaud, both members of the supreme governing body, wentto their place of meeting, after the stormy scene at the Club, andfound St. Just writing intently. They fell upon him, and demanded toknow whether he was preparing accusations against them. He answeredthat that was exactly the thing he was doing. When he had promised tosubmit his report to the Committee of Public Safety before he went tothe Assembly, they let him go. In the morning, he sent word that hewas too much hurt by their treatment of him to keep his promise. Barère meanwhile undertook to have a report ready against St. Just. 

Before the Assembly began business on the morning of Sunday the 9th ofThermidor, Tallien was in the lobby cementing the alliance whichsecured the majority; and Bourdon came up and shook hands with Durand, saying, "Oh! the good men of the Right. " When the sitting opened, St. Just at once mounted the tribune and began to read. Tallien, seeinghim from outside, exclaimed, "Now is the moment, come and see. It isRobespierre's last day!" The report of St. Just was an attack on thecommittee. Tallien broke in, declaring that the absent men must beinformed and summoned, before he could proceed. St. Just was not aready speaker, and when he was defied and interrupted, he becamesilent. Robespierre endeavoured to bring him aid and encouragement;but Tallien would not be stopped, Billaud followed in the name of thegovernment; Barère and Vadier continued, while Robespierre and St. Just insisted vainly on being heard. The interrupters were turbulent, aggressive, out of order, being desperate men fighting for life. Collot d'Herbois, the President, did not rebuke them, and havingsurrendered his place to a colleague whom he could trust, descended totake part in the fray. If the Convention was suffered once more tohear the dreaded voice of Robespierre, nobody could be sure that hewould not recover his ascendency. These tactics succeeded. Bothparties to the overnight convention were true to it, and Robespierrewas not allowed to make his speech. The galleries had been filled fromfive in the morning. Barère moved to divide the command of Hanriot, the general of the Commune, on whose sword the triumvirs relied; andthe Convention outlawed him and his second in command as theexcitement increased. This was early in the afternoon; and it was onlearning this that the Commune called out its forces, and Paris beganto rise. 

All this time Robespierre had not been personally attacked. Decreeswere only demanded, and passed, against his inferior agents. Thestruggle had lasted for hours; he thought that his adversariesfaltered, and made a violent effort to reach the tribune. It hadbecome known in the Assembly that his friends were arming, and theybegan to cry, "Down with the tyrant!" The President rang his bell andrefused to let him speak. At last his voice failed him. A Montagnardexclaimed, "He is choking with the blood of Danton. " Robespierrereplied, "What! It is Danton you would avenge?" And he said it in away that signified "Then why did you not defend him?" When heunderstood what the Mountain meant, and that a motive long repressedhad recovered force, he appealed to the Plain, to the honest men whohad been so long silent, and so long submissive. They had voted bothways the day before, but he knew nothing of the memorable compact thatwas to arrest the guillotine. But the Plain, who were not preparedwith articulate arguments for their change of front, were content withthe unanswerable cry, "Down with the tyrant!" That was evidentlydecisive; and when that declaration had been evoked by his directappeal the end came speedily. An unknown deputy moved that Robespierrebe arrested, nobody spoke against it; and his brother and severalfriends were taken into custody with him. None made any resistance orprotest. The conflict, they knew, would be outside. The Commune ofParis, the Jacobin Club, the revolutionary tribunal were of theirparty; and how many of the armed multitude, nobody could tell. All wasnot lost until that was known. At five o'clock the Convention, wearywith a heavy day's work, adjourned for dinner. 

The Commune had its opportunity, and began to gain ground. Theirtroops collected slowly, and Hanriot was arrested. He was released, and brought back in triumph to the Hôtel de Ville, where the arresteddeputies soon assembled. They had been sent to different prisons, butall the gaolers but one refused to admit them. Robespierre insisted onbeing imprisoned, but the turnkey at the Luxembourg was unmoved, andturned him out. He dreaded to be forced into a position of illegalityand revolt, because it would enable his enemies to outlaw him. Onceoutlawed, there was nothing left but an insurrection, of which theissue was uncertain. There was less risk in going before therevolutionary tribunal, where every official was his creature andnominee, and had no hope of mercy from his adversaries, when he ceasedto protect. The gaoler who shut the prison door in his face sealed hisfate; and it is supposed, but I do not know, that he had hisinstructions from Voulland, on the other side, in order that theprisoner might be driven into contumacy, against his will. Expelledfrom gaol, Robespierre still refused to be free, and went to thepolice office, where he was technically under arrest. 

St. Just, who had seen war, and had made men wonder at his coolnessunder heavy fire, did not calculate with so much nicety, and repaired, with the younger Robespierre, to the municipality, where a force ofsome thousands of men were assembled. They sent to summon theirleader, but the leader declined to come. He felt safer under arrest;but he advised his friends at the Commune to ring the tocsin, closethe barriers, stop the Press, seize the post, and arrest the deputies. The position of the man of peace encouraging his comrades to break thelaw, and explaining how to do it, was too absurd to be borne. Coffinhal, who was a much bigger man, came and carried him away byfriendly compulsion. 

About ten o'clock the arrested deputies were united. Couthon, who wasa cripple, had gone home. The others sent for him, and Robespierresigned a letter by which he was informed that the insurrection was infull activity. This message, and the advice which he forwarded fromhis shelter with the police prove that he had made up his mind tofight, and did not die a martyr to legality. But if Robespierre wasready, at the last extremity, to fight, he did not know how to do it. The favourable moment was allowed to slip by; not a gun was fired, andthe Convention, after several hours of inaction and danger, began torecover power. By Voulland's advice the prisoners out of prison wereoutlawed, and Barras was put at the head of the faithful forces. Twelve deputies were appointed to proclaim the decrees all over Paris. Mounted on police chargers, conspicuous in their tricolor scarves, andlighted by torches, they made known in every street that Robespierrewas now an outlaw under sentence of death. This was at last effective, and Barras was able to report that the people were coming over to thelegal authority. An ingenious story was spread about that Robespierrehad a seal with the lilies of France. The western and wealthier halfof Paris was for the Convention but parts of the poorer quarters, north and east, went with the Commune. They made no fight. Legendreproceeded to the Jacobin Club, locked the door, and put the key in hispocket, while the members quietly dispersed. About one in the morning, Bourdon, at the head of the men from the district which had been thestronghold of Chaumette made his way along the river to the Place deGrève. The insurgents drawn up before the Hôtel de Ville made noresistance, and the leaders who were gathered within knew that all wasover. 

The collapse was instantaneous. A little earlier, a messenger sent outby Gaudin, afterwards Duke of Gaëta and Napoleon's trusted financeminister, reported that he had found Robespierre triumphing andreceiving congratulations. Even in those last moments he shrank fromaction. A warlike proclamation was drawn up, signed by his friends, and laid before him. He refused to sign unless it was in the name ofthe French people. "Then, " said Couthon, "there is nothing to be donebut to die. " Robespierre, doubtful and hesitating, wrote the first twoletters of his name. The rest is a splash of blood. When Bourdon, witha pistol in each hand, and the blade of his sword between his teeth, mounted the stairs of the Hôtel de Ville at the head of his troops, Lebas drew two pistols, handed one to Robespierre, and killed himselfwith the other. What followed is one of the most disputed facts ofhistory. I believe that Robespierre shot himself in the head, onlyshattering the jaw. Many excellent critics think that the wound wasinflicted by a gendarme who followed Bourdon. His brother took off hisshoes and tried to escape by the cornice outside, but fell on to thepavement. Hanriot, the general, hid himself in a sewer, from which hewas dragged next morning in a filthy condition. The energeticCoffinhal alone got away, and remained some time in concealment. Therest were captured without trouble. 

Robespierre was carried to the Tuileries and laid on a table where, for some hours, people came and stared at him. Surgeons attended tohis wound, and he bore his sufferings with tranquillity. From themoment when the shot was fired he never spoke; but at the Conciergeriehe asked, by signs, for writing materials. They were denied him, andhe went to death taking his secret with him out of the world. Forthere has always been a mysterious suspicion that the tale has beenbut half told, and that there is something deeper than the base andhollow criminal on the surface. Napoleon liked him, and believed thathe meant well. Cambacérès, the archchancellor of the Empire, whogoverned France when the Emperor took the field, said to him one day, "It is a cause that was decided but was never argued. "

Some of those who felled the tyrant, such as Cambon and Barère, longafter repented of their part in his fall. In the north of Europe, especially in Denmark, he had warm admirers. European society believedthat he had affinity with it. It took him to be a man of authority, integrity, and order, an enemy of corruption and of war, who fellbecause he attempted to bar the progress of unbelief, which was thestrongest current of the age. His private life was inoffensive anddecent. He had been the equal of emperors and kings; an army of700, 000 men obeyed his word; he controlled millions of secret servicemoney, and could have obtained what he liked for pardons, and he livedon a deputy's allowance of eighteen francs a day, leaving a fortune ofless than twenty guineas in depreciated assignats. Admiring enemiesassert that by legal confiscation, the division of properties, and theprogressive taxation of wealth, he would have raised the revenue totwenty-two millions sterling, none of which would have been taken fromthe great body of small cultivators who would thus have been for everbound to the Revolution. There is no doubt that he held fast to thedoctrine of equality, which means government by the poor and paymentby the rich. Also, he desired power, if it was only forself-preservation; and he held it by bloodshed, as Lewis XIV. Haddone, and Peter the Great, and Frederic. Indifference to thedestruction of human life, even the delight at the sight of blood, wascommon all round him, and had appeared before the Revolution began. The transformation of society as he imagined, if it cost a fewthousand heads in a twelvemonth, was less deadly than a single day ofNapoleon fighting for no worthier motive than ambition. His privatenote-book has been printed, but it does not show what he thought ofthe future. That is the problem which the guillotine left unsolved onthe evening of June 28, 1794. Only this is certain, that he remainsthe most hateful character in the forefront of history sinceMachiavelli reduced to a code the wickedness of public men. 

XX

LA VENDÉE

The remorseless tyranny which came to an end in Thermidor was not theproduct of home causes. It was prepared by the defeat and defection ofDumouriez; it was developed by the loss of the frontier fortresses inthe following July; and it fell when the tide of battle rolled awayafter the victory of Fleurus. We have, therefore, to consider theseries of warlike transactions that reacted so terribly on thegovernment of France. At first, and especially in the summer of 1793, the real danger was not foreign, but civil war. During four years theRevolution always had force on its side. The only active oppositionhad come from emigrant nobles who were a minority, acting for a class. Not a battalion had joined Brunswick when he occupied a Frenchprovince; and the mass of the country people had been raised, underthe new order, to a better condition than they had ever known. For thehard kernel of the revolutionary scheme, taken from agrarian Rome, wasthat those who till the land shall own the land; that they shouldenjoy the certainty of gathering the fruits of their toil forthemselves; that every family should possess as much as it couldcultivate. But the shock which now made the Republic tremble was aninsurrection of peasants, men of the favoured class; and the democracywhich was strong enough to meet the monarchies of Europe, saw itsarmies put to flight by a rabble of field labourers and woodmen, ledby obscure commanders, of whom many had never served in war. 

One of Washington's officers was a Frenchman who came out beforeLafayette, and was known as Colonel Armand. His real name was theMarquis de La Rouerie. His stormy life had been rich in adventure andtribulation. He had appeared on the boards of the opera; he had goneabout in company with a monkey; he had fought a duel, and believingthat he had killed his man had swallowed poison; he had been an inmateof the monastery of La Trappe, after a temporary disappointment inlove; and he had been sent to the Bastille with other discontentedBretons. On his voyage out his ship blew up in sight of land, and heswam ashore. But this man who came out of the sea was found to be fullof audacity and resource. He rose to be a brigadier in the Continentalarmy; and when he came home, he became the organiser of the royalistinsurrection in the west. Authorised by the Princes, whom he visitedat Coblenz, he prepared a secret association in Brittany, which was toco-operate with others in the central provinces. 

While La Rouerie was adjusting his instruments and bringing thecomplicated agency to perfection, the invaders came and went, and thesignal for action, when they were masters of Châlons, was never given. When volunteers were called out to resist them, men with blackcockades went about interrupting the enrolment, and declaring that noman should take arms, except to deliver the king. Their mysteriousleader, Cottereau, the first to bear the historic name of Jean Chouan, was La Rouerie's right hand. When the prospect of combination with thePowers was dissolved by Dumouriez, the character of the conspiracychanged, and men began to think that they could fight the Conventionsingle-handed, while its armies were busy on the Rhine and Meuse. Brittany had 200 miles of coast, and as the Channel Islands were insight, aid could come from British cruisers. 

La Rouerie, who was a prodigy of inventiveness, and drew his lineswith so firm a hand that the Chouannerie, which broke out after hisdeath, lasted ten years and only went to pieces against Napoleon, organised a rising, almost from Seine to Loire, for the spring of1793. Indeed it is not enough to say that they went down before thegenius of Napoleon. The "Petite Chouannerie, " as the rising of 1815was called, contributed heavily to his downfall; for he was compelledto send 20, 000 men against it, whose presence might have turned thefortune of the day at Waterloo. 

But in January 1793 La Rouerie fell ill, the news of the king's deathmade him delirious, and on the 30th he died. That the explosion mightyet take place at the appointed hour, they concealed his death, andburied him in a wood, at midnight, filling the grave with quicklime. The secret was betrayed, the remains were discovered, the accomplicesfled, and those who were taken died faithful to their trust. 

The Breton rising had failed for the time, and royalists north of theLoire had not recovered from the blow when La Vendée rose. The corpsein the thicket was found February 26; the papers were seized March 3;and it was March 12, at the moment when Brittany was paralysed, thatthe conscription gave the signal of civil war. The two things arequite separate. In one place there was a plot which came to nothing atthe time; in the other, there was an outbreak which had not beenprepared. La Vendée was not set in motion by the wires laid north ofthe Loire. It broke out spontaneously, under sudden provocation. Butthe Breton plot had ramified in that direction also, and there wasmuch expectant watching for the hour of combined action. Smugglers, and poachers, and beggar men had carried the whispered parole, armedwith a passport in these terms: "Trust the bearer, and give him aid, for the sake of Armand"; and certain remote and unknown countrygentlemen were affiliated, whose names soon after filled the worldwith their renown. D'Elbée, the future commander-in-chief, was one ofthem; and he always regarded the tumultuous outbreak of March, theresult of no ripened design, as a fatal error. That is the reason whythe gentry hung back at first, and were driven forward by thepeasants. It seemed madness to fight the Convention without previousorganisation for purposes of war, and without the support of the farlarger population of Brittany, which had the command of the coast, and was in touch with the great maritime Power. Politics and religionhad roused much discontent; but the first real act of rebellion wasprompted by the new principle of compulsory service, proclaimed onFebruary 23. 

The region which was to be the scene of so much glory and so muchsorrow lies chiefly between the left bank of the Loire and the sea, about 100 miles across, from Saumur to the Atlantic, and 50 or 60 fromNantes towards Poitiers. Into the country farther south, the Vendeans, who were weak in cavalry and had no trained gunners, never penetrated. The main struggle raged in a broken, wooded, and almost inaccessibledistrict called the Bocage, where there were few towns and no goodroads. That was the stronghold of the grand army, which included allthat was best in Vendean virtue. Along the coast there was a region offens, peopled by a coarser class of men, who had little intercoursewith their inland comrades, and seldom acted with them. Their leader, Charette, the most active and daring of partisans, fought more for therapture of fighting than for the sake of a cause. He kept opencommunication by sea, negotiated with England, and assured theBourbons that, if one of them appeared, he would place him at the headof 200, 000 men. He regarded the other commanders as subservient to theclergy, and saw as little of them as he could. 

The inhabitants of La Vendée, about 800, 000, were well-to-do, and hadsuffered less from degenerate feudalism than the east of France. Theylived on better terms with the landlords, and had less cause towelcome the Revolution. Therefore, too, they clung to the nonjuringclergy. At heart, they were royalist, aristocratic and clerical, uniting anti-revolutionary motives that acted separately elsewhere. That is the cause of their rising; but the secret of their power is inthe military talent, a thing more rare than courage, that was foundamong them. The disturbances that broke out in several places on theday of enrolment, were conducted by men of the people. Cathelineau, one of the earliest, was a carrier, sacristan in his village, who hadnever seen a shot fired when he went out with a few hundred neighboursand took Cholet. By his side there was a gamekeeper, who had been asoldier, and came from the eastern frontier. As his name wasChristopher, the Germans corrupted it into Stoffel, and he made itfamous in the form of Stofflet. While the conflict was carried on bysmall bands there was no better man to lead them. He and Charette heldout longest, and had not been conquered when the clergy, for whom theyfought, betrayed them. 

The popular and democratic interval was short. After the first fewdays the nobles were at the head of affairs. They deemed the causedesperate, that one of them had promoted the rising, scarcely onerefused to join in it. The one we know best is Lescure, because hiswife's memoirs have been universally read. Lescure formed the bondbetween gentry and clergy, for the cause was religious as much aspolitical. He would have been the third generalissimo, but he wasdisabled by a wound, and put forward his cousin, Henri de laRochejaquelein, in preference to Stofflet. We shall presently see thata grave suspicion darkens his fame. Like Lescure, d'Elbée was a man ofpolicy and management; but he was no enthusiast. He desired areasonable restoration, not a reaction; and he said just before hisdeath that when the pacification came it would be well to keepfanatics in order. 

Far above all these men in capacity for war, and on a level with thebest in character, was the Marquis de Bonchamps. He understood the artof manoeuvring large masses of men; and as his followers would haveto meet large masses, when the strife became deadly, he sought totrain them for it. He made them into that which they did not want tobe, and for which they were ill-fitted. It is due to his immediatecommand that the war could be carried on upon a large scale; and thatmen who had begun with a rush and a night attack, dispersing when thefoe stood his ground, afterwards defeated the veterans of the Rhineunder the best generals of republican France. Bonchamps always urgedthe need of sending a force to rouse Brittany; but the day when thearmy crossed the Loire was the day of his death. 

