THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 2

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1. 

by Hippolyte A. Taine

CONTENTS:

ANARCHY

PREFACE

BOOK FIRST. Spontaneous Anarchy. 

CHAPTER I. The Beginnings of Anarchy

CHAPTER II. Paris up to the 14th of July

CHAPTER III. Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789

CHAPTER IV. PARIS

BOOK SECOND. The constituent Assembly, and the Result of its Labors

CHAPTER I. The Constituent Assembly

CHAPTER II. The Damage

CHAPTER III. The Constructions--The Constitution of 1791. 

BOOK THIRD. The Application of the Constitution

CHAPTER I. The Federations

CHAPTER II. Sovereignty of Unrestrained Passions

CHAPTER III. Development of the ruling Passion

PREFACE

This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" willconsist of two volumes. --Popular insurrections and the laws of theConstituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France; thisforms the subject of the present volume. --A party arises aroundan extreme doctrine, grabs control of the government, and rules inconformity with its doctrine. This will form the subject of the secondvolume. 

A third volume would be required to criticize and evaluate the sourcematerial. I lack the necessary space: I merely state the rule that Ihave observed. The trustworthiest testimony will always be that of aneyewitness, especially

* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, and intelligent man, * When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the dictateof the facts themselves, * When it is obvious that his sole object is to preserve or furnishinformation, * When his work instead of a piece of polemics planned for the needsof a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular effect is alegal deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a privateletter, or a personal memento. 

The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it meritsconfidence, and supplies superior material. --I have found many ofthis kind in the national archives, principally in the manuscriptcorrespondence of ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, magistrates, andother functionaries; of military commanders, officers in the army, and gendarmerie; of royal commissioners, and of the Assembly; ofadministrators of departments, districts, and municipalities, besidespersons in private life who address the King, the National Assembly, orthe ministry. Among these are men of every rank, profession, education, and party. They are distributed by hundreds and thousands over thewhole surface of the territory. They write apart, without being able toconsult each other, and without even knowing each other. No one is sowell placed for collecting and transmitting accurate information. Noneof them seek literary effect, or even imagine that what they write willever be published. They draw up their statements at once, under thedirect impression of local events. Testimony of this character, of thehighest order, and at first hand, provides the means by which all othertestimony ought to be verified. --The footnotes at the bottom of thepages indicate the condition, office, name, and address of thosedecisive witnesses. For greater certainty I have transcribed as often aspossible their own words. In this way the reader, confronting the texts, can interpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he will havethe same documents as myself for arriving at his conclusions, and, if heis pleased to do so, he may conclude otherwise. As for allusions, if hefinds any, he himself will have introduced them, and if he applies themhe is alone responsible for them. To my mind, the past has features ofits own, and the portrait here presented resembles only the France ofthe past. I have drawn it without concerning myself with the discussionsof the day; I have written as if my subject were the revolutions ofFlorence or Athens. This is history, and nothing more, and, if I mayfully express myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too highly tomake a cloak of it for the concealment of another. (December 1877). 

*****

BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY. 

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY. 

I. --Dearth the first cause. 

 Bad crops. The winter of 1788 and 1789. --High price and poor quality of bread. --In the provinces. --At Paris. 

During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de laRochefoucauld-Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him ofthe taking of the Bastille. "It is a revolt, then?" exclaimed the King. "Sire!" replied the Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even moreserious. Not only had power slipped from the hands of the King, but alsoit had not fallen into those of the Assembly. It now lay on theground, ready to the hands of the unchained populace, the violent andover-excited crowd, the mobs, which picked it up like some weapon thathad been thrown away in the street. In fact, there was no longer anygovernment; the artificial structure of human society was giving wayentirely; things were returning to a state of nature. This was not arevolution, but a dissolution. 

Two causes excite and maintain the universal upheaval. The first one isfood shortages and dearth, which being constant, lasting for ten years, and aggravated by the very disturbances which it excites, bids fair toinflame the popular passions to madness, and change the whole course ofthe Revolution into a series of spasmodic stumbles. 

When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices to cause an overflow. So was it with the extreme distress of the eighteenth century. A poorman, who finds it difficult to live when bread is cheap, sees deathstaring him in the face when it is dear. In this state of suffering theanimal instinct revolts, and the universal obedience which constitutespublic peace depends on a degree more or less of dryness or damp, heator cold. In 1788, a year of severe drought, the crops had been poor. Inaddition to this, on the eve of the harvest, [1101] a terrible hail-stormburst over the region around Paris, from Normandy to Champagne, devastating sixty leagues of the most fertile territory, and causingdamage to the amount of one hundred millions of francs. Winter came on, the severest that had been seen since 1709. At the close of December theSeine was frozen over from Paris to Havre, while the thermometer stoodat 180 below zero. A third of the olive-trees died in Provence, and therest suffered to such an extent that they were considered incapable ofbearing fruit for two years to come. The same disaster befell Languedoc. In Vivarais, and in the Cevennes, whole forests of chestnuts hadperished, along with all the grain and grass crops on the uplands. Onthe plain the Rhone remained in a state of overflow for two months. After the spring of 1789 the famine spread everywhere, and it increasedfrom month to month like a rising flood. In vain did the Governmentorder the farmers, proprietors, and corn-dealers to keep the marketssupplied. In vain did it double the bounty on imports, resort to allsorts of expedients, involve itself in debt, and expend over fortymillions of francs to furnish France with wheat. In vain do individuals, princes, noblemen, bishops, chapters, and communities multiply theircharities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a debt of 400, 000 livres, one rich man distributing 40, 000 francs the morning after the hailstorm, and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred poor persons for sixweeks[1102]. But it had been too devastating. Neither public measuresnor private charity could meet the overwhelming need. In Normandy, wherethe last commercial treaty had ruined the manufacture of linen andof lace trimmings, forty thousand workmen were out of work. In manyparishes one-fourth of the population[1103] are beggars. Here, "nearlyall the inhabitants, not excepting the farmers and landowners, areeating barley bread and drinking water;" there, "many poor creatureshave to eat oat bread, and others soaked bran, which has caused thedeath of several children. "--"Above all, " writes the Rouen Parliament, "let help be sent to a perishing people. . . . Sire, most of yoursubjects are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is givento those who do buy it "--Arthur Young, [1104] who was traveling throughFrance at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and thedistress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound--that isto say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed artisans flockto the relief works, where they can earn only twelve sous a day. InLorraine, according to the testimony of all observers, "the people arehalf dead with hunger. " In Paris the number of paupers has been trebled;there are thirty thousand in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. AroundParis there is a short supply of grain, or it is spoilt[1105]. In thebeginning of July, at Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers couldnot have baked" if the police officers had not increased the price ofbread to five sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendantis able to send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in acondition to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the smallconsumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain. "At Villeneuve-le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two lots lastsent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed without wheat. " AtSens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent that buyers of it throwthe detestable bread, which it makes in the face of the sub-delegate. AtChevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells bad; the "poor wretches, "says an employee, "must be hard pressed with hunger to put up with it. "At Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away, produces more bran thanflour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to work it over severaltimes. " This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "ithas come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except throughwickets. " And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often attacked onthe road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people. "At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying morethan two bushels in the same market. " In short, provisions are soscarce that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the ministerdispatches two letters one after another to order the cutting downof 250, 000 bushels of rye before the harvest[1106]. Paris thus, ina perfect state of tranquility, appears like a famished city put onrations at the end of a long siege, and the dearth will not be greaternor the food worse in December 1870, than in July 1789. 

"The nearer the 14th of July approached, " says an eyewitness, [1107] "themore did the dearth increase. Every baker's shop was surrounded by acrowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy. This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producinginflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels. I have seen flour ofdetestable quality at the military school and at other depots. I haveseen portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; someforming blocks so hard that they had to be broken into fragmentsby repeated blows of a hatchet. For my own part, wearied with thedifficulty of procuring this poor bread, and disgusted with that offeredto me at the tables d'hôte, I avoided this kind of food altogether. Inthe evening I went to the Café du Caveau, where, fortunately, theywere kind enough to reserve for me two of those rolls which are calledflutes, and this is the only bread I have eaten for a week at a time. "

But this resource is only for the rich. As for the people, to get breadfit for dogs, they must stand in a line for hours. And here they fightfor it; "they snatch food from one another. " There is no more work tobe had; "the work-rooms are deserted;" often, after waiting a wholeday, the workman returns home empty-handed. When he does bring back afour-pound loaf it costs him 3 francs 12 sous; that is, 12 sous for thebread, and 3 francs for the lost day. In this long line of unemployed, excited men, swaying to and fro before the shop-door, dark thoughts arefermenting: "if the bakers find no flour to-night to bake with, we shallhave nothing to eat to-morrow. " An appalling idea;--in presence of whichthe whole power of the Government is not too strong; for to keep orderin the midst of famine nothing avails but the sight of an armed force, palpable and threatening. Under Louis XIV and Louis XV there had beeneven greater hunger and misery; but the outbreaks, which were roughlyand promptly put down, were only partial and passing disorders. Somerioters were at once hung, and others were sent to the galleys. Thepeasant or the workman, convinced of his impotence, at once returned tohis stall or his plow. When a wall is too high one does not even thinkof scaling it. --But now the wall is cracking--all its custodians, theclergy, the nobles, the Third-Estate, men of letters, the politicians, and even the Government itself, making the breach wider. The wretched, for the first time, discover an issue: they dash through it, at firstin driblets, then in a mass, and rebellion becomes as universal asresignation was in the past. 

II. --Expectations the second cause

 Separation and laxity of the administrative forces. -- Investigations of local assemblies. --The people become aware of their condition. --Convocation of the States- General. --Hope is born. The coincidence of early Assemblies with early difficulties. 

It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of light, and gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For the last fiftyyears it has been rising, and its rays, which first illuminated theupper class in their splendid apartments in the first story, and nextthe middle class in their entresol and on the ground floor. They havenow for two years penetrated to the cellars where the people toil, andeven to the deep sinks and obscure corners where rogues and vagabondsand malefactors, a foul and swarming herd, crowd and hide themselvesfrom the persecution of the law. --To the first two provincial assembliesinstituted by Necker in 1778 and 1779, Loménie de Brienne has in 1787just added nineteen others; under each of these are assemblies of thearrondissement, under each assembly of the arrondissement are parishassemblies[1108]. Thus the whole machinery of administration has beenchanged. It is the new assemblies which assess the taxes and superintendtheir collection; which determine upon and direct all public works; andwhich form the court of final appeal in regard to matters in dispute. The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected representative[1109], thuslose three-quarters of their authority. Conflicts arise, consequently, between rival powers whose frontiers are not clearly defined; commandshifts about, and obedience is diminished. The subject no longer feelson his shoulders the commanding weight of the one hand which, withoutpossibility of interference or resistance, held him in, urged himforward, and made him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of theparish arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians, "husband-men, "[1110] and often common farmers, sit by the side of lordsand prelates. They listen to and remember the vast figure of the taxeswhich are paid exclusively, or almost exclusively, by them--the tailleand its accessories, the poll-tax and road dues, and assuredly on theirreturn home they talk all this over with their neighbor. These figuresare all printed; the village attorney discusses the matter with hisclients, the artisans and rustics, on Sunday as they leave the mass, or in the evening in the large public room of the tavern. These littlegatherings, moreover, are sanctioned, encouraged by the powers above. In the earliest days of 1788 the provincial assemblies order a boardof inquiry to be held by the syndics and inhabitants of each parish. Knowledge is wanted in detail of their grievances. What part of therevenue is chargeable to each impost? What must the cultivator pay andhow much does he suffer? How many privileged persons there are in theparish, what is the amount of their fortune, are they residents, andwhat their exemptions amount to? In replying, the attorney who holds thepen, names and points out with his finger each privileged individual, criticizes his way of living, and estimates his fortune, calculates theinjury done to the village by his immunities, inveighs against the taxesand the tax-collectors. On leaving these assemblies the villager broodsover what he has just heard. He sees his grievances no longer singly asbefore, but in mass, and coupled with the enormity of evils under whichhis fellows suffer. Besides this, they begin to disentangle the causesof their misery: the King is good--why then do his collectors take somuch of our money? This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind--whythen do they make us pay in their place?--Imagine that a sudden gleam ofreason should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast betweenthe species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its firstideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who bridleand whip it and again in relation to the good-natured travelers andsensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of the vehicle addtheir own and that of their luggage. 

Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed brooding, anew idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded:--that of an oppressedmultitude of which he makes one, a vast herd scattered far beyond thevisible horizon, everywhere ill used, starved, and fleeced. Towards theend of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendantsand military commandants the dull universal muttering of comingwrath. Men's characters seem to change; they become suspicious andrestive. --And just at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to direct themselves. [1111]. In the month of November1787, the King declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the5th of July 1788, he calls for memoranda (des mémoires) on this subjectfrom every competent person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes thedate of the session. On the 5th of October he convokes the notables, in order to consider the subject with them. On the 27th of December hegrants a double representation to the Third-Estate, because "its causeis allied with generous sentiments, and it will always obtain thesupport of public opinion. " The same day he introduces into theelectoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of curés[1112], "becausegood and useful pastors are daily and closely associated with theindigence and relief of the people, " from which it follows "that theyare much more familiar with their sufferings" and necessities. Onthe 24th January 1789, he prescribes the procedure and method of themeetings. After the 7th of February writs of summons are sent out oneafter the other. Eight days after, each parish assembly begins to drawup its memorial of grievances, and becomes excited over the detailedenumeration of all the miseries which it sets down in writing. --Allthese appeals and all these acts are so many strokes, which reverberate, in the popular imagination. "It is the desire of His Majesty, " says theorder issued, "that every one, from the extremities of his kingdom, andfrom the most obscure of its hamlets, should be certain of his wishesand protests reaching him. " Thus, it is all quite true: there can beno mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are invited to speakout, they are summoned, and they are consulted. There is a dispositionto relieve them; henceforth their misery shall be less; better timesare coming. This is all they know about it. A few month after, inJuly, [1113] the only answer a peasant girl can make to Arthur Young is, "something was to be done by some great folks for such poor ones, butshe did not know who nor how. " The thing is too complicated, beyond thereach of a stupefied and mechanical brain. --One idea alone emerges, thehope of immediate relief. The persuasion that one is entitled to it, theresolution to aid it with every possible means. Consequently, an anxiouswaiting, a ready fervor, a tension of the will simply due to the waitingfor the opportunity to let go and take off like a irresistible arrowtowards the unknown end which will reveal itself all of a sudden. Hungeris to mark this sudden target out for them. 

The market must be supplied with wheat; the farmers and land-owners mustbring it; wholesale buyers, whether the Government or individuals, mustnot be allowed to send it elsewhere. The wheat must be sold at a lowprice; the price must be cut down and fixed, so that the baker can sellbread at two sous the pound. Grain, flour, wine, salt, and provisionsmust pay no more duties. Seignorial dues and claims, ecclesiasticaltithes, and royal or municipal taxes must no longer exist. On thestrength of this idea disturbances broke out on all sides in March, April, and May. Contemporaries "do not know what to think of sucha scourge;[1114] they cannot comprehend how such a vast number ofcriminals, without visible leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhereto commit the same excesses just at the time when the States-General aregoing to begin their sittings. " The reason is that, under the ancientrégime, the conflagration was smoldering in a closed chamber; the greatdoor is suddenly opened, the air enters, and immediately the flamebreaks out. 

III. --The provinces during the first six months of 1789

 Effects of the famine. 

At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which areextinguished or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the sameplace, or very near it, the sparks again appear. Their number, liketheir recurrence, shows the vastness, depth, and heat of the combustiblematter, which is about to explode. In the four months, which precede thetaking of the Bastille, over three hundred outbreaks may be counted inFrance. They take place from month to month and from week to week, inPoitou, Brittany, Touraine, Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, andProvence. On the 28th of May the parliament of Rouen announces robberiesof grain, "violent and bloody tumults, in which men on both sides havefallen, " throughout the province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain, Granville, Evreux, Bernay, Pont-Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in other sectionsbesides. On the 20th of April Baron de Bezenval, military commanderin the Central Provinces, writes: "I once more lay before M. Necker apicture of the frightful condition of Touraine and of Orléanais. Everyletter I receive from these two provinces is the narrative of threeor four riots, which are put down with difficulty by the troops andconstabulary, "[1115]--and throughout the whole extent of the kingdom asimilar state of things is seen. The women, as is natural, are generallyat the head of these outbreaks. It is they who, at Montlhéry, rip openthe sacks of grain with their scissors. On learning each week, on marketday that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four, or sevensous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread, withthe small salaries of the men, and when work fails, [1116] how can afamily be fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the doors ofthe bakers. Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the crowd makes apush; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked down. The shopis invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the buyers and of thefamished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no pay, and runningaway with the booty. --Sometimes a party is made up beforehand[1117]At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the villagers for four leaguesaround, armed with stones, knives, and cudgels, to the number of fourthousand, compel the metayers and farmers, who have brought grain withthem, to sell it at 3 livres, instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel. They threaten to do the same thing on the following market-day: but thefarmers do not return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers mustbe at hand, or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, inLanguedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with cudgelsand assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town, threatening to burnand destroy everything if flour and money are not given to them. "They go to private houses for grain, divide it amongst themselves at areduced price, "promising to pay when the next crop comes round, " andforce the Consuls to put bread at two sous the pound, and to increasethe day's wages four sous. --Indeed this is now the regular thing; it isnot the people who obey the authorities, but the authorities who obeythe people. Consuls, sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; theyfeel that they are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of thewindows. Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowdis mad, and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping that at the next market-day there will be more soldiersand better precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violentoutbreak, "[1118] they decide to take the wheat belonging to the Jacobinmonks, and, protected by the troops, to sell it to the people at a thirdbelow its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is attacked, they areforced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At Angoulême, toavoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to renouncehis dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of bread, andcompensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated they leteverything take its course; the people sack their dwellings and get theupper hand; they announce by sound of trumpet that all their demands aregranted. On other occasions, the mob dispenses with their services andacts for itself. If there happens to be no grain on the market-place, the people go after it wherever they can find it--to proprietors andfarmers who are unable to bring it for fear of pillage; to convents, which by royal edict are obliged always to have one year's crop instore; to granaries where the Government keeps its supplies; and toconvoys which are dispatched by the intendants to the relief of famishedtowns. Each for himself--so much the worse for his neighbor. Theinhabitants of Fougères beat and drive out those who come from Ernéeto buy in their market; a similar violence is shown at Vitré to thein-habitants of Maine. [1119] At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grainstarted for Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didierthat ordered for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. Invain are escorts added to the convoys; troops of men and women, armedwith hatchets and guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods along theroad, and seize the horses by their bridles; the saber has to be used tosecure any advance. In vain are arguments and kind words offered, "andin vain even is wheat offered for money; they refuse, shouting out thatthe convoy shall not go on. " They have taken a stubborn stand, theirresolution being that of a bull planted in the middle of the road andlowering his horns. Since the wheat is in the district, it is theirs;whoever carries it off or withholds it is a robber. This fixed ideacannot be driven out of their minds. At Chant-nay, near Mans, [1120]they prevent a miller from carrying that which he had just bought tohis mill. At Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act ofsending his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in forceto gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is foundis nearly killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the tapsrunning. At Nevers, the bakers not having put bread on their countersfor four days, the mob force the granaries of private persons, ofdealers and religious communities. "The frightened corn-dealers partwith their grain at any price; most of it is stolen in the face of theguards, " and, in the tumult of these searches of homes, a number ofhouses are sacked. --In these days woe to all who are concerned in theacquisition, commerce, and manipulation of grain! Popular imaginationrequires living beings to who it may impute its misfortunes, and on whomit may gratify its resentments. To it, all such persons are monopolists, and, at any rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictineestablishment is invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated. [1121]At Amiens "the people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn thehouses of two merchants, who have built labor-saving mills. " Restrainedby the soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other"groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three personswhom they suspect of being monopolists. " At Nantes, a sieur Geslin, being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and finding no wheat, a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an accomplice! The crowd rushat him, and he is wounded and almost cut in pieces. --It is very evidentthat there is no more security in France; property, even life, is indanger. The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced and precarious. The local officials everywherecall for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demandregular troops. And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only theblind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts whichprofit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every politicalcommotion frees from restraint. 

IV. --Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds. 

We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt, poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[1122] have become, and how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many recruitsfor the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbanceeach one of them fills his pouch. Around Caux, [1123] even up to theenvirons of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quévrevilly, Préaux, Saint-Jacques, and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits forcetheir way into the houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay theirhands on whatever they please. To the south of Chartres "three or fourhundred woodcutters, from the forests of Bellème, chop away everythingthat opposes them, and force grain to be given up to them at their ownprice. " In the vicinity of Étampes, fifteen bandits enter thefarmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him witha conflagration. In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, ofVerger, and of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de Besselard, theestate of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing along theroad to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy. "The seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy andCambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license ofthat pursuit. " The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by thebandits. Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one whois half-honest, and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in spite ofhimself; repeats the act, allured on by impunity or by gain. In fact, "it is not dire necessity which impels them;" they make a speculation ofcupidity, a new sort of illicit trade. An old soldier, saber in hand, aforest-keeper, and "about eight persons sufficiently lax, put themselvesat the head of four or five hundred men, go off each day to three orfour villages. Here they force everybody who has any wheat to give itto them at 24 livres, " and even at 18 livres, the sack. Those among theband, who say that they have no money, carry away their portion withoutpayment. Others, after having paid what they please, re-sell at aprofit, which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a goodbusiness, and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. Atthe next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatenedto come and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle andsell the meat in the villages at the rate of two sous the pound. "--Inevery important insurrection there are similar evil-does and vagabonds, enemies to the law, savage, prowling desperadoes, who, like wolves, roamabout wherever they scent a prey. It is they who serve as the directorsand executioners of public or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-fivemasked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire apistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registersalong with the title-deeds and papers which he has in keeping for theCount de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are ontheir side, and fall on the constabulary and free them. [1124]--Theyare known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake ofdestruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and theirrags. Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, thetown is at their mercy. [1125] The stores are forced open, train wagonsare discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put toransom. They invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begunproceedings against them, and want to tear him to pieces. They break hismirrors and his furniture, leave the premises laden with booty, and gointo the town and its outskirts to pillage the manufactories and breakup or burn all the machinery. --Henceforth these constitute the newleaders: for in every mob it is the boldest and least scrupulouswho march ahead and set the example in destruction. The example iscontagious: the beginning was the craving for bread, the end is murderand arson; the savagery which is unchained adding its unlimited violenceto the limited revolt of necessity. 

V. --Effect on the Population of the New Ideas. 

Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in spiteof the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it irresistible isthe belief of its being authorized, and that by those whose duty it isto repress it. Here and there words and actions of a brutal franknessbreak forth, and reveal beyond the somber present a more threateningfuture--After the 9th of January, 1789, among the mob which attacks theHôtel-de-Ville and besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vivela Liberté![1126] mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard. " Afew months later, around Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes, alleging that the memorial of their seneschal's court demands theirabolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in manyplaces;" many of the communities even maintain that they will pay nomore taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall have fixedthe precise amount of the public contributions. In Isère it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal dues" shall nolonger be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this darenot prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to theconclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease, " and, on the 29th ofJune, on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, "astonished by theilluminations and signs of public rejoicing, " they believe that the goodtime has come. " They think of forcing the delivery of meat to them atfour sous the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuateto them the prospective abolition of octrois. [1127] and that, meanwhile, the King, in favor of the re-assembling of the three orders, has grantedthree days' freedom from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons oughtto enjoy the same privilege. " Upon this the crowd, rushing off tothe barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and Perrache, and to theGuillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the registers, sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and pillage thewine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor has circulated allround through the country that there is free entrance into the town forall provisions. During the following days the peasantry stream in withenormous files of wagons loaded with wine and drawn by several oxen, sothat, in spite of the re-established guard, it is necessary to let thementer all day without paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of Julythat these can again be collected. --The same thing occurs in thesouthern provinces, where the principal imposts are levied onprovisions. There also the collections are suspended in the name ofpublic authority. At Agde, [1128] "the people, considering the so-calledwill of the King as to equality of classes, are foolish enough to thinkthat they are everything and can do everything. " Thus do they interpretin their own way and in their own terms the double representationaccorded to the Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently, withgeneral pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and ifthe duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not suppressed. They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of theirbody. " The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables, against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, areobliged to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their demands shall begranted. Three days afterwards they exact a diminution of one-half ofthe tax on grinding, and go in quest of the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill, sinks down in the street and seats himself ona stone; they compel him forthwith to sign an act of renunciation, and hence "his mill, valued at 15, 000 livres, is reduced to 7, 500livres. "--At Limoux, under the pretext of searching for grain, theyenter the houses of the comptroller and tax contractors, carry off theirregisters, and throw them into the water along with the furniture oftheir clerks. --In Provence it is worse; for most unjustly, and throughinconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are all levied onflour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread isdirectly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest enemy, and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrectionsagainst the State. 

VI. --The first jacquerie in Province

 Feebleness or ineffectiveness of repressive measures. 

Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the massof gunpowder. Everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place onthe very day on which the electoral assembly meets. From forty tofifty riots occur in the provinces in less than a fortnight. Popularimagination, like that of a child, goes straight to its mark. Thereforms having been announced, people think them accomplished and, tomake sure of them, steps are at once taken to carry them out. Nowthat we are to have relief, let us relieve ourselves. "This is not anisolated riot as usual, " writes the commander of the troops;[1129]"here the faction is united and governed by uniform principles; the sameerrors are diffused through all minds. . . . . The principles impressedon the people are that the King desires equality. No more bishopsor lords, no more distinctions of rank, no tithes, and no seignorialprivileges. Thus, these misguided people fancy that they are exercisingtheir rights, and obeying the will of the King. "--The effect of sonorousphrases is apparent. The people have been told that the States-Generalwere to bring about the "regeneration of the kingdom" The inference is"that the date of their assembly was to be one of an entire and absolutechange of conditions and fortunes. " Hence, "the insurrection against thenobles and the clergy is as active as it is widespread. " "In manyplaces it was distinctly announced that there was a sort of war declaredagainst landowners and property, " and "in the towns as well as in therural districts the people persist in declaring that they will paynothing, neither taxes, duties, nor debts. "--Naturally, the firstassault is against the piquèt, or flour-tax. At Aix, Marseilles, Toulon, and in more than forty towns and market-villages, this is summarilyabolished; at Aupt and at Luc nothing remains of the weighing-house butthe four walls. At Marseilles the home of the slaughter-house contractorand at Brignolles that of the director of the leather excise, aresacked. The determination is "to purge the land of excise-men. "--Thisis only a beginning; bread and other provisions must become cheap, andthat without delay. At Arles, the Corporation of sailors, presided overby M. De Barras, consul, had just elected its representatives. By way ofconclusion to the meeting, they pass a resolution insisting that M. DeBarras should reduce the price of all comestibles. On his refusal, they"open the window, exclaiming, 'We hold him, and we have only to throwhim into the street for the rest to pick him up. '" Compliance isinevitable. The resolution is proclaimed by the town-criers, and at eacharticle which is reduced in price the crowd shout, "Vive le Roi, vive M. Barras!"--One must yield to brute force. But the inconvenience is greatfor, through the suppression of the flour-tax, the towns have no longera revenue. On the other hand, as they are obliged to indemnify thebutchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of 2, 500 livresa day. 

In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion ofhaving contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils, which thepeople endure! At Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor, whosigns the tax-list, and of the keeper of the records. They are troddenunder foot, and their houses are ransacked. At Manosque, the Bishopof Sisteron, who is visiting the seminary, is accused of favoringa monopolist. On his way to his carriage, on foot, he is hooted andmenaced. He is first pelted with mud, and then with stones. The consulsin attendance, and the sub-delegate, who come to his assistance, aremauled and repulsed. Meanwhile, some of the most furious begin, beforehis eyes, "to dig a ditch to bury him in. " Protected by five or sixbrave fellows, amidst a volley of stones, and wounded on the head andon many parts of his body, he succeeds in reaching his carriage. He isfinally only saved because the horses, which are likewise stoned, runaway. Foreigners, Italians, bandits, are mingled with the peasants andartisans, and expressions are heard and acts are seen which indicate ajacquerie. [1130] "The most excited said to the bishop, 'we are poor andyou are rich, and we mean to have all your property. '"[1131] Elsewhere, "the seditious mob exacts contributions from all people in goodcircumstances. At Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged from top tobottom, and thirty others partly half. --At Aupt, M. De Montferrat, indefending himself, is killed and "hacked to pieces. "--At La Seyne, themob, led by a peasant, assembles by beat of drum. Some women fetch abier, and set it down before the house of a leading bourgeois, tellinghim to prepare for death, and that "they will have the honor of buryinghim. " He escapes; his house is pillaged, as well as the bureau ofthe flour-tax. The following day, the chief of the band "obliges theprincipal inhabitants to give him a sum of money to indemnify, as hestates it, the peasants who have abandoned their work, " and devoted theday to serving the public. --At Peinier, the Président de Peinier, anoctogenarian, is "besieged in his chateau by a band of a hundred andfifty artisans and peasants, " who bring with them a consul and a notary. Aided by these two functionaries, they force the president "to pass anact by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every description"--At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M. De Forbin-Janson. They sack the house of his business agent, pillage the château, anddemolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings, and escutcheons. They enterthe cellars, stave in the casks, and carry away everything that canbe carried, "the transportation taking two days;" all of which causedamages of a hundred thousand crowns to the marquis. --At Riez theysurround the episcopal palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "andcompromise with the bishop on a promise of fifty thousand livres, " andwant him to burn his archives. --In short, the sedition is social for itsingles out for attack all that profit by, or stand at the head of, theestablished order of things. 

Seeing them act in this way, one would say that the theory of theContrat-Social had been instilled into them. They treat magistrates asdomestics, promulgate laws, and conduct themselves like sovereigns. They exercise public power, and establish, summarily, arbitrarily, and brutally, whatever they think to be in conformity with naturalright. --At Peinier they exact a second electoral assembly, and, forthemselves, the right of suffrage. --At Saint-Maximin they themselveselect new consuls and officers of justice. --At Solliez they oblige thejudge's lieutenant to give in his resignation, and they break hisstaff of office. --At Barjols "they use consuls and judges as their townservants, announcing that they are masters and that they will themselvesadminister justice. "--In fact, they do administer it, as they understandit--that is to say, through many exactions and robberies! One man haswheat; he must share it with him who has none. Another has money;he must give it to him who has not enough to buy bread with. On thisprinciple, at Barjols, they tax the Ursulin nuns 1, 800 livres, carry offfifty loads of wheat from the Chapter, eighteen from one poor artisan, and forty from another, and constrain canons and beneficiaries to giveacquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with clubin hand, they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon theirclaims on their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings, another to nullify a decree obtained, a third to reimburse the expensesof a lawsuit gained years before, a father to give his consent to themarriage of his son. "--All their grievances are brought to mind, and weall know the tenacity of a peasant's memory. Having become the master, he redresses wrongs, and especially those of which he thinks himself theobject. There must be a general restitution; and first, of the feudaldues which have been collected. They take of M. De Montmeyan's businessagent all the money he has as compensation for that received by himduring fifteen years as a notary. A former consul of Brignolles had, in1775, inflicted penalties to the amount of 1, 500 or 1, 800 francs, whichhad been given to the poor; this sum is taken from his strong box. Moreover, if consuls and law officers are wrongdoers, the title deeds, rent-rolls, and other documents by which they do their businessare still worse. To the fire with all old writings--not only officeregisters, but also, at Hyères, all the papers in the town hall andthose of the principal notary. --In the matter of papers none aregood but new ones--those which convey some discharge, quittance, orobligation to the advantage of the people. At Brignolles the owners ofthe gristmills are constrained to execute a contract of sale by whichthey convey their mills to the commune in consideration of 5, 000 francsper annum, payable in ten years without interest--an arrangement whichruins them. On seeing the contract signed the peasants shout and cheer, and so great is their faith in this piece of stamped paper that they atonce cause a mass of thanksgiving to be celebrated in the Cordeliers. Formidable omens these! Which mark the inward purpose, the determinedwill, and the coming deeds of this rising power. If it prevails, itsfirst work will be to destroy all ancient documents, all title deeds, rent-rolls, contracts, and claims to which force compels it to submit. By force likewise it will draw up others to its own advantage, and thescribes who do it will be its own deputies and administrators whom itholds in its rude grasp. 

Those who are in high places are not alarmed; they even find that thereis some good in the revolt, inasmuch as it compels the towns to suppressunjust taxation. [1132] The new Marseilles guard, formed of young men, isallowed to march to Aubagne, "to insist that M. Le lieutenant crimineland M. L'avocat du Roi release the prisoners. " The disobedience ofMarseilles, which refuses to receive the magistrates sent under letterspatent to take testimony, is tolerated. And better still, in spiteof the remonstrances of the parliament of Aix, a general amnesty isproclaimed; "no one is excepted but a few of the leaders, to whom isallowed the liberty of leaving the kingdom. " The mildness of the Kingand of the military authorities is admirable. It is admitted that thepeople are children, that they err only through ignorance, that faithmust be had in their repentance, and, as soon as they return to order, they must be received with paternal effusions. --The truth is, that thechild is a blind Colossus, exasperated by sufferings. Hence whatever ittakes hold of is shattered--not only the local wheels of the provinces, which, if temporarily deranged, may be repaired, but even the incentiveat the center which puts the rest in motion, and the destruction ofwhich will throw the whole machinery into confusion. 

*****

[Footnote 1101: Marmontel, "Mémoires, " II. 221. --Albert Babeau, "Histoire de la Révolution Française, " I. 91, 187. (Letter by Huez Mayorof Troyes, July 30, 1788. )--Archives Nationales, H. 1274. (Letter by M. De Caraman, April 22, 1789. ) H. 942 (Cahier des demandes des Etats deLanguedoc). --Buchez et Roux, "Histoire Parlementaire, " I. 283. ]

[Footnote 1102: See "The Ancient Régime, " p. 34. Albert Babeau, I. 91. (The Bishop of Troyes gives 12, 000 francs, and the chapter 6, 000, forthe relief workshops. )]

[Footnote 1103: "The Ancient Regime, " 350, 387. --Floquet, "Histoire duParlement de Normandie, " VII. 505-518. (Reports of the Parliament ofNormandy, May 3, 1788. Letter from the Parliament to the King, July 15, 1789. )]

[Footnote 1104: Arthur Young, "Voyages in France, " June 29th, July 2ndand 18th--" Journal de Paris, " January 2, 1789. Letter of the curé ofSainte-Marguerite. ]

[Footnote 1105: Buchez and Roux, IV. 79-82. (Letter from theintermediary bureau of Montereau, July 9, 1789; from the maire ofVilleneuve-le-Roi, July 10th; from M. Baudry, July 10th; from M. Prioreau, July 11th, etc. )--Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution deFrance, " 2nd part, ch. XXI, p. 5. ]

[Footnote 1106: Roux et Buchez, ibid. "It is very unfortunate, " writesthe Marquis d'Autichamp, "to be obliged to cut down the standing cropsready to be gathered in; but it is dangerous to let the troops die ofhunger. "]

[Footnote 1107: Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France, "ch. XXXIX, V, 37. --De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant laRévolution, " p. 5l3. --Deposition of Maillard (Criminal Inquiry of theChâtelet concerning the events of October 5th and 6th). ]

[Footnote 1108: De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, "272-290. De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées provinciales, " 109. Procès-verbauxdes assemblées provinciales, passim. ]

[Footnote 1109: A magistrate who gives judgment in a lower court incases relative to taxation. These terms are retained because there areno equivalents in English. (Tr. )]

[Footnote 1110: "Laboureurs, "--this term, at this epoch, is applied tothose who till their own land. (Tr. )]

[Footnote 1111: Duvergier. "Collection des lois et décrets, " I. 1 to 23, and particularly p. 15. ]

[Footnote 1112: Parish priests. (SR. )]

[Footnote 1113: Arthur Young, July 12th, 1789 (in Champagne). ]

[Footnote 1114: Montjoie, 1st part, 102. ]

[Footnote 1115: Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie, " VII. 508. --" Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. ]

[Footnote 1116: Arthur Young, June 29th (at Nangis). ]

[Footnote 1117: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the Ducde Mortemart, Seigneur of Bray, May 4th; of M. De Ballainvilliers, intendant of Languedoc, April 15th. ]

[Footnote 1118: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the intendant, M. D'Agay, April 30th; of the municipal officers of Nantes, January9th; of the intendant, M. Meulan d'Ablois, June 22nd; of M. DeBallainvilliers, April 15th. ]

[Footnote 1119: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the Count deLangeron, July 4th; of M. De Meulan d'Ablois, June 5th; "Minutes ofthe meeting of la Maréchaussée de Bost, " April 29th. Letters of M. DeChazerat, May 29th; of M. De Bezenval, June 2nd; of the intendant, M. Amelot, April 25th. ]

[Footnote 1120: '"Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of M. DeBezenval, May 27th; of M. De Ballainvilliers, April 25th; of M. DeFoullonde, April 19th. ]

[Footnote 1121: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the intendant, M. D'Aine, March 12th; of M. D'Agay, April 30th; of M. Amelot, April25th; of the municipal authorities of Nantes, January 9th, etc. ]

[Footnote 1122: "The Ancient Régime, " pp. 380-389. ]

[Footnote 1123: Floquet, VII. 508, (Report of February 27th). --Hippeau, "La Gouvernement de Normandie, " IV. 377. (Letter of M. Perrot, June23rd. )--" Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of M. De Sainte-Suzanne, April 29th. Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of M. De Rochambeau, May 16th Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of the Abbé Duplaquet, Deputy of the Third Estate ofSaint-Quentin, May 17th. Letter of three husbandmen in the environs ofSaint-Quentin, May 14th. ]

[Footnote 1124: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the Count dePerigord, military commandant of Languedoc, April 22nd. ]

[Footnote 1125: Floquet, VII. 511 (from the 11th to the 14th July). ]

[Footnote 1126: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the municipalauthorities of Nantes, January 9th; of the sub-delegate of Ploërmel, July 4th; ibid. F7, 2353. Letter of the intermediary commission ofAlsace, September 8th ibid. F7, 3227. Letter of the intendant, Caze dela Bove, June 16th; ibid. H. 1453. Letter of Terray, intendant of Lyons, July 4th; of the prévot des échevins, July 5th and 7th. ]

[Footnote 1127: (A tax on all goods entering a town. SR. )]

[Footnote 1128: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of the mayor andcouncils of Agde, April 21st; of M. De Perigord, April 19th, May 5th. ]

[Footnote 1129: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letters of M. DeCaraman, March 23rd, 26th 27th 28th; of the seneschal Missiessy, March24th; of the mayor of Hyères, March 25th, etc. ; ibid. H. 1274; of M. DeMontmayran, April 2nd; of M. De Caraman, March 18th, April 12th; ofthe intendant, M. De la Tour, April 2nd; of the procureur-géneral, M. D'Antheman, April 17th, and the report of June 15th; of the municipalauthorities of Toulon, April 11th; of the sub-delegate of Manosque, March 14th; of M. De Saint-Tropez, March 21st. --Minutes of the meeting, signed by 119 witnesses, of the insurrection at Aix, March 5th, etc. ]

[Footnote 1130: An uprising of the peasants. The term is used toindicate a country mob in contradistinction to a city or town mob. -Tr. ]

[Footnote 1131: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1274. Letter of M. De la Tour, April 2nd (with a detailed memorandum and depositions). ]

[Footnote 1132: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1274. Letter of M. De Caraman, April 22nd:--"One real benefit results from this misfortune. . . Thewell-to-do class is brought to sustain that which exceeded the strengthof the poor daily laborers. We see the nobles and people in goodcircumstances a little more attentive to the poor peasants: they are nowhabituated to speaking to them with more gentleness. " M. De Caramanwas wounded, as well as his Son, at Aix, and if the Soldiery, who werestoned, at length fired on the crowd, he did not give the order. --Ibid, letter of M. D'Anthéman, April 17th; of M. De Barentin, June 11th. ]

CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY. 

I. --Mob recruits in the vicinity

 Entry of vagabonds. --The number of paupers. 

INDEED it is in the center that the convulsive shocks are strongest. Nothing is lacking to aggravate the insurrection--neither the liveliestprovocation to stimulate it, nor the most numerous bands to carry itout. The environs of Paris all furnish recruits for it; nowhere arethere so many miserable wretches, so many of the famished, and so manyrebellious beings. Robberies of grain take place everywhere--atOrleans, at Cosne, at Rambouillet, at Jouy, at Pont-Saint-Maxence, atBray-sur-Seine, at Sens, at Nangis. [1201] Wheat flour is so scarce atMeudon, that every purchaser is ordered to buy at the same time an equalquantity of barley. At Viroflay, thirty women, with a rear-guard of men, stop on the main road vehicles, which they suppose to be loaded withgrain. At Montlhéry stones and clubs disperse seven brigades of thepolice. An immense throng of eight thousand persons, women and men, provided with bags, fall upon the grain exposed for sale. They force thedelivery to them of wheat worth 40 francs at 24 francs, pillaging thehalf of it and conveying it off without payment. "The constabulary isdisheartened, " writes the sub-delegate; "the determination of the peopleis wonderful; I am frightened at what I have seen and heard. "--Afterthe 13th of July, 1788, the day of the hail-storm, despair seizedthe peasantry; well disposed as the proprietors may have been, it wasimpossible to assist them. "Not a workshop is open;[1202] the noblemenand the bourgeois, obliged to grant delays in the payment of theirincomes, can give no work. " Accordingly, "the famished people are onthe point of risking life for life, " and, publicly and boldly, theyseek food wherever it can be found. At Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Eragny, Neuville, Chenevières, at Cergy, Pontoise, Ile-Adam, Presle, andBeaumont, men, women, and children, the hole parish, range the country, set snares, and destroy the burrows. "The rumor is current that theGovernment, informed of the damage done by the game to cultivators, allows its destruction. . . And really the hares ravaged about a fifthof the crop. At first an arrest is made of nine of these poachers; butthey are released, "taking circumstances into account. " Consequently, for two months, there is a slaughter on the property of the Prince deConti and of the Ambassador Mercy d'Argenteau; in default of breadthey eat rabbits. --Along with the abuse of property they are led, by anatural impulse, to attack property itself. Near Saint-Denis the woodsbelonging to the abbey are devastated. "The farmers of the neighborhoodcarry away loads of wood, drawn by four and five horses;" theinhabitants of the villages of Ville-Parisis, Tremblay, Vert-Galant, Villepinte, sell it publicly, and threaten the wood-rangers with abeating. On the 15th of June the damage is already estimated at 60, 000livres. --It makes little difference whether the proprietor has beenbenevolent, like M. De Talaru, [1203] who had supported the poor on hisestate at Issy the preceding winter. The peasants destroy the dike whichconducts water to his communal mill; condemned by the parliament torestore it, they declare that not only will they not obey. Should M. DeTalaru try to rebuild it they will return with three hundred armed men, and tear it away the second time. 

For those who are most compromised Paris is the nearest refuge. For thepoorest and most exasperated, the door of nomadic life stands wideopen. Bands rise up around the capital, just as in countries where humansociety has not yet been formed, or has ceased to exist. During thefirst two weeks of May[1204] near Villejuif a band of five or sixhundred vagabonds strive to force Bicêtre and approach Saint-Cloud. Theyarrive from thirty, forty, and sixty leagues off, from Champagne, fromLorraine, from the whole circuit of country devastated by the hailstorm. All hover around Paris and are there engulfed as in a sewer, theunfortunate along with criminals, some to find work, others to beg andto rove about under the injurious prompting of hunger and the rumorsof the public thoroughfares. During the last days of April, [1205] theclerks at the tollhouses note the entrance of "a frightful number ofpoorly clad men of sinister aspect. " During the first days of May achange in the appearance of the crowd is remarked. There mingle in it"a number of foreigners, from all countries, most of them in rags, armedwith big sticks, and whose very aspect announces what is to be fearedfrom them. " Already, before this final influx, the public sink isfull to overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase ofpopulation in Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by recentdemolition and constructions. Think of all the craftsmen whom thestagnation of manufactures, the augmentation of octrois, the rigor ofwinter, and the dearness of bread have reduced to extreme distress. Remember that in 1786 "two hundred thousand persons are counted whoseproperty, all told, has not the intrinsic worth of fifty crowns. "Remember that, from time immemorial, these have been at war with thecity watchmen. Remember that in 1789 there are twenty thousand poachersin the capital and that, to provide them with work, it is foundnecessary to establish national workshops. Remember "that twelvethousand are kept uselessly occupied digging on the hill of Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and quays arecovered with them, that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them, andthat, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity ofdisarmed justice. " Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doorsof the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure ofobtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which theywill storm any obstacle to which their attention may be directed. 

II. The Press. 

 Excitement of the press and of opinion. --The people make their choice. 

Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two years, it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the entireancient régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the people issure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than he choosesto lead. --The moment the Parliament of a large city refuses to registerfiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service. On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads of the soldiery, and themilitary force is powerless. At Rennes, to put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent camp of four regiments of infantryand two of cavalry, under the command of a Marshal of France, isrequired. [1206]--The following year, when the Parliaments now sidewith the privileged class, the disturbances again begin, but this timeagainst the Parliaments. In February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, themagistrates are hooted at, chased in the streets, besieged in the townhall, and obliged to conceal themselves or take to flight. --If suchis the disposition in the provincial capitals, what must it be in thecapital of the kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, afterthe dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the PlaceDauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy, disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody asthis, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot bursts outa second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go and burn theresidences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the lieutenant ofpolice. --Clearly a new ferment has been infused among the ignorant andbrutal masses, and the new ideas are producing their effect. They havefor a long time imperceptibly been filtering downwards from layerto layer After having gained over the aristocracy, the whole of thelettered portion of the Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all theyoung, they have insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousandfissures into the class which supports itself by the labor of its ownhands. Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, andaffirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers, purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same diatribesand the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, onthe promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out beforethe lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquencepoured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of theartisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier. 

Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent intopolitical passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of theKing, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody, both speech and the press alter in tone. [1207] Instead of generalconversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with a viewto practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand, preaching asshrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet. Revolutionary pamphletsappear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers?" by Sieyès;"Mémoire pour le Peuple Français, " by Cerutti; "Considerations sur lesIntérêts des Tiers-Etat, " by Rabtau Saint-Etienne; "Ma Pétition, " byTarget; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux, " by M. D'Entraigues, and, alittle later, "La France libre, " par Camille Desmoulins, and others byhundreds and thousands. [1208] All of which are repeated and amplifiedin the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to declaim andincrease their own excitement. [1209] The unanimous, universal and dailyshout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs, into markets, workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789, Necker avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and thateven the troops are not to be relied on. " In the month of May, thefisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls come torecommend the interests of the people to the bodies of electors, and tosing rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the month of June pamphletsare in all hands; "even lackeys are poring over them at the gatesof hotels. " In the month of July, as the King is signing an order, apatriotic valet becomes alarmed and reads it over his shoulder. --Thereis no illusion here; it is not merely the bourgeoisie which rangesitself against the legal authorities and against the established regime. It is the entire people as well. The craftsmen, the shopkeepers andthe domestics, workmen of every kind and degree, the mob underneath thepeople, the vagabonds, street rovers, and beggars, the whole multitude, which, bound down by anxiety for its daily bread, had never liftedits eyes to look at the great social order of which it is the loweststratum, and the whole weight of which it bears. 

III. --The Réveillon affair. 

Suddenly the people stirs, and the superposed scaffolding totters. Itis the movement of a brute nature exasperated by want and maddenedby suspicion. --Have paid hands, which are invisible goaded it on frombeneath? Contemporaries are convinced of this, and it is probably thecase. [1210] But the uproar made around the suffering brute would alonesuffice to make it shy, and explain its arousal. --On the 21st of Aprilthe Electoral Assemblies have begun in Paris; there is one in eachquarter, one for the clergy, one for the nobles, and one for theThird-Estate. Every day, for almost a month, files of electors are seenpassing along the streets. Those of the first degree continue to meetafter having nominated those of the second: the nation must needswatch its mandatories and maintain its imprescriptible rights. If thisexercise of their rights has been delegated to them, they still belongto the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of interposingwhen it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels fast; immediatelyafter the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it reaches the Third-Estateof the streets. Nothing is more natural than the desire to lead one'sleaders: the first time any dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands onthose who halt and make them march on as directed. On a Saturday, April 25th, [1211] a rumor is current that Réveillon, an electorand manufacturer of wall-paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, acommissioner, have "spoken badly" at the Electoral Assembly ofSainte-Marguerite. To speak badly means to speak badly of the people. What has Réveillon said? Nobody knows, but popular imagination withits terrible powers of invention and precision, readily fabricates orwelcomes a murderous phrase. He said that "a working-man with a wife andchildren could live on fifteen sous a day. " Such a man is a traitor, andmust be disposed of at once; "all his belongings must be put to fire andsword. " The rumor, it must be noted, is false. [1212] Réveillon payshis poorest workman twenty-five sous a day, he provides work for threehundred and fifty, and, in spite of a dull season the previous winter, he kept all on at the same rate of wages. He himself was once a workman, and obtained a medal for his inventions, and is benevolent and respectedby all respectable persons. --All this avails nothing; bands of vagabondsand foreigners, who have just passed through the barriers, do notlook so closely into matters, while the Journeymen, the carters, thecobblers, the masons, the braziers, and the stone-cutters whom theygo to solicit in their lodgings are just as ignorant as they are. Whenirritation has accumulated, it breaks out haphazardly. 

Just at this time the clergy of Paris renounce their privileges in wayof imposts, [1213] and the people, taking friends for adversaries, add intheir invectives the name of the clergy to that of Réveillon. Duringthe whole of the day, and also during the leisure of Sunday, thefermentation increases; on Monday the 27th, another day of idleness anddrunkenness, the bands begin to move. Certain witnesses encounter one ofthese in the Rue Saint-Sévérin, "armed with clubs, " and so numerous asto bar the passage. "Shops and doors are closed on all sides, and thepeople cry out, 'There's the revolt!'" The seditious crowd belch outcurses and invectives against the clergy, "and, catching sight of anabbé, shout 'Priest!'" Another band parades an effigy of Réveillondecorated with the ribbon of the order of St. Michael, which undergoesthe parody of a sentence and is burnt on the Place de Grève, after whichthey threaten his house. Driven back by the guard, they invade that ofa manufacturer of saltpeter, who is his friend, and burn and smash hiseffects and furniture. [1214] It is only towards midnight that the crowdis dispersed and the insurrection is supposed to have ended. On thefollowing day it begins again with greater violence; for, besides theordinary stimulants of misery[1215] and the craving for license, theyhave a new stimulant in the idea of a cause to defend, the convictionthat they are fighting "for the Third-Estate. " In a cause like this eachone should help himself; and all should help each other. "We should belost, " one of them exclaimed, "if we did not sustain each other. " Strongin this belief, they sent deputations three times into the FaubourgSaint-Marceau to obtain recruits, and on their way, with uplifted clubsthey enrol, willingly or unwillingly, all they encounter. Others, at thegate of Saint-Antoine, arrest people who are returning from the races, demanding of them if they are for the nobles or for the Third-Estate, and force women to descend from their vehicles and to cry "Vive leTiers-Etat "[1216]. Meanwhile the crowd has increased before Réveillon'sdwelling; the thirty men on guard are unable to resist; the houseis invaded and sacked from top to bottom; the furniture, provisions, clothing, registers, wagons, even the poultry in the back-yard, allis cast into blazing bonfires lighted in three different places; fivehundred louis d'or, the ready money, and the silver plate are stolen. Several roam through the cellars, drink liquor or varnish at haphazarduntil they fall down dead drunk or expire in convulsions. Againstthis howling horde, a corps of the watch, mounted and on foot, is seenapproaching;[1217] also a hundred cavalry of the "Royal Croats, " theFrench Guards, and later on the Swiss Guards. "Tiles and chimneys arerained down on the soldiers, " who fire back four files at a time. Therioters, drunk with brandy and rage, defend themselves desperatelyfor several hours; more than two hundred are killed, and nearly threehundred are wounded; they are only put down by cannon, while the mobkeeps active until far into the night. --Towards eight in the evening, inthe rue Vieille-du-Temple, the Paris Guard continue to make charges inorder to protect the doors which the miscreants try to force. Two doorsare forced at half-past eleven o'clock in the Rue Saintonge and in theRue de Bretagne, that of a pork-dealer and that of a baker. Even tothis last wave of the outbreak which is subsiding we can distinguish theelements which have produced the insurrection, and which are aboutto produce the Revolution. --Starvation is one of these: in the Rue deBretagne the band robbing the baker's shop carries bread off to thewomen staying at the corner of the Rue Saintonge. --Brigandage isanother: in the middle of the night M. Du Châtelet's spies, glidingalongside of a ditch, "see a group of ruffians" assembled beyond theBarrière du Trône, their leader, mounted on a little knoll, urging themto begin again; and the following days, on the highways, vagabonds aresaying to each other, "We can do no more at Paris, because they aretoo sharp on the look-out; let us go to Lyons!" There are, finally, thepatriots: on the evening of the insurrection, between the Pont-au-Changeand the Pont-Marie, the half-naked ragamuffins, besmeared with dirt, bearing along their hand-barrows, are fully alive to their cause; theybeg alms in a loud tone of voice, and stretch out their hats to thepassers, saying, "Take pity on this poor Third-Estate!"--The starving, the ruffians, and the patriots, all form one body, and henceforthmisery, crime, and public spirit unite to provide an ever-readyinsurrection for the agitators who desire to raise one. 

IV. --The Palais-Royal. 

But the agitators are already in permanent session. The Palais-Royal isan open-air club where, all day and even far into the night, one excitesthe other and urges on the crowd to blows. In this enclosure, protectedby the privileges of the House of Orleans, the police dare not enter. Speech is free, and the public who avail themselves of this freedom seempurposely chosen to abuse it. --The public and the place are adapted toeach other. [1218] The Palais-Royal, the center of prostitution, ofplay, of idleness, and of pamphlets, attracts the whole of that uprootedpopulation which floats about in a great city, and which, withoutoccupation or home, lives only for curiosity or for pleasure--thefrequenters of the coffee-houses, the runners for gambling halls, adventurers, and social outcasts, the runaway children or forlornhopefuls of literature, arts, and the bar, attorneys' clerks, studentsof the institutions of higher learning, the curious, loungers, strangers, and the occupants of furnished lodgings, these amounting, it is said, to forty thousand in Paris. They fill the garden and thegalleries; "one would hardly find here one of what were called the"Six Bodies, "[1219] a bourgeois settled down and occupied with hisown affairs, a man whom business and family cares render serious andinfluential. There is no place here for industrious and orderly bees; itis the rendezvous of political and literary drones. They flock into itfrom every quarter of Paris, and the tumultuous, buzzing swarm coversthe ground like an overturned hive. "Ten thousand people, " writes ArthurYoung, [1220] "have been all this day in the Palais-Royal;" the pressis so great that an apple thrown from a balcony on the moving floor ofheads would not reach the ground. The condition of these heads maybe imagined; they are emptier of ballast than any in France, themost inflated with speculative ideas, the most excitable and the mostexcited. In this pell-mell of improvised politicians no one knows whois speaking; nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there asin the theater, unknown among the unknown, requiring sensationalimpressions and strong emotions, a prey to the contagion of the passionsaround him, borne along in the whirl of sounding phrases, of ready-madenews, growing rumors, and other exaggerations by which fanatics keepoutdoing each other. There are shouting, tears, applause, stamping andclapping, as at the performance of a tragedy; one or another individualbecomes so inflamed and hoarse that he dies on the spot with fever andexhaustion. In vain has Arthur Young been accustomed to the tumult ofpolitical liberty; he is dumb-founded at what he sees. [1221] Accordingto him, the excitement is "incredible. . . . We think sometimes thatDebrett's or Stockdale's shops at London are crowded; but they are meredeserts compared to Desenne's and some others here, in which one canscarcely squeeze from the door to the counter. . . . Every hour producesits pamphlet; 13 came out to-day, 16 yesterday, and 92 last week. 95% ofthese productions are in favor of liberty;" and by liberty is meant theextinction of privileges, numerical sovereignty, the application ofthe Contrat-Social, "The Republic", and even more besides, a universalleveling, permanent anarchy, and even the jacquerie. Camille Desmoulins, one of the orators, commonly there, announces it and urges it in preciseterms:

"Now that the animal is in the trap, let him be battered to death. . . Never will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand palaces, mansions, and châteaux, two-fifth of the property of France, will bethe recompense of valor. Those who pretend to be the conquerors will beconquered in turn. The nation shall be purged. "

Here, in advance, is the program of the Reign of Terror. 

Now all this is not only read, but declaimed, amplified, and turnedto practical account. In front of the coffee-houses "those who havestentorian lungs relieve each other every evening. "[1222] "They getup on a chair or a table, they read the strongest articles on currentaffairs, . . . The eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunderof applause they receive for every sentiment of more than commonhardiness or violence against the present Government, cannot easilybe imagined. " "Three days ago a child of four years, well taught andintelligent, was promenaded around the garden, in broad daylight, atleast twenty times, borne on the shoulders of a street porter, cryingout, 'Verdict of the French people: Polignac exiled one hundred leaguesfrom Paris; Condé the same; Conti the same; Artois the same; theQueen, --I dare not write it. '" A hall made of boards in the middle ofthe Palais-Royal is always full, especially of young men, who carryon their deliberations in parliamentary fashion: in the evening thepresident invites the spectators to come forward and sign motionspassed during the day, and of which the originals are placed in the CaféFoy. [1223] They count on their fingers the enemies of the country; "andfirst two Royal Highnesses (Monsieur and the Count d'Artois), three MostSerene Highnesses (the Prince de Condé, Duc de Bourbon, and the Princede Conti), one favorite (Madame de Polignac), MM. De Vandreuil, de laTrémoille, du Châtelet, de Villedeuil, de Barentin, de la Galaisière, Vidaud de la Tour, Berthier, Foulon, and also M. Linguet. " Placards areposted demanding the pillory on the Pont-Neuf for the Abbeé Maury. One speaker proposes "to burn the house of M. D'Espréménil, his wife, children and furniture, and himself: this is passed unanimously. "--Noopposition is tolerated. One of those present having manifested somehorror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by the collar, obliged tokneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the ground. The punishmentinflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one ofthe fountain-basins, after which they him over to the mob, who roll himin the mud. " On the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot, and flung from hand to hand. A few days after, on the 22nd of June, there are two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all thefunctions of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those ofthe judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner. --Itsidols are sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty oflése-majesté, and at once punished. In the first week of July, an abbéwho speaks ill of Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the bust ofNecker is stripped by the fishwomen, and beaten until she is coveredwith blood. War is declared against suspicious uniforms. "On theappearance of a hussar, " writes Desmoulins, "they shout, 'There goesPunch!' and the stone-cutters fling stones at him. Last night twoofficers of the hussars, MM. De Sombreuil and de Polignac, came to thePalais-Royal. . . Chairs were flung at them, and they would have beenknocked down if they had not run away. The day before yesterday theyseized a spy of the police and gave him a ducking in the fountain. Theyran him down like a stag, hustled him, pelted him with stones, struckhim with canes, forced one of his eyes out of its socket, and finally, in spite of his entreaties and cries for mercy, plunged him a secondtime in the fountain. His torments lasted from noon until half-pastfive o'clock, and he had about ten thousand executioners. "--Considerthe effect of such a focal center at a time like this. A new power hassprung up alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highwaysand public squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. Itis driven onward by coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions andthe vehemence of mountebanks, while the bare arms which have justaccomplished the work of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, formits bodyguard and ministerial cabinet. 

V. --Popular mobs become a political force. 

 Pressure on the Assembly. --Defection of the soldiery. 

This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming toits nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds resistance, it strikes. --The people of Versailles, in the streets and at thedoors of the Assembly, daily "come and insult those whom they callaristocrats. "[1224] On Monday, June 22nd, "d'Espréménil barely escapesbeing knocked down; the Abbé Maury. . . Owes his escape to the strengthof a curé, who takes him up in his arms and tosses him into the carriageof the Archbishop of Arles. " On the 23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris andthe Keeper of the Seals are hooted, railed at, scoffed at, and derided, until they almost sink with shame and rage. " So formidable is thetempest of rage with which they are greeted, that Passeret, the King'ssecretary, who accompanies the minister, dies of the excitement thatvery day. On the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost knocked down bya stone striking him on the head. On the 25th, the Archbishop of Parisis saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude pursuing him andpelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the windows are allshattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the French Guards, the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise that he will jointhe deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way in which the rude handof the people effects a reunion of the Orders. It bears as heavily onits own representatives as on its adversaries. "Although our hall wasclosed to the public, " says Bailly, "there were always more than sixhundred spectators. "[1225] These were not respectful and silent, butactive and noisy, mingling with the deputies, raising their hands tovote in all cases, taking part in the deliberations, by their applauseand hisses: a collateral Assembly which often imposes its own will onthe other. They take note of and put down the names of their opponents, transmit them to the chair-bearers in attendance at the entrance ofthe hall, and from them to the mob waiting for the departure of thedeputies, these names are from now considered as the names of publicenemies. [1226] Lists are made out and printed, and, at the Palais-Royalin the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed. --It is underthis brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and, amongst them, that by which the commons declare themselves the National Assemblyand assume supreme power. The night before, Malouet had proposed toascertain, by a preliminary vote, on which side the majority was. In aninstant all those against had gathered around him to the number of threehundred. "Upon which a mans springs out from the galleries, falls uponhim and takes him by the collar exclaiming, 'Hold your tongue, you falsecitizen!'" Malouet is released and the guard comes forward, "but terrorhas spread through the hall, threats are uttered against opponents, andthe next day we were only ninety. " Moreover, the lists of their nameshad been circulated; some of them, deputies from Paris, went to seeBailly that very evening. One amongst them, "a very honest man and goodpatriot, " had been told that his house was to be set on fire. Now hiswife had just given birth to a child, and the slightest tumultbefore the house would have been fatal. Such arguments are decisive. Consequently, three days afterwards, at the Tennis-court, but onedeputy, Martin d'Auch, dares to write the word "opposing" after hisname. Insulted by many of colleagues, "at once denounced to the peoplewho had collected at the entrance of the building, he is obliged toescape by a side door to avoid being cut to pieces, " and, for severaldays, to keep away from the meetings. [1227]--Owing to this interventionof the galleries the radical minority, numbering about thirty, [1228]lead the majority, and they do not allow them to free themselves. --Onthe 28th of May, Malouet, having demanded a secret session to discussthe conciliatory measures which the King had proposed, the gallerieshoot at him, and a deputy, M. Bourche, addresses him in very plainterms. "You must know, sir, that we are deliberating here in thepresence of our masters, and that we must account to them for ouropinions. " This is the doctrine of the Contrat-Social. Through timidity, fear of the Court and of the privileged class, through optimism andfaith in human nature, through enthusiasm and the necessity of adheringto previous actions, the deputies, who are novices, provincial, andgiven up to theories, neither dare nor know how to escape from thetyranny of the prevailing dogma. --Henceforth it becomes the law. Allthe Assemblies, the Constituent, the Legislative, the Convention, [1229]submit to it entirely. The public in the galleries is the admittedrepresentatives of the people, under the same title, and even undera higher title, than the deputies. Now, this public is that of thePalais-Royal, consisting of strangers, idlers, lovers of novelties, Paris romancers, leaders of the coffee-houses, the future pillars of theclubs, in short, the wild enthusiasts among the middle-class, just asthe crowd which threatens doors and throws stones is recruited fromamong the wild enthusiasts of the lowest class. Thus by an involuntaryselection, the faction which constitutes itself a public power iscomposed of nothing but violent minds and violent hands. Spontaneouslyand without previous concert dangerous fanatics are joined withdangerous brutes, and in the increasing discord between the legalauthorities this is the illegal league which is certain to overthrowall. 

When a commanding general sits in council with his staff-officers andhis counselors, and discusses the plan of a campaign, the chief publicinterest is that discipline should remain intact, and that intruders, soldiers, or menials, should not throw the weight of their turbulenceand thoughtlessness into the scales which have to be cautiouslyand firmly held by their chiefs. This was the express demand of theGovernment;[1230] but the demand was not regarded; and against thepersistent usurpation of the multitude nothing is left to it but theemployment of force. But force itself is slipping from its hands, whilegrowing disobedience, like a contagion, after having gained the peopleis spreading among the troops. --From the 23rd of June, [1231] twocompanies of the French Guards refused to do duty. Confined to theirbarracks, they on the 27th break out, and henceforth "they are seenevery evening entering the Palais-Royal, marching in double file. " Theyknow the place well; it is the general rendezvous of the abandoned womenwhose lovers and parasites they are. [1232] "The patriots all gatheraround them, treat them to ice cream and wine, and debauch them in theface of their officers. "--To this, moreover, must be added the fact thattheir colonel, M. Du Châtelet, has long been odious to them, that he hasfatigued them with forced drills, worried them and diminished the numberof their sergeants; that he suppressed the school for the education ofthe children of their musicians; that he uses the stick in punishing themen, and picks quarrels with them about their appearance, their board, and their clothing. This regiment is lost to discipline: a secretsociety has been formed in it, and the soldiers have pledged themselvesto their ensigns not to act against the National Assembly. Thus theconfederation between them and the Palais-Royal is established. --On the30th of June, eleven of their leaders, taken off to the Abbaye, write toclaim their assistance. A young man mounts a chair in front of the CaféFoy and reads their letter aloud; a band sets out on the instant, forcesthe gate with a sledge-hammer and iron bars, brings back the prisonersin triumph, gives them a feast in the garden and mounts guard aroundthem to prevent their being re-taken. --When disorders of this kind gounpunished, order cannot be maintained; in fact, on the morning of the14th of July, five out of six battalions had deserted. --As to the othercorps, they are no better and are also seduced. "Yesterday, " Desmoulinswrites, "the artillery regiment followed the example of the FrenchGuards, overpowering the sentinels and coming over to mingle withthe patriots in the Palais-Royal. . . . We see nothing but the rabbleattaching themselves to soldiers whom they chance to encounter. 'Allons, Vive le Tiers-Etat!' and they lead them off to a tavern to drink thehealth of the Commons. " Dragoons tell the officers who are marchingthem to Versailles: "We obey you, but you may tell the ministers on ourarrival that if we are ordered to use the least violence against ourfellow-citizens, the first shot shall be for you. " At the Invalidestwenty men, ordered to remove the cocks and ramrods from the guns storedin a threatened arsenal, devote six hours to rendering twenty gunsuseless; their object is to keep them intact for plunder and for thearming of the people. 

In short, the largest portion of the army has deserted. However kinda superior officer might be, the fact of his being a superior officersecures for him the treatment of an enemy. The governor, "M. DeSombreuil, against whom these people could utter no reproach, " will soonsee his artillerists point their guns at his apartment, and will justescape being hung on the iron-railings by their own hands. Thus theforce which is brought forward to suppress insurrection only serves tofurnish it with recruits. And even worse, for the display of armsthat was relied on to restrain the mob, furnished the instigation torebellion. 

VI. --July 13th and 14th 1789. 

The fatal moment has arrived; it is no longer a government which fallsthat it may give way to another; it is all government which ceases toexist in order to make way for an intermittent despotism, for factionsblindly impelled on by enthusiasm, credulity, misery, and fear. [1233]Like a tame elephant suddenly become wild again, the mob throws off itordinary driver, and the new guides who it tolerates perched on its neckare there simply for show. In future it will move along as it pleases, freed from control, and abandoned to its own feelings, instincts, andappetites. --Apparently, there was no desire to do more than anticipateits aberrations. The King has forbidden all violence; the commandersorder the troops not to fire;[1234] but the excited and wild animaltakes all precautions for insults; in future, it intends to be its ownconductor, and, to begin, it treads its guides under foot. --On the 12thof July, near noon, [1235] on the news of the dismissal of Necker, a cryof rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille Desmoulins, mounted ona table, announces that the Court meditates "a St. Bartholomew ofpatriots. " The crowd embrace him, adopt the green cockade which he hasproposed, and oblige the dancing-saloons and theaters to close in signof mourning: they hurry off to the residence of Curtius, and take thebusts of the Duke of Orleans and of Necker and carry them about intriumph. --Meanwhile, the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up onthe Place Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entranceof the Tuileries, and are greeted with a shower of stones andbottles. [1236] Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the HôtelMontmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the "Royal Allemand. "--The alarm bell issounding on all sides, the shops where arms are sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; fifteen or sixteen well-disposedelectors, who meet there, order the districts to be assembled andarmed. --The new sovereign, the people in arms and in the street, hasdeclared himself. 

The dregs of society at once come to the surface. During the nightbetween the 12th and 13th of July, [1237] "all the barriers, from theFaubourg Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those ofthe Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and set onfire. " There is no longer an octroi; the city is without a revenue justat the moment when it is obliged to make the heaviest expenditures; butthis is of no consequence to the mob, which, above all things, wantsto have cheap wine. "Ruffians, armed with pikes and sticks, proceedin several parties to give up to pillage the houses of those who areregarded as enemies to the public welfare. " "They go from door to doorcrying, 'Arms and bread!' During this fearful night, the bourgeoisiekept themselves shut up, each trembling at home for himself and thosebelonging to him. " On the following day, the 13th, the capital appearsto be given up to bandits and the lowest of the low. One of thebands hews down the gate of the Lazarists, destroys the library andclothes-presses, the pictures, the windows and laboratory, and rushesto the cellars; where it staves in the casks and gets drunk: twenty-fourhours after this, about thirty of them are found dead and dying, drownedin wine, men and women, one of these being at the point of childbirth. In front of the house[1238] the street is full of the wreckage, and ofruffians who hold in their hands, "some, eatables, others a jug, forcingthe passers-by to drink, and pouring out wine to all comers. Wineruns down into the gutter, and the scent of it fills the air;" it is adrinking bout: meanwhile they carry away the grain and flour which themonks kept on hand according to law, fifty-two loads of it beingtaken to the market. Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver thoseimprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying awayvaluable arms and armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame deBreteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in orderto punish their proprietors. M. De Crosne, one of the most liberal andmost respected men of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenantof the police, is pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel issacked. --During the night between the 13th and 14th of May, the baker'sshops and the wine shops are pillaged; "men of the vilest class, armedwith guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people open their doors and givethem something to eat and drink, as well as money and arms. " Vagrants, ragged men, several of them "almost naked, " and "most of them armedlike savages, and of hideous appearance;" they are "such as one does notremember to have seen in broad daylight;" many of them are strangers, come from nobody knows where. [1239] It is stated that there were50, 000 of them, and that they had taken possession of the principalguard-houses. 

During these two days and nights, says Bailly, "Paris ran the risk ofbeing pillaged, and was only saved from the marauders by the NationalGuard. " Already, in the open street, [1240] "these creatures tore offwomen's shoes and earrings, " and the robbers were beginning to havefull sway. --Fortunately the militia organized itself and the principalinhabitants and gentlemen enrolled themselves; 48, 000 men are formedinto battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie buy guns of the vagabondsfor three livres apiece, and sabers or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are hung on the spot, and others disarmed, andthe insurrection again becomes political. But, whatever its object, itremains always wild, because it is in the hands of the mob. Dusaulx, itspanegyrist, confesses[1241] that "he thought he was witnessing the totaldissolution of society. " There is no leader, no management. The electorswho have converted themselves into the representatives of Paris seem tocommand the crowd, but it is the crowd which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to sendfor six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants thathe is about to blow everything into the air. The commandant whom theythemselves have chosen, M. De Salles, has twenty bayonets at his breastduring a quarter of an hour, and, more than once, the whole committee isnear being massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where thediscussions are going on, and petitions are being made, "a concourse offifteen hundred men pressed by a hundred thousand others who are forcingan entrance, " the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset one overanother, the enclosure of the bureau pushed back against the president'schair, a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of judgment, " thedeath-shrieks, songs, yells, and "people beside themselves, for the mostpart not knowing where they are nor what they want. "--Each districtis also a petty center, while the Palais-Royal is the main center. Propositions, "accusations, and deputations travel to and fro from oneto the other, along with the human torrent which is obstructed or rushesahead with no other guide than its own inclination and the chancesof the way. One wave gathers here and another there, their strategyconsisting in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance iseffected only because they are let in. If they get into the Invalides itis owing to the connivance of the soldiers. --At the Bastille, firearmsare discharged from ten in the morning to five in the evening againstwalls forty feet high and thirty feet thick, and it is by chance thatone of their shots reaches an invalid on the towers. They are treatedthe same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. Thegovernor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon to bewithdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear not to fireif it is not attacked; he invites the first of the deputations to lunch;he allows the messenger dispatched from the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspectthe fortress; he receives several discharges without returning them, andlets the first bridge be carried without firing a shot. [1242] When, atlength, he does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the secondbridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is going to doso. In short, his forbearance and patience are excessive, in conformitywith the humanity of the times. The people, in turn, are infatuatedwith the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell ofgunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can think ofdoing is to rush against the mass of stone, their expedients being on alevel with their tactics. A brewer fancies that he can set fire to thisblock of masonry by pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixedwith phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archaeological notions, proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think that they haveseized the governor's daughter, and want to burn her in order to makethe father surrender. Others set fire to a projecting mass of buildingsfilled with straw, and thus close up the passage. "The Bastille was nottaken by main force, " says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; "itsurrendered before even it was attacked, "[1243] by capitulation, onthe promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The garrison, beingperfectly secure, had no longer the heart to fire on human beings whilethemselves risking nothing, [1244] and, on the other hand, they wereunnerved by the sight of the immense crowd. Eight or nine hundredmen only[1245] were concerned in the attack, most of them workmen orshopkeepers belonging to the faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercersand wine-dealers, mixed with the French Guards. The Place de laBastille, however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowdedwith the curious who came to witness the sight; "among them, " saysa witness, [1246] "were a number of fashionable women of very goodappearance, who had left their carriages at some distance. " To thehundred and twenty men of the garrison looking down from their parapetsit seemed as though all Paris had come out against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge an introduce the enemy: everybody haslost his head, the besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter morecompletely because they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have they entered when they begin the work of destruction, andthe latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; "eachone fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells. " Suddenomnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too strong for humannature; giddiness is the result; men see red, and their frenzy ends inferocity. 

For the peculiarity of a popular insurrection is that nobody obeysanybody; the bad passions are free as well as the generous ones; heroesare unable to restrain assassins. Elie, who is the first to enter thefortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in advance, theFrench Guards who are cognizant of the laws of war, try to keep theirword of honor; but the crowd pressing on behind them know not whom tostrike, and they strike at random. They spare the Swiss soldiers whohave fired at them, and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them tobe prisoners; on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fallfuriously on the invalides who opened the gates to them; the man whoprevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his wristsevered by the blow of a saber, is twice pierced with a sword and ishung, and the hand which had saved one of the districts of Paris ispromenaded through the streets in triumph. The officers are draggedalong and five of them are killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, oron the way. During the long hours of firing, the murderous instinct hasbecome aroused, and the wish to kill, changed into a fixed idea, spreads afar among the crowd which has hitherto remained inactive. It isconvinced by its own clamor; a hue and cry is all that it now needs; themoment one strikes, all want to strike. "Those who had no arms, " saysan officer, "threw stones at me;[1247] the women ground their teeth andshook their fists at me. Two of my men had already been assassinatedbehind me. I finally got to within some hundreds of paces of theHôtel-de-Ville, amidst a general cry that I should be hung, when a head, stuck on a pike, was presented to me to look at, while at. The samemoment I was told that it was that of M. De Launay, " the governor. --Thelatter, on going out, had received the cut of a sword on his rightshoulder; on reaching the Rue Saint-Antoine "everybody pulled his hairout and struck him. " Under the arcade of Saint-Jean he was already"severely wounded. " Around him, some said, "his head ought to be struckoff;" others, "let him be hung;" and others, "he ought to be tied toa horse's tail. " Then, in despair, and wishing to put an end to historments, he cried out, "Kill me, " and, in struggling, kicked one of themen who held him in the lower abdomen. On the instant he is pierced withbayonets, dragged in the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; thenation demands his head to exhibit to the public, " and the man whowas kicked is asked to cut it off. --This man, an unemployed cook, asimpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going on, " thinksthat as it is the general opinion, the act is patriotic, and evenbelieves that he "deserves a medal for destroying a monster. " Taking asaber which is lent to him, he strikes the bare neck, but the dullsaber not doing its work, he takes a small black-handled knife from hispocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he knows how to cut meat, " hefinishes the operation successfully. Then, placing the head on the endof a three-pronged pitchfork, and accompanied by over two hundredarmed men, "not counting the mob, " he marches along, and, in the RueSaint-Honoré, he has two inscriptions attached to the head, to indicatewithout mistake whose head it is. --They grow merry over it: after filingalongside of the Palais-Royal, the procession arrives at the Pont-Neuf, where, before the statue of Henry IV. , they bow the head three times, saying, "Salute thy master!"--This is the last joke: it is to be foundin every triumph, and inside the butcher, we find the rogue. 

VII. --Murders of Foulon and Berthier. 

Meanwhile, at the Palais-Royal, other buffoons, who with the levity ofgossips sport with lives as freely as with words, have drawn u. Duringthe night between the 13th and 14th of July, a list of proscriptions, copies of which are hawked about. Care is taken to address one ofthem to each of the persons designated, the Comte d'Artois, Marshalde Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc, Baron de Bezenval, MM. De Breteuil, Foulon, Berthier, Maury, d'Espréménil, Lefèvre d'Amécourt, and othersbesides. [1248] A reward is promised to whoever will bring their heads tothe Café de Caveau. Here are names for the unchained multitude; allthat now is necessary is that some band should encounter a man who isdenounced; he will go as far as the lamppost at the street corner, butnot beyond it. --Throughout the day of the 14th, this improvised tribunalholds a permanent session, and follows up its decisions with itsactions. M. De Flesselles, provost of the merchants and president ofthe electors at the Hôtel-de-Ville, having shown himself somewhatlukewarm, [1249] the Palais-Royal declares him a traitor and sends himoff to be hung. On the way a young man fells him with a pistol-shot, others fall upon his body, while his head, borne upon a pike, goes tojoin that of M. De Launay. --Equally deadly accusations and of equallyspeedy execution float in the air and from every direction. "On theslightest pretext, " says an elector, "they denounced to us those whomthey thought opposed to the Revolution, which already signified the sameas enemies of the State. Without any investigation, there was only talkof the seizure of their persons, the ruin of their homes, and the razingof their houses. One young man exclaimed: 'Follow me at once, let usstart off at once to Bezenval's!'"--Their brains are so frightened, andtheir minds so distrustful, that at every step in the streets "one'sname has to be given, one's profession declared, one's residence, andone's intentions. . . . One can neither enter nor leave Paris withoutbeing suspected of treason. " The Prince de Montbarrey, advocate of thenew ideas, and his wife, are stopped in their carriage at the barrier, and are on the point of being cut to pieces. A deputy of the nobles, onhis way to the National Assembly, is seized in his cab and conducted tothe Place de Grève; the corpse of M. De Launay is shown to him, and heis told that he is to be treated in the same fashion. --Every life hangsby a thread, and, on the following days, when the King had sent awayhis troops, dismissed his Ministers, recalled Necker, and grantedeverything, the danger remains just as great. The multitude, abandonedto the revolutionaries and to itself, continues the same bloody antics, while the municipal chiefs[1250] whom it has elected, Bailly, Mayor ofParis, and Lafayette, commandant of the National Guard, are obliged touse cunning, to implore, to throw themselves between the multitude andthe unfortunates whom they wish to destroy. 

On the 15th of July, in the night, a woman disguised as a man isarrested in the court of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and so maltreated that shefaints away; Bailly, in order to save her, is obliged to feign angeragainst her and have her sent immediately to prison. From the 14th tothe 22nd of July, Lafayette, at the risk of his life, saves with hisown hand seventeen persons in different quarters. [1251]--On the 22nd ofJuly, upon the denunciations which multiply around Paris like trainsof gunpowder, two administrators of high rank, M. Foulon, Councillorof State, and M. Berthier, his son-in-law, are arrested, one nearFontainebleau, and the other near Compiègne. M. Foulon, a strictmaster, [1252] but intelligent and useful, expended sixty thousand francsthe previous winter on his estate in giving employment to the poor. M. Berthier, an industrious and capable man, had officially surveyedand valued Ile-de-France, to equalize the taxes, and had reduced theovercharged quotas first one-eighth and then a quarter. But both ofthese gentlemen have arranged the details of the camp against whichParis has risen; both are publicly proscribed for eight days previouslyby the Palais-Royal, and, with a people frightened by disorder, exasperated by hunger, and stupefied by suspicion, an accused person isa guilty one. --With regard to Foulon, as with Réveillon, a story is madeup, coined in the same mint, a sort of currency for popular circulation, and which the people itself manufactures by casting into one tragicexpression the sum of its sufferings and rankling memories:[1253] "Hesaid that we were worth no more than his horses; and that if we had nobread we had only to eat grass. "--The old man of seventy-four is broughtto Paris, with a truss of hay on his head, a collar of thistles aroundhis neck, and his mouth stuffed with hay. In vain does the electoralbureau order his imprisonment that he may be saved; the crowd yells out:"Sentenced and hung!" and, authoritatively, appoints the judges. Invain does Lafayette insist and entreat three times that the judgment beregularly rendered, and that the accused be sent to the Abbaye. A newwave of people comes up, and one man, "well dressed, " cries out: "Whatis the need of a sentence for a man who has been condemned for thirtyyears?" Foulon is carried off; dragged across the square, and hungto the lamp post. The cord breaks twice, and twice he falls upon thepavement. Re-hung with a fresh cord and then cut down, his head issevered from his body and placed on the end of a pike. [1254] Meanwhile, Berthier, sent away from Compiègne by the municipality, afraid tokeep him in his prison where he was constantly menaced, arrives in acabriolet under escort. The people carry placards around him filled withopprobrious epithets; in changing horses they threw hard black breadinto the carriage, exclaiming, "There, wretch, see the bread you made useat!" On reaching the church of Saint-Merry, a fearful storm of insultsburst forth against him. He is called a monopolist, "although he hadnever bought or sold a grain of wheat. " In the eyes of the multitude, who has to explain the evil as caused by some evil-doer, he is theauthor of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye, his escort is dispersedand he is pushed over to the lamp post. Then, seeing that all is lost, he snatches a gun from one of his murderers and bravely defends himself. A soldier of the "Royal Croats" gives him a cut with his saber acrossthe stomach, and another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had cutoff the head of M. De Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand himthe heart to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go tothe Hôtel-de-Ville to show their trophies to M. De Lafayette. On theirreturn to the Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in atavern, the people demand these two remains. They throw them out of thewindow and finish their supper, whilst the heart is marched about belowin a bouquet of white carnations. --Such are the spectacles which thisgarden presents where, a year before, "good society in full dress" cameon leaving the Opera to chat, often until two o'clock in the morning, under the mild light of the moon, listening now to the violin ofSaint-Georges, and now to the charming voice of Garat. 

VIII. --Paris in the hands of the people. 

Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia northe new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law. "They didnot dare, " says Bailly, [1255] "oppose the people who, eight days beforethis, had taken the Bastille. "--In vain, after the last two murders, doBailly and Lafayette indignantly threaten to withdraw; they are forcedto remain; their protection, such as it is, is all that is left, and, ifthe National Guard is unable to prevent every murder, it prevents someof them. People live as they can under the constant expectation of freshpopular violence. "To every impartial man, " says Malouet, "the Terrordates from the 14th of July". --On the 17th, before setting out forParis, the King attends communion and makes his will in anticipationof assassination. From the 16th to the 18th, twenty personages of highrank, among others most of those on whose heads a price is set by thePalais-Royal, leave France: The Count d'Artois, Marshal de Broglie, thePrinces de Condé, de Conti, de Lambesc, de Vaudemont, the Countessde Polignac, and the Duchesses de Polignac and de Guiche. --The dayfollowing the two murders, M. De Crosne, M. Doumer, M. Sureau, the mostzealous and most valuable members of the committee on subsistence, allthose appointed to make purchases and to take care of the storehouses, conceal themselves or fly. On the eve of the two murders, the notariesof Paris, being menaced with a riot, had to advance 45, 000 francs whichwere promised to the workmen of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; while thepublic treasury, almost empty, is drained of 30, 000 livres per day todiminish the cost of bread. --Persons and possessions, great and small, private individuals and public functionaries, the Government itself, all is in the hands of the mob. "From this moment, " says a deputy, [1256]"liberty did not exist even in the National Assembly. . . France stooddumb before thirty factious persons. The Assembly became in their handsa passive instrument, which they forced to serve them in the executionof their projects. "--They themselves do not lead, although they seem tolead. The great brute, which has taken the bit in its mouth, holds on toit, and it's plunging becomes more violent. Not only do both spurs whichmaddened it, I mean the desire for innovation and the daily scarcityof food, continue to prick it on. But also the political hornets which, increasing by thousands, buzz around its ears. And the license in whichit revels for the first time, joined to the applause lavished upon it, urges it forward more violently each day. The insurrection is glorified. Not one of the assassins is sought out. It is against the conspiracy ofMinisters that the Assembly institutes an inquiry. Rewards are bestowedupon the conquerors of the Bastille; it is declared that they have savedFrance. All honors are awarded to the people-to their good sense, theirmagnanimity, and their justice. Adoration is paid to this new sovereign:he is publicly and officially told, in the Assembly and by the press, that he possesses every virtue, all rights and all powers. If he spillsblood it is inadvertently, on provocation, and always with an infallibleinstinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so pure?" Thegreater number of people prefers the theories of their books to theexperience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they havefashioned for themselves. At the worst their dream, driven out from thepresent, takes refuge in the future. To-morrow, when the Constitution iscomplete, the people, made happy, will again become wise: let us endurethe storm, which leads us on to so noble a harbor. 

Meanwhile, beyond the King, inert and disarmed, beyond the Assembly, disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people--that isto say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand individualsgathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm, suddenly andirresistibly made legislators, judges, and executioners. A formidablepower, undefined and destructive, on which no one has any hold, andwhich, with its mother, howling and misshapen Liberty, sits at thethreshold of the Revolution like Milton's two specters at the gates ofHell. 

 . . . Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape; The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, but ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep, If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb, And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd Within unseen. . . . . . . . . . . The other shape, If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd For each seem'd either: black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 

 The monster moving onward came as fast, With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode. 

*****

[Footnote 1201: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of M. Miron, lieutenant de police, April 26th; of M. Joly de Fleury, procureur-général, May 29th; of MM. Marchais and Berthier, April 18thand 27th, March 23rd, April 5th, May 5th. --Arthur Young, June 10thand 29th. "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453 Letter of the sub-delegate ofMontlhéry, April 14th. ]

[Footnote 1202: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of thesub-delegate Gobert, March 17th; of the officers of police, June15th:--" On the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of March the inhabitants ofConflans generally rebelled against the game law in relation to therabbit. "]

[Footnote 1203: Montjoie, 2nd part, ch. XXI. P. 14 (the first week inJune). Montjoie is a party man; but he gives dates and details, and histestimony, when it is confirmed elsewhere, deserves, to be admitted. ]

[Footnote 1204: Montjoie, 1st part, 92-101. --"Archives Nationales, "H. 1453. Letter of the officer of police of Saint-Denis: "A good manyworkmen arrive daily from Lorraine as well as from Champagne, " whichincreases the prices. ]

[Footnote 1205: De Bezenval, "Mémoires, " I. 353. Cf. "The AncientRegime, " p. 509. --Marmontel, II, 252 and following pages. --De Ferrières, I. 407. ]

[Footnote 1206: Arthur Young, September 1st, 1788]

[Footnote 1207: Barrère, "Mémoires, " I. 234. ]

[Footnote 1208: See, in the National Library, the long catalogue ofthose which have survived. ]

[Footnote 1209: Malouet, I. 255. Bailly, I. 43 (May 9th and19th). --D'Hezecques, "Souvenirs d'un page de Louis XV. " 293. --DeBezenval, I. 368. ]

[Footnote 1210: Marmontel, II, 249. --Montjoie, 1st part, p. 92. --DeBezenval, I. 387: "These spies added that persons were seen exciting thetumult and were distributing money. "]

[Footnote 1211: "Archives Nationales, " Y. 11441. Interrogatory of theAbbé Roy, May 5th. --Y. 11033, Interrogatory (April 28th and May 4th)of twenty-three wounded persons brought to the Hôtel-Dieu--These twodocuments are of prime importance in presenting the true aspect of theinsurrection; to these must be added the narrative of M. De Bezenval, who was commandant at this time with M. De Châtelet. Almost all othernarratives are amplified or falsified through party bias. ]

[Footnote 1212: De Ferrières, vol. III. Note A. (justificatoryexplanation by Réveillon). ]

[Footnote 1213: Bailly I. 25 (April 26th). ]

[Footnote 1214: Hippeau, IV. 377 (Letters of M. Perrot, April 29th). ]

[Footnote 1215: Letter to the King by an inhabitant of the FaubourgSaint-Antoine--"Do not doubt, sire, that our recent misfortunes are dueto the dearness of bread"]

[Footnote 1216: Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mesyeux, " etc. I. 25: "We turned back and were held up by small bands ofscoundrels, who insolently proposed to us to shout 'Vive Necker! Vivele Tiers-Etat!'" His two companions were knights of St. Louis, andtheir badges seemed an object of "increasing hatred. " "The badge excitedcoarse mutterings, even on the part of persons who appeared superior tothe agitators. "]

[Footnote 1217: Dampmartin, ibid. I. 25: "I was dining this very day atthe Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, in the Rue Saint-Louis. " He leaves the houseon foot and witnesses the disturbance. "Fifteen to Sixteen hundredwretches, the excrement of the nation, degraded by shameful vices, covered with rags, and gorged with brandy, presented the most disgustingand revolting spectacle. More than a hundred thousand persons ofboth sexes and of all ages and conditions interfered greatly with theoperations of the troops. The firing soon commenced and blood flowed:two innocent persons were wounded near me. "]

[Footnote 1218: De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant laRévolution. " Thirty-one gambling-houses are counted here, while apamphlet of the day is entitled "Pétition des deux mill cent filles duPalais-Royal. "]

[Footnote 1219: Montjoie, 2nd part, 144. --Bailly, II, 130. ]

[Footnote 1220: Arthur Young, June 24th, 1789. --Montjoie, 2nd part, 69. ]

[Footnote 1221: Arthur Young, June 9th, 24th, and 26th. --"La Francelibre, " passim, by C. Desmoulins. ]

[Footnote 1222: C. Desmoulins, letters to his father, and Arthur Young, June 9th. ]

[Footnote 1223: Montjoie, 2nd part, 69, 77, 124, 144. C. Desmoulins, letter, of June 24th and the following days. ]

[Footnote 1224: Etienne Dumont, "Souvenirs, " p. 72. --C. Desmoulins, letter of; June 24th. --Arthur Young, June 25th. --Buchez and Roux, II. 28. ]

[Footnote 1225: Bailly, I. 227 and 179. --Monnier, "Recherches sur lescauses, " etc. I. 289, 291; II. 61;--Malouet, I. 299; II. 10. --"Actesdes Apôtres, " V. 43. (Letter of M. De Guillermy, July 31st, 1790). --Marmontel, I. 28: "The people came even into the Assembly, toencourage their partisans, to select and indicate their victims, and toterrify the feeble with the dreadful trial of open balloting. "]

[Footnote 1226: Manuscript letters of M. Boullé, deputy, to themunicipal authorities of Pontivy, from May 1st, 1789, to September 4th, 1790 (communicated by M. Rosenzweig, archivist at Vannes). June 16th, 1789: "The crowd gathered around the hall. . . Was, during these days, from 3, 000 to 4, 000 persons. "]

[Footnote 1227: Letters of M. Boullé, June 23rd. "How sublime themoment, that in which we enthusiastically bind ourselves to the countryby a new oath!. . . . Why should this moment be selected by one of ournumber to dishonor himself? His name is now blasted throughout France. And the unfortunate man has children! Suddenly overwhelmed by publiccontempt he leaves, and falls fainting at the door, exclaiming, 'Ah!this will be my death!' I do not know what has become of him since. Whatis strange is, he had not behaved badly up to that time, and he votedfor the Constitution. "]

[Footnote 1228: De Ferrières, I. 168. --Malouet, I. 298 (according tohim the faction did not number more than ten members), --idem II. 10. --Dumont, 250. ]

[Footnote 1229: "Convention nationale" governed France from 21stSeptember 1792 until Oct. 26th 1796. We distinguish between threedifferent assemblies, "la Convention Girondine" 1792-93, "the Mountain, "1793-94 and "la Thermidorienne, " from 1794-1795. (SR). ]

[Footnote 1230: Declaration of June 23rd, article 15. ]

[Footnote 1231: Montjoie, 2nd part, 118. --C. Desmoulins, letters of June24th and the following days. A faithful narrative by M. De Sainte-Fère, formerly an officer in the French Guard, p. 9. --De Bezenval, III, 413. --Buchez and Roux, II. 35. --"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER(Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. In VI volumes, LibrariePlon, Paris 1893. . ]

[Footnote 1232: Peuchet ("Encyclopédie Méthodique, " 1789, quoted byParent Duchâtelet): "Almost all of the soldiers of the Guard belong tothat class (the procurers of public women): many, indeed, only enlist inthe corps that they may live at the expense of these unfortunates. "]

[Footnote 1233: Gouverneur Morris, "Liberty is now the general cry;authority is a name and no longer a reality. " (Correspondence withWashington, July 19th. )]

[Footnote 1234: Bailly. I. 302. "The King was very well-disposed; hismeasures were intended only to preserve order and the public peace. . . Du Châtelet was forced by facts to acquit M. De Bezenval of attemptsagainst the people and the country. "--Cf. Marmontel, IV. 183; Mounier, II, 40. ]

[Footnote 1235: Desmoulins, letter of the 16th July. Buchez and Roux, II. 83. ]

[Footnote 1236: Trial of the Prince de Lambesc (Paris, 1790), with theeighty-three depositions and the discussion of the testimony. --It is thecrowd which began the attack. The troops fired in the air. But oneman, a sieur Chauvel, was wounded slightly by the Prince de Lambesc. (Testimony of M. Carboire, p. 84, and of Captain de Reinack, p. 101. ) "M. Le Prince de Lambesc, mounted on a gray horse with a gray saddle withoutholsters or pistols, had scarcely entered the garden when a dozenpersons jumped at the mane and bridle of his horse and made every effortto drag him off. A small man in gray clothes fired at him with a pistol. . . . The prince tried hard to free himself, and succeeded by making hishorse rear up and by flourishing his sword; without, however, up to thistime, wounding any one. . . . He deposes that he saw the prince strikea man on the head with the flat of his saber who was trying to close theturning-bridge, which would have cut off the retreat of his troops Thetroops did no more than try to keep off the crowd which assailed themwith stones, and even with firearms, from the top of the terraces. "--Theman who tried to close the bridge had seized the prince's horse with onehand; the wound he received was a scratch about 23 lines long, which wasdressed and cured with a bandage soaked in brandy. All the details ofthe affair prove that the patience and humanity of the officer, wereextreme. Nevertheless "on the following day, the 13th, some one posted awritten placard on the crossing Bussy recommending the citizens of Paristo seize the prince and quarter him at once. "--(Deposition of M. Cosson, p. 114. )]

[Footnote 1237: Bailly, I. 3, 6. --Marmontel, IV. 310]

[Footnote 1238: Montjoie, part 3, 86. "I talked with those who guardedthe château of the Tuileries. They did not belong to Paris. . . . Afrightful physiognomy and hideous apparel. " Montjoie, not to be trustedin many places, merits consultation for little facts of which he was aneye-witness. --Morellet, "Mémoires, " I. 374. --Dusaulx, "L'oeuvre des septjours, " 352. --Revue Historique, " March, 1876. Interrogatory of Desnot. His occupation during the 13th of July (published by Guiffrey). ]

[Footnote 1239: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires, " I. 531. "Peaceable peoplefled at the sight of these groups of strange, frantic vagabonds. Everybody closed their houses. . . . When I reached home, in theSaint-Denis quarter, several of these brigands caused great alarm byfiring off guns in the air. "]

[Footnote 1240: Dusaulx, 379. ]

[Footnote 1241: Dusaulx, 359, 360, 361, 288, 336. "In effect theirentreaties resembled commands, and, more than once, it was impossible toresist them. "]

[Footnote 1242: Dusaulx, 447 (Deposition of the invalides). --"RevueRétrospective, " IV. 282 (Narrative of the commander of the thirty-twoSwiss Guards). ]

[Footnote 1243: Marmontel, IV. 317. ]

[Footnote 1244: Dusaulx, 454. "The soldiers replied that they wouldaccept whatever happened rather than cause the destruction of so great anumber of their fellow-citizens. "]

[Footnote 1245: Dusaulx, 447. The number of combatants, maimed, wounded, dead, and living, is 825. --Marmontel, IV. 320. "To the number ofvictors, which has been carried up to 800, people have been added whowere never near the place. "]

[Footnote 1246: "Memoires", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, 1767-1862), chancelier de France. In VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris1893. Vol. I. P. 52. Pasquier was eye-witness. He leaned against thefence of the Beaumarchais garden and looked on, with mademoiselleContat, the actress, at his side, who had left her carriage in thePlace-Royale. --Marat, "L'ami du peuple, " No. 530. "When an unheard-ofconjunction of circumstances had caused the fall of the badly defendedwalls of the Bastille, under the efforts of a handful of soldiers anda troop of unfortunate creatures, most of them Germans and almost allprovincials, the Parisians presented themselves the fortress, curiosityalone having led them there. "]

[Footnote 1247: Narrative of the commander of the thirty-twoSwiss. --Narrative of Cholat, wine-dealer, one of thevictors. --Examination of Desnot (who cut off the head of M. De Launay). ]

[Footnote 1248: Montjoie, part 3, 85. --Dusaulx, 355, 287, 368. ]

[Footnote 1249: Nothing more. No Witness states that he had seen thepretended note to M. Do Launay. According to Dusaulx, he could not havehad either the time or the means to write it. ]

[Footnote 1250: Bailly, II. 32, 74, 88, 90, 95, 108, 117, 137, 158, 174. "I gave orders which were neither obeyed nor listened to. . . . Theygave me to understand that I was not safe. " (July 15th. ) "In thesesad times one enemy and one calumnious report sufficed to excite themultitude. All who had formerly held power, all who had annoyed orrestrained the insurrectionists, were sure of being arrested. "]

[Footnote 1251: M. De Lafayette, "Mémoires, " III. 264. Letter of July16th, 1789. "I have already saved the lives of six persons whom theywere hanging in different quarters. "]

[Footnote 1252: Poujoulat. "Histoire de la Révolution Française, " p. 100(with supporting documents). Procès-verbaux of the Provincial Assembly, lle-de-France (1787), p. 127. ]

[Footnote 1253: For instance: "He is severe with his peasants. "--"Hegives them no bread, and he wants them then to eat grass. " "He wantsthem to eat grass like horses. "--"He has said that they could very welleat hay, and that they are no better than horses. "--The same story isfound in many of the contemporary jacqueries. ]

[Footnote 1254: Bailly, II. 108. "The people, less enlightened and asimperious as despots, recognize no positive signs of good administrationbut success. "]

[Footnote 1255: Bailly, II, 108, 95. --Malouet, II, 14. ]

[Footnote 1256: De Ferrières, I. 168. ]

CHAPTER III. 

