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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59162 ***
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+ file which includes the original illustrations.
+ See 59162-h.htm or 59162-h.zip:
+ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59162/59162-h/59162-h.htm)
+ or
+ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59162/59162-h.zip)
+
+
+ Images of the original pages are available through
+ Internet Archive. See
+ https://archive.org/details/frenchrevolution00abborich
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE.]
+
+THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789
+
+As Viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions.
+
+by
+
+JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+With One Hundred Engravings.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York:
+Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
+Franklin Square.
+1859.
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
+hundred and fifty-nine, by
+Harper & Brothers,
+in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
+New York.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+For some years the author of this work has been collecting materials
+for writing the history of the French Revolution. With this object in
+view he has visited Paris, wishing also to become familiar with the
+localities rendered immortal by the varied acts of this drama--the
+most memorable tragedy, perhaps, which has as yet been enacted upon
+the theatre of time. In addition to the aids which he has thus derived
+from a brief sojourn in Paris, he has also found the library of Bowdoin
+College peculiarly rich in all those works of religious and political
+philosophizings which preceded and ushered in these events, and in the
+narratives of those contemporary historians who recorded the scenes as
+they occurred, or which they themselves witnessed. Governor Bowdoin,
+whose library was the nucleus of the present college library, seems to
+have taken a special interest in collecting all the writings of the
+French philosophers and all the works of contemporary authors bearing
+upon the French Revolution, including--the most important of all--full
+files of the Moniteur.
+
+The writer would not take up his pen merely to repeat the story
+which has so often and so graphically been told before. But it is
+expecting too much of human nature to imagine that the struggles of an
+oppressed people to emancipate themselves from feudal despotism can
+be impartially narrated in the castles of nobles or in the courts of
+kings. It is inevitable that the judgment which is pronounced upon the
+events which such a struggle involves will be biased by the political
+principles of the observer. Precisely the same transaction will by one
+be condemned and by another applauded. He who believes in the divine
+right of kings to reign and in the divine obligation of the people
+unquestioning to obey, must condemn a people who endeavor to break
+the shackles of despotic power, and must applaud kings and nobles
+who, with all the energies of bomb-shells, sabres, and iron hoofs,
+endeavor to crush the spirit of democratic freedom. On the contrary, he
+who accepts the doctrine that sovereignty resides in the people must
+commend the efforts of an inthralled nation to sever the chains of
+servitude, and must condemn the efforts of kings and nobles to rivet
+those chains anew. Thus precisely the same facts will be regarded with
+a very different judgment according as the historian is influenced by
+political principles in favor of equality of rights or of aristocratic
+privilege. The author of this work views the scenes of the French
+Revolution from a republican stand-point. His sympathies are strongly
+with an oppressed people struggling for political and religious
+liberty. All writers, all men profess to love liberty.
+
+"Despots," says De Tocqueville, "acknowledge that liberty is an
+excellent thing. But they want it all for themselves, and maintain that
+the rest of the world is unworthy of it. Thus there is no difference of
+opinion in reference to liberty. We differ only in our appreciation of
+men."[1]
+
+To commence the history of the French Revolution with the opening of
+the States-General in 1789 is as unphilosophical as to commence the
+history of the American Revolution with the battle of Lexington. No man
+can comprehend this fearful drama who does not contemplate it in the
+light of those ages of oppression which ushered it in. It is in the
+horrible despotism of the old monarchy of France that one is to see the
+efficient cause of the subsequent frantic struggles of the people.
+
+"The Revolution," says De Tocqueville, "will ever remain in darkness to
+those who do not look beyond it. Without a clear view of society in the
+olden time, of its laws, its faults, its prejudices, its sufferings,
+its greatness, it is impossible to understand the conduct of the French
+during the sixty years which have followed its fall."[2]
+
+There is often an impression that the Revolution was a sudden outbreak
+of blind unthinking passion--a tempest bursting from a serene sky; or
+like a battle in the night--masses rushing blindly in all directions,
+and friends and foes in confusion and phrensy smiting each other. But,
+on the contrary, the Revolution was of slow growth, a storm which had
+been for centuries accumulating. The gathering of the clouds, the
+gleam of its embosomed fires, and the roar of its approaching thunders
+arrested the attention of the observing long before the storm in all
+its fury burst upon France. A careful historic narrative evolves order
+from the apparent chaos, and exhibits, running through the tumultuous
+scene of terror and of blood, the operation of causes almost as
+resistless as the operation of physical laws.
+
+The writer has freely expressed his judgment of the transactions which
+he has narrated. "The impartiality of history," says Lamartine, "is
+not that of a mirror which merely reflects objects; it should be that
+of a judge who sees, listens, and decides."[3] The reader will not be
+surprised to find that some occurrences which historians caressed in
+regal courts and baronial halls have denounced as insolent and vulgar
+are here represented as heroic and noble.
+
+Every generous heart will respond to the sentiment uttered, in this
+connection, by Thiers. "I have endeavored to stifle," he says, "within
+my own bosom every feeling of animosity. I alternately figured to
+myself that, born in a cottage, animated with a just ambition, I was
+resolved to acquire what the pride of the higher classes had unjustly
+refused me; or that, bred in palaces, the heir to ancient privileges,
+it was painful to me to renounce a possession which I regarded as
+a legitimate property. Thenceforth I could no longer harbor enmity
+against either party. I pitied the combatants, and I indemnified myself
+by admiring generous deeds wherever I found them."[4]
+
+One simple moral this whole awful tragedy teaches. It is, that the laws
+must be so just as to command the assent of every enlightened Christian
+mind, and the masses of the people must be trained to such intelligence
+and virtue as to be able to appreciate good laws and to have the
+disposition to maintain them. Here lies the only hope of our republic.
+
+The illustrations which embellish these pages are from the artistic
+pencil of Mr. C.E. Doepler, who went to Paris that he might with more
+historical accuracy delineate both costumes and localities. To the
+kindness of Messrs. Goupil & Co. we are indebted for the privilege
+of copying the exquisite engraving of Marie Antoinette at the
+Revolutionary tribunal, which forms the Frontispiece.
+
+ John S. C. Abbott.
+
+ Brunswick, Maine, Nov., 1858.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: The Old Régime and the Revolution, by Alexis de
+Tocqueville, Introduction, p. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ib., p. 253.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Lamartine, History of the Girondists, i., 10]
+
+[Footnote 4: Thiers, French Revolution, Introduction.]
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+
+ ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY.
+
+ Extent of France.--Character of its early Inhabitants.--Conquest of
+ Gaul.--Barbarian Invasion.--The Franks.--Pharamond.--Clovis.
+ --Introduction of Christianity.--Clotilda.--Merovingian
+ Dynasty.--Fields of March.--Anecdote of Clovis.--The Parisii.--Strife
+ with the Nobles.--Moorish Invasion.--Charles Martel.--Pepin.--Fields
+ of May.--Charlemagne.--His Policy.--Feudal System.--The Church.--Rolls.
+ --Louis V.--Hugh Capet.--Parliament established by Philip the Fair
+ Page 17
+
+ CHAPTER II.
+
+ THE HOUSES OF VALOIS AND BOURBON.
+
+ The House of Valois.--Luxury of the Court and the Nobles.--Insurrection.
+ --Jaques Bonhomme.--Henry III.--Henry IV., of Navarre.--Cardinal
+ Richelieu.--French Academy.--Regency of Anne of Austria.--Palaces of
+ France.--The Noble and the Ennobled.--Persecution of the Protestants.
+ --Edict of Nantes.--Its Revocation.--Distress of the Protestants.--Death
+ of Louis XIV. 25
+
+
+ CHAPTER III.
+
+ THE REGENCY AND LOUIS XV.
+
+ State of France.--The Regency.--Financial Embarrassment.--Crimes of
+ the Rulers.--Recoining the Currency.--Renewed Persecution of the
+ Protestants.--Bishop Dubois.--Philosophy of Voltaire.--Anecdote of
+ Franklin.--The King's Favorites.--Mademoiselle Poisson.--Her Ascendency.
+ --_Parc aux Cerfs._--Illustrative Anecdote.--Letter to the King.
+ --Testimony of Chesterfield.--Anecdote of La Fayette.--Death of
+ Pompadour.--Mademoiselle Lange.--Power of Du Barry.--Death of
+ Louis XV. 34
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV.
+
+ DESPOTISM AND ITS FRUITS.
+
+ Assumptions of the Aristocracy.--Molière.--Decay of the Nobility.
+ --Decline of the Feudal System.--Difference between France and the
+ United States.--Mortification of Men of Letters.--Voltaire,
+ Montesquieu, Rousseau.--Corruption of the Church.--Diderot.
+ --The Encyclopedists.--Testimony of De Tocqueville.--Frederic II. of
+ Prussia.--Two Classes of Opponents of Christianity.--Enormity of
+ Taxation.--Misery of the People.--"Good old Times of the Monarchy!" 45
+
+
+ CHAPTER V.
+
+ THE BASTILLE.
+
+ Absolute Power of the King.--_Lettres de Cachet._--The Bastille.
+ --Cardinal Balue.--Harancourt.--Charles of Armanac.--Constant de
+ Renville.--Duke of Nemours.--Dungeons of the Bastille.--_Oubliettes._
+ --Dessault.--M. Massat.--M. Catalan.--Latude.--The Student.--Apostrophe
+ of Michelet 53
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI.
+
+ THE COURT AND THE PARLIAMENT.
+
+ Death of Louis XV.--Education of Louis XVI.--Maurepas, Prime Minister.
+ --Turgot; his Expulsion from Office.--Necker.--Franklin.--Sympathy with
+ the Americans.--La Fayette.--Views of the Court.--Treaty with America.
+ --Popularity of Voltaire.--Embarrassment of Necker.--_Compte Rendu au
+ Roi._--Necker driven into Exile.--Enslavement of France.--New
+ Extravagance.--Calonne 57
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII.
+
+ THE ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.
+
+ Measures of Brienne.--The Bed of Justice.--Remonstrance of Parliament.
+ --Parliament Exiled.--Submission of Parliament.--Duke of Orleans.
+ --Treasonable Plans of the Duke of Orleans.--Anxiety of the Queen.
+ --The Diamond Necklace.--Monsieur, the King's Brother.--Bagatelle.
+ --Desperation of Brienne.--Edict for abolishing the Parliaments.
+ --Energy of the Court.--Arrest of D'Espréménil and Goislard.--Tumults
+ in Grenoble.--Terrific Hail-storm 67
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+ Recall of Necker.--Reassembling the Notables.--Pamphlet of the Abbé
+ Sièyes.--Vote of the King's Brother.--His supposed Motive.--The Basis
+ of Representation.--Arrangements for the Meeting of the States.
+ --Statement of Grievances.--Mirabeau; his Menace.--Sympathy of the
+ Curates with the People.--Remonstrance of the Nobles.--First Riot.
+ --Meeting of the States-General.--New Effort of the privileged Classes 77
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+
+ ASSEMBLING OF THE STATES-GENERAL.
+
+ Opening of the States-General.--Sermon of the Bishop of Nancy.--Insult
+ to the Deputies of the People.--Aspect of Mirabeau.--Boldness of the
+ Third Estate.--Journal of Mirabeau.--Commencement of the Conflict.--First
+ Appearance of Robespierre.--Decided Stand taken by the Commons.--Views of
+ the Curates.--Dismay of the Nobles.--Excitement in Paris.--The National
+ Assembly.--The Oath 85
+
+
+ CHAPTER X.
+
+ THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
+
+ First Acts of the Assembly.--Confusion of the Court.--Hall of the
+ Assembly closed.--Adjournment to the Tennis-court.--Cabinet Councils.
+ --Despotic Measures.--The Tennis-court closed.--Exultation of the Court.
+ --Union with the Clergy.--Peril of the Assembly.--The Royal Sitting.
+ --Speech of the King 92
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI.
+
+ REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES.
+
+ Speech of Mirabeau.--Approach of the Soldiers and Peril of the Assembly.
+ --Elation of the Queen.--Triumph of Necker.--Embarrassment of the Bishops
+ and the Nobles.--Letter of the King.--The Bishops and Nobles join the
+ Assembly.--Desperate Resolve of the Nobles.--The Troops sympathizing with
+ the People 99
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII.
+
+ THE TUMULT IN PARIS.
+
+ Marshal Broglie.--Gatherings at the Palais Royal.--Disaffection of the
+ Soldiers.--Imprisonment and Rescue.--Fraternization.--Petition to the
+ Assembly.--Wishes of the Patriots.--Movement of the Troops.--Speech of
+ Mirabeau.--New Menaces.--Declaration of Rights.--Dismissal of Necker.
+ --Commotion in Paris.--Camille Desmoulins.--The French Guards join the
+ People.--Terror in Paris.--Character of the King 103
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ STORMING THE BASTILLE.
+
+ The Assembly petitions the King.--Resolves of the Assembly.--Narrative
+ of M. Dumont.--Scenes in Paris.--The People organize for Self-defense.
+ --The new Cockade.--The Abbé Lefebvre d'Ormesson.--Treachery of the
+ Mayor, Flesselles.--Character of De Launey, Governor of the Bastille.
+ --Sacking the Invalides.--The Bastille Assailed.--Assassination of De
+ Launey and of Flesselles 112
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ THE KING RECOGNIZES THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
+
+ Rout of the Cavalry of Lambesc.--Tidings of the Capture of the Bastille
+ reach Versailles.--Consternation of the Court.--Midnight Interview
+ between the Duke of Liancourt and the King.--New Delegation from the
+ Assembly.--The King visits the Assembly.--The King escorted back to his
+ Palace.--Fickleness of the Monarch.--Deputation sent to the Hôtel de
+ Ville.--Address of La Fayette.--La Fayette appointed Commander of the
+ National Guard 122
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV.
+
+ THE KING VISITS PARIS.
+
+ Views of the Patriots.--Pardon of the French Guards.--Religious
+ Ceremonies.--Recall of Necker.--The King visits Paris.--Action of the
+ Clergy.--The King at the Hôtel de Ville.--Return of the King to
+ Versailles.--Count d'Artois, the Polignacs, and others leave France.
+ --Insolence of the Servants.--Sufferings of the People.--Persecution of
+ the Corn-dealers.--Berthier of Toulon.--M. Foulon.--Their Assassination.
+ --Humane Attempts of Necker.--Abolition of Feudal Rights 127
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ FORMING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+ Arming of the Peasants.--Destruction of Feudal Charters.--Sermon of the
+ Abbé Fauchet.--Three Classes in the Assembly.--Declaration of Rights.
+ --The Three Assemblies.--The Power of the Press.--Efforts of William Pitt
+ to sustain the Nobles.--Questions on the Constitution.--Two Chambers in
+ one?--The Veto.--Famine in the City.--The King's Plate melted.--The
+ Tax of a Quarter of each one's Income.--Statement of Jefferson 141
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+
+ THE ROYAL FAMILY CARRIED TO PARIS.
+
+ Waning Popularity of La Fayette.--The King contemplates Flight.--Letter
+ of Admiral d'Estaing.--The Flanders Regiment called to Versailles.--Fête
+ in the Ball-room at Versailles.--Insurrection of the Women; their March
+ to Versailles.--Horrors of the Night of October 5th.--The Royal Family
+ conveyed to Paris 155
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ FRANCE REGENERATED.
+
+ Kind Feelings of the People.--Emigration receives a new Impulse.--The
+ National Assembly transferred to Paris.--The Constituent Assembly.
+ --Assassination of François.--Anxiety of the Patriots.--Gloomy Winter.
+ --Contrast between the Bishops and the laboring Clergy.--Church
+ Funds seized by the Assembly.--The Church responsible for the Degradation
+ of the People.--New Division of France.--The Right of Suffrage.--The
+ Guillotine.--Rabaud de St. Etienne 165
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+
+ THE KING ACCEPTS THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+ The King visits the Assembly.--His Speech.--The Priests rouse the
+ Populace.--The King's Salary.--Petition of Talma.--Views of Napoleon.
+ --Condemnation and Execution of the Marquis of Favrus.--Spirit of
+ the New Constitution.--National Jubilee.--The Queen sympathizes
+ with the Popular Movement.--Writings of Edmund Burke 175
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX.
+
+ FLIGHT OF THE KING.
+
+ Riot at Nancy.--Prosecution of Mirabeau.--Issue of Assignats.--Mirabeau's
+ Interview with the Queen.--Four political Parties.--Bishops refuse to
+ take the Oath to the Constitution.--Character of the Emigrants.--The
+ King's Aunts attempt to leave France.--Debates upon Emigration.
+ --Embarrassment of the Assembly.--Death of Mirabeau.--His Funeral.
+ --The King prevented from visiting St. Cloud.--Duplicity of the King.
+ --Conference of the Allies.--Their Plan of Invasion.--Measures for the
+ Escape of the King.--The Flight 188
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ ARREST OF THE ROYAL FUGITIVES.
+
+ Arrival at Varennes.--The Party arrested.--Personal Appearance of the
+ King.--The Guards fraternize with the People.--Indignation of the Crowd.
+ --The Captives compelled to return to Paris.--Dismay of M. de Bouillé.
+ --Excitement in Paris.--The Mob ransack the Tuileries.--Acts of the
+ Assembly.--Decisive Action of La Fayette.--Proclamation of the King.
+ --The Jacobin Club.--Unanimity of France 200
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ RETURN OF THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM VARENNES.
+
+ Proclamation of Marat.--Three Commissioners sent to meet the King.
+ --Address to the Nation from the Assembly.--The slow and painful Return.
+ --Conversation between Barnave and the Queen.--Brutality of Pétion.
+ --Sufferings of the Royal Family.--Reception of the King in Paris.
+ --Conduct of the Queen.--Noble Avowal of La Fayette.--Statement of the
+ King.--Menace of Bouillé 214
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+ COMMOTION IN PARIS.
+
+ The Remains of Voltaire removed to the Pantheon.--Decision of the
+ Assembly on the Flight of the King.--Thomas Paine.--Views of the
+ Constitutional Monarchists.--Message from La Fayette to the King of
+ Austria.--The Jacobins summon the Populace to the Field of Mars.--Mandate
+ of the Jacobins.--The Crowd on the Field of Mars dispersed by the
+ Military.--Completion of the Constitution.--Remarkable Conversation of
+ Napoleon.--The King formally accepts the Constitution.--Great, but
+ transient, Popularity of the Royal Family 222
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ THE APPROACH OF WAR.
+
+ Sentiments of the King and Queen upon the Constitution.--The Legislative
+ Assembly.--Its democratic Spirit.--The King's Speech.--Painful Scene.
+ --The Queen plans Escape.--Riot in the Theatre.--Infatuation of the
+ Aristocrats.--Insult to the Duke of Orleans.--Embarrassment of the
+ Allies.--Replies to the King from the European Powers.--The Emigrants at
+ Coblentz.--The King's Veto.--Letters of the King to his Brothers.--Their
+ Replies.--Cruel Edicts.--Pétion chosen Mayor.--The King visits the
+ Assembly.--Rise of the Republican Party 236
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ AGITATION IN PARIS, AND COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES.
+
+ Death of Leopold.--Assassination of Gustavus.--Interview between
+ Dumouriez and the Queen.--Discussion in the Assembly.--The Duke of
+ Brunswick.--Interview of Barnave with the Queen.--Interview between
+ Dumouriez and the King.--Dismissal of M. Roland.--The Palace invaded.
+ --Fortitude of the King.--Pétion, the Mayor.--Affecting Interview of
+ the Royal Family.--Remarks of Napoleon 246
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+ THE THRONE ASSAILED.
+
+ Angry Interview between the King and the Mayor.--Decisive Action of La
+ Fayette.--Expectations of the Queen.--Movement of the Prussian Army.
+ --Efforts of the Priests.--Secret Committee of Royalists.--Terror in
+ the Palace.--The Queen's View of the King's Character.--Parties
+ in France.--Energetic Action of the Assembly.--Speech of Vergniaud 262
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+ THE THRONE DEMOLISHED.
+
+ The Country proclaimed in Danger.--Plan of La Fayette for the Safety of
+ the Royal Family.--Measures of the Court.--Celebration of the Demolition
+ of the Bastille.--Movement of the Allied Army.--Conflicting Plans of the
+ People.--Letter of the Girondists to the King.--Manifesto of the Duke of
+ Brunswick.--Unpopularity of La Fayette.--The Attack upon the Tuileries,
+ Aug. 10th.--The Royal Family take Refuge in the Assembly 271
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+ THE ROYAL FAMILY IMPRISONED.
+
+ Tumult and Dismay in the Assembly.--Storming the Tuileries.--Aspect of
+ the Royal Family.--The Decree of Suspension.--Night in the Cloister.
+ --The second Day in the Assembly.--The Royal Family Prisoners.--Third
+ Day in the Assembly.--The Temple.--The Royal Family transferred to the
+ Temple 286
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+ THE MASSACRE OF THE ROYALISTS.
+
+ Supremacy of the Jacobins.--Their energetic Measures.--The Assembly
+ threatened.--Commissioners sent to the Army.--Spirit of the Court Party
+ in England.--Speech of Edmund Burke.--Triumphant March of the Allies.
+ --The Nation summoned _en masse_ to resist the Foe.--Murder of the
+ Princess Lamballe.--Apology of the Assassins.--Robespierre and St. Just.
+ --Views of Napoleon 295
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXX.
+
+ THE KING LED TO TRIAL.
+
+ Assassination of Royalists at Versailles.--Jacobin Ascendancy.--The
+ National Convention.--Two Parties, the Girondists and the Jacobins.
+ --Abolition of Royalty.--Madame Roland.--Battle of Jemappes.--Mode of
+ Life in the Temple.--Insults to the Royal Family.--New Acts of Rigor.
+ --Trial of the King.--Separation of the Royal Family.--The Indictment.
+ --The King begs for Bread 308
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+ EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.
+
+ Close of the Examination.--The King's Counsel.--Heroism of Malesherbes.
+ --Preparations for Defense.--Gratitude of the King.--The Trial.
+ --Protracted Vote.--The Result.--The King solicits the Delay of Execution
+ for three Days.--Last Interview with his Family.--Preparation for Death.
+ --The Execution 318
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+ THE REIGN OF TERROR.
+
+ Charges against the Girondists.--Danton.--The French Embassador ordered
+ to leave England.--War declared against England.--Navy of England.
+ --Internal War.--Plot to assassinate the Girondists.--Bold Words of
+ Vergniaud.--Insurrection in La Vendée.--Conflict between Dumouriez and
+ the Assembly.--Flight of Dumouriez.--The Mob aroused and the Girondists
+ arrested.--Charlotte Corday.--France rises _en masse_ to repel the
+ Allies.--The treasonable Surrender of Toulon 331
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+ EXECUTION OF MARIE ANTOINETTE AND MADAME ELIZABETH.
+
+ Marie Antoinette in the Temple.--Conspiracies for the Rescue of the Royal
+ Family.--The young Dauphin torn from his Mother.--Phrensy of the Queen.
+ --She is removed to the Conciergerie.--Indignities and Woes.--The Queen
+ led to Trial.--Letter to her Sister.--The Execution of the Queen.--Madame
+ Elizabeth led to Trial and Execution.--Fate of the Princess and the
+ Dauphin 345
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+ THE JACOBINS TRIUMPHANT.
+
+ Views of the Girondists.--Anecdote of Vergniaud.--The Girondists brought
+ to Trial.--Suicide of Valazé.--Anguish of Desmoulins.--Fonfrede and
+ Ducos.--Last Supper of the Girondists.--Their Execution.--The Duke of
+ Orleans; his Execution.--Activity of the Guillotine.--Humane
+ Legislation.--Testimony of Desodoards.--Anacharsis Cloots.
+ --The New Era 353
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+ FALL OF THE HEBERTISTS AND OF THE DANTONISTS.
+
+ Continued Persecution of the Girondists.--Robespierre opposes the
+ Atheists.--Danton, Souberbielle, and Camille Desmoulins.--The _Vieux
+ Cordelier_.--The Hebertists executed.--Danton assailed.--Interview
+ between Danton and Robespierre.--Danton warned of his Peril.--Camille
+ Desmoulins and others arrested.--Lucile, the Wife of Desmoulins.
+ --Letters.--Execution of the Dantonists.--Arrest and Execution of Lucile.
+ --Toulon recovered by Bonaparte 361
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+ FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.
+
+ Inexplicable Character of Robespierre.--Cécile Regnault.--Fête in honor
+ of the Supreme Being.--Increase of Victims.--The Triumvirate.--Suspicions
+ of Robespierre.--Struggle between Robespierre and the Committee of Public
+ Safety.--Conspiracy against Robespierre.--Session of the 27th of July.
+ --Robespierre and his Friends arrested.--Efforts to save Robespierre.
+ --Peril of the Convention.--Execution of Robespierre and his Confederates
+ 375
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+ THE THERMIDORIANS AND THE JACOBINS.
+
+ The Reign of Committees.--The _Jeunesse Dorée_.--The Reaction.--Motion
+ against Fouquier Tinville.--Apotheosis of Rousseau.--Battle of Fleurus.
+ --Brutal Order of the Committee of Public Welfare.--Composition of the
+ two Parties.--Speech of Billaud Varennes.--Speech of Légendre.--The
+ Club-house of the Jacobins closed.--Victories of Pichegru.--Alliance
+ between Holland and France.--Advance of Kleber.--Peace with Prussia.
+ --Quiberon.--Riot in Lyons 389
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+ DISSOLUTION OF THE CONVENTION.
+
+ Famine in Paris.--Strife between the Jeunesse Dorée and the Jacobins.
+ --Riots.--Scene in the Convention.--War with the Allies.--A new
+ Constitution.--Insurrection of the Sections.--Energy of General
+ Bonaparte.--Discomfiture of the Sections.--Narrative of the Duchess of
+ Abrantes.--Clemency of the Convention.--Its final Acts and Dissolution,
+ and Establishment of the Directory 398
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+ THE DIRECTORY.
+
+ Constitution of the Directory.--Distracted State of Public Affairs.--New
+ Expedition to La Vendée.--Death of the Dauphin.--Release of the Princess.
+ --Pacification of La Vendée.--Riots in London.--Execution of Charette.
+ --Napoleon takes command of the Army of Italy.--Thefirst Proclamation.
+ --Triumphs in Italy.--Letter of General Hoche.--Peace with Spain.
+ --Establishment of the Cispadane Republic.--Negotiations with England.
+ --Contemplated Invasion of Ireland.--Memorials of Wolfe Tone.--Deplorable
+ State of Public Affairs.--Description of Napoleon.--Composition of the
+ Directory 411
+
+
+ CHAPTER XL.
+
+ THE OVERTHROW OF THE DIRECTORY AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULATE.
+
+ Proclamation of Napoleon.--March into Austria.--Letter to the Archduke
+ Charles.--Preliminaries of Peace.--Union of Parties against the
+ Directory.--Triumph of the Directory.--Agency of Napoleon.--Severe
+ Measures of the Directory.--Indignation of Napoleon.--Dictatorship of
+ the Directory.--Dismay of the Royalists.--Treaty of Campo Formio.
+ --Napoleon's Address to the Cispadane Republic.--Remarks of Napoleon.
+ --Plan for the Invasion of India.--Expedition to Egypt.--New Coalition.
+ --Rastadt 421
+
+
+
+
+THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY.
+
+ Extent of France.--Character of its early
+ Inhabitants.--Conquest of Gaul.--Barbarian Invasion.--The
+ Franks.--Pharamond.--Clovis.--Introduction of
+ Christianity.--Clotilda.--Merovingian Dynasty.--Fields of
+ March.--Anecdote of Clovis.--The Parisii.--Strife with the
+ Nobles.--Moorish Invasion.--Charles Martel.--Pepin.--Fields
+ of May.--Charlemagne.--His Policy.--Feudal System.--The
+ Church.--Rolls.--Louis V.--Hugh Capet.--Parliament established by
+ Philip the Fair.
+
+
+Could one have occupied some stand-point in the clouds fifty years
+before the birth of our Savior, and have looked down upon that portion
+of ancient Gaul which has since been called France, he would have
+seen an immense undulating plain about six hundred and fifty miles
+square, bounded on the north by the Rhine, on the east by the craggy
+cliffs of the Alps, on the south by the almost impassable barriers
+of the Pyrenees, and on the west by the ocean. This beautiful realm,
+most admirably adapted in its physical features, its climate, and its
+soil to be inhabited by man, was then mostly covered with forest. Vast
+rivers, with their innumerable branches flowing in every direction,
+beautified the landscape and rendered the soil exuberantly fertile.
+About twenty millions of people, divided into more than a hundred
+independent tribes, inhabited this fair land. Life was with them all a
+scene of constant battle. They ever lived with weapons of war in their
+hands, seeking to encroach upon the rights of others or to repel those
+who were crowding upon them.
+
+In this state of affairs imperial Rome cast a glance over the Alps upon
+Gaul, and resolved upon its conquest and annexation to the empire.
+Julius Cæsar, at the head of forty thousand men, descended through
+the defiles of the mountains and entered Gaul between the Lake of
+Geneva and Mount Jura. After a series of campaigns extending through
+ten years, and after sweeping with his invincible legions nearly two
+millions of men from his path, he succeeded in the entire subjugation
+of the country. Roman governors were appointed over the several
+provinces, and fortresses were reared and garrisoned by twelve hundred
+Roman soldiers, who enforced the laws of the empire. The arts, the
+civilization, and the refinements of Rome were gradually extended over
+the semi-barbaric Gauls, and for nearly four hundred years the country
+enjoyed general peace and prosperity. The southern portion of the
+province became distinguished for its schools, its commerce, and its
+elegance.
+
+Toward the close of the third century the Roman Empire, enervated by
+luxury and vice, was visibly on the decline. Then commenced that mighty
+flood of invasion from the north which finally overran the whole of
+southern Europe, sweeping before it almost every vestige of the power
+and grandeur of the Cæsars. Army after army of skin-clad warriors, in
+aspect savage as wolves and equally merciless, crossed the Rhine, and
+in fierce and interminable battle fought their way over the plains of
+Gaul. For nearly four hundred years barbarian hordes from the shores of
+the North Sea, from the steppes of Tartary, even from far-off China,
+were pouring down upon southern Europe. Those in the rear crowded
+forward those in the advance. These clannish tribes, every where
+victorious, were slow to amalgamate. Each retained its distinctive
+laws, language, customs, and manners. For more than two centuries this
+cruel war continued, and all Gaul presented but a scene of tumult,
+terror, and carnage.
+
+Among the marshes of the Lower Rhine there dwelt a fierce tribe
+called Franks, or Freemen. Early in the fifth century, Pharamond,
+the sovereign chief of this tribe, a man of extraordinary energy and
+sagacity, formed a confederacy with several other adjacent tribes,
+crossed the Rhine at various points, and after a series of terrific
+conflicts, which were protracted through many years, overpowered the
+Gauls under their Roman leaders, and took possession of the country
+nearly as far as the River Somme. Being the leading chief of the
+confederated tribes, he exerted a kind of supremacy over the rest,
+which may perhaps be considered as the first dawning of the French
+monarchy. The successors of Pharamond retained his conquests, and
+gradually extended their dominions until they were in possession of all
+the country between the Rhine and the Loire.
+
+In the year 480 Clovis succeeded to the chieftainship of the
+confederation. Ambitious, unscrupulous, and energetic, he pushed his
+invading armies toward the Pyrenees, and for thirty years nearly all
+the south of France was a volcano of smoke and flame. His march, though
+attended with many reverses, was triumphant, and at the close of his
+career in the year 511 nearly all Gaul was partially subjected to his
+sway.
+
+Christianity had previously entered Gaul from Rome. Clovis married
+Clotilda, the daughter of a Christian bishop. In the heat of one of
+his battles, as the tide of victory was setting against him, Clovis,
+raising his hands and eyes to heaven, exclaimed,
+
+"O God of Clotilda! if thou wilt interpose and grant me this victory, I
+will renounce idols forever and become a Christian."
+
+He gained the victory, and on the next Christmas-day Clovis was
+baptized. But a man more thoroughly wicked never played the hypocrite.
+By treachery the most loathsome, he caused all the chiefs to be
+assassinated who could be regarded in the least degree as his rivals,
+and, placing chiefs subject to his will at the head of all the
+different tribes, he attained such a supremacy as has led historians
+to speak of Clovis as the first monarch of the conquered realm.
+The dynasty thus established has been called the Merovingian, from
+Merovius, the grandfather of Clovis. From this successful invasion
+of the Franks all Gaul received the name of France. The leaders of
+these victorious bands occasionally had general assemblies, held in
+the open air, to deliberate respecting important movements. These
+meetings were very large, as all the chiefs and sub-chiefs came in
+battle array, surrounded by an ostentatious and well-armed retinue.
+As these assemblies were usually held in the month of March they
+received the name of Fields of March, _Champs de Mars_. The interests
+of the confederation rendered it not unfrequently necessary that these
+assemblies should be convened. This was the origin of the States
+General of France, which, twelve centuries later, opened the drama of
+that terrible revolution, which is universally regarded as the most
+awful tragedy of time.
+
+An incident which occurred during one of these assemblies held by
+Clovis interestingly illustrates the character of that barbaric chief
+and the state of the times. A silver vase was included in the plunder
+taken from the church of Rheims after the conquest of that city. The
+plunder was divided at Soissons. The bishop of the church earnestly
+solicited that the vase might be restored to him. Clovis advocated the
+wishes of the bishop. One of the Frank warriors, jealous of his chief's
+interference, with one blow of his battle-axe crushed the vase, sternly
+declaring that Clovis was entitled to his share of the plunder and to
+no more. The chieftain, though glowing with rage, ventured not to utter
+a word.
+
+At the next review of his troops, Clovis, approaching the soldier, took
+his weapon as if to inspect it. Pronouncing it to be unfit for use,
+he threw it disdainfully upon the ground. As the soldier stooped to
+pick it up, Clovis with one blow of his battle-axe crushed his skull,
+exclaiming, "Thus didst thou strike the vase at Soissons."[5]
+
+The monarchy, thus established by usurpation, treachery, and blood, was
+very precarious and shadowy in its power. There was no acknowledged
+metropolis, no centralization of authority, no common laws. The whole
+country was occupied by the various tribes of invaders, each, under
+its own local chiefs, claiming independence, governed by its own
+customs, and holding the province upon which it chanced to have taken
+possession. Thus the supremacy of Clovis was neither precisely defined
+nor boldly claimed.
+
+When Cæsar, five hundred years before the rise of Clovis, invaded
+Gaul, he found a tribe, called the Parisii, dwelling upon the banks
+of the Seine, with their principal village--which consisted of a few
+barbarian huts of mud, with straw roofs, and without chimneys--upon
+a small island embraced by the river. From the name of the tribe the
+village itself was subsequently called Paris. Such was the origin of
+that world-renowned metropolis which for ages has been the focal point
+of literature, science, art, and bloody revolutions. During the sway of
+the Romans the city had increased very considerably in population and
+importance, and Clovis selected it as his capital.
+
+For about three hundred years the successors of Clovis maintained their
+supremacy. During all this period there was a constant conflict between
+the king and the heads of the other tribes, or the nobles as they
+gradually began to be called. An energetic monarch would occasionally
+arise and grasp extended power. But he would perhaps be succeeded by
+a feeble ruler, and the nobles would again rally and make vigorous
+encroachments upon the royal assumptions. The only contest, however,
+was between the king and the nobles. The mass of the people were in
+abject servitude, with no recognized rights.
+
+In the year 732 the Moors, who had crossed the sea from Africa and
+had overrun Spain, began to crowd down in battle array through the
+defiles of the Pyrenees upon the plains of France. A successful
+general, Charles _Martel_ (the hammer), so called from the tremendous
+blows he dealt the enemy, met them and drove them back with prodigious
+slaughter. By his achievements he acquired immense popularity and
+renown. As a very feeble prince then occupied the throne, Charles
+Martel collected the reins of power into his own hands, and, though
+nominally but an illustrious general, became in reality the ruler of
+France. Satisfied with the possession of power he was not ambitious of
+the kingly title, or thought it not prudent to grasp at too much at
+once.
+
+At the death of Charles Martel, his son Pepin, a man of great energy
+and ambition, drove the imbecile king, Childeric III., into a cloister,
+and took his seat unresisted upon the throne. The dynasty thus
+established is called the Carlovingian, from Charlemagne, the most
+illustrious of this line of kings. The nation cordially approved of
+the act. As Pepin could not claim the throne by right of hereditary
+descent, he founded his title to reign upon the regal power which his
+father had in _reality_ exercised, and upon the well-known assent of
+the nation. To confirm his authority still more, he appealed to the
+Pope. The Church was now in the plenitude of its power; and the Pope,
+grateful for the service which Charles Martel had rendered the Church
+by driving back the infidels, with alacrity consented to establish
+Pepin upon the throne by the august rites of religion.
+
+Pepin, as his leading warriors had now become horsemen, changed the
+time of the general assemblies from the month of March to May, as
+the latter month was more convenient for forage, and the Assembly
+hence received the name of Fields of May, _Champs de Mai_. At these
+meetings the king presided, and the body was composed of the higher
+clergy and the nobility. Occasionally, a small delegation of the most
+distinguished of the people, who were called the Third Estate, _Tiers
+Etat_, had been admitted. Pepin called together only the clergy and
+the nobility, declining to admit the Third Estate to the Assembly.
+Subsequently some kings admitted the Third Estate, and others excluded
+them, according to their caprice. Questions relating to war, peace, and
+the enactment of general laws were submitted to this body, and decided
+by the majority. The chiefs only could speak. The assembled warriors
+clamorously and with clashing of arms expressed assent or dissent.
+
+The world-renowned Charlemagne, succeeding his father Pepin, ascended
+the throne in the year 768. France at that time presented every where
+an aspect of decay and wild disorder. This monarch, illustrious both
+as a warrior and a statesman, fused the heterogeneous and warring
+tribes into a compact nation. Still, the mass, though consolidated, was
+conglomerate, its component parts distinctly defined. All France bowed
+submissive to his sway. Like a whirlwind he traversed Spain with his
+armies. Italy speedily acknowledged his supremacy. The vast empire of
+Charlemagne soon vied with that of ancient Rome, embracing nearly the
+whole of Europe.
+
+It was an important point in the policy of Charlemagne to humble the
+nobles. He wished to surround his throne with an aristocracy enjoying
+privilege and splendor, but deprived of all political power. He wished
+himself to appoint the rulers of the provinces, and not to allow those
+offices to be hereditary with the counts and the dukes. Therefore he
+endeavored to ally the _people_ with himself in resisting the powerful
+barons. He also, with the same object in view, sedulously courted the
+affections of the Church, conferring many of the most important offices
+of the state upon the high ecclesiastics.
+
+Charlemagne ordered the Assembly to meet twice every year. Every
+count was commanded to bring to this congress thirteen of the most
+influential of the people within his jurisdiction. They usually met in
+two bodies, the ecclesiastical leaders in one spot, the military in
+another. Sometimes, by order of the king, they both met together. The
+king held his court at a little distance, and by messengers received
+constant reports from the two bodies. Weighing the result of their
+deliberations, he issued his decree, which all recognized as law. Such
+was the germ of deliberative assemblies in France.
+
+Charlemagne established several schools. In these he assembled for
+severe study many of the young men of the empire, selecting the
+low-born as well as the sons of the nobles. As he was very desirous
+that his reign should be embellished by the attainments of men of
+letters, he frequently examined these schools himself. One of the
+historians of those days writes:
+
+"When, after a long absence, Charlemagne returned to Gaul, he ordered
+the children to be brought to him, to show him their exercises and
+verses. Those belonging to the lower classes exhibited works beyond all
+hope, but those of noble descent had only trifles to show. The wise
+monarch, imitating the Eternal Judge, placed those who had done well on
+his right hand, and thus addressed them:
+
+"'A thousand thanks, my sons, for your diligence in laboring according
+to my orders and for your own good. Proceed. Endeavor to perfect
+yourselves, and I will reward you with magnificent bishoprics and
+abbeys, and you shall be ever honorable in my sight.'
+
+"Then he bent an angry countenance upon those on his left hand, and,
+troubling their consciences with a lightning look, with bitter irony,
+and thundering rather than speaking, he burst upon them with this
+terrible apostrophe:
+
+"'But for you, nobles, you sons of the great--delicate and pretty
+minions as you are, proud of your birth and your riches--you have
+neglected my orders and your own glory, and the study of letters, and
+have given yourselves up to ease, sports, and idleness.'
+
+"After this preamble, raising on high his august head and his
+invincible arm, he fulminated his usual oath:
+
+"'By the King of Heaven I care little for your nobility and beauty,
+however others may admire you. You may hold it for certain that, if you
+do not make amends for your past negligence by vigilant zeal, you will
+never obtain any thing from Charles.'"[6]
+
+Wherever Charlemagne led his legions, he baptized the vanquished; and
+the conquered tribes and nations called themselves Christians. The
+ignorant barbarians eagerly accepted the sacrament for the sake of the
+white baptismal robe which was given to each proselyte.
+
+The vast empire of Charlemagne under his effeminate successors rapidly
+crumbled to pieces. In ceaseless conflicts and fluctuations the chiefs
+of the tribes, or nobles, gradually regained the power which had
+been wrested from them by Charlemagne. Upon the ruins of the empire
+arose the feudal system, and France became a monarchy but in name.
+The throne, shorn of its energies, retained but the shadow of power.
+Haughty dukes, surrounded by their warlike retainers, and impregnable
+in massive castles which had been the work of ages, exercised over
+their own vassals all the prerogatives of royalty, and often eclipsed
+the monarch in wealth and splendor. The power of the duke became so
+absolute over the serfs who tilled his acres, and who timidly huddled
+for protection beneath the ramparts of the castle, that, in the
+language of the feudal code, the duke "might take all they had, alive
+or dead, and imprison them when he pleased, being accountable to none
+but God."
+
+France again became but a conglomeration of independent provinces, with
+scarcely any bond of union. The whole landscape was dotted with castles
+strongly built upon the river's bluff, or upon the craggy hill. These
+baronial fortresses, massive and sombre, were flanked by towers pierced
+with loop-holes and fortified with battlements. A ditch often encircled
+the walls, and an immense portcullis or suspended gate could at any
+moment be let down, to exclude all entrance. The apartments were small
+and comfortless, with narrow and grated windows. There was one large
+banqueting-hall, the seat of baronial splendor, where the lord met his
+retainers and vassals in intercourse in which aristocratic supremacy
+and democratic equality were most strangely blended. Every knight swore
+fealty to the baron, the baron to the duke, the duke to the king. The
+sovereign could claim military service from his vassals, but could
+exercise no power over their serfs, either legislative or judicial. It
+not unfrequently happened that some duke had a larger retinue and a
+richer income than the king himself.
+
+A poor knight implored of the Count of Champagne a marriage-portion for
+his daughter. A wealthy citizen who chanced to be present said, "My
+lord has already given away so much that he has nothing left." "You
+do not speak the truth," said the count, "since I have got yourself;"
+and he immediately delivered him up to the knight, who seized him by
+the collar, and would not liberate him until he had paid a ransom of
+twenty-five hundred dollars. A French knight relates this story as an
+instance of the count's generosity.
+
+These lords were often highway robbers. Scouts traversed the country,
+and armed men who filled their castles watched for travelers. The rich
+merchant who chanced to fall into their hands was not only despoiled of
+all his goods, but was often thrown into a dungeon, and even tortured
+until he purchased his ransom at a price commensurate with his ability.
+
+Under this feudal sway the eldest son was the sole possessor. "As for
+the younger children," exclaims Michelet, with indignant sarcasm,
+"theirs is a vast inheritance! They have no less than all the highways,
+and over and above, all that is under the vault of heaven. Their bed
+is the threshold of their father's house, from which, shivering
+and ahungered, they can look upon their elder brother sitting alone
+by the hearth where they too have sat in the happy days of their
+childhood, and perhaps he will order a few morsels to be flung to them
+notwithstanding the dogs do growl. 'Down, dogs, down, they are my
+brothers! they must have something as well as you.'"
+
+The Church was the only asylum for the younger sons of these
+great families. In her bosom ambitious ecclesiastics, as bishops,
+archbishops, and cardinals, often attained a degree of splendor and
+of authority which the baron, the count, or the duke in vain strove
+to emulate. The unmarried daughters took refuge in the monasteries,
+or were shut up, in seclusion which was virtual imprisonment, in the
+corners of the old chateaux. Thus the convents, those castles of the
+Church, were reared and supported mainly to provide for the privileged
+class. The peasant in the furrow looked with equal dread upon the
+bishop and the baron, and regarded them equally as his oppressors.
+
+These proud bishops assumed the character and the haughty air of feudal
+lords. They scorned to ride upon the lowly mule, but vaulted upon the
+back of the charger neighing for the battle. They were ever ready for a
+fray, and could strike as sturdy blows as ever came from the battle-axe
+of a knight. The vows of celibacy were entirely disregarded. Some took
+wives; others openly kept concubines. These younger sons of the nobles,
+dressed in the garb of the Church, were found to be such dangerous
+characters that there was a general demand that they should be married.
+"Laymen are so convinced," says one of the ancient writers, "that
+none ought to be unmarried, that in most parishes they will not abide
+a priest except he have a concubine." The lords spiritual endeavored
+to fashion the Church upon the model of the feudal system. Abbeys and
+bishoprics, with all their rich endowments, passed by descent to the
+children of the bishops.[7]
+
+An incident which occurred in the year 911 throws much light upon the
+rudeness of those barbaric times. Rollo, the chieftain of a band of
+Norman pirates, entered the Seine, committing fearful ravages. Charles
+IV., appropriately called Charles the Simple, alarmed by his progress
+and unable to raise a force sufficient to check him, sent an archbishop
+to offer him the possession of Normandy, with the title of hereditary
+duke, if he would peaceably take possession of this territory and
+swear allegiance to the king. Rollo eagerly accepted the magnificent
+offer. In performing the ceremony of swearing fealty, it was necessary,
+according to custom, for Rollo to prostrate himself before the king
+and kiss his feet. The haughty Norman, when called upon to perform the
+ceremony, indignantly drew himself up, exclaiming,
+
+"Never, never will I kiss the foot or bow the knee to mortal man."
+
+After some delay it was decided that the act of homage should be
+performed by proxy, and Rollo ordered one of his stalwart soldiers to
+press his lip upon the foot of the king. The burly barbarian strode
+forward, as if in obedience to the command, and, seizing the foot of
+the monarch, raised it high above his head, and threw the monarch
+prostrate upon the floor. The Norman soldiers filled the hall with
+derisive shouts of laughter, while the king and his courtiers,
+intimidated by barbarians so fierce and defiant, prudently concealed
+their chagrin.
+
+The Carlovingian dynasty held the throne for two hundred and
+thirty-five years. Louis V., the last of this race, died in 987. He was
+called, from his indolence and imbecility, the Idler. As he sank into
+an inglorious grave, an energetic and powerful noble, Hugh Capet, Duke
+of the Isle of France, with vigorous arm thrust the hereditary claimant
+into a prison and ascended the throne. Thus was established the third
+dynasty, called the Capetian.
+
+For two hundred and fifty years under the Capets, France could hardly
+be called a kingdom. Though the name of king remained, the kingly
+authority was extinct. The history of France during this period is
+but a history of the independent feudal lords, each of whom held his
+court in his own castle. None of these kings had power to combine
+the heterogeneous and discordant elements. The fragile unity of the
+realm was broken by differences of race, of customs, of language, and
+of laws. But in this apparent chaos there was one bond of union, the
+Church, which exerted an almost miraculous sway over these uncultivated
+and warlike men. The ecclesiastics were strongly in favor of the
+Capets, and were highly instrumental in placing them upon the throne.
+
+With the Capets commenced a royal line which, in its different
+branches, running through the houses of Valois and of Bourbon, retained
+the throne for eight hundred years, until the fall of Louis XVI. in
+1793.
+
+About the year 1100 we begin to hear the first faint murmurs of the
+people. Some bold minds ventured the suggestion that a man ought to
+be free to dispose of the produce of his own labor, to marry his
+children without the consent of another, to go and come, sell and buy
+without restriction. Indeed, in Normandy the peasants broke out in a
+revolt. But steel-clad knights, in sweeping squadrons, cut them down
+mercilessly and trampled them beneath iron hoofs. The most illustrious
+of the complainants were seized and hung to the trees, as a warning
+to all murmurers. The people were thus taught that trees made good
+gibbets. When their turn came they availed themselves of this knowledge.
+
+In the year 1294 Philip the Fair established a court in Paris called
+the Parliament. This was purely an aristocratic body, and was, in
+general, entirely subservient to the king's wishes. Similar parliaments
+were established by the great feudal princes in their provinces. There
+were occasional contentions between the parliaments and the king,
+but the king usually succeeded in compelling them to obedience. The
+Parliament enjoyed only the privilege of registering the royal edicts.
+In the reign of Louis XIV. the Parliament ventured to express a little
+objection to one of the tyrannical ordinances of the monarch.
+
+The boy-king, eighteen years of age, was astounded at such impudence.
+He left the chase, and, hastening to the hall, entered it whip in
+hand. He could send them one and all to the Bastille or the block, and
+they knew it, and he knew it. The presence of the king brought them to
+terms, and they immediately became as submissive as fawning spaniels.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 5: Greg. Tur., book ii., c. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Monach. Sangall, b. i., c. ii., sqq., as quoted by
+Michelet.]
+
+[Footnote 7: See the abundant proof of these statements in Michelet's
+History of France, p. 193.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HOUSES OF VALOIS AND BOURBON.
+
+ The House of Valois.--Luxury of the Court and the
+ Nobles.--Insurrection.--Jaques Bonhomme.--Henry III.--Henry
+ IV., of Navarre.--Cardinal Richelieu.--French Academy.--Regency
+ of Anne of Austria.--Palaces of France.--The Noble and the
+ Ennobled.--Persecution of the Protestants.--Edict of Nantes.--Its
+ Revocation.--Distress of the Protestants.--Death of Louis XIV.
+
+
+In the year 1328 the direct line of the Capets became extinct by
+the death of Charles IV., who left no male descendant. The nobles,
+assembled in parliament at Paris, assigned the crown to Philip, Count
+of Valois, a nephew of the former king. He was crowned at Rheims,
+in May, 1328, as Philip VI. The nobles, having thus obtained a king
+according to their wishes, complained to him that they had borrowed
+large sums of money from wealthy merchants and artisans, which it was
+inconvenient for them to pay, and that it was not consistent with the
+dignity of the French nobility that they should be harassed by debts
+due to the low-born. The king promptly issued a decree that all these
+debts should be cut down one fourth, that four months grace should be
+allowed without interest, and then, that these plebeian creditors might
+be reduced to a proper state of humility, he ordered them all to be
+imprisoned and their property to be confiscated. The merciless monarch
+doubled the taxes upon the people, and created a court at Paris of
+such magnificence that the baronial lords abandoned their castles and
+crowded to the metropolis to share its voluptuous indulgences. Even
+neighboring kings, attracted by the splendor of the Parisian court,
+took up their abode in Paris. The nobles needed vast sums of money to
+sustain them in such measureless extravagance. They accordingly left
+stern overseers over their estates, to drive the peasants to their toil
+and to extort from them every possible farthing.
+
+The king, to replenish his ever-exhausted purse, assumed the sole right
+of making and selling salt throughout the realm. Each family, always
+excepting the nobles, who were then exempted from every species of tax,
+was required to take a certain quantity at an exorbitant price.
+
+Vincennes was then the great banqueting-hall of Europe. In its present
+decay it exhibits but little of the grandeur it presented four hundred
+years ago, when its battlements towered above the forest of oaks,
+centuries old, which surrounded the castle--when plumed and blazoned
+squadrons met in jousts and tournaments, and when, in meteoric
+splendor, hunting bands of lords and ladies swept the park. Brilliant
+as was this spectacle, no healthy mind can contemplate it but with
+indignation. To support this luxury of a few thousand nobles, thirty
+millions of people were plunged into the extreme of ignorance, poverty,
+and misery.
+
+Again the king and the nobles had empty purses, and were greatly in
+debt. By an arbitrary decree all the coin of the kingdom was called
+in. It was then passed through the mint greatly debased. With this
+debased coin the debts were paid, and _then_ an order was issued that
+the coin should be regarded at its depreciated value.
+
+With the lapse of centuries intelligence had gradually increased, and
+there was now quite a growing middling class between the peasants
+and the nobles--artisans, merchants, manufacturers, and literary and
+professional men. These outrages had at length become intolerable.
+Human nature could endure no more. This middle class became the leaders
+of the blind and maddened masses, and hurled them in fury upon their
+foes. The conspiracy spread over the kingdom, and in all the towns
+and throughout the country the signal for revolt was simultaneously
+given. It was a servile insurrection, accompanied by all the horrors
+inevitable to such a warfare. The debased populace, but little elevated
+above the brute, were as merciless as the hyena or the wolf. Phrensied
+with rage and despair, in howling bands they burst upon the castles,
+and the wrongs of centuries were terrifically avenged. We need not
+tell the story. Violence, torture, flame, and blood exhausted their
+energies. Mothers and maidens suffered all that mortals can endure in
+terror, brutal indignities, shame, and woe. In war even the refined and
+courteous often become diabolical; but those who have been degraded by
+ages of ignorance and oppression, when they first break their fetters,
+generally become fiends incarnate.
+
+The nobles so thoroughly despised the peasants that they had not
+dreamed that the starving, cringing boors would dare even to think
+of emerging from their mud hovels to approach the lordly castle of
+rock, with its turrets and battlements and warlike defenders. The
+sheep might as well conspire against the dogs and the wolves. The
+peasant had hardly individuality enough even to receive a name. He was
+familiarly called Jack Goodman, _Jacques Bonhomme_. This insurrection
+of the Jacks, or of the Jacquerie as it is usually called, was, after
+much devastation and bloodshed, quelled. Barbaric phrensy can seldom
+long hold out against disciplined valor. One half of the population of
+France fell a prey to the sword, or to the pestilence and famine which
+ensued.
+
+This was the first convulsive movement made by the _people_. Defeated
+though they were, and with their fetters riveted anew, they obtained
+new ideas of power and right which they never forgot. Already we begin
+to hear many of the phrases which four hundred years later were upon
+all lips, when the monarchy and the feudal aristocracy were buried in
+one common grave.
+
+The house of Valois retained the throne for two hundred and sixty-one
+years. During these two and a half centuries, as generations came and
+went, storms of war and woe were incessantly sweeping over France.
+The history of the kingdom during these dreary ages is but the record
+of the intrigues of ecclesiastics, the conflicts between monarchs and
+nobles, and the sweep of maddened armies. The _Third Estate_, the
+people, continued to be deprived of almost all social and political
+rights. They were debased by ignorance and depressed by intolerable
+burdens. The monarchy was gradually centralizing power. The chiefs
+and sub-chiefs of the conglomerated tribes were losing their feudal
+authority and lapsing into nobles of higher and lower rank, whose
+splendor was obtained by exemption from all the burdens of the state,
+and by enormous taxation of the people. The Roman Catholic Church,
+under the Popes, blazed with almost supernatural splendor over Europe;
+and the high dignitaries of the Church, as lords spiritual, were as
+luxurious, haughty, and domineering as were any of the lords temporal.
+
+Henry III., the last of the Valois race, was stabbed by a friar in
+1589, and died leaving no issue. Henry of Bourbon, King of Navarre,
+as the nearest relative, claimed the crown. He ascended the throne
+as Henry IV., and after several years of civil war put down all
+opposition. He was the first of the Bourbon family who swayed the
+sceptre, and by far the most able and energetic. Under his vigorous
+sway the kingdom became consolidated, the throne attained a great
+supremacy over the nobles, and the resources of the realm were greatly
+developed. Henry IV. was sincerely devoted to the interests of France.
+He encouraged commerce, manufactures, and the arts; endeavored to
+enforce equitable laws, and under his wise administration the _people_
+made decided advances in wealth and intelligence. He retained the
+throne for twenty-one years, until 1610, when he died beneath the
+dagger of an assassin. Though Henry governed _for_ the people, he did
+not admit them to any voice in public affairs. During his long reign no
+assembly was convened in which the people had any representation.
+
+Henry IV. at his death left a son, Louis, nine years of age. The mother
+of this child, Mary of Medicis, was invested with the regency. When
+this prince was fourteen years of age he was considered by the laws
+of France as having attained his majority. He accordingly, while thus
+but a boy, marrying a bride of fifteen, Anne of Austria, ascended the
+throne as Louis XIII. For twenty-eight years this impotent prince
+sat upon the throne, all the time in character a bashful boy devoid
+of any qualities which could command respect. Cardinal Richelieu was
+during this reign the real monarch of France. Measurelessly ambitious,
+arrogant, and cruel, he consolidated the despotism of the throne, and
+yet, by far-reaching policy, greatly promoted the power and grandeur
+of the kingdom. This renowned minister, stern, vindictive, cruel,
+shrinking from no crime in the accomplishment of his plans, with the
+dungeons of the Bastilles of France and the executioner's axe at his
+command, held the impotent king and the enslaved kingdom for nearly
+thirty years in trembling obedience to his will.
+
+The Chateau of Versailles was commenced by Richelieu. He also, in the
+year 1635, established the French Academy, which has since exerted so
+powerful an influence upon literature and science throughout Europe.
+Richelieu died in December, 1642, and six months after, in May, 1643,
+Louis XIII., who, during his reign, had been but a puppet in the hands
+of the cardinal, followed him to the tomb. As the monarch was lying
+upon his dying bed, he called his little son, five years of age, to
+his side, and said to him, "What is your name?" "Louis Fourteenth,"
+answered the proud boy, already eager to grasp the sceptre. "Not yet,
+not yet," sadly rejoined the dying father.
+
+Anne of Austria held the regency for nine years, until her son, having
+attained the age of fourteen, had completed his minority and assumed
+the crown. Under this powerful prince the monarchy of France, as an
+unlimited despotism, became firmly established. The nobles, though
+deprived of all political power, were invested with such enormous
+privileges, enabling them to revel in wealth and luxury, that they
+were ever ready to unite with the king in quelling all uprising of the
+people, who were equally robbed by both monarch and noble. During the
+long reign of this monarch, for Louis XIV. sat upon the throne for
+seventy-two years, if we consider his reign to have commenced when he
+was proclaimed king upon the death of his father, France made vast
+strides in power, wealth, and splendor. Palaces arose almost outvying
+the dreams of an Oriental imagination. The saloons of Marly, the
+Tuileries, the Louvre, and Versailles, were brilliant with a splendor,
+and polluted with debaucheries, which Babylon, in its most festering
+corruption, could not have rivaled. The nobles, almost entirely
+surrendered to enervating indulgence, were incapacitated for any post
+which required intellectual activity and energy. Hence originated a
+class of men who became teachers, editors, scientific and literary
+writers, jurists, and professional men. In the progress of commerce and
+manufactures, wealth increased with this class, and the king, to raise
+money, would often sell, at an enormous price, a title of nobility to
+some enriched tradesman.
+
+A numerous and powerful middle class, rich and highly educated, was
+thus gradually formed, who had emerged from the people, and whose
+sympathies were entirely with them. The nobles looked upon all these,
+however opulent, or cultivated in mind, or polished in manners, with
+contempt, as low-born. They refused all social intercourse with them,
+regarding them as a degraded caste. They looked with even peculiar
+contempt upon those who had purchased titles of nobility.
+
+They drew a broad line of distinction between the _nobles_ and the
+_ennobled_. The hereditary aristocracy, proud of a lineage which could
+be traced through a hundred generations, and which was lost in the haze
+of antiquity, exclaimed with pride, instinct to the human heart:
+
+"You may give a lucky tradesman, in exchange for money, a title of
+nobility, but you can not thus make him a nobleman; you can not thus
+constitute him a lineal descendant of the old Frank barons; you can not
+thus constitute him a Lorraine, a Montmorency, a Rohan. God alone can
+create a nobleman."
+
+Thus they regarded a man who had been ennobled by a royal decree, or
+who had descended from a father or a grandfather thus ennobled, as a
+new man, an upstart, one hardly redeemed from contempt. The doors of
+their saloons were closed against him, and he was every where exposed
+to mortifying neglect. A noble whose lineage could be traced for two or
+three centuries, but whose origin was still _distinctly defined_, was
+considered as perhaps belonging to the aristocratic calendar, though of
+low estate. The fact that the time once was, when his ancestors were
+known to be low-born, was a damaging fact, which no subsequent ages of
+nobility could entirely efface. He only was the true noble, the origin
+of whose nobility was lost in the depths of the past, the line of whose
+ancestry ran so far back into the obscurity of by-gone ages that no one
+could tell when it commenced.
+
+It has generally been said that there were three estates in the
+realm; the clergy composing the first, the nobles the second, and the
+people the third. But the higher class of the clergy, luxuriating
+in the bishoprics and the abbacies, with their rich emoluments,
+were the sons of the nobility, and shared in all the privileges and
+popular odium pertaining to that class. The lower clergy, devoted to
+apostolic labors and poverty, belonged to the people, and were with
+them in all their sympathies. Thus there were in reality but two
+classes, the _privileged_ and the _unprivileged_, the _patrician_ and
+the _plebeian_, the _tax payer_ and the _tax receiver_. The castle,
+whether baronial or monastic in its architecture, was the emblem of
+the one, the thatched cottage the symbol of the other. Louis XIV., as
+Madame de Maintenon testifies, was _shocked_ to learn that Jesus Christ
+associated with the poor and the humble, and conversed freely with them.