La Vendée was far from the route of invading armies, and the districtthreatened by the Germans. There were no fears for hearth and home, noterrors in a European war for those who kept out of it. If they mustfight, they chose to fight in a cause which they loved. They hated theRevolution, not enough to take arms against it, but enough to refuseto defend it. They were compelled to choose. Either they must resistoppression, or they must serve it, and must die for a Government whichwas at war with their friends, with the European Conservatives, whogave aid to the fugitive nobles, and protection to the persecutedpriests. Their resistance was not a matter of policy. There was noprinciple in it that could be long maintained. The conscription onlyforced a decision. There were underlying causes for aversion andvengeance, although the actual outbreak was unpremeditated. The angrypeasants stood alone for a moment; then was seen the strongerargument, the greater force behind. Clergy and gentry put forward theclaim of conscience, and then the men who had been in the royalistplot with La Rouerie, began to weave a new web. That plot had beenauthorised by the princes, on the _émigré_ lines, and aimed at therestoration of the old order. That was not, originally, the spirit ofLa Vendée. It was never identified with absolute monarchy. At first, the army was known as the Christian army. Then, it became the Catholicand royal army. The altar was nearer to their hearts than the throne. As a sign of it, the clergy occupied the higher place in the councils. Some of the leaders had been Liberals of '89. Others surrenderedroyalism and accepted the Republic as soon as religious liberty wasassured. Therefore, throughout the conflict, and in spite of someintolerant elements, and of some outbursts of reckless fury, La Vendéehad the better cause. One Vendean, surrounded and summoned to give uphis arms, cried: "First give me back my God. "

Bernier, the most conspicuous of the ecclesiastical leaders, was anintriguer; but he was no fanatical adherent of obsolete institutions. The restoration of religion was, to him, the just and sufficientobject of the insurrection. A time came when he was very careful todissociate La Vendée from Brittany, as the champions, respectively, ofa religious and a dynastic cause. He saw his opportunity under theConsulate, came out of his hiding-place, and promoted a settlement. Hebecame the agent and auxiliary of Bonaparte, in establishing theConcordat, which is as far removed from intolerance as fromlegitimacy. As bishop of Orleans he again appeared in the Loirecountry, not far from the scene of his exploits; but he was odious tomany of the old associates, who felt that he had employed theirroyalism for other ends, without being a royalist. 

The country gentlemen of La Vendée had either not emigrated, or hadreturned to their homes, after seeing what the emigration came to. Asfar as their own interests were concerned, they accepted thesituation. With all the combative spirit which made their brief careerso brilliant, few of them displayed violent or extreme opinions. LaVendée was made illustrious mainly by men who dreaded neither theessentials of the Revolution nor its abiding consequences, but whostrove to rescue their country from the hands of persecutors andassassins. The rank and file were neither so far-sighted nor somoderate. At times they exhibited much the same ferocity as thefighting men of Paris, and in spite of their devotion, they had thecruel and vindictive disposition which in France has been oftenassociated with religion. It was seen from the outset among the wildfollowers of Charette; and even the enthusiasts of Anjou and of UpperPoitou degenerated and became bloodthirsty. They all hated the towns, where there were municipal authorities who arrested priests, andlevied requisitions and men. 

The insurrection began by a series of isolated attacks on all thesmall towns, which were seats of government; and in two months of thespring of 1793 the republicans had been swept away, and the wholecountry of La Vendée belonged to the Vendeans. They were withoutorder or discipline or training of any sort, and were averse to thesight of officers overtopping them on horseback. Without artillery oftheir own, they captured 500 cannon. By the end of April they wereestimated at near 100, 000, a proportion of fighting men to populationthat has only been equalled in the War of Secession. When the signalwas given, the tocsin rang in 600 parishes. In spite of momentaryreverses, they carried everything before them, until, on the 9th ofJune, they took Saumur, a fortress which gave them the command of theLoire. There they stood on the farthest limit of their nativeprovince, with 40, 000 soldiers, and a large park of artillery. Toadvance beyond that point, they would require an organisation strongerthan the bonds of neighbourhood and the accidental influence of localmen. They established a governing body, largely composed of clergy;and they elected a commander-in-chief. The choice fell on Cathelineau, because he was a simple peasant, and was trusted by the priests whowere still dominant. As they were all equal there arose a demand for abishop who should hold sway over them. Nonjuring bishops were scarcein France; but Lescure contrived to supply the need of the moment. Here, in the midst of so much that was tragic, and of so much that wasof good report, we come to the bewildering and grotesque adventure ofthe bishop of Agra. 

At Dol, near St. Malo, there was a young priest who took the oath tothe Constitution, but afterwards dropped the cassock, appeared atPoitiers as a man of pleasure, and was engaged to be married. Hevolunteered in the republican cavalry, and took the field against theroyalists, mounted and equipped by admiring friends. On May 5, he wastaken prisoner, and as his card of admission to the Jacobins was foundupon him, he thought himself in danger. He informed his captors thathe was on their side; that he was a priest in orders, whom it would besacrilege to injure; at last, that he was not only a priest, but abishop, whom, in the general dispersion, the Pope had chosen as hisvicar apostolic to the suffering Church of France. His name wasGuyot, and he called himself Folleville. Such a captive was worth morethan a regiment of horse. Lescure carried the republican trooper tohis country house for a few days; and on May 16 Guyot reappeared inthe robes proper to a bishop, with the mitre, ring, and crozier thatbelonged to his exalted dignity. 

It was a great day in camp under the white flag; and the enemy, watching through his telescope, beheld with amazement the kneelingranks of Vendean infantry, and a gigantic prelate who strode throughthem and distributed blessings. He addressed them when they went intoaction, promising victory to those who fought, and heaven to those whofell, in so good a cause; and he went under fire with a crucifix inhis hand, and ministered to the wounded. They put him at the head ofthe council, and required every priest to obey him, under pain ofarrest. Bernier, who had been at school with Guyot, was not deceived. He denounced him at Rome, through Maury, who was living there in theenjoyment of well-earned honours. The fraud was at once exposed. PiusVI. Declared that the bishop of Agra did not exist; and that he knewnothing of the man so called, except that he was an impostor and arogue. 

From the moment when Bernier wrote, Guyot was in his power; but it wasOctober before he translated the papal Latin to the generals. Theyresolved to take no notice, but the detected pretender ceased to sayMass. La Rochejaquelein intended to put him on board ship and get ridof him at the first seaport. They never reached the sea. To the last, at Granville, Guyot was seen in the midst of danger, and his girdlewas among the spoils of the field. Though the officers watched him, the men never found him out. He served them faithfully during his sixmonths of precarious importance, and he perished with them. He mighthave obtained hope of life by betraying the mendacity of hisaccomplices, and the imbecility of his dupes. He preferred to diewithout exposing them. 

In June, when the victorious Vendeans occupied Saumur, it was timethat they should have a policy and a plan. They had four alternatives. They might besiege Nantes and open communications with Englishcruisers. They might join with the royalists of the centre. They mightraise an insurrection in Brittany, or they might strike for Paris. Thegreat road to the capital opened before them; there were the prisonersin the Temple to rescue, and the monarch to restore. Dim reports oftheir exploits reached the queen, and roused hopes of deliverance. Ina smuggled note, the Princess Elizabeth inquired whether the men ofthe west had reached Orleans; in another, she asked, not unreasonably, what had become of the British fleet. It is said that Stofflet gavethat heroic counsel. Napoleon believed that if they had followed it, nothing could have prevented the white flag from waving on the towersof Notre Dame. But there was no military organisation; the troopsreceived no pay, and went home when they pleased. The generals werehopelessly divided, and Charette would not leave his own territory. Bonchamps, who always led his men, and was hit in every action, wasaway, disabled by a wound. His advice was known. He thought that theironly hope was to send a small corps to rouse the Bretons. With theunited forces of Brittany and Vendée they would then march for Paris. They adopted a compromise, and decided to besiege Nantes, an opentown, the headquarters of commerce with the West Indies, and of theAfrican slave trade. If Nantes fell it would be likely to rouseBrittany; and it was an expedition in which Charette would take apart. This was the disastrous advice of Cathelineau. They went downfrom Saumur to Nantes, by the right bank of the Loire, and on thenight of June 28, their fire-signals summoned Charette for the morrow. Charette did not fail. But he was beyond the river, unable to make hisway across, and he resented the arrangement which was to give thepillage of the wealthy city to the pious soldiers of Anjou and Poitou, whilst he looked on from a distance. 

During the long deliberations at Saumur, and the slow march down theriver, Nantes had thrown up earthworks, and had fortified the heartsof its inhabitants. The attack failed. Cathelineau penetrated to themarket place, and they still show the window from which a cobbler shotdown the hero of Anjou. The Vendeans retreated to their stronghold, and their cause was without a future. D'Elbée was chosen to succeed, on the death of Cathelineau. He admitted the superior claims ofBonchamps, but he disliked his policy of carrying the war to thenorth. The others preferred d'Elbée because they had less to fear fromhis ascendancy and strength of will. They were not only divided byjealousy, but by enmity. Charette kept away from the decisive field, and rejoiced when the grand army passed the Loire, and left theirwhole country to him. Charette and Stofflet caused Marigny, thecommander of the artillery, to be executed. Lescure once exclaimedthat, if he had not been helpless from a wound, he would have cut downthe Prince de Talmond. Stofflet sent a challenge to Bonchamps; andboth Stofflet and Charette were ultimately betrayed by their comrades. Success depended on the fidelity of d'Elbée, Bonchamps, and Lescure toeach other, through all divergences of character and policy. For twomonths they continued to hold the Republic at bay. They never reachedPoitiers, and they were heavily defeated at Luçon; but they madethemselves a frontier line of towns, to the south-west, by takingThouars, Parthenay, Fontenay, and Niort. There was a road from northto south by Beaupréau, Châtillon, and Bressuire; and another from eastto west, through Doué, Vihiers, Coron, Mortagne. All these are namesof famous battles. At Cholet, which is in the middle of La Vendée, where the two roads cross, the first success and the final rout tookplace. 

The advantage which the Vendeans possessed was that there was no goodarmy to oppose them, and there were no good officers. It was the earlypolicy of Robespierre to repress military talent, which may bedangerous in a republic, and to employ noisy patriots. He was notduped by them; but he trusted them as safe men; and if they did theirwork coarsely and cruelly, imitating the practice that succeeded sowell at Paris, it was no harm. That was a surer way of destroyingroyalists _en masse_ than the manoeuvres of a tactician, who wasvery likely to be humane, and almost sure to be ambitious andsuspicious of civilians. Therefore a succession of incompetent menwere sent out, and the star of d'Elbée ascended higher and higher. There had been time for communication with Pitt, who was believed tobe intriguing everywhere, and the dread of an English landing in thewest became strong in the Committees of government at Paris. 

At the end of July, a serious disaster befell the French armies. Mentzsurrendered to the Prussians, and Valenciennes immediately after tothe Austrians. Their garrisons, unable to serve against the enemyabroad, were available against the enemy at home. The soldiers fromMayence were sent to Nantes. They were 8000, and they brought Kléberwith them. It was the doom of La Vendée. By the middle of Septemberthe best soldiers and the best generals the French governmentpossessed met the veterans of Bonchamps and d'Elbée. In a week, fromthe 18th to the 23rd, they fought five battles, of which the mostcelebrated is named after the village of Torfou. And with thisastonishing result, that the royalists were victorious in every one ofthem, and captured more than 100 cannon. On one of these fields, Kléber and Marceau saw each other for the first time. But it seemedthat Bonchamps was able to defeat even Kléber and Marceau, as he haddefeated Westermann and Rossignol. Then a strange thing happened. Somemen, in disguise, were brought into the Vendean lines. They proved tobe from the Mayence garrison; and they said that they would preferserving under the royalist generals who had beaten them, rather thanunder their own unsuccessful chiefs. They undertook, for a large sumof money, to return with their comrades. Bonchamps and Charette tookthe proposals seriously, and wished to accept them. But the moneycould only be procured by melting down the Church plate, and theclergy made objection. Some have thought that this was a fatalmiscalculation. The other causes of their ruin are obvious and aredecisive. They ought to have been supported by the Bretons, and theBretons were not ready. They ought to have been united, and they werebitterly divided and insubordinate. They ought to have created animpregnable fastness on the high ground above the Loire; but they hadno defensive tactics, and when they occupied a town, would not waitfor the attack, but retired, to have the unqualified delight ofexpelling the enemy. Above all, they ought to have been backed byEngland. D'Elbée's first letter was intercepted, and four monthspassed before the English government stirred. The _émigrés_ and theirprinces had no love for these peasants and stay-at-home gentry andclergy, who took so long to declare themselves, and whose primary orultimate motive was not royalism. Puisaye showed Napier a letter inwhich Lewis XVIII. Directed that he should be put secretly to death. 

England ought to have been active on the coast very early, during thelight winds of summer. But the English wanted a safe landing-place, and there was none to give them. With more enterprise, while Charetteheld the island of Noirmoutier, Pitt might have become the arbiter ofFrance. When he gave definite promises and advice, it was October, andthe day of hope had passed. 

In the middle of October Kléber, largely reinforced, advanced with25, 000 men, and Bonchamps made up his mind that the time had come toretreat into Brittany. He posted a detachment to secure the passage ofthe Loire at St. Laurent, and fell back with his whole force toCholet, whilst he sent warning to Charette of the decisive hour. There, on October 16, he fought his last fight. D'Elbée was shotthrough the body. He was carried in safety to Noirmoutier, and stilllingered when the Republicans recovered the island in January. Hislast conversation with his conqueror, before he suffered death, is ofthe highest value for this history. Lescure had already received abullet through the head, and at Cholet, Bonchamps was woundedmortally. But there had been a moment in the day during which fortunewavered, and the lost cause owed its ruin to the absence of Charette. Stofflet and La Rochejaquelein led the retreat from Cholet to theLoire. It was a day's march, and there was no pursuit. Bonchamps wasstill living when they came to the river, and still able to give onelast order. Four thousand five hundred prisoners had been brought fromCholet; they were shut up in the church at St. Laurent, and theofficers agreed that they must be put to death. At first, theConvention had not allowed the men whom the royalists released toserve again. But these amenities of civilised war had long beenabolished; and the prisoners were sure to be employed against thecaptors who spared them. Bonchamps gave these men their lives, and onthe same day he died. When, at the same moment, d'Elbée, Lescure andBonchamps had disappeared, La Rochejaquelein assumed the command, Kléber, whom he repulsed at Laval, described him as a very ableofficer; but he led the army into the country beyond the Loire withouta definite purpose. The Prince de Talmond, who was a La Tremoille, promised that when they came near the domains of his family, theexpected Bretons would come in. More important was the appearance oftwo peasants carrying a stick. For the peasants were _émigrés_disguised, and their stick contained letters from Whitehall, in whichPitt undertook to help them if they succeeded in occupying a seaport;and he recommended Granville, which stands on a promontory not farfrom French Saint Michael's Mount. The messengers declined to confirmthe encouragement they brought; but La Rochejaquelein, heavilyhampered with thousands of women and children who had lost theirhomes, made his way across to the sea, and attacked the fortificationsof the place. He assaulted in vain; and although Jersey listened tothe cannonade, no ships came. The last hope had now gone; and theremnant of the great army, cursing the English, turned back towardstheir own country. Some thousands of Bretons had joined, and Stoffletstill drove the republicans before him. With La Rochejaquelein andSapinaud he crossed the Loire in a small boat. The army found theriver impassable, and wandered helplessly without officers until, atSavenay, December 26, it was overtaken by the enemy, and ceased toexist. Lescure had followed the column in his carriage, until he heardof the execution of the queen. With his last breath, he said: "Ifought to save her: I would live to avenge her. There must be noquarter now. "

In this implacable spirit Carrier was acting at Nantes. But I care notto tell the vengeance of the victorious republicans upon the brave menwho had made them tremble. The same atrocities were being committed inthe south. Lyons had overthrown the Jacobins, had put the worst ofthem to death, and had stood a siege under the republican flag. Girondins and royalists, who were enemies at Nantes, fought here sideby side; and the place was so well armed that it held out to October9. On the 29th of August, the royalists of Toulon called in a jointBritish and Spanish garrison, and gave up the fleet and the arsenal toLord Hood. The republicans laid siege to the town in October. Theharbour of Toulon is deep and spacious; but there was, and still is, afort which commands the entrance. Whoever held l'Aiguillette wasmaster of every ship in the docks and of every gun in the arsenal. OnDecember 18, at midnight, during a violent storm, the French attackedand carried the fort. Toulon was no longer tenable. Hastily, butimperfectly, the English destroyed the French ships they could not atonce take away, leaving the materials for the Egyptian expedition, andas fast as possible evacuated the harbour, under the fire of thecaptured fort. The fortunes of Bonaparte began with that exploit, andthe first event of his career was the spectacle of a British fleetflying before him by the glare of an immense conflagration. The year1793 thus ended triumphantly, and the Convention was master of allFrance, except the marshes down by the ocean, where Charette defiedevery foe, and succeeded in imposing his own terms on the Republic. But the danger had come that disturbed the slumber of Robespierre, andthe man was found who was to make the Revolution a stepping-stone tothe power of the sword. 

XXI

THE EUROPEAN WAR

The French Revolution was an attempt to establish in the public law ofEurope maxims which had triumphed by the aid of France in America. Bythe principles of the Declaration of Independence a government whichobstructs liberty forfeits the claim to obedience, and the men whodevote their families to ruin and themselves to death in order todestroy it do no more than their duty. The American Revolution was notprovoked by tyranny or intolerable wrong, for the Colonies were betteroff than the nations of Europe. They rose in arms against aconstructive danger, an evil that might have been borne but for itspossible effects. The precept which condemned George III. Was fatal toLewis XVI. , and the case for the French Revolution was stronger thanthe case for the American Revolution. But it involved internationalconsequences. It condemned the governments of other countries. If therevolutionary government was legitimate, the conservative governmentswere not. They necessarily threatened each other. By the law of itsexistence, France encouraged insurrection against its neighbours, andthe existing balance of power would have to be redressed in obedienceto a higher law. 

The successful convulsion in France led to a convulsion in Europe; andthe Convention which, in the first illusions of victory, promisedbrotherhood to populations striking for freedom, was impolitic, butwas not illogical. In truth the Jacobins only transplanted for the useof oppressed Europeans a precedent created by the Monarchy in favourof Americans who were not oppressed. Nobody imagined that the newsystem of international relations could be carried into effect withoutresistance or sacrifice, but the enthusiasts of liberty, true orfalse, might well account it worth all that it must cost, even if theprice was to be twenty years of war. This new dogma is the real causeof the breach with England, which did such harm to France. IntelligentJacobins, like Danton and Carnot, saw the danger of abandoning policyfor the sake of principle. They strove to interpret the menacingdeclaration, until it became innocuous, and they put forward thenatural frontier in its stead. But it was the very essence of therevolutionary spirit, and could not be denied. 