I. --Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789

 Destruction of the Government. --To whom does real power belong?

However bad a particular government may be, there is something stillworse, and that is the suppression of all government. For, it is owingto government that human wills form a harmony instead of chaos. It serves society as the brain serves a living being. Incapable, inconsiderate, extravagant, engrossing, it often abuses its position, overstraining or misleading the body for which it should care, and whichit should direct. But, taking all things into account, whatever it maydo, more good than harm is done, for through it the body stands erect, marches on and guides its steps. Without it there is no organizeddeliberate action, serviceable to the whole body. In it alone do we findthe comprehensive views, knowledge of the members of which it consistsand of their aims, an idea of outward relationships, full and accurateinformation, in short, the superior intelligence which conceives what isbest for the common interests, and adapts means to ends. If it faltersand is no longer obeyed, if it is forced and pushed from without by aviolent pressure, it ceases to control public affairs, and the socialorganization retrogrades by many steps. Through the dissolution ofsociety, and the isolation of individuals, each man returns to hisoriginal feeble state, while power is vested in passing aggregates thatlike whirlwinds spring up from the human dust. --One may divine how thispower, which the most competent find it difficult to apply properly, isexercised by bands of men springing out of nowhere. It is a matter ofsupplies, of their possessions, price and distribution. It is a matterof taxes, its proportion, apportionment and collection; of privateproperty, its varieties, rights, and limitations It is a problem ofpublic authority, its allocation and its limits; of all those delicatecogwheels which, working into each other, constitute the great economic, social, and political machine. Each band in its own canton lays itsrude hands on the wheels within its reach. They wrench or break themhaphazardly, under the impulse of the moment, heedless and indifferentto consequences, even when the reaction of to-morrow crushes them in theruin that they cause to day. Thus do unchained Negroes, each pulling andhauling his own way, undertake to manage a ship of which they have justobtained mastery. --In such a state of things white men are hardly worthmore than black ones. For, not only is the band, whose aim is violence, composed of those who are most destitute, most wildly enthusiastic, andmost inclined to destructiveness and to license. But also, as this bandtumultuously carries out its violent action, each individual the mostbrutal, the most irrational, and most corrupt, descends lower thanhimself, even to the darkness, the madness, and the savagery of thedregs of society. In fact, a man who in the interchange of blows, wouldresist the excitement of murder, and not use his strength like asavage, must be familiar with arms. He must be accustomed to danger, becool-blooded, alive to the sentiment of honor, and above all, sensitiveto that stern military code which, to the imagination of the soldier, ever holds out to him the provost's gibbet to which he is sure to rise, should he strike one blow too many. Should all these restraints, inwardas well as outward, be wanting, the man plunges into insurrection. He isa novice in the acts of violence, which he carries out. He has nofear of the law, because he abolishes it. The action begun carries himfurther than he intended to go. Peril and resistance exasperate hisanger. He catches the fever from contact with those who are fevered, and follows robbers who have become his comrades. [1301] Add to thisthe clamors, the drunkenness, the spectacle of destruction, the nervoustremor of the body strained beyond its powers of endurance, and wecan comprehend how, from the peasant, the laborer, and the bourgeois, pacified and tamed by an old civilization, we see all of a sudden springforth the barbarian. Or still worse, the primitive animal, the grinning, sanguinary, wanton baboon, who giggles while he slays, and gambols overthe ruin he has accomplished. Such is the actual government to whichFrance is given up, and after eighteen months' experience, the bestqualified, most judicious and profoundest observer of the Revolutionwill find nothing to compare it to but the invasion of the Roman Empirein the fourth century. [1302] "The Huns, the Heruli, the Vandals, and theGoths will come neither from the north nor from the Black Sea; they arein our very midst. "

II. --The provinces

 Destruction of old Authorities. --Inadequacy of new Authorities

When in a building the principal beam gives way, cracks follow andmultiply, and the secondary joists fall in one by one for lack of theprop, which supported them. In a similar manner the authority of theKing being broken, all the powers, which he delegated, fall to theground. [1303] Intendants, parliaments, military commands, grandprovosts, administrative, judicial, and police functionaries in everyprovince, and of every branch of the service, who maintain order andprotect property, taught by the murder of M. De Launey, the imprisonmentof M. De Besenval, the flight of Marshal de Broglie, the assassinationsof Foullon and Bertier, know what it costs should they try to performtheir duties. Should it be forgotten local insurrections intervene, andkeep them in mind of it. 

The officer in command in Burgundy is a prisoner at Dijon, with aguard at his door; and he is not allowed to speak with any one withoutpermission, and without the presence of witnesses. [1304] The Commandantof Caen is besieged in the old palace and capitulates. The Commandant ofBordeaux surrenders Château-Trompette with its guns and equipment. TheCommandant at Metz, who remains firm, suffers the insults and the ordersof the populace. The Commandant of Brittany wanders about his province"like a vagabond, " while at Rennes his people, furniture, and plate arekept as pledges. As soon as he sets foot in Normandy he is surrounded, and a sentinel is placed at his door. --The Intendant of Besançon takesto flight; that of Rouen sees his dwelling sacked from top to bottom, and escapes amid the shouts of a mob demanding his head. --At Rennes, theDean of the Parliament is arrested, maltreated, kept in his room witha guard over him, and then, although ill, sent out of the town under anescort. --At Strasbourg "thirty-six houses of magistrates are markedfor pillage. "[1305]--At Besançon, the President of the Parliament isconstrained to let out of prison the insurgents arrested in a lateout-break, and to publicly burn the whole of the papers belonging tothe prosecution. --In Alsace, since the beginning of the troubles, theprovosts were obliged to fly, the bailiffs and manorial judges hidthemselves, the forest-inspectors ran away, and the houses of the guardswere demolished. One man, sixty years of age, is outrageously beaten andmarched about the village, the people, meanwhile, pulling out his hair;nothing remains of his dwelling but the walls and a portion of the roof. All his furniture and effects are broken up, burnt or stolen. He isforced to sign, along with his wife, an act by which he binds himselfto refund all penalties inflicted by him, and to abandon all claimsfor damages for the injuries to which he has just been subjected. --InFranche-Comté the authorities dare not condemn delinquents, and thepolice do not arrest them; the military commandant writes that "crimesof every kind are on the increase, and that he has no means of punishingthem. " Insubordination is permanent in all the provinces; one of theprovincial commissions states with sadness:

"When all powers are in confusion and annihilated, when public forceno longer exists, when all ties are sundered, when every individualconsiders himself relieved from all kinds of obligation, when publicauthority no longer dares make itself felt, and it is a crime to havebeen clothed with it, what can be expected of our efforts to restoreorder?"[1306]

All that remains of this great demolished State is forty thousandgroups of people, each separated and isolated, in towns and small marketvillages where municipal bodies, elected committees, and improvisedNational Guards strive to prevent the worst excesses. --But these localchiefs are novices; they are human, and they are timid. Chosen byacclamation they believe in popular rights; in the midst of riots theyfeel themselves in danger. Hence, they generally obey the crowd. 

"Rarely, " says one of the provincial commissions reports, "do themunicipal authorities issue a summons; they allow the greatest excessesrather than enter upon prosecutions for which, sooner or later, theymay be held responsible by their fellow-citizens. . . . Municipal bodieshave no longer the power to resist anything. "

Especially in the rural districts the mayor or syndic, who is a farmer, makes it his first aim to make no enemies, and would resign his placeif it were to bring him any "unpleasantness" with it. His rule inthe towns, and especially in large cities, is almost as lax and moreprecarious, because explosive material is accumulated here to a muchlarger extent, and the municipal officers, in their arm-chairs at thetown-hall, sit over a mine which may explode at any time. To-morrow, perhaps, some resolution passed at a tavern in the suburbs, or someincendiary newspaper just received from Paris, will furnish thespark. --No other defense against the populace is at hand than thesentimental proclamations of the National Assembly, the useless presenceof troops who stand by and look on, and the uncertain help of a NationalGuard which will arrive too late. Occasionally these townspeople, whoare now the rulers, utter a cry of distress from under the hands ofthe sovereigns of the street who grasp them by the throat. AtPuy-en-Velay, [1307] a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, theprésidial, [1308] the committee of twenty-four commissioners, a body oftwo hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men of the guard of burgesses, are "paralyzed, and completely stupefied, by the vile populace. Amild treatment only increases its insubordination and insolence. " Thispopulace proscribes whomsoever it pleases, and six days ago a gibbet, erected by its hands, has announced to the new magistrates the fate thatawaits them. 

" What will become of us this winter, " they exclaim, "in ourimpoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the preyof wild beasts!"

III. --Public feeling. --Famine

These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, theirmisery has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid waste, and the soil broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce hailstorm, anda deluge of rain. In the south, the crop proved to be moderate and eveninsufficient. 

"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc, " writes theintendant, [1309] "would be to give an account of calamities of everydescription. The panic which prevails in all communities, and which isstronger than all laws, stops traffic, and would cause famine even inthe midst of plenty. Commodities are enormously expensive, and there isa lack of cash. Communities are ruined by the enormous outlays to whichthey are exposed: The payment of the deputies to the seneschal's court, the establishment of the burgess guards, guardhouses for this militia, and the purchase of arms, uniforms, and outlays in forming communes andpermanent councils. To this must be add the cost of the printing of allkinds, and the publication of trivial deliberations. Further the lossof time due to disturbances occasioned by these circumstances, andthe utter stagnation of manufactures and of trade. " All these causescombined "have reduced Languedoc to the last extremity. "--In the Center, and in the North, where the crops are good, provisions are not lessscarce, because wheat is not put in circulation, and is kept concealed. 

"For five months, " writes the municipal assembly of Louviers, [1310] "nota farmer has made his appearance in the markets of this town. Such acircumstance was never known before, although, from time to time, highprices have prevailed to a considerable extent. On the contrary, themarkets were always well supplied in proportion to the high price ofgrain. "

In vain the municipality orders the surrounding forty-seven parishes toprovide them with wheat. They pay no attention to the mandate; each forhimself and each for his own house; the intendant is no longer presentto compel local interests to give way to public interests. 

"In the wheat districts around us, " says a letter from one of theBurgundy towns, "we cannot rely on being able to make free purchases. Special regulations, supported by the civic guard, prevent grain frombeing sent out, and put a stop to its circulation. The adjacent marketsare of no use to us. Not a sack of grain has been brought into ourmarket for about eight months. "

At Troyes, bread costs four sous per pound, at Bar-sur-Aube, and in thevicinity, four and a half sous per pound. The artisan who is out of worknow earns twelve sous a day at the relief works, and, on going into thecountry, he sees that the grain crop is good. What conclusion can hecome to but that the dearth is due to the monopolists, and that, if heshould die of hunger, it would be because those scoundrels havestarved him?--By virtue of this reasoning whoever has to do with theseprovisions, whether proprietor, farmer, merchant or administrator, allare considered traitors. It is plain that there is a plot againstthe people: the government, the Queen, the clergy, the nobles are allparties to it; and likewise the magistrates and the wealthy amongst thebourgeoisie and the rich. A rumor is current in the Ile-de-France thatsacks of flour are thrown into the Seine, and that the cavalry horsesare purposely made to eat unripe wheat in stalk. In Brittany, it ismaintained that grain is exported and stored up abroad. In Touraine, itis certain that this or that wholesale dealer allows it to sprout in hisgranaries rather than sell it. At Troyes, a story prevails that anotherhas poisoned his flour with alum and arsenic, commissioned to do soby the bakers. --Conceive the effect of suspicions like these upon asuffering multitude! A wave of hatred ascends from the empty stomach tothe morbid brain. The people are everywhere in quest of their imaginaryenemies, plunging forward with closed eyes no matter on whom or on what, not merely with all the weight of their mass, but with all the energy oftheir fury. 

IV. --Panic. 

 General arming. 

From the earliest of these weeks they were already alarmed. Accustomedto being led, the human herd is scared at being left to itself; itmisses its leaders who it has trodden under foot; in throwing off theirtrammels it has deprived itself of their protection. It feels lonely, in an unknown country, exposed to dangers of which it is ignorant, andagainst which it is unable to guard itself. Now that the shepherds areslain or disarmed, suppose the wolves should unexpectedly appear!--Andthere are wolves--I mean vagabonds and criminals--who have but justissued out of the darkness. They have robbed and burned, and are to befound at every insurrection. Now that the police force no longer putsthem down, they show themselves instead of keeping themselves concealed. They have only to lie in wait and come forth in a band, and both lifeand property will be at their mercy. --Deep anxiety, a vague feeling ofdread, spreads through both town and country: towards the end of Julythe panic, like a blinding, suffocating whirl of dusts, suddenly sweepsover hundreds of leagues of territory. The brigands are coming! They areburning the crops! They are only six leagues off, and then only two--therefugees who have run away from the disorder prove it. 

On the 28th of July, at Angoulême, [1311] the alarm bell is heard aboutthree o'clock in the afternoon; the drums beat to arms, and cannon aremounted on the ramparts. The town has to be put in a state of defenseagainst 15, 000 bandits who are approaching, and from the walls a cloudof dust on the road is discovered with terror. It proves to be thepost-wagon on its way to Bordeaux. After this the number of brigandsis reduced to 1, 500, but there is no doubt that they are ravaging thecountry. At nine o'clock in the evening 20, 000 men are under arms, andthus they pass the night, always listening without hearing anything. Towards three o'clock in the morning there is another alarm, the churchbells ringing and the people forming a battle array. They are convincedthat the brigands have burned Ruffec, Vernenil, La Rochefoucauld, andother places. The next day countrymen flock in to give their aid againstbandits who are still absent. "At nine o'clock, " says a witness, "we had40, 000 men in the town, to whom we showed our gratitude. " As the banditsdo not show themselves, it must be because they are concealed; a hundredhorsemen, a large number of men on foot, start out to search the forestof Braçonne, and to their great surprise they find nothing. But theterror is not allayed; "during the following days a guard is keptmounted, and companies are enrolled among the townsmen, " while Bordeaux, duly informed, dispatches a courier to offer the support of 20, 000 menand even 30, 000. "What is surprising, " adds the narrator, is that at tenleagues off in the neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbancetook place, and at about the same hour. "--All that is required is that agirl, returning to the village at night, should meet two men who donot belong to the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne. Wholeparishes, on the strength of this, betake themselves at night to thewoods, abandoning their houses, and carrying away their furniture; "thefugitives trod down and destroyed their own crops; pregnant women wereinjured in the forests, and others lost their wits. " Fear lends themwings. Two years after this, Madame Campan was shown a rocky peak onwhich a woman had taken refuge, and from which she was obliged to be letdown with ropes. --The people at last return to their homes, and resumetheir usual routines. But such large masses are not unsettled withimpunity; a tumult like this is, in itself, a lively source of alarm. Asthe country did rise, it must have been on account of threatened dangerand if the peril was not due to brigands, it must have come from someother quarter. Arthur Young, at Dijon and in Alsace, [1312] hears at thepublic dinner tables that the Queen had formed a plot to undermine theNational Assembly and to massacre all Paris. Later on he is arrested ina village near Clermont, and examined because he is evidently conspiringwith the Queen and the Comte d'Entraigues to blow up the town and sendthe survivors to the galleys. 

No argument, no experience has any effect against the multiplyingphantoms of an over-excited imagination. Henceforth every commune, andevery man, provide themselves with arms and keep them ready for use. Thepeasant searches his hoard, and "finds from ten to twelve francs forthe purchase of a gun. " "A national militia is found in the poorestvillage. " Burgess guards and companies of volunteers patrol all thetowns. Military commanders deliver arms, ammunition, and equipment, on the requisition of municipal bodies, while, in case of refusal, the arsenals are pillaged, and, voluntarily or by force, fourhundred thousand guns thus pass into the hands of the people in sixmonths. [1313] Not content with this they must have cannon. Bresthaving demanded two, every town in Brittany does the same thing;their self-esteem is at stake as well as a need of feeling themselvesstrong. --They lack nothing now to render themselves masters. Allauthority, all force, every means of constraint and of intimidationis in their hands, and in theirs alone; and these sovereign hands havenothing to guide them in this actual interregnum of all legal powers, but the wild or murderous suggestions of hunger or distrust. 

V. --Attacks on public individuals and public property. 

 At Strasbourg. --At Cherbourg. --At Mauberge. --At Rouen. --At Besançon. --At Troyes. 

It would take too much space to recount all the violent acts which werecommitted, --convoys arrested, grain pillaged, millers and corn merchantshung, decapitated, slaughtered, farmers called upon under the threats ofdeath to give up even the seed reserved for sowing, proprietors ransomedand houses sacked. [1314] These outrages, unpunished, tolerated and evenexcused or badly suppressed, are constantly repeated, and are, at first, directed against public men and public property. As is commonly thecase, the rabble head the march and stamp the character of the wholeinsurrection. 

On the 19th of July, at Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return tooffice, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, whichit witnesses. Five or six hundred beggars, [1315] their numbers soonincreased by the petty tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the magistratesonly having time to fly through a back door. The soldiers, on theirpart, with arms in their hands, allow all these things to go on, whileseveral of them spur the assailants on. The windows are dashed to piecesunder a hailstorm of stones, the doors are forced with iron crowbars, and the populace enter amid a burst of acclamations from the spectators. Immediately, through every opening in the building, which has a facadefrontage of eighty feet, "there is a shower of shutters, sashes, chairs, tables, sofas, books and papers, and then another of tiles, boards, balconies and fragments of wood-work. " The public archives arethrown to the wind, and the surrounding streets are strewed with them;the letters of enfranchisement, the charters of privileges, all theauthentic acts which, since Louis XIV, have guaranteed the liberties ofthe town, perish in the flames. Some of the rabble in the cellars stavein casks of precious wine; fifteen thousand measures of it are lost, making a pool five feet deep in which several are drowned. Others, loaded with booty, go away under the eyes of the soldiers withoutbeing arrested. The havoc continues for three days; a number of housesbelonging to some of the magistrates "are sacked from garret to cellar. "When the honest citizens at last obtain arms and restore order, they arecontent with the hanging of one of the robbers; although, in order toplease the people, the magistrates are changed and the price of breadand meat is reduced. --It is not surprising that after such tactics, andwith such rewards, the riot should spread through the neighborhood farand near: in fact, starting from Strasbourg it overruns Alsace, while inthe country as in the city, there are always drunkards and rascals foundto head it. 

No matter where, be it in the East, in the West, or in the North, theinstigators are always of this stamp. At Cherbourg, on the 21st ofJuly, [1316] the two leaders of the riot are "highway robbers, " who placethemselves at the head of women of the suburbs, foreign sailors, thepopulace of the harbor, and it includes soldiers in workmen's smocks. They force the delivery of the keys of the grain warehouses, andwreck the dwellings of the three richest merchants, also that of M. DeGarantot, the sub-delegate: "All records and papers are burnt; at M. DeGarantot's alone the loss is estimated at more than 100, 000 crowns atleast. "--The same instinct of destruction prevails everywhere, a sortof envious fury against all who possess, command, or enjoy anything. At Maubeuge, on the 27th of July, at the very assembly of therepresentatives of the commune, [1317] the rabble interferes directly inits usual fashion. A band of nail and gun-makers takes possession of thetown-hall, and obliges the mayor to reduce the price of bread. Almostimmediately after this another band follows uttering cries of death, and smashes the windows, while the garrison, which has been ordered out, quietly contemplates the damage done. Death to the mayor, to all rulers, and to all employees! The rioters force open the prisons, set theprisoners free, and attack the tax-offices. The octroi offices aredemolished from top to bottom: they pull down the harbor offices andthrow the scales and weights into the river. All the custom andexcise stores are carried off; and the officials are compelled to giveacquaintances. The houses of the registrar and of the sheriff, that ofthe revenue comptroller, two hundred yards outside the town, are sacked;the doors and the windows are smashed, the furniture and linen is tornto shreds, and the plate and jewelry is thrown into the wells. The samehavoc is committed in the mayor's town-house, also in his country-housea league off. "Not a window, not a door, not one article or eatable, "is preserved; their work, moreover, is conscientiously done, withoutstopping a moment, "from ten in the evening up to ten in the morning onthe following day. " In addition to this the mayor, who has servedfor thirty-four years, resigns his office at the solicitation of thewell-disposed but terrified people, and leaves the country. --AtRouen, after the 24th of July, [1318] a written placard shows, by itsorthography and its style, what sort of intellects composed it and whatkind of actions are to follow it:

"Nation, you have here four heads to strike off, those of Pontcarry(the first president), Maussion (the intendant), Godard de Belboeuf (theattorney-general), and Durand (the attorney of the King in the town). Without this we are lost, and if you do not do it, people will take youfor a heartless nation. "

Nothing could be more explicit. The municipal body, however, to whomthe Parliament denounces this list of proscriptions, replies, with itsforced optimism, that

"no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed; hemay and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling, satisfiedthat there is not a person in the city who would not fly to his rescue. "

This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as itpleases. On the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on insecurity for ten days. One of them is a man named Jourdain, a lawyer ofLisieux, and, like most of his brethren, a demagogue in principles; theother is a strolling actor from Paris named Bordier, famous in the partof harlequin, [1319] a bully in a house of ill-fame, "a night-roverand drunkard, and who, fearing neither God nor devil, " has taken uppatriotism, and comes down into the provinces to play tragedy, and that, tragedy in real life. The fifth act begins on the night of the 3rd ofAugust, with Bordier and Jourdain as the principal actors, and behindthem the rabble along with several companies of fresh volunteers. Ashout is heard, "Death to the monopolists! death to Maussion! we musthave his head!" They pillage his hotel: many of them become intoxicatedand fall asleep in his cellar. The revenue offices, the toll-gates ofthe town, the excise office, all buildings in which the royal revenue iscollected, are wrecked. Immense bonfires are lighted in the streets andon the old market square; furniture, clothes, papers, kitchen utensils, are all thrown in pell-mell, while carriages are dragged out and tumbledinto the Seine. It is only when the town-hall is attacked that theNational Guard, beginning to be alarmed, makes up its mind to seizeBordier and some others. The following morning, however, at the shout ofCarabo, and led by Jourdain, the prison is forced, Bordier set free, andthe intendant's residence, with its offices, is sacked a second time. When, finally, the two rascals are taken and led to the scaffold, thepopulace is so strongly in their favor as to require the pointing ofloaded cannon on them to keep them down. --At Besançon, [1320] on the 13thof August, the leaders consist of the servant of an exhibitor ofwild animals, two goal-birds of whom one has already been branded inconsequence of a riot, and a number of "inhabitants of ill-repute, " who, towards evening, spread through the town along with the soldiers. Thegunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the throat and wantto throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the commandant, M. De Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing to give itthey tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong to theThird-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters: subsequentlythey demand the head of the intendant, M. De Caumartin, forcibly enterhis dwelling and break up his furniture. On the following day the rabbleand the soldiers enter the coffee-houses, the convents, and the inns, and demand to be served with wine and eatables as much as they want, andthen, heated by drink, they burn the excise offices, force open severalprisons, and set free all the smugglers and deserters. To put an end tothis saturnalia a grand banquet in the open air is suggested, in whichthe National Guard is to fraternize with the whole garrison; but thebanquet turns into a drinking-bout, entire companies remaining under thetables dead drunk; other companies carry away with them four hogsheadsof wine, and the rest, finding themselves left in the lurch, arescattered abroad outside the walls in order to rob the cellars of theneighboring villages. The next day, encouraged by the example set them, a portion of the garrison, accompanied by a number of workmen, repeatthe expedition in the country. Finally, after four days of this orgy, toprevent Besançon and its outskirts from being indefinitely treated as aconquered country, the burgess guard, in alliance with the soldiers whohave remained loyal, rebel against the rebellion, go in quest ofthe marauders and hang two of them that same evening. --Such isrioting![1321] an irruption of brute force which, turned loose on thehabitations of men, can do nothing but gorge itself, waste, break, destroy, and do damage to itself; and if we follow the details of localhistory, we see how, in these days, similar outbreaks of violence mightbe expected at any time. 

At Troyes, [1322] on the 18th of July, a market-day, the peasants refuseto pay the entrance duties; the octroi having been suppressed at Paris, it ought also to be suppressed at Troyes. The populace, excited by thisfirst disorderly act, gather into a mob for the purpose of dividing thegrain and arms amongst themselves, and the next day the town-hall isinvested by seven or eight thousand men, armed with clubs and stones. The day after, a band, recruited in the surrounding villages, armedwith flails, shovels, and pitch-forks, enters under the leadership ofa joiner who marches at the head of it with a drawn saber; fortunately, "all the honest folks among the burgesses "immediately form themselvesinto a National Guard, and this first attempt at a Jacquerie is putdown. But the agitation continues, and false rumors constantly keepit up. --On the 29th of July, on the report being circulated that fivehundred "brigands" had left Paris and were coming to ravage the country, the alarm bell sounds in the villages, and the peasants go forth armed. Henceforth, a vague idea of some impending danger fills all minds; thenecessity of defense and of guarding against enemies is maintained. The new demagogues avail themselves of this to keep their hold on thepeople, and when the time comes, to use it against their chiefs. --It isof no use to assure the people that the latter are patriots; that therecently welcomed Necker with enthusiastic shouts; that the priests, themonks, and canons were the first to adopt the national cockade; thatthe nobles of the city and its environs are the most liberal in France;that, on the 20th of July, the burgess guard saved the town; thatall the wealthy give to the national workshops; that Mayor Huez, "avenerable and honest magistrate, " is a benefactor to the poor and tothe public. All the old leaders are objects of distrust. --On the 8thof August, a mob demands the dismissal of the dragoons, arms forall volunteers, bread at two sous the pound, and the freedom of allprisoners. On the 19th of August the National Guard rejects its oldofficers as aristocrats, and elects new ones. On the 27th of August, thecrowd invade the town-hall and distribute the arms amongst themselves. On the 5th of September, two hundred men, led by Truelle, president ofthe new committee, force the salt depot and have salt delivered to themat six sous per pound. --Meanwhile, in the lowest quarters of the city, a story is concocted to the effect that if wheat is scarce it isbecause Huez, the mayor, and M. De St. Georges, the old commandant, aremonopolists, and now they say of Huez what they said five weeks beforeof Foulon, that "he wants to make the people eat hay. " The many-headedbrute growls fiercely and is about to spring. As usual, instead ofrestraining him, they try to manage him. 

"You must put your authority aside for a moment, " writes the deputy ofTroyes to the sheriffs, " and act towards the people as to a friend; beas gentle with them as you would be with your equals, and rest assuredthat they are capable of responding to it. "

Thus does Huez act, and he even does more, paying no attention to theirmenaces, refusing to provide for his own safety and almost offeringhimself as a sacrifice. 

"I have wronged no one, " he exclaimed; "why should any one bear meill-will?"

His sole precaution is to provide something for the unfortunate poorwhen he is gone: he bequeaths in his will 18, 000 livres to the poor, and, on the eve of his death, sends 100 crowns to the bureau of charity. But what avail self-abnegation and beneficence against blind, insanerage! On the 9th of September, three loads of flour proving to beunsound, the people collect and shout out, "Down with the flour-dealers! Down with machinery! Down with the mayor!Death to the mayor, and let Truelle be put in his place!"

Huez, on leaving his court-room, is knocked down, murdered by kicks andblows, throttled, dragged to the reception hall, struck on his headwith a wooden-shoe and pitched down the grand staircase. The municipalofficers strive in vain to protect him; a rope is put around his neckand they begin to drag him along. A priest, who begs to be allowed atleast to save his soul, is repulsed and beaten. A woman jumps onthe prostrate old man, stamps on his face and repeatedly thrusts herscissors in his eyes. He is dragged along with the rope around his neckup to the Pont de la Selle, and thrown into the neighboring ford, andthen drawn out, again dragged through the streets and in the gutters, with a bunch of hay crammed in his mouth. [1323]

In the meantime, his house as well as that of the lieutenant of police, that of the notary Guyot, and that of M. De Saint-Georges, are sacked;the pillaging and destruction lasts four hours; at the notary's house, six hundred bottles of wine are consumed or carried off; objects ofvalue are divided, and the rest, even down to the iron balcony, isdemolished or broken; the rioters cry out, on leaving, that they havestill to burn twenty-seven houses, and to take twenty-seven heads. "Noone at Troyes went to bed that fatal night. "--During the succeedingdays, for nearly two weeks, society seems to be dissolved. Placardsposted about the streets proscribe municipal officers, canons, divines, privileged persons, prominent merchants, and even ladies of charity; thelatter are so frightened that they throw up their office, while a numberof persons move off into the country; others barricade themselves intheir dwellings and only open their doors with saber in hand. Notuntil the 26th does the orderly class rally sufficiently to resume theascendancy and arrest the miscreants. --Such is public life in Franceafter the 14th of July: the magistrates in each town feel that they areat the mercy of a band of savages and sometimes of cannibals. Those ofTroyes had just tortured Huez after the fashion of Hurons, while thoseof Caen did worse; Major de Belzance, not less innocent, and under swornprotection, [1324] was cut to pieces like Laperouse in the Fiji Islands, and a woman ate his heart. 

VI. --Taxes are no longer paid. 

 Devastation of the Forests. --The new game laws. 

It is, under such circumstances, possible to foretell whether taxes comein, and whether municipalities that sway about in every popular breezewill have the authority to collect the odious revenues. --Towards the endof September, [1325] I find a list of thirty-six committees or municipalbodies which, within a radius of fifty leagues around Paris, refuseto ensure the collection of taxes. One of them tolerates the saleof contraband salt, in order not to excite a riot. Another takes theprecaution to disarm the employees in the excise department. In athird the municipal officers were the first to provide themselves withcontraband salt and contraband tobacco. 

At Peronne and at Ham, the order having come to restore the toll-houses, the people destroy the soldiers' quarters, conduct all the employeesto their homes, and order them to leave within twenty-four hours, underpenalty of death. After twenty months' resistance Paris will end thematter by forcing the National Assembly to give in and by obtaining thefinal suppression of its octroi. [1326]--Of all the creditors whose handeach one felt on his shoulders, that of the exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest; hence this is the first whose grasp is tobe shaken off; there is none which is more heartily detested or whichreceives harsher treatment. Especially against collectors of thesalt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the fury is universal. These, everywhere, [1327] are in danger of their lives and are obliged tofly. At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to piecesthe director of the excise. " At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house isdevastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife tothe throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou mustperish that there may be no more of thy race. " For four hours the clerksare on the point of being torn to pieces; through the entreaties of thelord of the manor, who sees scythes and sabers aimed at his ownhead, they are released only on the condition that they "abjuretheir employment. "--Again, for two months following the taking ofthe Bastille, insurrections break out by hundreds, like a volleyof musketry, against indirect taxation. From the 23rd of July theIntendant of Champagne reports that "the uprising is general in almostall the towns under his command. " On the following day the Intendant ofAlençon writes that, in his province, "the royal dues will no longer bepaid anywhere. " On the 7th of August, M. Necker states to the NationalAssembly that in the two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon ithas been necessary to reduce the price of salt one-half; that "inan infinity of places" the collection of the excise is stopped orsuspended; that the smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by "convoysand by open force" in Picardy, in Lorraine, and in the Trois-Évêchés;that the indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general andthe receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep theirengagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in thesocial body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of theblood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles thevivifying current which restores their waste and adds to their energy. 

"All controlling power is slackened, " says Necker, "everything is a preyto the passions of individuals. " Where is the power to constrain themand to secure to the State its dues?--The clergy, the nobles, wealthytownsmen, and certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, andeven sometimes give spontaneously. But in society those who possessintelligence, who are in easy circumstances and conscientious, form asmall select class; the great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go only under constraint; there is but one way tocollect the taxes, and that is to extort them. From time immemorial, direct taxes in France have been collected only by bailiffs andseizures; which is not surprising, as they take away a full half of thenet income. Now that the peasants of each village are armed and forma band, let the collector come and make seizures if he dare!--"Immediately after the decree on the equality of the taxes, " writes theprovincial commission of Alsace, [1328] "the people generally refusedto make any payments, until those who were exempt and privileged shouldhave been inscribed on the local lists. " In many places the peasantsthreaten to obtain the reimbursement of their installments, while inothers they insist that the decree should be retrospective and that thenew rate-payers should pay for the past year. "No collector dare send anofficial to distrain; none that are sent dare fulfill their mission. "--"It is not the good bourgeois" of whom there is any fear, "but the rabblewho make the latter and every one else afraid of them;" resistance anddisorder everywhere come from "people that have nothing to lose. "--Notonly do they shake off taxation, but they usurp property, and declarethat, being the Nation, whatever belongs to the Nation belongs tothem. The forests of Alsace are laid waste, the seignorial as well ascommunal, and wantonly destroyed with the wastefulness of children orof maniacs. "In many places, to avoid the trouble of removing the woods, they are burnt, and the people content themselves with carrying off theashes. "--After the decrees of August 4th, and in spite of the law whichlicenses the proprietor only to hunt on his own grounds, the impulseto break the law becomes irresistible. Every man who can procure a gunbegins operations;[1329] the crops which are still standing are troddenunder foot, the lordly residences are invaded and the palings arescaled; the King himself at Versailles is wakened by shots fired in hispark. Stags, fawns, deer, wild boars, hares, and rabbits, are slain bythousands, cooked with stolen wood, and eaten up on the spot. There isa constant discharge of musketry throughout France for more than twomonths, and, as on an American prairie, every living animal belongs tohim who kills it. At Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the haresand partridges of the barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhaustedof fish; the court of the chateau even is entered, to fire on thepigeon-house and destroy the pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, ofwhich they have too many, are offered to the proprietor for sale--Itis "the patriots" of the village with "smugglers and bad characters"belonging to the neighborhood who make this expedition; they are seenin the front ranks of every act of violence, and it is not difficultto foresee that, under their leadership, attacks on public personsand public property will be followed by attacks on private persons andprivate property. 

VII. --Attack upon private individuals and private property. 

 Aristocrats denounced to the people as their enemies. --Effect of news from Paris. --Influence of the village attorneys. --Isolated acts of violence. --A general rising of the peasantry in the east. --War against the castles, feudal estates, and property. --Preparations for other Jacqueries. 

Indeed, an outlawed class already exists, they are called "aristocrats. "This deadly term, applied at first to the nobles and prelates in theStates-General who declined to take part in the reunion of the threeorders, is extended so as to embrace all whose titles, offices, alliances, and manner of living distinguish them from the multitude. That which entitled them to respect is that which marks them out asobjects of ill-will; while the people, who, though suffering from theirprivileges, did not regard them personally with hatred, are now taughtto consider them as their enemies. Each, on his own estate, isheld accountable for the evil designs attributed to his brethren atVersailles, and, on the false report of a plot at the center, thepeasants classify him as one of the conspirators. [1330] Thus does thepeasant jacquerie commence, and the fanatics who have fanned the flamein Paris are to do the same in the provinces. "You wish to know theauthors of the agitation, " writes a sensible man to the committeeof investigation; "you will find them amongst the deputies of theThird-Estate, " and especially among the attorneys and advocates. "Thesedispatch incendiary letters to their constituents, which lettersare received by municipal bodies alike composed of attorneys and ofadvocates. . . . They are read aloud in the public squares, while copies ofthem are distributed among all the villages. In these villages, if anyone knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the manor, itis the legal practitioner, " the born enemy of the lord of the manor, whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered byhis power, and never failing to blacken everything. [1331] It is highlyprobable that he is the one who composes and circulates the placardscalling on the people, in the King's name, to resort to violence. --AtSecondigny, in Poitou, on the 23rd of July, [1332] the laborers in theforest receive a letter "which summons them to attack all the countrygentlemen round about, and to massacre without mercy all those whorefuse to renounce their privileges. . . . Promising them that not onlywill their crimes go unpunished, but that they will even be rewarded. "M. Despretz-Montpezat, correspondent of the deputies of the nobles, is seized, and dragged with his son to the dwelling of theprocurator-fiscal, to force him to give his signature; the inhabitantsare forbidden to render him assistance "on pain of death and fire. ""Sign, " they exclaim, "or we will tear out your heart, and set fire tothis house!" At this moment the neighboring notary, who is doubtless anaccomplice, appears with a stamped paper, and says to him, "Monsieur, I have just come from Niort, where the Third-Estate has done the samething to all the gentlemen of the town; one, who refused, was cut topieces before our eyes. "--"We are compelled to sign renunciations of ourprivileges, and give our assent to one and the same taxation, as ifthe nobles had not already done so. " The band gives notice that it willproceed in the same fashion with all the chateaux in the vicinity, andterror precedes or follows them. "Nobody dares write, " M. Despretzsends word; "I attempt it at the risk of my life. "--Nobles and prelatesbecome objects of suspicion everywhere; village committees open theirletters, and they have to suffer their houses to be searched. [1333] Theyare forced to adopt the new cockade: to be a gentleman, and not wear it, is to deserve hanging. At Mamers, in Maine, M. De Beauvoir refuses towear it, and is at the point of being put into the pillory and felled. Near La F1èche, M. De Brissac is arrested, and a message is sentto Paris to know if he shall be taken there, "or be beheaded in themeantime. " Two deputies of the nobles, MM. De Montesson and de Vassé whohad come to ask the consent of their constituents to their joining theThird-Estate, are recognized near Mans; their honorable scruples andtheir pledges to the constituents are considered of no importance, noreven the step that they are now taking to fulfill them; it suffices thatthey voted against the Third-Estate at Versailles; the populace pursuesthem and breaks up their carriages, and pillages their trunks. --Woe tothe nobles, especially if they have taken any part in local rule, andif they are opposed to popular panics! M. Cureau, deputy-mayor ofMans, [1334] had issued orders during the famine, and, having retired tohis chateau of Nouay, had told the peasants that the announcement ofthe coming of brigands was a false alarm; he thought that it was notnecessary to sound the alarm bell, and all that was necessary was thatthey should remain quiet. Accordingly he is set down as being in leaguewith the brigands, and besides this he is a monopolist, and a buyer ofstanding crops. The peasants lead him off; along with his son-in-law, M. De Montesson, to the neighboring village, where there are judges. On theway "they dragged their victims on the ground, pummeled them, trampledon them, spit in their faces, and besmeared them with filth. " M. DeMontesson is shot, while M. Cureau is killed by degrees; a carpentercuts off the two heads with a double-edged ax, and children bear themalong to the sound of drums and violins. Meanwhile, the judges of theplace, brought by force, draw up an official report stating the findingof thirty louis and several bills of the Banque d'Escompte in thepockets of M. De Cureau, on the discovery of which a shout of triumph isset up: this evidence proves that they were going to buy up the standingwheat!--Such is the course of popular justice. Now that the Third-Estatehas become the nation, every mob thinks that it has the right topronounce sentences, which it carries out, on lives and on possessions. 

These explosions are isolated in the western, central and southernprovinces; the conflagration, however, is universal in the east. On astrip of ground from thirty to fifty leagues broad, extending fromthe extreme north down to Provence. Alsace, Franche-Comté, Burgundy, Mâconnais, Beaujolais, Auvergne, Viennois, Dauphiny, the whole of thisterritory resembles a continuous mine which explodes at the same time. The first column of flame which shoots up is on the frontiers of Alsaceand Franche-Comté, in the vicinity of Belfort and Vésoul, a feudaldistrict, in which the peasant, over-burdened with taxes, bears theheavier yoke with greater impatience. An instinctive argument is goingon in his mind without his knowing it. "The good Assembly and the goodKing want us to be happy, suppose we help them! They say that the Kinghas already relieved us of the taxes, suppose we relieve ourselvesof paying rents! Down with the nobles! They are no better than thetax-collectors!"--On the 16th of July, the chateau of Sancy, belongingto the Princesses de Beaufremont, is sacked, and on the 18th those ofLure, Bithaine, and Molans. [1335] On the 29th, an accident which occurswith some fire-works at a popular festival at the house of M. De Mesmay, leads the lower class to believe that the invitation extended tothem was a trap, and that there was a desire to get rid of them bytreachery. [1336] Seized with rage they set fire to the chateau, andduring the following week[1337] destroy three abbeys, ruin elevenchateaux and pillage others. "All records are destroyed, the registersand court-rolls are carried off; and the deposits violated. "--Startingfrom this spot, "the hurricane of insurrection" stretches over thewhole of Alsace from Huningue to Landau. [1338] The insurgents displayplacards, signed Louis, stating that for a certain lapse of time theyshall be permitted to exercise justice themselves, and, in Sundgau, awell-dressed weaver, decorated with a blue belt, passes for a prince, the King's second son. They begin by falling on the Jews, theirhereditary leeches; they sack their dwellings, divide their money amongthemselves, and hunt them down like so many fallow-deer. At Bâle alone, it is said that twelve hundred of these unfortunate fugitives arrivedwith their families. --The distance between the Jew creditor and theChristian proprietor is not great, and this is soon cleared. Remiremontis only saved by a detachment of dragoons. Eight hundred men attackthe chateau of Uberbrünn. The abbey of Neubourg is taken by storm. AtGuebwiller, on the 31st of July, five hundred peasants, subjects of theabbey of Murbach, make a descent on the abbot's palace and on the houseof the canons. Cupboards, chests, beds, windows, mirrors, frames, eventhe tiles of the roof and the hinges of the casements are hackedto pieces: "They kindle fires on the beautiful inlaid floors of theapartments, and there burn up the library and the title-deeds. " Theabbot's superb carriage is so broken up that not a wheel remains entire. "Wine streams through the cellars. One cask of sixteen hundred measuresis half lost; the plate and the linen are carried off. "--Society isevidently being overthrown, while with the power, property is changinghands. 

These are their very words. In Franche-Comte[1339] the inhabitants ofeight communes come and declare to the Bernardins of Grâce-Dieu and ofLieu-Croissant "that, being of the Third-Estate, it is time now for thepeople to rule over abbots and monks, considering that the dominationof the latter has lasted too long, " and thereupon they carry off allthe titles to property and to rentals belonging to the abbey in theircommune. In Upper Dauphiny, during the destruction of M. De Murat'schateau, a man named Ferréol struck the furniture with a big stick, exclaiming, "Hey, so much for you, Murat; you have been master a goodwhile, now it's our turn!"[1340] Those who rifle houses, and steal likehighway robbers, think that they are defending a cause, and reply tothe challenge, "Who goes there?" "We are for the brigandThird-Estate!"--Everywhere the belief prevails that they are clothedwith authority, and they conduct themselves like a conquering hordeunder the orders of an absent general. At Remiremont and at Luxeuilthey produce an edict, stating that "all this brigandage, pillage, anddestruction" is permitted. In Dauphiny, the leaders of the bandssay that they possess the King's orders. In Auvergne, "they followimperative orders, being advised that such is his Majesty's will. "Nowhere do we see that an insurgent village exercises personal vengeanceagainst its lord. If the people fire on the nobles they encounter, it isnot through personal hatred. They are destroying the class, and do notpursue individuals. They detest feudal privileges, holders of charters, the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made to pay, but notthe nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane intentions, compassionate, and even often beneficent. At Luxeuil, the abbot, whois forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment of his seignorialrights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among them for forty-sixyears, and has been wholly devoted to them. [1341] In the canton ofCrémieu, "where the havoc is immense, " all the nobles, write themunicipal officers, are "patriots and benevolent. " In Dauphiny, theengineers, magistrates, and prelates, whose chateaux are sacked, werethe first to espouse the cause of the people and of public libertiesagainst the ministers. In Auvergne, the peasants themselves "manifest agood deal of repugnance to act in this way against such kind masters. "But it must be done; the only concession which can be made inconsideration of the kindness which had been extended to them is, not toburn the chateau of the ladies of Vanes, who had been so charitable; butthey burn all their title-deeds, and torture the business agent at threedifferent times by fire, to force him to deliver a document whichhe does not possess; they then only withdraw him from the firehalf-broiled, because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy forhim. They are like the soldiers on a campaign who execute orderswith docility, for which necessity is the only plea, and who, withoutregarding themselves as brigands, commit acts of brigandage. 

But here the situation is more tragic, for it is war in the midst ofpeace, a war of the brutal and barbaric multitude against the highlycultivated, well-disposed and confiding, who had not anticipatedanything of the kind, who had not even dreamt of defending themselves, and who had no protection. The Comte de Courtivron, with his family, was staying at the watering-place of Luxeuil with his uncle, the Abbéof Clermont-Tonnerre, an old man of seventy years. On the 19th of July, fifty peasants from Fougerolle break into and demolish everything in thehouses of an usher and a collector of the excise. Thereupon the mayorof the place intimates to the nobles and magistrates who are taking thewaters, that they had better leave the house in twenty-four hours, as"he had been advised of an intention to burn the houses in which theywere staying, " and he did not wish to have Luxeuil exposed to thisdanger on account of their presence there. The following day, the guard, as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town and to forcethe abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are extorted, recordsand cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects are stolen. M. DeCourtivron escaping with his uncle during the night, the alarm bellis sounded and they are pursued, and with difficulty obtain refugein Plombières. The bourgeoisie of Plombières, however, for fear ofcompromising themselves, oblige them to depart. On the road two hundredinsurgents threaten to kill their horses and to smash their carriage, and they only find safety at last at Porentruy, outside of France. On his return, M. De Courtivron is shot at by the band which has justpillaged the abbey of Lure, and they shout out at him as he passes, "Let's massacre the nobles!" Meanwhile, the chateau of Vauvilliers, towhich his sick wife had been carried, is devastated from top to bottom;the mob search for her everywhere, and she only escapes by hidingherself in a hay-loft. Both are anxious to fly into Burgundy, but wordis sent them that at Dijon "the nobles are blockaded by the people, " andthat, in the country, they threaten to set their houses on fire. --Thereis no asylum to be had, either in their own homes nor in the homes ofothers, nor in places along the roads, fugitives being stopped in allthe small villages and market-towns. In Dauphiny[1342] "the Abbess ofSt. Pierre de Lyon, one of the nuns, M. De Perrotin, M. De Bellegarde, the Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, and the Chevalier de Moidieu, arearrested at Champier by the armed population, led to the CôteSaint-André, confined in the town-hall, whence they send to Grenoblefor assistance, " and, to have them released, the Grenoble Committee isobliged to send commissioners. Their only refuge is in the large cities, where some semblance of a precarious order exists, and in the ranks ofthe City Guards, which march from Lyons, Dijon, and Grenoble, to keepthe inundation down. Throughout the country scattered chateaux areswallowed up by the popular tide, and, as the feudal rights are often inplebeian hands, it insensibly rises beyond its first overflow. --Thereis no limit to an insurrection against property. This one extends fromabbeys and chateaux to the "houses of the bourgeoisie. "[1343] The grudgeat first was confined to the holders of charters; now it is extended toall who possess anything. Well-to-do farmers and priests abandon theirparishes and fly to the towns. Travelers are put to ransom. Thieves, robbers, and returned convicts, at the head of armed bands, seizewhatever they can lay their hands on. Cupidity becomes inflamed by suchexamples; on domains which are deserted and in a state of confusion, where there is nothing to indicate a master's presence, all seems tolapse to the first comer. A small farmer of the neighborhood has carriedaway wine and returns the following day in search of hay. All thefurniture of a chateau in Dauphin is removed, even to the hinges of thedoors, by a large reinforcement of carts. --" It is the war of thepoor against the rich, " says a deputy, "and, on the 3rd of August, theCommittee on Reports declares to the National Assembly "that no kind ofproperty has been spared. " In Franche-Comté, "nearly forty chateaux andseignorial mansions have been pillaged or burnt. "[1344] From Lancersto Gray about three out of five chateaux are sacked. In Dauphintwenty-seven are burned or destroyed; five in the small district ofViennese, and, besides these, all the monasteries--nine at least inAuvergne, seventy-two, it is said, in Mâconnais and Beaujolais, withoutcounting those of Alsace. On the 31st of July, Lally-Tollendal, onentering the tribune, has his hands full of letters of distress, witha list of thirty-six chateaux burnt, demolished, or pillaged, in oneprovince, and the details of still worse violence against persons:[1345]

"in Languedoc, M. De Barras, cut to pieces in the presence of hiswife who is about to be confined, and who is dead in consequence; inNormandy, a paralytic gentleman left on a burning pile and taken offfrom it with his hands burnt; in Franche-Comté, Madame de Bathillycompelled, with an ax over her head, to give up her title-deeds and evenher estate; Madame de Listenay forced to do the same, with a pitchforkat her neck and her two daughters in a swoon at her feet; Comte deMontjustin, with his wife, having a pistol at his throat for threehours; and both dragged from their carriage to be thrown into a pond, where they are saved by a passing regiment of soldiers; Baron deMontjustin, one of the twenty-two popular noblemen, suspended for anhour in a well, listening to a discussion whether he shall be droppeddown or whether he should die in some other way; the Chevalier d'Ambly, torn from his chateau and dragged naked into the village, placed on adung-heap after having his eyebrows and all his hair pulled out, whilethe crowd kept on dancing around him. "

In the midst of a disintegrated society, under the semblance only of agovernment, it is manifest that an invasion is under way, an invasionof barbarians which will complete by terror that which it has begun byviolence, and which, like the invasions of the Normans in the tenth andeleventh centuries, ends in the conquest and dispossession of an entireclass. In vain the National Guard and the other troops that remain loyalsucceed in stemming the first torrent; in vain does the Assembly hollowout a bed for it and strive to bank it in by fixed boundaries. Thedecrees of the 4th of August and the regulations which follow are but somany spiders' webs stretched across a torrent. The peasants, moreover, putting their own interpretation on the decrees, convert the new lawsinto authority for continuing in their course or beginning over again. No more rents, however legitimate, however legal!

"Yesterday, "[1346] writes a gentleman of Auvergne, we were notifiedthat the fruit-tithe (percières) would no longer be paid, and that theexample of other provinces was only being followed which no longer, evenby royal order, pay tithes. " In Franche-Comté "numerous communitiesare satisfied that they no longer owe anything either to the King or totheir lords. . . . The villages divide amongst themselves the fields andwoods belonging to the nobles. "--

It must be noted that charter-holding and feudal titles are still intactin three-fourths of France, that it is the interest of the peasant toensure their disappearance, and that he is always armed. To secure anew outbreak of jacqueries, it is only necessary that central control, already thrown into disorder, should be withdrawn. This is the work ofVersailles and of Paris; and there, at Paris as well as at Versailles, some, through lack of foresight and infatuation, and others, throughblindness and indecision--the latter through weakness and the formerthrough violence--all are laboring to accomplish it. 

*****

[Footnote 1301: Dusaulx, 374. "I remarked that if there were a fewamong the people at that time who dared commit crime, there were severalwho wished it, and that every one endured it. "--" Archives Nationales, "DXXIX, 3. (Letter of the municipal authorities of Crémieu, Dauphiny, November 3, 1789. ) "The care taken to lead them first to the cellarsand to intoxicate them, can alone give a conception of the incredibleexcesses of rage to which they gave themselves up in the sacking andburning of the chateaux. "]

[Footnote 1302: Mercure de France, January 4, 1792. ("Revue politique del'année 1791, " by Mallet du Pan. )]

[Footnote 1303: Albert Babeau, I. 206. (Letter of the deputy Camuzetde Belombre, August 22, 1789. ) The executive power is absolutely goneto-day. "--Gouverneur Morris, letter of July 31, 1789: "This country isnow as near in a state of anarchy as it is possible for a community tobe without breaking up. "]

[Footnote 1304: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letter of M. Amelot, July 24th; H. 784, of M. De Langeron, October 16th and 18th. --KK. 1105. Correspondence of M. De Thiard, October 7th and 30th, September4th. --Floquet, VII. 527, 555. --Guadet, "Histoire des Girondins" (July29, 1789). ]

[Footnote 1305: M. De Rochambeau, "Mémoires, " I. 353 (July18th). --Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans leDépartement de Doubs, " I. 128 (July 19th. )--"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3253. (Letter of the deputies of the provincial commission of Alsace, September 8th. ) D. XXIX. I. Note of M. De Latour-du-Pin, October28, 1789. --Letter of M. De Langeron, September 3rd; of Breitman, garde-marteau, Val Saint-Amarin (Upper Alsace), July 26th. ]

[Footnote 1306: Léonce de Lavergne, 197. (Letter of the intermediatecommission of Poitou, the last month in 1789. )--Cf. Brissot (Le patriotefrançais, August, 1789). "General insubordination prevails in theprovinces because the restraints of executive power are no longer felt. What were but lately the guarantees of that power? The intendants, tribunals, and the army. The intendants are gone, the tribunals aresilent, and the army is against the executive power and on the side ofthe people. Liberty is not a nourishment for unprepared stomachs. "]

[Footnote 1307: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. (Letter of theclergy, consuls, présidial-councillors and principal merchants ofPuy-en-Velay, September 16, 1789. )--H. 1453. (letter of the Intendantor Alençon, July 18th). "I must not leave you in ignorance of themultiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of my jurisdiction. Theimpunity with which they flatter themselves, because the judges areafraid of irritating the people by examples of severity, only emboldensthem. Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks, spread falsereports about particular persons whom they accuse of concealing grain, or of not belonging to the Third-Estate, and, under this pretext, theypillage their houses, taking whatever they can find, the owners onlyavoiding death by flight. "]

[Footnote 1308: A body of magistrates forming one of the lowertribunals. ]

[Footnote 1309: "Archives Nationales, " H. 942. (Observations of M. DeBallainvilliers, October 30, 1789. )]

[Footnote 1310: "Archives Nationales, " D, XXIX. 1. Letter of themunicipal assembly of Louviers, the end of August, 1789. --Letter ofthe communal assembly of Saint-Bris (bailiwick of Auxerre), September 25th. --Letter of the municipal officers of Ricey-Haut, nearBar-sur-Seine, August 25th; of the Chevalier d'Allouville, September8th. ]

[Footnote 1311: "Archives Nationales, " D, XXIX. I. Letter ofM. Briand-Delessart (Angoulême, August 1st). --Of M. Bret, Lieutenant-General of the provostship of Mardogne, September 5th. --Ofthe Chevalier de Castellas (Auvergue), September 15th (relating to thenight between the 2nd and 3rd of August). --Madame Campan, II. 65. ]

[Footnote 1312: Arthur Young, "Voyages in France, " July 24th and 31st, August 13th and 19th. ]

[Footnote 1313: De Bouillé, 108. --"Archives Nationales, " KK. 1105. Correspondence of M. DeThiard, September 20, 1789 (apropos of onehundred guns given to the town of Saint-Brieuc). "They are not of theslightest use, but this passion for arms is a temporary epidemic whichmust be allowed to subside of itself. People are determined to believein brigands and in enemies, whereas neither exist. "--September 25th, "Vanity alone impels them, and the pride of having cannon is their solemotive. "]

[Footnote 1314: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Letters of M. Amelot, July 17th and 24th. "Several wealthy private persons of the town(Auxonne) have been put to ransom by this band, of which the largestportion consists of ruffians. "--Letter of nine cultivators of Breteuil(Picardy) July 23rd (their granaries were pillaged up to the last grainthe previous evening). "They threaten to pillage our crops and set ourbarns on fire as soon as they are full. M. Tassard, the notary, has beenvisited in his house by the populace, and his life has been threatened. "Letter of Moreau, Procureur du Roi at the Senechal's Court atBar-le-Duc, September 15, 1789, D, XXIX, 1. "On the 27th of July thepeople rose and most cruelly assassinated a merchant trading in wheat. On the 27th and 28th his house and that of another were sacked, " etc. ]

[Footnote 1315: Chronicle of Dominick Schmutz ("Revue d'Alsace, " V. III. 3rd series). These are his own expressions: Gesindel, Lumpen-gesindel. --De Rochambeau, "Mémoires, " I. 353. --Arthur Young (aneye-witness), July 21st. --Of Dampmartin (eye-witness), I. 105. M. DeRochambeau shows the usual indecision and want of vigor: whilst the mobare pillaging houses and throwing things out of the windows, he passesin front of his regiments (8, 000 men) drawn up for action, and says, "Myfriends, my good friends, you see what is going on. How horrible! Alas!these are your papers, your titles and those of your parents. " Thesoldiers smile at this sentimental prattle. ]

[Footnote 1316: Dumouriez (an eye-witness), book III. Ch. 3. --The trialwas begun and judgment given by twelve lawyers and an assessor, whom thepeople, in arms, had themselves appointed. --Hippeau, IV. 382. ]

[Footnote 1317: "Archives Nationales, " F7 3248. (Letter of the mayor, M. Poussiaude de Thierri, September 11th. )]

[Footnote 1318: Floquet, VII. 551. ]

[Footnote 1319: De Goncourt, "La Société française pendant laRévolution, " 37. ]

[Footnote 1320: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. 1. Letter of theofficers of the bailiwick of Dôle, August 24th. --Sauzay I. 128. ]

[Footnote 1321: There is a similar occurrence at Strasbourg, a few daysafter the sacking of the town-hall. The municipality having given eachman of the garrison twenty sous, the soldiers abandon their post, setthe prisoners free at the Pont-Couvert, feast publicly in the streetswith the women taken out of the penitentiary, and force innkeepers andthe keepers of drinking-places to give up their provisions. The shopsare all closed, and, for twenty-four hours, the officers are not obeyed. (De Dampmartin, I. 105. )]

[Footnote 1322: Albert Babeau, I. 187-273. --Moniteur, II. 379. (Extractfrom the provost's verdict of November 27, 1789. )]

[Footnote 1323: Moniteur, ibid. Picard, the principal murderer, confessed "that he had made him suffer a great deal; that the saidsieur Huez did not die until they came near the Chaudron Inn; that henevertheless intended to make him suffer more by stabbing him in theneck at the corner of each street, (and) by contriving it so that hemight do it often, as long as there was life in him; that the day onwhich M. Huez died yielded him ten francs, together with the neck-buckleof M. Hues, found on him when he was arrested in his flight. "]

[Footnote 1324: Mercure de France, , September 26, 1789. Letters of theofficers of the Bourbon regiment and of members of the general committeeof Caen. --Floquet, VII. 545. ]

[Footnote 1325: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. --Ibid. D. XXIX. I. Noteof M. De la Tour-du-Pin, October 28th. ]

[Footnote 1326: Decree, February 5, 1789, enforced May 1st following. ]

[Footnote 1327: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. Letter of the countde Montausier, August 8th, with notes by M. Paulian, director of theexcise (an admirable letter, modest and liberal, and ending by demandinga pardon for people led astray). --H. 1453. Letter of the attorney of theelection district of Falaise, July 17th, etc. --Moniteur, I. 303, 387, 505 (sessions of August 7th and 27th and of September 23rd). "The royalrevenues are diminishing steadily. "--Buchez and Roux, III. 219 (sessionof October 24, 1789). Discourse of a deputation from Anjou: "Sixtythousand men are armed; the barriers have been destroyed, the clerks'horses have been sold by auction; the employees have been told towithdraw from the province within eight days. The inhabitants havedeclared that they will not pay taxes so long as the salt-tax exists. ]

[Footnote 1328: "Archives Nationales, " F7 3253 (Letter of September 8, 1789). ]

[Footnote 1329: Arthur Young, September 30th. "It is being said thatevery rusty gun in Provence is at work, killing all sorts of birds;the shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about myears. "--Beugnot, I. 142. --"Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. Letter ofthe Chevalier d'Allonville, September 8, 1789 (Near Bar-sur-Aube). "Thepeasants go in armed bands into the woods belonging to the Abbey ofTrois-Fontaines, which they cut down. They saw up the oaks and transportthem on wagons to Pont-Saint-Dizier, where they sell them. In otherplaces they fish in the ponds and break the embankments. "]

[Footnote 1330: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. 1. Letter of theassessor of the police of Saint-Flour, October 3, 1789. On the 31stof July, a rumor is spread that the brigands are coming. On the 1st ofAugust the peasants arm themselves. "They amuse themselves by drinking, awaiting the arrival of the brigands; the excitement increases to suchan extent as to make them believe that M. Le Comte d'Espinchal hadarrived in disguise the evening before at Massiac, that he was theauthor of the troubles disturbing the province at this time, and that hewas concealed in his chateau. " On the strength of this shots are firedinto the windows, and there are searches, etc. ]

[Footnote 1331: "Archives Nationales, " D, XXIX, I, Letter of EtienneFermier, Naveinne, September 18th (it is possible that the author, for the sake of caution, took a fictitious name). --The manuscriptcorrespondence of M. Boullé, deputy of Pontivy, to his constituents, is a type of this declamatory and incendiary writing. --Letter of theconsuls, priests, and merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16th. --" TheAncient Régime, " p. 396. ]

[Footnote 1332: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. 1. Letter of M. Despretz-Montpezat, a former artillery officer, July 24th (with severalother signatures). On the same day the alarm bell is sounded In fiftyvillages on the rumor spreading that 7, 000 brigands, English and Breton, were invading the country. ]

[Footnote 1333: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. Letter ofBriand-Delessart, August 1st (domiciliary visits to the Carmelitesof Angoulême where it is pretended that Mme. De Polignac has justarrived. --Beugnot, I. 140. --Arthur Young, July 20th, etc. --Buchez andRoux, IV. 166. Letter of Mamers, July 24th; of Mans, July 26th. ]

[Footnote 1334: Montjoie, ch. LXXII, p. 93 (according to acts of legalprocedure). There was a soldier in the band who had served under M. DeMontesson and who wanted to avenge himself for the punishments he hadundergone in the regiment. ]

[Footnote 1335: Mercure de France, August 20th (Letter from Vésoul, August 13th). ]

[Footnote 1336: M. De Memmay proved his innocence later on, and wasrehabilitated by a public decision after two years' proceedings (sessionof June 4, 1791; Mercure of June 11th). ]

[Footnote 1337: Journal des Débats et Décrets, I. 258. (Letter of themunicipality of Vésoul, July 22nd. --Discourse of M. De Toulougeon, July29th. )]

[Footnote 1338: De Rochambeau, "Mémoires, " I. 353. --"ArchivesNationales, " F7, 3253. (Letter of M. De Rochamheau, August4th. )--Chronicle of Schmutz (ibid. ), p. 284. "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. (Letter of Mme. Ferrette, of Remiremont, August 9th. )]

[Footnote 1339: Sauzay, I. 180. (Letters of monks, July 22nd and 26th. )]

[Footnote 1340: "Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. (Letter of M. DeBergeron, attorney to the présidial of Valence, August 28th, with thedetails of the verdict stated. ) Official report of the militia of Lyons, sent to the president of the National Assembly, August 10th. (Expeditionto Serrière, in Dauphiny, July 31st. )]

[Footnote 1341: Letter of the Count of Courtivron, deputy substitute(an eye-witness). --"Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. I. Letter of themunicipal officers of Crémieu (Dauphiny), November 3rd. Letter of theVicomte de Carbonnière (Auvergne), August 3rd. --Arthur Young, July 30th(Dijon) says, apropos of a noble family which escaped almost nakedfrom its burning chateau, "they were esteemed by the neighbors;their virtues ought to have commanded the love of the poor, for whoseresentment there was no cause. "]

[Footnote 1342: "Archives Nationales, " XXIX. I. (Letter of thecommission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st. )]

[Footnote 1343: "Désastres du Mâconnais, " by Puthod de la Maison-Rouge(August, 1789). "Ravages du Mâconnais. "--Arthur Young, July27th. --Buchez and Roux, IV. 215, 214. --Mercure de France, September12, 1789. (Letter by a volunteer of Orleans. ) "On the 15th of August, eighty-eight ruffians, calling themselves reapers, present themselves atBascon, in Beauce, and, the next day, at a chateau in the neighborhood, where they demand within an hour the head of the son of the lord of themanor, M. Tassin, who can only redeem himself by a contribution of 1, 600livres and the pillaging of his cellars. ]

[Footnote 1344: Letter of the Count de Courtivron. --Arthur Young, July31st. --Buchez and Roux, II. 243. --Mercure de France, August 15, 1789(sitting of the 8th, discourse of a deputy from Dauphiné. )--Mermet, "Histoire de la Ville de Vienne, " 445--" Archives Nationales, " ibid. (Letter of the commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st. )--"Thelist of burnt or devastated chateaux is immense. " The committee alreadycites sixteen of them. --Puthod de la Maison-Rouge, ibid. : "Were alldevastated places to be mentioned, it would be necessary to cite thewhole province" (Letter from Mâcon). "They have not the less destroyedmost of the chateaux and bourgeois dwellings, either burning them and orelse tearing them down. "]

[Footnote 1345: Lally-Tollendal, "Second Letter to my Constituents, "104. ]

[Footnote 1346: Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité, " p. 60 (a fewdays after the 4th of August). --"Archives Nationales, " H. 784. Lettersof M. De Langeron, military commander at Besançon, October 16th and18th. --Ibid. , D. XXIX. I. Letter of the same, September 3rd. --ArthurYoung (in Provence, at the house of Baron de la Tour-d'Aignes). "Thebaron is an enormous sufferer by the Revolution; a great extent ofcountry which belonged in absolute right to his ancestors, has beengranted for quit-rents, ceus, and other feudal payments, so that thereis no comparison between the lands retained and those thus granted byhis family. . . . The solid payments which the Assembly have declaredto be redeemable are every hour falling to nothing, without a shadowof recompense. . . The situation of the nobility in this country ispitiable; they are under apprehensions that nothing will be left them, but simply such houses as the mob allows to stand unburned; that thesmall farmers will retain their farms without paying the landlord hishalf of the produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there isactually neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it. Thischateau, splendid even in ruins, with the fortune and lives of theowners, is at the mercy of an armed rabble. "]

CHAPTER IV. PARIS. 

I. --Paris. 

 Powerlessness and discords of the authorities. --The people, king. 

The powerlessness, indeed, of the heads of the Government, and thelack of discipline among all its subordinates, are much greater in thecapital than in the provinces. --Paris possesses a mayor, Bailly; but"from the first day, and in the easiest manner possible, "[1401] hismunicipal council, that is to say, "the assembly of the representativesof the commune, has accustomed itself to carry on the government alone, overlooking him entirely. " There is a central administration, themunicipal council, presided over by the mayor; but, "at this time, authority is everywhere except where the preponderating authority shouldbe; the districts have delegated it and at the same time retained it;"each of them acts as if it were alone and supreme. --There are secondarypowers, the district-committees, each with its president, its clerk, itsoffices, and commissioners; but the mobs of the street march on withoutawaiting their orders; while the people, shouting under their" windows, impose their will on them;--in short, says Bailly again, "everybody knewhow to command, but nobody knew how to obey. "

"Imagine, " writes Loustalot[1402] himself; "a man whose feet, hands, andlimbs possessed each its own intelligence and will, whose one leg wouldwish to walk when the other one wanted to rest, whose throat would closewhen the stomach demanded food, whose mouth would sing when the eyelidswere weighed down with sleep; and you will have a striking picture ofthe condition of things in the capital"

There are "sixty Republics"[1403] in Paris; each district is anindependent, isolated power, which receives no order without criticizingit, always in disagreement and often in conflict with the centralauthority or with the other districts. It receives denunciations, ordersdomiciliary visits, sends deputations to the National Assembly, passesresolutions, posts its bills, not only in its own quarter but throughoutthe city, and sometimes even extends its jurisdiction outside of Paris. Everything comes within its province, and particularly that whichought not to do so. --On the 18th of July, the district ofPetits-Augustins[1404] "decrees in its own name the establishment ofjustices of the peace, " under the title of tribunes, and proceeds atonce to elect its own, nominating the actor Molé. On the 30th, that ofthe Oratoire annuls the amnesty which the representatives of the communein the Hôtel-de-Ville had granted, and orders two of its members to goto a distance of thirty leagues to arrest M. De Bezenval. On the 19th ofAugust, that of Nazareth issues commissions to seize and bring to Paristhe arms deposited in strong places. From the beginning each assemblysent to the Arsenal in its own name, and "obtained as many cartridgesand as much powder as it desired. " Others claim the right of keeping awatchful eye over the Hôtel-de-Ville and of reprimanding the NationalAssembly. The Oratoire decides that the representatives of the communeshall be invited to deliberate in public. Saint-Nicholas des Champsdeliberates on the veto and begs the Assembly to suspend its vote. --Itis a strange spectacle, that of these various authorities eachcontradicting and destroying the other. To-day the Hôtel-de-Villeappropriates five loads of cloth which have been dispatched by theGovernment, and the district of Saint-Gervais opposes the decision ofthe Hôtel-de-Ville. To-morrow Versailles intercepts grain destinedfor Paris, while Paris threatens, if it is not restored, to march onVersailles. I omit the incidents that are ridiculous:[1405] anarchyin its essence is both tragic and grotesque, and, in this universalbreaking up of things, the capital, like the kingdom, resembles abear-garden when it does not resemble a Babel. 

But behind all these discordant authorities the real sovereign, who isthe mob, is very soon apparent. --On the 15th of July it undertakes thedemolition of the Bastille of its own accord, and this popular act issanctioned; for it is necessary that appearances should be kept up;even to give orders after the blow is dealt, and to follow when it isimpossible to lead. [1406] A short time after this the collection ofthe octroi at the barriers is ordered to be resumed; forty armedindividuals, however, present themselves in their district and say, thatif guards are placed at the octroi stations, "they will resist forcewith force, and even make use of their cannon. "--On the false rumor thatarms are concealed in the Abbey of Montmartre, the abbess, Madame deMontmorency, is accused of treachery, and twenty thousand persons invadethe monastery. --The commander of the National Guard and the mayor areconstantly expecting a riot; they hardly dare absent themselves a dayto attend the King fête at Versailles. As soon as the multitude canassemble in the streets, an explosion is imminent. "On rainy days, " saysBailly, "I was quite at my ease. "--It is under this constant pressurethat the Government is carried on; and the elect of the people, the mostesteemed magistrates, those who are in best repute, are at the mercy ofthe throng who clamor at their doors. In the district of St. Roch, [1407]after many useless refusals, the General Assembly, notwithstanding allthe reproaches of its conscience and the resistance of its reason, isobliged to open letters addressed to Monsieur, to the Duke of Orleans, and to the Ministers of War, of Foreign Affairs, and of the Marine. Inthe committee on subsistence, M. Serreau, who is indispensable and whois confirmed by a public proclamation, is denounced, threatened, and constrained to leave Paris. M. De la Salle, one of the strongestpatriots among the nobles, is on the point of being murdered for havingsigned an order for the transport of gunpowder;[1408] the multitude, inpursuit of him, attach a rope to the nearest street-lamp, ransack theHôtel-de-Ville, force every door, mount into the belfry, and seek forthe traitor even under the carpet of the bureau and between the legs ofthe electors, and are only stayed in their course by the arrival of theNational Guard. 

The people not only sentence but they execute, and, as is always thecase, blindly. At Saint-Denis, Chatel, the mayor's lieutenant, whoseduty it is to distribute flour, had reduced the price of bread athis own expense: on the 3rd of August his house is forced open at twoo'clock in the morning, and he takes refuge in a steeple; the mob followhim, cut his throat and drag his head along the streets. --Not only dothe people execute, but they pardon--and with equal discernment. On the11th of August, at Versailles, as a parricide is about to be broken onthe wheel, the crowd demand his release, fly at the executioner, and setthe man free. [1409] Veritably this is sovereign power like that of theoriental sovereign who arbitrarily awards life or death! A woman whoprotests against this scandalous pardon is seized and comes near beinghung; for the new monarch considers as a crime whatever is offensive tohis new majesty. Again, he receives public and humble homage. ThePrime Minister, on imploring the pardon of M. De Bezenval at theHôtel-de-Ville, in the presence of the electors and of the public, hasput it in appropriate words:

"It is before the most unknown, the obscurest citizen of Paris that Iprostrate myself; at whose feet I kneel. "

A few days before this, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and at Poissy, thedeputies of the National Assembly not only kneel down in words, butactually, and for a long time, on the pavement in the street, andstretch forth their hands, weeping, to save two lives of which onlyone is granted to them. --Behold the monarch by these brilliant signs!Already do the young, who are eager imitators of all actions that arein fashion, ape them in miniature; during the month which follows themurder of Berthier and Foulon, Bailly is informed that the gamins in thestreets are parading about with the heads of two cats stuck on the endsof two poles. [1410]

II. --The distress of the people. 

 The dearth and the lack of work. --How men of executive ability are recruited. 

A pitiable monarch, whose recognized sovereignty leaves him moremiserable than he was before! Bread is always scarce, and before thebaker's doors the row of waiting people does not diminish. In vainBailly passes his nights with the committee on supplies; they are alwaysin a state of terrible anxiety. Every morning for two months there isonly one or two days' supply of flour, and often, in the evening, thereis not enough for the following morning. [1411] The life of the capitaldepends on a convoy which is ten, fifteen, twenty leagues off; and whichmay never arrive: one convoy of twenty carts is pillaged on the 18th ofJuly, on the Rouen road; another, on the 4th of August, in the vicinityof Louviers. Were it not for Salis' Swiss regiment, which, from the 14thof July to the end of September, marches day and night as an escort, not a boat-load of grain would reach Paris from Rouen. [1412]--Thecommissaries charged with making purchases or with supervising theexpeditions are in danger of their lives. Those who are sent toprovinces are seized, and a column of four hundred men with cannon hasto be dispatched to deliver them. The one who is sent to Rouen learnsthat he will be hung if he dares to enter the place. At Mantes a mobsurrounds his cabriolet, the people regarding whoever comes there forthe purpose of carrying away grain as a public pest; he escapes withdifficulty out of a back door and returns on foot to Paris. --From thevery beginning, according to a universal rule, the fear of a shortsupply helps to augment the famine. Every one lays in a stock forseveral days; on one occasion sixteen loaves of four pounds each arefound in an old woman's garret. The bakings, consequently, which areestimated according to the quantity needed for a single day, becomeinadequate, and the last of those who wait at the bakers' shops forbread return home empty-handed. --On the other hand the appropriationsmade by the city and the State to diminish the price of bread simplyserve to lengthen the rows of those who wait for it; the countrymenflock in thither, and return home loaded to their villages. AtSaint-Denis, bread having been reduced to two sous the pound, noneis left for the inhabitants. To this constant anxiety add that ofunemployment. Not only is there no certainty of there being bread at thebakers' during the coming week, but many know that they will not havemoney in the coming week with which to buy bread. Now that security hasdisappeared and the rights of property are shaken, work is wanting. Therich, deprived of their feudal dues, and, in addition thereto of theirrents, have reduced their expenditure; many of them, threatened by thecommittee of investigation, exposed to domiciliary visits, and liable tobe informed against by their servants, have emigrated. In the month ofSeptember M. Necker laments the delivery of six thousand passports infifteen days to the wealthiest inhabitants. In the month of Octoberladies of high rank, refugees in Rome, send word that their domesticsshould be discharged and their daughters placed in convents. Before theend of 1789 there are so many fugitives in Switzerland that a house, it is said, brings in more rent than it is worth as capital. With thisfirst emigration, which is that of the chief spendthrifts, the Countd'Artois, Prince de Conti, Duc de Bourbon, and so many others, theopulent foreigners have left, and, at the head of them, the Duchessede l'Infantado, who spent 800, 000 livres a year. There are only threeEnglishmen in Paris. 

It used to be a city of luxury, it was the European hot-house of costlyand refined pleasures, but once the glass was broken then the delicateplants perish, their lovers leave, and there is no employment now forthe innumerable hands which cultivated them. Fortunate are they who atthe relief works obtain a miserable sum by handling a pick-axe! "I saw, "says Bailly, "mercers, jewellers, and merchants implore the favor ofbeing employed at twenty sous the day. " Enumerate, if you can, in one ortwo recognized callings, the hands which are doing nothing:[1413] 1, 200hair-dressers keep about 6, 000 journeymen; 2, 000 others follow the samecalling in private-houses; 6, 000 lackeys do but little else than thiswork. The body of tailors is composed of 2, 800 masters, who have underthem 5, 000 workmen. "Add to these the number privately employed--therefugees in privileged places like the abbeys of Saint-Germain andSaint-Marcel, the vast enclosure of the Temple, that of Saint-John theLateran, and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and you will find at least12, 000 persons cutting, fitting, and sewing. " How many in these twogroups are now idle! How many others are walking the streets, suchas upholsterers, lace-makers, embroiderers, fan-makers, gilders, carnage-makers, binders, engravers, and all the other producers ofParisian nick-nacks! For those who are still at work how many days arelost at the doors of bakers' shops and in patrolling as NationalGuards! Gatherings are formed in spite of the prohibitions of theHôtel-de-Ville, [1414] and the crowd openly discuss their miserablecondition: 3, 000 journeymen-tailors near the Colonnade, as many journeymen-shoemakers in the Place Louis XV. , thejourneymen-hairdressers in the Champs-Elysees, 4, 000 domestics withoutplaces on the approaches to the Louvre, --and their propositions are on alevel with their intelligence. Servants demand the expulsion fromParis of the Savoyards who enter into competition with them. Journeymen-tailors demand that a day's wages be fixed at forty sous, andthat the old-clothes dealers shall not be allowed to make new ones. Thejourneymen-shoemakers declare that those who make shoes below the fixedprice shall be driven out of the kingdom. Each of these irritated andagitated crowds contains the germ of an outbreak--and, in truth, thesegerms are found on every pavement in Paris: at the relief works, whichat Montmartre collect 17, 000 paupers; in the Market, where the bakerswant to hang the flour commissioners, and at the doors of the bakers, of whom two, on the 14th of September and on the 5th of October, areconducted to the lamp post and barely escape with their lives. --In thissuffering, mendicant crowd, enterprising men become more numerous everyday: they consist of deserters, and from every regiment; they reachParis in bands, often 250 in one day. There, "caressed and fed to thetop of their bent, "[1415] having received from the National Assembly50 livres each, maintained by the King in the enjoyment of theiradvance-money, entertained by the districts, of which one alone incursa debt of 14, 000 livres for wine and sausages furnished to them, "theyaccustom themselves to greater expense, " to greater license, and arefollowed by their companions. "During the night of the 31st of July theFrench Guards on duty at Versailles abandon the custody of the King andbetake themselves to Paris, without their officers, but with their armsand baggage, " that "they may take part in the cheer which the city ofParis extends to their regiment. " At the beginning of September, 16, 000deserters of this stamp are counted. [1416] Now, among those who commitmurder these are in the first rank; and this is not surprising when wetake the least account of their antecedents, education, and habits. Itwas a soldier of the "Royal Croat" who tore out the heart of Berthier. They were three soldiers of the regiment of Provence who forced thehouse of Chatel at Saint-Denis, and dragged his head throughthe streets. It is Swiss soldiers who, at Passy, knock down thecommissioners of police with their guns. Their headquarters are at thePalais-Royal, amongst women whose instruments they are, and amongstagitators from whom they receive the word of command. Henceforth, alldepends on this word, and we have only to contemplate the new popularleaders to know what it will be. 

III. --The new popular leaders. 

 Their ascendancy. --Their education. --Their sentiments. --Their situation. --Their councils. --Their denunciations. 

Administrators and members of district assemblies, agitators ofbarracks, coffee-houses, clubs and public thoroughfares, writers ofpamphlets, penny-a-liners are multiplying as fast as buzzing insects arehatched on a sultry night. After the 14th of July thousands of jobs havebecome available for released ambitions; "attorneys, notaries'clerks, artists, merchants, shopkeepers, comedians and especiallyadvocates;[1417] each wants to be either an officer, a director, acouncillor, or a minister of the new reign; while journals, which areestablished by dozens, [1418] form a permanent tribune, where speakerscome to court the people to their personal advantage. " Philosophy, fallen into such hands, seems to parody itself; and nothing equals itsemptiness, unless it be its mischievousness and success. Lawyers, inthe sixty assembly districts, roll out the high-sounding dogmas of therevolutionary catechism. This or that one, passing from the questionof a party wall to the constitution of empires, becomes the improvisedlegislator, so much the more inexhaustible and the more applauded ashis flow of words, showered upon his hearers, proves to them that everycapacity and every right are naturally and legitimately theirs. 

"When that man opened his mouth, " says a cold-blooded witness, "we weresure of being inundated with quotations and maxims, often apropos ofstreet lamp posts, or of the stall of a herb-dealer. His stentorianvoice made the vaults ring; and after he had spoken for two hours, and his breath was completely exhausted, the admiring and enthusiasticshouts which greeted him amounted almost to frenzy. Thus the oratorfancied himself a Mirabeau, while the spectators imagined themselves theConstituent Assembly, deciding the fate of France. "

The journals and pamphlets are written in the same style. Every brainis filled with the fumes of conceit and of big words; the leader of thecrowd is he who raves the most, and he guides the wild enthusiasm whichhe increases. 

Let us consider the most popular of these chiefs; they are the green orthe dry fruit of literature, and of the bar. The newspaper is thestall which every morning offers them for sale, and if they suit theoverexcited public it is simply owing to their acid or bitter flavor. Their empty, unpracticed minds are wholly void of political conceptions;they have no capacity or practical experience. Desmoulins is twenty-nineyears of age, Loustalot twenty-seven, and their intellectual ballastconsists of college reminiscences, souvenirs of the law schools, and thecommon-places picked up in the houses of Raynal and his associates. As to Brissot and Marat, who are ostentatious humanitarians, theirknowledge of France and of foreign countries consists in what they haveseen through the dormer windows of their garrets, and through utopianspectacles. In minds like these, empty or led astray, the Contrat-Socialcould not fail to become a gospel; for it reduces political science toa strict application of an elementary axiom which relieves them of allstudy, and hands society over to the caprice of the people, or, in otherwords, delivers it into their own hands. --Hence they demolish allthat remains of social institutions, and push on equalization untileverything is brought down to the same level. 

"With my principles, " writes Desmoulins, [1419] "is associated thesatisfaction of putting myself where I belong, of showing my strength tothose who have despised me, of lowering to my level all whom fortune hasplaced above me: my motto is that of all honest people: 'No superiors!'"

Thus, under the great name of Liberty, each vain spirit seeks itsrevenge and finds its nourishment. What is sweeter and more natural thanto justify passion by theory, to be factious in the belief that this ispatriotism, and to cloak the interests of ambition with the interests ofhumanity?

Let us picture to ourselves these directors of public opinion as theywere three months earlier: Desmoulins, a briefless barrister, living infurnished lodgings with petty debts, and on a few louis extracted fromhis relations. Loustalot, still more unknown, was admitted the previousyear to the Parliament of Bordeaux, and has landed at Paris in search ofa career. Danton, another second-rate lawyer, coming out of a hovel inChampagne, borrowed the money to pay his expenses, while his stintedhousehold is kept up only by means of a louis which is given to himweekly by his father-in-law, who is a coffee-house keeper. Brissot, astrolling Bohemian, formerly employee of literary pirates, has roamedover the world for fifteen years, without bringing back with him eitherfrom England or America anything but a coat out at elbows and falseideas; and, finally, Marat; a writer that has been hissed, an abortivescholar and philosopher, a misrepresenter of his own experiences, caughtby the natural philosopher Charles in the act of committing a scientificfraud, and fallen from the top of his inordinate ambition to thesubordinate post of doctor in the stables of the Comte d'Artois. --At thepresent time, Danton, President of the Cordeliers, can arrest any one hepleases in his district, and his violent gestures and thundering voicesecure to him, till something better turns up, the government of hissection of the city. A word of Marat's has just caused Major Belzunce atCaen to be assassinated. Desmoulins announces, with a smile of triumph, that "a large section of the capital regards him as one among theprincipal instigators of the Revolution, and that many even go so far asto say that he is the author of it. " Is it to be supposed that, borne sohigh by such a sudden jerk of fortune, they wish to put on the drag andagain descend? and is it not clear that they will aid with alltheir might the revolt which hoists them towards the loftiestsummits?--Moreover, the brain reels at a height like this; suddenlylaunched in the air and feeling as if everything was tottering aroundthem, they utter exclamations of indignation and terror, they see plotson all sides, imagine invisible cords pulling in an opposite direction, and they call upon the people to cut them. With the full weight of theirinexperience, incapacity, and improvidence, of their fears, credulity, and dogmatic obstinacy, they urge on popular attacks, and theirnewspaper articles or discourses are all summed up in the followingphrases:

"Fellow-citizens, you, the people of the lower class, you who listento me, you have enemies in the Court and the aristocracy. TheHôtel-de-Ville and the National Assembly are your servants. Seize yourenemies with a strong hand, and hang them, and let your servants knowthat they must quicken their steps!"

Desmoulins styles himself "District-attorney of the gallows, "[1420] andif he at all regrets the murders of Foulon and Berthier, it is becausethis too expeditious judgment has allowed the proofs of conspiracy toperish, thereby saving a number of traitors: he himself mentions twentyof them haphazard, and little does he care whether he makes mistakes. 

"We are in the dark, and it is well that faithful dogs should bark, evenat all who pass by, so that there may be no fear of robbers. "

From this time forth Marat[1421] denounces the King, the ministers, the administration, the bench, the bar, the financial system and theacademies, all as "suspicious;" at all events the people only suffer ontheir account. 

"The Government is monopolizing grain, to make us to pay through thenose for a poisonous bread. "

The Government, again, through a new conspiracy is about to blockadeParis, so as to starve it with greater ease. Utterances of this kind, at such a time, are firebrands thrown upon fear and hunger to kindlethe flames of rage and cruelty. To this frightened and fasting crowd theagitators and newspaper writers continue to repeat that it must act, and act alongside of the authorities, and, if need be, against them. In other words, We will do as we please; we are the sole legitimatemasters;

"in a well-constituted government, the people as a body are the realsovereign: our delegates are appointed only to execute our orders; whatright has the clay to rebel against the potter?"

On the strength of such principles, the tumultuous club which occupiesthe Palais-Royal substitutes itself for the Assembly at Versailles. Has it not all the titles for this office? The Palais-Royal "saved thenation" on the 12th and 13th of July. The Palais-Royal, "through itsspokesmen and pamphlets, " has made everybody and even the soldiers"philosophers. " It is the house of patriotism, "the rendezvous of theselect among the patriotic, " whether provincials or Parisians, of allwho possess the right of suffrage, and who cannot or will not exerciseit in their own district. "It saves time to come to the Palais-Royal. There is no need there of appealing to the President for the right tospeak, or to wait one's time for a couple of hours. The orator proposeshis motion, and, if it finds supporters, mounts a chair. If he isapplauded, it is put into proper shape. If he is hissed, he goes away. This was the way of the Romans. " Behold the veritable National Assembly!It is superior to the other semi-feudal affair, encumbered with "sixhundred deputies of the clergy and nobility, " who are so many intrudersand who "should be sent out into the galleries. "--Hence the pureAssembly rules the impure Assembly, and "the Café Foy lays claim to thegovernment of France. "

IV. --Intervention by the popular leaders with the Government. 

 Their pressure on the Assembly. 

On the 30th of July, the harlequin who led the insurrection at Rouenhaving been arrested, "it is openly proposed at the Palais Royal[1422]to go in a body and demand his release. "--On the 1st of August, Thouret, whom the moderate party of the Assembly have just made President, isobliged to resign; the Palais-Royal threatens to send a band and murderhim along with those who voted for him, and lists of proscriptions, in which several of the deputies are inscribed, begin to becirculated. --From this time forth, on all great questions-the abolitionof the feudal system, the suppression of tithes, a declaration of therights of man, the dispute about the Chambers, the King's power ofveto, [1423] the pressure from without inclines the balance: in thisway the Declaration of Rights, which is rejected in secret session bytwenty-eight bureaus out of thirty, is forced through by the tribunes ina public sitting and passed by a majority. --Just as before the 14th ofJuly, and to a still greater extent, two kinds of compulsion influencethe votes, and it is always the ruling faction which employs both itshands to throttle its opponents. On the one hand this faction takes poston the galleries in knots composed nearly always of the same persons, "five or six hundred permanent actors, " who yell according to understoodsignals and at the word of command. [1424] Many of these are FrenchGuards, in civilian clothes, and who relieve each other: previouslythey have asked of their favorite deputy "at what hour they must come, whether all goes on well, and whether he is satisfied with those foolsof parsons (calotins) and the aristocrats. " Others consist of low womenunder the command of Théroigne de Méricourt, a virago courtesan, whoassigns them their positions and gives them the signal for hootingor for applause. Publicly and in full session, on the occasion of thedebate on the veto, "the deputies are applauded or insulted by thegalleries according as they utter the word 'suspensive, ' or the word'indefinite. ' "Threats, " (says one of them) "circulated; I heardthem on all sides around me. " These threats are repeated on going out:"Valets dismissed by their masters, deserters, and women in rags, "threaten the refractory with the lamp post, "and thrust their fists intheir faces. In the hall itself, and much more accurately than beforethe 14th of July, their names are taken down, and the lists, handedover to the populace, " travel to the Palais-Royal, from where theyare dispatched in correspondence and in newspapers to theprovinces. [1425]--Thus we see the second means of compulsion; eachdeputy is answerable for his vote, at Paris, with his own life, and, in the province, with those of his family. Members of the formerThird-Estate avow that they abandon the idea of two Chambers, because"they are not disposed to get their wives' and children's throats cut. "On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue, the most noisy of the Palais-Royalbarkers, marches off to Versailles, at the head of 1, 500 men, tocomplete the conversion of the Assembly. This garden club indeed, fromthe heights of its great learning, integrity, and immaculate reputation, decides that the ignorant, corrupt, and doubtful deputies must be gotrid of. " That they are such cannot be questioned, because they defendthe royal sanction; there are over 600 and more, 120 are deputies of thecommunes, who must be expelled to begin with, and then must be broughtto judgment. [1426] In the meantime they are informed, as well as theBishop of Langres, President of the National Assembly, that "15, 000 menare ready to light up their chateaux and in particular yours, sir. "To avoid all mistake, the secretaries of the Assembly are informedin writing that '2, 000 letters" will be sent into the provinces todenounce to the people the conduct of the malignant deputies: "Yourhouses are held as a surety for your opinions: keep this in mind, andsave yourselves!" At last, on the morning of the 1st of August, fivedeputations from the Palais-Royal, one of them led by Loustalot, marchin turn to the Hôtel-de-Ville, insisting that the drums should be beatenand the citizens be called together for the purpose of changing thedeputies, or their instructions, and of ordering the National Assemblyto suspend its discussion on the veto until the districts and provincescould give expression to their will: the people, in effect, alone beingsovereign, and alone competent, always has the right to dismiss orinstruct anew its servants, the deputies. On the following day, August2nd, to make matters plainer, new delegates from the same Palais-Royalsuit gestures to words; they place two fingers on their throats, onbeing introduced before the representatives of the commune, as a hintthat, if the latter do not obey, they will be hung. 