+
+Soon after the succession of Louis XIV. to the throne he became
+convinced that the maintenance of the Romish hierarchy was essential
+to the stability of his power. He consequently commenced a series of
+persecutions of the Protestants, with the determination of driving
+that faith entirely from France. In 1662 he issued a decree that no
+Protestant should be buried except after sunset or before sunrise.
+Protestant mechanics or shop-keepers were not allowed to have
+apprentices. Protestant teachers were permitted to instruct only in the
+first rudiments of letters, and not more than twelve Protestants were
+allowed to meet together for the purposes of worship. No Protestant
+woman could be a nurse in the chamber of infancy; no Catholic could
+embrace Protestantism or marry a Protestant woman under pain of exile.
+Catholic magistrates were empowered to enter the dying chambers of
+the Protestants to tease them, when gasping in death, to return to
+the Catholic faith. In four years, between 1680 and 1684, more than
+twenty royal edicts were issued against the Protestants, decreeing,
+among other things, that no Protestant should be a lawyer, doctor,
+apothecary, printer, or grocer. Children were often taken by violence
+from Protestant parents, that they might be trained in the Catholic
+faith.
+
+Madame de Maintenon, the unacknowledged wife of Louis XIV., wished to
+bring back into the fold of Rome a young lady, Mademoiselle de Murgay.
+She consequently wrote to her brother:
+
+"If you could send her to me you would do me a great pleasure. There
+are no other means than violence, for they will be much afflicted in
+the family by De Murgay's conversion. I will send you a _lettre de
+cachet_ (secret warrant) in virtue of which you will take her into your
+own house until you find an opportunity of sending her off."[8]
+
+Such outrages as these were of constant occurrence. Zeal for the
+conversion of the Protestants never rose to a higher pitch. At the same
+time Louis XIV. could bid defiance to God's commands, and insult the
+moral sense of the nation by traveling with his wife and his two guilty
+favorites, Madame de Montespan and Madame la Vallière, all in the same
+carriage. The profligacy of the ecclesiastics and the debauchery of the
+court and the nobles, though less disguised during the wild saturnalia
+of the succeeding regency, was never more universal than during this
+reign. This was the golden age of kings. Feudality had died, and
+democracy was not born. The monarchy was absolute. The nobles, deprived
+of all _political_ power, existed merely as a luxurious appendage and
+embellishment to the throne, while the people, unconscious of either
+power or rights, made no movements to embarrass the sovereign.[9]
+
+In the year 1681 Louis XIV. commenced his system of dragooning the
+Protestants into the Catholic faith. He sent regiments of cavalry into
+the provinces, quartered them in the houses of the Protestants, placing
+from four to ten in each family, and enjoined it upon these soldiers
+to do every thing they could to compel the Protestants to return to
+the Catholic faith. Scenes ensued too awful to be narrated. He who has
+nerves to endure the recital can find the atrocities minutely detailed
+in "_L'Histoire de l'Édit de Nantes, par Elias Benoît_."
+
+The brutal soldiery, free from all restraint, committed every
+conceivable excess. They scourged little children in the presence of
+their parents, that the shrieks of agony of the child might induce
+the parents to abjure their faith. They violated the modesty of women
+and girls, and mangled their bodies with the lash. They tortured,
+mutilated, disfigured. And when human nature in its extreme of agony
+yielded, the exhausted victim was compelled to sign a recantation of
+his faith, declaring that he did it of his own free will, without
+compulsion or persuasion. In their terror the Protestants fled in all
+directions, into the fields, the forests, to caves, and made desperate
+endeavors to escape from the kingdom. Multitudes died of exhaustion and
+famine by the way-side and on the sea-shore. Large tracts of country
+were thus nearly depopulated. Madame de Maintenon wrote to her brother,
+sending him a present of a large sum of money:
+
+"I beseech you employ usefully the money you are to have. The lands in
+Poitou are sold for nothing. The distresses of the Protestants will
+bring more into market. You can easily establish yourself splendidly in
+Poitou."
+
+The Protestant countries, England, Switzerland, Holland, and Denmark,
+issued proclamations to these persecuted Christians offering them
+an asylum. The court was alarmed, and interdicted their leaving the
+kingdom under penalty of condemnation to the galleys, confiscation of
+their property, and the annulling of all contracts they should have
+made for a year before their emigration.[10]
+
+The condition of the Protestants was now miserable in the extreme. It
+was the determination of the court utterly to exterminate the reformed
+faith. The Archbishop of Paris made out a list of the works of four
+hundred authors who were considered as assailing Catholicism, and all
+the libraries, public and private, of the kingdom were searched that
+the condemned books might be burned.
+
+There were between two and three millions of Protestants in France.[11]
+The dragoons were sent in every direction through the kingdom,
+enjoined by the court, to secure, at whatever expense of torture,
+a return to Catholicism. One of the tortures which these merciless
+fanatics were fond of applying was to deprive their victim of sleep.
+They kept the sufferer standing, and relieved each other in their
+cruel work of pinching, pricking, twitching, pulling with ropes,
+burning, suffocating with offensive fumes, until after successive
+days and nights of torture the victim was driven to madness, and to
+promise any thing to escape from his tormentors. By these means, it was
+boasted that in the district of Bordeaux, where there were one hundred
+and fifty thousand Protestants, one hundred and forty thousand were
+converted in a fortnight. The Duke of Noailles wrote to the court that
+in the district to which he had been sent with his dragoons there had
+been two hundred and forty thousand Protestants, but he thought that by
+the end of the month none could be left.
+
+In the year 1598 Henry IV., by the Edict of Nantes, had granted freedom
+of conscience and of worship to the Protestants. Louis XIV. now issued
+a decree revoking this edict. The revocation, which was signed the 18th
+of October, 1685, states in the preamble that "since the better and the
+greater part of our subjects of the pretended reformed religion have
+embraced the Catholic faith, the maintenance of the Edict of Nantes
+remains superfluous." It then declares that no more exercise of the
+reformed worship is to be tolerated in the realm. All the Protestant
+pastors were to leave the kingdom within fifteen days, and were
+forbidden to exercise their office under pain of the galleys. Parents
+were forbidden to instruct their children in the reformed faith, and
+were enjoined to send them to the Catholic church to be baptized and to
+be instructed in the Catholic schools and catechism, under penalty of a
+fine of five hundred livres. The Protestant laity were prohibited from
+emigrating under pain of the galleys for the men, and imprisonment for
+life for the women.
+
+Notwithstanding the penalty, vast numbers escaped from the kingdom.
+No vigilance could guard such extended frontiers. In one year after
+the revocation, Vauban wrote that France had lost one hundred thousand
+inhabitants, twelve thousand disciplined soldiers, six hundred
+officers, and her most flourishing manufactures. The Duke of St. Simon
+records that "a fourth part of the kingdom was perceptibly depopulated."
+
+These crimes perpetrated against religion filled the land with
+infidelity. There were even Catholics of noble name and note, as
+Fénélon and Massillon, who energetically remonstrated. Montesquieu,
+Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mirabeau, not distinguishing between
+Christianity and the Papal Church, uttered cries of indignation which
+thrilled upon the ear of Europe and undermined the foundations of
+Christianity itself.
+
+The edict of revocation was executed with the utmost rigor. The
+pastors in Paris were not allowed even the fifteen days which the
+edict granted, but were ordered to leave in forty-eight hours. Those
+pastors who had children over seven years of age had those children
+taken from them. Fathers and mothers, thus robbed of their children, in
+poverty and heart-broken, were driven into exile. "Old men of eighty or
+ninety years were seen gathering up the last remains of their life to
+undertake distant journeys, and more than one died before reaching the
+asylum where he was to rest his weary foot and drooping head."[12]
+
+The court became alarmed by the magnitude of emigration. Guards were
+posted at the gates of towns, at the fords of rivers, on the bridges,
+on the highways, and at all points of departure upon the frontiers.
+Still the fugitives, hiding in caverns by day and traveling by
+night through by-paths, in great numbers eluded their foes. Every
+conceivable disguise was adopted, as of shepherds, pilgrims, hunters,
+valets, merchants. Women of rank--for there were not a few such among
+the Protestants, who had been accustomed to all the delicacies and
+indulgences of life--traveled on foot, exposed to hunger and storms,
+two or three hundred miles. Girls of sixteen, of all ranks in life,
+incurred the same hardships and perils. They disfigured their faces,
+wore coarse and ragged garments, and trundled wheel-barrows filled with
+manure, or carried heavy burdens, to elude suspicion. Some assumed the
+disguise of men or boys and took the office of servants; others feigned
+insanity or to be deaf and dumb. In these ways large numbers escaped to
+Rotterdam.[13]
+
+Those near the sea-shore concealed themselves in ships among bales of
+merchandise, and in hogsheads stowed away among the freight. There were
+children who passed whole weeks in such lurking places without uttering
+a cry. Some desperately pushed out to sea in open boats, trusting
+to winds and waves to bear them to a place of safety. Thousands
+perished of cold, exposure, and starvation. Thousands were seized,
+loaded with chains, and dragged through the realm in derision and
+contempt, and were then condemned to pass the remainder of their days
+as galley-slaves. The galleys of Marseilles were crowded with these
+victims, among whom were many of the noblest men who have ever dwelt on
+earth. The prisons were crowded with women arrested in their flight and
+doomed to life-long captivity.
+
+It is estimated that five hundred thousand found a refuge in foreign
+lands. Thirteen hundred passed through the city of Geneva in one
+week. England formed eleven regiments out of the refugees. One of
+the faubourgs of London was entirely peopled by these exiles. M. de
+Sismondi estimates that as many perished in the attempt to escape
+as escaped. A hundred thousand in the Province of Languedoc died
+prematurely, and of these ten thousand perished by fire, the gallows,
+or the wheel.[14] We can not but sympathize with the indignation of
+Michelet as he exclaims:
+
+"Let the Revolutionary Reign of Terror beware of comparing herself
+with the Inquisition. Let her never boast of having, in her two or
+three years, paid back to the old system what it did for us for six
+hundred years! The Inquisition would have good cause to laugh. What
+are the twelve thousand men guillotined of the one, to the millions of
+men butchered, hung, broken on the wheel--to that pyramid of burning
+stakes--to those masses of burnt flesh which the other piled up to
+heaven. The single inquisition of one of the provinces of Spain states,
+in an authentic monument, that in sixteen years it burned twenty
+thousand men!
+
+"History will inform us that in her most ferocious and implacable
+moments the Revolution trembled at the thought of aggravating death,
+that she shortened the sufferings of victims, removed the hand of man,
+and invented a machine to abridge the pangs of death.
+
+"And it will also inform us that the Church of the Middle Ages
+exhausted itself in inventions to augment suffering, to render it
+poignant, intense; that she found out exquisite arts of torture,
+ingenious means to contrive that, without dying, one might long taste
+of death; and that, being stopped in that path by inflexible Nature,
+who, at a certain degree of pain, mercifully grants death, she wept at
+not being able to make man suffer longer."[15]
+
+Louis XIV. died in 1715. He did not allow any assembly of the states to
+be convened during his reign. Every body began to manifest discontent.
+The nobility were humbled and degraded, and hungered for more power.
+The people had become very restive. The humbler class of the clergy,
+sincere Christians and true friends of their parishioners, prayed
+earnestly for reform. The Jesuits alone united with the monarch and his
+mistresses to maintain despotic sway. The court was utterly corrupt;
+the king a shameless profligate. Every thing was bartered for money.
+Justice was unknown. The court reveled in boundless luxury, while the
+mass of the people were in a state almost of starvation. The burden had
+become intolerable.
+
+The monarchy of France attained its zenith during the reign of Louis
+XIV. Immense standing armies overawed Europe and prevented revolt at
+home. Literature and art flourished, for the king was ambitious to
+embellish his reign with the works of men of genius. Great freedom of
+opinion and of utterance was allowed, for neither king nor courtiers
+appear to have had any more fear of a rising of the peasants than
+they had of a revolt of the sheep. Vast works were constructed, which
+the poor and the starving alone paid for. Still there were not a few
+who perceived that the hour of vengeance was at hand. One of the
+magistrates of Louis XIV. remarked, "The conflict is soon to arrive
+between those who pay and those whose only function is to receive." The
+Duke of Orleans, who was regent after the death of Louis XIV., said,
+"If I were a subject I would most certainly revolt. The people are
+good-natured fools to suffer so long."
+
+Louis XIV. left the throne to his great-grandchild, a boy five years
+of age. The populace followed the hearse of the departed monarch with
+insults and derisive shouts to the tomb. The hoary despot, upon a
+dying bed, manifested some compunctions of conscience. He left to his
+successor the words:
+
+"I have, against my inclination, imposed great burdens on my subjects;
+but have been compelled to do it by the long wars which I have been
+obliged to maintain. Love peace, and undertake no war, except when the
+good of the state and the welfare of your people render it necessary."
+
+These words were not heeded, until the people were, in their terrible
+might, inspired by fury and despair.
+
+There is nothing more mournful to contemplate than the last days of
+Louis XIV. He was the victim of insupportable melancholy, dreading
+death almost with terror. His children and his grandchildren were
+nearly all dead. The people were crushed by burdens which they could no
+longer support. The treasury was in debt over eight hundred millions
+of dollars. Commerce was destroyed, industry paralyzed, and the
+country uncultivated and in many places almost depopulated. The armies
+of France had been conquered and humiliated; a disastrous war was
+threatening the realm, and the king from his dying bed could hear the
+execrations of the people, rising portentously around his throne.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 8: Histoire de Madame de Maintenon, et des principaux
+Evenements du Regne de Louis XIV. Par M. le Duc de Noilles, Paris,
+1848.]
+
+[Footnote 9: "Madame de Maintenon," writes St. Simon, "had men,
+affairs, justice, religion, all, without exception, in her hands, and
+the king and the state her victims."]
+
+[Footnote 10: Under these circumstances the Protestants sent the
+following touching petition: "It being impossible for us to live
+without the exercise of our religion, we are compelled, in spite of
+ourselves, to supplicate your majesty, with the most profound humility
+and respect, that you may be pleased to allow us to leave the kingdom,
+with our wives, our children, and our effects, to settle in foreign
+countries, where we can freely render to God the worship which we
+believe indispensable, and on which depends our happiness or our misery
+for eternity." This petition met only the response of aggravated
+severities.--_Hist. of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice_, p.
+486.]
+
+[Footnote 11: History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice, p.
+405.]
+
+[Footnote 12: History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice, p.
+408.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Histoire de l'Édit de Nantes, par Elias Benoît, tome v.,
+p. 953.]
+
+[Footnote 14: Boulainvilliers.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "It is painful to detect continually the hand of the
+clergy in these scenes of violence, spoliation, and death. The
+venerable Malesherbes, the Baron de Breteuil, Rulhières, Joly de
+Fleury, Gilbert de Voisins, Rippert de Monclus, the highest statesmen,
+the most eminent magistrates, who have written upon the religious
+affairs of this period, utter but one voice on it. They agree in
+signalizing the influence of the priests, an influence as obstinate
+as incessant, sometimes haughty, sometimes supple and humble, but
+always supplicating the last means of restraint and severity for the
+re-establishment of religious unity."--_History of the Protestants of
+France, by G. de Félice_, p. 487.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE REGENCY AND LOUIS XV.
+
+ State of France.--The Regency.--Financial Embarrassment.--Crimes of
+ the Rulers.--Recoining the Currency.--Renewed Persecution of the
+ Protestants.--Bishop Dubois.--Philosophy of Voltaire.--Anecdote
+ of Franklin.--The King's Favorites.--Mademoiselle Poisson.--Her
+ Ascendency.--_Parc aux Cerfs._--Illustrative Anecdote.--Letter to the
+ King.--Testimony of Chesterfield.--Anecdote of La Fayette.--Death of
+ Pompadour.--Mademoiselle Lange.--Power of Du Barry.--Death of Louis
+ XV.
+
+
+The reign of Louis XIV. was that of an Oriental monarch. His authority
+was unlimited and unquestioned. The people had two powerful foes,
+the king and the nobles. The nobles, as the most numerous, were the
+most dreaded. The people consequently looked to the kings to protect
+them against the nobles, as sheep will look to their natural enemy,
+the dogs, to defend them from their still worse enemies, the wolves.
+The king had now obtained a perfect triumph over the nobles, and
+had gathered all the political power into his own hands. He had
+accomplished this by bribery, as well as by force. The acquiescence of
+the nobles in his supremacy was purchased by his conferring upon them
+all the offices of honor and emolument, by exempting them from all
+taxes, and by supporting them in indolence, luxury, and vice, from the
+toil of the crushed and starving masses. There were now in the nation
+two classes, and two only, with an impassable gulf between them. On the
+one side were eighty thousand aristocratic families living in idleness
+and luxury; on the other were twenty-four millions of people, who, as
+a mass, were kept in the lowest poverty, maintaining by their toil the
+haughty nobles, from whom they received only outrage and contempt.
+
+Louis XIV. just before his death drew up an edict appointing a council
+of regency during the minority of his great-grandson, the young king.
+The Parliament of Paris, however, declared the will null, and appointed
+the Duke of Orleans, who was considered favorable to the nobles,
+regent! For eight years, from 1715 to 1723, the regent, by shameless
+profligacy and extravagance, was but filling up the measure of wrath
+which had been accumulating for ages. Nothing was done to promote
+the welfare of the people, and, notwithstanding the misery which was
+actually depopulating the provinces, the gorgeous palaces of France
+exhibited scenes of voluptuousness which the wealth of the Orient had
+never paralleled.
+
+Louis XIV. had expended upon the single palace of Versailles more than
+two hundred millions of dollars. The roofs of that vast pile would
+cover a surface of twenty-five French acres. Thirty thousand laborers
+were frequently employed simultaneously in embellishing the magnificent
+park sixty miles in circuit.[16] Marly, with its fountains, its parks,
+and gardens, had also been constructed with equal extravagance. Both of
+these palaces exhibited scenes of measureless profligacy gilded by the
+highest fascinations of external refinement and elegance. Louis XIV.
+left the nation in debt eight hundred and fifty millions of dollars.
+For several years the expenditure had exceeded the income by nearly
+thirty millions of dollars a year. The regent during the seven years
+of his profligate administration had added to this debt a hundred and
+fifty millions of dollars.
+
+There was now fearful embarrassment in the finances. All the measures
+for extorting money seemed to be exhausted, and it was found impossible
+to raise the sums necessary to meet the expenses of the court and
+to pay the interest upon the debt. Taxation had gone to its last
+extremity; and no more money could be borrowed. The Duke of St. Simon
+proposed that the treasury should declare itself bankrupt.
+
+"The loss," said he, "will fall upon the commercial and moneyed
+classes, whom no one fears or pities. The measure," he continued, "will
+also be a salutary rebuke to the ignoble classes, teaching them to
+beware how they lend money to the king which will enable him to gain
+the supremacy over the nobles."
+
+The Duke of Orleans, who was regent only, not king, could sympathize in
+these views. The general discontent, however, was such, that he did not
+dare to resort to so violent a measure. The end was accomplished in a
+more circuitous way. A commission of courtiers was appointed to examine
+the accounts of the public creditors. Three hundred and fifty millions
+of francs ($76,000,000) were peremptorily struck from their claims.
+There was no appeal. This mode of paying debts seemed so successful
+that the commission established itself as an inquisitorial chamber, and
+summoned before it all those who had been guilty of lending money to
+the king. Most of these were thrown into prison, and threatened with
+death unless they purchased pardon for the crime with large sums of
+money. The regent and the nobles made themselves merry with the woes of
+these low-born men of wealth, and filled their purses by selling their
+protection.
+
+A wealthy financier was perishing in one of the dungeons of the
+Bastille. A count visited him and offered to procure his release for
+sixty thousand dollars. "I thank you, Monsieur le Comte," was the
+reply, "but Madame, your countess, has just been here, and has promised
+me my liberty for half that sum."
+
+The reign of the regent Duke of Orleans was the reign of the nobles,
+and they fell eagerly upon the people, whom Louis XIV. had sheltered
+from their avarice that more plunder might be left for him. The
+currency was called in and recoined, one fifth being cut from the
+value of each piece. By this expedient the court gained nearly fifteen
+millions of dollars.
+
+Soon this money was all gone. The horizon was darkening and the
+approaching storm gathering blackness. Among the nobles there were some
+who abhorred these outrages. A party was organized in Paris opposed to
+the regent. They sent in a petition that the States-General might be
+assembled to deliberate upon the affairs of the realm. All who signed
+this petition were sent to the Bastille. There had been no meeting of
+the States-General called for more than one hundred years. The last had
+been held in 1614. It consisted of 104 deputies of the clergy, 132 of
+the nobles, and 192 of the people. The three estates had met separately
+and chosen their representatives. But the representatives of the
+people in this assembly displayed so much spirit that the convention
+was abruptly dismissed by the king, and neither king nor nobles were
+willing to give them a hearing again.
+
+A bank was now established with a nominal capital of six millions of
+francs ($1,200,000). The shares were taken up by paying half in money
+and half in valueless government bills. Thus the _real_ capital of the
+bank was $600,000. Upon this capital bills were issued to the amount
+of three thousand millions of francs ($600,000,000). Money was of
+course for a time plenty enough. The bubble soon burst. This operation
+vastly increased the financial ruin in which the nation was involved.
+Five hundred thousand citizens were plunged into bankruptcy.[17] The
+Parliament of Paris, though composed of the privileged class, made a
+little show of resistance to such outrages and was banished summarily
+to Pontoise.
+
+Dubois, one of the most infamous men who ever disgraced even a court,
+a tool of the regent, and yet thoroughly despised by him, had the
+audacity one morning to ask for the vacant archbishopric of Cambray.
+Dubois was not even a priest, and the demand seemed so ridiculous as
+well as impudent that the regent burst into a laugh, exclaiming,
+
+"Should I bestow the archbishopric on such a knave as thou art, where
+should I find a prelate scoundrel enough to consecrate thee?"
+
+"I have one here," said Dubois, pointing to a Jesuit prelate who was
+ready to perform the sacrilegious deed. Dubois had promised Rohan that
+if he would consecrate him he would bring back the favor of the court
+to the Jesuit party. One of the mistresses of the regent had been won
+over by Dubois, and the bloated debauchee was consecrated as Archbishop
+of Cambray. Dubois was now in the line of preferment. He soon laid
+aside his mitre for a cardinal's hat, and in 1722 was appointed prime
+minister. The darkness of the Middle Ages had passed away, and these
+scandals were perpetrated in the full light of the 18th century. The
+people looked on with murmurs of contempt and indignation. It was too
+much to ask, to demand reverence for such a church.[18]
+
+The infamous Jesuit, Lavergne de Tressan, Bishop of Nantes, who
+consecrated Dubois, revived from their slumber the most severe
+ordinances of Louis XIV. Louis XV. was then fourteen years of age.
+Royal edicts were issued, sentencing to the galleys for life any man
+and to imprisonment for life any woman who should attend other worship
+than the Catholic. Preachers of Protestantism were doomed to death;
+and any person who harbored such a preacher, or who should neglect
+to denounce him, was consigned to the galleys or the dungeon. All
+children were to be baptized within twenty-four hours of their birth
+by the curate of the parish, and were to be placed under Catholic
+instructors until the age of fourteen. Certificates of Catholicity were
+essential for all offices, all academical degrees, all admissions into
+corporations of trade. This horrible outrage upon human rights was
+received by the clergy with transport. When we contemplate the seed
+which the king and the court thus planted, we can not wonder at the
+revolutionary harvest which was reaped.
+
+The Catholic Church thus became utterly loathsome even to the most
+devout Christians. They preferred the philosophy of Montesquieu, the
+atheism of Diderot, the unbelief of Voltaire, the sentimentalism of
+Rousseau, to this merciless and bloody demon, assuming the name of the
+Catholic Church, and swaying a sceptre of despotism which was deluging
+France in blood and woe. The sword of persecution which had for a time
+been reposing in its scabbard was again drawn and bathed in blood. Many
+Protestant ministers were broken upon the wheel and then beheaded.
+Persecution assumed every form of insult and cruelty. Thousands fled
+from the realm. Religious assemblies were surrounded by dragoons,
+and fired upon with the ferocity of savages, killing and maiming
+indiscriminately men, women, and children. Enormous sums of money were,
+by the lash, torture, the dungeon, and confiscation, extorted from the
+Protestants. Noblemen, lawyers, physicians, and rich merchants were
+most eagerly sought.
+
+The seizure of Protestant children was attended with nameless outrages.
+Soldiers, sword in hand, headed by the priests, broke into the houses,
+overturned every thing in their search, committed brutal violence upon
+the parents, and, reckless of their lamentations and despair, seized
+the terrified children, especially the young girls, and forced them
+into the convents.
+
+Fanaticism so cruel was revolting to the intelligence and to the
+general conscience of the age. Maddened priests could easily goad on
+a brutal and exasperated populace to any deeds of inhumanity, but
+intelligent men of all parties condemned such intolerance. It is,
+however, worthy of note that few of the _philosophers_ of that day
+ventured to plead for religious toleration. They generally hated
+Christianity in all its forms, and were not at all disposed to shield
+one sect from the persecutions of another. Voltaire, however, was an
+exception. He had spent a year and a half in the Bastille on the charge
+of having written a libel against the government, which libel he did
+not write. When it was proved to the court that he did not write the
+libel he was liberated from prison and banished from France. Several
+years after this, Voltaire, having returned to France, offended a
+nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan. The chevalier disdainfully sent his
+servant to chastise the poet. Voltaire, enraged by the degradation,
+sent a challenge to De Rohan. For the crime of challenging a noble he
+was again thrown into the Bastille. After six months he was released
+and again exiled. Soon after his _Lettres Philosophiques_ were
+condemned by the Parliament to be burned, and an order was issued for
+his arrest. For many years he was compelled to live in concealment. He
+thus learned how to sympathize with the persecuted. In his masterly
+treatise upon toleration, and in his noble appeals for the family of
+the murdered Protestant, Jean Calas, he spoke in clarion tones which
+thrilled upon the ear of France. When Franklin in Paris called upon
+Voltaire, with his grandson, he said, "My son, fall upon your knees
+before this great man." The aged poet, then over eighty years of age,
+gave the boy his blessing, with the characteristic words, "_God and
+freedom_." The philosophy of Voltaire overturned the most despicable of
+despotisms. His want of religion established another despotism equally
+intolerable.
+
+The miserable regent died in a fit in the apartment of his mistress in
+1723. The young king was now fourteen years of age. He was a bashful
+boy, with no thought but for his own indulgence. When a child he was
+one day looking from the windows of the Tuileries into the garden,
+which was filled with a crowd.
+
+"Look there, my king," said Villeroi, his tutor; "all these people
+belong to you. All that you see is your property; you are lord and
+master of it."
+
+Louis XV. carried these principles into vigorous practice during his
+long reign of fifty-nine years. When fifteen years of age he married
+Maria, daughter of Stanislaus, the exiled King of Poland. Maria was
+not beautiful, but through a life of neglect and anguish she developed
+a character of remarkable loveliness and of true piety. There is but
+little to record of France during these inglorious years which is
+worthy of the name of history. The pen can only narrate a shameful tale
+of puerility, sin, and oppression. Weary and languid with worn-out
+excitements, the king at one time took a sudden freak for worsted-work,
+and the whole court was thrown into commotion as imitative nobles
+and ecclesiastics were busy in the saloons of Versailles with wool,
+needles, and canvas.
+
+The king at one of his private suppers noticed a lady, Madame de
+Mailly, whose vivacity attracted him. Simply to torture the queen he
+took her for his favorite, and received her into the apartment from
+which he excluded his meek and virtuous wife. Maria could only weep
+and look to God for solace. Madame de Mailly had a sister, a bold,
+spirited girl, Mademoiselle de Nesle. She came to visit the court, and
+after vigorous efforts succeeded in supplanting her sister, and took
+her degrading place. She was suddenly cut off in her sins by death;
+but there was another sister of the same notorious family, Madame
+Tournelle, who endeavored to solace the king by throwing herself into
+his arms. The king received her, and she became his acknowledged
+favorite, and for some time maintained the position of sultana of the
+royal harem. Wherever she went a suite of court-ladies followed in her
+train. All were compelled to pay homage to the reigning favorite of
+the day, for all power was in her hands, and she was the dispenser of
+rewards and punishments. The king conferred upon this guilty woman, who
+was as cruel as she was guilty, the title of Duchess of Chateauroux.
+Madame de Tencin, one of the ladies of the court, in a confidential
+letter to Richelieu, written at this time, says:
+
+"What happens in his kingdom seems to be no business of the king's.
+It is even said that he avoids taking any cognizance of what occurs,
+averring that it is better to know nothing than to learn unpleasant
+tidings. Unless God visibly interferes, it is physically impossible
+that the state should not fall to pieces."
+
+Even Madame Chateauroux, herself one of the most corrupt members of
+that court of unparalleled corruption, remarked to a friend,
+
+"I could not have believed all that I now see. If no remedy is
+administered to this state of things, there will, sooner or later, be a
+great overthrow."[19]
+
+Though the Duchess of Chateauroux was the reigning favorite, she
+had another younger sister who was a member of the royal harem. The
+princess of the blood, Mademoiselle Valois, and the Princess of Conti
+were also in this infamous train. These revolting facts must be stated,
+for they are essential to the understanding of the French Revolution.
+Up to this time the king, of whom the people knew but little, was
+regarded with affection. They looked upon him as the only barrier
+to protect them from the nobles. Soon after this Madame Chateauroux
+was taken sick and died in remorse, crying bitterly for mercy, and
+promising, if her life could be spared, amendment and penance. She was
+so detested by the people that an armed escort conducted her remains to
+the grave to shield them from popular violence.
+
+The king, for a time, was quite chagrined by the death of this woman,
+who had obtained a great control over him. While profligacy and
+boundless extravagance were thus rioting in the palace, bankruptcy was
+ruining merchants and artisans, and misery reigned in the huts of the
+peasants.
+
+A citizen of Paris by the name of Poisson had a daughter of marvelous
+grace and beauty. Mademoiselle Poisson married a wealthy financier, M.
+Etoilles. She then, conscious of her beauty and of her unrivaled powers
+of fascination, formed the bold and guilty resolve to throw herself
+into the arms of the king. When the king was hunting in the forest of
+Senart she placed herself in his path, as if by accident, in an open
+barouche, dressed in a manner to shed the utmost possible lustre upon
+her charms. The voluptuous king fixed his eye upon her and soon sent
+for her to come to the palace of Versailles. The royal mandate was
+eagerly obeyed. She immediately engrossed the favor of the king, was
+established in the palace, and henceforth became the great power before
+which all France was constrained to bow. Her disconsolate husband, who
+had loved her passionately, entreated her to return to him, promising
+to forgive every thing. Scornfully she refused to turn her back upon
+the splendors of Versailles. Receiving from the king as the badge
+of her degradation the title of Marchioness of Pompadour, Jeannette
+Poisson was enthroned as the real monarch of France. She was a woman of
+vast versatility of talent, brilliant in conversation, and possessed
+unrivaled powers of fascination. For twenty years she held the king in
+perfect subjection to her sway. She never for one moment lost sight
+of her endeavor to please and to govern the monarch. "Sometimes she
+appeared before him clad as a peasant-girl, assuming all the simplicity
+and rustic grace of this character. She took with equal ease the
+appearance of a languishing Venus or the proud beauty of a Diana. To
+these disguises often succeeded the modest garb of a nun, when, with
+affected humility and downcast eyes, she came to meet the king."
+
+Her power soon became unlimited and invincible, for her heart was of
+iron, and even her feminine hand could wield all the terrors of court
+banishment, confiscation, exile, and the Bastille. It is said that a
+witticism of Frederic II. of Prussia, at her expense, plunged France
+into all the horrors of the Seven Years' War. The most high-born ladies
+in the land were her waiting-women. Her steward was a knight of the
+order of St. Louis. When she rode out in her sedan-chair, the Chevalier
+d'Hénin, a member of one of the noblest families of the kingdom, walked
+respectfully by her side, with her cloak upon his arm, ready to spread
+it over her shoulder whenever she should alight.
+
+She summoned embassadors before her, and addressed them with the
+regal _we_, assuming the style of royalty. She appointed bishops and
+generals, and filled all the important offices of Church and State with
+those who would do her homage. She dismissed ministers and created
+cardinals, declared war and made peace. Voltaire paid court to her,
+and devoted his muse to the celebration of her beauty and her talents.
+Montesquieu, Diderot, and Quesnay waited in her antechamber, imploring
+her patronage. Those authors who pleased her she pensioned and honored;
+those who did not were left in poverty and neglect. Even the imperial
+Maria Theresa, seeking the alliance of France, wrote to her with her
+own hand, addressing her as her "dear friend and cousin." "Not only,"
+said Madame de Pompadour one day to the Abbé de Bernis, "not only have
+I all the nobility at my feet, but even my lap-dog is weary of their
+fawnings." Rousseau, strong in the idolatry of the nation, refused to
+join the worshipers at the shrine of Pompadour. She dared not send
+_him_ to the Bastille, but vexatiously exclaimed "I will have nothing
+more to do with that _owl_."
+
+As Madame de Pompadour found her charms waning, she maintained her
+place by ministering to the king's appetites in the establishment of
+the most infamous institution ever tolerated in a civilized land.
+Lacretelle, in his History of France, thus describes this abomination:
+
+"Louis XV., satiated with the conquests which the court offered him,
+was led by a depraved imagination to form an establishment for his
+pleasures of such an infamous description that, after having depicted
+the debaucheries of the regency, it is difficult to find terms
+appropriate to an excess of this kind. Several elegant houses, built
+in an inclosure called the _Parc aux Cerfs_, near Versailles, were
+used for the reception of beautiful female children, who there awaited
+the pleasure of their master. Hither were brought young girls, sold
+by their parents, and sometimes forced from them. It was skillfully
+and patiently fostered by those who ministered to the profligacy of
+Louis; whole years were occupied in the debauchery of girls not yet in
+a marriageable age, and in undermining the principles of modesty and
+fidelity in young women."
+
+When some one spoke to Madame de Pompadour of this establishment, she
+replied,
+
+"It is the king's heart that I wish to possess, and none of these
+little uneducated girls will deprive me of that."
+
+If the king in his rides chanced to see a pretty child who gave promise
+of unusual beauty, he sent his servants to take her from her parents
+to be trained in his harem. The parents had their choice to submit
+quietly at home, or to submit in the dungeons of the Bastille. One
+incident, related by Soulavie, in his "Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis
+XV.," illustrates the mode of operation:
+
+"Among the young ladies of very tender age with whom the king amused
+himself during the influence of Madame de Pompadour or afterward, there
+was also a Mademoiselle Treicelin, whom his majesty ordered to take
+the name of Bonneval the very day she was presented to him. The king
+was the first who perceived this child, when not above nine years old,
+in the care of a nurse, in the garden of the Tuileries, one day when
+he went in state to his good city of Paris; and having in the evening
+spoken of her beauty to Le Bel, the servant applied to M. de Sartine,
+who traced her out and bought her of the nurse for a few louis. She
+was the daughter of M. de Treicelin, a man of quality, who could not
+patiently endure an affront of this nature. He was, however, compelled
+to be silent; he was told his child was lost, and that it would be best
+for him to submit to the sacrifice unless he wished to lose his liberty
+also."
+
+The expense of the _Parc aux Cerfs_ alone, according to Lacretelle,
+amounted to 100,000,000 francs--$25,000,000.
+
+These were not deeds of darkness. They were open as the day. France,
+though bound hand and foot, saw them, and exasperation was advancing to
+fury. An anonymous letter was sent to Louis, depicting very vividly the
+ruinous state of affairs and announcing the inevitable shock. Madame de
+Hausset, in her memoirs, gives the following synopsis of this letter:
+
+"Your finances are in the greatest disorder, and the great majority of
+states have perished through this cause. Your ministers are without
+capacity. Open war is carried on against religion. The encyclopedists,
+under pretense of enlightening mankind, are sapping the foundations
+of Christianity. All the different kinds of liberty are connected.
+The philosophers and the Protestants tend toward republicanism. The
+philosophers strike at the root, the others lop the branches, and their
+efforts will one day lay the tree low. Add to these the economists,
+whose object is political liberty, as that of others is liberty of
+worship, and the government may find itself in twenty or thirty years
+undermined in every direction, and it will then fall with a crash. Lose
+no time in restoring order to the state of the finances. Embarrassments
+necessitate fresh taxes, which grind the people and induce toward
+revolt. A time will come, sire, when the people will be enlightened,
+and that time is probably near at hand."
+
+The king read this letter to Madame de Pompadour, and then, turning
+upon his heel, said,
+
+"I wish to hear no more about it. Things will last as they are as long
+as I shall."
+
+On another occasion, Mirabeau the elder remarked in the drawing-room of
+Madame de Pompadour,
+
+"This kingdom is in a deplorable state. There is neither national
+energy nor money. It can only be regenerated by a conquest like that of
+China, or by some great internal convulsion. But woe to those who live
+to see that. The French people do not do things by halves."
+
+Madame de Pompadour herself was fully aware of the catastrophe which
+was impending, but she flattered herself that the storm would not burst
+during her life. She often said, "Après nous le déluge"--"_After us
+comes the deluge_."
+
+The indications of approaching ruin were so evident that they could
+not escape the notice of any observing man. Even Louis XV. himself was
+not blind to the tendency of affairs, and only hoped to ward off a
+revolution while his day should last.
+
+Lord Chesterfield visited France in 1753, twenty years before the death
+of Louis XV., and wrote as follows to his son:
+
+"Wherever you are, inform yourself minutely of, and attend particularly
+to the affairs of France. They grow serious, and, in my opinion, will
+grow more so every day. The French nation reasons freely, which they
+never did before, upon matters of religion and government. In short,
+all the symptoms which I have ever met with in history previous to
+great changes and revolutions now exist and daily increase in France."
+
+The great difficulty of raising money and the outrages resorted to for
+the accomplishment of that purpose alarmed the courtiers. One night,
+an officer of the government, sitting at the bedside of the king
+conversing upon the state of affairs, remarked,
+
+"You will see, sire, that all this will make it absolutely necessary to
+assemble the States-General."
+
+The king sprang up in his bed, and, seizing the courtier by his arm,
+exclaimed,
+
+"Never repeat those words. I am not sanguinary; but, had I a brother,
+and did he dare to give me such advice, I would sacrifice him within
+twenty-four hours to the duration of the monarchy and the tranquillity
+of the kingdom."
+
+It is not strange that in such a court as this Christianity should have
+been reviled, and that infidelity should have become triumphant.
+
+"When I was first presented to his majesty Louis XV.," La Fayette
+writes, "I well remember finding the eldest son of the Church, the
+King of France and Navarre, seated at a table between a bishop and a
+prostitute. At the same table was seated an aged philosopher, whose
+writings had conveyed lustre upon the age in which he flourished;
+one whose whole life had been spent in sapping the foundation of
+Christianity and undermining monarchy. Yet was this philosopher,
+at that moment, the object of honor from monarchs and homage from
+courtiers. A young abbé entered with me, not to be presented to
+royalty, but to ask the benediction of this enemy of the altar. The
+name of this aged philosopher was _Voltaire_, and that of the young
+abbé was Charles Maurice Talleyrand."
+
+Nearly all the infidel writers of the day--Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot,
+D'Alembert--were men hopelessly corrupt in morals. Many of them were
+keen-sighted enough distinctly to perceive the difference between
+Christianity and the lives of debauched ecclesiastics. But most of
+them hated Christianity and its restraints, and were glad to avail
+themselves of the corruptions of the Church that they might bring
+the religion of Christ into contempt. But there were not wanting,
+even then, men of most sincere and fearless piety, who advanced
+Christianity by their lives, and who with heroism rebuked sin in high
+places.
+
+The Bishop of Senez was called to preach before the king. With the
+spirit of Isaiah and Daniel he rebuked the monarch for his crimes in
+terms so plain, direct, and pungent as to amaze the courtiers. The king
+was confounded, but God preserved his servant as Daniel was preserved
+in the lions' den.
+
+At length Madame de Pompadour died, in 1764, and the execrations of
+France followed her to her burial. It was a gloomy day of wind and rain
+when the remains of this wretched woman were borne from Versailles to
+the tomb. The king had now done with her, and did not condescend to
+follow her to her burial. As the funeral procession left the court-yard
+of the palace he stood at a window looking out into the stormy air, and
+chuckled at his heartless witticism as he said, "The marchioness has
+rather a wet day to set out on her long journey." This remark is a fair
+index of the almost inconceivable heartlessness of this contemptible
+king.
+
+Madame de Pompadour breathed her last at Versailles in splendid misery.
+She was fully conscious of the hatred of the nation, and trembled in
+view of the judgment of God. "My whole life," said she, in a despairing
+hour, "has been a continual death."
+
+"Very different indeed," beautifully writes Julia Kavanagh, "were the
+declining years of Maria Lecsinska and those of the Marchioness of
+Pompadour. The patient and pious queen laid her sufferings at the foot
+of the cross. Insulted by her husband and his mistresses, neglected by
+the courtiers, deeply afflicted by the loss of her children, whom she
+loved most tenderly, she still found in religion the courage necessary
+to support her grief, and effectual consolation in the practice of a
+boundless benevolence."[20]
+
+The old king was now utterly whelmed in the vortex of dissipation;
+character, and even self-respect, seemed entirely lost. He looked
+around for another female to take the place of Jeannette Poisson. In
+one of the low haunts of Parisian debauchery, the courtiers of the king
+found a girl of extraordinary beauty, calling herself Mademoiselle
+Lange. She had been sewing in the shop of a milliner, but was now
+abandoned to vice. She was introduced as a novelty to the voluptuous
+monarch, and succeeded in fascinating him. She received the title of
+Countess du Barry, and was immediately installed at Versailles as
+the acknowledged favorite of the king. Vice never rises, but always
+descends in the scale of degradation. The king had first selected
+his favorites from the daughters of nobles, he then received one
+from the class whom he affected to despise as low-born; and now a
+common prostitute, taken from the warehouses of infamy in Paris,
+uneducated, and with the manners of a courtesan, is presented to the
+nation as the confidant and the manager of the despicable sovereign.
+All the high-born ladies, accustomed as they were to the corruptions
+of the court, regarded this as an insult too grievous to be borne.
+The nobles, the clergy, the philosophers, and the people, all joined
+in this outcry. But Madame du Barry, wielding the authority of the
+king, was too strong for them all. She dismissed and banished from the
+court the Duke of Choiseul, the king's minister, and to his post she
+raised one of her own friends. She then, with astounding boldness,
+suppressed the Parliaments, thus leaving to France not even the shadow
+of representative power. Thus she proceeded, step by step, removing
+enemies and supplanting them by friends, until the most noble of the
+land were emulous of the honor of admission to the saloon of this
+worthless woman.
+
+It is an appalling and a revolting fact that for half a century before
+the revolution _France was governed by prostitutes_. The real sovereign
+was the shameless woman who, for the time being, kept control of the
+degraded and sensual king. "The individual," says De Tocqueville, "who
+would attempt to judge of the government by the men at the head of
+affairs and not by the women who swayed those men, would fall into the
+same error as he who judges of a machine by its outward action and not
+by its inward springs."
+
+The king was now so execrated that he dared not pass through Paris in
+going from his palace at Versailles to Compiègne. Fearing insult and a
+revolt of the people if he were seen in the metropolis, he had a road
+constructed which would enable him to avoid Paris. As beautiful female
+children were often seized to replenish his seraglio at the _Parc aux
+Cerfs_, the people received the impression that he indulged in baths
+of children's blood, that he might rejuvenate his exhausted frame. The
+king had become an object of horror.[21]
+
+Such was the state of affairs when the guilty king was attacked by the
+small-pox, and died at Versailles in 1774, in the sixty-fourth year
+of his age and the fifty-ninth of his reign. Such in brief was the
+career of Louis XV. His reign was the consummation of all iniquity, and
+rendered the Revolution inevitable. The story of his life, revolting
+as it is, must be told; for it is essential to the understanding of
+the results which ensued. The whirlwind which was reaped was but
+the legitimate harvest of the wind which was sown. Truly does De
+Tocqueville say, "The Revolution will ever remain in darkness to those
+who do not look beyond it. It can only be comprehended by the light
+of the ages which preceded it. Without a clear view of society in the
+olden time, of its laws, its faults, its prejudices, its sufferings,
+its greatness, it is impossible to understand the conduct of the French
+during the sixty years which have followed its fall."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 16: Galignani's Paris Guide.]
+
+[Footnote 17: History of French Revolution, by E.E. Crowe, vol. ii., p.
+150.--_Enc. Am._]
+
+[Footnote 18: The Duke of St. Simon, who was one of the council of
+the regency, in his admirable memoirs, gives the following sketch of
+Dubois: "Dubois was a little, thin, meagre man, with a polecat visage.
+All the vices, falsehood, avarice, licentiousness, ambition, and the
+meanest flattery contended in him for the mastery. He lied to such a
+degree as to deny his own actions when taken in the fact. In spite of
+his debauchery he was very industrious. His wealth was immense, and his
+revenue amounted to millions."]
+
+[Footnote 19: Women of France, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 20: Women of France, p. 170.]
+
+[Footnote 21: Historical View of the French Revolution, by J. Michelet,
+vol. i., p. 46.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DESPOTISM AND ITS FRUITS.
+
+ Assumptions of the Aristocracy.--Molière.--Decay of the
+ Nobility.--Decline of the Feudal System.--Difference between France
+ and the United States.--Mortification of Men of Letters.--Voltaire,
+ Montesquieu, Rousseau.--Corruption of the Church.--Diderot.--The
+ Encyclopedists.--Testimony of De Tocqueville.--Frederic II. of
+ Prussia.--Two Classes of Opponents of Christianity.--Enormity of
+ Taxation.--Misery of the People.--"Good old Times of the Monarchy!"
+
+
+Having given a brief sketch of the character of Louis XV., let us now
+contemplate the condition of France during his long reign. It has been
+estimated that the privileged class in both Church and State consisted
+of but one hundred and fifty thousand. It was their doctrine, enforced
+by the most rigorous practice, that the remaining twenty-five millions
+of France were created but to administer to their luxury; that this was
+the function which Providence intended them to perform. Every office
+which could confer honor and emolument in the Church, the army, the
+State, or the Court, was filled by the members of an aristocracy who
+looked with undisguised contempt upon all those who were not high-born,
+however opulent or however distinguished for talents and literary
+culture. Louis XV., surrounded by courtesans and debauched courtiers,
+deemed it presumption in Voltaire to think of sitting at the same
+table with the king. "I can give pensions to Voltaire, Montesquieu,
+Fontinelle, and Maupertius," said the king, "but I can not dine and sup
+with _these people_."[22]
+
+The courtiers of Louis XIV. manifested in the most offensive manner
+the mortification which they felt in being obliged to receive Molière,
+the most distinguished comic dramatist of France, to their table.
+No degree of genius could efface the ignominy of not being nobly
+born.[23] But, notwithstanding the arrogance of the nobles, they, as a
+class, had fallen into contempt. All who could support a metropolitan
+establishment had abandoned their chateaux and repaired to Paris. The
+rural castle was shut up, silence reigned in its halls, and grass waved
+in its court-yard. The bailiff only was left behind to wring the last
+farthing from the starving tenantry. Many of the noble families were in
+decay. Their poverty rendered their pride only the more contemptible.
+Several of the provinces contained large numbers of these impoverished
+aristocratic families, who had gradually parted with their lands, and
+who were living in a state of very shabby gentility. They were too
+proud to work and too poor to live without working. Turgot testifies
+that in the Province of Limousin there were several thousand noble
+families, not fifteen of whom had an income of four thousand dollars a
+year.[24] One of the crown officers wrote in 1750:
+
+"The nobility of this section are of very high rank, but very poor,
+and as proud as they are poor. The contrast between their former and
+their present condition is humiliating. It is a very good plan to
+keep them poor, in order that they shall need our aid and serve our
+purposes. They have formed a society into which no one can obtain
+admission unless he can prove four quarterings. It is not incorporated
+by letters patent, but it is tolerated, as it meets but once a year and
+in the presence of the intendant. These noblemen hear mass, after which
+they return home, some on their Rosinantes, some on foot. You will
+enjoy this comical assembly."
+
+In days of feudal grandeur the noble was indeed the lord and master of
+the peasantry. He was their government and their sole protector from
+violence. There was then reason for feudal service. But now the noble
+was a drone. He received, and yet gave nothing, absolutely nothing,
+in return. The peasant despised as well as hated him, and derisively
+called him the _vulture_.
+
+The feudal system is adapted only to a state of semi-barbarism. It can
+no more survive popular intelligence than darkness can exist after the
+rising of the sun. When, in the progress of society, nobles cease to be
+useful and become only drones; when rich men, vulgar in character, can
+purchase titles of nobility, so that the nobles cease to be regarded
+as a peculiar and heaven-appointed race; when men from the masses,
+unennobled, acquire opulence, education, and that polish of manners
+which place them on an equality with titled men; when men of genius
+and letters, introduced into the saloons of the nobles, discover their
+own vast superiority to their ignorant, frivolous, and yet haughty
+entertainers; and when institutions of literature, science, and art
+create an aristocracy of scholarship where opulence, refinement, and
+the highest mental culture combine their charms, then an hereditary
+aristocracy, which has no support but its hereditary renown, must die.
+Its hour is tolled.
+
+Such was the state of France at the close of the reign of Louis XV.
+It is estimated that there were in France at that time five hundred
+thousand well-informed citizens.[25] This fact explains both the
+outbreak of the Revolution and its failure. They were too many to
+submit to the arrogance of the nobles; hence the insurrection. They
+were too few to guide and control the infuriated masses when the
+pressure was taken from them, and hence the reign of terror, the
+anarchy and blood. The United States, with a population about the same
+as that of France in the morning of her Revolution, has four or five
+millions of intelligent and well-educated men. These men support our
+institutions. But for them, the republic would be swept away like chaff
+before the wind.
+
+As we have before said, men of letters were patronized by the king and
+the court, but it was a patronage which seemed almost an insult to
+every honorable mind. The haughty duke would look down condescendingly,
+and even admiringly, upon the distinguished scholar, and would admit
+him into his saloon as a curiosity. High-born ladies would smile
+upon him, and would condescend to take his arm and listen to his
+remarks. But such mingling with society stung the soul with a sense
+of degradation, and none inveighed with greater bitterness against
+aristocratic assumption than those men of genius who had been most
+freely admitted into the halls of the great. They were thus exasperated
+to inquire into the origin of ranks, and their works were filled with
+eulogiums of equality and fraternity.
+
+It was this social degradation which was one of the strongest
+incentives to revolution. This united all the industrial classes in
+France, all who had attained wealth, and all men of intellectual
+eminence, in the cry for reform. Equality of rights was the great
+demand thus forced from the heart of the nation. _Fraternity_ became
+the watch-word of the roused and rising masses.[26]
+
+Thought was the great emancipator. Men of genius were the Titans who
+uphove the mountains of prejudice and oppression. They simplified
+political economy, and made it intelligible to the popular mind.
+Voltaire assailed with keenest sarcasm and the most piercing invectives
+the corruptions of the Church, unjustly, and most calamitously for the
+interests of France, representing those corruptions as Christianity
+itself. Montesquieu popularized and spread before the nation those
+views of national policy which might render a people prosperous and
+happy; and Rousseau, with a seductive eloquence which the world has
+never seen surpassed, excited every glowing imagination with dreams of
+fascinating but unattainable perfection. Nearly all the revolutionary
+writers represented religion not merely as a useless superstition, but
+as one of the worst scourges of the state. Thus they took from the
+human heart the influence which alone can restrain passion and humanize
+the soul.
+
+They represented man but as a lamb, meek and innocent, dumb before
+his shearers, and seeking only to live harmlessly and happily in the
+outflowings of universal benevolence and love. This lamb-like man
+needed no more religion than does the butterfly or the robin. He was to
+live his joyous day, unrestrained by customs, or laws, or thoughts of
+the future, and then was to pass away like the lily or the rose, having
+fulfilled his function. Death an eternal sleep, was the corner-stone
+of their shallow and degrading philosophy. The advocates of this
+sentimentalism were amazed when they found the masses, brutalized by
+ignorance and ages of oppression, and having been taught that there was
+no God before whom they were to stand in judgment, come forth into the
+arena of the nations, not as lambs, but as wolves, thirsting for blood
+and reckless in devastation. Libertines in France are still infidels,
+but they have seen the effect of their doctrines, and no longer dare
+to proclaim them. "Where is the Frenchman of the present day," says
+De Tocqueville, "who would write such books as those of Diderot or
+Helvetius?"[27]
+
+Unfortunately, fatally for the liberties of France, the leading
+writers were infidels. Mistaking the corruptions of Christianity for
+Christianity itself, they assailed religion furiously, and succeeded
+in eradicating from men's souls all apprehensions of responsibility to
+God. Nothing could more effectually brutalize and demonize the soul of
+man. And yet the Papal Church, as a towering hierarchy, had become
+so corrupt, such an instrument of oppression, and such a support of
+despotism, that no reform could have been accomplished but by its
+overthrow.[28] It was the monarch's right arm of strength; it was the
+rampart which was first to be battered down.
+
+The Church had no word of censure for vice in high places. It spread
+its shield before the most enormous abuses, and, by its inquisitorial
+censorship of the press, protected the most execrable institutions.
+The Church, enervated by wealth and luxurious indulgence, had also
+become so decrepit as to invite attack. No man could summon sufficient
+effrontery to attempt her defense. The only reply which bloated and
+debauched ecclesiastics could make to their assailants was persecution
+and the dungeon. There were a few truly pious men in the Church; they
+did, however, but exhibit in clearer contrast the general corruption
+with which they were surrounded.
+
+Diderot, though educated by the Jesuits--perhaps _because_ he was
+educated by the Jesuits--commenced his career by an attack upon
+Christianity in his _Pensées Philosophiques_. He was sent to prison,
+and his book burned by the public executioner. Still, multitudes
+read and so warmly applauded that he was incited to form the plan of
+the celebrated Encyclopedia which was to contain a summary of all
+human knowledge. In this grand enterprise he allied with him the
+ablest scholars and writers of the day--Mably, Condillac, Mercier,
+Raynal, Buffon, Helvetius, D'Alembert, and others. Nearly all these
+men, despising the _Church_, were unbelievers in _Christianity_.
+They consequently availed themselves of every opportunity to assail
+religion. The court, alarmed, laid a prohibition upon the work, but did
+not dare to punish the writers, as they were too numerous and powerful.
+Thus infidelity soon became a fashion. Notwithstanding the prohibition,
+the work was soon resumed, and became one of the most powerful agents
+in ushering in the Revolution.
+
+"Christianity was hated by these philosophers," writes De Tocqueville,
+"less as a religious doctrine than as a political institution; not
+because the ecclesiastics assumed to regulate the concerns of the other
+world, but because they were landlords, seigneurs, tithe-holders,
+administrators in this; not because the Church could not find a place
+in the new society which was being established, but because she then
+occupied a place of honor, privilege, and might in the society which
+was to be overthrown."
+
+Christianity is the corner-stone of a true democracy. It is the
+unrelenting foe of despotism, and therefore despotism has invariably
+urged its most unrelenting warfare against the Bible. When papacy
+became the great spiritual despotism which darkened the world, the
+Bible was the book which it hated and feared above all others. With
+caution this corrupt hierarchy selected a few passages upon submission
+and obedience, which it allowed to be read to the people, while the
+majestic principles of fraternity, upon which its whole moral code is
+reared, were vigilantly excluded from the public mind. The peasant
+detected with a Bible was deemed as guilty as if caught with the tools
+of a burglar or the dies of a counterfeiter.
+
+It was impossible, however, to conceal the fact that the Bible was the
+advocate of purity of heart and life. Its teachings created a sense
+of guilt in the human soul which could not be effaced. Corrupt men
+were consequently eager to reject the Bible, that they might appease
+reproachful conscience. Frederick II., of Prussia, an atheist and a
+despiser of mankind, became the friend and patron of Voltaire in his
+envenomed assaults upon Christianity. Louis XV., anxious to maintain
+friendly political relations with Prussia, hesitated to persecute the
+recognized friend of the Prussian king. The courtiers, generally with
+joy, listened to those teachings of unbelief which relieved them from
+the restraints of Christian morality. Thus Christianity had two classes
+of vigorous assailants. The first were those who knew not how to
+discriminate between Christianity and its corruptions. They considered
+Christianity and the Papal Church as one, and endeavored to batter the
+hateful structure down as a bastille of woe. Another class understood
+Christianity as a system frowning upon all impurity, and pressing ever
+upon the mind a final judgment. They were restive under its restraints,
+and labored for its overthrow that guilt might find repose in unbelief.
+
+Astonishment is often expressed at the blindness with which the upper
+classes of the Old Régime allowed their institutions to be assailed.
+"But where," asks De Tocqueville, "could they have learned better.
+Ruling classes can no more acquire a knowledge of the dangers they have
+to avoid, without free institutions, than their inferiors can discern
+the rights they ought to preserve in the same circumstances."[29]
+
+The measureless extravagance of the court had plunged the nation into
+a state of inextricable pecuniary embarrassment. The whole burden of
+the taxes, in myriad forms, for the support of the throne in Oriental
+luxury, for the support of the nobles, who were perhaps the most
+profligate race of men the world has ever known; for the support of the
+Church, whose towering ecclesiastics, performing no useful functions,
+did not even affect the concealment of their vices, and who often vied
+with the monarch himself in haughtiness and grandeur; for the support
+of the army, ever engaged in extravagant wars, and employed to keep the
+people in servitude--all these taxes so enormous as to sink the mass of
+the people in the lowest state of poverty, debasement, and misery, fell
+upon the unprivileged class alone.
+
+Taxes ran into every thing. The minister who could invent a new tax was
+applauded as a man of genius. All the offices of the magistracy were
+sold. Judges would pay an enormous sum for their office, and remunerate
+themselves a hundred-fold by selling their decisions. Thus justice
+became a farce. Titles of nobility were sold, which, introducing the
+purchaser into the ranks of the privileged class, threw the heavier
+burden upon the unprivileged. All the trades and professions were put
+up for sale. Even the humble callings of making wigs, of weighing coal,
+of selling pork, were esteemed privileges, and were sold at a high
+price. There was hardly any thing which a man could do, which he was
+not compelled to buy the privilege of doing. A person who undertook to
+count the number of these offices or trades for which a license was
+sold, growing weary of his task, estimated them at over three hundred
+thousand.[30]
+
+An army of two hundred thousand tax-gatherers devoured every thing. To
+extort substance from the starving people the most cruel expedients
+were adopted. All the energies of galleys, gibbets, dungeons, and racks
+were called into requisition. When the corn was all absorbed, the
+cattle were taken. The ground, exhausted for want of manure, became
+sterile. Men, women, and children yoked themselves to the plow. Deserts
+extended, the population died off, and beautiful France was becoming
+but a place of graves.
+
+The people thus taxed owned but one third of the soil, the clergy and
+the nobles owning the other two thirds. From this one third the people
+paid taxes and feudal service to the nobles, tithes to the clergy, and
+imposts to the king. They enjoyed no political rights, could take no
+share in the administration, and were ineligible to any post of honor
+or profit. No man could obtain an office in the army unless he brought
+a certificate, signed by four nobles, that he was of noble blood.
+
+The imposition of the tax was entirely arbitrary. No man could tell
+one year what his tax would be the next. There was no principle in the
+assessment except to extort as much as possible. The tax-gatherers
+would be sent into a district to collect one year one million of
+francs, perhaps the next year it would be two millions. No language
+can describe the dismay in the humble homes of the peasants when these
+cormorants, armed with despotic power, darkened their doors. The
+seed-corn was taken, the cow was driven off, the pig was taken from
+the pen. Mothers plead with tears that food might be left for their
+children, but the sheriff, inured to scenes of misery, had a heart of
+rock. He always went surrounded by a band of bailiffs to protect him
+from violence. Fearful was the vengeance he could wreak upon any one
+who displeased him.
+
+The peasant, to avoid exorbitant taxation, assumed the garb of poverty,
+dressed his children in rags, and carefully promoted the ruin and
+dilapidation of his dwelling. "Fear," writes de Tocqueville, "often
+made the collector pitiless. In some parishes he did not show his face
+without a band of bailiffs and followers at his back. 'Unless he is
+sustained by bailiffs,' writes an intendant in 1764, 'the taxables will
+not pay. At Villefranche alone six hundred bailiffs and followers are
+always kept on foot.'"[31]
+
+Indeed, the government seemed to desire to keep the people poor.