England had remained aloof from Pilnitz and the expedition underBrunswick, but began to be unfriendly after the 10th of August. LordGower did not at once cease to be ambassador, and drew his salary tothe end of the year. But as he was accredited to the king, he wasrecalled when the king went to prison, and no solicitude was shown tomake the step less offensive. Chauvelin was not acknowledged. He wasnot admitted to present his new credentials, and his requests foraudience were received with coldness. Pitt and Grenville were notconciliatory. They were so dignified that they were haughty, and whenthey were haughty they were insolent. The conquest of Belgium, theopening of the Scheldt for navigation, and the trial of the king, roused a bitter feeling in England, and ministers, in the course ofDecember, felt that they would be safe if they went along with it. Theopening of the Scheldt was not resisted by the Dutch, and gave Englandno valid plea. But France was threatening Holland, and if out ofEnglish hatred to the Republic, to republican principles of foreignpolicy, to the annexation of the Netherlands, war was reallyinevitable, it was important to get possession at once of the Dutchresources by sea and land. 

The idea of conciliating England by renouncing conquest, and the ideaof defying England by the immediate invasion of the United Provinces, balanced each other for a time. By renunciation, the moderate orGirondin party would have triumphed. The Jacobins, who drew all theconsequences of theories, and who were eager to restore the financeswith the spoils of the opulent Dutchmen, carried their purpose whenthey voted the death of the king. That event added what was wanting tomake the excitement and exasperation of England boil over. Down to themonth of January the government continued ready to treat on conditionthat France restored her conquests, and several emissaries had beenreceived. The most trustworthy of these was Maret, afterwards Duke ofBassano. On the 28th of January Talleyrand, who was living inretirement at Leatherhead, informed ministers that Maret was again onthe way to herald the approach of Dumouriez himself, whose presence inLondon, on a friendly mission, would have been tantamount to theabandonment of the Dutch project. But Maret came too late, andDumouriez on his journey to the coast was overtaken by instructionsthat Amsterdam, not London, was his destination. 

The news from Paris reached London on the evening of the 23rd, and theaudience at the theatre insisted that the performance should bestopped. There was to be a drawing-room next day. The drawing-room wascountermanded. A Council was summoned, and there a momentous decisionwas registered. Grenville had refused to recognise the officialcharacter of the French envoy, Chauvelin. He had informed him that hewas subject to the Alien Act. On the 24th he sent him his passports, with orders to leave the country. Upon that Dumouriez was recalled. Onthe 29th Chauvelin arrived at Paris, and told his story. And it wasthen, February 1, that the Convention declared war against England. With less violent counsels in London, and with patience to listen toDumouriez, the outbreak of the war might have been postponed. Butnothing that England was able to offer could have made up to Francefor the sacrifice of the fleet and the treasure of Holland. 

Our ministers may have been wanting in many qualities of negotiators, and the dismissal of Chauvelin laid on them a responsibility that waseasy to avoid. They could not for long have averted hostilities. It ispossible that Fox might have succeeded, for Fox was able to understandthe world of new ideas which underlay the policy of France; but thecountry was in no temper to follow the Whigs. They accused Pittunjustly when they said that he went to war from the motive ofambition. He was guiltless of that capital charge. But he did lessthan he might have done to prevent it, perceiving too clearly thebenefit that would accrue. And he is open to the grave reproach thathe went over to the absolute Powers and associated England with themat the moment of the Second Partition, and applied to France theprinciples on which they acted against Poland. When the Prince ofCoburg held his first conference with his allies in Belgium, hedeclared that Austria renounced all ideas of conquest. The English atonce protested. They made known that they desired to annex as muchterritory as possible, in order to make the enemy less formidable. Ourenvoy was Lord Auckland, a man of moderate opinions, who had alwaysadvised his government to come to terms with the Republic. He exhortedCoburg not to rest until he had secured a satisfactory line offrontier, as England was going to appropriate Dunkirk and theColonies, and meant to keep them. George III. , on April 27, utteredthe same sentiments. France, he said, must be greatly circumscribedbefore we can talk of any means of treating with that dangerous andfaithless nation. In February Grenville definitely proposeddismemberment, offering the frontier fortresses and the whole ofAlsace and Lorraine to Austria. It was the English who impressed onthe operations, that were to follow, the character of a selfish andsordid rapacity. 

The island kingdom alone had nothing to fear, for she had the rest ofthe maritime Powers on her side, and the preponderance of the navalforces was decisive. The French began the war with 76 line-of-battleships. England had 115, with 8718 guns to 6002. In weight of metalthe difference was not so great, for the English guns threw 89, 000lbs. And the French 74, 000. But England had the Spanish fleet, of 56ships-of-the-line, and the Dutch with 49--the Spaniards well built, but badly manned; the Dutch constructed for shallow waters, but withsuperior crews. To these must be added Portugal, which followedEngland, and Naples, whose king was a Bourbon, brother to the king ofSpain. Therefore, in weight of metal, which is the first thing, nextto brains, we were at least 2 to 1; and in the number of ships 3 to 1, or about 230 to 76. That is the reason why the insular statesmen wentto war, if not with greater enterprise and energy, yet with moredetermination and spirit, than their exposed and vulnerable alliesupon the Continent. The difference between them is that between menwho are out of reach and are 2 to 1, and men whose territories areaccessible to an enemy greatly superior to themselves in numbers. Therefore it was Pitt who from his post of vantage pushed the othersforward, and, when they vacillated, encouraged them with money and thepromise of spoil. The alliance with the maritime states was importantfor his policy, but it accomplished nothing in the actual struggle. The Dutch and the Spaniards were never brought into line; and theEnglish, though they owed their safety at first to their system ofalliances, owed their victories to themselves. And those victoriesbecame more numerous and splendid when, after two years ofinefficacious friendship with us, the Spaniard and the Dutchman joinedour enemies. England was drawn into the war, which it maintained withunflagging resolution, by the prospect of sordid gain. It broughtincrease of rents to the class that governed, and advantage to thetrader from the conquest of dependencies and dominions over the sea. 

The year 1793 brought us no profit from the sea. We occupied Toulon onthe invitation of the inhabitants, and there we had in our possessionhalf of the naval resources of France. But before the end of the yearwe were driven away. The French dominions in India fell at once intoour hands, and in March and April 1794 we captured the WindwardIslands in the West Indies, Martinique, Santa Lucia, and at lastGuadeloupe. But a Jacobin lawyer came over from France and reconqueredGuadeloupe, and the French held it with invincible tenacity till 1810. They lost Hayti, but it never became English, and drifted into thepower of the negroes, who there rose to the highest point they haveattained in history. In the summer of the same year, 1794, Corsicabecame a British dependency, strengthening enormously our position inthe Mediterranean. We were not able to retain it. Our admirals didnothing for La Vendée. So little was known about it that on December19 there was a question of sending an officer to serve underBonchamps, who at that time had been dead two months. 

In all this chequered and inglorious history there is one day to beremembered. On April 11, 1794, 130 merchantmen, laden withfood-supplies, sailed from Chesapeake Bay for the ports of France. Lord Howe went out to intercept them; and on May 16 the French fleetleft Brest to protect them. Howe divided his force. He sent Montagu towatch for the merchantmen, and led the remainder of his squadronagainst Villaret Joyeuse. After a brush on May 28, they met, in equalforce, on the 1st of June, 400 miles from land. The French admiral hadan unfrocked Huguenot divine on board, who had been to sea in hisyouth, and was now infusing the revolutionary ardour into the fleet, as St. Just did with the army. The fight lasted three hours and thenceased. Villaret waited until evening, but Lord Howe had several shipsdisabled, and would neither renew the battle nor pursue the enemy. TheFrench had lost seven ships out of twenty-six. The most famous ofthese is the _Vengeur du Peuple_. It engaged the _Brunswick_, and therigging of one ship became so entangled with the anchors of the otherthat they were locked together, and drifted away from the line. Theywere so close that the French could not fire their lower deck guns, having no space to ram the charge. The English were provided for thisvery emergency with flexible rammers of rope and went on firing intothe portholes of the enemy, while the French captain, calling up hismen from below, had the advantage on the upper deck. At last therolling of the sea forced the unconquered enemies to part. The_Brunswick_ had lost 158 out of a crew of 600 and 23 of her guns outof 74 were dismounted. She withdrew out of action disabled, and wenthome to refit. The _Vengeur_ remained on the ground, with all hermasts gone. Presently it was seen that she had been hit below thewater-line. The guns were thrown overboard, but after some hours the_Vengeur_ made signals that she was sinking. English boats came andrescued about 400 men out of 723. Those of the survivors who were notwounded were seen standing by the broken mast, and cried "Vive larépublique, " as the ship went down. That is the history, not thelegend, of the loss of the _Vengeur_, and no exaggeration and nocontradiction can mar the dramatic grandeur of the scene. 

The battle of the 1st of June is the one event by land or sea that wasglorious to British arms in the war of the first Coalition. Theascendancy then acquired was never lost. Our failures in the WestIndies, at Cape Verde Islands, in the Mediterranean, and on the coastsof France, and even the defection of our maritime allies, did notimpair it. And later on, when all were against us, admirals moreoriginal and more enterprising than Howe increased our superiority. The success was less brilliant and entire than that which Nelsongained against a much greater force at Trafalgar, when France lostevery ship. Montagu did not intercept the French merchantmen, and didnot help to crush the French men-of-war. Villaret Joyeuse and theenergetic minister from Languedoc lost the day, but they gained thesubstantial advantage. Under cover of their cannon, the ships on whichthe country depended for its supplies came into port. Although duringthose two years the French fought against great odds at sea, theirloss was less than they had expected, and did not weaken theirgovernment at home. They had reason to hope that whenever theirarmies were brought to close quarters with Spain and the Netherlands, the fortune of war at sea would follow the event on land. 

The war with which we have now to deal passed through three distinctphases. During the year 1793, the French maintained themselves withdifficulty, having to contend with a dangerous insurrection. In 1794the tide turned in their favour; and 1795 was an epoch ofpreponderance and triumph. The Republic inherited from the Monarchy aregular army of 220, 000 men, seriously damaged and demoralised by theemigration of officers. To these were added, first, the volunteers of1791, who soon made good soldiers, and supplied the bulk of themilitary talent that rose to fame down to 1815, and the like of whichwas never seen, either in the American Civil War, or among the Germansin 1870. The second batch of volunteers, those who responded to theBrunswick proclamation and the summons of September, when the countrywas in danger, were not equal to the first. The two together supplied309, 000 men. At the beginning of the general war, in March 1793, theConscription was instituted, which provoked the rising in Vendée, andwas interrupted by troubles in other departments. Instead of 300, 000men, it yielded 164, 000. In the summer of 1793, when the fortresseswere falling, there was, first, the levy _en masse_, and then, August23, the system of requisition, by which the levy was organised andmade to produce 425, 000 men. Altogether, in a year and a half, Franceput 1, 100, 000 men into line; and at the critical moment, at the end ofthe second year, more than 700, 000 were present under arms. That isthe force which Carnot had to wield. He was a man of energy, ofintegrity, and of professional skill as an engineer, but he was not aman of commanding abilities. Lord Castlereagh rather flippantly calledhim a foolish mathematician. Once, having quarrelled with his formercomrade Fouché and having been condemned to banishment, he had thisconversation with him: "Where am I to go, traitor?" "Wherever youlike, idiot. " As an austere republican he was out of favour duringthe empire; but his defence of Antwerp is a bright spot in the declineof Napoleon. He became Minister of the Interior on the return fromElba, and his advice might have changed the history of the world. Forhe wished the emperor to fall upon the English before they couldconcentrate, and then to fight the Prussians at his leisure. Onenight, during a rubber of whist, the tears that ran down his cheekbetrayed the news from Waterloo. 

Carnot owed his success to two things--arbitrary control overpromotion, and the cheapness of French lives. He could sacrifice asmany men as he required to carry a point. An Austrian on the Sambre, 1, 000 miles from home, was hard to replace. Any number of Frenchmenwere within easy reach. Colonel Mack observed that whenever acombatant fell, France lost a man, but Austria lost a soldier. LaVendée had shown what could be done by men without organisation or thepower of manoeuvring, by constant activity, exposure, and courage. Carnot taught his men to win by a rush many times repeated, and not tocount their dead. The inferior commanders were quickly weeded out, sometimes with help from the executioner, and the ablest men werebrought to the front. The chief army of all, the army of Sambre etMeuse, was commanded by Kléber, Moreau, Reynier, Marceau, and Ney. Better still, on the Rhine were Hoche, Desaix, and St. Cyr. Best ofall, in the Apennines, the French were led by Bonaparte and Masséna. 

All these armaments had scarcely begun when the victory of Neerwindenand the flight of Dumouriez brought the Austrians up to the Belgianfrontier. Carnot was not discovered, the better men had not risen tocommand, the levy _en masse_ had not been thought of. The French coulddo nothing in the field while the Prince of Coburg, supported by theDutch, and by an Anglo-Hanoverian army under the Duke of York, satdown before the fortresses. By the end of July Condé and Valencienneshad fallen, and the road to Paris was open to the victors. They mighthave reached the capital in overwhelming force by the middle ofAugust. But the English coveted, not Paris but Dunkirk, and the Dukeof York withdrew with 37, 000 men and laid siege to it. Coburg turnedaside in the opposite direction, to besiege Le Quesnoy. He proposed toconquer the fortified towns, one after another, according toGrenville's prescription, and then to join hands with the Prussianswhom it was urgent to have with him when penetrating to the interior. The Prussians meanwhile had taken Mentz, the garrison, like that ofValenciennes, making a defence too short for their fame. But thePrussians remembered the invasion of the year before, and they were inno hurry. The allies, with conflicting interests and divided counsels, gave the enemy time. Some years later, when Napoleon had defeated thePiedmontese, and was waiting for them to send back the treaty he haddictated at Cherasco, duly signed, he grew excessively impatient attheir delay. The Piedmontese officers were surprised at what seemed awant of self-restraint, and let him see it. His answer was, "I mayoften lose a battle, but I shall never lose a minute. "

The French put to good account the time their enemies allowed them. Carnot took office on August 14, and on the 23rd he caused theConvention to decree what is pleasantly called the levy _en masse_ butwas the system of requisition, making every able-bodied man a soldier. The new spirit of administration was soon felt in the army. The forcesbesieging Le Quesnoy and Dunkirk were so far apart that the Frenchcame between and attacked them successively. The Dunkirk garrisonopened the sluices and flooded the country, separating the Englishfrom the covering force of Hanoverians, and leaving the Duke of Yorkno means of retreat except by a single causeway. On September 8 theFrench defeated the Hanoverians at Hondschooten and relieved Dunkirk. The English got away in great haste, abandoning their siege guns; butas they ought not to have got away at all, the French cut off the headof their victorious commander. Jourdan, his successor, turned upon thePrince of Coburg, and, by the new and expensive tactics, defeated himat Wattignies on October 16. Carnot, who did not yet trust hisgenerals, arrived in time to win the day by overruling Jourdan andhis staff. And every French child knows how he led the charge throughthe grapeshot, on foot, with his hat at the end of his sword. Fromthat day to the peace of Bâle he held the army in his grasp. He hadstopped the invasion. No one in the allied camp spoke any more of theshortest road to Paris; but they still held the places they hadconquered. Two months later, Hoche, who had distinguished himself atDunkirk, took the command in the Vosges, and stormed the lines ofWeissenburg at the scene of the first action in the war of 1870. Bythe end of December the Prussians were shut up in Mayence, and Wurmserhad retired beyond the Rhine. By that time, too, La Vendée, and Lyons, and Toulon had fallen. The campaign of 1794 was to be devoted toforeign war. 

During that autumn and winter, Carnot, somewhat unmindful of what wenton near him and heedless of the signatures he gave, was organising theenormous force the requisition provided, and laying the plans thatwere to give him so great a name in the history of his country. Hedivided the troops into thirteen armies. They call them fourteen, Ibelieve, because there were _cadres_ for an army of reserve. Two wererequired for the Spanish war, for the Pyrenees are impassable byartillery except at the two ends, where narrow valleys lead fromFrance to Spain near San Sebastian, and by a strip of more opencountry near the Mediterranean. What passed there did not influenceevents; but it is well to know that the Spaniards under Ricardosgained important advantages in 1794, and fought better than they everdid in the field during their struggle with Napoleon. A third army wasplaced on the Italian frontier, a fourth on the Rhine, and a fifthagainst the allies in Flanders. Carnot increased the number because hehad no men who had proved their fitness for the direction of verylarge forces. He meant that his armies should be everywheresufficient, but in Belgium they were to be overwhelming. That was thepoint of danger, and there a great body of Austrians, Dutch, English, and Hanoverians had been collected. The Emperor himself appearedamong them in May; and his brother, the Archduke Charles, was the bestofficer in the allied camp. 

At the end of April Coburg took Landrecies, the fourth of the line offortresses that had fallen. On May 18 the French were victorious atTourcoing, where the English suffered severely, and the Duke of Yorksought safety in precipitate flight. There was even talk of a courtmartial. The day was lost in consequence of the absence of theArchduke, who suffered from fits like Julius Cæsar, and is said tohave been lying unconscious many miles away. For a month longer theallies held their ground and repeatedly repressed Jourdan in hisattempts to cross the Sambre. At last, Charleroi surrendered to theFrench, and on the following day, June 26, they won the great battleof Fleurus. Mons fell on July 1, and on the 5th the allies resolved toevacuate Belgium. The four fortresses were recovered in August; andCoburg retired by Liége into Germany, York by Antwerp into Holland. InOctober Jourdan pursued the Austrians, and drove them across theRhine. The battle of Fleurus established the ascendancy of the Frenchin Europe as the 1st of June had created that of England on the ocean. They began the offensive, and retained it for twenty years. Yet thedefeat of Fleurus, after such varying fortunes and so much alternatesuccess does not explain the sudden discouragement and collapse of theallies. One of the great powers was about to abandon the alliance. Prussia had agreed in the spring to accept an English subsidy. For, £300, 000 down, and £150, 000 a month, a force of fifty to sixtythousand Prussians was to be employed in a manner to be agreed uponwith England, --that meant in Belgium. Before Malmesbury's signaturewas dry the whole situation altered. 

The Committee of Public Safety had created a diversion in the rear ofthe foe. Kozsiusko, with the help of French money and advice, hadraised an insurrection in Poland, and the hands of the Prussians weretied. The Polish question touched them nearer than the French, and alltheir thoughts were turned in the opposite direction. The Austriansbegan to apprehend that Prussia would desert them on the Rhine, andwould gain an advantage over them in Poland, while they were busy withtheir best army in Flanders. Pitt increased his offers. Lord Spencerwas sent to Vienna to arrange for a further subsidy. But the Prussiansbegan to withdraw. Marshal Moellendorf informed the French inSeptember that the Austrians were about to attack Treves. He promisedthat he would do no more than he could help for his allies. On the20th, Hohenlohe, who was not in the secret, having fought Hoche atKaiserslautern and defeated him, the commander-in-chief sentexplanations and apologies. In October, Pitt stopped the supplies, andthe Prussians disappeared from the war. 