After this it is vain for the National Assembly to make any show ofindignation, to declare that it despises threats, and to protest itsindependence; the impression is already produced. "More than 300 membersof the communes, " says Mounier, "had decided to support the absoluteveto. " At the end of ten days most of these had gone over, several ofthem through attachment to the King, because they were afraid of "ageneral uprising, " and "were not willing to jeopardize the lives of theroyal family. " But concessions like these only provoke fresh extortions. The politicians of the street now know by experience the effect ofbrutal violence on legal authority. Emboldened by success and byimpunity, they reckon up their strength and the weakness of the latter. One blow more, and they are undisputed masters. Besides, the issue isalready apparent to clear-sighted men. When the agitators of the publicthoroughfares, and the porters at the street-corners, convinced of theirsuperior wisdom, impose decrees by the strength of their lungs, of theirfists, and of their pikes, at that moment experience, knowledge, goodsense, cool-blood, genius, and judgment, disappear from human affairs, and things revert back to chaos. Mirabeau, in favor of the veto forlife, saw the crowd imploring him with tears in their eyes to change hisopinion:

"Monsieur le Comte, if the King obtains this veto, what will be the useof a National Assembly? We shall all be slaves "[1427]

Outbursts of this description are not to be resisted, and all is lost. Already, near the end of September, the remark applies which Mirabeaumakes to the Comte de la Marck:

"Yes, all is lost; the King and Queen will be swept away, and you willsee the populace trampling on their lifeless bodies. "

Eight days after this, on the 5th and 6th of October, it breaks outagainst both King and Queen, against the National Assembly and theGovernment, against all government present and to come; the violentparty which rules in Paris obtains possession of the chiefs of Franceto hold them under strict surveillance, and to justify its intermittentoutrages by one permanent outrage. 

V. --The 5th and 6th of October. 

Once more, two different currents combine into one torrent to hurry thecrowd onward to a common end. --On the one hand are the cravings of thestomach, and women excited by the famine:

"Now that bread cannot be had in Paris, let us go to Versailles anddemand it there; once we have the King, Queen, and Dauphin in the midstof us, they will be obliged to feed us;" we will bring back "the Baker, the Bakeress, and the Baker's boy. " --On the other hand, there isfanaticism, and men who are pushed on by the need to dominate. 

"Now that our chiefs yonder disobey us, --let us go and make them obey usforthwith; the King is quibbling over the Constitution and the Rights ofMan--make him approve them; his guards refuse to wear our cockade--makethem accept it; they want to carry him off to Metz--make him come toParis, here, under our eyes and in our hands, he, and the lame Assemblytoo, will march straight on, and quickly, whether they like it or not, and always on the right road. "--Under this confluence of ideas theexpedition is arranged. [1428] Ten days before this, it is publiclyalluded to at Versailles. On the 4th of October, at Paris, a womanproposes it at the Palais-Royal; Danton roars at the Cordeliers;Marat, "alone, makes as much noise as the four trumpets on the Day ofJudgment. " Loustalot writes that a second revolutionary paroxysm isnecessary. " "The day passes, " says Desmoulins, "in holding councils atthe Palais-Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the ends ofthe bridges, and on the quays. . . In pulling off the cockades of but onecolor. . . . These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats of thelamp post, in case of fresh offense; a soldier who is trying torefasten his, changes his mind on seeing a hundred sticks raised againsthim. "[1429] These are the premonitory symptoms of a crisis; a huge ulcerhas formed in this feverish, suffering body, and it is about to break. 

But, as is usually the case, it is a purulent concentration of the mostpoisonous passions and the foulest motives. The vilest of men andwomen were engaged in it. Money was freely distributed. Was it done byintriguing subalterns who, playing upon the aspirations of the Duke ofOrleans, extracted millions from him under the pretext of making himlieutenant-general of the kingdom? Or is it due to the fanatics who, from the end of April, clubbed together to debauch the soldiery, andstir up a body of ruffians for the purpose of leveling and destroyingeverything around them?[1430] There are always Machiavellis of thehighways and of houses of ill-fame ready to excite the foul and thevile of both sexes. On the first day that the Flemish regiment goes intogarrison at Versailles an attempt is made to corrupt it with money andwomen. Sixty abandoned women are sent from Paris for this purpose, whilethe French Guards come and treat their new comrades. The latter havebeen treated at the Palais-Royal, while three of them, at Versailles, exclaim, showing some crown pieces of six livres, "What a pleasure itis to go to Paris! one always comes back with money!" In this way, resistance is overcome beforehand. As to the attack, women are to be theadvanced guard, because the soldiers will scruple to fire at them;their ranks, however, will be reinforced by a number of men disguisedas women. On looking closely at them they are easily recognized, notwithstanding their rouge, by their badly-shaven beards, and by theirvoices and gait. [1431] No difficulty has been found in obtaining menand women among the prostitutes of the Palais-Royal and the militarydeserters who serve them as bullies. It is probable that the former lenttheir lovers the cast-off dresses they had to spare. At night all willmeet again at the common rendezvous, on the benches of the NationalAssembly, where they are quite as much at home as in their ownhouses. [1432]--In any event, the first band which marches out is of thisstamp, displaying the finery and the gaiety of the profession; "most ofthem young, dressed in white, with powdered hair and a sprightly air;"many of them "laughing, singing, and drinking, " as they would do atsetting out for a picnic in the country. Three or four of them are knownby name--one brandishing a sword, and another, the notorious Théroigne. Madeleine Chabry Louison, who is selected to address the King, is apretty grisette who sells flowers, and, no doubt, something else, at thePalais-Royal. Some appear to belong to the first rank in their calling, and to have tact and the manners of society--suppose, for instance, that Champfort and Laclos sent their mistresses. To these must be addedwasherwomen, beggars, bare-footed women, and fishwomen, enlisted forseveral days before and paid accordingly. This is the first nucleus, and it keeps on growing; for, by compulsion or consent, thetroop incorporates into it, as it passes along, all the women itencounters--seamstresses, portresses, housekeepers, and even respectablefemales, whose dwellings are entered with threats of cutting offtheir hair if they do not fall in. To these must be added vagrants, street-rovers, ruffians and robbers--the lees of Paris, which accumulateand come to the surface every time agitation occurs: they are to befound already at the first hour, behind the troop of women at theHôtel-de-Ville. Others are to follow during the evening and in thenight. Others are waiting at Versailles. Many, both at Paris andVersailles, are under pay: one, in a dirty whitish vest, chinks gold andsilver coin in his hand. --Such is the foul scum which, both in front andin the rear, rolls along with the popular tide; whatever is done to stemthe torrent, it widens out and will leave its mark at every stage of itsoverflow. 

The first troop, consisting of four or five hundred women, beginoperations by forcing the guard of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which isunwilling to make use of its bayonets. They spread through the roomsand try to burn all the written documents they can find, declaring thatthere has been nothing but scribbling since the Revolution began. [1433]A crowd of men follow after them, bursting open doors, and pillagingthe magazine of arms. Two hundred thousand francs in Treasury notes arestolen or disappear; several of the ruffians set fire to the building, while others hang an abbé. The abbé is cut down, and the fireextinguished only just in time: such are the interludes of the populardrama. In the meantime, the crowd of women increases on the Place deGrève, always with the same unceasing cry, "Bread!" and "To Versailles!"One of the conquerors of the Bastille; the usher Maillard, offershimself as a leader. He is accepted, and taps his drum; on leavingParis, he has seven or eight thousand women with him, and, in addition, some hundreds of men; by dint of remonstrances, he succeeds inmaintaining some kind of order amongst this rabble as far asVersailles. --But it is a rabble notwithstanding, and consequently somuch brute force, at once anarchical and imperious. On the one hand, each, and the worst among them, does what he pleases--which will bequite evident this very evening. On the other hand, its ponderous masscrushes all authority and overrides all rules and regulations--which isat once apparent on reaching Versailles. --Admitted into the Assembly, atfirst in small numbers, the women crowd against the door, push in with arush, fill the galleries, then the hall, the men along with them, armedwith clubs, halberds, and pikes, all pell-mell, side by side with thedeputies, taking possession of their benches, voting along with them, and gathering about the President, who, surrounded, threatened, andinsulted, finally abandons the position, while his chair is taken bya woman. [1434] A fishwoman commands in a gallery, and about a hundredwomen around her shout or keep silence at her bidding, while sheinterrupts and abuses the deputies:

"Who is that speaker there? Silence that blabbermouth; he does not knowwhat he is talking about. The question is how to get bread. Let papaMirabeau speak--we want to hear him. "

A decree on subsistence having been passed, the leaders demand somethingin addition; they must be allowed to enter all places where they suspectany monopolizing to be going on, and the price of "bread must be fixedat six sous the four pounds, and meat at six sous per pound. "

"You must not think that we are children to be played with. We are readyto strike. Do as you are bidden. "

All their political injunctions emanate from this central idea. Andfurther:

"Send back the Flemish regiment--it is a thousand men more to feed, andthey take bread out of our mouths. "--"Punish the aristocrats, who hinderthe bakers from baking. " "Down with the skull-cap; the priests are thecause of our trouble!"--"Monsieur Mounier, why did you advocate thatvillainous veto? Beware of the lamp post!"

Under this pressure, a deputation of the Assembly, with the President atits head, sets out on foot, in the mud, through the rain, and watched bya howling escort of women and men armed with pikes: after five hoursof waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the King, besides the decree onsubsistence, about which there was no difficulty, the acceptance, pure and simple, of the Declaration of Rights, and his sanction to theconstitutional articles. --Such is the independence of the King and theAssembly. [1435] Thus are the new principles of justice established, thegrand outlines of the Constitution, the abstract axioms of politicaltruth under the dictatorship of a crowd which extorts not only blindly, but which is half-conscious of its blindness. 

"Monsieur le President, " some among the women say to Mounier, whoreturns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us? willit give poor folks bread in Paris?"

Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and theabandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling. [1436]They slip through into the lines of the regiment drawn on the square, inspite of the sentinels. Théroigne, in an Amazonian red vest, distributesmoney among them. 

"Side with us, " some say to the men; "we shall soon beat the King'sGuards, strip off their fine coats and sell them. "

Others lie sprawling on the ground, alluring the soldiers, and make suchoffers as to lead one of them to exclaim, "We are going to have a jollytime of it!" Before the day is over, the regiment is seduced; the womenhave, according to their own idea, acted for a good motive. When apolitical idea finds its way into such heads, instead of ennobling them, it becomes degraded there; its only effect is to let loose vices which aremnant of modesty still keeps in subjection, and full play is given toluxurious or ferocious instincts under cover of the public good. --Thepassions, moreover, become intensified through their mutual interaction;crowds, clamor, disorder, longings, and fasting, end in a state offrenzy, from which nothing can issue but dizzy madness and rage. --Thisfrenzy began to show itself on the way. Already, on setting out, a womanhad exclaimed, "We shall bring back the Queen's head on the end of a pike!"[1437]

On reaching the Sèvres bridge others added, "Let us cut her throat, and make cockades of her entrails!"

Rain is falling; they are cold, tired, and hungry, and get nothing toeat but a bit of bread, distributed at a late hour, and with difficulty, on the Place d'Armes. One of the bands cuts up a slaughtered horse, roasts it, and consumes it half raw, after the manner of savages. It isnot surprising that, under the names of patriotism and "justice, " savageideas spring up in their minds against "members of the National Assemblywho are not with the principles of the people, " against "the Bishopof Langres, Mounier, and the rest. " One man in a ragged old red coatdeclares that "he must have the head of the Abbé Maury to play nine-pinswith. " But it is especially against the Queen, who is a woman, and insight, that the feminine imagination is the most aroused. 

"She alone is the cause of the evils we endure. . . . She must be killed, and quartered. " --Night advances; there are acts of violence, andviolence engenders violence. 

"How glad I should be, " says one man, "if I could only lay my hand onthat she-devil, and strike off her head on the first curbstone!"

Towards morning, some cry out, "Where is that cursed cat? We must eat her heart out. . . We'll takeoff her head, cut her heart out, and fry her liver!" --With the firstmurders the appetite for blood has been awakened; the women from Parissay that "they have brought tubs to carry away the stumps of theRoyal Guards, " and at these words others clap their hands. Some of theriffraff of the crowd examine the rope of the lamp post in the court ofthe National Assembly, and judging it not to be sufficiently strong, aredesirous of supplying its place with another "to hang the Archbishopof Paris, Maury, and d'Espréménil. "--This murderous, carnivorous ragepenetrates even among those whose duty it is to maintain order, oneof the National Guard being heard to say that "the body-guards must bekilled to the last man, and their hearts torn out for a breakfast. "

Finally, towards midnight, the National Guard of Paris arrives; butit only adds one insurrection to another, for it has likewise mutiniedagainst its chiefs. [1438]

"If M. De Lafayette is not disposed to accompany us, " says one of thegrenadiers, "we will take an old grenadier for our commander. "

Having come to this decision, they sought the general at theHôtel-de-Ville, and the delegates of six of the companies made theirinstructions known to him. 

"General, we do not believe that you are a traitor, but we think thatthe Government is betraying us. . . . The committee on subsistence isdeceiving us, and must be removed. We want to go to Versailles toexterminate the body-guard and the Flemish regiment who have trampledon the national cockade. If the King of France is too feeble to wearhis crown, let him take it off; we will crown his son and things will gobetter. "

In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Grève; invain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing silence. Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare the lamp-post. Hethen dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hôtel-de-Ville, but hisgrenadiers bar the way:

"Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us!"

Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; whichis also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at theHôtel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order tomarch, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse. "

Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and alongwith them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness. On this sidethe National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, togetherwith the people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, haveclosed up every outlet. [1439] The King is prisoner in his own palace, he and his, with his ministers and his court, and with no defense. For, with his usual optimism, he has confided the outer posts of the chateauto Lafayette's soldiers, and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which heis to maintain up to the last, [1440] he has forbidden his own guardsto fire on the crowd, so that they are only there for show. With commonright in his favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had justobliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear? What could bemore effective with the people than trust in them and prudence? And byplaying the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!

From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace-railings. Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's repose, [1441]which hour suffices for them. [1442] A populace armed with pikes andclubs, men and women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight National Guards, forces them to fire on the King's Guards, bursts open a door, seizestwo of the guards and chops their heads off. The executioner, who is astudio model, with a heavy beard, stretches out his blood-stained handsand glories in the act; and so great is the effect on the National Guardthat they move off; through sensibility, in order not to witness suchsights: such is the resistance! In the meantime the crowd invade thestaircases, beat down and trample on the guards they encounter, andburst open the doors with imprecations against the Queen. The Queen runsoff; just in time, in her underclothes; she takes refuge with the Kingand the rest of the royal family, who have in vain barricaded themselvesin the oeil-de-Boeuf, a door of which is broken in: here they stand, awaiting death, when Lafayette arrives with his grenadiers and savesall that can be saved--their lives, and nothing more. For, from the crowdhuddled in the marble court the shout rises, "To Paris with the King!" acommand to which the King submits. 

Now that the great hostage is in their hands, will they deign to acceptthe second one? This is doubtful. On the Queen approaching the balconywith her son and daughter, a howl arises of "No children!" They want tohave her alone in the sights of their guns, and she understands that. Atthis moment M. De Lafayette, throwing the shield of his popularity overher, appears on the balcony at her side and respectfully kisses herhand. The reaction is instantaneous in this over-excited crowd. Boththe men and especially the women, in such a state of nervous tension, readily jump from one extreme to another, rage bordering on tears. Aportress, who is a companion of Maillard's, [1443] imagines that shehears Lafayette promise in the Queen's name "to love her people and beas much attached to them as Jesus Christ to his Church. " People sob andembrace each other; the grenadiers shift their caps to the heads of thebody-guard. Everything will be fine: "the people have won their Kingback. "--Nothing is to be done now but to rejoice; and the cortege moveson. The royal family and a hundred deputies, in carriages, form thecenter, and then comes the artillery, with a number of women bestridingthe cannons; next, a convoy of flour. Round about are the King's Guards, each with a National Guard mounted behind him; then comes the NationalGuard of Paris, and after them men with pikes and women on foot, onhorseback, in cabs, and on carts; in front is a band bearing two severedheads on the ends of two poles, which halts at a hairdresser's, inSèvres, to have these heads powdered and curled;[1444] they are made tobow by way of salutation, and are daubed all over with cream; there arejokes and shouts of laughter; the people stop to eat and drink on theroad, and oblige the guards to clink glasses with them; they shout andfire salvos of musketry; men and women hold each other's hands andsing and dance about in the mud. --Such is the new fraternity: a funeralprocession of legal and legitimate authorities, a triumph of brutalityover intelligence, a murderous and political Mardi-gras, a formidablemasquerade which, preceded by the insignia of death, drags along with itthe heads of France, the King, the ministers, and the deputies, that itmay constrain them to rule to until according to its frenzy, that it mayhold them under its them pikes until it is pleased to slaughter them. 

VI. --The Government and the nation in the hands of the revolutionaryparty. 

This time there can be no mistake: the Reign of Terror is fully andfirmly established. On this very day the mob stops a vehicle, in whichit hopes to find M. De Virieu, and declares, on searching it, that "theyare looking for the deputy to massacre him, as well as others of whomthey have a list. "[1445] Two days afterwards the Abbé Grégoire tellsthe National Assembly that not a day passes without ecclesiastics beinginsulted in Paris, and pursued with "horrible threats. " Malouet isadvised that "as soon as guns are distributed among the militia, thefirst use made of them will be to get rid of those deputies who are badcitizens, " and among others of the Abbé Maury. "The moment I stepped outinto the streets, " writes Mounier, "I was publicly followed. It was acrime to be seen in my company. Wherever I happened to go, alongwith two or three of my companions, it was stated that an assembly ofaristocrats was forming. I had become such an object of terror that theythreatened to set fire to a country-house where I had passed twenty-fourhours; and, to relieve their minds, a promise had to be given thatneither myself nor my friends should be again received into it. " In oneweek five or six hundred deputies have their passports[1446] made out, and hold themselves ready to depart. During the following month onehundred and twenty give in their resignations, or no longer appearin the Assembly. Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, the Bishop of Langres, andothers besides, quit Paris, and afterwards France. Mallet du Pan writes, "Opinion now dictates its judgment with steel in hand. Believe or die isthe anathema which vehement spirits pronounce, and this in the nameof Liberty. Moderation has become a crime. " After the 7th of October, Mirabeau says to the Comte de la Marck:

"If you have any influence with the King or the Queen, persuade themthat they and France are lost if the royal family does not leave Paris. I am busy with a plan for getting them away. "

He prefers everything to the present situation, "even civil war;"for "war, at least, invigorates the soul, " while here, "under thedictatorship of demagogues, we are being drowned in slime. " Given upto itself, Paris, in three months, "will certainly be a hospital, and, perhaps, a theater of horrors. " Against the rabble and its leaders, itis essential that the King should at once coalesce "with his people, "that he should go to Rouen, appeal to the provinces, provide a Centrefor public opinion, and, if necessary, resort to armed resistance. Malouet, on his side, declares that "the Revolution, since the 5th ofOctober, "horrifies all sensible men, and every party, but that itis complete and irresistible. " Thus the three best minds that areassociated with the Revolution--those whose verified prophecies attestgenius or good sense; the only ones who, for two or three years, andfrom week to week, have always predicted wisely, and who have employedreason in their demonstrations--these three, Mallet du Pan, Mirabeau, Mabuet, agree in their estimate of the event, and in measuring itsconsequences. The nation is gliding down a declivity, and no onepossesses the means or the force to arrest it. The King cannot do it:"undecided and weak beyond all expression, his character resembles thoseoiled ivory balls which one vainly strives to keep together. "[1447] Andas for the Assembly, blinded, violated, and impelled on by the theoryit proclaims, and by the faction which supports it, each of its granddecrees only renders its fall the more precipitate. 

*****

[Footnote 1401: Bailly, "Mémoires, " II. 195, 242. ]

[Footnote 1402: Elysée Loustalot, journalist, editor of the paper"Révolutions de Paris, " was a young lawyer who had shown a naturalgenius for innovative journalism. He was to die already in 1790. (SR. )]

[Footnote 1403: Montjoie, ch. LXX, p. 65. ]

[Footnote 1404: Bailly, II. 74, 174, 242, 261, 282, 345, 392. ]

[Footnote 1405: Such as domiciliary visits and arrests apparently madeby lunatics. ("Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris. ")--AndMontjoie, ch. LXX. P. 67. Expedition of the National Guard againstimaginary brigands who are cutting down the crops at Montmorency and thevolley fired in the air. --Conquest of Ile-Adam and Chantilly. ]

[Footnote 1406: Bailly, II. 46, 95, 232, 287, 296. ]

[Footnote 1407: "Archives de la Préfecture de Police, " minutes of themeeting of the section of Butte des Moulins, October 5, 1789. ]

[Footnote 1408: Bailly, II. 224. --Dusaulx, 418, 202, 257, 174, 158. Thepowder transported was called poudre de traite (transport); the peopleunderstood it as poudre de traître (traitor). M. De la Salle was nearbeing killed through the addition of an r. It is he who had takencommand of the National Guard on the 13th of July. ]

[Footnote 1409: Floquet, VII. 54. There is the same scene at Granville, in Normandy, on the 16th of October. A woman had assassinated herhusband, while a soldier who was her lover is her accomplice; the womanwas about to be hung and the man broken on the wheel, when the populaceshout, "The nation has the right of pardon, " upset the scaffold, andsave the two assassins. ]

[Footnote 1410: Bailly, II. 274 (August 17th). ]

[Footnote 1411: Bailly, II, 83, 202, 230, 235, 283, 299. ]

[Footnote 1412: Mercure de France, the number for September 26th. --DeGoncourt, p. 111. ]

[Footnote 1413: Mercier, "Tableau de Paris, " I, 58; X. 151. ]

[Footnote 1414: De Ferrières, I. 178. --Buchez and Roux, II. 311, 316. --Bai11y, II. 104, 174, 207, 246, 257, 282. ]

[Footnote 1415: Mercure de France, September 5th, 1789. Horace Walpole'sLetters, September 5, 1789. --M. De Lafayette, "Mémoires, " I. 272. Duringthe week following the 14th of July, 6, 000 soldiers deserted and wentover to the people, besides 400 and 800 Swiss Guards and six battalionsof the French Guards, who remain without officers, and do as theyplease. Vagabonds from the neighboring villages flock in, and there aremore than "30, 000 strangers and vagrants" in Paris. ]

[Footnote 1416: Bailly, II. 282. The crowd of deserters was so greatthat Lafayette was obliged to place a guard at the barriers to keep themfrom entering the city. "Without this precaution the whole army wouldhave come in. "]

[Footnote 1417: De Ferrières, I. 103. --De Lavalette, I. 39. --Bailly, I. 53 (on the lawyers). "It may be said that the success of the Revolutionis due to this class. "--Marmontel, II. 243 "Since the first electionsof Paris, in 1789, I remarked, " he says, "this species of restlessintriguing men, contending with each other to be heard, impatient tomake themselves prominent. . . . It is well known what interest this body(the lawyers) had to change Reform into Revolution, the Monarchy intoa Republic; the object was to organize for itself a perpetualaristocracy. "--Buchez and Roux, II. 358 (article by C. Desmoulins). "Inthe districts everybody exhausts his lungs and his time in trying to bepresident, vice-president, secretary or vice-secretary"]

[Footnote 1418: Eugène Hatin, "Histoire de la Presse, " vol. V. P. 113. "Le Patriote français" by Brissot, July 28, 1789. --"L'Ami du Peuple, "by Marat, September 12, 1789. --"Annales patriotiques et littéraires, " byCarra and Mercier, October 5, 1789, --"Les Révolutions de Paris, " chiefeditor Loustalot, July 17th, 1789. --"Le Tribun du peuple, " lettersby (middle of 1789). --"Révolutions de France et de Brabant, " by C. Desmoulins, November 28, 1789; his "France libre" (I believe of themonth of August, and his "Discours de la Lanterne" of the month ofSeptember). --"The Moniteur" does not make its appearance until November24, 1789. In the seventy numbers which follow, up to February 3, 1790, the debates of the Assembly were afterwards written out, amplified, andput in a dramatic form. All numbers anterior to February 3, 1790, arethe result of a compilation executed in the year IV. The narrative partduring the first six months of the Revolution is of no value. The reportof the sittings of the Assembly is more exact, but should be revisedsitting by sitting and discourse by discourse for a detailed historyof the National Assembly. The principal authorities which are reallycontemporary are, "Le Mercure de France, " "Le Journal de Paris, " "Lepoint de Jour" by Barrère, the "Courrier de Versailles, " by Gorsas, the"Courrier de Provence" by Mirabeau, the "Journal des Débats et Décrets, "the official reports of the National assembly, the "Bulletin del'Asemblée Nationale, " by Marat, besides the newspapers above citedfor the period following the 14th of July, and the speeches, which areprinted separately. ]

[Footnote 1419: C. Desmoulins, letters of September 20th and ofsubsequent dates. (He quote, a passage from Lucan in the senseindicated). --Brissot, "Mémoires, " passim. --Biography of Danton byRobinet. (See the testimony of Madame Roland and of Rousselin deSaint-Albin. )]

[Footnote 1420: "Discours de la Lanterne. " See the epigraph of theengraving. ]

[Footnote 1421: Buchez and Roux; III. 55; article of Marat, October lst. "Sweep all the suspected men out of the Hôtel-de-Ville. . . . . Reducethe deputies of the communes to fifty; do not let them remain in officemore than a month or six weeks, and compel them to transact businessonly in public. "--And II. 412, another article by Marat. --Ibid. III. 21. An article by Loustalot. --C. Desmoulins, "Discours de la Lanterne, "passim. --Bailly, II. 326. ]

[Footnote 1422: Mounier, "Des causes qui ont empêche les Français d'êtrelibre, " I. 59. --Lally-Tollendal, second letter, 104. --Bailly, II. 203. ]

[Footnote 1423: De Bouillé, 207. --Lally-Tollendal, ibid, 141, 146. --Mounier, ibid. , 41, 60. ]

[Footnote 1424: Mercure de France, October 2, 1790 (article of Mallet duPan: "I saw it"). Criminal proceedings at the Châtelet on the events ofOctober 5th and 6th. Deposition of M. Feydel, a deputy, No. 178. ----DeMontlosier, i. 259. --Desmoulins (La Lanterne). "Some members of thecommunes are gradually won over by pensions, by plans for making afortune and by flattery. Happily, the incorruptible galleries are alwayson the side of the patriots. They represent the tribunes of the peopleseated on a bench in attendance on the deliberations of the Senate andwho had the veto. They represent the metropolis and, fortunately, itis under the batteries of the metropolis that the constitution is beingframed. " (C. Desmoulins, simple-minded politician, always let the catout of the bag. )]

[Footnote 1425: "Procédure du Châtelet, " Ibid. Deposition of M. Malouet(No. 111). "I received every day, as well as MM. Lally and Mounier, anonymous letters and lists of proscriptions on which we were inscribed. These letters announced a prompt and violent death to every deputy thatadvocated the authority of the King. "]

[Footnote 1426: Buchez and Roux, I. 368, 376. ---Bailly, II. 326, 341. --Mounier, ibid. , 62, 75. ]

[Footnote 1427: Etienne Dumont, 145. --Correspondence between Comte deMirabeau and Comte de la Marck. ]

[Footnote 1428: "Procédure criminelle du Châtelet, " Deposition148. --Buchez and Roux, III. 67, 65. (Narrative of Desmoulins, articleof Loustalot. ) Mercure de France, number for September 5, 1789. "Sundayevening, August 30, at the Palais-Royal, the expulsion of severaldeputies of every class was demanded, and especially some of those fromDauphiny. . . They spoke of bringing the King to Paris as well as theDauphin. All virtuous citizens, every incorruptible patriot, wasexhorted to set out immediately for Versailles. "]

[Footnote 1429: These acts of violence were not reprisals; nothing ofthe kind took place at the banquet of the body-guards (October 1st). "Amidst the general joy, " says an eye-witness, "I heard no insultsagainst the National Assembly, nor against the popular party, noragainst anybody. The only cries were 'Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!We will defend them to the death!'" (Madame de Larochejacquelein, p. 40. --Ibid. Madame Campan, another eye-witness. )--It appears to becertain, however, that the younger members of the National Guard atVersailles turned their cockades so as to be like other people, and itis also probable that some of the ladies distributed white cockades. The rest is a story made up before and after the event to justify theinsurrection. --Cf. Lerol, "Histoire de Versailles, " II. 20-107. Ibid. P. 141. "As to that proscription of the national cockade, all witnessesdeny it. " The originator of the calumny is Gorsas, editor of theCourrier de Versailles. ]

[Footnote 1430: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 88, 110, 120, 126, 127, 140, 146, 148. --Marmontel, "Mémoires, " a conversationwith Champfort, in May, 1789. --Morellet, "Mémoires, " I. 398. (Accordingto the evidence of Garat, Champfort gave all his savings, 3, 000 livres, to defray the expenses of maneuvers of this description. )--Malouet(II. 2). Knew four of the deputies "who took direct part in thisconspiracy. "]

[Footnote 1431: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " 1st. On the Flemishsoldiers. Depositions 17, 20, 24, 35, 87, 89, 98. --2nd. On the mendisguised as women. Depositions 5, 10, 14, 44, 49, 59, 60, 110, 120, 139, 145, 146, 148. The prosecutor designates six of them tobe seized. --3rd. On the condition of the women of the expedition. Depositions 35, 83, 91, 98, 146, and 24. --4th. On the money distributed. Depositions 49, 56, 71, 82, 110, 126. ]

[Footnote 1432: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Deposition 61. "During the night scenes, not very decent, occurred among these people, which the witness thought it useless to relate. "]

[Footnote 1433: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 35, 44, 81. --Buchez and Roux, III. 120. (Minutes of the meeting of the Commune, October 5th. ) Journal de Paris, October 12th. A few days after, M. Pic, clerk of the prosecutor, brought "a package of 100, 000 francs which hehad saved from the enemies' hands, " and another package of notes wasfound thrown, in the hubbub, into a receipt-box. ]

[Footnote 1434: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 61, 77, 81, 148, 154. --Dumont, 181. --Mounier, "Exposé justificatif, " andspecially "Fait relatif à la dernière insurrection. "]

[Footnote 1435: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Deposition 168. Thewitness sees on leaving the King's apartment "several women dressed asfish-wives, one of whom, with a pretty face, has a paper in her hand, and who exclaims as she holds it up, 'He! F. . . , we have forced the guyto sign. ' "]

[Footnote 1436: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 89, 91, 98. "Promising all, even raising their petticoats before them. "]

[Footnote 1437: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet, " Depositions 9, 20, 24, 30, 49, 61, 82, 115, 149, 155. ]

[Footnote 1438: Procédure criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 7, 30, 35, 40. --Cf. Lafayette, "Mémoires, " and Madame Campan, "Mémoires. "]

[Footnote 1439: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Deposition 24. A number of butcher-boys run after the carriages issuing from thePetite-Ecurie shouting out, "Don't let the curs escape!"]

[Footnote 1440: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 101, 91, 89, and 17. M. De Miomandre, a body-guard, mildly says to the ruffiansmounting the staircase: "My friends, you love your King, and yet youcome to annoy him even in his palace!"]

[Footnote 1441: Malouet, II. 2. "I felt no distrust, " says Lafayette in1798; "the people promised to remain quiet. "]

[Footnote 1442: "Procédure Criminelle du Chatelet. " Depositions 9, 16, 60, 128, 129, 130, 139, 158, 168, 170. --M. Du Repaire, body-guard, beingsentry at the railing from two o'clock in the morning, a man passes hispike through the bars saying, "You embroidered b. . . , your turnwill come before long. " M. De Repaire, "retires within the sentry-boxwithout saying a word to this man, considering the orders that have beenissued not to act. "]

[Footnote 1443: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet. " Depositions 82, 170--Madame Campan. II. 87. --De Lavalette, I. 33. --Cf. Bertrand deMolleville, Mémoires. ]

[Footnote 1444: Duval, "Souvenirs de la Terreur, " I. 78. (Doubtful inalmost everything, but here he is an eye-witness. He dined opposite thehair-dresser's, near the railing of the Park of Saint-Cloud. )--M. DeLally-Tollendal's second letter to a friend. "At the moment the Kingentered his capital with two bishops of his council with him in thecarriage, the cry was heard, 'Off to the lamp post with the bishops!'"]

[Footnote 1445: De Montlosier, I. 303. --Moniteur, sessions of the 8th, 9th, and 10th of October. --Malouet, II. 9, 10, 20. --Mounier, Recherchessur les Causes, etc. , and "Addresse aux Dauphinois. "]

[Footnote 1446: De Ferrières, I. 346. (On the 9th of October, 300members have already taken their passports. ) Mercure de France, No. Ofthe 17th October. Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. De la Marck, I. 116, 126, 364. ]

[Footnote 1447: Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. De la Marck, I. 175. (The words of Monsieur to M. De la Marck. )]

BOOK SECOND. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, AND THE RESULT OF ITS LABORS. 

CHAPTER I. --CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OF GOOD LAWS. 

Among the most difficult undertakings in this world is the formulationof a national constitution, especially if this is to be a complete andcomprehensive work. To replace the old structures inside which a greatpeople has lived by a new, different, appropriate and durable set oflaws, to apply a mold of one hundred thousand compartments on to thelife of twenty-six million people, to construct it so harmoniously, adapt it so well, so closely, with such an exact appreciation of theirneeds and their faculties, that they enter it of themselves and moveabout it without collisions, and that their spontaneous activityshould at once find the ease of familiar routine, --is an extraordinaryundertaking and probably beyond the powers of the human mind. In anyevent, the mind requires all its powers to carry the undertaking out, and it cannot protect itself carefully enough against all sources ofdisturbance and error. An Assembly, especially a Constituent Assembly, requires, outwardly, security and independence, inwardly, silenceand order, and generally, calmness, good sense, practical ability anddiscipline under competent and recognized leaders. Do we find anythingof all this in the Constituent Assembly?

I. --These conditions absent in the Assembly

 Causes of disorder and irrationality--The place of meeting --The large number of deputies--Interference of the galleries --Rules of procedure wanting, defective, or disregarded. --The parliamentary leaders--Susceptibility and over-excitement of the Assembly--Its paroxysms of enthusiasm. --Its tendency to emotion. --It encourages theatrical display--Changes which these displays introduce in its good intentions. 

We have only to look at it outwardly to have some doubts about it. AtVersailles, and then at Paris, the sessions are held in an immense hallcapable of seating 2, 000 persons, in which the most powerful voice mustbe strained in order to be heard. It is not calculated for the moderatetone suitable for the discussion of business; the speaker is obliged toshout, and the strain on the voice communicates itself to the mind; theplace itself suggests declamation; and this all the more readily becausethe assemblage consists of 1, 200, that is to say, a crowd, and almosta mob. 'At the present day (1877), in our assemblies of five or sixhundred deputies, there are constant interruptions and an incessantbuzz; there is nothing so rare as self-control, and the firm resolve togive an hour's attention to a discourse opposed to the opinions of thehearers. --What can be done here to compel silence and patience? ArthurYoung on different occasions sees "a hundred members on the floor atonce, " shouting and gesticulating. "Gentlemen, you are killing me!" saysBailly, one day, sinking with exhaustion. Another president exclaims indespair, "Two hundred speaking at the same time cannot be heard; willyou make it impossible then to restore order in the Assembly?" Therumbling, discordant din is further increased by the uproar of thegalleries. [2101]

"In the British Parliament, " writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw thegalleries cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happenedunintentionally to laugh too loud. "

Here, the thronging crowd of spectators, stringers, delegates from thePalais-Royal, soldiers disguised as citizens, and prostitutes collectedand marshaled, applaud, clap their hands, stamp and hoot, at theirpleasure. This is carried to so great an extent that M. DeMontlosier ironically proposes "to give the galleries a voice inthe deliberations. "[2102] Another member wishes to know whether therepresentatives are so many actors, whom the nation sends there toendure the hisses of the Paris public. Interruptions, in fact, takeplace as in a theater, and, frequently, if the members do not givesatisfaction, they are forced to desist. On the other hand, the deputieswho are popular with this energetic audience, on which they keep andeye, are actors before the footlights: they involuntarily yield to itsinfluence, and exaggerate their ideas as well as their words to be inunison with it. Tumult and violence, under such circumstances, becomea matter of course, and the chances of an Assembly acting wisely arediminished by one-half; on becoming a club of agitators, it ceases to bea conclave of legislators. 

Let us enter and see how this one proceeds. Thus encumbered, thussurrounded and agitated, does it take at least those precautions withoutwhich no assembly of men can govern itself. When several hundred personsassemble together for deliberation, it is evident that some sort of aninternal police is necessary; first of all, some code of accepted usage, some written precedents, by which its acts may be prepared and defined, considered in detail, and properly passed. The best of these codes itready to hand: at the request of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over thestanding orders of the English House of Commons. [2103] But with thepresumption of novices, they pay no attention to this code; they imagineit is needless for them; they will borrow nothing from foreigners; theyaccord no authority to experience, and, not content with rejecting theforms it prescribes, "it is with difficulty they can be made to followany rule whatever. " They leave the field open to the impulsiveness ofindividuals; any kind of influence, even that of a deputy, even of oneelected by themselves, is suspected by them; hence their choice of anew president every fortnight. --They submit to no constraint or control, neither to the legal authority of a parliamentary code, nor to the moralauthority of parliamentary chiefs. They are without any such; they arenot organized in parties; neither on one side nor on the other is arecognized leader found who fixes the time, arranges the debate, drawsup the motion, assigns parts, and gives the rein to or restrainshis supporters. Mirabeau is the only one capable of obtaining thisascendancy; but, on the opening of the Assembly, he is discredited bythe notoriety of his vices, and, towards the last, is compromised by hisconnections with the Court. No other is of sufficient eminence to haveany influence; there is too much of average and too little of superiortalent. --Their self-esteem is, moreover, as yet too strong to allow anyconcessions. Each of these improvised legislators has come satisfiedwith his own system, and to submit to a leader to whom he would entrusthis political conscience, to make of him what three out of four of thesedeputies should be, a voting machine, would require an apprehension ofdanger, some painful experience, an enforced surrender which he is farfrom realizing. [2104] For this reason, save in the violent party, eachacts as his own chief, according to the impulse of the moment, and theconfusion may be imagined. Strangers who witness it, lift their hands inpity and astonishment. "They discuss nothing in their Assembly, "writes Gouverneur Morris, [2105] "One large half of the time is spentin hallowing and bawling. . . . Each Man permitted to speak delivers theResult of his Lubrications, " amidst this noise, taking his turn asinscribed, without replying to his predecessor, or being replied to byhis successor, without ever meeting argument by argument; so that whilethe firing is interminable, "all their shots are fired in the air. "Before this "frightful clatter" can be reported, the papers of the dayare obliged to make all sorts of excisions, to prune away "nonsense, "and reduce the "inflated and bombastic style. " Chatter and clamor, thatis the whole substance of most of these famous sittings. 

"You would hear, " says a journalist, "more yells than speeches; thesittings seemed more likely to end in fights than in decrees. . . . Twentytimes I said to myself, on leaving, that if anything could arrest andturn the tide of the Revolution, it would be a picture of these meetingstraced without caution or adaptation. . . All my efforts were thereforedirected to represent the truth, without rendering it repulsive. Outof what had been merely a row, I concocted a scene. . . I gave all thesentiments, but not always in the same words. I translated their yellsinto words, their furious gestures into attitudes, and when I could notinspire esteem, I endeavored to rouse the emotions. "

There is no remedy for this evil; for, besides the absence ofdiscipline, there is an inward and fundamental cause for the disorder. These people are too susceptible. They are Frenchmen, and Frenchmenof the eighteenth century; brought up in the amenities of the utmostrefinement, accustomed to deferential manners, to constant kindattentions and mutual obligations, so thoroughly imbued with theinstinct of good breeding that their conversation seems almost insipidto strangers. [2106]--And suddenly they find themselves on the thornysoil of politics, exposed to insulting debates, flat contradictions, venomous denunciation, constant detraction and open invective; engagedin a battle in which every species of weapon peculiar to a parliamentarylife is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely ableto keep cool. Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highlystrung nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the accommodationsand amiabilities of universal urbanity. They are at once besidethemselves. --And all the more so because they never anticipated abattle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming idyll, inwhich everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears around the throneand save the country amid mutual embraces. Necker himself arranges, likea theater, the chamber in which the sessions of the Assembly are tobe held. [2107] "He was not disposed to regard the Assemblies of theStates-General as anything but a peaceful, imposing, solemn, augustspectacle, which the people would enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenlychanges into a drama, he is so frightened that it seems to him as if alandslide had occurred that threatened, during the night, to breakdown the framework of the building. --At the time of the meeting of theStates-General, everybody is delighted; all imagine that they are aboutto enter the promised land. During the procession of the 4th of May, "tears of joy, " says the Marquis de Ferrières, "filled my eyes. . . . In astate of sweet rapture I beheld France supported by Religion" exhortingus all to concord. "The sacred ceremonies, the music, the incense, thepriests in their sacrificial robes, that dais, that orb radiant withprecious stones. . . I called to my mind the words of the prophet. . . . MyGod, my country, and my countrymen, all were one with myself!"

Such emotions repeatedly explode in the course of the session, andresulted in the passage of laws which no one could have imagined. 

"Sometimes, "[2108] writes the American ambassador, "a speaker gets upin the midst of a deliberation, makes a fine discourse on a differentsubject, and closes with a nice little resolution which is carried witha hurrah. Thus, in considering the plan of a national bank proposed byM. Necker, one of them took it into his head to move that every membershould give his silver buckles, which was agreed to at once, and thehonorable mover laid his upon the table, after which the business wenton again. "

Thus, over-excited, they do not know in the morning what they will doin the afternoon, and they are at the mercy of every surprise. When theyare seized with these fits of enthusiasm, infatuation spreads over allthe benches; prudence gives way, all foresight disappears and everyobjection is stifled. During the night of the 4th of August, [2109]"nobody is master of himself. The Assembly presents the spectacle of aninebriated crowd in a shop of valuable furniture, breaking and smashingat will whatever they can lay their hands on. "

"That which would have required a year of care and reflection, " saysa competent foreigner, "was proposed, deliberated over, and passed bygeneral acclamation. The abolition of feudal rights, of titles, of theprivileges of the provinces, three articles which alone embraced a wholesystem of jurisprudence and statesmanship, were decided with ten ortwelve other measures in less time than is required in the EnglishParliament for the first reading of an important bill. "

"Such are our Frenchmen, " says Mirabeau again, "they spend a month indisputes about syllables, and overthrow, in a single night, the wholeestablished system of the Monarchy!"[2110]

The truth is, they display the nervousness of women, and, from one endof the Revolution to the other, this excitability keeps on increasing. 

Not only are they excited, but the pitch of excitement must bemaintained, and, like the drunkard who, once stimulated, has recourseagain to strong waters, one would say that they carefully try to expelthe last remnants of calmness and common sense from their brains. Theydelight in pompous phrases, in high-sounding rhetoric, in declamatorysentimental strokes of eloquence: this is the style of nearly all theirspeeches, and so strong is their taste, they are not satisfied withthe orations made amongst themselves. Lally and Necker, having made"affecting and sublime" speeches at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Assemblywish them to be repeated before them:[2111] this being the heart ofFrance, it is proper for it to answer to the noble emotions of allFrenchmen. Let this heart throb on, and as strongly as possible, forthat is its office, and day by day it receives fresh impulses. Almostall sittings begin with the reading of flattering addresses or ofthreatening denunciations. The petitioners frequently appear in person, and read their enthusiastic effusions, their imperious advice, theirdoctrines of dissolution. To-day it is Danton, in the name of Paris, with his bull visage and his voice that seems a tocsin of insurrection;to-morrow, the vanquishers of the Bastille, or some other troop, with aband of music which continues playing even into the hall. The meeting isnot a conference for business, but a patriotic opera, where the eclogue, the melodrama, and sometimes the masquerade, mingle with the cheers andthe clapping of hands. [2112]--A serf of the Jura is brought to thebar of the Assembly aged one hundred and twenty years, and one of themembers of the cortège, "M. Bourbon de la Crosnière, director of apatriotic school, asks permission to take charge of an honorable oldman, that he may be waited on by the young people of all ranks, andespecially by the children of those whose fathers were killed in theattack on the Bastille. " [2113] Great is the hubbub and excitement. Thescene seems to be in imitation of Berquin, [2114] with the additionalcomplication of a mercenary consideration. 

But small matters are not closely looked into, and the Assembly, underthe pressure of the galleries, stoops to shows, such as are heldat fairs. Sixty vagabonds who are paid twelve francs a head, in thecostumes of Spaniards, Dutchmen, Turks, Arabs, Tripolitans, Persians, Hindus, Mongols, and Chinese, conducted by the Prussian AnacharsisClootz, enter, under the title of Ambassadors of the Human Race, todeclaim against tyrants, and they are admitted to the honors of thesitting. On this occasion the masquerade is a stroke devised to hastenand extort the abolition of nobility. [2115] At other times, there islittle or no object in it; its ridiculousness is inexpressible, for thefarce is played out as seriously and earnestly as in a village awardof prizes. For three days, the children who have taken their firstcommunion before the constitutional bishop have been promenaded throughthe streets of Paris; at the Jacobin club they recite the nonsense theyhave committed to memory; and, on the fourth day, admitted to the barof the Assembly, their spokesman, a poor little thing of twelve years, repeats the parrot-like tirade. He winds up with the accustomed oath, upon which all the others cry out in their piping, shrill voices, "Weswear!" As a climax, the President, Trejlhard, a sober lawyer, repliesto the little gamins with perfect gravity in a similar strain, employingmetaphors, personifications, and everything else belonging to thestock-in-trade of a pedant on his platform:

"You merit a share in the glory of the founders of liberty, prepared asyou are to shed your blood in her behalf. "

Immense applause from the "left" and the galleries, and a decreeordering the speeches of both president and children to be printed. Thechildren, probably, would rather have gone out to play; but, willinglyor unwillingly, they receive or endure the honors of the sitting. [2116]

Such are the tricks of the stage and of the platform by which themanagers here move their political puppets. Emotional susceptibility, once recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrumentof intrigue and constraint. The Assembly, having accepted theatricalexhibitions when these were sincere and earnest, is obliged to toleratethem when they become mere sham and buffoonery. At this vast nationalbanquet, over which it meant to preside, and to which, throwing thedoors wide open, it invited all France, its first intoxication wasdue to wine of a noble quality; but it has touched glasses with thepopulace, and by degrees, under the pressure of its associates, it hasdescended to adulterated and burning drinks, to a grotesque unwholesomeinebriety which is all the more grotesque and unwholesome, because itpersists in believing itself to be reason. 

II. --Inadequacy of its information. 

 Its composition--The social standing and culture of the larger number--Their incapacity. Their presumption --Fruitless advice of competent men. --Deductive politics --Parties--The minority; its faults--The majority; its dogmatism. 

If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals!But reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French Assembly, except the two following this, have there ever been fewer politicalintellects. --Strictly speaking, with careful search, there couldundoubtedly be found in France, in 1789, five or six hundred experiencedmen, such as the intendants and military commanders of every province;next to these the prelates, administrators of large dioceses the membersof the local "parlements, " whose courts gave them influence, and who, besides judicial functions, possessed a portion of administrative power;and finally, the principal members of the Provincial Assemblies, all ofthem influential and sensible people who had exercised control overmen and affairs, at once humane, liberal, moderate, and capable ofunderstanding the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of a greatreform; indeed, their correspondence, full of facts, stated withprecision and judgment, when compared with the doctrinaire rubbish ofthe Assembly, presents the strongest possible contrast. --But most ofthese lights remain under a bushel; only a few of them get into theAssembly; these burn without illuminating, and are soon extinguished inthe tempest. ' I. The venerable Machault is not there, nor Malesherbes;there are none of the old ministers or the marshals of France. Not oneof the intendants is there, except Malouet, and by the superiority ofthis man, the most judicious of the Assembly, one can judge the serviceswhich his colleagues would have rendered. Out of two hundred andninety-one members of the clergy, [2117] there are indeed forty-eightbishops or archbishops and thirty-five abbots or canons, but, beingprelates and with large endowments, they excite the envy of their order, and are generals without any soldiers. We have the same spectacle amongthe nobles. Most of them, the gentry of the provinces, have been electedin opposition to the grandees of the Court. Moreover, neither thegrandees of the Court, devoted to worldly pursuits, nor the gentry ofthe provinces, confined to private life, are practically familiar withpublic affairs. A small group among them, twenty-eight magistratesand about thirty superior officials who have held command or have beenconnected with the administration, probably have some idea of the perilof society; but it is precisely for this reason that they seem to bebehind the age and remain without influence. --In the Third-Estate, outof five hundred and seventy-seven members, only ten have exercisedany important functions, those of intendant, councillor of state, receiver-general, lieutenant of police, director of the mint, and othersof the same category. The great majority is composed of unknown lawyersand people occupying inferior positions in the profession, notaries, royal attorneys, register commissaries, judges and assessors of;the présidial, bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simplepractitioners confined from their youth to the narrow circle of aninferior jurisdiction or to a routine of scribbling, with no escapebut philosophical excursions in imaginary space under the guidance ofRousseau and Raynal. There are three hundred and seventy-three of thisclass, to whom may be added thirty-eight farmers and husbandmen, fifteenphysicians, and, among the manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists, some fifty or sixty who are their equals in education and in politicalcapacity. Scarcely one hundred and fifty proprietors are here from themiddle class. [2118] To these four hundred and fifty deputies, whosecondition, education, instruction, and mental range qualified them forbeing good clerks, prominent men in a commune, honorable fathers of afamily, or, at best, provincial academicians, add two hundred and eightcurés, their equals; this makes six hundred and fifty out of elevenhundred and eighteen deputies, forming a positive majority, which, again, is augmented by about fifty philosophical nobles, leaving out theweak who follow the current, and the ambitious who range themselves onthe strong side. --We may divine what a chamber thus made up can do, andthose who are familiar with such matters prophesy what it will do. [2119]

"There are some able men in the National Assembly, " writes the Americanminister, "yet the best heads among them would not be injured byexperience, and, unfortunately, there are great numbers who, with muchimagination, have little knowledge, judgment, or reflection. "

It would be just as sensible to select eleven hundred notables from aninland province and entrust them to the repair of an old frigate. Theywould conscientiously break the vessel up, and the frigate they wouldconstruct in its place would founder before it left port. 

If they would only consult the pilots and professionalshipbuilders!--There are several of such to be found around them, whomthey cannot suspect, for most of them are foreigners, born in freecountries, impartial, sympathetic, and, what is more, unanimous. TheMinister of the United States writes, two months before the convocationof the States-General:[2120]

"I, a republican, and just, as it were, emerged from that Assembly whichhas formed one of the most republican of republican constitutions, --Ipreach incessantly respect for the prince, attention to the rights ofthe nobility, and moderation, not only in the object, but also in thepursuit of it. "

Jefferson, a democrat and radical, expresses himself no differently. Atthe time of the oath of the Tennis Court, he redoubles his efforts toinduce Lafayette and other patriots to make some arrangement with theKing to secure freedom of the press, religious, liberty, trial by jury, the habeas corpus, and a national legislature, --things which he couldcertainly be made to adopt, --and then to retire into private life, andlet these institutions act upon the condition of the people until theyhad rendered it capable of further progress, with the assurance thatthere would be no lack of opportunity for them to obtain still more. 

"This was all, " he continues, "that I thought your countrymen able tobear soberly and usefully. "

Arthur Young, who studies the moral life of France so conscientiously, and who is so severe in depicting old abuses, cannot comprehend theconduct of the Commons. 

"To set aside practice for theory. . . In establishing the interests of agreat kingdom, in securing freedom to 25, 000, 000 of people, seems to methe very acme of imprudence, the very quintessence of insanity. "

Undoubtedly, now that the Assembly is all-powerful, it is to be hopedthat it will be reasonable:

"I will not allow myself to believe for a moment that therepresentatives of the people can ever so far forget their duty tothe French nation, to humanity, and their own fame, as to sufferany inordinate and impracticable views--any visionary or theoreticsystems--. . . To turn aside their exertions from that security which isin their hands, to place on the chance and hazard of public commotionand civil war the invaluable blessings which are certainly in theirpower. I will not conceive it possible that men who have eternal famewithin their grasp will place the rich inheritance on the cast of a die, and, losing the venture, be damned among the worst and most profligateadventurers that ever disgraced humanity. "

As their plan becomes more definite the remonstrances become moredecided, and all the expert judges point out to them the importance ofthe wheels which they are willfully breaking. 

"As they have[2121] hitherto felt severely the authority exercised overthem in the name of their princes, every limitation of that authorityseems to them desirable. Never having felt the evils of too weak anexecutive, the disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet noimpression"--"They want an American Constitution, [2122] but with aKing instead of a President, without reflecting they have no Americancitizens to support that Constitution. . . If they have the good senseto give the nobles, as nobles, some portion of the national power, thisfree constitution will probably last, But otherwise it will degenerateeither into a pure monarchy, or a vast republic, or a democracy. Willthe latter last? I doubt it. I am sure that it will not, unless thewhole nation is changed. "

A little later, when they renounce a parliamentary monarchy to put inits place "a royal democracy, " it is at once explained to them that suchan institution applied to France can produce nothing but anarchy, andfinally end in despotism. 

"Nowhere[2123] has liberty proved to be stable without a sacrifice ofits excesses, without some barrier to its own omnipotence. . . . Underthis miserable government. . . The people, soon weary of storms, andabandoned without legal protection to their seducers or to theiroppressors, will shatter the helm, or hand it over to some audacioushand that stands ready to seize it. "

Events occur from month to month in fulfillment of these predictions, and the predictions grow gloomier and more gloomy. It is a flock of wildbirds:[2124]

"It is very difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will settle whenit flies so wild. . . . This unhappy country, bewildered in the pursuitof metaphysical whims, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. TheAssembly, at once master and slave, new in power, wild in theory, raw inpractice, engrossing all functions without being able to exercise any, has freed that fierce, ferocious people from every restraint of religionand respect. . . . Such a state of things cannot last. . . The gloriousopportunity is lost and for this time, at least, the Revolution hasfailed. "

We see, from the replies of Washington, that he is of the same opinion. On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, the ablest practician, andBurke, the ablest theorist, of political liberty, express the samejudgment. Pitt, after 1789, declares that the French have overleapedfreedom. After 1790, Burke, in a work which is a prophecy as well as amasterpiece, points to military dictatorship as the termination of theRevolution, "the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appearedon earth. " Nothing is of any effect. With the exception of the smallpowerless group around Malouet and Mounier, the warnings of Morris, Jefferson, Romilly, Dumont, Mallet du Pan, Arthur Young, Pitt and Burke, all of them men who have experience of free institutions, are receivedwith indifference or repelled with disdain. Not only are our newpoliticians incapable, but they think themselves the contrary, and theirincompetence is aggravated by their infatuation. 

"I often used to say, "writes Dumont, [2125] "that if a hundred personswere stopped at haphazard in the streets of London, and a hundred in thestreets of Paris, and a proposal were made to them to take charge of theGovernment, ninety-nine would accept it in Paris and ninety-nine wouldrefuse it in London. . . The Frenchman thinks that all difficulties canbe overcome by a little quickness of wit. Mirabeau accepted the post ofreporter to the Committee on Mines without having the slightest tinctureof knowledge on the subject. "

In short, most of them enter politics "like the gentleman who, on beingasked if he knew how to play on the harpsichord, replied, 'I cannottell, I never tried, but I will see. '"

"The Assembly had so high an opinion of itself, especially the left sideof it, that it would willingly have undertaken the framing of the Codeof Laws for all nations. . . Never has so many men been seen together, fancying that they were all legislators, and that they were there tocorrect all the errors of the past, to remedy all mistakes of the humanmind, and ensure the happiness of all ages to come. Doubt had noplace in their minds, and infallibility always presided over theircontradictory decrees. "--

This is because they have a theory and because, according to theirnotion, this theory renders special knowledge unnecessary. Herein theyare thoroughly sincere, and it is of set purpose that they reverse allordinary modes of procedure. Up to this time a constitution used to beorganized or repaired like a ship. Experiments were made from time totime, or a model was taken from vessels in the neighborhood; the firstaim was to make the ship sail; its construction was subordinated to itswork; it was fashioned in this or that way according to the materials onhand; a beginning was made by examining these materials, and trying toestimate their rigidity, weight, and strength. --All this is reactionary;the age of Reason has come and the Assembly is too enlightened to dragon in a rut. In conformity with the fashion of the time it works bydeduction, after the method of Rousseau, according to an abstract notionof right, of the State and of the social compact. [2126] According tothis process, by virtue of political geometry alone, they shall have theperfect vessel and since it perfect it follows that it will sail, andthat much better than any empirical craft. --They legislate accordingto this principle, and one may imagine the nature of their discussions. There are no convincing facts, no pointed arguments; nobody wouldever imagine that the speakers were gathered together to conduct realbusiness. Through speech after speech, strings of hollow abstractionsare endlessly renewed as in a meeting of students in rhetoric for thepurpose of practice, or in a society of old bookworms for their ownamusement. On the question of the veto "each orator in turn, armed withhis portfolio, reads a dissertation which has no bearing whatever" onthe preceding one, which makes a "sort of academical session, "[2127]a succession of pamphlets fresh every morning for several days. On thequestion of the Rights of Man fifty-four speakers are placed on thelist. 

"I remember, " says Dumont, "that long discussion, which lasted forweeks, as a period of deadly boredom, --vain disputes over words, ametaphysical jumble, and most tedious babble; the Assembly was turnedinto a Sorbonne lecture-room, " and all this while chateaux were burning, while town-halls were being sacked, and courts dared no longer holdassize, while the distribution of wheat was stopped, and while societywas in course of dissolution. In the same manner the theologians of theEaster Roman Empire kept up their wrangles about the uncreated light ofMount Tabor while Mahomet II was battering the walls of Constantinoplewith his cannon. --Ours, of course, are another sort of men, juvenilein feeling, sincere, enthusiastic, even generous, and further, moredevoted, laborious, and in some cases endowed with rare talent. Butneither zeal, nor labor, nor talent are of any use when not employed inthe service of a sound idea; and if in the service of a false one, thegreater they are the more mischief they do. 

Towards the end of the year 1789, there can be not doubt of this;and the parties now formed reveal their presumption, improvidence, incapacity, and obstinacy. "This Assembly, " writes the Americanambassador, [2128] "may be divided into three parties;--

one called the aristocrats, consists of the high clergy, theparliamentary judges, and such of the nobility as think they ought toform a separate order. " This is the party which offers resistance tofollies and errors, but with follies and errors almost equally great. In the beginning "the prelates, [2129] instead of conciliating the curés, kept them at a humiliating distance, affecting distinctions, exactingrespect, " and, in their own chamber, "ranging themselves apart onseparate benches. " The nobles, on the other hand, the more to alienatethe commons, began by charging these with, "revolt, treachery, andtreason, " and by demanding the use of military force against them. Nowthat the victorious Third-Estate has again overcome them and overwhelmsthem with numbers, they become still more maladroit, and conduct thedefense much less efficiently than the attack. "In the Assembly, " saysone of them, "they do not listen, but laugh and talk aloud;" theytake pains to embitter their adversaries and the galleries by theirimpertinence. "They leave the chamber when the President puts thequestion and invite the deputies of their party to follow them, orcry out to them not to take part in the deliberation: through thisdesertion, the clubbists become the majority, and decree whatever theyplease. " It is in this way that the appointment of judges and bishopsis withdrawn from the King and assigned to the people. Again, after thereturn from Varennes, when the Assembly finds out that the result of itslabors is impracticable and wants to make it less democratic, the wholeof the right side refuses to share in the debates, and, what is worse, votes with the revolutionaries to exclude the members of the Constituentfrom the Legislative Assembly. Thus, not only does it abandon itsown cause, but it commits self-destruction, and its desertion ends insuicide. --

A second party remains, "the middle party, "[2130] which consists ofwell-intentioned people from every class, sincere partisans of a goodgovernment; but, unfortunately, they have acquired their ideas ofgovernment from books, and are admirable on paper. But as it happensthat the men who live in the world are very different from imaginary menwho dwell in the heads of philosophers, it is not to be wondered at ifthe systems taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be upset byanother book. Intellects of this stamp are the natural prey of utopians. Lacking the ballast of experience they are carried away by pure logicand serve to enlarge the flock of theorists. --The latter form the thirdparty, which is called the "enragés (the wild men), and who, at theexpiration of six months, find themselves "the most numerous of all. "

"It is composed, " says Morris, "of that class which in America is knownby the name of pettifogging lawyers, together with a host of curates andmany of those persons who in all revolutions throng to the standardof change because they are not well. [2131] This last party is in closealliance with the populace and derives from this circumstance very greatauthority. "

All powerful passions are on its side, not merely the irritation of thepeople tormented by misery and suspicion, not merely the ambition andself-esteem of the bourgeois, in revolt against the ancient régime, but also the inveterate bitterness and fixed ideas of so many sufferingminds and so many factious intellects, Protestants, Jansenists, economists, philosophers, men who, like Fréteau, Rabout-Saint-Etienne, Volney, Sieyès, are hatching out a long arrears of resentments or hopes, and who only await the opportunity to impose their system with all theintolerance of dogmatism and of faith. To minds of this stamp the pastis a dead letter; example is no authority; realities are of no account;they live in their own Utopia. Sieyès, the most important of them all, judges that "the whole English constitution is charlatanism, designedfor imposing on the people;"[2132] he regards the English "as childrenin the matter of a constitution, " and thinks that he is capable ofgiving France a much better one. Dumont, who sees the first committeesat the houses of Brissot and Clavières, goes away with as much anxietyas "disgust. "

"It is impossible, " he says, "to depict the confusion of ideas, thelicense of the imagination, the burlesque of popular notions. Onewould think that they saw before them the world on the day after theCreation. "

They seem to think, indeed, that human society does not exist, and thatthey are appointed to create it. Just as well might ambassadors "ofhostile tribes, and of diverse interests, set themselves to arrangetheir common lot as if nothing had previously existed. " There is nohesitation. They are satisfied that the thing can be easily done, andthat, with two or three axioms of political philosophy, the first manthat comes may make himself master of it. Immoderate conceit of thiskind among men of experience would seem ridiculous; in this assembly ofnovices it is a strength. A flock which has lost its way follows thosewho appears to forge ahead; they are the most irrational but theyare the most confident, and in the Chamber as in the nation it is thedaredevils who become leaders. 

III. --The Power Of Simple, General Ideas. 

 Ascendancy of the revolutionary party--Theory in its favor-- The constraint thus imposed on men's minds--Appeal to the passions--Brute force on the side of the party--It profits by this--Oppression of the minority. 

Two advantages give this party the ascendancy, and these advantages areof such importance that henceforth whoever possesses them is sure ofbeing master. --In the first place the prevailing theory is on theside of the revolutionaries, and they alone are, in the second place, determined thoroughly to apply it. This party, therefore, is the onlyone which is consistent and popular in the face of adversaries who areunpopular and inconsequent. Nearly all of the latter, indeed, defendersof the ancient régime, or partisans of a limited monarchy, are likewiseimbued with abstract principles and philosophical speculation. The mostrefractory nobles have advocated the rights of man in their memorials. Mounier, the principal opponent of the demagogues, was theleader of the commons when they proclaimed themselves to be theNational--Assembly. [2133] This is enough: they have entered the narrowdefile which leads to the abyss. They had no idea of it at the firststart, but one step leads to another, and, willing or unwilling, theymarch on, or are pushed on. When the abyss comes in sight it is toolate; they have been driven there by the logical results of their ownconcessions; they can do nothing but wax eloquent and indignant;having abandoned their vantage ground, they find no halting-placeremaining. --There is an enormous power in general ideas, especiallyif they are simple, and appeal to the passions. None are simpler thanthese, since they are reducible to the axiom which assumes the rightsof man, and subordinate to them every institution, old or new. None arebetter calculated to inflame the sentiments, since the doctrine enlistshuman arrogance and pride in its service, and, in the name of justice, consecrates all the demands of independence and domination. Considerthree-fourths of the deputies, immature and prejudiced, possessing noinformation but a few formulas of the current philosophy, with no threadto guide them but pure logic, abandoned to the declamation of lawyers, to the wild utterances of the newspapers, to the promptings ofself-esteem, to the hundred thousand tongues which, on all sides, at thebar of the Assembly, at the tribune, in the clubs, in the streets, intheir own breasts, repeat unanimously to them, and every day, the sameflattery:

"You are sovereign and omnipotent. Right is vested in you alone. TheKing exists only to execute your will. Every order, every corporation, every power, every civil or ecclesiastical association is illegitimateand null the moment you declare it to be so. You may even transformreligion. You are the fathers of the country. You have saved France, youwill regenerate humanity. The whole world looks on you in admiration;finish your glorious work--forward, always forward. "

Superior good sense and rooted convictions could alone stand firmagainst this flood of seductions and solicitations; but vacillating andordinary men are carried away by it. In the harmony of applause whichrises, they do not hear the crash of the ruins they produce. In anycase, they stop their ears, and shun the cries of the oppressed; theyrefuse to admit that their work could possibly bring about evil results;they accept the sophisms and untruths which justify it; they allow theassassinated to be calumniated in order to excuse the assassins; theylisten to Merlin de Douay, who, after three or four jacqueries, whenpillaging, arson, and murder are going on in all the provinces, has justdeclared in the name of the Committee on Feudalism[2134] that "a lawmust be presented to the people, the justice of which may enforcesilence on the feudatory egoists who, for the past six months, soindecently protest against plunder; the wisdom of which may restore toa sense of duty the peasant who has been led astray for a moment byhis resentment of a long oppression. " And when Raynal, the survivingpatriarch of the philosophic party, one day, for a wonder, takesthe plain truth with him into their tribune, they resent hisstraightforwardness as an outrage, and excuse it solely on the ground ofhis imbecility. An omnipotent legislator cannot depreciate himself; likea king he is condemned to self-admiration in his public capacity. "Therewere not thirty deputies amongst us, " says a witness, "who thoughtdifferently from Raynal, " but "in each other's presence the credit ofthe Revolution, the perspective of its blessings, was an article offaith which had to be believed in;" and, against their own reason, against their conscience, the moderates, caught in the net of their ownacts, join the revolutionaries to complete the Revolution. 

Had they refused, they would have been compelled; for, to obtain thepower, the Assembly has, from the very first, either toleratedor solicited the violence of the streets. But, in acceptinginsurrectionists for its allies, it makes them masters, and henceforth, in Paris as in the provinces, illegal and brutal force becomes theprincipal power of the State. "The triumph was accomplished through thepeople; it was impossible to be severe with them;"[2135] hence, wheninsurrections were to be put down, the Assembly had neither the couragenor the force necessary. "They blame for the sake of decency; they frametheir deeds by expediency. " and in turn justly undergo the pressurewhich they themselves have sanctioned against others. Only three or fourtimes do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too daring--afterthe murder of the baker François, the insurrection of the Swiss Guard atNancy, and the outbreak of the Champ de Mars--feel that they themselvesare menaced, vote for and apply martial law, and repel force with force. But, in general, when the despotism of the people is exercised onlyagainst the royalist minority, they allow their adversaries to beoppressed, and do not consider themselves affected by the violence whichassails the party of the "right:" they are enemies, and may be givenup to the wild beasts. In accordance with this, the "left" has made itsarrangements; its fanaticism has no scruples; it is principle, it isabsolute truth that is at stake; this must triumph at any cost. Besides, can there be any hesitation in having recourse to the people in thepeople's own cause? A little compulsion will help along the good cause, and hence the siege of the Assembly is continually renewed. This was thepractice already at Versailles before the 6th of October, while now, atParis, it is kept up more actively and with less disguise. 

At the beginning of the year 1790, [2136] the band under pay comprisesseven hundred and fifty effective men, most of them deserters orsoldiers drummed out of their regiments, who are at first paid fivefrancs and then forty sous a day. It is their business to make orsupport motions in the coffee-houses and in the streets, to mix withthe spectators at the sittings of the sections, with the groups at thePalais-Royal, and especially in the galleries of the National-Assembly, where they are to hoot or applaud at a given signal. Their leader is aChevalier de Saint-Louis, to whom they swear obedience, and who receiveshis orders from the Committee of Jacobins. His first lieutenant at theAssembly is a M. Saule, "a stout, small, stunted old fellow, formerly anupholsterer, then a charlatan hawker of four penny boxes of grease (madefrom the fat of those that had been hung--for the cure of diseases ofthe kidneys) and all his life a sot. . . . Who, by means of a tolerablyshrill voice, which was always well moistened, has acquired somereputation in the galleries of the Assembly. " In fact, he has forgedadmission tickets he has been turned out; he has been obliged to resume"the box of ointment, and travel for one or two months in the provinceswith a man of letters for his companion. " But on his return, "throughthe protection of a groom of the Court, he obtained a piece of groundfor a coffee-house against the wall of the Tuileries garden, almostalongside of the National Assembly, " and now it is at home in hiscoffee-shop behind his counter that the hirelings of the galleries "cometo him to know what they must say, and to be told the order of the dayin regard to applause. " Besides this, he is there himself; "it is hewho for three years is to regulate public sentiment in the galleriesconfided to his care, and, for his useful and satisfactory services, the Constituent Assembly will award him a recompense, " to which theLegislative Assembly will add "a pension of six hundred livres, besidesa lodging in an apartment of the Feuillants. "

We can divine how men of this stamp, thus compensated, do their work. From the top of the galleries[2137] they drown the demands of the"right" by the force of their lungs; this or that decree, as, forinstance, the abolition of titles of nobility, is carried, "not byshouts, but by terrific howls. "[2138] On the arrival of the news of thesacking of the Hôtel de Castries by the populace, they applaud. On thequestion coming up as to the decision whether the Catholic faith shallbe dominant, "they shout out that the aristocrats must all be hung, andthen things will go on well. " Their outrages not only remain unpunished, but are encouraged: this or that noble who complains of their hootingis called to order, while their interference and vociferations, theirinsults and their menaces, are from this time introduced as one of theregular wheels of legislative operations. Their pressure is still worseoutside the Chamber. [2139] The Assembly is obliged several times todouble its guard. On the 27th of September, 1790, there are 40, 000men around the building to extort the dismissal of the Ministers, and"motions for assassination" are made under the windows, On the 4th ofJanuary, 1791, whilst on a call of the house the ecclesiastical deputiespass in turn to the tribune, to take or refuse the oath to the civilconstitution of the clergy, a furious clamor ascends in the Tuileries, and even penetrates into the Chamber. "To the lamp post with all thosewho refuse!" On the 27th of September, 1790, M. Dupont, economist, having spoken against the assignats, is surrounded on leaving theChamber and hooted at, hustled, pushed against the basin of theTuileries, into which he was being thrown when the guard rescued him. Onthe 21st of June, 1790, M. De Cazalès just misses "being torn to piecesby the people. "[2140] Deputies of the "right" are threatened over andover again by gestures in the streets and in the coffee-houses; effigiesof them with ropes about the neck are publicly displayed. The Abbé Mauryis several times on the point of being hung: he saves himself once bypresenting a pistol. Another time the Vicomte de Mirabeau is obligedto draw his sword. M. De Clermont-Tonnerre, having voted against theannexation of the Comtat to France, is assailed with chairs and clubsin the Palais-Royal, pursued into a porter's room and from thence to hisdwelling; the howling crowd break in the doors, and are only repelledwith great difficulty. It is impossible for the members of the "right"to assemble together; they are "stoned" in the church of the Capuchins, then in the Salon Français in the Rue Royale, and then, to crown thewhole, an ordinance of the new judges shuts up their hall, and punishesthem for the violence which they have to suffer. [2141] In short they areat the mercy of the mob. The most moderate, the most liberal, and themost manly both in heart and head, Malouet, declares that "in going tothe Assembly he rarely forgot to carry his pistols with him. "[2142]"For two years, " he says, "after the King's flight, we never enjoyed onemoment of freedom and security. "

" On going into a slaughter-house, " writes another deputy, "you see someanimals at the entrance which still have a short time to live, untilthe hour comes to dispatch them. Such was the impression which theassemblage of nobles, bishops, and parliamentarians[2143] on the rightside made on my mind every time I entered the Assembly, the executionersof the left side permitting them to breathe a little longer. "

They are insulted and outraged even upon their benches; "placedbetween peril within and peril without, between the hostility of thegalleries, "[2144] and that of the howlers at the entrance, "betweenpersonal insults and the abbey of Saint-Germain, between shouts oflaughter celebrating the burning of their chateaux and the clamorswhich, thirty times in a quarter of an hour, cry down their opinions, "they are given over and denounced "to the ten thousand Cerberuses" ofthe journals and of the streets, who pursue them with their yells and"cover them with their slaver. " Any expedient is good enough for puttingdown their opposition, and, at the end of the session, in full Assembly, they are threatened with "a recommendation to the departments, " whichmeans the excitement of riots and of the permanent jacquerie of theprovinces against them in their own houses. --Parliamentary strategyof this sort, employed uninterruptedly for twenty-nine months, finallyproduces its effect. Many of the weak are gained over;[2145] even oncharacters of firm temper fear has a hold; he who would march under firewith head erect shuddered at the idea of being dragged in the gutter bythe rabble; the brutality of the populace always exercises a materialascendancy over finely strung nerves. On the 12th of July, 1791, [2146]the call of the house decreed against the absentees proves that onehundred and thirty-two deputies no longer appear in their places. Elevendays before, among those who take no further part in the proceedings. Thus, before the completion of the Constitution, the whole of theopposition, more than four hundred members, over one-third of theAssembly, is reduced to flight or to silence. By dint of oppression, therevolutionary party has got rid of all resistance, while the violencewhich gave to it ascendancy in the streets, now gives to it equalascendance within the walls of Parliament. 

IV. --Refusal to supply the ministry

 Effects of this mistake--Misconception of the situation--The committee of investigation--Constant alarms--Effects of ignorance and fear on the work of the Constituent Assembly. 

Generally in an omnipotent assembly, when a party takes the lead andforms a majority, it furnishes the Ministry; and this fact sufficesto give, or to bring back to it, some glimpse of common sense. For itsleaders, with the Government in their own hands, become responsible forit, and when they propose or pass a law, they are obliged to anticipateits effect. Rarely will a Secretary of War or of the Navy adopt amilitary code which goes to establish permanent disobedience in thearmy or in the navy. Rarely will a Secretary of the Treasury propose anexpenditure for which there is not a sufficient revenue, or a system oftaxation that provides no returns. Placed where full information canbe procured, daily advised of every details, surrounded by skillfulcounselors and expert clerks, the chiefs of the majority, who thusbecome heads of the administration, immediately drop theory forpractice; and the fumes of political speculation must be pretty densein their minds if they exclude the multiplied rays of light whichexperience constantly sheds upon them. Let the most stubborn oftheorists take his stand at the helm of a ship, and, whatever be theobstinacy of his principles or his prejudices, he will never, unless heis blind or led by the blind, persist in steering always to the rightor always to the left. Just so after the flight to Varennes, when theAssembly, in full possession of the executive power, directly controlsthe Ministry, it comes to recognize for itself that its constitutionalmachine will not work, except in the way of destruction; and it is theprincipal revolutionaries, Barnave, Duport, the Lameths, Chapelier, andThouret, [2147] who undertake to make alterations in the mechanisms soas to lessen its friction. But this source of knowledge and reason, however, to which they are momentarily induced to draw, in spite ofthemselves and too late, has been turned off by themselves from the verybeginning. On the 6th of November, 1789, in deference to principleand in dread of corruption, the Assembly had declared that none ofits members should hold ministerial office. We see it in consequencedeprived of all the instruction which comes from direct contact withaffairs, surrendered without any counterpoise to the seductionsof theory, reduced by its own decision to become a mere academy oflegislation only. 

Nay, still worse, through another effect of the same error, it condemnsitself by its own act to constant fits of panic. For, having allowedthe power which it was not willing to assume to slip into indifferent orsuspect hands, it is always uneasy, and all its decrees bear an uniformstamp, not only of the willful ignorance within which it confinesitself, but also of the exaggerated or chimerical fears in which itslife is passed. --Imagine a ship conveying a company of lawyers, literarymen, and other passengers, who, supported by a mutinous and poorly fedcrew, take full command, but refuse to select one of their own numberfor a pilot or for the officer of the watch. The former captaincontinues to nominate them; through very shame, and because he is agood sort of man, his title is left to him, and he is retained for thetransmission of orders. If these orders are absurd, so much the worsefor him; if he resists them, a fresh mutiny forces him to yield; andeven when they cannot be executed, he has to answer for their beingcarried out. In the meantime, in a room between decks, far away from thehelm and the compass, our club of amateurs discuss the equilibrium offloating bodies, decree a new system of navigation, have the ballastthrown overboard, crowd on all sail, and are astonished to find thatthe ship heels over on its side. The officer of the watch and the pilotmust, evidently, have managed the maneuver badly. They are accordinglydismissed and others put in their place, while the ship heels overfarther yet and begins to leak in every joint. Enough: it is thefault of the captain and the old staff of officers, They are notwell-disposed; for a beautiful system of navigation like this ought towork well; and if it fails to do so, it is because some one interfereswith it. It is positively certain that some of those people belongingto the former régime must be traitors, who would rather have the shipgo down than submit; they are public enemies and monsters. They mustbe seized, disarmed, put under surveillance, and punished. --Such is thereasoning of the Assembly. Evidently, to reassure it, a message from theMinister of the Interior chosen by the Assembly, to the lieutenant ofpolice whom he had appointed, to come to his office every morning, wouldbe all that was necessary. But it is deprived of this simple resource byits own act, and has no other expedient than to appoint a committee ofinvestigation to discover crimes of "treason against the nation. "[2148]What could be more vague than such a term? What could be moremischievous than such an institution?--Renewed every month, deprived ofspecial agents, composed of credulous and inexperienced deputies, thiscommittee, set to perform the work of a Lenoir or a Fouché, makes up forits incapacity by violence, and its proceedings anticipate those ofthe Jacobine inquisition. [2149] Alarmist and suspicious, it encouragesaccusations, and, for lack of plots to discover, it invents them. Inclinations, in its eyes, stand for actions, and floating projectsbecome accomplished outrages. On the denunciation of a domestic who haslistened at a door, on the gossip of a washerwoman who has found a scrapof paper in a dressing-gown, on the false interpretation of a letter, on vague indications which it completes and patches together bythe strength of its imagination, it forges a coup d'état, makesexaminations, domiciliary visits, nocturnal surprises and arrests;[2150]it exaggerates, blackens, and comes in public session to denounce thewhole affair to the National Assembly. First comes the plot of theBreton nobles to deliver Brest to the English;[2151] then the plot forhiring brigands to destroy the crops; then the plot of 14th of July toburn Paris; then the plot of Favras to murder Lafayette, Necker, andBailly; then the plot of Augeard to carry off the King, and many others, week after week, not counting those which swarm in the brains of thejournalists, and which Desmoulins, Fréron, and Marat reveal with aflourish of trumpets in each of their publications. 

"All these alarms are cried daily in the streets like cabbagesand turnips, the good people of Paris inhaling them along with thepestilential vapors of our mud. "[2152]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Now, in this aspect, as well as in a good many others, theAssembly is the people; satisfied that it is in danger, [2153] it makeslaws as the former make their insurrections, and protects itself bystrokes of legislation as the former protects itself by blows withpikes. Failing to take hold of the motor spring by which it might directthe government machine, it distrusts all the old and all the new wheels. The old ones seem to it an obstacle, and, instead of utilizing them, it breaks them one by one--parliaments, provincial states, religiousorders, the church, the nobles, and royalty. The new ones aresuspicious, and instead of harmonizing them, it puts them out of gearin advance--the executive power, administrative powers, judicialpowers, the police, the gendarmerie, and the army. [2154] Thanks tothese precautions it is impossible for any of them to be turned againstitself; but, also, thanks to these precautions, none of them can performtheir functions. [2155]

In building, as well as in destroying, the Assembly had two badcounselors, on the one hand fear, on the other hand theory; and on theruins of the old machine which it had demolished without discernment, the new machine, which it has constructed without forecast, will workonly to its own ruin. 

*****

[Footnote 2101: Arthur Young, June 15, 1789. --Bailly, passim, --Moniteur, IV. 522 (June 2, 1790). --Mercure de France (Feb. 11 1792). ]

[Footnote 2102: Moniteur, v. 631 (Sep. 12, 1790), and September 8th(what is said by the Abbé Maury). --Marmontel, book XIII. 237. --Malouet, I. 261. --Bailly, I. 227. ]

[Footnote 2103: Sir Samuel Romilly, "Mémoires, " I. 102, 354. --Dumont, 158. (The official rules bear are dated July 29, 1789. )]

[Footnote 2104: Cf. Ferrières, I. 3. His repentance is affecting. ]

[Footnote 2105: Letter from Morris to Washington, January 24, 1790 Seepage 382, "A diary of the French revolution", Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1972. --Dumont 125--Garat, letter to Condorcet. ]

[Footnote 2106: Arthur Young, I. 46. "Tame and elegant, uninterestingand polite, the mingled mass of communicated ideas has power neitherto offend nor instruct. . . . . All vigor of thought seems excluded fromexpression. . . . . Where there is much polish of character there is littleargument. "--Cabinet des Estampes. See engravings of the day by Moreau, Prieur, Monet, representing the opening of the States-General. All thefigures have a graceful, elegant, and genteel air. ]

[Footnote 2107: Marmontel, book XIII. 237. --Malouet, I. 261. --Ferrières, I. 19. ]

[Footnote 2108: Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790. --Likewise (DeFerrières, I. 71) the decree on the abolition of nobility was not theorder of the day, and was carried by surprise. ]

[Footnote 2109: Ferrières, I. 189. --Dumont, 146. ]

[Footnote 2110: Letter of Mirabeau to Sieyès, June 11, 1790. "Our nationof monkeys with the throats of parrots. "--Dumont, 146. "Sieyès andMirabeau always entertained a contemptible opinion of the ConstituentAssembly. "]

[Footnote 2111: Moniteur, I, 256, 431 (July 16 and 31, 1789). --Journaldes Débats et Décrets, 105, July 16th "A member demands that M. De Lallyshould put his speech in writing. The whole Assembly has repeated thisrequest. "]

[Footnote 2112: Moniteur. (March 11, 1790). "A nun of St. Mandé, broughtto the bar of the house, thanks the Assembly for the decree by whichthe cloisters are opened, and denounces the tricks, intrigues, andeven violence exercised in the convents to prevent the execution ofthe decree. "--Ibid. March 29, 1790. See the various addresses which areread. "At Lagnon, the mother of a family assembled her ten children, and swore with them and for them to be loyal to the nation and tothe King. "--Ibid. June 5, 1790. "M. Chambroud reads the letter of thecollector of customs of Lannion, in Brittany, to a priest, a memberof the National Assembly. He implores his influence to secure theacceptance of his civic oath and that of all his family, ready to wieldeither the censer, the cart, the scales, the sword, or the pen. " Onreading a number of these addresses the Assembly appears to be asupplement of the Petites Affiches (a small advertising journal inParis). ]

[Footnote 2113: Moniteur, October 23, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2114: A well-known writer of children's stories. --21Tr. ]

[Footnote 2115: Ferrières, II. 65 (June 10, 1790). --De Montlosier, I. 402. "One of these puppets came the following day to get his moneyof the Comte de Billancourt, mistaking him for the Duc de Liancourt. 'Monsieur, ' says he, 'I am the man who played the Chaldean yesterday. '"]

[Footnote 2116: Buchez and Roux, X. 118 (June 16, 1791). ]

[Footnote 2117: See the printed list of deputies, with the indication oftheir baillage or sénéchaussée, quality, condition, and profession. ]

[Footnote 2118: De Bouillé, 75. --When the King first saw the list of thedeputies, he exclaimed, " What would the nation have said if I had madeup my council or the Notables in this way?" (Buchez and Roux, IV. 39. )]

[Footnote 2119: Gouverneur Morris, July 31, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2120: Gouverneur Morris, February 25, 1789. --Lafayette, "Mémoires, " V. 492. Letter of Jefferson, February 14, 1815. --ArthurYoung, June 27 and 29, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2121: Morris, July 1, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2122: Morris, July 4, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2123: Mallet du Pan, Mercure, September 26, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2124: Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790; November 22, 1790. ]

[Footnote 2125: Dumont, 33, 58, 62. ]

[Footnote 2126: Sir Samuel. Romilly, "Mémoirs, " I. 102. "It was theirconstant course first, decree the principle and leave the drawing upof what they had so resolved (or, as they called it, la rédaction) forlater. It is astonishing how great an influence it had on their debatesand measures". --Ibid. I. 354. Letter by Dumont, June 2, 1789. "Theyprefer their own folly to all the results of British experience. Theyrevolt at the idea of borrowing anything from our government, which isscoffed at here as one of the iniquities of human reason; although theyadmit that you have two or three good laws; but that you should presumeto have a constitution is not to be sustained. "]

[Footnote 2127: Dumont, 138, 151. ]

[Footnote 2128: Morris, January 24, 1790. ]

[Footnote 2129: Marmontel, XII. 265. --Ferrières, . I. 48¸ II. 50, 58, 126. --Dumont, 74. ]

[Footnote 2130: Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790. --According toFerrières this party comprised about three hundred members. ]

[Footnote 2131: Here Ambassador Morris describes the kind of man whoshould form the backbone of all later revolutions whether communist orfascist ones. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2132: Dumont, 33, 58, 62. ]

[Footnote 2133: De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées Provinciales, " 384. Deliberations of the States of Dauphiny, drawn up by Mournier and signedby two hundred gentlemen (July, 1788). "The rights of man are derivedfrom nature alone, and are independent of human conventions. "]

[Footnote 2134: Report by Merlin de Douai, February 8, 1790, p. 2. --Malouet, II, 51. ]

[Footnote 2135: Dumont, 133. --De Montlosier, I, 355, 361. ]

[Footnote 2136: Bertrand de Molleville, II. 221 (according to a policereport). --Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution, " I. 215. (Report of theagent Dutard, May 13, 1793)--Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves, " p. 35. "Itwas about midnight when we went out in the rain, sleet, and snow, in thepiercing cold, to the church of the Feuillants, to secure places for thegalleries of the Assembly, which we were not to occupy till noon on thefollowing day. We were obliged, moreover, to contend for them with acrowd animated by passions, and even by interests, very different fromour own. We were not long in perceiving that a considerable part of thegalleries was under pay, and that the scenes of cruelty which gave painto us were joy to them. I cannot express the horror I felt on hearingthose women, since called tricoteuses, take a delight in the alreadyhomicidal doctrines of Robespierre, enjoying his sharp voice andfeasting their eyes on his ugly face, the living type of envy. " (Thefirst months of 1790. )]

[Footnote 2137: Moniteur, V. 237 (July 26, 1790); V. 594. (September 8, 1790); V. 631 (September 12, 1790); VI. 310 (October 6, 1790). (Letterof the Abbé Peretti. )]

[Footnote 2138: De Ferrières, II. 75. --Moniteur, VI. 373 (September 6, 1790). --M. De Virieu. "Those who insult certain members and hinder thefreedom of debate by hooting or applause must be silenced. Is it thethree hundred spectators who are to be our judges, or the nation?" M. Chasset, President: "Monsieur opinionist, I call you to order. You speakof hindrances to a free vote; there has never been anything of the kindin this Assembly. "]

[Footnote 2139: Sauzay, I 140. Letter of M. Lompré, liberal deputy, toM. Séguin, chanoine (towards the end of November, 1789). "The servicebecomes more difficult every day; we have become objects of popularfury, and, when no other resource was left to us to avoid the tempestbut to get rid of the endowments of the clergy, we yielded to force. Ithad become a pressing necessity, and I should have been sorry to havehad you still here, exposed to the outrages and violence with which Ihave been repeatedly threatened. "]

[Footnote 2140: Mercure de France, Nos. Of January 15, 1791; October 2, 1790; May 14, 1791. --Buchez and Roux, V. 343 (April 13, 1790); VII. 76 (September 2, 1790); X. 225 ( June 21, 1791). --De Montlosier, I. 357. --Moniteur, IV, 427. ]

[Footnote 2141: Archives of the Police, exposed by the Committee of thedistrict of Saint-Roch. Judgment of the Police Tribunal, May 15, 1790. ]

[Footnote 2142: Malouet, II. 68. --De Montlosier, II. 217, 257 (Speech ofM. Lavie, September 18, 1791). ]

[Footnote 2143: I. E. Members of the old local parlements. ]

[Footnote 2144: Mercure, October 1, 1791. (Article by Mallet du Pan. )]

[Footnote 2145: Malouet II. 66. "Those only who were not intimidatedby insults or threats, nor by actual blows, could come forward asopponents. "]

[Footnote 2146: Buchez and Roux, X. 432, 465. ]

[Footnote 2147: Malouet, II, 153. ]

[Footnote 2148: Decrees of July 23rd and 28th, 1789. --"ArchivesNationales. " Papers of Committee of Investigation, passim. Among otheraffairs see that of Madame de Persan (Moniteur, V. 611, sitting ofSeptember 9, 1790), and that of Malouet ("Mémoires" II. 12). ]

[Footnote 2149: Buchez and Roux, IV. 56 (Report of Garan de Coulon); V. 49 (Decision of the Committee of Investigation, December 28, 1789). ]

[Footnote 2150: The arrests of M. De Riolles, M. De Bussy, etc. , ofMadame de Jumilhac, of two other ladies, one at Bar-le-Duc and the otherof Nancy, etc. ]

[Footnote 2151: Sitting of July 28, 1789, the speeches of Duport andRewbell, etc. --Mercure, No. Of January 1, 1791 (article by Malletdu Pan). --Buchez and Roux, V. 146l "Behold five or six successiveconspiracies--that of the sacks of flour, that of the sacks of money, etc. " (Article by Camille Desmoulins. )]

[Footnote 2152: "Archives de la Préfecture de Police. " Extract from theregisters of the deliberations of the Conseil-Général of the districtof Saint-Roch, October 10 1789: Arrête: to request all the men in thecommune to devote themselves, with all the prudence, activity, and forceof which they are capable, to the discovery, exposure, and publicationof the horrible plots and infernal treachery which are constantlymeditated against the inhabitants of the capital; to denounce to thepublic the authors, abettors, and adherents of the said plots, whatevertheir rank may be; to secure their persons and insure their punishmentwith all the rigor which outrages of this kind call for. The commandantof the battalion and the district captains come daily to consult withthe committee. "While the alarm lasts, the first story of each house isto be lighted with lamps during the night: all citizens of the districtare requested to be at home by ten o'clock in the evening at thelatest, unless they should be on duty. . . . All citizens are invitedto communicate whatever they may learn or discover in relation to theabominable plots which are secretly going on in the capital. "]

[Footnote 2153: Letter of M. De Guillermy, July 31, 1790 ("Actes desApôtres, " V. 56). "During these two nights (July 13th and 14th, 1789)that we remained in session I heard one deputy try to get it believedthat an artillery corps had been ordered to point its guns against ourhall; another, that it was undermined, and that it was to be blown up;another went so far as to declare that he smelt powder, upon which M. LeComte de Virieu replied that power had no odor until it was burnt. "]

[Footnote 2154: Dumont, 351. "Each constitutional law was a partytriumph. "]

[Footnote 2155: Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceedto weaken a nation prior to their take-over. (SR. )]

CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION. 

I. --Two principal vices of the ancient régime. 

 Two principal reforms proposed by the King and the privileged classes. --They suffice for actual needs. -- Impracticable if carried further. 

In the structure of the old society there were two fundamental viceswhich called for two reforms of corresponding importance. [2201]

In the first place, those who were privileged having ceased to renderthe services for which the advantages they enjoyed constituted theircompensation and their privileges were no longer anything but agratuitous charge imposed on one portion of the nation for the benefitof the other. Hence the necessity for suppressing them. 

In the second place, the Government, being absolute, made use of publicresources as if they were its own private property, arbitrarily andwastefully;[2202] it was therefore necessary to impose upon it someeffective and regular restraints. 