+Savages will lop off the leg or the arm of a prisoner that he may
+be more helplessly in their power. Thus those despotic kings would
+desolate their realms with taxation, and would excite wars which
+would exhaust energy and paralyze industry, that the people thus
+impoverished and kept in ignorance might bow more submissively to
+the yoke. The wars which in endless monotony are inscribed upon the
+monuments of history were mostly waged by princes to engross the
+attention of their subjects. When a despot sees that public attention
+is directed, or is likely to be directed, to any of his oppressive
+acts, he immediately embarks in some war, to divert the thoughts of
+the nation. This is the unvarying resource of despotism. After a few
+hundred thousand of the people have been slaughtered, and millions of
+money squandered in the senseless war, peace is then made. But peace
+brings but little repose to the people. They must now toil and starve
+that they may raise money to pay for the expenses of the war. Such, in
+general, has been the history of Europe for a thousand years. Despots
+are willing that billows of blood should surge over the land, that the
+cries of the oppressed may thus be drowned.
+
+So excessive was the burden of taxation, that it has been estimated
+by a very accurate computation that, if the produce of an acre of
+land amounted to sixteen dollars, the king took ten, the duke, as
+proprietor, five, leaving one for the cultivator.[32] Thus, if we
+suppose a peasant with his wife and children to have cultivated forty
+acres of land, the proceeds of which, at sixteen dollars per acre,
+amounted to six hundred and forty dollars, the king and the duke and
+the Church took six hundred of this, leaving but forty dollars for the
+support of the laborers.
+
+Let us suppose a township in the United States containing twenty square
+miles, with five thousand inhabitants. Nearly all these are cultivators
+of the soil, and so robbed by taxes that they can only live in mud
+hovels and upon the coarsest food. Clothed in rags, they toil in the
+fields with their bareheaded and barefooted wives and daughters.
+The huts of these farmers are huddled together in a miserable dirty
+village. In the village there are a few shop-keepers, who have acquired
+a little property, and have become somewhat intelligent. There is
+also a physician, and a surgeon, and a poor, dispirited, half-starved
+parish priest. Upon one of the eminences of the town there is a lordly
+castle of stone, with its turrets and towers, its park and fish-pond.
+This massive structure belongs to the duke. Weary of the solitude of
+the country, he has withdrawn from the castle, and is living with his
+family in the metropolis, indulging in all its expensive dissipations.
+His purse can only be replenished by the money which he can extort from
+the cultivators of the land who surround his castle; and his expenses
+are so enormous that he is ever harassed by an exhausted purse.
+
+For a few weeks in the summer he comes down to his castle, from the
+metropolis, with his city companions, to engage in rural sports. Wild
+boars, deer, rabbits, and partridges abound in his park. The boars and
+the deer range the fields of the farmers, trampling down and devouring
+their crops; but the farmer must not harm them, lest he incur the
+terrible displeasure of the duke. The rabbits and the partridges infest
+the fields of grain; but the duke has issued a special injunction that
+the weeds _even_ must not be disturbed, lest the brooding partridges
+should be frightened away, to the injury of his summer shooting.
+
+Perhaps one half of the land in the township belongs to the duke, and
+the farmers are mere tenants at will. During past ages, about half of
+the land has been sold and is owned by those who till it. But even
+they have to pay a heavy ground-rent annually to the duke for the land
+which they have bought. If a farmer wishes to purchase a few acres
+from his neighbor, he must first pay a sum to the duke for permission
+to make the purchase. For three or four days in the week the farmer
+is compelled, as feudal service, to work in the fields of the duke,
+without remuneration. When he has gathered in the harvest on his own
+land, a large portion of it he must cart to the granaries of the duke
+as a tax. If he has any grain to be ground, or grapes to press, or
+bread to bake, he must go to the mill, the wine-press, and the oven of
+the duke, and pay whatever toll he may see fit to extort. Often even
+the use of hand-mills was prohibited, and the peasant had to purchase
+the privilege of bruising his grain between two stones. He could not
+even dip a bowl of water from the sea, and allow it to evaporate to
+get some salt, lest he should interfere with the monopoly of the king.
+If he wishes to take any of his produce to market, he must pay the
+duke for permission to travel on the highway. Thus robbed under the
+name of custom and law, the farmer toils joylessly from the cradle
+to the grave, with barely sufficient food and shelter to keep him in
+respectable working order; and when he dies, he leaves his children to
+the same miserable doom. Such was the condition of the great mass of
+the French people during the long reign of Louis XV.
+
+This intolerable bondage spread all through the minutiæ of social
+life. It was, of course, impossible but that the masses of the people
+should be in the lowest state of ignorance and indigence. Their huts,
+destitute of all the necessities of civilized life, were dark and
+comfortless, and even the merriment with which they endeavored at times
+to beguile their misery was heartless, spasmodic, and melancholy.[33]
+
+In the year 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris to Mrs. Trist, of
+Philadelphia, "Of twenty millions of people supposed to be in France,
+I am of opinion that there are nineteen millions more wretched, more
+accursed in every circumstance of human existence, than the most
+conspicuously wretched individual of the whole United States."[34]
+
+Again he writes, in the same year, to M. Bellini, a Florentine
+gentleman who was professor in William and Mary College, "I find the
+general state of humanity here most deplorable. The truth of Voltaire's
+observation offers itself perpetually, that every man here must be
+either the hammer or the anvil."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 22: Madame Campan's Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, vol. i., p.
+388.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Ib.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "Men of rank sold their land piecemeal to the peasantry,
+reserving nothing but seigneurial rents, which furnished a nominal but
+not a substantial competency."--_The Old Régime, De Tocqueville_, p.
+103.]
+
+[Footnote 25: History of the French Revolution, by M. Rabaud de St.
+Etienne, p. 188.]
+
+[Footnote 26: "A lord," writes Montesquieu, bitterly, "is a man who
+sees the king, speaks to the minister, has ancestors, debts, and
+pensions."]
+
+[Footnote 27: The Old Régime, by De Tocqueville, p. 18.
+
+"It is a singularity worth remarking that the Gospel is nothing but a
+declaration of rights. Its mysteries were a long time hidden, because
+they attacked the priests and the great."--_M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_,
+p. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 28: "Shall we say, then, Woe to Philosophism that
+it destroyed Religion, what it called 'extinguishing the
+abomination'--_écraser l'infâme_? Woe rather to those that made the
+Holy an abomination and extinguishable."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_,
+i., 56.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Old Régime, p. 175.
+
+Count Segur, a peer of France, in his Memoirs, has very frankly
+described the feelings with which he and the young nobles who were his
+companions regarded the writings of the philosophers:
+
+"We felt disposed to adopt with enthusiasm the philosophical doctrines
+professed by literary men, remarkable for their boldness and their wit.
+Voltaire seduced our imagination. Rousseau touched our hearts. We felt
+a secret pleasure in seeing that their attacks were directed against an
+old fabric which presented to us a Gothic and ridiculous appearance.
+We were pleased with this petty war, although it was undermining our
+own ranks and privileges and the remains of our ancient power. But we
+felt not these attacks personally. It was, as yet, but a war of words
+and paper, which did not appear to us to threaten the superiority
+of existence which we enjoyed, consolidated as we thought it by a
+possession of many centuries."]
+
+[Footnote 30: History of the Revolution of France, by M. Rabaud de St.
+Etienne.]
+
+[Footnote 31: For appalling proof of the sufferings of the tax-payers,
+turn to the pages of Michelet, of De Tocqueville, of any writer upon
+the _Old Régime_.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Arthur Young, vol. i., p. 574; Marshall's Travels, vol.
+iv., p. 322.]
+
+[Footnote 33: "Care must be taken not to misunderstand the gayety which
+the French have often exhibited in the greatest affliction. It is a
+mere attempt to divert the mind from the contemplation of misfortune
+which seems inevitable."--_The Old Régime, by De Tocqueville_, p. 167.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Life of Jefferson, by Henry T. Randall, vol. i., p. 432.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE BASTILLE.
+
+ Absolute Power of the King.--_Lettres de Cachet._--The
+ Bastille.--Cardinal Balue.--Harancourt.--Charles of
+ Armanac.--Constant de Renville.--Duke of Nemours.--Dungeons
+ of the Bastille.--_Oubliettes._--Dessault.--M. Massat.--M.
+ Catalan.--Latude.--The Student.--Apostrophe of Michelet.
+
+
+The monarchy was now so absolute that the king, without any regard to
+law, had the persons and the property of all his subjects entirely at
+his disposal. He could confiscate any man's estate. He could assign any
+man to a dungeon for life without trial and even without accusation. To
+his petted and profligate favorites he was accustomed to give sealed
+writs, _lettres de cachet_, whose blanks they could fill up with any
+name they pleased. With one of these writs the courtiers could drag
+any man who displeased them to one of the dungeons of the Bastille,
+where no light of the sun would ever gladden his eyes again. Of these
+sealed writs we shall speak hereafter. They were the most appalling
+instruments of torture despotism ever wielded.
+
+_The Bastille._ At the eastern entrance of Paris stood this
+world-renowned fortress and prison. In gloomy grandeur its eight towers
+darkened the air, surrounded by a massive wall of stone nine feet thick
+and a hundred feet high. The whole was encircled by a ditch twenty-five
+feet deep and one hundred and twenty feet wide. The Bastille was an
+object exciting universal awe. No one could ever pass beneath its
+shadow without thinking of the sighs which ceaselessly resounded
+through all its vaults. It was an ever-present threat, the great
+upholder of despotic power, with its menace appalling even the boldest
+heart. It is easy to brave death from the bullet or the guillotine;
+but who can brave the doom of Cardinal Balue, who, for eleven years,
+was confined in an iron cage, so constructed that he could find no
+possible position for repose; or the fate of Harancourt, who passed
+fifteen years in a cage within the Bastille, whose iron bars required
+in their riveting the labors of nineteen men for twenty days? To be
+thus torn from wife, children, and home, and to be consigned for life
+to the unearthly woe of such a doom must terrify even the firmest soul.
+It is painful to dwell upon these details, but they must be known in
+explanation of the scenes of violence and blood to which they finally
+gave birth.
+
+Charles of Armanac, for no crime whatever of his own, but because
+his _brother_ had offended Charles XI., was thrown into prison. For
+fourteen years he lingered in the dungeon, until his reason was
+dethroned and his spirit was bewildered and lost in the woes of the
+maniac. Constant de Renville, a Norman gentleman, was accused, while
+in exile in Holland, of writing a satirical poem against France. For
+eleven years he was immured in one of the most loathsome dungeons of
+the Bastille. He appears to have been a man of true piety, and upon
+his release wrote an account of the horrors of his prison-house, which
+thrilled the ear of Europe.
+
+The Duke of Nemours was accused of an intrigue against Louis XI. He
+was dragged from the presence of his wife, exciting in her such terror
+that she fell into convulsions and died. After two years' imprisonment
+he was condemned to be executed. A scaffold was erected with openings
+beneath the planks, and his three children were placed beneath the
+planks, bareheaded, clothed in white robes, and with their hands bound
+behind their backs, that the blood of their beheaded father might
+drop upon them, and that his anguish might be increased by witnessing
+the agony of his children. The fearful tragedy being over, these
+tender children, the youngest of whom was but five years of age, were
+again locked up in one of the gloomiest vaults of the Bastille, where
+they remained for five years. Upon the death of Louis XI. they were
+released. The two eldest, however, emaciate with privation and woe,
+soon died. The youngest alone survived.
+
+Imagination can not conceive of an abode more loathsome than some of
+these horrible dens. The cold stone walls, covered with the mould of
+ages, were ever dripping with water. The slimy floor swarmed with
+reptiles and all kinds of vermin who live in darkness and mire. A
+narrow slit in the wall, which was nine feet thick, admitted a few
+straggling rays of light, but no air to ventilate the apartment where
+corruption was festering. A little straw upon the floor or upon a plank
+supported by iron bars fixed in the wall afforded the only place for
+repose. Ponderous double doors, seven inches thick and provided with
+enormous locks and bolts, shut the captive as effectually from the
+world and from all knowledge of what was passing in the world as if
+he were in his grave. His arrest was frequently conducted so secretly
+that even his friends had no knowledge of what had become of him; they
+could make no inquiries at the gloomy portals of the Bastille, and the
+unhappy captive was left to die unknown and forgotten in his dungeon.
+If by any happy chance he was liberated, he was first compelled to take
+an oath never to repeal what he had seen, or heard, or suffered within
+the walls of the Bastille.
+
+Thus any person who became obnoxious to the king or any of his
+favorites was immediately transferred to these dungeons of despair.
+Cardinal Richelieu filled its cells with the victims of his tyranny.
+The captive immediately received the name of his cell, and his real
+name was never uttered within the precincts of the Bastille.
+
+The Bastille was often full to overflowing, but there were other
+Bastilles in France sufficiently capacious to meet all the demands of
+the most inexorable tyranny.
+
+It is the more necessary to dwell upon these details since the Bastille
+was the mailed hand with which aristocratic usurpation beat down all
+resistance and silenced every murmur. The Bastille, with its massive
+walls and gloomy towers and cannon frowning from every embrasure,
+was the terrific threat which held France in subjection. It was the
+demon soul of demoniac despotism. So awful was the terror inspired,
+that frequently the victim was merely enjoined by one of the warrants
+bearing the seal of the king to go himself to the dungeon. Appalled
+and trembling in every nerve, he dared not for one moment disobey.
+Hastening to the prison, he surrendered himself to its glooms,
+despairingly hoping, by prompt obedience, to shorten the years of his
+captivity.
+
+There were vaults in the Bastille and other prisons of France called
+_oubliettes_, into which the poor victim was dropped and left to die
+forgotten. These were usually shaped like a bottle, with a narrow
+neck and expanding beneath. In one of these tombs of massive stone,
+twenty-two feet deep and seventeen or eighteen feet in diameter,
+with a narrow neck through which the captive could be thrust down,
+the inmate was left in Egyptian darkness amid the damp and mould of
+ages, and, trampling upon the bones of those who had perished before
+him, to linger through weary hours of starvation and woe until death
+came to his relief. Sometimes he thus lingered for years, food being
+occasionally thrown down to him.
+
+There were twenty bastilles in France. In Paris, besides the Bastille,
+there were thirty prisons, where people might be incarcerated without
+sentence, trial, or even accusation. The convents were amply supplied
+with dungeons. All these prisons were at the disposal of the Jesuits.
+They were instruments of torture. The wretched victim, once consigned
+to those cells, was enshrouded by the oblivion of the tomb. The rich
+man was robbed of his wealth and taken there to be forgotten and to
+die. Beauty, whose virtue bribes could not destroy, was dragged to
+those apartments to minister to the lust of merciless oppressors. The
+shriek of despair, smothered by walls of stone and doors of iron,
+reached only the ear of God.[35]
+
+During the reign of Louis XV. one hundred and fifty thousand of these
+_lettres de cachet_ were issued, making an average of two thousand five
+hundred annually.[36] The king could not refuse a blank warrant to his
+mistress or to a courtier. All those who had influence at court could
+obtain them. They were distributed as freely as in this country members
+of Congress have distributed their postage franks. St. Florentin alone
+gave away fifty thousand. These writs were often sold at a great price.
+Any man who could obtain one had his enemy at his disposal. One can
+hardly conceive of a more awful despotism. Such were "_the good old
+times of the monarchy_," as some have insanely called them. Even during
+the mild reign of Louis XVI. fourteen thousand _lettres de cachet_ were
+issued. Let us enter the prison and contemplate the doom of the captive.
+
+A gentleman by the name of Dessault offended Richelieu by refusing to
+execute one of his atrocious orders. At midnight a band of soldiers
+entered his chamber, tore him from his bed, and dragged him through
+the dark streets to the Bastille, and there consigned him to a living
+burial in one of its cold damp tombs of iron and stone. Here in silence
+and solitude, deprived of all knowledge of his family, and his family
+having lost all trace of him, he lingered eleven years.
+
+ "Oh, who can tell what days, what nights he spent
+ Of tideless, waveless, sailless, shoreless woe!"
+
+At last his jailer ventured to inform him that Richelieu was on a dying
+bed. Hoping that in such an hour the heart of the haughty cardinal
+might be touched with sympathy, he wrote to him as follows:
+
+"My lord, you are aware that for eleven years you have subjected me
+to the endurance of a thousand deaths in the Bastille--to sufferings
+which would excite compassion if inflicted even upon the most disloyal
+subject of the king. How much more then should I be pitied, who am
+doomed to perish here for disobeying an order, which, obeyed, would
+have sent me to the final judgment with blood-stained hands, and would
+have consigned my soul to eternal misery. Ah! could you but hear the
+sobs, the lamentations, the groans which you extort from me, you
+would quickly set me at liberty. In the name of the eternal God, who
+will judge you as well as me, I implore you, my lord, to take pity
+on my woe, and, if you wish that God should show mercy to you, order
+my chains to be broken before your death-hour comes. When that hour
+arrives you will no longer be able to do me justice, but will persecute
+me even in your grave."
+
+The iron-hearted minister was unrelenting, and died leaving his victim
+still in the dungeon. There Dessault remained _fifty years_ after
+the death of Richelieu. He was at length liberated, after having
+passed sixty-one years in a loathsome cell but a few feet square. The
+mind stands aghast in the contemplation of such woes. All this he
+suffered as the punishment of his _virtues_. The mind is appalled in
+contemplating such a doom. Even the assurance that after death cometh
+the judgment affords but little relief. Michelet, an unbeliever in
+Christian revelation, indignantly exclaims, "though a sworn enemy to
+barbarous fictions about everlasting punishment, I found myself praying
+to God to construct a hell for tyrants."
+
+When we remember that during a single reign one hundred and fifty
+thousand were thus incarcerated; that all the petted and profligate
+favorites of the king, male and female, had these blank warrants
+placed in their hands, which they could fill up with any name at their
+pleasure; that money could be thus extorted, domestic virtue violated,
+and that every man and every family was thus placed at the mercy of
+the vilest minions of the court, we can only wonder that the volcano
+of popular indignation did not burst forth more speedily and more
+desolatingly. It is true that in many other countries of Europe the
+state of affairs was equally bad, if not worse. But in France wealth
+and intelligence had made great advances, while in central and northern
+Europe the enslaved people were so debased by ignorance that they had
+no consciousness of the rights of which they were defrauded.
+
+The court demanded of a rich man, M. Massat, six hundred thousand
+livres ($120,000). Stunned by the ruinous demand, he ventured to
+remonstrate. He was dragged to the Bastille, where the vermin of his
+dungeon could alone hear his murmurs. M. Catalan, another man of
+wealth, after experiencing the horrors of such an imprisonment for
+several months, was glad to purchase his ransom for six millions of
+livres ($1,200,000).[37]
+
+The money thus extorted was squandered in the most shameless
+profligacy. The king sometimes expended two hundred thousand dollars
+for a single night's entertainment at Versailles. The terrors of the
+Bastille frowned down all remonstrances. A "stone doublet" was the
+robe which the courtiers facetiously remarked they had prepared for
+murmurers.
+
+On the 1st of May, 1749, a gentleman of the name of Latude was arrested
+by one of these _lettres de cachet_, and thrown into the Bastille. He
+was then but twenty years of age, and had given offense to Madame de
+Pompadour, by pretending that a conspiracy had been formed against
+her life. For thirty-five years he remained in prison enduring
+inconceivable horrors. In 1784, several years after the death of both
+the mistress and her subject king, he was liberated and wrote an
+account of his captivity. It was a tale of horror which thrilled the
+ear of Europe. Eloquently, in view of the letters of Latude, Michelet
+represents the people as exclaiming,
+
+"Holy, holy Revolution, how slowly dost thou come! I, who have been
+waiting for thee a thousand years in the furrows of the Middle Ages,
+what! must I wait still longer? Oh, how slowly time passes! Oh, how
+have I counted the hours! Wilt thou never arrive?"
+
+A young man, in a Jesuit College, in a thoughtless hour, composed
+a satirical Latin distich, making merry with the foibles of the
+professors and of the king. A _lettre de cachet_ was immediately served
+upon him, and for _thirty-one years_, until youth and manhood were
+giving place to old age, he remained moaning in living burial in one of
+the dungeons of the Bastille. One of the first acts of the Revolution
+was to batter down these execrable walls and to plow up their very
+foundations.
+
+In view of the facts here revealed one can not but be amazed at the
+manner in which many have spoken of the French Revolution, as if it
+were merely an outburst of human depravity. "Burke had no idea," writes
+De Tocqueville, "of the state in which the monarchy, he so deeply
+regretted, had left us." Michelet, glowing with the indignation which
+inflamed the bosoms of his fathers, exclaims, "Our fathers shivered
+that Bastille to pieces, tore away its stones with bleeding hands,
+and flung them afar. Afterward they seized them again, and, having
+hewn them into a different form, in order that they might be trampled
+under foot by the people forever, built with them the Bridge of
+Revolution."[38]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 35: Historical View of French Revolution, by J. Michelet, i.,
+66.]
+
+[Footnote 36: History of the Bastille, Chambers' Miscellany.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Old Régime, p. 191.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE COURT AND THE PARLIAMENT.
+
+ Death of Louis XV.--Education of Louis XVI.--Maurepas,
+ Prime Minister.--Turgot; his Expulsion from
+ Office.--Necker.--Franklin.--Sympathy with the Americans.--La
+ Fayette.--Views of the Court.--Treaty with America.--Popularity
+ of Voltaire.--Embarrassment of Necker.--_Compte Rendu au
+ Roi._--Necker driven into Exile.--Enslavement of France.--New
+ Extravagance.--Calonne.
+
+
+As the clock of Versailles tolled the hour of twelve at midnight of the
+10th of May, 1774, Louis XV., abandoned by all, alone in his chamber,
+died. In the most loathsome stages of the confluent small-pox, his
+body had for several days presented but a mass of corruption. Terror
+had driven all the courtiers from the portion of the palace which he
+occupied, and even Madame du Barry dared not approach the bed where
+her guilty paramour was dying. The nurse hired to attend him could
+not remain in the apartment, but sat in an adjoining room. A lamp was
+placed at the window, which she was to extinguish as soon as the king
+was dead. Eagerly the courtiers watched the glimmering of that light
+that they might be the first to bear to Louis, the grandson of the
+king, the tidings that _he_ was monarch of France.
+
+Louis was then hardly twenty years of age.[39] His wife, Marie
+Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria, was scarcely
+nineteen. They had been married four years. Marie Antoinette was one
+of the most beautiful of women, but from infancy she had been educated
+in the belief that kings and nobles were created to illustrate life by
+gayety and splendor, and that the people were created only to be their
+servants.[40]
+
+The taper was extinguished, and the crowd of courtiers rushed to the
+apartment of the Dauphin to hail him as Louis XVI. The tidings, though
+expected, for a moment overwhelmed them both, and, encircled in each
+other's arms, they fell upon their knees, while Louis exclaimed, "_O
+God! guide us, protect us, we are too young to govern_."[41] They then
+entered the grand saloon, where they received the congratulations of
+all the dignitaries of the Church and the State. All were anxious to
+escape from the palace whose atmosphere was tainted, and hardly an
+hour elapsed ere the new court, in carriages and on horseback, left
+Versailles and were passing rapidly to the Chateau of Choisy, one of
+the favorite rural palaces of Louis XV. The loathsome remains of the
+king were left to the care of a few under-servants to be hurried to
+their burial.
+
+It was not yet four o'clock in the morning. The sleepless night, the
+chill morning air, the awful scene of death from which they had come,
+oppressed all spirits. Soon, however, the sun rose warm and brilliant;
+a jocular remark dispelled the mental gloom, and in two hours they
+arrived at the palace a merry party exulting in the new reign. The
+education of Louis XVI. had been such that he was still but a boy,
+bashful, self-distrusting, and entirely incompetent to guide the
+kingdom through the terrific storm which for ages had been gathering.
+He had not the remotest idea of the perils with which France was
+surrounded. He was an exceedingly amiable young man, of morals most
+singularly pure for that corrupt age, retiring and domestic in his
+tastes, and sincerely desirous of promoting the happiness of France.
+Geography was the only branch of learning in which he appeared to take
+any special interest. He framed, with much sagacity, the instructions
+for the voyage of La Pérouse around the world in 1786, and often
+lamented the fate of this celebrated navigator, saying, "I see very
+well that I am not fortunate."[42] How mysterious the government of
+God, that upon the head of this benevolent, kind-hearted, conscientious
+king should have been emptied, even to the dregs, those vials of wrath
+which debauched and profligate monarchs had been treasuring up for so
+many reigns!
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AND LA PÉROUSE.]
+
+Louis had no force of character, and, destitute of self-reliance, was
+entirely guided by others. At the suggestion of his aunt, Adelaide, he
+called to the post of prime minister Count Maurepas, who was eighty
+years of age, and who, having been banished from Paris by Madame de
+Pompadour, had been living for thirty years in retirement. Thus France
+was handed over in these hours of peril to a king in his boyhood and a
+prime minister in his dotage. Was it chance? Was it Providence? Clouds
+and darkness surround God's throne!
+
+M. Turgot was appointed to the post of utmost difficulty and
+danger--the administration of the finances. He had acquired much
+reputation by the skill with which, for twelve years, he had
+administered the government of the Province of Limousin. The kingdom of
+France was already in debt more than four thousand millions of francs
+($800,000,000).[43] As the revenue was by no means sufficient to pay
+the interest upon this debt and the expenses of the government, new
+loans had been incessantly resorted to, and national bankruptcy was
+near at hand. To continue borrowing was ruin; to impose higher taxes
+upon the people impossible. There were but two measures which could
+be adopted. One was to introduce a reform of wide-sweeping and rigid
+economy, cutting down salaries, abolishing pensions and sinecures, and
+introducing frugality into the pleasure-haunts of the court. Turgot was
+too well acquainted with the habits of the courtiers to dream that it
+was in the power of any minister to enforce this reform. There remained
+only the plan to induce the clergy and the nobles to allow themselves
+to be taxed, and thus to bear their fair proportion of the expenses of
+the state. Turgot fully understood the Herculean task before him in
+attempting this measure, and in a letter to the king he wrote:
+
+"We will have no bankruptcies, no augmentation of the taxes, no loans.
+I shall have to combat abuses of every kind, to combat those who are
+benefited by them, and even the kindness, sire, of your own nature. I
+shall be feared, hated, and calumniated; but the affecting goodness
+with which you pressed my hands in yours, to witness your acceptance
+of my devotion to your service, is never to be obliterated from my
+recollection, and must support me under every trial."[44]
+
+Several of Turgot's measures of reform the privileged class submitted
+to, though with reluctance and with many murmurs; but when he proposed
+that a tax should be fairly and equally levied upon proprietors of
+every description, a burst of indignant remonstrance arose from the
+nobles which drowned his voice. To suggest that a _high-born_ man was
+to be taxed like one _low-born_ was an insult too grievous to be borne.
+The whole privileged class at once combined, determined to crush the
+audacious minister thus introducing the doctrine of equal taxation into
+the court of aristocratic privilege.
+
+Madame du Barry, in a pet, four years before, had abolished the
+Parliament of Paris, which was entirely under the control of the
+aristocracy. Louis XVI., seeking popularity, restored the Parliament.
+Unfortunately for reform, the nobles had now an organized body with
+which to make resistance. The Parliament, the clergy, the old minister
+Maurepas, and even the young queen, all united in a clamorous onset
+upon Turgot, and he was driven from the ministry, having been in office
+but twenty months.[45] The Parliament absolutely refused to register
+the obnoxious decree. The inexperienced and timid king, frightened
+by the clamor, yielded, and abandoned his minister. Had the king
+been firm, he might, perhaps, have carried his point; but want of
+capacity leads to results as disastrous as treachery, and the king,
+though actuated by the best intentions, was ignorant and inefficient.
+Though the king held a _bed of justice_,[46] and ordered the edicts
+registered, they remained as dead letters and were never enforced.
+
+There was in Paris a wealthy Protestant banker, born in Geneva, of
+great financial celebrity, M. Necker. He was called to take the place
+of Turgot. Warned by the fate of his predecessor and seeing precisely
+the same difficulties staring him in the face, he resolved to try the
+expedient of economy, cutting off pensions and abolishing sinecures.
+But the nobles, in Church and State, disliked this as much as being
+taxed, and immediately their clamor was renewed.[47]
+
+Just at this time the American war of independence commenced. All
+France was in a state of enthusiasm in view of a heroic people
+struggling to be free. And when the American delegation appeared in
+Paris, headed by Franklin, all hearts were swept along by a current
+which neither king nor nobles could withstand. The republican
+simplicity of Franklin in his attire and manners produced an
+extraordinary impression upon all classes. The French ladies in
+particular were lavish in their attentions. Several fêtes were given
+in his honor, at one of which the most beautiful of three hundred
+ladies crowned him with a laurel wreath, and then kissed him on both
+cheeks. Almost every saloon was ornamented with his bust, bearing the
+inscription, "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
+
+All the latent spirit of freedom which had so long been slowly
+accumulating burst forth with a power which alarmed the court. Not a
+few of the nobles, disgusted with the aristocratic oppression which
+was ruining France, gave their sympathies to the American cause.
+The Marquis la Fayette, then but eighteen years of age, openly and
+enthusiastically applauded the struggle of the colonists. Marie
+Antoinette, instinctively hating a war in which the people were
+contending against royalty, expressed much indignation that La Fayette
+should utter such sentiments in the Palace of Versailles. Joseph
+II. of Austria, brother of Marie Antoinette, then on a visit to the
+French court, was asked by a lady his opinion of the subject which
+was now engrossing every mind. He replied, "I must decline answering;
+my business is to be a Royalist" (_Mon métier à moi c'est d'être
+Royaliste_).[48]
+
+It is hardly possible for one now to realize the enthusiasm with
+which the American war, at that time, inspired France. Even the court
+hated England, and wished to see that domineering power humbled. The
+mind of the nation had just awakened and was thoroughly aroused from
+the lethargy of ages. Theories, dreams, aspirations had exhausted
+themselves, and yet there was in France no scope whatever for action.
+America opened a theatre for heroic enterprise. France had given the
+theory of liberty, America was illustrating that theory by practice.
+The popular cry so effectually drowned every other voice that even the
+king was compelled to yield. A treaty with America was signed which
+drew from the treasury of France twelve hundred millions of francs
+($240,000,000), in support of American independence.[49] But for the
+substantial aid thus rendered by the fleet and the army of France it
+can hardly be doubted that the American Revolution would have been
+crushed, Washington and Franklin would have been hanged as traitors,
+and monarchical historians would elegantly have described the horrors
+of the great American rebellion.[50]
+
+The king, however, had sufficient intelligence to appreciate the
+suicidal act he was thus compelled to perform. With extreme reluctance
+he signed the treaty which recognized the right of nations to change
+their government. The doctrine of the _sovereignty of the people_ was
+thus legitimated in France. That one sentiment unresisted would sweep
+Europe of its despotic thrones. As the king signed the treaty, Feb. 8,
+1778, he remarked to his minister, "You will remember, sir, that this
+is contrary to my opinion."[51] The same weakness which constrained
+Louis XVI. to abandon Turgot to his enemies, compelled him to perform
+this act which his views of state policy condemned. "How painful," he
+writes, in his private correspondence, "to be obliged, for reasons of
+state, to sign orders and commence a great war contrary alike to my
+opinions and my wishes."[52]
+
+In the midst of these transactions Voltaire, after an absence of
+twenty-seven years, much of which time he had passed in his retreat
+at Ferney, about five miles from Geneva, revisited Paris. He was
+then eighty-four years of age. The court hated the bold assailer of
+corruptions, and refused to receive him. But the populace greeted him
+with enthusiasm unparalleled. He attended the theatre where his last
+play, "Irene," was acted. Immediately upon his appearance the whole
+audience, rising, greeted him with long and tumultuous applause. As,
+overpowered with emotion, he rose to depart, with trembling limbs and
+with flooded eyes, men of the highest rank and beautiful women crowded
+around him and literally bore him in their arms to his carriage. He
+could only exclaim, "Do you wish to kill me with joy?" A crowd with
+lighted torches filled the streets, making his path brilliant as day,
+and shouts of triumph arose which appalled the courtiers in the saloons
+of the palace. A few weeks after this, May 30, 1778, Voltaire died.
+The Archbishop of Paris refused to allow him Christian burial, and the
+court forbade his death to be mentioned in the public journals. His
+corpse was taken from the city and buried secretly at an old abbey at
+Scellières. This petty persecution only exasperated the friends of
+reform. A month after the death of Voltaire, Rousseau also passed away
+to the spirit-land.
+
+The situation of Necker was now deplorable. The kingdom was involved
+in an enormously expensive war. The court would not consent to any
+diminution of its indulgences, and the privileged class would not
+consent to be taxed. Necker was almost in despair. He borrowed of
+every one who would lend, and from the already exhausted people with
+sorrow, almost with anguish, gleaned every sou which the most ingenious
+taxation could extort.
+
+"Never shall I forget," he wrote, in 1791, "the long, dark staircase of
+M. Maurepas, the terror and the melancholy with which I used to ascend
+it, uncertain of the success of some idea that had occurred to me,
+likely, if carried into effect, to produce an increase of the revenue,
+but likely at the same time to fall severely though justly on some one
+or other; the sort of hesitation and diffidence with which I ventured
+to intermingle in my representations any of those maxims of justice
+and of right with which my own heart was animated."
+
+For a time Necker succeeded by loans and annuities in raising money,
+but at last it became more difficult to find lenders, and national
+bankruptcy seemed inevitable. And what is national bankruptcy? It is
+the paralysis of industry, and wide-spreading consternation and woe.
+Thousands of widows and orphans had all their patrimony in the national
+funds. The failure of these funds was to them beggary and starvation.
+The hospitals, the schools, the homes of refuge for the aged and
+infirm--all would lose their support. The thousands in governmental
+employ and those dependent upon them would be left in utter
+destitution. The bankruptcy of a solitary merchant may send poverty to
+many families--the bankruptcy of a nation sends paleness to the cheeks
+and anguish to the hearts of millions.
+
+In this exigence Necker adopted the bold resolve to publish an honest
+account of the state of the finances, that the nation, nobles, and
+unennobled might see the destruction toward which the state was
+drifting. Necker thought that, if the facts were fairly presented,
+the privileged class, in view of the ruin otherwise inevitable, would
+consent to bear their share of taxation, manifestly the only possible
+measure which could arrest the disaster. He consequently, in 1781,
+published his celebrated _Compte Rendu au Roi_. The impression which
+this pamphlet produced was amazing. Two hundred thousand copies were
+immediately called for, and the appalling revelation went with electric
+speed through the whole length and breadth of the land. It was read in
+the saloon, in the work-shop, and in the hamlet. Groups of those who
+could not read were gathered at all corners to hear it read by others.
+
+"We wetted with our tears," writes M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, who
+acted an illustrious part in those days, "those pages which a citizen
+minister had imprinted with luminous and comfortable reflections,
+and where he was turning all his attention to the prosperity of the
+French with a sensibility deserving of their gratitude. The _people_
+blessed him as its savior. But all those nourished by abuses formed a
+confederacy against the man who seemed about to wrest their prey from
+them."
+
+Necker was desirous of introducing some popular element into the
+government. There was now a numerous body of men belonging to the
+unprivileged class, energetic and enlightened, whose voice ought to
+be heard in the administration of affairs as representatives of the
+people. He therefore recommended that there should be provincial
+parliaments in the different departments of France, somewhat
+corresponding with the present legislatures in the United States.
+In a few of the provinces there were already parliaments, but they
+were composed exclusively of the privileged class. Turgot also had
+contemplated provincial legislatures, which he desired to constitute
+as the organ of the _people_, and to be composed only of members of
+the Tiers Etat.[53] Necker, however, hoped to conciliate the nobles
+by giving the privileged body an equal representation with the
+unprivileged in these assemblies. One half were to be representatives
+of the clergy and the nobility, and the other half of the people,
+though the people numbered millions, while the clergy and nobles
+numbered but thousands.
+
+Necker's report showed that the interest upon the public debt
+absorbed one third of the revenues; that the remaining two thirds
+were by no means sufficient for carrying on the government, and that,
+consequently, the burden was continually growing heavier by loans and
+accumulations.[54] The suggestions of Necker, to give the people a
+voice in the administration of affairs and to tax high-born men equally
+with low-born, created intense opposition. The storm became too fierce
+to be resisted. Both the king and the prime minister yielded to its
+violence, and Necker, like Turgot, was driven with contumely from the
+ministry and into exile. The hearts of the people followed the defeated
+minister to his retreat. These outrages were but making the line which
+separated the privileged from the unprivileged more visible, and were
+rousing and combining the masses. The illustrious financier, in his
+retirement, wrote his celebrated work upon the administration of the
+finances, a work which contributed much to the enlightenment of the
+public mind.[55] The intellect of the nation was roused, as never
+before, to the discussion of the affairs of state. In the parlor, the
+counting-room, the work-shop, the farm-house, and the field, all were
+employed in deliberating upon the one great topic which engrossed
+universal attention. And yet the nobles and their partisans, with
+infatuation inexplicable, resisted all measures of reform; a singular
+illustration of the Roman adage, "Quem Deus vult perdere priusquam
+dementat" (_whom God would destroy he first makes mad_).
+
+Indeed, the opposition was sufficiently formidable to appal any
+minister. There were eighty thousand nobles, inheriting the pride and
+prestige of feudal power, with thousands, dependent upon their smiles,
+rallying around them as allies. There were the officers in the army,
+who were either hereditary nobles or, still worse, men of wealth
+who had purchased titles of nobility. There were a hundred thousand
+persons who, in various ways, had purchased immunity from the burdens
+of state, and were thus within the limits of the privileged class, and
+hated by the people, though despised by the nobles. There were two
+hundred thousand priests bound by the strongest of possible ties to
+the hierarchy, the humble class depending for position and bread upon
+their spiritual lords and obliged by the most solemn oaths to obey
+their superiors. And these priests, intrusted with the keys of heaven
+and of hell, as was supposed by the unenlightened masses, held millions
+in subjection by the most resistless powers of superstition. There
+were sixty thousand in the cloisters of the monasteries, many of them
+dissolute in the extreme, and who were necessarily subservient to the
+ecclesiastics. There were the farmers general, the collectors of the
+revenue, and all the vast army of office-holders, who were merely the
+agents of the court.
+
+"This formidable mass of men," says M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, "were
+in possession of all France. They held her by a thousand chains. They
+formed, in a body, what was termed _la haute nation_. All the rest was
+the people."[56]
+
+Though the privileged class and their dependents, which we have above
+enumerated, amounted to but a few hundred thousand, perhaps not five
+hundred thousand in all, and the people amounted to some twenty-five
+millions, still all the power was with the aristocracy. The mass of the
+people were merely slaves, unarmed, unorganized, uneducated. They had
+been degraded and dispirited by ages of oppression, and had no means of
+combining or of uttering a united voice which should be heard.
+
+Immediately succeeding M. Necker in the ministry of finance came M.
+Fleury and M. d'Ormesson. They were both honest, well-meaning men, but
+were promptly crushed by a burden which neither of them was at all
+capable of bearing. Their names are hardly remembered. Maurepas was now
+dead. The Americans, aided by France, had achieved their independence,
+and France and England were again at peace. The king now selected M.
+de Calonne from the Parliament, as Minister of Finance. He was a man
+of brilliant genius, of remarkably courtly manners, but licentious and
+extravagant. The king hoped, by his selecting Calonne, to diminish that
+opposition of the Parliament which was daily growing more inveterate
+against the crown. For a time the new minister was exceedingly popular.
+His high reputation for financial skill and his suavity enabled him
+to effect important loans; and by the sale and the mortgage of the
+property of the crown he succeeded for a few months in having money
+in abundance. The court rioted anew in voluptuous indulgence. The
+beautiful palace of St. Cloud was bought of the Duke of Orleans for the
+queen, and vast sums were expended for its embellishment. The Palace
+of Rambouillet was purchased as a hunting-seat for the king. Marie
+Antoinette gave innumerable costly entertainments at Versailles, and
+rumor was rife with the scenes of measureless extravagance which were
+there displayed. The well-meaning, weak-minded king, having no taste
+for courtly pleasure and no ability for the management of affairs,
+either unconscious of the peril of the state or despairing of any
+remedy, fitted up a work-shop at Versailles, where he employed most
+of his time at a forge, under the guidance of a blacksmith, tinkering
+locks and keys. This man, Gamin, has recorded:
+
+"The king was good, indulgent, timid, curious, fond of sleep. He
+passionately loved working as a smith, and hid himself from the queen
+and the court to file and forge with me. To set up his anvil and
+mine, unknown to all the world, it was necessary to use a thousand
+stratagems."[57]
+
+There is a secret power called _public credit_ which will speedily
+bring such a career to its close. Public credit was now exhausted.
+No more money could be borrowed. The taxes for some time in advance
+were already pledged in payment of loans. The people, crushed by their
+burdens, could not bear any augmentation of taxes. The crisis seemed
+to have come. Calonne now awoke to the consciousness of his condition,
+and was overpowered by the magnitude of the difficulties in which
+he was involved. There was but one mode of redress--_an immediate
+retrenchment of expenses and the including of the privileged class in
+the assessment of taxes_. Whoever had attempted this had been crushed
+by the aristocratic Parliament. Could Calonne succeed? After long and
+anxious deliberation he became conscious that it would be impossible
+to induce the Parliament to consent to such a reform, that it would
+be very hazardous to call a meeting of the States-General, where the
+_people_ could make their voice to be heard, and yet it was essential
+to have some public body upon which he could lean for support. He
+therefore recommended that the king should convene an assembly of the
+notables, to be composed of such individuals as the king should select
+from the clergy, the nobles, and the magistracy, they all belonging to
+the privileged class. Such an assembly had never been convened since
+Richelieu called one in 1626.
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AS LOCKSMITH.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 38: Historical View of the French Revolution, by J. Michelet,
+vol. i., p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Louis XVI. was born Aug. 22, 1754. In May, 1770, when
+not quite sixteen, he married Marie Antoinette. In May, 1774, he
+wanted three months of being twenty years of age. Marie Antoinette was
+born Nov. 2, 1755. She was but fourteen years and six months old when
+married. She was but eighteen years and six months old when she became
+Queen of France.--_Encyclopædia Americana._]
+
+[Footnote 40: "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the
+Queen of France at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb,
+which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision! I saw her
+just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she
+just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life
+and splendor and joy."--_Burke's Reflections._]
+
+[Footnote 41: Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, i., 75.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XVI.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XV.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Précis de la Revolution, par M. Lacretelle.]
+
+[Footnote 45: "On the very threshold of the business he must propose to
+make the clergy, the noblesse, the very Parliament subject to taxes!
+One shriek of indignation and astonishment reverberates through all the
+chateau galleries. M. de Maurepas has to gyrate. The poor king, who had
+written (to Turgot) a few weeks ago, '_Il n'y a que vous et moi qui
+aimions le peuple_' (There is none but you and I who love the people),
+must now write a dismissal, and let the French Revolution accomplish
+itself pacifically or not, as it can."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_,
+i., 41.
+
+"The nobles and the prelates, it seems, considered themselves degraded
+if they were to contribute to the repair of the roads; and they would
+no doubt have declared that their dignity and their existence, the very
+rights of property itself, were endangered, if they were now, for the
+first time, they would have said, in the history of the monarchy, to be
+subjected to the visits of the tax-gatherer."--_Lectures on the French
+Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 46: _Lit de justice_ was a proceeding in which the king, with
+his court, proceeded to the Parliament, and there, sitting upon the
+throne, caused those edicts which the Parliament did not approve to be
+registered in his presence.--_Encyclopædia Americana._]
+
+[Footnote 47: It is not necessary to allude to De Clugny, who
+immediately succeeded Turgot, but who held his office six months only
+and attempted nothing.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Woman in France, by Julia Kavanagh, p. 211. Memoirs of
+Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. i., p. 375.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Hist. Phil. de la France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t.
+i., p. 28. Audouin states that the war cost France, from 1778 to 1782,
+fourteen hundred millions of livres ($280,000,000).]
+
+[Footnote 50: "The queen never disguised her dislike to the American
+war. She could not conceive how any one could advise a sovereign to
+aim at the humiliation of England through an attack on the sovereign
+authority, and by assisting a people to organize a republican
+constitution. She often laughed at the enthusiasm with which Franklin
+inspired the French."--_Madame Campan's Mem. of Marie Antoinette_, ii.,
+29.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Lectures on Fr. Rev., by Wm. Smyth, i., 109.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Cor. Conf. de Louis XVI., ii., 178.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Lectures on the French Revolution, by William Smyth, i.,
+115.]
+
+[Footnote 54: "The notion that our maladies were incapable of remedy,
+and that no human mind could cure them, added keenly to the general
+grief. We saw ourselves plunged into a gulf of debts and public
+engagements, the interest alone of which absorbed the third part of the
+revenue, and which, far from being put into a course of liquidation,
+were continually accumulating by loans and anticipations."--_History of
+the French Revolution, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_, vol. i., p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 55: "And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of
+the finances for five years long. Without wages--for he refused
+such--cheered only by public opinion and the ministering of his
+noble wife. He, too, has to produce his scheme of taxing; clergy,
+noblesse to be taxed--like a mere Turgot. Let Necker also depart; not
+unlamented."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_, vol. i., p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 56: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by the Abbé Soulavie,
+vol. ii., p. 191.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.
+
+ Measures of Brienne.--The Bed of Justice.--Remonstrance of
+ Parliament.--Parliament Exiled.--Submission of Parliament.--Duke
+ of Orleans.--Treasonable Plans of the Duke of Orleans.--Anxiety
+ of the Queen.--The Diamond Necklace.--Monsieur, the King's
+ Brother.--Bagatelle.--Desperation of Brienne.--Edict for abolishing
+ the Parliaments.--Energy of the Court.--Arrest of D'Espréménil and
+ Goislard.--Tumults in Grenoble.--Terrific Hail-storm.
+
+
+The Notables, one hundred and forty-four in number, nearly all
+ecclesiastics, nobles, or ennobled, met at Versailles, Jan. 29, 1787.
+Calonne expected that this body, carefully selected by the king, would
+advise that all orders should make common cause and bear impartially
+the burden of taxation. Sustained by the moral power of this advice he
+hoped that the measure could be carried into execution. He presented
+his statement of affairs. Though he endeavored to conceal the worst,
+the Notables were appalled. Three hundred and fifty millions of dollars
+had been borrowed within a few years, and the annual deficit was
+thirty-five millions of dollars.[58] Cautiously he proposed his plan of
+impartial taxation. It was the signal for a general assault upon the
+doomed minister. He was literally hooted down. Not only the Assembly of
+Notables, but the clergy, the Parliament, the nobles all over the realm
+pounced upon him, led even by the queen and the Archbishop of Paris;
+and Calonne, without a friend, was compelled to resign his office and
+to fly from France.[59]
+
+The clergy were exceedingly exasperated against Calonne, for they
+deemed the proposition to tax the possessions of the Church as
+sacrilegious. The most active of the opponents of Calonne was Brienne,
+Archbishop of Toulouse. He was a bold, resolute, ambitious man, and by
+the influence of the queen was appointed to succeed Calonne. "As public
+credit was dead," said a wag, "an archbishop was summoned to bury the
+remains."[60] The spirit of discontent and of menace was now becoming
+every day more extended and alarming, and the Revolution was gaining
+strength.
+
+Among the Notables thus assembled there were some warm advocates of
+popular liberty. La Fayette was perhaps the most conspicuous of these.
+He spoke boldly against _lettres de cachet_ and other abuses. The
+Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X., reproved him for this freedom.
+La Fayette firmly, yet with caution, responded, "When a Notable is
+summoned to speak his opinion he must speak it."[61]
+
+One of the first acts of Brienne was to abolish the Assembly of
+Notables.
+
+Their session continued but nine weeks, being dissolved May 25,
+1787. He then struggled for a time in the midst of embarrassments
+inextricable until he was compelled to propose the same measure which
+had already been three times rejected with scorn, and which had driven
+three ministers in disgrace from Paris--_the taxing of the nobles_. He
+did every thing in his power to prepare the way for the suggestion, and
+connected the obnoxious bill with another less objectionable, hoping
+that the two might pass together. But the clergy and the nobles were on
+the alert.
+
+Two thirds of the territory of the kingdom had been grasped by
+the Church and the nobles. One third only belonged to the people.
+Brienne proposed a _territorial tax which should fall upon all landed
+proprietors alike_. There was an instantaneous shout of indignation
+from the whole privileged class, and the cry "Away with him," "Hustle
+him out," spread from castle to castle, and from convent to convent.
+
+It was a _custom_, rather than a law, that no royal decree could
+pass into effect until it had been registered by Parliament; and it
+was a _custom_, rather than a law, that, if the Parliament refused
+to register a decree, the king could hold what is called a _bed of
+justice_; that is, could summon the Parliament into his presence and
+command the decree to be registered. As the king could banish, or
+imprison, or behead any one at his pleasure, no Parliament had as yet
+ventured to disobey the royal command.
+
+The Parliament declined registering the decree taxing the property of
+the clergy and the nobles. The king peremptorily summoned the whole
+refractory body to appear before him. It was the 6th of August, 1787.
+In a vast train of carriages, all the members, some one hundred and
+twenty in number, wheeled out from Paris to the Palace of Versailles.
+There the king with his own lips ordered them to register the decree.
+Obedient to the royal order it was registered, and the Parliament,
+sullen and exasperated, was rolled back again to the metropolis. The
+people contemplated the scene in silent expectation, and by thousands
+surrounded the Parliament on its return, and greeted them with
+acclamations.
+
+Emboldened by the sympathy of the people in this conflict with the
+court, the Parliament ventured to enter upon its records a remonstrance
+against the violent procedure; and, to gain still more strength from
+popular approval, they made the strange assertion that Parliament was
+not competent to register tax edicts at all; that for this act the
+authority of the three estates of the realm was essential, convened
+in the States-General. This was, indeed, unheard of doctrine, for the
+Parliament had for centuries registered such decrees. It, however,
+answered its purpose; it brought the masses of the people at once and
+enthusiastically upon their side.
+
+This call for the States-General was the first decisive step toward
+bringing the people into the field. Tumultuous crowds surrounded the
+palace where the Parliament held its session, and with clapping of
+hands and shouts received the tidings of the resolutions adopted. The
+king, indignant, issued _letters de cachet_ on the night of the 14th,
+and the next morning the whole body was arrested and taken in carriages
+into banishment to Troyes, a dull city about one hundred miles from
+Paris. The blessings of the people followed the Parliament;[62] "for
+there are quarrels," says Carlyle, "in which even Satan, bringing help,
+were not unwelcome."
+
+Paris was now in a state of commotion. Defiant placards were posted
+upon the walls, and there were angry gatherings in the streets. The
+two brothers of the king, subsequently Louis XVIII. and Charles X.,
+entered Paris in state carriages to expunge from the records of the
+Parliament the obnoxious protests and resolutions. They came with a
+well-armed retinue. The stormy multitudes frowned and hissed, and were
+only dispersed by the gleam of the sword.
+
+For a month Parliament remained at Troyes, excessively weary of exile.
+In the mean time Brienne had no money, and could raise none. Both
+parties were ready for accommodation. The crown consented to relinquish
+the _tax upon the nobles_, and to summon the States-General in five
+years. Parliament consented to register an edict for a _loan_ of one
+hundred millions of dollars, the burden of which was to fall upon the
+_people_ alone. With this arrangement the exiled Parliament was brought
+back on the 20th of September. "It went out," said D'Espréménil,
+"covered with glory. It came back covered with mud."
+
+On the 20th of September the king appeared before the Parliament in
+person, to present the edict for the loan and the promise to convoke
+the States-General at the close of five years.
+
+There was at that time in Parliament a cousin of the king, the Duke of
+Orleans, one of the highest nobles of the realm.[63] Inheriting from
+his father the enormous Orleans property, and heir, through his wife,
+to the vast estates of the Duke of Penthièvre, he was considered the
+richest man in France, enjoying an income of seven million five hundred
+thousand francs a year ($1,500,000). For years he had been rioting
+in measureless debauchery. His hair was falling off, his blood was
+corrupted, and his bronzed face was covered with carbuncles.[64] Sated
+with sensual indulgence, the passion for political distinction seized
+his soul. As heir to the dukedom of Penthièvre, he looked forward to
+the office of high admiral. In preparation he ventured upon a naval
+campaign, and commanded the rear guard of M. d'Orvilliers' fleet in
+the battle off Ushant. Rumor affirmed that during the battle he hid
+in the hold of the ship. The court, exasperated by his haughtiness,
+and jealous of his power, gladly believed the story, and overwhelmed
+him with caricatures and epigrams. Some time after this he ascended
+in a balloon, and as he had previously descended a mine, where he had
+shown but little self-possession, it was stated that he had shown
+all the elements his cowardice.[65] The king withheld from him, thus
+overwhelmed with ridicule, the office of admiral, and conferred it upon
+his nephew, the son of the Count d'Artois.
+
+The Duke of Orleans was envenomed by the affront, and breathed
+vengeance. While in this state of mind, and refusing to present himself
+at court, he received another indignity still more exasperating. A
+matrimonial alliance had been arranged between the eldest daughter
+of the Duke of Orleans and the son of Count d'Artois, the Duke
+d'Angoulême. An income of four hundred thousand francs ($80,000) per
+annum had been settled upon the prospective bride. She had received
+the congratulations of the court, and the foreign ministers had been
+authorized to communicate to their respective courts the approaching
+nuptials, when Marie Antoinette, alarmed by the feeble health of her
+two sons, and thinking that the son of the Count d'Artois might yet
+become heir to the throne of France, broke off the match, and decided
+that her daughter, instead of the daughter of the Duke of Orleans,
+should marry the young Duke d'Angoulême.[66]
+
+The Duke of Orleans was now ready to adopt any measures of desperation
+for the sake of revenge. Though one of the highest and most opulent of
+the aristocrats of Europe, he was eager to throw himself into the arms
+of the popular party, and to lead them in any measures of violence in
+their assaults upon the crown.[67]
+
+When Louis XVI. met the Parliament to secure the registry of the
+edict for a new loan, a strong opposition was found organized against
+him, and he encountered silence and gloomy looks. The king had not
+intended to hold a _bed of justice_ with his _commands_, but merely
+a royal sitting for friendly conference. But the antagonism was so
+manifest that he was compelled to appeal to his kingly authority, and
+to _order_ the registry of the edict. The Duke of Orleans rose, and
+with flushed cheek and defiant tone, entered a protest. Two members,
+his confederates, ventured to sustain him. This insult royalty could
+not brook. The duke was immediately sent into exile to one of his rural
+estates, and the two other nobles were sent to prison.
+
+A fierce conflict was now commenced between the king and the
+Parliament. The Parliament passed a decree condemning arbitrary
+arrests. The king, by an order in council, canceled the decree. The
+Parliament reaffirmed it. The king was exasperated to the highest
+degree, but, with the united Parliament and the popular voice against
+him, he did not dare to proceed to extreme measures. Louis XIV. would
+have sent every man of them to the Bastille or the scaffold. But the
+days of Louis XIV. were no more.
+
+It may at first thought seem strange that in this conflict the
+_people_ should have sided with the Parliament. But the power of the
+crown was the great power they had to dread, and which they wished
+to see humbled. It was to them a matter of much more moment that the
+_despotism of the court_ should be curtailed than that the one act of
+taxation should be passed in their favor. Men of far-reaching sagacity
+must have guided the populace to so wise a decision. Inequality of
+taxation was but one of the innumerable wrongs to which the people were
+exposed. What they needed was a thorough reform in the government which
+should correct _all_ abuses. To attain this it was first indispensable
+that despotism should be struck down. Therefore their sympathies were
+with the Parliament in its struggle against the crown, though it so
+happened that the conflict arose upon a point adverse to the popular
+interest.
+
+The Duke of Orleans began seriously to contemplate the dethronement
+of his cousin and the usurpation of the crown. With almost boundless
+wealth at his command, and placing himself at the head of the popular
+party, now rising with such resistless power, he thought the plan not
+difficult of accomplishment. He had traveled in England, had invested
+large sums there, had formed friendship with the sons of the king,
+the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. The court of St. James was
+bitterly exasperated against the court of Louis XVI. for aiding in the
+emancipation of America. The Duke of Orleans consequently doubted not
+that he could rely upon the friendship of England in the introduction
+of a new dynasty to France.[68]
+
+And now the parliaments which had been organized in many of the
+provinces made common cause with the Parliament of Paris, and sent
+in their remonstrances against the despotism of the crown. Gloom now
+pervaded the saloons of Versailles. Marie Antoinette, with pale cheek
+and anxious brow, wandered through the apartments dejected and almost
+despairing. Groves and gardens surrounded her embellished with flowers
+and statues and fountains. The palace which was her home surpassed
+in architectural grandeur and in all the appliances of voluptuous
+indulgence any abode which had ever before been reared upon earth.
+Obsequious servants and fawning courtiers anticipated her wishes, and
+her chariot with its glittering outriders swept like a meteor through
+the enchanting drives which art, aided by the wealth of a realm, had
+constructed, and yet probably there was not a woman in the whole realm,
+in garret or hut or furrowed field, who bore a heavier heart than that
+which throbbed within the bosom of the queen. The king was a harmless,
+inoffensive, weak-minded man, spending most of his time at the forge.
+It was well understood that the queen, energetic and authoritative,
+was the real head of the government, and that every act of vigor
+originated with her. She consequently became peculiarly obnoxious to
+the Parliament, and through them to the people; and Paris was flooded
+with the vilest calumnies against her.
+
+There was at that time fluttering about Versailles a dissolute woman
+of remarkable beauty, the Countess Lamotte. She forged notes against
+the queen, and purchased a very magnificent pearl necklace at the price
+of three hundred thousand dollars. Cardinal Rohan was involved in the
+intrigue. The transaction was noised through all Europe. The queen was
+accused of being engaged in a swindling transaction with a profligate
+woman to cheat a jeweler, and was also accused of enormous extravagance
+in wishing to add to the already priceless jewels of the crown others
+to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars. The queen was
+innocent; but the public mind exasperated wished to believe all evil
+of her. Men, haggard and hungry, and without employment; women ragged
+and starving, and with their starving children in their arms, were ever
+repeating the foul charge against the queen as a thief, an accomplice
+with a prostitute, one who was willing to see the people starve if she
+might but hang pearls about her neck. The story was so universally
+credited, and created such wide-spread exasperation, that Talleyrand
+remarked, "Mind that miserable affair of the necklace. I should be
+nowise surprised if it should overturn the French monarchy."
+
+In addition to all this the report was spread abroad that the children
+of Marie Antoinette were illegitimate; that the king had not sufficient
+capacity to reign; that his next brother, called Monsieur, subsequently
+Louis XVIII., was engaged in a conspiracy with the Parliament to eject
+Louis XVI. from the throne, and to establish a government of the
+nobles, of which Monsieur should be the nominal head. It is by no means
+improbable that this plan was formed. It will account for many of the
+actions of the nobles during the first stages of the Revolution.[69]
+
+The second brother of the king, Count d'Artois, a very elegant and
+accomplished man of fashion, fond of pleasure, and with congenial
+tastes with the young and beautiful queen, was accused, though probably
+without foundation, of being her paramour and the father of her
+children. He had erected, just outside the walls of Paris, in the woods
+of Boulogne, a beautiful little palace which he called _Bagatelle_.
+This was the seat of the most refined voluptuousness and of the most
+costly indulgence.
+
+The queen now knew not which way to turn from the invectives which were
+so mercilessly showered upon her. It was in vain to attempt an answer.
+Her lofty spirit so far sustained her as to enable her in public to
+appear with dignity. But in her boudoir she wept in all the anguish
+of a crushed and despairing heart. "One morning at Trianon," writes
+Madame Campan, "I went into the queen's chamber when she was in bed.
+There were letters lying upon her bed and she was weeping bitterly. Her
+tears were mingled with sobs, which she occasionally interrupted by
+exclamations of '_Ah! that I were dead. Wretches! monsters! what have
+I done to them?_' I offered her orange-flower-water and ether. '_Leave
+me, if you love me; it would be better to kill me at once._' At this
+moment she threw her arm over my shoulder and began weeping afresh."[70]
+
+Parliament had registered the edict for a loan of one hundred millions
+of dollars. It would be no burden to them. The people alone were to
+be taxed for the debt. But public credit was dead. No one would lend.
+Brienne was also assailed with lampoons and caricatures and envenomed
+invectives, until, baited and bayed from every direction, he became
+almost distracted.[71] Burning with fever and with tremulous nerves, he
+paced his chamber-floor, ready for any deed of desperation which could
+extricate him from his woe. All this the Parliament in Paris and the
+twelve parliaments in the departments enjoyed, for it was the object
+of the nobles, who mainly formed these bodies, to wrest back from the
+monarchy that feudal power which energetic kings had wrested from them.
+The people were ready to sustain the nobles, though their enemies, in
+their attack upon the crown, and the nobles were also eager to call
+in the people to aid them in their perilous conflict. Some of the
+nobles, however, more far-sighted, strongly opposed the calling of the
+States-General. The majority, however, prevailed, and decreed to call
+a meeting of the states, but with the proviso that five years were to
+elapse before they should be convened.
+
+Brienne was now goaded to desperation. He determined to break down the
+parliaments. Secretly he matured a plan for the formation of a series
+of minor courts, where all small causes could be tried, and a superior
+court for registering edicts. Thus there would be absolutely nothing
+left for the parliaments to do, and they could be abolished as useless.