The winter of 1794-95 was severe, and even the sea froze in Holland. In January, Pichegru marched over the solid Rhine, and neither Dutchnor English offered any considerable resistance. The Prince of Orangefled to England; the Duke of York retreated to Bremen, and thereembarked; and on the 28th the French were welcomed by the democracy ofAmsterdam. A body of cavalry rode up to the fleet on the ice, andreceived its surrender. There was no cause left for it to defend. Holland was to be the salvation of French credit. It gave Francetrade, a fleet, a position from which to enter Germany on theundefended side. The tables were turned against Pitt and his policy. His Prussian ally made peace in April, giving up to France all Germanyas far as the Rhine, and undertaking to occupy Hanover, if GeorgeIII. , as elector, refused to be neutral. Spain almost immediatelyfollowed. Manuel Godoy, lately a guardsman, but Prime Minister andDuke of Alcudia since November 1792, had declined Pitt's proposals foran alliance as long as there were hopes of saving the life of Lewis bythe promise of neutrality. When those hopes came to an end, heconsented. The joint occupation of Toulon had not been amicable; andwhen George III. Was made King of Corsica, it was an injury to Spainas a Mediterranean Power. The animosity against regicide France fadedaway; the war was not popular, and the Duke of Alcudia became, amidgeneral rejoicing, Prince of the Peace. 

We saw how the first invasion in 1792, brought the worst men to power. In 1793, the Reign of Terror coincided exactly with the season ofpublic danger. Robespierre became the head of the government on thevery day when the bad news came from the fortresses, and he fellimmediately after the occupation of Brussels, July 11, 1794, exposedthe effects of Fleurus. We cannot dissociate these events, or disprovethe contention that the Reign of Terror was the salvation of France. It is certain that the conscription of March 1793, under Girondinauspices, scarcely yielded half the required amount, whilst the leviesof the following August, decreed and carried out by the Mountain, inundated the country with soldiers, who were prepared by theslaughter going on at home to face the slaughter at the front. This, then, was the result which Conservative Europe obtained by its attackon the Republic. The French had subjugated Savoy, the Rhineland, Belgium, Holland, whilst Prussia and Spain had been made to sue forpeace. England had deprived France of her colonies, but had lostrepute as a military Power. Austria alone, with her dependentneighbours, maintained the unequal struggle on the Continent underworse conditions, and with no hope but in the help of Russia. 

XXII

AFTER THE TERROR

It remains for us to pursue the course of French politics from thefall of the Terrorists to the Constitution of the year III. , and theclose of the Convention in October 1795. The State drifted after thestorm, and was long without a regular government or a guiding body ofopinion. The first feeling was relief at an immense deliverance. Prisons were opened and thousands of private citizens were released. The new sensation displayed itself extravagantly, in the search forpleasures unknown during the stern and sombre reign. Madame Tallienset the fashion as queen of Paris society. Men rejected the moderngarment which characterised the hateful years, and put on tights. Theyburied the chin in folded neckcloths, and wore tall hats in protestagainst the exposed neck and the red nightcap of the enemy. Powder wasresumed; but the pigtail was cut off straight, in commemoration offriends lost by the fall of the axe. Young men, representing the newspirit, wore a kind of uniform, with the badge of mourning on the arm, and a knobstick in their hands adapted to the Jacobin skull. Theybecame known afterwards as the _Jeunesse Dorée_. The press made muchof them, and they served as a body to the leaders of the reaction, hustling opponents, and denoting the infinite change in the conditionsof public life. 

These were externals. What went on underneath was the gradual recoveryof the respectable elements of society, and the passage of power fromthe unworthy hands of the men who destroyed Robespierre. These, theThermidorians, were faithful to the contract with the Plain, by whichthey obtained their victory. Some had been friends of Danton, who, atone moment of the previous winter, had approved a policy of moderationin the use of the guillotine. Tallien had domestic as well as publicreasons for clemency. But the bulk of the genuine Montagnards wereunaltered. They had deserted Robespierre when it became unsafe todefend him; but they had not renounced his system, and held that itwas needful as their security against the furious enmity they hadincurred when they were the ruling faction. 

The majority in the Convention, where all powers were nowconcentrated, were unable to govern. The irresistible resources of theReign of Terror were gone, and nothing occupied their place. There wasno working Constitution, no settled authority, no party enjoyingascendancy and respect, no public men free from the guilt of blood. Many months were to pass before the ruins of the fallen partiesgathered together and constituted an effective government with a realpolicy and the means of pursuing it. The chiefs of the Commune and ofthe revolutionary tribunal, near one hundred in number, had followedRobespierre to the scaffold. 

The Committees of government had lost their most energetic members, and were disabled by the new plan of rapid renewal. Power fluctuatedbetween varying combinations of deputies, all of them transient andquickly discredited. The main division was between vengeance andamnesty. And the character of the following months was a gradual driftin the direction of vengeance, as the imprisoned or proscribedminority returned to their seats. But the Mountain included the men, who by organising, and equipping, and controlling the armies had madeFrance the first of European Powers, and they could not at once bedisplaced. Barère proposed that existing institutions should bepreserved, and that Fouquier should continue his office. On August 19, Louchet, the man who led the assault against Robespierre, insistedthat it was needful to keep up the Terror with all the rigour thathad been prescribed by the sagacious and profound Marat. A monthlater, September 21, the Convention solemnised the apotheosis ofMarat, whose remains were deposited in the Pantheon, while those ofMirabeau were cast out. Three weeks later, the master of Robespierre, Rousseau, was brought, with equal ceremony, to be laid by his side. The worst of the remaining offenders, Barère, Collot d'Herbois, andBillaud-Varennes, were deprived of their seats on the Committee ofPublic Safety. But in spite of the denunciations of Lecointre and ofLegendre, the Convention refused to proceed against them. 

All through September and a great part of October the Mountain heldits ground, and prevented the reform of the government. Billaud, gaining courage, declared that the lion might slumber, but would rendhis enemies on awaking. By the lion, he meant himself and his friendsof Thermidor. The governing Committees were reconstructed on theprinciple of frequent change; the law of Prairial, which gave theright of arbitrary arrest and unconditional gaol delivery, wasabrogated; and commissaries were sent out to teach the Provinces theexample of Paris. 

Beyond these measures, the action of the State stood still. The fallof the men who reigned by terror produced, at first, no greatpolitical result. The process of change was set in motion by certaincitizens of Nantes. Carrier had sent a batch of 132 of his prisonersto feed the Paris guillotine. Thirty-eight of them died of thehardships they endured. The remainder were still in prison inThermidor; and they now petitioned to be put on their trial. The trialtook place; and the evidence given was such as made a reactioninevitable. On September 14, the Nantais were acquitted. Then thenecessary consequence followed. If the victims of Carrier wereinnocent, what was Carrier himself? His atrocities had been exposed, and, on November 12, the Convention resolved, by 498 to 2, that heshould appear before the tribunal. For Carrier was a deputy, inviolable under common law. The trial was prolonged, for it was thetrial not of a man, but of a system, of a whole class of men still inthe enjoyment of immunity. 

Everything that could be brought to light gave strength to theThermidorians against their enemies, and gave them the command ofpublic opinion. On December 16 Carrier was guillotined, he haddefended himself with spirit. The strength of his case was that hisprosecutors were nearly as guilty as himself, and that they would all, successively, be struck down by the enemies of the Republic. He didhis best to drag down the party with him. His associates, acquitted bythe revolutionary tribunal on the plea that their delinquencies werenot political, were then sent before the ordinary courts. On the dayon which the convention resolved that the butcher of Nantes must standhis trial, they closed the Jacobin Club, and now the reaction wassetting in. 

On December 1, after hearing a report by Carnot, the assembly offeredan amnesty to the insurgents on the Loire, and on the 8th thoseGirondins were recalled who had been placed under arrest. This measurewas decisive. With the willing aid of the Plain they were masters ofthe Convention, for they were seventy-three in number, and, unlike thePlain, they were not hampered and disabled by their own iniquities. They were not accomplices of the Reign of Terror, for they had spentit in confinement. They had nothing to fear from a vigorousapplication of deserved penalties, and they had a terrible score toclear off. There were still sixteen deputies who had been proscribedwith Buzot and the rest. They were now amnestied, and three monthslater, March 8, they were admitted to their seats. There they sat faceto face with the men who had outlawed them, who had devoted them todeath by an act the injustice of which was now proclaimed. 

The cry for vengeance was becoming irresistible as the policy of thelast year was reversed. In the course of that process La Vendée hadits turn. On the 17th of February, at La Jaunaye, the French Republiccame to terms with Charette. He was treated as an equal power. Heobtained liberty for religion, compensation in money, relief fromconscription, and a territorial guard of 2000 men, to be paid by thegovernment, and commanded by himself. The same conditions wereaccepted soon after by Stofflet, and by the Breton leader, Cormatin. In that hour of triumph Charette rode into Nantes with the white badgeof Royalism displayed; and he was received with honour by theauthorities, and acclaimed by the crowd. Immediately after the treatyof La Jaunaye which, granted the free practice of religion in thewest, it was extended to the whole of France. The churches were givenback some months later; there is one parish, in an eastern department, where it is said that the church was never closed, and the servicenever interrupted. 

In March the Girondins were strong enough to turn upon their foes. Theextent of the reaction was tested by the expulsion of Marat from hisbrief rest in the Pantheon, and the destruction of his busts all overthe town, by the young men stimulated by Fréron. In March, the greatoffenders who had been so hard to reach, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud, and Barère, were thrown into prison. Carnot defended them, on theground that they were hardly worse than himself. The Conventionresolved that they should be sent to Cayenne. Barère escaped on theway. Fouquier-Tinville came next, and his trial did as much harm tohis party in the spring as that of Carrier in the preceding autumn. Hepleaded that he was but an instrument in the hands of the Committee ofPublic Safety, and that as the three members of it, whom he hadobeyed, were only transported, no more could be done to himself. Thetribunal was not bound by the punishments decreed by the Assembly, andin May Fouquier was executed. 

The Montagnards resolved that they would not perish without astruggle. On April 1 they assailed the Convention, and were repulsed. A number of the worst were thrown into prison. A more formidableattack was made on May 20. For hours the Convention was in the powerof the mob, and a deputy was killed in attempting to protect thepresident. Members who belonged to the Mountain carried a series ofdecrees which gratified the populace. Late at night the Assembly wasrescued. The tumultuous votes were declared non-existent, and thosewho had moved them were sent before a military commission. They hadnot prompted the sedition, and it was urged that they acted as theydid in order to appease it, and to save the lives of their opponents. Romme, author of the republican Calendar, was the most remarkable ofthese men; and there is some doubt as to their guilt, and the legalityof their sentence. One of them had been visited by his wife, and sheleft the means of suicide in his hands. As they left the court, eachof them stabbed himself, and passed the knife in silence to hisneighbour. Before the guards were aware of anything, three were dead, and the others were dragged, covered with blood, to the place ofexecution. It was the 17th of June, and the Girondins were supreme. Sixty-two deputies had been decreed in the course of the reaction, andthe domination of the Jacobin mob, that is, government by equalityinstead of liberty, was at an end. The middle class had recoveredpower, and it was very doubtful whether these new masters of Francewere willing again to risk the experiment of a republic. Thatexperiment had proved a dreadful failure, and it was more easy andobvious to seek relief in the refuge of monarchy than on thequicksands of fluttering majorities. 

The royalists were wreaking vengeance on their enemies in the south, by what was afterwards known as the White Terror; and they showedthemselves in force at Paris. For a time, every measure helped themthat was taken against the Montagnards, and people used publicly tosay that 8 and 9 are 17, that is, that the revolution of 1789 wouldend by the accession of Lewis XVII. Between Girondin and royalistthere was the blood of the king, and the regicides knew what they mustexpect from a restoration. The party remained irreconcilable, andopposed the idea. Their struggle now was not with the Mountain, whichhad been laid low, but with their old adversaries the reformingadherents of Monarchy. But there were some leading men who, fromconviction or, which would be more significant, from policy began tocompound with the exiled princes. Tallien and Cambacérès of theMountain, Isnard and Lanjuinais of the Gironde, Boissy d'Anglas of thePlain, the successful general Pichegru, and the best negotiator inFrance Barthélemy, were all known, or suspected, to be making termswith the Count of Provence at Verona. It was commonly reported thatthe Committee was wavering, and that the Constitution would turntowards monarchy. Breton and Vendean were ready to rise once more, Pitt was preparing vast armaments to help them; above all, there was ayoung pretender who had never made an enemy, whose early sufferingsclaimed sympathy from royalist and republican, and who shared noresponsibility for _émigré_ and invader, whom, for the best ofreasons, he had never seen. 

Meantime the Republic had improved its position in the world. Itsconquests included the Alps and the Rhine, Belgium, and Holland, andsurpassed the successes of the Monarchy even under Lewis XIV. Theconfederacy of kings was broken up. Tuscany had been the first totreat. Prussia had followed, bringing with it the neutrality ofNorthern Germany. Then Holland came, and Spain had openednegotiations. But with Spain there was a difficulty. There could be notreaty with a government which detained in prison the head of theHouse of Bourbon. As soon as he was delivered up, Spain was ready tosign and to ratify. Thus in the spring of 1795, the thoughts of mencame to be riveted on the room in the Temple where the king was slowlyand surely dying. The gaoler had asked the Committee what theirintention was. "Do you mean to banish him?" "No. " "To kill him?" "No. ""Then, " with an oath! "what is it you want?" "To get rid of him. " OnMay 3, it was reported to the government that the young captive wasill. Next day, that he was very ill. But he was an obstacle to theSpanish treaty which was absolutely necessary, and twice thegovernment made no sign. On the 5th, it was believed that he was indanger, and then a physician was sent to him. The choice was a goodone, for the man was capable, and had attended the royal family. Hisopinion was that nothing could save the prisoner, except country air. One day he added: "He is lost, but perhaps there are some who will notbe sorry. " Three days later Lewis XVII. Was living, but the doctor wasdead, and a legend grew up on his grave. It was said that he waspoisoned because he had discovered the dread secret that the boy inthe Temple was not the king. Even Louis Blanc believed that the kinghad been secretly released, and that a dying patient from the hospitalhad been substituted for him. The belief has been kept alive to thisday. The most popular living dramatist[3] has a play now running atParis, in which the king is rescued in a washerwoman's linen basket, which draws crowds. The truth is that he died on June 8, 1795. TheRepublic had gained its purpose. Peace was signed with Spain; and thefriends of monarchy on the Constitutional Committee at once declaredthat they would not vote for it. 

 [3] Sardou. 

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At the very moment when the Constitution was presented to the Assemblyby Boissy d'Anglas, a fleet of transports under convoy appeared offthe western coast. Pitt had allowed La Vendée to go down in defeat andslaughter, but at last he made up his mind to help, and it was done ona magnificent scale. Two expeditions were fitted out, and furnishedwith material of war. Each of them carried three or four thousand_émigrés_ armed and clad by England. One was commanded by d'Hervilly, whom we have already seen, for it was he who took the order to ceasefiring on August 10; the other by young Sombreuil, whose father wassaved in September in the tragic way you have heard. At the head ofthem all was the Count de Puisaye, the most politic and influentialof the _émigrés_, a man who had been in touch with the Girondins inNormandy, who had obtained the ear of ministers at Whitehall, and whohad been washed in so many waters that the genuine, exclusive, narrow-minded managers of Vendean legitimacy neither understood norbelieved him. They brought a vast treasure in the shape of forged_assignats_; and in confused memory of the services rendered by thetitular of Agra, they brought a real bishop who had sanctioned theforgery. 

The first division sailed from Cowes on June 10. On the 23rd LordBridport engaged the French fleet and drove it into port. Four dayslater the _émigrés_ landed at Carnac, among the early monuments of theCeltic race. It was a low promontory, defended at the neck by a fortnamed after the Duke de Penthièvre, and it could be swept, in places, by the guns of the fleet. Thousands of Chouans joined; but La Vendéewas suspicious and stood aloof. They had expected the fleet to come tothem, but it had gone to Brittany, and there was jealousy between thetwo provinces, between the partisans of Lewis XVIII. And those of hisbrother the Count d'Artois, between the priests and the politicians. The clergy restrained Charette and Stofflet from uniting with Puisayeand his questionable allies, whom they accused of seeking the crown ofFrance for the Duke of York; and they promised that, if they waited alittle, the Count d'Artois would appear among them. They effectivelyruined their prospects of success; but Pitt himself had contributedhis share. Puisaye declined to bring English soldiers into hiscountry, and his scruples were admitted. But, in order to swell hisforces, the frugal minister armed between 1000 and 2000 Frenchprisoners, who were republicans, but who declared themselves ready tojoin, and were as glad to escape from captivity as the government wasto get rid of them. The royalist officers protested against thisalloy, but their objections did not prevail, and when they came totheir own country these men deserted. They pointed out a place wherethe republicans could pass under the fort at low water, and enter iton the undefended side. At night, in the midst of a furious tempest, the passage was attempted. Hoche's troops waded through the stormywaters of Quiberon bay, and the tricolor was soon displayed upon thewalls. 

The royalists were driven to the extremity of the peninsula. Some, butnot many, escaped in English boats, and it was thought that our fleetdid not do all that it might have done to retrieve a disaster soinjurious to the fame and the influence of England. Sombreuil defendedhimself until a republican officer called on him to capitulate. Heconsented, for there was no hope; but no terms were made, and it wasin truth an unconditional surrender. Tallien, who was in the camp, hurried to Paris to intercede for the prisoners. Before going to theConvention, he went to his home. There his wife told him that she hadjust seen Lanjuinais, that Sieyès had brought back from Holland, wherehe had negotiated peace, proofs of Tallien's treasonablecorrespondence with the Bourbons, and that his life was in danger. Hewent at once to the Convention, and called for the summary punishmentof the captured _émigrés_. 

Hoche was a magnanimous enemy, both by character and policy, and hehad a deep respect for Sombreuil. He secretly offered to let himescape. The prisoner refused to be saved without his comrades; andthey were shot down together near Auray, on a spot which is stillknown as the field of sacrifice. They were six or seven hundred. Thefiring party awakened the echoes of Vendée, for Charette instantly puthis prisoners to death; and the Chouans afterwards contrived to cutdown every man of the four battalions charged with the execution. 