To render all citizens equal before taxation, to put the purse of thetax-payers into the hands of their representatives, such was the twofoldoperation to be carried out in 1789; and the privileged class as wellas the King willingly lent themselves to it. Not only, in this respect, were the memorials of nobles and clergy in perfect harmony, but themonarch himself; in his declaration of the 23rd of June, 1789, decreedthe two articles. Henceforth, every tax or loan was to obtain theconsent of the States-General; this consent was to be renewed at eachnew meeting of the States; the public estimates were to be annuallypublished, discussed, specified, apportioned, voted on and verified bythe States; there were to be no arbitrary assessments or use of publicfunds; allowances were to be specially assigned for all separateservices, the household of the King included. In each province ordistrict-general, there was to be an elected Provincial Assembly, one-half composed of ecclesiastics and nobles, and the other half ofmembers of the Third-Estate, to apportion general taxes, to manage localaffairs, to decree and direct public works, to administer hospitals, prisons, workhouses, and to continue its function, in the interval ofthe sessions, through an intermediary commission chosen by itself; sothat, besides the principal control of the center, there were to bethirty subordinate controlling powers at the extremities. There wasto be no more exemption or distinction in the matter of taxation; theroadtax (covée) was to be abolished, also the right of franc-fief[2203]imposed on plebeians; the rights of mortmain, [2204] subject toindemnity, and internal customs duties. There was to be a reduction ofthe captaincies, a modification of the salt-tax and of the excise, the transformation of civil justice, too costly for the poor, and ofcriminal justice, too severe for the humbler classes. Here we have, besides the principal reform, equalization of taxes; the beginning andinducement of the more complete operation which is to strike off thelast of the feudal manacles. Moreover; six weeks later, on the 4th ofAugust; the privileged, in an outburst of generosity, come forwardof their own accord to cut off or undo the whole of them. This doublereform thus encountered no obstacles, and, as Arthur Young reported tohis friends, it merely required one vote to have it adopted. [2205]

This was enough; for all real necessities were now satisfied. On the onehand, through the abolition of privileges in the matter of taxation, the burden of the peasant and, in general, on the small tax-payerwas diminished one-half, and perhaps two thirds; instead of payingfifty-three francs on one hundred francs of net income, he paid no morethan twenty-five or even sixteen;[2206] an enormous relief, and onewhich, with the proposed revision of the excise and salt duties, made acomplete change in his condition. Add to this the gradual redemptionof ecclesiastical and feudal dues: and after twenty years the peasant, already proprietor of a fifth of the soil, would, without the violentevents of the Revolution, in any case have attained the same degree ofindependence and well-being which he was to achieve by passing throughit. On the other hand, through the annual vote on the taxes, not onlywere waste and arbitrariness in the employment of the public funds puta stop to, but also the foundations of the parliamentary system ofgovernment were laid: whoever holds the purse-strings is, or becomes, master of the rest; henceforth in the maintenance or establishment ofany service, the assent of the States was to be necessary. Now, in thethree Chambers which the three orders were thenceforward to form, therewere two in which the plebeians predominated. Public opinion, moreover, was on their side, while the King, the true constitutional monarch, farfrom possessing the imperious inflexibility of a despot, did not nowpossess the initiative of an ordinary person. Thus the preponderancefell to the communes, and they could legally, without any collision, execute multiply, and complete, with the aid of the prince and throughhim, all useful reforms. [2207]--This was enough; for human society, like a living body, is seized with convulsions when it is subjected tooperations on too great a scale, and these, although restricted, wereprobably all that France in 1789 could endure. To equitably reorganizeafresh the whole system of direct and indirect taxation; to revise, recast, and transfer to the frontiers the customs-tariffs; to suppress, through negotiations and with indemnity, feudal and ecclesiasticalclaims, was an operation of the greatest magnitude, and as complex asit was delicate. Things could be satisfactorily arranged only throughminute inquiries, verified calculations, prolonged essays, and mutualconcessions. In England, in our day, a quarter of a century has beenrequired to bring about a lesser reform, the transformation of tithesand manorial-rights; and time likewise was necessary for our Assembliesto perfect their political education, [2208] to get of their theories, tolearn, by contact with practical business, and in the study of details, the distance which separates speculation from practice; to discover thata new system of institutions works well only through a new system ofhabits, and that to decree a new system of habits is tantamount toattempting to build an old house. --Such, however, is the work theyundertake. They reject the King's proposals, the limited reforms, thegradual transformations. According to them, it is their right and theirduty to re-make society from top to bottom. Such is the command of purereason, which has discovered the Rights of Man and the conditions of theSocial Contract. 

II--Nature of societies, and the principle of enduring constitutions. 

Apply the Social Contract, if you like, but apply it only to those forwhom it was drawn up. These were abstract beings, belonging neither toa period nor to a country, perfect creatures hatched out under themagic wand of a metaphysician. They had as a matter of fact come intoexistence by removing all the characteristics which distinguish one manfrom another, [2209] a Frenchman from a Papuan, a modern Englishman froma Briton in the time of Caesar, and by retaining only the part which iscommon to all. [2210] The essence thus obtained is a prodigiously meagerone, an infinitely curtailed extract of human nature, that is, in thephraseology of the day, "A BEING WITH A DESIRE TO BE HAPPY AND THE FACULTY OF REASONING, "

nothing more and nothing else. After this pattern several millionindividuals, all precisely alike, have been prepared while, through asecond simplification, as extraordinary as the first one, they are allsupposed to be free and all equal, without a past, without kindred, without responsibility, without traditions, without customs, like somany mathematical units, all separable and all equivalent, and then itis imagined that, assembled together for the first time, these proceedto make their primitive bargain. From the nature they are supposed topossess and the situation in which they are placed, no difficulty isfound in deducing their interests, their wills, and the contract betweenthem. But if this contract suits them, it does not follow that it suitsothers. On the contrary, if follows that is does not suit others; theinconvenience becomes extreme on its being imposed on a living society;the measure of that inconvenience will be the immensity of the distancewhich divides a hollow abstraction, a philosophical phantom, an emptyinsubstantial image from the real and complete man. 

In any event we are not here considering a specimen, so reduced andmutilated as to be only an outline of a human being; no, we are to thecontrary considering Frenchmen of the year 1789. It is for them alonethat the constitution is being made: it is therefore they alone whoshould be considered; they are manifestly men of a particular species, having their peculiar temperament, their special aptitudes, their owninclinations, their religion, their history, all adding up into a mentaland moral structure, hereditary and deeply rooted, bequeathed to them bythe indigenous stock, and to which every great event, each politicalor literary phase for twenty centuries, has added a growth, atransformation or a custom. It is like some tree of a unique specieswhose trunk, thickened by age, preserves in its annual rings and in itsknots, branches, and curvatures, the deposits which its sap has madeand the imprint of the innumerable seasons through which it has passed. Using the philosophic definition, so vague and trite, to such anorganism, is only a puerile label teaching us nothing. --And all the morebecause extreme diversities and inequalities show themselves on thisexceedingly elaborate and complicated background, --those of age, education, faith, class and fortune; and these must be taken intoaccount, for these contribute to the formation of interests, passions, and dispositions. To take only the most important of these, it is clearthat, according to the average of human life, [2211] one-half of thepopulation is composed of children, and, besides this, one-half of theadults are women. In every twenty inhabitants eighteen are Catholic, of whom sixteen are believers, at least through habit and tradition. Twenty-five out of twenty-six millions of Frenchmen cannot read, onemillion at the most being able to do so; and in political matters onlyfive or six hundred are competent. As to the condition of each class, its ideas, its sentiments, its kind and degree of culture, we shouldhave to devote a large volume to a mere sketch of them. 

There is still another feature and the most important of all. These menwho are so different from each other are far from being independent, orfrom contracting together for the first time. They and their ancestorsfor eight hundred years form a national body, and it is because theybelong to this body that they live, multiply, labor, make acquisitions, become enlightened and civilized, and accumulate the vast heritage ofcomforts and intelligence which they now enjoy. Each in this communityis like the cell of an organized body; undoubtedly the body is onlyan accumulation of cells, but the cell is born, subsists, develops andattains its individual ends only be the healthy condition of the wholebody. Its chief interest, accordingly, is the prosperity of the wholeorganism, and the fundamental requirement of all the little fragmentarylives, whether they know it or not, is the conservation of thegreat total life in which they are comprised as musical notes in aconcert. --Not only is this a necessity for them, but it is also a duty. We are all born with a debt to our country, and this debt increaseswhile we grow up; it is with the assistance of our country, under theprotection of the law, upheld by the authorities, that our ancestorsand parents have given us life, property, and education. Each person'sfaculties, ideas, attitudes, his or her entire moral and physical beingare the products to which the community has contributed, directly orindirectly, at least as tutor and guardian. By virtue of this the stateis his creditor, just as a destitute father is of his able-bodied son;it can lay claim to nourishment, services, and, in all the force orresources of which he disposes, it deservedly demands a share. --This heknows and feels, the notion of country is deeply implanted within him, and when occasion calls for it, it will show itself in ardent emotions, fueling steady sacrifice and heroic effort. --Such are veritableFrenchmen, and we at once see how different they are from the simple, indistinguishable, detached monads which the philosophers insist onsubstituting for them. Their association need not be created, for italready exists; for eight centuries they have a "common weal" (la chosepublique). The safety and prosperity of this common weal is at oncetheir interest, their need, their duty, and even their most secret wish. If it is possible to speak here of a contract, their quasi-contract ismade and settled for them beforehand. The first article, at all events, is stipulated for, and this overrides all the others. The nation mustnot be dissolved. Public authorities must, accordingly, exist, andthese must be respected. If there are a number of these, they must beso defined and so balanced as to be of mutual assistance, instead ofneutralizing each other by their opposition. Whatever government isadopted, it must place matters in the hands best qualified to conductthem. The law must not exist for the advantage of the minority, nor forthat of the majority, but for the entire community. --In regard to thisfirst article no one must derogate from it, neither the minority northe majority, neither the Assembly elected by the nation, nor the nationitself, even if unanimous. It has no right arbitrarily to dispose of thecommon weal, to put it in peril according to its caprice, to subordinateit to the application of a theory or to the interest of a single class, even if this class is the most numerous. For, that which is the commonweal does not belong to it, but to the whole community, past, present, and to come. Each generation is simply the temporary manager andresponsible trustee of a precious and glorious patrimony which it hasreceived from the former generation, and which it has to transmit tothe one that comes after it. In this perpetual endowment, to which allFrenchmen from the first days of France have brought their offerings, there is no doubt about the intentions of countless benefactors; theyhave made their gifts conditionally, that is, on the condition that theendowment should remain intact, and that each successive beneficiaryshould merely serve as the administrator of it. Should any of thebeneficiaries, through presumption or levity, through rashness orone-sidedness, compromise the charge entrusted to them, they wrongall their predecessors whose sacrifices they invalidate, and all theirsuccessors whose hopes they frustrate. Accordingly, before undertakingto frame a constitution, let the whole community be considered in itsentirety, not merely in the present but in the future, as far as theeye can reach. The interest of the public, viewed in this far-sightedmanner, is the end to which all the rest must be subordinate, and forwhich a constitution provides. A constitution, whether oligarchic, monarchist, or aristocratic, is simply an instrument, good if it attainsthis end, and bad if it does not attain it, and which, to attain it, must, like every species of mechanism, vary according to the ground, materials, and circumstances. The most ingenious is illegitimate if itdissolves the State, while the clumsiest is legitimate if it keeps theState intact. There is none that springs out of an anterior, universal, and absolute right. According to the people, the epoch, and the degreeof civilization, according to the outer or inner condition of things, all civil or political equality or inequality may, in turn, be or ceaseto be beneficial or hurtful, and therefore justify the legislator inremoving or preserving it. It is according to this superior and salutarylaw, and not according to an imaginary and impossible contract, that heis to organize, limit, delegate and distribute from the center tothe extremities, through inheritance or through election, throughequalization or through privilege, the rights of the citizen and thepower of the community. 

III. --The estates of a society. 

 Political aptitude of the aristocracy. --Its disposition in 1789. --Special services which it might have rendered. --The principle of the Assembly as to original equality. --Rejection of an Upper Chamber. --The feudal rights of the aristocracy. --How far and why they were worthy of respect. --How they should have been transformed. --Principle of the Assembly as to original liberty. --Distinction established by it in feudal dues; application of its principle. --The lacunae of its law. --Difficulties of redemption. --Actual abolition of all feudal liens. --Abolition of titles and territorial names. --Growing prejudice against the aristocracy. --Its persecutions. --The emigration. 

Was it necessary to begin by making a clean sweep, and was it advisableto abolish or only to reform the various orders and corporations?--Twoprominent orders, the clergy and the nobles, enlarged by the ennobledplebeians who had grown wealthy and acquired titled estates, formed aprivileged aristocracy side by side with the Government, whose favors itmight receive on the condition of seeking them assiduously and withdue acknowledgment, privileged on its own domains, and taking advantagethere of all rights belonging to the feudal chieftain without performinghis duties. This abuse was evidently an enormous one and had tobe ended. But, it did not follow that, because the position of theprivileged class on their domains and in connection with the Governmentwas open to abuse, they should be deprived of protection for person andproperty on their domains, and of influence and occupation under theGovernment. --A favored aristocracy, when it is unoccupied and rendersnone of the services which its rank admits of, when it monopolizes allhonors, offices, promotions, preferences, and pensions, [2212] to thedetriment of others not less needy and deserving, is undoubtedly aserious evil. But when an aristocracy is subject to the common law, whenit is occupied, especially when its occupation is in conformity with itsaptitudes, and more particularly when it is available for the formationof an upper elective chamber or an hereditary peerage, it is a vastservice. --In any case it cannot be irreversibly suppressed; for, although it may be abolished by law, it is reconstituted by facts. Thelegislator must necessarily choose between two systems, that which letsit lie fallow, or that which enables it to be productive, that whichdrives it away from, or that which rallies it round, the public service. In every society which has lived for any length of time, a nucleus offamilies always exists whose fortunes and importance are of ancientdate. Even when, as in France in 1789, this class seems to be exclusive, each half century introduces into it new families; judges, governors, rich businessmen or bankers who have risen to the tope of the socialladder through the wealth they have acquired or through the importantoffices they have filled; and here, in the medium thus constituted, thestatesman and wise counselor of the people, the independent and ablepolitician is most naturally developed. --Because, on the one hand, thanks to his fortune and his rank, a man of this class is above allvulgar ambitions and temptations. He is able to serve gratis; he is notobliged to concern himself about money or about providing for his familyand making his way in the world. A political mission is no interruptionto his career; he is not obliged, like the engineer, merchant, orphysician, to sacrifice either his business, his advancement, or hisclients. He can resign his post without injury to himself or tothose dependent on him, follow his own convictions, resist the noisydeleterious opinions of the day, and be the loyal servant, not thelow flatterer of the public. Whilst, consequently, in the inferior oraverage conditions of life, the incentive is self-interest, with him thegrand motive is pride. Now, amongst the deeper feelings of man there isnone which is more adapted for transformation into probity, patriotism, and conscientiousness; for the first requisite of the high-spiritedman is self-respect, and, to obtain that, he is induced to deserve it. Compare, from this point of view, the gentry and nobility of Englandwith the "politicians" of the United States. --On the other hand, with equal talents, a man who belongs to this sphere of life enjoysopportunities for acquiring a better comprehension of public affairsthan a poor man of the lower classes. The information he requires isnot the erudition obtained in libraries and in private study. He mustbe familiar with living men, and, besides these, with agglomerationsof men, and even more with human organizations, with States, withGovernments, with parties, with administrative systems, at home andabroad, in full operation and on the spot. There is but one way to reachthis end, and that is to see for himself, with his own eyes, at oncein general outline and in details, by intercourse with the heads ofdepartments, with eminent men and specialists, in whom are gathered upthe information and the ideas of a whole class. Now the young do notfrequent society of this description, either at home or abroad, excepton the condition of possessing a name, family, fortune, education and aknowledge of social observances. All this is necessary to enable ayoung man of twenty to find doors everywhere open to him to be receivedeverywhere on an equal footing, to be able to speak and to write threeor four living languages, to make long, expensive, and instructivesojourns in foreign lands, to select and vary his position in thedifferent branches of the public service, without pay or nearly so, andwith no object in view but that of his political culture Thus brought upa man, even of common capacity, is worthy of being consulted. If he isof superior ability, and there is employment for him, he may become astatesman before thirty; he may acquire ripe capacities, become primeMinister, the sole pilot, alone able, like Pitt, Canning, or Peel, tosteer the ship of State between the reefs, or give in the nick of timethe touch to the helm which will save the ship. --Such is the service towhich an upper class is adapted. Only this kind of specialized stud farmcan furnish a regular supply of racers, and, now and then, the favoritewinner that distances all his competitors in the European field. 

But in order that they may prepare and educate themselves for thiscareer, the way must be clear, and they must not be compelled to traveltoo repulsive a road. If rank, inherited fortune, personal dignity, andrefined manners are sources of disfavor with the people; if, to obtaintheir votes, he is forced to treat as equals electoral brokers of lowcharacter; if impudent charlatanism, vulgar declamation, and servileflattery are the sole means by which votes can be secured, then, asnowadays in the United States, and formerly in Athens, the aristocraticbody will retire into private life and soon settle down into a stateof idleness. A man of culture and refinement, born with an income of ahundred thousand a year, is not tempted to become either manufacturer, lawyer, or physician. For want of other occupation he loiters about, entertains his friends, chats, indulges in the tastes and hobbies of anamateur, is bored or enjoys himself. As a result one of society's greatforces is thus lost to the nation. In this way the best and largestacquisition of the past, the heaviest accumulation of material andof moral capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upperbranches of the social tree, not only the old ones but the young ones, remain sterile. When a vigorous branch passes above the rest andreaches the top it ceases to bear fruit. The élite of the nation is thuscondemned to constant and irremediable failures because it cannot finda suitable outlet for its activity. It wants no other outlet, for in alldirections its rival, who are born below it, can serve as usefully andas well as itself. But this one it must have, for on this its aptitudesare superior, natural, unique, and the State which refuses to employit resembles the gardener who in his fondness for a plane surface wouldrepress his best shoots. [2213]--Hence, in the constructions which aim toutilize the permanent forces of society and yet maintain civil equality, the aristocracy is brought to take a part in public affairs by theduration and gratuitous character of its mission, by the institution ofan hereditary character, by the application of various machinery, allof which is combined so as to develop the ambition, the culture, andthe political capacity of the upper class, and to place power, or thecontrol of power, in its hands, on the condition that it shows itselfworthy of exercising it. --Now, in 1789, the upper class was not unworthyof it. Members of the parliaments, the noblemen, bishops, capitalists, were the men amongst whom, and through whom, the philosophy of theeighteenth century was propagated. Never was an aristocracy moreliberal, more humane, and more thoroughly converted to usefulreforms;[2214] many of them remain so under the knife of the guillotine. The magistrates of the superior tribunals, in particular, traditionallyand by virtue of their institution, were the enemies of excessiveexpenditure and the critics of arbitrary acts. As to the gentry of theprovinces, "they were so weary, " says one of them, [2215] "of the Courtand the Ministers that most of them were democrats. " For many years, in the Provincial Assemblies, the whole of the upper class, the clergy, nobles, and Third-Estate, furnishes abundant evidence of its gooddisposition, of its application to business, its capacity and evengenerosity. Its mode of studying, discussing, and assigning the localtaxation indicates what it would have done with the general budget hadthis been entrusted to it. It is evident that it would have protectedthe general taxpayer as zealously as the taxpayer of the province, and kept as close an eye upon the public purse at Paris as on that ofBourges or of Montauban. --Thus were the materials of a good chamberready at hand, and the only thing that had to be done was to convenethem. On having the facts presented to them, its members would havepassed without difficulty from a hazardous theory to common-sensepractice, and the aristocracy which had enthusiastically given animpetus to reform in its saloons would, in all probability, have carriedit out effectively and with moderation in the Parliament. 

Unhappily, the Assembly is not providing a Constitution for contemporaryFrenchmen, but for abstract beings. Instead of seeing classes in societyone placed above the other, it simply sees individuals in juxtaposition;its attention is not fixed on the advantage of the nation, but on theimaginary rights of man. As all men are equal, all must have an equalshare in the government. There must be no orders in a State, no avowedor concealed political privileges, no constitutional complications orelectoral combinations by which an aristocracy, however liberal andcapable, may put its hands upon any portion of the public power. --Onthe contrary, because it was once privileged to enjoy important andrewarding public employment, the candidacy of the upper classes is nowsuspect. All projects which, directly or indirectly, reserve or providea place for it, are refused: At first the Royal Declaration, which, inconformity with historical precedents, maintained the three orders inthree distinct chambers, and only summoned them to deliberate together"on matters of general utility. " Then the plan of the ConstitutionalCommittee, which proposed a second Chamber, appointed for life by theKing on the nomination of the Provincial Assemblies. And finally theproject of Mounier who proposed to confide to these same Assemblies theelection of a Senate for six years, renewed by thirds every two years. This Senate was to be composed of men of at least thirty-five years ofage, and with an income in real property of 30, 000 livres per annum. Theinstinct of equality is too powerful and a second Chamber is not wanted, even if accessible to plebeians. Through it, [2216]

"The smaller number would control the greater;". . . "we should fallback on the humiliating distinctions" of the ancient regime; "we shouldrevivify the germ of an aristocracy which must be exterminated. ". . . . "Moreover, whatever recalls or revives feudal Institutions is bad, andan Upper Chamber is one of its remnants. " . . . . "If the English haveone, it is because they have been forced to make a compromise withprejudice. "

The National Assembly, sovereign and philosophic, soars above theirerrors, their trammel; and their example. The depository of truth, ithas not to receive lessons from others, but to give them, and to offerto the world's admiration the first type of a Constitution which isperfect and in conformity with principle, the most effective of any inpreventing the formation of a governing class; in closing the way topublic business, not only to the old noblesse, but to the aristocracyof the future; in continuing and exaggerating the work of absolutemonarchy; in preparing for a community of officials and administrators;in lowering the level of humanity; in reducing to sloth and brutalizingor blighting the elite of the families which maintain or raisethemselves; and in withering the most precious of nurseries, that inwhich the State recruits its statesmen. [2217]

Excluded from the Government, the aristocracy is about to retireinto private life. Let us follow them to their estates: Feudal rightsinstituted for a barbarous State are certainly a great draw-back in amodern State. If appropriate in an epoch when property and sovereigntywere fused together, when the Government was local, when life wasmilitant, they form an incongruity at a time when sovereignty andproperty are separated, when the Government is centralized, when theregime is a pacific one. The bondage which, in the tenth century, was necessary to re-established security and agriculture, is, in theeighteenth century, purposeless thralldom which impoverishes the soiland fetters the peasant. But, because these ancient claims are liableto abuse and injurious at the present day, it does not follow that theynever were useful and legitimate, nor that it is allowable to abolishthem without indemnity On the contrary, for many centuries, and, onthe whole, so long as the lord of the manor resided on his estates thisprimitive contract was advantageous to both parties, and to such anextent that it has led to the modern contract. Thanks to the pressure ofthis tight bandage, the broken fragments of the community can beagain united, and society once more recover its solidity, force, and activity. --In any event, that the institution, like all humaninstitutions, took its rise in violence and was corrupted by abuses isof little consequence; the State, for eight hundred years, recognizedthese feudal claims, and, with its own consent and the concurrence ofits Courts, they were transmitted, bequeathed, sold, mortgaged, andexchanged, like any other species of property. Only two or threehundred, at most, now remained in the families of the originalproprietors. "The largest portion of the titled estates, " says acontemporary, [2218] "have become the property of capitalists, merchants, and their descendants; the fiefs, for the most part, being in thehands of the bourgeois of the towns. " All the fiefs which, during twocenturies past, have been bought by new men, now represent the economyand labor of their purchasers. --Moreover; whoever the actual holdersmay be, whether old or whether new men, the State is under obligation tothem, not only by general right--and because, from the beginning, itis in its nature the guardian of all property, --but also by a specialright, because it has itself sanctioned this particular species ofproperty. The buyers of yesterday paid their money only under itsguarantee; its signature is affixed to the contract, and it has bounditself to secure to them the enjoyment of it. If it prevents themfrom doing so, let it make them compensation; in default of the thingpromised to them, it owes them the value of it. Such is the law in casesof expropriation for public utility; in 1834, for instance, the English, for the legal abolition of slavery, paid to their planters the sum of£20, 000, 000. --But that is not sufficient: when, in the suppressionof feudal rights, the legislator's thoughts are taken up with thecreditors, he has only half performed his task; there are two sides tothe question, and he must likewise think of the debtors. If he isnot merely a lover of abstractions and of fine phrases, if that whichinterests him is men and not words, if he is bent upon the effectiveenfranchisement of the cultivator of the soil, he will not rest contentwith proclaiming a principle, with permitting the redemption of rents, with fixing the rate of redemption, and, in case of dispute, withsending parties before the tribunals. He will reflect that thepeasantry, jointly responsible for the same debt will find difficultyin agreeing among themselves; that they are afraid of litigation; that, being ignorant, they will not know how to set about it; that, beingpoor, they will be unable to pay; and that, under the weight of discord, distrust, indigence, and inertia, the new law will remain a dead letter, and only exasperate their cupidity or kindle their resentment. Inanticipation of this disorder the legislator will come to theirassistance; he will interpose commissions of arbitration between themand the lord of the manor; he will substitute a scale of annuities for afull and immediate redemption; he will lend them the capital which theycannot borrow elsewhere; he will establish a bank, rights, and a mode ofprocedure, --in short, as in Savoy in 1771, in England in 1845, [2219] andin Russia in 1861, he will relieve the poor without despoiling the rich;he will establish liberty without violating the rights of property; hewill conciliate interests and classes; he will not let loose a brutalpeasant revolt (Jacquerie) to enforce unjust confiscation; and he willterminate the social conflict not with strife but with peace. 

It is just the reverse in 1789 In conformity with the doctrine of thesocial contract, the principle is set up that every man is born free, and that his freedom has always been inalienable. If he formerlysubmitted to slavery or to serfdom, it was owing to his having had aknife at his throat; a contract of this sort is essentially null andvoid. So much the worse for those who have the benefit of it at thepresent day; they are holders of stolen property, and must restore it tothe legitimate owners. Let no one object that this property was acquiredfor cash down, and in good faith; they ought to have known beforehandthat man and his liberty are not commercial matters, and that unjustacquisitions rightly perish in their hands. [2220] Nobody dreams thatthe State which was a party to this transaction is the responsibleguarantor. Only one scruple affects the Assembly; its jurists andMerlin, its reporter, are obliged to yield to proof; they know thatin current practice, and by innumerable ancient and modern titles, thenoble in many cases is nothing but an ordinary lessor, and that if, inthose cases, he collects his dues, it is simply in his capacity as aprivate person, by virtue of a mutual contract, because he has given aperpetual lease of a certain portion of his land; and he has givenit only in consideration of an annual payment in money or produce, orservices, together with another contingent claim which the farmer paysin case of the transmission of the lease. These two obligations couldnot be canceled without indemnity; if it were done, more than one-halfof the proprietors in France would be dispossessed in favor of thefarmers. Hence the distinction which the Assembly makes in the feudaldues. --On the one hand it abolishes without indemnity all those dueswhich the noble receives by virtue of being the local sovereign, theancient proprietor of persons and the usurper of public powers; allthose which the lessee paid as serf, subject to rights of inheritance, and as former vassal or dependent. On the other hand, it maintainsand decrees as redeemable at a certain rate all those which the noblereceives through his title of landed proprietor and of simple lessor;all those which the lessee pays by virtue of being a free contractingparty, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of landed estate. --Bythis division it fancies that it has respected lawful ownership byoverthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the feudal scheme ofobligations, it has separated the wheat from the chaff. [2221]

But, through the principle, the drawing up and the omissions of itslaw, it condemns both to a common destruction; the fire on which it hasthrown the chaff necessarily burns up the wheat. --Both are in fact boundup together in the same sheaf. If the noble formerly brought men undersubjection by the sword, it is also by the sword that he formerlyacquired possession of the soil. If the subjection of persons is invalidon account of the original stain of violence, the usurpation of the soilis invalid for the same reason. And if the sanction and guarantee ofthe State could not justify the first act of brigandage, they could notjustify the second; and, since the rights which are derived from unjustsovereignty are abolished without indemnity, the rights which arederived from unjust proprietorship should be likewise abolished withoutcompensation. ----The Assembly, with remarkable imprudence, had declaredin the preamble to its law that "it abolished the feudal systementirely, " and, whatever its ulterior reservations might be, the fiathas gone forth. The forty thousand sovereign municipalities to which thetext of the decree is read pay attention only to the first article, andthe village attorney, imbued with the rights of man, easily proves tothese assemblies of debtors that they owe nothing to their creditors. There must be no exceptions nor distinctions: no more annual rents, field-rents, dues on produce, nor contingent rents, nor lord's dues andfines, or fifths. [2222] If these have been maintained by the Assembly, it is owing to misunderstanding, timidity, inconsistency, and on allsides, in the rural districts, the grumbling of disappointed greed or ofunsatisfied necessities is heard:[2223]

"You thought that you were destroying feudalism, while your redemptionlaws have done just the contrary. . . . Are you not aware that what wascalled a Seigneur was simply an unpunished usurper? . . . That detestabledecree of 1790 is the ruin of lease-holders. It has thrown the villagesinto a state of consternation. The nobles reap all the advantage ofit. . . Never will redemption be possible. Redemption of unreal claims!Redemption of dues that are detestable!"

In vain the Assembly insists, specifies and explains by examples andby detailed instructions the mode of procedure and the conditions ofredemption. Neither the procedure nor its conditions are practicable. Ithas made no provisions for facilitating the agreement of parties andthe satisfaction of feudal liens, no special arbitrators, nor bank forloans, nor system of annuities. And worse still, instead of clearing theroad it has barred it by legal arrangements. The lease-holder is notto redeem his annual rent without at the same time compounding for thecontingent rent: he is not allowed on his own to redeem his quota sincehe is tied up in solidarity with the other partners. Should his hoardbe a small one, so much the worse for him. Not being able to redeem thewhole, he is not allowed to redeem a part. Not having the money withwhich to relieve himself from both ground-rents and lord's dues hecannot relieve himself from ground-rents. Not having the money toliquidate the debt in full of those who are bound along with him-self, he remains a captive in his ancient chains by virtue of the new lawwhich announces to him his freedom. 

In the face of these unexpected trammels the peasant becomes furious:His fixed idea, from the outbreak of the Revolution, is that he nolonger owes anything to anybody, and, among the speeches, decrees, proclamations, and instructions which rumor brings to his ears, hecomprehends but one phrase, and is determined to comprehend no other, and that is, that henceforth his obligations are removed. He does notswerve from this, and since the law hinders, instead of aiding him, hewill break the law. In fact, after the 4th of August, 1789, feudal duescease to be collected. The claims which are maintained are not enforcedany more than those which are suppressed. Whole communities come andgive notice to the lord of the manor that they will not pay any morerent. Others, with sword in hand, compel him to give them acquittances. Others again, to be more secure, break open his safe, and throw histitle-deeds into the fire. [2224] Public force is nowhere strong enoughto protect him in his legal rights. Officers dare not serve writs, thecourts dare not give judgment, administrative bodies dare not decree inhis favor. He is despoiled through the connivance, the neglect, orthe impotence of all the authorities which ought to defend him. He isabandoned to the peasants who fell his forests, under the pretext thatthey formerly belonged to the commune; who take possession of hismill, his wine-press, and his oven, under the pretext that territorialprivileges are suppressed. [2225] Most of the gentry of the provinces areruined, without any resource, and have not even their daily bread; fortheir income consisted in seignorial rights, and in rents derived fromtheir real property, which they had let on perpetual leases, and now, in accordance with the law, one-half of this income ceases to be paid, while the other half ceases to be paid in spite of the law. One hundredand twenty-three millions of revenue, representing two thousand millionsand a half of capital in the money of that time, double, at least, thatof the present day, thus passes as a gift, or through the toleration ofthe National Assembly, from the hands of creditors into those of theirdebtors. To this must be added an equal sum for revenue and capitalarising from the tithes which are suppressed without compensation, andby the same stroke. --This is the commencement of the great revolutionaryoperation, that is to say, of the universal bankruptcy which, directlyor indirectly, is to destroy all contracts, and abolish all debts inFrance. Violations of property, especially of private property, cannotbe made with impunity. The Assembly desired to lop off only thefeudal branch; but, in admitting that the State can annul, withoutcompensation, the obligations which it has guaranteed, it put the ax tothe root of the tree, and other rougher hands are already driving it inup to the haft. 

Nothing now remains to the noble but his title, his territorial name, and his armorial bearings, which are innocent distinctions, since theyno longer confer any jurisdiction or pre-eminence upon him, and which, as the law ceases to protect him, the first comer may borrow withimpunity. Not only, moreover, do they do no harm, but they are evenworthy of respect. With many of the nobles the title of the estatecovers the family name, the former alone being made use of. If onewere substituted for the other, the public would have difficulty indiscovering M. De Mirabeau, Lafayette, and M. De Moutmorency, under thenew names Riquetti, M. Mottié, and M. Bouchard. Besides, it would bewrong to the bearer of it, to whom the abolished title is a legitimatepossession, often precious, it being a certificate of quality anddescent, an authentic personal distinction of which he cannot bedeprived without losing his position, rank, and worth, in the humanworld around him. --The Assembly, however, with a popular principleat stake, gives no heed to public utility, nor to the rights ofindividuals. The feudal system being abolished, all that remains ofit must be got rid of. A decree is passed that "hereditary nobility isoffensive to reason and to true liberty;" that, where it exists, "thereis no political equality. "[2226] Every French citizen is forbidden toassume or retain the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis, chevalier, and the like, and to bear any other than the "true name of his family;"he is prohibited from making his servants wear liveries, and from havingcoats-of-arms on his house or on his carriage. In case of any infractionof this law a penalty is inflicted upon him equal to six times the sumof his personal taxes; he is to be struck off the register of citizens, and declared incapable of holding any civil or military office. Thereis the same punishment if to any contract or acquittance he affixes hisaccustomed signature; if; through habit or inadvertence, he adds thetitle of his estate to his family name--if; with a view to recognition, and to render his identity certain, he merely mentions that he once borethe former name. Any notary or public officer who shall write, or allowto be written, in any document the word ci-devant (formerly) is to besuspended from his functions. Not only are old names thus abolished, butan effort is made to efface all remembrance of them. In a little while, the childish law will become a murderous one. It will be but a littlewhile and, according to the terms of this same decree, a militaryveteran of seventy-seven years, a loyal servant of the Republic, and abrigadier-general under the Convention, will be arrested on returning tohis native village, because he has mechanically signed the register ofthe revolutionary committee as Montperreux instead of Vannod, and, forthis infraction, he will be guillotined along with his brother and hissister-in-law. [2227]

Once on this road, it is impossible to stop; for the principles whichare proclaimed go beyond the decrees which are passed, and a bad lawintroduces a worse. The Constituent Assembly[2228] had supposed thatannual dues, like ground-rents, and contingent dues, like feudal duties(lods et rentes), were the price of an ancient concession of land, and, consequently, the proof to the contrary is to be thrown upon the tenant. The Legislative Assembly is about to assume that these same rentalsare the result of an old feudal usurpation, and that, consequently, theproof to the contrary must rest with the proprietor. His rights cannotbe established by possession from time immemorial, nor by innumerableand regular acquittances; he must produce the act of enfeoffment whichis many centuries old, the lease which has never, perhaps, been writtenout, the primitive title already rare in 1720, [2229] and since stolenor burnt in the recent jacqueries: otherwise he is despoiled withoutindemnity. All feudal claims are swept away by this act withoutexception and without compensation. 

In a similar manner, the Constituent Assembly, setting common law asidein relation to inheritances ab intestato, had deprived all eldest sonsand males of any advantages. [2230] The Convention, suppressing thefreedom of testamentary bequest, prohibits the father from disposingof more than one-tenth of his possessions; and again, going back to thepast, it makes its decrees retrospective: every will opened after the14th of July, 1789, is declared invalid if not in conformity withthis decree; every succession from the 14th of June, 1789, which isadministered after the same date, is re-divided if the division has notbeen equal; every donation which has been made among the heirs after thesame date is void. Not only is the feudal family destroyed in this way, but it must never be reformed. The aristocracy, being once declared avenomous plant, it is not sufficient to prime it away, but it must beextirpated, not only dug up by the root, but its seed must be crushedout. --A malignant prejudice is aroused against it, and this grows fromday to day. The stings of self-conceit, the disappointments of ambition, and envious sentiments have prepared the way. Its hard, dry kernelconsists of the abstract idea of equality. All around revolutionaryfervor has caused blood to flow, has embittered tempers, intensifiedsensibilities, and created a painful abscess which daily irritationrenders still more painful. Through steadily brooding over a purelyspeculative preference this has become a fixed idea, and is becominga murderous one. It is a strange passion, one wholly of the brains, nourished by magniloquent phrases, but the more destructive, becausephantoms are created out of words, and against phantoms no reasoning noractual facts can prevail. This or that shopkeeper who, up to this time, had always formed his idea of nobles from his impressions of the membersof the Parliament of his town or of the gentry of his canton, nowpictures them according to the declamations of the club and theinvectives of the newspapers. The imaginary figure, in his mind, hasgradually absorbed the living figure: he no longer sees the calm andengaging countenance, but a grinning and distorted mask. Kindliness orindifference is replaced by animosity and distrust; they are overthrowntyrants, ancient evil-doers, And enemies of the public; he is satisfiedbeforehand and without further investigation that they are hatchingplots. If they avoid being caught, it is owing to their address andperfidy, and they are only the more dangerous the more inoffensivethey appear. Their sub-mission is merely a feint, their resignationhypocrisy, their favorable disposition, treachery. Against theseconspirators who cannot be touched the law is inadequate; let us stretchit in practice, and as they wince at equality let us try to make thembow beneath the yoke. 

In fact, illegal persecution precedes legal prosecution; the privilegedperson who, by the late decrees, seems merely to be brought within thepale of the common law, is, in fact; driven outside of it. The King, disarmed, is no longer able to protect him; the partial Assembly repelshis complaints; the committee of inquiry regards him as a culpritwhen he is simply oppressed. His income, his property, his repose, hisfreedom, his home, his life, that of his wife and of his children, arein the hands of an administration elected by the crowd, directed byclubs, and threatened or violated by the mob. He is debarred from theelections. The newspapers denounce him. He undergoes domiciliaryvisits. In hundreds of places his chateau is sacked; the assassins andincendiaries who depart from it with their hands full and steeped inblood are not prosecuted, or are shielded by an amnesty:[2231] it isestablished by innumerable precedents that he may be run down withimpunity. To prevent him from defending himself, companies of theNational Guard come and seize his arms: he must become a prey, andan easy prey, like game kept back in its enclosure for an approachinghunt. --In vain he abstains from provocation and reduces himself tothe standing of a private individual. In vain does he patiently endurenumerous provocations and resist only extreme violence. I have readmany hundreds of investigations in the original manuscripts, and almostalways I have admired the humanity of the nobles, their forbearance, their horror of bloodshed. Not only are a great many of them men ofcourage and all men of honor, but also, educated in the philosophy ofthe eighteenth century, they are mild, sensitive, and deeds of violenceare repugnant to them. Military officers especially are exemplary, theirgreat defect being their weakness: rather than fire on the crowd theysurrender the forts under their command, and allow themselves to beinsulted and stoned by the people. For two years, [2232] "exposed to athousand outrages, to defamation, to daily peril, persecuted by clubsand misguided soldiers, " disobeyed, menaced, put under arrest by theirown men, they remain at their post to prevent the ranks from beingbroken up; "with stoic perseverance they put up with contempt of theirauthority that they may preserve its semblance, their courage is of thatrarest kind which consists in remaining at the post of duty, impassivebeneath both affronts and blows. --Through a wrong of the greatestmagnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors ofthe Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the commonplebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege theantechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the nurseryof the army and the fleet, " the elite of the agricultural proprietors, also many gentlemen who look after and turn to account the littleestates on which they live, and "who have not left their homes a year intheir lives, " become the pariahs of their canton. [2233] After 1789, theybegin to feel that their position is no longer tenable. [2234]

" It is absolutely in opposition to the rights of man, " says anotherletter from Franche-Comté, "to find one's self in perpetual fear ofhaving one's throat cut by scoundrels who are daily confounding libertywith license. "

"I never knew anything so wearying, " says another letter from Champagne, "as this anxiety about property and security. Never was there a betterreason for it. A moment suffices to let loose an intractable populationwhich thinks that it may do what it pleases, and which is carefullysustained in that error. "

"After the sacrifices that we have made, " says a letter from Burgundy, "we could not expect such treatment. I thought that our property wouldbe the last violated because the people owed us some return for stayingat home in the country to expend among them the few resources thatremain to us. . . (Now), I beg the Assembly to repeal the decree onemigration; otherwise it may be said that people are purposely kept hereto be assassinated. . . In case it should refuse to do us this justice, I should be quite as willing to have it decree an act of proscriptionagainst us, for we should not then be lulled to sleep by the protectionof laws which are doubtless very wise, but which are not respectedanywhere. "

" It is not our privileges, " say several others, "it is not our nobilitythat we regret; but how is the persecution to which we are abandoned tobe supported? There is no safety for us, for our property, or for ourfamilies. Wretches who are our debtors, the small farmers who rob us ofour incomes, daily threaten us with the torch and the lamp post. We donot enjoy one hour of repose; not a night that we are certain topass through without trouble. Our persons are given up to the vilestoutrages, our dwellings to an inquisition of armed tyrants; we arerobbed of our rentals with impunity, and our property is openlyattacked. We, being now the only people to pay imposts, are unfairlytaxed; in various places our entire incomes would not suffice to paythe quota which crushes us. We can make no complaint without incurringthe risk of being massacred. The tribunals and the administrativebodies, the tools of the multitude, daily sacrifice us to its attacks. Even the Government seems afraid of compromising itself by claiming theprotection of the laws on our behalf. It is sufficient to be pointedout as an aristocrat to be without any security. If our peasants, ingeneral, have shown more honesty, consideration, and attachment towardus, every bourgeois of importance, the wild members of clubs, the vilestof men who sully a uniform, consider themselves privileged to insult us, and these wretches go unpunished and are protected! Even our religionis not free. One of our number has had his house sacked for having shownhospitality to an old curé of eighty belonging to his parish who refusedto take the oath. Such is our fate. We are not so base as to endure it. Our right to resist oppression is not due to a decree of the NationalAssembly, but to natural law. We are going to leave, and to die ifnecessary. But to live under such a revolting anarchy! Should it not bebroken up we shall never set foot in France again!"

The operation is successful. The Assembly, through its decrees andinstitutions, through the laws it enacts and the violence which ittolerates, has uprooted the aristocracy and cast it out of the country. The nobles, now the reverse of privileged, cannot remain in a countrywhere, while respecting the law, they are really beyond its pale. Thosewho first emigrated on the 15th of July, 1789, along with the Prince deCondé, received at their houses the evening before they left a list ofthe proscribed on which their names appeared, and a reward waspromised to whoever would bring their heads to the cellar of thePalais-Royal--Others, in larger numbers, left after the occurrencesof the 6th of October. --During the last months of the ConstituentAssembly, [2235]

"the emigration goes on in companies composed of men of every condition. . . . Twelve hundred gentlemen have left Poitou alone; Auvergne, Limousin, and ten other provinces have been equally depopulated of theirlandowners. There are towns in which nobody remains but common workmen, a club, and the crowd of devouring office-holders created by theConstitution. All the nobles in Brittany have left, and the emigrationhas begun in Normandy, and is going on in the frontier provinces. 

"More than two-thirds of the army will be without officers. " On beingcalled upon to take the new oath in which the King's name is purposelyomitted, "six thousand officers send in their resignation. "

The example gradually becomes contagious; they are men of the sword, andtheir honor is at stake. Many of them join the princes at Coblentz, and subsequently do battle against France in the belief that they arecontending only against their executioners. 

The treatment of the nobles by the Assembly is the same as the treatmentof the Protestants by Louis XIV. [2236] In both cases the oppressed are asuperior class of men. In both cases France has been made uninhabitablefor them. In both cases they are reduced to exile, and they arepunished because they exiled them selves. In both cases it ended in aconfiscation of their property, and in the penalty of death to all whoshould harbor them. In both cases, by dint of persecution, they aredriven to revolt. The insurrection of La Vendée corresponds with theinsurrection of the Cévennes; and the emigrants, like the refugees offormer times, will be found under the flags of Prussia and of England. One hundred thousand Frenchmen driven out at the end of the seventeenthcentury, and one hundred thousand driven out at the end of theeighteenth century! Mark how an intolerant democracy completes the workof an intolerant monarchy. The moral aristocracy was mowed down in thename of uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed down in the name ofequality. For the second time, an absolute principle, and with the sameeffect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society. 

The success is complete. One of the deputies of the LegislativeAssembly, early in its session, on being informed of the great increasein emigration, joyfully exclaims, "SO MUCH THE BETTER; FRANCE IS BEING PURGED!"

She is, in truth, being depleted of one-half of her best blood. 

IV. --Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in the ecclesiastical bodies. 

 How the State used its right of overseeing and reforming them. --Social usefulness of corporations. --The sound part in the monastic institution. --Zeal and services of nuns. --How ecclesiastical possessions should be employed. --Principle of the Assembly as to private communities, feudal rights and trust-funds. --Abolition and expropriation all corporations. --Uncompensated suppression of tithes. --Confiscation of ecclesiastical possessions. --Effect on the Treasury and on expropriated services. --The civil constitution of the clergy. --Rights of the Church in relation to the State. --Certainty and effects of a conflict. --Priests considered as State-functionaries. --Principal stipulations of the law. --Obligations of the oath. --The majority of priests refuse to take it. --The majority of believes on their side. --Persecution of believers and of priests. 

There remained the corporate, ecclesiastic, and lay bodies, and, notably, the oldest, most opulent, and most considerable of all theregular and secular clergy. --Grave abuses existed here also, for, theinstitution being founded on ancient requirements, had not accommodateditself to new necessities. [2237] There were too many episcopal sees, and these were arranged according to the Christian distribution ofthe population in the fourth century; a revenue still more badlyapportioned--bishops and abbés with one hundred thousand livres a year, leading the lives of amiable idlers, while curés, overburdened withwork, have but seven hundred; in one monastery nineteen monks insteadof eighty, and in another four instead of fifty;[2238] a number ofmonasteries reduced to three or to two inhabitants, and even to one;almost all the congregations of men going to decay, and many of themdying out for lack of novices;[2239] a general lukewarmness among themembers, great laxity in many establishments, and with scandals in someof them; scarcely one-third taking an interest in their calling, whilethe remaining two-thirds wish to go back to the world, [2240]--it isevident from all this that the primitive inspiration has been divertedor has cooled; that the endowment only partially fulfills its ends;that one-half of its resources are employed in the wrong way orremain sterile; in short, that there is a need of reformation in thebody. --That this ought to be effected with the co-operation of the Stateand even under its direction is not less certain. For a corporationis not an individual like other individuals, and, in order that it mayacquire or possess the privileges of an ordinary citizen, somethingsupplementary must be added, some fiction, some expedient of the law. If the law is disposed to overlook the fact that a corporation is not anatural personage, if it gives to it a civil personality, if it declaresit to be capable of inheriting, of acquiring and of selling, if itbecomes a protected and respected proprietor, this is due to the favorsof the State which places its tribunal and gendarmes at its service, andwhich, in exchange for this service, justly imposes conditions on it, and, among others, that of being useful and remaining useful, or atleast that of never becoming harmful. Such was the rule under theAncient Régime, and especially since the Government has for the lastquarter of a century gradually and efficaciously worked out a reform. Not only, in 1749, had it prohibited the Church from accepting land, either by donation, by testament, or in exchange, without royalletters-patent registered in Parliament; not only in 1764 had itabolished the order of Jesuits, closed their colleges and sold theirpossessions, but also, since 1766, a permanent commission, formed bythe King's order and instructed by him, had lopped off all the dying anddead branches of the ecclesiastical tree. [2241] There was a revision ofthe primitive Constitutions; a prohibition to every institution to havemore than two monasteries at Paris and more than one in other towns; apostponement of the age for taking vows--that of sixteen being no longerpermitted--to twenty-one for men and eighteen for women; an obligatoryminimum of monks and nuns for each establishment, which varies fromfifteen to nine according to circumstances; if this is not kept up therefollows a suppression or prohibition to receive novices: owing tothese measures, rigorously executed, at the end of twelve years"the Grammontins, the Servites, the Celestins, the ancient order ofSaint-Bénédict, that of the Holy Ghost of Montpellier, and thoseof Sainte-Brigitte, Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, Saint-Ruff, andSaint-Antoine, "--in short, nine complete congregations had disappeared. At the end of twenty years three hundred and eighty-six establishmentshad been suppressed, the number of monks and nuns had diminishedone-third, the larger portion of possessions which had escheated wereusefully applied, and the congregations of men lacked novices andcomplained that they could not fill up their ranks. If the monks werestill found to be too numerous, too wealthy, and too indolent, it wasmerely necessary to keep on in this way; before the end of the century, merely by the application of the edict, the institution would bebrought back, without brutality or injustice, within the scope of thedevelopment, the limitations of fortune, and the class of functionsacceptable to a modern State. 

But, because these ecclesiastical bodies stood in need of reform it doesnot follow that it was necessary to destroy them, nor, in general, that independent institutions are detrimental to a nation. Organizedpurposely for a public service, and possessing, nearly or remotely underthe supervision of the State, the faculty of self-administration, thesebodies are valuable organs and not malign tumors. 

In the first place, through their institution, a great public benefitis secured without any cost to the government--worship, scientificresearch, primary or higher education, help for the poor, care of thesick--all set apart and sheltered from the cuts which public financialdifficulties might make necessary, and supported by the privategenerosity which, finding a ready receptacle at hand, gathers together, century after century, its thousands of scattered springs: as anexample, note the wealth, stability, and usefulness of the English andGerman universities. 

In the second place, their institution furnishes an obstacle to theomnipotence of the State; their walls provide a protection against theleveling standardization of absolute monarchy or of pure democracy. Aman can here freely develop himself without donning the livery ofeither courtier or demagogue, he can acquire wealth, consideration andauthority, without being indebted to the caprices of either royal orpopular favor; he can stand firm against established or prevailingopinions sheltered by associates bound by their esprit de corps. Such, at the present day (1885), is the situation of a professor at Oxford, Göttingen, and Harvard Such, under the Ancient Régime, were a bishop, amember of the French Parliaments, and even a plain attorney. What canbe worse than universal bureaucracy, producing a mechanical and servileuniformity! Those who serve the public need not all be Governmentclerks; in countries where an aristocracy has perished, bodies of thiskind are their last place of refuge. 

In the third place, through such institutions, distinct originalsocieties may come to be inside the great commonplace world. Herespecial personalities may find the only existence that suits them. Ifdevout or laborious, not only do these afford an outlet for the deeperneeds of conscience, of the imagination, of activity, and of discipline, but also they serve as dikes which restrain and direct them in a channelwhich will lead to the creation of a masterpiece of infinite value. Inthis way thousands of men and women fulfill at small cost, voluntarilyand gratis, and with great effect, the least attractive and morerepulsive social needs, thus performing in human society the role which, inside the ant-hill, we see assigned to the sexless worker-ant. [2242]

Thus, at bottom, the institution was really good, and if it had to becauterized it was merely essential to remove the inert or corruptedparts and preserve the healthy and sound parts. --Now, if we take onlythe monastic bodies, there were more than one-half of these entitledto respect. I omit those monks, one-third of whom remained zealous andexemplary-the Benedictines, who continue the "Gallia Christiana, " withothers who, at sixty years of age, labor in rooms without a fire;the Trappists, who cultivate the ground with their own hands, and theinnumerable monasteries which serve as educational seminaries, bureausof charity, hospices for shelter, and of which all the villages in theirneighborhood demand the conservation by the National Assembly. [2243]I have to mention the nuns, thirty-seven thousand in fifteen hundredconvents. Here, except in the twenty-five chapters of canonesses, whichare a semi-worldly rendezvous for poor young girls of noble birth, fervor, frugality, and usefulness are almost everywhere incontestable. One of the members of the Ecclesiastical Committee admits in theAssembly tribunal that, in all their letters and addresses, the nuns askto be allowed to remain in their cloisters; their entreaties, in fact, are as earnest as they are affecting. [2244] One Community writes, "We should prefer the sacrifice of our lives to that of our calling. . . . This is not the voice of some among our sisters, but of all. TheNational Assembly has established the claims of liberty-would it preventthe exercise of these by the only disinterested beings who ardentlydesire to be useful, and have renounced society solely to be of greaterservice to it?"

"The little contact we have with the world, " writes another "is thereason why our contentment is so little known. But it is not the lessreal and substantial. We know of no distinctions, no privileges amongstourselves; our misfortunes and our property are in common. One in heartand one in soul. . . We protest before the nation, in the face of heavenand of earth, that it is not in the power of any being to shake ourfidelity to our vows, which vows we renew with still more ardor thanwhen we first pronounced them. "[2245]

Many of the communities have no means of subsistence other than the workof their own hands and the small dowries the nuns have brought withthem on entering the convent. So great, however is their frugality andeconomy, that the total expenditure of each nun does not surpass 250livres a year. The Annonciades of Saint-Amour say, "We, thirty-three nuns, both choristers and those of the white veil, live on 4, 400 livres net income, without being a charge to our familiesor to the public. . . If we were living in society, our expenses wouldbe three times as much;" and, not content with providing for themselves, they give in charity. 

Among these communities several hundreds are educational establishments;a very great number give gratuitous primary instruction. --Now, in 1789, there are no other schools for girls, and were these to be suppressed, every avenue of instruction and culture would be closed to one of thetwo sexes, forming one-half of the French population. Fourteen thousandsisters of charity, distributed among four hundred and twenty convents, look after the hospitals, attend upon the sick, serve the infirm, bring up foundlings, provide for orphans, lying-in women, and repentantprostitutes. The "Visitation" is an asylum for "those who are notfavored by nature, "--and, in those days, there were many more of thedisfigured than at present, since out of every eight deaths one wascaused by the smallpox. Widows are received here, as well as girlswithout means and without protection, persons "worn out with theagitation of the world, " those who are too feeble to support the battleof life, those who withdraw from it wounded or invalid, and "the rulesof the order, not very strict, are not beyond the health or strengthof the most frail and delicate. " Some ingenious device of charity thusapplies to each moral or social sore, with skill and care, the properand proportionate dressing. And finally, far from falling off, nearlyall these communities are in a flourishing state, and whilst among theestablishments for men there are only nine, on the average, to each, in those for women there is an average of twenty-four. Here, atSaint-Flour, is one which is bringing up fifty boarders; another, atBeaulieu, instructs one hundred; another, in Franche-Comté, has chargeof eight hundred abandoned children. [2246]--Evidently, in the presenceof such institutions one must pause, however little one may care forjustice and the public interest; and, moreover, because it is uselessto act rigorously against them the legislator crushes them in vain, forthey spring up again of their own accord; they are in the blood of everyCatholic nation. In France, instead of thirty-seven thousand nuns, atthe present day (1866) there are eighty-six thousand-that is to say, forty-five in every ten thousand women instead of twenty-eight. [2247]

In any case, if the State deprives them of their property, along withthat of other ecclesiastical bodies, it is not the State that oughtto claim the spoil. --The State is not their heir, and their land, furniture, and rentals are in their very nature devoted to a specialpurpose, although they have no designated proprietor. This treasure, which consists of the accumulations of fourteen centuries, has beenformed, increased, and preserved, in view of a certain object. Themillions of generous, repentant, or devout souls who have made a giftof it, or have managed it, did so with a certain intention. It was theirdesire to ensure education, beneficence, and religion, and nothing else. Their legitimate intentions should not be frustrated: the dead haverights in society as well as the living, for it is the dead who havemade the society which the living enjoy, and we receive their heritageonly on the condition of executing their testamentary act. --Shouldthis be of ancient date, it is undoubtedly necessary to make a liberalinterpretation of it; to supplement its scanty provisions, and to takenew circumstances into consideration. The requirements for which itprovided have often disappeared; for instance, after the destruction ofthe Barbary pirates, there were no more Christians to be ransomed; andonly by transferring an endowment can it be perpetuated. --But if, in theoriginal institution, several accessory and special clauses have becomeantiquated, there remains the one important, general intention, whichmanifestly continues imperative and permanent, that of providing for adistinct service, either of charity, of worship, or of instruction. Letthe administrators be changed, if necessary, also the apportionment ofthe legacy bequeathed, but do not divert any of it to services of analien character; it is inapplicable to any but that purpose or to othersstrictly analogous. The four milliards of investment in real property, the two hundred millions of ecclesiastical income, form for it anexpress and special endowment. This is not a pile of gold abandoned onthe highway, which the exchequer can appropriate or assign to those wholive by the roadside. Authentic titles to it exist, which, declaring itsorigin, fix its destination, and your business is simply to see thatit reaches its destination. Such was the principle under the ancientrégime, in spite of grave abuses, and under forced exactions. When theecclesiastical commission suppressed an ecclesiastical order, it was notfor the purpose of making its possessions over to the public treasury, but to apply these to seminaries, schools, and hospitals. In 1789, therevenues of Saint-Denis supported Saint-Cyr; those of Saint Germain wentto the Economats, and the Government, although absolute and needy, wassufficiently honest to adjust that confiscation was robbery. The greaterour power, the greater the obligation to be just, and honesty alwaysproves in the end to be the best policy. --It is, therefore, both justand useful that the Church, as in England and in America, that superioreducation, as in England and in Germany, that special instruction, as inAmerica, and that diverse endowments for public assistance and utility, should be unreservedly secured in the maintenance of their heritage. TheState, as testamentary executor of this inheritance, strangely abusesits mandate when it pockets the bequest in order to choke the deficit ofits own treasury, risking it in bad speculations, and swallowing itup in its own bankruptcy, until of this vast treasure, which has beenheaped up for generations for the benefit of children, the infirm, the sick and the poor, not enough is left to pay the salary of aschool-mistress, the wages of a parish nurse, or for a bowl of broth ina hospital. [2248]

The Assembly remains deaf to all these arguments, and that which makesits refuse to listen is not financial distress. --The Archbishop of Aix, M. De Boisjelin, offered, in the name of the clergy, to liquidateat once the debt of three hundred millions, which was urgent, by amortgage-loan of four hundred millions on the ecclesiastical property, which was a very good expedient; for at this time the credit of theclergy is the only substantial one. It generally borrows at less thanfive per cent. , and more money has always been offered to it than itwanted, whilst the State borrows at ten per cent. , and, at this moment, there are no lenders. --But, to our new revolutionary statesmen, the cost-benefit of a service is of much less consequence than theapplication of a principle. In conformity with the Social Contract theyestablish the maxim that in the State there is no need of corporatebodies: they acknowledge nothing but, on the one hand, the State, thedepositary of all public powers, and, on the other hand, a myriad ofsolitary individuals. Special associations, specific groups, collateralcorporations are not wanted, even to fulfill functions which the Stateis incapable of fulfilling. "As soon as one enters a corporation, " saysand orator, "one must love it as one loves a family;"[2249] whereasthe affections and obedience are all to be monopolized by the State. Moreover, on entering into an order a man receives special aid andcomfort from it, and whatever distinguishes one man from another, isopposed to civil equality. Hence, if men are to remain equal and becomecitizens they must be deprived of every rallying point that mightcompete with that of the State, and give to some an advantage overothers. All natural or acquired ties, consequently, which bound mentogether through geographical position, through climate, history, pursuits, and trade, are sundered. The old provinces, the old provincialgovernments, the old municipal administrations, parliaments, guildsand masterships, all are suppressed. The groups which spring up mostnaturally, those which arise through a community of interests, areall dispersed, and the broadest, most express, and most positiveinterdictions are promulgated against their revival under any pretextwhatever. [2250] France is cut up into geometrical sections like achess-board, and, within these improvised limits, which are destinedfor a long time to remain artificial, nothing is allowed to subsistbut isolated individuals in juxtaposition. There is no desire to spareorganized bodies where the cohesion is great, and least of all thatof the clergy. "Special associations, " says Mirabeau, [2251] "in thecommunity at large, break up the unity of its principles and destroythe equilibrium of its forces. Large political bodies in a State aredangerous through the strength which results from their coalition andthe resistance which is born out of their interests. " ii--That of theclergy, besides, is inherently bad, [2252] because "its system is inconstant antagonism to the rights of man. " An institution in which avow of obedience is necessary is "incompatible" with the constitution. Congregations "subject to independent chiefs are out of the social paleand incompatible with public spirit. " As to the right of society overthese, and also over the Church, this is not doubtful. "Corporate bodiesexist only through society, and, in destroying them, society merelytakes back the life she has imparted to them. " "They are simplyinstruments fabricated by the law. [2253] What does the workman dowhen the tool he works with no longer suits him? He breaks or altersit. "--This primary sophism being admitted the conclusion is plain. Sincecorporate bodies are abolished they no longer exist, and since they nolonger exist, they cannot again become proprietors. 

"Your aim was to destroy ecclesiastical orders, [2254] because theirdestruction was essential to the safety of the State. If the clergypreserve their property, the clerical order is not destroyed: younecessarily leave it the right of assembling; you sanction itsindependence. " In no case must ecclesiastics hold possessions. "If theyare proprietors they are independent, and if they are independent theywill associate this independence with the exercise of their functions. "The clergy, cost what it will, must be in the hands of the State, assimple functionaries and supported by its subsidies. It would be toodangerous for a nation, "to admit in its bosom as proprietors a largebody of men to whom so many sources of credit already give so greatpower. As religion is the property of all, its ministers, through thisfact alone, should be in the pay of the nation;" they are essentially"officers of morality and instruction, " and "salaried" like judges andprofessors. Let us fetch them back to this condition of things, whichis the only one compatible with the rights of man, and ordain that"the clergy, as well as all corporations and bodies with power ofinheritance, are now, and shall be for ever incapable of holding anypersonal or landed estate. "[2255]

Who, now, is the legitimate heir of all these vacated possessions?Through another sophism, the State, at once judge and party in thecause, assigns them to the State:

"The founders presented them to the Church, that is to say, to thenation. "[2256] "Since the nation has permitted their possession bythe clergy, she may re-demand that which is possessed only through herauthorization. " "The principle must be maintained that every nation issolely and veritably proprietor of the possessions of its clergy. "

This principle, it must be noted, as it is laid down, involves thedestruction of ecclesiastical and lay corporations, along with theconfiscation of all their possessions, and soon we shall see appearingon the horizon the final and complete decree[2257] by which theLegislative Assembly, "considering that a State truly free should not suffer any corporationwithin its bosom, not even those which, devoted to public instruction, deserve well of the country, " not even those "which are solely devotedto the service of the hospitals-and the relief of the sick, " suppressesall congregations, all associations of men or of women, lay orecclesiastical, all endowments for pious, charitable, and missionarypurposes, all houses of education, all seminaries and colleges, andthose of the Sorbonne and Navarre. Add to these the last sweep of thebroom: under the Legislative Assembly the division of all communalproperty, except woods: under the Convention, the abolition of allliterary societies, academies of science and of literature, theconfiscation of all their property, their libraries, museums, andbotanical gardens; the confiscation of all communal possessionsnot previously divided; and the confiscation of all the property ofhospitals and other philanthropic establishments. [2258]--The abstractprinciple, proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly, reveals, by degrees, its exterminating virtues. France now, owing to it, contains nothing butdispersed, powerless, ephemeral individuals, and confronting them, the State, the sole, the only permanent body that has devoured allthe others, a veritable Colossus, alone erect in the midst of theseinsignificant dwarfs. 

Substituted for the others, it is henceforth to perform their duties, and spend the money well which they have expended badly. --In the firstplace, it abolishes tithes, not gradually and by means of a process ofredemption, as in England, but at one stroke, and with no indemnity, on the ground that the tax, being an abusive, illegitimate impost, aprivate tax levied by individuals in cowl and cassock on others insmock frocks, is a vexatious usurpation, and resembles the feudaldues. It is a radical operation, and in conformity with principle. Unfortunately, the puerility of the thing is so gross as to defeat itsown object. In effect, since the days of Charlemagne, all the estatesin the country which have been sold and resold over and over againhave always paid tithes, and have never been purchased except with thischarge upon them, which amounts to about one-seventh of the net revenueof the country. Take off this tax and one-seventh is added to theincome of the proprietor, and, consequently, a seventh to his capital. Apresent is made to him of one hundred francs if his land is worth sevenhundred-francs, and of one thousand if it is worth seven thousand, of ten thousand if it is worth seventy thousand, and of one hundredthousand if it is worth seven hundred thousand. Some people gain sixhundred thousand francs by this act, and thirty thousand francs inIncome. [2259] Through this gratuitous and unexpected gift, one hundredand twenty-three millions of revenue, and two milliards and a half ofcapital, is divided among the holders of real estate in France, and ina manner so ingenious that the rich receive the most. Such is the effectof abstract principles. To afford a relief of thirty millions a yearto the peasants in wooden shoes, an assembly of democrats adds thirtymillions a year to the revenue of wealthy bourgeois and thirty millionsa year to opulent nobles. The first part of this operation moreover, isbut another burden to the State; for, in taking off the load fromthe holders of real property, it has encumbered itself, the Statehenceforth, without pocketing a penny, being obliged to defray theexpenses of worship in their place. --As to the second part of theoperation, which consists in the confiscation of four milliards of realestate, it proves, after all, to be ruinous, although promising tobe lucrative. It makes the same impression on our statesmen that theinheritance of a great estate makes on a needy and fanciful upstart. Regarding it as a bottomless well of gold, he draws upon it withoutstint and strives to realize all his fancies; as he can afford to payfor it all, he is free to smash it all. It is thus that the Assemblysuppresses and compensates magisterial offices to the amount of fourhundred and fifty millions; financial securities and obligations to theamount of three hundred and twenty-one millions; the household chargesof the King, Queen, and princes, fifty-two millions; military servicesand encumbrances, thirty-five millions; enfeoffed tithes, one hundredmillions, and so on. [2260] "In the month of May, 1789, " says Necker, "the re-establishment of order in the finances were mere child's-play. "At the end of a year, by dint of involving itself in debt, by increasingits expenses, and by abolishing or abandoning its income, the Statelives now on the paper-currency it issues, eats up its capital, andrapidly marches onward to bankruptcy. Never was such a vast inheritanceso quickly reduced to nothing, and to less than nothing. 

Meanwhile, we can demonstrate, from the first few months, what use theadministrators will be able to make of it, and the manner in whichthey will endow the service to which it binds them. --No portion of thisconfiscated property is reserved for the maintenance of public worship, or to keep up the hospitals, asylums, and schools. Not only do allobligations and all productive real property find their way into thegreat national crucible to be converted into assignats[2261], but anumber of special buildings, all monastic real estate and a portionof the ecclesiastical real estate, diverted from its natural course, becomes swallowed up in the same gulf. At Besançon, [2262] three churchesout of eight, with their land and treasure, the funds of the chapter, all the money of the monastic churches, the sacred vessels, shrines, crosses, reliquaries, votive offerings, ivories, statues, pictures, tapestry, sacerdotal dresses and ornaments, plate, jewels and preciousfurniture, libraries, railings, bells, masterpieces of art and of piety, all are broken up and melted in the Mint, or sold by auction for almostnothing. This is the way in which the intentions of the founders anddonors are carried out. --How are so many communities, which are deprivedof their rentals, to support their schools, hospices, and asylums? Evenafter the decree[2263] which, exceptionally and provisionally, ordersthe whole of their revenue to be accounted for to them, will it be paidover now that it is collected by a local administration whose coffersare always empty, and whose intentions are almost always hostile? Everyestablishment for benevolent and educational purposes is evidentlysinking, now that the special streams which nourished them run into andare lost in the dry bed of the public treasury. [2264] Already, in 1790, there are no funds with which to pay the monks and nuns their smallpensions for their maintenance. In Franche-Comté the Capuchins of Baumehave no bread, and, to live, they are obliged to re-sell, with theconsent of the district, a portion of the stores of their monasterywhich had been confiscated. The Ursuline nuns of Ornans live on themeans furnished them by private individuals in order to keep up the onlyschool which the town possesses. The Bernardine nuns of Pontarlier arereduced to the lowest stage of want: "We are satisfied, " the districtreports, "that they have nothing to put into their mouths. We haveto contribute something every day amongst ourselves to keep themfrom starving. "[2265] Only too thankful are they when the localadministration gives them something to eat, or allows others to givethem something. In many places it strives to famish them, or takesdelight in annoying them. In March, 1791, the department of Doubs, inspite of the entreaties of the district, reduces the pension of theVisitant nuns to one hundred and one livres for the choristers, andfifty for the lay-sisters. Two months before this, the municipality ofBesançon, putting its own interpretation on the decree which allowednuns to dress as they pleased, enjoins them all, including even thesisters of charity, to abandon their old costume, which few among themhad the means of replacing. --Helplessness, indifference, or malevolence, such are the various dispositions which are encountered among the newauthorities whose duty it is to support and protect them. To let loosepersecution there is now only needed a decree which puts the civil powerin conflict with religious convictions. That decree is promulgated, and, on the 12th of July, 1790, the Assembly establishes the civilconstitution of the clergy. 

Notwithstanding the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, andthe dispersion of the monastic communities, the main body of theecclesiastical corps remains intact: seventy thousand priestsranged under the bishops, with the Pope in the center as thecommander-in-chief. There is no corporation more solid, moreincompatible, or more attacked. For, against it are opposed implacablehatreds and fixed opinions: the Gallicanism of the jurists who, fromSt. Louis downwards, are the adversaries of ecclesiastical power; thedoctrine of the Jansenists who, since Louis XIII. , desire to bring backthe Church to its primitive form; and the theory of the philosopherswho, for sixty years, have considered Christianity as a mistake andCatholicism as a scourge. At the very least the institution of a clergyin Catholicism is condemned, and they think that they are moderate ifthey respect the rest. 

"WE MIGHT CHANGE THE RELIGION, "

say the deputies in the tribune. [2266] Now, the decree affectsneither dogma nor worship; it is confined to a revision of matters ofdiscipline, and on this particular domain which is claimed for thecivil power, it is pretended that demolition and re-construction maybe effected at discretion without the concurrence of the ecclesiasticalpower. 

Here there is an abuse of power, for an ecclesiastical as well as civilsociety has the right to choose its own form, its own hierarchy, its owngovernment. --On this point, every argument that can be advanced in favorof the former can be repeated in favor of the latter, and the moment onebecomes legitimate the other becomes legitimate also. The justificationfor a civil or of a religious community or society may be theperformance of a long series of services which, for centuries, it hasrendered to its members, the zeal and success with which it dischargesits functions, the feelings of gratitude they entertain for it, theimportance they attribute to its offices, the need they have of it, andtheir attachment to it, the conviction imprinted in their minds thatwithout it they would be deprived of a benefit upon which they set morestore than upon any other. This benefit, in a civil society, is thesecurity of persons and property. In the religious society it isthe eternal salvation of the soul. Iii In all other particulars theresemblance is complete, and the titles of the Church are as good asthose of the State. Hence, if it be just for one to be sovereign andfree on its own domain, it is just for the other to be equally sovereignand free, If the Church encroaches when it assumes to regulate theconstitution of the State, then the State also encroaches when itpretends to regulate the constitution of the Church. If the formerclaims the respect of the latter on its domain, the latter must showequal respect for the former on its ground. The boundary-line betweenthe two territories is, undoubtedly, not clearly defined and frequentcontests arise between the two. Sometimes these may be forestalled orterminated by each shutting itself up within a wall of separation, andby their remaining as much as possible indifferent to each other, asis the case in America. At another, they may, by a carefully consideredcontract, [2267] each accord to the other specific rights on theintermediate zone, and both exercise their divided authority on thatzone, which is the case in France. In both cases, however, the twopowers, like the two societies, must remain distinct. It is necessaryfor each of them that the other should be an equal, and not asubordinate to which it prescribes conditions. Whatever the civil systemmay be, whether monarchical or republican, oligarchic or democratic, theChurch abuses its credit when it condemns or attacks it. Whatever may bethe ecclesiastical system, whether papal, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, orcongregational, the State abuses its strength when, without the assentof the faithful, it abolishes their systems or imposes a new one uponthem. Not only does it violate right, but its violence, most frequently, is fruitless. It may strike as it will, the root of the tree is beyondits reach, and, in the unjust war which it wages against an institutionas vital as itself, it often ends in getting the worst of it. 

Unfortunately, the Assembly, in this as in other matters, beingpreoccupied with principles, fails to look at practical facts; and, aiming to remove only the dead bark, it injures the living trunk. --Formany centuries, and especially since the Council of Trent, the vigorouselement of Catholicism is much less religion itself than the Church. Theology has retired into the background, while discipline has cometo the front. Believers who, according to Church law, are required toregard spiritual authority as dogma, in fact attach their faith to thespiritual authority much more than to the dogma. --

Catholic Faith insists, in relation to discipline as well as to dogma, that if one rejects the decision of the Roman Church one ceases to be aCatholic; that the constitution of the Church is monarchical, that theordaining of priests and bishops is made from above so that withoutcommunion with the Pope, its supreme head, one is schismatic and that noschismatic priest legitimately can perform a holy service, and that notrue faithful may attend his service or receive his blessings withoutcommitting a sin. --It is a fact that the faithful, apart from a fewJansenists, are neither theologians nor canonists; that they readneither prayers nor scriptures, and if they accept the creed, it is ina lump, without investigation, confiding in the hand which presents it;that their obedient conscience is in the keeping of this pastoral guide;that the Church of the third century is of little consequence to them;and that, as far as the true form of the actual Church goes, the doctorwhose advice they follow is not St. Cyprian, of whom they know nothing, but their visible bishop and their living curé. Put these two premisestogether and the conclusion is self-evident: it is clear that they willnot believe that they are baptized, absolved, or married except by thiscuré authorized by this bishop. Let others be put in their placeswhom they condemn, and you suppress worship, sacraments, and the mostprecious functions of spiritual life to twenty-four millions of Frenchpeople, to all the peasantry, all the children, and to almost all thewomen; you stir up in rebellion against you the two greatest forceswhich move the mind, conscience and habit. --And observe the result ofthis. You not only convert the State into a policeman in the serviceof heresy, but also, through this fruitless and tyrannous attempt ofGallican Jansenism, you bring into permanent discredit Gallican maximsand Jansenist doctrines. You cut away the last two roots by which aliberal sentiment still vegetated in orthodox Catholicism. You throw theclergy back on Rome; you attach them to the Pope from whom you wish toseparate them, and deprive them of the national character which youwish to impose on them. They were French, and you render themUltramontane. [2268] They excited ill-will and envy, and you render themsympathetic and popular. They were a divided body, and you give themunanimity. They were a straggling militia, scattered about under severalindependent authorities, and rooted to the soil through the possessionof the ground; thanks to you, they are to become a regular, manageablearmy, emancipated from every local attachment, organized under one head, and always prepared to take the field at the word of command. Comparethe authority of a bishop in his diocese in 1789 with that of a bishopsixty years later. In 1789, the Archbishop of Besançon, out of fifteenhundred offices and benefices, had the patronage of one hundred, Inninety-three incumbencies the selections were made by the metropolitanchapter; in eighteen it was made by the chapter of the Madeleine;in seventy parishes by the noble founder or benefactor. One abbé hadthirteen incumbencies at his disposal, another thirty-four, anotherthirty-five, a prior nine, an abbess twenty; five communes directlynominated their own pastor, while abbeys, priories and canonries were inthe hands of the King. [2269] At the present day (1880) in a diocese thebishop appoints all the curés or officiating priests, and may deprivenine out of ten of them; in the diocese above named, from 1850 to1860, scarcely one lay functionary was nominated without the consent orintervention of the cardinal-archbishop. [2270] To comprehend the spirit, discipline, and influence of our contemporary clergy, go back to thesource of it, and you will find it in the decree of the ConstituentAssembly. A natural organization cannot be broken up with impunity; itforms anew, adapting itself to circumstances, and closes up its ranks inproportion to its danger. 

But even if, according to the maxims of the Assembly, faith and worshipare free, as far as the sovereign State is concerned, the churches aresubjects. --For these are societies, administrations, and hierarchies, and no society, administration, or hierarchy may exist in the Statewithout entering into its--departments under the title of subordinate, delegate, or employee. A priest is now essentially a salaried officerlike the rest, a functionary[2271] presiding over matters pertaining toworship and morality. If the State is disposed to change the number, themode of nomination, the duties and the posts of its engineers, it is notbound to assemble its engineers and ask their permission, least of allthat of a foreign engineer established at Rome. If it wishes to changethe condition of "its ecclesiastical officers, " its right to do sois the same, and therefore unquestioned. There is no need of askinganybody's consent in the exercise of this right, and it allows nointerference between it and its clerks. The Assembly refuses to call aGallican council; it refuses to negotiate with the Pope, and, on itsown authority alone, it recasts the whole Constitution of the Church. Henceforth this branch of the public administration is to be organizedon the model of the others. --In the first place[2272] the diocese is tobe in extent and limits the same as the French department; consequently, all ecclesiastical districts are marked out anew, and forty-eightepiscopal sees disappear. --In the second place, the appointed bishop isforbidden "to refer to the Pope to obtain any confirmation whatever. "All he can do is to write to him "in testimony of the unity of faith andof the communion which he is to maintain with him. " The bishop is thusno longer installed by his canonical chief, and the Church of Francebecomes schismatic. --In the third place, the metropolitan or bishop isforbidden to exact from the new bishops or curés "any oath other thanthat they profess the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion. " Assistedby his council he may examine them on their doctrine and morals, andrefuse them canonical installation, but in this case his reasons mustbe given in writing, and he signed by himself and his council. Hisauthority, in other respects, does not extend beyond this for it is thecivil tribunal which decides between contending parties. Thus is thecatholic hierarchy broken up; the ecclesiastical superior has his handstied; if he still delegates sacerdotal functions it is only as a matterof form. Between the curé and the bishop subordination ceases to existjust as it has ceased to exist between the bishop and the Pope, andthe Church of France becomes Presbyterian. --The people now, in effect, choose their own ministers, as they do in the Presbyterian church; thebishop is appointed by the electors of the department, the cure by thedistrict electors, and, what is an extraordinary aggravation, these neednot be of his communion. It is of no consequence whether the electoralAssembly contains, as at Nîmes, Montauban, Strasbourg, and Metz, anotable proportion of Calvinists, Lutherans, and Jews, or whether itsmajority, furnished by the club, is notoriously hostile to Catholicism, and even to Christianity itself. The bishop and the curé must be chosenby the electoral body; the Holy Ghost dwells with it, and with thecivil tribunals, and these may install its elect in spite of anyresistance. --To complete the dependence of the clergy, every bishop isforbidden to absent himself more than fifteen days without permissionfrom the department; every curé the same length of time without thepermission of the district, even to attend upon a dying father or toundergo the operation of lithotomy. In default of this permission hissalary is suspended: as a functionary under salary, he owes all his timeto his bureau, and if he desires a leave of absence he must ask forit from his chiefs in the Hôtel-de-Ville. [2273]--He must assent to allthese innovations, not only with passive obedience, but by a solemnoath. All old or new ecclesiastics, archbishops, bishops, curés, vicars, preachers, hospital and prison chaplains, superiors and directors ofseminaries, professors of seminaries and colleges, are to state inwriting that they are ready to take this oath: moreover, they must takeit publicly, in church, "in the presence of the general council, thecommune, and the faithful, " and promise "to maintain with all theirpower" a schismatic and Presbyterian Church. --For there can be no doubtabout the sense and bearing of the prescribed oath. It was all verywell to incorporate it with a broader one, that of maintaining theConstitution. But the Constitution of the clergy is too clearlycomprised in the general Constitution, like a chapter in a book, and tosign the book is to sign the chapter. Besides, in the formula to whichthe ecclesiastics in the Assembly are obliged to swear in the tribune, the chapter is precisely indicated, and no exception or reservation isallowed. [2274] The Bishop of Clermont, with all those who have acceptedthe Constitution in full, save the decrees affecting spiritual matters, are silenced. Where the spiritual begins and where it ends the Assemblyknows better than they, for it has defined this, and it imposes itsdefinition on canonist and theologian; it is, in its turn, the Pope, andall consciences must bow to its decision. Let them take the "oath, pureand simple, " or if they do not they are 'refractory. " The fiat goesforth, and the effect of it is immense, for, along with the clergy, thelaw reaches to laymen. On the one hand, all the ecclesiastics who refusethe oath are dismissed. If they continue "to interfere with publicfunctions which they have personally or corporately exercised" they"shall be prosecuted as disturbers of the peace, and condemned asrebels against the law, " deprived of all rights as active citizens, and declared incompetent to hold any public office. This is the penaltyalready inflicted on the nonjuring bishop who persists in consideringhimself a bishop, who ordains priests and who issues a pastoral letter. Such is soon to be the penalty inflicted on the nonjuring curé whopresumes to hear confession or officiate at a mass. [2275] On the otherhand, all citizens who refuse to take the prescribed oath, all electors, municipal officers, judges and administrative agents, shall losetheir right of suffrage, have their functions revoked, and be declaredincompetent for all public duties. [2276] The result is that scrupulousCatholics are excluded from every administrative post, from allelections, and especially from ecclesiastical elections; from whichit follows that, the stronger one's faith the less one's share in thechoice of a priest. [2277]--What an admirable law, that which, under thepretext of doing away with ecclesiastical abuses, places the faithful, lay or clerical, outside the pale of the law!

This soon becomes apparent. One hundred and thirty four archbishops, bishops, and coadjutors refuse to take the oath; there are only fourof them who do so, three of whom, MM. De Talleyrand, de Jarente, andde Brienne, are unbelievers and notorious for their licentiousness; theothers are influenced by their consciences, above all, by their espritde corps and a point of honor. Most of the curés rally around this staffof officers. In the diocese of Besançon, [2278] out of fourteen hundredpriests, three hundred take the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eightyretract. In the department of Doubs, only four consent to swear. In thedepartment of Lozère, there are only "ten out of two hundred and fifty. "It is stated positively, " writes the best informed of all observers thateverywhere in France two-thirds of the ecclesiastics have refused theoath, or have only taken it with the same reservations as the Bishop ofClermont. "

Thus, out of seventy thousand priests, forty-six thousand are turnedout of office, and the majority of their parishioners are on their side. This is apparent in the absence of electors convoked to replace them:at Bordeaux only four hundred and fifty came to the poll out of ninehundred, while elsewhere the summons brings together only "a third ora quarter" In many places there are no candidates, or those electeddecline to accept. They are obliged, in order to supply their places, to hunt up unfrocked monks of a questionable character. There are twoparties, after this, in each parish; two faiths, two systems ofworship, and permanent discord. Even when the new and the old curés areaccommodating, their situations bring them into conflict. To the formerthe latter are "intruders. " To the latter the former are "refractories. "By virtue of his being a guardian of souls, the former cannot dispensewith telling his parishioners that the intruder is excommunicated, thathis sacraments are null or sacrilegious, and that it is a sin to attendhis mass. By virtue of his being a public functionary, the latter doesnot fail to write to the authorities that the "refractory" entraps thefaithful, excites their consciences, saps the Constitution, and thathe ought to be put down by force. In other words, the former drawseverybody away from the latter, while the latter sends the gendarmesagainst the former, and persecution begins. --In a strange reversal, it is the majority which undergoes persecution, and the minority whichcarries it out. The mass of the constitutional curé is, everywhere, deserted. [2279] In La Vendée there are ten or twelve present in thechurch out of five or six hundred parishioners; on Sundays and holidayswhole villages and market-towns travel from one to two leagues off toattend the orthodox mass, the villagers declaring that "if the old curécan only be restored to them, they will gladly pay a double tax. " InAlsace, "nine tenths, at least, of the Catholics refuse to recognizethe legally sworn priests. " The same spectacle presents itself inFranche-Comté, Artois, and in ten of the other provinces. --Finally, asin a chemical composition, the analysis is complete. Those who believe, or who recover their belief, are ranged around the old curé; all who, through conviction or tradition, hold to the sacraments, all who, through faith or habit, wish or feel a need to attend the mass. Theauditors of the new curé consist of unbelievers, deists, the indifferentmembers of the clubs and of the administration, who resort to the churchas to the Hôtel-de-ville or to a popular meeting, not through religiousbut through political zeal, and who support the "intruder" in order tosustain the Constitution. All this does not secure to him very ferventfollowers, but it provides him with very zealous defenders; and, indefault of the faith which they do not possess, they give the forcewhich is at their disposal. All means are proper against an intractablebishop or curé; not only the law which they aggravate through theirforced interpretation of it and through their arbitrary verdicts, butalso the riots which they stir up by their instigation and which theysanction by their toleration. [2280] He is driven out of his parish, consigned to the county town, and kept in a safe place. The Directory ofAisne denounces him as a disturber of the public peace, and forbidshim, under severe penalties, from administering the sacraments. Themunicipality of Cahors shuts up particular churches and orders thenonjuring ecclesiastics to leave the town in twenty-four hours. Theelectoral corps of Lot denounces them publicly as "ferocious brutes, "incendiaries, and provokers of civil war. The Directory of the Bas-Rhinbanishes them to Strasbourg or to fifteen leagues from the frontier. At Saint-Leon the bishop is forced to fly. At Auch the archbishop isimprisoned; at Lyons M. De Boisboissel, grand vicar, is confined inPierre-Encize, for having preserved an archiepiscopal mandate in hishouse; brutality is everywhere the minister of intolerance. A certaincure of Aisne who, in 1789, had fed two thousand poor, having presumedto read from his pulpit a pastoral charge concerning the observance ofLent, the mayor seizes him by the collar and prevents him from going tothe altar; "two of the National Yeomanry" draw their sabers on him, andforthwith lead him away bareheaded, not allowing him to return to hishouse, and drive him to a distance of two leagues by beat of drum andunder escort. At Paris, in the church of Saint-Eustache, the curé isgreeted with outcries, a pistol is pointed at his head, he is seized bythe hair, struck with fists, and only reaches the sacristy throughthe intervention of the National Guard. In the church of the Théatins, rented by the orthodox with all legal formality, a furious banddisperses the priests and their assistants, upsets the altar andprofanes the sacred vessels. A placard, posted up by the department, calls upon the people to respect the law, "I saw it, " says aneye-witness, "torn down amidst imprecations against the department, thepriests, and the devout. One of the chief haranguers, standing on thesteps terminated his speech by stating that schism ought to be stoppedat any cost, that no worship but his should be allowed, that womenshould be whipped and priests knocked on the head. " And, in fact, "ayoung lady accompanied by her mother is whipped on the steps ofthe church. " Elsewhere nuns are the sufferers, even the sisters ofSaint-Vincent de Paul; and, from April, 1793, onward; the same outrageson modesty and against life are propagated from town to town. At Dijon, rods are nailed fast to the gates of all the convents; at Montpellier, two or three hundred ruffians, armed with large iron--bound sticks, murder the men and outrage the women. --Nothing remains but to putthe gangsters under the shelter of an amnesty, which is done by theConstituent Assembly, and to legally sanction the animosity of localadministrations, which is done by the Legislative Assembly. [2281]Henceforth the nonjuring ecclesiastics are deprived of their sustenance;they are declared "suspected of revolt against the law and of evilintentions against the country. "--Thus, says a contemporary Protestant, "on the strength of these suspicions and these intentions, a Directory, to which the law interdicts judicial functions, may arbitrarily driveout of his house the minister of a God of peace and charity, grown grayin the shadow of the altar" Thus, "everywhere, where disturbances occuron account of religious opinions, and whether these troubles are dueto the frantic scourgers of the virtuous sisters of charity or to theruffians armed with cow-hides who, at Nîmes and Montpellier, outrage allthe laws of decorum and of liberty for six whole months, the non-juringpriests are to be punished with banishment. Torn from their familieswhose means of living they share, they are sent away to wander on thehighways, abandoned to public pity or ferocity the moment any scoundrelchooses to excite a disturbance that he can impute to them. "--Thus wesee approaching the revolt of the peasantry, the insurrections of Nîmes, Franche-Comté, la Vendée and Brittany, emigration, transportation;imprisonment, the guillotine or drowning for two thirds of the clergy ofFrance, and likewise for myriads of the loyal, for husbandmen, artisans, day-laborers, seamstresses, and servants, and the humblest among thelower class of the people. This is what the laws of the ConstituentAssembly are leading to. --In the institution of the clergy, as in thatof the nobles and the King, it demolished a solid wall in order todig through it an open door, and it is nothing strange if the wholestructure tumbles down on the heads of its inmates. The true course wasto respect, to reform, to utilize rank and corporations: all that theAssembly thought of was the abolition of these in the name of abstractequality and of national sovereignty. In order to abolish these itexecuted, tolerated, or initiated all the attacks on persons and onproperty. Those it is about to commit are the inevitable result of thosewhich it has already committed; for, through its Constitution, bad ischanged to worse, and the social edifice, already half in ruins throughthe clumsy havoc that is effected in it, will fall in completely underthe weight of the incongruous or extravagant constructions which itproceeds to extemporize. 