+These courts, the superior to be called the _Plenary Court_ and the
+others _Grand Bailliages_, were to be composed of courtiers carefully
+selected, who would be subservient to the wishes of the king.[72]
+
+It was a shrewd measure, but one which required the strictest secrecy
+in its execution. Such a coup d'état must come as a sudden stroke, or
+so powerful a body as the Parliament would be able to ward off the
+blow. The whole kingdom was then divided into a number of provinces,
+over each of which a governor, called an intendant, presided, appointed
+by the king. The royal edict was to be placed secretly in the hands
+of each of these intendants, with minute directions how to act, and
+they were promptly and secretly to organize the courts, so that upon
+an appointed day all should be accomplished, the new machinery in
+motion, and the power of the parliaments annihilated. So important
+was it that profound secrecy should be observed that printers were
+conveyed in disguise by night to one of the saloons of Versailles,
+where they brought their type and put up their press to print the
+royal edict. Sentries stood at the doors and the windows of their
+work-room and their food was handed in to them. M. d'Espréménil, one
+of the most active and influential members of Parliament, suspecting
+some stratagem, succeeded, through a bribe of twenty-five hundred
+dollars, in obtaining a copy of the edict. In the greatest excitement
+he hastened back to Paris and presented himself in Parliament with the
+edict in his hand. It was the 3d of May, 1788. The members listened
+with breathless eagerness to the reading of the paper, which was to
+their body a death-warrant. The edict required all the military to
+be assembled on the appointed day, ready for action. The intendants
+were to march an armed force to those cities of the provinces where
+parliaments had been in session, and, when the new courts were to be
+organized, to enforce the decree. None of the intendants or commanders
+of the troops knew what was to be done, but confidential agents of the
+king were to be sent to all these places, that at the same day and on
+the same hour the order might be received and executed all over France.
+
+There succeeded this reading at first a universal outbreak of
+indignation. They then took an oath to resist, at the peril of their
+lives, all measures tending to the overthrow of the old French
+parliaments. The tidings that the plot had been detected were borne
+speedily to the court at Versailles. Fierce passion now added fury to
+the battle. Two _lettres de cachet_ were issued to seize D'Espréménil
+and another active member of the opposition, Goislard, and silence
+them in the Bastille. Warned of their danger they escaped through
+scuttles and over the roofs of houses to the Palace of Justice,
+dispatched runners in every direction to summon the members, and
+then, laying aside their disguise, assumed their robes of office. An
+hour had not elapsed ere Parliament was in session and all Paris in
+commotion. Parliament immediately voted that the two members should
+not be given up, and that their session was permanent and subject to
+no adjournment until the pursuit of the two victims was relinquished.
+All the avenues of the Palace of Justice were inundated with a throng
+of excited citizens, bewildered by this open and deadly antagonism
+between the Parliament and the court. All the day and all the night
+and all the next day, for thirty-six hours, the session of stormy
+debate and fierce invective continued. Again gloomy night settled down
+over sleepless Paris. But suddenly there was heard the roll of drums
+and the bugle-blast and the tramp of armed men. Captain d'Agoust, at
+the head of the royal troops, marched from Versailles with infantry,
+cavalry, and artillery. Sternly and rapidly by torch-light the soldiers
+advanced, clearing their way through the multitudes crowding the
+court-yards and avenues of the Palace of Justice.[73]
+
+At the head of a file of soldiers with gleaming bayonets and loaded
+muskets, D'Agoust, a soldier of cast-iron face and heart, mounted
+the stairs, strode with the loud clatter of arms into the hall, and
+demanded, in the name of the king, M. Duval d'Espréménil and M.
+Goislard de Monsabert. As he did not know these persons he called upon
+them to come forward and surrender themselves. For a moment there was
+profound silence, and then a voice was heard, "We are all D'Espréménils
+and Monsaberts." For a time there was great tumult, as many voices
+repeated the cry.
+
+Order being restored, the president inquired whether D'Agoust will
+employ violence. "I am honored," the captain replies, "with his
+majesty's commission to execute his majesty's order. I would gladly
+execute the order without violence, but at all events I shall execute
+it. I leave the senate for a few minutes to deliberate which method
+they prefer." With his guard he left the hall.
+
+After a brief interval the sturdy captain returned with his well-armed
+retinue. "We yield to force," said the two counselors, as they
+surrendered themselves. Their brethren gathered around their arrested
+companions for a parting embrace, but the soldiers cut short the scene
+by seizing them and leading them down, through winding passages, to a
+rear gate, where two carriages were in waiting. Each was placed in a
+carriage with menacing bayonets at his side. The populace looked on in
+silence. They dared not _yet_ speak. But they were learning a lesson.
+D'Espréménil was taken to an ancient fortress on one of the Isles
+of Hieres, in the Mediterranean, about fourteen miles from Toulon.
+Goislard was conveyed to a prison in Lyons.
+
+D'Agoust, having dispatched his prisoners, returned to the Hall of
+Assembly, and ordered the members of Parliament to disperse. They were
+compelled to file out, one hundred and sixty-five in number, beneath
+the bayonets of the grenadiers. D'Agoust locked the doors, put the keys
+into his pocket, and, with his battalions, marched back to Versailles.
+
+The Parliament of Paris was now turned into the street. But still there
+was no money in the treasury. The provincial parliaments were roused,
+and had matured their plans to resist the new courts. The 8th of May
+arrived, when the decree, now every where promulgated, was to be put
+into execution. The intendants and the king's commissioners found, at
+all points, organized opposition. The provincial noblesse united with
+the parliaments, for it was now but a struggle of the nobility against
+the unlimited power of the crown. A deputation of twelve was sent from
+the Parliament of Breton, with a remonstrance, to Versailles. They were
+all consigned to the Bastille. A second deputation, much larger, was
+sent. Agents of the king met them, and, by menaces, drove them back. A
+third, still more numerous, was appointed, to approach Versailles by
+different roads. The king refused to receive them. They held a meeting
+in Paris, and invited La Fayette and all patriotic Bretons in Paris to
+advise with them.[74] This was the origin of the Jacobin Club.
+
+Eight parliaments were exiled. But at Grenoble they refused to
+surrender themselves to the _lettres de cachet_. The tocsin pealed
+forth the alarm, and booming cannon roused the masses in the city and
+upon the mountains to rush, with such weapons as they could seize, to
+protect the Parliament. The royal general was compelled to capitulate
+and to retire, leaving his commission unexecuted. The nobles had
+appealed to the masses, and armed them to aid in resisting the king,
+and thus had taught them their power. It seems as though supernatural
+intelligence was guiding events toward the crisis of a terrible
+revolution. Four of the parliaments were thus enabled to bid defiance
+to the kingly power.
+
+The attempt to establish the new courts was a total failure. The
+clergy, the nobility, and the people were all against it. A universal
+storm of hatred and contempt fell upon all who accepted offices in
+those courts. The Plenary Court held but one session, and then expired
+amid the hisses of all classes. The king seemed suddenly bereft of
+authority.
+
+"Let a commissioner of the king," says Weber, "enter one of these
+parliaments to have an edict registered, the whole tribunal will
+disappear, leaving the commissioner alone with the clerk and president.
+The edict registered and the commissioner gone, the whole tribunal
+hastens back to declare such registration null. The highways are
+covered with deputations of the parliaments, proceeding to Versailles
+to have their registers expunged by the king's hand, or returning home
+to cover a new page with new resolutions still more audacious."[75]
+
+Still there was no money, and Brienne was in despair. Wistfully he
+looked to his embowered chateau at Brienne, with its silent groves
+and verdant lawn. There, while these scenes were transpiring, had
+sat, almost beneath the shadow of his castle, "a dusky-complexioned,
+taciturn boy, under the name of Napoleon Bonaparte." This boy,
+forgetful of the sports of childhood, was gazing with intensest
+interest upon the conflict, and by untiring study, night and day,
+was girding himself with strength to come forth into the arena. He
+had already taken his side as the inexorable foe of feudal privilege
+and the friend of popular rights. He had already incurred the frown
+of his teachers for the energy with which he advocated in his themes
+the doctrine of equality. "The themes of Napoleon," said one of his
+teachers, "are like flaming missiles ejected from a volcano."
+
+In these fearful scenes, ominous of approaching floods and earthquakes,
+God, in the awful mystery of his providence, took an energetic part.
+On the 13th of July of this year, 1788, the whole country, for one
+hundred and twenty miles around Paris, was laid waste by one of the
+most frightful hail-storms which ever beat down a harvest. Not a green
+blade was left. Gaunt famine was inevitably to stride over distracted,
+impoverished France. Consternation oppressed all hearts. It was now
+hastily decided that the States-General should be assembled in the
+following month of May. The queen was that day standing at one of the
+windows of Versailles, pallid, trembling, and lost in gloomy thought.
+She held in her hand a cup of coffee, which, mechanically, she seemed
+to sip. Beckoning to Madame Campan, she said to her,
+
+"Great God! what a piece of news will be made public to-day. The king
+grants States-General. 'Tis a first beat of the drum of ill omen for
+France. This noblesse will ruin us."[76]
+
+Brienne, who now occupied the post of prime minister, wrote to M.
+Necker entreating him to return to the post of Controller of the
+Finance. Necker refused. He was not willing to take charge of the
+finances with Brienne prime minister. Bankruptcy, with its national
+disgrace and wide-spreading misery, was at hand. On the 16th of August
+an edict was issued that all payments at the royal treasury should be
+made three fifths in cash, and the remaining two fifths in promissory
+notes bearing interest. As the treasury was without credit the notes
+were comparatively valueless. This was virtual bankruptcy, in which the
+state offered to pay sixty cents on the dollar. The announcement of
+this edict rolled another surge of excitement and consternation over
+the kingdom.
+
+Count d'Artois called upon the queen and informed her of the terrible
+agitation pervading the public mind. She sat down in silence and
+wept. Brienne, pale, haggard, and trembling, frightened by the storm
+now raging, having contrived to secure for himself property to the
+amount of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, gave in his
+resignation, entered his carriage and drove off to Italy, leaving the
+king to struggle alone against the Revolution.[77]
+
+During these conflicts for power between the king and the nobles the
+moan of twenty-five millions crushed beneath the chariot-wheels of
+feudal aristocracy ascended, not unheeded, to the ear of Heaven. The
+hour of retribution if not of recompense approached. For weary ages the
+people had waited for its coming with hope ever deferred. Generation
+after generation had come and gone, and still fathers and mothers, sons
+and daughters were toiling in the furrows and in the shop, exclaiming,
+"O God, how long!" The dawn after the apparently interminable night was
+now at hand, but it was the dawn not of a bright but of a lurid day.
+France at this time presented the spectacle of millions in misery, of
+some thousands obtaining by the severest toil the bare necessaries of
+life, and of a few hundred rioting in wealth and luxury.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 58: Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France, par
+Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t. i., p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 59: "Calonne has published a work on the French Revolution.
+At the end of it he gives an outline of his plan. Nothing can be more
+reasonable; and it remains an eternal indictment on the people of
+consequence then in France, more particularly on that part of them
+that composed the Assembly of Notables."--_Lectures on the French
+Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 60: Montgaillard, vol. i., p. 300.]
+
+[Footnote 61: There was at this time a nominal tax of two twentieths
+upon all incomes, which the clergy and the nobility were to pay as
+the rest. They contrived, however, in a great measure to evade this
+tax. "The princes of the blood, for example," says Bouillé, in his
+Memoirs, "who enjoyed among them from twenty-four to twenty-five
+millions yearly ($5,000,000), paid for their two twentieths only
+188,000 livres ($37,600) instead of 2,400,000 ($480,000). The Duke of
+Orleans, who presided over the committee to which I belonged in the
+Assembly of the Notables, said to me, one day, after a deliberation in
+which we had considered and approved the establishment of provincial
+administrations, 'Are you aware, sir, that this pleasantry will cost
+me at least 300,000 livres ($60,000) a year?' 'How is that, my lord?'
+I asked. 'At present,' he replied, 'I arrange with the intendants,
+and pay pretty nearly what I like. The provincial administrations, on
+the contrary, will make me pay what is strictly due.'"--_Bouillé's
+Memoirs_, p. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 62: "This body at first courageously sustained the blow which
+had fallen upon them. But soon men accustomed to the pleasures of Paris
+threw aside the mask of stoicism which they had assumed, and redeemed
+themselves from exile by promising to adopt the views of the court,
+provided that no new taxation was proposed."--_Desodoards_, vol. i., p.
+68.]
+
+[Footnote 63: The Marquis of Ferrières, a noble of high rank, was a
+deputy of the nobles. He was a warm patron of the old opinions and
+customs, and voted perseveringly with the majority of his order. In his
+very interesting Memoirs he writes thus of the Duke of Orleans, upon
+whom, of course, he could not look with a partial eye. "The duke was
+himself without talents, and debased by a life of drunkenness; greedy
+of money to a degree that would have been perfectly reprehensible in a
+private man, but which was disgraceful and degrading in a prince. He
+had every vice which can make crime odious, and none of the brilliant
+qualities by which it can be in some degree illustrated in the eyes
+of posterity. The dead feelings of the duke it was necessary to
+animate in some way or other, that he might appear to have a wish for
+something, and so they held out to him the supreme power, under the
+title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom; all the public money at
+his disposal, and in the event, which it was for him to hasten, the
+crown for his children, and himself thus made the commencement of a new
+dynasty."]
+
+[Footnote 64: Carlyle, French Revolution, vol. i., p. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Biographie Moderne.
+
+"Off Ushant some naval thunder is heard. In the course of which
+did our young prince hide in the hold! Our poor young prince
+gets his opera plaudits changed into mocking tehees, and can not
+become Grand Admiral--the source to him of woes which one may call
+endless."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_, vol. i., p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 66: This was the princess who subsequently experienced such
+terrible suffering in the prison of the Temple, with her brother, the
+dauphin. She was released by Napoleon, and afterward married the Duke
+d'Angoulême.]
+
+[Footnote 67: Desodoards, vol. i., p. 28. Thiers, vol. i., p. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Desodoards, vol. i., p. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 69: Histoire Phil. de la Rev. de Fr. par Ant. Fantin
+Desodoards, vol. i., p. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. i.,
+p. 243.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "Paris is what they call in figurative speech flooded
+with pamphlets (_regorgé des brochures_), flooded and eddying again.
+Hot deluge from so many patriot ready-writers, all at the fervid or
+boiling point; each ready-writer now in the hour of eruption going
+like an Iceland geyser! Against which what can a judicious friend,
+Morellet, do; a Rivarol, an unruly Linguet (well paid for it), spouting
+_cold_?"--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Montgaillard, tome i., p. 405.]
+
+[Footnote 73: The following was the commission of D'Agoust: "J'ordonne
+au sieur d'Agoust, capitaine de mes gardes françaises, de se rendre au
+palais à la tête de six companies, d'en occuper toutes les avenues,
+et d'arrêter dans la grand chambre de mon parlement, ou partout
+aillieurs, messieurs Duval d'Espréménil et Goislard, conseillers,
+pour les remettre entre les mains des officiers de la prévôte de
+l'hôtel."--_Desodoards_, tome i., p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Carlyle, vol. i., p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 75: Weber, vol. i., p. 275.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Campan, vol. iii., p. 104.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+ Recall of Necker.--Reassembling the Notables.--Pamphlet of the Abbé
+ Sièyes.--Vote of the King's Brother.--His supposed Motive.--The
+ Basis of Representation.--Arrangements for the Meeting of the
+ States.--Statement of Grievances.--Mirabeau: his Menace.--Sympathy
+ of the Curates with the People.--Remonstrance of the Nobles.--First
+ Riot.--Meeting of the States-General.--New Effort of the privileged
+ Classes.
+
+
+The king again turned to Necker, as one strong in the confidence of the
+people. The announcement of his recall filled France with enthusiasm.
+Guns were fired, bells rung, and masses of people surged through the
+streets of Paris and of Versailles, shouting exultingly. It was the
+24th of August, 1788. Necker's first exclamation, at the intimation of
+his recall, was, "Ah! that I could recall the fifteen months of the
+Archbishop of Toulouse." He found but two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs ($50,000) in the treasury. Though disorder and ruin had made
+rapid progress, the reputation of Necker was such that he immediately
+had loans offered him, and the public funds rose thirty per cent.[78]
+
+Preparations were immediately made for the assembling of the
+States-General, and the public announcement was given that it was
+to be convened on the 27th of April. There had been no meeting of
+the States-General for one hundred and seventy-five years, and
+the question now rose, How shall the members be elected? who shall
+be voters? of how many shall the body be composed? what proportion
+shall be from the privileged and what from the unprivileged class?
+The learned bodies and popular writers were invited to express
+their views upon these points. Thousands of political pamphlets
+immediately appeared, and every mind in the nation was roused.[79]
+The all-important and most agitating question was, What proportion
+shall the people occupy in this assembly? The unprivileged class
+composed ninety-eight hundredths of the nation; the privileged class
+two hundredths. And yet the privileged class demanded inexorably that
+they should have two thirds of the representatives, and the people one
+third. This would place the people in a hopeless minority, and leave
+them entirely at the mercy of the privileged class.
+
+To settle these agitating questions the Notables were again summoned
+on the 6th of September, 1788. It was the same body which Calonne had
+called together. Parliament had firmly declared in favor of allowing
+the people a representation of but one third, giving the nobles a third
+and the clergy a third. The king and Necker were fully assured that
+such an arrangement could by no means satisfy the nation--that it would
+be a mockery of the people which would only exasperate them. They hoped
+that these Notables, carefully selected, though from the aristocracy,
+would be willing to give ninety-eight of the people at least an equal
+voice with two of the aristocracy.
+
+The Abbé Sièyes had written a pamphlet which had produced a profound
+impression throughout France. He thus asked, and answered, three
+questions: "What is the Third Estate? The whole people. What has it
+hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To
+become something."
+
+But the Notables were now alarmed, and a warm discussion ensued between
+the advocates of ancient traditions and of national justice. One alone
+of the several committees into which the Notables were divided voted
+in favor of allowing the people an equal representation with the
+privileged classes. Monsieur, afterward Louis XVIII., was chairman of
+that committee. When the king was informed of this vote he remarked,
+"Let them add my vote: I give it willingly."[80] After a month's
+session, the Notables, on the 12th of December, having accomplished
+nothing, vanished, to appear no more forever.
+
+The question was still unsettled, and the clamor was growing louder and
+more exciting. It was a vital struggle. To give the people an equal
+voice was death to aristocratic usurpation. To give the privileged
+class two votes, to the people one, hopelessly perpetuated abuses.
+The question could only be settled by the authority of the king. On
+the 27th of December Necker made a report to the king recommending
+that the unprivileged class should send the same number of delegates
+as the privileged.[81] In accordance with this report, on the 24th of
+January, 1789, the royal edict was issued.[82] The dissatisfaction on
+the part of the nobles amounted almost to rebellion. In Brittany the
+nobles, who had sent in a strong protest, refused to send any delegates
+to the States-General, hoping probably that the nobles and the clergy
+generally would follow their example, and that thus the measure might
+be frustrated.
+
+But events ran onward like the sweep of ocean tides. Nothing could
+retard them. Preparations were made for the elections. Among the people
+every man over twenty-five years of age who paid a tax was allowed
+to vote.[83] A more sublime spectacle earth has rarely witnessed.
+Twenty-five millions of people suddenly gained the right of popular
+suffrage. Between five and six millions of votes were cast. The city
+of Paris was divided into sixty districts, each of which chose two
+electors, and these electors were to choose twenty deputies. The people
+were also enjoined to send in a written statement of their grievances,
+with instructions to the deputies respecting the reforms which they
+wished to have introduced. These statements of grievances, now existing
+in thirty-six compact folio volumes, present appalling testimony to the
+outrages which the people had for ages been enduring. With propriety,
+dignity, and marvelous unanimity of purpose the people assembled at the
+polls.[84]
+
+There were a few of the nobles who were in favor of reform. In Provence
+the nobility in their provincial parliament protested against the
+royal edict, declaring that such innovations as were contemplated
+tended to "impair the dignity of the nobility." One of their number,
+Count Mirabeau, ventured to remonstrate against this arrogance, and
+to advocate the rights of the people. He was a man of extraordinary
+genius and courage, and before no mortal or assemblage of mortals could
+his eye be compelled to quail. He persisted and stood at bay, the whole
+Parliament, in a tumult of rage, assailing him. With amazing powers of
+vituperative eloquence he hurled back their denunciations, and glared
+upon them fiercely and unconquerably. He was a man of Herculean frame,
+with a gigantic head, thickly covered with shaggy locks, and he would
+have been an exceedingly handsome man had not his face been horribly
+scarred with the small-pox. He was a man of iron nerve and soul, and
+knew not what it was to fear any thing. Like most of the noblesse and
+the higher clergy, he had lived a dissolute life. The parliamentary
+assembly, in a storm of wrath, expelled him from their body. He left
+the house, but in departing, in portentous menace, exclaimed:
+
+"In all countries and in all times the aristocrats have implacably
+pursued every friend of the people; and with tenfold implacability if
+such were himself born of the aristocracy. It was thus that the last
+of the Gracchi perished by the hands of the Patricians. But he, being
+struck with the mortal stab, flung dust toward heaven and called on the
+avenging deities; and from this dust there was born Marius--Marius, not
+so illustrious for exterminating the Cimbri, as for overturning in Rome
+the tyranny of the nobles."[85]
+
+Mirabeau now threw himself into the arms of the Third Estate. That he
+might more perfectly identify himself with them, he hired a shop, it is
+said, in Marseilles, and put up his sign--_Mirabeau, Woolen-draper_.
+By such influences he was elected deputy by the Third Estate both at
+Aix and at Marseilles. With enthusiasm was he elected--with ringing of
+bells, booming of cannon, and popular acclaim. He decided to accept
+the election of Aix. His measureless audacity was soon called into
+requisition to repel the haughtiness of the court.[86]
+
+The nobles had obtained the decision that the people should not be
+allowed the secret ballot, but should vote with an audible voice. They
+cherished the hope that inferior people so dependent upon the higher
+and wealthy classes, would not venture openly to vote in opposition
+to the wishes of their superiors.[87] It was thought that the nobles
+might thus be able to control the popular election. To render this more
+certain, the people, in their primary assemblies, were only to choose
+_electors_; and these electors were to choose the delegates. Thus then
+was a double chance for intimidation and bribery.
+
+But the people had made progress in intelligence far beyond the
+conceptions of the nobles. They had an instinctive perception of
+their rights, and, in the presence of their frowning lords, unawed,
+yet respectfully, they chose electors who would be true to the
+popular cause.[88] Thus the nobles not only failed in introducing
+an aristocratic element into the popular branch, but, much to their
+chagrin, they found a very powerful popular party thrown into the
+order of the clergy.[89] The higher offices in the ecclesiastical
+hierarchy, which gave the possessor vast revenue and no labor, were
+generally in the hands of nobles, haughty, intolerant, united in all
+their sympathies with their brethren of the privileged class. But the
+curates, the pastors of the churches, who preached, and visited the
+rich, and instructed the children, working hard and living in penury,
+came from the firesides of the people. They were familiar with the
+sufferings of their parishioners, and their sympathies were warmly with
+them. Many of these curates were men of unaffected piety. Nearly every
+writer upon the Revolution is compelled to do them justice.[90]
+
+It had been decided that the States-General should consist of twelve
+hundred members. The people were consequently to choose six hundred,
+and the clergy and nobility six hundred. But, as the three orders held
+their elections separately, the two privileged classes were entitled to
+three hundred each. Two hundred curates were chosen as representatives
+of the clergy. And though these parish ministers were much overawed
+by their ecclesiastical superiors, and would hardly venture openly to
+vote in contradiction to their wishes, still both nobles and bishops
+understood that they were in heart with the people. There was also a
+very small minority among the nobles who were advocates of the popular
+cause, some from noble impulses, like La Fayette, and some from ignoble
+motives, like the Duke of Orleans. Thomas Jefferson, who was at this
+time in Paris, wrote four days after the opening of the States-General
+to Mr. Jay, "It was imagined the ecclesiastical elections would have
+been generally in favor of the higher clergy; on the contrary, the
+lower clergy have obtained five sixths of these deputations. These are
+the sons of peasants, who have done all the drudgery of the service
+for ten, twenty, and thirty guineas a year, and whose oppressions and
+penury, contrasted with the pride and luxury of the higher clergy, have
+rendered them perfectly disposed to humble the latter."
+
+These facts, and the harmony with which the inexperienced multitude
+took this first great step toward national regeneration, excited
+throughout aristocratic Europe amazement and alarm. Kings and nobles
+alike trembled. All the states of Europe, like France, were oppressed
+by feudal despotism. All the people of Europe might, like the French,
+demand reform. The formidable aspect which this popular unity of
+thought and action presented struck such terror that many of the
+leading nobles of France combined, among whom was Count d'Artois,
+brother of the king, afterward Charles X., and wrote a menacing letter
+to the king, to induce him to break his pledge and forbid the meeting
+of the States.[91]
+
+[Illustration: FIRST RIOT IN THE FAUBOURG ST. ANTOINE.]
+
+It was now, however, too late to retract. The train was in motion and
+could not be stopped. The meeting had been appointed for the 27th of
+April, but was postponed until the 4th of May. Another effort, and one
+still more desperate, was now made to prevent the meeting. By bribery,
+secret agents, and false rumors, a riot was fomented in Paris. It was
+apparently judged that if fifty thousand men could be turned loose
+into the streets, starving and without work, to pillage and destroy,
+it would authorize the concentration of the army at Paris; the deluded
+rioters could be easily shot down, and it could plausibly be affirmed
+that public tranquility required the postponement of the meeting of the
+States. The mob was roused by secret instigators. Guns were skillfully
+placed here and there, which they could seize. Two cart-loads of
+paving-stones were placed in their way. For twenty-four hours a
+tumultuous mass of people were left to do as they pleased, apparently
+waiting for the tumult to gain strength.
+
+But the effort was a failure; it proved but an artificial mob, and
+the outbreak almost died of itself. One house, that of M. Reveillon,
+was sacked, and the wine-bottles from his cellar distributed through
+the streets. At length the soldiers were called in, and at the first
+discharge of the guns the riot was quelled. How many were shot down
+by the discharge of grapeshot is uncertain. The court made a foolish
+endeavor to exaggerate the disturbance, and represented that the people
+were ferocious in violence. Others, on the popular side, represented
+that multitudes were assembled from curiosity to see what was going
+on, that the streets were swept with grapeshot, and that hundreds of
+innocent spectators were cut down. M. Bailly, on the contrary, says,
+that the rioters fled as soon as the soldiers appeared, and that no one
+was injured.
+
+The court did not venture to prosecute inquiries respecting the
+outbreak.[92]
+
+The cold winds of winter were now sweeping over France. All the
+industrial energies of the nation were paralyzed. The loss of the
+harvest had created a general famine, and famine had introduced
+pestilence. Men, women, and children, without number, wandered over the
+highways, and by a natural instinct flocked to Paris. The inhabitants
+of the city looked appalled upon these multitudes, with haggard faces
+and in rags, who crowded their pavements. They could not be fed, and
+starving men are not willing to lie down tranquilly and die when they
+have strong arms to seize that food which the rich can obtain with
+money. The eloquent and impassioned writers of the day had fully
+unveiled to the nation the abuses which it had for ages endured, and
+yet the people, with wonderful patience and long-suffering, were
+quietly waiting for the meeting of the _States-General_, as the only
+means for the redress of their grievances.
+
+On the 4th of May, 1789, the States-General were convened at
+Versailles. The clergy and the nobility appeared, by royal decree,
+magnificently attired in purple robes emblazoned with gold, and with
+plumed hats. The deputies of the Third Estate were enjoined to present
+themselves in plain black cloaks and slouched hats, as the badge of
+their inferiority.[93] On Saturday, the 2d of May, the king gave a
+reception, in the magnificent audience-chamber of the palace, to the
+delegates. When one of the nobles or of the high clergy presented
+himself both of the folding doors were thrown open as his name was
+announced; but when one of the Third Estate was presented one door
+only was thrown back. This studied indignity was of course annoying
+to men who were really the most distinguished in the realm, and who
+were conscious of their vast superiority to the corrupt and decaying
+aristocracy.[94]
+
+[Illustration: THE THREE ORDERS.]
+
+On the Paris Avenue at Versailles there was an immense hall called the
+_Salle des Menus_, which no longer exists. It was sufficiently large to
+contain the twelve hundred deputies, and in whose spacious galleries
+and wide side-aisles four thousand spectators could be assembled.
+It was a magnificent hall, and was ornamented for the occasion with
+the highest embellishments of art. Here the king could meet all the
+deputies of the three orders. But the nobles and the clergy had
+already formed the plan still to keep the power in their own hands by
+insisting that the States should meet in three separate chambers and
+give three separate votes. Thus three hundred nobles and three hundred
+clergy would give two votes, and six hundred of the people but one.
+This was the last chance for the privileged class to retain their
+domination, and this battle they would fight to desperation. The people
+were equally determined not to be thus circumvented. The privileged
+class, resolved upon the accomplishment of their plan, had prepared
+for themselves two smaller halls, one for the nobility and one for the
+clergy.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 77: Brienne, in addition to the Archbishopric of Toulouse,
+was appointed Archbishop of Sens, and Louis XVI. obtained for him from
+Pius VI. a cardinal's hat. The Cardinal of Loménie as he was then
+called, subsequently returned to France, where he was arrested, and,
+Feb. 19, 1794, was found dead on the floor of his cell, in the 67th
+year of his age.--_Enc. Am._]
+
+[Footnote 78: Alison, Hist. of Europe, vol. i., p. 63.]
+
+[Footnote 79: "For, behold, this monstrous twenty-million class,
+hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to agree about
+the sheering of, is now also arising with hopes! It has ceased
+or is ceasing to be dumb. It speaks through pamphlets. It is
+a sheer snowing of pamphlets, like to snow up the government
+thoroughfares."--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 80: Labaume, vol. ii., p. 323.
+
+It was supposed that the Count of Provence, afterward Louis XVIII., was
+then intriguing to gain popularity, that he might dethrone his brother
+and take his place. "Le Comte de Provence," writes Villaumé, "intrigoit
+et profitait des fautes du roi, pour se frayer un chemin vers le
+trône."--_Hist. de Rev. Fr., par Villaumé_, vol. i., p. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Rapport fait au Roi dans son Conceil, le 27 Décembre,
+1788.]
+
+[Footnote 82: The edict convening the States contained the following
+sentiments: "We have need of the concourse of our faithful subjects
+to aid in surmounting the difficulties arising from the state of the
+finances, and establishing, in conformity with our most ardent desire,
+a durable order in the parts of government which affect the public
+welfare. We wish that the three estates should confer together on the
+matters which will be exhibited for their examination. They will make
+known to us the wishes and grievances of the people in such a way that,
+by a mutual confidence and exchange of kindly offices between the king
+and the people, the public evils should, as rapidly as possible, be
+remedied.
+
+"For this purpose we enjoin and command that immediately upon the
+receipt of this letter, you proceed to elect deputies of the three
+orders, worthy of confidence from their virtues and the spirit with
+which they are animated; that the deputies should be furnished with
+powers and instructions sufficient to enable them to attend to all
+the concerns of the state, and introduce such remedies as shall be
+deemed advisable for the reform of abuses, and the establishment of a
+fixed and durable order in all parts of the government, worthy of the
+paternal affections of the king, and of the revolutions of so noble an
+assembly."--_Calonne, Etat de la France_, p. 315.]
+
+[Footnote 83: Michelet, vol. i., p. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 84: "I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians)
+who live without government, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely
+greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European
+governments. Among the former public opinion is in the place of
+law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where.
+Among the latter, under the pretense of governing, they have
+divided their nations into two classes--wolves and sheep. I do not
+exaggerate."--_Thomas Jefferson. Life by Henry S. Randall_, vol. i., p.
+464.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Tils Adoptif, vol. v., p. 256.]
+
+[Footnote 86: Art. Mirabeau, Biographie Moderne.]
+
+[Footnote 87: "The popular assemblies were to vote by acclamation (_à
+haute voix_). They did not suppose that inferior people in such a mode
+of election, in presence of the nobles and Notables, would possess
+sufficient firmness to oppose them--enough assurance to pronounce other
+names than those which were dictated to them."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p.
+76.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "The long-looked-for has come at last; wondrous news of
+victory, deliverance, enfranchisement, sounds magical through every
+heart. To the proud strong man it has come whose strong hands shall be
+no more gyved. The weary day-drudge has heard of it; the beggar with
+his crust moistened in tears. What! to us also has hope reached--down
+even to us? Hunger and hardship are not to be eternal? The bread we
+extorted from the rugged glebe, and with the toil of our sinews reaped,
+and ground, and kneaded into loaves, was not wholly for another then,
+but we shall cut of it and be filled?"--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 89: "The prelates and dignified clergy felt the utmost
+disquietude at the number of curés and ecclesiastics of inferior rank
+who attended them as members of the States-General. It was evident,
+from their conversation, habits, and manners, that they participated
+in the feelings of the _Tiers Etat_, with whom they lived in constant
+communication; and that the unjust exclusion of the middling ranks
+from the dignities and emoluments of the Church had excited as much
+dissatisfaction in the ecclesiastical classes as the invidious
+privileges of the noblesse had awakened in the laity."--_Alison's
+History of Europe_, vol. i., p. 68.]
+
+[Footnote 90: Michelet, vol. i., p. 77. Desodoards, vol. i., p. 135.
+Rabaud, vol. i., p. 41. De Tocqueville, Old Régime, vol. i., p. 144.]
+
+[Footnote 91: Michelet, vol. i., p. 78. Mémoire présenté au Roi par
+Monseigneur Compte d'Artois (Charles X.), M. le Prince de Condé, M. le
+Duc de Bourbon, M. le Duc d'Enghien, et M. le Prince de Conti.]
+
+[Footnote 92: It has been denied that the nobles were guilty of this
+act. For proof see Mémoires de Bensenval, tome ii., p. 347; L'OEuvre
+des Sept Jours, p. 411; Exposé Justificatif; Bailly's Mémoires,
+tome ii., p. 51. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne writes: "If the agents of
+despotism devised this infernal stratagem, as was afterward believed,
+it makes one crime more to be added to all those of which despotism had
+already become guilty."]
+
+[Footnote 93: "A hall had been hastily got ready; the costumes were
+determined upon, and a humiliating badge had been imposed upon the
+_Tiers Etat_. Men are not less jealous of their dignity than of their
+rights. With a very just pride the instructions forbade the deputies to
+condescend to any degrading ceremonial."--_Thiers_, vol. i., p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 94: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 43.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ASSEMBLING OF THE STATES-GENERAL.
+
+ Opening of the States-General.--Sermon of the Bishop of
+ Nancy.--Insult to the Deputies of the People.--Aspect
+ of Mirabeau.--Boldness of the Third Estate.--Journal of
+ Mirabeau.--Commencement of the Conflict.--First Appearance of
+ Robespierre.--Decided Stand taken by the Commons.--Views of the
+ Curates.--Dismay of the Nobles.--Excitement in Paris.--The National
+ Assembly.--The Oath.
+
+
+On the 4th of May, 1789, the day of the opening of the States-General,
+a solemn procession took place. Nearly all Paris flocked out to
+Versailles, which is but ten miles from the metropolis, and countless
+thousands from the surrounding regions crowded the avenues of the
+city of the court. The streets were decorated with tapestry. The
+pavements, balconies, and house-tops were covered with spectators. Joy
+beamed from almost every face,[95] for it was felt that, after a long
+night, a day of prosperity was dawning. The court, the clergy, and
+the nobles appeared in extraordinary splendor; but, as the procession
+moved along, it was observed that the eyes of the multitude, undazzled
+by the pageant of embroidered robes and nodding plumes, were riveted
+upon the six hundred deputies of the people, in their plain garb--the
+advance-guard of freedom's battalions. They were every where greeted,
+as they moved along, with clapping of hands and acclaim which seemed to
+rend the skies.
+
+"Rapturous, enchanting scene!" exclaims Ferrières, "to which I faintly
+strive to do justice. Bands of music, placed at intervals, filled the
+air with melodious sounds. Military marches, the rolling of the drums,
+the clang of trumpets, the noble chants of the priests, alternately
+heard without discordance, without confusion, enlivened this triumphal
+procession to the temple of the Almighty."
+
+On their arrival at the church, the three orders were seated on benches
+placed in the nave. The king and queen occupied thrones beneath a
+canopy of purple velvet sprinkled with golden _fleur de lis_. The
+princes and princesses, with the great officers of the crown and the
+ladies of the palace, occupied conspicuous positions reserved for them
+by the side of their majesties. After the most imposing ceremonies, and
+music by a majestic choir, "unaccompanied by the din of instruments,"
+the Bishop of Nancy preached a sermon enforcing the sentiment that
+religion constitutes the prosperity of nations.[96]
+
+It was a noble discourse, replete with political wisdom and Christian
+philosophy. The two can never be dissevered. In glowing colors he
+depicted the vices of the financial system, and showed the misery
+and demoralization which it necessarily brought upon the people.
+"And it is," said he, "in the name of a good king, of a just and
+feeling monarch, that these miserable exactors exercise their acts
+of barbarism." This sentiment, so complimentary to the personal
+character of the king, so denunciatory of the institutions of France,
+was received with a general burst of applause, notwithstanding the
+sacredness of the place, and the etiquette of the French court,
+which did not allow applause in the presence of the king even at the
+theatre.[97] With these religious ceremonies the day was closed.
+
+The next day, May 5th, the court and all the deputies of the three
+orders were assembled in the great hall, to listen to the instructions
+of the king. And here, again, the deputies of the people encountered an
+insult. A particular door was assigned to them, a back door which they
+approached by a corridor, where they were kept crowded together for
+several hours, until the king, the court, the nobles, and the clergy
+had entered in state at the great door, and had taken their seats. The
+back door was then opened, and the deputies of the people, in that
+garb which had been imposed upon them as a badge of inferiority, were
+permitted to file in and take the benches at the lower end of the hall
+which had been left for them.[98]
+
+As they entered, the galleries were filled with spectators. The king
+and queen were seated upon a throne gorgeously decorated. The court,
+in its highest splendor, nearly encircled the throne. The nobility and
+the clergy, with plumes and robes of state, occupied elevated seats.
+All eyes were fixed upon the deputies as they entered one by one,
+plainly dressed, with slouched hat in hand. Mirabeau, in particular,
+attracted universal observation. He was not only by birth and blood an
+aristocrat, but he was an aristocrat in taste and manners. The spirit
+of revenge had driven him into the ranks of the people. As he strode
+along the aisle to his seat, he turned a threatening glance to the
+plumed and embroidered noblesse, from whose seats he had been driven,
+and a smile, haughty and bitterly menacing, curled his lips.[99]
+
+The king's speech was favorably received. He appeared before the
+representatives with dignity, and recited very appropriately the
+cordial and conciliatory words which Necker had placed in his mouth. On
+finishing his speech, he sat down and put on his plumed hat. The clergy
+and the nobles, in accordance with custom, did the same. But to their
+astonishment, the Third Estate also, as by an instinctive simultaneous
+movement, placed their slouched hats upon their heads. The nobles,
+amazed at what they deemed such insolence of the people, shouted
+imperiously, "Hats off, hats off!" But the hats remained, as if glued
+to the head. The king, to appease the tumult, again uncovered his head.
+This necessitated the nobles and the clergy to do the same. Immediately
+the Third Estate followed their example, and, for the remainder
+of the session, all sat with uncovered heads.[100] When the last
+States-General met, the Third Estate were compelled to throw themselves
+upon their knees in the presence of the king, and to address him only
+upon their knees.[101]
+
+When Necker arose to speak, all eyes were riveted and all ears were
+on the alert. As the organ of the king and his council, the minister
+was to communicate the real opinions and intentions of the court. The
+clergy and the nobility were agreeably disappointed; but the people,
+on their back benches, listened silent and sorrowful. They heard none
+of those noble ideas of equality and liberty which they were ready to
+receive with enthusiastic acclaim. Necker was evidently trammeled by
+the king, the court, and the nobles, now uniting in the feeling that
+the rising power of the Third Estate must be repressed. Thus ended the
+second day.
+
+Mirabeau had commenced a journal, to contain, for popular information,
+a record of the proceedings of the States-General. The court promptly
+issued a decree prohibiting the publication of this journal, and
+also prohibiting the issuing of any periodical without permission of
+the king. A rigid censorship of the press was thus re-established,
+and the deputies were excluded from all effectual communication with
+their constituents. This was another measure of folly and madness. It
+led individual members to issue written journals, which were read in
+the saloons, the clubs, and at the corners of the streets to excited
+multitudes, and it induced thousands to crowd the spacious galleries of
+the hall to listen to the debates. Thus the speakers were animated by
+the presence of four thousand of the most earnest of the people, eager
+to applaud every utterance in behalf of popular liberty. The public
+mind was also increasingly irritated by the petty persecution; so much
+so, that at length the king thought it not safe to enforce the decree,
+and the defiant Mirabeau soon resumed the publication of his journal,
+under the title of _Letters to my Constituents_.[102]
+
+The next day the deputies of the Third Estate at the appointed hour
+repaired to the hall; but they found there none either of the clergy or
+of the nobles. These two parties, resolved to perpetuate the division
+of orders, had met in their respective halls and had organized as
+distinct bodies. The Third Estate, assuming the name of the Commons,
+abstained from any organic measures and waited to be joined by their
+colleagues. Thus matters continued for several days. Every effort was
+made on the part of the clergy and nobles to ensnare the Commons into
+some measure which would imply their organization as the Third Estate,
+but all was in vain. Assuming that they were a meeting of citizens
+assembled by legitimate authority to wait for other citizens that they
+might organize a political assembly, they merely chose a temporary
+chairman for the preservation of order, and _waited_.[103]
+
+Here, then, the vital question was to be decided whether the
+States-General should compose one body where the majority should
+rule, or three separate bodies where two could unite, a perpetual
+majority, against one. Upon this question the whole issue of reform
+was suspended. All equally understood the bearings of the question,
+and all equally saw that there was no room for compromise. It was a
+death-struggle. If united in one assembly the _people_ would have
+a majority, and could maintain popular rights. If there were three
+bodies the people would be in a hopeless minority, having two against
+them. The attention of all France was engrossed by the conflict, and
+the nation, with all its interests paralyzed, began to grow impatient
+of the delay. "The nobles," M. Bailly writes, "decreed that the
+deliberation by order, and the power of each order to put a veto on
+the proceedings of the other two, were part of the very constitution
+of the monarchy, and that they must maintain them as the defenders of
+the throne and freedom. What a strange decree! The representatives of
+about two hundred thousand individuals, or more, who are nobles take
+upon themselves to decide, and in their own favor, a question that
+concerns twenty-five millions of men. They assume for themselves the
+right of the veto; they declare the powers and the principles of the
+constitution; and who are they more than others who thus declare?"[104]
+
+During this protracted conflict the higher clergy cunningly devised the
+following plan to place the Commons in a false position: They sent an
+imposing delegation, headed by the Archbishop of Aix, with a pathetic
+allusion to the miseries of the people, and entreated the Commons to
+enter into a conference to assuage their sufferings. The snare was
+shrewdly contrived. If the Commons assented, it was the commencement
+of business with three chambers; if they refused, the clergy would
+apparently be those alone who regarded the starving population. For a
+moment there was much embarrassment.
+
+A young man rose in the Assembly, who was unknown to nearly all the
+members, and in a calm, distinct, deliberate voice, which arrested
+universal attention, said:
+
+"Go, tell your colleagues that we are waiting for them here to aid us
+in assuaging the sorrows of the people; tell them no longer to retard
+our work; tell them that our resolution is not to be shaken by such a
+stratagem as this. If they have sympathy for the poor, let them, as
+imitators of their Master, renounce that luxury which consumes the
+funds of indigence, dismiss those insolent lackeys who attend them,
+sell their gorgeous equipages, and with these superfluities relieve the
+perishing. We wait for them here."[105]
+
+The snare was adroitly avoided. There was a universal hum of approval,
+and all were inquiring the name of the young deputy. This was the first
+public appearance of Maximilian Robespierre.[106]
+
+At last, on the 27th of May, twenty-two days after the convening of the
+States, the Commons sent a deputation to the halls of the clergy and of
+the nobility, urging them, in the name of the God of peace, to meet in
+the hall of the Assembly to deliberate upon the public welfare. This
+led to a series of conferences and of suggested compromises from the
+king and the court which continued for a fortnight, and all of which
+proved unavailing. At last, on the 10th of June, Mirabeau arose, and
+said,
+
+"A month is passed.[107] It is time to take a decisive step. A deputy
+of Paris has an important motion to make. Let us hear him."
+
+The Abbé Sièyes[108] then rose and proposed to send a last invitation
+to the other orders to join them; and, if they refused, to proceed to
+business, not as a branch of the convention, but as the whole body. The
+proposition was received with enthusiasm. This was on Wednesday. As the
+next day, Thursday, was appropriated to religious solemnities, Friday,
+the 12th, was fixed upon as the day in which this important summons was
+to be sent.[109]
+
+This last appeal was sent in the following words, which the committee
+from the Commons were charged to read to the clergy and the nobles, and
+a copy of which they were to leave with them:
+
+"Gentlemen, we are commissioned by the deputies of the Commons of
+France to apprise you that they can no longer delay the fulfillment of
+the obligation imposed on all the representatives of the nation. It is
+assuredly time that those who claim this quality should make themselves
+known by a common verification of their powers, and begin at length to
+attend to the national interest, which alone, and to the exclusion of
+all private interests, presents itself as the grand aim to which all
+the deputies ought to tend by one general effort. In consequence, and
+from the necessity which the representatives of the nation are under
+to proceed to business, the deputies of the Commons entreat you anew,
+gentlemen, and their duty enjoins them to address to you, as well
+individually as collectively, a last summons to come to the hall of
+the States, to attend, concur in, and submit like themselves to the
+common verification of powers. We are, at the same time, directed to
+inform you that the general call of all the bailliages convoked will
+take place in an hour; that the Assembly will immediately proceed to
+the verification, and that such as do not appear will be declared
+defaulters."
+
+This summons, so bold and decisive, excited not a little consternation
+in both of the privileged bodies. The curates among the clergy received
+the message with applause, and were in favor of immediate compliance.
+But their ecclesiastical superiors held them in check, and succeeded in
+obtaining an adjournment.
+
+The Commons waited the hour, and then proceeded to the examination
+of the credentials of the deputies. This occupied three days. On
+the first day three of the curates came from the clergy and united
+with them. They were received with enthusiasm. On the second day six
+came, on the third ten, and then it was announced that one hundred
+and forty were coming in a body. This excited thorough alarm with all
+the high dignitaries of Church and State. "The aristocracy," says
+Thiers, "immediately threw itself at the feet of the king. The Duke of
+Luxembourg, the Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, the Archbishop of Paris,
+implored him to repress the audacity of the _Tiers Etat_ and to support
+their rights which were attacked. The Parliament proposed to him to do
+without the States, _promising to assent to all the taxes_. The king
+was surrounded by the princes and the queen. This was more than was
+requisite for his weakness. They hurried him off to Marly in order to
+extort from him a vigorous measure."
+
+This state of things had secured perfect reconciliation between the
+court and the aristocracy. The lines were now distinctly drawn; the
+king, nobles, and clergy on one side, the people on the other. The
+excitement in Paris during this protracted conflict was very great. A
+large wooden tent was erected in the garden of the Palais Royal, where
+a crowd was almost constantly gathered to receive the news brought by
+couriers from Versailles. At every street corner, in every café, the
+subject was discussed. Almost every hour produced a pamphlet. "There
+were thirteen issued to-day," writes Arthur Young, "sixteen yesterday,
+ninety-two last week." In the mean time the court was concentrating the
+troops from all parts of the kingdom around Paris and Versailles, and a
+hundred pieces of field artillery menaced the two cities.
+
+It was now necessary to give the Assembly a name, a name which should
+define its functions. The assumption that they were the nation would
+be bold and defiant. The admission that they were but a _branch_ of
+the national representation would be paralyzing. The Assembly was
+impelled to prompt and decisive action by the apprehension, universally
+entertained, that the court might employ the army, now assembled in
+such force, to arrest the principal deputies, dissolve the States, and,
+if the people of Paris manifested any opposition, to surround the city
+and starve them into subjection. Sièyes, in a celebrated pamphlet which
+he had issued to prepare the public mind for this movement, had said,
+"The Third Estate alone, they affirm, can not form the States-General.
+Well! so much the better; it shall compose a National Assembly." A body
+which, by universal admission represented ninety-six hundredths of the
+nation, might with propriety take the name of National.[110]
+
+Upon the morning of the 17th of June, after a long and animated
+discussion of the preceding day, the Commons met to decide this
+all-important question. The king, the court, and the aristocracy
+were greatly alarmed. If this bold, resolute body were the _nation_,
+what were they? Nothing. The people were intensely excited and
+animated. Thousands in every conceivable vehicle flocked out from
+Paris to Versailles. The galleries of the vast hall, rising like an
+amphitheatre, were crowded to their utmost capacity. The building
+was surrounded and the broad avenues of Versailles thronged with the
+excited yet orderly multitude.
+
+The members had but just assembled when the president, Bailly, was
+summoned to the chancellor's office to receive a message from the king.
+It was well understood that this message would be a regal prohibition
+for them to do any thing without the concurrence of the three orders.
+The Assembly immediately, with firmness, postponed the reception of
+the message until the vote then before them was taken. Again they were
+interrupted by a communication from the nobles, who in their alarm made
+a desperate endeavor to thwart the proceedings. But the Assembly calmly
+and firmly proceeded, and by a vote of four hundred and one against
+ninety declared themselves the National Assembly.
+
+In the presence of four thousand spectators the deputies then arose,
+and with uplifted hands took the oath of fidelity. As with simultaneous
+voice they pronounced the words "_We swear_," a burst of acclamation
+rose from the galleries, which was caught by those outside the door and
+rolled along the streets like reverberating thunder. "Vive le Roi! Vive
+l'Assemblée Nationale!" was the cry which came from gushing hearts, and
+thousands in intensity of emotion bowed their heads and wept.
+
+A more heroic deed than this history has not recorded. It was a
+decisive movement. It gave the people an organization and arrayed them
+face to face against royalty and aristocracy. The king, the court,
+the nobles, and the higher clergy were all against them. They were
+surrounded with armies. They were unarmed and helpless, save in the
+righteousness of their cause. They were menaced with all the terrors
+of exile, the dungeon, and the scaffold; but, regardless of all these
+perils, faithful to the sacred cause of popular liberty, they pledged
+in its support their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
+Even Alison, the unrelenting foe of popular rights, the untiring
+advocate of aristocratic assumption, is constrained to say,
+
+"It is impossible to refuse a tribute of admiration to those intrepid
+men, who, transported by a zeal for liberty and the love of their
+country, ventured to take a step fraught with so many dangers, and
+which, to all appearance, might have brought many to prison or the
+scaffold. Few situations can be imagined more dignified than that of
+Bailly, crowning a life of scientific labor with patriotic exertion,
+surrounded by an admiring assembly, the idol of the people, the
+admiration of Europe."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 95: "Like the nation, I was full of hope, hope that I then
+could not suppose vain. Alas! how can one now think without tears on
+the hopes and expectations then every where felt by all good Frenchmen,
+by every friend of humanity!"--_Necker on the French Revolution._]
+
+[Footnote 96: "The _Tiers Etat_ numbered among its members a great
+proportion of the talent and almost all the energy of France. The
+leading members of the bar, of the mercantile and medical classes,
+and many of the ablest of the clergy were to be found in its
+ranks."--_Alison_, vol. i., p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 97: France and its Revolutions, by Geo. Long, Esq., p. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 98: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 99: Madame de Staël.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Histoire Parlementaire, vol. i., p. 356.]
+
+[Footnote 101: "Who would believe that this mad court remembered
+and regretted the absurd custom of making the Third Estate harangue
+on their knees? They were unwilling to dispense from this ceremony
+expressly, and preferred deciding that the President of the Third
+Estate should make no speech whatever."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 88.]
+
+[Footnote 102: Procès verbal des électeurs redigé par Bailly et
+Duveyrier, t. i., p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 103: "The chairman was M. Bailly, a simple and virtuous man,
+an illustrious and modest cultivator of the sciences, who had been
+suddenly transported from the quiet studies of his closet into the
+midst of civil broils. Elected to preside over a great assembly, he had
+been alarmed at his new office, had deemed himself unworthy to fill it,
+and had undertaken it solely from a sense of duty. But, raised all at
+once to liberty, he found within him an unexpected presence of mind and
+firmness. Amid so many conflicts, he caused the majesty of the assembly
+to be respected, and represented it with all the dignity of virtue and
+reason."--_Thiers_, vol. i., p. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Indignantly Desodoards exclaims, "The descendants of the
+Sicumbrians, or of I know not what savages, who ages ago came prowling
+from the forests of Germany, could they assume at the end of eighteen
+centuries that their blood was more pure than that which flowed in
+the veins of the descendants of the Gauls, or the Romans, the ancient
+inhabitants of France? Do they pretend that they are nobles because
+they are conquerors? Then we, being now more powerful, have only to
+drive them across the Rhine, and in our turn we shall be conquerors
+and consequently nobles."-_Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de
+France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, Citoyen Français._]
+
+[Footnote 105: "What a spectacle for France! Six hundred inorganic
+individuals, essential for its regeneration and salvation, sit there
+on their elliptic benches longing passionately toward life, in painful
+durance, like souls waiting to be born. Speeches are spoken, eloquent,
+audible within doors and without. Mind agitates itself against mind;
+the nation looks on with ever deeper interest. Thus do the Commons
+deputies sit incubating."--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 106: Bailly's Mémoires, t. i., p. 114.--_Dumont, Souvenirs,
+etc._, vol. i., p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 107: "A month lost! One month in open famine. Observe that
+in this long expectation the rich kept themselves motionless, and
+postponed every kind of expenditure. Work had ceased. He who had but
+his hands, his daily labor to supply the day, went to look for work,
+found none--begged--got nothing--robbed. Starving gangs overran the
+country."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 93.]
+
+[Footnote 108: The Abbé Sièyes was one of the deputies sent by the
+Third Estate from Paris, and the only clergyman in their delegation.]
+
+[Footnote 109: Sièyes' motion was to _summon_ the privileged. By vote
+of the Assembly the word was changed to invite.--_France and its
+Revolutions, by G. Long, Esq._, p. 12.
+
+"The Assembly," writes M. Bailly, its president, "deliberating after
+the verification of its powers, perceives that it is already composed
+of representatives sent directly by ninety-six hundredths, at least, of
+the whole nation. Nothing can be more exact than this assertion. The
+four hundredths that are absent, but duly summoned, can not impede the
+ninety-six hundredths that are present.
+
+"The Assembly will never lose the hope of uniting in its bosom all
+the deputies that are now absent; will never cease to call upon
+them to fulfill the obligation that has been imposed upon them of
+concurring with the sitting of the States-General. At whatever moment
+the absent deputies may present themselves in the session about to
+open, the Assembly declares beforehand that it will hasten to receive
+them, to share with them, after the verification of their powers,
+the continuance of the great labors which can not but procure the
+regeneration of France."]
+
+[Footnote 110: Necker estimated the Third Estate at ninety-_eight_
+hundredths of the population.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
+
+ First Acts of the Assembly.--Confusion of the Court.--Hall of
+ the Assembly closed.--Adjournment to the Tennis-court.--Cabinet
+ Councils.--Despotic Measures.--The Tennis-court closed.--Exultation
+ of the Court.--Union with the Clergy.--Peril of the Assembly.--The
+ Royal Sitting.--Speech of the King.
+
+
+The first measure adopted by the National Assembly was worthy of
+itself. It was voted that the taxes already decreed, though not legally
+assessed by the consent of the nation, should be punctiliously paid.
+Instead of repudiating the enormous public debt, they appropriated it
+as their own and placed it under the safeguard of the nation. They
+then appointed a committee immediately to attend to the distresses
+of the people, and to devise measures for their relief. How vast the
+contrast between this magnanimity of the people and the selfishness and
+corruption of the court, as developed through ages! Thus terminated
+the eventful 17th of June, 1789, which may almost be considered the
+birthday of the nation of France. Before this event the _people_ had
+hardly a recognized existence. Though the cradle of its infancy has
+been rocked with storms, and though in its advancing manhood it has
+encountered fearful perils and the sternest conflicts, yet its progress
+is surely onward to dignity and repose.
+
+At an early hour the Assembly adjourned. Couriers from the hall
+hastened to expectant Paris with the glad tidings. The most fervid
+imagination can not conceive the joyful enthusiasm which the
+intelligence excited in the metropolis and throughout France. The king
+and his court were at this time a few miles from Versailles, in the
+Palace of Marly. The clergy and the nobles, in consternation, sent a
+committee of their most prominent members to implore the interposition
+of the royal power.[111] But the king had not sufficient nerve for so
+decisive an act. It was urged that the nobility and the clergy should
+immediately combine in forming a united body which should constitute
+an upper house; and thus naturally the kingdom would have fallen into
+a monarchy like that of England, with its House of Lords and its House
+of Commons. This would have been a most salutary reform, and would have
+prepared the way for the gradual and safe advance of the nation from
+servitude to freedom. But, with madness almost inconceivable, the high
+nobility with contempt repelled all idea of union.[112] They deemed it
+a degradation to form a permanent association with the lower clergy
+and with men who had been within a few centuries ennobled by a decree
+of the king. Thus the formation of two separate chambers was rendered
+impossible by the folly of those very men whose existence depended
+upon it. Thus all was confusion and dismay with the nobles and the
+clergy, while unanimity and vigor pervaded every movement of the
+Assembly.[113]
+
+In this state of affairs a large proportion of the clergy, composing
+nearly all the parish ministers, were in favor of uniting with the
+Assembly. The Duke of Orleans also, among the nobility, led a small
+minority of the nobles in advocacy of the same measure. But the court
+generally entreated the king immediately to dissolve the Assembly,
+by violence if needful. The popular excitement in Paris and in
+Versailles became intense. The only hope of the people was in the
+Assembly. Its dissolution left them hopeless and in despair. The king
+was vacillating, intensely anxious to crush the popular movement,
+now become so formidable, but still fearing to adopt those energetic
+measures by which alone it could be accomplished. He at length decided,
+in accordance with that system of folly with which the court seems to
+have been inspired, to resort to the very worst measure which could
+have been adopted. On Friday the 17th of June the majority of the
+clergy, consisting of a few prelates and about one hundred and forty
+curates, resolved to withdraw from the dignitaries of the Church and
+unite with the people, in the Assembly, the next day. The prospect of
+such an accession to the popular branch struck consternation into the
+ranks of the privileged classes. A delegation of bishops and nobles in
+the night hastened to the king at Marly, and persuaded him to interfere
+to prevent the junction.
+
+Yielding to their importunities he consented to shut up the hall of
+Assembly the next day, and to guard the entrance with soldiers, so
+that there might be no meeting. As an excuse for this act of violence
+it was to be alleged that the hall was needed for workmen to put up
+decorations, in preparation for a royal sitting which was to be held on
+Monday. The king thus gained time to decide upon the measures which he
+would announce at the royal sitting.[114]
+
+At six o'clock in the morning of Saturday, placards were posted through
+the streets of Versailles announcing this decree. At seven o'clock,
+M. Bailly, president of the Assembly, received a note from one of the
+officers of the king's household, informing him of the decision. The
+Assembly had adjourned the evening before to meet at eight o'clock
+in the morning. It was, of course, proper that such a communication
+should have been made, not to the president at his lodgings, but to the
+assembled body. It was a stormy morning; sheets of rain, driven by a
+fierce wind, flooded the streets. At the appointed hour the president,
+accompanied by several deputies, approached the hall. They found the
+door guarded by a detachment of the royal troops, and a large number
+of the representatives assembled before it. Admission was positively
+refused, and it was declared that any attempt to force an entrance
+would be repelled by the bayonet.[115]
+
+[Illustration: THE DOORS OF THE ASSEMBLY CLOSED AND GUARDED.]
+
+The Assembly and the people were greatly alarmed: measures of violence
+were already commenced. Their immediate dissolution was menaced,
+and thus were to perish all hopes of reform. The rain still fell in
+torrents. There was no hall in Versailles to which they could resort.
+Some proposed immediately adjourning to Paris, where they could throw
+themselves upon the protection of the masses. This measure, however,
+was rejected as too revolutionary in its aspect. One suggested that
+there was in the city an old dilapidated tennis-court, and it was
+immediately resolved to assemble upon its pavements. The six hundred
+deputies, now roused to the highest pitch of excitement and followed by
+a vast concourse of sympathizing and applauding people, passed through
+the streets to the unfurnished tennis-court. Here, with not even a seat
+for the president, the Assembly was organized, and Bailly, in a firm
+voice, administered the following oath, which was instantly repeated in
+tones so full and strong, by every lip, as to reach the vast concourse
+which surrounded the building:
+
+"We solemnly swear never to separate, and to assemble wherever
+circumstances shall require, until the constitution of the kingdom is
+established, and founded on a solemn basis."
+
+Every deputy then signed this declaration excepting one man; and this
+Assembly so nobly respected private liberty as to allow him to enter
+his protest upon the declaration.
+
+It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and the Assembly, having
+immortalized the place as the cradle of liberty, adjourned.