The battle of Quiberon took place on July 21, and when all that ensuedwas over on August 25, another expedition sailed from Portsmouth withthe Count d'Artois on board. He landed on an island off La Vendée, andCharette, with fifteen thousand men, marched down to the coast toreceive him, among the haggard veterans of the royal cause. There, onOctober 10, a message came from the Prince informing the hero that hewas about to sail away, and to wait in safety for better times. Fivedays earlier the question had been fought out and decided at Paris, and a man had been revealed who was to raise deeper and more momentousissues than the obsolete controversy between monarchy and republic. That controversy had been pursued in the constitutional debates underthe fatal influence of the events on the coast of Brittany. Theroyalists had displayed their colours, sailing under the British flag, and the British alliance had not availed them. And they had displayeda strange political imbecility, contrasting with their spirit andintelligence in war. 

 * * * * *

The constitutional committee had been elected on April 23 underdifferent auspices, when the Convention was making terms with Charetteand Cormatin, as well as with the foreign Powers. Sieyès, ofnecessity, was the first man chosen; but he was on the governingcommittee, and he declined. So did Merlin and Cambacérès, for the samereason, and the three ablest men in the assembly did not serve. 

Eleven moderate but not very eminent men were elected, and the draftwas made chiefly by Daunou, and advocated by Thibaudeau. Daunou was anancient oratorian, a studious and thoughtful if not a strong man, whobecame keeper of the archives, and lived down to 1840 with a somewhatusurped reputation for learning. Thibaudeau now began to exhibit greatintelligence, and his writings are among our best authorities forthese later years of the Republic and for the earlier years of theEmpire. The general character of their scheme is that it is influencedmore by experience than by theory, and strives to attach power toproperty. They reported on June 23; the debate began on July 4; and onthe 20th Sieyès intervened. His advice turned mainly on the idea of aconstitutional jury, an elective body of about one hundred, to watchover the Constitution, and to be guardians of the law against themakers of the law. It was to receive the plaints of minorities and ofindividuals against the legislature, and to preserve the spirit ofthe organic institutions against the omnipotence of the nationalrepresentatives. This memorable attempt to develop in Europe somethinganalogous to that property of the Supreme Court which was not yetmatured in America, was rejected on August 5, almost unanimously. 

The Constitution was adopted by the Convention on August 17. Itincluded a declaration of duties, founded on confusion, but defendedon the ground that a declaration of rights alone destroys thestability of the State. And in matters touching religion it innovatedon what had been done hitherto, for it separated Church and State, leaving all religions to their own resources. The division of powerswas carried farther, for the legislative was divided into two, and theexecutive into five. Universal suffrage was restricted; the poorestwere excluded; and after nine years there was to be an educationaltest. The law did not last so long. The electoral body, one in twohundred of the whole constituency, was to be limited to owners ofproperty. The directors were to be chosen by the legislature. Practically, there was much more regard for liberty, and less forequality, than in the former constitutions. The change in publicopinion was shown by the vote on two Houses which only one deputyopposed. 

At the last moment, that there might be no danger from royalism in thedepartments, it was resolved that two-thirds of the legislature mustbe taken from the Convention. They thus prolonged their own power, andsecured the permanence of the ideas which inspired their action. Atthe same time they showed their want of confidence in the republicanfeeling of the country, and both exasperated the royalists and gavethem courage to act for themselves. On September 23 the countryaccepted the scheme, by a languid vote, but with a large majority. 

The new Constitution afforded securities for order and for libertysuch as France had never enjoyed. The Revolution had begun with aLiberalism which was a passion more than a philosophy, and the firstAssembly endeavoured to realise it by diminishing authority, weakening the executive, and decentralising power. In the hour ofperil under the Girondins the policy failed, and the Jacobins governedon the principle that power, coming from the people, ought to beconcentrated in the fewest possible hands and made absolutelyirresistible. Equality became the substitute of liberty, and thedanger arose that the most welcome form of equality would be the equaldistribution of property. The Jacobin statesmen, the thinkers of theparty, undertook to abolish poverty without falling into Socialism. They had the Church property, which served as the basis of the publiccredit. They had the royal domain, the confiscated estates ofemigrants and malignants, the common lands, the forest lands. And intime of war there was the pillage of opulent neighbours. By theseoperations the income of the peasantry was doubled, and it was deemedpossible to relieve the masses from taxation, until, by the immensetransfer of property, there should be no poor in the Republic. Theseschemes were at an end, and the Constitution of the year III. Closesthe revolutionary period. 

The royalists and conservatives of the capital would have acquiescedin the defeat of their hopes but for the additional article whichthreatened to perpetuate power in the hands of existing deputies, which had been carried by a far smaller vote than that which was givenin favour of the organic law itself. The alarm and the indignationwere extreme, and the royalists, on counting their forces, saw thatthey had a good chance against the declining assembly. Nearly thirtythousand men were collected, and the command was given to anexperienced officer. It had been proposed by some to confer it on theCount Colbert de Maulevrier, the former employer of Stofflet. This wasrefused on the ground that they were not absolutists or _émigrés_, butLiberals, and partisans of constitutional monarchy, and of no other. 

The army of the Convention was scarcely six thousand, and a large bodyof Jacobin roughs were among them. The command was bestowed on Menou, a member of the minority of nobles of 1789. But Menou was disgustedwith his materials, and felt more sympathy with the enemy. Heendeavoured to negotiate, and was deposed, and succeeded by Barras, the victor in the bloodless battle of Thermidor. 

Bonaparte, out of employment, was lounging in Paris, and as he cameout of the theatre he found himself among the men who were holding theparley. He hurried to headquarters, where the effect of his definingwords upon the scared authorities was such that he was at onceappointed second in command. Therefore, when morning dawned, onOctober 5, the Louvre and the Tuileries had become a fortress, and thegardens were a fortified camp. A young officer who became the mostbrilliant figure on the battlefield of Europe--Murat--brought upcannon from the country. The bridge, and the quay, and every streetthat opened on the palace, were so commanded by batteries that theycould be swept by grape-shot. Officers had been sent out forprovisions, for barrels of gunpowder, for all that belongs to hospitaland ambulance. Lest retreat should be cut off, a strong detachmentheld the road to St. Cloud; and arms were liberally supplied to theConvention and the friendly quarter of St. Antoine. The insurgents, led by dexterous intriguers, but without a great soldier at theirhead, could not approach the river; and those who came down from theopulent centre of the city missed their opportunity. After a sharpconflict in the Rue St. Honoré, they fled, pursued by nothing moremurderous than blank cartridge; and Paris felt, for the first time, the grasp of the master. The man who defeated them, and by defeatingthem kept the throne vacant, was Bonaparte, through whose genius theRevolution was to subjugate the Continent. 

APPENDIX

THE LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION

Before embarking on the stormy sea before us, we ought to be providedwith chart and compass. Therefore I begin by speaking about thehistories of the Revolution, so that you may at once have some ideawhat to choose and what to reject, that you may know where we stand, how we have come to penetrate so far and no farther, what branchesthere are that already bear ripe fruit and where it is still ripeningon the tree of knowledge. I desire to rescue you from the writers ofeach particular school and each particular age, and from perpetualdependence on the ready-made and conventional narratives that satisfythe outer world. 

With the growing experience of mankind, the larger curiosity and theincreased resource, each generation adds to our insight. Lesser eventscan be understood by those who behold them, great events require timein proportion to their greatness. 

Lamartine once said that the Revolution has mysteries but no enigmas. It is humiliating to be obliged to confess that those words are nonearer truth now than when they were written. People have not yetceased to dispute about the real origin and nature of the event. Itwas the deficit; it was the famine; it was the Austrian Committee; itwas the Diamond Necklace, and the humiliating memories of the SevenYears' War; it was the pride of nobles or the intolerance of priests;it was philosophy; it was freemasonry; it was Mr. Pitt; it was theincurable levity and violence of the national character; it was theissue of that struggle between classes that constitutes the unity ofthe history of France. 

Amongst these interpretations we shall have to pick our way; but thereare many questions of detail on which I shall be forced to tell youthat I have no deciding evidence. 

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After the contemporary memoirs, the first historian who wrote withauthority was Droz. He was at work for thirty years, having begun in1811, when Paris was still full of floating information, and he knewmuch that otherwise did not come out until long after his death. Hehad consulted Lally Tollendal, and he was allowed to use the memoirsof Malouet, which were in manuscript, and which are unsurpassed forwisdom and good faith in the literature of the National Assembly. Drozwas a man of sense and experience, with a true if not a powerful mind;and his book, in point of soundness and accuracy, was all that a bookcould be in the days when it was written. It is a history of LewisXVI. During the time when it was possible to bring the Revolutionunder control; and the author shows, with an absolute sureness ofjudgment, that the turning-point was the rejection of the firstproject of Constitution, in September 1789. For him, the Revolution iscontained in the first four months. He meant to write a politicaltreatise on the natural history of revolutions, and the art of somanaging just demands that unjust and dangerous demands shall acquireno force. It became a history of rejected opportunities, and anindictment of the wisdom of the minister and of the goodness of theking, by a constitutional royalist of the English school. His serviceto history is that he shows how disorder and crime grew out ofunreadiness, want of energy, want of clear thought and definitedesign. Droz admits that there is a flaw in the philosophy of histitle-page. The position lost in the summer of 1789 was neverrecovered. But during the year 1790 Mirabeau was at work on schemesto restore the monarchy, and it is not plain that they could neverhave succeeded. Therefore Droz added a volume on the parliamentarycareer of Mirabeau, and called it an appendix, so as to remain true tohis original theory of the fatal limit. We know the great oratorbetter than he could be known in 1842, and the value of Droz'sexcellent work is confined to the second volume. It will standundiminished even if we reject the idea which inspired it, and preferto think that the cause might have been won, even when it came toactual fighting, on the 10th of August. Droz's book belongs to thesmall number of writings before us which are superior to their fame, and it was followed by one that enjoyed to the utmost the oppositefate. 

For our next event is an explosion. Lamartine, the poet, was one ofthose legitimists who believed that 1830 had killed monarchy, whoconsidered the Orleans dynasty a sham, and set themselves at once tolook ahead of it towards the inevitable Republic. Talleyrand warnedhim to hold himself ready for something more substantial than theexchange of a nephew for an uncle on a baseless throne. With theintuition of genius he saw sooner than most men, more accurately thanany man, the signs of what was to come. In six years, he said, weshall be masters. He was mistaken only by a few weeks. He laid hisplans that, when the time came, he should be the accepted leader. Tochasten and idealise the Revolution, and to prepare a Republic thatshould not be a terror to mankind, but should submit easily to thefascination of a melodious and sympathetic eloquence, he wrote the_History of the Girondins_. The success was the most instantaneous andsplendid ever obtained by a historical work. People could read nothingelse; and Alexandre Dumas paid him the shrewd compliment of sayingthat he had lifted history to the level of romance. Lamartine gainedhis purpose. He contributed to institute a Republic that was pacificand humane, responsive to the charm of phrase, and obedient to themaster hand that wrote the glories of the Gironde. He always believedthat, without his book, the Reign of Terror would have been renewed. 

From early in the century to the other day there was a succession ofauthors in France who knew how to write as scarcely any but Mr. Ruskinor Mr. Swinburne have ever written in England. They doubled theopulence and the significance of language, and made prose moresonorous and more penetrating than anything but the highest poetry. There were not more than half a dozen, beginning with Chateaubriand, and, I fear, ending with Saint Victor. Lamartine became the historianin this Corinthian school of style, and his purple patches outdoeverything in effectiveness. But it would appear that in Frenchrhetoric there are pitfalls which tamer pens avoid. Rousseau comparedthe Roman Senate to two hundred kings, because his sensitive ear didnot allow him to say three hundred--_trois cents rois_. Chateaubriand, describing in a private letter his journey to the Alps, speaks of themoon along the mountain tops, and adds: "It is all right; I havelooked up the Almanac, and find that there was a moon. " Paul LouisCourier says that Plutarch would have made Pompey conquer at Pharsalusif it would have read better, and he thinks that he was quite right. Courier's exacting taste would have found contentment in Lamartine. Heknows very well that Marie Antoinette was fifteen when she married theDauphin in 1770; yet he affirms that she was the child the Empressheld up in her arms when the Magyar magnates swore to die for theirqueen, Maria Theresa. The scene occurred in 1741, fourteen yearsbefore she was born. Histories of literature give the catalogue of hisamazing blunders. 

In his declining years he reverted to this book, and wrote an apology, in which he answered his accusers, and confessed to some passageswhich he exhorted them to tear out. There was good ground forrecantation. Writing to dazzle the democracy by means of a brighthalo, with himself in the midst of it, he was sometimes weak inexposing crimes that had a popular motive. His republicanism was ofthe sort that allows no safeguard for minorities, no rights to menbut those which their country gives them. He had been the speaker who, when the Chamber wavered, rejected the Regency which was the legalgovernment, and compelled the Duchess of Orleans to fly. When a reportreached him that she had been seized, and he was asked to order herrelease, he refused, saying, "If the people ask for her, she must begiven up to them. "

In his own defence he showed that he had consulted the widow ofDanton, and had found a witness of the last banquet of the Girondins. In his book he dramatised the scene, and displayed the various bearingof the fallen statesmen during their last night on earth. Granier deCassagnac pronounced the whole thing a fabrication. It was told byNodier who was a professional inventor, and by Thiers who gave noauthority, and none could be found. But there was a priest who satoutside the door, waiting to offer the last consolations of religionto the men about to die. Fifty years later he was still living, andLamartine found him and took down his recollections. An old Girondin, whom Charlotte Corday had requested to defend her, and who died asenator of the Second Empire, Pontécoulant, assured his friends thatLamartine had given the true colour, had reproduced the times as heremembered them. In the same way General Dumas approved of Thiers's10th of August. He was an old soldier of the American war, a statesmanof the Revolution, a trusted servant of Napoleon, whose militaryhistory he wrote, and he left memoirs which we value. But I suspectthat these lingering veterans were easily pleased with clever writerswho brought back the scenes of their early life. There may be truth inLamartine's colouring, but on the whole his Girondins live asliterature not as history. And his four volumes on the NationalAssembly are a piece of book-making that requires no comment. 

Before the thunder of the Girondins had rolled away, they werefollowed by two books of more enduring value on the same side. LouisBlanc was a socialist politician, who helped, after 1840, to cementthat union of socialists and republicans which overthrew the monarchy, and went to pieces on the barricades of June 1848. Driven into exile, he settled in London, and spent several years at work in the BritishMuseum. It was not all a misfortune, as this is what he found there:it will give you an encouraging idea of the resources that await us onour path. When Croker gave up his house at the Admiralty on theaccession of the Whigs, he sold his revolutionary library of more than10, 000 pieces to the Museum. But the collector's fever is an ailmentnot to be laid by change of government or loss of income. Six yearslater Croker had made another collection as large as the first, whichalso was bought by the Trustees. Before he died, this incurablecollector had brought together as much as the two previous lots, andthe whole was at last deposited in the same place. There, in one room, we have about five hundred shelves crowded, on an average, with morethan one hundred and twenty pamphlets, all of them belonging to theepoch that concerns us. Allowing for duplicates, this amounts to fortyor fifty thousand Revolution tracts; and I believe that there isnothing equal to it at Paris. Half of them were already there, in timeto be consulted both by Louis Blanc and Tocqueville. Croker'scollection of manuscript papers on the same period was sold for £50 athis death, and went to what was once the famous library of MiddleHill. 

Louis Blanc was thus able to continue in England the work he had begunat home, and he completed it in twelve volumes. It contains muchsubsidiary detail and many literary references, and this makes it auseful book to consult. The ponderous mass of material, and the powerof the pen, do not compensate for the weary obtrusion of the author'sdoctrine and design. 

An eminent personage once said to me that the parliament of hiscountry was intent on suppressing educational freedom. When I askedwhat made them illiberal, he answered, "It is because they areliberal. " Louis Blanc partook of that mixture. He is the expounder ofRevolution in its compulsory and illiberal aspect. He desiresgovernment to be so constituted that it may do everything for thepeople, not so restricted that it can do no injury to minorities. Themasses have more to suffer from abuse of wealth than from abuse ofpower, and need protection by the State, not against it. Power, in theproper hands, acting for the whole, must not be restrained in theinterest of a part. Therefore Louis Blanc is the admirer and advocateof Robespierre; and the tone of his pleading appears at the Septembermassacres, when he bids us remember St. Bartholomew. 

Michelet undertook to vindicate the Revolution at the same time asLouis Blanc, without his frigid passion, his ostentatious research, his attention to particulars, but with deeper insight and a strongerpinion. His position at the archives gave him an advantage over everyrival; and when he lost his place, he settled in the west of Franceand made a study of La Vendée. He is regardless of proof, and rejectsas rubbish mere facts that contribute nothing to his argument or hispicture. Because Arras was a clerical town, he calls Robespierre apriest. Because there are Punic tombs at Ajaccio, he calls Napoleon acountryman of Hannibal. For him the function of history is judgment, not narrative. If we submit ourselves to the event, if we think moreof the accomplished deed than of the suggested problem, we becomeservile accomplices of success and force. History is resurrection. Thehistorian is called to revise trials and to reverse sentences, as thepeople, who are the subject of all history, awoke to the knowledge oftheir wrongs and of their power, and rose up to avenge the past. History is also restitution. Authorities tyrannised and nationssuffered; but the Revolution is the advent of justice, and the centralfact in the experience of mankind. Michelet proclaims that at histouch the hollow idols were shattered and exposed, the carrion kingsappeared, unsheeted and unmasked. He says that he has had to swallowtoo much anger and too much woe, too many vipers and too many kings;and he writes sometimes as if such diet disagreed with him. Hisimagination is filled with the cruel sufferings of man, and he hailswith a profound enthusiasm the moment when the victim that could notdie, in a furious act of retribution, avenged the martyrdom of athousand years. The acquisition of rights, the academic theory, touches him less than the punishment of wrong. There is no forgivenessfor those who resist the people rising in the consciousness of itsmight. What is good proceeds from the mass, and what is bad fromindividuals. Mankind, ignorant in regard to nature, is a righteousjudge of the affairs of man. The light which comes to the learned fromreflection comes to the unlearned more surely by natural inspiration;and power is due to the mass by reason of instinct, not by reason ofnumbers. They are right by dispensation of heaven, and there is nopity for their victims, if you remember the days of old. Michelet hadno patience with those who sought the pure essence of the Revolutionin religion. He contrasts the agonies with which the Church aggravatedthe punishment of death with the swift mercy of the guillotine, andprefers to fall into Danton's hands rather than into those of LewisIX. Or Torquemada. 