*****

[Footnote 2201: Cf. "The Ancient Régime, " books I. And V. ]

[Footnote 2202: Perhaps we are here at the core of why all regimes endup becoming corrupt, inefficient and sick; their leaders take theirprivileges for granted and become more and more inattentive to the workwhich must be done if the people are to be kept at work and possibleadversaries kept under control. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2203: A special tax paid the king by a plebeian owning a fief. (TR)]

[Footnote 2204: The right to an income from trust funds. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2205: Arthur Young, I. 209, 223. "If the communes steadilyrefuse what is now offered to them, they put immense and certainbenefits to the chance of fortune, to that hazard which may makeposterity curse instead of bless their memories as real patriots who hadnothing in view but the happiness of their country. "]

[Footnote 2206: According to valuations by the Constituent Assembly, the tax on real estate ought to bring 240, 000, 000 francs, and provideone-fifth of the net revenue of France, estimated at 1, 200, 000, 000. Additionally, the personal tax on movable property, which replacedthe capitation, ought to bring 60, 000, 000. Total for direct taxation, 300, 000, 000, or one-fourth--that is to say, twenty-five per cent, of thenet revenue. --If the direct taxation had been maintained up to the rateof the ancient régime (190, 000, 000, according to Necker's report inMay, 1689), this impost would only have provided one-sixth of the netrevenue, or sixteen percent. ]

[Footnote 2207: Dumont, 267. (The words of Mirabeau three months beforehis death:) "Ah, my friend, how right we were at the start when wewanted to prevent the commons from declaring themselves the NationalAssembly! That was the source of the evil. They wanted to rule the King, instead of ruling through him. "]

[Footnote 2208: Gouverneur Morris, April 29, 1789 (on the principles ofthe future constitution), "One generation at least will be required torender the public familiar with them. "]

[Footnote 2209: Cf. "The Ancient Régime, " book II, ch. III. ]

[Footnote 2210: French women did not obtain the right to vote until1946. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2211: According to Voltaire ("L'Homme aux Quarante Écus"), theaverage duration of human life was only twenty-three years. ]

[Footnote 2212: Mercure, July 6, 1790. According to the report ofCamus (sitting of July 2nd), the official total of pensions amounted tothirty-two millions; but if we add the gratuities and allowances out ofthe various treasuries, the actual total was fifty-six millions. ]

[Footnote 2213: I note that today in 1998, 100 years after Taine'sdeath, Denmark, my country, has had total democracy, that is universalsuffrage for women and men of 18 years of age for a considerable time, and a witty author has noted that the first rule of our unwrittenconstitution is that "thou shalt not think that thou art important". Ihave noted, however, that when a Dane praises Denmark and the Danes evenin the most excessive manner, then he is not considered as a chauvinistbut admired as being a man of truth. In spite of the process of'democratization' even socialist chieftains seem to favor and protecttheir own children, send them to good private schools and later abroadto study and help them to find favorable employment in the party or withthe public services. A new élite is thus continuously created by theruling political and administrative upper class. (SR. ). ]

[Footnote 2214: "The Ancient Régime, " p. 388, and the following pages. --"Le Duc de Broglie, " by M. Goizot, p. 11. (Last words of Prince Victor deBroglie, and the opinions of M. D'Argenson. )]

[Footnote 2215: De Ferrières, I. P. 2. ]

[Footnote 2216: Moniteur, sitting of September 7, 1790, I. 431-437. Speeches, of MM. De Sillery, de Lanjuinais, Thouret, de Lameth, andRabaut-Saint-Etienne. Barnave wrote in 1791: "It was necessary to becontent with one single chamber; the instinct of equality required it. Asecond Chamber would have been the refuge of the aristocrats. "]

[Footnote 2217: Lenin should later create an elite, an aristocracywhich, under his leadership was to become the Communist party. Lenincould not have imagined or at least would not have been concerned thatthe leadership of this party would fall into the hands of tyrants later, under the pressure of age and corruption, to be replaced by the KGB andlater the FSB. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2218: "De Bouillé, " p. 50: "All the old noble families, savetwo or three hundred, were ruined. "]

[Footnote 2219: Cf. Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité. "]

[Footnote 2220: Moniteur, sitting of August 6, 1789. Speech of Duport:"Whatever is unjust cannot last. Similarly, no compensation for theseunjust rights can be maintained. " Sitting of February 27, 1790. M. Populus: "As slavery could not spring from a legitimate contract, because liberty cannot be alienated, you have abolished withoutindemnity hereditary property in persons. " Instructions and decree ofJune 15-19, 1791: "The National Assembly has recognized in the mostemphatic manner that a man never could become the proprietor of anotherman, and consequently, that the rights which one had assumed to haveover the person of the other, could not become the property of theformer. " Cf. The diverse reports of Merlin to the Committee of Feudalityand the National Assembly. ]

[Footnote 2221: Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets. " Laws of the4-11 August, 1789; March 15-28, 1790; May 3-9, 1790; June 15-19, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2222: Agrier percières--terms denoting taxes paid in the shapeof shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint, requintbelong to the taxes levied on real property. 22Tr. ]

[Footnote 2223: Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of thecopy-holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97-105. ]

[Footnote 2224: See further on, book III. Ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III. ]

[Footnote 2225: Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin:"The peasants have been made to believe that the annulation of thebanalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-press, and oven, which belonged to the noble) carried along with it the loss to thenoble of all these; the peasants regarding themselves as proprietors ofthem. "]

[Footnote 2226: Moniteur; sitting of June 9, 1790. Speech of M. Charlesde Lameth--Duvergier (laws of June 19-23 1790; September 27 and October16, 1791). ]

[Footnote 2227: Sauzay, V. 400--410. ]

[Footnote 2228: Duvergier, laws of June 15-19, 1791; of June 18--July 6, 1792; of August 25-28, 1792. ]

[Footnote 2229: "Institution du Droit Français, " par Argou, I. 103. (He wrote under the Regency. ) "The origin of most of the feoffs is soancient that, if the seigneurs were obliged to produce the titles of theoriginal concession to obtain their rents, there would scarcely be oneable to produce them. This deficiency is made up by common law. "]

[Footnote 2230: Duvergier (laws of April 8-15, 1791; March 7-11; October26, 1791; January 6-10, 1794). --Mirabeau had already proposed to reducethe disposable portion to one-tenth. ]

[Footnote 2231: See farther on, book III, ch. III. ]

[Footnote 2232: Mercure, September 10, 1791. Article by Mallet duPan. --Ibid. October 15, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2233: Should Hitler or Lenin have read and understood theconsequences of these events they would have deduced that given thecommand from official sources or recognized leaders ordinary people allover the world could easily be tempted to attack any group, being itJews, Protestants, Hindus or foreigners. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2234: "Archives Nationales, " II. 784. Letters of M. DeLangeron, October 16 and 18, 1789. --Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes, "letters addressed to the Chevalier de Poterats, July, 1790. --"ArchivesNationales, " papers of the Committee on Reports, bundle 4, letter of M. Le Belin-Chatellenot to the to the President of the National Assembly, July 1, 1791. --Mercure, October 15, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan:"Such is literally the language of these emigrants; I do not add aword. "--Ibid. May 15, 1790. Letter of the Baron de Bois d'Aizy, April29, 1790, demanding a decree of protection fur the nobles. "We shall know(then) whether we are outlawed or are of any account in the rights ofman written out with so much blood, or whether, finally, no other optionis left to us but that of carrying to distant skies the remains of ourproperty and our wretched existence. "]

[Footnote 2235: Mercure, October 15, 1791, and September 10, 1791. Readthe admirable letter of the Chevalier de Mesgrigny, appointed colonelduring the suspension of the King, and refusing his new rank. ]

[Footnote 2236: Cf. The "Mémoires" of M. De Boustaquet, a Normangentleman. ]

[Footnote 2237: Cf. "The Ancient Régime, " books I. And II. ]

[Footnote 2238: Boivin--Champeaux, "Notice Historique sur la Révolutiondans le Département de L'Eure, " the register of grievances. In 1788, atRouen, there was not a single profession made by men. In the monasteryof the Deux-Amants the chapter convoked in 1789 consisted of twomonks. --"Archives Nationales, " papers of the ecclesiastic committee, passim. ]

[Footnote 2239: "Apologie de l'État Religieux" (1775), with statistics. Since 1768 the decline is "frightful. " "It is easy to foresee thatin ten or twelve years most of the regular bodies will be absolutelyextinct, or reduced to a state of feebleness akin to death. "]

[Footnote 2240: Sanzay, I. 224 (November, 1790). At Besançon, out of 266monks, "79 only showed any loyalty to their engagements or any affectionfor their calling. " Others preferred to abandon it, especially all theDominicans but five, all but one of the bare footed Carmelites, and allthe Grand Carmelites. The same disposition is apparent throughout thedepartment, as, for instance, with the Benedictines of Cluny except one, all the Minimes but three, all the Capuchins but five, the Bernandins, Dominicans, and Augustins, all preferring to leave. --Montalembert, "LesMoines d'Occident, " introduction, pp. 105-164. Letter of a Benedictineof Saint-Germain-des-Prés to a Benedictine of Vannes. "Of all themembers of your congregation which come here to lodge, I have scarcelyfound one capable of edifying us. You may probably say the same of thosewho came to you from our place. "--Cf. In the "Mémoires" of Merlin deThionville the description of the Chartreuse of Val St. Pierre. ]

[Footnote 2241: Ch. Guerin, "Revue des Questions Historiques" (July 1, 1875; April 1, 1876). --Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise de France, "XII, 128. ("Minutes of the meeting of l'Assemblée du Clergé, " in1780. )--"Archives nationales, " official reports and memorandums of theStates-General in 1789. The most obnoxious proceeding to the chiefs ofthe order is the postponement of the age at which vows may be taken, it being, in their view, the ruin of their institutions. --"The AncientRégime, " p. 403. ]

[Footnote 2242: In order for a modern uninstructed non-believing readerto understand the motivation which moved thousands of self-less sistersand brothers to do their useful and kind work read St. Matthew chapter25, verses 31 to 46 where Jesus predicts how he will sit in judgment onmankind and separate the sheep from the goats. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2243: "The Ancient Régime, " P. 33--Cf. Guerin "The monasteryof the Trois-Rois, in the north of Franche-Comté, founded four villagescollected from foreign colonists. It is the only center of charity andcivilization in a radius of three leagues. It took care of two hundredof the sick in a recent epidemic; it lodges the troops which pass fromAlsace into Franche-Comté, and in the late hailstorm it supplied thewhole neighborhood with food. "]

[Footnote 2244: Moniteur, sitting of February 13, 1790. (Speech ofthe Abbé de Montesquiou). --Archives Nationales, " papers of theEcclesiastical Committee, DXIX. 6, Visitation de Limoges, DXIX. 25, Annonciades de Saint-Denis; ibid. Annonciades de Saint Amour, Ursulinesd'Auch, de Beaulieu, d'Eymoutier, de la Ciotat, de Pont Saint-Esprit, Hospitalières d'Ernée, de Laval; Sainte Claire de Laval, de Marseilles, etc. "]

[Footnote 2245: Sauzay, I. 247. Out of three hundred and seventy-sevennuns at Doubs, three hundred and fifty-eight preferred to remain as theywere, especially at Pontarlier, all the Bernardines, Annonciades, and Ursulines; at Besançon, all the Carmelites, the Visitandines, theAnnonciades, the Clarisses, the Sisters of Refuge, the Nuns of theSaint-Esprit and, save one, all the Benedictine Nuns. ]

[Footnote 2246: "Archives Nationales. " Papers of the EcclesiasticalCommittee, passim. --Suzay, I. 51. --Statistics of France for 1866. ]

[Footnote 2247: In 1993 this number has once more fallen, and continuesto fall, to 55 900. "Quid", 1996 page 623. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2248: Felix Rocquain, "La France aprés le 18 Brumaire. "(Reports of the Councillors of State dispatched on this service, passim). ]

[Footnote 2249: Moniteur, October 24, 1789. (Speech of Dupont deNemours. ) All these speeches, often more fully reported and with variousrenderings, may be found in "Les Archives Parlementaires, " 1st series, vols. VIII. And IX. ]

[Footnote 2250: Duvergier, decree of June 14-17, 1791. "The annihilationof every corporation of citizens of any one condition or professionbeing on of the foundation-stones of the French constitution, it isforbidden to re-establish these de-facto under any pretext orform whatever. Citizens of a like condition or profession, such ascontractors, shopkeepers, workmen of all classes, and associates inany art whatever shall not, on assembling together, appoint eitherpresident, or secretaries, or syndics, discuss or pass resolutions, orframe any regulations in relation to their assumed common interests. "]

[Footnote 2251: Moniteur, sitting of November 2nd, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2252: Moniteur, sitting of February 12, 1790. Speeches ofDally d'Agier and Barnave. ]

[Footnote 2253: Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Garat;February 12, 1790, speech by Pétion; October 30, 1789, speech byThouret. ]

[Footnote 2254: Moniteur, sitting of November 2, 1789. Speech byChapelier; October 24, 1789, speech by Garat; October 30, 1789, speechby Mirabeau, and the sitting of August 10, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2255: Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech byThouret. ]

[Footnote 2256: Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech byTreilhard; October 24th, speech by Garat; October 30, speech byMirabeau. --On the 8th of August, 1789, Al. De Lameth says in thetribune: "When an foundation was set up, it is to the nation, which thegrant was given. "]

[Footnote 2257: Duvergier, laws of August 18, 1792; August 8-14, 1793;July 11, 1794; July 14, 1792; August 24, 1793. ]

[Footnote 2258: Moniteur, sitting of July 31, 1792. Speech of M. Boistard; the property of the hospitals, at this time was estimated ateight hundred millions. --Already in 1791 (sitting of January 30th) M. De La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt said to the Assembly: "Nothing will morereadily restore confidence to the poor than to see the nation assumingthe right of rendering them assistance. " He proposes to decree;accordingly, that all hospitals and places of beneficence be placedunder the control of the nation. (Mercure, February 12, 1791. )]

[Footnote 2259: Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech bySieyès. --The figures given here are deduced from the statistics alreadygiven in the "Ancient Régime. "]

[Footnote 2260: Moniteur, v. 571. Sitting of September 4, 1790. Report ofthe Committee on Finances--V. 675, sitting of September 17, 1790. Reportby Necker. ]

[Footnote 2261: A Revolutionary Government promissory bank note. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2262: Sauzay, I. 228 (from October 10, 1790, to February 20, 1791). "The total weight of the spoil of the monastic establishments ingold, silver, and plated ware, sent to the Mint amounted to more than525 kilograms (for the department). "]

[Footnote 2263: Duvergier, law of October 8-14. ]

[Footnote 2264: Moniteur, sitting of June 3, 1792. Speech of M. Bernard, in the name of the committee of Public Assistance: "Not a day passesin which we do not receive the saddest news from the departments onthe penury of their hospitals. "--Mercure de France, December 17, 1791, sitting of December 5. A number of deputies of the Department of theNorth demand aid for their hospitals and municipalities. Out of 480, 000livres revenue there remains 10, 000 to them. "The property of theCommunes is mortgaged, and no longer affords them any resources. 280, 000persons are without bread. "]

[Footnote 2265: Sauzay, I. 252 (December 3, 1790. April 13, 1791). ]

[Footnote 2266: Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speeches by Camus, Treilhard, etc. ]

[Footnote 2267: But on the assumption that all religion has beeninvented by human beings for their own comfort or use, then what wouldbe more natural than clever rulers using their power to influence thereligious authorities to their own advantage. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2268: Ultramontane: Extreme in favoring the Pope's supremacy. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2269: Sauzay, I. 168. ]

[Footnote 2270: Personal knowledge, as I visited Besançon four timesbetween 1863 and 1867. ]

[Footnote 2271: Moniteur, sitting of May 30, 1790, and others following. (Report of Treilhard, speech by Robespierre. )]

[Footnote 2272: Duvergier, laws of July 12th-August 14th; November14-25, 1790; January 21-26, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2273: Moniteur, sitting of May 31, 1790. Robespierre, incovert terms, demands the marriage of priests. --Mirabeau prepared aspeech in the same sense, concluding that every priest and monk shouldbe able to contract marriage; on the priest or monk presenting himselfwith his bride before the curé, the latter should be obliged togive them the nuptial benediction etc. Mirabeau wrote, June 2, 1790:"Robespierre. . . Has juggled me out of my motion on the marriage ofpriests. "--In general the germ of all the laws of the Convention isfound in the Constituent Assembly. (Ph. Plan, "Un Collaborateur deMirabeau, " p. 56, 144. )]

[Footnote 2274: Duvergier, laws of November 27th--December 26, 1790;February 5th, March 22nd, and April 5, 1791. --Moniteur, sitting ofNovember 6, 1790, and those that follow, especially that of December27th. "I swear to maintain with all my power the French Constitutionand especially the decrees relating to the Civil Constitution of theclergy. "--Cf. Sitting of January 2, 1791, speech by the Bishop ofClermont. ]

[Footnote 2275: Duvergier, law of May 7, 1791, to maintain the rightof nonjuring priests to perform mass in national or private edifices. (Demanded by Talleyrand and Sieyès. )]

[Footnote 2276: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3235. Letter of M. DeChâteau-Randon, deputy of la Lozère, May 28, 1791. After the decreeof May 23rd, all the functionaries of the department handed in theirresignations. ]

[Footnote 2277: Duvergier, law of May 21-29, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2278: Sauzay, I. 366, 538 to 593, 750. --"Archives Nationales, "F7, 3235, Letter of M. De Chânteau-Randon, May 10, 1791. --Mercure, April 23rd, and April 16, 1701. Articles of Mallet du Pan, letter fromBordeaux, March 20, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2279: Buchez and Roux, XII, 77. Report of Gallois and Gensonnésent to La Vendée and the Deux Sévres (July 25, 1791). --" ArchivesNationales, " F7, 3253, letter of the Directory of the Bas-Rhin (letterof January 7, 1792). --" Le District de Machecoul de 1788 à 1793, " byLallier. --" Histoire de Joseph Lebon, " by Paris. --Sauzay, vol. I. AndII. In full. ]

[Footnote 2280: Mercure, January 15th, April 23rd, May 16th and 30th, June 1st, November 23rd, 1791. --"Le District de Machecoul, " by Lallier, 173. --Sauzay, I. 295. --Lavirotte, "Annales d'Arnay-le-Duc" (February 5, 1792). --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3223. Petition of a number of theinhabitants of Montpellier, November 17, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2281: Duvergier, decree of November 29, 1791. --Mercure, November 30, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan). ]

CHAPTER III. THE CONSTRUCTIONS--THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791. 

That which is called a Government is a concert of powers, each with adistinct function, and all working towards a final and complete end. Themerit of a Government consists in the attainment of this end; the worthof a machine depends upon the work it accomplishes. The important thingis not to produce a good mechanical design on paper, but to see that themachine works well when set up on the ground. In vain might its foundersallege the beauty of their plan and the logical connection of theirtheorems; they are not required to furnish either plan or theorems, butan instrument. 

Two conditions are requisite to render this instrument serviceable andeffective. In the first place, the public powers must harmonize witheach other, if not, one will neutralize the other; in the second placethey must be obeyed, or they are null. 

The Constituent Assembly made no provision for securing this harmonyor this obedience. In the machine which it constructed the motions allcounteract each other; the impulse is not transmitted; the gearing isnot complete between the center and the extremities; the large centraland upper wheels turn to no purpose; the innumerable small wheels nearthe ground break or get out of order: the machine, by virtue of its ownmechanism, remains useless, over-heated, under clouds of waste steam, creaking and thumping in such a matter as to show clearly that it mustexplode. 

I. --Powers of the Central Government. 

 The Assembly on the partition of power. --Rupture of every tie between the Legislature and the King. --The Assembly on the subordination of the executive power. --How this is nullified. --Certainty of a conflict. --The deposition of the King is inevitable. 

Let us first consider the two central powers, the Assembly andthe King. --Ordinarily when distinct powers of different origin areestablished by a Constitution, it makes, in the case of conflict betweenthem, a provision for an arbiter in the institution of an Upper Chamber. Each of these powers, at least, has a hold on the other. The Assemblymust have one on the King: which is the right to refuse taxation. TheKing must have one on the Assembly: which is the right of dissolving it. Otherwise, one of the two being disarmed, the other becomes omnipotent, and, consequently, insane. The peril here is as great for an omnipotentAssembly as it is for an absolute King. If the former is desirous ofremaining in its right mind, it needs repression and control as muchas the latter. If it is proper for the Assembly to restrain the Kingby refusing him subsidies, it is proper for him to be able to defendhimself by appealing to the electors. --But, besides these extrememeasures, which are dangerous and rarely resorted to, there is anotherwhich is ordinarily employed and is safe, that is, the right for theKing to take his ministers from the Chamber. Generally, the leadersof the majority form the ministry, their nomination being the means ofrestoring harmony between the King and Assembly; they are at once menbelonging to the Assembly and men belonging to the King. Through thisexpedient not only is the confidence of the Assembly assured, since theGovernment remains in the hands of its leaders, but also it is underrestraint because these become simultaneously both powerful andresponsible. Placed at the head of all branches of the service, theyare, before proposing it or accepting it, in a position to judge whethera law is useful and practicable. Nothing is so healthy for a majorityas a ministry composed of its own chiefs; nothing is so effective inrepressing rashness or intemperance. A railway conductor is not willingthat his locomotive should be deprived of coal, nor to have the rails heis about to run on broken up. --This arrangement, with all its drawbacksand inconveniences, is the best one yet arrived at by human experiencefor the security of societies against despotism and anarchy. For theabsolute power which establishes or saves them may also oppress orexhaust them, there is a gradual substitution of differentiated powers, held together through the mediation of a third umpire, caused byreciprocal dependence and an which is common to both. 

Experience, however, is unimportant to the members of the ConstituentAssembly; under the banner of principles they sunder one after anotherall the ties which keep the two powers together harmoniously. --Theremust not be an Upper Chamber, because this would be an asylum or anursery for aristocrats. Moreover, "the nation being of one mind, " itis averse to "the creation of different organs. " So, applying ready-madeformulas and metaphors, they continue to produce ideological definitionsand distinctions. 

The King must not have a hold on the legislative body: the executiveis an arm, whose business it is to obey; it is absurd for the arm toconstrain or direct the head. Scarcely is the monarch allowed a delayingveto. Sieyès here enters with his protest declaring that this is a"lettre de cachet[2301] launched against the universal will, " andthere is excluded from the action of the veto the articles of theConstitution, all money-bills, and some other laws. --Neither the monarchnor the electors of the Assembly are to convoke the Assembly; he has novoice in or oversight of the details of its formation; the electors areto meet together and vote without his summons or supervision. Once theAssembly is elected he can neither adjourn nor dissolve it. He cannoteven propose a law;[2302] per-mission is only granted to him "to inviteit to take a subject into consideration. " He is limited to his executiveduties; and still more, a sort of wall is built up between him and theAssembly, and the opening in it, by which each could take the other'shand, is carefully closed up. The deputies are forbidden to becomeministers throughout the term of their service and for two yearsafterwards. This is because fears are entertained that they mightbe corrupted through contact with the Court, and, again, whoeverthe ministers might be, there is no disposition to accept theirascendancy. [2303] If one of them is admitted into the Assembly it is notfor the purpose of giving advice, but to furnish information, reply tointerrogatories, and make protestations of his zeal in humble termsand in a dubious position. [2304] By virtue of being a royal agent heis under suspicion like the King himself, and he is sequestered in hisbureau as the King is sequestered in his palace. --Such is the spiritof the Constitution: by force of the theory, and the better to secure aseparation of the powers, [2305] a common understanding between themis for ever rendered impossible, and to make up for this impossibilitythere remains nothing but to make one the master and the other theclerk. 

This they did not fail to do, and for greater security, the latteris made an honorary clerk, The executive power is conferred on himnominally and in appearance; he does not possess it in fact, care havingbeen taken to place it in other hands. --In effect, all executive agentsand all secondary and local powers are elective. The King has no voice, directly or indirectly, in the choice of judges, public prosecutors, bishops, curés, collectors and assessors of the taxes, commissaries ofpolice, district and departmental administrators, mayors, and municipalofficers. At most, should an administrator violate a law, he may annulhis acts and suspend him; but the Assembly, the superior power, has theright to cancel this suspension. --As to the armed force, of which he issupposed to be the commander-in-chief, this escapes from him entirely:the National Guard is not to receive orders from him; the gendarmerieand the troops are bound to respond to the requisitions of the municipalauthorities, whom the King can neither select nor displace: in short, local action of any kind--that is to say, all effective action--isdenied to him. --The executive instrument is purposely destroyed. Theconnection which existed between the wheels of the extremities and thecentral shaft is broken, and henceforth, incapable of distributing itsenergy, this shaft, in the hands of the monarch, stands still orelse turns to no purpose. The King, "supreme head of the generaladministration, of the army, and of the navy, guardian of public peaceand order, hereditary representative of the nation, " is without themeans, in spite of his lofty titles, of directly applying his pretendedpowers, of causing a schedule of assessments to be drawn up in arefractory commune, of compelling payment by a delinquent tax-payer, ofenforcing the free circulation of a convoy of grain, of executingthe judgment of a court, of suppressing an outbreak, or of securingprotection to persons and property. For he can bring no constraint tobear on the agents who are declared to be subordinate to him; he hasno resources but those of warning and persuasion. He sends to eachDepartmental Assembly the decrees which he has sanctioned, requestingit to transmit them and cause them to be carried out; he receives itscorrespondence and bestows his censure or approval--and that is all. He is merely a powerless medium of communication, a herald or publicadvertiser, a sort of central echo, sonorous and empty, to which newsis brought, and from which laws depart, to spread abroad like a commonrumor. Such as he is, and thus diminished, he is still considered tobe too strong. He is deprived of the right of pardon, "which severs thelast artery of monarchical government. "[2306] All sorts of precautionsare taken against him. He cannot declare war without a decree of theAssembly; he is obliged to bring war to an end on the decree of theAssembly; he cannot make a treaty of peace, an alliance, or a commercialtreaty, without the ratification of these by the Assembly. It isexpressly declared that he is to nominate but two-thirds of therear-admirals, one-half of the lieutenant-generals, field-marshals, captains of Vessels and colonels of the gendarmerie, one-third of thecolonels and lieutenant-colonels of the line, and a sixth of the navallieutenants. He must not allow troops to stay or pass within 30, 000yards of the Assembly. His guard must not consist of more than 1, 800men, duly verified, and protected against his seductions by the civiloath. The heir-presumptive must not leave the country without theAssembly's assent. It is the Assembly which is to regulate by lawthe education of his son during minority. --All these precautions areaccompanied with threats. There are against him five possible causesof dethronement; against his responsible Ministers, eight causes forcondemnation to from twelve to twenty years of constraint, and eightgrounds for condemnations to death. [2307] Everywhere between the linesof the Constitution, we read the constant disposition to assume anattitude of defense, the secret dread of treachery, the conviction thatexecutive power, of whatever kind, is in its nature inimical to thepublic welfare. --For withholding the nomination of judges, the reasonalleged is that "the Court and the Ministers are the most contemptibleportion of the nation. "[2308] If the nomination of Ministers isconceded, it is on the ground that" Ministers appointed by the peoplewould necessarily be too highly esteemed. " The principle is that "thelegislative body alone must possess the confidence of the people, " thatroyal authority corrupts its depository, and that executive power isalways tempted to commit abuses and to engage in conspiracies. If itis provided for in the Constitution it is with regret, through thenecessity of the case, and on the condition of its being trammeled byimpediments; it will prove so much the less baneful in proportion as itis restrained, guarded, threatened, and denounced. --A position of thiskind is manifestly intolerable; and only a man as passive as Louis XVI. Could have put up with it. Do what he will, however, he cannot make ita tenable one. In vain does he scrupulously adhere to the Constitution, and fulfill it to the letter. Because he is powerless the Assemblyregards him as lukewarm, and imputes to him the friction of the machinewhich is not under his control. If he presumes once to exercise his vetoit is rebellion, and the rebellion of an official against his superior, which is the Assembly; the rebellion of a subject against his Sovereign, which is the people. In this case dethronement is proper, and theAssembly has only to pass the decree; the people have simply toexecute the act, and the Constitution ends in a Revolution. --A pieceof machinery of this stamp breaks down through its own movement. Inconformity with the philosophic theory the two wheels of government mustbe separated, and to do this they have to be disconnected andisolated one from the other. In conformity with the popular creed, thedriving-wheel must be subordinated and its influence neutralized: todo this it is necessary to reduce its energy to a minimum, break up itsconnections, and raise it up in the air to turn round like a top, or toremain there as an obstacle to something else. It is certain that, after much ill-usage as a plaything, it will finally be removed as ahindrance. 

II. --The Creation Of Popular Democracy. 

 Administrative powers. --The Assembly on the hierarchy. --Grades abolished. --Collective powers. --Election introduced, and the influence of subordinates in all branches of the service. --Certainty of disorganization. --Power in the hands of municipal bodies. 

Let us leave the center of government and go to the extremities, andobserve the various administrations in working operation. [2309]

For any service to work well and with precision, there must be asingle and unique chief who can appoint, pay, punish and dismiss hissubordinates. --For, on the one hand, he stands alone and feels hisresponsibility; he brings to bear on the management of affairs a degreeof attention and consistency, a tact and a power of initiation of whicha committee is incapable; corporate follies or defects do not involveany one in particular, and authority is effective only when it is in onehand. --On the other hand, being master, he can rely on the subalternswhom he has himself selected, whom he controls through their hopesor fears, and whom he discharges if they do not perform their duties;otherwise he has no hold on them and they are not instruments to bedepended on. Only on these conditions can a railway manager be sure thathis pointsmen are on the job. Only on these conditions can the foremanof a foundry engage to execute work by a given day. In every public orprivate enterprise, direct, immediate authority is the only known, theonly human and possible way to ensure the obedience and punctuality ofagents. --Administration is thus carried on in all countries, by one orseveral series of functionaries, each under some central manager whoholds the reins in his single grasp. [2310]

This is all reversed in the new Constitution. In the eyes of ourlegislators obedience must be spontaneous and never compulsory, and, inthe suppression of despotism, they suppress government. The general rulein the hierarchy which they establish is that the subordinates should beindependent of their superior, for he must neither appoint nor displacethem: the only right he has is to give them advice and remonstratewith them. [2311] At best, in certain cases, he can annul their acts andinflict on them a provisional suspension of their functions, which canbe contested and is revocable. [2312] We see, thus, that none of thelocal powers are delegated by the central power; the latter is simplylike a man without either hands or arms, seated in a gilt chair. TheMinister of the Finances cannot appoint or dismiss either an assessor ora collector; the Minister of the Interior, not one of the departmental, district, or communal administrators; the Minister of Justice, not onejudge or public prosecutor. The King, in these three branches of theservice, has but one officer of his own, the commissioner whose dutyit is to advocate the observance of the laws in the courts, and, onsentence being given, to enforce its execution. --All the muscles ofthe central power are paralyzed by this stroke, and henceforth eachdepartment is a State apart, living by itself. 

An similar amputation, however, in the department itself, has cutaway all the ties by which the superior could control and direct hissubordinate. --If the administrators of the department are suffered toinfluence those of the district, and those of the district those of themunicipality, it is only, again, in the way of council and solicitation. Nowhere is the superior a commander who orders and constrains, buteverywhere a censor who gives warnings and scolds. To render thisalready feeble authority still more feeble at each step of thehierarchy, it is divided among several bodies. These consist ofsuperposed councils, which administer the department, the district, and the commune. There is no directing head in any of these councils. Permanency and executive functions throughout are vested in thedirectories of four or eight members, or in bureaus of two, three, four, six, and even seven members whose elected chief, a presidentor mayor, [2313] has simply an honorary primacy. Decision and action, everywhere blunted, delayed, or curtailed by talk and the processesof discussion, are brought forth only after the difficult, tumultuousassent of several discordant wills. [2314] Elective and collective asthese powers are, measures are still taken to guard against them. Notonly are they subject to the control of an elected council, one-halfrenewable every two years, but, again, the mayor and public prosecutorof the commune after serving four years, and the procureur-syndic ofthe department or district after eight years service, and the districtcollector after six years' service, are not re-elected. Should theseofficials have deserved and won the confidence of the electors, should familiarity with affairs have made them specially competent andvaluable, so much the worse for affairs and the public; they are notto be anchored to their post. [2315] Should their continuance in officeintroduce into the service a spirit of order and economy, that is of noconsequence; there is danger of their acquiring to much influence, andthe law sends them off as soon as they become expert and entitled torule. --Never has jealousy and suspicion been more on the alert againstpower, even legal and legitimate. Sapping and mining goes on evenin services which are recognized as essential, as the army and thegendarmerie. [2316] In the army, on the appointment of a non-commissionedofficer, the other non-commissioned officers make up a list ofcandidates, and the captain selects three, one of whom is chosen bythe colonel. In the choice of a sub-lieutenant, all the officers ofthe regiment vote, and he who receives a majority is appointed. In thegendarmerie, for the appointment of a gendarme, the directory of thedepartment forms a list; the colonel designates five names on it, and the directory selects one of them. For the choice of a corporal, quartermaster or lieutenant, there is, besides the directory and thecolonel, another intervention, that of the officers, both commissionedand non-commissioned. It is a system of elective complications andlot-drawings; one which, giving a voice in the choice of officers to thecivil authorities and to military subordinates, leaves the colonel withonly a third or one-quarter of his former ascendancy. In relation to theNational Guard, the new principle is applied without any reservation. All the officers and non-commissioned officers up to the grade ofcaptain are elected by their own men. All the superior officers areelected by the inferior officers. All under-officers and all inferiorand superior officers are elected for one year only, and are noteligible for re-election until after an interval of a year, during whichthey must serve in the ranks. [2317]--The result is manifest: command, inevery civil and in every military order, becomes upset; subalterns areno longer precise and trustworthy instruments; the chief no longer hasany practical hold on them; his orders, consequently, encounter onlytame obedience, doubtful deference, sometimes even open resistance;their execution remains dilatory, uncertain, incomplete, and atlength is utterly neglected; a latent and soon flagrant system ofdisorganization is instituted by the law. Step by step, in the hierarchyof Government, power has slipped downwards, and henceforth belongs byvirtue of the Constitution to the authorities who sit at the bottom ofthe ladder. It is not the King, or the minister, or the directory of thedepartment or of the district who rules, but its municipal officers;and their sway is as omnipotent as it can be in a small independentrepublic. They alone have the "strong hand" with which to search thepockets of refractory tax-payers, and ensure the collection of therevenue; to seize the rioter by the throat, and protect life andproperty; in short, to convert the promises and menaces of the lawinto acts. Every armed force, the National Guard, the regulars, and thegendarmerie, must march on their requisition. They alone, among the bodyof administrators, are endowed with this sovereign right; all that thedepartment or the district can do is to invite them to exercise it. Itis they who proclaim martial law. Accordingly, the sword is in theirhands. [2318] Assisted by commissioners who are appointed by thecouncil-general of the commune, they prepare the schedule of taxationof real and personal property, fix the quota of each tax-payer, adjustassessments, verify the registers and the collector's receipts, audithis accounts, discharge the insolvent, answer for returns and authorizeprosecutions. [2319] Private purses are, in this way, at their mercy, and they take from them whatever they determine to belong to thepublic. --With the purse and the sword in their hands they lack nothingthat is necessary to make them masters, and all the more because theapplication of every law belongs to them; because no orders of theAssembly to the King, of the King to the ministers, of ministers to thedepartments, of departments to the districts, of the districts tothe communes, brings about any real local result except through them;because each measure of general application undergoes their specialinterpretation, and can always be optionally disfigured, softened, or exaggerated according to their timidity, inertia, violence orpartiality. Moreover, they are not long in discovering their strength. We see them on all sides arguing with their superiors against district, departmental, and ministerial orders, and even against the Assemblyitself; alleging circumstances; lack of means, their own danger and thepublic safety, failing to obey, acting for themselves, openly disobeyingand glorying in the act, [2320] and claiming, as a right, the omnipotencewhich they exercise in point of fact. Those of Troyes, at the festivalof the Federation, refuse to submit to the precedence of the departmentand claim it for themselves, as "immediate representatives of thepeople. " Those of Brest, notwithstanding the reiterated prohibitions oftheir district, dispatch four hundred men and two cannon to force thesubmission of a neighboring commune to a cure' who has taken the oath. Those of Arnay-le-Duc arrest Mesdames (the King's aunts), in spiteof their passport signed by the ministers, hold them in spite ofdepartmental and district orders, persist in barring the way to themin spite of a special decree of the National Assembly, and send twodeputies to Paris to obtain the sanction of their decision. What witharsenals pillaged, citadels invaded, convoys arrested, couriersstopped, letters intercepted, constant and increasing insubordination, usurpations without truce or measure, the municipalities arrogateto themselves every species of license on their own territory andfrequently outside of it. Henceforth, forty thousand sovereign bodiesexist in the kingdom. Force is placed in their hands, and they make gooduse of it. They make such good use of it that one of them, the communeof Paris, taking advantage of its proximity, lays siege to, mutilates, and rules the National Convention, and through it France. 

III. --Municipal Kingdoms. 

 The Municipal bodies. --Their great task. --Their incapacity. --Their feeble authority. --Insufficiency of their means of action. --The role of the National Guard. --

Let us follow these municipal kings into their own domain: the burdenon their shoulders is immense, and much beyond what human strength cansupport. All the details of executive duty are confided to them; theyhave not to busy themselves with a petty routine, but with a completesocial system which is being taken to pieces, while another isreconstructed in its place. --They are in possession of four milliards ofecclesiastical property, real and personal, and soon there will be twoand a half milliards of property belonging to the emigrants, which mustbe sequestered, valued, managed, inventoried, divided, sold, and theproceeds received. They have seven or eight thousand monks and thirtythousand nuns to displace, install, sanction, and provide for. They haveforty-six thousand ecclesiastics, bishops, canons, curés, and vicars, to dispossess, replace, often by force, and later on to expel, intern, imprison, and support. They are obliged to discuss, trace out, teachand make public new territorial boundaries, those of the commune, of thedistrict and of the department. They have to convoke, lodge, and protectthe numerous primary and secondary Assemblies, to supervise theiroperations, which sometimes last for weeks. They must install thoseelected by them, justices of the peace, officers of the National Guard, judges, public prosecutors, curés, bishops, district and departmentaladministrators. They are to form new lists of tax-payers, apportionamongst themselves, according to a new system of impost, entirelynew real and personal taxes, decide on claims, appoint an assessor, regularly audit his accounts and verify his books, aid him with force, use force in the collection of the excise and salt duties, which beingreduced, equalized, and transformed in vain by the National Assembly, afford no returns in spite of its decrees. They are obliged to find thefunds for dressing, equipping, and arming the National Guard, to step inbetween it and the military commanders, and to maintain concord betweenits diverse battalions. They have to protect forests from pillage, communal land from being invaded, to maintain the octroi, to protectformer functionaries, ecclesiastics, and nobles, suspected andthreatened, and, above all, to provide, no matter how, provisions forthe commune which lacks food, and consequently, to raise subscriptions, negotiate purchases at a distance and even abroad, organize escorts, indemnify bakers, supply the market every week notwithstandingthe dearth, the insecurity of roads, and the resistance ofcultivators. --Even an absolute chief; sent from a distance and fromhigh place, the most energetic and expert possible, supported by thebest-disciplined and most obedient troops, would scarcely succeed insuch an undertaking; and there is instead only a municipality which hasneither the authority, the means, the experience, the capacity, nor thewill. 

In the country, says an orator in the tribune, [2321] "the municipalofficers, in twenty thousand out of forty thousand municipalities, donot know how to read or write. " The curé, in effect, is excluded fromsuch offices by law, and, save in La Vendée and the noble is excluded bypublic opinion. Besides, in many of the provinces, nothing but patoisis spoken. [2322] French, especially the philosophic and abstractphraseology of the new laws and proclamations, remains gibberishto their inhabitants. They cannot possibly understand and apply thecomplicated decrees and fine-spun instructions which reach them fromParis. They hurry off to the towns, get the duties of the office imposedon them explained and commented on in detail, try to comprehend, imaginethey do, and then, the following week, come back again without havingunderstood anything, either the mode of keeping state registers, the distinction between feudal rights which are abolished and thoseretained, the regulations they should enforce in cases of election, the limits which the law imposes as to their powers and subordination. Nothing of all this finds its way into their rude, untrained brains;instead of a peasant who has just left his oxen, there is needed here alegal adept aided by a trained clerk. --Prudential considerations mustbe added to their ignorance. They do not wish to make enemies forthemselves in their commune, and they abstain from any positive action, especially in all tax matters. Nine months after the decree on thepatriotic contribution, "twenty-eight thousand municipalities areoverdue, not having (yet) returned either rolls or estimates. "[2323] Atthe end of January, 1792, "out of forty thousand nine hundred and elevenmunicipalities, only five thousand four hundred and forty-eight havedeposited their registers; two thousand five hundred and eighty rollsonly are definitive and in process of collection. A large number havenot even begun their sectional statements. "[2324]--It is much worsewhen, thinking that they do understand it, they undertake to do theirwork. In their minds, incapable of abstraction, the law is transformedand deformed by extraordinary interpretations. We shall see what itbecomes when it is brought to bear on feudal dues, on the forests, oncommunal rights, on the circulation of corn, on the taxes on provisions, on the supervision of the aristocrats, and on the protection of personsand property. According to them, it authorizes and invites them to doby force, and at once, whatever they need or desire for the timebeing. --The municipal officers of the large boroughs and towns, moreacute and often able to comprehend the decrees, are scarcely in abetter condition to carry them out effectively. They are undoubtedlyintelligent, inspired by the best disposition, and zealous for thepublic welfare. During the first two years of the Revolution it is, onthe whole, the best informed and most liberal portion of the bourgeoisiewhich, in the department as in the district, undertakes the managementof affairs. Almost all are men of the law, advocates, notaries, andattorneys, with a small number of the old privileged class imbuedwith the same spirit, a canon at Besançon, a gentleman at Nîmes. Theirintentions are of the very best; they love order and liberty, they givetheir time and their money, they hold permanent sessions and accomplishan incredible amount of work, and they often voluntarily exposethemselves to great danger. --But they are bourgeois philosophers, and, in this latter particular, similar to their deputies in the NationalAssembly, and, with this twofold character, as incapable as theirdeputies of governing a disintegrated nation. In this twofold characterthey are ill-disposed towards the ancient régime, hostile to Catholicismand feudal rights, unfavorable to the clergy and the nobility, inclinedto extend the bearing and exaggerate the rigor of recent decrees, partisans of the Rights of Man, and, therefore, humanitarians andoptimists, disposed to excuse the misdeeds of the people, hesitating, tardy and often timid in the face of an outbreak--in short, admirablewriters, exhorters, and reformers, but good for nothing when it comes tobreaking heads and risking their own bones. They have not been broughtup in such a way as to become men of action in a single day. Up tothis time they have always lived as passive administrators, as quietindividuals, as studious men and clerks, domesticated, conversational, and polished, to whom words concealed facts, and who, on their eveningpromenade, warmly discussed important principles of government, withoutany consciousness of the practical machinery which, with a police-systemfor its ultimate wheel, rendered themselves, their promenade, and theirconversation perfectly secure. They are not imbued with that sentimentof social danger which produces the veritable chief; the man whosubordinates the emotions of pity to the exigencies of the publicservice. They are not aware that it is better to mow down a hundredconscientious citizens rather than let them hang a culprit withouta trial. Repression, in their hands, is neither prompt, rigid, norconstant. They continue to be in the Hôtel-de-Ville what they werewhen they went into it, so many jurists and scribes, fruitful inproclamations, reports, and correspondence. Such is wholly their role, and, if any amongst them, with more energy, desires to depart from it, he has no hold on the commune which, according to the Constitution, hehas to direct, and on that armed force which is entrusted to him with aview to insure the observance of the laws. 

To insure respect for authority, indeed, it must not spring up on thespot and under the hands of its subordinates. It loses its prestige andindependence when those who create it are precisely those who have tosubmit to it. For, in submitting to it, they remember that they havecreated it. This or that candidate among them who has but latelysolicited their suffrages is now a magistrate who issues orders, andthis sudden transformation is their work. It is with difficulty thatthey pass from the role of sovereign electors to that of docile subjectsof the administration, and recognize a commander in one of their owncreatures. [2325] On the contrary, they will submit to his control onlyin their own fashion, reserving to themselves in practice the powers theright to which they have conferred on him. 

"We gave him his place, and he must do as we want him to do. "

Such popular reasoning is the most natural in the world. It is asapplicable to the municipal officer wearing his scarf as to the officerin the National Guard wearing his epaulettes; the former as well asthe latter being conferred by the arbitrary voice of the electors, andalways seeming to them a gift which is revocable at their pleasure. Thesuperior always, and more particularly in times of danger or of greatpublic excitement, seems, if directly appointed by those whom hecommands, to be their clerk. --Such is municipal authority at this epoch, intermittent, uncertain, and weak; and all the weaker because the sword, whose hilt the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville seem to hold, does not alwaysleave its scabbard at their bidding. They alone are empowered to summonthe National Guard, but it does not depend on them, and it is not attheir disposal. To obtain its support it is needful that its independentchiefs should be willing to respond to their requisition; that the menshould willingly obey their elected officers; that these improvisedsoldiers should consent to quit their plow, their stores, theirworkshops and offices, to lose their day, to patrol the streets atnight, to be pelted with stones, to fire on a riotous crowd whoseenmities and prejudices they often share. Undoubtedly, they will fire onsome occasions, but generally they will remain quiet, with their armsat rest; and, at last, they will grow weary of a trying, dangerous, andconstant service, which is disagreeable to them, and for which they arenot fitted. They will not answer the summons, or, if they do, they willcome too late, and in too small a number. In this event, the regularswho are sent for, will do as they do and remain quiet, following theirexample, while the municipal magistrate, into whose hands the sword hasglided, will be able to do no more than make grievous reports, to hissuperiors of the department or district, concerning the popular violenceof which he is a powerless witness. --In other cases, and especially inthe country, his condition is worse. The National Guard, preceded by itsdrums, will come and take him off to the town hall to authorize by hispresence, and to legalize by his orders, the outrages that it is aboutto commit. He marches along seized by the collar, and affixes hissignature at the point of the bayonet. In this case not only is hisinstrument taken away from him, but it is turned against of holding itby the hilt, he feels the point: the armed force which he ought to makeuse of makes use of him. 

IV. --On Universal Suffrage. 

 The National Guard as electors. --Its great power. --Its important task. --The work imposed on active citizens. --They avoid it. 

Behold, then, the true sovereign, the elector, both National Guard andvoter. They are the kings designed by the Constitution; there he is, in every hierarchical stage, with his suffrage, with which to delegateauthority, and his gun to assure its exercise. --Through his freechoice he creates all local powers, intermediary, central, legislative, administrative, ecclesiastical, and judiciary. He appoints directly, andin the primary assemblies, the mayor, the municipal board, the publicprosecutor and council of the commune, the justice of the peace andhis assessors, and the electors of the second degree. Indirectly, andthrough these elected electors, he appoints the administrators andprocureurs-syndics of both district and department, the civil andcriminal judges, the public prosecutor, bishops, and priests, themembers of the National Assembly and jurors of the higher NationalCourt[2326]. All these commissions which he issues are of short date, the principal ones, those of municipal officer, elector, and deputy, having but two years to run; at the end of this brief term theirrecipients are again subject to his vote, in order that, if he isdispleased with them, he may replace them by others. He must not befettered in his choice; in every well-conducted establishment thelegitimate proprietor must be free easily and frequently to renew hisstaff of clerks. He is the only one in whom confidence can be placed, and, for greater security, all arms are given up to him. When hisclerks wish to employ force he is the one to place it at their disposal. Whatever he desired as elector he executes as National Guard. On twooccasions he interferes, both times in a decisive manner; and hiscontrol over the legal powers is irresistible because these are born outof his vote and are obeyed only through his support. --But these rightsare, at the same time, burdens. The Constitution describes him as an"active citizen, " and this he eminently is or should be, since publicaction begins and ends with him, since everything depends on hiszeal and capacity, since the machine is good and only works wellin proportion to his discernment, punctuality, calmness, firmness, discipline at the polls, and in the ranks. The law requires hisservices incessantly day and night, in body and mind, as gendarme and aselector. --How burdensome this service of gendarme must be, can be judgedby the number of riots. How burdensome that of elector must be, the listof elections will show. 

In February, March, April, and May, 1789, there are prolonged parishmeetings, for the purpose of choosing electors and writing outgrievances, also bailiwick meetings of still longer duration to choosedeputies and draw up the memorial. During the months of July and August, 1789, there are spontaneous gatherings to elect or confirm the municipalbodies; other spontaneous meetings by which the militia is formed andofficered; and then, following these, constant meetings of this samemilitia to fuse themselves into a National Guard, to renew officers andappoint deputies to the federative assemblies. In December, 1789, andJanuary, 1790, there are primary meetings, to elect municipal officersand their councils. In May, 1790, there are primary and secondarymeetings, to appoint district and departmental administrators. InOctober, 1790, there are primary meetings, to elect the justice of thepeace and his assessors, also secondary meetings, to elect the districtcourts. In November, 1790, there are primary meetings, to renewone-half of the municipal bodies. In February and March, 1791, thereare secondary meetings, to nominate the bishop and curés. In June, July, August, September, 1791, there are primary and secondary meetings, to renew one-half of the district and departmental administrators, tonominate the president, the public prosecutor, and the clerk of thecriminal court, and to choose deputies. In November, 1791, there areprimary meetings to renew one-half of the municipal council. Observethat many of these elections drag along because the voters lackexperience, because the formalities are complicated, and becauseopinions are divided. In August and September, 1791, at Tours, they areprolonged for thirteen days;[2327] at Troyes, in January, 1790, insteadof three days they last for three weeks; at Paris, in September andOctober, 1791, only for the purpose of choosing deputies, they lastfor thirty-seven days; in many places their proceedings are contested, annulled, and begun over again. To these universal gatherings, whichput all France in motion, we must add the local gatherings by which acommune approves or gainsays its municipal officers, makes claims on thedepartment, on the King, or on the Assembly, demands the maintenanceof its parish priest, the provisioning of its market, the arrivalor dispatch of a military detachment, --and think of all that thesemeetings, petitions, and nominations presuppose in the way ofpreparatory committees and preliminary meetings and debates! Everypublic representation begins with rehearsals in secret session. In thechoice of a candidate, and, above all, of a list of candidates; inthe appointment in each commune of from three to twenty-one municipalofficers, and from six to forty-two notables; in the selection of twelvedistrict administrators and thirty-six departmental administrators, especially as the list must be of a double length and contain twiceas many officers as there are places to fill, immediate agreement isimpossible. In every important election the electors are sure to be ina state of agitation a month beforehand, while four weeks of discussionand caucus is not too much to give to inquiries about candidates, and tocanvassing voters. Let us add, accordingly, this long preface to eachof the elections, so long and so often repeated, and now sum up thetroubles and disturbances, all this loss of time, all the labor whichthe process demands. Each convocation of the primary assemblies, summonsto the town-hall or principal town of the canton, for one or for severaldays, about three million five hundred thousand electors of the firstdegree. Each convocation of the assemblies of the second class compelsthe attendance and sojourn at the principal town of the department, andagain in the principal town of the district, of about three hundred andfifty thousand elected electors. Each revision or re-election in theNational Guard gathers together on the public square, or subjects toroll-call at the town-hall, three or four millions of NationalGuards. Each federation, after exacting the same gathering or the sameroll-call, sends delegates by hundreds of thousands to the principaltowns of the districts and departments, and tens of thousands toParis. --The powers thus instituted at the cost of so great an effort, require an equal effort to make them work; one branch alone of theadministration[2328] keeps 2, 988 officials busy in the departments, 6, 950 in the districts, 1, 175, 000 in the communes--in all, nearly onemillion two hundred thousand administrators, whose places, as we haveseen above, are no sinecures. Never did a political machine require soprodigious an expenditure of force to set it up and keep it in motion. In the United States, where it is now (around 1875) deranged by its ownaction, it has been estimated that, to meet the intentions of the lawand keep each wheel in its proper place, it would be necessary for eachcitizen to give one whole day in each week, or on-sixth of his time, to public business. In France, under the newly adopted system, wheredisorder is universal, where the duty of National Guard is added to andcomplicates that of elector and administrator, I estimate that two dayswould be necessary. This is what the Constitution comes to, this is itsessential and supreme requirement: each active citizen has to give upone-third of his time to public affairs. 

Now, these twelve hundred thousand administrators and three or fourmillion electors and National Guards, are just the men in France whohave the least leisure. The class of active citizens, indeed, comprisesabout all the men who labor with their hands or with their heads. The law exempts only domestics devoted to personal service or commonlaborers who, possessing no property or income, earn less thantwenty-one sous a day. Every journeyman-miller, the smallest farmer, every village proprietor of a cottage or of a vegetable-garden, anyordinary workman, votes at the primary meetings, and may become amunicipal officer. Again, if he pays ten francs a year direct tax, if heis a farmer or yeomen on any property which brings him in four hundredfrancs, if his rent is one hundred and fifty francs, he may become anelected elector and an administrator of the district or department. According to this standard the eligible are innumerable; in Doubs, in1790, [2329] they form two-thirds of the active citizens. Thus, theway to office is open to all, or almost all, and the law has taken noprecaution whatever to reserve or provide places for the elite, whocould best fill them. On the contrary, the nobles, the ecclesiasticaldignitaries, the members of the parliaments, the grand functionaries ofthe ancient regime, the upper class of the bourgeoisie, almost all therich who possess leisure, are practically excluded from the electionsby violence, and from the various offices by public opinion: theysoon retire into private life, and, through discouragement or disgust, through monarchical or religious scruples, abandon entirely a publiccareer. --The burden of the new system falls, accordingly, on the mostoccupied portion of the community: on merchants, manufacturers, agentsof the law, employees, shopkeepers, artisans, and cultivators. Theyare the people who must give up one-third of their time alreadyappropriated, neglect private for public business, leave their harvests, their bench, their shop, or their briefs to escort convoys and patrolthe highways, to run off to the principal town of the canton, district, or department, and stay and sit there in the town-hall, [2330] subjectto a deluge of phrases and papers, conscious that they are forced togratuitous drudgery, and that this drudgery is of little advantage tothe public. --For the first six months they do it with good grace; theirzeal in penning memorials, in providing themselves with arms against"brigands, " and in suppressing taxes, rents, and tithes, is activeenough. But now that this much is obtained or extorted, decreed as aright, or accomplished in fact, they must not be further disturbed. Theyneed the whole of their time: they have their crops to get in, theircustomers to serve, their orders to give, their books to make up, theircredits to adjust, all which are urgent matters, and neither ought to beneglected or interrupted. Under the lash of necessity and of the crisisthey have put their backs to it, and, if we take their word for it, theyhauled the public cart out of the mud; but they had no idea of puttingthemselves permanently in harness to drag it along themselves. Confinedas this class has been for centuries to private life, each has his ownwheelbarrow to trundle along, and it is for this, before all and aboveall, that he holds himself responsible. From the beginning of the year1790 the returns of the votes taken show that as many are absent aspresent; at Besançon there are only nine hundred and fifty-nine votersout of thirty-two hundred inscribed; four months after this more thanone-half of the electors fail to come to the polls;[2331] and throughoutFrance, even at Paris, the indifference to voting keeps on increasing. Puppets of such an administration as that of Louis XV. And Louis XVI. Donot become Florentine or Athenian citizens in a single night. The heartsand heads of three or four millions of men are not suddenly endowed withfaculties and habits which render them capable of diverting one-third oftheir energies to work which is new, disproportionate, gratuitous, andsupererogatory. --A fallacy of monstrous duplicity lies at the basisof the political theories of the day and of those which wereinvented during the following ten years. Arbitrarily, and without anyexamination, a certain weight and resistance are attributed to the humanmetal employed. It is found on trial to have ten times less resistanceand twenty times more weight than was supposed. 

V. --The Ruling Minority. 

 The restless minority. --Its elements. --The clubs. --Their ascendancy. --How they interpret the Rights of Man. --Their usurpations and violence. 

In default of the majority, who shirk their responsibilities, it is theminority which does the work and assumes the power. The majority havingresigned, the minority becomes sovereign, and public business, abandonedby the hesitating, weak, and absent multitude, falls into the hands ofthe resolute, energetic, ever-present few who find the leisure andthe disposition to assume the responsibility. In a system in which alloffices are elective, and in which elections are frequent, politicsbecomes a profession for those who subordinate their private intereststo it, and who find it of personal advantage; every village containsfive or six men of this class, every borough twenty or thirty, everytown its hundreds and Paris its many thousands. [2332] These areveritable active citizens They alone give all their time and attentionto public matters, correspond with the newspapers and with the deputiesat Paris, receive and spread abroad the party watchword on everyimportant question, hold caucuses, get up meetings, make motions, drawup addresses, overlook, rebuke, or denounce the local magistrates, formthemselves into committees, publish and push candidates, and go intothe suburbs and the country to canvass for votes. They hold the powerin recompense for their labor, for they manage the elections, and areelected to office or provided with places by the successful candidates. There is a prodigious number of these offices and places, not only thoseof officers of the National Guard and the administrators of the commune, the district, and the department, whose duties are gratuitous, or little short of it, but a quantity of others which arepaid, [2333]--eighty-three bishops, seven hundred and fifty deputies, four hundred criminal judges, three thousand and seven civil judges, five thousand justices of the peace, twenty thousand assessors fortythousand communal collectors, forty-six thousand curés, without countingthe accessory or insignificant places which exist by tens and hundredsof thousands, from secretaries, clerks, bailiffs and notaries, togendarmes, constables, office-clerks, beadles, grave-diggers, andkeepers of sequestered goods. The pasture is vast for the ambitious; itis not small for the needy, and they seize upon it. Such is the rule inpure democracies: hence the swarm of politicians in the United States. When the law incessantly calls all citizens to political action, thereare only a few who devote themselves to it; these become expert in thisparticular work, and, consequently, preponderant. But they must be paidfor their trouble, and the election secures to them their places becausethey manage the elections. 

Two sorts of men furnish the recruits for this dominant minority: onthe one hand the enthusiasts, and on the other those who have no socialposition. Towards the end of 1789, moderate people, who are mindingtheir own business, retire into privacy, and are daily less disposed toshow themselves. The public square is occupied by others who, throughzeal and political passion, abandon their pursuits, and by those who, finding themselves hampered in their social sphere, or repelled fromordinary circles, were merely awaiting a new opening to take a freshstart. In these utopian and revolutionary times, there is no lack ofeither class. Flung out by handfuls, the dogma of popular sovereigntyfalls like a seed scattered around, to end up vegetating in heatedbrains, in the narrow and rash minds which, once possessed by anidea, adhere to it and are mastered by it. It falls amongst a class ofreasoners who, starting from a principle, dash forward like a horsewho has had blinders put on. This is especially the case with the legalclass, whose profession accustoms them to deductions; nor less with thevillage attorney, the unfrocked monk, the "intruding" and excommunicatedcuré, and above all, the journalist and the local orator, who, forthe first time in his life, finds that he has an audience, applause, influence and a future before him. These are the only people who can dothe complicated and constant work which the new Constitution calls for;for they are the only men whose desires are unlimited, whose dreams arecoherent, whose doctrine is explicit, whose enthusiasm is contagious, who cherish no scruples, and whose presumption is unbounded. Thus hasthe rigid will been wrought and tempered within them, the inward springof energy which, being daily more tightly wound up, urges them on topropaganda and to action. --During the second half of the year 1790 wesee them everywhere following the example of the Paris Jacobins, stylingthemselves friends of the Constitution, and grouping themselves togetherin popular associations. Each town and village gives birth to a club ofpatriots who regularly every evening, or several times a week, meet "forthe purpose of co-operating for the safety of the commonwealth. "[2334]This is a new and spontaneous organ, [2335] an cancer and a parasite, which develops itself in the social body alongside of its legalorganizations. Its growth insensibly increases, attracting to itself thesubstance of the others, employing them for its own ends, substitutingitself for them, acting by and for itself alone, a sort of omnivorousoutgrowth the encroachment of which is irresistible, not only becausecircumstances and the working of the Constitution nourish it, but alsobecause its germ, deposited at a great depth, is a living portion of theConstitution itself. 

For, placed at the head of the Constitution, as well as of the decreeswhich are attached to it, stands the Declaration of the Rights of Man. According to this, and by the avowal of the legislators themselves, there are two parts to be distinguished in the law, the one superior, eternal, inviolable, which is the self-evident principle, and the otherinferior, temporary, and open to discussion, which comprehends more orless exact or erroneous applications of this principle. No applicationof the law is valid if it derogates from the principle. No institutionor authority is entitled to obedience if it is opposed to the rightswhich it aims to guarantee. These sacred rights, anterior to allsociety, take precedence of every social convention, and whenever wewould know if a legal order is legitimate, we have merely to ascertainif it is in conformity with natural right. Let us, accordingly, in everydoubtful or difficult case, refer to this philosophic gospel, tothis incontestable catechism, this primordial creed proclaimed by theNational Assembly. --The National Assembly itself invites us to do so. For it announces that

"ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the solecauses of public misfortune, and of the corruption of governments. "

It declares that

"the object of every political association is the preservation ofnatural and imprescriptible rights. "

It enumerates them, "in order that the acts of legislative power andthe acts of executive power may at once be compared with the purposeof every political institution. " It desires "that every member of thesocial body should have its declaration constantly in mind. "--Thus weare told to control all acts of application by the principle, andalso we are provided with the rule by which we may and should accord, measure, or even refuse our submission to, deference for, and tolerationof established institutions and legal authority. 

What are these superior rights, and, in case of dispute, who will decideas arbitrator?--There is nothing here like the precise declarationsof the American Constitution, [2336] those positive prescriptions whichserve to sustain a judicial appeal, those express prohibitions whichprevent beforehand certain species of laws from being passed, whichprescribe limits to public powers, which mark out the province not to beinvaded by the State because it is reserved to the individual. 

On the contrary, in the declaration of the national Assembly, most ofthe articles are abstract dogmas, [2337] metaphysical definitions, moreor less literary axioms, that is to say, more or less false, now vagueand now contradictory, open to various interpretations and to oppositeconstructions, These are good for platform display but bad in practice, mere stage effect, a sort of pompous standard, useless and heavy, which, hoisted in front of the Constitutional house and shaken every dayby violent hands, cannot fail soon to tumble on the heads of passersby. [2338]--Nothing is done to ward off this visible danger. There isnothing here like that Supreme Court which, in the United States, guardsthe Constitution even against its Congress, and which, in the name ofthe Constitution, actually invalidates a law, even when it has passedthrough all formalities and been voted on by all the powers;which listens to the complaints of the individual affected by anunconstitutional law; which stays the sheriff's or collector's handraised against him, and which above their heads gives judgment on hisinterests and wrongs. Ill-defined and discordant laws are proclaimedwithout any provision being made for their interpretation, applicationor sanction. No means are taken to have them specially expounded. Nodistrict tribunal is assigned to consider the claims which grow out ofthem, to put an end to litigation legally, peacefully, on a last appeal, and through a final decision which becomes a precedent and fixes theloose sense of the text. All this is made the duty of everybody, that isto say of those who are disposed to charge themselves with it, --in otherwords, the active minority in council assembled. --Thus, in each townor village it is the local club which, by the authorization of thelegislator himself, becomes the champion, judge, interpreter andadministrator of the rights of man, and which, in the name of thesesuperior rights, may protest or rebel, as it seems best, not onlyagainst the legitimate acts of legal powers, but also against theauthentic text of the Constitution and the Laws. [2339]

Consider, indeed, these rights as they are proclaimed, along withthe commentary of the speaker who expounds them at the club before anaudience of heated and daring spirits, or in the street to the rudeand fanatical multitude. Every article in the Declaration is a daggerpointed at human society, and the handle has only to be pressed tomake the blade enter the flesh. [2340] Among "these natural andimprescriptible rights" the legislator has placed "resistance tooppression. " We are oppressed: let us resist and take up arms. Accordingto this legislator, "society has the right to bring every public agentof the Administration to account. " Let us away to the Hôtel-de-Ville, and interrogate our lukewarm or suspected magistrates, and watch theirsessions to see if they prosecute priests and disarm the aristocrats;let us stop their intrigues against the people; let us force theseslow clerks to hasten their steps. --According to this legislator"all citizens have the right to take part in person, or through theirrepresentatives, in the formation of the law. " There must thus be nomore electors privileged by their payment of a three-franc tax. Downwith the new aristocracy of active citizens! Let us restore to thetwo millions of proletarians the right of suffrage, of which theConstitution has unjustly defrauded them!--According to this legislator, "men are born and remain free, and equal in their rights. " Consequently, let no one be excluded from the National Guard; let everybody, eventhe pauper, have some kind of weapon, a pike or gun, to defend hisfreedom!--In the very terms of the Declaration, "the law is theexpression of the universal will. " Listen to these clamors in the openstreets, to these petitions flowing in from the towns on all sides;behold the universal will, the living law which abolishes the writtenlaw! On the strength of this the leader of a few clubs in Paris are todepose the King, to violate the Legislative Assembly and decimate theNational Convention. --In other terms, the turbulent, factious minorityis to supplant the sovereign nation, and henceforth there is nothing tohinder it from doing what it pleases just when it pleases. The operationof the Constitution has given to it the reality of power, while thepreamble of the Constitution clothes it with the semblance of right. 

VI. --Summary of the work of the Constituent Assembly. 

Such is the work of the Constituent Assembly. In several of its laws, especially those which relate to private interests, in the institutionof civil regulations, in the penal and rural codes, [2341] in thefirst attempts at, and the promise of, a uniform civil code, in theenunciation of a few simple regulations regarding taxation, procedure, and administration, it planted good seed. But in all that relates topolitical institutions and social organization its proceedings are thoseof an academy of Utopians, and not those of practical legislators. --Onthe sick body entrusted to it, it performed amputations which were asuseless as they were excessive, and applied bandages as inadequate asthey were injurious. With the exception of two or three restrictionsadmitted inadvertently, and the maintenance of the show of royalty, alsothe obligation of a small electoral qualification, it carried out itsprinciple to the end, the principle of Rousseau. It deliberately refusedto consider man as he really was under its own eyes, and persistedin seeing nothing in him but the abstract being created in books. Consequently, with the blindness and obstinacy characteristic of aspeculative surgeon, it destroyed, in the society submitted to itsscalpel and its theories, not only the tumors, the enlargements, and theinflamed parts of the organs, but also the organs themselves, and eventhe vital governing centers around which cells arrange themselves torecompose an injured organ. That is, the Assembly destroyed on the onehand the time-honored, spontaneous, and lasting societies formed bygeographical position, history, common occupations and interests, andon the other, those natural chiefs whose name, repute, education, independence, and earnestness designated them as the best qualified tooccupy high positions. In one direction it despoils and permits theruin and proscription of the superior class, the nobles, the members ofParliament, and the upper middle class. In another it dispossesses andbreaks up all historic or natural corporations, religious congregations, clerical bodies, provinces, parliaments, societies of art and of allother professions and pursuits. This done, every tie or bond whichholds men together is found to be severed; all subordination and everygraduated scale of rank have disappeared. There is no longer rank andfile, or commander-in-chief. Nothing remains but individual particles, 26 millions of equal and disconnected atoms. Never was so muchdisintegrated matter, less capable of resistance, offered to handsundertaking to mold it. Harshness and violence will be sufficient toensure success. These brutal hands are ready for the work, and theAssembly which has reduced the material to powder has likewiseprovided the mortar and pestle. As awkward in destruction as it is inconstruction, it invents for the restoration of order in a society whichis turned upside down a machine which would, of itself, createdisorder in a tranquil society. The most absolute and most concentratedgovernment would not be strong enough to effect without disturbance asimilar equalization of ranks, the same dismemberment of associations, and the same displacement of property. No social transformation canbe peacefully accomplished without a well-commanded army, obedient andeverywhere present, as was the case in the emancipation of the Russianserfs by Emperor Alexander. The new Constitution, [2342] on the contrary, reduces the King to the position of an honorary president, suspectedand called in question by a disorganized State. Between him and thelegislative body it interposes nothing but sources of conflict, andsuppresses all means of concord. The monarch has no hold whatever on theadministrative departments which he must direct; the mutual independenceof the powers, from the center to the extremities of the State, everywhere produces indifference, negligence, and disobedience betweenthe injunctions issued and their execution. France is a federation offorty thousand municipal sovereignties, in which the authority of legalmagistrates varies according to the caprice of active citizens. Theseactive citizens, too heavily loaded, shy away from the performanceof public duty; in which a minority of fanatics and ambitious menmonopolize the right to speak, to vote, all influence, the power andall action. They justify their multiple ursurpations, their unbridleddespotism, and their increasing encroachments by the Declaration ofthe Rights of Man. The masterpiece[2343] of ideal abstractions andof practical absurdities is accomplished. In accordance with theConstitution spontaneous anarchy becomes legalized anarchy. The latteris perfect; nothing finer of the kind has been seen since the ninthcentury. 

*****

[Footnote 2301: The name for the dreaded secret Royal warrant of arrest. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2302: The initiative rests with the King on one point: warcannot be decreed by the Assembly except on his formal and preliminaryproposition. This exception was secured only after a violent struggleand a supreme effort by Mirabeau. ]

[Footnote 2303: Speech by Lanjuinais, November 7, 1789. "We determinedon the separation of the powers. Why, then, should the proposal he madeto us to unite the legislative power with the executive power in thepersons of the ministers?"]

[Footnote 2304: See the attendance of the Ministers before theLegislative Assembly. ]

[Footnote 2305: "Any society in which the separation of the powersis not clearly defined has no constitution. " (Declaration of Rights, article XVI. )--This principle is borrowed from a text by Montesquieu, also from the American Constitution. In the rest the theory of Rousseauis followed. ]

[Footnote 2306: Mercure de France, an expression by Mallet du Pan. ]

[Footnote 2307: Constitution of 1791, ch. II. Articles 5, 6, 7. --Decreeof September 25--October 6, 1791, section III. Articles, 8 to 25. ]

[Footnote 2308: Speeches by Barnave and Roederer in the constituentAssembly. --Speeches by Barnave and Duport in the Jacobin Club. ]

[Footnote 2309: Principal texts. (Duvergier, "Collection des Lois etDecrets. ")--Laws on municipal and administrative organization, December14 and 22, 1789; August 12-20, 1790; March 12, 1791. On the municipalorganization of Paris, May 21st, June 27, 1790. --Laws on theorganization of the Judiciary, August 16-24, 1790; September 16-29, 1791; September 29, October 21, 1791. --Laws on military organization, September 23, October 29, 1790; January 16, 1791; July 27, 28, 1791--Laws on the financial organization, November 14-24, . 1790; November23, 1790; March 17, 1791; September 26, October 2, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2310: The removal of such managerial authority has since thesecond World war taken place inside the United Nations and other Westernpublic administrations and seems to be the aim of much communist tradeunion effort. The result has everywhere been added cost and decreasedefficiency. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2311: This principle has been introduced in Westerneducational systems when clever self-appointed psychologists toldparents and teacher alike that they could and should not punish theirchildren but only talk and explain to them. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2312: This description fits the staff regulations of theUnited Nations secretariat in which I served for 32 years. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2313: Decrees of December 14 and December 22, 1789: "Inmunicipalities reduced to three members (communes below five hundredinhabitants), all executive functions shall belong to the mayor alone. "]

[Footnote 2314: Could it be that Lenin took note of this and had itthis translated in Russian and made use of it in his and later inStalin's schools for international revolutionaries. It would in anycase have weakened the Bourgeois Capitalist countries. In any case suchmeasures have been introduced both in the international organizationsand in most Western Democratic Governments after World War II. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2315: This was in the United Nations called 'Rotation' andmade the administration of missions and forces difficult, expensive andinefficient. This rotation was also used in the Indian and other armiesin order to prevent the officers to reach an understanding or achieveany power over the troops under their command. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2316: Laws of September 23--October 29, 1790; January 16, 1791. (Titles II. And VII. )--Cf. The legal prescriptions in relationto the military tribunals. In every prosecuting or judicial juryone-seventh of the sworn members are taken from the non-commissionedofficers, and one-seventh from the soldiers, and again, according to therank of the accused, the number of those of the same rank is doubled. ]

[Footnote 2317: Law of July 28th, August 12, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2318: Laws of November 24, 1789 (article 52), August 10-14, 1789. --Instruction of August 10-20, 1790; § 8--Law of October 21, November 21, 1789. ]

[Footnote 2319: Laws of November 14 and 23, 1790; January 13th, September 26th, October 9, 1792. ]

[Footnote 2320: Albert Babeau, I. 327 (Féte of the Federation, July 14, 1790). --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3215 (May 17, 1791, Deliberation ofthe council-general of the commune of Brest. May 17 and 19, Letters ofthe directory of the district). --Mercure, March 5, 1791. "Mesdamesare stopped until the return of the two deputies, whom the Republicof Arnay-le-Duc has sent to the representatives of the nation todemonstrate to them the necessity of keeping the king's aunts in thekingdom. "]

[Footnote 2321: Moniteur, X. 132. Speech by M. Labergerie, November 8, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2322: At Montauban, in the intendant's salon, the ladies ofthe place spoke patois only, the grandmother of the gentleman who hasinformed me of this fact did not understand any other language. ]

[Footnote 2323: Moniteur, V. 163, sitting of July 18, 1791. Speech by M. Lecoulteux, reporter. ]

[Footnote 2324: Moniteur, XI. 283, sitting of February 2, 1792. Speechby Cambon: "They go away thinking that they understand what is explainedto them, but return the following day to obtain fresh explanations. Theattorneys refuse to give the municipalities any assistance, stating thatthey know nothing about these matters. "]

[Footnote 2325: The same may happen when a subordinate is promoted to beplaced in charge of his or her former equals and colleagues. This is whyit is often preferably to transfer someone who is recognized as being ofsuperior talent whenever a promotions is to take place. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2326: Law of May 11-15, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2327: Minutes of the meeting of the Electoral Assembly of theDepartment of Indre-et-Loire (1791, printed). ]

[Footnote 2328: De Ferrières, I. 367. ]

[Footnote 2329: Suzay, I, 191 (21, 711 are eligible out of 32, 288inscribed citizens). ]

[Footnote 2330: Official report of the Electoral Assembly of theDepartment of Indre-et-Loire, Aug. 27, 1791. "A member of the Assemblymade a motion that all the members composing it should be indemnifiedfor the expenses which would be incurred by their absence from home andthe long sojourn they had to make in the town where the Assembly washeld. He remarked that the inhabitants of the country were those whosuffered the most, their labor being their sole riches; that if noattention was paid to this demand, they would be obliged, in spite oftheir patriotism, to withdraw and abandon their important mission; thatthe electoral assemblies would then be deserted, or would be composed ofthose whose resources permitted them to make this sacrifice. "]

[Footnote 2331: Sauzay, I. 147, 192. ]

[Footnote 2332: For the detail of these figures, see vol. II. Book IV. ]

[Footnote 2333: De Ferrières, I. 367. Cf. The various laws abovementioned. ]

[Footnote 2334: Constant, "Histoire d'un Club Jacobin en Province"(Fontainebleau) p. 15. (Procés-verbaux of the founding of the clubs ofMoret, Thomery, Nemours, and Montereau. )]

[Footnote 2335: Later to change and become socialist and communistparties everywhere. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2336: Cf. The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776(except the first phrase, which is a catchword thrown out for theEuropean philosophers). --Jefferson proposed a Declaration of Rights forthe Constitution of March 4, 1789, but it was refused. They were contentto add to it the eleven amendments which set forth the fundamentalrights of the citizen. ]

[Footnote 2337: Article I. "Men are born and remain free and equal inrights common to all. Social distinctions are founded solely on publicutility. " The first phrase condemns the hereditary royalty which issanctioned by the Constitution. The second phrase can be used tolegitimate hereditary monarchy and an aristocracy. --Articles 10 and 11bear upon the manifestations of religious convictions and on freedom ofspeech and of the press. By virtue of these two articles worship, speech, and the press may be made subject to the most repressiverestrictions, etc. ]

[Footnote 2338: The International Bill of Human Rights of 1948 is quitedifferent from the one approved in 1789. In 1948 there is no more anymention of any "right to resistance to oppression", there is a softeningof the position on the right of property and new rights, to freeeducation, to a country, to rest and leisure, to a high standard ofhealth and to an adequate standard of living have been introduced. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2339: Stalin and his successors organized such a system of"clubs" world-wide which even today remain active as "protectors" of theenvironment, refugees, prisoners, animals and the environment. (SR. )]

[Footnote 2340: Buchez and Roux, XI. 237. (Speech by Malouet in relationto the revision, August 5, 1791. ) "You constantly tempt the people withsovereignty without giving them the immediate use of it. "]

[Footnote 2341: Decrees of September 25--October 6, 1791; September28--October 6, 1791. ]

[Footnote 2342: Impartial contemporaries, those well qualified to judge, agree as to the absurdity of the Constitution. "The Constitution was averitable monster. There was too much of monarchy in it for a republic, and too much of a republic for a monarchy. The King was a side-dish, unhors d'oeuvre, everywhere present in appearance but without any actualpower. " (Dumont, 339. ) "It is a general and almost universal convictionthat this Constitution is inexecutable. The makers of it to a mancondemn it. " (G. Morris, September 30, 1791. ) "Every day proves moreclearly that their new Constitution is good for nothing. " (ibid. December 27, 1791. ) Cf. The sensible and prophetic speech made byMalouet (August 5, 1791, Buchez and Roux, XI. 237). ]

[Footnote 2343: Taine's vivid description is likely to have encouragedany radical revolutionary having the luck to read his explicitdescription of how to proceed with the destruction of a naïve corruptcapitalist, bourgeois society. (SR. )]

BOOK THIRD. THE APPLICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. [3101]

CHAPTER I. 

I. --The Federations. 

 Popular application of philosophic theory. --Idyllic celebration of the Contrat-Social. --The two strata of the human mind. --Permanent disorder. 

If there ever was an Utopia which seemed capable of realization, or, what is still more to the purpose, was really applied, converted into afact, fully established, it is that of Rousseau, in 1789 and during thethree following years. For, not only are his principles embodied in thelaws, and the Constitution throughout animated with his spirit, but itseems as if the nation looked upon his ideological gambols, his abstractfiction, as serious. This fiction it carried out in every particular. Asocial contract, at one spontaneous and practical, an immensegathering of men associating together freely for the first time for therecognition of their respective rights, forming a specific compact, and binding themselves by a solemn oath: such is the social recipeprescribed by the philosophers, and which is carried out to the letter. Moreover, as this recipe is esteemed infallible, the imagination isworked upon and the sensibilities of the day are brought into play. It is admitted that men, on again becoming equals, have again becomebrothers. [3102] A sudden and amazing harmony of all volitions andall intelligences will restore the golden age on earth. It is proper, accordingly, to regard the social contract as a festival, an affecting, sublime idyll, in which, from one end of France to the other, all, handin hand, should assemble and swear to the new compact, with song, withdance, with tears of joy, with shouts of gladness, the worthy beginningof public felicity. With unanimous assent, indeed, the idyll isperformed as if according to a written program. 

On the 29th of November, 1789, at Etoile, near Valence, the federationsbegan. [3103] Twelve thousand National Guards, from the two banks of theRhône, promise "to remain for ever united, to insure the circulation ofgrain, and to maintain the laws passed by the National Assembly. " On the13th of December, at Montélimart, six thousand men, the representativesof 27 000 other men, take a similar oath and confederate themselves withthe foregoing. --Upon this the excitement spreads from month to monthand from province to province. Fourteen towns of the bailiwicks ofFranche-Comté form a patriotic league. At Pontivy, Brittany enters intofederal relations with Anjou. One thousand National Guards of Vivaraisand Languedoc send their delegates to Voute. 48 000 in the Vosges sendtheir deputies to Epinal. During February, March, April, and May, 1790, in Alsace, Champagne, Dauphiny, Orléanais, Touraine, Lyonnais, andProvence, there is the same spectacle. At Draguignan eight thousandNational Guards take the oath in the presence of 20 000 spectators. AtLyons 50 000 men, delegates of more than 500 000 others take the civicoath. --But local unions are not sufficient to complete the organizationof France; a general union of all Frenchmen must take place. Many of thevarious National Guards have already written to Paris for the purpose ofaffiliating themselves with the National Guard there; and, one the 5thof June, the Parisian municipal body having proposed it, the Assemblydecrees the universal federation. It is to take place on the 14thof July, everywhere on the same day, both at the center and at theextremities of the kingdom. There is to be one in the principal townof each district and of each department, and one in the capital. Tothe latter each body of the National Guards is to send deputies inthe proportion of one man to every two hundred; and each regiment oneofficer, one non-commissioned officer, and four privates. Fourteenthousand representatives of the National Guard of the provinces appearon the Champ de Mars, the theater of the festival; also eleven to twelvethousand representatives of the land and marine forces, besidesthe National Guard of Paris, and sixty thousand spectators on thesurrounding slopes, with a still greater crowd on the heights ofChaillot and of Passy. All rise to their feet and swear fidelity to thenation, to the law, to the King and to the new Constitution. When thereport of the cannon is heard which announces the taking of the oath, those of the Parisians who have remained at home, men, women, andchildren, raise their hands in the direction of the Champ de Marsand likewise make their affirmation. In every principal town of everydistrict, department, and commune in France there is the same oath onthe same day. Never was there a more perfect social compact heard of. Here, for the first time in the world, everybody beholds a veritablelegitimate society, for it is founded on free pledges, on solemnstipulations, and on actual consent. They possess the authentic act andthe dated official report of it. [3104]

There is still something more--the time and the occasion betoken a unionof all hearts. The barriers which have hitherto separated men from eachother are all removed and without effort. Provincial antagonisms arenow to cease: the confederates of Brittany and Anjou write that theyno longer desire to be Angevins and Bretons, but simply Frenchmen. Allreligious discords are to come to an end: at Saint-Jean-du-Gard, nearAlais, the Catholic curé and the Protestant pastor embrace each other atthe altar; the pastor occupies the best seat in the church, and at theProtestant meeting-house the curé has the place of honor, and listens tothe sermon of the pastor. [3105] Distinctions of rank and condition willno longer exist; at Saint-Andéol "the honor of taking the oath in thename of the people is conferred on two old men, one ninety-three andthe other ninety-four years of age, one a noble and a colonel of theNational Guard, and the other a simple peasant. " At Paris, two hundredthousand persons of all conditions, ages, and sexes, officers andsoldiers, monks and actors, school-boys and masters, dandies andragamuffins, elegant ladies and fishwives, workmen of every class andthe peasants from the vicinity, all flocked to the Champ de Mars to digthe earth which was not ready, and in a week, trundling wheelbarrows andhandling the pick-ax as equals and comrades, all voluntarily yoked inthe same service, converted a flat surface into a valley between twohills. --At Strasbourg, General Luckner, commander-in-chief, worked awhole afternoon in his shirt-sleeves just like the commonest laborer. The confederates are fed, housed, and have their expenses paideverywhere on all the roads. At Paris the publicans and keepers offurnished houses lower their prices of their own accord, and do notthink of robbing their new guests. "The districts, " moreover, "feast theprovincials to their heart's content. [3106] There are meals every dayfor from twelve to fifteen hundred people. " Provincials and Parisians, soldiers and bourgeois, seated and mingled together, drink each other'shealth and embrace. The soldiers, especially, and the inferior officersare surrounded, welcomed, and entertained to such an extent that theylose their heads, their health, and more besides. One "old trooper, whohad been over fifty years in the service, died on the way home, used upwith cordials and excess of pleasure. " In short, the joy is excessive, as it should be on the great day when the wish of an entire centuryis accomplished. --Behold ideal felicity, as displayed in the booksand illustrations of the time! The natural man buried underneath anartificial civilization is disinterred, and again appears as in earlydays, as in Tahiti, as in philosophic and literary pastorals, as inbucolic and mythological operas, confiding, affectionate, and happy. "The sight of all these beings again restored to the sweet sentiments ofprimitive brotherhood is an exquisite delight almost too great for thesoul to support, " and the Frenchman, more light-hearted and far morechildlike than he is to-day, gives himself up unrestrainedly to hissocial, sympathetic, and generous instincts. Whatever the imaginationof the day offers him to increase his emotions, all the classical, rhetorical, and dramatic material at his command, are employed forthe embellishment of his festival. Already wildly enthusiastic, heis anxious to increase his enthusiasm. --At Lyons, the fifty thousandconfederates from the south range themselves in line of battle around anartificial rock, fifty feet high, covered with shrubs, and surmounted bya Temple of Concord in which stands a huge statue of Liberty; thesteps of the rock are decked with flags, and a solemn mass precedes theadministration of the oath. --At Paris, an alter dedicated to the nationis erected in the middle of the Champ de Mars, which is transformedinto a colossal circus. The regular troops and the federations of thedepartments stand in position around it, the King being in frontwith the Queen and the dauphin, while near them are the princes andprincesses in a gallery, and the members of the National Assembly inan amphitheater; two hundred priests, draped in their albs and withtricolored belts, officiate around Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun; threehundred drums and twelve hundred musicians all play at once; forty pieceof cannon are discharged at one volley, and four hundred thousand cheersgo up as if from one threat. Never was such an effort made to intoxicatethe senses and strain the nerves beyond their powers of endurance!--Themoral machine is made to vibrate to the same and even to a greaterextent. For more than a year past, harangues, proclamations, addresses, newspapers and events have daily added one degree more to the pressure. On this occasion, thousands of speeches, multiplied by myriads ofnewspapers, carry the enthusiasm to the highest pitch. Declamation foamsand rolls along in a steady stream of rhetoric everywhere throughoutFrance. [3107] In this state of excitement the difference betweenmagniloquence and sincerity, between the false and the true, betweenshow and substance, is no longer distinguishable. The Federation becomesan opera which is seriously played in the open street--children haveparts assigned them in it; it occurs to no one that they are puppets, and that the words taken for an expression of the heart are simplymemorized speeches that have been put into their mouths. At Besançon, on the return of the confederates, hundreds of "youthful citizens" fromtwelve to fourteen years of age, [3108] in the national uniform, "withsword in hand, " march up to the standard of Liberty. Three little girlsfrom eleven to thirteen years old and two little boy of nine yearseach pronounce "a discourse full of fire and breathing nothing butpatriotism;" after which, a young lady of fourteen, raising her voiceand pointing to the flag, harangues in turn the crowd, the deputies, theNational Guard, the mayor, and the commander of the troops, the sceneending with a ball. This is the universal finale--men and women, children and adults, common people and men of the world, chiefs andsubordinates, all, everywhere, frisk about as in the last act of apastoral drama. At Paris, --writes an eye-witness, "I saw chevaliers ofSaint-Louis and chaplains dancing in the street with people belongingto their department. "[3109] At the Champ de Mars, on the day of theFederation, notwithstanding that rain was falling in torrents, "thefirst arrivals began to dance, and those who came after them, joiningin, formed a circle which soon spread over a portion of the Champde Mars. . . . Three hundred thousand spectators kept time with theirhands. " On the following days dancing is kept up on the Champ de Marsand in the streets, and there is drinking and carousing; "there wasa ball with refreshments at the Corn-Exchange, and on the site of theBastille. "--At Tours, where fifty-two detachments from the neighboringprovinces are collected, about four o'clock in the afternoon, [3110]through an irresistible outburst of insane gaiety, "the officers, inferior officers, and soldiers, pell-mell, race through the streets, some with saber in hand and others dancing and shouting 'Vive le Roi!''Vive la Nation!' flinging up their hats and compelling every onethey met to join in the dance. One of the canons of the cathedral, whohappens to be passing quietly along, has a grenadier's cap put on hishead, " and is dragged into the circle, and after him two monks; "theyare often embraced, " and then allowed to depart. The carriages of themayor and the Marquise de Montausier arrive; people mount up behind, get inside, and seat themselves in front, as many as can find room, and force the coachmen to parade through the principal streets in thisfashion. There is no malice in it, nothing but sport and the overflow ofspirits. "Nobody was maltreated or insulted, although almost every onewas drunk. "--Nevertheless, there is one bad symptom: the soldiers ofthe Anjou regiment leave their barracks the following day and "passthe whole night abroad, no one being able to hinder them. " And there isanother of still graver aspect; at Orleans, after the companies ofthe National Militia had danced on the square in the evening, "a largenumber of volunteers marched in procession through the town withdrums, shouting out with all their might that the aristocracy must bedestroyed, and that priests and aristocrats should be strung up to thelamp post. They enter a suspected coffee-house, drive out the inmateswith insults, lay hands on a gentleman who is supposed not to have criedout as correctly and as lustily as themselves, and come near to hanginghim. [3111]--Such is the fruit of the philosophy and the attitudes of theeighteenth century. Men believed that, for the organization of aperfect society and the permanent establishment of freedom, justice, andhappiness on earth, an inspiration of sentiments and an act of the willwould suffice. The inspiration came and the act was fulfilled; they havebeen carried away, delighted, affected and out of their minds. Now comesthe reaction, when they have to fall back upon themselves. The efforthas succeeded in accomplishing all that it could accomplish, namely, adeluge of emotional demonstrations and slogans, a verbal and not a realcontract ostentatious fraternity skin-deep, a well-meaning masquerade, an outpouring of feeling evaporating through its own pageantry--inshort, an agreeable carnival of a day's duration. 

The reason is that in the human mind there are two strata. Onesuperficial, of which men are conscious, the other deep down, of whichthey are unconscious. [3112] The former unstable and vacillating likeshifting sand, the latter stable and fixed like a solid rock, to whichtheir caprices and agitation never descend. The latter alone determinesthe general inclination of the soil, the main current of human activitynecessarily following the bent thus prepared for it. --Certainly embraceshave been interchanged and oaths have been taken; but after, as beforethe ceremony, men are just what many centuries of administrativethralldom and one century of political literature have made them. Theirignorance and presumption, their prejudices, hatreds, and distrusts, their inveterate intellectual and emotional habits are still preserved. They are human, and their stomachs need to be filled daily. They haveimagination, and, if bread be scarce, they fear that they may not getenough of it. They prefer to keep their money rather than to giveit away. For this reason they spurn the claims which the State andindividuals have upon them as much as possible. They avoid paying theirdebts. They willingly lay their hands on public property which is badlyprotected; finally they are disposed to regard gendarmes and proprietorsas detrimental, and all the more so because this has been repeated tothem over and over again, day after day, for a whole year. --On the otherhand there is no change in the situation of things. They are ever livingin a disorganized community, under an impracticable constitution, thepassions which sap public order being only the more stimulated by thesemblance of fraternity under which they seemed to be allayed. Mencannot be persuaded with impunity that the millennium has come, forthey will want to enjoy it immediately, and will tolerate no deceptionpracticed on their expectations. In this violent state, fired byboundless expectations, all their whims appear reasonable and alltheir opinions rational. They are no longer able to find faults withor control themselves. In their brain, overflowing with emotions andenthusiasm, there is no room but for one intense, absorbing, fixed idea. Each is confident and over-confident in his own opinion; all becomeimpassioned, imperious, and intractable. Having assumed that allobstacles are taken out of the way, they grow indignant at each obstaclethey actually encounter. Whatever it may be, they shatter it on theinstant, and their over-excited imagination covers with the fine name ofpatriotism their natural appetite for despotism and domination. 

France, accordingly, in the three years which follow the taking of theBastille, presents a strange spectacle. In the words we find charityand in the laws symmetry; while the actual events present a spectacle ofdisorder and violence. Afar, is the reign of philosophy; close up is thechaos of the Carlovingian era. 

"Foreigners, " remarks an observer, [3113] "are not aware that, with agreat extension of political rights, the liberty of the individual is inlaw reduced to nothing, while in practice it is subject to the capriceof sixty thousand constitutional assemblies; that no citizen enjoys anyprotection against the annoyances of these popular assemblies; that, according to the opinions which they entertain of persons and things, they act in one place in one way and in another place in another way. Here, a department, acting for itself and without referring elsewhere, puts an embargo on vessels, while another orders the expulsion of amilitary detachment essential for the security of places devastatedby ruffians; and the minister, who responds to the demands of thoseinterested, replies: 'Such are the orders of the department. ' Elsewhereare administrative bodies which, the moment the Assembly decrees reliefof consciences and the freedom of nonjuring priests, order the latterout of their homes within 24 hours. Always in advance of or laggingbehind the laws; alternately bold and cowardly; daring all things whenseconded by public license, and daring nothing to repress it; eager toabuse their momentary authority against the weak in order to acquiretitles to popularity in the future; incapable of maintaining orderexcept at the expense of public safety and tranquility; entangled inthe reins of their new and complex administration, adding the fury ofpassion to incapacity and inexperience; such are, for the most part, the men sprung from nothing, void of ideas and drunk with pretension, on whom now rests responsibility for public powers and resources, theinterest of security, and the foundations of the power of government. In all sections of the nation, in every branch of the administration, inevery report, we detect the confusion of authorities, the uncertaintyof obedience, the dissolution of all restraints, the absence of allresources, the deplorable complication of enervated springs, without anyof the means of real power, and, for their sole support, laws which, in supposing France to be peopled with men without vices or passions, abandon humanity to its primitive state of independence. "

A few months after this, in the beginning of 1792, Malouet sums up allin one phrase:

"It is the Government of Algiers without the Dey. "

II. --Independence of the municipalities. 

 The causes of their initiative. --Sentiment of danger. --Issy-l'Evêque in 1789. --Exalted pride. --Brittany in 1790. --Usurpations of the municipalities. --Capture of the citadels. --Violence increased against their commanders. --Stoppage of convoys. --Powerlessness of the Directories and the ministers. --Marseilles in 1790. 

Things could not work otherwise. For, before the 6th of October, and theKing's captivity in Paris, the Government had already been destroyed. Now, through the successive decrees of the Assembly, it is legally doneaway with, and each local group is left to itself. --The intendants havefled, military commanders are not obeyed, the bailiwicks dare hold nocourts, the parliaments are suspended, and seven months elapse beforethe district and department administrations are elected, a year beforethe new judgeships are instituted, while afterwards, as well as before, the real power is in the hands of the communes. --The commune must armitself, appoint its own chiefs, provide its own supplies, protect itselfagainst brigands, and feed its own poor. It has to sell its nationalproperty, install the constitutional priest, and, amidst so many eagerpassions and injured interest, accomplish the transformation by whicha new society replaces the ancient one. It alone has to ward off theperpetual and constantly reviving dangers which assail it or which itimagines. These are great, and it exaggerates them. It is inexperiencedand alarmed. It is not surprising that, in the exercise of itsextemporized power, it should pass beyond its natural or legal limit, and without being aware of it, overstep the metaphysical line which theConstitution defines between its rights and the rights of the State. Neither hunger, fear, rage, nor any of the popular passions can wait;there is no time to refer to Paris. Action is necessary, immediateaction, and, with the means at hand, they must save themselves as wellas they can. This or that mayor of a village is soon to find himself ageneral and a legislator. This or that petty town is to give itselfa charter like Laon or Vezelay in the twelfth century. "On the 6thof October, 1789, [3114] near Autun, the market-town of Issy-l'Evêquedeclares itself an independent State. The parish assembly is convokedby the priest, M. Carion, who is appointed member of the administrativecommittee and of the new military staff. In full session he secures theadoption of a complete code, political, judiciary, penal and military, consisting of sixty articles. Nothing is overlooked; we find ordinancesconcerning

"the town police, the laying out of streets and public squares, the repairs of prisons, the road taxes and price of grain, theadministration of justice, fines, confiscations, and the diet of theNational Guards. "

He is a provincial Solon, [3115] zealous for the public welfare, and aman of executive power, he expounds his ordinances from the pulpit, andthreatens the refractory. He passes decrees and renders judgments in thetown-hall: outside the town limits, at the head of the National Guard, saber in hand, he will enforce his own decisions. He causes it to bedecided that, on the written order of the committee, every citizen maybe imprisoned. He imposes and collects taxes; he has boundary wallstorn down; he goes in person to the houses of cultivators and makesrequisitions for grain; he seizes the convoys which have not depositedtheir quote in his own richly stored granaries. One day, preceded bya drummer, he marches outside the walls, makes proclamation of "hisagrarian laws, " and proceeds at once to the partition of the territory, and, by virtue of the ancient communal or church property rights, to assign to himself a portion of it. All this is done in public andconsciously, the notary and the scrivener being called in to draw up theofficial record of his acts; he is satisfied that human society has cometo an end, and that each local group has the right to begin over againand apply in its own way the Constitution which it has accorded toitself without reference to anybody else. --This man, undoubtedly, talkstoo loudly, an proceeds too quickly; and first the bailiwick, next theChâtelet, and afterwards the National Assembly temporarily put a stopto his proceedings; but his principle is a popular one, and the fortythousand communes of France are about to act like so many distinctrepublics, under the sentimental and constantly more powerlessreprimands of the central authority. 

Excited and invigorated by a new sentiment, men now abandon themselvesto the proud consciousness of their own power and independence. Nowhereis greater satisfaction found than among the new local chiefs, themunicipal officers and commanders of the National Guard, for neverbefore has such supreme authority and such great dignity fallen uponmen previously so submissive and so insignificant. --Formerly thesubordinates of an intendant or sub-delegate, appointed, maintained, andill-used by him, kept aloof from transactions of any importance, unable to defend themselves except by humble protestations against theaggravation of taxation, concerned with precedence and the conflictsof etiquette, [3116] plain townspeople or peasants who never dreamt ofinterfering in military matters, henceforth become sovereigns in allmilitary and civil affairs. This or that mayor or syndic of a littletown or parish, a petty bourgeois or villager in a blouse, whom theintendant or military commander could imprison at will, now ordersa gentleman, a captain of dragoons, to march or stand still, and thecaptain stands still or marches at his command. On the same bourgeoisor villager depends the safety of the neighboring chateau, of the largeland-owner and his family, of the prelate, and of all the prominentpersonages of the district in order that they may be out of harm's wayhe must protect them; they will be pillaged if, in case of insurrection, he does not send troops and the National Guard to their assistance. Itis he who, lending or refusing public force to the collection oftheir rents, gives them or deprives them of the means of living. Heaccordingly rules, and on the sole condition of ruling according to thewishes of his equals, the vociferous multitude, the restless, dominantmob which has elected him. --In the towns, especially, and notably in thelarge towns, the contrast between what he was and what he is immense, since to the plenitude of his power is added the extent of hisjurisdiction. Judge of the effect on his brain in cities like those ofMarseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rouen and Lyons, where he holds in hishand the lives and property of eighty or a hundred thousand men. Andthe more as, amid the municipal officers of the towns, three-quartersof them, prosecutors or lawyers, are imbued with the new dogmas, and arepersuaded that in themselves alone, the directly elected of thepeople, is vested all legitimate authority. Bewildered by their recentelevation, distrustful as upstarts, in revolt against all ancient orrival powers, they are additionally alarmed by their imagination andignorance, their minds being vaguely disturbed by the contrast betweentheir role in the past and their present role: anxious on their ownaccount, they find no security but in abuse and use of power. Themunicipalities, on the strength of the reports emanating from thecoffee-houses, decide that the ministry are traitors. With an obstinacyof conviction and a boldness of presumption alike extraordinary, theybelieve that they have the right to act without and against theirorders, and against the orders of the National Assembly itself, asif, in the now disintegrated France, each municipality constituted thenation. 