+
+The next day was the Sabbath, and Monday had been appointed for the
+royal sitting. The excitement of the court at Marly now amounted almost
+to a tumult of consternation. Necker, the minister, was proposing
+measures of conciliation, and had drawn up a plan which would probably
+have been accepted by the people, for none then wished for the
+overthrow of the monarchy.[116] All the leaders in the Assembly were
+united in the desire to preserve the monarchical form of government.
+Surrounded as they were by thrones, England, not America, was their
+model. They wished for a constitutional monarchy where the voice of the
+people should be heard, and where all the citizens should live in the
+enjoyment of equal rights. Their wishes were wise and noble. Necker,
+closeted in council with the king and his cabinet, had at last brought
+the king and the majority of the cabinet over to his views, when an
+officer of the household came in and whispered to the king. The king
+immediately arose, and, requesting the council to await his return,
+left the room.
+
+"This can only be a message from the queen," said M. de Montmorin
+to Necker; "the princes of the blood have got her to interfere, and
+persuade the king to adjourn his decision."
+
+It was so. After half an hour the king returned, declined giving his
+assent to the plan till after another meeting, and dismissed the
+council. The royal sitting was also postponed until Tuesday.
+
+On Monday, the 22d, the king held another council at Versailles. His
+two brothers, Count of Provence (Louis XVIII.) and Count d'Artois
+(Charles X.), with four other dignitaries of the privileged class,
+met with the council and took an active part in their deliberations.
+The project of Necker was here discussed and almost indignantly
+rejected. And yet the most earnest Royalists admit that it was
+extremely favorable to the privileged class, and no Republican can
+read it without being surprised that so much could then have been
+yielded by the people to aristocratic assumption.[117] But still this
+plan, in which Necker had gone to the utmost extreme of concession to
+propitiate the court, was peremptorily rejected, and another, insulting
+in its tone, imperious in its exactments, and utterly despotic in its
+principles, was adopted, and the Assembly was to be sternly dissolved.
+Necker remonstrated in vain, and at last, in mortification and despair,
+declared that he could not countenance such a message by his presence,
+and that he should be under the necessity of resigning his ministry.
+The feeble, vacillating king was in judgment and in heart with Necker,
+as were also one or two other of the ministers; but the queen,
+inheriting the spirit of Austrian despotism, acting through the two
+brothers of the king and the majority of the court, carried her point.
+This agitated discussion continued until midnight of Sunday, and then
+it was too late to propose the defiant message for the next day. The
+royal sitting was consequently postponed until Tuesday.[118]
+
+To prevent the Assembly from meeting in the tennis-court on Monday,
+where the curates could join them, the Count d'Artois sent word to the
+keeper that he wished for the tennis-court on that day to play. On
+Monday morning, when the Assembly, according to its adjournment, met
+at the door, they found the entrance guarded, and they were excluded
+under the plea that the Count d'Artois wished for the room for his
+own amusement. Thus an Assembly, now consisting of seven or eight
+hundred of the most illustrious men of France, the representatives of
+twenty-five millions of people, were driven again into the streets,
+because a young nobleman wished for their room that he might play a
+game of ball.
+
+Some of the younger deputies, exasperated by such treatment, were in
+favor of forcing an entrance. But armed bands, all under aristocratic
+officers, were parading the streets, bayonets glittered around the
+hall, and fifty thousand troops were within summons. The court did not
+disguise its merriment as it again contemplated the Assembly wandering
+houseless like vagabonds in the street. The nobles now felt exultant.
+They had compelled the king to adopt their plan. The Assembly was to
+be dismissed in disgrace, and an ample force of infantry, cavalry,
+and artillery was at hand to carry out their arrogant decree. They no
+longer feared the Assembly. They no longer hesitated openly to deride
+them.[119]
+
+These representatives of the people, thus insulted beyond all
+endurance, were for a time in great perplexity. It so happened,
+however, that the curates who had voted to unite with the Third Estate,
+about one hundred and forty in number,[120] with the Archbishop of
+Vienne at their head, had met in the Church of St. Louis, intending
+to go from there in procession to join the Assembly. They immediately
+sent to the Commons an invitation to repair to the church where they
+were assembled, and, taking themselves the choir, left the nave for
+their guests. The clergy then descended and united with the Commons,
+where they were received with shouts, embracings, and tears. It was a
+solemn hour, and emotions too deep for utterance agitated all hearts.
+Fearful perils were now accumulating. Rumors had reached the ears
+of the deputies that the court intended the violent dissolution and
+dispersion of the Assembly. Thus would end all hopes of reform. The
+troops marching and countermarching, the new regiments entering the
+city, the hundred pieces of field artillery approaching, the cannon
+frowning before the door of their hall, the exultant looks and defiant
+bearing of their foes, all were portents of some decisive act.[121]
+
+The morning of the 23d of June arrived. It was dark and stormy. At the
+appointed hour, ten o'clock, the members repaired to the hall of the
+Assembly to meet the king and court. In various ways they had received
+intimations of the measures which were to be adopted against them,
+and anxiety sat upon every countenance. As they approached the hall
+they found that the same disrespect which they had received on the
+5th of May was to be repeated with aggravations. The court wished to
+humiliate the Commons; they did but exasperate them. The front entrance
+was reserved as before for the clergy and the nobles. The Commons were
+guided to a side door not yet opened, where they were left crowded
+together in the rain. They made several endeavors to gain admission,
+but could not, and at last sought refuge from the storm in an adjoining
+shed.[122]
+
+In the mean time the two privileged classes approached with an unusual
+display of pompous carriages and gorgeous liveries. Files of soldiers
+protected them, bands of music greeted them, and with the most
+ostentatious parade of respect they were conducted to their seats. Then
+the side door was thrown open, and the Commons, with garments drenched
+and soiled, filed in to take the back benches left for them. They
+found the aristocracy in their seats, as judges awaiting the approach
+of criminals. The nobles and the high clergy could not repress their
+feelings of exultation. The Commons were now to be rebuked, condemned,
+and crushed.[123]
+
+Military detachments patrolled the streets and were posted around the
+hall. Four thousand guards were under arms, and there were besides
+several regiments in the vicinity of Versailles, within an hour's call.
+A tumultuous mass of people from Paris and Versailles surged around
+the building and flooded all the adjoining avenues. As the carriage of
+the king and queen, surrounded by its military retinue, approached, no
+voice of greeting was heard. The multitude looked on silent and gloomy.
+The king was exceedingly dejected, for his judgment and heart alike
+condemned the measures he had been constrained to adopt. The queen
+was appalled by the ominous silence, and began to fear that they had
+indeed gone too far. When a few voices shouted "Vive le Duc d'Orleans!"
+she correctly interpreted this greeting of her implacable foes as an
+intended insult, and was observed to turn pale and almost to faint.
+
+The king entered the hall with the queen, his two brothers, and his
+ministers, excepting Necker. The absence of Necker so exclusively
+arrested all thoughts, that the royal pageant was disregarded. Here
+again the monarch was received in silence, interrupted only by faint
+applause from the nobles.
+
+The king hardly knew how to utter the arrogant, defiant words which had
+been put into his mouth. It was the lamb attempting to imitate the roar
+of the lion. He addressed a few words to the Assembly, and then placed
+his declaration in the hands of one of his secretaries to be read.[124]
+
+It declared his intention to maintain the distinction of the three
+orders, and that they should vote separately; that they might
+occasionally meet together, with the consent of the king, to vote
+taxes. The decree of the Commons, constituting a National Assembly,
+was pronounced illegal and null. The deputies were forbid to receive
+any instructions from their constituents. No spectators were allowed
+to be present at the deliberations of the States-General, whether they
+met together or in different chambers. No innovation was to be allowed
+in the organization of the army. Nobles, and nobles only, were to
+be officers. The old feudal privileges were to remain unaltered. No
+ecclesiastical reforms were to be allowed, unless sanctioned by the
+clergy.[125]
+
+Such were the prohibitions. Then came the benefits. The king promised
+to sanction equality of taxation, _whenever the clergy and the nobles
+should consent to such taxation_. The king promised to adopt any
+measures of finance and expenditure which the States-General should
+recommend, if he judged such measures _compatible with the kingly
+dignity_. He invited the States--which, be it remembered, were to be
+assembled in three chambers, the clergy and the nobility being thus
+able to outvote the Commons by two votes to one--to _propose_ measures
+for abolishing _lettres de cachet_, measures which should not interfere
+with the power of repressing sedition, and of secretly punishing those
+whose relatives would be dishonored by their being brought to trial.
+They were also invited to seek the means of reconciling liberty of
+the press with the respect due to religion and to the honor of the
+citizens. In conclusion, the king threatened that if the Commons
+refused obedience to these declarations he would immediately dissolve
+the States, and again take the reins of government entirely into his
+own hands. This address was closed with the following words:
+
+"I command you, gentlemen, immediately to disperse, and to repair
+to-morrow morning to the chambers appropriate to your order."[126]
+
+The king then, with his attendant court, left the hall. A large part
+of the nobility and nearly all the bishops followed him. Exultation
+beamed upon their faces, for they supposed that the National Assembly
+was now effectually crushed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 111: Michelet, vol. i., p. 105.]
+
+[Footnote 112: "The party which professed to be the defender of the
+throne spoke with infinite disdain of the authority of the King
+of England. To reduce a King of France to the miserable condition
+of the British monarch was, in the bare conception, heinous and
+treasonable."--_Considerations on the French Revolution, by Madame de
+Staël._]
+
+[Footnote 113: Madame de Staël, vol. i., p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 114: Michelet, vol. i., p. 106.
+
+The Marquis of Ferrières, a deputy of the nobles and an earnest
+advocate of aristocratic assumption, writes in his Mémoires: "The
+court, unable any longer to hide from themselves the real truth that
+all their petty expedients to separate the orders served only to
+bring on their union, resolved to dissolve the States-General. It
+was necessary to remove the king from Versailles, to get Necker and
+the ministers attached to him out of the way. A journey to Marly was
+arranged. The pretext was the death of the dauphin. The mind of the
+king was successfully worked upon. He was told it was high time to stop
+the unheard-of enterprises of the Third Estate; that he would soon have
+only the name of a king. The Cardinal Rochefoucault and the Archbishop
+of Paris threw themselves at the feet of the king and supplicated him
+to save the clergy and protect religion. The Parliament sent a secret
+deputation proposing a scheme for getting rid of the States-General.
+The keeper of the seals, the Count d'Artois, the queen, all united.
+All was therefore settled, and an order from the king announced a
+royal sitting and suspended the States under the pretense of making
+arrangements in the hall."]
+
+[Footnote 115: "The deputies stand grouped on the Paris road, on this
+umbrageous _Avenue de Versailles_, complaining aloud of the indignity
+done them. Courtiers, it is supposed, look from their windows and
+giggle."--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 156.
+
+"Is it decent," writes M. Bailly in his Memoirs, "that the members
+of the National Assembly, or even the deputies of the Commons, as
+you may still please to consider them, should thus be apprised of
+the intentions of the king, of the suspension of their own sittings,
+only by the public criers and by notices posted on the wall, as the
+inhabitants of a town would be made acquainted with the shutting up of
+a theatre?"]
+
+[Footnote 116: "It is quite certain that, mixed with a little personal
+vanity, the most sincere wish for the happiness of France, and the
+happiness of mankind, was the ruling motive with Necker."--_Lectures on
+the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p. 287.
+
+"Let us not forget that at that period the whole Assembly was Royalist,
+without excepting a single member."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 108.]
+
+[Footnote 117: For a full detail of this project see OEuvres de
+Necker, vol. vi., p. 119. Necker is condemned by Michelet with
+merciless severity for presenting a project which, though it secured
+a few reforms, still allowed the despotic court such sway. But if the
+minister could not carry even this project, what could he have done
+with one making still greater demands? The British government, with its
+king and its houses of lords and commons, was Necker's model; though
+he still allowed the court powers which would not be tolerated by
+the people of Great Britain for an hour. But the French court looked
+with _contempt_ upon the limited powers of the king and the nobles of
+England, and would consent to no approximation to the government which
+prevailed there. The _Tiers Etat_ would have been more than satisfied
+with the English Constitution. No one then desired the overthrow of the
+monarchy.]
+
+[Footnote 118: Smyth, Lectures on French Revolution, i., 192; Michelet,
+i., 110.]
+
+[Footnote 119: Michelet, i., 110.]
+
+[Footnote 120: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, p. 53, says that the clergy
+voted for union one hundred and forty-nine voices against one hundred
+and twenty-six.]
+
+[Footnote 121: "The nobility that I converse with," writes Arthur
+Young, "are most disgustingly tenacious of all old rights, however
+hard they may bear upon the people. They will not hear of giving way
+in the least to the spirit of liberty beyond the point of paying equal
+land-taxes, which they hold to be all that can with reason be demanded."
+
+"It was only very late," writes Wm. Smyth, "and when too late, that
+they reached even this point."]
+
+[Footnote 122: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, i., 56.]
+
+[Footnote 123: Id., 57; Michelet, i., 112.]
+
+[Footnote 124: Hist. Parl., vol. ii., p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 125: "The nobles having applauded the article consecrating
+feudal rights, loud, distinct voices were heard to utter, 'Silence
+there!'"--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 126: Mr. Alison strangely says that "These decrees contained
+the whole elements of rational freedom, abolished pecuniary privileges,
+regulated the expenses of the royal household, secured the liberty of
+the press, regulated the criminal code, and the personal freedom of the
+subject."--_Alison, Hist. of Europe_, vol. i., p. 74. The French people
+did not think so. See Michelet's indignant rejection of the mockery of
+these decrees.--_Mich., Hist. Fr. Rev._, vol. i., p. 115. M. Rabaud de
+St. Etienne, member of the Assembly, writes, "In these benefits which
+the king was thus promising to the nation, no mention was made either
+of the constitution so much desired, or of the participation of the
+States-General in all acts of legislation, or of the responsibility
+of ministers, or of the liberty of the press; and almost every thing
+which constitutes civil liberty was passed over in total silence.
+Nevertheless, the pretensions of the privileged orders were maintained,
+the despotism of the ruler was sanctioned, and the States-General were
+abased and subject to his power."--_Hist. of Rev. of Fr._, vol. i., p.
+56.
+
+The Marquis of Ferrières writes, "The hall was surrounded by soldiers
+and by guards. Every thing about the throne was silent and melancholy.
+The declaration itself satisfied no one; and the king spoke rather
+like a despot who commanded than a monarch who discussed with the
+representatives of his people the interests of a great nation."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES.
+
+ Speech of Mirabeau.--Approach of the Soldiers and Peril of the
+ Assembly.--Elation of the Queen.--Triumph of Necker.--Embarrassment
+ of the Bishops and the Nobles.--Letter of the King.--The Bishops and
+ Nobles join the Assembly.--Desperate Resolve of the Nobles.--The
+ Troops sympathizing with the People.
+
+
+As the king, followed by the nobles and the clergy, left the hall, the
+Commons remained in their seats. The crisis had now arrived. There was
+no alternative but resistance or submission, rebellion or servitude.
+For a moment there was an entire silence. But the spirit of indomitable
+determination glowed on every cheek. Mirabeau was the first to rise.
+In a few of those impassioned sentences, which pealed over France like
+clarion notes, he exclaimed,
+
+"Why this dictatorial language, this train of arms, this violation
+of the national sanctuary? Who is it who gives commands to us--to us
+to whom alone twenty-five millions of men are looking for happiness?
+Let us arm ourselves with our legislative authority, remember our
+oath--that oath which does not permit us to separate until we have
+established the constitution!"[127]
+
+While he was yet speaking the Marquis of Brézé, one of the officers of
+the king, perceiving that the Assembly did not retire, advanced into
+the centre of the hall, and, in a loud authoritative voice, a voice
+at whose command nearly fifty thousand troops were ready to march,
+demanded,
+
+"Did you hear the commands of the king?"
+
+"Yes, sir," responded Mirabeau, with a glaring eye and a thunder tone
+which made Brézé quail before him, "we did hear the king's command; and
+you, who have neither seat nor voice in this house, are not the person
+to remind us of his speech. Go, tell those who sent you that we are
+here by the power of the people, and that nothing shall drive us hence
+but the power of the bayonet."[128]
+
+The officer, the marquis, turned to the president, as if inquiring his
+decision.
+
+"The Assembly," said M. Bailly, "resolved yesterday to sit after the
+royal session. That question must be discussed."
+
+"Am I to carry that answer to the king?" inquired the marquis.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the president. The marquis departed. Armed
+soldiers now entered the hall accompanied by workmen to take away the
+benches and dismantle the room. Soldiers surrounded the building and
+the life-guard advanced to the door. But a word from the president
+arrested the workmen, and they stood with their tools in their hands
+contemplating with admiration the calm majesty of the Assembly.
+The body-guard had now formed a line in front of the hall, and the
+position of its members was full of peril. It was expected that all the
+prominent deputies would be arrested. A vote was then passed declaring
+the person of each member of the Assembly inviolable, and pronouncing
+any one guilty of treason who should attempt to arrest any one of the
+representatives of the nation.
+
+In the mean time the nobility were in exultation. They deemed the
+popular movement now effectually crushed. In a crowd they hastened to
+the residences of the two brothers of the king, the Count of Provence
+and Count d'Artois, with their congratulations. They then repaired to
+the queen and assured her that the work was done and that all was safe.
+The queen was much elated, and received them with smiles. Presenting
+to them her son, the young dauphin, she said, "_I intrust him to the
+nobility_."
+
+But at this very moment loud shouts were heard in the streets, swelling
+in a roar of tumult from countless voices, which penetrated the inmost
+apartments of the Palace of Versailles. All were eager to ascertain
+the cause. The whole body of the people by a simultaneous movement had
+gathered around the apartments of M. Necker, and were enthusiastically
+applauding him for refusing to attend the royal sitting.
+
+This manifestation of popular feeling was so decisive, that alarm took
+the place of joy. Even the fears of the queen were aroused, and Necker
+was promptly sent for. He entered the palace accompanied by a crowd
+of many thousands who filled the vast court-yard. Both king and queen
+entreated Necker to withdraw his resignation, the king good-naturedly
+saying, "For my part I am not at all tenacious about that declaration."
+
+Necker willingly complied with their request.[129] As he left the
+palace he informed the multitude that he should remain at his post.
+The announcement was received with unbounded demonstrations of joy.
+As the exultant shouts of the populace resounded through the castle,
+Brézé entered to inform the king that the deputies still continued
+their sitting, and asked for orders. The king impatiently walked once
+or twice up and down the floor, and then replied hastily, "Very well!
+leave them alone."
+
+The next day, Wednesday, June 24th, the Assembly met in its hall and
+transacted business as quietly as if there had been no interruption.
+The clergy, who had joined them in the Church of St. Louis, still
+resolutely continued with them, notwithstanding the prohibition, and
+this day one half of the remaining clergy joined the Assembly. A
+few individuals from the nobles had also gone over. These two bodies
+thus broken were now quite powerless, and were fast sinking into
+insignificance. Thousands continually thronged the galleries and the
+aisles of the National Assembly, while no one seemed to turn a thought
+to the two chambers where the few remaining clergy and the nobles were
+separately lingering.
+
+The next day, June 26th, after a long and exciting debate, in which
+the overwhelming majority of the nobles resolved to remain firm in
+opposition to union, forty-seven of their number, led by the Duke of
+Orleans and La Fayette, and embracing many of the most eminent for
+talent and virtue, repaired to the Assembly, where they were received
+with hearty demonstrations of joy. One of the nobles, Clermont Tonnere,
+speaking in behalf of the rest, said,
+
+"We yield to our conscience, but it is with pain that we separate from
+our colleagues. We have come to concur in the public regeneration. Each
+of us will let you know the degree of activity which his mission allows
+him."[130]
+
+The king now wrote a letter to his "faithful clergy" and his "loyal
+nobility," urging them to join the Assembly without further? delay. In
+compliance with this request, the next day, June 27th, the remaining
+portion of the nobility and of the clergy entered the hall and united
+with the Third Estate. The Marquis of Ferrières, who was one of the
+nobles who at this time united with the Assembly, records,
+
+"It was now a grievous mortification and affliction to the nobility
+to join the Third Estate. The Vicomte de Noailles assured the nobles
+that the union would be but temporary; that the troops were coming up,
+and that in fifteen days every thing would be changed. The king sent a
+second letter assuring the nobles that the safety of the state and his
+own personal security depended upon the union. The assembly of nobles
+rose in a tumultuous manner, they were joined by the minority of the
+clergy, and entered in silence the hall of the _Tiers Etat_."
+
+But the nobles and the dignitaries of the Church had hardly entered
+the hall of the Assembly ere they regretted the step. The Assembly
+was proceeding energetically in the formation of a constitution which
+would sweep away abuses. "Many of the nobles," says Ferrières, with
+wonderful frankness, "would have quitted the Assembly, but a partial
+secession would have done nothing. They were assured that the troops
+were coming up, were praised for the resistance they had already made,
+and were urged that they must dissemble a little longer. And, indeed,
+thirty regiments were now marching upon Paris. The pretext was public
+tranquillity; the real object the dissolution of the Assembly." Many
+petty artifices were resorted to still to keep up the appearance of
+distinct orders. The very day of the junction they endeavored to eject
+M. Bailly, a citizen, from the presidency, and to place a clerical
+noble, the Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, in the chair. The movement was
+promptly checked.[131] They for some time entered in a body after the
+openings of the sittings, and stood together, declining to sit down
+with the deputies. But M. Bailly, by his prudence and firmness, upheld
+the rights of the Assembly, and maintained the dignity of his post.
+It was indeed a strange spectacle for France to see a plain citizen,
+illustrious only in virtue and talent, presiding over the proudest
+nobles and the highest dignitaries of the Church.
+
+The leading members of the Assembly were patriots seeking reform, not
+revolution. It was expected that this union would promote harmony.
+
+"How honorable," said Mirabeau, "will it be for France that this great
+revolution has cost humanity neither offenses nor crimes." After
+describing the sanguinary scenes which accompanied the revolutions
+in England and America, he continued, "We, on the contrary, have the
+happiness to see a revolution of the same nature brought about by the
+mere union of enlightened minds with patriotic intentions. Our battles
+are only discussions. Our enemies are only prejudices that may indeed
+be pardoned. Our victories, our triumphs, so far from being cruel, will
+be blessed by the very conquered themselves.
+
+"History too often records actions which are worthy only of the most
+ferocious animals; among whom, at long intervals, we can sometimes
+distinguish heroes. There is now reason to hope that we have begun
+the history of man, the history of brothers, who, born for mutual
+happiness, agree even when they vary, since their objects are the same
+and their means only are different."
+
+This triumph of the Third Estate exasperated the privileged classes,
+and they were eager for revenge. It was evident that their exclusive
+power was imperiled, and they resolved, at whatever expense of
+bloodshed, to secure the dissolution of the Assembly. It soon became
+manifest to all that violence was meditated; that a secret conspiracy
+was ripening; that the nobles had united with the Assembly merely to
+subserve a momentary purpose, and that the Assembly was to be dispersed
+by force, the leaders punished, and that all who should interfere for
+their protection were to be shot down.[132]
+
+"I could never ascertain," writes Necker, "to what lengths their
+projects really went. There were secrets upon secrets; and I believe
+that even the king himself was far from being acquainted with all
+of them. What was intended was probably to draw the monarch on,
+as circumstances admitted, to measures of which they durst not at
+first have spoken to him. With me, above all others, a reserve was
+maintained, and reasonably, for my indisposition to every thing of the
+kind was decided."
+
+The nobles again became arrogant and defiant. Openly they declared
+their intentions to crush the Assembly, and boasted that with an army
+of fifty thousand men they would bring the people to terms.[133] Loaded
+cannon were already placed opposite the hall, and pointed to the doors
+of the Assembly. This state of menace and peril excited the Parisians
+to the highest pitch, and united all the citizens high and low to
+defend their rights. The French soldiers, who came from the humble
+homes of the people, sympathized in all these feelings of their fathers
+and brothers. The women, as they met the soldiers in the streets,
+would ask, "Will you fire upon your friends to perpetuate the power of
+your and our oppressors?" Ere long there came a very decisive response,
+"No! we will not." Thus the soldiers who had been collected to overawe
+the capital were soon seen in most friendly intercourse with the
+citizens, walking with them arm in arm, comprehending the issues which
+now agitated the nation, and evidently ready to give their energies to
+the defense of the popular cause.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 127: The curate, M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, one of the most
+illustrious members of the Assembly, and who finally perished on the
+guillotine, writes, "These memorable expressions have been since
+engraved upon the bust of Mirabeau which was executed for the society
+of _Friends to the Constitution_. A print of this hath been struck off,
+in which we behold, not the downcast look of a cunning conspirator, but
+the ardent air and attitude of a noble-hearted man, who sincerely meant
+the welfare of his country; and such a man was _Mirabeau_."]
+
+[Footnote 128: Michelet, vol. i., p. 116. "In the middle of the night
+Bailly was called up and privately informed that Necker disapproved
+of the measures adopted, and that he would not attend the sitting,
+and would probably be dismissed. It had been settled between Bailly
+and the Assembly that no reply should be made to the king whatever he
+might say to them. It was afterward intimated to Bailly by the king,
+that he wished no reply to be made. And under these most unfortunate
+circumstances the royal sitting opened."--_Lectures on the French
+Revolution, by William Smyth_, vol. i., p. 269.]
+
+[Footnote 129: Michelet, vol. i., p. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 130: Thiers, _Fr. Rev._, vol. i., p. 51.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Bailly's Mem., vol. i., p. 252, 257, 260.]
+
+[Footnote 132: For abundant proof of the conspiracy, see Memoirs of
+Marmontel, a man of letters and of elegant attainments, who resided in
+Paris at this time.]
+
+[Footnote 133: "Before the Revolution the number of noble families
+in France did not exceed 17,500. Reckoning five individuals to a
+family there might have been about 90,000 nobles. The disasters of the
+Revolution must have reduced them to less than 40,000."-_-L'Europe
+après le Congrès d'Aix la Chapelle, by Abbé de Pradt, note at the end
+of_ chap. ix.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE TUMULT IN PARIS.
+
+ Marshal Broglie.--Gatherings at the Palais Royal.--Disaffection of
+ the Soldiers.--Imprisonment and Rescue.--Fraternization.--Petition
+ to the Assembly.--Wishes of the Patriots.--Movement of the
+ Troops.--Speech of Mirabeau.--New Menaces.--Declaration of
+ Rights.--Dismissal of Necker.--Commotion in Paris.--Camille
+ Desmoulins.--The French Guards join the People.--Terror in
+ Paris.--Character of the King.
+
+
+Notwithstanding the National Assembly was thus organized, rumors filled
+the air that the junction was but transient, and that the court was
+making preparation for some deed of violence. The citizens of Paris
+were in a great ferment, all business was at a stand, the poorer
+classes had no employment, and their families were actually perishing
+from hunger. Troops were continually parading the streets, and an army
+of fifty thousand men, now placed under the command of the veteran
+Marshal Broglie, encircled the city of Versailles. The spacious garden
+of the Palais Royal in Paris, surrounded by the most brilliant shops in
+Europe, was the general rendezvous of the populace anxiously watching
+the progress of events. The people in their misery had nothing to
+do but to meet together to hear the news from Versailles. Often ten
+thousand men were assembled in the garden, where impassioned orators
+harangued them upon their rights and upon their wrongs. The Duke of
+Orleans, with his boundless wealth, encouraged every insurrectionary
+movement. He was willing so far to renounce aristocratic privileges as
+to adopt a constitution like that of England, if he, as the head of the
+popular party, could be placed upon the throne, from which he hoped to
+eject his cousin Louis XVI.
+
+It soon became evident that there was a _Tiers Etat_ in the army as
+well as in the state. The French Guards, consisting of three thousand
+six hundred picked men, in the highest state of discipline and
+equipment, were stationed at Paris. They began to echo the murmurs
+of the populace. The declaration of the king had informed them that
+no reform whatever was to be tolerated in the army; that the common
+soldier was to be forever excluded from all promotion. The privates and
+subalterns were doomed to endure all the toil of the army and its most
+imminent perils, but were to share none of its honors or emoluments.
+The troops were governed by young nobles, generally the most dissolute
+and ignorant men, who merely exhibited themselves upon the field on
+parade days, and who never condescended even to show themselves in the
+barracks.
+
+The discontent of the soldiers reached the ears of their officers.
+Apprehensive that by association with the people the troops might
+become allied to them by a common sympathy, the officers commanded
+the guards no longer to go into the streets, and consigned them
+to imprisonment in their barracks. This of course increased their
+exasperation, and, being left to themselves and with nothing to do,
+they held meetings very much like those which they had attended in the
+Palais Royal, and talked over their grievances and the state of the
+monarchy.[134] Patriotic enthusiasm rapidly gained strength among them,
+and they took an oath that they would not fire upon the people. The
+colonel of the regiment arrested eleven of the most prominent in this
+movement and sent them to the prison of the Abbaye, where they were to
+await a court-martial and such punishment as might be their doom. This
+was the 30th of June.[135] On the evening of that day, as a vast and
+agitated multitude was assembled at the Palais Royal, listening to the
+speakers who there, notwithstanding reiterated municipal prohibitions,
+gave intelligence of all that was passing at Versailles, tidings came
+of the arrest of the soldiers. A young man, M. Lourtalot, editor of a
+Parisian paper, mounted a chair and said,
+
+"These are the brave soldiers who have refused to shed the blood of
+their fellow-citizens. Let us go and deliver them. To the rescue!"
+
+There was an instantaneous cry, rising from a thousand voices in the
+garden and reverberating through the streets, "To the Abbaye!" The
+throng poured out of the gate, and, seizing axes and crowbars as they
+rushed along, every moment increasing in numbers, soon arrived at the
+prison, six thousand strong. There was no force there which could for a
+moment resist them. The doors were speedily battered down, the soldiers
+liberated and conducted in triumph to the Palais Royal. Here they were
+provided with food and lodging, and placed under the protection of a
+citizens' guard.
+
+While on their way to the Palais Royal a squadron of cavalry was
+ordered to charge upon the people. They approached at full gallop,
+and then, regardless of their officers, reined in their horses,
+and, lifting their caps, with true French politeness saluted their
+citizen-friends. There was then a scene of _fraternization_ such as
+the French metropolis alone can exhibit. Men and women ran out from
+the houses and the shops presenting to the dragoons goblets of wine,
+shouting "Vive le Roi! Vive la Nation!"[136]
+
+The people were still disposed to love their king. They instinctively
+felt that his sympathies were with them. Thus far they desired only
+reform, not the overthrow of the monarchy. The court, however, were
+instructed by these scenes that they could not rely upon the French
+Guards to execute the bloody mandates they were about to issue. Hence
+vigorous efforts were immediately adopted to concentrate in the
+metropolis an efficient force of foreign mercenaries, Swiss and German
+troops, who would be less scrupulous in shooting down and trampling
+under iron hoofs the French people. The Parisians distinctly understood
+this movement, and one can hardly conceive of a measure more
+exasperating. It is worthy of record that the citizens, ascertaining
+that they had liberated one soldier who was accused of what they deemed
+a crime, immediately sent that one back to his prison cell.
+
+The next day, July 1st, the populace at the Palais Royal, who were
+thus far under the guidance of the most virtuous, intelligent, and
+influential citizens, sent a committee to the National Assembly at
+Versailles urging them to interpose with the king for a pardon for
+the soldiers. This was a movement quite unexampled. The citizens,
+heretofore deprived of all political rights, had never before ventured
+to make their wishes known to their rulers. Even then it was considered
+by the privileged classes in the Assembly very impudent.[137] The
+Assembly very prudently sent back word to the Parisians, exhorting
+them to refrain from all acts of violence, and assuring them that the
+maintenance of good order was essential to the prosperity of their
+cause.[138] At the same time the Assembly sent a deputation to the king
+imploring his clemency for the soldiers.
+
+Troops were, however, still rapidly approaching the city from different
+parts of the kingdom. The nobles and the higher clergy were throwing
+every possible obstruction in the way of either deliberation or action
+by the Assembly, and it was manifest to all that a conspiracy was in
+progress for its violent dissolution.[139]
+
+The courtiers could not conceal their exultation, and began openly
+to boast that their hour of triumph was at hand. Fifteen regiments
+of Swiss and German troops were now between Paris and Versailles. It
+was supposed that they, without reluctance, would fire upon French
+citizens. It was very evident that the court was studiously endeavoring
+to foment disturbances in Paris, that an appeal to the military might
+be necessary. On the other hand, the leaders of the revolution were
+doing every thing in their power to keep the people calm. A very able
+pamphlet was circulated through the city, containing the following
+sentiments:
+
+"Citizens! the ministers, the aristocrats, are endeavoring to excite
+sedition. Be peaceful, tranquil, submissive to good order. If you
+do not disturb the precious harmony now reigning in the National
+Assembly, a revolution the most salutary and the most important will be
+irrevocably consummated, without causing the nation blood or humanity
+tears."
+
+One is bewildered in learning that these sentiments came from the pen
+of Jean Paul Marat![140]
+
+The next day, the 2d of July, the king returned an answer to the
+deputation from the Assembly, that the soldiers should be pardoned as
+soon as order was re-established in the capital. Upon the receipt of
+the message at the Palais Royal, the guards were taken back to prison,
+from whence they were speedily released by a pardon from the king.
+
+On the 3d of July, M. Bailly having resigned the presidency of the
+Assembly, the Archbishop of Vienne, one of the high clergy, who had
+warmly espoused the popular cause, was chosen president, and the
+Marquis de la Fayette, equally devoted to popular rights, was elected
+vice-president. Thus the two most important offices of the Assembly
+were conferred upon men selected from the highest ranks of the
+privileged class. But this act of conciliation did not in the least
+degree conciliate men who were determined at every hazard to perpetuate
+despotism.
+
+The aspect of affairs was every hour becoming more threatening. New
+regiments of foreigners were continually marching into the metropolis,
+and occupying all the avenues which conducted to Paris and Versailles.
+Squadrons of horse were galloping through the streets and heavy
+artillery rumbling over the pavements of both the cities. The Elysian
+Fields, the Place Louis XV., the Field of Mars, presented the aspect
+of an encampment. Sentinels were placed around the French Guards,
+who were confined in their barracks, to prevent them from holding
+any intercourse with the citizens or with the other soldiers.[141]
+Versailles was encompassed by armies, and a battery of artillery was
+pointed at the very doors of the Assembly.
+
+On Friday, the 10th of July,[142] Mirabeau rose in the Assembly, and
+proposed that the discussion of the Constitution should be suspended
+while a petition was sent to the king urging the removal of these
+menacing armies.
+
+"Fresh troops," said he, "are daily advancing; all communications are
+intercepted. All the bridges and promenades are converted into military
+posts. Movements, public and secret, hasty orders and counter-orders,
+meet all eyes. Soldiers are hastening hither from all quarters.
+Thirty-five thousand men are already cantoned in Paris and Versailles.
+Twenty thousand more are expected. They are followed by trains of
+artillery; spots are marked for batteries; every communication is
+secured, every pass is blocked up; our streets, our bridges, our public
+walks are converted into military stations. Events of public notoriety,
+concealed facts, secret orders, precipitate counter-orders--in a
+word, preparations for war strike every eye and fill every heart with
+indignation."
+
+At the same time a pamphlet was circulated through Paris, stating
+that the king was to hold another royal sitting on the 13th; that he
+had determined to enforce his declarations of the 23d of June; that
+the National Assembly was to be dissolved by violence, its leaders
+arrested, and Necker to be driven from the kingdom.
+
+The tidings excited great consternation in the city, and the crowd
+in the Palais Royal began to talk of arming in self-defense. In the
+evening of that day an artillery company, which had been posted at the
+Hôtel des Invalides, came to the Palais Royal to fraternize with the
+people there. The citizens gave them a supper in the Elysian Fields,
+where they were joined by many troops from other regiments, and the
+friendly festivities were continued late into the hours of the warm
+summer night.[143]
+
+This speech of Mirabeau was received with applause, and a deputation
+of twenty-four members was sent with a petition to the king. The
+address was drawn up by Mirabeau, and is of world-wide celebrity.[144]
+
+"It is not to be dissembled," says Bailly, "that Mirabeau was in the
+Assembly its principal force. Nothing could be more grand, more firm,
+more worthy of the occasion than this address to the king. The great
+quality of Mirabeau was boldness. It was this that fortified his
+talents, directed him in the management of them, and developed their
+force. Whatever might be his moral character, when he was once elevated
+by circumstances he assumed grandeur and purity, and was exalted by his
+genius to the full height of courage and virtue."
+
+Though Necker earnestly advised the removal of the troops, the king,
+now in the hands of his worst counselors, returned to the Assembly
+almost an insulting answer. He affirmed that the troops were mustered
+for the maintenance of public order and for the protection of the
+Assembly; and that if the members of the Assembly were afraid of their
+protectors, they might adjourn to Noyon or to Soissons, cities some
+fifty or sixty miles north of Paris, where, removed from the protection
+of the capital, they would have been entirely at the mercy of their
+enemies.[145]
+
+"We have not," Mirabeau indignantly retorted, "asked permission to run
+away from the troops, but have requested that the troops may be removed
+from the capital."
+
+Upon the reception of this answer from the king, La Fayette presented
+the Assembly a declaration of rights based upon that Declaration of
+American Independence which is almost the gospel of popular liberty.
+It is probable that Thomas Jefferson, who was then in Paris, aided La
+Fayette in preparing this paper. It affirmed that nature has made all
+men free and equal, that sovereignty resides in the _nation_, and that
+no one can claim authority which does not emanate from the people.
+
+On the evening of this day, Saturday, July 11th, as Necker was dressing
+for dinner, he received a note announcing his dismissal. A confidential
+letter from the king at the same time informed him that the monarch
+was unable to prevent his removal, and urged the minister to leave the
+kingdom without delay, and not to communicate to any one the knowledge
+of his dismissal lest it should excite public disturbance.[146] Necker,
+true to the confidence thus reposed in him, quietly dined, and then
+taking his carriage, as if for an evening drive with his wife, took
+the direction to the Netherlands, the nearest frontier, and pressed on
+rapidly through the night.
+
+The next day was the Sabbath, July 12th. Early in the morning an
+extraordinary degree of activity was observed among the troops.
+Infantry and artillery were marching and countermarching through the
+streets of Paris and Versailles. The next day, Monday, was secretly
+appointed for the great _coup d'état_, in which the National Assembly
+was to be dispersed, and the citizens of Paris, if they manifested any
+resistance, were to be mown down by grapeshot. Redoubts were thrown
+up upon the heights of Montmartre, where cannon could be placed which
+would command the metropolis. Enormous placards were posted, enjoining
+the people to remain at home and not to assemble in the streets. The
+numerous staff of Marshal Broglie were galloping in all directions,
+disgusting the people with their insolent and consequential airs.[147]
+A battery of cannon was placed at the Sevres bridge, cutting off all
+direct communication between Versailles and Paris. The Place of Louis
+XV. was filled with troops, presenting the aspect of an encampment.
+In the adjoining Elysian Fields the Swiss Guards, with four pieces of
+artillery, were drawn up in battle array.
+
+The people wondered what all this meant. At an early hour the garden of
+the Palais Royal was filled with an anxious and inquiring crowd. About
+ten o'clock an unknown person announced that Necker was dismissed,
+and that a new ministry was organized, composed of members of most
+determined hostility to popular reform. These tidings explained
+the formidable military display, and excited universal alarm and
+indignation. A young man, Camille Desmoulins, sprung upon a table, his
+dress disarranged, his hair disheveled, his face flushed, his eyes
+gleaming with indignation and tears, and, with a pistol in each hand to
+protect himself from the police, shouted,
+
+"To arms! to arms! This dismissal is but the precursor to another St.
+Bartholomew. This night the Swiss and German troops are to march to our
+massacre. We have but one resource; it is to defend ourselves."
+
+The impassioned cry was immediately echoed by the multitude, "To
+arms! to arms!" A rallying sign was needed. Desmoulins plucked a
+green leaf from a tree and attached it to his hat. Instantly all the
+chestnut-trees which embellished the garden were stripped of their
+foliage, and the leaf became the pledge of union. The flash of a moment
+had brought the whole body of the populace into a recognized uniform
+and a rude organization.
+
+An army of more than a hundred thousand souls was in an hour enlisted,
+inspired with deathless enthusiasm, and crying out for leaders and
+for weapons. The movement was now in progress which was to scatter
+like chaff the battalions of foreign mercenaries, and to prostrate
+in dust and ashes the court and the throne. But alas for man! the
+flame which cheers the fireside may lay palaces and temples and happy
+homes in ruins. A new power had arisen, and it proved to be as blind
+and ignorant as it was resistless. Had the populace been imbued with
+Christian principles and intelligence, blessings only would have
+resulted from their sway.
+
+[Illustration: CAMILLE DESMOULINS IN THE PALAIS ROYAL.]
+
+In this wild hour of turmoil the multitude were bewildered, and knew
+not what to do. They had no arms, and no recognized leaders except the
+National Assembly at Versailles, from whom they were now cut off by
+detachments of troops.
+
+Near by there was a museum of wax figures. Some men ran to the spot
+and brought out busts of Necker and of the Duke of Orleans, who was
+also, it was said, threatened with exile. Decorating these busts with
+crape they bore them aloft through the streets with funeral honors. As
+the procession, rapidly increasing to many thousands, approached the
+Place of Louis XV., a detachment of German troops were marched up to
+charge them. But these soldiers had but little spirit for their work,
+and they were speedily put to flight by a shower of stones. A company
+of dragoons then made a charge. The unarmed procession was broken and
+put to flight in all directions. The busts were hacked to pieces by the
+sabres of the soldiers, and one man, a French guardsman, who disdained
+to run, was cut down and killed.
+
+The French Guards were all this time locked up in their barracks, and
+the Prince of Lambesc had stationed a squadron of German dragoons
+in front of their quarters to prevent them coming to the aid of the
+people. But nothing now could restrain them. They broke down and
+leaped over the iron rails, and fiercely attacked the hated foreigners.
+The dragoons fled before them, and the Prince of Lambesc, who
+commanded, fell back upon the garden of the Tuileries, and, entering
+the gates, charged upon the people who were there. One old man was
+killed and the rest were put to flight.
+
+The French Guards, however, immediately drew up in battle array, and
+placed themselves between the citizens and the royal troops. In the
+mean time a formidable array of Swiss and German troops had been
+collected in the Field of Mars. They received orders to march to the
+Place Louis XIV. and dislodge the French Guards. In obedience to the
+command they marched to the spot, and then reversing their arms,
+positively refused to fire upon their comrades.[148]
+
+The populace, however, unconscious of the support which they were
+receiving from the soldiers, were in a state of phrensy. The women and
+children, who had been passing the pleasant day in the recreations of
+the Elysian Fields, and who had fled shrieking before the horses and
+the sabres of the dragoons, speedily carried the tidings of the assault
+to every part of the city. An indescribable scene of tumult ensued.
+The multitude were running to and fro in search of arms. Upon all the
+steeples every bell rang the alarm. A population of nearly a million
+of souls was agitated by the most intense emotions of indignation and
+terror.[149]
+
+"It would be difficult," writes Bertrand de Moleville, "to paint
+the disorder, fermentation, and alarm that prevailed in the capital
+during this dreadful day. A city taken by storm and delivered up to
+the soldiers' fury could not present a more dreadful picture. Imagine
+detachments of cavalry and dragoons making their way through different
+parts of the town at full gallop to the posts assigned them; trains
+of artillery rolling over the pavements with a monstrous noise; bands
+of ill-armed ruffians and women, drunk with brandy, running through
+the streets like furies, breaking the shops open, and spreading terror
+every where by their howlings, mingled with frequent reports of guns
+or pistols fired in the air; all the barriers on fire; thousands of
+smugglers taking advantage of the tumult to hurry in their goods; the
+alarm-bells ringing in almost all the churches; a great part of the
+citizens shutting themselves up at home, loading their guns and burying
+their money, papers, and valuable effects in cellars and gardens; and
+during the night the town paraded by numerous patrols of citizens of
+every class, and even of both sexes, for many women were seen with
+muskets or pikes upon their shoulders. Such is the exact picture of
+the state of Paris on the 12th of July."
+
+To add to the alarm, a letter which had been intercepted from Marshal
+Broglie was printed and circulated through the city, in which the
+marshal wrote to the Prince of Condé that the greater part of the
+National Assembly were hungry wolves, ready to devour the nobility;
+that with fifty thousand troops he would quickly disperse them and the
+crowd of fools who applauded them.[150]
+
+As the sun went down and darkness enshrouded the city, the tumult
+increased, and the night was passed in sleeplessness, terror, and
+bewilderment. All were apprehensive that the dawn would usher in a
+dreadful day. A report of the agitated state of the metropolis was
+carried to the Assembly at Versailles, exciting very great anxiety in
+the minds of the patriots deliberating there. The nobles rejoiced. They
+earnestly desired such violence on the part of the people as should
+compel the king to restore the ancient order of things by the energies
+of grapeshot and the bayonet.[151]
+
+M. Bailly, a man of unblemished character, whose purity and whose
+patriotism never can be questioned, gives the following testimony to
+the integrity of Louis XVI.:
+
+"Despotism is what never entered into the head of the king. He never
+had any wish but the happiness of his people, and this was the only
+consideration that could be ever employed as a means of influencing
+him. If any acts of authority were to be resorted to, he was never
+to be persuaded but by showing him that some good was to be attained
+or some evil avoided. I am convinced that his authority was never
+considered by him, nor did he wish to maintain it but as the best means
+of supporting and securing the tranquillity and peace of the community.
+As we are now speaking of the causes that produced this regeneration of
+the country, let us state the first to be the character of Louis XVI. A
+king less of a good man and ministers more adroit, and we should have
+had no revolution."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 134: "The French Guards, those generous citizens, rebels
+to their masters, in the language of despotism, but faithful to the
+nation, are the first to swear never to turn their arms against
+her."--_M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_, vol. i., p. 62.
+
+Mr. Alison calls this the "_revolt and treason of the French Guards_."
+The same occurrence assumes very different aspects as seen from
+different stand-points.]
+
+[Footnote 135: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Hist. Parlementaire, vol. ii., p. 32. Michelet, vol. i.,
+p. 127.]
+
+[Footnote 137: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 138: Thiers, vol. i., p. 61.]
+
+[Footnote 139: "While on this subject I can not refrain from remarking
+on the impolitic conduct of the nobles and the bishops. As they aimed
+only to dissolve the Assembly, to throw discredit on its operations,
+when the president stated a question they left the hall, inviting the
+deputies of their party to follow them. With this senseless conduct
+they combined an insulting disdain, both of the Assembly and of the
+people who attended the sittings. Instead of listening, they laughed
+and talked aloud, thus confirming the people in the unfavorable opinion
+which it had conceived of them; and instead of striving to recover the
+confidence and the esteem of the people, they strove only to gain their
+hatred and contempt."--_Ferrières_, t. ii., p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 140: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 141: France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq.]
+
+[Footnote 142: Some authorities say the 9th.]
+
+[Footnote 143: France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq., vol.
+i., p. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 144: It is said that this famous address to the king was
+composed by M. Dumont, the leading ideas having been communicated to
+him by Mirabeau. A few extracts will give one an idea of the spirit of
+the piece.
+
+"In the emotions of your own heart, sire, we look for the true safety
+of the French. When troops advance from every quarter, when camps are
+forming around us, when the capital is besieged, we ask one another
+with astonishment, 'Hath the king distrusted the fidelity of his
+people? What mean these menacing preparations? Where are the enemies of
+the state and of the king that are to be subdued?'
+
+"The danger, sire, is urgent, is universal, is beyond all the
+calculations of human prudence.
+
+"The danger is for the provinces. Should they once be alarmed for our
+liberty we should no longer have it in our power to restrain their
+impetuosity.
+
+"The danger is for the capital. With what sensations will the people,
+in their state of indigence, and tortured with the keenest anguish, see
+the relics of its subsistence disputed for by a throng of threatening
+soldiers?
+
+"The danger is for the troops. They may forget that the ceremony of
+enlisting made them soldiers, and recollect that nature made them men.
+
+"The danger, sire, is yet more terrible. And judge of its extent by the
+alarms which bring us before you. Mighty revolutions have arisen from
+causes far less striking.
+
+"Sire, we conjure you, in the name of our country, in the name of
+your own happiness, and your own glory, to send back your soldiers to
+the posts from which your counselors have drawn them. Send back that
+artillery," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 145: The Marquis of Ferrières acknowledges the insincerity of
+the court in the king's answer. "The Assembly saw," he writes, "through
+the snare that was spread for them. They would have lost all their
+hold if they had once removed themselves from the security which the
+vicinity of Paris afforded. Inclosed between the two camps (of Flanders
+and Paris) they would have found themselves at the mercy of the
+court."--_See also Hist. Phil. de la Rev. de France, par Ant. Fantin
+Desodoards_, vol. i., p. 150.]
+
+[Footnote 146: Madame de Staël's Considerations, etc., ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 147: Alison, vol. i., p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 148: Miguet, vol. i., p. 50. Thiers, vol. i., p. 62.]
+
+[Footnote 149: The following journal kept by the king during these
+stormy days singularly illustrates the weakness of his character. We
+give it as found in the interesting work, _Histoire des Montagnards,
+par Alphonse Esquiros_.
+
+"_July 1st, 1789, Wednesday._ Nothing; deputation from the States.
+_Thursday 2d._ Mounted horseback at the gate Du Main to hunt a stag
+at Port Royal; took one. _Friday 3d._ Nothing. _Saturday 4th._ Hunted
+a buck at Boutard; took one and shot twenty-nine game. _Sunday 5th._
+Vespers and benediction. _Monday 6th._ Nothing. _Tuesday 7th._ Hunted a
+stag at Port Royal; took two. _Wednesday 8th._ Nothing. _Thursday 9th_.
+Nothing; deputation from the States. _Friday 10th._ Nothing; answer to
+the deputation from the States. _Saturday 11th._ Nothing; departure
+of M. Necker. _Sunday 12th._ Nothing; departure of M. Montmorin, St.
+Priest and Luzerne. _Sunday 12th._ Nothing; took medicine."
+
+Such was the record of the predecessor of Napoleon upon the throne of
+France when the monarchy was tottering to its foundations.]
+
+[Footnote 150: France and its Revolutions, by Geo. Long, Esq., vol. i.,
+23.]
+
+[Footnote 151: "During this day of mourning and consternation the
+conspirators gave loose to a guilty joy. At Versailles, in that
+orangery where were lodged, or, to speak more properly, dispersed in
+ambuscade, the German troops of Nassau, princes, princesses, favorites,
+male and female, were entertaining themselves with the music of the
+martial instruments. They were loading the soldiers with caresses and
+presents; and the latter, amid their brutal orgies, were pleasing
+themselves with the thought of dispersing the National Assembly, and
+of subjugating the kingdom. Calamitous night! when the courtiers
+were dancing to that foreign music, and enjoying the idea of the
+massacre."--_M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_, vol. i., p. 66.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+STORMING THE BASTILLE.
+
+ The Assembly petitions the King.--Resolves of the
+ Assembly.--Narrative of M. Dumont.--Scenes in Paris.--The People
+ organize for Self-defense.--The new Cockade.--The Abbé Lefebvre
+ d'Ormesson.--Treachery of the Mayor, Flesselles.--Character of De
+ Launey, Governor of the Bastille.--Sacking the Invalides.--The
+ Bastille Assailed.--Assassination of De Launey and of Flesselles.
+
+
+It will be remembered that in the election of deputies to the
+States-General Paris had been divided into sixty sections, each of
+which chose two electors. These hundred and twenty electors, composed
+of the most wealthy and influential citizens of Paris, immediately met
+and passed the night deliberating respecting the anarchy into which the
+city was so suddenly plunged. There were two foes whom the city had
+now equally to dread--the court and the mob; the princes, bishops, and
+nobles of the realm, with the armies and the resources of the kingdom,
+on the one hand, and the starving multitude, infuriated by misery and
+brutalized by ages of misrule, on the other. These were the two foes
+against which the Revolution ever had to struggle. The mob triumphed
+in the Reign of Terror. _Napoleon_ rescued the Revolution from their
+bloody hands. The princes, with the aid of all the despotisms of
+Europe, triumphed at Waterloo, and the Revolution was crushed _for a
+time_.
+
+Early on Monday morning, July 12th, the electors sent a deputation to
+the National Assembly at Versailles soliciting the establishment of a
+citizens' guard for the preservation of order. They gave a true and of
+course a terrible description of the tumult prevailing in the city.[152]
+
+The Assembly immediately sent a committee of twenty-four members to the
+king, entreating him to withdraw the foreign troops from the capital.
+But the queen and the court had now obtained such an ascendency over
+the feeble-minded king that he was constrained to send a reply that he
+should make no change whatever in his measures, and that the Assembly
+could accomplish no useful purpose by interfering with matters in the
+metropolis.
+
+This was the day on which it was supposed armed bands were to march
+to disperse the Assembly. It was publicly stated at Versailles that
+a parliament composed of the nobles was to be suddenly organized at
+Versailles, that all the deputies of the Third Estate were to be tried
+for treason, that those members of the clergy and of the nobility
+who had declared in their favor were to be consigned to perpetual
+imprisonment, and that those who had been particularly active in the
+cause of popular liberty were to be sent to the scaffold.[153]
+
+In preparation for this event, the day before (Sunday, 12th), the
+new ministry, bitterly hostile to the popular cause, had taken their
+seats in the king's cabinet; Necker, a fugitive, was hastening into
+the Netherlands; fifty thousand troops under Marshal Broglie, the most
+determined advocate of aristocratic privilege, crowded the environs of
+Paris and Versailles; and the troops on the 12th had been ordered to
+those movements which were preliminary to the great event.[154]
+
+Under such perilous circumstances the Assembly, with a heroism which
+was truly sublime, determined, if they must perish, to perish in the
+discharge of duty. No impartial man can read the record of these
+days without paying the tribute of admiration to those men who thus
+periled liberty and life in the cause of popular rights. "I have
+studied history extensively," says De Tocqueville, "and I venture to
+affirm that I know of no other revolution at whose outset so many men
+were imbued with a patriotism as sincere, as disinterested, as truly
+great."[155]
+
+When the Assembly received the answer of the king refusing to withdraw
+the troops, the only response it could make was in the passing of
+resolutions. Unintimidated by menaces which might well appal the
+stoutest heart, they resolved,
+
+1. That M. Necker carried with him the regrets of the nation.
+
+2. That it was the duty of the king immediately to remove the foreign
+troops.
+
+3. That the king's advisers, _of whatever rank_, were responsible for
+present disorders.
+
+4. That to declare the nation bankrupt was infamous.[156]
+
+These were bold resolves. The third, it was well understood, referred
+to the queen and to the two brothers of the king. The fourth branded
+with infamy the measure which the court had already adopted in
+virtually proclaiming bankruptcy and in making payments only in
+paper.[157] After passing these resolutions the members of the Assembly
+were in such peril that they deemed it best to keep together for mutual
+protection. They voted their session permanent, and for seventy-two
+hours, day and night, continued in their seats, one half deliberating
+while the other half slept upon their benches. La Fayette, who was
+one of the most resolute of this Spartan band, relieved the venerable
+president in the labors of the chair.[158]
+
+During the whole of Monday, even the king knew not what was passing
+in Paris; and the Assembly, all communication being cut off between
+Versailles and the metropolis, were in a state of most painful
+suspense. Every moment they dreaded receiving the news that the city
+was attacked, and the clangor of martial bands and arms around them led
+them momentarily to expect the entrance of a military force for their
+arrest. During the night of the 13th but little business was done, and
+the wearied members remained talking in groups or dozing in their seats.
+
+Tuesday morning, July 14th, dawned--ever-memorable day. The Assembly,
+in the most perplexing anxiety, resumed its labors of preparing a
+constitution. During the whole day no definite tidings could be
+received from the city, and yet the booming of cannon was heard
+proclaiming serious and sanguinary trouble. M. Dumont, who wrote under
+the _nom de plume_ of Groenvelt,[159] thus describes the scene of which
+he was an eye-witness:
+
+"But it was in the evening (of July 14th) that the spectacle exhibited
+by the Assembly was truly sublime. I shall not attempt to describe
+the various emotions of joy, grief, and terror which at different
+moments agitated those who were merely spectators and strangers in the
+Assembly. But the expression is improper; we were none of us strangers.
+For myself, I felt as a Frenchman, because I felt as a man. Nothing
+could be more distracting than our uncertainty concerning the state
+of Paris, from whence no person was suffered to stir. The Viscount de
+Noailles[160] after repeated interruptions had contrived at last to get
+away; but the intelligence which he brought served only to quicken our
+impatience and increase our alarms.
+
+"He knew that a multitude of people in search of arms had forced their
+way into the Hospital for Military Invalids; that the Bastille was
+besieged; that there had been already much bloodshed; that the troops
+encamped in the Field of Mars were expected every moment to march
+to the relief of that fortress, which could not be effected without
+deluging all Paris in blood.
+
+"At this dreadful news the Assembly was penetrated with horror.
+A number of the members started from their seats by a kind of
+involuntary impulse, as if determined to hasten to the defense of their
+fellow-citizens. Others were for immediately bursting into the king's
+presence to remonstrate with him on what had happened; to say to him
+'Behold the fruits of your counsels; hear the cries of your victims;
+see the destruction which is about to overwhelm your capital; say, are
+you the king or the murderer of your people?'
+
+"But these tumultuous emotions gave place to the more temperate measure
+of sending a numerous deputation to the king, to represent to him the
+calamities which threatened Paris, and again to conjure him to remove
+the army. A long time elapsed, and the deputation did not return.
+No one could account for the delay. In the mean time there came a
+message that two deputies from the body of electors at Paris desired
+admittance. They were instantly ordered in. Not a breath was heard;
+every ear was attentive: every eye was strained; every mind was upon
+the rack. From some unaccountable mistake it was some time before they
+entered. Never was impatience wrought up to a higher pitch. At last
+they appeared at the bar."[161]
+
+But let us leave the Assembly listening at midnight of the 14th to
+the narrative of the deputies from Paris, while we enter the city
+to witness the transactions there. At three o'clock Monday morning
+tumultuous masses of men were filling the streets. The barriers,
+at which a tax had been levied upon all articles of food and other
+merchandise which entered the city, had been seized, set on fire, and
+were now blazing. It was expected every moment that the troops would
+enter to sweep the streets with grapeshot; and from every steeple the
+tocsin was pealing, summoning the people to arms. Thousands of those
+who thronged the city, houseless wanderers, were haggard and wan with
+famine, and knew not where to get a mouthful of bread.
+
+There was a rumor that in the convents of the Lazarites a vast amount
+of wheat was hoarded up. Resistless, like an inundation, the hungry
+multitude poured in at the doors and filled the convent from attic to
+cellar. They found vast quantities of wine in the vaults and more than
+fifty cart-loads of wheat. They drank the wine freely, fed themselves,
+and sent the wheat to the market to be distributed. But they would
+allow no _stealing_. One wretch who was detected as a thief was
+immediately hung by the populace![162]
+
+They then ransacked the city in pursuit of arms. Every sword, musket,
+and pistol from private residences was brought forward. The shops of
+the gunsmiths furnished a small supply. The royal arsenal, containing
+mainly curiosities and suits of ancient armor, was ransacked, and,
+while all the costly objects of interest were left untouched, every
+available weapon was taken away. The prison of La Force was filled
+with debtors. The populace broke down the doors and liberated these
+unfortunate men, incarcerated for no crime. The prison of the Chatelet
+was filled with convicts. These felons, hearing of the tumult and of
+the release of the prisoners of La Force, rose upon their keepers and
+endeavored to batter down their doors. The same populace, called upon
+by the keepers of the Chatelet, entered the court-yard of the prison,
+and, with pike and bayonet, drove the convicts back again to their
+cells.
+
+[Illustration: SACKING THE ROYAL ARSENAL.]
+
+Crowds were assembled around the Hôtel de Ville, where the electors
+had met, demanding arms and the immediate establishment of a citizen's
+guard. But the electors moved with great caution. They did not feel
+authorized to establish the guard without the approval of the Assembly;
+and the Assembly had not ventured to adopt the measure without the
+consent of the king.
+
+The excitement at last became so intense, and the importunity so
+pressing, that the electors referred the people to the mayor of the
+city. Flesselles, the mayor, was an officer of the crown, but he
+immediately obeyed the summons of the people, and came to the Hôtel de
+Ville. Here he feigned to be entirely on their side, declared that he
+was their father, and that he would preside over their meetings only by
+the election of the people. This announcement was received with a burst
+of enthusiasm. It was immediately decided that a citizen's guard should
+be established.
+
+Paris then contained nearly a million of inhabitants, and almost every
+able-bodied man was eager to mount guard for the protection of the
+city. There was no want of men, but as yet there was no efficient
+organization, and there were no arms. The electors were very anxious
+to avoid insurrection, and at first wished only for a guard simply
+strong enough to protect the city. They therefore decreed that each
+of the sixty districts should elect and arm two hundred of its most
+respectable citizens. These twelve thousand men would constitute a
+very admirable police, but a very poor army. Matters, however, were so
+rapidly approaching a crisis, and the peril so fast increasing, that
+on the afternoon of the same day it was decided that this citizen's
+guard should consist of forty-eight thousand men, and that the colors
+of the cockade should be blue and red. La Fayette proposed that they
+should add white, the old color of France, saying, "I thus give you a
+cockade which will go round the world."