With all this, by the real sincerity of his feeling for the multitude, by the thoroughness of his view and his intensely expressive language, he is the most illuminating of the democratic historians. We oftenread of men whose lives have been changed because a particular bookhas fallen into their hands, or, one might say, because they havefallen into the hands of a particular book. It is not always a happyaccident; and one feels that things would have gone otherwise withthem if they had examined Sir John Lubbock's List of Best Books, orwhat I would rather call the St. Helena library, containing none butworks adequate and adapted to use by the ablest man in the fullmaturity of his mind. Of such books, that are strong enough, in someeminent quality, to work a change and form an epoch in a reader'slife, there are two, perhaps, on our revolutionary shelf. One isTaine, and the other Michelet. 

The fourth work of the revolutionary party, that was written almostsimultaneously with these, is that of Villiaumé. Lamartine esteemedVergniaud. Louis Blanc esteemed Robespierre, Michelet, Danton. Villiaumé went a step farther, and admired Marat. He had lived much inthe surviving families of revolutionary heroes, and received, he says, the last breath of an expiring tradition. He had also gathered fromChateaubriand what he remembered; and Thierry, who was blind, causedhis book to be read to him twice over. 

The account of Marat in the 28th volume of Buchez was partly writtenby Villiaumé, and was approved by Albertine Marat. The greatbibliographical curiosity in the literature of the Revolution isMarat's newspaper. It was printed often in hiding-places and underdifficulties, and is so hard to find that, a few years ago, the Parislibrary did not possess a complete set. A bookseller once told me thathe had sold it to an English statesman for £240. Marat's own copy, corrected in his handwriting, and enriched with other matter, waspreserved by his sister. In 1835 she made it over to Villiaumé, who, having finished his book, sold it in 1859 for £80 to the collectorSolar. Prince Napoleon afterwards owned it; and at last it made itsway to an ancient Scottish castle, where I had the good fortune tofind it. 

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Whilst the revolutionary historians, aided by public events, werepredominating in France, the conservatives competed obscurely, and atfirst without success. Genoude was for many years editor of theleading royalist journal, and in that capacity initiated a remarkablephase of political thought. When the Bourbons were cast out under theimputation of incurable absolutism, the legitimists found themselvesidentified with a grudging liberality and a restricted suffrage, andstood at a hopeless disadvantage. In the _Gazette de France_ Genoudeat once adopted the opposite policy, and overtrumped the liberalOrleanists. He argued that a throne which was not occupied by right ofinheritance, as a man holds his estate, could only be made legitimateby the expressed will of France. Therefore he insisted on an appeal tothe nation, on the sovereignty of the people, on the widest extensionof the franchise. When his friend Courmenin drew up the Constitutionof 1848, it was Genoude who induced him to adopt the new practice ofuniversal suffrage, which was unknown to the Revolution. Having losthis wife, he took orders. All this, he said one day, will presentlycome to an end, not through the act of a soldier or an orator, but ofa Cardinal. And he drank to the memory of Richelieu. 

The notion of a legitimate throne, restored by democracy, which wasborrowed from Bolingbroke, and which nearly prevailed in 1873, givessome relief and originality to his work on the Revolution. You are notlikely to meet with it. When Talleyrand's _Memoirs_ appeared, mostpeople learnt for the first time that he went at night to offer hisservices to the king, to get the better of the Assembly. The editorplaced the event in the middle of July. Nobody seemed to know that thestory was already told by Genoude, and that he fixed the midnight bidfor power at its proper date, a month earlier. 

The history of Amédée Gabourd is a far better book, and perhaps thebest of its kind. Gabourd had previously written a history of France, and his many volumes on the nineteenth century, with no pretension inpoint of research, are convenient for the lower range of countries andevents. He writes with the care, the intelligence, the knowledge ofthe work of other men, which distinguish Charles Knight's _PopularHistory of England_. I have known very deep students indeed who werein the habit of constantly using him. He says, with reason, that nowriter has sought truth and justice with more perfect good faith, orhas been more careful to keep aloof from party spirit and acceptedjudgments. As he was a constitutionalist, the revolution of Februarywas the ruin of a system which he expected to last for ever, and togovern the last age of the world. But Gabourd remained true to hisprinciples. He wrote: "I shall love the people, and honour the king;and I shall have the same judgment on the tyranny from above and thetyranny from below. I am not one of those who set a chasm betweenliberty and religion, as if God would accept no worship but that ofservile hearts. I shall not oppose the results of the event which Idescribe, or deny the merit of what had been won at the price of somuch suffering. "

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The Doctrinaires were of all men in the best position to understandthe Revolution and to judge it rightly. They had no weakness for theancient monarchy, none for the republic; and they accepted the resultsrather than the motives. They rejoiced in the reign of reason, butthey required the monarchy duly limited, and the church as establishedby the Concordat, in order to resume the chain of history and thereposing influence of custom. They were the most intellectual group ofstatesmen in the country; but, like the Peelites, they were leaderswithout followers, and it was said of them that they were only four, but pretended to be five, to strike terror by their number. Guizot, the greatest writer among them, composed, in his old age, a history ofFrance for his grandchildren. It was left incomplete, but hisdiscourses on the Revolution, the topic he had thought about all hislife, were edited by his family. These tales of a grandfather are notproperly his work, and, like the kindred and coequal lectures ofNiebuhr, give approximately the views of a man so great that it is agrief not to possess them in authentic form. 

Instead of Guizot, our Doctrinaire historian is Barante. He had thedistinction and the dignity of his friends, their book learning, andtheir experience of public affairs; and his work on the dukes ofBurgundy was praised, in the infancy of those studies, beyond itsmerit in early life he had assisted Madame de la Rochejaquelein tobring out her _Memoirs_. His short biography of Saint Priest, Minister of the Interior in the first revolutionary year, is asingularly just and weighty narrative. After 1848 he published ninevolumes on the Convention and the Directory. Like the rest of hisparty, Barante had always acknowledged the original spirit of theRevolution as the root of French institutions. But the movement of1848, directed as it was against the Doctrinaires, against theirmonarchy and their ministry, had much developed the conservativeelement which was always strong within them. 

In those days Montalembert succeeded Droz at the Academy, and took theopportunity to attack, as he said, not 1793 but 1789. He said thatGuizot, the most eloquent of the immortals, had not found a word tourge in reply. On this level, and in opposition to the revival ofJacobin ideas and the rehabilitation of Jacobin character, Barantecomposed his work. It was a great occasion, as the tide had beenrunning strongly the other way; but the book, coming from such a man, is a disappointment. In the trial of the king adverse points areslurred over, as if a historian could hold a brief. A more powerfulwriter of conservative history appeared about the same time inHeinrich von Sybel. 

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About the middle of the fifties, when Sybel's earlier volumes werecoming out, the deeper studies began in France with Tocqueville. Hewas the first to establish, if not to discover, that the Revolutionwas not simply a break, a reversal, a surprise, but in part adevelopment of tendencies at work in the old monarchy. He brought itinto closer connection with French history, and believed that it hadbecome inevitable, when Lewis XVI. Ascended the throne, that thesuccess and also the failure of the movement came from causes thatwere at work before. The desire for political freedom was sincere butadulterated. It was crossed and baffled by other aims. The secondaryand subordinate liberties embarrassed the approach to the supreme goalof self-government. For Tocqueville was a Liberal of the purestbreed--a Liberal and nothing else, deeply suspicious of democracy andits kindred, equality, centralisation and utilitarianism. Of allwriters he is the most widely acceptable, and the hardest to findfault with. He is always wise, always right, and as just as Aristides. His intellect is without a flaw, but it is limited and constrained. Heknows political literature and history less well than political life;his originality is not creative, and he does not stimulate with gleamsof new light or unfathomed suggestiveness. 

Two years later, in 1858, a work began to appear which was less newand less polished than Tocqueville's, but is still more instructivefor every student of politics. Duvergier de Hauranne had longexperience of public life. He remembered the day when he saw Cuviermount the tribune in a black velvet suit and speak as few orators havespoken, and carry the electoral law which was the Reform Bill of 1817. Having quarrelled with the Doctrinaires, he led the attack whichoverthrew Guizot, and was one of three on whom Thiers was relying tosave the throne, when the king went away in a cab and carried thedynasty with him. He devoted the evening of his life to a history ofparliamentary government in France, which extends in ten volumes to1830, and contains more profound ideas, more political science, thanany other work I know in the compass of literature. He analyses everyconstitutional discussion, aided by much confidential knowledge, andthe fullest acquaintance with pamphlets and leading articles. He isnot so much at home in books; but he does not allow a shade ofintelligent thought or a valid argument to escape him. During theRestoration, the great controversy of all ages, the conflict betweenreason and custom was fought out on the higher level. The question atthat time was not which of the two should prevail, but how they shouldbe reconciled, and whether rational thought and national life could bemade to harmonise. The introductory volume covers the Revolution, andtraces the progress and variation of views of government in France, from the appearance of Sieyès to the elevation of Napoleon. 

Laboulaye was a man of like calibre and measurements, whomWaddington, when he was minister, called the true successor ofTocqueville. Like him he had saturated himself with American ideas, and like him he was persuaded that the revolutionary legacy ofconcentrated power was the chief obstacle to free institutions. Hewrote, in three small volumes, a history of the United States, whichis a most intelligent abstract of what he had learnt in Bancroft andHildreth. He wrote with the utmost lucidity and definiteness, andnever darkened counsel with prevaricating eloquence, so that there isno man from whom it is so easy and so agreeable to learn. His lectureson the early days of the Revolution were published from time to timein a review, and, I believe, have not been collected. Laboulaye was ascholar as well as a statesman, and always knew his subject well, andas a guide to the times we can have none more helpful than hisunfinished course. 

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The event of the English competition is the appearance of Carlyle. After fifty years we are still dependent on him for Cromwell, and in_Past and Present_ he gave what was the most remarkable piece ofhistorical thinking in the language. But the mystery of investigationhad not been revealed to him when he began his most famous book. Hewas scared from the Museum by an offender who sneezed in the ReadingRoom. As the French pamphlets were not yet catalogued, he askedpermission to examine them and to make his selection at the shelves onwhich they stood. He complained that, having applied to a respectableofficial, he had been refused. Panizzi, furious at being described asa respectable official, declared that he could not allow the libraryto be pulled about by an unknown man of letters. In the end, the usualmodest resources of a private collection satisfied his requirements. But the vivid gleam, the mixture of the sublime with the grotesque, make other opponents forget the impatient verdicts and the poverty ofsettled fact in the volumes that delivered our fathers from thraldomto Burke. They remain one of those disappointing stormclouds thatgive out more thunder than lightning. 

 * * * * *

The proof of advancing knowledge is the improvement in compendiums andschool books. There are three which must be mentioned. In the middleof the century Lavallée wrote a history of France for his students atthe Military College. Quoting Napoleon's remark, that the history ofFrance must be in four volumes or in a hundred, he pronounces infavour of four. During a generation his work passed for the best ofits kind. Being at St. Cyr, once the famous girls' school, for whichRacine composed his later tragedies, he devoted many years to theelucidation of Madame de Maintenon, and the recovery of herinterpolated letters. His Revolution is contained in 230 pages of hisfourth volume. There is an abridgment of the like moderate dimensionsby Carnot. He was the father of the President, and the son of theorganiser of victory, who, in 1815, gave the memorable advice toNapoleon that, if he made a rush at the English, he would find themscattered and unprepared. He was a militant republican, editor of the_Memoirs_ of his father, of Grégoire, and of Barère, and M. Aulardpraises his book, with the sympathy of a co-religionist, as the bestexisting narrative. Other good republicans prefer what Henri Martinwrote in continuation of his history of France. I should have nodifficulty in declaring that the seventh volume of the French historyby Dareste is superior to them all; and however far we carry theprocess of selection and exclusion, I would never surrender it. 

We have seen that there are many able works on either side, and two orthree that are excellent. And there are a few sagacious and impartialmen who keep the narrow path between them: Tocqueville for the origin, Droz and Laboulaye for the decisive period of 1789, Duvergier deHauranne for all the political thinking, Dareste for the great outlineof public events, in peace and war. They amount to no more than fivevolumes, and are less than the single Thiers or Michelet, and not halfas long as Louis Blanc. We can easily read them through; and we shallfind that they have made all things clear to us, that we can trustthem, and that we have nothing to unlearn. But if we confine ourselvesto the company of men who steer a judicious middle course, with whomwe find that we can agree, our wisdom will turn sour, and we shallnever behold parties in their strength. No man feels the grandeur ofthe Revolution till he reads Michelet, or the horror of it withoutreading Taine. But I have kept the best for the end, and will speak ofTaine, and two or three more who rival Taine, next week. 

 * * * * *

After much partial and contentious writing, sagacious men attained areasonable judgment on the good and evil, the truth and error, of theRevolution. The view established by constitutional royalists, likeDuvergier de Hauranne, and by men equidistant from royalist orrepublican exclusiveness, such as Tocqueville and Laboulaye, was verylargely shared by intelligent democrats, more particularly by Lanfrey, and by Quinet in his two volumes on the genius of the Revolution. Atthat time, under the Second Empire, there was nothing that could becalled an adequate history. The archives were practically unexplored, and men had no idea of the amount of labour serious explorationimplies. The first writer who produced original matter from the papersof the Paris Commune was Mortimer Ternaux, whose eight volumes on theReign of Terror came out between 1862 and 1880. What he revealed wasso decisive that it obliged Sybel to rewrite what he had written onthe scenes of September. 

When I describe the real study of the Revolution as beginning withTocqueville and Ternaux, I mean the study of it in the genuine andofficial sources. Memoirs, of course, abounded. There are more than ahundred. But memoirs do not supply the certainty of history. Certaintycomes with the means of control, and there is no controlling ortesting memoirs without the contemporary document. Down to the middleof the century, private letters and official documents were rare. Then, in the early summer of 1851, two important collections appearedwithin a few weeks of each other. 

First came the _Memoirs_ of Mallet du Pan, a liberal, independent, anddiscerning observer, whom, apart from the gift of style, Tainecompares to Burke, and who, like Burke, went over to the other side. 

This was followed by Mirabeau's _Secret Correspondence with theCourt_. His prevarication and double-dealing as a popular leader inthe pay of the king had long been known. At least twenty persons werein the secret. One man, leaving Paris hurriedly, left one paper, themost important of all, lying about in his room. Unmistakable allusionswere found among the contents of the Iron Chest. One of the ministerstold the story in his _Memoirs_, and a letter belonging to the serieswas printed in 1827. La Marck, just before his death, showed thepapers to Montigny, who gave an account of them in his work onMirabeau, and Droz moreover knew the main facts from Malouet when hewrote in 1842. For us the interest of the publication lies not in theexposure of what was already known, but in the details of his tortuousand ingenious policy during his last year of life, and of his schemesto save the king and the constitution. For the revolutionary party, the posthumous avowal of so much treachery was like the story of themonk who, dying with the fame of a saint, rose under the shroud duringthe funeral service, and confessed before his brethren that he hadlived and died an unrepentant hypocrite. 

Still, no private papers could make up for the silence of the publicarchives; and the true secrets of government, diplomacy and war, remained almost intact until 1865. The manner in which they came to beexhumed is the most curious transaction in the progress ofrevolutionary history. It was a consequence of the passion forautographs and the collector's craze. Seventy thousand autographs weresold by auction in Paris in the twenty-eight years from 1822 to 1850. From the days of the Restoration no letters were more eagerly soughtand prized than those of the queen. Royalist society regarded her asan august, heroic, and innocent victim, and attributed the ruin ofthe monarchy to the neglect of her high-minded counsels. It became alucrative occupation to steal letters that bore her signature, inorder to sell them to wealthy purchasers. Prices rose steadily. Aletter of the year 1784, which fetched fifty-two francs in 1850, wassold for one hundred and seven in 1857, and for one hundred and fiftyin 1861. In 1844 one was bought for two hundred francs, and anotherfor three hundred and thirty. A letter to the Princess de Lamballe, which fetched seven hundred francs in 1860, went up to seven hundredand sixty in 1865, when suspicion was beginning to stir. In all, forty-one letters from the queen to Mme. De Lamballe have been in themarket, and not one of them was genuine. When it became worth while tosteal, it was still more profitable to forge, for then there was nolimit to the supply. 

In her lifetime the queen was aware that hostile _émigrés_ imitatedher hand. Three such letters were published in 1801 in a worthlessbook called _Madame de Lamballe's Memoirs_. Such forgeries came intothe market from the year 1822. The art was carried to the point thatit defied detection, and the credulity of the public was insatiable. In Germany a man imitated Schiller's writing so perfectly thatSchiller's daughter bought his letters as fast as they could beproduced. At Paris the nefarious trade became active about 1839. 

On March 15, 1861, a facsimilist, Betbeder, issued a challenge, undertaking to execute autographs that it would be impossible todetect, by paper, ink, handwriting, or text. The trial came off in thepresence of experts, and in April 1864 they pronounced that hisimitations could not be distinguished from originals. In those daysthere was a famous mathematician whose name was Chasles. He wasinterested in the history of geometry, and also in the glory ofFrance, and a clever genealogist saw his opportunity. He producedletters from which it appeared that some of Newton's discoveries hadbeen anticipated by Frenchmen who had been robbed of their due fame. M. Chasles bought them, with a patriotic disregard for money; and hecontinued to buy, from time to time, all that the impostor, VrainLucas, offered him. He laid his documents before the Institute, andthe Institute declared them genuine. There were autograph letters fromAlexander to Aristotle, from Cæsar to Vercingetorix, from Lazarus toSt. Peter, from Mary Magdalen to Lazarus. The fabricator's imaginationran riot, and he produced a fragment in the handwriting of Pythagoras, showing that Pythagoras wrote in bad French. At last other learnedmen, who did not love Chasles, tried to make him understand that hehad been befooled. When the iniquity came to light, and the culpritwas sent to prison, he had flourished for seven years, had madeseveral thousand pounds, and had found a market for 27, 000 unblushingforgeries. 

About the time when this mysterious manufacture was thriving, CountHunolstein bought one hundred and forty-eight letters from MarieAntoinette, of a Paris dealer, for £3400, and he published them inJune 1864. Napoleon III. And the Empress Eugénie, whose policy it wasto conciliate legitimists whom the Italian Revolution offended, exhibited a cultivated interest in the memory of the unhappy queen;and it happened that a high official of their Court, M. Feuillet deConches, was zealous in the same cause. He began his purchases asearly as 1830, and had obtained much from the Thermidorean, Courtois, who had had Robespierre's papers in his hands. Wachsmuth, who went toParis in 1840 to prepare his historical work, reported in Germanreviews on the value of Feuillet's collection; and in 1843 he wasdescribed as the first of French autographophiles--the term is not ofmy coining. It was known that he meditated a publication on the royalfamily. He travelled all over Europe, and was admitted to maketranscripts and facsimiles in many places that were jealously guardedagainst intruders. His first volume appeared two months later thanHunolstein's, and his second in September. During that summer andautumn royalism was the fashion, and enjoyed a season of triumph. Twenty-four letters were common to both collections; and as they didnot literally agree, troublesome people began to ask questions. 