Thus, if the armed force of the country is now obedient to any body, itis to them and to them alone, and not only the National Guard, but alsothe regular troops which, placed under the orders of municipalities bya decree of the National Assembly, [3117] will comply with no other. Military commanders in the provinces, after September, 1787, declarethemselves powerless; when they and the municipality give orders, itis only those of the municipality which the troops recognize. "Howeverpressing may be the necessity for moving the troops where theirpresence is required, they are stopped by the resistance of the villagecommittee. "[3118] "Without any reasonable motive, " writes the commanderof the forces in Brittany, "Vannes and Auray made opposition to thedetachment which I thought it prudent to send to Belle-Ile, to replaceanother one. . . The Government cannot move without encounteringobstacles. . . . The Minister of War no longer has the direction of thearmy. . . . No orders are executed. . . Every one wants to command, andno one to obey. . . How could the King, the Government, or the Ministerof War send troops where they are wanted if the towns believe that theyhave the right to countermand the orders given to the regiments andchange their destination?"-And it is still worse, for, "on the falsesupposition of brigands and conspiracies which do not exist, [3119] thetowns and villages make demands on me for arms and even cannon. . . Thewhole of Brittany will soon be in a frightful belligerent state on thisaccount, for, having no real enemies, they will turn their arms againsteach other. "--This is of no consequence. The panic is an "epidemic. "People are determined to believe in "brigands and enemies. " At Nantes, the assertion is constantly repeated that the Spaniards are going toland, that the French regiments are going to make an attack, that anarmy of brigands is approaching, that the castle is threatened, thatit is threatening, and that it contains too many engines of war. Thecommandant of the province writes in vain to the mayor to reassurehim, and to explain to him that "the municipality, being master ofthe chateau, is likewise master of its magazine. Why then should itentertain fear about that which is in its own possession? Why shouldany surprise be manifested at an arsenal containing arms andgunpowder?"--Nothing is of any effect. The chateau is invaded; twohundred workmen set to work to demolish the fortifications; they listenonly to their fears, and cannot exercise too great precaution. Howeverinoffensive the citadels may be, they are held to be dangerous; howeveraccommodating the commanders may be, they are regarded with suspicion. The people chafe against the bridle, relaxed and slack as it is. Itis broken and cast aside, that it may not be used again when occasionrequires. Each municipal body, each company of the National Guard, wants to reign on its own plot of ground out of the way of any foreigncontrol; and this is what is called liberty. Its adversary, therefore, is the central power. This must be disarmed for fear that it mayinterpose. On all sides, with a sure and persistent instinct, throughthe capture of fortresses, the pillage of arsenals, the seduction of thesoldiery, and the expulsion of generals, the municipality ensures itsomnipotence by guaranteeing itself beforehand against all repression. 

At Brest the municipal authorities insist that a naval officer shall besurrendered to the people, and on the refusal of the King's lieutenantto give him up, the permanent committee orders the National Guard toload its guns. [3120] At Nantes the municipal body refuses to recognizeM. D'Hervilly, sent to take command of a camp, and the towns of theprovince write to declare that they will suffer no other than thefederated troops on their territory. At Lille the permanent committeeinsists that the military authorities shall place the keys of the townin its keeping every evening, and, a few months after this, the NationalGuard, joined by mutinous soldiers, seize the citadel and the person ofLivarot, its commander. At Toulon the commander of the arsenal, M. De Rioms, and several naval officers, are put in the dungeon. AtMontpellier the citadel is surprised, and the club writes to theNational Assembly to demand its demolition. At Valence, the commandant, M. De Voisin, on taking measures of defense, is massacred, andhenceforth the municipality issues all orders to the garrison. AtBastia, Colonel de Rully falls under a shower of bullets, and theNational Guard takes possession of the citadel and the powder magazine. These are not passing outbursts: at the end of two years the sameinsubordinate spirit is apparent everywhere. [3121] In vain do thecommissioners of the National Assembly seek to transfer the Nassauregiment from Metz. Sedan refuses to receive it; while Thionvilledeclares that, if it comes, she will blow up the bridges, and Sarrebuisthreatens, if it approaches, that it will open fire on it. At Caenneither the municipality nor the directory dares enforce the law whichassigns the castle to the troops of the line; the National Guard refusesto leave it, and forbids the director of the artillery to inspect themunitions. --In this state of things a Government subsists in namebut not in fact, for it no longer possesses the means of enforcingobedience. Each commune arrogates to itself the right of suspendingor preventing the execution of the simplest and most urgent orders. Arnay-le-Duc, in spite of passports and legal injunctions, persists inretaining Mesdames; Arcis-sur-Aube retains Necker, and Montigny is aboutto retain M. Caillard, Ambassador of France. [3122]--In the month ofJune, 1791, a convoy of eighty thousand crowns of six livres sets outfrom Paris for Switzerland; this is a repayment by the French Governmentto that of Soleure; the date of payment is fixed, the itinerary markedout; all the necessary documents are provided; it is important that itshould arrive on the day when the bill falls due. But they havecounted without the municipalities and the National Guards. Arrested atBar-sur-Aube, it is only at the end of a month, and on a decree of theNational Assembly, that the convoy can resume its march. At Belfort itis seized again, and it still remains there in the month of November. Invain has the directory of the Bas-Rhin ordered its release; the Belfortmunicipality paid no attention to the order. In vain the same directorydispatches a commissioner, who is near being cut to pieces. The personalinterference of General Luckner, with the strong arm, is necessary, before the convoy can pass the frontier, after five months ofdelay. [3123] In the month of July 1791, a French vessel on the way fromRouen to Caudebec, said to be loaded with kegs of gold and silver, isstopped. On the examination being made, it has a right to leave; itspapers are all correct, and the department enjoins the district torespect the law. The district, however, replies that it is impossible, since "all the municipalities on the banks of the Seine have armedand are awaiting the passing of the vessel, " and the National Assemblyitself is obliged to pass a decree that the vessel shall be discharged. 

If the rebellion of the small communes is of this stamp, what must bethat of the larger ones?[3124] The departments and districts summon themunicipality in vain; it disobeys or pays no attention to the summons. 

"Since the session began, " writes the directory of Saône-et-Loire; "themunicipality of Maçon has taken no step in relation to us which has notbeen an encroachment. It has not uttered a word, which has not been aninsult. It has not entered upon a deliberation which has not been anoutrage. "

"If the regiment of Aunis is not ordered here immediately, " writes thedirectory of Calvados, "if prompt and efficient measures are not takento provide us with an armed force, we shall abandon a post which we cannot longer hold due to insubordination, license, contempt for all theauthorities. We shall in this case be unable to perform the duties whichwere imposed upon us. "

The directory of the Bouches-du-Rhone, on being attacked, flies beforethe bayonets of Marseilles. The members of the directory of Gers, inconflict with the municipality of Auch, are almost beaten to death. Asto the ministers, who are distrusted by virtue of their office, they arestill less respected than the directories, They are constantly denouncedto the Assembly, while the municipalities send back their dispatcheswithout deigning to open them, [3125] and, towards the end of 1791, theirincreasing powerlessness ends in complete annihilation. We can judgeof this by one example. In the month of December 1791, Limoges is notallowed to carry away the grain, which it had just purchased in Indre, a force of sixty horsemen being necessary to protect its transportation. The directory of Indre at once calls upon the ministers to furnish themwith this small troop. [3126] After trying for three weeks, the ministerreplies that it is out of his power; he has knocked at all doors invain. "I have pointed out one way, " he says, "to the deputies of yourdepartment in the National Assembly, namely, to withdraw the 20thregiment of cavalry from Orleans, and I have recommended them to broachthe matter to the deputies of Loiret. " The answer is still delayed:the deputies of the two departments have to come to an agreement, for, otherwise, the minister dares not displace sixty men to protect a convoyof grain. It is plain enough that there is no longer any executivepower. There is no longer a central authority. There is no longer aFrance, but merely so many disintegrated and independent communes, likeOrleans and Limoges, which, through their representatives, carry onnegotiations with each other, one to secure itself from a deficiency oftroops, and the other to secure itself from a want of bread. 

Let us consider this general dissolution on the spot, and take up a casein detail. On the 18th of January 1790, the new municipal authoritiesof Marseilles enter upon their duties. As is generally the case, themajority of the electors have had nothing to do with the balloting. The mayor, Martin, having been elected by only an eighth of the activecitizens. [3127] If, however, the dominant minority is a small one, itis resolute and not inclined to stop at trifles. "Scarcely is itorganized, "[3128] when it sends deputies to the King to have himwithdraw his troops from Marseilles. The King, always weak andaccommodating, finally consents; and, the orders to march beingprepared, the municipality is duly advised of them. But the municipalitywill tolerate no delay, and immediately "draws up, prints, and issuesa denunciation to the National Assembly" against the commandant andthe two ministers who, according to it, are guilty of having forged orsuppressed the King's orders. In the meantime it equips and fortifiesitself as for a combat. At its first establishment the municipalitybroke up the bourgeois guard, which was too great a lover of order, andorganized a National Guard, in which those who have no property aresoon to be admitted. "Daily additions are made to its militaryapparatus;[3129] entrenchments and barricades at the Hôtel-de-Ville, are increasing, the artillery is increased; the town is filled with theexcitement of a military camp in the immediate presence of an enemy. "Thus, in possession of force, it makes use of it, and in the first placeagainst justice. --A popular insurrection had been suppressed in themonth of August 1789, and the three principal leaders, Rebecqui, Pascal, and Granet, had been imprisoned in the Chateau d'If. They are thefriends of the municipal authorities, and they must be set free. Atthe demand of this body the affair is taken out of the hands of thegrand-prévôt and put into those of the sénéchaussée, the former, meanwhile, together with his councilors, undergoing punishment forhaving performed their duty. The municipality, on its own authority, forbids them from further exercise of their functions. They are publiclydenounced, "threatened with poniards, the scaffold, and every species ofassassination. " [3130] No printer dares publish their defense, for fearof "municipal annoyances. " It is not long before the royal procureur anda councillor are reduced to seeking refuge in Fort Saint-Jean, while thegrand-prévôt after having resisted a little longer, leaves Marseillesin order to save his life. As to the three imprisoned men, the municipalauthorities visit them in a body and demand their provisional release. One of them having made his escape, they refuse to give the commandantthe order for his re-arrest. The other two triumphantly leave thechateau on the 11th of April, escorted by eight hundred National Guards. They go, for form's sake, to the prisons of the sénéchaussée but thenext day are set at liberty, and further prosecution ceases. As anoffset to this, M. D'Ambert, colonel in the Royal Marine, guilty ofexpressing himself too warmly against the National Guard, althoughacquitted by the tribunal before which he was brought, can be setat liberty only in secret and under the protection of two thousandsoldiers. The populace want to burn the house of the criminal lieutenantthat dared absolve him. The magistrate himself is in danger, and isforced to take refuge in the house of the military commander. [3131]Meanwhile, printed and written papers, insulting libels by the municipalbody and the club, the seditious or violent discussions of the districtassemblies, and a lot of pamphlets, are freely distributed among thepeople and the soldiers: the latter are purposely stirred up in advanceagainst their chiefs. --In vain are the officers mild, conciliatory, andcautious. In vain does the commander-in-chief depart with a portion ofthe troops. The object now is to dislodge the regiment occupyingthe three forts. The club sets the ball in motion, and, forcibly orotherwise, the will of the people must be carried out. On the 29th ofApril, two actors, supported by fifty volunteers, surprise a sentineland get possession of Notre-Dame de la Garde. On the same day, six thousand National Guards invest the forts of Saint-Jean andSaint-Nicolas. The municipal authorities, summoned to respect thefortresses, reply by demanding the opening of the gates to the NationalGuard, that it may do duty jointly with the soldiers. The commandantshesitate, refer to the law, and demand time to consult their superiors. A second requisition, more urgent, is made; the commandants are heldresponsible for the disturbances they provoke by their refusal. If theyresist they are declared promoters of civil war. [3132] They accordinglyyield and sign a capitulation. One among them, the Chevalier deBeausset, major in Fort Saint-Jean, is opposed to this, and refuses hissignature. On the following day he is seized as he is about to enter theHôtel-de-Ville, and massacred, his head being borne about on the end ofa pike, while the band of assassins, the soldiers, and the rabble danceabout and shout over his remains. --" It is a sad accident, " writes themunicipality. [3133] How does it happen that, "after having thus farmerited and obtained all praise, a Beausset, whom we were unable toprotect against the decrees of Providence, should sully our laurels?Having had nothing to do with this tragic affair, it is not for usto prosecute the authors of it. " Moreover, he was "culpable. . . . Rebellious, condemned by public opinion, and Providence itself seems tohave abandoned him to the irrevocable decrees of its vengeance. "--As tothe taking of the forts, nothing is more legitimate. "These places werein the hands of the enemies of the State, while now they are in thehands of the defenders of the Constitution of the empire. Woe towhoever would take them from us again, to convert them into a focus ofcounter-revolution "--M. De Miran, commandant of the province, has, itis true, made a demand for them. But, "is it not somewhat pitiable tosee the requisition of a Sieur de Miran, made in the name of the King hebetrays, to surrender to his Majesty's troops places which, henceforthin our hands, guarantee public security to the nation, to the law, andto the King?" In vain does the King, at the request of the NationalAssembly, [3134] order the municipality to restore the forts to thecommandants, and to make the National Guards leave them. The municipalauthorities become indignant, and resist. According to them the wrongis all on the side of the commandant and the ministers. It is thecommandants who, "with the threatening equipment of their citadels, their stores of provisions and of artillery, are disturbers of thepublic peace. What does the minister mean by driving the national troopsout of the forts, in order to entrust their guardianship to foreigntroops? His object is apparent in this plan. . . . He wants to kindlecivil war. "--"All the misfortunes of Marseilles originate in the secretunder-standing existing between the ministers and the enemies of theState. " The municipal corps is at last obliged to evacuate the forts, but it is determined not to give them up. The day following that onwhich it receives the decree of the National Assembly, it conceives thedesign of demolishing them. On the 17th of May, two hundred laborers, paid in advance, begin the work of destruction. To save appearances themunicipal body betakes itself at eleven o'clock in the morning to thedifferent localities, and orders them to stop. But, on its departure, the laborers keep on; and, at six o'clock in the evening, a resolutionis passed that, "to prevent the entire demolition of the citadel, itis deemed advisable to authorize only that of the part overlooking thetown. " On the 18th of May the Jacobin club, at once agent, accomplice, and councilor of the municipal body, compels private individuals tocontribute something towards defraying the expenses of the demolition. It "sends round to every house, and to the syndics of all corporations, exacting their quotas, and making all citizens subscribe a document bywhich they appear to sanction the action of the municipal body, and toexpress their thanks to it. People had to sign it, pay, and keep silent. Woe to any one that refused!" On the 20th of May the municipal bodypresumes to write to the Assembly, that "this threatening citadel, thisodious monument of a stupendous despotism, is about to disappear. " Tojustify its disobedience, it takes occasion to remark, "that the love ofcountry is the most powerful and most enduring of an empire's ramparts. "On the 28th of May it secures the performance in two theaters of a piecerepresenting the capture of the forts of Marseilles, for the benefitof the men engaged in their demolition. Meanwhile, it has summonedthe Paris Jacobins to its support; it has proposed to invite the Lyonsfederation and all the municipalities of the kingdom to denounce theminister. It has forced M. De Miran, threatened with death and watchedby a party in ambush on the road, to quit Aix, and then demands hisrecall. [3135] Only on the 6th of June does it decide, at the expresscommand of the National Assembly, to suspend the almost completeddemolition. --Authorities to which obedience is due could not be treatedmore insolently. The end, however, is attained; there is no longer acitadel, and the troops have departed; the regiment commanded by Ernestalone remains, to be tampered with, insulted, and then sent off. It isordered to Aix, and the National Guard of Marseilles will go there todisarm and disband it. Henceforth the municipal body has full sway. It"observes only those laws which suit it, makes others to its own liking, and, in short, governs in the most despotic and arbitrary manner. "[3136]And not only at Marseilles, but throughout the department where, underno authority but its own, it undertakes armed expeditions and makesraids and sudden attacks. 

III. --Independent Assemblies. 

 Why they took the initiative. --The people in council. --Powerlessness of the municipalities. --the violence to which they are subject. --Aix in 1790. --Government disobeyed and perverted everywhere. 

Were it but possible for the dissolution to stop here! But each communeis far from being a tranquil little state under the rule of a bodyof respected magistrates. The same causes which render municipalitiesrebellious against the central authority render individuals rebelliousagainst local authority. They also feel that they are in danger andwant to provide for their own safety. They also, in virtue of theConstitution and of circumstances, believe themselves appointed tosave the country. They also consider themselves qualified to judge forthemselves on all points and entitled to carry out their judgments withtheir own hands. The shopkeeper, workman or peasant, at once elector andNational Guard, furnished with his vote and a musket, suddenly becomesthe equal and master of his superiors; instead of obeying, he commands, while all who see him again after some years' absence, find that "inhis demeanor and manner all is changed. " "There was great agitationeverywhere, "[3137] says M. De Ségur; "I noticed groups of men talkingearnestly in the streets and on the squares. The sound of the drumstruck my ear in the villages, while I was astonished at the greatnumber of armed men I encountered in the little towns. On interrogatingvarious persons among the lower classes they would reply with a proudlook and in a bold and confident tone. I observed everywhere the effectof those sentiments of equality and liberty which had then becomesuch violent passions. "--Thus exalted in their own eyes they believedthemselves qualified to take the lead in everything, not only in localaffairs, but also in general matters. France is to be governed by them;by virtue of the Constitution they arrogate to themselves the right, and, by dint of ignorance, attribute to themselves the capacity, togovern it. A torrent of new, shapeless, and disproportionate ideas havetaken possession of their brains in the space of a few months. Vastinterests about which they have never thought, have to be considered. Government, royalty, the church, creeds, foreign powers, internaland external dangers, what is occurring at Paris and at Coblentz, theinsurrection in the Low Countries, the acts of the cabinets of London, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin; and, of all this, they inform themselves as theybest can. An officer, [3138] who traverses France at this time, narratesthat at the post-stations they made him wait for horses until he had"given them details. The peasants stopped my carriage in the middle ofthe road and overwhelmed me with questions. At Autun, I was obliged, inspite of the cold, to talk out of a window opening upon the square andtell what I knew about the Assembly. "--These on-dits are all changedand amplified in passing from mouth to mouth. They finally becomecircumstantial stories adapted to the caliber of the minds they passinto and to the dominant passion that propagates them. Trace the effectof these fables in the house of a peasant or fish-woman in an outlyingvillage or a populous suburb, on brutish or almost brutal minds, especially when they are lively, heated, and over-excited--the effectis tremendous. For, in minds of this stamp, belief is at once convertedinto action, and into rude and destructive action. It is an acquiredself-control, reflection, and culture which interposes between beliefand action the solicitude for social interests, the observance of formsand respect for the law. These restraints are all wanting in the newsovereign. He does not know how to stop and will not suffer himself tobe stopped. Why so many delays when the peril is urgent? What is the useof observing formalities when the safety of the people is at stake? Whatis there sacred in the law when it protects public enemies? What is morepernicious than passive deference and patient waiting under timid orblind officials? What can be more just than to do one's self justiceat once and on the spot?--Precipitation and passion, in their eyes, are both duties and merits. One day "the militia of Lorient decide uponmarching to Versailles and to Paris without considering how they are toget over the ground or what they will do on their arrival. "[3139] Werethe central government within reach they would lay their hands on it. In default of this they substitute themselves for it on their ownterritory, and exercise its functions with a full conviction of right, principally those of gendarme, judge, and executioner. 

During the month of October, 1789, at Paris, after the assassination ofthe baker François, the leading murderer, who is a porter at the graindepot, declares "that he wanted to avenge the nation. " It is quiteprobable that this declaration is sincere. In his mind, assassination isone of the forms of patriotism, and it does not take long for his wayof thinking to become prevalent. In ordinary times, social and politicalideas slumber in uncultured minds in the shape of vague antipathies, restrained aspirations, and fleeting desires. Behold themaroused--energetic, imperious, stubborn, and unbridled. Objection oropposition is not to be tolerated; dissent, with them, is a sure signof treachery. --Apropos of the nonjuring priests, [3140] five hundred andtwenty-seven of the National Guards of Arras write, "that no one coulddoubt their iniquity without being suspected of being their accomplices. . . . Should the whole town combine and express a contrary opinion, itwould simply show that it is filled with enemies of the Constitution;"and forthwith, in spite of the law and the remonstrances ofthe authorities, they insist on the closing of the churches. AtBoulogne-sur-Mer, an English vessel having shipped a quantity ofpoultry, game, and eggs, "the National Guards, of their own authority, "go on board and remove the cargo. On the strength of this, theaccommodating municipal body approves of the act, declares the cargoconfiscated, orders it to be sold, and awards one-half of the proceedsto the National Guards and the other half to charitable purposes. Theconcession is a vain one, for the National Guards consider that one-halfis too little, "insult and threaten the municipal officers, " andimmediately proceed to divide the booty in kind, each one going homewith a share of stolen hams and chickens. [3141] The magistrates mustnecessarily keep quiet with the guns of those they govern pointed atthem. --Sometimes, and it is generally the case, they are timid, anddo not try to resist. At Douai, [3142] the municipal officers, on beingsummoned three times to proclaim martial law, refuse, and end by avowingthat they dare not unfold the red flag: "Were we to take this coursewe should all be sacrificed on the spot. " Neither the troops nor theNational Guards, in fact, are to be relied on. In this universalstate of apathy the field is open to savages, and a dealer in wheat ishung. --Sometimes the administrative corps tries to resist, but in theend it has to succumb to violence. "For more than six hours, " writes oneof the members of the district of Etampes, [3143] "we were closed in bybayonets leveled at us and with pistols at our breasts; and they wereobliged to sign a dismissal of the troops which had arrived to protectthe market. At present "we are all away from Etampes; there is nolonger a district or a municipality;" almost all have handed in theirresignations, or are to return for that purpose. --Sometimes, and thisis the rarest case, [3144] the officials do their duty to the end, andperish. In this same town, six months later, Simoneau, the mayor, having refused to cut down the price of wheat, is beaten withiron-pointed sticks, and his corpse is riddled with balls by themurderers. --Municipal bodies must take heed how they undertake to stemthe torrent; the slightest opposition will soon be at the expense oftheir lives. In Touraine, [3145] "as the publication of the tax-rollstakes place, riots break out against the municipal authorities; they areforced to surrender the rolls they have drawn up, and their papers aretorn up. " And still more, "they kill, they assassinate the municipalauthorities. " In that large commune men and women "beat and kick themwith their fists and sabots. . . . The mayor is laid up after it, andthe procureur of the commune died between nine and ten o'clock in themorning. Véteau, a municipal officer, received the last sacrament thismorning;" the rest have fled, being constantly threatened with death andincendiarism. They do not, consequently, return, and "no one now willtake the office of either mayor or administrator. "--The outrages whichthe municipalities thus commit against their superiors are committedagainst themselves. The National Guards, the mob, the controllingfaction, arrogating to themselves in the commune the same violentsovereignty which the commune pretends to exercise against the State. 

I should never finish if I undertook to enumerate the outbreaks inwhich the magistrates are constrained to tolerate or to sanction popularusurpations, to shut up churches, to drive off or imprison priests, tosuppress octrois, tax grain, and allow clerks; bakers, corn-dealers, ecclesiastics, nobles, and officers to be hung, beaten to death, orto have their throats cut. Ninety-four thick files of records in thenational archives are filled with these acts of violence, and do notcontain two-thirds of them. It is worth while to take in detail onecase more, a special one, and one that is authentic, which serves as aspecimen, and which presents a foreshortened image of France duringone tranquil year. At Aix, in the month of December, 1790, [3146] inOpposition to the two Jacobin clubs, a club had been organized, hadcomplied with all the formalities, and, like the "Club des Monarchiens"at Paris, claimed the same right of meeting as the others. But here, asat Paris, the Jacobins recognize no rights but for themselves alone, and refuse to admit their adversaries to the privileges of the law. Moreover, alarming rumors are circulated. A person who has arrivedfrom Nice states that he had "heard that there were twenty thousand menbetween Turin and Nice, under the pay of the emigrants, and that atNice a neuvaine[3147] was held in Saint François-de-Paule to pray God toenlighten the French. " A counter-revolution is certainly under way. Some of the aristocrats have stated "with an air of triumph, that theNational Guard and municipalities are a mere toy, and that this sort ofthing will not last long. " One of the leading members of the new club, M. De Guiraitiand, an old officer of seventy-eight years, makes speechesin public against the National Assembly, tries to enlist artisans in hisparty, "affects to wear a white button on his hat fastened by pins withtheir points jutting out, " and, as it is stated, he has given to severalmercers a large order for white cockades. In reality, on examination, not one is found in any shop, and all the dealers in ribbons, onbeing interrogated, reply that they know of no transaction of thatdescription. But this simply proves that the culprit is a cleverdissimulator, and the more dangerous because he is eager to save thecountry. --On the 12th of December, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the two Jacobin clubs fraternise, and pass in long procession beforethe place of meeting, "where some of the members, a few officers of theLyons regiment and other individuals, are quietly engaged at playor seeing others play. " The crowd hoot, but they remain quiet. Theprocession passes by again, and they hoot and shout, "Down with thearistocrats to the lamp post with them!" Two or three of the officersstanding on the threshold of the door become irritated, and one of them, drawing his sword, threatens to strike a young man if he keeps on. Uponthis the crowd cries out, "Guard! Help! An assassin!" and rushes atthe officer, who withdraws into the house, exclaiming, "To arms!" Hiscomrades, sword in hand, descend in order to defend the door; M. DeGuiramand fires two pistol shots and receives a stab in the thigh. Ashower of stones smashes in the windows, and the door is on the point ofbeing burst open when several of the members of the club save themselvesby taking to the roof. About a dozen others, most of them officers, form in line, penetrate the crowd with uplifted swords, strike and getstruck, and escape, five of them being wounded. The municipality ordersthe doors and windows of the club-house to be walled up, sends theLyons regiment away, decrees the arrest of seven officers and of M. DeGuiramand, and all this in a few hours, with no other testimony thanthat of the conquerors. 

But these prompt, vigorous and partial measures are not sufficient forthe Jacobin club; other conspirators must be seized, and it is the clubwhich designates them and goes to take them. --Three months beforethis, M. Pascalis, an advocate, on addressing along with some of hisprofessional brethren the dissolved parliament, deplored the blindnessof the people, "exalted by prerogatives of which they knew not thedanger. " A man who dared talk in this way is evidently a traitor. --Thereis another, M. Morellet de la Roquette, who refused to join theproscribed club. His former vassals, however, had been obliged to bringan action against him to make him accept the redemption of his feudaldues; also, six years before this, his carriage, passing along thepublic promenade, had run over a child; he likewise is an enemy of thepeople. While the municipal officers are deliberating, "a few members ofthe club" get together and decide that M. Pascalis and M. De la Roquettemust be arrested. At eleven o'clock at night eighty trustworthy NationalGuards, led by the president of the club, travel a league off to seizethem in their beds and lodge them in the town prison. --Zeal of this kindexcites some uneasiness, and if the municipality tolerates the arrests, it is because it is desirous of preventing murder. Consequently, on thefollowing day, December 13th, it sends to Marseilles for four hundredmen of the Swiss Guard commanded by Ernest, and four hundred NationalGuards, adding to these the National Guard of Aix, and orders thiscompany to protect the prison against any violence. But, along with theMarseilles National Guards, there came a lot of armed people who arevolunteers of disorder. On the afternoon of the 13th the first mobstrives to force the prison, and the next day, fresh squads congregatearound it demanding the head of M. Pascalis. The members of the clubhead the riot with "a crowd of unknown men from outside the town, whogive orders and carry them out. " During the night the populace of Aixare tampered with, and the dikes all give way at the same moment. At thefirst clamors the National Guard on duty on the public promenade disbandand disperse, while, as there is no signal for the assemblage of theothers, notwithstanding the regulations, the general alarm is notsounded. "The largest portion of the National Guard draws off so as notto appear to authorize by its presence outrages which it has not beenordered to prevent. Peaceable Citizens are in great consternation;" eachone takes to flight or shuts himself up in his house, the streets beingdeserted and silent. Meanwhile the prison gates are shattered with axes. The procureur-syndic of the department, who requests the commandant ofthe Swiss regiment to protect the prisoners, is seized, borne off, andruns the risk of losing his life. Three municipal officers in theirscarves, who arrive on the ground, dare not give the order required bythe commandant. At this decisive moment, when it is necessary toshed blood and kill a number of men, they obviously fear to takethe responsibility; their reply is, "We have no orders to give. "--Anextraordinary spectacle now presents itself in this barrack courtyardsurrounding the prison. On the side of the law stand eight hundred armedmen, four hundred of the "Swiss" and four hundred of the National Guardof Marseilles. They are drawn up in battle array, with guns to theirshoulders, with special orders repeated the evening before at threedifferent times by the municipal district and departmental authoritiesand they have the sympathies of all honest people and of most of theNational Guard. But the legal indispensable phrase does not pass thelips of those who by virtue of the Constitution should utter it, and asmall group of convicts are found to be sovereign. --The three municipalofficers are seized in their turn under the eyes of their own soldierswho remain motionless, and "with bayonets at their breasts they sign, under constraint, the order to give up M. Pascalis to the people. " M. Dela Roquette is likewise surrendered. "The only portion of the NationalGuard of Aix which was visible, " that is to say, the Jacobin minority, form a circle around the gate of the prison and organize themselves intoa council of war. And there they stand; at once "accusers, witnesses, judges, and executioners. " A captain conducts the two victims to thepublic promenade where they are hung. Very soon after this old M. De Guiramand, whom the National Guard of his village have brought aprisoner to Aix, is hung in the same manner. 

There is no prosecution of the assassins. The new tribunal, frightenedor forestalled, has for some time back ranged itself on the popularside; its writs, consequently, are served on the oppressed, againstthe members of the assaulted dub. Writs of arrest, summonses to attendcourt, searches, seizures of correspondence, and other proceedings, rain down upon them. Three hundred witnesses are examined. Some of thearrested officers are "loaded with chains and thrust into dungeons. "Henceforth the club rules, and "makes everybody tremble. "[3148] "Fromthe 23rd to the 27th of December, more than ten thousand passportsare delivered at Aix. " "If the emigrations continue, " write thecommissioners, "there will be no one left at Aix but workmen withoutwork and with no resources. Whole streets are uninhabited. . . . . Aslong as such crimes can be permitted with impunity fear will drive outof this town every one who has the means of living elsewhere. "--Manycome back after the arrival of the commissioners, hoping to obtainjustice and security through them. But, "if a prosecution is notordered, we shall scarcely have departed from Aix when three or fourhundred families will abandon it. . . . And what man in his senses woulddare guarantee that each village will not soon have some one hung init?. . . Country valets arrest their masters. . . . The expectationof impunity leads the inhabitants of villages to commit all sorts ofdepredations in the forests, which is very harmful in a region wherewoods are very scarce. They set up the most absurd and most unjustpretensions against rich proprietors, and the fatal rope is ever theinterpreter and the signal of their will. " There is no refuge againstthese outrages. "The department, the districts, the municipalities, administer only in conformity with the multiplied petitions of theclub. " In the sight of all, and on one solemn day, a crushing defeathas demonstrated the weakness of the government officials; and, bowedbeneath the yoke of their new masters, they preserve their legalauthority only on the condition that it remains at the service of thevictorious party. 

*****

[Footnote 3101: Festivals approving the federation of all the NationalGuards in France. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3102: See the address of the commune of Paris, June 5, 1790. "Let the most touching of all utterances be heard on this day (theanniversary of the taking of the Bastille), Frenchmen, we are brothers!Yes, brothers, freemen and with a country!" Roux et Buchez, VI. 275. ]

[Footnote 3103: Buchez and Roux, IV. 3, 309; V. 123; VI. 274, 399. --Duvergier, Collection of Laws and Decrees. Decree of June 8 and 9, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3104: For one who, like myself, has lived for years among theMoslems, the 5 daily ritual prayers all performed while turned towardsMecca, this description of the French taking of the oath, has somethingfamiliar in it. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3105: Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution Française, " II, 470, 474. ]

[Footnote 3106: De Ferrières, II. 91. --Albert Babeau, I. 340. (Letteraddressed to the Chevalier de Poterat, July 18, 1790. )--De Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes yeux, " etc. , 155. ]

[Footnote 3107: One may imagine the impression Taine's description madeupon the thousands of political science students and others in the yearsafter this book was printed and widely sold all over Europe. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3108: Sauzay, I. 202. ]

[Footnote 3109: Albert Babeau, ib. I, 339--De Ferrières, II, 92. ]

[Footnote 3110: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453, Correspondence of M. DeBercheney, May 23, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3111: "Archives Nationales, " ibid, May 13, 1790. "M. De laRifaudière was dragged from his carriage and brought to the guard-house, which was immediately filled with people, shouting, 'To the lamp post, the aristocrat!'--The fact is this: after his having repeatedly shoutedVive le Roi et la Nation! They wanted him to shout Vive la Nation!alone, upon which he gave Vive la Nation tant qu'elle pourra. "--AtBlois, on the day of the Federation, a mob promenades the streets witha wooden head covered with a wig, and a placard stating that thearistocrats must be decapitated. ]

[Footnote 3112: Might Freud ( 1856--1939) have been inspired, directlyor indirectly, by Taine's observation? 'La Révolution' vol. I, waspublished in 1877 when Freud was 21 years old!! (SR. )]

[Footnote 3113: Mercure de France, the articles by Mallet du Pan (June18th and August 16, 1791; April 14, 1792). ]

[Footnote 3114: Moniteur, IV. 560. (sitting of June 5, 1790) reportof M. Freteau. "These facts are attested by fifty witnesses. "--Cf. Thenumber of April 19, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3115: Solon was a famous legislator who reformed Athens some2500 years ago. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3116: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. DeThiard, military commandant in Brittany (September, 1789), "There arein every petty village three conflicting powers, the présidial, thebourgeois militia, and the permanent committee. Each is anxious tooutrank the other, and, on this occasion, a scene happened to come undermy eyes at Landivisiau which might have had a bloody termination, butwhich turned out to be simply ridiculous. A lively dispute arose betweenthree speakers to determine which should make the first address. Theyappealed to me to decide. Not to offend either of the parties, Idecided that all three should speak at the same time; which decision wasimmediately carried out. "]

[Footnote 3117: Decree of August 10-14, 1789. ]

[Footnote 3118: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. De Thiard, September 21, 1789. "The troops now obey the municipalitiesonly. "--Also July 30th, August 11, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3119: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105. Correspondence of 31. M. De Thiard, September 11 and 25, November 20, December 25 and 30, 1789. ]

[Footnote 3120: Buchez and Roux, V. 304 (April, 1790). --"ArchivesNationales, " Papers of the committee of Investigation, DXXIX. I (note ofM. Latour-du-Pin, October 28, 1789)--? Buchez and Roux, IV. 3 (December1, 1789); IV. 390 (February, 1790); VI. 179 (April and May, 1790). ]

[Footnote 3121: Mercure de France, Report of M. Emery, sitting of July21, 1790, Number for July 32. --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3200. Letterof the directory of Calvados, September 26 and October 20, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3122: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3207. Letter of the ministerDumouriez, June 15, 1792. Report of M. Caillard, May 29, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3123: Mercure de France, No. For July, 1791 (sitting of the6th); Nos. For November 5 and 26, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3124: Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes, " vol. I. Passim. --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3257. Address of the Directory ofSaône-et-Loire to the National Assembly, November 1, 1790. --F7, 3200. Letter of the Directory of Calvados, November 9, 1791. --F 7, 3195. Minutes of the meeting of the municipality of Aix, March 1, 1792 (onthe events of February 26th); letter of M. Villard, President of theDirectory, March 20, 1792. --F7, 3220. Extracts from the deliberationsof the Directory of Gers, and a letter to the King, January 28, 1792. Letter of M. Lafitau, President of the Directory, January 30. (He wasdragged along by his hair and obliged to leave the town. )]

[Footnote 3125: Mercure de France, No. For October 30, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3126: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3226. Letter of the directoryof Indre to M. Cahier, minister, December 6, 1791. --Letter of M. Delessart, minister, to the directory of Indre, December 31, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3127: Fabre, "Histoire de Marseille, " II. 442. Martin had but3, 555 votes, when shortly after the National Guard numbered 24, 000 men. ]

[Footnote 3128: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Letter of the minister, M. De Saint-Priest, to the President of the National Assembly, May 11, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3129: "Archives Nationales, " F7 3196. Letters of the militarycommandant, M. De Miran, March 6, 14, 30, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3130: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Letter of M. DeBournissac, grand-privot, March 6, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3131: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Letters of M. Du Miran, April 11th and 16th, and May 1, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3132: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Procés-verbal of eventson the 30th of April. ]

[Footnote 3133: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Letters of theMunicipality of Marseilles to the National Assembly, May 5 and 20, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3134: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Order of the king, May10. Letter of M. De Saint-Priest to the National Assembly, May 11. Decree of the National Assembly, May 12. Letter of the Municipalityto the King. May 20. Letter of M. De Rubum, May 20. Note sent fromMarseilles, May 31. Address of the Municipality to the President of theFriends of the Constitution, at Paris, May 5. In his narration of thetaking of the forts we read the following sentence: "We arrived withouthindrance in the presence of the commandant, whom we brought to anagreement by means of the influence which force, fear and reason give topersuasion. "]

[Footnote 3135: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196, Letter of M. De Miran, May 5. --The spirit of the ruling party at Marseilles is indicated byseveral printed documents joined to the dossier, and, among others, by a"Requéte à Desmoulins, procureur-général de la Lanterne. " It relatesto a "patriotic inkstand, " recently made out of the stones of thedemolished citadel, representing a hydra with four heads, symbolizingthe nobility, the clergy, the ministry and the judges. "It is from thefour patriotic skulls of the hydra that the ink of proscription will betaken for the enemies of the Constitution. This inkstand, cut out ofthe first stone that fell in the demolition of Fort Saint-Nicolas, isdedicated to the patriotic Assembly of Marseilles. The magic art of thehero of the liberty of Marseilles, that Renaud who, under the mask ofdevotion, surprised the watchful sentinel of Notre-Dame de la Garde, andwhose manly courage and cunning ensured the conquest of that key of thegreat focus of counter-revolution, has just given birth to a new traitof genius a new Deucalion, he personifies this stone which Liberty hasflung from the summit of our menacing Bastilles, etc. "]

[Footnote 3136: "Archives Nationales, " F7. 3198. Letters of the royalcommissioners, April 13 and 5, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3137: De Ségur, "Memoires, " III, 482 (early in 1790). ]

[Footnote 3138: De Dampmartin, I. 184 (January, 1791). ]

[Footnote 3139: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. DeThiard (October 12, 1789). ]

[Footnote 3140: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3250. Minutes from themeeting of the directory of the department. March 28, 1792. "As theferment was at the highest point and fears were entertained that greaterevils would follow, M. Le Président, with painful emotion declared thathe yielded and passed the unconstitutional act. " Reply of the minister, June 23: "If the constituted authorities are thus forced to yield to thearbitrary will of a wild multitude, government no longer exists and weare in the saddest stage of anarchy. If you think it best I will proposeto the King to reverse your last decision. "]

[Footnote 3141: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3250. Letter of M. Duport, minister of justice, December 24, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3142: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3248, Report of the membersof the department, finished March 18, 1792. --Buchez and Roux, IX. 240(Report of M. Alquier). ]

[Footnote 3143: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268. Extract from thedeliberations of the directory of Seine-et-Oise, with the documentsrelating to the insurrection at Etampes, September 16, 1791. Letter ofM. Venard, administrator of the district, September 20--" I shall notset foot in Etampes until the re-establishment of order and tranquility, and the first thing I shall do will be to record my resignation in theregister. I am tired of making sacrifices, for ungrateful wretches. "]

[Footnote 3144: Moniteur, March 16, 1792. --Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoirede la Terreur" (Proceedings against the assassins of Simoneau), I. 381. ]

[Footnote 3145: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3226. Letter and memorandumof Chenantin, cultivator, November 7, 1792. Extract from thedeliberations of the directory of Langeais, November 5, 1792 (seditionat Chapelle-Blanche, near Langeais, October 5, 1792). ]

[Footnote 3146: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3105. Report of thecommissioners sent by the National Assembly and the King, February 23, 1791. (On the events of December 12 and 14, 1790)--Mercure de France, February 29, 5791. (Letters from Aix, and notably a letter from sevenofficers shut up in prison at Aix, January 30, 1791. ) The oldest JacobinClub formed in February, 1790, was entitled "(Club des vrais amis dela Constitution. )" The second Jacobin club, formed in October, 1790, was"composed from the beginning of artisans and laborers from the faubourgsand suburbs. " Its title was" Société des frères anti-politiques, " or"frères vrais, justes et utiles à la patrie. " The opposition club, formed in December, 1790, bore the title, according to some, of "LesAmis du Roi, de la paix et de la religion;" according to others, "Les amis de la paix;" and finally, according to another report, "LesDéfenseurs de la religion, des personnes et des proprietés. "]

[Footnote 3147: A special series of religious services. (TR)]

[Footnote 3148: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3195. Letters of thecommissioners, March 20, February 11, May 10, 1791. ]

CHAPTER II. SOVEREIGNTY OF UNRESTRAINED PASSIONS. 

Under these conditions when passions are freed; any determined andcompetent man who can gather a couple of hundred men may form a bandand slip through the enlarged or weakened meshes of the net held by thepassive or ineffective government. An experiment on a grand scaleis about to be made on human society; owing to the slackening of theregular restraints which have maintained it, it is now possible tomeasure the force of the permanent instincts which attack it. They arealways there even in ordinary times; we do not notice them because theyare kept in check; but they are not the less energetic and effective, and, moreover, indestructible. The moment their repression ceases, their power of mischief becomes evident; just as that of the water whichfloats a ship, but which, at the first leak enters into it and sinks it. 

I. --Old Religious Grudges

 Montauban and Nîmes in 1790. 

Religious passions, to begin with, are not to be kept down byfederations, embraces, and effusions of fraternity. In the south, wherethe Protestants have been persecuted for more than a century, hatredsexist more than a century old. [3201] In vain have the odious edictswhich oppressed them fallen into desuetude for the past twenty years; invain have civil rights been restored to them since 1787: The past stilllives in transmitted recollections; and two groups are confronting eachother, one Protestant and the other Catholic, each defiant, hostile, ready to act on the defensive, and interpreting the preparations of itsadversary as a plan of attack. Under such circumstances the guns go offof their own accord. --On a sudden alarm at Uzès[3202] the Catholics, two thousand in number, take possession of the bishop's palace and theHôtel-de-Ville; while the Protestants, numbering four hundred, assembleoutside the walls on the esplanade, and pass the night under arms, each troop persuaded that the other is going to massacre it, oneparty summoning the Catholics of Jalès to its aid, and the other theProtestants of Gardonnenque. --There is but one way of avoiding civil warbetween parties in such an attitude, and that is the ascendancy of anenergetic third party, impartial and on the spot. A plan to thiseffect, which promises well, is proposed by the military commandant ofLanguedoc. [3203] According to him the two firebrands are, on theone hand, the bishops of Lower Languedoc, and on the other, MM. Rabaut-Saint-Etienne, father and two sons, all three being pastors. Letthem be responsible "with their heads" for any mob, insurrection, orattempt to debauch the army; let a tribunal of twelve judges be selectedfrom the municipal bodies of twelve towns, and all delinquents bebrought before it; let this be the court of final appeal, and itssentence immediately executed. The system in vogue, however, is just thereverse. Both parties being organized into a body of militia, each takescare of itself, and is sure to fire on the other; and the more readily, inasmuch as the new ecclesiastical regulations, which are issued frommonth to month, strike like so many hammers on Catholic sensibility, andscatter showers of sparks on the primings of the already loaded guns. 

At Montauban, on the 10th of May, 1790, the day of the inventory andexpropriation of the religious communities, [3204] the commissionersare not allowed to enter. Women in a state of frenzy lie across thethresholds of the doors, and it would be necessary to pass over theirbodies; a large mob gathers around the "Cordeliers, " and a petition issigned to have the convents maintained. --The Protestants who witnessthis commotion become alarmed, and eighty of their National Guards marchto the Hôtel-de-Ville, and take forcible possession of the guard-housewhich protects it. The municipal authorities order them to withdraw, which they refuse to do. Thereupon the Catholics assembled at the"Cordeliers" begin a riot, throw stones, and drive in the doors withpieces of timber, while a cry is heard that the Protestants, who havetaken refuge in the guard-house, are firing from the windows. Theenraged multitude immediately invade the arsenal, seize all the gunsthey can lay their hands on, and fire volleys on the guard-house, theeffect of which is to kill five of the Protestants and wound twenty-fourothers. The rest are saved by a municipal officer and the police; butthey are obliged to appear, two and two, before the cathedral in theirshirts, and do public penance, after which they are put in prison. During the tumult political shouts have been heard: "Hurrah for thenobles! Hurrah for the aristocracy! Down with the nation! Down with thetricolor flag!" Bordeaux, regarding Montauban as in rebellion againstFrance, dispatches fifteen hundred of its National Guard to set theprisoners free. Toulouse gives its aid to Bordeaux. The fermentation isfrightful. Four thousand of the Protestants of Montauban take flight;armed cities are about to contend with each other, as formerly in Italy. It is necessary that a commissioner of the National Assembly and ofthe King, Mathieu Dumas, should be dispatched to harangue the people ofMontauban, obtain the release of the prisoners, and re-establish order. 

One month after this a more bloody affray takes place at Nîmes[3205]against the Catholics. The Protestants, in fact, are but twelve thousandout of fifty-four thousand inhabitants, but the principal trade of theplace is in their hands; they hold the manufactories and support thirtythousand workmen; in the elections of 1789 they furnished five out ofthe eight deputies. The sympathies of that time were in their favor;nobody then imagined that the dominant Church was exposed to anyrisk. It is to be attacked in its turn, and the two parties are seenconfronting each other. --The Catholics sign a petition, [3206] hunt uprecruits among the market-gardeners of the suburbs, retain the whitecockade, and, when this is prohibited, replace it with a red rosette, another sign of recognition. At their head is an energetic man namedFroment, who has vast projects in view; but as the soil on which hetreads is undermined, he cannot prevent the explosion. It takes placenaturally, by chance, through the simple collision of two equallydistrustful bodies; and before the final day it has commenced andrecommenced twenty times, through mutual provocations and denunciations, through insults, libels, scuffles, stone-throwing, and gun-shots. --Onthe 13th of June, 1790, the question is which party shall furnishadministrators for the district and department, and the conflict beginsin relation to the elections. The Electoral Assembly is held at theguard-house of the bishop's palace, where the Protestant dragoons andpatriots have come "three times as many as usual, with loaded musketsand pistols, and with full cartridge-boxes, " and they patrol thesurrounding neighborhood. On their side, the red rosettes, royalistsand Catholics, complain of being threatened and "treated contemptuously"(nargués). They give notice to the gate-keeper "not to let any dragoonenter the town either on foot or mounted, at the peril of his life, " anddeclare that "the bishop's quarters were not made for a guard-house. "--Amob forms, and shouting takes place under the windows; stones arethrown; the bugle of a dragoon, who sounds the roll-call, is broken andtwo shots are fired. [3207] The dragoons immediately fire a volley, whichwounds a good many people and kills seven. From this moment, firing goeson during the evening and all night, in every quarter of the town, eachparty believing that the other wants to exterminate it, the Protestantssatisfied that it is another St. Bartholomew, and the Catholics thatit is "a Michelade. "[3208] There is no one to act between them. Themunicipality authorities, far from issuing orders, receive them: theyare roughly handled, hustled and jostled about, and made to march aboutlike servants. The patriots seize the Abbé de Belmont, a municipalofficer, at the Hôtel-de-Ville, order him, on pain of death, to proclaimmartial--law, and place the red flag in his hand. "March, rascal, youbastard! Hold up your flag--higher up still--you are big enough to dothat!" Blows follow with the but-ends of their muskets. The poor manspits blood, but this is of no consequence; he must be in full sight atthe head of the crowd, like a target, whilst his conductors prudentlyremain behind. Thus does he advance, exposed to bullets, holding theflag, and finally becomes the prisoner of the red rosettes, who releasehim, but keep his flag. There is a second march with a red flag heldby a town valet, and fresh gunshots; the red rosettes capture this flagalso, as well as another municipal officer. The rest of the municipalbody, with a royal commissioner, take refuge in the barracks and orderout the troops. Meanwhile Froment, with his three companies, postedin their towers and in the houses on the ramparts, resist to the lastextremity. Daylight comes, the tocsin is sounded, the drums beat toarms, and the patriot militia of the neighborhood, the Protestants fromthe mountains, the rude Cévenols, arrive in crowds. The red rosettes arebesieged; a Capuchin convent, from which it is pretended that they havefired, is sacked, and five of the monks are killed. Froment's tower isdemolished with cannon and taken by assault. His brother is massacredand thrown from the walls, while a Jacobin convent next to the rampartsis sacked. Towards night, all the red rosettes who have fought are slainor have fled, and there is no longer any resistance. --But the fury stilllasts; the fifteen thousand rustics who have flooded the town thinkthat they have not yet done enough. In vain are they told that the otherfifteen companies of red rosettes have not moved; that the pretendedaggressors "did not even put themselves in a state of defense;" thatduring the battle they remained at home, and that afterwards, throughextra precaution, the municipal authorities had made them give up theirarms. In vain does the Electoral Assembly, preceded by a white flag, march to the public square and exhort the people to keep the peace. "Under the pretext of searching suspicious houses, they pillage ordestroy, and what-ever cannot be carried away is broken. " One hundredand twenty houses are sacked in Nîmes alone, while the same ravagesare committed in the environs, the damage, at the end of three days, amounting to seven or eight hundred thousand livres. A number of poorcreatures, workmen, merchants, old and infirm men, are massacred intheir houses; some, "who have been bedridden for many years, aredragged to the sills of their doors to be shot. " Others are hung on theesplanade and at the Cours Neuf, while others have their noses, ears, feet, and hands cut off; and are hacked to pieces with sabers andscythes. Horrible stories, as is commonly the case, provoke the mostatrocious acts. 

A publican, who refuses to distribute anti-Catholic lists, is supposedto have a mine in his cellar filled with kegs of gunpowder and withsulfur matches all ready; he is hacked to pieces with a saber, andtwenty guns are discharged into his corpse: they expose the body beforehis house with a long loaf of bread on his breast, and they again stabhim with bayonets, saying to him: "Eat, you bastard, eat"--More thanfive hundred Catholics were assassinated, and many others, covered withblood, "are crowded together in the prisons, while the search for theproscribed is continued; whenever they are seen, they are fired uponlike so many wolves. " Thousands of the inhabitants, accordingly, demandtheir passports and leave the town. The rural Catholics, meanwhile, on their side, massacre six Protestants in the environs--an old manof eighty-two years, a youth of fifteen, and a husband and his wifein their farm-house. In order to put a stop to the murderous acts, theNational Guard of Montpellier have to be summoned. But the restorationof order is for the benefit of the victorious party. Three-fifths ofthe electors have fled; one-third of the district and departmentaladministrators have been appointed in their absence, and the majority ofthe new directories is taken from the club of patriots. It is for thisreason that the prisoners are prejudged as guilty. "No bailiff of thecourt dares give them the benefit of his services; they are not allowedto bring forward justifying facts in evidence, while everybody knowsthat the judges are not impartial. "[3209]

Thus do the violent measures of political and religious discord come toan end. The victor stops the mouth of the law when it is about tospeak in his adversary's behalf; and, under the legal iniquity of anadministration which he has himself established, he crushes those whomthe illegal force of his own strong hand has stricken down. 

II. --Passion Supreme. 

 Dread of hunger its most acute form. --The non-circulation of grain. --Intervention and usurpations of the electoral assemblies. --The rural code in Nivernais. --The four central provinces in 1790. --Why high prices are kept up. --Anxiety and insecurity. --Stagnation of the grain market. --The departments near Paris in 1791. --The supply and price of grain regulated by force. --The mobs in 1792. --Village armies of Eure and of the lower Seine and of Aisne. --Aggravation of the disorder after August 10th. --The dictatorship of unbridled instinct. --Its practical and political expedients. 

Passions of this stamp are the product of human cultivation, and breakloose only within narrow bounds. Another passion exists which is neitherhistoric nor local, but natural and universal, the most indomitable, most imperious, and most formidable of all, namely, the fear of hunger. There is no such thing with this passion as delay, or reflection, orlooking beyond itself. Each commune or canton wants its bread, and asure and unlimited supply of it. Our neighbor may provide for himself asbest he can, but let us look out for ourselves first and then for otherpeople. Each group of people, accordingly, through its own decrees, orby main force, keeps for itself whatever subsistence it possesses, ortakes from others the subsistence which it does not possess. Ii

At the end of 1789, [3210] "Roussillon refuses aid to Languedoc; UpperLanguedoc to the rest of the province, and Burgundy to Lyonnais;Dauphiny shuts herself up, and Normandy retains the wheat purchased forthe relief of Paris. " At Paris, sentinels are posted at the doors of allthe bakers; on the 21st of October one of the latter is hung, and hishead is borne about on a pike. On the 27th of October, at Vernon, acorn-merchant named Planter, who the preceding winter had supported thepoor for six leagues around, has to take his turn. At the present momentthe people do not forgive him for having sent flour to Paris, and he ishung twice, but is saved through the breaking of the rope each time. --Itis only by force and under an escort that it is possible to insure thearrival of grain in a town; the excited people or the National Guardsconstantly seize it on its passage. In Normandy the militia ofCaen stops wheat on the highways which is destined for Harcourt andelsewhere. [3211] In Brittany, Auray and Vannes retain the convoysfor Nantes, and Lannion those for Brest. Brest having attempted tonegotiate, its commissioners are seized, and, with knives at theirthroats, are forced to sign a renunciation, pure and simple, of thegrain which they have paid for, and they are led out of Lannion andstoned on the way. Eighteen hundred men, consequently, leave Brest withfour cannon, and go to recover their property with their guns loaded. These are the customs prevalent during the great famines of feudaltimes; and, from one end of France to the other, to say nothing ofthe out-breaks of the famished in the large towns, similar outrages orattempts at recovery are constantly occurring. --" The armed populationof Nantua, Saint-Claude, and Septmoncel, " says a dispatch, [3212] "haveagain cut off provisions from the Gex region; there is no wheat comingthere from any direction, all the roads being guarded. Without the aidof the government of Geneva, which is willing to lend to this regioneight hundred Cuttings of wheat, we should either die of starvation orbe compelled to take grain by force from the municipalities whichkeep it to themselves. " Narbonne starves Toulon; the navigation of theLanguedoc canal is intercepted; the people on its banks repulse twocompanies of soldiers, burn a large building, and want to destroy thecanal itself. " Boats are stopped, wagons are pillaged, bread is forciblylowered in price, stones are thrown and guns discharged; the populacecontend with the National Guard, peasants with townsmen, purchaserswith dealers, artisans and laborers with farmers and land-owners, atCastelnaudary, Niort, Saint-Etienne, in Aisne, in Pas-de-Calais, andespecially along the line stretching from Montbrison to Angers--thatis to say, for almost the whole of the extent of the vast basin of theLoire, --such is the spectacle presented by the year 1790. --And yet thecrop has not been a bad one. But there is no circulation of grain. Eachpetty center has formed a league for the monopoly of food; and hence thefasting of others and the convulsions of the entire body are thefirst effects of the unbridled freedom which the Constitution andcircumstances have conferred on each local group. 

"We are told to assemble, vote, and elect men that will attend to ourbusiness; let us attend to it ourselves. We have had enough of talk andhypocrisy. Bread at two sous, and let us go after wheat where it canbe found!" Such is the reasoning of the peasantry, and, in Nivernais, Bourbonnais, Berri, and Touraine, electoral gatherings are thefirebrands of the insurrections. [3213] At Saint-Sauge, "the first workof the primary meeting is to oblige the municipal officers to fix theprice of wheat under the penalty of being decapitated. " At Saint-Géranthe same course is taken with regard to bread, wheat, and meat; atChâtillon-en-Bayait it is done with all supplies, and always a third ora half under the market price, without mentioning other exactions. --Theycome by degrees to the drafting of a tariff for all the valuables theyknow, proclaiming the maximum price which an article may reach, and soestablishing a complete code of rural and social economy. We see in theturbulent and spasmodic wording of this instrument their dispositionsand sentiments, as in a mirror. [3214] It is the program of villagers. Its diverse articles, save local variations, must be executed, now oneand now the other, according to the occasion, the need, and the time, and, above all, whatever concerns provisions. --The wish, as usual, isthe father of the thought; the peasantry thinks that it is acting byauthority: here, through a decree of the King and the National Assembly, there, by a commission directly entrusted to the Comte d'Estrées. Evenbefore this, in the market-place of Saint-Amand, "a man jumped on a heapof wheat and cried out, 'In the name of the King and the nation, wheatat one-half the market-price!"' An old officer of the Royal Grenadiers, a chevalier of the order of Saint-Louis, is reported to be marching atthe head of several parishes, and promulgating ordinances in his ownname and that of the King, imposing a fine of eight livres on whoevermay refuse to join him. --On all sides there is a swarm of workingpeople, and resistance is fruitless. There are too many of them, theconstabulary being drowned in the flood. For, these rustic legislatorsare the National Guard itself, and when they vote reductions upon, orrequisitions for, supplies, they enforce their demands with their guns. The municipal officials, willingly or unwillingly, must needs serve theinsurgents. At Donjon the Electoral Assembly has seized the mayor of theplace and threatened to kill him, or to burn his house, if he did notput the cutting of wheat at forty sous; whereupon he signs, and all themayors with him, "under the penalty of death. " As soon as this is donethe peasants, "to the sound of fifes and drums, " spread through theneighboring parishes and force the delivery of wheat at forty sous, andshow such a determined spirit that the four brigades of gendarmes sentout against them think it best to retire. --Not content with taking whatthey want, they provide for reserve supplies; wheat is a prisoner. InNivernais and Bourbonnais, the peasants trace a boundary line over whichno sack of grain of that region must pass; in case of any infractionof this law the rope and the torch are close at hand for thedelinquent. --It remains to make sure that this rule is enforced. InBerri bands of peasants visit the markets to see that their tariff iseverywhere maintained. In vain are they told that they are emptying themarkets; "they reply that they know how to make grain come, that theywill take it from private hands, and money besides, if necessary. " Infact, the granaries and cellars belonging to a large number of personsare pillaged. Farmers are constrained to put their crops into a commongranary, and the rich are put to ransom; "the nobles are compelled tocontribute, and obliged to give entire domains as donations; cattle arecarried off; and they want to take the lives of the proprietors, "while the towns, which defend their storehouses and markets, areopenly attacked. [3215] Bourbon-Lancy, Bourbon-l'Archambault, Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, Montluçon, Saint-Amand, Chateau-Gontier, Decises, each petty community is an islet assailed by the mountingtide of rustic insurrection. The militia pass the night under arms;detachments of the National Guards of the large towns with regulartroops come and garrison them. The red flag is continuously raised foreight days at Bourbon-Lancy, and cannon stand loaded and pointed inthe public square. On the 24th of May an attack is made onSaint-Pierre-le-Moutier, and fusillades take place all night onboth sides. On the 2nd of June, Saint-Amand, menaced by twenty-sevenparishes, is saved only by the preparations it makes and by thegarrison. About the same time Bourbon-Lancy is attacked by twelveparishes combined, and Chateau-Gontier by the sabotiers of the forestsin the vicinity. A band of from four to five hundred villagers arreststhe convoys of Saint-Amand, and forces their escorts to capitulate;another band entrenches itself in the Chateau de la Fin, and firesthroughout the day on the regulars and the National Guard. --The largetowns themselves are not safe. Three or four hundred rustics, ledby their municipal officers, forcibly enter Tours, to compel themunicipality to lower the price of corn and diminish the rate of leases. Two thousand slate-quarry-men, armed with guns, spits, and forks, forcetheir way into Angers to obtain a reduction on bread, fire upon theguard, and are charged by the troops and the National Guard; a numberremain dead in the streets, two are hung that very evening, and the redflag is displayed for eight days. "The town, " say the dispatches, "wouldhave been pillaged and burnt had it not been for the Picardy regiment. "Fortunately, as the crop promises to be a good one, prices fall. As theElectoral Assemblies are closed, the fermentation subsides; and towardsthe end of the year, like a clear spell in a steady storm, the gleam ofa truce appears in the civil war excited by hunger. 

But the truce does not last long, as it is broken in twenty placesby isolated explosions; and towards the month of July, 1791, thedisturbances arising from the uncertainty of basic food suppliesbegin again, to cease no more. We will consider but one group in thisuniversal state of disorder--that of the eight or ten departments whichsurround Paris and furnish it with supplies. These districts, Brie andBeauce, are rich wheat regions, and not only was the crop of 1790 good, but that of 1791 is ample. Information is sent to the minister fromLaon[3216] that, in the department of Aisne, "there is a supply ofwheat for two years. . . That the barns, generally empty by the monthof April, will not be so this season before July, " and, consequently, "subsistence is assured. " But this does not suffice, for the source ofthe evil is not in a scarcity of wheat. In order that everybody, in avast and populous country, where the soil, cultivation, and occupationsdiffer, may eat, it is essential that food should be attainable by thenon-producers; and for it to reach them freely, without delay, solely bythe natural operation of supply and demand, it is essential thatthere should be a police able to protect property, transactions, andtransport. Just in proportion as the authority of a State becomesweakened, and in proportion as security diminishes, the distribution ofsubsistence becomes more and more difficult: a gendarmerie, therefore, is an indispensable wheel in the machine by which we are able to secureour daily bread. Hence it is that, in 1791, daily bread is wanting to alarge number of men. Simply through the working of the Constitution, allrestraints, already slackened both at the extremities and at the center, are becoming looser and more loose each day. The municipalities, whichare really sovereign, repress the people more feebly, some because thelatter are the bolder and themselves more timid, and others because theyare more radical and always consider them in the right. The NationalGuard is wearied, never comes forward, or refuses to use its arms. Theactive citizens are disgusted, and remain at home. At Étampes, [3217]where they are convoked by the commissioners of the department to takesteps to re-establish some kind of order, only twenty assemble; theothers excuse themselves by saying that, if the populace knew that theyopposed its will, "their houses would be burnt, " and they accordinglystay away. "Thus, " write the commissioners, "the common-weal is givenup to artisans and laborers whose views are limited to their ownexistence. "--It is, accordingly, the lower class which rules, and theinformation upon which it bases its decrees consists of rumors which itaccepts or manufactures, to hide by an appearance of right the outrageswhich are due to its cupidity or to the brutalities of its hunger. AtÉtampes, "they have been made to believe that the grain which hadbeen sold for supplying the departments below the Loire, is shipped atPaimboeuf and taken out of the kingdom from there to be sold abroad. " Inthe suburbs of Rouen they imagine that grain is purposely "engulfedin the swamps, ponds, and clay-pits. " At Laon, imbecile and Jacobincommittees attribute the dearness of provisions to the avidity of therich and the malevolence of the aristocrats according to them, "jealousmillionaires grow rich at the expense of the people. They know thepopular strength, " and, not daring to measure their forces with it, "inan honorable fight, " have recourse "to treachery. " To conquer thepeople easily they have determined to reduce them in advance by extremesuffering and by the length of their fast, and hence they monopolize"wheat, rye, and meal, soap, sugar, and brandy. "[3218]--Similar reportssuffice to excite a suffering crowd to acts of violence, and it mustinevitably accept for its leaders and advisers those who urge it forwardon the side to which it is inclined. The people always require leaders, and they are chosen wherever they can be found, at one time amongst theelite, and at another amongst the dregs. Now that the nobles aredriven out, the bourgeoisie in retirement, the large cultivatorsunder suspicion, while animal necessities exercise their blind andintermittent despotism, the appropriate popular ministers consist ofadventurers and of bandits. They need not be very numerous, for in aplace full of combustible matter a few firebrands suffice to start theconflagration. "About twenty, at most, can be counted in the towns ofÉtampes and Dourdan, men with nothing to lose and everything to gain bydisturbances; they are those who always produce excitement and disorder, while other citizens afford them the means through their indifference. "Those whose names are known among the new guides of the crowd are almostall escaped convicts whose previous habits have accustomed them toblows, violence, frequently to murder, and always to contempt for thelaw. At Brunoy, [3219] the leaders of the outbreak are "two deserters ofthe 18th regiment, sentenced and unpunished, who, in company with thevilest and most desperate of the parish, always go about armed andthreatening. " At Étampes, "the two principal assassins of the mayorare a poacher repeatedly condemned for poaching, and an old carabinieredismissed from his regiment with a bad record against him. "[3220] Aroundthese are artisans "without a known residence, " wandering workmen, journeymen and apprentices, vagrants and highway rovers, who flock intothe towns on market-days and are always--ready for mischief when anopportunity occurs. Vagabonds, indeed, now roam about the countryeverywhere, all restrictions against them having ceased. 

"For a year past, " write several parishes in the neighborhood ofVersailles, "we have seen no gendarmes except those who come withdecrees, " and hence the multiplication of "murders and brigandage"between Étampes and Versailles, on the highways and in the country. Bands of thirteen, fifteen, twenty and twenty-two beggars rob thevineyards, enter farm-houses at night, and compel their inmates to lodgeand feed them, returning in the same way every fortnight, all farms orisolated dwellings being their prey. An ecclesiastic is killed in hisown house in the suburbs of Versailles, on the 26th of September, 1791, and, on the same day, a bourgeois and his wife are garroted and robbed. On the 22nd of September, near Saint-Rémi-Honoré, eight bandits ransackthe dwelling of a farmer. On the 25th of September, at Villers-le-Sec, thirteen others strip another farmer, and then add with much politeness, "It is lucky for your masters that they are not here, for we would haveroasted them at yonder fire. " Six similar outrages are committed byarmed ruffians in dwelling-places, within a radius of from three to fourleagues, accompanied with the threats of the chauffeurs. [3221] "Afterenterprises of such force and boldness, " write the people of thisregion, "there is not a well-to-do man in the country who can rely uponan hour's security in his house. Already many of our best cultivatorsare giving up their business, while others threaten to do the same incase these disorders continue. "--What is worse still is the fact that inthese outrages most of the bandits were "in the national uniform. " Themost ignorant, the poorest, and most fanatical of the National Guardthus enlist for the sake of plunder. It is so natural for men to believein their right to that of which they feel the need, that the possessorsof wheat thus become its monopolists, and the superfluity of the richthe property of the poor! This is what the peasants say who devastatethe forest of Bruyères-le-Chatel: "We have neither wood, bread, norwork--necessity knows no law. "

The necessaries of life are not to be had cheap under such a system. There is too much anxiety, and property is too precarious; there are toomany obstacles to commerce; purchases, sales, shipments, arrivals andpayments are too uncertain. How are goods to be stored and transportedin a country where neither the central government, the localauthorities, the National Guard, nor the regular troops perform theirduties, and where every transaction in produce, even the most legal andthe most serviceable, is subject to the caprice of a dozen villains whomthe populace obey. --Wheat remains in the barn, or is secreted, or iskept waiting, and only reaches by stealth the hands of those who arerich enough to pay, not only its price, but the extra cost of therisk. Thus forced into a narrow channel, it rises to a rate which thedepreciation of the assignats augments, its dearness being not onlymaintained, but ever on the increase. --Thereupon popular instinctinvents for the cure of the evil a remedy which serves to aggravateit: henceforth, wheat must not travel; it is impounded in the canton inwhich it is gathered. At Laon, "the people have sworn to die rather thanlet their food be carried off. " At Étampes, to which the municipalityof Angers dispatches an administrator of its hospital to buy twohundred and fifty sacks of flour, the commission cannot be executed, the delegate not even daring to avow for several days the object ofhis coming; all he can do is "to visit incognito, and at night, thedifferent flour-dealers in the valley, who would offer to furnishthe supply, but fear for their lives and dare not even leave theirhouses. "--The same violence is shown in the more distant circle ofdepartments which surround the first circle. At Aubigny, in Cher, [3222]grain-wagons are stopped, the district administrators are menaced; twohave a price set on their heads; a portion of the National Guard sideswith the mutineers. At Chaumont, in Haute-Marne, the whole of theNational Guard is in a state of mutiny; a convoy of over three hundredsacks is stopped, the Hôtel-de-Ville forced, and the insurrection lastsfour days; the directory of the department takes flight; and the peopleseize on the powder and cannons. At Douai, in the "Nord, " to savea grain-dealer, he is put in prison; the mob forces the gates, thesoldiers refuse to fire, and the man is hung, while the directory ofthe department takes refuge in Lille. At Montreuil-sur-Mer, inPas-de-Calais, the two leaders of the insurrection, a brazier and ahorse-shoer, "Bèquelin, called Petit-Gueux, " the latter with his saberin hand, reply to the summons of the municipal authorities, that "not agrain shall go now that they are masters, " and that if they dare to makesuch proclamations "they will cut off their heads. " There are nomeans of resistance. The National Guard, when it is convoked, does notrespond; the volunteers when called upon turn their muskets down, andthe crowd, assembled beneath the windows, shouts out its huzzahs. Somuch the worse for the law when it opposes popular passion: "We will notobey it, " they say; "people make laws to please themselves. "--By wayof practical illustration, at Tortes, in Seine-Inférieure, six thousandarmed men belonging to the surrounding parishes form a deliberativearmed body; the better to establish their rights, they bring two cannonwith them fastened by ropes on a couple of carts; twenty-two companiesof the National Guard, each under its own banner, march beside them, while all peaceable inhabitants are compelled to fall in "under penaltyof death, " the municipal officers being at their head. This improvisedparliament promulgates a complete law in relation to grain, which, asa matter of form, is sent for acceptance to the department, and to theNational Assembly; and one of its articles declares that all husbandmenshall be forbidden "to sell their wheat elsewhere than on themarket-places. " With no other outlet for it, wheat must be broughtto the corn markets (halles), and when these are full the price mustnecessarily fall. 

What a profound deception! Even in the granary of France wheat remainsdear, and costs about one-third more than would be necessary to securethe sale of bread at two sous the pound, in conformity with the will ofthe people. For instance, [3223] at Gonesse, Dourdan, Corbeil, Mennecy, Brunoy, Limours, Brie-Comte-Robert, and especially at Étampes andMontlhéry, the holders of grain are compelled almost weekly, through theclamors and violence of the people, to reduce prices one-third andmore. It is impossible for the authorities to maintain, on theircorn-exchange, the freedom of buying and selling. The regular troopshave been sent off by the people beforehand. Whatever the tolerance orconnivance of the soldiers may be, the people have a vague sentimentthat they are not there to permit the ripping open of sacks of flour, orthe seizing of farmers by the throat. To get rid of all obstacles and ofbeing watched, they make use of the municipality itself, and force itto effect its own disarmament. The municipal officers, besieged in thetown-hall, at times threatened with pistols and bayonets, [3224] dispatchto the detachments they are expecting an order to turn back, and entreatthe Directory not to send any more troops, for, if any come, they havebeen told that "they will be sorry for it. " Nowhere are there regulartroops. At Étampes, the people repeat that "they are sent for and paidby the flour-dealers;" at Montlhéry, that "they merely serve to armcitizens against each other;" at Limours, that "they make grain dearer. "All pretexts seem good in this direction; the popular will is absolute, and the authorities complacently meet its decrees half-way. AtMontlhéry, the municipal body orders the gendarmerie to remain at thegates of the town, which gives full play to the insurrection. --Theadministrators, however, are not relieved by leaving the people free toact; they are obliged to sanction their exactions by ordinances. Theyare taken out of the Hôtel-de-Ville, led to the marketplace, and thereforthwith, under the dictation of the uproar which establishes prices, they, like simple clerks, proclaim the reduction. When, moreover, thearmed rabble of a village marches forth to tyrannize over a neighboringmarket, it carries its mayor along with it in spite of himself, as anofficial instrument which belongs to it. [3225] "There is no resistanceagainst force, " writes the mayor of Vert-le-Petit; "we had to set forthimmediately. "--" They assured me, " says the Mayor of Fontenay, "that, if I did not obey them, they would hang me. "--On any municipal officerhazarding a remonstrance, they tell him that "he is getting to be anaristocrat. " Aristocrat and hung, the argument is irresistible, andall the more so because it is actually applied. At Corbeil, theprocureur-syndic who tries to enforce the law is almost beaten todeath, and three houses in which they try to find him are demolished. AtMontlhéry, a seed merchant, accused of mixing the flour of beans (twiceas dear) with wheaten flour, is massacred in his own house. At Étampes, the mayor who promulgates the law is cudgeled to death. Mobs talk ofnothing but "burning and destroying, " while the farmers, abused, hooted at, forced to sell, threatened with death and robbed, run away, declaring they will never return to the market again. 

Such is the first effect of popular dictatorship. Like all unintelligentforces, it operates in a direction the reverse of its intention: todearness it adds dearth, and empties, instead of replenishing, themarkets. That of Étampes often contained fifteen or sixteen hundredsacks of flour; the week following this insurrection there were, atmost, sixty brought to it. At Montlhéry, where six thousand men hadcollected together, each one obtains for his share only a small measure, while the bakers of the town have none at all. This being the case, theenraged National Guards tell the farmers that they are coming to seethem on their farms. And they really go. [3226] Drums roll constantlyon the roads around Montlhéry, Limours, and other large market-towns. Columns of two, three, and four hundred men are seen passing under thelead of their commandant and of the mayor whom they take along withthem. They enter each farm, mount into the granaries, estimate thequantity of grain thrashed out, and force the proprietor to sign anagreement to bring it to market the following week. Sometimes, as theyare hungry, they compel people to give them something to eat and drinkon the spot, and it will not do to enrage them, --a farmer and his wifecome near being hung in their own barn. 

Their effort is useless: Wheat is impounded and hunted up in vain; ittakes to the earth or slips off like a frightened animal. In vain doinsurrections continue. In vain do armed mobs, in all the market-townsof the department, [3227] subject grain to a forced reduction of price. Wheat becomes scarcer and dearer from month to month, rising in pricefrom twenty-six francs to thirty-three. And because the outraged farmer"brings now a very little, " just "what is necessary to sacrificein order to avoid threats, he sells at home, or in the inns, to theflour-dealers from Paris. "--The people, in running after abundance, havethus fallen deeper down into want: their brutality has aggravated theirmisery, and it is to themselves that their starvation is owing. Butthey are far from attributing all this to their own insubordination;the magistrates are accused; these, in the eyes of the populace, are "inleague with the monopolists. " On this incline no stoppage is possible. Distress increases rage, and rage increases distress; and on this fataldeclivity men are precipitated from one outrage to another. 

After the month of February, 1792, such outrages are innumerable; themobs which go in quest of grain or which cut down its price consistof armies. One of six thousand men comes to control the market ofMontlhéry. [3228] There are seven to eight--thousand men who invade themarket-place of Verneuil, and there is an army of ten and another oftwenty-five thousand men, who remain organized for ten days nearLaon. One hundred and fifty parishes have sounded the tocsin, and theinsurrection spreads for ten leagues around. Five boats loaded withgrain are stopped, and, in spite of the orders of district, department, minister, King, and National Assembly, they refuse to surrender them. Their contents, in the meantime, are made the most of: "The municipalofficers of the different parishes, assembled together, pay themselvestheir fees, to wit: one hundred sous per diem for the mayor, threelivres for the municipal officers, two livres ten sous for the guards, two livres for the porters. They have ordered that these sums shouldbe paid in grain, and they reduce grain, it is said, fifteen livres thesack. It is certain that they have divided it amongst themselves, andthat fourteen hundred sacks have been distributed. " In vain do thecommissioners of the National Assembly make speeches to them three hoursin length. The discourse being finished, they deliberate, in presence ofthe commissioners, whether the latter shall be hung, drowned, or cutup, and their heads put on the five points of the middle of the abbeyrailing. On being threatened with military force, they make theirdispositions accordingly. Nine hundred men who relieve each other watchday and night on the ground, in a well chosen and permanent encampment, while lookouts stationed in the belfries of the surrounding villageshave only to sound the alarm to bring together twenty-five thousandmen in a few hours. --So long as the Government remains on its feet itcarries on the combat as well as it can; but it grows weaker from monthto month, and, after the 10th of August, when it lies on the ground, themob takes its place and becomes the universal sovereign. From this timeforth not only is the law which protects provisioning powerless againstthe disturbers of sale and circulation, but the Assembly actuallysanctions their acts, since it decrees[3229] the stoppage of allproceedings commenced against them, remits sentences already passed, and sets free all who are imprisoned or in irons. Behold everyadministration, with merchants, proprietors, and farmers abandoned tothe famished, the furious, and to robbers; henceforth food supplies arefor those who are disposed and able to take them. 

"You will be told, " says a petition, [3230] "that we violate the law. Wereply to these perfidious insinuations that the salvation of the peopleis the supreme law. We come in order to keep the markets supplied, andto insure an uniform price for wheat throughout the Republic. For, thereis no doubt about it, the purest patriotism dies out (sic) when there isno bread to be had. . . . Resistance to oppression--yes, resistance tooppression is the most sacred of duties; is there any oppression moreterrible than that of wanting bread? Undoubtedly, no. . . . Join usand 'Ça ira, ça ira!' We cannot end our petition better than with thispatriotic air. "

This supplication was written on a drum, amidst a circle of firearms;and with such accompaniments it is equivalent to a command. --They arewell aware of it, and of their own authority they often conferupon themselves not only the right but also the title. InLoire-et-Cher, [3231] a band of from four to five thousand men assume thename of "Sovereign Power. " They go from one market-town to another, to Saint-Calais, Montdoubleau, Blois, Vendôme, reducing the cost ofprovisions, their troop increasing like a snowball--for they threaten"to burn the effects and set fire to the houses of all who are not ascourageous as themselves. "

In this state of social disintegration, insurrection is a gangrene inwhich the healthy are infected by the morbid parts. Mobs are everywhereproduced and re-produced, incessantly, large and small, like abscesseswhich break out side by side, and painfully irritate each other andfinally combine. There are the towns against the rural districts andrural districts against the towns. On the one hand "every farmerwho transports anything to the market passes (at home) for anaristocrat, [3232] and becomes the horror of his fellow-citizens in thevillage. " On the other hand the National Guards of the towns spreadthemselves through the rural districts and make raids to save themselvesfrom death by hunger. [3233] It is admitted in the rural districts thateach municipality has the right to isolate itself from the rest. Itis admitted in the towns that each town has the right to derive itsprovisions from the country. It is admitted by the indigent of eachcommune that the commune must provide bread gratis or at a cheap rate. On the strength of this there is a shower of stones and a fusillade;department against department, district against district, canton againstcanton, all fight for food, and the strongest get it and keep it forthemselves. --I have simply described the North, where, for the pastthree years, the crops are good. I have omitted the South, where tradeis interrupted on the canal of the Deux Mers, where the procureur-syndicof Aude has lately been massacred for trying to secure the passage ofa convoy; where the harvest has been poor; where, in many places, breadcosts eight sous the pound; where, in almost every department, a bushelof wheat is sold twice as dear as in the North!

Strange phenomenon! and the most instructive of all, for in it we seedown into the depths of humanity; for, as on a raft of shipwreckedbeings without food, there is a reversion to a state of nature. Thelight tissue of habit and of rational ideas in which civilization hasenveloped man, is torn asunder and is floating in rags around him; thebare arms of the savage show themselves, and they are striking out. The only guide he has for his conduct is that of primitive days, thestartled instinct of a craving stomach. Henceforth that which rules inhim and through him is animal necessity with its train of violentand narrow suggestions, sometimes sanguinary and sometimes grotesque. Incompetent or savage, in all respects like a Negro monarch, his solepolitical expedients are either the methods of a slaughter house or thedreams of a carnival. Two commissioners whom Roland, Minister of theInterior, sends to Lyons, are able to see within a few days the carnivaland the slaughter-house. [3234]--On the one hand the peasants, all alongthe road, arrest everybody; the people regard every traveler as anaristocrat who is running away--which is so much the worse for those whofall into their hands. Near Autun, four priests who, to obey the law, are betaking themselves to the frontier, are put in prison "for theirown protection;" they are taken out a quarter of an hour later, and, in spite of thirty-two of the mounted police, are massacred. "Theircarriage was still burning as I passed, and the corpses were stretchedout not far off. Their driver was still in durance, and it was it vainthat I solicited his release. "--On the other hand, at Lyons, the powerhas fallen into the hands of the degraded women of the streets. "Theyseized the central club, constituted themselves commissaries of police, signed notices as such, and paid visits of inspection to store-houses;"they drew up a tariff of provisions, "from bread and meat up to commonpeaches, and peaches of fine quality. " They announced that "whoeverdared to dispute it would be considered a traitor to the country, an adherent of the civil list, and prosecuted as such. " All this ispublished, proclaimed and applied by "female commissaries of police, "themselves the dregs of the lowest sinks of corruption. Respectablehousewives and workwomen had nothing to do with it, nor "working-peopleof any class. " The sole actors of this administrative parody are"scamps, a few bullies of houses of ill-fame, and a portion of the dregsof the female sex. "--To this end comes the dictatorship of instinct, yonder let loose on the highway in a massacre of priests, and here, inthe second city of France, in the government of strumpets. 

III. --Egotism of the tax-payer. 

 Issoudun in 1790. --Rebellion against taxation. --Indirect taxes in 1789 and 1790. --Abolition of the salt tax, excise, and octrois. --Direct taxation in 1789 and 1790. --Delay and insufficiency of the returns. --New levies in 1791 and 1792. --Delays, partiality, and concealment in preparing the rolls. --Insufficiency of, and the delay in, the returns. --Payment in assignats. --The tax-payer relieves himself of one-half. --Devastation of the forests. --Division of the communal property. 

The fear of starvation is only the sharper form of a more generalpassion, which is the desire of possession and the determination notto give anything up. No popular instinct, had been longer, more rudely, more universally offended under the ancient régime; and there is nonewhich gushes out more readily under constraint, none which requires ahigher or broader public barrier, or one more entirely constructed ofsolid blocks, to keep it in check. Hence it is that this passion fromthe commencement breaks down or engulfs the slight and low boundaries, the tottering embankments of crumbling earth between which theConstitution pretends to confine it. --The first flood sweeps away thepecuniary claims of the State, of the clergy, and of the noblesse. Thepeople regard them as abolished, or, at least, they consider their debtsdischarged. Their idea, in relation to this, is formed and fixed; forthem it is that which constitutes the Revolution. The people have nolonger a creditor; they are determined to have none, they will paynobody, and first of all, they will make no further payment to theState. 

On the 14th of July, 1790, the day of the Federation, the population ofIssoudun, in Touraine, solemnly convoked for the purpose, had just takenthe solemn oath which was to ensure public peace, social harmony, andrespect for the law for evermore. [3235] Here, probably, as elsewhere, arrangements had been made for an stirring ceremonial; there were younggirls dressed in white, and learned and impressionable magistrates wereto pronounce philosophical harangues. All at once they discover that thepeople gathered on the public square are provided with clubs, scythes, and axes, and that the National Guard will not prevent their use; on thecontrary, the Guard itself is composed almost wholly of wine growers andothers interested in the suppression of the duties on wine, of coopers, innkeepers, workmen, carters of casks, and others of the same stamp, all rough fellows who have their own way of interpreting the SocialContract. The whole mass of decrees, acts, and rhetorical flourisheswhich are dispatched to them from Paris, or which emanate from the newauthorities, are not worth a halfpenny tax maintained on each bottleof wine. There are to be no more excise duties; they will only take thecivic oath on this express condition, and that very evening they hang, in effigy, their two deputies, who "had not supported their interests"in the National Assembly. A few months later, of all the National Guardcalled upon to protect the clerks, only the commandant and two officersrespond to the summons. If a docile taxpayer happens to be found, heis not allowed to pay the dues; this seems a defection and almosttreachery. An entry of three puncheons of wine having been made, theyare stove in with stones, a portion is drunk, and the rest taken to thebarracks to debauch the soldiers; M. De Sauzay, commandant of the "RoyalRoussillon, " who was bold enough to save the clerks, is menaced, and forthis misdeed he barely escapes being hung himself. When the municipalbody is called upon to interpose and employ force, it replies that "forso small a matter, it is not worth while to compromise the lives of thecitizens, " and the regular troops sent to the Hôtel-de-Ville are orderedby the people not to go except with the but-ends of their muskets in theair. Five days after this the windows of the excise office are smashed, and the public notices are torn down; the fermentation does not subside, and M. De Sauzay writes that a regiment would be necessary to restrainthe town. At Saint-Amand the insurrection breaks out violently, and isonly put down by violence. At Saint-Étienne-en-Forez, Bertheas, a clerkin the excise office, falsely accused of monopolizing grain, [3236]is fruitlessly defended by the National Guard; he is put in prison, according to the usual custom, to save his life, and, for greatersecurity, the crowd insist on his being fastened by an iron collar. But, suddenly changing its mind, it breaks upon the door and drags himoutside, beating him till he is unconscious. Stretched on the ground, his head still moves and he raises his hand to it, when a woman, picking up a large stone, smashes his skull. --These are not isolatedoccurrences. During the months of July and August, 1789, the tax officesare burnt in almost every town in the kingdom. In vain does the NationalAssembly order their reconstruction, insist on the maintenance of dutiesand octrois, and explain to the people the public needs, patheticallyreminding them, moreover, that the Assembly has already given themrelief;--the people prefer to relieve themselves instantly and entirely. Whatever is consumed must no longer be taxed, either for the benefit ofthe State or for that of the towns. "Entrance dues on wine and cattle, "writes the municipality of Saint-Etienne, "scarcely amount to anything, and our powers are inadequate for their enforcement. " At Cambrai, twosuccessive outbreaks compel the excise office and the magistracy ofthe town[3237] to reduce the duties on beer one-half. But "the evil, atfirst confined to one corner of the province, soon spreads;" the grandsbaillis of Lille, Douai, and Orchies write that "we have hardly a bureauwhich has not been molested, and in which the taxes are not whollysubject to popular discretion. " Those only pay who are disposed to doso, and, consequently, "greater fraud could not exist. " The taxpayers, indeed, cunningly defend themselves, and find plenty of arguments orquibbles to avoid paying their dues. At Cambrai they allege that, asthe privileged now pay as well as the rest, the Treasury must berich enough. [3238] At Noyon, Ham, and Chauny, and in the surroundingparishes, the butchers, innkeepers, and publicans combined, who haverefused to pay excise duties, pick flaws in the special decree by whichthe Assembly subjects them to the law, and a second special decree isnecessary to circumvent these new legal experts. The process at Lyonsis simpler. Here the thirty-two sections appoint commissioners; thesedecide against the octroi, and request the municipal authorities toabolish it. They must necessarily comply, for the people are at hand andare furious. Without waiting, however, for any legal measures, they takethe authority on themselves, rush to the toll-houses and drive out theclerks, while large quantities of provisions, which "through a singularpredestination" were waiting at the gates, come in free of duty. --TheTreasury defends itself as it best can against this universally baddisposition of the tax-payer, against these irruptions and infiltrationsof fraud; it repairs the dike where it has been carried away, stops upthe fissures and again resumes collections. But how can these be regularand complete in a State where the courts dare not condemn delinquents, where public force dares not support the courts, [3239] where popularfavor protects the most notorious bandits and the worst vagabondsagainst the tribunals and against the public powers? At Paris, where, After eight months of impunity, proceedings are begun against thepillagers who, on the 13th of August, 1789, set fire to the tax offices, the officers of the election, "considering that their audienceshave become too tumultuous, that the thronging of the people excitesuneasiness, that threats have been uttered of a kind calculated tocreate reasonable alarm, " are constrained to suspend their sittings andrefer matters to the National Assembly, while the latter, consideringthat "if prosecutions are authorized in Paris it will be necessary toauthorize them throughout the kingdom, " decides that it is best "to veilthe statue of the Law. "[3240]

Not only does the Assembly veil the statue of the Law, but it takes topieces, remakes, and mutilates it, according to the requirements of thepopular will; and, in the matter of indirect imposts all its decrees areforced upon it. The outbreak against the salt impost was terrible fromthe beginning; sixty thousand men in Anjou alone combined to destroy it, and the price of salt had to be reduced from sixteen to six sous. [3241]The people, however, are not satisfied with this. This monopoly has beenthe cause of so much suffering that they are not disposed to put up withany remains of it, and are always on the side of the smugglers againstthe excise officers. In the month of January, 1790, at Béziers, thirty-two employees, who had seized a quantity of contraband salt onthe persons of armed smugglers, [3242] are pursued by the crowd to theHôtel-de-Ville; the consuls decline to defend them and run away; thetroops defend them, but in vain. Five are tortured, horribly mutilated, and then hung. In the month of March, 1790, Necker states that, according to the returns of the past three months, the deficit inthe salt-tax amounts to more than four millions a month, which isfour-fifths of the ordinary revenue, while the tobacco monopoly is nomore respected than that of salt. At Tours, [3243] the bourgeoismilitia refuse to give assistance to the employees, and "openly protectsmuggling, " "and contraband tobacco is publicly sold at the fair, underthe eyes of the municipal authorities, who dare make no Opposition toit. " All receipts, consequently, diminish at the same time. [3244] Fromthe 1st of May, 1789, to the 1st of May, 1790, the general collectionsamount to 127 millions instead of 150 millions; the dues and excisecombined return only 31, instead of 50 millions. The streams whichfilled the public exchequer are more and more obstructed by popularresistance, and under the popular pressure, the Assembly ends by closingthem entirely. In the month of March, 1790, [3245] it abolishes saltduties, internal customs-duties, taxes on leather, on oil, on starch, and the stamp of iron. In February and March, 1791, it abolishes octroisand entrance-dues in all the cities and boroughs of the kingdom, all theexcise duties and those connected with the excise, especially all taxeswhich affect the manufacture, sale, or circulation of beverages. Thepeople have in the end prevailed, and on the 1st of May, 1791, the dayof the application of the decree, the National Guard of Paris paradesaround the walls playing patriotic airs. The cannon of the Invalides andthose on the Pont-Neuf thunder out as if for an important victory. There is an illumination in the evening, there is drinking all night, auniversal revel. Beer, indeed, is to be had at three sous the pot, andwine at six sous a pint, which is a reduction of one-half; no conquestcould be more popular, since it brings intoxication within easy reach ofthe thirsty. [3246]

The object, now, is to provide for the expenses which have been defrayedby the suppressed octrois. In 1790, the octroi of Paris had produced35, 910, 859 francs, of which 25, 059, 446 went to the State, and 10, 851, 413went to the city. How is the city going to pay for its watch, thelighting and cleaning of its streets, and the support of its hospitals?What are the twelve hundred other cities and boroughs going to do whichare brought by the same stroke to the same situation? What willthe State do, which, in abolishing the general revenue from allentrance-dues and excise, is suddenly deprived of two-fifths of itsrevenue?--In the month of March, 1790, when the Assembly suppressed thesalt and other duties, it established in the place of these a tax offifty millions, to be divided between the direct imposts and dues onentrance to the towns. Now, consequently, that the entrance-dues areabolished, the new charge falls entirely upon the direct imposts. Do returns come in, and will they come in?--In the face of so manyoutbreaks, any indirect taxation (VAT) is, certainly, difficult tocollect. Nevertheless it is not so repulsive as the other because thelevies of the State disappear in the price of the article, the hand ofthe Exchequer being hidden by the hand of the dealer. The Governmentclerk formerly presented himself with his stamped paper and the sellerhanded him the money without much grumbling, knowing that he wouldsoon be more than reimbursed by his customer: the indirect tax is thuscollected. Should any difficulty arise, it is between the dealer and thetaxpayer who comes to his shop to lay in his little store; the lattergrumbles, but it is at the high price which he feels, and possibly atthe seller who pockets his silver; he does not find fault with the clerkof the Exchequer, whom he does not see and who is not then presentIn the collection of the direct tax, on the contrary, it is the clerkhimself whom he sees before him, who abstracts the precious piece ofsilver. This authorized robber, moreover, gives him nothing in exchange;it is an entire loss. On leaving the dealer's shop he goes away with ajug of wine, a pot of salt, or similar commodities; on leaving the taxoffice he has nothing in hand but an acquittance, a miserable bit ofscribbled paper. --But now he is master in his own commune, an elector, aNational Guard, mayor, the sole authority in the use of armed force, andcharged with his own taxation. Come and ask him to unearth the buriedmite on which he has set all his heart and all his soul, the earthen potwherein he has deposited his cherished pieces of silver one by one, andwhich he has laid by for so many years at the cost of so much misery andfasting, in the very face of the bailiff in spite of the prosecutions ofthe sub-delegate, commissioner, collector, and clerk!