+
+The electors then appointed a committee to watch day and night over
+the safety of the city. Thus a new and independent government, with
+its strong army of defense, entirely detached from the throne, was
+established in a day. It was the sudden growth of uncontrollable
+events, which no human wisdom had planned. "But to whom," said the
+mayor, Flesselles, "shall the oath of fidelity be taken?" "To the
+Assembly of the citizens," an elector promptly replied.
+
+Every thinking man saw clearly that matters were approaching a fearful
+crisis. Marshal Broglie, proud and self-confident, was at Versailles
+in constant conference with the court, and having at his command
+fifty thousand men, abundantly armed and equipped, all of whom could
+in a few hours be concentrated in the streets of Paris. Bensenval
+had assembled his force of several thousand Swiss and German troops,
+cavalry and artillery, in the Field of Mars. The enormous fortress of
+the Bastille, with its walls forty feet thick at its base and ten at
+the top, rising with its gloomy towers one hundred and twenty feet in
+the air, with cannon, charged with grapeshot, already run out at every
+embrasure to sweep the streets, commanded the city. It was garrisoned
+by about eighty French soldiers; but, as it was feared that they
+could not be wholly relied upon, forty Swiss troops were thrown in
+as a re-enforcement who would be as blindly obedient as the muskets
+they shouldered. Every moment rumors were reaching the city that
+Marshal Broglie was approaching with all his troops. Still no arms or
+ammunition could be obtained.
+
+In this state of things a report was brought that a large quantity
+of powder had been embarked in a boat from the Hôtel des Invalides,
+and was floating down the Seine to be conveyed to Versailles. The
+people immediately ran to the Electors, and obtained an order to have
+the powder seized and brought to the hotel. It was promptly done. A
+heroic clergyman, the Abbé Lefebvre, who had great influence over the
+populace, assumed the perilous task of guarding the powder in one of
+the lower rooms of the Hôtel de Ville and distributing it among the
+people. For forty-eight hours this brave man guarded his dangerous
+treasure in the midst of fire-arms and the surging of the multitude. A
+drunken man at one time staggered in smoking amid the casks.[163]
+
+Guns only were wanting now. It was well known that there were large
+stores of them somewhere in the city, but no one knew where to find
+them.
+
+The mayor, Flesselles, who the people now began to suspect was deluding
+them merely to gain time for the royal troops to enter the city, being
+urged to point out the dépôt, said that the manufactory at Charleville
+had promised to send him thirty thousand guns, and that twelve
+thousand he was momentarily expecting. Soon a large number of boxes
+were brought, marked "guns." The mayor ordered them to be stored in the
+magazine till he should have time to distribute them. But the impatient
+people so urged the electors that they broke open the boxes and found
+them filled with rubbish. Was the mayor deceiving them? many anxiously
+inquired. Flesselles, much embarrassed, sent the people to two
+monasteries where he said guns were concealed; but the friars promptly
+threw open the doors, and no arms were to be found.
+
+It soon became evident that Flesselles was trifling with the people,
+hoping to keep them unarmed until the troops should arrive to crush
+them mercilessly. He was well known as a dissolute man, hostile to
+popular liberty, and was undoubtedly a traitor, and a spy at the Hôtel
+de Ville, acting in communication with the court.[164]
+
+The electors now ordered thirty thousand pikes to be manufactured.
+Every smith was immediately employed, every forge was glowing, and for
+thirty-six hours, day and night, without intermission, the anvils rang
+till the pikes were finished. All this day of Monday the people thought
+only of defending themselves, but night again came, another night of
+terror, tumult, and sleeplessness.
+
+The Bastille was the great terror of Paris. While that remained in
+the hands of their enemies, with its impregnable walls and heavy guns
+commanding the city, there was no safety. As by an instinct, during
+the night of the 13th, the Parisians decided that the Bastille must be
+taken. With that fortress in their hands they could defend themselves
+and repel their foes. But how could the Bastille be taken? It was
+apparently as unassailable as Gibraltar's rock. Nothing could be more
+preposterous than the thought of storming the Bastille. "The idea,"
+says Michelet, "was by no means reasonable. It was an act of faith."
+
+The Bastille stood in the very heart of the Faubourg St. Antoine,
+enormous, massive, and blackened with age, the gloomy emblem of royal
+prerogative, exciting by its mysterious power and menace the terror
+and the execration of every one who passed beneath the shadow of its
+towers. Even the sports of childhood dare not approach the empoisoned
+atmosphere with which it seemed to be enveloped.
+
+M. de Launey was governor of the fortress, He was no soldier, but a
+mean, mercenary man, despised by the Parisians. He contrived to draw
+from the establishment, by every species of cruelty and extortion, an
+income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. He reduced the amount
+of fire-wood to which the shivering inmates were entitled; made a
+great profit on the wretched wine which he furnished to those who were
+able to buy, and even let out the little garden within the inclosure,
+thus depriving those prisoners who were not in dungeon confinement of
+the privilege of a walk there, which they had a right to claim. De
+Launey was not merely detested as Governor of the Bastille, but he was
+personally execrated as a greedy, sordid, merciless man. Linguet's
+Memoirs of the Bastille had rendered De Launey's name infamous
+throughout Europe. Such men are usually cowards. De Launey was both
+spiritless and imbecile. Had he not been both, the Bastille could not
+have been taken.[165]
+
+Still the people had no guns. It was ascertained that there was a
+large supply at the Hôtel des Invalides, but how could they be taken
+without any weapons of attack? Sombrueil, the governor, was a firm and
+fearless man, and, in addition to his ordinary force, amply sufficient
+for defense, he had recently obtained a strong detachment of artillery
+and several additional cannon, showing that he was ready to do battle.
+Within fifteen minutes march of the Invalides, Bensenval was encamped
+with several thousand Swiss and German troops in the highest state
+of discipline, and provided with all the most formidable implements
+of war. Every moment rumors passed through the streets that the
+troops from Versailles were on the march, headed by officers who were
+breathing threatenings and slaughter.
+
+With electric speed the rumor passed through the streets that there
+was a large quantity of arms stored in the magazine of the Hôtel of
+the Invalides. Before nine o'clock in the morning of the 14th, thirty
+thousand men were before the Invalides; some with pikes, pistols, or
+muskets, but most of them unarmed. The curate of St. Etienne led his
+parishioners in this conflict for freedom. As this intrepid man marched
+at the head of his flock he said to them, "My children, let us not
+forget that all men are brothers." The bells of alarm ringing from the
+steeples seemed to invest the movement with a religious character.
+Those sublime voices, accustomed to summon the multitude to prayer, now
+with their loudest utterance called them to the defense of their civil
+and religious rights.[166]
+
+Sombrueil perceived at once that the populace could only be repelled
+by enormous massacre, and that probably even that, in the phrensied
+state of the public mind, would be ineffectual. He dared not assume
+the responsibility of firing without an order from the king, and he
+could get no answer to the messages he sent to Versailles. Though his
+cannon charged with grapeshot could have swept down thousands, he did
+not venture to give the fatal command to fire. The citizens, with a
+simultaneous rush in all directions, leaped the trenches, clambered
+over the low wall--for the hotel was not a fortress--and, like a
+resistless inundation, filled the vast building. They found in the
+armory thirty thousand muskets. Seizing these and six pieces of cannon
+they rushed, as by a common instinct, toward the Bastille to assail
+with these feeble means one of the strongest fortresses in the world--a
+fortress which an army under the great Condé had in vain besieged for
+three and twenty days![167]
+
+De Launey, from the summit of his towers, had for many hours heard the
+roar of the insurgent city. As he now saw the black mass of countless
+thousands approaching, he turned pale and trembled. All the cannon,
+loaded with grapeshot, were thrust out of the port-holes, and several
+cart-loads of paving-stones, cannon-balls, and old iron had been
+conveyed to the tops of the towers to be thrown down to crush the
+assailants. Twelve large rampart guns, charged heavily with grape,
+guarded the only entrance. These were manned by thirty-two Swiss
+soldiers who would have no scruples in firing upon Frenchmen. The
+eighty-two French soldiers who composed the remainder of the garrison
+were placed upon the towers, and at distant posts, where they could act
+efficiently without being brought so immediately into conflict with the
+attacking party.
+
+A man of very fearless and determined character, M. Thuriot, was
+sent by the electors at the Hôtel de Ville to summon the Bastille
+to surrender. The draw-bridge was lowered, and he was admitted. The
+governor received him at the head of his staff.
+
+"I summon you," said Thuriot, "in the name of the people, in the name
+of honor, and of our native land."
+
+The governor, who was every moment expecting the arrival of troops to
+disperse the crowd, refused to surrender the fortress, but replied that
+he was ready to give his oath that he would not fire upon the people,
+if they did not fire upon him. After a long and exciting interview,
+Thuriot came forth to those at the Hôtel de Ville who had sent him.
+
+He had hardly emerged from the massive portals, and crossed the
+draw-bridge of the moat, which was immediately raised behind him, ere
+the people commenced the attack. A scene of confusion and uproar ensued
+which can not be described. A hundred thousand men, filling all the
+streets and alleys which opened upon the Bastille, crowding all the
+windows and house-tops of the adjacent buildings, kept up an incessant
+firing, harmlessly flattening their bullets against walls of stone
+forty feet thick and one hundred feet high.[168]
+
+The French soldiers within the garrison were reluctant to fire upon
+their relatives and friends. But the Swiss, obedient to authority,
+opened a deadly fire of bullets and grapeshot upon the crowd. While
+the battle was raging an intercepted letter was brought to the Hôtel
+de Ville, in which Bensenval, commandant of the troops in the Field of
+Mars, exhorted De Launey to remain firm, assuring him that he would
+soon come with succor.[169] But, fortunately for the people, even these
+foreign troops refused to march for the protection of the Bastille.
+
+The French Guards now broke from their barracks, and, led by their
+subaltern officers, came with two pieces of artillery in formidable
+array to join the people. They were received with thunders of applause
+which drowned even the roar of the battle. Energetically they opened
+their batteries upon the fortress, but their balls rebounded harmless
+from the impregnable rock.
+
+Apparently the whole of Paris, with one united will, was combined
+against the great bulwark of tyranny.[170] Men, women, and boys were
+mingled in the fight. Priests, nobles, wealthy citizens, and the
+ragged and emaciate victims of famine were pressing in the phrensied
+assault side by side.[171] The French soldiers were now anxious to
+surrender, but the Swiss, sheltered from all chance of harm, shot down
+with deliberate and unerring aim whomsoever they would. Four hours
+of the battle had now passed, and though but one man had been hurt
+within the fortress, a hundred and seventy-one of the citizens had
+been either killed or wounded. The French soldiers now raised a flag
+of truce upon the towers, while the Swiss continued firing below. This
+movement plunged De Launey into despair. One hundred thousand men
+were beleaguering his fortress. The king sent no troops to his aid;
+and three fourths of his garrison had abandoned him and were already
+opening communications with his assailants. He knew that the people
+could never pardon him for the blood of their fathers and brothers with
+which he had crimsoned their streets--that death was his inevitable
+doom. In a state almost of delirium he seized a match from a cannon and
+rushed toward the magazine, determined to blow up the citadel. There
+were a hundred and thirty-five barrels of gunpowder in the vaults.
+The explosion would have thrown the Bastille into the air, buried one
+hundred thousand people beneath its ruins, and have demolished one
+third of Paris.[172] Two subaltern officers crossed their bayonets
+before him and prevented the accomplishment of this horrible design.
+
+Some wretches seized upon a young lady whom they believed to be the
+governor's daughter, and wished, by the threat of burning her within
+view of her father upon the towers, to compel him to surrender. But the
+citizens promptly rescued her from their hands and conveyed her to a
+place of safety. It was now five o'clock, and the assault had commenced
+at twelve o'clock at noon. The French soldiers within made white flags
+of napkins, attached them to bayonets, and waved them from the walls.
+Gradually the flags of truce were seen through the smoke; the firing
+ceased, and the cry resounded through the crowd and was echoed along
+the streets of Paris, "The Bastille surrenders." This fortress, which
+Louis XIV. and Turenne had pronounced impregnable, surrendered not to
+the arms of its assailants, for they had produced no impression upon
+it. It was conquered by that public opinion which pervaded Paris and
+which vanquished its garrison.[173]
+
+The massive portals were thrown open, and the vast multitude, a living
+deluge, plunging headlong, rushed in. They clambered the towers,
+penetrated the cells, and descended into the dungeons and oubliettes.
+Appalled they gazed upon the instruments of torture with which former
+victims of oppression had been torn and broken. Excited as they were by
+the strife, and exasperated by the shedding of blood, but one man in
+the fortress, a Swiss soldier, fell a victim to their rage.
+
+The victorious people now set out in a tumultuous procession to convey
+their prisoners, the governor and the soldiers, to the Hôtel de Ville.
+Those of the populace whose relatives had perished in the strife were
+roused to fury, and called loudly for the blood of De Launey. Two very
+powerful men placed themselves on each side of him for his protection.
+But the clamor increased, the pressure became more resistless, and
+just as they were entering the Place de Grève the protectors of the
+governor were overpowered--he was struck down, his head severed by a
+sabre stroke, and raised a bloody and ghastly trophy into the air upon
+a pike.
+
+In the midst of the great commotion two of the Swiss soldiers of
+the Bastille, whom the populace supposed to have been active in the
+cannonade, were seized, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts to
+save them, and hung to a lamp-post. A rumor passed through the crowd
+that a letter had been found from the mayor, Flesselles, who was
+already strongly suspected of treachery, directed to De Launey, in
+which he said,
+
+"I am amusing the Parisians with cockades and promises. Hold out till
+the evening and you shall be relieved."[174]
+
+Loud murmurs rose from the crowd which filled and surrounded the
+hall. Some one proposed that Flesselles should be taken to the Palais
+Royal to be tried by the people. The clamor was increasing and his
+peril imminent. Pallid with fear he descended from the platform, and,
+accompanied by a vast throng, set out for the Palais Royal. At the
+turning of the first street an unknown man approached, and with a
+pistol shot him dead. Infuriate wretches immediately cut off his head,
+and it was borne upon a pike in savage triumph through the streets.
+
+The French Guards, with the great body of the people, did what they
+could to repress these bloody acts. The French and Swiss soldiers took
+the oath of fidelity to the nation, and under the protection of the
+French Guard were marched to places of safety where they were supplied
+with lodgings and food. Thus terminated this eventful day. The fall of
+the Bastille broke the right arm of the monarchy, paralyzed its nerves
+of action, and struck it a death blow. The monarch of France, from his
+palace at Versailles, heard the distant thunders of the cannonade, and
+yet inscribed upon his puerile journal "_Nothing!_"[175]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 152: "Thus Paris, without courts of justice, without
+police, without a guard, at the mercy of one hundred thousand men
+who were wandering idly in the middle of the night, and for the most
+part wanting bread, believed itself on the point of being besieged
+from without and pillaged from within; believed that twenty-five
+thousand soldiers were posted around to blockade it and cut off all
+supplies of provisions, and that it would be a prey to a starving
+populace."--_Memoirs of Marmontel._]
+
+[Footnote 153: Hist. Phil. de la Rev. Fr., par Ant. Fantin Desodoards,
+t. i., p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 154: Professor William Smyth, in his very able and candid
+lectures, delivered at the University of Cambridge, England, though his
+sympathies are with the court in this conflict, writes:
+
+"On the whole, it appears to me that there can be no doubt that a
+great design had been formed by the court for the dissolution of the
+National Assembly and the assertion of the power of the crown. That
+military force was to have been produced, and according to the measure
+of its success would, in all probability, have been the depression
+of the spirit of liberty, even of national liberty, then existing in
+France. Less than this can not well be supposed; much more may be
+believed."--_Lectures on the French Revolution_, vol. i., p. 251.]
+
+[Footnote 155: The Old Régime and the Revolution, by M. de Tocqueville,
+p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 156: Michelet, vol. i., p. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 157: "They were going to make payments with a paper money,
+without any other guarantee than the signature of an insolvent
+king."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 158: "A list of the proscribed had been drawn up in the
+committee of the queen. Sixty-nine deputies, at the head of whom
+were placed Mirabeau, Sièyes, and Bailly, were to be imprisoned
+in the citadel of Metz, and from thence led to the scaffold, as
+guilty of rebellion. The signal agreed upon for this St. Bartholomew
+of the representatives of the people was the change of the
+ministry."--_Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros_, p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 159: Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth, vol.
+i., p. 241.]
+
+[Footnote 160: Louis, Viscount of Noailles, was a deputy of the nobles.
+With La Fayette, Rochefoucault, and others he warmly espoused the cause
+of popular liberty. He voted in favor of uniting with the National
+Assembly, and was the first to exhort the clergy and the nobility to
+renounce their privileges, as injurious to the common weal. When the
+Revolution sank degraded into the hands of low and worthless men, he
+retired from the public service; but when Napoleon came to the rescue,
+he again entered the army, and was subsequently killed in a battle with
+the English.--_Enc. Am., Art. Noailles._]
+
+[Footnote 161: "The better part of the Assembly," writes Ferrières,
+"strangers to all the intrigues which might be going forward, was
+filled with alarm at the sad reports that were circulating, and
+terrified at the designs of the court, which they were assured went to
+the seizing of Paris, the dissolution of the Assembly, and the massacre
+of the citizens. In the mean time the partisans of the court concealed
+their joy under an appearance of indifference. They came to the
+sittings to see what turns the deliberations would take, to enjoy their
+triumph, and the humiliation of the Assembly. The Assembly they looked
+upon as annihilated."]
+
+[Footnote 162: Michelet, vol. i., p. 38; Geo. Long, Esq., vol. i., p.
+28.]
+
+[Footnote 163: "This heroic man was the Abbé Lefebvre d'Ormesson.
+No man rendered a greater service to the Revolution and the city of
+Paris."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 140.
+
+"A patriot, in liquor, insisted on sitting to smoke on the edge of
+one of the powder-barrels. There smoked he, independent of the world,
+till the Abbé purchased his pipe for three francs, and pitched it
+far."--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 191.]
+
+[Footnote 164: Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Revolution Française, vol.
+ii., p. 365.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Michelet, vol. i., p. 156.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 167: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 66.]
+
+[Footnote 168: "Its walls, ten feet thick at the top of its towers,
+and thirty or forty at the base, might long laugh at cannon-balls. Its
+batteries, firing down upon Paris, could in the mean time demolish the
+whole of the Marais and the Faubourg St. Antoine. Its towers pierced
+with windows and loop-holes, protected by double and triple gratings,
+enabled the garrison in full security to make a dreadful carnage of its
+assailants."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 143.]
+
+[Footnote 169: Thiers, vol. i., p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 170: "Old men," says Michelet, "who have had the happiness
+and the misery to see all that has happened in this unprecedented half
+century, declared that the grand and national achievements of the
+Republic and the Empire had, nevertheless, a partial non-unanimous
+character. But that the 14th of July alone was the day of the whole
+people."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 144.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Histoire Des Montagnards par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 172: Michelet, vol. i., p. 156.]
+
+[Footnote 173: "Properly speaking the Bastille was not taken, it
+surrendered. Troubled by a bad conscience, it went mad, and lost all
+presence of mind."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 156.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE KING RECOGNIZES THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
+
+ Rout of the Cavalry of Lambesc.--Tidings of the Capture of the
+ Bastille reach Versailles.--Consternation of the Court.--Midnight
+ Interview between the Duke of Liancourt and the King.--New Delegation
+ from the Assembly.--The King visits the Assembly.--The King escorted
+ back to his Palace.--Fickleness of the Monarch.--Deputation sent to
+ the Hôtel de Ville.--Address of La Fayette.--La Fayette appointed
+ Commander of the National Guard.
+
+
+While these scenes were transpiring in Paris, the court, but poorly
+informed respecting the real attitude of affairs, were preparing, on
+that very evening, with all the concentrated troops of the monarchy,
+to drown the insurrection in Paris in blood, to disperse the Assembly,
+consigning to the dungeon and the scaffold its prominent members, and
+to rivet anew those shackles of despotism which for ages had bound the
+people of France hand and foot.
+
+M. Berthier, one of the high officers of the crown, aided by his
+father-in-law, M. Foulon, under minister of war, was intensely active
+marshaling the troops, and giving orders for the attack. Conscious of
+the opposition they must encounter, and regardless of the carnage which
+would ensue, they had planned a simultaneous assault upon the city at
+seven different points. Entertaining no apprehension that the Bastille
+could be taken, or that the populace, however desperate, could present
+any effectual resistance to the disciplined troops of the crown, they
+were elated with the hope that the decisive hour for the victory of the
+court had arrived.
+
+The queen could not conceal her exultation. With the Duchess of
+Polignac, one of the most haughty of the aristocratic party, and with
+others of the court, she went to the Orangery, where a regiment of
+foreign troops were stationed, excited the enthusiasm of the soldiers
+by her presence, and caused wine and gold to be freely distributed
+among them. In the intoxication of the moment the soldiers sang,
+danced, shouted, clashed their weapons, and swore eternal fidelity to
+the queen.[176]
+
+But these bright hopes were soon blighted. A cloud of dust was seen,
+moving with the sweep of the whirlwind through the Avenue of Paris.
+It was the cavalry of Lambesc flying before the people. Soon after
+a messenger rushed breathless into the presence of the court, and
+announced that the Bastille was taken, and that the troops in Paris
+refused to fire upon the people. While he was yet speaking another
+came with the tidings that De Launey and Flesselles were both slain.
+The queen was deeply affected and wept bitterly. "The idea," writes
+Madame Campan, "that the king had lost such devoted subjects wounded
+her to the heart." The court party was now plunged into consternation.
+The truth flashed upon them that while the people were exasperated to
+the highest pitch, the troops could no longer be depended upon for the
+defense of the court.
+
+The masses, enraged by the insults and aggressions of the privileged
+classes, still appreciated the kindly nature of the king, and spoke of
+him with respect and even affection. Efforts were made by the court to
+conceal from Louis the desperate state of affairs, and at his usual
+hour of eleven o'clock he retired to his bed, by no means conscious
+that the sceptre of power had passed from his hands.
+
+The Duke of Liancourt, whose office as grand master of the wardrobe,
+allowed him to enter the chamber of the king at any hour, was a sincere
+friend of Louis. He could not see him rush thus blindly to destruction,
+and, accordingly, entering his chamber and sitting down by his bedside,
+he gave him a truthful narrative of events in Paris. The king,
+astonished and alarmed, exclaimed, "Why, it is a revolt!" "Nay, sire,"
+replied Liancourt, "it is a revolution!"
+
+The king immediately resolved that he would the next morning,
+without any ceremony, visit the National Assembly, and attempt a
+reconciliation. The leading members of the court, now fully conscious
+of their peril, were assembled in the saloons of the Duchess of
+Polignac, some already suggested flight from the realm to implore the
+aid of foreign kings. The Assembly was still, during these midnight
+hours, deliberating in great anxiety. Many of the members, utterly
+exhausted by their uninterrupted service by day and by night, were
+slumbering upon the benches. It was known by all that this was the
+night assigned for the great assault; and a rumor was passing upon all
+lips that the hall of the Assembly had been undermined that all the
+deputies might be blown into the air.
+
+Paris at this hour presented a scene of awful tumult. It was
+momentarily expected that the royal troops would arrive with cavalry
+and artillery, and that from the heights of Montmartre bomb-shells
+would be rained down upon the devoted city. Men, women, and children
+were preparing for defense. The Bastille was guarded and garrisoned.
+The pavements were torn up, barricades erected, and ditches dug. The
+windows were illuminated to throw the light of day into the streets.
+Paving stones and heavy articles of furniture were conveyed to the
+roofs of the houses to be thrown down upon the assailing columns. Every
+smith was employed forging pikes, and thousands of hands were busy
+casting bullets. Tumultuous throngs of characterless and desperate
+men swept through the streets, rioting in the general anarchy. The
+watch-words established by the citizen patrols were "Washington and
+Liberty." Thus passed the night of the 14th of July in the Chateau of
+Versailles, in the hall of the Assembly, and in the streets of Paris.
+
+At two o'clock in the morning of the 15th the Assembly ceased its
+deliberations for a few hours, and the members, though the session
+was still continued, sought such repose as they could obtain in their
+seats. At eight o'clock the discussions were resumed. It was resolved
+to send a deputation of twenty-four members, again to implore the king
+to respect the rights of the people, and no longer to suffer them to
+be goaded to madness by insults and oppression. As the deputation was
+about to leave, Mirabeau rose and said, "Tell the king that the foreign
+hordes surrounding us received yesterday the caresses, encouragement,
+and bribes of the court; that all night long these foreign satellites,
+gorged with money and wine, in their impious songs have predicted the
+enslavement of France, and have invoked the destruction of the National
+Assembly; tell him that in his very palace the courtiers have mingled
+dancing with these impious songs, and that such was the prelude to the
+massacre of St. Bartholomew."
+
+He had hardly uttered these words ere the Duke of Liancourt entered and
+announced that the king was coming in person to visit the Assembly. The
+doors were thrown open, and, to the astonishment of the Assembly, the
+king, without guard or escort and accompanied only by his two brothers,
+entered. A shout of applause greeted him. In a short and touching
+speech the king won to himself the hearts of all. He assured them of
+his confidence in the Assembly; that he had never contemplated its
+violent dissolution; and that he sincerely desired to unite with the
+Assembly in consulting for the best interests of the nation. He also
+declared that he had issued orders for the withdrawal of the troops
+both from Paris and Versailles, and that, hereafter, the counsels of
+the National Assembly should be the guide of his administration.[177]
+
+This conciliatory speech was received by the mass of the deputies with
+rapturous applause. The aristocratic party were, however, greatly
+chagrined, and, retiring by themselves, with whispers and frowns gave
+vent to their vexation; but the general applause drowned the feeble
+murmurs of the nobles. Nearly the whole Assembly rose in honor of the
+king as he left, and, surrounding him in tumultuous joy, they escorted
+him back to his palace. A vast crowd from Paris and Versailles thronged
+the streets, filling the air with their loyal and congratulatory
+shouts. The queen, who was sitting anxiously in her boudoir, heard the
+uproar and was greatly terrified. Soon it was announced to her that
+the king was returning in triumph: she stepped out upon a balcony and
+looked down upon the broad avenue filled with a countless multitude.
+The king was on foot; the deputies encircled him, interlacing their
+arms to protect him from the crowd, which was surging tumultuously
+around with every manifestation of attachment and joy.
+
+The people really loved the kind-hearted king; but they already
+understood that foible in his character which eventually led to his
+ruin. A woman of Versailles pressed her way through the deputies to the
+king and, with great simplicity, said,
+
+"Oh, my king! are you quite sincere? Will they not make you change your
+mind again?"
+
+"No," replied the king, "I will never change."
+
+The feeble Louis did not know himself. He was then sincere; but in less
+than an hour he was again wavering, being undecided whether to carry
+out his pacific policy of respecting the just demands of the people, or
+to fly from the realm, and invoke the aid of foreign despots, to quench
+the rising flame of liberty in blood. It was well known that the queen,
+the brothers of the king, and the Polignacs, were the implacable foes
+of reform, and that it was through their councils that the Assembly and
+the nation were menaced with violence.[178]
+
+As soon as the queen was seen upon the balcony, with her son and
+daughter by her side, the shouts of applause were redoubled. But now
+murmurs began to mingle with the acclaim. A few execrations were heard
+against the obnoxious members of the court. Still the general voice was
+enthusiastic in loyalty; and when the queen descended to the foot of
+the marble stairs and threw herself into the arms of the king, every
+murmur was hushed, and confidence and happiness seemed to fill all
+hearts.[179]
+
+A cabinet council was immediately held in the palace to deliberate
+respecting the next step to be taken. The Assembly returned to their
+hall and immediately chose a deputation of one hundred members, with
+La Fayette at their head, to convey to the municipal government at the
+Hôtel de Ville in Paris the joyful tidings of their reconciliation with
+the king. A courier was sent in advance to inform of the approach of
+the delegation.
+
+It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. The deputation left Versailles
+accompanied by an immense escort of citizen-soldiers, and followed by
+a crowd which could not be numbered. They were received in Paris with
+almost delirious enthusiasm. Throughout the whole night the citizens,
+men, women, and children, had been at work piling up barricades,
+tearing up the pavements, and preparing with every conceivable weapon
+and measure of offense and defense to meet the contemplated attack
+from the artillery and cavalry of the crown. Fathers and mothers,
+pallid with terror, had anticipated the awful scenes of the sack of
+the city by a brutal soldiery. Inexpressible was the joy to which they
+surrendered themselves in finding that the king now openly avowed
+himself their friend and espoused the popular cause. Windows and
+balconies were crowded, the streets were strewn with flowers, and the
+deputies were greeted with waving of handkerchiefs and cheers.
+
+At the Place Louis XV. the deputies left their carriages and were
+conducted through the garden of the Tuileries, greeted by the music
+of martial bands, to the vestibule of the palace. There they were met
+by a committee of the municipality, with one of the clergy, the Abbé
+Fauchet, at its head, who accompanied them to the Hôtel de Ville.
+
+La Fayette addressed the electors, informing them of the king's
+speech, and describing the monarch's return to his palace in the
+midst of the National Assembly and of the people of Versailles,
+"protected by their love and their inviolable fidelity." Lally
+Tollendal, who was remarkable for his eloquence, then addressed the
+electors and the assembled multitude. He spoke of the king, whom he
+loved, in the highest terms of eulogy, and in a strain so persuasive
+and spirit-stirring that he was immediately crowned with a wreath of
+flowers, and, in a tumult of transport, was carried in triumph to the
+window to receive the applause of the thousands who filled the streets.
+Love for the king seemed to be an instinct with the populace. Shouts
+of "Vive le Roi!" rose from the vast assembly, which were reverberated
+from street to street through all the thronged thoroughfares of the
+metropolis.
+
+The king had authorized the establishment of the National Guard, but
+the guard was yet without a commander-in-chief. The government of
+Paris also, by the death of Flesselles, had no head. There was in the
+hall of the Assembly a bust of La Fayette which had been presented
+by the United States to the city of Paris. It stood by the side of
+the bust of Washington. As the momentous question was discussed, who
+should be intrusted with the command of the National Guard, a body
+which now numbered hundreds of thousands and was spread all over the
+kingdom, Moreau de St. Mèry, Chairman of the Municipality, rose, and,
+without uttering a word, silently pointed to the bust of La Fayette.
+The gesture was decisive. A general shout of acclaim filled the room.
+He who had fought the battles of liberty in America was thus intrusted
+with the command of the citizen-soldiery of France. M. Bailly was
+then chosen successor of Flesselles, not with the title of Prévôt des
+Marchands, but with the more comprehensive one of Mayor of Paris.
+
+On the 27th of September the banners of the National Guard, each one of
+which had been previously consecrated in the church of its district,
+were all taken to the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, and there, with the
+utmost pomp of civil, military, and religious ceremonies, were
+consecrated to the service of God and the nation.
+
+[Illustration: BLESSING THE BANNERS.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 174: It has not subsequently appeared that there was any
+conclusive evidence of the existence of this letter.]
+
+[Footnote 175: Histoire Des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 176: The Duchess of Polignac was the most intimate friend
+of the queen. Though enjoying an income from the crown of two hundred
+and ninety thousand francs ($58,400) annually, she was deemed, when
+compared with others of the nobles, poor. The queen had assigned her a
+magnificent suite of apartments in the Palace of Versailles at the head
+of the marble stairs. The saloons of the duchess were the rendezvous of
+the court in all its plottings against the people. Here originated that
+aristocratic club which called into being antagonistic popular clubs
+all over the kingdom.--_Madame Campan_, vol. i., p. 139; _Weber_, vol.
+ii., p. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Hist. Phil. de la Rev. Fr., par Ant. Fantin Desodoards,
+vol. i., p. 165; M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 69; Hist.
+Parlem., vol. ii., p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Necker, speaking of the plots of the court, writes, "I
+could never ascertain certainly what design was contemplated. There
+were secrets and after-secrets, and I am convinced that the king
+himself was not in all of them. It was intended, perhaps, according to
+circumstances, to draw the monarch into measures which they did not
+dare to mention to him beforehand."--Vol. ii., p. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Madame Campan's Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, vol. ii.,
+p. 48.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE KING VISITS PARIS.
+
+ Views of the Patriots.--Pardon of the French Guards.--Religious
+ Ceremonies.--Recall of Necker.--The King visits Paris.--Action
+ of the Clergy.--The King at the Hôtel de Ville.--Return of the
+ King to Versailles.--Count d'Artois, the Polignacs, and others
+ leave France.--Insolence of the Servants.--Sufferings of the
+ People.--Persecution of the Corn-dealers.--Berthier of Toulon.--M.
+ Foulon.--Their Assassination.--Humane Attempts of Necker.--Abolition
+ of Feudal Rights.
+
+
+The new government was now established, consolidated with power which
+neither the court nor the people as yet even faintly realized. The
+National Assembly and the municipality of Paris were now supreme. A
+million of men were ready to draw the sword and spring into the ranks
+to enforce their decrees. The king was henceforth but a constitutional
+monarch; though by no means conscious of it, his despotic power had
+passed away, never to be regained. The Revolution had now made such
+strides that nothing remained but to carry out those plans which
+might be deemed essential for the welfare of France. The Revolution
+thus far had been almost bloodless. And had it not been for the
+interference of surrounding despots, who combined their armies to
+rivet anew the chains of feudal aristocracy upon the French people,
+the subsequent horrors of the Revolution, in all probability, never
+would have occurred. Men of wisdom and of the purest patriotism were at
+the head of these popular movements. Every step which had been taken
+had been wisely taken. The object which all sought was _reform_, not
+_revolution_--the reign of a constitutional monarchy, like that of
+England, not the reign of terror.
+
+A republic was not then even thought of. A monarchy was in accordance
+with the habits and tastes of the people, and would leave them still in
+sympathy with the great family of governments which surrounded them.
+La Fayette, Talleyrand, Sièyes, Mirabeau, Bailly, and all the other
+leaders in this great movement, wished only to infuse the spirit of
+personal liberty into the monarchy of France.
+
+But when all the surrounding despotisms combined and put their armies
+in motion to invade France, determined that the French people should
+not be free, and when the aristocracy of France combined with these
+foreign invaders to enslave anew these millions who had just broken
+their chains, a spirit of desperation was roused which led to all the
+woes which ensued. We can not tell what would have been the result had
+there not been the combination of these foreign kings, but we _do_
+know that the results which _did_ ensue were the direct and legitimate
+consequence of that combination.
+
+It will be remembered that the French Guards, espousing the popular
+side, had refused to fire upon the people. This disobedience to
+the royal officers was, of course, an act of treason. The Duke of
+Liancourt, speaking in behalf of the king, said, "The king _pardons_
+the French Guards." At the utterance of the obnoxious word _pardon_, a
+murmur of displeasure ran through the hall. Some of the guards who were
+present immediately advanced to the platform, and one, as the organ of
+the rest, said, firmly and nobly,
+
+"We can not accept a _pardon_. We need none. In serving the nation we
+serve the king; and the scenes now transpiring prove it."
+
+The laconic speech was greeted with thunders of applause, and nothing
+more was said about a pardon. The lower clergy, who were active in
+these movements, were not unmindful of their obligations to God. The
+whole people seemed to sympathize in this religious sentiment. At the
+suggestion of the Archbishop of Paris a Te Deum was promptly voted, and
+the electors, deputies, and new magistrates, accompanied by an immense
+concourse of citizens, and escorted by the French Guards, repaired to
+the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, where the solemn chant of thanksgiving was
+devoutly offered. La Fayette and Bailly then took the oath of office.
+
+Upon the return of the deputation to the Assembly at Versailles, Lally
+Tollendal reported that the universal cry of the Parisians was for the
+recall of Necker, with which minister the popular cause was held to be
+identified. A motion was immediately introduced to send a deputation
+to the king soliciting his recall. They had but just entered upon the
+discussion of this question when a message was received from Louis
+announcing the dismissal of the obnoxious ministers, accompanied by an
+unsealed letter addressed to Necker, summoning him to return to his
+post. Inspired by gratitude for this act, the Assembly immediately
+addressed a vote of thanks to the king.
+
+The populace of Paris had expressed the earnest wish that the king
+would pay them a visit. During the afternoon and evening of the 16th,
+the question was earnestly discussed by the court at Versailles,
+whether the king should fly from the kingdom, protected by the foreign
+troops whom he could gather around him, and seek the assistance of
+foreign powers, or whether he should continue to express acquiescence
+in the popular movement and visit the people in Paris. The queen was in
+favor of escape. She told Madame Campan that, after a long discussion
+at which she was present, the king, impatient and weary, said, "Well,
+gentlemen, we must decide. Must I go away, or stay? I am ready to do
+either." "The majority," the queen continued, "were for the king's
+stay. Time will show whether the right choice has been made."[180]
+
+The king was very apprehensive that in going powerless to Paris he
+might be assassinated. In preparation of the event, he partook of the
+sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and nominated his brother, subsequently
+Louis XVIII., Lieutenant of France, in case of his detention or death.
+Early the next morning, the 17th of July, he took an affecting leave of
+his weeping, distracted family, to visit the tumultuous metropolis. His
+pale and melancholy countenance impressed every observer. The queen,
+who was bitterly hostile to the movement, was almost in despair. She
+immediately retired to her chamber, and employed herself in writing an
+address to the Assembly, which she determined to present in person in
+case the king should be detained a prisoner.[181]
+
+It was ten o'clock in the morning when the king left Versailles. He
+rode in an unostentatious carriage, without any guards, but surrounded
+by the whole body of the deputies on foot.[182]
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the long procession
+arrived at the gates of the city. Thus far they had proceeded in
+silence. M. Bailly, the newly-appointed mayor, then, met him and
+presented him with the keys of the city, saying "These are the keys
+presented to Henry the Fourth. He had reconquered his people. Now the
+people have reconquered their king."
+
+Two hundred thousand men, now composing the National Guard, were
+marshaled in military array to receive their monarch. They lined the
+avenue four or five men deep from the bridge of Sevres to the Hôtel
+de Ville. They had but 30,000 muskets and 50,000 pikes. The rest were
+armed with sabres, lances, scythes, and pitchforks. The Revolution thus
+far was the movement, not of a party, but of the nation. Even matrons
+and young girls were seen standing armed by the side of their husbands
+and fathers. The clergy, lower clergy, and some of the bishops, not
+forgetting that they were men and citizens, were there also in this
+hour of their country's peril, consecrating all their influence to
+the cause of freedom. They did not ingloriously take refuge beneath
+their clerical robes from the responsibilities of this greatest of
+conflicts for human rights. Shouts were continually heard swelling
+from the multitude of "Vive la Nation!" As yet not a voice had been
+heard exclaiming "Vive le Roi!" The people had again become suspicious.
+Rumors of the unrelenting hostility of the court had been circulating
+through the crowd, and there were many fears that the ever-vacillating
+king would again espouse the cause of aristocratic usurpation. Passing
+through these lines of the National Guard, with the whole population
+of Paris thronging the house-tops, the balconies, and the pavements,
+the king at length arrived, at four o'clock in the afternoon, at the
+Hôtel de Ville, the seat of the new government. He alighted from his
+carriage and ascended the stairs beneath a canopy of steel formed by
+the grenadiers crossing their bayonets over his head. This was intended
+not as a humiliation, but as a singular act of honor.[183]
+
+The king took his position in the centre of the spacious hall, which
+presented an extraordinary aspect. It was crowded with the notabilities
+of the city and of the realm, and those near the centre with true
+French politeness dropped upon their knees, that those more remote
+might have a view of the king. Bailly then presented the king with the
+tricolored cockade. He received it, and immediately pinned it upon his
+hat. This was the adoption of the popular cause. It was received with a
+shout of enthusiasm, and "Vive le Roi!" burst from all lips with almost
+delirious energy. Tears gushed into the eyes of the king, and, turning
+to one of his suite, M. de Cubieres, he said, "My heart stands in need
+of such shouts from the people."
+
+"Sire," replied Cubieres, "the people love your majesty, and your
+majesty ought never to have doubted it."
+
+The king rejoined, in accents of deep sensibility, "The French loved
+Henry the Fourth; and what king ever better deserved to be beloved?"
+
+The king could not forget that the affection of the people did not
+protect Henry from the dagger of the assassin. Moreau de St. Mèrry,
+president of the Assembly of Electors, in his address to the king,
+said, "You owed your crown to birth; you are now indebted for it
+only to your virtues."[184] The minutes of the proceedings of the
+municipality were then read, and the king, by silence, gave his assent
+to the appointment of La Fayette as Commander of the National Guard, of
+Bailly as Mayor of Paris, and to the order for the utter demolition of
+the Bastille. It was also proposed that a monument should be erected
+upon its site to Louis XVI., "the Regenerator of public liberty, the
+Restorer of national prosperity, the Father of the French people."
+These were, to the monarch, hours of terrific humiliation. He bore
+them, however, with the spirit of a martyr, struggling in vain to
+assume the aspect of confidence and cordiality.
+
+[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF THE KING AT THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, JULY 17,
+1789.]
+
+When Bailly led him to the balcony, to exhibit him to the people with
+the tricolored cockade upon his hat, and shouts of triumph, like
+thunder-peals, rose from the myriad throng, tears flooded the eyes
+of the king, and he bowed his head in silence and sadness, as if
+presenting himself a victim for the sacrifice. Some one whispered to
+the monarch that it was expected that he would make an address. Two or
+three times he attempted it, but his voice was choked with emotion, and
+he could only, in almost inarticulate accents, exclaim, "You may always
+rely upon my affection!"
+
+As the king returned through the vast throng to Versailles, the tide of
+enthusiasm set strongly in his favor. Shouts of "Vive le Roi!" almost
+deafened his ears. The populace bore him in their arms to his chariot.
+A woman threw herself upon his neck and wept with joy. Men ran from the
+houses with goblets of wine for his postillions and his suite. A few
+words from his lips then would have re-echoed through the crowd, and
+might have saved the monarchy. But Louis was a man of feeble intellect,
+and of no tact whatever. He was pleased with the homage which was
+spontaneously offered him, and, stolid in his immense corpulence, sat
+lolling in his chariot, with a good-natured smile upon his face, but
+uttered not a word. It was after nine o'clock in the evening when
+he returned to the palace at Versailles. The queen and her children
+met him on the stairs, and, convulsively weeping, threw themselves
+into his arms. Clinging together, they ascended to the saloon. There
+the queen caught sight of the tricolored cockade, which the king had
+forgotten to remove from his hat. The queen recoiled, and looking upon
+it contemptuously, exclaimed, "I did not think that I had married a
+plebeian." The good-natured king, however, forgot all his humiliations
+in his safe return, and congratulated himself that no violence had been
+excited.
+
+"Happily," he said, "no blood has been shed; and it is my firm
+determination that never shall a drop of French blood be spilled by my
+order."[185]
+
+While these scenes were transpiring on this the 17th of July, the Count
+d'Artois, second brother of the king, the Condés, the Polignacs, and
+most of the other leaders of the aristocratic party fled from France.
+The conspiracy they had formed had failed, the nation had risen against
+them, and no reliance could be placed on the vacillating king. Their
+only hope now was to summon the combined energies of foreign despotisms
+to arrest the progress of that liberty in France which alike threatened
+all their thrones. The palace was now forsaken and gloomy as a tomb.
+For three days the king sadly paced the deserted halls, with none of
+his old friends to cheer or counsel him but Bensenval and Montmorin.
+His servants, conscious that he had fallen from his kingly power,
+became careless even to insolence. Even the French Guard mounted guard
+at Versailles only on orders received from the Electors at Paris.[186]
+
+On the 19th Bensenval presented an order for the king to sign. A
+footman entered the cabinet, and looked over the king's shoulder to see
+what he was writing. Louis, amazed at such unparalleled effrontery,
+seized the tongs to break the head of the miscreant. Bensenval
+interposed to prevent the undignified blow. The king clasped the
+hand of his friend, and, bursting into tears, thanked him for the
+interposition. Thus low had fallen the descendant of Louis XIV. in his
+own palace at Versailles.[187]
+
+There was now, in reality, no government in France. The kingly power
+was entirely overthrown, and the National Assembly had hardly awoke to
+the consciousness that all power had passed into its hands. Even in
+Paris, the municipality, now supreme there, had by no means organized
+an efficient government. Famine desolated the kingdom. Ages of misrule
+had so utterly impoverished the people that they were actually dying of
+starvation. "Bread! bread!" was every where the cry, but bread could
+not be obtained. Many boiled grass and fern-roots for sustenance.
+Every where the eye met wan and haggard men in a state of desperation.
+The king, constitutionally humane, felt deeply these woes of his
+subjects. With a little apparent ostentation, quite pardonable under
+the circumstances, he occasionally walked out and administered relief
+with his own hands to the haggard beggary he every where met. He was by
+nature one of the kindest of men, but he had hardly a single quality
+to fit him to be the ruler of a great people. A nation was on the
+brink of famine, and the monarch was giving gold to beggars instead of
+introducing vigorous measures for relief.
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. GIVING MONEY TO THE POOR.]
+
+As the National Assembly met on the morning of the 18th of July,
+reports were brought from all parts of violence and riots. The most
+vigorous efforts were adopted by the Electors in Paris to supply the
+city with food. Nearly a million of people were within its walls. Vast
+numbers had crowded into the city from the country, hoping to obtain
+food. No law could restrain such multitudes of men, actually dying
+of hunger. As it was better to die by the bullet or the bayonet than
+by starvation, they would, at all hazards, break into the dwellings
+of the wealthy, and into magazines, to obtain food, unless food in
+some other way could be provided for them. The disorders of the times
+had put a stop to all the enterprises of industry, and thus the
+impoverished millions were left without money, without employment, and
+without food.
+
+In one of the villages near Paris it was reported that a rich farmer
+had concealed a large quantity of grain, to enrich himself by its sale
+at an exorbitant price. A haggard multitude of men, women, and children
+surrounded his dwelling, and threatened to hang the farmer unless
+he delivered up his stores. The Assembly hastily sent a deputation
+of twelve members to attempt to save the unfortunate corn-dealer's
+life.[188] While engaged in this business, a delegation entered from
+the Faubourg San Antoine, stating that the wretched inhabitants of
+that faubourg had for the last five days been without work and without
+bread, and entreating that some measure might be devised to save them
+from starvation. Nine thousand dollars were immediately subscribed by
+the deputies for their relief. Four thousand of this sum were given by
+the Archbishop of Paris.
+
+[Illustration: PERSECUTION OF THE CORN-DEALERS.]
+
+The rage of the people, during these days of distress, was particularly
+directed against those whom they deemed monopolists, who were accused
+of keeping from the market the very sources of life. The sufferings of
+the people and their desperation were so intense that it was necessary
+to send military bands from the city of Paris to convoy provisions
+through the famishing districts. The peasants, who saw their children
+actually gasping and dying of hunger, would attack the convoys with
+the ferocity of wolves, and, though it seemed absolutely necessary to
+resist them even unto death, no one could severely blame them.
+
+There were two men, M. Foulon and M. Berthier, who were conspicuous
+members of the court, and who had both been very active in their
+hostility to the popular cause. Upon the overthrow of the Necker
+ministry, these men were called into the new ministry, antagonistic to
+the people. It was reported that M. Foulon, who was the father-in-law
+of M. Berthier, had frequently said, "If the _people_ are hungry, let
+them eat grass. It is good enough for _them_; my horses eat it."[189]
+He is also stated to have uttered the terrible threat, "France must be
+mowed as we mow a meadow." He was reputed to be a man of great wealth,
+and had long been execrated by the people. These brutal remarks,
+which have never been proved against him, but which were universally
+believed, and which were in entire harmony with his established
+character, excited the wrath of the people to the highest pitch.[190]
+
+Berthier, his son-in-law, even the Royalists confess to have been a
+very hard-hearted man, unscrupulous and grasping.[191] Though fifty
+years of age he was an atrocious libertine, and seemed to exult in the
+opportunity of making war upon the Parisians, by whom he was detested.
+He showed "a diabolical activity," says Michelet, "in collecting arms,
+troops, every thing together, and in manufacturing cartridges. If Paris
+was not laid waste with fire and sword it was not his fault."[192]
+
+Both Berthier and Foulon were now at the mercy of the people. Neither
+the court nor the royal army had any power to protect them, and murmurs
+loud and deep fell upon their ears. Berthier attempted to escape from
+France to join the Royalists who had already emigrated. Fleeing by
+night and hiding by day, in four nights he reached as far as Soissons.
+Foulon adopted the stratagem of a pretended death. He spread the report
+that he had died suddenly of apoplexy. He was buried by proxy with
+great pomp, one of his servants having by chance died at the right
+moment. He then repaired to the house of a friend, where he concealed
+himself. He would have been forgotten had he not been so utterly
+execrated by all France. Those who knew him best hated him the worst.
+His servants and vassals detected the fraud, and, hunting him out,
+found him in the park of his friend.
+
+"You wanted to give _us_ hay," said they; "you shall eat some yourself."
+
+The awful hour of blind popular vengeance had come. They tied a truss
+of hay upon his back, threw a collar of thistles over his neck, and
+bound a nosegay of nettles upon his breast. They then led him on foot
+to Paris, to the Hôtel de Ville, and demanded that he should be fairly
+tried and legally punished. At the same time Berthier was arrested as
+he was hastening to the frontier.
+
+The municipality were in great perplexity. They had no power to sit in
+judgment as a criminal court. The old courts were broken up and no new
+ones had as yet been established. It was six o'clock in the morning
+when he was presented at the Hôtel de Ville. The news of his arrest
+spread rapidly through Paris, and the Place de Grève was soon thronged
+with an excited multitude. Foulon was universally known as well as
+execrated. La Fayette was anxious to send him to the protection of a
+prison, that he might subsequently receive a legal trial for his deeds
+of inhumanity.
+
+"Gentlemen," said La Fayette to the people, "I can not blame your
+indignation against this man. I have always considered him a great
+culprit, and no punishment is too severe for him. He shall receive the
+punishment he merits. But he has accomplices, and we must know them. I
+will conduct him to the Abbaye, where we will draw up charges against
+him, and he shall be tried and punished according to the laws."[193]
+
+The people applauded this speech, and Foulon insanely joined with
+them in the applause. This excited their suspicion that some plot was
+forming for his rescue. A man from the crowd cried out,
+
+"What is the use of judging a man who has been judged these thirty
+years?"
+
+This cry was Foulon's death-warrant. It kindled anew the flame of
+indignation and it now burned unquenchably. The enraged populace
+clamored for their victim. The surgings of the multitude were like the
+tumult of the ocean in a storm. The countless thousands pressed on,
+sweeping electors, judges, and witnesses before them, and Foulon was
+seized, no one can tell by whom or how, till at last he was found in
+the street with a cord around his neck, while the mob were attempting
+to hang him upon a lamp-post. Twice the iron cut the cord, and the
+old man on his knees begged for mercy. But the infuriated populace
+were unrelenting. A third rope was obtained, and the poor man was soon
+dangling lifeless in the air.
+
+While these scenes were transpiring Berthier was brought into the city.
+He was in a cabriolet, that the people might have a sight of their
+inhuman persecutor. A frightful mob surrounded him, filling the air
+with menaces and execrations. A placard was borne before him with this
+inscription in large letters:
+
+"He has devoured the substance of the people; he has been the slave of
+the rich and the tyrant of the poor; he has robbed the king and France;
+he has betrayed his country."[194]
+
+[Illustration: THE ASSASSINATION OF BERTHIER.]
+
+The miserable wretch was dragged up the steps of the Hôtel de Ville.
+But the mob was now in the ascendency. There was no longer law or
+even semblance of authority. An attempt was made by the National
+Guard to convey him to the Abbaye; but the moment they appeared with
+their prisoner in the street the crowd fell irresistibly upon him.
+Seizing a gun, he fought like a tiger; but he soon fell, pierced
+with bayonets.[195] A dragoon tore out his heart, and carried it
+dripping with blood to the Hôtel de Ville, saying, "Here is the heart
+of Berthier!"[196] The man attempted an extenuation of his ferocity
+by declaring that Berthier had caused the death of his father. His
+comrades, however, deemed such brutality a disgrace to their corps.
+They told him that he must die, and that they would all fight him in
+turn until he was killed. He was killed that night.[197]
+
+These deeds of violence excited the disgust of Bailly, the mayor, and
+La Fayette. Having such evidence that both the municipality and the
+National Guard were impotent, both La Fayette and Bailly tendered their
+resignations.
+
+They were, however, prevailed upon to continue in office by the most
+earnest solicitations of the friends of France.[198]
+
+A report was spread throughout the kingdom that the fugitive princes
+and nobles were organizing a force on the frontiers for the invasion of
+France, that the armies of foreign despots were at their command, and
+that all the Royalists in France were conspiring to welcome them. The
+panic which pervaded the kingdom was fearful. France, just beginning
+to breathe the atmosphere of liberty, was threatened with chains of
+slavery more heavy than had ever been worn before. The energies of a
+semi-enfranchised people were roused to the utmost vigor. Every city,
+and every village of any importance, organized a municipal government
+in sympathy with the municipality in Paris. The peasantry in the rural
+districts, hating the nobles who had long oppressed them, attacked
+and burned their castles. There was a universal rising of the Third
+Estate against the tyranny of the privileged classes, assailing that
+tyranny with the only instrument at its command--blind brutal force.
+In one week three millions of men assumed the military character, and
+organized themselves for the defense of the kingdom. The tricolored
+cockade became the national uniform.
+
+The National Assembly, intently occupied in framing a constitution, was
+greatly disturbed by reports of these wide-spread acts of violence;
+yet daily delegations arrived with vows of homage from the different
+provinces, and with their recognition of the authority of the national
+representatives.
+
+Necker was in exile at Basle. He had left the Polignacs in pride and
+power at Versailles; _they_ now were fugitives. One morning one of
+the Polignacs hastened to Necker's apartment and informed him of the
+overthrow of the court and the triumph of the people. Necker had just
+received these tidings when a courier placed in his hand the letter
+of the king recalling him to the ministry. The grandest of triumphs
+greeted him from the moment his carriage entered France until he was
+received with a delirium of joy in the streets of Paris. The people,
+who had with lawless violence punished Foulon and Berthier, who had
+conspired so inhumanly for the overthrow of their liberties, were
+determined that others, who with equal malignity had conspired against
+them, should also be condemned. Necker humanely resolved that an act of
+general amnesty should be passed. Many of his friends assured him that
+it was not safe to attempt to secure the passage of such a measure;
+that the crimes of the leaders of the court were too great to be thus
+easily forgotten; that the indignant nation, finding Necker pleading
+the cause of the court, would think that he had been bought over; and
+that thus he would only secure his own ruin. But Necker, relying upon
+his popularity, resolved to make the trial. On the 29th of July he
+repaired to the Hôtel de Ville. As he passed through the streets and
+entered the spacious hall, he was received with rapturous applause.
+Deeming his popularity equal to the emergence, he demanded a general
+amnesty. In the enthusiasm of the moment it was granted by acclamation.
+Necker retired to his apartments delighted with his success; but before
+the sun had set he found himself cruelly deceived. The Assembly, led by
+Mirabeau, remonstrated peremptorily against this usurpation of power by
+the Municipality of Paris, asserting that that body had no authority
+either to condemn or to pardon. The measure of amnesty was annulled by
+the Assembly, and the detention of the prisoners confirmed.
+
+The great question which now agitated the Assembly was, what measures
+were to be adopted to bring order out of the chaos into which France
+was plunged. All the old courts were virtually annihilated. No new
+courts had been organized with the sanction of national authority. The
+nobles and all their friends, in conference with the emigrants and
+foreign despots, were conspiring to reinstate the reign of despotic
+power. The people were in a state of terror. The degraded, the
+desperate, the vicious, in banditti hordes, were sweeping the country,
+burning and pillaging indiscriminately. It was proposed to publish a
+decree enjoining upon the people to demean themselves peaceably, to
+pay such taxes and duties as were not yet suppressed, and to yield
+obedience for the present to the old laws of the realm, obnoxious and
+unjust as they undeniably were.
+
+While this question was under discussion, the Viscount de Noailles
+and the Duke d'Aguillon, both distinguished members of the nobility,
+ascended the tribune and declared that it was vain to attempt to
+quiet the people by force, that the only way of appeasing them was
+by removing the cause of their sufferings. They then, though both of
+them members of the privileged class, nobly avowed the enormity of the
+aggressions under which, by the name of feudal rights, the people were
+oppressed, and voted for the repeal of those atrocities.
+
+It is a remarkable fact that in this great revolution the boldest
+and ablest friends of popular rights came out from the body of the
+nobles themselves. Some were influenced by as pure motives as can move
+the human heart. With others, perhaps, selfish and ambitious motives
+predominated. Among the most active in all these movements, we see La
+Fayette, Talleyrand, Sièyes, Mirabeau, and the Duke of Orleans. But
+for the aid of these men, whatever may have been the motives which
+influenced the one or the other, the popular cause could not have
+triumphed. And now we find, in the National Assembly, two of the most
+distinguished of the nobles rising and themselves proposing the utter
+abolition of all feudal rights.
+
+It was the 4th of August, 1789, when this memorable scene was enacted
+in the National Assembly, one of the most remarkable which ever
+transpired on earth. The whole body of the nobles seems to have been
+seized with a paroxysm of magnanimity and disinterestedness. One
+of the deputies of the _Tiers Etat_, M. Kerengal, in the dress of
+a farmer, gave a frightful picture of the sufferings of the people
+under feudal oppression.[199] There was no more discussion. No voice
+defended feudality. The nobles, one after another, renounced all their
+prerogatives. The clergy surrendered their tithes. The deputies of the
+towns and of the provinces gave up their special privileges, and, in
+one short night, all those customs and laws by which, for ages, one man
+had been robbed to enrich another were scattered to the winds. Equality
+of rights was established between all individuals and all parts of
+the French territory. Louis XVI. was then proclaimed the restorer of
+French liberty. It was decreed that a medal should be struck off in
+his honor, in memory of that glorious night. And when the Archbishop
+of Paris proposed that God's goodness should be acknowledged in a
+solemn Te Deum, to be celebrated in the king's chapel, in the presence
+of the king and of all the members of the National Assembly, it was
+carried by acclamation. During the whole of this exciting scene, when
+sacrifices were made such as earth never witnessed before; when nobles
+surrendered their titles, their pensions, and their incomes; when towns
+and corporations surrendered their privileges and pecuniary immunities;
+when prelates relinquished their tithes and their benefices; not a
+solitary voice of opposition or remonstrance was heard. The whole
+Assembly--clergy, nobles, and _Tiers Etat_--moved as one man. "It
+seemed," says M. Rabaud, "as if France was near being regenerated in
+the course of a single night. So true it is that the happiness of a
+people is easily to be accomplished, when those who govern are less
+occupied with themselves than with the people."[200]
+
+It subsequently, however, appeared that this seeming unanimity was
+not real. "The impulse," writes Thiers, "was general; but amid this
+enthusiasm it was easy to see that certain of the privileged persons,
+so far from being sincere, were desirous only of making matters worse."
+This was the measure which the unrelenting nobles adopted to regain
+their power. Finding that they could not resist the torrent, they
+endeavored to swell its volume and to give impulse to its rush, that it
+might not only sweep away all the rubbish which through ages had been
+accumulating, but that it might also deluge every field of fertility,
+and sweep, in indiscriminate ruin, all the abodes of industry and
+all the creations of art. It was now their sole endeavor to plunge
+France into a state of perfect anarchy, with the desperate hope that
+from the chaos they might rebuild their ancient despotism; that the
+people, plunged into unparalleled misery, might themselves implore the
+restoration of the ancient régime.
+
+This combination of the highest of the aristocracy and of the clergy
+to exasperate the mob immeasurably increased the difficulties of the
+patriots. The court party, with all its wealth and influence--a wealth
+and influence which had been accumulating for ages--scattered its
+emissaries every where to foster discord, to excite insurrection, to
+stimulate the mob to all brutality, that the Revolution might have an
+infamous name through Europe, and might be execrated in France. In
+almost every act of violence which _immediately_ succeeded, the hand of
+these instigators from palaces and castles was distinctly to be seen.
+Indeed, it was generally supposed that even Berthier and Foulon were
+wrested from the protection of La Fayette by emissaries of the court.
+And the British government was so systematically assailed for exciting
+disturbances in France, that the Duke of Dorset, British embassador at
+the time, found it necessary to present a formal contradiction of the
+charge.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 180: Madame Campan, Memoirs, p. 251.]
+
+[Footnote 181: "She got this address by heart," writes Madame Campan.
+"I remember it began with these words, 'Gentlemen, I come to place in
+your hands the wife and family of your sovereign. Do not suffer those
+who have been united in Heaven to be put asunder on earth.' While she
+was repeating this address her voice was often interrupted by her
+tears, and by the sorrowful exclamation, 'They will never let him
+return.'"]