The one man able to answer them was Arneth, then deputy keeper of thearchives at Vienna, who was employed laying down the great history ofMaria Theresa that has made him famous. For the letters written byMarie Antoinette to her mother and her family had been religiouslypreserved, and were in his custody. Before the end of the year Arnethproduced the very words of the letters, as the Empress received them;and then it was discovered that they were quite different from thosewhich had been printed at Paris. 

An angry controversy ensued, and in the end it became certain thatmost of Hunolstein's edition, and part of Feuillet's, was fabricatedby an impostor. It was whispered that the supposed originals sold byCharavay, the dealer, to Hunolstein came to him from Feuillet deConches. Sainte Beuve, who had been taken in at first, and hadapplauded, thereupon indignantly broke off his acquaintance, andpublished the letter in which he did it. Feuillet became more wary. His four later volumes are filled with matter of the utmost value; andhis large collection of the illegible autographs of Napoleon were soldfor £1250 and are now at The Durdans. 

It is in this way that the roguery of a very dexterous thief resultedin the opening of the imperial archives, in which the authenticrecords of the Revolution are deposited. For the emperors, Joseph andLeopold, were the queen's brothers; her sister was regent in the LowCountries, the family ambassador was in her confidence, and the eventsthat brought on the great war, and the war itself, under Clerfayt, Coburg, and the Archduke Charles, can be known there and there only. Once opened, Arneth never afterwards allowed the door to be closed onstudents. He published many documents himself, he encouraged hiscountrymen to examine his treasures, and he welcomed, and continues towelcome, the scholars of Berlin. Thirty or forty volumes of Austriandocuments, which were brought to light by the act of the feloniousFrenchman, constitute our best authority for the inner and outerhistory of the Revolution and of the time that preceded it. The FrenchForeign Office is less communicative. The papers of their two ablestdiplomatists, Barthélemy and Talleyrand, have been made public, besides those of Fersen, Maury, Vaudreuil, and many _émigrés_; and theletters of several deputies to their constituents are now coming out. 

Next to the Austrian, the most valuable of the diplomatists are theAmericans, the Venetians, and the Swede, for he was the husband ofNecker's illustrious daughter. This change in the centre of gravitywhich went on between 1865 and 1885 or 1890, besides directing renewedattention to international affairs, considerably reduced the value ofthe memoirs on which the current view of our history was founded. Formemoirs are written afterwards for the world, and are clever, apologetic, designing and deceitful. Letters are written at themoment, and are confidential, and therefore they enable us to test thetruth of the memoirs. In the first place, we find that many of themare not authentic, or are not by the reputed author. What purports tobe the memoirs of Prince Hardenberg is the composition of twowell-informed men of letters, Beauchamp and d'Allouville. Beauchampalso wrote the book known as the _Memoirs of Fouché_. Those ofRobespierre are by Reybaud, and those of Barras by Rousselin. Rochewrote the memoirs of Levasseur de la Sarthe, and Lafitte those ofFleury. Cléry, the king's confidential valet, left a diary which metwith such success that somebody composed his pretended memoirs. Sixvolumes attributed to Sanson, the executioner, are of course spurious. 

When Weber's _Memoirs_ were republished in the long collection ofBaudoin, Weber protested and brought an action. The defendant deniedhis claim, and produced evidence to prove that the three firstchapters are by Lally Tollendal. It does not always follow that thebook is worthless because the title-page assigns it to a man who isnot the author. The real author very often is not to be trusted. Malouet is one of those men, very rare in history, whose reputationrises the more we know him; and Dumont of Geneva was a sage observer, the confidant, and often the prompter, of Mirabeau. Both aremisleading, for they wrote long after, and their memory is constantlyat fault. Dumouriez wrote to excuse his defection, and Talleyrand tocast a decent veil over actions which were injurious to him at theRestoration. The Necker family are exasperating, because they aregenerally wrong in their dates. Madame Campan wished to recover herposition, which the fall of the Empire had ruined. Therefore some whohad seen her manuscript have affirmed that the suppressed passageswere adverse to the queen; for the same reason that, in the Fersencorrespondence, certain expressions are omitted and replaced bysuspicious asterisks. Ferrières has always been acknowledged as one ofthe most trustworthy witnesses. It is he who relates that, at thefirst meeting after the oath, the deputies were excluded from thetennis-court in order that the Count d'Artois might play a match. Wenow find, from the letters of a deputy recently published, that thestory of this piece of insolence is a fable. The clergy had made knownthat they were coming, and it was thought unworthy of such an occasionto receive a procession of ecclesiastics in a tennis-court; so thedeputies adjourned to a neighbouring church. 

Montlosier, who was what Burke called a man of honour and a cavalier, tells us that his own colleague from Auvergne was nearly killed in aduel, and kept his bed for three months. Biauzat, the fellow-townsmanof the wounded man, writes home that he was absent from the Assemblyonly ten days. The point of the matter is that the adversary whosehand inflicted the wound was Montlosier himself. 

The narrative which Madame Roland drew up in prison, as an appeal toposterity, is not a discreet book, but it does not reveal the secretof her life. It came out in 1863, when three or four letters were putup for sale at auction, and when, shortly after, a miniature, withsomething written on it, was found amid the refuse of a greengrocer'sshop. They were the letters of Madame Roland, which Buzot had sent toa place of safety before he went out and shot himself; and theminiature was her portrait, which he had worn in his flight. 

Bertrand, the Minister of Marine, relates that the queen sent to theemperor to learn what he would do for their deliverance, and hepublishes the text of the reply which came back. For a hundred yearsthat document has been accepted as the authentic statement ofLeopold's intentions. It was the document which the messenger broughtback, but not the reply which the emperor gave. That reply, verydifferent from the one that has misled every historian, was discoveredby Arneth, and was published two years ago by Professor Lenz, wholectures on the Revolution to the fortunate students of Berlin. Sybelinserted it in his review, and rewrote Lenz's article, which upset anessential part of his own structure. 

The Marquis de Bouillé wrote his recollections in 1797, to clearhimself from responsibility for the catastrophe of Varennes. Thecorrespondence, preserved among Fersen's papers, shows that thestatements in his _Memoirs_ are untrue. He says that he wished theking to depart openly, as Mirabeau had advised; that he recommendedthe route by Rheims, which the king rejected; and that he opposed theline of military posts, which led to disaster. The letters prove thathe advised secret departure, the route of Varennes, and the cavalryescort. 

 * * * * *

The general characteristic of the period I am describing has been thebreakdown of the Memoirs, and our emancipation from the authority ofthe writers who depended on them. That phase is represented by thethree historians, Sybel, Taine, and Sorel. They distanced theirpredecessors, because they were able to consult much personal, andmuch diplomatic, correspondence. They fell short of those who were tocome, because they were wanting in official information. 

Sybel was Ranke's pupil, and he had learnt in the study of the MiddleAges, which he disliked, to root out the legend and the fable and thelie, and to bring history within the limits of evidence. In early lifehe exploded the story of Peter the Hermit and his influence on theCrusades, and in the same capacity it was he who exposed thefabrication of the queen's letters. Indeed he was so sturdy a criticthat he scorned to read the fictitious Hardenberg, although the workcontains good material. He more than shared the unspiritual temper ofthe school, and fearing alike the materialistic and the religiousbasis of history, he insisted on confining it to affairs of state. Having a better eye for institutions than his master, and an intellectadapted to affairs, he was one of the first to turn from the study oftexts to modern times and burning questions. In erudition and remoteresearch he fully equalled those who were scholars and critics, andnothing else; but his tastes called him to a different career. He saidof himself that he was three parts a politician, so that only themiserable remnant composed the professor. Sybel approached theRevolution through Burke, with essays on his French and Irish policy. He stood firmly to the doctrine that men are governed by descent, thatthe historic nation prevails invincibly over the actual nation, thatwe cannot cast off our pedigree. Therefore the growth of things inPrussia seemed to him to be almost normal, and acceptable in contrastwith the condition of a people which attempted to constitute itselfaccording to its own ideas. Political theory as well as nationalantagonism allowed him no sympathy with the French, and no wonder heis generally under-estimated in France. He stands aloof from themeridian of Paris, and meditates high up in Central Europe on theconflagration of 1789, and the trouble it gave to the world ingeneral. The distribution of power in France moves him less than thedistribution of power in Europe, and he thinks forms of governmentless important than expansion of frontier. He describes the fall ofRobespierre as an episode in the partition of Poland. His endeavour isto assign to the Revolution its place in international history. 

Once it was said, in disparagement of Niebuhr and other historians, that when you ask a German for a black coat he offers you a whitesheep, and leaves you to effect the transformation yourself. Sybelbelongs to a later age, and can write well, but heavily, and withoutmuch light or air. His introduction, published in 1853, several yearsbefore the volume of Tocqueville, has so much in common with it, thatit was suggested that he might have read the earlier article byTocqueville, which John Mill translated for the _Westminster Review_. But Sybel assured me that he had not seen it. He had obtained accessto important papers, and when he became a great public personage, everything was laid open before him. In diplomatic matters he is veryfar ahead of all other writers, except Sorel. Having been anopposition leader, and what in Prussia is called a Liberal, he wentover to Bismarck, and wrote the history of the new German Empire underhis inspiration, until the Emperor excluded him from the archives, ofwhich, for many active years, he had been the head. His five volumes, not counting various essays written in amplification or defence, stand, in the succession of histories, by dint of constant revision, at a date near the year 1880. For a time they occupied the firstplace. In successive editions errors were weeded out as fast as theycould be found; and yet, even in the fourth, Mounier, who, aseverybody knows, was elected for Dauphiné, is called the deputy fromProvence. Inasmuch as he loves neither Thiers nor Sieyès, Sybeldeclares it absurd to compare, as Thiers has done, the Constitution of1799 to the British Constitution. In the page alluded to, one of themost thoughtful in the Consulate and Empire, Thiers is so far fromputting the work of Sieyès on the British level, that his one purposeis to display the superiority of a government which is the product ofmuch experiment and incessant adaptation to the artificial outcome ofpolitical logic. 

Sybel's view is that the Revolution went wrong quite naturally, thatthe new order was no better than the old, because it proceeded fromthe old, rose from an exhausted soil, and was worked by men nurturedin the corruption of the old _régime_. He uses the Revolution toexhibit the superiority of conservative and enlightened Germany. Andas there is little to say in favour of Prussia, which crowned aninglorious war by an inglorious peace, he produced his effect bypiling up to the utmost the mass of French folly and iniquity. Andwith all its defects, it is a most instructive work. A countryman, whohad listened to Daniel Webster's Bunker Hill oration, described it bysaying that every word weighed a pound. Almost the same thing might besaid of Sybel's history, not for force of language or depth ofthought, but by reason of the immense care with which every passagewas considered and all the evidence weighed. The author lived to seehimself overtaken and surpassed, for internal history by Taine, andfor foreign affairs by Sorel. 

Taine was trained in the systems of Hegel and Comte, and hisfundamental dogma was the denial of free will and the absolutedominion of physical causes over the life of mankind. A violent effortto shape the future by intention and design, and not by causes thatare in the past, seemed to him the height of folly. The idea ofstarting fresh, from the morrow of creation, of emancipating theindividual from the mass, the living from the dead, was a defiance ofthe laws of nature. Man is civilised and trained by his surroundings, his ancestry, his nationality, and must be adapted to them. Thenatural man, whom the Revolution discovered and brought to thesurface, is, according to Taine, a vicious and destructive brute, notto be tolerated unless caught young, and perseveringly disciplined andcontrolled. 

Taine is not a historian, but a pathologist, and his work, the mostscientific we possess, and in part the most exhaustive, is nothistory. By his energy in extracting formulas and accumulatingknowledge, by the crushing force with which he masses it to sustainconclusions, he is the strongest Frenchman of his time, and hisindictment is the weightiest that was ever drawn up. For he is nodefender of the Monarchy or of the Empire, and his cruel judgmentsare not dictated by party. His book is one of the ablest that thisgeneration has produced. It is no substitute for history. Theconsummate demonstrator, concentrated on the anatomy of French brains, renounces much that we need to be told, and is incompetent as to theliterature and the general affairs of Europe. Where Taine failed Sorelhas magnificently succeeded, and he has occupied the vacant place bothat the Academy and in his undisputed primacy among writers on theRevolution. He is secretary to the Senate, and is not an abstractphilosopher, but a politician, curious about things that get intonewspapers and attract the public gaze. Instead of investigating thehuman interior, he is on the look-out across the Alps and beyond theRhine, writing, as it were, from the point of view of the ForeignOffice. He is at his best when his pawns are diplomatists. In theprocess of home politics, and the development of political ideas, hedoes not surpass those who went before him. Coming after Sybel, he issomewhat ahead of him in documentary resource. He is more friendly tothe principles of the Revolution, without being an apologist, and ismore cheerful, more sanguine, and pleasanter to read. A year ago Isaid that, Sybel and Taine being dead, Sorel is our highest livingauthority. To-day I can no longer use those words. 

On Ranke's ninetieth birthday, Mommsen paid him this compliment: "Youare probably the last of the universal historians. Undoubtedly you arethe first. " This fine saying was double-edged, and intended todisparage general histories; but it is with a general history that Iam going to conclude what I have to say on the literature of theRevolution. In the eighth volume of the _General History_, nowappearing in France, Aulard gives the political outline of theRevolution. It may be called the characteristic product of the year1889. When the anniversary came round, for the hundredth time, andfound the Republic securely established, and wielding a power neverdreamed of by the founders, men began to study its history in a newspirit. Vast pains and vast sums were expended in collecting, arranging, printing, the most authentic and exact information; andthere was less violence and partiality, more moderation and sincerity, as became the unresisted victor. In this new school the central figurewas M. Aulard. He occupies the chair of revolutionary history atParis; he is the head of the society for promoting it; the editor ofthe review, _La Révolution_, now in its thirty-first volume; and hehas published the voluminous acts of the Jacobin Club and of theCommittee of Public Safety. Nobody has ever known the printed materialbetter than he, and nobody knows the unpublished material so well. Thecloven hoof of party preference appears in a few places. He says thatthe people wrought vengeance after the manner of their kings; and hedenies the complicity of Danton in the crimes of September. As Dantonhimself admitted his guilt to no less a witness than the future kingof the French, this is a defiance of a main rule of criticism that aman shall be condemned out of his own mouth. Aulard's narrative is notcomplete, and lacks detail; but it is intelligent and instructivebeyond all others, and shows the standard that has been reached by acentury of study. 

Where then do we now stand, and what is the elevation that enables usto look down on men who, the other day, were high authorities? We areat the end, or near the end, of the supply of Memoirs; few are knownto exist in manuscript. Apart from Spain, we are advanced in respectof diplomatic and international correspondence; and there is abundantprivate correspondence, from Fersen downwards. But we are only alittle way in the movement for the production of the very acts of thegovernment of revolutionary France. 

To give you an idea of what that means. Thirty years ago the Cahiers, or Instructions, of 1789 were published in six large volumes. Theeditors lamented that they had not found everything, and that a dozencahiers were missing in four provinces. The new editor, in his twovolumes of introduction, knows of 120 instructions that wereoverlooked by his predecessors in those four regions alone; and hesays that there were 50, 000 in the whole of France. One collection iscoming out on the Elections for Paris, another on the Paris Electors, that is, the body entrusted with the choice of deputies, who thereupontook over the municipal government of the city and made themselvespermanent. Then there is the series of the acts of the Commune, of theseveral governing committees, of the Jacobins, of the war department, and seven volumes on Vendée alone. 

In a few years all these publications will be completed, and all willbe known that ever can be known. Perhaps some one will then compose ahistory as far beyond the latest that we possess as Sorel, Aulard, Rambaud, Flammermont are in advance of Taine and Sybel, or Taine andSybel of Michelet and Louis Blanc; or of the best that we have inEnglish, the three chapters in the second volume of Buckle, or the twochapters in the fifth volume of Lecky. In that golden age ourhistorians will be sincere, and our history certain. The worst will beknown, and then sentence need not be deferred. With the fulness ofknowledge the pleader's occupation is gone, and the apologist isdeprived of his bread. Mendacity depended on concealment of evidence. When that is at an end, fable departs with it, and the margin oflegitimate divergence is narrowed. 

Don't let us utter too much evil of party writers, for we owe themmuch. If not honest, they are helpful, as the advocates aid the judge;and they would not have done so well from the mere inspiration ofdisinterested veracity. We might wait long if we watched for the manwho knows the whole truth and has the courage to speak it, who iscareful of other interests besides his own, and labours to satisfyopponents, who can be liberal towards those who have erred, who havesinned, who have failed, and deal evenly with friend and foe--assumingthat it would be possible for an honest historian to have a friend. 

INDEX

Adams, John, 23

Agra, bishop of, 308-9

Aiguillon, Duc de, 99, 154

Alsace, 206, 208, 211

Amsterdam, 329

Anglas, Boissy d', 293, 337-8

Archives, Austrian, 364

Argenson, d', 8-9

Argenteau, Mercy, 147

Armand, Colonel, the Marquis de la Rouerie, 302-3

Arneth, 364

Artois, Comte d', 59, 69, 178-9, 204, 339

Auckland, Lord, 320

Aulard, 371-2

Baillon, 183, 187, 189

Bailly, 71, 74, 88

Bâle, peace of, 327

Barante, 355

Barbaroux, 267

Barentin, 55

Barère, 99, 117, 257, 273, 289, 295, 332, 335

Barnave, 91-3, 109, 191, 195, 200

Barras, 298, 344

Barthélemy, 337, 365

Bastille, 84, 85

Batz, Baron de, 354

Baudot, 280

Bazire, 271

Beaumetz, 128

Bécard, 85

Beccaria, 18

Belgium, 330

Bentham, 106

Bernier, 307-9

Bertrand, 246

Besenval, 84

Beurnonville, 217

Billaud-Varennes, 284, 274, 280-2, 294-5, 333-5

Blanc, Louis, 349-50

Bonchamps, Marquis de, 305, 310-312 ff. 