From the 1st of May, 1789, to the 1st of May, 1790, [3247] the generalreturns, the taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and "twentieths, "instead of yielding 161. 000, 000 francs, yield but 28, 000, 000 francs inthe provinces which impose their own taxes (pays d'Etats); instead of28, 000, 000 francs, the Treasury obtains but 6, 000, 000. On the patrioticcontribution which was to deduct one quarter of all incomes over fourhundred livres, and to levy two and a half per cent. On plate, jewels, and whatever gold and silver each person has in reserve, the Statereceived 9. 700, 000 francs. As to patriotic gifts, their total, comprising the silver buckles of the deputies, reaches only 361, 587francs; and the closer our examination into the particulars of thesefigures, the more do we see the contributions of the villager, artisan, and former subjects of the taille diminish. --Since the month of October, 1789, the privileged classes, in fact, appear in the tax-rolls, and theycertainly form the class which is best off, the most alive to generalideas and the most truly patriotic. It is therefore probable that, ofthe forty-three millions of returns from the direct imposts and from thepatriotic contribution, they have furnished the larger portion, perhapstwo thirds of it, or even three-quarters. If this be the case, thepeasant, the former tax-payer, gave nothing or almost nothing from hispocket during the first year of the Revolution. For instance, in regardto the patriotic contribution, the Assembly left it to the conscience ofeach person to fix his own quota; at the end of six months, consciencesare found too elastic, and the Assembly is obliged to confer this righton the municipalities. The result is[3248] that this or that individualwho taxed himself at forty-eight livres, is taxed at a hundred andfifty; another, a cultivator, who had offered six livres, is judged tobe able to pay over one hundred. Every regiment contains a small numberof select brave men, and it is always these who are ready to advanceunder fire. Every State contains a select few of honest men who advanceto meet the tax-collector. Some effective constraint is essential in theregiment to supply those with courage who have but little, and in theState to supply those with probity who do not possess it. Hence, duringthe eight months which follow, from May 1st, 1790, to January 1st, 1791, the patriotic contribution furnishes but 11, 000, 000 livres. Two yearslater, on the 1st of February, 1793, out of the forty thousand communaltax-rolls which should provide for it, there are seven thousand whichare not yet drawn up; out of 180, 000, 000 livres which it oughtto produce, there are 70, 000, 000 livres which are still due. --Theresistance of the tax-payer produces a similar deficit, and similardelays in all branches of the national income. [3249] In the month ofJune, 1790, a deputy declares in the tribune that "out of thirty-sixmillions of imposts which ought to be returned each month only nine havebeen received. "[3250] In the month of November, 1791, a reporter onthe budget states that the receipts, which should amount to forty orforty-eight millions a month, do not reach eleven millions and a half. On February 1, 1793, there remains still due on the direct taxes of 1789and 1790 one hundred and seventy-six millions. It is evident thatthe people struggle with all their might against the old taxes, evenauthorized and prolonged by the Constituent Assembly, and all that isobtained from them is wrested from them. 

Will the people be more docile under the new taxation? The Assemblyexhorts them to be so and shows them how, with the relief they havegained and with the patriotism they ought to possess, they can andshould discharge their dues. The people are able to do it because, having got rid of tithes, feudal dues, the salt-tax, octrois and exciseduties, they are in a comfortable position. They should do so, becausethe taxation adopted is indispensable to the State, equitable, assessedon all in proportion to their fortune, collected and expended underrigid scrutiny, without perversion or waste, according to precise, clear, periodical and audited accounts. No doubt exists that, after the1st of January, 1791, the date when the new financial scheme comes intooperation, each tax-payer will gladly pay as a good citizen, and thetwo hundred and forty millions of the new tax on real property, andthe sixty millions of that on personal property, leaving out therest--registries, license, and customs duties--will flow in regularlyand easily of their own accord. 

Unfortunately, before the tax-gatherer can collect the first two leviesthese have to be assessed, and as there are complicated writingsand formalities, claims to settle amidst great resistance and localignorance, the operation is indefinitely prolonged. The personal andland-tax schedule of 1791 is not transmitted to the departments by theAssembly until June, 1791. The departments do not distribute it amongthe districts until the months of July, August, and September, 1791. Itis not distributed by the districts among the communes before October, November, and December, 1791. Thus in the last month of 1791 it is notyet distributed to the tax-payers by the communes; from which it followsthat on the budget of 1791 and throughout that year, the tax-payerhas paid nothing. --At last, in 1792, everybody begins to receive thisassessment. It would require a volume to set forth the partiality anddissimulation of these assessments. In the first place the office ofassessor is one of danger; the municipal authorities, whose duty itis to assign the quotas, are not comfortable in their town quarters. Already, in 1790, [3251] the municipal officers of Monbazon have beenthreatened with death if they dared to tax industrial pursuits on thetax-roll, and they escaped to Tours in the middle of the night. Even atTours, three or four hundred insurgents of the vicinity, dragging alongwith them the municipal officers of three market-towns, come and declareto the town authorities "that for all taxes they will not pay more thanforty-five sous per household. " I have already narrated how, in 1792, in the same department, "they kill, they assassinate the municipalofficers" who presume to publish the tax-rolls of personal property. InCreuse, at Clugnac, the moment the clerk begins to read the document, the women spring upon him, seize the tax-roll, and "tear it up withcountless imprecations;" the municipal council is assailed, and twohundred persons stone its members, one of whom is thrown down, has hishead shaved, and is promenaded through the village in derision. --Whenthe small tax-payer defends himself in this manner, it is a warning thathe must be humored. The assessment, accordingly, in the village councilsis made amongst a knot of cronies. Each relieves himself of the burdenby shoving it off on somebody else. "They tax the large proprietors, whom they want to make pay the whole tax. " The noble, the old seigneur, is the most taxed, and to such an extent that in many places hisincome does not suffice to pay his quota. --In the next place they makethemselves out poor, and falsify or elude the prescriptions of the law. "In most of the municipalities, houses, tenements, and factories[3252]are estimated according to the value of the area they cover, andconsidered as land of the first class, which reduces the quota toalmost nothing. " And this fraud is not practiced in the villages alone. "Communes of eight or ten thousand souls might be cited which havearranged matters so well amongst themselves in this respect that nota house is to be found worth more than fifty sous. "--Last expedientof all, the commune defers as long as it can the preparation of itstax-rolls. On the 30th of January, 1792, out of 40, 211, there are only2, 560 which are complete; on the 5th of October, 1792, the schedules arenot made out in 4, 800 municipalities, and it must be noted that all thisrelates to a term of administration which has been finished for morethan nine months. At the same date, there are more than six thousandcommunes which have not yet begun to collect the land-tax of 1791, andmore than fifteen thousand communes which have not yet begun to collectthe personal tax; the Treasury and the departments have not yet received152, 000, 000 francs, there being still 222, 000, 000 to collect. On the 1stFebruary, 1793, there still remains due on the same period 161, 000, 000francs, while of the 50, 000, 000 assessed in 1790, to replace thesalt-tax and other suppressed duties, only 2, 000, 000 have beencollected. Finally, at the same date, out of the two direct taxes of1792, which should produce 300, 000, 000, less than 4, 000, 000 have beenreceived. --It is a maxim of the debtor that he must put off payment aslong as possible. Whoever the creditor may be, the State or a privateindividual, a leg or a wing may be saved by dint of procrastination. Themaxim is true, and, on this occasion, success once more demonstratesits soundness. During the year 1792, the peasant begins to discharge aportion of his arrears, but it is with assignats. In January, February, and March, 1792, the assignats diminish thirty-four, forty-four, andforty-five per cent. In value; in January, February, and March, 1793, forty-seven and fifty percent. ; in May, June, and July, 1793, fifty-four, sixty, and sixty-seven per cent. Thus has the old creditof the State melted away in its hands; those who have held on to theircrowns gain fifty per cent. And more. Again, the greater their delay themore their debts diminish, and already, on the strength of this, the wayto release themselves at half-price is found. 

Meanwhile, hands are laid on the badly defended landed property of thisfeeble creditor. --It is always difficult for rude brains to form anyconception of the vague, invisible, abstract entity called the State, to regard it as a veritable personage and a legitimate proprietor, especially when they are persistently told that the State is everybody. The property of all is the property of each, and as the forests belongto the public, the first-comer has a right to profit by them. In themonth of December, 1789, [3253] bands of sixty men or more chop down thetrees in the Bois de Boulogne and at Vincennes. In April, 1790, in theforest of Saint-Germain, "the patrols arrest all kinds of delinquentsday and night:" handed over to the National Guards and municipalities inthe vicinity, these are "almost immediately released, even with thewood which they have cut down against the law. " iii There is no meansof repressing "the reiterated threats and insults of the low class ofpeople. " A mob of women, urged on by an old French guardsman, come andpillage under the nose of the escort a load of faggots confiscated forthe benefit of a hospital; and in the forest itself, bands of maraudersfire upon the patrols. --At Chantilly, three game-keepers are mortallywounded;[3254] both parks are devastated for eighteen consecutive days;the game is all killed, transported to Paris and sold. --At Chambord thelieutenant of the constabulary writes to announce his powerlessness; thewoods are ravaged and even burnt; the poachers are now masters of thesituation; breaches in the wall are made by them, and the water fromthe pond is drawn off to enable them to catch the fish. --At Claix, inDauphiny, an officer of the jurisdiction of woods and forests, who hassecured an injunction against the inhabitants for cutting down trees onleased ground, is seized, tortured during five hours, and then stonedto death. --In vain does the National Assembly issue three decrees andregulations, placing the forests under the supervision and protection ofadministrative bodies, --he latter are too much afraid of their charge. Between the central power, which is weak and remote, and the people, present and strong, they always decide in favor of the latter. Not oneof the five municipalities surrounding Chantilly is disposed to assistin the execution of the laws, while the directories of the districtand department respectively, sanction their inertia. --Similarly, nearToulouse, [3255] where the magnificent forest of Larramet is devastatedin open day and by an armed force, where the wanton destruction bythe populace leaves nothing of the underwood and shrubbery but "a fewscattered trees and the remains of trunks cut at different heights, "the municipalities of Toulouse and of Tournefeuille refuse all aid. And worse still, in other provinces, as for instance in Alsace, "wholemunicipalities, with their mayors at the head, cut down woods whichare confided to them, and carry them off. "[3256] If some tribunal isdisposed to enforce the law, it is to no purpose; it takes the risk, either of not being allowed to give judgment, or of being constrainedto reverse its decision. At Paris the judgment prepared against theincendiaries of the tax-offices could not be given. At Montargis, thesentence pronounced against the marauders who had stolen cartloadsof wood in the national forests had to be revised, and by the judgesthemselves. The moment the tribunal announced the confiscation of thecarts and horses which had been seized, there arose a furious outcryagainst it; the court was insulted by those present; the condemnedparties openly declared that they would have their carts and horses backby force. Upon this "the judges withdrew into the council-chamber, andwhen soon after they resumed their seats, that part of their decisionwhich related to the confiscation was canceled. "

And yet this administration of justice, ludicrous and flouted as itmay be, is still a sort of barrier. When it falls, along with theGovernment, everything is exposed to plunder, and there is no such thingas public property. --After August 10, 1792, each commune or individualappropriates whatever comes in its way, either products or the soilitself. Some of the plunderers go so far as to say that, since theGovernment no longer represses them, they act under its authority. [3257]"They have destroyed even the recent plantation of young trees. " "One ofthe villages near Fontainebleau cleared off and divided an entire grove. At Rambouillet, from August 10th to the end of October, " the loss ismore than 100, 000 crowns; the rural agitators demand with threats thepartition of the forest among the inhabitants. "The destruction isenormous" everywhere, prolonged for entire months, and of such a kind, says the minister, as to dry up this source of public revenue for along time to come. --Communal property is no more respected thannational property. In each commune, these bold and needy folk, the ruralpopulace, are privileged to enjoy and make the most of it. Not contentwith enjoying it, they desire to acquire ownership of it, and, for daysafter the King's fall, the Legislative Assembly, losing its footing inthe universal breaking up, empowers the indigent to put in force theagrarian law. Henceforth it suffices in any commune for one-third ofits inhabitants of both sexes, servants, common laborers, shepherds, farm-hands or cowherds, and even paupers, to demand a partition of thecommunal possessions. All that the commune owns, save public edificesand woods, is to be cut up into as many equal lots as there are heads, the lots to be drawn for, and each individual to take possession of hisor her portion. [3258] The Operation is carried out, for "those whoare least well off are infinitely flattered by it. " In the district ofArcis-sur-Aube, there are not a dozen communes out of ninety in whichmore than two-thirds of the voters had the good sense to pronounceagainst it. From this time forth the commune ceases to be anindependent proprietor; it has nothing to fall back upon. In case ofdistress it is obliged to lay on extra taxes and obtain, if it can, afew additional sous. Its future revenue is at present in thetightly buttoned pockets of the new proprietors. --The prevalence ofshort-sighted views is once more due to the covetousness of individuals. Whether national or communal, it is always public interest whichsuccumbs, and it succumbs always under the usurpations of indigentminorities, at one time through the feebleness of public authority, which dares not oppose their violence, and at another through thecomplicity of public authority, which has conferred upon them the rightsof the majority. 

IV. --Cupidity of tenants. 

 The third and fourth jacquerie. --Brittany and other provinces in 1790 and 1791. --The burning of chateaux. --Title-deeds destroyed. --Refusal of claims. --Destruction of reservoirs. --Principal characteristics, prime motive and ruling passion of the revolution

When there is a lack of public force for the protection of publicproperty, there is also a lack of it for the protection of privateproperty, for the same greed and the same needs attack both. Let a manowe anything either to the State or to an individual, and the temptationnot to pay is equally the same. In both cases it suffices to find apretext for denying the debt; in finding this pretext the cupidity ofthe tenant is as good as the selfishness of the tax-payer. Now that thefeudal system is abolished let nothing remain of it: let there be nomore seignorial claims. "If the Assembly has maintained some of them, yonder in Paris, it did so inadvertently or through corruption: weshall soon hear of all being suppressed. In the meantime we will relieveourselves, and burn the agreements in the places where they are kept. "

Such being the argument, the jacquerie breaks out afresh: in truth, it is permanent and universal. Just as in a body in which some of theelements of its vital substance are affected by an organic disease, theevil is apparent in the parts which seem to be sound: even where as yetno outbreak has occurred, one is imminent; constant anxiety, a profoundrestlessness, a low fever, denote its presence. Here, the debtor doesnot pay, and the creditor is afraid to prosecute him. In other placesisolated eruptions occur. At Auxon, [3259] on an estate spared by thegreat jacquerie of July, 1789, the woods are ravaged, and the peasants, enraged at being denounced by the keepers, march to the chateau, whichis occupied by an old man and a child; everybody belonging to thevillage is there, men and women; they hew down the barricaded door withtheir axes, and fire on the neighbors who come to the assistance ofits inmates. --In other places, in the districts of Saint-Étienne andMontbrison, "the trees belonging to the proprietors are carriedaway with impunity, and the walls of their grounds and terraces aredemolished, the complainants being threatened with death or withthe sight of the destruction of their dwellings. " Near Paris, aroundMontargis, Nemours, and Fontainebleau, a number of parishes refuseto pay the tithes and ground-rent (champart) which the Assembly hasa second time sanctioned; gibbets are erected and the collectors arethreatened with hanging, while, in the neighborhood of Tonnerre, amob of debtors fire upon the body of police which comes to enforce theclaims. --Near Amiens, the Comtesse de la Mire, [3260] on her estate ofDavencourt, is visited by the municipal authorities of the village, whorequest her to renounce her right to ground-rent (champart) and thirds(tiers). She refuses and they insist, and she refuses again, when theyinform her that "some misfortune will happen to her. " In effect, twoof the municipal officers cause the tocsin to be rung, and the wholevillage rushes to arms. One of the domestics has an arm broken by aball, and for three hours the countess and her two children are subjectto the grossest insults and to blows: she is forced to sign a paperwhich she is not allowed to read, and, in warding off the stroke ofa saber, her arm is cleft from the elbow to the wrist; the chateauis pillaged, and she owes her escape to the zeal of some of herservants. --Large eruptions take place at the same time over entireprovinces; one succeeds the other almost without interruption, the feverencroaching on parts which were supposed to be cured, and to such anextent that the virulent ulcers finally combine and form one over thewhole surface of the social body. 

By the end of December, 1789, the chronic fermentation comes to a headin Brittany. Imagination, as usual, has forged a plot, and, as thepeople say, if they make an attack it is in their own defense. --A reportspreads[3261] that M. De Goyon, near Lamballe, has assembled in hischateau a number of gentlemen and six hundred soldiers. The mayorand National Guard of Lamballe immediately depart in force; they findeverything tranquil there, and no company but two or three friends, and no other arms than a few fowling-pieces. --The impulse, however, isgiven, and, on the 15th of January, the great federation of Pontivy hasexcited the wildest enthusiasm. The people drink, sing, and shout inhonor of the new decrees before armed peasants who do not comprehend theFrench tongue, still less legal terms, and who, on their return home, arguing with each other in bas-breton, interpret the law in a peculiarway. "A decree of the Assembly, in their eyes, is a decree of arrest"and as the principal decrees of the Assembly are issued against thenobles, they are so many decrees of arrest against them. --Some daysafter this, about the end of January, during the whole of February, anddown to the month of April, the execution of this theory is tumultuouslycarried out by mobs of villagers and vagabonds around Nantes, Auray, Redon, Dinan, Ploërmel, Rennes, Guingamp, and other villages. Everywhere, writes the Mayor of Nantes, [3262] "the country-peoplebelieve that in burning deeds and contracts they get rid of their debts;the very best of them concur in this belief, " or let things taketheir course; the excesses are enormous, because many gratify "specialanimosities, and all are heated with wine. --At Beuvres, "the peasantsand vassals of the manor, after burning title-deeds, establishthemselves in the chateau, and threaten to fire it if other papers, which they allege are concealed there, are not surrendered. " Near Redonthe Abbey of Saint-Sauveur is reduced to ashes. Redon is menaced, andPloërmel almost besieged. At the end of a month thirty-seven chateauxare enumerated as attacked: twenty-five in which the title-deeds areburnt, and twelve in which the proprietors are obliged to sign anabandonment of their rights. Two chateaux which began to burn are savedby the National Guard. That of Bois-au-Voyer is entirely consumed, and several have been sacked. By way of addition, "more than fifteenprocureurs-fiscaux, clerks, notaries, and officers of seignorial courtshave been plundered or burnt, " while proprietors take refuge in thetowns because the country is now uninhabitable for them. 

A second tumor makes its appearance at the same time at anotherpoint. [3263] It showed itself in Lower Limousin in the beginning ofJanuary. From thence the purulent inflammation spreads to Quercy, Upper Languedoc, Perigord, and Rouergue, and in February from Tulle toMontauban, and from Agen to Périgueux and Cahors, extending over threedepartments. --Then, also, expectancy is the creator, according to rule, of its own object. By dint of longing for a law for the suppressionof all claims, it is imagined that it is passed, and the statementis current that "the King and the National Assembly have ordereddeputations to set up the maypole[3264] and to 'light up' thechateaux. "--Moreover, and always in accordance with current practice, bandits, people without occupation, take the lead of the furious crowdand manage things their own way. As soon as a band is formed it arrestsall the peaceable people it can find on the roads, in the fields, and inisolated farmhouses, and takes good care to put them in front in caseof blows. --These miscreants add terror to compulsion. They erect gibbetsfor any one that pays casual duties or annual dues, while the parishesof Quercy threaten their neighbors of Perigord with fire and sword ina week's time if they do not do in Perigord as they have done inQuercy. --The tocsin rings, the drums beat, and "the ceremony" isperformed from commune to commune. The keys of the church are forciblytaken from the curé the seats are burned, and, frequently, the woodworkmarked with the seigneur's arms. They march to the seigneur's mansion, tear down his weathercocks, and compel him to furnish his finest tree, together with feathers and ribbons with which to deck it, withoutomitting the three measures which he uses in the collection of his duesin grain or flour. The maypole is planted in the village square, and theweathercocks, ribbons, and feathers are attached to its top, togetherwith the three measures and this inscription, "By order of the King andNational Assembly, the final quittance for all rentals. " When thisis done it is evident that the seigneur, who no longer possessesweathercocks, or a seat in the church, or measures to rate his dues by, is no longer a seigneur, and can no longer put forth claims of any kind. Huzzahs and acclamations accordingly burst forth, and there is a reveland an orgy on the public square. All who can pay--the seigneur, thecuré, and the rich--are put under contribution for the festival, whilethe people eat and drink "without any interval of sobriety. "--In thiscondition, being armed, they strike, and when resistance is offered, they burn. In Agénois, a chateau belonging to M. De Lameth, and anotherof M. D'Aiguillon; in Upper Languedoc, that of M. De Bournazel, and inPerigord that of M. De Bar, are burnt down:

M. De Bar is almost beaten to death, while six others are killedin Quercy. A number of chateaux in the environs of Montauban and inLimousin are assaulted with firearms, and several are pillaged. --Bandsof twelve hundred men swarm the country; "they have a spite againstevery estate;" they redress wrongs; "they try over again casesdisposed of thirty years ago, and give judgments which they put intoexecution. "--If anybody fails to conform to the new code he is punished, and to the advantage of the new sovereigns. In Agénois, a gentlemanhaving paid the rent which was associated with his fief the people takehis receipt from him, mulct him in a sum equal to that which he paid, and come under his windows to spend the money on good cheer, in triumphand with derision. 

Many of the National Guards who still possess some degree of energy, several of the municipalities which still preserve some love of order, and a number of the resident gentry, employ their arms against theseexcited swarms of brutal usurpers. Some of the ruffians, taken in theact, are judged somewhat after the fashion of a drum-head court-martial, and immediately executed as examples. Everybody in the country seesthat the peril to society is great and urgent, and that if such acts gounpunished, there will be no such thing as law and property inFrance. The Bordeaux parliament, moreover, insists upon prosecutions. Eighty-three boroughs and cities sign addresses, and send a specialdeputation to the National Assembly to urge on prosecutions alreadycommenced, the punishment of criminals under arrest, and, above all, the maintenance of the prévôtés. [3265] In reply to this, the Assemblyinflicts upon the parliament of Bordeaux its disapprobation in therudest manner, and enters upon the demolition of every judicialcorporation. [3266] After this, the execution of all prévotal decisionsis adjourned. A few months later the Assembly will oblige the King todeclare that the proceedings begun against the jacquerie of Brittanyshall be regarded as null and void, and that the arrested insurgentsshall be set free. For repressive purposes, it dispatches a sentimentalexhortation to the French people, consisting of twelve pages of literaryinsipidity, which Florian might have composed for his Estilles andhis Nemorins. [3267]--New conflagrations, as an inevitable consequence, kindle around live coals which have been imperfectly extinguished. Inthe district of Saintes, [3268] M. Dupaty, counselor of the parliament ofBordeaux, after having exhausted mild resources, and having concludedby issuing writs against those of his tenantry who would not pay theirrents, the parish of Saint-Thomas de Cosnac, combined with five or sixothers, puts itself in motion and assails his two chateaux of Bois-Rocheand Saint-George-des-Agouts; these are plundered and then set on fire, his son escaping through a volley of musket-balls. They visit Martin, the notary and steward, in the same fashion; his furniture is pillagedand his money is taken, and "his daughter undergoes the most frightfuloutrages. " Another detachment pushes on to the house of-the Marquisde Cumont, and forces him, under the penalty of having his house burntdown, to give a discharge for all the claims he has upon them. At thehead of these incendiaries are the municipal officers of Saint-Thomas, except the mayor, who has taken to flight. 

The electoral system organized by the Constituent Assembly is beginningto take effect. "Almost everywhere, " writes the royal commissioner, "thelarge proprietors have been eliminated, and the offices have been filledby men who strictly fulfill the conditions of eligibility. The resultis a sort of rage of the petty rich to annoy those who enjoy largeheritages. "--Six months later, the National Guards and villageauthorities in this same department at Aujean, Migron, and Varaise, decide that no more tithes, agriers or champarts, nor any of the dueswhich are retained, shall be paid. In vain does the department annul thedecision, and send its commissioners, gendarmes, and law-officers. Thecommissioners are driven away, and the officers and gendarmes are firedupon; the vice-president of the district, who was on his way to make hisreport to the department, is seized on the road and forced to give inhis resignation. Seven parishes have coalesced with Aujean and tenwith Migron; Varaise has sounded the tocsin, and the villages for fourleagues round have risen; fifteen hundred men, armed with guns, scythes, hatchets and pitchforks, lend their aid. The object is to set freethe principal leader at Varaise, one Planche, who was arrested, andto punish the mayor of Varaise, Latierce, who is suspected of havingdenounced Planche. Latierce is unmercifully beaten, and "forced toundergo a thousand torments during thirty hours;" then they set outwith him to Saint-Jean-d'Angely, and demand the release of Planche. Themunicipality at first refuses, but finally consents on the conditionthat Latierce be given up in exchange for him. Planche, consequently, isset at liberty and welcomed with shouts of triumph. Latierce, however, is not given up; on the contrary, he is tormented for an hour and thenmassacred, while the directory of the district, which is less submissivethan the municipal body, is forced to fly. --Symptoms of this kind arenot to be mistaken, and similar ones exist in Brittany. It is evidentthat the minds of the people are permanently in revolt. Instead of thesocial abscess being relieved by the discharge, it is always fillingup and getting more inflamed. It will burst a second time in the sameplaces; in 1791 as in 1790, the jacquerie spreads throughout Brittany asit has spread over Limousin. 

This is because the determination of the peasant is of another naturethan ours, his will being more firm and tenacious. When an idea obtainsa hold on him it takes root in an obscure and profound conviction uponwhich neither discussion nor argument have any effect; once planted, it vegetates according to his notions, not according to ours, and nolegislative text, no judicial verdict, no administrative remonstrancecan change in any respect the fruit it produces. This fruit, developedduring centuries, is the feeling of an excessive plunder, and, consequently, the need of an absolute release. Too much having beenpaid to everybody, the peasant now is not disposed to pay anything toanybody, and this idea, vainly repressed, always rises up in the mannerof an instinct. --In the month of January, 1791, [3269] bands againform in Brittany, owing to the proprietors of the ancient fiefs havinginsisted on the payment of their rents. At first the coalesced parishesrefuse to pay the stewards, and after this the rustic National Guardsenter the chateaux to constrain the proprietors. Generally, it is thecommander of the National Guard, and sometimes the communal attorney, who dictates to the lord of the manor the renunciation of his claims;they oblige him, moreover, to sign notes for the benefit of the parish, or for that of various private individuals. This is considered by themto be compensation for damages; all feudal dues being abolished, he mustreturn what he received from them during the past year, and as they havebeen put to inconvenience he must indemnify them by "paying them fortheir time and journey. " Such are the operations of two of the principalbands, one of them numbering fifteen hundred men, around Dinan and St. Malo; for greater security they burn title-deeds in the chateaux ofSaint-Tual, Besso, Beaumanoir, La Rivière, La Bellière, Chateauneuf, Chenay, Chausavoir, Tourdelon, and Chalonge; and as a climax they setfire to Chateauneuf just before the arrival of the regular troops. --Inthe beginning, a dim conception of legal and social order seems to befloating in their brains; at Saint-Tual, before taking 2, 000 livres fromthe steward, they oblige the mayor to give them his consent in writing;at Yvignac, their chief, called upon to show the authority under whichhe acted, declares that "he is authorized by the general will of thepopulace of the nation. "[3270]--But when, at the end of a month, theyare beaten by the regular troops, made furious by the blows given andtaken, and excited by the weakness of the municipal authorities whorelease their prisoners, they then become bandits of the worst species. During the night of the 22nd of February, the chateau of Villefranche, three leagues from Malestroit, is attacked. Thirty-two rascals withtheir faces masked, and led by a chief in the national uniform, breakopen the door. The domestics are strangled. The proprietor, M. De laBourdonnaie, an old man, with his wife aged sixty, are half killed byblows and tied fast to their bed, and after this a fire is applied totheir feet and they are warmed (chauffé). In the meantime the plate, linen, stuffs, jewelry, two thousand francs in silver, and even watches, buckles, and rings, --everything is pillaged, piled on the backs ofthe eleven horses in the stables, and carried off. --When property isconcerned, one sort of outrage provokes another, the narrow cupidityof the lease-holder being completed by the unlimited rapacity of thebrigand. 

Meanwhile, in the south-western provinces, the same causes have producedthe same results; and towards the end of autumn, when the crops aregathered in and the proprietors demand their dues in money or inproduce, the peasant, immovably fixed in his idea, again refuses. [3271]In his eyes, any law that may be against him is not that of theNational Assembly, but of the so-called seigneurs, who have extorted ormanufactured it; and therefore it is null. The department and districtadministrators may promulgate it as much as they please: it does notconcern him, and if the opportunity occurs, he knows how to make themsmart for it. The village National Guards, who are lease-holders likehimself, side with him, and instead of repressing him give him theirsupport. As a commencement, he replants the maypoles, as a sign ofemancipation, and erects the gibbet by way of a threat. --In the districtof Gourdon, the regulars and the police having been sent to put themdown, the tocsin is at once sounded: a crowd of peasants, amounting tofour or five thousand, arrives from every surrounding parish, armed withscythes and guns; the soldiers, forming a body of one hundred, retireinto a church, where they capitulate after a siege of twenty-four hours, being obliged to give the names of the proprietors who demanded theirintervention of the district, and who are Messrs. Hébray, de Fontange, and many others. All their houses are destroyed from top to bottom, and they effect their escape in order not to be hung. The chateaux ofRepaire and Salviat are burned. At the expiration of eight days Quercyis in flames and thirty chateaux are destroyed. --The leader of a bandof rustic National Guards, Joseph Linard, at the head of a villagearmy, penetrates into Gourdon, installs himself in the Hôtel-de-Ville, declares himself the people's protector against the directory of thedistrict, writes to the department in the name of his "companions inarms, " and vaunts his patriotism. Meanwhile he commands as a conqueror, throws open the prisons, and promises that, if the regular troopsand police be sent off; he and his companions will withdraw in goodorder. --This species of tumultuous authority, however, instituted byacclamation for attack, is powerless for resistance. Scarcely has Linardretired when savagery is let loose. "A price is set upon the headsof the administrators; their houses are the first devastated; all thehouses of wealthy citizens are pillaged; and the same is the casewith all chateaux and country habitations which display any signs ofluxury. "--Fifteen gentlemen, assembled together at the house of M. D'Escayrac, in Castel, appeal to all good citizens to march to theassistance of the proprietors who may be attacked in this jacquerie, which is spreading everywhere;[3272] but there are too few proprietorsin the country, and none of the towns have too many of them for theirown protection. M. D'Escayrac, after a few skirmishes, abandoned by themunicipal officers of his village, and wounded, withdraws to the houseof the Comte de Clarac, a major-general, in Languedoc. Here, too, thechateau, is surrounded, [3273] blockaded, and besieged by the localNational Guard. M. De Clarac descends and tries to hold a parley withthe attacking party, and is fired upon. He goes back inside and throwsmoney out of the window; the money is gathered up, and he is again firedupon. The chateau is set on fire, and M. D'Escayrac receives five shots, and is killed. M. De Clarac, with another person, having taken refuge ina subterranean vault, are taken out almost stifled the next morning butone by the National Guard of the vicinity, who conduct them to Toulouse, where they are kept in prison and where the public prosecutor takesproceedings against them. The chateau of Bagat, near Montouq, isdemolished at the same time. The abbey of Espagnac, near Figeac, isassaulted with fire-arms; the abbess is forced to refund all rents shehas collected, and to restore four thousand livres for the expenses of atrial which the convent had gained twenty years before. 

After such successes, the extension of the revolt is inevitable; andat the end of some weeks and months it becomes permanent in the threeneighboring departments. --In Creuse, [3274] the judges are threatenedwith death if they order the payment of seignorial dues, and the samefate awaits all proprietors who claim their rents. In many places, andespecially in the mountains, the peasants, "considering that they formthe nation, and that clerical possessions are national, " want to havethese divided amongst themselves, instead of their being sold. Fiftyparishes around La Souterraine receive incendiary letters inviting themto come in arms to the town, in order to secure by force, and by stakingtheir lives, the production of all titles to rentals. The peasants, in acircle of eight leagues, are all stirred up by the sound of the tocsin, and preceded by the municipal officers in their scarves; there are fourthousand of them, and they drag with them a wagon full of arms: this isfor the revision and re-constitution of the ownership of the soil. --InDordogne, [3275] self-appointed arbitrators interpose imperiously betweenthe proprietor and the small farmer, at the time of harvest, to preventthe proprietor from claiming, and the farmer from paying, the tithes orthe réve;[3276] any agreement to this end is forbidden; whoever shalltransgress the new order of things, proprietor or farmer, shall be hung. Accordingly, the rural militia in the districts of Bergerac, Excideuil, Ribérac, Mucidan, Montignac, and Perigueux, led by the municipalofficers, go from commune to commune in order to force the proprietorsto sign an act of withdrawal; and these visits "are always accompaniedwith robberies, outrages, and ill-treatment from which there is noescape but in absolute submission. " Moreover, "they demand the abolitionof every species of tax and the partition of the soil. "--It isimpossible for "proprietors moderately rich" to remain in the country;on all sides they take refuge in Perigueux, and there, organizing incompanies, along with the gendarmerie and the National Guard of thetown, overrun the cantons to restore order. But there is no way ofpersuading the peasantry that it is order which they wish to restore. With that stubbornness of the imagination which no obstacle arrests, and which, like a vigorous spring, always finds some outlet, the peopledeclare that "the gendarmes and National Guard" who come to restrainthem "are priests and gentlemen in disguise. "--The new theories, moreover, have struck down to the lowest depths; and nothing is easierthan to draw from them the abolition of debts, and even the agrarianlaw. At Ribérac, which is invaded by the people of the neighboringparishes, a village tailor, taking the catechism of the Constitutionfrom his pocket, argues with the procureur-syndic, and proves to himthat the insurgents are only exercising the rights of man. The bookstates, in the first place, "that Frenchmen are equals and brethren, and that they should give each other aid;" and that "the mastersshould share with their fellows, especially this year, which is one ofscarcity. " In the next place, it is written that "all property belongsto the nation, " and that is the reason why "it has taken the possessionsof the Church. " Now, all Frenchmen compose the nation, and theconclusion is clearly apparent. Since, in the eyes of the tailor, theproperty of individual Frenchmen belongs to all the French, he, thetailor, has a right to at least the quota which belongs to him. --Onetravels fast and far on this downhill road, for every mob considersthat this means immediate enjoyment, and enjoyment according to its ownideas. There is no care for neighbors or for consequences, even whenimminent and physical, and in twenty places the confiscated propertyperishes in the hands of the usurpers. 

This voluntary destruction of property can be best observed in thethird department, that of Corrèze. [3277] Not only have the peasants hererefused to pay rents from the beginning of the Revolution; not only havethey "planted maypoles, supplied with iron hooks, to hang the firstone that dared to claim or to pay them;" not only are violent acts ofevery description committed "by entire communes, " "the National Guardsof the small communes participating in them;" not only do the culprits, whose arrest is ordered, remain at liberty, while "nothing is spokenof but the hanging of the constables who serve writs, " but farther, together with the ownership of the water-sources, the power ofcollecting, directing, and distributing the water is overthrown, and, ina country of in a country of steep slopes, the consequences of suchan operation may be imagined. Three leagues from Tulle, in a forming asemi-circle, a pond twenty feet in depth, and covering an area of threehundred acres, was enclosed by a broad embankment on the side of avery deep gorge, which was completely covered with houses, mills, andcultivation. On the 17th of April, 1791, a troop of five hundred armedmen assembled by the beat of a drum, and collected from three villagesin the vicinity, set themselves to demolish the dike. The proprietor, M. De Sedières, a substitute-deputy in the National Assembly, is notadvised of it until eleven o'clock in the evening. Mounting his horse, along with his guests and domestics, he makes a charge on the insanewretches, and, with the aid of pistol and gun shots, disperses them. Itwas time, for the trench they had dug was already eight feet deep, and the water was nearly on a level with it: a half-hour later and theterrible rolling mass of waters would have poured out on the inhabitantsof the gorge. --But such vigorous strokes, which are rare and hardly eversuccessful, are no defense against universal and continuous attacks. The regular troops and the gendarmerie, both of which are in the way ofreorganization or of dissolution, are not trustworthy, or are too weak. There are no more than thirty of the cavalry in Creuse, and as many inCorrèze. The National Guards of the towns are knocked up by expeditionsinto the country, and there is no money with which to provide for theirchange of quarters. And finally, as the elections are in the hands ofthe people, this brings into power men disposed to tolerate popularexcesses. At Tulle, the electors of the second class, almost all chosenfrom among the cultivators, and, moreover, catechized by the club, nominate for deputies and public prosecutor only the candidates who arepledged against rentals and against water privileges. --Accordingly, thegeneral demolition of the dikes begins as the month of May approaches. This operation continues unopposed on a vast pond, a league and a halffrom the town, and lasts for a whole week; elsewhere, on the arrival ofthe guards or of the gendarmerie, they are fired upon. Towards the endof September, all the embankments in the department are broken down:nothing is left in the place of the ponds but fetid marshes; themill-wheels no longer turn, and the fields are no longer watered. Butthose who demolish them carry away baskets full of fish, and the soil ofthe ponds again becomes communal. --Hatred is not the motive which impelsthem, but the instinct of acquisition: all these violent outstretchedhands, which rigidly resist the law, are directed against property, butnot against the proprietor; they are more greedy than hostile. One ofthe noblemen of Corrèze, [3278] M. De Saint-Victour, has been absent forfive years. From the beginning of the Revolution, although his feudaldues constitute one-half of the income of his estate, he has givenorders that no rigorous measures shall be employed in their collection, and the result is that, since 1789, none of them were collected. Moreover, having a reserve stock of wheat on hand, he lent grain, to theamount of four thousand francs, to those of his tenants who had none. In short, he is liberal, and, in the neighboring town, at Ussel, he evenpasses for a Jacobin. In spite of all this, he is treated just like therest. It is because the parishes in his domain are "clubbist, " governedby associations of moral and practical levelers; in one of them "thebrigands have organized themselves into a municipal body, " and havechosen their leader as procureur-syndic. Consequently, on the 22nd ofAugust, eighty armed peasants opened the dam of his large pond, at therisk of submerging a village in the neighborhood, the inhabitants ofwhich came and closed it up. Five other ponds belonging to him aredemolished in the course of the two following weeks; fish to the valueof from four to five thousand francs are stolen, and the rest perish inthe weeds. In order to make this expropriation sure, an effort is madeto burn his title-deeds; his chateau, twice attacked in the night, issaved only by the National Guard of Ussel. His farmers and domesticshesitate, for the time being, whether or not to cultivate the ground, and come and ask the steward if they could sow the seeds. There is norecourse to the proper authorities: the administrators and judges, evenwhen their own property is concerned, "dare not openly show themselves, "because "they do not find themselves protected by the shield of the law. "--Popular will, traversing both the old and the new law, obstinatelypersists in its work, and forcibly attains its ends. Thus, whatever thegrand terms of liberty, equality, and fraternity may be, with which theRevolution graces itself, it is, in its essence, a transfer of property;in this alone consists its chief support, its enduring energy, its primary impulse and its historical significance. --Formerly, inantiquity, similar movements were accomplished, debts were abolished orlessened, the possessions of the rich were confiscated, and the publiclands were divided; but this operation was confined to a city andlimited to a small territory. For the first time it takes place on alarge scale and in a modern State. --Thus far, in these vast States, whenthe deeper foundations have been disturbed, it has ever been on accountof foreign domination or on account of an oppression of conscience. In France in the fifteenth century, in Holland in the sixteenth and inEngland in the seventeenth century, the peasant, the mechanic, and thelaborer had taken up arms against an enemy or in behalf of their faith. On religious or patriotic zeal has followed the craving for prosperityand comfort, and the new motive is as powerful as the others; for inour industrial, democratic, and utilitarian societies it is this whichgoverns almost all lives, and excites almost all efforts. Kept down forcenturies, the passion recovers itself by throwing off governmentand privilege, the two great weights which have borne it down. At thepresent time this passion launches itself impetuously with its wholeforce, with brutal insensibility, athwart every kind of proprietorshipthat is legal and legitimate, whether it be public or private. Theobstacles it encounters only render it the more destructive, beyond property it attacks proprietors, and completes plunder withproscriptions. 

*****

[Footnote 3201: The expression is that of Jean Bon Saint-André toMathieu Dumas, sent to re-establish tranquillity in Montauban (1790):"The day of vengeance, which we have been awaiting for a hundred years, has come!"]

[Footnote 3202: De Dampmartin, I. 187 (an eye-witness). ]

[Footnote 3203: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3223 and 3216. Letters ofM. De Bouzols, major general, residing at Montpellier, May 21, 25, 28, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3204: Mary Lafon, "Histoire d'une Ville Protestante ". (withoriginal documents derived from the archives of Montauban). ]

[Footnote 3205: Archives Nationales, " F7, 2216. Procés-verbal of theMunicipality of Nîmes and report of the Abbé de Belmont. --Report of theAdministrative commissioners, June 28, 1790. --Petition of the Catholics, April 20. --Letters of the Municipality, the commissioners, and M. De Nausel, on the events of May 2 and 3. --Letter of M. RabautSaint-Etienne, May 12--Petition of the widow Gas, July 30. --Report(printed) of M. Alquier, February 19, 1791. --Memoir (printed) of themassacre of the Catholics at Nîmes, by Froment (1790). --New addressof the Municipality of Nîmes, presented by M. De Marguerite, mayor anddeputy (1790), printed. Mercure de France, February 23, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3206: The petition is signed by 3, 127 persons, besides1560 who put a cross declaring that they could not write. Thecounter-petition of the club is signed by 262 persons. ]

[Footnote 3207: This last item, stated in M. Alquier's report, is deniedby the municipality. According to it, the red rosettes gathered aroundthe bishop's quarters had no guns. ]

[Footnote 3208: An insurrection in the sixteenth century, when theProtestants fired on the Catholics on St. Michael's Day. --320TR. ]

[Footnote 3209: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3216. Letter of M. De Lespin, Major at Nîmes, to the commandant of Provence, M de Perigord, July27, 1790: "The plots and conspiracies which were attributed to thevanquished party, and which, it was believed, would be discovered in thedepositions of the four hundred men in prison, vanish as the proceedingsadvance. The veritable culprits are to be found among the informers. "]

[Footnote 3210: Buchez and Roux, III. 240 (Memorandum of the Ministers, October 28, 1789). --"Archives Nationales, " D, XXIX. 3. Deliberation ofthe Municipal council of Vernon (November 4, 1789)]

[Footnote 3211: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. DeThiard, November 4, 1789. --See similar occurrences, September 4, October23, November 4 and 19, 1789, January 27 and March 27, 1790]

[Footnote 3212: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3257. Letter from Gex, May29, 1790. --Buchez and Roux, VII. 198, 369 (September, October, 1790). ]

[Footnote 3213: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. Correspondence of M. DeBercheny, Commandant of the four central provinces. Letters of May25, June 11, 19, and 27, 1790. --" Archives Nationales, " D. XXIX. 4. Deliberations of the district administrators of Bourbon-Lancy, May 26. ]

[Footnote 3214: "Archives Nationales, " H. 2453. Minutes of the meetingof a dozen parishes in Nivernais, June 4. "White bread is to be 2 sous, and brown bread 11/2 sous. Husbandmen are to have 30 sous, reapers 10sous, wheelwrights 10 sous, bailiffs 6 sous per league. Butter is tobe at 8 sous, meat at 5 sous, pork at 8 sous, oil at 8 sous the pint, asquare foot of masonry-work 40 sous, a pair of large sabots 3 sous. Allrights of pasturage and of forests are to be surrendered. The roadsare to be free everywhere, as formerly. All seignorial rents are to besuppressed. Millers are to take only one thirty-second of a bushel. The seigneurs of our department are to give up all servile holidays andill-acquired property. The curé of Bièze is simply to say mass at nineo'clock in the morning and vespers at two o'clock in the afternoon, insummer and winter; he must marry and bury gratis, it being reserved tous to pay him a salary. He is to be paid 6 sous for masses, and not toleave his curé except to repeat his breviary and make proper calls onthe men and women of his parish. Hats must be had from 3 livres to 30sous. Nails 3 livres the gross. Curés are to have none but circumspectfemales of fifty for domestics. Curés are not to go to either fairs ormarkets. All curés are to be on the same footing as the one at Bièze. There must be no more wholesale dealers in wheat. Law officers who makeunjust seizures must return the money. Farm leases must expire on St. Martin's Day. M. Le Comte, although not there, M. De Tontenelle, and M. De Commandant must sign this document without difficulty. M. De Mingotis formally to resign his place in writing: he went away with hisservant-woman--he even missed his mass on the first Friday of theFête-Dieu, and it is supposed that he slept in the woods. Joiners' wagesshall be fixed at the same rate as wheelwrights'. Ox-straps are notto cost over 40 sous, yokes 10 sous. Masters must pay one-half of thetailles. Notaries are to take only the half of what they had formerly, as well as comptrollers. The Commune claims the right of protest againstwhatever it may have forgotten in the present article, in fact or inlaw. " (It is signed by about twenty persons, several of them beingmayors and municipal clerks. )]

[Footnote 3215: "Archives Nationales, " H. 1453. The same correspondence, May 29, June 11 and 17, September 15, 1790. --ibid, F7, 3257. Letter ofthe municipal authorities of Marsigny, May 3; of the municipal officersof Bourbon-Lancy, June 5. Extract from letters written to M. Amelot, June 1st. ]

[Footnote 3216: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3185, 3186. Letter of thePresident of the Tribunal of the district of Laon, February 8, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3217: "Archives Nationales F7, 3268. Procés-verbal andobservations of the two commissioners sent to Étampes September 22-25, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3218: "Archives Nationales F7, 3265. The following document, among many others, shows the expedients and conceptions of the popularimagination. Petition of several inhabitants of the commune of Forges(Seine Inférieure) "to the good and incorruptible Minister of theInterior" (October 16, 1792). After three good crops in succession, the famine still continues. Under the ancient régime wheat wassuperabundant; hogs were fed with it, and calves were fattened withbread. It is certain, therefore, that wheat is diverted by monopolistsand the enemies of the new regime. The farms are too large; let themhe divided. There is too much pasture-ground: sow it with wheat. Compeleach farmer and land-owner to give a statement of his crop: let thequantity be published at the church service, and in case of falsehoodlet the man be put to death or imprisoned, and his grain he confiscated. Oblige all the cultivators of the neighborhood to sell their wheat atForges only, etc. "]

[Footnote 3219: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268. Report of thecommissioners sent by the department, March 11, 1792 (apropos of theinsurrection of March 4). --Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 381. ]

[Footnote 3220: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268. Letters of severalmayors, district administrators, cultivators of Velizy, Villacoublay, La celle-Saint-Cloud, Montigny, etc. November 12, 1791. --Letter of M. De Narbonne, January 13, 1792; of M. Sureau, justice of the peace in thecanton of Étampes, September 17, 1791. --Letter of Bruyères-le-Châtel, January 28, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3221: A term applied to brigands at this epoch who demandmoney and objects of value, and force their delivery by exposing thesoles of the feet of their victims to a fire. --32TR. ]

[Footnote 3222: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3203. Letter of the Directoryof Cher, August 25, 1791. --F7, 3240. Letter of the Directory of HauteMarne, November 6, 1791. --F7, 3248. Minutes of the meeting of themembers of the department of the Nord, March 18, 1791. --F7, 3250. Minutes of the meeting of the municipal officers of Montreuil-sur-Mer, October 16, 1791. --F7, 3265. Letter of the Directory of Seine Infereure, July 22, 1791. --D, XXIX. 4. Remonstrances of the municipalitiesassembled at Tostes, July 21, 1791. --Petition, of the municipal officersof the districts of Dieppe, Cany, and Caudebec, July 22, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3223: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. ]

[Footnote 3224: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. Deliberations of the Directory of Seine-et-Oise, September 20, 1791(apropos of the insurrection. September 16, at Étampes). --Letter ofCharpentier, president of the district, September 19. --Report of theDepartment Commissioners, March 11, 1792 (on the insurrection at Brunoy, March 4. )--Report of the Department Commissioners, March 4, 1792 (onthe insurrection at Montlhéry, February 13 to 20). --Deliberation of theDirectory of Seine-et-Oise, September 16, 1791 (on the insurrection atCorbeil). --Letters of the mayors of Limours, Lonjumeau, etc. ]

[Footnote 3225: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. --Minutes of the meeting of the Municipality of Montlhéry, February 28, 1792: "We cannot enter into fuller details without exposingourselves to extremities which would be only disastrous to us. "--Letterof the justice of the peace of the canton, February 25: "Public outcryteaches me that if I issue writs of arrest against those who massacredThibault, the people would rise. "]

[Footnote 3226: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. Reports of the gendarmerie, February 24, 1792, and the followingdays. --Letter of the sergeant of Limours, March 2; of the manager of thefarm of Plessis-le-Comte, February 23. ]

[Footnote 3227: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. --Memorandum to the National Assembly by the citizens ofRambouillet, September 17, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3228: "Archives Nationales, " F7 3268 and 3269, Passim. Minutes of the meeting of the Municipality of Montlhéry, February27, 1792. --Buchez and Roux, XIII. 421, (March, 1792); and XIII. , 317. --Mercure de France, February 25, 1792. (Letters of M. Dauchy, President of the Directory of the Department; of M. De Gouy, messengersent by the minister, etc. )--Moniteur, sitting of February 15, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3229: Decree of September 3, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3230: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268 and 3269. Petition ofthe citizens of Montfort-l'Amaury, Saint-Léger, Gros-Rouvre, Gelin, Laqueue, and Méré, to the citizens of Rambouillet. ]

[Footnote 3231: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3230. Letter of anadministrator of the district of Vendôme, with the deliberation of thecommune of Vendôme, November 24, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3232: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3255. Letter of theadministrators of the Department of Seine-Inférieure, Octobers 23, 1792. --Letters of the Special Committee of Rouen, October 22 and23, 1792: "The more the zeal and patriotism of the cultivators isstimulated, the more do they seem determined to avoid the market-places, which are always in a State of absolute destitution. "]

[Footnote 3233: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3265. Letter of David, acultivator, October 20, 1792. --Letter of the Department Administrators, October 13, 1792, etc. --Letter (printed) of the minister to theconvention, November 4. --Proclamation of the Provisional Executivecouncil, October 31, 1792. (The setier of grain of two hundred and fortypounds is sold at 60 francs in the south, and at half that sum in thenorth. )]

[Footnote 3234: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3255. Letters of Bonnemant, September 11, 1792; of Laussel, September 22, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3235: "Archives Nationales, " H, 1453. Correspondence of M. De Bercheny, July 28, October 24 and 26, 1790. --The same dispositionlasted. An insurrection occurred in Issoudun after the three days ofJuly, 1830, against the combined imposts. Seven or eight thousand winegrowers burnt the archives and tax-offices and dragged an employeethrough the streets, shouting out at each street-lamp, "Let him behung!" The general sent to repress the outbreak entered the town onlythrough a capitulation; the moment he reached the Hôtel-de-Ville aman of the Faubourg de Rome put his pruning-book around his neck, exclaiming, "No more clerks where there is nothing to do!"]

[Footnote 3236: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3203. Letter of the Directoryof Cher, April 9, 1790. --Ibid, F7, 3255. Letter of August 4, 1790. Verdict of the présidial, November 4, 1790. --Letter of the Municipalityof Saint-Etienne, August 5, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3237: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3248. Letter of M. Sénac deMejlhan, April 10, 1790. --Letter of the grands baillis, June 30, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3238: Buchez and Roux, VI. 403. Report of Chabroud on theinsurrection at Lyons, July 9 and 10, 1790. --Duvergier, "Collection desDécrets. " Decrees of August 4 and 15, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3239: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3255. Letter of the Minister, July 2, 1790, to the Directory of Rhône-et-Loire. "The King is informedthat, throughout your department, and especially in the districts ofSaint-Etienne and Montbrison, license is carried to the extreme;that the judges dare not prosecute; that in many places the municipalofficers are at the head of the disturbances; and that, in others, theNational Guard do not obey requisitions. "--Letter of September 5, 1790. "In the bourg of Thisy, brigands have invaded divers cotton-spinningestablishments and partially destroyed them and after having plunderedthem, they have sold the goods by public auction. "]

[Footnote 3240: Buchez and Roux, VI. 345. Report of M. Muguet, July 1, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3241: Minutes of the meeting of the National Assembly. (Sitting of October 24, 1789. )--Decree of September 27, 1789, applicablethe 1st of October. There are other alleviations applicable on the 1stof January, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3242: Mercure de France, February 27, 1790. (Memorandum of thegarde des sceaux, January 16. )--Observations of M. Necker on the reportmade by the Financial committee, at the sitting of March 12, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3243: "Archives Nationales, " H, 1453. Correspondence of M. DeBercheny, April 24, May 4 and 6, 1790: "It is much to be feared that thetobacco-tax will share the fate of the salt-tax. "]

[Footnote 3244: Mercure de France, July 31, 1790 (sitting of July 10. )M. Lambert, Comptroller General of the Finances, informs the Assembly of"the obstacles which continual outbreaks, brigandage, and the maxims ofanarchical freedom impose, from one end of France to the other, on thecollection of the taxes. On one side, the people are led to believethat, if they stubbornly refuse a tax contrary to their rights, itabolition will be secured. Elsewhere, smuggling is openly carried onby force; the people favor it, while the National Guards refuse to actagainst the nation. In other places hatred is excited, and divisionsbetween the troops and the overseers at the toll-houses: the latterare massacred, the bureaus are pillaged, and the prisons are forcedopen. "--Memorandum from M. Necker to the National Assembly, July 21, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3245: Decrees of March 21 and 22, 1790, applicable April 21following. --Decrees of February 19 and March 2, 1791, applicable May 1following. ]

[Footnote 3246: De Goncourt, "La Societé Française pendant laRévolution, " 204. --Maxime Du Camp, "Paris, sa vie et ses organes, " VI. 11. ]

[Footnote 3247: "Compte des Revenus et Dépenses au 1er Mai, 1789. "--Memorandum of M. Necker, July 21, 1790. --Memoranda presented byM. De Montesquiou, September 9, 1791. --Comptes-rendus by the minister, Clavières, October 5, 1792, February 1, 1792. --Report of Cambon, February, 1793. ]

[Footnote 3248: Boivin-Champeaux, 231. ]

[Footnote 3249: Mercure de France, May 28, 1791. (Sitting of May22. )--Speech of M. D'Allarde: "Burgundy has paid nothing belonging to1790. "]

[Footnote 3250: Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speech byM. Freteau. --Mercure de France. November 26, 1791. Report byLafont-Ladebat. ]

[Footnote 3251: "Archives Nationales, " H, 2453. Correspondence of M. De Bercheny, June 5, 1790, etc. --F7, 3226. Letters of Chenantin, cultivator, November 7, 1792, also of the prosecuting attorney, November6. --F7, 3269. Minutes of the meeting of the municipality of Clugnac, August 5th, 1792. --F7, 3202. Letter of the Minister of Justice, Duport, January 3, 1792. "The utter absence of public force in the district ofMontargis renders every operation of the Government and all execution ofthe laws impossible. The arrears of taxes to be collected is here veryconsiderable, while all proceedings of constraint are dangerous andimpossible to execute, owing to the fears of the bailiffs, who dare notperform their duties, and the violence of the tax-payers, on whom thereis no check. "]

[Footnote 3252: Report of the Committee on Finances, by Ramel, 19thFloréal, year II (The Constituent Assembly had fixed the real tax of ahouse at one-sixth of its letting value. )]

[Footnote 3253: Mercure de France, December 12, 1789. --"ArchivesNationales, " F7, 3268. Memorandum from the officers in command ofthe detachment of the Paris National Guard stationed atConflans-Sainte-Honorine (April, 1790). Certificate of the MunicipalOfficers of Poissy, March 31. ]

[Footnote 3254: Mercure de France, March 12 and 26, 1791. --"ArchivesNationales, " H, 1453. Letter of the police-lieutenant of Blois, April22, 1790. --Mercure de France, July 24, 1790. Two of the murderersexclaimed to those who tried to save one of the keepers, "Hanging iswell done at Paris! Bah, you are aristocrats! We shall be talked aboutin the gazettes of Paris. " (Deposition of witnesses. )--Decrees andproclamations regarding the protection of the forests, November 3 andDecember 11, 1789. --Another in October, 1790. --Another June 29, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3255: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3219. Letter of the bailli deVirieu, January 26, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3256: Mercure de France, December 3, 1791. (Letter fromSarreluis, November 15, 1791. )--"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3223. Letterof the Municipal Officers of Montargis. January 8, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3257: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3268. Letter of the overseerof the national domains at Rambouillet, October 31, 1792. --Report of theminister Clavières, February 1. 1793. ]

[Footnote 3258: Decrees of August 14, 1792, June 10, 1793. --"ArchivesNationales, " Missions des Représentants, D, § 7. (Deliberation of thedistrict of Troyes, 2 Ventose, an. III. )--At Thunelières, the drawingtook place on the 10th Fructidor, year II, and was done over again inbehalf of a servant of Billy, an influential municipal officer who"was the soul of his colleagues. "--Ibid. Abstract of operations in thedistrict of Arcis-sur-Aube, 30 Pluviose, year III. "Two-thirds of thecommunes hold this kind of property. Most of them have voted on andeffected the partition, or are actually engaged on it. "]

[Footnote 3259: Mercure de France, January 7, 1790. (Chateau of Auxon inHaute-Saone. )--"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3255. (Letter of the ministerto the Directory of Rhone-et-Loire, July 2, 1790. )--Mercure de France, July 17, 1790. (Report of M. De Broglie, July 13, and decree of July13-18. )--"Archives Nationales, " H, 1453. (Correspondence of M. DeBercheny, July 21, 1790. )]

[Footnote 3260: Mercure de France, March 19, 1790. Letter from Amien, February 28. (Mallet du Pan publishes in the Mercure only letters whichare signed and authentic. )]

[Footnote 3261: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105. (Correspondence of M. De Thiard; letters of Chevalier de Bévy, December 26, 1789, and othersup to April 5, 1790. )--Moniteur, sitting of February 9, 1790. --Mercurede France, February 6 and March 6, 1790 (list of chateaux). ]

[Footnote 3262: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105. (correspondence of M. De Thiard. ) Letters of the Mayor of Nantes, February 16, !790, of theMunicipality of Redon, February 19, etc. ]

[Footnote 3263: Mercure de France, February 6 and 27, 1790. (Speech ofM. De Foucault, sittings of February 2 and 5)--Moniteur (same dates). (Report of Grégoire, February 9; speeches by MM. Sallé de Chaux and deNoailles, February 9. )--Memorandum of the deputies of the town of Tulle, drawn up by the Abbé Morellet (from the deliberations and addresses ofeighty-three boroughs and cities in the province). ]

[Footnote 3264: In allusion to the feudal custom of paying seignorialdues on the first of May around a maypole. See further on. 32TR]

[Footnote 3265: Criminal Courts without appeal. --32TR. ]

[Footnote 3266: Moniteur, sitting of March 4, 1790. --Duvergier, decreesof March 6, 1790, and August 6-10 1790]

[Footnote 3267: The address is dated February 11, 1793. This singularlycomic document would alone suffice to make the history of the Revolutionperfectly comprehensible. ]

[Footnote 3268: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3203. (Letters of the royalcommissioner, April 30 and May 9, 1790. )--Letter of the Duc de Maillé, May 6. --Report from the administrators of the department, November 12, 1790. --Moniteur VI. 515. ]

[Footnote 3269: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3225. Letter of the Directoryfrom Ille-et-Vilaine, January 30, 1791, and letter from Dinan, January29--Mercure de France, April 2 and 16, 1791. Letters from Rennes, March20th; from Redon, March 12. ]

[Footnote 3270: So expressed in the minutes of the meeting. ]

[Footnote 3271: Moniteur, sitting of December 15, 1790. (Address of thedepartment of Lot, December 7. )--Sitting of December 20 (Speech by M. DeFoucault. )--Mercure de France, December 18, 1790. (Letter from Belves, in Perigord, December 7. )--Ibid. , January 22, 29, 1791. (Letter from M. De Clarac, January 18. )]

[Footnote 3272: December 17, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3273: January 7, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3274: Revolutionary archives of the department of Creuse, by Duval. (Letter of the administrators of the department, March 31, 1791. )--"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3209. (Deliberation of theDirectory of the Department, May 12, 1791--Minutes of the meeting of themunicipality of La Souterraine, August 23, 1791. )]

[Footnote 3275: "Archives Nationales", F7, 3269. --Order of the directoryof the district of Ribérac, August 5, 1791, and requisitions of theprosecuting attorney of the department, August 24, and September11. --Letter of the king's commissioner, August 22. ]

[Footnote 3276: A sort of export duty. --32TR. ]

[Footnote 3277: "Archives Nationales, " P7, 3204. --Letter, from theDirectory of the Department, June 2, 1791; September 8 and 22. --Letterfrom the Minister of Justice, May 15, 1791. --Letter from M. DeLentilhac, September 2. --Letter from M. Melon-Padon, Royal Commissioner, September. --Mercure de France, May 14, 1791. (Letter of an eye-witness, M. De Loyac, April 25, 1791. )]

[Footnote 3278: "Archives Nationales, " F7. 3204. Letters from M. DeSaint-Victour, September 25, October 2 and 10, 1791. --Letter from thesteward of his estate, September 18. ]

CHAPTER III. Development of the ruling Passion. 

I. --Attitude of the nobles. Their moderate resistance. 

If popular passion ended in murder it was not because resistance wasgreat or violent. On the contrary, never did an aristocracy undergodispossession with so much patience, or employ less force in the defenseof its prerogatives, or even of its property. To speak with exactness, the class in question receives blows without returning them, and whenit does take up arms, it is always with the bourgeois and the NationalGuard, at the request of the magistrates, in conformity with the law, and for the protection of persons and property. The nobles try to avoidbeing either killed or robbed, nothing more: for nearly three yearsthey raise no political banner. In the towns where they exert the mostinfluence and which are denounced as rebellious, for ex-ample in Mendeand Arles, their opposition is limited to the suppression of riots, therestraining of the common people, and ensuring respect for the law, Itis not the new order of things against which they conspire, but againstbrutal disorder. --At Mende, " says the municipal body, [3301] "we hadthe honor of being the first to furnish the contributions of 1790. Wesupplied the place of our bishop and installed his successor withoutdisturbance, and without the assistance of any foreign force . . . . Wedispersed the members of a cathedral body to which we were attached bythe ties of blood and friendship; we dismissed all, from the bishop downto the children of the choir. We had but three communities of mendicantmonks, and all three have been suppressed. We have sold all nationalpossessions without exception. "--The commander of their gendarmerie is, in fact, an old member of the body-guard, while the superior officers ofthe National Guard are gentlemen, or belong to the order of Saint-Louis. It is very evident that, if they defend themselves against Jacobins, they are not insurgent against the National Assembly. --In Arles, [3302]which has put down its populace, which has armed itself, which has shutits gates, and which passes for a focus of royalist conspiracy, thecommissioners sent by the King and by the National Assembly, menof discretion and of consideration, find nothing, after a month'sinvestigation, but submission to the decrees and zeal for the publicwelfare. 

"Such, " they say, "are the men who have been calumniated because, cherishing the Constitution, they hold fanaticism, demagogues andanarchy, in horror. If the citizens had not roused themselves when themoment of danger arrived, they would have been slaughtered like theirneighbors (of Avignon). It is this insurrection against crime which thebrigands have slandered. " If their gates were shut it was because "theNational Guard of Marseilles, the same which behaved so badly in theComtat, flocked there under the pretext of maintaining liberty and offorestalling the counter-revolution, but, in reality, to village thetown. "

Vive la Nation! Vive la Loi! Vive le Roi were the only cries heard atthe very quiet and orderly elections that had just taken place. 

"The attachment of the citizens to the Constitution has been spokenof. . . . Obedience to the laws, the readiest disposition to dischargepublic contributions, were remarked by us among these pretendedcounter-revolutionaries. Those who are subject to the license-tax camein crowds to the Hôtel-de-Ville. " Scarcely "was the bureau of receiptsopened when it was filled with respectable people; those on the contrarywho style themselves good patriots, republicans or anarchists, were notconspicuous on this occasion; but a very small number among them havemade their submission. The rest are surprised at being called upon formoney; they had been given a quite different hope. "

In short, during more than thirty months, and under a steady fire ofthreats, outrages, and plunder, the nobles who remain in France neithercommit nor undertake any hostile act against the Government thatpersecutes them. None of them, not even M. De Bouillé, attempts to carryout any real plan of civil war; I find but one resolute man in theirranks at this date, ready for action, and who labors to form onemilitant party against another militant party: he is really a politicianand conspirator; he has an understanding with the Comte d'Artois; hegets petitions signed for the freedom of the King and of the Church;he organizes armed companies; he recruits the peasants; he preparesa Vendée for Languedoc and Provence; and this person is a bourgeois, Froment of Nîmes. [3303] But, at the moment of action, he finds onlythree out of eighteen companies, supposed by him to be enlisted inhis cause, that are willing to march with him. Others remain in theirquarters until, Froment being overcome, they are found there andslaughtered; the survivors, who escape to Jalès, find, not a stronghold, but a temporary asylum, where they never succeed in transforming theirinclinations into determinations. [3304]--The nobles too, like otherFrenchmen, have been subject to the lasting pressure of monarchicalcentralization. They no longer form one body; they have lost theinstinct of association. They no longer know how to act for themselves;they are the puppets of administration awaiting an impulse from thecenter, while at the center the King, their hereditary general, acaptive in the hands of the people, commands them to be resigned and todo nothing. [3305] Moreover, like other Frenchmen, they have beenbrought up in the philosophy of the eighteenth century. "Liberty isso precious, " wrote the Duc de Brissac, [3306] "that it may well bepurchased with some suffering; a destroyed feudalism will not preventthe good and the true from being respected and loved. "--They persist inthis illusion for a long time and remain optimists. As they feel kindlytowards the people, they cannot comprehend that the people shouldentertain other sentiments toward them; they firmly believe thatthe troubles are transient. Immediately on the proclamation of theConstitution they return in crowds from Spain, Belgium, and Germany;at Troyes there are not enough post-horses for many days to supplythe emigrants who are coming back. [3307] Thus they accept not only theabolition of feudalism with civil equality, but also political equalityand numerical sovereignty. 

Some consideration for them, some outward signs of respect, a few bows, would, in all probability, have rallied them sincerely to democraticinstitutions. They would soon consent to be confounded with the crowd, to submit to the common level, and to live as private individuals. Hadthey been treated like the bourgeois or the peasant, their neighbors, had their property and persons been respected, they might have acceptedthe new régime without any bitterness of feeling. That the leadingemigrant nobles and those forming a part of the old court carry onintrigues at Coblentz or at Turin is natural, since they have losteverything: authority, places, pensions, sinecures, pleasures, andthe rest. But, to the gentry and inferior nobles of the provinces, chevaliers of Saint-Louis, subaltern officers and resident proprietors, the loss is insignificant. The law has suppressed one-half of theirseignorial dues; but by virtue of the same law their lands are no longerburdened with tithes. Popular elections will not provide them withplaces, but they did not enjoy them under the arbitrary ministerialrule. Little does it matter to them that power, whether ministerial orpopular, has changed hands: they are not accustomed to its favors, andwill pursue their ordinary avocations--the chase, promenading, reading, visiting, and conversing--provided they, like the first-comer, thegrocer at the corner, or their farm-servant, find protection, safety, and security on the public road and in their dwellings. [3308]

II. --Workings of the popular imagination with respect to them. 

 The monomania of suspicion. --The nobles distrusted and treated as enemies. --Situation of a gentleman on his domain. --M. De. Bussy

Popular passion, unfortunately, is a blind power, and, for lack ofenlightenment, suffers itself to be guided by spectral illusions. Imaginary conceptions work, and work in conformity with the structure ofthe excited brain which has given birth to them:

What if the Ancient Regime should return!

What if we were obliged to restore the property of the clergy!

What if we should be again forced to pay the salt tax, the excise, the taille, and other dues which, thanks to the law, we no longer pay, besides other taxes and dues that we do not pay in spite of the law!

What if all the nobles whose chateaux are burnt, and who have given rentacquittances at the point of the sword, should find some way to avengethemselves and recover their former privileges!

Undoubtedly they brood over these things, make agreements amongst eachother, and plot with the strangers; at the first opportunity theywill fall upon us: we must watch them, repress them, and, if needs be, destroy them. --This instinctive process of reasoning prevailed fromthe outset, and, in proportion as excesses increase, prevails to amuch greater extent. The noble is ever the past, present, and futurecreditor, or, at the very least, a possible one, which means that he isthe worst and most odious of enemies. All his ways are suspicious, evenwhen he is doing nothing; whatever he may do it is with a view of arminghimself. 

M. De Gilliers, who lives with his wife and sister one league out ofRomans in Dauphiny, [3309] amuses himself by planting trees and flowers;a few steps from his house, on another domain, M. De Montchorel, an oldsoldier, and M. Osmond, an old lawyer from Paris, with their wives andchildren, occupy their leisure hours in somewhat the same manner. M. De Gilliers having ordered and received wooden water-pipes, the reportspreads that they are cannon. His guest, M. Servan, receives an Englishtraveling-trunk, which is said to be full of pistols. When M. Osmond andM. Servan stroll about the country with pencils and drawing-paper, itis averred that they are preparing topographical plans for the Spaniardsand Savoyards. The four carriages belonging to the two families go toRomans to fetch some guests: instead of four there are nineteen, andthey are sent for aristocrats who are coming to hide away in undergroundpassages. M. De Senneville, decorated with a cordon rouge (red ribbon), pays a visit on his return from Algiers: the decoration becomes a blueone, and the wearer is the Comte d'Artois[3310] in person. There iscertainly a plot brewing, and at five o'clock in the morning eighteencommunes (two thousand armed men) arrive before the doors of the twohouses; shouts and threats of death last for eight hours; a gun fired afew paces off at the suspects misfires; a peasant who is aiming at themsays to his neighbor, "Give me a decent gun and I will plant bothmy balls in their bodies!" Finally, M. De Gilliers, who was absent, attending a baptism, returns with the Royal Chasseurs of Dauphiny andthe National Guard of Romans, and with their assistance delivers hisfamily. --It is only in the towns, that is, in a few towns, and for avery short time, that an inoffensive noble who is attacked obtains anyaid; the phantoms which people create for themselves there are lessgross; a certain degree of enlightenment, and a remnant of common sense, prevent the hatching of too absurd stories. --But in the dark recessesof rustic brains nothing can arrest the monomania of suspicion. Fanciesmultiply there like weeds in a dark hole: they take root and vegetateuntil they become belief, conviction, and certainty; they produce thefruit of hostility and hatred, homicidal and incendiary ideas. With eyesconstantly fixed on the chateau, the village regards it as a Bastillewhich must be captured, and, instead of saluting the lord of the manor, it thinks only of firing at him. 

Let us take up one of these local histories in detail. [3311] In themonth of July, 1789, during the jacquerie in Mâçonnais, the parish ofVilliers appealed for assistance to its lord, M. De Bussy, a formercolonel of dragoons. He had returned home, treated the people of hisvillage to a dinner, and attempted to form them into a body of guardsto protect themselves against incendiaries and brigands; along with thewell-disposed men of the place "he patrolled every evening to restoretranquillity to the parish. " On a rumor spreading that "the wells werepoisoned, " he placed sentinels alongside of all the wells except hisown, "to prove that he was acting for the parish and not for himself. "In short, he did all he could to conciliate the villagers, and tointerest them in the common safety. --But, by virtue of being a nobleand an officer he is distrusted, and it is Perron, the syndic of thecommune, to whom the commune now listens. Perron announces that the King"having abjured his sworn word, " no more confidence is to be placed inhim, and, consequently, neither in his officers nor in the gentry. OnM. De Bussy proposing to the National Guards that they should go to theassistance of the chateau of Thil, which is in flames, Perron preventsthem, declaring that "these fires are kindled by the nobles and theclergy. " M. De Bussy insists, and entreats them to go, offering toabandon "his terrier, " that is to say all his seignorial dues, if theywill only accompany him and arrest this destruction. They refuse to doso. He perseveres, and, on being informed that the chateau of Juillenasis in peril, he collects, after great efforts, a body of one hundredand fifty men of his parish, and, marching with them, arrives in time tosave the chateau, which a mob was about to set on fire. But the popularexcitement, which he had just succeeded in calming at Juillenas, hasgained the upper hand amongst his own troop: the brigands have seducedhis men, "which obliges him to lead them back, while, along the road, they seem inclined to fire at him. "--Having returned, he is followedwith threats even to his own house: a band comes to attack his chateau;finding it on the defensive, they insist on being led to that ofCourcelles. --In the midst of all this violence M. De Bussy, with aboutfifteen friends and tenants, succeeds in protecting himself and, bydint of patience, energy, and cool blood, without killing or wounding asingle man, ends in bringing back security throughout the whole canton. The jacquerie subsides, and it seems as if the newly restored orderwould be maintained. He sends for Madame de Bussy to return, and somemonths pass away. --The popular imagination, however, is poisoned, andwhatever a gentleman may do, he is no longer tolerated on his estate. Afew leagues from there, on April 29, 1790, M. De Bois-d'Aisy, deputyto the National Assembly, had returned to his parish to vote at thenew elections. [3312] "Scarcely has he arrived, " when the commune ofBois-d'Aisy gives him notice through its mayor "that it will not regardhim as eligible. " He attends the electoral meeting which is held in thechurch there, a municipal officer in the pulpit inveighs against noblesand priests, and declares that they must not take part in the elections. All eyes turn upon M. De Boisd'Aisy, who is the only noble present. Nevertheless, he takes the civic oath, which nearly costs him dear, formurmurs arise around him, and the peasants say that he ought to havebeen hanged like the lord of Sainte-Colombe, to prevent his taking theoath. In fact, the evening before, the latter, M. De Vitteaux, anold man of seventy-four years of age, was expelled from the primaryassembly, then torn out of the house in which he had sought refuge, halfkilled with blows, and dragged through the streets to the open square;his mouth was stuffed with manure, a stick was thrust into his ears, and "he expired after a martyrdom of three hours. " The same day, in thechurch of the Capuchins, at Sémur, the rural parishes which met togetherexcluded their priests and gentry in the same fashion. M. De Damasand M. De Sainte-Maure were beaten with clubs and stones; the curéof Massigny died after six stabs with a knife, and M. De Virieu savedhimself as he best could. --With such examples before them it is probablethat many of the nobles will no longer exercise their right of suffrage. M. De Bussy does not pretend to do it. He merely tries to prove that heis loyal to the nation, and that he meditates no wrong to the NationalGuard or to the people. He proposed, at the out-set, to the volunteersof Mâçon to join them, along with his little troop; they refused to havehim and thus the fault is not on his side. On the 14th of July, 1790, the day of the Federation on his domain, he sends all his people off toVilliers, furnished with the tricolour cockade. He himself, with threeof his friends, attends the ceremony to take the oath, all four inuniform, with the cockade on their hats, without any weapons but theirswords and a light cane in their hands. They salute the assembledNational Guards of the three neighboring parishes, and keep outsidethe enclosure so as not to give offense. But they have not taken intoaccount the prejudices and animosities of the new municipal bodies. Perron, the former syndic, is now mayor. A man named Bailly, who is thevillage shoemaker, is another of the municipal officers; their counciloris an old dragoon, one of those soldiers probably who have deserted orbeen discharged, and who are the firebrands of almost every riot thattakes place. A squad of a dozen or fifteen men leave the ranks andmarch up to the four gentlemen, who advance, hat in hand, to meet them. Suddenly the men aim at them, and Bailly, with a furious air, demands:"What the devil do you come here for?" M. De Bussy replies that, havingbeen informed of the Federation, he had come to take the oath likethe rest of the people. Bailly asks why he had come armed. M. De Bussyremarks that "having been in the service, the sword was inseparable fromthe uniform, " and had they come there without that badge they would havebeen at fault; besides, they must have observed that they had no otherarms. Bailly, still in a rage, and, moreover, exasperated by such goodreasons, turns round with his gun in his hand towards the leader of thesquad and asks him three times in succession, "Commander, must I fire?"The commander not daring to take the responsibility of so gratuitous amurder, remains silent, and finally orders M. De Bussy to "clear out;""which I did, " says M. De Bussy. --Nevertheless, on reaching home, hewrites to the municipal authorities clearly setting forth the motive ofhis coming, and demands an explanation of the treatment he had received. Mayor Perron throws aside his letter without reading it, and, on thefollowing day, on leaving the mass, the National Guards come, by way ofmenace, to load their guns in sight of M. De Bussy, round his garden. --Afew days after this, at the instigation of Bailly, two other proprietorsin the neighborhood are assassinated in their houses. Finally, on ajourney to Lyons, M. De Bussy learns "that the chateaux in Poitouare again in flames, and that the work is to begin againeverywhere. "--Alarmed at all these indications, "he resolves to form acompany of volunteers, which, taking up their quarters in his chateau, can serve the whole canton on a legal requisition. " He thinks that aboutfifteen brave men will be sufficient. He has already six men with himin the month of October, 1790; green coats are ordered for them, andbuttons are bought for the uniform. Seven or eight domestics may beadded to the number. In the way of arms and munitions the chateaucontains two kegs of gunpowder which were on hand before 1789, sevenblunderbusses, and five cavalry sabers, left there in passing by M. De Bussy's old dragoons: to these must be added two double-barreledfowling-pieces, three soldiers' muskets, five brace of pistols, two poorcommon guns, two old swords, and a hunting-knife. Such is the garrison, such the arsenal, and these are the preparations, so well justified andso slight, which prejudice conjointly with gossip is about to transforminto a great conspiracy. 

The chateau, in effect, was an object of suspicion in the village fromthe very first day. All its visitors, whenever they went out or camein, with all the details of their actions, were watched, denounced, exaggerated, and misinterpreted. If through the awkwardness orcarelessness of so many inexperienced National Guards, a stray ballreaches a farm-house one day in broad daylight, it comes from thechateau; it is the aristocrats who have fired upon the peasants. --Thereis the same state of suspicion in the neighboring towns. The municipalbody of Valence, hearing that two youths had ordered coats made "of acolor which seemed suspicious, " send for the tailor; he confesses thefact, and adds that "they intended to put the buttons on themselves. "Such a detail is alarming. An inquiry is set on foot and the alarmincreases; people in a strange uniform have been seen passing on theirway to the chateau of Villiers; from thence, on reaching the number oftwo hundred, they will go and join the garrison of Besançon; they willtravel four at a time in order to avoid detection. At Besançon they areto meet a corps of forty thousand men, commanded by M. Autichamp, whichcorps is to march on to Paris to carry off the King, and break up theNational Assembly. The National Guards along the whole route are tobe forced into the lines. At a certain distance each man is to receive1, 200 francs, and, at the end of the expedition, is to be enrolledin the Artois Guard, or sent home with a recompense of 12, 000francs. --Meanwhile, the Prince de Condé; with forty thousand men, willcome by the way of Pont Saint-Esprit in Languedoc, rally the disaffectedof Carpentras and of the Jalès camp to his standard, and occupy Cetteand the other seaports; and finally, the Comte d'Artois, on his side, will enter by Pont-Beauvoisin with thirty thousand men. --A horriblediscovery! The municipal authorities of Valence immediately inform thoseof Lyons, Besançon, Châlons, Maçon, and others beside. On the strengthof this the municipal body of Maçon, "considering that the enemies ofthe Revolution are ever making the most strenuous efforts to annihilatethe Constitution which secures the happiness of this empire, " and "thatit is highly important to frustrate their designs, " sends two hundredmen of its National Guard to the chateau of Villiers, " empowered toemploy armed force in case of resistance. " For greater security, this troop is joined by the National Guards of the three neighboringparishes. M. De Bussy, on being told that they were climbing over thewall into his garden, seizes a gun and takes aim, but does not fire, andthen, the requisition being legal, throws all open to them. There arefound in the house six green coats, seven dozens of large buttons, andfifteen dozens of small ones. The proof is manifest. He explains whathis project was and states his motive--it is a mere pretext. He makes asign, as an order, to his valet--there is a positive complicity. M. DeBussy, his six guests, and the valet, are arrested and transported toMaçon. A trial takes place, with depositions and interrogatories, inwhich the truth is elicited in spite of the most adverse testimony;it is clear that M. De Bussy never intended to do more than defendhimself. --But prejudice is a blindfold to hostile eyes. It cannot beadmitted that, under a constitution which is perfect, an innocent mancould incur danger; the objection is made to him that "it is not naturalfor an armed company to be formed to resist a massacre by which it isnot menaced;" they are convinced beforehand that he is guilty. On adecree of the National Assembly the minister had ordered all accusedpersons to be brought to Paris by the constabulary and hussars; theNational Guard of Maçon, "in the greatest state of agitation, " declaresthat, "as it had arrested M. De Bussy, it would not consent to histransport by any other body. . . Undoubtedly, the object is to allow himto escape on the way, " but it will know how to keep its captive secure. The guard, in fine, of its own authority, escorts M. De Bussy to Paris, into the Abbaye prison, where he is kept confined for several months--solong, indeed, that, after a new trial and investigation, the absurdityof the accusation being too palpable, they are obliged to set him atliberty. --Such is the situation of most of the gentry on their ownestates, and M. De Bussy, even acquitted and vindicated, will act wiselyin not returning home. 

III. --Domiciliary visits. 

 The fifth jacquerie. --Burgundy and Lyonnais in 1791. --M. De Chaponay and M. Guillin-Dumoutet

He would be nothing but a hostage there. Alone against thousands, solesurvivor and representative of an abolished régime which all detest, it is the noble against whom everybody turns whenever a political shockseems to shake the new régime. He is at least disarmed, as he mightbe dangerous, and, in these popular executions, brutal instincts andappetites break loose like a bull that dashes through a door and ragesthrough a dwelling-house. In the same department, some months later, on the news arriving of the arrest of the King at Varennes, "allnonjuring[3313] priests and ci-devant nobles are exposed to the horrorsof persecution. " Bands forcibly enter houses to seize arms: Commarin, Grosbois, Montculot, Chaudenay, Créancé, Toisy, Chatellenot, and otherhouses are thus visited, and several are sacked. During the nightof June 26-27, 1791, at the chateau of Créancé "there is pillagingthroughout; the mirrors are broken, the pictures are torn up, and thedoors are broken down. " The master of the house, "M. De Comeau-Créncé, Knight of St. Louis, horribly maltreated, is dragged to the foot of thestairs, where he lies as if dead:" previous to this, "he was forced togive a considerable contribution, and to refund all penalties collectedby him before the Revolution as the local lord of the manor. "--Twoother proprietors in the neighborhood, both Knights of St. Louis, aretreated in the same way. "That is the way in which three old and bravesoldiers are rewarded for their services!" A fourth, a peaceable man, escapes beforehand, leaving his keys in the locks and his gardener inthe house. Notwithstanding this, the doors and the clothes-presses werebroken open, the pillaging lasting five hours and a half; withthreats of setting the house on fire if the seigneur did not make hisappearance. Questions were asked "as to whether he attended the mass ofthe new curé whether he had formerly exacted fines, and finally, whetherany of the inhabitants had any complaint to make against him. " Nocomplaint is made; on the contrary, he is rather beloved. --But, intumults of this sort, a hundred madmen and fifty rogues prescribe thelaw to the timid and the indifferent. These outlaws declared that "theywere acting under orders; they compelled the mayor and prosecutingattorney to take part in their robberies; they likewise took theprecaution to force a few honest citizens, by using the severestthreats, to march along with them. " These people come the next day toapologize to the pillaged proprietor, while the municipal officers drawup a statement of the violence practiced against them. The violencenevertheless, is accomplished, and, as it will go unpunished, it is soonto be repeated. 

A beginning and an end are already made in the two neighboringdepartments. There, especially in the south, nothing is more instructivethan to see how an outbreak stimulated by enthusiasm for the public goodimmediately degenerates under the impulse of private interest, and endsin crime. --Around Lyons, [3314] under the same pretext and at the samedate, similar mobs perform similar visitations, and, on all theseoccasions, "the rent-rolls are burnt, and houses are pillaged and set onfire. Municipal authority, organized for the security of property, is inmany hands but one facility more for its violation. The NationalGuard seems to be armed merely for the protection of robbery anddisorder. "--For more than thirty years, M. De Chaponay, the father ofsix children of whom three are in the service, expended his vast incomeon his estate of Beaulieu, giving occupation to a number of persons, men, women, and children. After the hailstorm of 1761, which nearlydestroyed the village of Moranée, he rebuilt thirty-three houses, furnished others with timber for the framework, supplied the communewith wheat, and, for several years, obtained for the inhabitants adiminution of their taxation. In 1790, he celebrated the FederationFestival on a magnificent scale, giving two banquets, one of a hundredand thirty seats, for the municipal bodies and officers of the NationalGuards in the vicinity, and the other of a thousand seats for theprivates. If any of the gentry had reason to believe himself popularand safe it was certainly this man. --On the 24th of June, 1791, themunicipal authorities of Moranée, Lucenay, and Chazelai, with theirmayors and National Guards, in all nearly two thousand men, arrive atthe chateau with drums beating and flags flying. M. De Chaponay goes outto meet them, and begs to know to what he owes "the pleasure" of theirvisit. They reply that they do not come to offend him, but to carry outthe orders of the district, which oblige them to take possession of thechateau and to place in it a guard of sixty men: on the following daythe "district" and the National Guard of Villefranche are to come andinspect it. --Be it noted that these orders are imaginary, for M. DeChaponay asks in vain to see them; they cannot be produced. The cause oftheir setting out, probably, is the false rumor that the National Guardof Villefranche is coming to deprive them of a booty on which they hadcalculated. --Nevertheless M. De Chaponay submits; he merely requeststhe municipal officers to make the search themselves and in an orderlymanner. Upon this the commandant of the National Guard of Lucenayexclaims, with some irritation, that "all are equal and all must goin, " and at the same moment all rush forward. "M. De Chaponay orders theapartments to be opened; they immediately shut them up, purposely tolet the sappers break through the doors with their axes. "--Everything ispillaged, "plate, assignats, stocks of linen, laces and other articles;the trees of the avenues are hacked and mutilated; the cellars areemptied, the casks are rolled out on the terrace, the wine is sufferedto run out, and the chateau keep is demolished. . . . The officers urgeon those that are laggard. " Towards nine o'clock in the evening M. DeChaponay is informed by his servants that the municipal authorities havedetermined upon forcing him to sign an abandonment of his feudal duesand afterwards beheading him. He escapes with his wife through the onlydoor which is left unguarded, wanders about all night, exposed to thegun-shots of the squads which are on his track, and reaches Lyons onlyon the following day. --Meanwhile the pillagers send him notice that ifhe does not abandon his rentals, they will cut down his forests andburn up everything on his estate. The chateau, indeed, is fired threedistinct times, while, in the interval, the band sack another chateau atBayère, and, on again passing by that of M. De Chaponay, demolish adam which had cost 10, 000 livres. --The public prosecutor, for his part, remains quiet, notwithstanding the appeals to him: he doubtless says tohimself that a gentleman whose house has been searched is lucky to havesaved his life, and that others, like M. Guillin-Dumoutet, for example, have not been as fortunate. 

The latter gentleman, formerly captain of a vessel belonging to theIndia Company, afterwards Commandant at Senegal, now retired from activelife, occupied his chateau of Poleymieux with his young wife and twoinfant children, his sisters, nieces, and sister-in-law--in all, tenwomen belonging to his family and domestic service--one Negro servantand himself; an old man of sixty years of age; here is a haunt ofmilitant conspirators which must be disarmed as soon as possible. [3315]Unfortunately, a brother of M. Guillin, accused of treason to thenation, had been arrested ten months previously, which was quitesufficient for the clubs in the neighborhood. In the month of December, 1790, the chateau had already been ransacked by the people of theparishes in the vicinity: nothing was found, and the Department firstcensured and afterwards interdicted these arbitrary searches. On thisoccasion they will manage things better. --On the 26th of June, 1791, atten o'clock in the morning, the municipal body of Poleymicux, along withtwo other bodies in their scarves, and three hundred National Guards, are seen approaching, under the usual pretext of searching for arms. Madame Guillin presents herself; reminds them of the interdict of theDepartment, and demands the legal order under which they act. Theyrefuse to give it. M. Guillin descends in his turn and offers to openhis doors to them if they will produce the order. They have no orderto show him. During the colloquy a certain man named Rosier, a formersoldier who had deserted twice, and who is now in command of theNational Guard, seizes M. Guillin by the throat; the old captain defendshimself; presents a pistol at the man, which misses fire, and then, throwing the fellow off, withdraws into the house, closing the doorbehind him. --Soon after this, the tocsin sounds in the neighborhood, thirty parishes start up, and two thousand men arrive. Madame Guillin, by entreaties, succeeds in having delegates appointed, chosen by thecrowd, to inspect the chateau. These delegates examine the apartments, and declare that they can find nothing but the arms ordinarily kept onhand. This declaration is of no effect: the multitude, whose excitementis increased by waiting, feel their strength, and have no idea ofreturning empty-handed. A volley is fired, and the chateau windowsare riddled with balls. As a last effort Madame Guillin, with her twochildren in her arms, comes out, and going to the municipal officers, calls upon them to do their duty. Far from doing this they retain heras a hostage, and place her in such a position that, if there is firingfrom the chateau, she may receive the bullets. Meanwhile, the doors areforced, the house is pillaged from top to bottom, and then set on fire;M. Guillin, who seeks refuge in the keep, is almost reached by theflames. At this moment, some of the assailants, less ferocious thanthe rest, prevail upon him to descend, and they answer for his life. Scarcely has he shown himself when others fall on him; they cry that hemust be killed, that he has a life-rent of 36, 000 francs from the State, and "this will be so much saved for the nation. " "He is hacked to piecesalive;" his head is cut off and borne upon a pike; his body is cut up, and sent piece by piece to each parish; several wash their hands in hisblood, and besmear their faces with it. It seems as if tumult, clamor, incendiarism, robbery, and murder had aroused in them not only the cruelinstincts of the savage, but the carnivorous appetites of the brute;some of them, seized by the gendarmerie at Chasselay, had roasted thedead man's arm and dined upon it. [3316]--Madame Guillin, who is savedthrough the compassion of two of the inhabitants of the place, succeeds, after encountering many dangers, in reaching Lyons; she and her childrenlost everything, "the chateau, its dependencies, the crop of thepreceding year, wine, grain, furniture, plate, ready money, assignats, notes, and contracts. " Ten days later, the department gives notice tothe National Assembly that "similar projects are still being plotted andarranged, and that there are (always) threats of burning chateaux andrent-rolls;" that no doubt of this can possibly exist: "the inhabitantsof the country only await the opportunity, to renew these scenes ofhorror. "[3317]

IV. --The nobles obliged to leave the rural districts. 

 They take refuge in towns. --The dangers they incur. --The eighty-two gentlemen of Caen

Amidst these multiplied and reviving Jacqueries there is nothing leftbut flight, and the nobles, driven out of the rural districts, seekrefuge in the towns. But here also a jacquerie awaits them. As theeffects of the Constitution are developed, successive administrationsbecome feebler and more partial; the unbridled populace has becomemore excitable and more violent; the enthroned club has become moresuspicious and more despotic. Henceforth the club, through or inopposition to the administrative bodies, leads the populace, and thenobles will find it as hostile as the peasants. All their reunions, even when liberal, are closed like that in Paris, through the illegalinterference of mobs, or through the iniquitous action of the popularmagistrates. All their associations, even when legal and salutary, arebroken up by brute force or by municipal intolerance, They are punishedfor having thought of defending themselves, and slaughtered because theytry to avoid assassination. --Three or four hundred gentlemen, whowere threatened on their estates, sought refuge with their families inCaen;[3318] and they trusted to find one there, for, by three differentresolutions, the municipal body promised them aid and protection. Unfortunately, the club thinks otherwise, and, on August 23, 1791, prints and posts up a list of their names and residences, declaring thatsince "their suspected opinions have compelled them to abandon the ruraldistricts, " they are emigrants in the interior;" from which it followsthat "their conduct must be scrupulously watched, " because "it may bethe effect of some dangerous plot against the country. " Fifteen areespecially designated; among others "the former curé of Saint-Loup, thegreat bloodhound of the aristocrats, and all of them very suspiciouspersons, harboring the worst intentions. "--Thus denounced and singledout, it is evident that they can no longer sleep peacefully: moreover, now that their addresses are published, they are openly threatened withdomiciliary visits and violence. As to the administrative authorities, their intervention cannot be expected on; the department itself givesnotice to the minister that, as the law stands, it cannot put thechateau in the hands of the regulars, [3319] as this would, it is said, excite the National Guard. Besides, how without an army is this post tobe wrested from the hands which hold it? It is impossible with only theresources which the Constitution affords us. " Thus, in the defense ofthe oppressed, the Constitution is a dead letter. --Hence it is that therefugees, finding protection only in themselves, undertake to helpeach other. No association can be more justifiable, more pacific, moreinnocent. Its object is "to demand the execution of the laws constantlyviolated, and to protect persons and property. " In each quarter theywill try to bring together "all good citizens;" they will form acommittee of eight members, and, in each committee, there will alwaysbe "an officer of justice or a member of the administrative body withan officer or subaltern of the National Guard. " Should any citizen beattacked in person or property the association will draw up a petitionin his favor. Should any particular act of violence require theemployment of public force, the members of the district will assembleunder the orders of the officer of justice and of the National Guardto enforce obedience. "In all possible cases" they "will avoid with thegreatest care any insult of individuals; they will consider thatthe object of the meeting is solely to ensure public peace, and thatprotection from the law to which every citizen is entitled. "--In short, they are volunteer constables. Turn the inquiry which way they will, a hostile municipality and a prejudiced tribunal can put no otherconstruction upon it; they find nothing else. The only evidence againstone of the leaders is a letter in which he tries to prevent a gentlemanfrom going to Coblentz, striving to prove to him that he will be moreuseful at Caen. The principal evidence against the association is thatof a townsman whom they wished to enroll, and of whom they demanded hisopinions. He had stated that he was in favor of the execution of thelaws; upon which they told him: "In this case you belong to us, andare more of an aristocrat than you think you are. Their aristocracy, ineffect, consists wholly in the suppression of brigandage. No claim ismore unpalatable, because it interposes an obstacle to the arbitraryacts of a party which thinks it has a right to do as it pleases. Onthe 4th of October the regiment of Aunis left the town, and all goodcitizens were handed over to the militia, "in uniform or not, " theyalone being armed. That day, for the first time in a long period, M. Bunel, the former curé of Saint-Jean, with the consent and assistance ofhis sworn successor, officiates at the mass. There is a large gatheringof the orthodox, which causes uneasiness among the patriots. Thefollowing day M. Bunel is to say mass again; whereupon, through themunicipal authorities, the patriots forbid him to officiate, to which hesubmits. Nevertheless, for lack of due notice, a crowd of the faithfulhave arrived and the church is filled. A dangerous mob! The patriotsand National Guards arrive "to preserve order, " which has not beendisturbed, and which they alone disturb. Threatening words are exchangedbetween the servants of the nobles and the National Guard. The latterdraw their swords, and a young man is hewn down and trampled on; M. DeSaffrey, who comes to his assistance unarmed, is himself cut down andpierced with bayonets, and two others are wounded. --Meanwhile, in aneighboring street, M. Achard de Vagogne, seeing a man maltreated byarmed men, approaches, in order to make peace. The man is shot downand M. Achard is covered with saber and bayonet gashes: "there is not athread on him which is not dyed with the blood that ran down even intohis shoes. " In this condition he is led to the chateau along with M. DeSaifrey. Others break down the door of the house of M. Du Rosel, an oldofficer of seventy-five years, of which fifty-nine have been passed inthe service, and pursue him even over the wall of his garden. A fourthsquad seizes M. D'Héricy, another venerable officer, who, like M. DuRosel, was ignorant of all that was going on, and was quietly leavingfor his country seat. --The town is full of tumult, and, through theorders of the municipal authorities, the general alarm is sounded. 