+
+[Footnote 182: The Parliamentary History, vol. ii., p. 130, records
+that 100 deputies accompanied the king; Thiers states 200; Louis
+Blanc, 240; Michelet, 300 or 400. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, a member
+of the Assembly, says that the whole body of the deputies accompanied
+the king; and M. Ant. Fantin Desodoards, an eye-witness, writes,
+"L'Assemblée National, entière l'accompagnait à pied dans son costume
+de ceremonie," vol. i., p. 34. The probability is that 100 were chosen,
+but all went.]
+
+[Footnote 183: Michelet, vol. i., p. 173.]
+
+[Footnote 184: Histoire de la Revolution Française, par Louis Blanc,
+vol. ii., p. 420.]
+
+[Footnote 185: Madame Campan, Memoirs, etc., ii., 59.]
+
+[Footnote 186: Michelet, 186.]
+
+[Footnote 187: Michelet, 175.]
+
+[Footnote 188: "He was saved only by a deputation of the Assembly, who
+showed themselves admirable for courage and humanity, risked their
+lives, and preserved the man only after having begged him of the people
+on their knees."--_Michelet_, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 189: Bertrand de Moleville testifies that this was an
+habitual expression in the mouth of Foulon.--_Annals_, vol. i., p. 347.]
+
+[Footnote 190: "The old man (Foulon) believed, by such bravado, to
+please the young military party, and recommend himself for the day he
+saw approaching, when the court, wanting to strike some desperate blow,
+would look out for a hardened villain."--_Michelet_, vol. ii., p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 191: Beaulieu's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 192: "Foulon had a son-in-law after his own heart--Berthier,
+the intendant of Paris, a shrewd but hard-hearted man, and
+unscrupulous, as confessed by the Royalists. A libertine at the age of
+fifty, in spite of his numerous family, he purchased on all sides, so
+it was said, little girls twelve years of age. He knew well that he was
+detested by the Parisians, and was but too happy to find an opportunity
+of making war upon them."--_Michelet_, p. 184.]
+
+[Footnote 193: An appeal to the then existing courts would have secured
+the trial of Foulon by his own colleagues and accomplices, the ancient
+magistrates, the only judges then empowered to act. This was evident to
+all. See Michelet, p. 187.]
+
+[Footnote 194: Deux Amis de la Liberté, vol. ii., p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 195: "These people," says Michelet, "whom Mirabeau termed so
+well the refuse of public contempt, are as if restored to character by
+punishment. The gallows becomes their apotheosis. They are now become
+interesting victims--the martyrs of monarchy; their legend will go on
+increasing in pathetic fictions. Mr. Burke canonized them and prayed on
+their tomb."--_Historical View of the French Revolution_, p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 196: Sir Archibald Alison, true to his instincts as the
+advocate of aristocratic usurpation, carefully conceals the character
+of these men, which drew down upon them the vengeance of the mob.
+Impartial history, while denouncing the ferocity of the mob, should not
+conceal those outrages which roused the people to madness.]
+
+[Footnote 197: "It is an indisputable fact that the murder of Foulon
+and Berthier was not looked upon by the majority of the people of
+Paris with horror and disgust. So unpopular were these two men that
+their death was viewed as an act of justice, only irregular in its
+execution. Frenchmen were still accustomed to witness the odious
+punishment of torture and the wheel; and society may hence learn a
+lesson that the sight of cruel executions tends to destroy the feelings
+of humanity."--_France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq._, p.
+47.]
+
+[Footnote 198: "The people and the militia did actually throng
+around La Fayette, and promised the utmost obedience in future. On
+this condition he resumed the command; and subsequently he had the
+satisfaction of preventing many disturbances by his own energy and the
+zeal of the troops."--_Thiers_, vol. i., p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 199: "You would have prevented," said Kerengal, "the burning
+of the chateau, if you had been more prompt in declaring that the
+terrible arms which they contain, and which for ages have tormented the
+people, were to be destroyed. Let these arms, the title-deeds, which
+insult not only modesty but even humanity, which humiliate the human
+species by requiring men to be yoked to a wagon like beasts of labor,
+which compel men to pass the night in beating the ponds to prevent the
+frogs from disturbing the sleep of their voluptuous lords, let them be
+brought here. Which of us would not make an expiatory pile of these
+infamous parchments? You can never restore quiet to the people until
+they are redeemed from the destruction of feudalism."]
+
+[Footnote 200: "That night, which an enemy of the Revolution designated
+at the time the Saint Bartholomew of property, was only the Saint
+Bartholomew of abuses."--_Miguet_, p. 54.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+FORMING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+ Arming of the Peasants.--Destruction of Feudal Charters.--Sermon of
+ the Abbé Fauchet.--Three Classes in the Assembly.--Declaration of
+ Rights.--The Three Assemblies.--The Power of the Press.--Efforts
+ of William Pitt to sustain the Nobles.--Questions on the
+ Constitution.--Two Chambers in one?--The Veto.--Famine in the
+ City.--The King's Plate melted.--The Tax of a Quarter of each one's
+ Income.--Statement of Jefferson.
+
+An utterly exhausted treasury compelled Louis XVI. and the court
+of France to call together the States-General. The deputies of the
+people, triumphing over the privileged classes, resolved themselves
+into a National Assembly, and then proceeded to the formation of a
+constitution which should limit the hitherto despotic powers of the
+crown. Though there were a few individuals of the nobles and of the
+higher clergy who cordially espoused the popular cause, the great mass
+of the privileged class clung firmly together in desperate endeavors
+to regain their iniquitous power. Many of these were now emigrants,
+scattered throughout Europe, and imploring the interference of foreign
+courts in their behalf. The old royalist army, some two hundred
+thousand strong, amply equipped and admirably disciplined, still
+retained its organization, and was still under its old officers, the
+nobles; but the rank and file of this army were from the people, and
+their sympathies were with the popular cause.
+
+The nobles were now prepared for the most atrocious act of treason.
+They wished to surrender the naval arsenals of France to the English
+fleet, so that England, in possession of the great magazines of war,
+could throw any number of soldiers into the kingdom unresisted, while
+the Prussians and Austrians, headed by the emigrant noblesse, should
+invade France from the east. The English government, however, which
+subsequently became an accomplice in the conspiracy of the French
+nobles, by accepting the surrender of Toulon, was not yet prepared to
+take the bold step of invading France simply to rivet the chains of
+despotism upon the French people.
+
+The English embassador, Dorset, who was residing at Versailles,
+revealed the plot to the ministers of the king. They, however, kept
+the secret until it was disclosed by an intercepted letter from Dorset
+to the Count d'Artois (subsequently Charles X). This discovery vastly
+increased the alarm of the nation. Perils were now multiplying on
+every side. The most appalling rumors of invasion filled the air.
+Bands of marauders, haggard, starving, brutal, swept over the country,
+burning, devouring, and destroying. It was supposed at first that they
+were the advance battalions of the invaders, sent by the emigrants to
+chastise France into subjection. Alarm increased to terror. Mothers
+in almost a delirium of fear sought places of concealment for their
+children. The peasant in the morning ran to his field to see if it had
+been laid waste. At night he trembled lest he should awake to behold
+conflagration and ruin. There was no law. The king's troops were
+objects of especial dread. The most insolent of the nobles were in
+command, and with money and wine they sought to bribe especially the
+Germans and the Swiss to be obedient to their wishes.
+
+It was this peril which armed France. Villages, peasants, all were
+united to defend themselves against these terrible brigands. The
+arsenals of the old castles contained arms. Nerved by despair, the
+roused multitudes simultaneously besieged all these castles, and
+demanded and seized the weapons necessary for their defense. It was as
+a movement of magic. A sudden danger, every where menacing, every where
+worked the same result. In one short week France sprung up armed and
+ready for war. Three millions of men had come from the furrow and the
+shop, and fiercely demanded "Where are the brigands? Lead us to meet
+our foes, whoever and wherever they may be."[201]
+
+The lords in an hour found themselves helpless. The peasants, hitherto
+so tame and servile, were now soldiers, roused to determination and
+proud of their newly discovered power. Awful was the retribution. The
+chateaux blazed--funeral fires of feudality--on every hill and in
+every valley. One can only be surprised that the hour of retribution
+should have been delayed for so many ages, and that when it came the
+infuriated, degraded, brutalized masses did not proceed to even greater
+atrocities. Though deeds of cruelty were perpetrated which cause the
+ear that hears to tingle, still, on the whole, mercy predominated.
+
+In many cases lords who had treated their serfs kindly were protected
+by their vassals, as children would protect a father. The Marquis of
+Montfermail was thus shielded from harm. In Dauphiné a castle was
+assailed during the absence of the lord. His lady was at home alone
+with the children. The peasants left the castle and its inmates
+unharmed, destroying only those feudal charters which were the
+title-deeds of despotism.
+
+These titles, engrossed on fine parchment and embellished with gorgeous
+seals, were the pride of the noble family--the evidence of their
+antiquity. They were preserved with great reverence, deposited in
+costly caskets, which caskets, enveloped in velvet, were safely placed
+in oaken chests, and those chests, iron-ribbed and with ponderous
+locks, were guarded in a strong part of the feudal tower. The peasants
+ever gazed with awe upon the tower of the archives. They understood the
+significancy of those title-deeds--the badges of their degradation,
+the authority to which the lords appealed in support of their tyranny,
+insolence, and nameless outrages.
+
+"Our country-people," writes Michelet, "went straight to the tower.
+For many centuries that tower had seemed to sneer at the valley,
+sterilizing, blighting, oppressing it with its deadly shadow. A
+guardian of the country in barbarous times, standing there as a
+sentinel, it became later an object of horror. In 1789 what was it but
+the odious witness of bondage, a perpetual outrage to repeat every
+morning to the man trudging to his labor the everlasting humiliation
+of his race? 'Work, work on, son of serfs! Earn for another's profit.
+Work, and without hope.' Every morning and every evening, for a
+thousand years, perhaps more, that tower had been cursed. A day came
+when it was to fall.
+
+"O glorious day, how long have you been in coming! How long our fathers
+expected and dreamed of you in vain! The hope that their sons would
+at length behold you was alone able to support them, otherwise they
+would have no longer consented to live. They would have died in their
+agony. And what has enabled me, their companion, laboring beside them
+in the furrow of history and drinking their bitter cup, to revive the
+suffering Middle Ages, and yet not die of grief? Was it not you, O
+glorious day, first day of liberty? I have lived in order to relate
+your history!"
+
+Thus far the religious sentiment of France, as expressed by nearly all
+the pastors and the great proportion of their Christian flocks, was
+warmly in favor of the Revolution. The higher clergy alone, bishops,
+archbishops, and cardinals, who were usually the younger sons of the
+nobles, and were thus interested in the perpetuation of abuses, united
+with the lords. As in the National Assembly so it was in the nation
+itself, that the working clergy were among the most conspicuous of
+the sons of freedom. Religious services were held in the churches in
+grateful commemoration of the fall of the Bastille.[202] The vast
+cathedral of Nôtre Dame was thronged to listen to a sermon from the
+Abbé Fauchet, who consecrated to the memory of those who fell on that
+occasion the homage of his extraordinary eloquence. He selected for his
+text the words of St. Paul, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto
+liberty."--Gal. v. 13.
+
+"The false interpreters of the divine oracle," said the abbé, "have
+wished, in the name of heaven, to keep the people in subjection to
+the will of their masters. They have consecrated despotism. They
+have rendered God an accomplice with tyrants. These false teachers
+exult because it is written, '_Render unto Cæsar the things that are
+Cæsar's_.' But that which is not Cæsar's, is it necessary to render to
+him that? And _liberty_ does not belong to Cæsar. It belongs to human
+nature."[203]
+
+The abbé unquestionably read the divine oracles aright. The
+corner-stone of true democracy can only be found in the word of God.
+The revelation there presented of God as a common father, and all
+mankind as his children, made of one blood, brethren--it is that
+revelation upon which is founded the great fundamental principle of
+democracy, equality of rights. The very highest attainment of political
+wisdom is the realization of the divine word, _"Whatsoever ye would
+that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them_."
+
+The whole audience were transported with the clear and eloquent
+enunciation of the politics of the gospel of Christ. As the orator
+left the sacred cathedral he was greeted with the loudest plaudits. A
+civic crown was placed upon his brow, and two companies of the National
+Guard escorted him home, with the waving of banners and the clangor of
+trumpets, and through the acclamations of the multitudes who thronged
+the streets.[204]
+
+While France was in this state of tumult and terror, threatened with
+invasion from abroad, and harassed by brigands at home, the nobles
+plotting treason, law powerless, and universal anarchy reigning, the
+National Assembly was anxiously deliberating to restore order to the
+country and to usher in the reign of justice and prosperity. The old
+edifice was destroyed. A new one was to be erected. But there were now
+three conspicuous parties developing themselves in the Assembly.
+
+The first was composed of the nobles and the higher clergy, who still,
+as a body, adhered to the court, and who eagerly fomented disorders
+throughout the kingdom, hoping thus to compel the nation, as the only
+escape from anarchy, to return to the old monarchy.
+
+The second was composed of the large proportion of the Assembly,
+sincere, intelligent, patriotic men, earnest for liberty, but for
+liberty restrained by law. They were almost to a man monarchists,
+wishing to ingraft _upon the monarchy of France_ institutions similar
+to those of republican America. The English Constitution was in the
+main their model.
+
+A third party was just beginning to develop itself, small in numbers,
+of turbulent, visionary, energetic men, eager for the overthrow of
+all the institutions and customs of the past, and for the sudden
+introduction of an entirely new era. Making no allowance for the
+ignorance of the masses, and for the entire inexperience of the French
+in self-government, they wished to cut loose from all the restraints of
+liberty and of law, and to plunge into the wildest freedom.
+
+The first and the third classes, the Aristocrats and the
+ultra-Democrats, joined hand in hand to overthrow the Moderates, as the
+middle party were called, each hoping thus to introduce the reign of
+its own principles. Thus they both were ready to exasperate the masses
+and to encourage violence. These were the two implacable foes against
+whom the Revolution, and subsequently the Empire under Napoleon, had
+ever to contend. Despotism and Jacobinism have ever been the two allied
+foes against rational liberty in France.
+
+The patriots of the middle, or moderate party, who had not as yet
+assumed any distinctive name, for the parties in the Assembly were
+but just beginning to marshal their forces for the fight, earnestly
+deplored all scenes of violence. Such scenes only thwarted their
+endeavors for the regeneration of France.
+
+The Assembly now engaged with great eagerness in drawing up a
+declaration of rights, to be presented to the people as the creed
+of liberty. It was thought that if such a creed could be adopted,
+based upon those self-evident truths which are in accordance with the
+universal sense of right, the people might then be led to rally around
+this creed with a distinct object in view.
+
+For two months, from the 1st of August till the early part of October,
+the Assembly was engaged in discussing the Bill of Rights and the
+Constitution. But it was found that there had now suddenly sprung
+up three Assemblies instead of one, each potent in its sphere, and
+that between the three a spirit of rivalry and of antagonism was very
+rapidly being engendered.
+
+The first was the National Assembly at Versailles, originally
+consisting of twelve hundred deputies, but now dwindled down by
+emigration and other absence to about eight hundred.
+
+The second was the municipal government of Paris, consisting of three
+hundred representatives from the different sections or wards of the
+city, and which held its sessions at the Hôtel de Ville. As Paris
+considered itself France, the municipality of Paris began to arrogate
+supreme power.
+
+The third was the colossal assembly of the Parisian populace, an
+enormous, tumultuous, excitable mass, every day gathered in the garden
+of the Palais Royal. This assembly, daily becoming more arrogant,
+often consisted of from ten to twelve thousand. It was continually in
+session. Here was the rendezvous for all of the lower orders, men and
+women. Impassioned orators, of great powers of popular eloquence, but
+ignorant and often utterly unprincipled, mounted tables and chairs, and
+passionately urged all their crude ideas.
+
+Reflecting men soon began to look upon this assembly with alarm.
+Its loud murmurs were echoed through the nation, boding only evil;
+but emancipated France could not commence its career by prohibiting
+liberty of speech. La Fayette anxiously looked in upon this portentous
+gathering, and listened to the falsehood, the exaggerations, and the
+folly with which its speakers deluded the populace, but he could
+not interfere. Indeed, it soon became perilous for any one in that
+assembly to plead the cause of law and order. He was at once accused as
+an aristocrat, and was in peril of the doom of Berthier and Foulon.
+
+And now suddenly there uprose another power which overshadowed all
+the rest--the power of a free press. Newspapers and pamphlets deluged
+the land. They were read universally; for the public mind was so
+roused that those who could not read themselves eagerly listened to
+the reading from others, at the corners of the streets, in shops and
+hovels.[205]
+
+France was now doomed to blood and woe. It is easy to say that if the
+populace had been virtuous and enlightened all would have gone well;
+or if the nobles and the higher clergy would have united with the true
+patriots freedom might have been saved. But the populace were not
+virtuous and enlightened, and the nobles were so inexorably hostile
+to all popular rights that they were resolute to whelm France in ruin
+rather than relinquish their privileges. France, as France then was,
+could have been saved by no earthly wisdom. The Royalists openly
+declared that the only chance of restoring the old system of government
+was to have recourse to civil war, and they were eager to invoke so
+frightful a remedy.
+
+One of the most popular of the journals was "The Friend of the People,"
+by Marat. This journal already declared that the National Assembly was
+full of aristocrats, and that it must be dissolved to make way for a
+better.[206] "We have wrested power," wrote Marat, "from the nobles but
+to place it in the hands of the moneyed class. What have we gained? The
+people are still poor and starving. We need another revolution." "Yes,"
+echoed the mob of Paris, "we need another revolution."
+
+The roar from the Palais Royal fell ominously upon the ears of the
+Assembly at Versailles, and of the municipality at the Hôtel de Ville.
+And now all the starving trades and employments began to congregate by
+themselves for discussion and combined action. First came the servants,
+destitute of place, of shelter, of bread, whose masters had fled from
+insurgent Paris into the country or had emigrated. The court-yard of
+the Louvre was their rendezvous. The soldiers debated at the Oratoire,
+the hair-dressers in the Elysian Fields, and the tailors at the
+Colonnade.[207] These bodies soon became, as it were, committees of
+the great central congress of the populace ever gathered at the Palais
+Royal.
+
+The noblest men in the National Assembly were already beginning to
+despond. Firmly, however, they proceeded in the endeavor to reconstruct
+society upon the basis of justice and liberty. The measure to which
+their attention was now chiefly devoted was to adopt a Constitution,
+which was to be prefaced by a Bill of Rights. La Fayette was active in
+this movement, and was unquestionably assisted by Thomas Jefferson,
+then American minister at Paris.
+
+This celebrated declaration of rights, adopted on the 18th of August,
+1789, was a simple enunciation of those principles which are founded in
+nature and truth and which are engraven on all hearts. They were axioms
+upon which every intelligent legislator must proceed in forming a just
+code of laws. It declares that all mankind are born free and equal;
+that the objects to be gained by human governments are liberty, the
+security of property, and protection from oppression; that sovereignty
+resides in the nation and emanates from the people; that law is the
+expression of the will of the people; that the expenses of government
+should be assessed upon the governed in proportion to their property;
+that all the adult male inhabitants are entitled to vote; that freedom
+consists in the liberty to do any thing which does not injure another,
+and should have no limits but its interference with the rights of
+others.[208]
+
+These were noble sentiments nobly expressed; and, though execrated in
+monarchical Europe, were revered in republican America. These were
+the principles against which despotic Europe, coalesced by the genius
+of William Pitt, rose in arms.[209] The battle was long and bloody.
+Millions perished. The terrible drama was closed, for a season, by the
+triumph of despots at Waterloo.[210]
+
+The Assembly now turned its attention to the organization of the
+legislative body of the nation. The all-absorbing question was whether
+the National Congress or Parliament should meet in one chamber or in
+two; if in two, whether the upper house should be an aristocratic,
+hereditary body, like the House of Lords in the British Parliament,
+or an elective republican Senate, as in the American Congress. The
+debate was long and impassioned. The people would not consent to an
+_hereditary_ House of Lords, which would remain an almost impregnable
+fortress of aristocratic usurpation. They were, however, inclined to
+assent to an upper house to be composed exclusively of the clergy and
+the nobles, but to be elected by the people. To this arrangement the
+haughty lords peremptorily refused their assent. They were equally
+opposed to an _election_ to the upper house even by the nobles and
+the clergy, for the high lords and great dignitaries of the Church
+looked down upon the lower nobility and upon the working clergy with
+almost as much contempt as they regarded the people. Finding the nobles
+hostile to any reasonable measure, the masses of the people became
+more and more irritated. The vast gathering at the Palais Royal soon
+became unanimous in clamoring for but one chamber. The lords were their
+enemies, and in a house of lords they could see only a refuge for old
+and execrable feudality and an insurmountable barrier to reform.[211]
+
+When the vote was taken there were five hundred for a single chamber
+and but one hundred for two chambers.[212] It was unquestionably a
+calamity to France that two chambers could not have been organized. But
+the infatuation of the nobles now for the second time prevented this
+most salutary check upon hasty legislation.
+
+The next question to be decided was the _royal veto_. All were united
+that the laws should be presented to the king for his sanction or
+refusal. The only question was whether the veto should be absolute
+or limited. That of the King of England is absolute. That of the
+President of the United States is limited. All France was agitated
+by this question. Here the aristocracy made their last desperate
+stand and fought fiercely. Many of the popular party, alarmed in view
+of the rapid progress of events, advocated the absolute veto. Its
+inconsistency, however, with all enlightened principles of liberty was
+too apparent to be concealed. That the caprice of a single man, and
+he perhaps weak or dissolute, should permanently thwart the decrees
+of twenty-seven millions of people appeared so absurd that the whole
+nation rose against it.
+
+The fate of liberty seemed to depend upon this question, as the
+absolute veto would enable the court, through the king, to annul every
+popular measure. The crowds in Paris became turbulent and menacing.
+Threatening letters were sent to members of the National Assembly. The
+Parisian mob even declared its determination to march to Versailles,
+and drive from the Assembly those in favor of the veto. The following
+letter, addressed to the Bishop of Langres, then president of the
+Assembly, may be presented as a specimen of many with which the hall
+was flooded:
+
+"The patriotic assembly of the Palais Royal have the honor to make it
+known to you, sir, that if the aristocratic faction, formed by some
+of the nobility and the clergy, together with one hundred and twenty
+ignorant and corrupt deputies, continue to disturb the general harmony,
+and still insist upon the absolute veto, fifteen hundred men are ready
+to _enlighten_ their country seats and houses, and particularly your
+own."[213]
+
+"I shall never forget," writes Dumont, "my going to Paris one of those
+days with Mirabeau, and the crowd of people we found waiting for his
+carriage about Le Say the bookseller's shop. They flung themselves
+before him, entreating him, with tears in their eyes, not to suffer the
+absolute veto."
+
+"They were in a phrensy. 'Monsieur le Comte,' said they, 'you are the
+people's father. You must save us. You must defend us against those
+villains who are bringing back despotism. If the king gets this veto,
+what is the use of the National Assembly? We are all slaves! All is
+undone.'[214] There was as much ability in the tumultuous gathering at
+the Palais Royal as in the National Assembly, and more of impassioned,
+fiery eloquence. This disorderly body assumed the name of the Patriotic
+Assembly, and was hourly increasing in influence and in the boldness of
+its demands. Camille Desmoulins was one of its most popular speakers.
+He was polished, keen, witty, having the passions of his ever-varying,
+ever-excitable audience perfectly at his command. He could play with
+their emotions at his pleasure, and though not an _earnest_ man, for
+jokers seldom are, he was eager and reckless."[215]
+
+St. Huruge was, however, the great orator of the populace, the
+Mirabeau of the Palais Royal. A marquis by birth, he had suffered long
+imprisonment in the Bastille by _lettre de cachet_. Oppression had
+driven him mad, and _he_ was thoroughly earnest. Every day he uttered
+the most fierce and envenomed invectives against that aristocratic
+power by whose heel he had been crushed. He was a man of towering
+stature, impassioned gesticulation, and with a voice like the roar of a
+bull.
+
+On Monday, August 30th, there was a report at the Palais Royal that
+Mirabeau was in danger of arrest. St. Huruge immediately headed a band
+of fifteen hundred men, and set out for Versailles for his protection.
+It was a mob threatening violence, and La Fayette, at the head of a
+detachment of the National Guard, stopped them and drove them back.
+Murmurs now began to arise against La Fayette and the National Guard.
+Rumors were set in circulation that La Fayette was in league with the
+aristocrats. Excitement was again rapidly increasing, as the people
+feared that, after all, they were to be betrayed and again enslaved.
+
+[Illustration: LA FAYETTE REVIEWING THE NATIONAL GUARD.]
+
+The agitated assembly at the Palais Royal sent a deputation to
+Versailles to Mounier, one of the most influential and truly patriotic
+of the deputies, announcing to him that twenty thousand men were
+ready to march to Versailles to drive the aristocrats out of the
+Assembly. At the same time an address was received by the president
+from the citizens of Rennes, declaring that those who should vote
+for the absolute veto were traitors to their country. Under these
+circumstances, the king sent a message to the National Assembly,
+stating that he should be satisfied with a limited, or, as it was
+then called, a _suspensive_ veto. In taking the question the absolute
+veto was rejected, and the suspensive veto adopted by a vote of 673
+to 355. By this measure the veto of the king would suspend the action
+of any legislative enactment during two subsequent sessions of the
+Legislature. If, after this, the Legislature still persisted, the
+king's veto was overruled and the act went into effect. This was giving
+the king much greater power than the President of the United States
+possesses. A two-thirds vote of both houses can immediately carry any
+measure against the veto of the President. Freedom of opinion, of
+worship, and of the press were also decreed.
+
+These questions being thus settled, it was now voted that the measures
+thus far adopted were constitutional, not legislative; and that,
+consequently, they were to be presented to the king, not for his
+sanction, but for promulgation. It was also voted by acclaim that the
+crown should be hereditary and the person of the king inviolable, the
+ministers alone being responsible for the measures of government.
+To republican eyes these seem like mild measures of reform, though
+they have been most severely condemned by the majority of writers
+upon the French Revolution in monarchical Europe. If the nobles had
+yielded to these reasonable reforms, the horrors which ensued might
+have been avoided. If combined Europe had not risen in arms against
+the Revolution, the regeneration of France might, perhaps, have been
+peacefully achieved.[216]
+
+In every nation there are thousands of the ignorant, degraded,
+miserable, who have nothing to lose and something to hope from anarchy.
+The inmates of the dens of crime and infamy, who are only held in check
+by the strong restraints of law, rejoice in the opportunity to sack
+the dwellings of the industrious and the wealthy, and to pour the tide
+of ruin through the homes of the virtuous and the happy. This class
+of abandoned men and women was appallingly increasing. They flocked
+to the city from all parts of the kingdom, and Paris was crowded with
+spectres, emaciate and ragged, whose hideous and haggard features spoke
+only of vice and misery. Sièyes expressed to Mirabeau his alarm in view
+of the portentous aspect of affairs.
+
+"You have let the bull loose," Mirabeau replied, "and now you complain
+that he butts with his horns."[217]
+
+Much has been said respecting the _motives_ which influenced Mirabeau.
+
+Whatever his motives may have been, his conduct was consistent. All
+his words and actions were in favor of liberty sustained by strong
+law. He wished for the overthrow of aristocratic insolence and
+feudal oppression, from which he had so severely suffered. He wished
+to preserve the monarchical form of government, and to establish a
+constitution which should secure to all the citizens equality of
+rights.[218]
+
+Feudality was now destroyed, and a free constitution adopted. Still,
+business was stagnant, the poor destitute of employment and in a
+state of starvation. As an act of charity, seventeen thousand men
+were employed by the municipality of Paris digging on the heights of
+Montmartre at twenty sous a day. The suffering was so great that the
+office of the municipality was crowded with tradesmen and merchants
+imploring employment on these terms. "I used to see," writes the mayor,
+Bailly, "good tradespeople, mercers and goldsmiths, who prayed to
+be admitted among the beggars employed at Montmartre in digging the
+ground. Judge what I suffered."
+
+The city government sunk two thousand dollars a day in selling bread
+to the poor at less than cost; and yet there were emissaries of the
+court buying up this bread and destroying it to increase the public
+distress.[219] On the 19th day of August the city of Paris contained
+food sufficient but for a single day. Bailly and La Fayette were in an
+agony of solicitude. So great was the dismay in Paris, that all the
+rich were leaving. Sixty thousand passports were signed at the Hôtel de
+Ville in three months.[220]
+
+Armed bands were exploring the country to purchase food wherever it
+could be found, and convey it to the city. Six hundred of the National
+Guard were stationed by day and by night to protect the corn-market
+from attack. It is surprising that when the populace were in such
+distress so few acts of violence should have been committed.[221]
+
+The kind heart of the king was affected by this misery. He sent nearly
+all his plate to be melted and coined at the mint for the relief of
+the poor. This noble example inspired others. General enthusiasm was
+aroused, and the hall of the National Assembly was crowded with the
+charitable bringing voluntary contributions for the relief of the
+poor. Rich men sent in their plate, patriotic ladies presented their
+caskets of jewelry, and the wives of tradesmen, artists, and mechanics
+brought the marriage gifts which they had received and the ornaments
+which embellished their dwellings. Farmers sent in bags of corn,
+and even poor women and children offered their mites. A school-boy
+came with a few pieces of gold which his parents had sent to him for
+spending-money. This overflowing of charity presented a touching
+display of the characteristic magnanimity and impulsiveness of the
+French people.[222]
+
+[Illustration: PATRIOTIC CONTRIBUTIONS.]
+
+But private charity, however profuse, is quite inadequate to the wants
+of a nation. These sums were soon expended, and still the unemployed
+poor crawled fasting and emaciated about the streets. Necker's plans
+for loans were frustrated. No one would lend. To whom should he lend?
+The old régime was dying; the new not yet born. In this terrible
+emergency Necker proposed the desperate measure of imposing a tax of
+one quarter of every man's income, declaring that there was no other
+refuge from bankruptcy. The interest upon the public debt could no
+longer be paid, the wages of the soldiers were in arrears, and the
+treasury utterly empty. The proposal frightened the Assembly, but
+Mirabeau ascended the tribune, and in one of his most impassioned
+appeals carried the measure by acclamation.[223] The distracted state
+of the kingdom, however, prevented the act thus enthusiastically
+adopted from being carried into effect.[224]
+
+Thomas Jefferson was at this time, as we have before mentioned, the
+American minister in Paris, and was constantly consulted by the leaders
+of the Revolution. In his memoirs, speaking of these events, he writes,
+
+"The first question, whether there should be a king, met with no
+opposition, and it was readily agreed that the government of France
+should be monarchical and hereditary.
+
+"Shall the king have a negative on the laws? Shall that negative
+be absolute, or suspensive only? Shall there be two chambers of
+legislation, or one only? If two, shall one of them be hereditary, or
+for life, or for a fixed term; and named by the king or elected by the
+people?
+
+"These questions found strong differences of opinion, and produced
+repulsive combinations among the patriots. The aristocracy was cemented
+by a common principle of preserving the ancient régime, or whatever
+should be nearest to it. Making this their polar star, they moved in
+phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the minorities of
+the patriots, and always to those who advocated the least change. The
+features of the new constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect,
+and great alarm was produced among the honest patriots by these
+dissensions in their ranks.
+
+"In this uneasy state of things I received one day a note from the
+Marquis de la Fayette, informing me that he should bring a party of six
+or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of
+their welcome. When they arrived, they were La Fayette himself, Dupont,
+Barnave, Alexander Lameth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These
+were leading patriots of honest but differing opinions, sensible of
+the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices; knowing
+each other, and not afraid therefore to unbosom themselves mutually.
+This last was a material principle in the selection. With this view the
+marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time and place,
+inadvertently as to the embarrassment under which he might place me.
+
+"The cloth being removed and wine set on the table, after the American
+manner, the marquis introduced the objects of the conference by
+summarily reminding them of the state of things in the Assembly, the
+course which the principles of the Constitution were taking, and the
+inevitable result, unless checked by more concord among the patriots
+themselves. He observed that though he also had his opinion, he was
+ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren of the same cause; but
+that a common opinion must now be formed, or the aristocracy would
+carry every thing, and that, whatever they should now agree on, he, at
+the head of the national force, would maintain.
+
+"The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten
+o'clock in the evening, during which time I was a silent witness to a
+coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political
+opinion; to a logical reasoning and chaste eloquence disfigured by no
+gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being
+placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed
+to us by Plato, by Xenophon, and Cicero. The result was that the king
+should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the Legislature should
+be composed of a single body only, and that to be chosen by the people.
+This concordat decided the fate of the Constitution. The patriots
+all rallied to the principles thus settled, carried every question
+agreeably to them, and reduced the aristocracy to insignificance and
+impotence."[225]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 201: "Our Revolution," said Napoleon at St. Helena, "was
+a natural convulsion, as irresistible in its effects as an eruption
+of Vesuvius. When the mysterious fusion which takes place in the
+entrails of the earth is at such a crisis that an explosion follows,
+the eruption bursts forth. The unperceived workings of the discontent
+of the people follow exactly the same course. In France the sufferings
+of the people, the moral combinations which produce a revolution, had
+arrived at maturity, and an explosion accordingly took place."]
+
+[Footnote 202: Madame de Genlis, who witnessed the demolition of the
+Bastille, in her gossiping yet very interesting memoirs, writes, "I
+experienced the most exquisite joy in witnessing the demolition of that
+terrible monument, in which had been immured and where had perished,
+without any judicial forms, so many innocent victims. The desire to
+have my pupils see it led me to take them from St. Leu to pass a few
+hours in Paris, that they might see from the garden of Beaumarchais
+all the people of Paris engaged in destroying the Bastille. It is
+impossible to give one an idea of that spectacle. It must have been
+seen to conceive of it as it was. That redoubtable fortress was covered
+with men, women, and children, toiling with inexpressible ardor upon
+the loftiest towers and battlements. The astonishing number of workmen,
+their activity, their enthusiasm, the joy with which they saw this
+frightful monument of despotism crumbling down, the avenging hands
+which seemed to be those of Providence, and which annihilated with so
+much rapidity the work of many ages, all that spectacle spoke equally
+to the imagination and the heart."--_Mémoires sur le Dix-huitième
+Siècle et la Revolution Française de Madame la Comtesse de Genlis_,
+tome iii., p. 261.]
+
+[Footnote 203: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 204: "Tyranny," said Fauchet, in reference to the skeletons
+found in the Bastille, "had sealed them within the walls of those
+dungeons, which she believed to be eternally impenetrable to the light.
+The day of revelation is come. The bones have arisen at the voice
+of French liberty. They depose against centuries of oppression and
+death, prophesying the regeneration of human nature and the life of
+nations."--_Dussaulx, OEuvre des Sept Jours._]
+
+[Footnote 205: At St. Helena, the subject of conversation one day
+turned upon the freedom of the press. The subject was discussed
+with much animation by the companions of the emperor, he listening
+attentively to their remarks. "Nothing can resist," said one,
+"the influence of a free press. It is capable of overthrowing
+every government, of agitating every society, of destroying every
+reputation." "It is only its _prohibition_," said another, "which is
+dangerous. If it be restricted it becomes a mine which must explode;
+but if left to itself it is merely an unbent bow, that can inflict no
+wound."
+
+"The _liberty of the press_," said Napoleon, "is not a question open
+for consideration. Its prohibition under a representative government is
+a gross anachronism, a downright absurdity. I therefore, on my return
+from Elba, abandoned the press to all its excesses, and I am confident
+that the press in no respect contributed to my downfall."
+
+In Napoleon's last letter to his son he writes, "My son will be obliged
+to allow the liberty of the press. This is a necessity in the present
+day. The liberty of the press ought to become, in the hands of the
+government, a powerful auxiliary in diffusing through all the most
+distant corners of the empire sound doctrines and good principles. To
+leave it to itself would be to fall asleep upon the brink of danger. On
+the conclusion of a general peace I would have instituted a Directory
+of the Press, composed of the ablest men of the country, and I would
+have diffused, even to the most distant hamlet, my ideas and my
+intentions."--_Las Casas._]
+
+[Footnote 206: Mirabeau, Camille Desmoulins, Brissot, Condorcet,
+Mercier, Carra, Gorsas, Marat, and Barrere, all published journals,
+and some of them had a very extensive circulation. _L'Ami du Peuple_,
+by Marat, was a very energetic sheet. Mirabeau printed ten thousand
+copies of his _Courrier de Province_. But by far the most popular and
+influential paper was the _Revolutions de Paris_, whose unknown editor
+was Loustalot, a sincere, earnest, laborious young man, who died in
+1792, at the age of twenty-nine. Two hundred thousand copies of his
+paper were frequently sold.--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 240.]
+
+[Footnote 207: Miguet, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 208: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, a Christian patriot and one
+of the most active members of the National Assembly, writes: "It is
+possible that all the kings of Europe may form a coalition against a
+humble page of writing; but, after a number of cannon-shots, and when
+those potentates have destroyed three or four hundred thousand men
+and laid waste twenty countries, it will not be the less true that
+_men are born free and equal as to their rights, and that the nation
+is the sovereign_. And it is possible that their obstinacy may have
+occasioned the discovery of other truths which, but for the wrath of
+those great princes, mankind would never have thought of."--_Political
+Reflections_, p. 176.]
+
+[Footnote 209: "All the wars of the European Continent against the
+Revolution and against the Empire were begun by England and supported
+by English gold. At last the object was attained; not only was the
+ancient family restored to the throne, but France was reduced to its
+original limits, its naval force destroyed, and its commerce almost
+annihilated."--_Encyclopædia Americana, Art. Great Britain._]
+
+[Footnote 210: "William Pitt," said the Emperor Napoleon at St. Helena,
+"was the master of European policy. He held in his hands the moral fate
+of nations. He kindled the fire of discord throughout the universe; and
+his name, like that of Erostratus, will be inscribed in history amid
+flames, lamentations, and tears. The first sparks of our Revolution,
+then the resistance that was opposed to the national will, and finally
+the horrid crimes that ensued, all were his work. Twenty-five years
+of universal conflagration; the numerous coalitions that added fuel
+to the flame; the revolution and devastation of Europe; the bloodshed
+of nations; the frightful debt of England, by which all these horrors
+were maintained; the pestilential system of loans, by which the people
+of Europe are oppressed; the general discontent that now prevails--all
+must be attributed to Pitt.
+
+"Posterity will brand him as a scourge, and the man so lauded in
+his own time will hereafter be regarded as the genius of evil. Not
+that I consider him to have been willfully atrocious, or doubt his
+having entertained the conviction that he was acting right. But
+St. Bartholomew had also its conscientious advocates. The Pope and
+cardinals celebrated it by a _Te Deum_, and we have no reason to doubt
+their having done so in sincerity. Such is the weakness of human reason
+and judgment! Whether it be the effect of admiration and gratitude or
+the result of mere instinct and sympathy, Pitt is, and will continue to
+be, the idol of the European aristocracy. There was, indeed, a touch of
+the Sylla in his character. His system has kept the popular cause in
+check and brought about the triumph of the nobles.
+
+"As for Fox, one must not look for his model among the ancients. He
+is himself a model, and his principles will sooner or later rule the
+world. Certainly the death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my
+career. Had his life been prolonged affairs would have taken a totally
+different turn. The cause of the people would have triumphed, and we
+should have established a new order of things in Europe."]
+
+[Footnote 211: The higher nobility of Great Britain consists of 26
+dukes, 35 marquises, 217 earls, 65 viscounts, 191 barons. Each of
+these takes the title of _lord_ and is entitled by birth to a seat in
+the House of Lords, if we except the peers of Scotland and Ireland,
+who have a seat with the lords only by deputation, the Scotch peers
+choosing 16 and the Irish 28. There are, besides, six archbishops and
+42 bishops, who, by virtue of their office, are styled _lords_ and
+have a seat in the House of Lords. The lower nobility, consisting of
+baronets and knights, have no privileges but the honor of their title.
+They are somewhere between one and two thousand in number. The higher
+nobility, including the dignitaries of the Church, six archbishops
+and 42 bishops, in 1813 amounted to 554 families. The total revenue
+of the _temporal nobility_, according to Colquhoun, was $25,000,000,
+which makes an average of about $48,000 a year for each noble family.
+According to the same authority, the total revenue of the _spiritual
+lords_ was $1,200,000, which would average $25,000 a year for each. The
+English say that those nobles are exceedingly valuable. They ought to
+be. They cost enough. See Enc. Am., Art. Great Britain.]
+
+[Footnote 212: Michelet. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne says 911 for one, 89
+for two. Alison, without giving his authority, states 499 for one, 87
+for two.]
+
+[Footnote 213: The French Revolutions from 1789 to 1848, by T.W.
+Redhead, vol. i., p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 214: Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 156.]
+
+[Footnote 215: "What will always astonish those who are acquainted
+with the history of other revolutions is, that in this miserable
+and famished state of Paris, denuded of all authority, there were,
+on the whole, but very few serious acts of violence. One word, one
+reasonable observation, occasionally a jest, was sufficient to check
+them. On the first days only subsequent to the 14th of July there
+were instances of violence committed. The people, full of the idea
+that they were betrayed, sought for their enemies hap-hazard, and
+were near making some cruel mistakes. M. de la Fayette interposed
+several times at the critical moment, and was attended to. On these
+occasions M. de la Fayette was truly admirable. He found in his heart,
+in his love for order and justice, words and happy sayings above his
+nature."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 227.]
+
+[Footnote 216: "I hear it sometimes said that the French should
+have contented themselves with laying down principles for their own
+particular state, without spreading abroad those principles among
+other nations. But is it really their fault if their principles
+are so general as to be adapted to all men, of all times, and of
+all countries? Nay, is it not a proof of the excellence of their
+principles, which depend neither upon ages, nor on prejudices, nor on
+climates? Have they invented them maliciously, and in order to impose
+on kings and on the great? And is there any man so silly as to scruple
+to rebuild his shattered dwelling, because others might be tempted
+to re-edify theirs? If the French language is understood through all
+Europe, are the French to blame? Ought they, through fear of being
+listened to and imitated, to observe a strict silence, or speak a
+language different from their own?"--_History of the Revolutions of
+France, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_, p. 180.]
+
+[Footnote 217: Dumont, vol. i., p. 66.]
+
+[Footnote 218: "The particulars of Mirabeau's conduct are not yet
+thoroughly known, but they are soon likely to be. I have had in my
+hands several important documents, and especially a paper written in
+the form of a profession of faith, which constituted his secret treaty
+with the court. I am not allowed to give the public any of these
+documents, or to mention the names of the holders. I can only affirm
+what the future will sufficiently demonstrate, when all these papers
+shall have been published.
+
+"What I am able to assert with sincerity is, that Mirabeau never had
+any hand in the supposed plots of the Duke of Orleans. Mirabeau left
+Provence with a single object, that of combating arbitrary power, by
+which he had suffered, and which his reason as well as his sentiments
+taught him to consider as detestable. In his manners there was great
+familiarity, which originated in a feeling of his strength. Hence it
+was that he was frequently supposed to be the friend and accomplice
+of many persons with whom he had no common interest. I have said,
+and I repeat it, he had no party. Mirabeau remained poor till his
+connection with the court. He then watched all parties, strove to make
+them explain themselves, and was too sensible of his own importance to
+pledge himself lightly."--_Hist, of the Fr. Rev., by M.A. Thiers_, vol.
+i., p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 219: Histoire de la Revolution Française, par Villiaumé, p.
+54.]
+
+[Footnote 220: Revolutions de Paris, t. 11, No. 9, p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 221: "Occasionally loads of flour were seized and detained on
+their passage by the neighboring localities whose wants were pressing.
+Versailles and Paris shared together. But Versailles kept, so it was
+said, the finest part, and made a superior bread. This was a great
+cause of jealousy. One day, when the people of Versailles had been
+so imprudent as to turn aside for themselves a supply intended for
+the Parisians, Bailly, the honest and respectful Bailly, wrote to M.
+Necker that, if the flour were not restored, thirty thousand men would
+go and fetch it on the morrow. Fear made him bold. It often happened
+at midnight that he had but half the flour necessary for the morning
+market."--_Michelet_, p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 222: Even the courtesans came forward with their
+contributions. The following letter was received by the National
+Assembly, accompanied by a purse of gold:
+
+"Gentlemen! I have a heart to love. I have amassed some property
+in loving. I place it in your hands, a homage to the country. May
+my example be imitated by my companions of all ranks."--_Hist. des
+Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros_, p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 223: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., 89.]
+
+[Footnote 224: Alison.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ROYAL FAMILY CARRIED TO PARIS.
+
+ Waning Popularity of La Fayette.--The King contemplates
+ Flight.--Letter of Admiral d'Estaing.--The Flanders Regiment called
+ to Versailles.--Fête in the Ball-room at Versailles.--Insurrection
+ of the Women; their March to Versailles.--Horrors of the Night of
+ October 5th.--The Royal Family conveyed to Paris.
+
+
+The press now began to assail Bailly and La Fayette as in league
+with the aristocrats. The Assembly at the Palais Royal was becoming
+paramount, a terrific power, threatening ruin to all who should
+advocate measures of moderation. The most violent harangues roused the
+populace, and it was evident that they could be easily turned by their
+leaders into any path of destruction. Threatening letters flooded the
+National Assembly, and one of great ferocity was signed by St. Huruge.
+Though he declared it a forgery, he was arrested and imprisoned. The
+municipal authority also forbade farther meetings in the Palais Royal,
+and La Fayette, with the National Guard, dispersed the gatherings.
+
+The king now seriously contemplated flight, that, at a safe distance
+from Paris and surrounded by chosen troops, he might dictate terms to
+his people, or, if they refused, prepare, by the aid of foreign arms,
+for war. About one hundred and eighty miles northeast of Paris, on the
+frontiers of France, was the city of Metz. The city contained about
+fifty thousand inhabitants, and its fortifications, constructed by
+Vauban, were of the most extensive and formidable kind. The Marquis de
+Bouille, one of the most devoted servants of the king, and subsequently
+one of the most active agents in urging the foreign powers to march
+against France, commanded, in garrison there, thirty thousand picked
+troops, resolute Royalists, and who had been taught to regard the
+popular movement with contempt.
+
+The plan was well matured for the king to escape to Metz. There he was
+to be joined by the court, the nobles with all their retainers, the
+ancient parliaments of the provinces, all composed of the aristocratic
+class, and by all the soldiers whom the Royalist officers could induce
+to follow them to that rendezvous. Then, by the employment of all
+the energies of fire and blood, France was to be brought back into
+subjection to the old régime.
+
+La Fayette knew of this plan, and yet he did not dare to divulge it to
+the people, for he knew that it would provoke a fierce and terrible
+outbreak. He saw the peril in which the royal family was involved,
+and he wished for their protection. He saw the doom with which the
+liberties of France were menaced, and the liberty for which he was
+struggling was dearer to him than life. If the king had been either
+a merciless despot or a reliable friend of liberty, then would La
+Fayette's path of duty have been plain. But the king was an amiable,
+kindly-intentioned, weak-minded, vacillating man, quite the tool of the
+inexorable court.
+
+It is difficult to conceive of a situation more embarrassing than that
+in which La Fayette was now placed. He was at the head of the National
+Guard and was informed of all the plots of the court. He wished to be
+faithful to his sovereign, and wished also to be true to his country.
+Without the connivance, or at least secret assent of La Fayette, it was
+hardly possible for the king to escape.
+
+The old admiral D'Estaing was commander of the National Guard at
+Versailles. He was a man of noble birth, of magnanimous character, and,
+though with true patriotism he espoused the popular cause, he was,
+like La Fayette, in favor of a monarchy, and was sincerely friendly to
+the king. On the 13th of September he dined with La Fayette at Paris.
+Here the marquis unfolded to the amazed admiral the terrible secret in
+all its details; that the Baron Breteuil, one of the most implacable
+enemies of the Revolution, was arranging with the Austrian embassador
+for the co-operation of Austria; that eighteen regiments had already
+taken the oath of fidelity to the court; that the Royalists, in large
+numbers, were already congregating at Metz; that the nobles and the
+clergy had combined in raising funds, so that fifteen hundred thousand
+francs ($300,000) a month were secured; that measures were already
+adopted to besiege Paris, cut off all supplies, and starve the city
+into subjection; and that more than sixty thousand of the clergy and
+nobility were pledged to rally around the king.
+
+D'Estaing was appalled by the tidings. He knew that if the populace
+were informed of the conspiracy it would rouse them to phrensy, that
+no earthly power could protect the royal family from their fury, and
+that instantly the fiercest civil war would blaze from the Rhine to the
+Pyrenees. Aware of the imbecility of the king, and that the queen was
+the author of every vigorous measure, he immediately addressed a very
+earnest letter to her. He wrote as follows in a letter long, earnest,
+and imploring:
+
+"It is necessary--my duty and my loyalty require it--that I should lay
+at the feet of the queen the account of the visit which I have paid to
+Paris. I am praised for sleeping soundly the night before an assault or
+a naval engagement. I venture to assert that I am not timorous in civil
+matters, but I must confess to your majesty that I did not close my
+eyes all night.
+
+"I was told--and, gracious heaven! what would be the consequence if
+this were circulated among the people--I was told that the king was to
+be carried off to Metz. La Fayette told me so in a whisper at dinner. I
+trembled lest a single domestic should overhear him. I observed to him
+that a word from his lips might become the signal of death. I implore
+your majesty to grant me an audience some day this week."[226]
+
+Such a secret could not long be kept. It soon began to be openly spoken
+of in the streets as a suspicion, a rumor. Under pretense of protecting
+the National Assembly from any violence by the mob from Paris, the king
+called a regiment to Versailles from Flanders. This was a regiment in
+whose officers and soldiers he could rely, and which was to aid him in
+his flight. The troops marched into the city with an imposing array
+of artillery and infantry, exciting increasing suspicion, and were
+assembled as a guard around the palace.
+
+It was on the 23d of September that this Flanders regiment entered
+Versailles, and were stationed around the regal chateau, thus doubling
+the body-guard of the king. It was also observed that a very unusual
+number of officers crowded the streets of Versailles, estimated at
+from a thousand to twelve hundred.[227] A dinner was given to these
+officers on the 1st of October, in the hall of the Opera at the palace.
+No expense was spared to add splendor to the _fête_, to which all were
+invited who could probably be led to co-operate with the court. Wine
+flowed freely, and, deep in the hours of the night, when all heads
+were delirious, the king and queen, with the young dauphin, entered
+the banqueting-hall. They were received with almost phrensied acclaim.
+The boxes of the Opera were thronged with ladies of the court, adding
+to the enthusiasm. The king, the queen, the dauphin, were toasted
+with delirious shouts. When some one proposed "the nation," the toast
+was scornfully rejected. As the royal family made the tour of the
+tables, the band struck up the air, "O Richard, O my king, the world
+is all forsaking thee." The officers leaped upon the chairs and the
+tables, drew their swords, and vowed eternal fidelity to the king.
+And now ensued a scene which no language can describe. The officers
+clambered into the boxes, and received the cordial greetings of the
+ladies; the revolutionary movement was cursed intensely; the tricolored
+cockade, the badge of popular rights, was trampled under foot, and
+the white cockade, the emblem of Bourbon power, was accepted in its
+stead from the hands of the ladies. The next day there was another
+similar entertainment in the palace, to which a still larger number of
+guests were invited, and the convivialities were still more exciting
+and violent. The courtiers, with that fatuity which ever marked their
+conduct, were now so encouraged, that they began with insolent menaces
+to manifest their exultation.
+
+[Illustration: FESTIVAL IN THE BALL-ROOM AT VERSAILLES, OCT. 1, 1789.]
+
+The tidings of these _fêtes_ spread rapidly through Versailles and
+Paris, exciting intense indignation. The court was feasting; the
+people starving. Versailles was filled with rejoicing; Paris with
+mourning. Despotism was exulting in its anticipated triumph, while
+the nation was threatened with the loss of its newly-acquired rights.
+The king had thus far delayed giving his assent to the Constitution.
+Disquietude pervaded the National Assembly, and confused murmurs filled
+the thoroughfares of Paris--terrible rumors of the approaching war, of
+the league with the German princes, of the increasing famine, and the
+threatened blockade of Paris. "We must bring the king to Paris," all
+said, "or the court will carry him off, and war will immediately be
+commenced."
+
+The morning of the 5th of October dawned, dark, cold, and stormy.
+A dismal rain flooded the streets. There were thousands in Paris
+that morning who had eaten nothing for thirty hours.[228] The women,
+in particular, of the humbler class, were in an awful state of
+destitution and misery. The populace of Paris were actually starving.
+An energetic woman, half delirious with woe, seized a drum, and strode
+through the streets beating it violently, occasionally shrieking,
+"Bread! bread!" She soon collected a crowd of women, which rapidly
+increased from a few hundred to seven or eight thousand. The men gazed
+with wonder upon this strange apparition, such as earth had, perhaps,
+never seen before. Like a swelling inundation the living flood rolled
+through the streets, and soon the cry was heard, "To Versailles!" As by
+a common instinct, the tumultuous mass rushed along by the side of the
+Tuileries and through the Elysian Fields toward Versailles. A few of
+the more fierce and brutal of the women had guns or pistols. Chancing
+to find a couple of cannon, they seized them, and also horses to drag
+the ponderous engines, upon which female furies placed themselves
+astride, singing revolutionary songs.
+
+[Illustration: THE WOMEN OF PARIS MARCHING TO VERSAILLES.]
+
+La Fayette gazed appalled upon the strange phenomenon. The troops of
+the National Guard refused to arrest their course, declaring that they
+could not resist starving women, who were going to implore bread of
+their king. La Fayette was powerless. He had under arms that morning
+thirty-five thousand troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery. He could
+only follow the women, to watch the opening of events. Behind these
+troops advancing in all the glittering panoply of war, followed a
+straggling mass of, no one can tell how many thousands of the populace
+of Paris, of all classes, characters, conditions. The city seemed
+emptied of its inhabitants, as the road to Versailles, ten or twelve
+miles in length, was filled with the tumultuous multitude. No one,
+apparently, had any definite object, but each one was going to see what
+the others would do.
+
+Couriers were sent forward to warn the king and queen of the impending
+peril. The good-natured, silly king had gone to Meudon to amuse
+himself in chasing hares. Nothing can more conclusively show his utter
+incapacity to govern a great kingdom, than that he should have been so
+employed at such an hour. The king was sent for, and speedily returned
+to Versailles. Marie Antoinette had all the energy and heroism of her
+mother, Maria Theresa. When entreated immediately to secure her escape
+with her two children, she replied,
+
+"Nothing shall induce me to be separated from my husband. I know that
+they seek my life; but I am the daughter of Maria Theresa, and have
+learned not to fear death."
+
+The king was entreated to escape, but he was fearful that his flight
+might embolden the Assembly to declare the throne vacant, and to place
+the crown upon the head of the Duke of Orleans, who had, with that
+object probably in view, vociferously espoused the popular cause.
+From the windows of Versailles the royal family soon descried the
+vast multitude plodding along through the mud and the rain as they
+approached Versailles. It is said that there were some men in the
+mob, disguised as women, who gave impulse and direction to the mass.
+A man by the name of Maillard, of gigantic stature, and possessed of
+wonderful tact, succeeded in obtaining the post of leader. In this
+alarming state of affairs, the king sent to the Assembly a partial
+acceptance of the Constitution. As the Assembly were discussing this
+question, the women arrived at the hall. Maillard entered, and the
+women crowded after him. Respectfully, but earnestly, on behalf of the
+women, he represented the starving condition of Paris, and complained
+of the insult which the nation had received in the fête at the palace.
+
+It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. The rain was still falling.
+A dark, stormy night was at hand, and the streets of Versailles were
+filled with countless thousands of the most desperate men and women,
+utterly destitute of shelter. The Assembly, in alarm, requested their
+president, M. Mounier, to go to the palace and petition for fresh
+measures of relief. M. Mounier was compelled to allow twelve women to
+accompany him. The king received them kindly. The women had adroitly
+selected, as the leader of their deputation, a very beautiful young
+flower-girl, but seventeen years of age, of remarkably graceful form
+and lovely features. The girl, overcome by her sensations, endeavored
+in vain to speak, and fainted. The king took her in his arms,
+embraced her as if she had been his child, and was so paternal that
+he completely won the hearts of all the women. They left the palace
+with such enthusiastic accounts of the goodness of the king, that the
+Amazons on the outside accused them of having been bribed, and, in
+their rage, were ready to tear them in pieces. The poor flower-girl
+would have been hanged with garters to a lamp-post had not the soldiers
+rescued her.
+
+The king now summoned a council, which continued in session until ten
+o'clock. Still, by some unpardonable neglect, no measures were adopted
+to provide for the wants of the famished mob. It was nearly seven
+o'clock in the evening before La Fayette arrived with the National
+Guard.[229] The soldiers of the guard, intelligent citizens, were
+only to be controlled by the _personal influence_ of their general.
+_Authority_ is only established by time and consolidated institutions.
+La Fayette hastened to the palace to assure the royal family that every
+thing in his power should be done to secure their safety. The king,
+however, would not intrust the guard of the palace to La Fayette, as
+he thought he could place more reliance in the Flanders regiment, the
+Swiss mercenaries, and his own Life-Guard, than in the National Guard,
+who were all devoted to the popular cause.
+
+In the confusion of those dreadful hours, all the entrances to the
+palace had not been defended. La Fayette, however, stationed an
+effectual guard at all the outposts which had been assigned to him.
+Through all the hours of the night, until five o'clock in the morning,
+La Fayette was sleeplessly engaged sending out patrols and watching
+over the public peace. Then, finding all tranquil, he threw himself
+upon a sofa for rest, having been constantly and anxiously employed
+for the last twenty-four hours. Groups of shivering, famished people
+were gathered around large fires, which they had built in the streets,
+and in one place they were devouring the half-roasted flesh of a horse
+which they had killed. The queen, worn out with sleeplessness, had
+retired to her chamber. The king had also gone to his chamber, which
+was connected with that of the queen by a hall, through which they
+could mutually pass. Two soldiers guarded the door of the queen's
+chamber. Some of the mob, prowling around the palace, found a gate
+unguarded, and, entering the palace without any obstruction, ascended
+the stairs, and, pressing blindly on, came to the door of the queen's
+apartment. The soldiers heroically resisted them, and shouted to others
+to save the queen. She heard the cry, and, springing from her bed,
+rushed in her night-clothes to the king's room. The brigands pushed
+resolutely forward, and found the royal bed forsaken. A number of the
+Life-Guards hastened to the spot, and arrested their farther progress;
+and the soldiers of La Fayette, who had been stationed at a little
+distance, hearing the tumult, hastened to their aid.
+
+The noise roused the mob, and a conflict immediately ensued between
+the soldiers and the phrensied multitude. La Fayette, who had not yet
+fallen asleep, sprung from his couch, and, hastening to the palace,
+found several of the king's troops on the point of being slaughtered.
+One of the brigands aimed a musket at La Fayette, but the mob seized
+him and dashed out his brains upon the pavement. The Life-Guards and
+the Grenadiers of La Fayette soon cleared the palace; and the whole
+court acknowledged that they were indebted to La Fayette for their
+lives. Madame Adelaide, the queen's aunt, threw her arms around him,
+exclaiming "General, you have saved us."[230]
+
+[Illustration: HEROIC DEFENSE OF THE ROYAL APARTMENTS BY THE GARDE DU
+CORPS, OCT. 5, 1789.]
+
+The morning of the 6th was now dawning, and the whole multitude,
+swarming around the palace, demanded as with one voice that the king
+should go to Paris. A council was held, and it was decided by the court
+that the king should comply. Slips of paper announcing the decision
+were thrown to the people from the windows. Loud shouts now rose of
+"Long live the King!" But threatening voices were raised against the
+queen, who was hated as an Austrian, and as one who was endeavoring to
+bring the armies of Austria to crush liberty in France.
+
+"Madame," said La Fayette to the queen, "the king goes to Paris; what
+will you do?"
+
+"Accompany the king," was the queen's undaunted reply.
+
+"Come with me, then," rejoined the general.
+
+He led the queen upon a balcony, from whence she looked out upon the
+multitude, agitated like the ocean in a storm. All eyes were speedily
+fixed upon her as she stood by the side of La Fayette, and held by
+the hand her little son, the dauphin. The murmurs of the crowd were
+immediately succeeded by expressions of admiration. La Fayette took her
+hand, and, raising it to his lips, respectfully kissed it. An almost
+universal shout of "Long live the Queen!" was the response of the
+multitude to this graceful and well-timed act. The queen then stepped
+back into the room, and said to La Fayette, "My guards, can you not
+do something for them?" "Give me one," said La Fayette, and, leading
+the soldier to the balcony, he presented him to the people, and handed
+him the tricolored cockade. The guard kissed it, and placed it on his
+hat. The people were satisfied, reconciled, and cheered with hearty
+plaudits. Many of the garde du corps had been taken prisoners, and they
+all would have been murdered by the mob but for the vigorous efforts of
+La Fayette to rescue them from their hands.
+
+[Illustration: LA FAYETTE RESCUING THE GARDE DU CORPS, OCT. 6, 1789.]