Bordeaux, archbishop of, 102

Bouillé, Marquis de, 174-5, 181, 367

Bouillé, de, the younger, 185

Bourbon, House of, 260, 337, 340

Bourdon, 298

Breteuil, 83, 175, 231

Bridport, Lord, 339

Brissot, 205, 209, 226, 243, 259

Broglie, Marshal de, 80

Brunswick, Duke of, 211, 231

Brussels, 221

Burke, Edmund, 29, 31, 126, 183, 204, 213

Buzot, 249, 267, 334, 367

Cabanis, 268

Calonne, 45, 178-9

Cambacérès, 274, 299, 337, 341

Cambon, 293-4

Campan, Madame, 128

Camus, 105

Carlyle, 358

Carnac, 339

Carnot, 258, 274, 290, 318, 324-6, 334

Carnot the younger, 359

Carrier, 93, 315, 333, 334

Cassagnac, Granier de, 349

Castlereagh, Lord, 324

Cathelineau, 304, 308, 310-11

Cazalès, 75, 110, 193

Cérutti, 92

Chabot, 264

Charette, 237, 304, 307, 310-14, 335, 339-40

Charleroi, 328

Charles, Archduke, 328

Chartres, Duc de, 257

Chateaubriand, 115, 348, 353

Chatelet, Duc de, 101

Chatham, 26-7

Chaumette, 272, 276-7, 278, 280

Chauvelin, 318-19

Choiseul, Duc de, 181, 185

Cholet, battle of, 313

Chouans, Chouannerie, 302, 303, 339-340

Clerfayt, 216-17, 221-2

Clermont, Count Tonnerre de, 82, 98, 102, 230

Clermont, 188-90

Cloots, Anacharsis, 277

Coburg, Prince of, 320, 325-6, 328

Coffinhal, 294, 297, 299

Collot, 289, 292

Condé, 325

Condorcet, 261, 267-8

Cook, Captain, 149

Corday, Charlotte, 265-7, 349

Cordeliers, the, 128, 227, 229

Cormatin, 335, 341

Corsica, 322

Cottereau, 302

Courier, Paul Louis, 348

Courmenin, 354

Couthon, 286, 297-8

Croker, 350

Custine, 220, 253

Cuvier, 357

Damas, 188, 189, 191

Danton, 84, 226, 234, 238, 241, 242-4, 257, 261, 273-8, 282-3, 318, 349, 352, 372

Dareste, 359

Daunou, 341

Delauney, 85, 86

Delessart, 202, 208-9

Desaix, 325

Desèze, 252

Desmoulins, Camille, 84, 226, 248, 280, 282

Diderot, 31

Domat, 2

Dreux-Brézé, 74

Drouet, 186-8, 191-2

Droz, 346-7, 350

Dumouriez, 209, 215, 221, 222-3, 262, 319, 366

Dunkirk, 320, 326

Dupont de Nemours, 51, 62, 116

Duport, 98, 99, 100, 155

Égalité, Prince, 221

Eglantine, Fabre de, 277

Elbée, de, 303, 305

Elizabeth, Princess, 181, 246

_Émigrés_, the, 129, 178, 201, 240, 260, 313-14, 338-40

Estaing, Count, 127, 136

Favras, Marquis de, 145

_Féderés_, the, 229

Fénelon, 3, 4

Fersen, Count, 176, 182-4, 188, 206, 213, 365-7

Feuillants, 194, 226, 230

Fleurus, battle of, 290, 328

Fontenoy, Madame de, her note to Tallien, 293

Fouché, 289 ff. , 324

Foulon, 90

Fouquier-Tinville, 332, 335

Fox, 259, 320

Francis, king of Hungary, 209

Franklin, 126

Frederic William, 211, 219

Fréron, 226

Gabourd, Amédée, 354

Garat, 254

Genoude, 353

George III. , 202, 259, 320, 329

Gobel, 171, 277

Godoy, Manuel, 329

Goethe, 218

Goguelat, 189

Gouvion, General, 182-3

Gower, Lord, 155, 318

Grégoire, bishop of Blois, 171, 278

Grenville, 318, 320

Guadeloupe, 322

Guizot, 355

Gustavus III. , 178

Guyot, bishop of Agra, 309

Hamilton, Alexander, 34, 36

Hanriot, 295-6, 299

Hauranne, Duvergier de, 357, 359-60

Hayti, island of, 322

Hébert, 272, 276, 281

Herbois, Collot de, 247, 274, 295, 333-335

Hervilly, de, 236, 238, 338

Hoche, 244

Hohenlohe, 329

Holland, 260, 329

Hood, Lord, 315

Howe, Lord, 322

Hunolstein, 363

Isnard, 205, 228, 337

Jansenists, the, 2, 169

Jefferson, 92, 126

Jourdan, 326, 328

Joyeuse, Villaret, 322-3

Jurieu, 2

Kaiserslautern, battle of, 329

Kaunitz, 126, 203, 207-8, 212

Kellermann, 217-28

Kléber, 312-13, 314, 325

Klopstock, 126

Korff, Madame de, 184

Kozsiusko and the Polish insurrection, 328

Laboulaye, 359-360

Lafayette, General, 32, 38, 88, 124, 130, 134, 137, 152, 182, 183, 196, 201, 229-30, 233

Lally Tollendal, 88, 90-91, 101, 110, 143, 230, 346

La Marck, 131, 147, 155

Lamartine, 345, 347-8

Lamballe, Princess de, 245

Lameth, 109, 155

Lanfrey, 360

Langres, bishop of, 111, 118, 133

La Jaunaye, treaty of, 335

Lanjuinais, 103, 144, 252, 261, 264, 337, 340

Lasource, 262

Latour Maubourg, 191

Lavallée, 359

Lavergne, 215

Lavoisier, 91

Lecointre, 333

Legendre, 226, 228, 264, 298, 333

Léonard, 181, 185, 188

Leopold, 177-8, 202-3, 208, 367

Le Quesnoy, 326

Lescure, 305, 308, 311, 313-15

Lewis XIV. , 337

Lewis XVI. , 40-43, 49, 72, 75, 87, 89, 118, 140, 170, 180-90, 195, 198, 204, 206, 227, 228, 231, 232, 233-5, 236-7, 242, 251-3, 255, 346

Lewis XVII. , 338

Lewis XVIII. , 313, 339

Liancourt, Duc de Rochefoucauld, 87, 233

Limon, 213

Longwy, 215, 242

Louchet, 332

Louis Philippe, 223

Louvet, 250

Lubbock, Sir John, 352

Lubersac, bishop of Chartres, 100, 159

Luckner, General, 229

Luxemburg, Duke of, 61

Lyons, 315, 327

Machault, 42

Mack, Colonel, 325

Mailhe, 251

Maillane, Durand de, 293, 295

Maillard, 129, 131-2, 244

Malesherbes, 42, 252

Mallet du Pan, 212, 361

Malmesbury, 328

Malouet, 51, 54, 230, 346, 366

Mandat, 235

Mantua, 178, 179

Manuel, 248

Marat, 93, 113, 128, 226, 241, 262, 266, 333-5, 353

Marceau, 312, 325

Maret, 275, 319

Marie Antoinette, 55, 59, 131, 138, 140, 141-2, 177-8, 197, 180, 200, 206-7, 213, 275, 348, 363-4

Marigny, 311

Martin, Henry, 359

Masséna, 274, 325

Maulevrier, Count Colbert de, 343

Maultrot, 3

Maurepas, 43

Maury, Cardinal, 110, 147

Mayence, 312

Menou, 343

Mentz, 326

Mercier de la Rivière, 13

Merlin, 288, 341

Michelet, 351, 360

Mirabeau, 37, 62, 63, 64, 82, 105, 110, 125, 131, 148, 151, 153, 154, 156-7, 347, 361

Moellendorf, Marshal, 329

Mons, 328

Montagu, 322, 323

Montalembert, 356

Montciel, Terrier de, 226, 229

Montesquieu, 7, 220

Montlosier, 65, 144, 366

Montmédy, 180

Montmorin, 153

Moreau, 274, 325

Morris, 82, 230

Mounier, 60, 61, 95, 109, 111, 118, 122-3, 132-3, 137, 143

Mousson, 251

Murat, 344

Nantes, 311, 333

Napier, 313

Naples, 321

Napoleon Bonaparte, 61, 115, 216, 236, 259, 274, 316, 325-6, 344

Narbonne de Lara, Count, Minister of War, 201-2, 208

Necker, 43, 46, 47, 49, 56, 64, 70, 73, 75, 83, 88, 101, 124, 135

Neerwinden, 325

Ney, Marshal, 325

Niebuhr, 355, 369

Noailles, 87, 99

Orange, the Prince of, 329

Orleans, the Duke of, 135-6, 253

Orleans, the Duchess of, 349

Paine, Tom, 126, 249

Pamiers, bishop of, 175

Panis, 226, 281

Panizzi, 358

Paris, archbishop of, 81, 167

Penthièvre, Duc de, 339

Pétion, 201, 226, 235, 249, 267

Pichegru, 329, 337

Pilnitz, declaration of, 202

Pitt, 210, 216, 254, 314, 318, 321, 329, 338, 346

Pius VI. And the Civil Constitution of the clergy, 170, 172-3

Plain, the deputies of the, 291

Poland, 320

Polignac, the Duchess of, 65, 83, 88

Pontécoulant, 349

Portugal, 321

Précy, 269

Priestly, 248

Prieur, 274

Provence, the Count of, 48, 50, 145-6, 181, 337

Prussia, 329

Puisaye, Count de, 265, 313, 338

Quiberon, battle of, 340

Quinet, 360

Ranke, 371

Raynal, Abbé, 18

Rebecqui, 251

Reinhard, 200

Reynier, 325

Richelieu, Duc de, 135

Rigby, Dr. , 86

Robespierre, 117, 226, 270, 273, 275, 278, 280, 284, 285, 294, 298, 299-300, 330, 332, 351

Rochefoucauld, La, Duke de Liancourt, 87, 233

Rochejaquelein, Henri de la, 305, 309, 314

Roederer, 225, 236-7

Roland, 228, 238, 243, 249, 251, 264

Roland, Madame, 225, 267, 367

Romeuf, 183, 188

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 94

Romme, 277, 336

Rouerie, Marquis de la, 302-3

Rousseau, 14-17, 285, 333, 348

Royer Collard, 122

Saint Victor, 348

Sainte Marie, Miomandre de, 138

Santerre, 226-8, 235

Sardinia, the king of, 220

Sauce, 189

Saumur, 308

Savenay, 315

Scheldt, opening of the, 318

Séchelles, Hérault de, 269, 271, 281

Sémonville, 275

Sergent, 226

Serre, De, 114

Sieyès, 67, 101-2, 110, 119, 121, 159-62, 163, 249, 261, 340-41

Simolin, 208

Smith, Adam, 22

Sombreuil, 246, 338-40

Sorel, 367, 371

Spain, 260, 321, 329, 337

Spencer, Lord, 329

St. Cyr, 325

St. Just, 251, 273, 280-81, 290, 295, 297

St. Ménehould, 186-7

St. Priest, 130, 135-6, 355

Staël, Madame de, 137, 201

Stofflet, 305, 310-11, 314-15, 335, 339

Swiss Guard, 238

Sybel, Heinrich von, 356, 360-70

Taine, 93, 353, 360, 367, 370-71

Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, 69, 75, 79, 110, 156, 167, 171, 319, 347, 365-6

Tallien, 243, 281, 292, 295, 332, 337, 340

Tallien, Madame, 331

Talmond, Prince de, 314

Target, 116

Ternaux, Mortimer, 360

Thibaudeau, 341

Thierry, 353

Thiers, 357, 369

Thouret, 119, 123

Tocqueville, 157, 350, 356, 359-60

Torfou, 312

Torquemada, 352

Toulon, 315, 321

Toulouse, archbishop of, 46, 148

Tourzel, Madame de, 245

Tronchet, 252

Turgot, 10, 11, 14, 42

Tuscany, 337

Ushant, 290

Vadier, 295

Valenciennes, 312, 325

Valmy, 216, 218

Vancouver Island, 149, 150

Varennes, 120, 179, 189

Vendée, La, 260, 303-4, 334, 337

Verdun, 215, 244

Vergniaud, 209, 225, 223, 231, 238, 249, 253, 261, 267

Versailles, the march to, 129-30

Villaret-Joyeuse, 290

Villiaumé, 353

Vincent, 273, 276

Virieu, 99

Volney, 123

Voulland, 297, 298

Washington, 126

Wattignies, 326

Weber, 246, 365

Webster, Daniel, 25

Weissenburg, 327

Westermann, 226, 238, 281

Wilson, James, 35, 36

Windward Islands, 322

Wurmser, 327

York, the Duke of, 325-6, 328-9, 339

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_. 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

_8vo. 10s. Net each. _

THE HISTORY OF FREEDOMAND OTHER ESSAYS

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, Litt. D. SOMETIME LECTURER IN ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

AND

REGINALD VERE LAURENCE, M. A. FELLOW AND LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

HISTORICALESSAYS AND STUDIES

EDITED BY

JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, Litt. D. SOMETIME LECTURER IN ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

AND

REGINALD VERE LAURENCE, M. A. FELLOW AND LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 

 _GUARDIAN. _--"The publication of the literary remains of Lord Acton is gradually showing the world his true greatness as an historian, and for this we owe our warmest thanks to Mr. Figgis and Mr. Laurence. The two volumes before us reveal better than anything that has yet been published the extent of Lord Acton's knowledge and the force of his mind. . . . Powerful and closely reasoned essays and lectures, which bear on every page the stamp of learning and judgment and righteousness, which are worthy of a great scholar and a good man. "

 _TIMES. _--"These volumes must be regarded, not as the support of an existing reputation, or as a bid for the establishment of posthumous renown, but as the record and memorial of a rare and attractive personality. The accurate, insatiable, and broad-minded student is revealed; the generous champion of a noble cause which has suffered temporary defeat is seen on the field of his eager endeavour in controversy with Popes and Cardinals for the sake of freedom and truth; and the principles which he brought to the study of history or elicited from his observation of men and affairs throughout the centuries are set forth for all to read. The resulting picture of the great student, the partisan striving for impartiality, is admirably put together in a sympathetic and lucid introduction supplied by the editors. "

 _ATHENÆUM. _--"We have said enough to indicate the varied attractions of this volume. It shows us, indeed, the great scholar at his best, in his wide knowledge, sound judgment, and intense but restrained moral fervour. It is a book which does more than add to our information: it strengthens and inspires. "

 _SPECTATOR. _--"These thirty-seven lectures, essays, and reviews are but a small part, the editors tell us, of Lord Acton's literary 'output. ' Let us say at once that they are sufficient to convince us, if we had needed conviction, of the prodigious learning, the consummate literary ability, and the unfailing candour of the writer. "

 Mr. Oscar Browning in the _CAMBRIDGE REVIEW_. --"The perusal of the volumes before us will confirm the opinion already formed by those who are best acquainted with Lord Acton, that he was one of the most distinguished men of his age, and that he claims to be placed in the first rank of English historians. "

 _ACADEMY. _--"We can imagine no better mental training for any reader of history than a study of Lord Acton's methods of inquiry and criticisms as exemplified in these learned treatises. The teacher of history will find that these two volumes have a value as books of reference, which will aid his judgment on many constantly recurring historical problems--a reference made easy by the admirable indexes, which in themselves are a testimony to the immense range of Lord Acton's erudition. "

 _DAILY NEWS. _--"The present volumes, prefaced by an admirable editorial essay, contain a large number of the writings by which Acton won the reputation of the most learned Englishman of his time, together with addresses and unsigned articles that are little known. . . . The articles and reviews which he contributed to the pages of the _English Historical Review_ are reprinted in these volumes, and contain the ripest and most valuable work of his life. There is, indeed, nothing like them in English historical literature. "

 _NATION. _--"It is no exaggeration to say that Lord Acton's Essays are the book of the season, and that their publication is an event. Their author stood in the first rank of _Gelehrte_. His reading was immense, his memory unfailing. He added to his learning a considerable knowledge of affairs and an almost passionate moral energy. The former kept him in touch with life, the latter with principle; he lived in the world of men without descending to its level; he raised and inspired. The works of such a man are of public, it is not too much to say of European, interest. "

 _MORNING POST. _--"Nobody can read these two volumes, so massive in their learning, so moving in their grave and eloquent appeal, without feeling the moral grandeur of the life of which they form the most adequate commemoration. Only one of the papers printed in this collection, an address upon the causes of the Franco-Prussian War, positively sees the light for the first time, but we question whether any one of the other essays was known to the general reading public, or whether there are ten historical experts in the country who had tracked Lord Acton through the many devious periodicals in which he deposited the results of his genius and industry. These volumes, then, to all intents and purposes form a new book. It is to them, and not to the 'Cambridge Lectures, ' that we should look for Lord Acton's most finished literary work, for the expression of his deepest convictions upon the most profound problems of faith and morals, and for the most convincing proofs of the wide span of his interests and the inexhaustible arsenal of his knowledge. They enable us to understand the animating conception which guided his life of arduous toil, and indicate the lines of a historical apologetic for the Catholic Church more just, original, and profound than any which the writers of the Ultramontane School have offered. "

 _DAILY TELEGRAPH. _--"There is so much of fine thought and brilliant expression in these volumes, and so diverse a variety of themes, that it is difficult to do more than indicate the treasures which they offer to intelligent readers. "

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A LECTURE ONTHE STUDY OF HISTORY

DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, JUNE 11, 1895

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LECTURESONMODERN HISTORY

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, Litt. D. SOMETIME LECTURER IN ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

AND

REGINALD VERE LAURENCE, M. A. FELLOW AND LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 

 _TIMES. _--"The treatment is personal, fresh, and original throughout. Lucidity is unfailing. Learning is marshalled behind _every_ paragraph, and almost behind every sentence, and yet is never obtrusive. The lectures are equally adapted to illuminate the scholar and to introduce the novice to the study of the mighty scheme of human affairs in its dynamic flow. The selection of detail is governed by consummate judgment; and frequently information drawn from sources alien to the matter in hand is dropped into its place with a sureness and precision which astonishes; controversial questions, when introduced, are legitimately brought forward as an illustration of historical method, and not as the diversions and digressions of an overstocked mind. "

 _ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW. _--"Three hundred years of European history are covered in these nineteen lectures, masterpieces of lucid statement, of suggestive and stimulating criticism. Everywhere, whether the lecturer be sketching the salient features of the sixteenth century or of the eighteenth, whether he be dealing with Italy or America, we feel the sureness of touch of one who is familiar with every detail. Although we may often not agree with his trenchant judgments, with his paradoxes, or even with his interpretation of the teaching of history, we are made to feel that his ample knowledge would never have been at a loss for weighty arguments in answer to every objection. "

 _TRIBUNE. _--"The pages abound in indispensable corrections of popular and pedagogic errors, and in revelations of new facts. No one could do this so well as Acton, because no historical scholar who ever lived kept himself so well abreast of Continental research or so completely in touch with the world of scholars. All archives were open to him, and all archivists put their knowledge at his disposal; wealth, social position, and leisure gave him advantages denied to almost every other scholar. "

MACMILLAN AND CO. , Ltd. , LONDON.