The time for the special constables to act has come; about sixtygentlemen, with a number of merchants and artisans, set out. Accordingto the rules of their association, and with significant scruple, theybeg an Officer of the National Guard, who happens to be passing, to puthimself at their head; they reach the Place Saint-Sauveur, encounter thesuperior officer sent after them by the municipal authorities, and, athis first command, follow him to the Hôtel-de-Ville. On reaching this, without any resistance on their part, they are arrested, disarmed, andsearched. The rules and regulations of their league are found on theirpersons; they are evidently hatching a counter-revolution. The uproaragainst them is terrible. "To keep them safe, " they are conducted to thechateau, while many of them are cruelly treated on the way by thecrowd. Others, seized in their houses--M. Levaillant and a servant of M. D'Héricy--are carried off bleeding and pierced with bayonets. Eighty-twoprisoners are thus collected, while fears are constantly entertainedthat they may escape. "Their bread and meat are cut up into littlepieces, to see that nothing is concealed therein; the surgeons, who arelikewise treated as aristocrats, are denied access to them. " Nocturnalvisits are, at the same time, paid to their houses; every stranger isordered to present himself at the Hôtel-de-Ville, to state why he comesto the town to reside, and to give up his arms; every nonjuring priestis forbidden to say mass. The Department, which is disposed to resist, has its hands tied and confesses its powerlessness. "The people, " itwrites, "know their strength: they know that we have no power; excitedby disreputable citizens, they permit whatever serves their passions ortheir interests; they influence our deliberations, and force us to thosewhich, under other circumstances, we should carefully avoid. "--Threedays after this the victors celebrate their triumph "with drums, music, and lighted torches; the people are using hammers to destroy on themansions the coats-of-arms which had previously been covered over withplaster;" the defeat of the aristocrats is accomplished. --And yet theirinnocence is so clearly manifest that the Legislative Assembly itselfcannot help recognizing it. After eleven weeks of durance the order isgiven to set them free, with the exception of two, a youth of lessthan eighteen years and an old man, almost an octogenarian, on whom twoletters, misunderstood, still leave a shadow of suspicion. --But it isnot certain that the people are disposed to give them up. The NationalGuard refuses to discharge them in open daylight and serve as theirescort. Even the evening before numerous groups of women, a few menmingled with them, talk of murdering all those fellows the moment theyset foot outside the chateau. " They have to be let out at two o'clockin the morning, secretly, under a strong guard, and to leave the townat once as six months before they left the rural districts. --Neither incountry nor in the town[3320] are they under the protection of civilor religious law; a gentleman, who is not compromised in the affair, remarks that their situation is worse than that of Protestants andvagabonds during the worst years of the Ancient Régime of them and whoabuse the use of them? Why should one be on an equality for purposes ofpayment, and distinguished?

"Does not the law allow (nonjuring) priests the liberty of saying mass?Why then can we not listen to their mass except at the risk of ourlives? Does not the law command all citizens to preserve the publicpeace? Why then are those whom the cry to arms has summoned forth tomaintain public order assailed as aristocrats? Why is the refuge ofcitizens which the laws have declared sacred, violated without orders, without accusation, without any appearance of wrong-doing? Why are allprominent citizens and those who are well off disarmed in preference toothers? Are weapons exclusively made for those but lately deprived onlyfor purposes of annoyance and insult?"

He has spoken right. Those who now rule form an aristocracy inan inverse sense, contrary to the law, and yet more contrary tonature. [3321] For, by a violent inversion, the lower grades in thegraduated scale of civilization and culture now are found uppermost, while the superior grades are found at the uniform. The Constitutionhaving suppressed inequality, this has again arisen in an inverse sense. The populace, both of town and country, taxes, imprisons, pillages, andslays more arbitrarily, more brutally, more unjustly than feudal barons, and for its serfs or villains it has its ancient chieftains. 

V. --Persecutions in private life. 

Let us suppose that, in order not to excite suspicion, they arecontent to be without arms, to form no more associations, not to attendelections, to shut themselves up at home, to strictly confine themselveswithin the harmless precincts of domestic life. The same distrust, thesame animosity, still pursues them there. --At Cahors, [3322] wherethe municipal authorities, in spite of the law, had just expelled theCarthusians who, under legal sanction, chose to remain and livein common, two of the monks, before their departure, give to M. DeBeaumont, their friend and neighbor, four dwarf pear-trees and someonions in blossom in their garden. On the strength of this, themunicipal body decree that

"the sieur Louis de Beaumont, formerly count, is guilty of havingaudaciously and maliciously damaged national property, " condemns himto pay a fine of three hundred livres, and orders "that the fourpear-trees, pulled up in the so-called Carthusian garden, be brought onthe following day, Wednesday, to the door of the said sieur de Beaumont, and there remain for four consecutive days, guarded, day and night, bytwo fusiliers, at the expense of the said sieur de Beaumont; and uponthe said trees shall be placed the following inscription, to wit:Louis de Beaumont, destroyer of the national property. And the judgmentherewith rendered shall be printed to the number of one thousandcopies, read, published, and posted at the expense of the said sieurde Beaumont, and duly addressed throughout the department of Lot to thedistricts and municipalities thereof, as well as to all societies of theFriends of the Constitution and of Liberty. "

Every line of this legal invective discloses the malignant envy ofthe local recorder, who revenges himself for having formerly bowed toolow. --The following year, M. De Beaumont, having formally and undernotarial sanction bought a church which was sold by the district, alongwith the ornaments and objects of worship it contained, the mayor andmunicipal officers, followed by a lot of workmen, come and carry awayand destroy everything--confessionals, altars, and even the saint'scanonised body, which had been interred for one hundred and fifty years:so that, after their departure, "the edifice resembled a vast barnfilled with ruins and rubbish. "[3323] It must be noted that, at thisvery time, M. De Beaumont is military commandant at Perigord. Thetreatment he undergoes shows what is in reserve for ordinary nobles. Ido not recommend them to attend official sales of property. [3324]--Willthey even be free in their domestic enjoyments, and on entering adrawing-room are they sure of quietly passing an evening there?--AtParis, even, a number of persons of rank, among them the ambassadorsof Denmark and Venice, are listening to a concert in a mansion in theFaubourg Saint-Honoré given by a foreign virtuoso, when a cart entersthe court loaded with fifty bundles of hay, the monthly supply for thehorses. A patriot, who sees the cart driven in, imagines that the Kingis concealed underneath the hay, and that he has come there for thepurpose of plotting with the aristocrats about his flight. A mobgathers, and the National Guard arrives, along with a commissioner, while four grenadiers stand guard around the cart. The commissioner, in the meantime, inspects the hotel; he sees music-stands, and thearrangements for a supper; comes back, has the cart unloaded, and statesto the people that he has found nothing suspicious. The people do notbelieve him, and demand a second inspection. This is made by twenty-fourdelegates; the bundles of hay, moreover, are counted, and several ofthem are unbound, but all in vain. Disappointed and irritated, havinganticipated a spectacle, the crowd insists that all the invited guests, men and women, should leave the house on foot, and only get intotheir carriages at the end of the street. "First comes a file of emptycarriages;" next, "all the guests in their evening attire, and theladies in full dress, trembling with fear, with downcast eyes, betweentwo rows of men, women, and children, who stare them in the face, andoverwhelm them with insults. "[3325]

Suspected of holding secret meetings, and called to account in his ownhouse, has the noble at least the right to frequent a public saloon, to eat in a restaurant, and to take the fresh air in a balcony?--TheVicomte de Mirabeau, who has just dined in the Palais-Royal, stands atthe window to take the air, and is recognized; there is agathering, and the cry is soon heard, "Down with Mirabeau-Tonneau(barrel-Mirabeau)!"[3326] "Gravel is flung at him from all sides, andoccasionally stones. One of the window-panes is broken by a stone. Immediately picking up the stone, he shows it to the crowd, and, atthe same time, quietly places it on the sill of the window, in token ofmoderation. " There is a loud outcry; his friends force him to withdrawinside, and Bailly, the mayor, comes in person to quiet the aggressors. In this case there are good reasons for their hatred. The gentlemanwhom they stone is a bon-vivant, large and fat, fond of rich epicureanSuppers; and on this account the populace imagine him to be a monster, and even worse, an ogre. With regard to these nobles, whose greatestmisfortune is to be over-polished and too worldly, the over-excitedimagination revives its old nursery tales. --M. De Montlosier, living inthe Rue Richelieu, finds that he is watched on his way to the NationalAssembly. One woman especially, from thirty to thirty-two years of age, who sold meat at a stall in the Passage Saint-Guillaume, "regarded himwith special attention. As soon as she saw him coming she took up along, broad knife which she sharpened before him, casting furious looksat him. " He asks his housekeeper what this means. Two children of thatquarter have disappeared, carried off by gipsies, and the report iscurrent that M. De Montlosier, the Marquis de Mirabeau, and otherdeputies of the "right, " meet together "to hold orgies in which they eatlittle children. "

In this state of public opinion there is no crime which is not imputedto them, no insult which is not freely bestowed on them. "Traitors, tyrants, conspirators, assassins, " such is the current vocabulary ofthe clubs and newspapers in relation to them. "Aristocrat" signifiesall this, and whoever dares to refute the calumny is himself anaristocrat. --At the Palais-Royal, it is constantly repeated that M. DeCastries, in his last duel, made use of a poisoned sword, and an officerof the navy who protests against this false report is himself accused, tried on the spot, and condemned "to be shut up in the guard-house orthrown into the fountain. "[3327]--The nobles must beware of defendingtheir honor in the usual way and of meeting an insult with a challenge!At Castelnau, near Cahors, [3328] one of those who, the preceding year, marched against the incendiaries, M. De Bellud, Knight of Saint-Louis, on coming down the public square with his brother, a guardsman, isgreeted with cries of "The aristocrat! to the lamp post!" His brother isin a morning coat and slippers, and not wishing to get into trouble theydo not reply. A squad of the National Guard, passing by, repeats thecry, but they still remain silent. The shout continues, and M. DeBellud, after some time has elapsed, begs the captain to order his mento be quiet. He refuses, and M. De Bellud demands satisfaction outsidethe town. At these words the National Guards rush at M. De Bellud withfixed bayonets. His brother receives a saber-cut on the neck, while he, defending himself with his sword, slightly wounds the captain and oneof the men. The two brothers, alone against the whole body, fight on, retreating to their house, in which they are blockaded. Towards seveno'clock in the evening, two or three hundred National Guards fromCahors arrive to reinforce the besiegers. The house is taken, andthe guardsman, escaping across the fields, sprains his ankle and iscaptured. M. De Bellud, who has found his way into another house, continues to defend himself there: the house is set on fire and burnt, together with two others alongside of it. Taking refuge in a cellar hestill keeps on firing. Bundles of lighted straw are thrown in at theair-holes. Almost suffocated, he springs out, kills his first assailantwith a shot from one pistol, and himself with another. His head is cutoff with that of his servant. The guardsman is made to kiss the twoheads, and, on his demanding a glass of water, they fill his mouthwith the blood which drops from the severed head of his brother. Thevictorious gang then set out for Cahors, with the two heads stuck onbayonets, and the guardsman in a cart. It comes to a halt before a housein which a literary circle meets, suspected by the Jacobin club. Thewounded man is made to descend from the cart and is hung: his body isriddled with balls, and everything the house contains is broken up, "the furniture is thrown out of the windows, and the house pulleddown. "--Every popular execution is of this character, at once prompt andcomplete, similar to those of an Oriental monarch who, on the instant, without inquiry or trial, avenges his offended majesty, and forevery offense, knows no other punishment than death. At Tulle, M. DeMassy, [3329] lieutenant of the "Royal Navarre, " having struck a man thatinsulted him, is seized in the house in which he took refuge, and, inspite of the three administrative bodies, is at once massacred. --AtBrest, two anti-revolutionary caricatures having been drawn withcharcoal on the walls of the military coffee-house, the excited crowdlay the blame of it on the officers; one of these, M. Patry, takes itupon himself, and, on the point of being torn to pieces, attempts tokill himself. He is disarmed, but, when the municipal authorities cometo his assistance, they find him "already dead through an infinitenumber of wounds, " and his head is borne about on the end of apike. [3330]--

VI. --Conduct of officers. 

 Their self-sacrifice. --Disposition of the soldiery. --Military outbreaks. --Spread and increase of insubordination. --Resignation of the officers. 

Much better would it be to live under an Eastern king, for he is notfound everywhere, nor always furious and mad, like the populace. Nowhereare the nobles safe, neither in public nor in private life, neither inthe country nor in the towns, neither associated together nor separate. Popular hostility hangs over them like a dark and threatening cloud fromone end of the territory to the other, and the tempest bursts upon themin a continuous storm of vexations, outrages, calumnies, robberies, andacts of violence; here, there, and almost daily, bloody thunderboltsfall haphazard on the most inoffensive heads, on an old man asleep, on aKnight of Saint-Louis taking a walk, on a family at prayers in a church. But, in this aristocracy, crushed down in some places and attackedeverywhere, the thunderbolt finds one predestined group which attractsit and on which it constantly falls, and that is the corps of officers. 

VI. --Conduct of the officers. 

 Their self-sacrifice. --Disposition of the soldiery. --Military outbreaks. --Spread and increase of insubordination. --Resignation of the officers. 

With the exception of a few fops, frequenters of drawing-rooms, and thecourt favorites who have reached a high rank through the intrigues ofthe antechamber, it was in this group, especially in the medium ranks, that true moral nobility was then found. Nowhere in France was there somuch tried, substantial merit. A man of genius, who associated withthem in his youth, rendered them this homage: many among them aremen possessing "the most amiable characters and minds of the highestorder. "[3331] Indeed, for most of them, military service was not acareer of ambition, but an obligation of birth. It was the rule in eachnoble family for the eldest son to enter the army, and advancement wasof but little consequence. He discharged the debt of his rank; thissufficed for him, and, after twenty or thirty years of service, theorder of Saint-Louis, and sometimes a meager pension, were all he hada right to expect. Amongst nine or ten thousand officers, the greatmajority coming from the lower and poorer class of provincial nobles, body-guards, lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant-colonels, andeven colonels, have no other pretension. Satisfied with favors[3332]restricted to their subordinate rank, they leave the highest grades ofthe service to the heirs of the great families, to the courtiers or tothe parvenus at Versailles, and content themselves with remaining theguardians of public order, and the brave defenders of the State. Underthis system, when the heart is not depraved it becomes exalted; it ismade a point of honor to serve without compensation; there is nothingbut the public welfare in view, and all the more because, at thismoment, it is the absorbing topic of all minds and of all literature. Nowhere has practical philosophy, that which consists in a spiritof abnegation, more deeply penetrated than among this unrecognizednobility. Under a polished, brilliant, and sometimes frivolous exterior, they have a serious soul; the old sentiment of honor is convertedinto one of patriotism. Set to execute the laws, with force in hand tomaintain peace through fear, they feel the importance of their mission, and, for two years, fulfill its duties with extraordinary moderation, gentleness, and patience, not only at the risk of their lives, butamidst great and multiplied humiliations, through the sacrifice of theirauthority and self-esteem, through the subjection of their intelligentwill to the dictation and incapacity of the masters imposed upon them. For a noble officer to respond to the requisitions of an extemporizedbourgeois municipal body, [3333] to subordinate his competence, courage, and prudence to the blunders and alarms of five or six inexperienced, frightened, and timid attorneys, to place his energy and daring at theservice of their presumption, feebleness, and lack of decision, even when their orders or refusal of orders are manifestly absurd orinjurious, even when they are opposed to the previous instructions ofhis general or of his minister, even when they end in the plunderingof a market, the burning of a chateau, the assassination of an innocentperson, even when they impose upon him the obligation of witnessingcrime with his sword sheathed and arms folded, [3334]--this is a hardtask. It is hard for the noble officer to see independent, popular, andbourgeois troops organized in the face of his own troops, rivals andeven hostile, in any case ten times as numerous and no less exactingthan sensitive--hard to be expected to show them deference and extendcivilities to them, to surrender to them posts, arsenals, and citadels, to treat their chiefs as equals, however ignorant or unworthy, andwhatever they may be--here a lawyer, there a Capuchin, elsewhere abrewer or a shoemaker, most generally some demagogue, and, in many atown or village, some deserter or soldier drummed out of his regimentfor bad conduct, perhaps one of the noble's own men, a scamp whom he hasformerly discharged with the yellow cartridge, telling him to go andbe hung elsewhere. It is hard for the noble officer to be publicly anddaily calumniated on account of his rank and title, to be characterizedas a traitor at the club and in the newspapers, to be designated byname as an object of popular suspicion and fury, to be hooted at in thestreets and in the theater, to submit to the disobedience of his men, tobe denounced, insulted, arrested, fleeced, hunted down and slaughteredby them and by the populace, to see before him a cruel, ignoble, andunavenged death--that of M. De Launay, murdered at Paris--that of M. De Belzunce, murdered at Caen--that of M. De Beausset, murdered atMarseilles--that of M. De Voisins, murdered at Valence--that of M. DeRully, murdered at Bastia, or that of M. De Rochetailler, murdered atPort-au-Prince. [3335] All this is endured by the officers among thenobles. Not one of the municipalities, even Jacobin, can find anypretext which will warrant the charge of disobeying orders. Through tactand deference they avoid all conflict with the National Guards. Neverdo they give provocation, and, even when insulted, rarely defendthemselves. Their gravest faults consist of imprudent conversations, vivacious expressions and witticisms. Like good watch-dogs amongst afrightened herd which trample them under foot, or pierce them withtheir horns, they allow themselves to be pierced and trampled on withoutbiting, and would remain at their post to the end were they not drivenaway from it. 

All to no purpose: doubly suspicious as members of a proscribed class, and as heads of the army, it is against them that public distrustexcites the most frequent explosions, and so much the more as theinstrument they handle is singularly explosive. Recruited by volunteerenlistment "amongst a passionate, turbulent, and somewhat debauchedpeople, " the army is composed of "all that are most fiery, mostturbulent, and most debauched in the nation. "[3336] Add to these thesweepings of the alms-houses, and you find a good many blackguardsin uniform! When we consider that the pay is small, the food bad, discipline severe, no promotion, and desertion endemic, we are no longersurprised at the general disorder: license, to such men, is too powerfula temptation. With wine, women, and money they have from the firstbeen made turncoats, and from Paris the contagion has spread tothe provinces. In Brittany, [3337] the grenadiers and chasseurs ofIle-de-France "sell their coats, their guns, and their shoes, exactingadvances in order to consume it in the tavern;" fifty-six soldiers ofPenthièvre "wanted to murder their officers, " and it is foreseen that, left to themselves, they will soon, for lack of pay, "betake themselvesto the highways, to rob and assassinate. " In Euree-et-Loir, thedragoons, [3338] with saber and pistols in hand, visit the farmers'houses and take bread and money, while the foot soldiers of the"Royal-Comtois" and the dragoons of the "Colonel-Général" desert inbands in order to go to Paris, where amusement is to be had. The mainthing with them is "to have a jolly time. " In fact, the extensivemilitary insurrections of the earliest date, those of Paris, Versailles, Besançon, and Strasbourg, began or ended with a revel. --Out of thesedepths of gross desires there has sprung up natural or legitimateambitions. A number of soldiers, for twenty years past, have learned howto read, and think themselves qualified to be officers. One quarter ofthose enlisted, moreover, are young men born in good circumstances, andwhom a caprice has thrown into the army. They choke in this narrow, low, dark, confined passage where the privileged by birth close up the issue, and they will march over their chiefs to secure advancement. These arethe discontented, the disputants, the orators of the mess-room, andbetween these barrack politicians and the politicians of the street analliance is at once formed. --Starting from the same point they march onto the same end, and the imagination which has labored to blacken theGovernment in the minds of the people, blackens the officers in theminds of the soldiers. 

The Treasury is empty and there are arrears of pay. The towns, burdenedwith debt, no longer furnish their quotas of supplies; and at Orleans, with the distress of the municipality before them, the Swiss ofChateauvieux were obliged to impose on themselves a stoppage of one souper day and per man to have wood in winter. [3339] Grain is scarce, theflour is spoilt, and the army bread, which was bad, has become worse. The administration, worm-eaten by old abuses, is deranged through thenew disorder, the soldiers suffering as well through its dissolutionas through their extravagance. --They think themselves robbed andthey complain, at first with moderation; and justice is done to theirwell-founded claims. Soon they exact accounts, and these are made outfor them. At Strasbourg, on these being verified before Kellermann anda commissioner of the National Assembly, it is proved that they have notbeen wronged out of a sou; nevertheless a gratification of six francs ahead is given to them, and they cry out that they are content and havenothing more to ask for. A few months after this fresh complaints arise, and there is a new verification: an ensign, accused of embezzlement andwhom they wished to hang, is tried in their presence; his accounting istidy; none of them can cite against him a proven charge, and, once more, they remain silent. On other occasions, after hearing the reading ofregisters for several hours, they yawn, cease to listen, and go outsideto get something to drink. --But the figures of their demands, as thesehave been summed up by their mess-room calculators, remain implanted intheir brains; they have taken root there, and are constantly springingup without any account or refutation being able to extirpate them. Nomore writings nor speeches--what they want is money: 11, 000 livres forthe Beaune regiment, 39, 500 livres for that of Forez, 44, 000 livres forthat of Salm, 200, 000 livres for that of Chateauvieux, and similarly forthe rest. So much the worse for the officers if the money-chest does notsuffice for them; let them assess each other, or borrow on their noteof hand from the municipality, or from the rich men of the town. --Forgreater security, in divers places, the soldiers take possession of themilitary chest and mount guard around it: it belongs to them, since theyform the regiment, and, in any case, it is better that it should be intheir hands than in suspected hands. --Already, on the 4th of June, 1790, the Minister of War announces to the Assembly that "the military bodythreatens to fall into a perfect state of anarchy. " His report shows"the most incredible pretensions put forth in the most plain-spokenway--orders without force, chiefs without authority, the military chestand flags carried away, the orders of the King himself openly defied, the officers condemned, insulted, threatened, driven off; some of themeven captive amidst their own troops, leading a precarious life inthe midst of disgust and humiliations, and, as the climax of horror, commanders having their throat cut under the eyes and almost in the armsof their own soldiers. "

It is much worse after the July Federation. Entertained, flattered, and indoctrinated at the clubs, their delegates, inferior officers andprivates, return to the regiment Jacobins; and henceforth correspondwith the Jacobins of Paris, "receiving their instructions and reportingto them, "[3340]--Three weeks later, the Minister of War gives notice tothe National Assembly that there is no limit to the license in the army. "Couriers, the bearers of fresh complaints, are arriving constantly. "In one place "a statement of the fund is demanded, and it is proposed todivide it. " Elsewhere, a garrison, with drums beating, leaves the town, deposes its officers, and comes back sword in hand. Each regiment isgoverned by a committee of soldiers. "It is in this committee that thedetention of the lieutenant-colonel of Poitou has been twice arranged;here it is that 'Royal-Champagne' conceived the insurrection" by whichit refused to recognize a sub-lieutenant sent to it. "Every daythe minister's cabinet is filled with soldiers who are sent asrepresentatives to him, and who proudly come and intimate to him thewill of their constituents. " Finally, at Strasbourg, seven regiments, each represented by three delegates, formed a military congress. The same month, the terrible insurrection of Nancy breaks out--threeregiments in revolt, the populace with them, the arsenal pillaged, threehours of furious fighting in the streets, the insurgents firing from thewindows of the houses and from the cellar openings, five hundreddead among the victors, and three thousand among the vanquished. --Thefollowing month, and for six weeks, [3341] there is another insurrection, less bloody, but more extensive, better arranged and more obstinate, that of the whole squadron at Brest, a mutiny of twenty thousand men, at first against their admiral and their officers, then against the newpenal code and against the National Assembly itself. The latter, after remonstrating in vain, is obliged not only not to take rigorousmeasures, but again to revise its laws. [3342]

From this time forth, I cannot enumerate the constant outbreaks in thefleet and in the army. --Authorized by the minister, the soldier goesto the club, where he is repeatedly told that his officers, beingaristocrats, are traitors. At Dunkirk, he is additionally taught how toget rid of them. Clamors, denunciations, insults, musket-shots--theseare the natural means, and they are put in practice: but there isanother, recently discovered, by which an energetic officer of whom theyare afraid may be driven away. Some patriotic bully is found who comesand insults him. If the officer fights and is not killed, the municipalauthorities have him arraigned, and his chiefs send him off along withhis seconds "in order not to disturb the harmony between the soldier andthe citizen. " If he declines the proposed duel, the contempt of his menobliges him to quit the regiment. In either case he is got out of theway. [3343]--They have no scruples in relation to him. Present or absent, a noble officer must certainly be plotting with his emigrant companions;and on this a story is concocted. Formerly, to prove that sacks of flourwere being thrown into the river, the soldiers alleged that these sackswere tied with blue cords (cordons bleus). Now, to confirm the beliefthat an officer is conspiring with Coblentz, it suffices to state thathe rides a white horse; a certain captain, at Strasbourg, barely escapesbeing cut to pieces for this crime; "the devil could not get it out oftheir heads that he was acting as a spy, and that the little grey-hound"which accompanies him on his rides "is used to make signals. "--One yearafter, at the time when the National Assembly completes its work, M. De Lameth, M. Fréteau, and M. Alquier state before it that Luckner, Rochambeau, and the most popular generals, "no longer are responsiblefor anything. " The Auvergne regiment has driven away its officers andforms a separate society, which obeys no one. The second battalion ofBeaune is on the point of setting fire to Arras. It is almost necessaryto lay siege to Phalsbourg, whose garrison has mutinied. Here, "disobedience to the general's orders is formal. " There "are soldierswho have to be urged to stand sentinel; whom they dare not put inconfinement for discipline; who threaten to fire on their officers; whostray off the road, pillage everything, and take aim at the corporal whotries to bring them back. " At Blois, a part of the regiment "has justarrived without either clothes or arms, the soldiers having sold all onthe road to provide for their debauchery. " One among them, delegated byhis companions, proposes to the Jacobins at Paris to "de-aristocratise"the army by cashiering all the nobles. Another declares, with theapplause of the club, that "seeing how the palisades of Givet areconstructed, he is going to denounce the Minister of War at the tribunalof the sixth arrondissement of Paris. "

It is manifest that, for noble officers, the situation is no longertenable. After waiting patiently for twenty-three months, many of themleft through conscientiousness, when the National Assembly, forcing athird oath upon them, struck out of the formula the name of the King, their born general. [3344]--Others depart at the end of the ConstituentAssembly, "because they risk being hung. " A large number resign at theend of 1791 and during the first months of 1792, in proportion asthe new code and the new recruiting system for the army develop theirresults. [3345] In fact, on the one hand, through the soldiers andinferior officers having a voice in the election of their chiefs anda seat in the military courts, "there is no longer the shadow ofdiscipline; verdicts are given from pure caprice; the soldier contractsthe habit of despising his superiors, of whose punishments he has nofear, and from whom he expects no reward; the officers are paralyzedto such a degree as to become entirely superfluous personages. " On theother hand, the majority of the National Volunteers are composed of "menbought by the communes" and administrative bodies, worthless charactersof the street-corners, rustic vagabonds forced to march by lot orbribery, "[3346] and along with them, enthusiasts and fanatics to such anextent that, from March, 1792, from the spot of their enlistment tothe frontier, their track is everywhere marked by pillage, robbery, devastation, and assassinations. Naturally, on the road and at thefrontier, they denounce, drive away, imprison, or murder their officers, and especially the nobles. 3/4 And yet, in this extremity, numbers ofnoble officers, especially in the artillery and engineer corps, persistin remaining at their posts, some through liberal ideas, and others outof respect for their instructions; even after the 10th of August, evenafter the 2nd of September, even after the 21st of January, like theirgenerals Biron, Custine, de Flers, de Broglie, and de Montesquiou, withthe constant perspective of the guillotine that awaits them on leavingthe battlefield and even in the ministerial offices of Carnot. 

VII. --Emigration and its causes. 

 The first laws against the emigrants. 

It is, accordingly, necessary that the officers and nobles should goaway, should go abroad; and not only they, but also their families. "Gentlemen who have scarcely six hundred livres income set out onfoot, "[3347] and there is no doubt as to the motive of their departure. "Whoever will impartially consider the sole and veritable causes ofthe emigration, " says an honest man, "will find them in anarchy. If theliberty of the individual had not been daily threatened, if;" in thecivil as in the military order of things, "the senseless dogma, preachedby the factions, that crimes committed by the mob are the judgments ofheaven, had not been put in practice, France would have preserved threefourths of her fugitives. Exposed for two years to ignominious dangers, to every species of outrage, to innumerable persecutions, to the steelof the assassin, to the firebrands of incendiaries, to the mostinfamous charges, 'to the denouncement of' their corrupted domestics, to domiciliary visits" prompted by the commonest street rumor, "toarbitrary imprisonment by the Committee of Inquiry, " deprived of theircivil rights, driven out of primary meetings, "they are held accountablefor their murmurs, and punished for a sensibility which would touch theheart in a suffering criminal. "--" Resistance is nowhere seen; fromthe prince's throne to the parsonage of the priest, the tempest hasprostrated all malcontents in resignation. " Abandoned "to the restlessfury of the clubs, to informers, to intimidated officials, they findexecutioners on all sides where prudence and the safety of the Statehave enjoined them not even to see enemies. . . . Whoever has detestedthe enormities of fanaticism and of public ferocity, whoever hasawarded pity to the victims heaped together under the ruins of so manylegitimate rights and odious abuses, whoever, finally, has dared toraise a doubt or a complaint, has been proclaimed an enemy ofthe nation. After this representation of malcontents as so manyconspirators, every crime committed against them has been legitimated inpublic opinion. [3348] The public conscience, formed by the factionsand by that band of political corsairs who would be the disgrace of abarbarous nation, have considered attacks against property and townssimply as national justice, while, more than once, the news of themurder of an innocent person, or of a sentence which threatened himwith death, has been welcomed with shouts of joy Two systems of naturalright, two orders of justice, two standards of morality were accordinglyestablished; by one of these it was allowable to do against one'sfellow-creature, a reputed aristocrat, that which would be criminal ifhe were a patriot. . . . Was it foreseen that, at the end of twoyears, France, teeming with laws, with magistrates, with courts, withcitizen-guards, bound by solemn oaths in the defense of order and thepublic safety, would still and continually be an arena in which wildbeasts would devour unarmed men "--With all, even with old men, widowsand children, it is a crime to escape from their clutches. Withoutdistinguishing between those who fly to avoid becoming a prey, andthose who arm to attack the frontier, the Constituent and LegislativeAssemblies alike condemn all absentees. The Constituent Assembly[3349]trebled their real and personal taxes, and prescribed that there shouldbe a triple lien on their rents and dues. The Legislative Assemblysequestrates, confiscates, and puts into the market their possessions, real and personal, amounting to nearly fifteen hundred millions of cashvalue. Let them return and place themselves under the knives of thepopulace; otherwise they and their posterity shall all be beggars. --Atthis stroke indignation overflows, and a bourgeois who is liberal anda foreigner, Mallet du Pan, exclaims, [3350] "What! twenty thousandfamilies absolutely ignorant of the Coblentz plans and of itsassemblies, twenty thousand families dispersed over the soil of Europeby the fury of clubs, by the crimes of brigands, by constant lack ofsecurity, by the stupid and cowardly inertia of petrified authorities, by the pillage of estates, by the insolence of it cohort of tyrantswithout bread or clothes, by assassinations and incendiarism, by thebase servility of silent ministers, by the whole series of revolutionaryscourges, --what' these twenty thousand desolate families, women and oldmen, must see their inheritances become the prey of national robbery!What! Madame Guillin, who was obliged to fly with horror from theland where monsters have burnt her dwelling, slaughtered and eatenher husband, and who live with impunity by the side of her home--shallMadame Guillin see her fortune confiscated for the benefit of thecommunities to which she owes her dreadful misfortunes! Shall M. DeClarac, under penalty of the same punishment, go and restore the ruinsof his chateau, where an army of scoundrels failed to smother him!"--Somuch the worse for them if they dare not come back! They are to undergocivil death, perpetual banishment, and, in case the ban be violated, they will be given up to the guillotine. In the same case with themare others who, with still greater innocence, have left the territory, magistrates, ordinary rich people, burgesses, or peasants, Catholics, and particularly one entire class, the nonjuring clergy, from thecardinal archbishop down to the simple village vicar, all prosecuted, then despoiled, then crushed by the same popular oppression and by thesame legislative oppression, each of these two persecutions exciting andaggravating the other to such an extent that, at last, the populace andthe law, one the accomplice of the other, no longer leave a roof nora piece of bread, nor an hour's safety to a gentleman or to apriest. [3351]

VIII. --Attitude of the non-juring priests. 

 How they become distrusted. --Illegal arrests by local administrations. --Violence or complicity of the National Guards. --Outrages by the populace. --Executive power in the south. --The sixth jacquerie. --Its two causes. --Isolated outbreaks in the north, east, and west, --General eruption in the south and in the center. 

The ruling passion flings itself on all obstacles, even those placed byitself across its own track. Through a vast usurpation the minorityof non-believers, indifferent or lukewarm, has striven to impose itsecclesiastical forms on the Catholic majority, and the situationthereby created for the Catholic priest is such that unless he becomesschismatic, he cannot fail to appear as an enemy. In vain has he obeyed!He has allowed his property to be taken, he has left his parsonage, hehas given the keys of the church to his successor, he has kept aloof;he does not transgress, either by omission or commission, any article ofany decree. In vain does he avail himself of his legal right to abstainfrom taking an oath repugnant to his conscience. This alone makes himappear to refuse the civic oath in which the ecclesiastical oath isincluded, to reject the constitution which he accepts in full minus aparasite chapter, to conspire against the new social and political orderof things which he often approves of; and to which he almost alwayssubmits. [3352] In vain does he confine himself to his special andrecognized domain, the spiritual direction of things. Through thisalone he resists the new legislators who pretend to furnish a spiritualguidance, for, by virtue of being orthodox, he must believe that thepriest whom they elect is excommunicated, that his sacraments are vain;and, in his office as pastor, he must prevent his sheep from going todrink at an impure source. In vain might he preach to them moderationand respect. Through the mere fact that the schism is effected, itsconsequences unfold them selves, and the peasants will not always remainas patient as their pastor. They have known him for twenty years; he hasbaptized them and married them; they believe that his is the only truemass; they are not satisfied to be obliged to attend another two orthree leagues away, and to leave the church, their church which theirancestors built, and where from father to son they have prayed forcenturies, in the hands of a stranger, an intruder and heretic, whoofficiates before almost empty benches, and whom gendarmes, with guns intheir hands, have installed. Assuredly, as he passes through the street, they will look upon him askance: it is not surprising that the women andchildren soon hoot at him, that stones are thrown at night through hiswindows, that in the strongly Catholic departments, Upper and LowerRhine, Doubs and Jura, Lozère, Deux-Sêvres and Vendée, Finistère, Morbihan, and Côtes-du-Nord, he is greeted with universal desertion, and then expelled through public ill-will. It is not surprising thathis mass is interrupted and that his person is threatened;[3353] thatdisaffection which thus far had only reached the upper class, descendsto the popular strata; that, from one end of France to the other, asullen hostility prevails against the new institutions; for now thepolitical and social constitution is joined to the ecclesiasticalconstitution like an edifice to its spire, and, through this sharppinnacle, seeks the storm even within the darkening clouds of heaven. The evil all springs out of this unskillful, gratuitous, compulsoryfusion, and, consequently, from those who effected it. 

But never will a victorious party admit that it has made a mistake. In its eyes the nonjuring priests are alone culpable; it is irritatedagainst their factious conscience; and, to crush the rebellion even inthe inaccessible sanctuary of personal conviction, there is no legal orbrutal act of violence which it will not allow itself to commit. 

Behold, accordingly, a new sport thrown open; and the game is immenselyplentiful. For it comprises not only the black or gray robes, more thanforty thousand priests, over thirty thousand nuns, and several thousandmonks, but also the devoted orthodox, that is to say the women of thelow or middle class, and, without counting provincial nobles, a majorityof the serious, steady bourgeoisie, a majority of the peasantry-almostthe whole population of several provinces, east, west, and in the south. A name is bestowed on them, as lately on the nobles; it is that offanatic, which is equivalent to aristocrat, for it also designatespublic enemies likewise placed by it beyond the pale of the law. 

Little does it matter whether the law favors them, for it is interpretedagainst them, arbitrarily construed and openly violated by the partialor intimidated administrative bodies which the Constitution haswithdrawn from the control of the central authority and subjected tothe authority of popular gatherings. From the first months of 1791, the hounding begins; the municipalities, districts, and departmentsthemselves often take the lead in beating up the game. Six months later, the Legislative Assembly, by its decree of November 29, [3354] sounds thetally-ho, and, in spite of the King's veto, the hounds on all sides dashforward. During the month of April, 1792, forty-two departments passagainst nonjuring priests "acts which are neither prescribed norauthorized by the Constitution, " and, before the end of the LegislativeAssembly, forty-three others will have followed in their train. --Throughthis series of illegal acts, without offense, without trial, non-jurorsare everywhere in France expelled from their parishes, relegated to theprincipal town of the department or district, in some places imprisoned, put on the same footing with the emigrants, and despoiled of theirproperty, real and personal. [3355] Nothing more is wanting against thembut the general decree of deportation which is to come as soon as theAssembly can get rid of the King. 

In the meantime, the National Guards, who have extorted the laws, endeavor to aggravate them in their application; and there is nothingstrange in their animosity. Commerce is at a standstill, industrylanguishes, the artisan and shopkeeper suffer, and, in order to accountfor the universal discontent, it is attributed to the insubordinationof the priest. Were it not for his stubbornness all would go well, sincethe Constitution is perfect, and he is the only one who does not acceptit. But, in not accepting it, he attacks it. He, therefore, is the lastobstacle in the way of public happiness; he is the scapegoat, let usdrive the obnoxious creature away! And the urban militia, sometimeson its own authority, sometimes instigated by the municipal body itsaccomplice; is seen disturbing public worship, dispersing congregations, seizing priests by the collar, pushing them by the shoulders out ofthe town, and threatening them with hanging if they dare to return. At Douay, [3356] with guns in hand, they force the directory of thedepartment to order the closing of all the oratories and chapels inhospitals and convents. At Caen, with loaded guns and with a cannon, they march forth against the neighboring parish of Verson, break intohouses, gather up fifteen persons suspected of orthodoxy--canons, merchants, artisans, workmen, women, girls, old men, and the infirm--cutoff their hair, strike them with the but-ends of their muskets, and leadthem back to Caen fastened to the breach of the cannon; and all thisbecause a nonjuring priest still officiated at Verson, and many piouspersons from Caen attended his mass: Verson, consequently, is a focalcenter of counter-revolutionary gatherings. Moreover, in the houseswhich were broken into, the furniture was smashed, casks stove in, andthe linen, money, and plate stolen, the rabble of Caen having joinedthe expedition. --Here, and everywhere, there is nothing to do but tolet this rabble have its own way; and as it operates against thepossessions, the liberty; the life, and the sense of propriety ofdangerous persons, the National Militia is careful not to interferewith it. Consequently, the orthodox, both priests and believers, men andwomen, are now at its mercy, and, thanks to the connivance of the armedforce, which refuses to interpose, the rabble satisfy on the proscribedclass its customary instincts of cruelty, pillage, wantonness, anddestructiveness. 

Whether public or private, the order of the day is always to hinderworship, while the means employed are worthy of those who carry themout. --Here, a nonjuring priest having had the boldness to minister toa sick person, the house which he has just entered is taken by assault, and the door and windows of a house occupied by another priest aresmashed. [3357] There, the lodgings of two workmen, who are accused ofhaving had their infants baptized by a refractory priest, are sacked andnearly demolished. Elsewhere, a mob refuses to allow the body of anold curé, who had died without taking the oath, to enter the cemetery. Farther on, a church is assaulted during vespers, and everything isbroken to pieces: on the following day it is the turn of a neighboringchurch, and, in addition, a convent of Ursuline nuns is devastated. --AtLyons, on Easter-day, 1791, as the people are leaving the six o'clockmass, a troop, armed with whips, falls upon the women. [3358] Stripped, bruised, prostrated, with their heads in the dirt, they are not leftuntil they are bleeding and half-dead; one young girl is actually at thepoint of death; and this sort of outrage occurs so frequently that evenladies attending the orthodox mass in Paris dare not go outwithout sewing up their garments around them in the shape ofdrawers. --Naturally, to make the most of the prey offered to them, hunting associations are formed. These exist in Montpellier, Arles, Uzès, Alais, Nîmes, Carpentras, and in most of the towns or burgs ofGard, Vaucluse, and l'Hérault, in greater or less number according tothe population of the city: some counting from ten to twelve, and othersfrom two to three hundred determined men, of every description: amongthem are found "strike-hards" (tape-dur), former brigands, and escapedconvicts with the brand still on their backs. Some of them oblige theirmembers to wear a medal as a visible mark of recognition; all assumethe title of executive power, and declare that they act of their ownauthority, and that it is necessary to "quicken the law. "[3359] Theirpretext is the protection of sworn priests; and for twenty months, beginning with April, 1791, they operate to this effect with heavyknotted dubs garnished with iron points, " without counting sabers andbayonets. Generally, their expeditions are nocturnal. Suddenly, thehouses of "citizens suspected of a want of patriotism, " of nonjuringecclesiastics, of the monks of the Christian school, are invaded;everything is broken or stolen, and the owner is ordered to leave theplace in twenty-four hours: sometimes, doubtless through an excess ofprecaution, he is beaten to death on the spot. Besides this, the bandalso works by day in the streets, lashes the women, enters the churchessaber in hand, and drives the nonjuring priest from the altar. All ofthis is done with the connivance and in the sight of the paralyzedor complaisant authorities, by a sort of occult and complementarygovernment, which not only supplies what is missing in theecclesiastical law, but also searches the pockets of privateindividuals. --At Nîmes, under the leadership of a patrioticdancing-master, not content with "decreeing proscriptions, killing, scourging, and often murdering, " these new champions of the GallicanChurch undertake to reanimate the zeal of those liable to contribution. A subscription having been proposed for the support of the families ofthe volunteers about to depart, the executive power takes upon itselfto revise the list of offerings: it arbitrarily taxes those who have notgiven, or who, in its opinion, have given too little some "poor workmenfifty livres, others two hundred, three hundred, nine hundred, anda thousand, under penalty of wrecked houses and severe treatment. "Elsewhere, the volunteers of Baux and other communes near Tarascon helpthemselves freely, and, "under the pretext that they are to march forthe defense of the country, levy enormous contributions on proprietors, "on one four thousand, and on another five thousand livres. In default ofpayment, they carry away all the grain on one farm, even to the reserveseed, threatening to make havoc with everything, and even to burn, incase of complaint, so that the owners dare not say a word, while theattorney-general of the neighboring department, afraid on his ownaccount, begs that his denunciation may be kept secret. --From the slumsof the towns the jacquerie has spread into the rural districts. This isthe sixth and the most extensive seen for three years. [3360]

Two spurs impel the peasant on. --On the one hand he is frightened bythe clash of arms, and the repeated announcements of an approachinginvasion. The clubs and the newspapers since the declaration of Pilnitz, and the Orators in the Legislative Assembly for four months past, havekept him alarmed with their trumpet-blasts, and he urges on his oxen inthe furrow with cries of "Woa, Prussia!" to one, and to the other, "Geeup, Austria!" Austria and Prussia, foreign kings and nobles in leaguewith the emigrant nobles, are going to return in force to re-establishthe salt-tax, the excise, feudal-dues, tithes, and to retake nationalproperty already sold and re-sold, with the aid of the gentry who havenot left, or who have returned, and the connivance of non-juringpriests who declare the sale sacrilegious and refuse to absolve thepurchasers. --On the other hand, Holy Week is drawing near, and for thepast year qualms of conscience have disturbed the purchasers. Up toMarch 24, 1791, the sales of national property had amounted to only 180millions; but, the Assembly having prolonged the date of payment andfacilitated further sales in detail, the temptation proves too strongfor the peasant; stockings and buried pots are all emptied of theirsavings. In seven months the peasant has bought to the amount of 1, 346millions, [3361] and finally possesses in full and complete ownership themorsel of land which he has coveted for so many years, and sometimes anunexpected plot, a wood, a mill, or a meadow. At the present time he hasto settle accounts with the church, and, if the pecuniary settlement ispostponed, the Catholic settlement comes on the appointed day. According to immemorial tradition he is obliged to take the communionat Easter, [3362] his wife also, and likewise his mother; and if he, exceptionally, does not think this of consequence, they do. Moreover, herequires the sacraments for his old sick father, his new-born child, andfor his other child of an age to be confirmed. Now, communion, baptism, confession, all the sacraments, to be of good quality, must proceed froma safe source, just as is the case with flour and coin; there is onlytoo much counterfeit money now in the world, and the sworn priests aredaily losing credit, like the assignats. There is no other course topursue, consequently, but to resort to the non-juror, who is the onlyone able to give valid absolutions. And it so happens that he not onlyrefuses this, but he is said to be inimical to the whole new order ofthings. --In this dilemma the peasant falls back upon his usual resource, the strength of his arms; he seizes the priest by the throat, asformerly his lord, and extorts an acquittance for his sins as formerlyfor his feudal dues. At the very least he strives to constrain thenon-jurors to swear, to close their separatist churches, and bring theentire canton to the same uniform faith. --Occasionally also he avengeshimself against the partisans of the non-jurors, against chateauxand houses of the opulent, against the nobles and the rich, againstproprietors of every class. Occasionally, likewise, as, since theamnesty of September, 1791, the prisons have been emptied, as one-halfof the courts are not yet installed, [3363] as there has been no policefor thirty months, the common robbers, bandits, and vagrants, who swarmabout without repression or surveillance, join the mob and fill theirpockets. 

Here, in Pas-de-Calais, [3364] three hundred villagers, headed by adrummer, burst open the doors of a Carthusian convent, steal everything, eatables, beverages, linen, furniture, and effects, whilst, in theneighboring parish, another band operates in the same fashion in thehouses of the mayor and of the old curé, threatening "to kill andburn all, " and promising to return on the following Sunday. --There, in Bas-Rhin, near Fort Louis, twenty houses of the aristocrats arepillaged. --Elsewhere in Ile-et-Vilaine, bodies of rural militia, combined, go from parish to parish, and, increasing in numbers inconsequence of their very violence until they form bands of two thousandmen. They close churches, drive away nonjuring priests, remove clappersfrom the bells, eat and drink what they please at the expense of theinhabitants, and often, in the houses of the mayor or tax-registrar, indulge in the pleasure of breaking everything to pieces. Should anypublic officer remonstrate with them they shout, "At the aristocrat!"One of these unlucky counselors is struck on the back with the but-endof a musket, and two others have guns aimed at them; the chiefs of theexpedition are in no better predicament, and, according to their ownadmission, if they are at the head of the mob it is to make sure theythemselves will not be pillaged or hung. The same spectacle presentsitself in Mayenne, in Orne, in Moselle, and in the Landes. [3365]--These, however, are but isolated irruptions, and very mild; in the south andin the center, the plague is apparent in an immense leprous spot, whichextending from Avignon to Perigueux, and from Aurillac to Toulouse, suddenly covers, nearly without with any discontinuity, ten departments, Vaucluse, Ardèche, Gard, Cantal, Corrèze, Lot, Dordogne, Gers, Haute-Garonne, and Hérault. Vast rural masses are set in motion at thesame time, on all sides and owing to the same causes: the approach ofwar and the coming of Easter. --In Cantal, at the assembly of the cantonheld at Aurillac for the recruitment of the army, [3366] the commanderof a village National Guard demands vengeance "against those who are notpatriots, " and the report is spread that an order has come from Paris todestroy the chateaux. Moreover, the insurgents allege that the priests, through their refusal to take the oath, are bringing the nation intocivil war: "we are tired of not having peace on their account; let thembecome good citizens, so that everybody may go to mass. " On the strengthof this, the insurgents enter houses, put the inhabitants to ransom, not only priests and former nobles, "but also those who are suspectedof being their partisans, those who do not attend the mass of theconstitutional priest, " and even poor people, artisans and tillers ofthe ground, whom they tax five, ten, twenty, and forty francs, andwhose cellars and bread-bins they empty. Eighteen chateaux are pillaged, burnt, or demolished, and among others, those of several gentlemen andladies who have not left the country. One of these, M. D'Humières, is anold officer of eighty years; Madame de Peyronenc saves her son only bydisguising him as a peasant; Madame de Beauclerc, who flies across themountain, sees her sick child die in her arms. At Aurillac, gibbets areset up before the principal houses; M. De Niossel, a former lieutenantof a criminal court, put in prison for his safety, is dragged out, andhis severed head is thrown on a dunghill; M. Collinet, just arrivedfrom Malta, and suspected of being an aristocrat, is ripped open, cutto pieces, and his head is carried about on the end of a pike. Finally, when the municipal officers, judges, and royal commissioner commenceproceedings against the assassins, they find themselves in such greatdanger that they are obliged to resign or to run away. In like manner, in Haute-Garonne, [3367] it is also "against non-jurors and theirfollowers" that the insurrection has begun. This is promoted by the factthat in various parishes the constitutional curé belongs to theclub, and demands the riddance of his adversaries. One of them atSaint-Jean-Lorne, "mounted on a cart, preaches pillage to a mob ofeight hundred persons. " Each band, consequently, begins by expellingrefractory priests, and by forcing their supporters to attend the massof the sworn priest. --But such success, wholly abstract and barren, isof little advantage, and peasants in a state of revolt are not satisfiedso easily. When parishes march forth by the dozen and devote their dayto the service of the public, they must have some compensation in wood, wheat, wine, or money, [3368] and the expense of the expedition may bedefrayed by the aristocrats. Not merely the upholders of non-jurorsare aristocrats, as, for example, an old lady here and there, "veryfanatical, and who for forty years has devoted all her income to acts ofphilanthropy, " "but well-to-do persons, peasants or gentlemen;" for, "bykeeping their wine and grain unsold in their cellars and barns, and bynot undertaking more work than they need, so as to deprive workmen inthe country of their means of subsistence, " they design "to starve out"the poor folk. Thus, the greater the pillage, the greater the serviceto the public. According to the insurgents, it is important "to diminishrevenues enjoyed by the enemies of the nation, in order that theymay not send their revenues to Coblentz and other places out of thekingdom. " Consequently, bands of six or eight hundred or a thousand menoverrun the districts of Toulouse and Castelsarrasin. All proprietors, aristocrats, and patriots are put under contribution. Here, in thehouse of "the philanthropic but fanatical old maid, they break openeverything, destroy the furniture, taking away eighty-two bushels ofwheat and sixteen hogsheads of wine. " Elsewhere, at Roqueferrière, feudal title-deeds are burnt, and a chateau is pillaged. Farther on, atLasserre, thirty thousand francs are exacted and the ready money isall carried off. Almost everywhere the municipal officers, willingly orunwillingly, authorize pillaging. Moreover, "they cut down provisions toa price in assignats very much less than their current rate in silver, "and they double the price of a day's work. In the meantime, other bandsdevastate the national forests, and the gendarmes, in order not to becalled aristocrats, have no idea but of paying court to the pillagers. 

After all this, it is manifest that property no longer exists foranybody except for paupers and robbers. --In effect, in Dordogne, [3369]under the pretext of driving away nonjuring priests, frequently mobsgather to pillage and rob whatever comes in their way. . . . All thegrain that is found in houses with weathercocks is sequestrated. "The rustics exploit, as communal property, all the forests, all thepossessions of the emigrants; and this operation is radical; forexample, a band, on finding a new barn of which the materials strikethem as good, demolish it so as to share with each other the tiles andtimber. --In Corrèze, fifteen thousand armed peasants, who have come toTulle to disarm and drive off the supporters of the non-jurors, breakeverything in suspected houses, and a good deal of difficulty is foundin sending them off empty-handed. As soon as they get back home, theysack the chateaux of Saint-Gal, Seilhac, Gourdon, Saint-Basile, and LaRochette, besides a number of country-houses, even of absent plebeians. They have found a quarry, and never was the removal of property morecomplete. They carefully carry off, says an official statement, all thatcan be carried--furniture, curtains, mirrors, clothes-presses, pictures, wines, provisions, even floors and wooden panels, "down to the smallestfragments of iron and wood-work, " smashing the rest, so that nothing"remains of the house but its four walls, the roof and the staircase. "In Lot, where for two years the insurrection is permanent, the damageis much greater. During the night between the 30th and 31st of January, "all the best houses in Souillac" are broken open, "sacked and pillagedfrom top to bottom, "[3370] their owners being obliged to fly, and somany outbreaks occur in the department, that the directory has no timeto render an account of them to the minister. Entire districts arein revolt; as, "in each commune all the inhabitants are accomplices, witnesses cannot be had to support a criminal prosecution, and crimeremains unpunished. " In the canton of Cabrerets, the restitution ofrents formerly collected is exacted, and the reimbursement of chargespaid during twenty years past. The small town of Lauzerte is invaded bysurrounding bodies of militia, and its disarmed inhabitants are atthe mercy of the Jacobin suburbs. For three months, in the district ofFigeac, "all the mansions of former nobles are sacked and burnt;" nextthe pigeon-cots are attacked, "and all country-houses which have a goodappearance. " Barefooted gangs "enter the houses of well-to-do people, physicians, lawyers, merchants, burst open the doors of cellars, drinkthe wine, " and riot like drunken victors. In several communes theseexpeditions have become a custom; "a large number of individuals arefound in them who live on rapine alone, " and the club sets them theexample. For six months, in the principal town, a coterie of theNational Guard, called the Black Band, expel all persons who aredispleasing to them, "pillaging houses at will, beating to death, wounding or mutilating by saber-strokes, all who have been proscribed intheir assemblies, " and no official or advocate dares lodge a complaint. Brigandage, borrowing the mask of patriotism, and patriotism borrowingthe methods of brigandage, have combined against property at the sametime as against the ancient régime, and, to free themselves from allthat inspires them with fear, they seize all which can provide them withbooty. 

And yet this is merely the outskirts of the storm; the center iselsewhere, around Nîmes, Avignon, Arles, and Marseilles, in a countrywhere, for a long time, the conflict between cities and the conflictbetween religions have kindled and accumulated malignant passions. [3371]Looking at the three departments of Gard, Bouches-de-Rhône and Vaucluse, one would imagine one's self in the midst of a war with savages. In fact, it is a Jacobin and plebeian invasion, and, consequently, conquest, dispossession, and extermination, --in Gard, a swarm ofNational Guards copy the jacquerie: the dregs of the Comtat come to thesurface and cover Vaucluse with its scum; an army of six thousand fromMarseilles sweeps down on Arles. --In the districts of Nîmes, Sommières, Uzès, Alais, Jalais, and Saint-Hippolyte, title-deeds are burnt, proprietors put to ransom, and municipal officers threatened with deathif they try to interpose; twenty chateaux and forty country-houses aresacked, burnt, and demolished. --The same month, Arles and Avignon, [3372]given up to the bands of Marseilles and of the Comtat, see confiscationand massacres approaching. --Around the commandant, who has received theorder to evacuate Aries, [3373] "the inhabitants of all parties" gatheras suppliants, "clasping his hands, entreating him with tears in theireyes not to abandon them; women and children cling to his boots, " sothat he does not know how to free himself without hurting them; on hisdeparture twelve hundred families emigrate. After the entrance of theMarseilles band we see eighteen hundred electors proscribed, theircountry-houses on the two banks of the Rhone pillaged, "as in the timesof Saracen pirates, " a tax of 1, 400, 000 livres levied on all people ingood circumstances, absent or present, women and girls promenadedabout half-naked on donkeys and publicly whipped. " "A saber committee"disposes of lives, proscribes and executes: it is the reign of sailors, porters, and the dregs of the populace. --At Avignon, [3374] it is that ofsimple brigands, incendiaries and assassins, who, six months previously, converted the Glacière[3375] into a charnel-house. They return intriumph and state that "this time the Glacière will be full. " Fivehundred families had already sought asylum in France before the firstmassacre; now, the entire remainder of the honest bourgeoisie, twelvehundred persons, take to flight, and the terror is so great that thesmall neighboring towns dare not receive emigrants. In fact, from thistime forth, both departments throughout Vaucluse and Bouches-de-Rhôneare a prey: Bands of two thousand armed men, with women, children, andother volunteer followers, travel from commune to commune to live asthey please at the expense of "fanatics. " The well-bred people are notthe only ones they despoil. Plain cultivators, taxed at 10, 000 livres, have sixty men billeted on them; their cattle are slain and eaten beforetheir eyes, and everything in their houses is broken up; they are drivenout of their lodgings and wander as fugitives in the reed-swamps of theRhone, awaiting a moment of respite to cross the river and take refugein the neighboring department. [3376] Thus, from the spring of 1792, if any citizen is suspected of unfriendliness or even of indifferencetowards the ruling faction, if, through but one opinion conscientiouslyheld, he risks the vague possibility of mistrust or of suspicion, heundergoes popular hostility, pillage, exile, and worse besides; nomatter how loyal his conduct may be, nor how loyal he may be at heart, no matter that he is disarmed and inoffensive; it is all the samewhether it be a noble, bourgeois, peasant, aged priest, or woman; andthis while public peril is yet neither great, present, nor visible, since France is at peace with Europe, and the government still subsistsin its entirety. 

IX. --General state of opinion. 

 The three convoys of non-juring priests on the Seine. -- Psychological aspects of the Revolution. 

What will it be, then, now when the peril, already become palpable andserious, is daily increasing, now when war has begun, when Lafayette'sarmy is falling back in confusion, when the Assembly declares thecountry in danger, when the King is overthrown, when Lafayette defectsand goes abroad, when the soil of France is invaded, when the frontierfortresses surrender without resistance, when the Prussians are enteringChampagne, when the insurrection in La Vendée adds the lacerations ofcivil war to the threats of a foreign war, and when the cry of treacheryarises on all sides?--Already, on the 14th of May, at Metz, [3377] M. De Fiquelmont, a former canon, seen chatting with a hussar on the PlaceSaint-Jacques, was charged with tampering with people on behalf of theprinces, carried off in spite of a triple line of guards, and beaten, pierced, and slashed with sticks, bayonets, and sabers, while the madcrowd around the murderers uttered cries of rage: and from month tomonth, in proportion as popular fears increase, popular imaginationbecomes more heated and its delirium grows. --You can see this yourselfby one example. On the 31st of August, 1792, [3378] eight thousandnon-juring priests, driven out of their parishes, are at Rouen, a townless intolerant than the others, and, in conformity with the decreewhich banishes them, are preparing to leave France. Two vessels havejust carried away about a hundred of them; one hundred and twenty othersare embarking for Ostend in a larger vessel. They take nothing with themexcept a little money, some clothes, and one or at most two portions oftheir breviary, because they intend to return soon. Each has a regularpassport, and, just at the moment of leaving, the National Guard havemade a thorough inspection so as not to let a suspected person escape. It makes no difference. On reaching Quilleboeuf the first two convoysare stopped. A report has spread, indeed, that the priests are going tojoin the enemy and enlist, and the people living round about jumpinto their boats and surround the vessels. The priests are obliged todisembark amidst a tempests of "yells, blasphemies, insults, and abuse:"one of them, a white-headed old man, having fallen into the mud, thecries and shouts redouble; if he is drowned so much the better, therewill be one less! On landing all are put in prison, on bare stones, without straw or bread, and word is sent to Paris to know what must bedone with so many cassocks. In the meantime the third vessel, short ofprovisions, has sent two priests to Quilleboeuf and to Pont-Audemer tohave twelve hundred pounds of bread baked: pointed out by the villagemilitia, they are chased out like wild beasts, pass the night in a wood, and find their way back with difficulty empty-handed. The vessel itselfbeing signaled, is besieged. "In all the municipalities on the banks ofthe river drums beat incessantly to warn the population to be on theirguard. The appearance of an Algerian or Tripolitan corsair on the shoresof the Adriatic would cause less excitement. One of the seamen of thevessel published a statement that the trunks of the priests transportedwere full of every kind of arms. " and the country people constantlyimagine that they are going to fall upon them sword and pistol in hand. For several long days the famished convoy remains moored in the stream, are carefully watched. Boats filled with volunteers and peasants rowaround it uttering insults and threats: in the neighboring meadows theNational Guards form themselves in line of battle. Finally, a decisionis arrived at. The bravest, well armed get into skiffs, approach thevessel cautiously, choose the most favorable time and spot, rush onboard, and take possession; and are perfectly astonished to find neitherenemies nor arms. --Nevertheless, the priests are confined on board, andtheir deputies, must make their appearance before the mayor. The latter, a former usher and good Jacobin, being the most frightened, is the mostviolent. He refuses to stamp the passports, and, seeing two priestsapproach, one provided with a sword-cane and the other with aniron-pointed stick, thinks that there is to be a sudden attack. "Hereare two more of them, " he exclaims with terror; "they are all going toland. My friends, the town is in danger!"--On hearing this the crowdbecomes alarmed, and threatens the deputies; the cry of "To the lamppost!" is heard, and, to save them, National Guards are obliged toconduct them to prison in the center of a circle of bayonets. --It mustbe noted that these madmen are "at bottom the kindest people in theworld. " After the boarding of the ship, one of the most ferocious, by profession a barber, seeing the long beards of these poor priests, instantly cools down, draws forth his tools, and good-naturedly setsto work, spending several hours in shaving them. In ordinary timesecclesiastics received nothing but salutations; three years previouslythey were "respected as fathers and guides. " But at the present momentthe rustic, the man of the lower class, is out of his bearings. Forciblyand against nature, he has been made a theologian, a politician, apolice captain, a local independent sovereign; and in such a positionhis head is turned. Among these people who seem to have lost theirsenses, only one, an officer of the National Guard, remains cool; he is, besides, very polite, well-behaved, and an agreeable talker; he comesin the evening to comfort the prisoners and to take tea with themin prison; in fact, he is accustomed to tragedies and, thanks to hisprofession, his nerves are in repose--this person is the executioner. The others, "whom one would take for tigers, " are bewildered sheep; butthey are not the less dangerous; for, carried away by their delirium, they bear down with their mass on whatever gives them umbrage. --Onthe road from Paris to Lyons[3379] Roland's commissioners witness thisterrible fright. "The people are constantly asking what our generalsand armies are doing; they have vengeful expressions frequently on theirlips. Yes, they say, we will set out, but we must (at first) purge theinterior. "

Something appalling is in preparation. The seventh jacquerie is drawingnear, this one universal and final--at first brutal, and then legaland systematic, undertaken and carried out on the strength of abstractprinciples by leaders worthy of the means they employ. Nothing like itever occurred in history; for the first time we see brutes gone mad, operating on a grand scale and for a long time, under the leadership ofblockheads who have become insane. 

There is a certain strange malady commonly encountered in the quartersof the poor. A workman, over-taxed with work, in misery and badly fed, takes to drink; he drinks more and more every day, and liquors of thestrongest kind. After a few years his nervous system, already weakenedby spare diet, becomes over-excited and out of balance. An hour comeswhen the brain, under a sudden stroke, ceases to direct the machine; invain does it command, for it is no longer obeyed; each limb, eachjoint, each muscle, acting separately and for itself starts convulsivelythrough discordant impulses. Meanwhile the man is gay; he thinks himselfa millionaire, a king, loved and admired by everybody; he is not awareof the mischief he is doing to himself he does not comprehend the advicegiven him, he refuses the remedies offered to him, he sings and shoutsfor entire days, and, above all, drinks more than ever. --At last hisface grows dark and his eyes become blood-shot. Radiant visions give wayto black and monstrous phantoms; he sees nothing around him hut menacingfigures, traitors in ambush, ready to fall upon him unawares, murdererswith upraised arms ready to cut his throat, executioners preparingtorments for him; and he seems to be wading in a pool of blood. So heprecipitates, and, in order that he himself may not be killed, hekills. No one is more to be dreaded, for his delirium sustains him;his strength is prodigious, his movements unforeseen, and he endures, without heeding them, suffering and wounds under which a healthy manwould succumb. --France, like such a madman, exhausted by fasting underthe monarchy, drunk by the unhealthy drug of the Social-Contract, and bycountless other adulterated or fiery beverages, is suddenly struck withparalysis of the brain; at once she is convulsed in every limb throughthe incoherent play and contradictory twitching of her discordantorgans. At this time she has traversed the period of joyous madness, andis about to enter upon the period of somber delirium: behold her capableof daring, suffering, and doing all, capable of incredible exploits andabominable barbarities, the moment her guides, as erratic as herself, indicate an enemy or an obstacle to her fury. 

THE END. 

*****

[Footnote 3301: Moniteur, XI. 763. (Sitting of March 28, 1792. )--"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3235. (Deliberation of the Directoryof the Department, November 29, 1791, and January 27, 1792. --Petitionof the Municipality of Mende and of forty-three others, November 30, 1791. )]

[Footnote 3302: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3198. Minutes of the meetingof the municipal officers of Arles, September 2, 1791. --Letters of theRoyal Commissioners and of the National Assembly, October 24, November6, 14, 17, 21, and December 21, 1791. --The Commissioners, to beimpartial, attend in turn a mass by a nonjuring priest and one by apriest of the opposite side. "The church is full" with the former andalways empty with the latter. ]

[Footnote 3303: "Mémoire" of M. Mérilhon, for Froment, passim. --Reportof M. Alquier, p. 54. --De Dampmartin, I. 208. ]

[Footnote 3304:--De Dampmartin, I. 208. They would exclaim to thecatholic peasants: "Allons, mes enfants, Vive le Roi!" (shouts ofenthusiasm): "those wretches of democrats, let us make an example ofthem, and restore the sacred rights of the throne and the altar!"--"Asyou please, " replied the rustics in their patois, "but we must holdfast to the Revolution, for there are some good things about it. "--Theyremain calm, refuse to march to the assistance of Uzès, and withdrawinto their mountains on the first sign of the approach of the NationalGuard. ]

[Footnote 3305: This is what the author Soljenitsyne observed abouthis Russian countrymen in an interview with M. Pivot in the Frenchtelevision in 1998. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3306: Dauban, "La Demagogie à Paris, " p. 598; Letter of M. DeBrissac, August 25, 1789. ]

[Footnote 3307: Moniteur, X. 339. (Journal de Troyes, and a letter fromPerpignan, November, 1791. )]

[Footnote 3308: Mercure de France, No. For September 3, 1791. "LetLiberty be presented to us, and all France will kneel before her;but noble and proud hearts will eternally resist the oppression whichassumes her sacred mask. They will invoke liberty, but liberty withoutcrime, the liberty which is maintained without dungeons, withoutinquisitors, without incendiaries, without brigands, without forcedoaths, without illegal coalitions, without mob outrages; that liberty, finally, which allows no oppressor to go unpunished, and which doesnot crush peaceable citizens beneath the weight of the chains it hasbroken. "]

[Footnote 3309: Rivarol, "Mémoires, " p. 367. (Letter of M. Servan, published in the "Actes des Apôtres. ")]

[Footnote 3310: The King's brother, later to become King of France underthe name of Louis XVIII. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3311: "Archives Nationa1es, " F7. 3257. Official reports, investigations, and correspondence in relation with the affair of M. Bussy (October, 1790). ]

[Footnote 3312: Mercure de France, May 15, 1790. (Letter of Baron deBois-d'Aisy, April 29, read in the National Assembly. )--Moniteur, IV. 302. Sitting of May 6. (Official statement of the Justice of the Peaceof Vitteaux, April 28. )]

[Footnote 3313: "Archives Nationales, " DXXIX. 4. Letter of M. Belin-Chatellenot (near Asnay-le-Duc) to the President of the NationalAssembly, July 1, 1791. "In the realm of liberty we live under the mostcruel tyranny, and in a state of the most complete anarchy, while theadministrative bodies and the police, still in their infancy, seem toact only in fear and trembling. . . . So far, in all crimes, theyare more concerned with extenuating the facts, than in punishing theoffense. The result is that the guilty have had no other restraint onthem than a few gentle phrases like this: Dear brothers and friends, you are in the wrong, be careful, " etc. --Ibid. , F7, 3229. Letter of theDirectory of the Department of Marne, July 13, 1791. (Searches by theNational Guard in chateaux and the disarming of formerly privilegedpersons. ) "None of our injunctions were obeyed. " For example, there isbreakage and violence in the residence of M. Guinaumont at Merry, thegun, shot and powder of the game-keeper even are carried off. "M. DeGuinaumont is without the means of defending himself against a mad dogor any other savage brute that might come into his woods or intohis courtyard. " The Mayor of Merry, with the National Guard, undercompulsion, tells them in vain that they are breaking the law. --Petitionof Madame d'Ambly, wife of the deputy, June 28, 1791. Not having theguns which she had already given up, she is made to pay 150 francs. ]

[Footnote 3314: "Archives Nationales, " DXXIX. 4. Letters of theAdministrators of the Department of Rhône-et-Loire, July 6, 1791. (M. Vilet is one of the signers. )--Mercure de France, October 8, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3315: Mercure de France, August 20, 1791, the article byMallet du Pan. "The details of the picture I have just sketched wereall furnished me by Madame Dumoutet herself. " I am "authorized by hersignature to guarantee the accuracy of this narrative. "]

[Footnote 3316: Mercure de France, August 20, 1791, the article byMallet du Pan. "The proceedings instituted at Lyons confirmed thisbanquet of cannibals. "]

[Footnote 3317: The letter of the Department ends with this either naïveor ironical expression: "You have now only one conquest to make, that ofmaking the people obey and submit to the law. "]

[Footnote 3318: "Archives Nationales, " P7, 3, 200. See documents relatingto the affair of November 5, 1792, and the events which preceded itor followed it, and among others "Lettres du Directoire et duProcureur-syndic du Departement;" "Pétition et Mémoire pour lesDéténus;" "Lettres d'un Témoin, " M. De Morant. --Moniteur, X. 356. "Minutes of the meeting de la Municipalité de Caen" and of the"Directoire du Departement, " XI. 1264, 206. "Rapport de Guadet, " anddocuments of the trial. --"Archives Nationales, " ibid. . --"Lettres deM. Cahier, " Minister of the Interior, January 26, 1792, of M. C. D. De Pontécoulant, President of the Department Directory, February 3, 1792. --Proclamation by the Directory. ]

[Footnote 3319: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3200. Letter of September26, 1791. --Letter found on one of the arrested gentlemen. "A cowardlybourgeoisie, directors in cellars, a clubbist (Jacobin) municipality, waging the most illegal war against us. "]

[Footnote 3320: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3200. Letter of theAttorney-General of Bayeux, May 14, 1792, and of the Directory ofBayeux, May 21, 1792. --At Bayeux, likewise; the refugees are denouncedand in peril. According to their verified statements they scarcelyamounted to one hundred. "Several nonjuring priests, indeed, are foundamong them. (But) the rest, for the most part, consist of the heads offamilies who are known to reside habitually in neighboring districts, and who have been forced to leave their homes after having been, orfearing to become, victims of religious intolerance or of the threats offactions and of brigands. "]

[Footnote 3321: Lenin has probably read this during his studies in Parisand maybe been confirmed in his plan to create a new elite, an elite heeventually began to make use of from 1917 and onwards, an elite whichcontinues to rule Russia and a great part of the world today. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3322: Mercure de France, June 4, 1790 (letter from Cahors, May17, and an Act of the Municipality, May 10, 1790). ]

[Footnote 3323: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 1223. Letter of count Louisde Beaumont, November 9, 1791. His letter, in a very moderate tone, thus end: "You must admit, sir, that it is very disagreeable and evenincredible, that the Municipal Officers should be the originators of thedisorders which occur in this town. "]

[Footnote 3324: Mercure de France, January 7, 1792. M. Granchier de Riompetitions the Directory of his Department in relation to the purchase ofthe cemetery, where his father had been interred four years before; hisobject is to prevent it from being dug up, which was decreed, and topreserve the family vault. He at the same time wishes to buy the churchof Saint-Paul, in order to insure the continuance of the masses inbehalf of his father's soul. The Directory replies (December 5, 1791):"considering that the motives which have determined the petitioner inhis declaration are a pretense of good feeling under which there ishidden an illusion powerless to pervert a sound mind, the Directorydecides that the application of the sieur Granchier cannot be granted. "]

[Footnote 3325: De Ferrières, II. 268 (April 19, 1791). ]

[Footnote 3326: De Montlosier, II. 307, 309, 312. ]

[Footnote 3327: Moniteur, VI. 556. Letter of M d'Aymar, commodore, November 18, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3328: Mercure de France, May 28, and June 16, 1791 (lettersfrom Cahors and Castelnau, May 18). ]

[Footnote 3329: Mercure de France, number of May 28, 1791. At thefestival of the Federation, M. De Massy would not order his cavalry toput their chapeaux on the points of their swords, which was a difficultmaneuver. He was accused of treason to the nation on account of this, and obliged to leave Tulle for several months. --"Archives Nationales, "F7, 3204. Extract from the minutes of the tribunal of Tulle, May 10, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3330: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3215, "Minutes of the meetingdes Officiers Municipaux de Brest, " June 23, 1791. ]

[Footnote 3331: "Mémoires de Cuvier" ("Eloges Historiques, " byFlourens), I, 177. Cuvier, who was then in Havre (1788), had pursued thehigher studies in a German administrative school. "M. De Surville, " hesays, an officer in the Artuis regiment, "has one of the must refinedminds and most amiable characters I ever encountered. There were a goodmany of this sort among his comrades, and I am always astonished howsuch men could vegetate in the obscure ranks of an infantry regiment. "]

[Footnote 3332: De Dampmartin, I. 133. At the beginning of the year1790, "inferior officers said: 'We ought to demand something, forwe have at least as many grievances as our troopers, ' "--M. De laRochejacquelein, after his great success in La Vendée, said: "I hopethat the King, when once he is restored, will give me aregiment. " He aspired to nothing more ("Mémoires de Madame de laRochejacquelein"). --Cf. "Un Officier royaliste au Service de laRepublique, " by M. De Bezancenet, in the letters and biography ofGeneral de Dommartin killed in the expedition to Egypt. ]

[Footnote 3333: Correspondence of MM. De Thiard, de Caraman, de Miran, de Bercheny, etc. , above cited, passim. --Correspondence of M. De Thiard, May 5, 1780: "The town of Vannes has an authoritative style which beginsto displease me. It wants the King to furnish drum-sticks. The first logof wood would provide these, with greater ease and promptness. "]

[Footnote 3334: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3248, March 16, 1791. At Douai, Nicolon, a grain-dealer, is hung because the municipalauthorities did not care to proclaim martial law. The commandant, M. Dela Noue, had not the right of ordering his men to move, and the murdertook place before his eyes. ]

[Footnote 3335: The last named, especially, died with heroic meekness(Mercure de France, June 18, 1791). --Sitting of June 9, speeches by twoofficers of the regiment of Port-au-Prince, one of them an eye-witness. ]

[Footnote 3336: "De Dampmartin, " II. 214. Desertion is very great, evenin ordinary times, supplying foreign armies with "a fourth of theireffective men. "--Towards the end of 1789, Dubois de Crancé, an oldmusketeer and one of the future "men of the mountain, " stated to theNational Assembly that the old system of recruiting supplied the armywith "men without home or occupation, who often became soldiers toavoid civil penalties" (Moniteur, II. 376, 381, sitting of December 12, 1789). ]

[Footnote 3337: "Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. De Thiard, September 4 and 7, 1789, November 20, 1789, April 28, and May29, 1790. "The spirit of insubordination which begins to show itselfin the Bassigny regiment is an epidemic disease which is insensiblyspreading among all the troops. . . . The troops are all in a state ofgangrene, while all the municipalities oppose the orders they receiveconcerning the movements of troops. "]

[Footnote 3338: "Archives Nationales, " H, 1453. Correspondence of M. DeBercheny, July 12, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3339: "Mémoire Justificatif" (by Grégoire), on behalf of twosoldiers, Emery and Delisle. --De Bouillé, "Mémoires. "--De Dampmartin, I. 128, 144. --"Archives Nationales, " KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. DeThiard, July 2 and 9, 1790. --Moniteur, sittings of September 3 and June4, 1790. ]

[Footnote 3340: De Bouillé, p. 127. --Moniteur, sitting of August 6, 1790, and that of May 27, 1790. --Full details in authentic documents ofthe affair at Nancy, passim. --Report of M. Emmery, August 16, 1790, andother documents in Buchez and Roux, VII. 59-162. --De Bezancenet, p. 35. Letters of M. De Dommartin (Metz, August 4, 1790). "The Federationthere passed off quietly, only, a short time after, some soldiers of aregiment took it into their heads to divide the (military) fund, and atonce placed sentinels at the door of the officer having charge of thechest, compelling him to open it (désacquer). Another regiment has sinceput all its officers under arrest. A third has mutinied, and wanted totake all its horses to the market-place and sell them. . . . Everywherethe soldiers are heard to say that if they want money they know where tofind it. "]

[Footnote 3341: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3215, letters of the RoyalCommissioners, September 27, October 1, 4, 8, 11, 1790. The commencementof the Revolution, had most to do with the insurrections in theinterior. "What means can four commissioners employ to convince 20, 000men, most of whom are seduced by the real enemies of the public welfare?In consequence of the replacing of the men the crews are, for the mostpart, composed of those who are almost ignorant of the sea, who knownothing of the rules of subordination, and who, at the commencement ofthe Revolution, had most to do with the insurrections in the interior. "]

[Footnote 3342: Mercure de France. October 2, 1790. Letter of theAdmiral, M. D'Albert de Rioms, September 16. The soldiers of theMajestueux have refused to drill, and the sailors of the Patriote toobey. --"I wished to ascertain beforehand if they had any complaint tomake against their captain?--No. --If they complained of myself?--No. --Ifthey had any complaints to make against their officers?--No. --It is therevolt of one class against another class; their sole cry is 'Vive laNation et les Aristocrates à la lanterne!' The mob have set up a gibbetbefore the house of M. De Marigny, major-general of marines; he hashanded in his resignation. M. D'Albert tenders his resignation. "--Ibid, June 18, 1791 (letter from Dunkirk, June 3). ]

[Footnote 3343: De Dampmartin, I. 222, 219. Mercure de France, September3, 1791. (Sitting of August 23. )--Cf. Moniteur (same date). "The AncientRégime, " p. 377. ]

[Footnote 3344: Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires, " I. 24. "The sentiment Ientertained for the person of the King is difficult to define. . . (It was) a sentiment of devotion of an almost religious character, aprofound respect as if due to a being of a superior order. At this timethe word king possessed a magic power in all pure and upright heartswhich nothing had changed. This delicate sentiment. . . Still existedin the mass of the nation, especially among the well-born, who, sufficiently remote from power, were rather impressed by its brilliancythan by its imperfections. " De Bezancenet, 27. Letter of M. DeDommartin, August 24, 1790. "We have just renewed our oath. I hardlyknow what it all means. I, a soldier, know only my King; in reality Iobey two masters, who, we are told, will secure my happiness and that ofmy brethren, if they agree together. "]

[Footnote 3345: De Dampmartin, I. 179. See the details of hisresignation (III. 185) after June 20, 1792. --Mercure de France, April14, 1792. Letter from the officers of the battalion of the Royalchasseurs of Provence (March 9). They are confined to their barracks bytheir soldiers, who refuse to obey their orders, and they declare that, on this account, they abandon the service and leave France. ]

[Footnote 3346: Rousset, "Les Volontaires de 1791 à 1794", p. 106. Letterof M. De Biron to the minister (August, 1792); p. 225, letter of Vezu, commander of the 3rd battalion of Paris, to the army of the north (July24, 1793). --"A Residence in France from 1792 to 1795" (September, 1792. Arras). See notes at the end of vol. II. For the details of theseviolent proceedings. ]

[Footnote 3347: Mercure de France, March 5, June 4, September 3, October22, 1791. (Articles by Mallet du Pan. --Ibid. , April 14, 1792). More thansix hundred naval officers resigned after the mutiny of the squadronat Brest. "Twenty-two grave revolts in the ports on shipboard remainedunpunished, and several of them through the decisions of the navaljury. " "There is no instance of any insurrection, in the ports or onshipboard, or any outrage upon a naval officer, having been punished. . . . It is not necessary to seek elsewhere for the causes of theabandonment of the service by naval officers. According to their lettersall offer their lives to France, but refuse to command those who willnot obey. "]

[Footnote 3348: This was done by Hitler against the Jews and by theCommunists against their "enemy" the bourgeois. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3349: Duvergier, "Decrees of August 1-6, 1791; February 9-11, 1792; March 30 to April 8, 1792; July 24-28, 1792; March 28 to April 5, 1793. "--Report by Roland, January 6, 1793. He estimates this propertyat 4, 800 millions, of which 1, 800 millions must be deducted for thecreditors of the emigrants; 3, 000 millions remain. Now, at this date, the assignats are at a discount of 55 per cent. From their nominalfigure. ]

[Footnote 3350: Mercure de France, , February 18, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3351: Already Tacitus noted some 2000 years ago that, "It ispart of human nature to hate the man you have hurt. " (SR. )]

[Footnote 3352: Cf. On this general attitude of the clergy, Sauzay, V. I. And the whole of V. II. --Mercure de France, September 10, 1791: "Noimpartial man will fail to see that, in the midst of this oppression, amidst so many fanatical charges of which the reproach of fanaticism andrevolt is the pretext, not one act of resistance has yet been manifest. Informers and municipal bodies, governed by clubs, have caused a largenumber of non-jurors to be cast into dungeons. All have come out ofthem, or groan there untried, and no tribunal has found any of themguilty. "--Report of M. Cahier, Minister of the Interior, February18, 1792. He declares that "he had no knowledge of any priest beingconvicted by the courts as a disturber of the public peace, althoughseveral had been accused. "--Moniteur May 6, 1792. (Report of Français deNantes) "Not one has been punished for thirty months. "]

[Footnote 3353: On these spontaneous brutal acts of the Catholicpeasants, cf. "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3236 (Lozère, July-November, 1791). Deliberation of the district of Florac, July 6, 1791, andthe official statement of the commissioner of the department on thedisturbances in Espagnac. On the 5th of July, Richard, a constitutionalcuré, calls upon the municipality to proceed to his installation. "Theceremony could not take place, owing to the hooting, of the women andchildren, and the threats of various persons who exclaimed: 'Kill him!strangle him, he is a Protestant, is married, and has children;' andowing to the impossibility of entering the church, the doors of whichwere obstructed by the large number of women standing in front ofthem:"--On the 6th of July, he is installed, but with difficulty. "Inside the church a crowd of women uttered loud cries and bemoaned theremoval of their old curé On returning, in the streets, a large numberof women, unsettled by the sight of the constitutional cure, turnedtheir faces aside. . . And contented themselves with uttering disjointedwords. --without doing anything more than cover their faces with theirbonnets, casting themselves on the ground. "--July 15. The clerk willno longer serve at the mass nor ring the bells; the curé, Richard, attempting to ring them himself, the people threaten him withill-treatment if he runs the risk. --September 8, 1791. Letter from thecuré of Fau, district of Saint-Chély. "That night I was on the brinkof death through a troop of bandits who took my parsonage away fromme, after having broken in the doors and windows. "--December 30, 1791. Another curé who goes to take possession of his parsonage is assailedwith stones by sixty women, and thus pursued beyond the limits of theparish. --August 5, 1791. Petition of the constitutional bishop of Mendeand his four vicars. "Not a day passes that we are not insulted in theperformance of our duties. We cannot take a step without encounteringhooting. If we go out we are threatened with cowardly assassination, and with being beaten with clubs. "--F7, 3235 (Bas-Rhin, letter fromthe Directory of the Department, April 9, 1792): "Ten out of eleven, atleast, of the Catholics refuse to recognize sworn priests. "]

[Footnote 3354: Duvergier, decrees (not sanctioned) of November 29and May 27, 1792. --Decree of August 26, 1792, after the fall of thethrone. --Moniteur, XII. 200 (sitting of April 23, 1793). Report of theMinister of the Interior. ]

[Footnote 3355: Lallier, "Le District de Machecoul, " p. 261, 263. --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3234. Demand of the prosecutingattorney of the commune of Tonneins (December 21, 1791) for the arrestor expulsion of eight priests "at the slightest act of internal orexternal hostility. "--Ibid. , F7, 3264. Act of the Council-generalof Corrèze (July 16, 17, 18, 1792) to place in arrest all nonjuringpriests. --Between these two dates, act, of various kinds and ofincreasing severity are found in nearly all the departments against thenon-jurors. ]

[Footnote 3356: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3250. Official statement bythe directory of the department, March 18, 1791, with all the documentsin relation thereto. --F7, 3200. Letter of the Directory of Calvados, June 13, 1792, with the interrogations. The damages are estimated at15, 000 livres. ]

[Footnote 3357: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3234. An Act of the Directoryof Lot, February 24, 1792, on the disturbances at Marmande. --F7, 3239, official statement of the municipal body of Rheims, November 5, 6, 7, 1791. The two workmen are a harness-maker and a wool-carder. The priestwho administered the baptism is put in prison as a disturber of thepublic peace. --F7, 3219. Letter of the royal commissioner at thetribunal of Castelsarrasin, March 5, 1792. --F7, 3203. Letter of thedirectory of the district of La Rochelle, June 1, 1792. "The armedforce, a witness of these crimes and summoned to arrest these persons inthe act, refused to obey. "]

[Footnote 3358: Memorandum by Camille Jourdan (Sainte-Beuve, "Causeriesdu Lundi, " XII. 250). The guard refuses to give any assistance, comingtoo late and merely "to witness the disorder, never to repress it. "]

[Footnote 3359: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3217. Letters of the curéof Uzès, January 29, 1792; of the curé of Alais, April 5, 1792; of theadministrators of Gard, July 28, 1792; of the prosecuting attorney, M. Griolet, July 2, 1792; of Castanet, former gendarme, August 25, 1792;of M. Griolet, September 28, 1792. --Ibid. , F7, 3223. Petition by M. M. Thueri and Devès in the name of the oppressed of Montpellier, November17, 1791; letter of the same to the minister, October 28, 1791; letter ofM. Dupin, prosecuting attorney, August 23, 1791; Act of the Department, August 9, 1791; Petition of the inhabitants of Courmonterral, August 25, 1791]

[Footnote 3360: Moniteur, XII. 16, sitting of April 1, 1792. Speech byM. Laureau. "Behold the provinces in flames, insurrection in nineteendepartments, and revolt everywhere declaring itself. . . The onlyliberty is that of brigandage; we have no taxation, no order, nogovernment. " Mercure de France, April 7, 1792. "More than twentydepartments are now participating in the horrors of anarchy and in amore or less destructive insurrection. "]

[Footnote 3361: Moniteur, XII. 30. Speech by M. Caillasson. The totalamount of property sold up to November 1, 1791, is 1, 526 millions; theremainder for sale amounts to 669 millions. ]

[Footnote 3362: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3225. Letter of the Directoryof Ille-et-Vilaine, March 24, 1792. "The National Guards of the districtpurposely expel all nonjuring priests, who have not been replaced, underthe pretext of the trouble they would not fail to cause at Easter. "]

[Footnote 3363: Moniteur, XI. 420. (Sitting of February 18, 1792. )Report by M. Cahier, Minister of the Interior. ]

[Footnote 3364: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3250. Deposition of themunicipal officers of Gosnay and Hesdiguel (district of Béthune), May18, 1792. Six parishes took part in this expedition; the mayor's wifehad a rope around her neck, and came near being hung. --Moniteur, XII, 154, April 15, 1792. --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3225. Letter of theDirectory of Ile-et-Vilaine, March 24, 1792, and official statementof the commissioners for the district of Vitré; letter of the samedirectory, April 21, 1792, and report of the commissioners sent toAcigné, April 6. ]

[Footnote 3365: Moniteur, XII. 200. Report of M. Cahier, April 23, 1792. The directories of these four departments refuse to cancel their illegalacts, alleging that "their armed National Guards pursue refractorypriests. "]

[Footnote 3366: Mercure de France, April 7, 1792. Letters written fromAurillac. --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3202. --Letter of the directoryof the district of Aurillac, March 27, 1792 (with seven officialstatements); of the directory of the district of Saint-Flour, March 19(with the report of its commissioners); of M. Duranthon, ministerof justice, April 22; petition of M. Lorus, municipal officer ofAurillac. --Letter of M. Duranthon, June 9, 1792. "I am just informed bythe royal commissioner of the district of Saint-Flour that, since thedeparture of the troops, the magistrates dare no longer exercise theirfunctions in the midst of the brigands who surround them. "]

[Footnote 3367: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3219. Letters of M. Niel, administrator of the department of Haute-Garonne, February 27, 1792; ofM. Sainfal, March 4; of the directory of the department, March 1; of theroyal commissioner, tribunal of Castelsarrasin, March 13. ]

[Footnote 3368: The following are some examples of these rustic desires:At Lunel, 4000 peasants and village National Guards strive to enter, to hang the aristocrats. Their wives are along with them, leading theirdonkeys with "baskets which they hope to carry away full. " ("ArchivesNationales, " F7, 3523. Letter of the municipal body of Lunel, November4, 1791. ) At Uzès it is with great difficulty that they can ridthemselves of the peasants who came in to drive out the Catholicroyalists. In vain "were they given plenty to eat and to drink;" they goaway "in bad humor, especially the women who led the mules and asses tocarry away the booty, and who had not anticipated returning home withempty hands. " (De Dampmartin, I. 195. ) In relation to the siege ofNantes by the Vendéans: "An old woman said to me, 'Oh, yes, I was there, at the siege. My sister and myself had brought along our sacks. Wecounted on entering at least as far as the Rue de la Casserie'" (thestreet of jeweler's shops). (Michelet, V 211. )]

[Footnote 3369: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3209. Letters of the royalcommissioner at the tribunal of Mucidan, March 7, 1792; of the publicprosecutor of the district of Sarlat, January. 1792. --Ibid. , F7, 3204. Letters of the administrators of the district of Tulle, April 15, 1792;of the directory of the department, April 18; petition of Jacques Labrucand his wife, with official statement of the justice of the peace, April24. "All these acts of violence were committed under the eyes of themunicipal authorities. They took no steps to prevent them, although theyhad notice given them in time. "]

[Footnote 3370: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3223. Letters of M. Brisson, commissioner of the naval classes of Souillac, February 2, 1792; of thedirectory of the department, March 14, 1792. --Petition of the brothersBarrié (with supporting documents), October 11, 1791. --Letter of theprosecuting attorney of the department, April 4, 1792. Report of thecommissioners sent to the district of Figeac, January 5, 1792. Letter ofthe administrators of the department, May 27, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3371: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3217. Official reports of thecommissioners of the department of Gard, April 1, 2, 3, and 6, 1792, andletter of April 6. One land-owner is taxed 100, 000 francs. --Ibid. , F7, 3223. Letter of M Dupin, prosecuting attorney of l'Hérault, February 17and 26, 1792. "At the chateau of Pignan, Madame de Lostanges has notone complete piece of furniture left. The cause of these disturbancesis religious passion. Five or six nonjuring priests had retreated tothe chateau, "--Moniteur, sitting of April 16, 1792. Letter from thedirectory of the department of Gard. --De Dampmartin, II, 85. At Uzès, fifty or sixty men in masks invade the ducal chateau at ten o'clock inthe evening, set fire to the archives, and the chateau is burnt. ]

[Footnote 3372: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3196. Official statementsof Augier and Fabre, administrators of the Bouches-de-Rhône, sent toAvignon, May 11, 1792. (The reappearance of Jourdan, Mainvielle, and theassassins of La Glacière took place April 29. )]

[Footnote 3373: De Dampmartin, II. 63. Portalis, "Il est temps deparler" (pamphlet), passim. "Archives Nationales, " F7, 7090. Memorandumof the commissioners of the municipal administration of Arles, year IV. , Nivôse 22. ]

[Footnote 3374: Mercure de France, May 19, 1792. (Sitting of May 4. ). Petition of forty inhabitants of Avignon at the bar of the LegislativeAssembly. --"Archives Nationales, " F7, 3195. Letter of the royalcommissioners at the tribunal of Apt, March 15, 1792; official reportof the municipality, March 22; Letters of the Directory of Apt, March 23and 28, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3375: Large cellar where the ice collected during the winterwas kept for later use. (SR. )]

[Footnote 3376: "Archives Nationales, " ibid. Letter of Amiel, presidentof the bureau of conciliation at Avignon, October 28, 1792, and otherletters to the minister Roland. --F7, 3217, Letter of the Justice of thePeace at Roque-Maure, October 31, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3377: "Archives Nationales, " F7, 3246. Official report of themunicipality of Metz (with supporting documents), May 15, 1792. ]

[Footnote 3378: "Mémoires de l'Abbé Baton, " one of the priests of thethird convoy (a bishop is appointed from Séez), p. 233. ]

[Footnote 3379: "Archives Nationales" F7, 3225. Letter of citizenBonnemant, commissioner to minister Roland, September 11, 1792. ]

End of The French Revolution, Volume 1.