+
+The Assembly, being apprised of the king's intention to go to Paris,
+passed a resolution that the Assembly was inseparable from the person
+of the king, and nominated a hundred deputies to accompany him to the
+metropolis. Two of the king's body-guard had been killed, and some
+wretches had cut off their heads, and were parading them about on
+pikes.[231]
+
+[Illustration: THE ROYAL FAMILY CONVEYED TO PARIS, OCT. 6, 1789.]
+
+It was one o'clock when the carriages containing the royal family left
+Versailles.[232] The whole mob of Paris, men and women, a tumultuous,
+clamorous multitude, went in advance. Following immediately the
+carriages of the court came the hundred deputies, also in coaches. Then
+came the National Guard. Carts laden with corn and flour, escorted by
+Grenadiers, followed the immense train. None were so malignant and
+merciless as the degraded women who composed so large a part of this
+throng. "We shall now," they exclaimed, "have bread, for we have with
+us the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy."
+
+It required seven hours for this unwieldy mass to urge its slow
+progress to Paris. The king was conducted to the Hôtel de Ville, where
+he was received by M. Bailly, the mayor. The royal family descended
+from their carriages by torch-light, and entered the great hall,
+where they were received with acclamations. After the ceremony of
+reception by the municipality of Paris was over, the king and his
+family were conducted to the Tuileries. The vast palace had not been
+the residence of the royal family for a hundred years, and its spacious
+and poorly-furnished apartments presented but a cheerless aspect. The
+National Guard were stationed around the palace, and thus La Fayette
+was made responsible for the safe-keeping of the person of the king.
+Thus terminated the eventful days of the 5th and 6th of October, 1789.
+The king was now virtually a prisoner, and the nobles could no longer
+avail themselves of his name in enforcing, by the aid of foreign
+armies, despotism upon France.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 225: Mounier, who was strongly in favor of two chambers and
+an absolute veto, in his _Report to his Constituents_, writes, in
+reference to some private and friendly conferences held at this time:
+
+"These conferences, twice renewed, were unsuccessful. They were
+recommenced at the house of an American known for his abilities and his
+virtues, who had both the experience and the theory of the institutions
+proper for maintaining liberty. He gave an opinion in favor of my
+principles."
+
+This American was unquestionably Thomas Jefferson. He saw the peril
+with which the Revolution was menaced, and that freedom needed as
+strong a guard against the blind impulses of the populace as against
+the encroachments of the court. Two houses might perhaps have checked
+the rush to ruin, but could hardly have averted the disaster. For ages
+the nobles had been "sowing the wind." It was the decree of God that
+they should "reap the whirlwind." "He visiteth the iniquities of the
+fathers upon the children."]
+
+[Footnote 226: Brouillon: le Lettre de M. d'Estaing à la Reine (in
+Histoire Parlementaire, vol. iii., p. 24).]
+
+[Footnote 227: "Le ministre de la guerre multiplia les congés de
+semestre, afin d'avoir un corps de volontaires royaux, composé de douze
+cent cents officiers."--_Villiaumé_, p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 228: Moniteur, vol. i., p. 568. Histoire de Deux Amis de la
+Liberté, t. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 229: Thiers, vol. i., p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 230: "M. de la Fayette has been so calumniated, and his
+character is nevertheless so pure, so consistent, that it is right
+to devote at least one note to him. His conduct during the fifth
+and sixth of October was that of continual self-devotion, and yet
+it has been represented as criminal by men who owed their lives to
+it. The spirit of party, feeling the danger of allowing any virtues
+to a Constitutionalist, denied the services of La Fayette, and then
+commenced that long series of calumnies to which he has ever since been
+exposed."--_Thiers_, vol. i., p. 108.]
+
+[Footnote 231: Thiers, vol. i., p. 111.]
+
+[Footnote 232: "I saw her majesty in her cabinet an instant before her
+departure for Paris. She could scarcely speak. Tears poured down her
+face, to which all the blood in her body seemed to have mounted. She
+did me the favor to embrace me, and gave her hand to M. Campan to kiss,
+saying to us, Come immediately to take up your abode in Paris. We are
+utterly lost; dragged probably to death. Captive kings are always very
+near it."--_Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 84.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+FRANCE REGENERATED.
+
+ Kind Feelings of the People.--Emigration receives a new
+ Impulse.--The National Assembly transferred to Paris.--The
+ Constituent Assembly.--Assassination of François.--Anxiety of the
+ Patriots.--Gloomy Winter.--Contrast between the Bishops and the
+ laboring Clergy.--Church Funds seized by the Assembly.--The Church
+ responsible for the Degradation of the People.--New Division of
+ France.--The Right of Suffrage.--The Guillotine.--Rabaud de St.
+ Etienne.
+
+
+The royal family was now in Paris. The poor were, however, still
+perishing of famine. The night of the 6th of October passed without
+disturbance. It was dark even to blackness, and torrents of rain
+deluged the streets. Early in the morning of the 7th a vast multitude
+thronged the garden of the Tuileries, eager to catch a glimpse of the
+king. They all seemed animated by the kindest feelings toward their
+sovereign. The king, in response to reiterated calls, showed himself
+upon the balcony, and was received with universal acclamations. All
+the members of the royal family appeared to share in this popularity.
+Madame Elizabeth, sister of the king, a princess of rare loveliness
+both of person and character, caused her window to be opened, and sat
+partaking of refreshments in the presence of thousands of spectators.
+Men, women, and children, a vast multitude, gathered around the window,
+and words of kindness, love, and joy were on all lips.
+
+"We have now our king restored to us," they said. "He is taken away
+from his bad advisers, and will now be, as he has always wished to be,
+our good father."
+
+This generous, confiding spirit had taken such full possession of the
+public mind--the people, notwithstanding the intolerable wrongs they
+had endured for so many ages, were so ready to forgive--that not a word
+of disrespect was uttered, even to the foreign body-guard of the king,
+or to the haughty lords and aristocratic ladies who had accompanied
+the court to Paris. The people even cheered these nobles, against
+whom they had been so long contending, and addressed them in words of
+kindness.[233]
+
+[Illustration: THE ROYAL FAMILY ABOUT TO EXHIBIT THEMSELVES TO THE
+PEOPLE.]
+
+The nobles were, however, so alarmed by this triumph of the people
+that emigration received a new impulse. One hundred and fifty of
+the Royalist deputies of the National Assembly immediately obtained
+passports and left the kingdom. Some of the nobles repaired to Turin.
+The Comte d'Artois (Charles X.) took up his residence with his
+father-in-law, the King of Sardinia. The emigrants, thus scattered
+through all the courts of Europe, were busy in endeavors to rally the
+aristocratic courts to crush popular liberty in France. The emigration
+throughout the country was so extensive that sixty thousand, it was
+said, went to Switzerland alone.
+
+The king, on the contrary, appeared pleased with the affection of his
+people. He walked, without guards, through the crowds which thronged
+the Elysian Fields, and was every where treated with respect. On the
+9th of October, three days after his arrival in the city, he sent a
+letter to the Assembly at Versailles, informing that body that the
+testimonials of affection and fidelity which he had received from
+the city of Paris had determined him to fix his ordinary residence
+there.[234] He accordingly invited the Assembly to transfer its sitting
+to Paris. Incredible as it may seem, the imbecile king sent for his
+smith tools, put up his forge, and amused himself with file and hammer
+tinkering at locks.[235]
+
+The Archbishop of Paris had fled with the emigrants. On the 19th
+of October the National Assembly left Versailles and held its
+first sitting in Paris, in a room of the archbishop's palace, from
+which room it soon removed to the riding-hall of the Tuileries,
+a much more commodious apartment which had been prepared for its
+accommodation.[236] As the great object of the Assembly was now to
+reorganize the government upon the basis of a free constitution, it
+dropped the name of National Assembly on leaving Versailles, and
+assumed in Paris the name of Constituent Assembly. Thus the same body
+in the course of five months was called by three different names. It
+was first the States-General, from the period of its meeting on the
+5th of May until the union of the three orders on the 27th of June. It
+was then the National Assembly until its removal from Versailles to
+Paris, on the 19th of October. It then took the name of the Constituent
+Assembly, and continued in existence for nearly two years, until
+the 30th of September, 1791, when it expired, and a new body, the
+Legislative Assembly, commenced its session.
+
+The storm of revolution for a time seemed to lull, and there were
+but few acts of violence. The people of Paris were still in a state
+of fearful suffering from famine, and on the 21st of October a few
+half-starved wretches seized a baker named François, whom they accused
+of holding back his bread, and in a moment of phrensy, before the
+police could interfere, strung him up at a lamp-post, and then cut off
+his head.
+
+The deed was denounced by even the most violent of the revolutionists,
+and the Assembly took advantage of the feeling which the outrage
+excited to pass a martial law against tumultuous assemblies of the
+people. This law, which was almost a repetition of the English riot
+act, was assailed by many of the journals as a gross infringement of
+the rights of the people. Robespierre in the Assembly and Marat in his
+wide-spread journal were conspicuous in denouncing it.
+
+The atrocious murder of François, who was a generous and a charitable
+man, and entirely innocent of the crime of which he was accused,
+produced a profound impression. It was indicative of the rapid and
+fearful rise of mob violence. The king and queen sent to his young
+widow a letter of condolence, with a gift in money amounting to
+about twenty-five hundred dollars. The city government of Paris sent
+a committee of its members to visit and console her. La Fayette,
+mortified and indignant at the outrage, scoured the faubourgs in search
+of the miscreants who perpetrated the deed. Two of the ringleaders were
+arrested and handed over to immediate trial.
+
+They were condemned to death, and the next morning were hanged in the
+same Place de Grêve which had been the scene of the outrage. This was
+the only murder, perpetrated by a Parisian mob, during the Revolution,
+which the law was sufficiently powerful to punish.[237]
+
+[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF FRANÇOIS THE BAKER.]
+
+In other parts of the kingdom there were occasional acts of violence.
+Bread was so enormously dear that the corn-dealers were accused of
+hoarding up immense stores for the sake of speculation. The ignorant
+mob in some instances seriously maltreated those suspected of this
+crime. The innocent were thus often punished, for the violence of the
+mob is as likely to fall upon the innocent as upon the guilty.
+
+Many of the most intelligent friends of reform began now to fear that
+the nation was going "too fast and too far." The scenes of the 5th of
+October, and the omnipotence of the mob as evinced on that day, had
+inspired fearful apprehensions for the future. Even La Fayette felt
+that the salvation of the cause of liberty depended upon strengthening
+the power of the king. He induced the king to send the Duke of Orleans
+from Paris, and when the duke wished to return he sent him word that,
+the day after his return, he would have to fight a duel with him.
+
+Mirabeau united with La Fayette in these endeavors to stop the nation
+in its headlong rush, and to secure constitutional liberty by giving
+strength to the monarchical arm. They were both of the opinion that
+France, surrounded by powerful and jealous monarchies, and with
+millions of peasants unaccustomed to self-government, who could neither
+read nor write, and who were almost as uninstructed as the sheep they
+tended, needed a throne founded upon a free constitution.[238] Even
+in the Assembly Mirabeau ventured to urge _that it was necessary to
+restore strength to the executive power_.[239] But the court hated both
+La Fayette and Mirabeau, and were opposed to any diminution of their
+own exclusive privileges. They would accept of no compromise, and all
+the efforts of the moderate party were unavailing.
+
+Gloomy winter now commenced, and there was no money, no labor, no
+bread. The aristocratic party all over the realm were packing their
+trunks, and sending before them across the frontiers whatever funds
+they could collect. They wished to render France as weak and miserable
+as possible, that the people might be more easily again subjugated to
+the feudal yoke by the armies of foreign despots. Hence there was a
+frightful increase of beggary. In Paris alone there were two hundred
+thousand. It is one of the greatest of marvels that such a mass of men,
+literally starving, could have remained so quiet. The resources of the
+kingdom were exhausted during the winter in feeding, in all the towns
+of France, paupers amounting to millions. All eyes were now directed to
+the National Assembly for measures of relief.
+
+[Illustration: FIRES IN THE STREETS FOR THE POOR.]
+
+The wealth of the clergy was enormous. Almsgiving, which has filled
+Europe with beggary, has ever been represented by the Catholic Church
+as the first act of piety. During long ages of superstition, the dying
+had been induced, as an atonement for godless lives, to bequeath their
+possessions to the Church, to be dispensed in charity to the people.
+Thus many a wealthy sinner had obtained absolution, and thus the
+ecclesiastics held endowments which comprised one fifth of the lands
+of the kingdom, and were estimated at four thousand millions of francs
+($800,000,000).[240]
+
+Notwithstanding this immense opulence of the Church, nearly all the
+parish pastors, the hard and faithful workers for Christianity--and
+there were many such, men of true lives and of unfeigned religion--were
+in the extreme of poverty. The bishops were all _nobles_, for even
+Louis XVI. would elect no other. These bishops were often the most
+dissolute and voluptuous of men, and reveled in incomes of a million
+of francs ($250,000) a year. The working clergy, on the contrary, who
+were from the people, seldom received more than two hundred francs
+($40) a year. They were so poor as to be quite dependent upon their
+parishioners for charity.[241]
+
+The Assembly assumed that these treasures had been intrusted to the
+Church for the benefit of the people; that the luxurious ecclesiastics,
+by unfaithfulness to their trust, had forfeited the right of farther
+dispensing the charity. After a very fierce strife, a motion was made
+by Mirabeau, that the possessions of the Church were _at the disposal_
+of the state. Many of the lower clergy voted for the resolution, and it
+was adopted by a majority of 568 against 346. Forty deputies refused to
+vote. This measure placed at once immense resources in the hands of the
+Assembly, and necessarily exasperated tenfold the privileged classes,
+and rolled a wave of alarm over the whole wide-spread domain of the
+Pope. It was the signal for Catholic Europe to rise in arms against
+the Revolution. As it was impossible, under the pressure of the times,
+to force the sale of the enormous property of the Church without an
+immense sacrifice, bonds were issued, called _assignats_, assigned or
+secured on this church property.
+
+Thus was the haughty Gallican Church deprived of its ill-gotten and
+worse used wealth. The dignitaries of this Church had ever been the
+most inveterate foes of popular elevation. Treasure which had been
+wrested from the poor and extorted from the dying, as a gift to God for
+the promotion of human virtue, they were using to forge chains for the
+people, and were squandering in shameless profligacy.
+
+Nearly all the nobles were infidels, disciples of Voltaire. For years,
+while reveling in wine and debauchery, they had held up religion to
+contempt. But they now suddenly became very devout, espoused the cause
+of their boon companions, the bishops, and remonstrated against laying
+unholy hands upon the treasury of the Lord. All over Europe the two
+most formidable forces, secular and religious aristocracy, were now
+combined against popular reform. It was this principle which led the
+Protestant English noble and the papal Austrian bishop to make common
+cause against the regeneration of France.
+
+There were some French nobles and French bishops who recognized,
+whatever may have been their motives, the rights of the people, and
+espoused their side. Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, introduced the
+measure, and Mirabeau supported it with all the energy of his eloquence.
+
+The degradation of the people is the condemnation of the papal Church.
+For many centuries the office of elevating the people had devolved
+upon the clergy. Instead of instructing their congregations, the forms
+of worship had been converted into a senseless pantomime; the prayers
+were offered in an unknown tongue; the word of God was excluded from
+their sight. The rich became infidels and atheists, and by robbing the
+poor luxuriated in profligacy. The poor became brutalized and savage,
+and were held under restraint only by the terrors of a soul-hardening
+superstition.
+
+There is no hope of peace for the world but in that doctrine of
+Christ which promotes the brotherhood of man. Where this fraternity
+is recognized and its sympathies circulate, there is peace. The
+aristocratic Church in France had been the tool of the court in
+degrading and enslaving the people. The awful day of retribution
+was but the inevitable progress of the divine law. Man, crushed and
+trampled upon by his brother man, may endure it for an age, for a
+century, but the time will come when he will endure it no longer, and
+the ferocity of his rising will be proportionate to the depth and the
+gloom of the dungeon in which he has been immured.[242] The progress of
+the world is toward justice, equality, and nature. If that progress be
+not peaceful it will be violent and bloody. The vital energies of the
+soul of man can not forever be repressed.
+
+France had for some time been divided into thirteen large provinces,
+incorporated at different periods and possessing different immunities
+and a diversity of customs and laws. The Assembly broke down all these
+old barriers that a character of unity might be given to the nation.
+The kingdom was divided into eighty-three departments, each department
+being about fifty-four miles square. These departments were divided
+into districts, and the districts into communes. This division somewhat
+resembled that of the United States, into states, counties, and towns.
+
+The right of suffrage was extended to all male citizens twenty-five
+years of age, who had resided in the electoral district one year, who
+had paid a direct tax amounting to the value of three days' labor,
+about sixty cents, who were not in the condition of servants, and
+who were enrolled in the National Guard. These were called _active_
+citizens. The rest of the population were deemed _passive_ citizens.
+To be eligible to _office_ either as a magistrate or a representative,
+it was required that one should pay a direct tax of about ten dollars,
+and also be a landholder. The aristocrats considered this extension of
+the right of suffrage as awfully radical and democratic. On the other
+hand the democracy, from its lower depths, exclaimed with the utmost
+vehemence and indignation against the restriction of the right of
+suffrage and of office to tax-payers and property-holders.
+
+"There is but one united voice," cried Camille Desmoulins, "in the city
+and in the country, against this ten-dollar decree (_le décret du marc
+d'argent_). It is constituting in France an aristocratic government,
+and it is the most signal victory which the aristocrats have yet
+gained in the Assembly. To demonstrate the absurdity of the decree it
+is necessary but to mention that Rousseau, Corneille, Mably, under
+it could not have been eligible. As for you, ye despicable priests,
+ye lying cheating knaves, do you see that you make even your God
+ineligible?[243] Jesus Christ, whom you recognize as divine, you thrust
+out into the ranks of the mob. And do you wish that I should respect
+you, ye priests of an ignominious God (_d'un Dieu proletaire_), who is
+not even an active citizen? Respect that poverty which Jesus Christ has
+ennobled."[244]
+
+Such fierce appeals produced a profound and exasperating impression
+upon the army of two hundred thousand beggars in Paris and upon the
+millions utterly impoverished in France. "We have overthrown the
+aristocracy of birth," the orators of the populace exclaimed, "only
+to introduce the still more hateful aristocracy of the purse." The
+working clergy, who were among the foremost in favor of reform, were
+almost to a man efficient members of the moderate party, and cordially
+co-operated with La Fayette in the endeavor to prevent liberty from
+being whelmed in lawlessness. The clergy had great influence, and
+hence the venom of the popular speakers and writers was perseveringly
+directed against them.[245]
+
+The Assembly then abolished the oppressive duty upon salt.[246] The
+old parliaments of the old provinces, as corrupt bodies as have
+perhaps ever existed, and the subservient instruments of aristocratic
+oppression, were suppressed, and new courts of a popular character
+substituted in their place. All trials were ordered to be public; no
+punishment, on accusation for crime, could be inflicted unless by a
+vote of two thirds of the court. The penalty of death required a vote
+of four fifths. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was blotted out,
+and thus some thousands of Protestants who had long been banished
+from France were permitted to return and to enjoy all their political
+rights. It was decreed that all citizens, of whatever condition, should
+be subject to the same laws and judged by the same tribunals. Those
+accused of crime were to be tried by jury, but not till a court had
+previously determined that the evidence against them was sufficiently
+strong to warrant their arrest. It is remarkable that both Robespierre
+and Marat were most earnest in their endeavors to abrogate the
+death-penalty. During this discussion Dr. Guillotin urged the adoption,
+in capital punishment, of a new machine which he had invented.
+
+"With my machine," said the doctor, "I can clip off your head in the
+twinkling of an eye without your feeling it."
+
+These words, most earnestly uttered, caused a general burst of laughter
+in the Assembly. But a few months passed ere many of those deputies
+were bound to the plank and experienced the efficiency of the keen
+blade. The introduction of the guillotine was intended as a measure of
+humanity. The unfortunate man doomed to death was thus to be saved from
+needless suffering.[247]
+
+The measures adopted by the Constituent Assembly seem to republican
+eyes just and moderate. Experience, it is true, has proved that it is
+safer to have two houses of legislation, a senate and a lower house,
+than one, but the subsequent decrees passed by this one house were
+manifestly dictated, not by passion, but by patriotism and a sense of
+right.[248]
+
+The clergy now made immense efforts to rouse the peasantry all over
+the kingdom to oppose the Revolution. Religious fanaticism exhausted
+all its energies. The parliaments also of the old provinces, composed
+exclusively of the nobles, roused themselves anew and were vehement in
+remonstrances and protests. They became active agents in organizing
+opposition, in maligning the action of the Assembly, and in inciting
+the credulous multitude to violence. The Assembly punished the
+parliaments by abolishing them all.
+
+The court bitterly accused the Assembly of a usurpation of power, which
+called from Mirabeau a reply which electrified France.
+
+"You ask," he said, "how, from being deputies, we have made ourselves
+a convention. I will tell you. The day when, finding our assembly-room
+shut, bristling and defiled with bayonets, we hastened to the first
+place that could contain us, and swore that we would perish rather
+than abandon the interests of the people--on that day, if we were
+not a convention, we became one. Let them now go and hunt out of the
+useless nomenclature of civilians the definition of the words National
+Convention! Gentlemen, you all know the conduct of that Roman who, to
+save his country from a great conspiracy, had been obliged to outstep
+the powers conferred upon him by the laws. A captious tribune required
+from him the oath that he had respected them. He thought, by that
+insidious proposal, to leave the consul no alternative but perjury or
+an embarrassing avowal. 'I swear,' said that great man, 'that I have
+saved the republic.' Gentlemen, we also swear that we have saved the
+commonwealth."
+
+This sublime apostrophe brought the whole Assembly to its feet. The
+charge of usurpation was not repeated.
+
+A great effort was at the same time made to compel the Assembly to
+adopt the resolution that the "Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion
+is, and shall ever be, the religion of the nation, and that its worship
+is the only one authorized." As one of the court party was urging this
+resolve, and quoting, as a precedent, some intolerant decree of Louis
+XIV., Mirabeau sent dismay to the heart of the court by exclaiming,
+
+"And how should not every kind of intolerance have been consecrated in
+a reign signalized by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes?"
+
+Then, pointing to a window of the Louvre, he continued, in deep and
+solemn tones which thrilled through every heart,
+
+"Do you appeal to history? Forget not that from this very hall I behold
+the window whence a king of France, armed against his people by an
+execrable faction that disguised personal interest under the cloak of
+religion, fired his musket and gave the signal for the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew!"
+
+The effect was electric, and the spirit of intolerance was crushed.
+
+The true Christian charity which the Assembly assumed was cordially
+accepted by the mass of the nation. We love to record the fact that
+the great majority of the Catholic population were delighted to see
+the Protestants restored to their civil and religious rights. Even
+Michelet, hostile as he is to all revealed religion, testifies: "The
+unanimity was affecting, and one of the sights the most worthy to call
+down the blessing of God upon earth. In many parts the Catholics went
+to the temple of the Protestants, and united with them to return thanks
+to Providence together. On the other hand the Protestants attended at
+the Catholic _Te Deum_. Far above all the altars, every temple and
+every church, a divine ray had appeared in heaven."[249] In every place
+where the Protestants were in the majority they presented the most
+affecting spectacle of fraternity.
+
+A Protestant, M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, was chosen president of the
+Assembly--a position at that time higher than that of the throne. He
+was the son of the celebrated Protestant martyr of Cevennes, who for
+long years had been hunted like a wild beast, as he hid in dens in
+the forest, escaping from the ferocity of religious persecution. The
+venerable parent was still living, and received from his son a letter
+containing the declaration, "The president of the National Assembly is
+at your feet."
+
+The higher ecclesiastics were, however, exasperated by this triumph
+of religious liberty. They succeeded, in Montauban and in Nimes, in
+exciting a Roman Catholic mob against the Protestants. The ignorant
+populace, roused by superstition, seized their arms, shouted "Down
+with the nation!" and fell with the most cruel butchery upon the
+Protestants. The violent insurrection was, however, soon quelled,
+and without any acts of retaliatory vengeance.[250] The bishops
+anathematized every priest friendly to the Revolution, and designated
+all such to the hatred and contempt of the fanatic populace. The bishop
+who, under the old régime, had enjoyed an income of eight hundred
+thousand francs ($160,000), and was rejoicing in his palaces, horses,
+and concubines, invoked the wrath of God upon the curate who was now
+receiving twelve hundred francs ($240) from the nation. The power of
+the papal ecclesiastics was so strong that most of the humble curates
+were eventually compelled to abandon the Revolution and rally again
+around the sceptre of the Pope.
+
+The air was still filled with rumors of plots to disperse the Assembly
+and carry the king off to the protection of the royalist army at Metz,
+where he could be forced by the nobles to sanction their course, in
+invading France with foreign armies. On the 25th of December the
+Marquis of Favrus was arrested, accused of forming a plot to seize
+the king with an army of thirty thousand men, and to assassinate La
+Fayette and Bailly. It was said that twelve hundred horse were ready at
+Versailles to carry off the king, and that a powerful force, composed
+of Swiss and Piedmontese, was organized to march upon Paris. The king's
+brother, the Count of Provence, subsequently Louis XVIII., was reported
+as in the plot, and to have supplied the conspirators with large sums
+of money. Louis was willing to be abducted as if by violence, but was
+not willing to assume any responsibility by engaging in measures for
+escape. He assumed the attitude of contentment, and with such apparent
+cordiality professed co-operation in the measures of the Assembly for
+the regeneration of France that many supposed that he had honestly
+espoused the popular cause.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 233: For overwhelming evidence that such was the state of the
+public mind, see Weber, vol. i., p. 257; Beaulieu, vol. ii., p. 203;
+Amis de la Liberté, vol. iv., p. 2-6; Michelet, vol. i., p. 284.]
+
+[Footnote 234: Weber, an eye-witness of the king's reception in Paris,
+though a zealous Royalist, testifies that the reception was most kind
+and affectionate on the part of the masses of the people. See Weber,
+vol. ii., p. 228. See also Arthur Young, vol. i., p. 264-280.]
+
+[Footnote 235: Le Chateau des Tuileries, par Roussel, in Hist. Parl.,
+vol. iv., p. 195.]
+
+[Footnote 236: That hall has since been destroyed. It stood upon the
+place now occupied by the houses No. 36 and 38 Rue de Rivoli.]
+
+[Footnote 237: Even the most zealous of the revolutionary journals
+denounced with unmeasured severity the murder of François. Loustalot
+exclaimed, "Des Français! des Français! non, non de tels monstres
+n'appartiennent à aucun pays; le crime est leur element, le gibet leur
+patrie."]
+
+[Footnote 238: On the 15th of March, M. de Lamarck took to Mirabeau
+the overtures of the court, but found him very cool. When pressed by
+Lamarck, he said that the throne could only be restored by establishing
+it upon a basis of liberty; that, if the court wanted any thing else,
+he would oppose instead of serving it.--_Michelet_, p. 328.]
+
+[Footnote 239: In attestation of the correctness of these remarks, see
+the statements of Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Alexander de Lameth.]
+
+[Footnote 240: Michelet, vol. i., p. 290.]
+
+[Footnote 241: In the army there was the same inequality. According to
+the budget for war in 1784, the officers received forty-six millions
+of francs, and the whole body of soldiers but forty-four. "It is
+true," says Michelet, "that, under Louis XVI., another pay was added,
+settled with the cudgel. This was to imitate the famous discipline of
+Prussia, and was supposed to contain the whole secret of the victories
+of Frederick the Great: man driven like a machine, and punished like
+a child." The soldiers under the Empire knew how to appreciate the
+change.]
+
+[Footnote 242: "Every body was acquainted with the morals of the
+prelates and the ignorance of the inferior clergy. The curates
+possessed some virtues but no information. Wherever they ruled they
+were an obstacle to every improvement of the people, and caused them
+to retrograde. To quote but one example, Poitou, civilized in the
+sixteenth century, became barbarous under their influence; they were
+preparing for us the civil war of Vendée."--_Michelet_, p. 222.]
+
+[Footnote 243: Some curious facts were elicited during the progress
+of this discussion respecting the manner in which a portion of the
+vast revenues of the Church had been obtained. The clergy of Condom
+promised the simple, kind-hearted peasants, in consideration for a
+large quantity of grain, that they would every year conduct two hundred
+and fifty souls from purgatory directly to Paradise. In some places a
+regular tariff of prices had been established for the pardon of crimes.
+Absolution for incest could be purchased for one dollar, arson required
+one dollar and a quarter, parricide one dollar, and absolution could be
+obtained for all sins united for about sixteen dollars. These prices
+seem very moderate. But it must be remembered that the peasants were
+_excessively_ poor, and could not, even to escape from purgatory, pay
+large sums.--_Villiaumé_, p. 52.]
+
+[Footnote 244: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 245: In the Faubourg St. Antoine, which contained a
+population of thirty thousand, it is said that there were but two
+hundred _active citizens_. Marat, in his addresses to the "unfortunate
+citizens of the faubourgs," urged them to vote, notwithstanding the
+decree of the Assembly. "No power under the sun," said he, "can deprive
+you of the right of suffrage, which is inherent in society itself."]
+
+[Footnote 246: The price of salt immediately fell from fourteen sous a
+pound to less than one sou.--_Villiaumé._]
+
+[Footnote 247: It was not until the month of March, 1792, that the
+guillotine was first used,]
+
+[Footnote 248: "The government of the Revolution was rapidly becoming
+established. The Assembly had given to the new régime its monarch,
+its national representation, its territorial division, its armed
+force, its municipal and administrative power, its popular tribunals,
+its currency, its clergy; it had made an arrangement with respect
+to its debt, and had found means to reconstruct property without
+injustice."--_Miguet_, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 249: Michelet's French Revolution, p. 358.]
+
+[Footnote 250: "What was the National Assembly doing at this
+time in Paris? Its more than Christian meekness is a surprising
+spectacle."--_Michelet_, p. 365.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE KING ACCEPTS THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+ The King visits the Assembly.--His Speech.--The Priests rouse
+ the Populace.--The King's Salary.--Petition of Talma.--Views
+ of Napoleon.--Condemnation and Execution of the Marquis of
+ Favrus.--Spirit of the New Constitution.--National Jubilee.--The
+ Queen sympathizes with the Popular Movement.--Writings of Edmund
+ Burke.
+
+
+On the 4th of February the king, without any previous announcement,
+to the surprise of all, entered the hall of the Assembly. A burst of
+welcome greeted his entrance. The tidings of this movement spread with
+electric speed through Paris, and thousands of spectators speedily
+filled all parts of the hall to listen to the king's speech. The king
+stood upon the platform, and addressed the Assembly with words of
+dignity and eloquence which seemed above his nature. There was such an
+air of sincerity pervading every sentence that no one could doubt that
+he was giving utterance to his real opinions. This remarkable speech
+contained the following expressions:[251]
+
+"Gentlemen, the critical circumstances in which France is placed
+bring me among you. A grand goal is presented to your view, but it is
+requisite that it be attained without any increase of agitation, and
+without any new convulsions. It was, I must say, in a more agreeable
+and a more quiet manner that I had hoped to lead you to it, when I
+formed the design of assembling you, and of bringing together for the
+public welfare the talents and the opinions of the representatives of
+the nation; but my happiness and my glory are not the less connected
+with the success of your labors.
+
+"I think that the time is come when it is of importance to the
+interests of the state that I should associate myself, in a more
+express and manifest manner, in the execution and success of all
+that you have planned for the benefit of France. I can not seize a
+more signal occasion than when you submit to my acceptance decrees
+destined to establish a new organization in the kingdom, which must
+have so important and so propitious an influence on the happiness of my
+subjects and on the prosperity of this empire.
+
+"You know, gentlemen, it is more than ten years ago, at a time when the
+wishes of the nation relative to provincial assemblies had not yet been
+expressed, I began to substitute that kind of administration for the
+one which ancient and long habit had sanctioned. You have improved upon
+these views in several ways, and the most essential, no doubt, is that
+equal and wisely-calculated subdivision which, by breaking down the
+ancient partitions between province and province, and establishing a
+general and complete system of equilibrium, more intimately unites all
+parts of the kingdom in one and the same spirit, in one and the same
+interest. This grand idea, this salutary design, is all your own. I
+will promote, I will second, by all the means in my power, the success
+of that vast organization on which depends the welfare of France.
+
+"Let it be known every where that the monarch and the representatives
+of the nation are united in the same interest, in the same wish.
+Some day, I fondly believe, every Frenchman, without exception, will
+acknowledge the benefit of the total suppression of the differences
+of order and condition. No doubt those who have relinquished their
+pecuniary privileges--those who will no longer form, as of old, an
+order in the state, find themselves subjected to sacrifices, the
+importance of which I fully appreciate; but I am persuaded that they
+will have generosity enough to seek an indemnification in all the
+public advantages of which the establishment of national assemblies
+holds out a hope.
+
+"I will defend, therefore, I will uphold constitutional liberty, the
+principles of which the public wish, in accordance with mine, has
+sanctioned. I will do more, and, in concert with the queen, who shares
+all my sentiments, I will early adapt the mind and heart of my son
+to the new order of things which circumstances have brought about. I
+will accustom him from his very first years to seek happiness in the
+happiness of the French, and ever to acknowledge that, in spite of the
+language of flatterers, a wise constitution will preserve him from the
+dangers of inexperience, and that a just liberty adds a new value to
+the sentiments of affection and loyalty of which the nation has, for so
+many ages, given such touching proofs to its kings."
+
+These noble words, which were uttered with as much sincerity as a weak
+and vacillating mind was capable of cherishing, were received with
+the most enthusiastic expressions of pleasure and gratitude. Thunders
+of applause filled the house, in which the galleries tumultuously
+joined. All past jealousies seemed forgotten forever, and the queen and
+the dauphin shared in the transporting acclaim. The multitude, with
+shouts of applause, conducted the king back to the Tuileries, while the
+Assembly voted thanks to him and to the queen.
+
+The king had thus publicly accepted the Constitution even before it was
+completed, and promised to support it. Each deputy took the oath to
+uphold the "Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted
+by the king." The example was contagious, and the oath was repeated,
+with festivities and illuminations, in every district of Paris, and
+through all the cities and villages of France.
+
+Thus far the reforms adopted had been, on the whole, most eminently
+wise, and such as the welfare of the nation imperiously demanded. Had
+the privileged classes acceded, as they ought to have done, to these
+measures of justice, and contributed their influence in favor of law
+and order, all might have been well, and the Iliad of woes which
+succeeded might never have been known. But the nobles and the higher
+clergy did every thing in their power to stimulate the mob to violence,
+to fill France with lawlessness and blood, that they might more
+effectually appeal to religious fanaticism at home and to despotism
+abroad to forge chains and rivet them anew upon the enfranchised people.
+
+Every effort was now made to combine the clergy against the
+Revolution--to rouse the ignorant and superstitious masses with the cry
+that religion was in danger, and to march the armies of surrounding
+monarchies in a war of invasion upon France. The nobles of the Church
+and the State were responsible for that terrific outburst of the mob,
+which might easily have been repressed if they would have united with
+the true patriots in favor of liberty and of law.[252]
+
+In many of the rural districts the priests roused the fanatic populace
+to forcible resistance. Many of the priests had been in a condition
+of almost compulsory subservience to the higher clergy. Trained to
+_obedience_ as the primal law of the Church, they combined their
+efforts with those of the exasperated nobility, and thus, in several
+of the remote sections of France, mobs were instigated against the
+Revolution. Here commenced the conflict between the people and the
+clergy. Pure democracy and true Christianity meet and embrace. They
+have but one spirit--fraternity, charity. Despotism and ecclesiasticism
+are also natural congenial allies. The pope and the king, the cardinal
+and the duke, all over Europe became accomplices.
+
+The Assembly, with much delicacy, invited the king himself to fix the
+income necessary for the suitable support of the crown. He fixed it at
+twenty-five millions of francs ($5,000,000). This enormous salary, two
+hundred times as much as the President of the United States receives,
+was instantly voted by acclamation. There were but four votes in
+opposition. Nothing can more conclusively show than this the kindly
+feelings of the people toward the monarch, and the _then_ desire merely
+to ingraft the institutions of liberty upon the monarchy.
+
+The Revolution had humanely extended its helping hand to all the
+debased and defrauded classes, to the Protestants, the Jews, the
+negroes, the slaves, the play-actors. The relentless proscription of
+play-actors is one of the most remarkable of the contradictions and
+outrages of the old régime. They were doubtless a very worthless set
+of men and women; but that the Church should have refused them either
+marriage or burial is indeed extraordinary. "Oh, barbarous prejudices!"
+exclaimed Michelet. "The two first men of England and France, the
+author of _Othello_ and of _Tartufe_, were they not comedians?"
+
+Notwithstanding the general decree of democratic enfranchisement
+pronounced by the Assembly, the world-renowned Talma, having applied
+to the Church for the rite of marriage, which the Church alone could
+solemnize, met with a peremptory refusal. He sent the following
+characteristic petition to the National Assembly:
+
+"I implore the succor of the constitutional law, and claim the rights
+of a citizen, from which rights the Constitution does not exclude me
+because I am a member of the theatrical profession. I have chosen a
+companion to whom I wish to be united by the ties of marriage. My
+father has given his consent. I have called upon the curé of St.
+Sulpice for the publication of the banns. After a first refusal I
+have served upon him a judicial summons. He replies to the sheriff
+that he has referred the matter to his ecclesiastical superiors, and
+is instructed by them that the Church refuses to perform the rites of
+marriage for a play-actor unless he first renounces that profession.
+I can, it is true, renounce my profession, be married, and resume
+my profession again the next day. But I do not wish to show myself
+unworthy of that religion which they invoke against me, and unworthy of
+the Constitution in thus accusing your decrees of error and your laws
+of powerlessness."[253]
+
+It was in such ways as these that the Romish Church began to throw
+every possible obstacle in the way of liberty, and to exasperate the
+people, rejoicing in their new enfranchisement.
+
+It was a long stride which Napoleon took when he subsequently conferred
+the Cross of the Legion of Honor upon an illustrious tragedian. "My
+object," says Napoleon, "was to destroy the whole of the feudal system
+as organized by Charlemagne. I sought for true merit among all ranks
+of the great mass of French people, and was anxious to organize a true
+and general system of equality. I was desirous that every Frenchman
+should be admissible to all the employments and dignities of the
+state, provided he was possessed of talents and character equal to the
+performance of the duties, whatever might be his family. In a word, I
+was eager to abolish to the last trace the privileges of the ancient
+nobility, and to establish a government which, at the same time that
+it held the reins of government with a firm hand, should still be a
+_popular government_. The oligarchs of every country in Europe soon
+perceived my design, and it was for this reason that war to the death
+was carried on against me by England. The noble families of London, as
+well as those of Vienna, think themselves prescriptively entitled to
+the occupation of all the important offices in the state. Their birth
+is regarded by them as a substitute for talents and capacities."
+
+Soon after Napoleon's attainment of the consulship he restored to
+France the Christian religion, which revolutionary fury had swept away.
+In consistency with his unvarying principles, he established perfect
+freedom of opinion and of worship. Some of the reinstated priests began
+to assume much of their former arrogance. A celebrated actress died in
+Paris. A priest, adopting the intolerance of the old régime, refused
+her remains Christian burial. Napoleon caused the following article to
+be inserted the next day in the Moniteur, expressive of his emphatic
+denunciation:
+
+"The curate of St. Roche, in a moment of hallucination, has refused
+the rites of burial to Mademoiselle Cameroi. One of his colleagues, a
+man of sense, received the procession into the church of St. Thomas,
+where the burial service was performed with the usual solemnities. The
+Archbishop of Paris has suspended the curate of St. Roche for three
+months, to give him time to recollect that Jesus Christ commanded us
+to pray even for our enemies. Being thus called by meditation to a
+proper sense of his duties, he may learn that all these superstitious
+observances, the offspring of an age of credulity or of crazed
+imaginations, tend only to the discredit of true religion, and have
+been proscribed by the recent Concordat of the French Church."
+
+The trial of Marquis Favrus was continued. On the 18th of February
+he was adjudged guilty of plotting the crime of assassinating Bailly
+and La Fayette, of seizing and abducting the king, and of exciting
+insurrection and civil war. He was sentenced to be taken by the
+executioner to the principal door of the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, in a
+tumbrel, barefooted, bareheaded, and dressed simply in his night-robe,
+with a rope round his neck, a blazing torch in his hands, and with a
+label on his breast and back inscribed with the words "Conspirator
+against the State." After having on his knees asked pardon of God,
+the nation, the king, and justice, he was to read aloud his own
+death-warrant, and then to be taken to the Place de Grève and hanged.
+This cruel sentence was immediately executed, the court, conscious of
+its powerlessness, making no attempts to save him.
+
+This was the first time that a nobleman had been hanged, and the mob,
+deeming him an infamous conspirator against the rights of the people,
+rejoiced in his execution. They witnessed with delight this indication
+that the reign of _equality_ had really commenced; that the sword
+of retribution would hereafter fall as surely upon the head of the
+_high-born_ as upon that of the _low-born_ offender.
+
+It was now nearly a year since the fall of the Bastille, and France,
+even in the midst of famine, and almost starvation, had passed from the
+reign of the most execrable despotism to the reign of constitutional
+liberty. Never before had so vast a revolution been effected so
+peaceably. The enslaved people had broken and thrown away their
+fetters, and were enfranchised. Instead of falling upon their past
+oppressors in indiscriminate massacre, they had spared them, wresting
+from them only the exclusive privileges of tyranny. The Assembly sought
+only constitutional liberty and peace with all the world. The decrees
+enacted by the Constituent Assembly were essentially the same with
+those adopted by republican America.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARQUIS OF FAVRUS READING HIS DEATH-WARRANT.]
+
+Free principles had been infused into the government; _lettres de
+cachet_, the most infamous instruments of oppression the world has ever
+known, abolished; feudal impediments and oppressions of every kind
+removed; the right of suffrage established and made almost universal;
+the offices of honor and emolument in the state thrown open to merit,
+with but the slightest limitations; religious liberty proclaimed, the
+Protestant, the Jew, the negro, and the play-actor enfranchised; law
+made uniform, criminal jurisprudence reformed, monasteries, those
+haunts of indolence and vice, abolished, and the military force of the
+country intrusted to the citizens of the country. Such a transformation
+from the slavery, corruption, and horror of the old régime was
+translation from the dungeon to the blaze of day. All this was done
+almost without violence. The court here and there shot down a few
+hundred, some chateaux were burned, and there were a few acts of mob
+violence; but that a nation of twenty millions of people should have
+been able to accomplish so vast a change so bloodlessly must ever be a
+marvel.
+
+But the armies of aristocratic opposition were gathering to crush this
+liberty, which threatened to spread to other states. Despotic Europe
+combined, and with all her accumulated armies fell upon the people of
+France. The recently emancipated people fought to protect themselves
+from new chains with all the blind fury and ferocity of despair. Then
+ensued scenes of blood and woes which appalled the world.[254]
+
+The French people, unconscious of the terrific storm which was
+gathering, prepared for a great national jubilee. It was to be held
+on the 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille.
+All France was to be represented at the festival. The Field of Mars,
+a vast parade-ground in Paris, a mile in length and half a mile in
+width, extending from the military school to the banks of the Seine,
+was the selected theatre for this national festivity. The centre
+was made smooth as a floor, and the removed earth was placed on the
+sides so as to create slopes in the form of an amphitheatre capable
+of accommodating nearly half a million of spectators. But so immense
+was the work to be performed, that at length apprehensions were felt
+that the field could not be in readiness in season for the appointed
+fête. No sooner was this idea suggested than all Paris, in a flame of
+enthusiasm, volunteered to aid in the toil.
+
+A more extraordinary scene of enthusiasm earth has never witnessed.
+All heads and hearts were electrified. Men, women, and children, of
+all ages and ranks, spread over the field and shared in the toil. The
+Carthusian monk and the skeptical philosopher, the hooded nun and the
+brawny fish-woman, merchants, lawyers, students, scholars, gray-haired
+patriots, and impetuous boys, matrons and maidens, delicate ladies and
+the rugged daughters of toil, blended harmoniously together in immense
+groups, ever varied, incessantly moving, yet guided by engineers
+with almost military order and precision. Moving tents and portable
+restaurants, decorated with tricolored ribbons, added to the gayety
+of the spectacle. Trumpets sounded the charge against banks of earth,
+and willing hands wielded energetically all the potent enginery of
+wheel-barrows, hoes, and spades. Bands of music animated and enlivened
+the scene, blended with shouts of joy and songs of fraternal sympathy.
+Three hundred thousand persons were thus seen at once laboring upon
+this spacious arena to rear an altar for the great sacrament of French
+liberty. It was a work of love. The long twilight allowed them to labor
+until the clock struck nine. Then the groups separated. Each individual
+repaired to the station of his section, and marched in procession,
+accompanied by triumphal music and with the illumination of torches,
+to his home. Even the Marquis of Ferrières, inveterate Royalist as
+he was, can not withhold his tribute of admiration in view of this
+astonishing drama. "The mind felt sinking," says he, "under the weight
+of a delicious intoxication at the sight of a whole people who had
+descended again to the sweet sentiments of a primitive fraternity."
+
+[Illustration: PREPARATION FOR THE FESTIVAL ON THE FIELD OF MARS.]
+
+The field was thus prepared, and the long-expected day arrived.
+Numerous delegates from all the eighty-three departments of France
+had come up to Paris to share in the celebration of the nation's
+enfranchisement. The morning of the 14th dawned dark and stormy. Heavy
+clouds curtained the sky and the rain fell in torrents. Regardless
+of the unpropitious weather, at an early hour four hundred thousand
+spectators had taken their seats in the vast amphitheatre three miles
+in circuit.
+
+The delegates, twenty thousand in number, ranged beneath eighty-three
+banners, emblematic of the departments of France, formed in line on the
+site of the demolished Bastille, and, with a very magnificent array of
+troops of the line, sailors of the royal navy, and the National Guard,
+marched through the thronged and garlanded streets of St. Martin,
+St. Denis, and St. Honoré, and by the _Cours la Reine_ to a bridge
+of boats constructed across the river. All the way they were greeted
+with acclamations, and the ladies regaled them sumptuously by letting
+down in baskets from the windows wine, ham, and fruits. The country
+members shouted "Long live our Parisian brothers!" and the Parisians
+responded with accordant greetings and with exuberant hospitality and
+loving-kindness.
+
+To the patriot La Fayette this was an hour of inexpressible triumph. As
+he rode along the lines on a noble charger he was every where greeted
+with shouts of heartfelt affection. A man whom nobody knew pressed
+through the crowd, and, approaching the general, with a bottle in one
+hand and a glass in the other, said,
+
+"General, you are hot. Take a glass."
+
+Raising the bottle he filled the tumbler and presented it to La
+Fayette. The marquis took the glass, fixed his eye for a moment upon
+the stranger, and drank the wine at a draught. This confidence of La
+Fayette in the multitude gave rise to a burst of applause.[255]
+
+Just as the procession had entered the field, and the shouts of the
+congregated thousands were ringing through the air, the rain ceased to
+fall, the clouds broke, and the sun came out in glorious brilliance.
+The spectacle now assumed an aspect of unparalleled sublimity. Near the
+centre of the field there was constructed an immense altar of imposing
+and antique architecture, upon whose spacious platform, twenty-five
+feet high, three hundred priests were assembled, in white surplices and
+broad tricolored sashes. Near this altar a majestic throne was reared,
+where the king sat, the acknowledged sovereign of France, attended by
+the queen, the court, and all the deputies of that Constituent Assembly
+which had conferred the inestimable boon of a free constitution upon
+France.
+
+An awning, decorated with golden _fleurs de lis_, embellished and
+protected the throne. Fifty thousand of the National Guard, in new and
+brilliant uniform, with waving banners, martial bands, glittering arms,
+and richly-caparisoned horses, filled the spaces around the altar and
+the throne. Then four hundred thousand spectators crowded the ascending
+seats which, in thirty concentric rows, encircled this vast inclosure.
+Every house-top and steeple in the vicinity swarmed with the rejoicing
+multitude; and even the distant heights of Montmartre, St. Cloud,
+Meudon, and Sevres, seemed alive with the masses assembled to witness
+the magnificent spectacle. Tear-drops from the passing storm, pendent
+from the leaves, and trembling on every blade of grass, glittered in
+the sun, as if betokening that the day of darkness and sorrow had
+passed, and that light had dawned, in which tears were to be dried from
+every eye.
+
+All hearts thrilled with emotion. Mass was performed, and the
+oriflamme, the national banner of France, and the banners of the
+eighty-three departments, were blessed by Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun.
+Gratitude to God was then expressed in the majestic _Te Deum_, chanted
+by twelve hundred musicians. A peal of thunder from the assembled
+cannon uttered the national Amen to these solemn services.
+
+La Fayette, as the representative of the military forces of the
+kingdom, both by land and sea, now ascended the altar, and, in the
+presence of more than half a million of spectators, in behalf of the
+army and of the navy, took the oath of allegiance. Breathless silence
+pervaded the assembly, and every eye was riveted upon this patriot of
+two continents, while he uttered the solemn words,
+
+"We swear eternal fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king; to
+maintain, to the utmost of our power, the Constitution decreed by the
+National Assembly and accepted by the king, and to remain united with
+every Frenchman by the indissoluble ties of fraternity."
+
+When he closed, every banner waved, every sabre gleamed, and sixty
+thousand voices shouted, as with thunder peal, "We swear it!"
+
+The president of the National Assembly then repeated the oath, and all
+the deputies and the four hundred thousand spectators responded, "We
+swear it."
+
+The king then rose in front of his throne. In a loud, distinct voice,
+which seemed to vibrate through the still air to the remotest part of
+the vast and thronged amphitheatre, he repeated the solemn oath,
+
+"I, King of the French, swear to the nation to employ all the powers
+delegated to me by the constitutional law of the state in maintaining
+the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by me."
+
+[Illustration: GRAND CELEBRATION ON THE FIELD OF MARS.]
+
+A more sublime moment never occurred in a nation's history. Every
+heart throbbed, and thousands of eyes were dimmed with tears. Even
+the queen was roused by the enthusiasm of the scene. Inspired by the
+impulse which glowed in every bosom, she rose, stepped forward into
+the presence of the people, and, raising her beautiful boy, the little
+dauphin, in her arms, said, in a loud voice,
+
+"See my son! he joins, as well as myself, in the same oath."
+
+Every eye beheld the act, and the words she uttered were repeated
+with electric speed along the lines. Enthusiasm burst all bounds. The
+spectators rose from their seats, and the air was filled with the
+roar of five hundred thousand voices, as every man, woman, and child
+shouted, "Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! Vive le Dauphin!" The crowds
+on Montmartre, St. Cloud, Sevres, and Meudon caught the shout, and
+re-echoed it in tumultuous reverberations. And then came another peal
+still louder, as battery after battery of artillery, on the field, on
+the bridges, in the streets, and on the heights, simultaneously mingled
+their majestic voices with the clash of martial bands and the acclaim
+of regenerated France.
+
+God seemed to smile upon this jubilee of his enfranchised children. The
+clouds had all disappeared. The sun shone brilliantly, and the Majesty
+of heaven apparently condescended to take a prominent part in the
+ceremonies of the eventful day. In conclusion, the _Te Deum_ was again
+chanted by the vast choir, and the deep-voiced cannon proclaimed "Peace
+to the nation and praise to the Lord."
+
+At the same hour all France, assembled in the eighty-three departments,
+took the same oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king.
+Discord seemed to have passed away. No murmurs were heard. No man
+raised a voice of opposition. The general tide of rejoicing swept
+resistlessly over the land. From mountain to mountain the roar of
+cannon transmitted the tidings, from valley to valley chimes from
+the church bells caught and re-echoed the joyful sound, and from
+central Paris to the ocean, to the Rhine, to the Alps, and to the
+Pyrenees, twenty-four millions of people in one hour raised the shout
+of emancipation. Such a shout never before or since has ascended from
+earth to the ear of God.
+
+For a week these rejoicings were continued in Paris. The Field of Mars
+was converted into an immense ball-room, where thousands listened to
+enchanting music, and with the overflowings of fraternal love engaged
+in feasting, dancing, and all manner of games. At night the city blazed
+with illuminations, and the flame of fireworks turned darkness into
+day. The trees of the Elysian Fields were festooned with brilliant
+lamps, shedding a mild light upon the most attractive of scenes. There
+was no intoxication, no tumult, no confusion. All classes intermingled,
+with kind words on every lip and kind looks beaming from every face. No
+carriages were permitted to enter these avenues, that the rich and the
+poor might share the festivities alike. Pyramids of fire were placed at
+intervals in the midst of the mass of foliage. The white dresses of the
+ladies who were sauntering through those umbrageous alleys, the music,
+the dances, the games, the shouts of laughter, led almost every one to
+the delusive hope that the old world of care and sorrow had vanished to
+give place to a new era of universal love and joy.[256]
+
+The site of the Bastille was converted into an open square, and at
+the entrance of the inclosure was an inscription "_Ici l'on danse_"
+(Dancing here). For centuries the groans of the captive had resounded
+through the vaults of that odious prison. The groans had now ceased,
+and happy hearts throbbed with the excitement of the song and the dance.
+
+La Fayette gave a splendid review of the National Guard. The king, the
+queen, and the dauphin attended the review, and were warmly greeted
+by the people. The queen assumed the attitude of reconciliation, and
+graciously presented her hand to the delegates to kiss.
+
+The delegates from the departments, before they left Paris, went in a
+body to present their homage to the king. With one voice they expressed
+to him their respect, gratitude, and affection. The chief of the
+Bretons dropped on his knee and presented to the monarch his sword.
+
+"Sire," said he, "I deliver to you, pure and sacred, the sword of the
+faithful Bretons. It shall never be stained but with the blood of your
+enemies."
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AND THE DEPUTATION OF THE BRETONS.]
+
+The heart of the kind-hearted king was touched. He returned the sword,
+and, throwing his arms around the neck of the chief of the Bretons,
+said, in tones broken with emotion,
+
+"That sword can not be in better hands than those of my dear Bretons.
+I have never doubted their fidelity and affection. Assure them that I
+am the father, the brother, the friend of all the French."
+
+For a moment there was silence, and all alike were moved by the
+affecting scene. The chief of the Bretons then rejoined,
+
+"Sire, all the French, if I may judge from our hearts, love and will
+love you because you are a citizen-king."
+
+Many of the most influential men in England contemplated with
+admiration this immense reform, in which, to use the language of
+Professor William Smyth, one of the most candid of English writers,
+"the Constituent Assembly was supposed to have freed the country from
+temporal and spiritual thraldom; the government had been rested on
+free principles; the Bastille had been destroyed, _lettres de cachet_
+abolished, feudal impediments and oppressions of every kind removed,
+religious liberty established, the system of law made uniform, the
+criminal jurisprudence reformed, monasteries abolished; and by making
+the military force consist of the citizens of the country, freedom, and
+all those new and weighty advantages, seemed to be forever secured from
+the machinations of arbitrary power."
+
+The _aristocracy_, however, of England and Europe were struck with
+alarm. The emancipation of the _people_ in France threatened their
+emancipation throughout the civilized world. Edmund Burke espoused the
+cause of the aristocracy. With eloquence quite unparalleled he roused
+England and Europe to war. In view of his fierce invectives Michelet
+exclaims, in language which will yet be pronounced by the world as not
+too severe,
+
+"Mr. Pitt, feeling sure of the European alliance, did not hesitate
+to say in open parliament that he approved of every word of Burke's
+diatribe against the Revolution and against France--an infamous book,
+full of calumny, scurrilous abuse, and insulting buffoonery; in which
+the author compares the French to galley-slaves breaking their chains,
+treads under foot the declaration of the rights of man, tears it in
+pieces and spits upon it. Oh! what a cruel, painful discovery. Those
+whom we thought our friends are our most bitter enemies."[257]
+
+Thirty thousand copies of Burke's memorable "Reflections" were sold
+almost in a day. The sovereigns of Europe were so highly elated that
+they transmitted to him their thanks. The nobles and the higher clergy
+of France wrote to him letters of acknowledgment, and the nobility of
+England lavished upon him their applause. These "Reflections" combined
+aristocratic Europe against popular rights, and the people had no
+resource left them but to defend their liberties with the sword.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 251: For the speech in full, see Thiers, vol. i., p. 126.]
+
+[Footnote 252: M. Fromont, in his memoirs entitled "_Recueil de divers
+Ecrits relatifs à la Revolution_," very frankly writes, "I repaired
+secretly to Turin (January, 1790), to the French princes, to solicit
+their approbation and their support. In a council which was held on my
+arrival, I demonstrated to them that, if they would arm the partisans
+of the altar and of the throne, and make the interests of religion
+go hand in hand with those of royalty, it would save both. The real
+argument of the revolutionists being force, I felt that the real
+answer was force. Then, as at present, I was convinced of this great
+truth--that _religious zeal alone can stifle the Republican mania_.
+
+"In consequence of this dread (of the new order of things), they
+secretly set at work the most efficacious means for ruining the
+internal resources and for thwarting the proposed plans, several of
+which were calculated to effect the re-establishment of order, if they
+had been wisely directed and supported."]
+
+[Footnote 253: "There is no country in the world," says Voltaire,
+"where there are so many contradictions as in France. The king gives
+the actors wages, and the curé excommunicates them."]
+
+[Footnote 254: "The whole of Europe--on the one hand Austria and
+Russia, on the other England and Prussia--were gradually gravitating
+toward the selfsame thought, the hatred of the Revolution. However,
+there was this difference, that liberal England and philosophical
+Prussia needed a little time in order to pass from one pole to the
+other--to prevail upon themselves to give themselves the lie, to abjure
+and disown their principles, and avow that they were the enemies of
+liberty."--_Michelet_, p. 327.]
+
+[Footnote 255: Memoirs of the Marquis of Ferrières.]
+
+[Footnote 256: No one familiar with the writings of that day will
+affirm that this description is too highly drawn. Upon this point
+Patriots and Royalists agree. See Ferrières, t. ii., p. 89, on the part
+of the Royalists, and Alphonse Esquiros, p. 38, on the part of the
+Revolutionists.]
+
+[Footnote 257: Michelet's French Revolution, p. 415.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+FLIGHT OF THE KING.
+
+ Riot at Nancy.--Prosecution of Mirabeau.--Issue of
+ Assignats.--Mirabeau's Interview with the Queen.--Four
+ political Parties.--Bishops refuse to take the Oath to the
+ Constitution.--Character of the Emigrants.--The King's Aunts attempt
+ to leave France.--Debates upon Emigration.--Embarrassment of the
+ Assembly.--Death of Mirabeau.--His Funeral.--The King prevented
+ from visiting St. Cloud.--Duplicity of the King.--Conference of the
+ Allies.--Their Plan of Invasion.--Measures for the Escape of the
+ King.--The Flight.
+
+
+The grand gala days, in the Field of Mars, celebrating the formation of
+the Constitution, soon passed. The twenty thousand delegates, having
+been fêted even to satiety, returned to their homes; the Constituent
+Assembly resumed its labors.[258] The cares and toils of life again
+pressed heavily upon the tax-exhausted and impoverished millions of
+France.
+
+The Belgians, in imitation of France, had commenced a struggle for
+freedom. The King of France permitted Austria to send her troops across
+the French territory into Belgium to crush the patriots. Many of the
+most influential of the opponents of the Revolution were still leaving
+France and uniting with the armed emigrants on the frontiers. England,
+Austria, Sardinia, and Prussia were manifestly forming an alliance to
+punish the French patriots, and to restore the tyranny of the execrable
+old régime. The court, emboldened by these proceedings, were boasting
+of the swift destruction which was to overwhelm the advocates of
+reform, and commenced a prosecution of Mirabeau, the Duke of Orleans,
+and others of the popular party, for instigating the movement of
+the 5th and 6th of October, when the royal family were taken from
+Versailles to Paris. These movements created much alarm, and even the
+royal troops at Metz and Nancy, who were mostly composed of Swiss and
+Germans, fraternized with the populace.
+
+A new issue of eight hundred millions of bonds or _assignats_ was
+decreed, which quite abundantly replenished the treasury. There was
+never a paper currency created upon so valuable a pledge, or sustained
+by security more ample and undoubted. The assignats represented the
+whole public domain, and could at any time be exchanged for the most
+valuable landed property. Still, Talleyrand with singular precision
+predicted the confusion which eventually resulted from these issues.
+
+In the majestic march of events, Necker had for some time been passing
+into oblivion. The king had been forced to recall him. Hated by the
+court, neglected by the Assembly, forgotten by the people, he soon
+found his situation insupportable, and, sending in his resignation,
+retired to Switzerland, from which safe retreat he watched the
+terrific gatherings of the revolutionary storm.
+
+Civil war was sure to break out the moment the court could obtain
+possession of the person of the king. The pliant nature of the monarch
+would immediately yield to the influences which surrounded him, and the
+court, under such circumstances, could find no difficulty in inducing
+him to sanction any acts of violence to regain their power. But while
+the king was in Paris, in the hands of the Assembly, he would sanction
+the decrees of the Assembly, and thus the aristocrats could not wage
+war against the patriots without at the same time waging war against
+the king. Foreign monarchies could not be induced to take this step.
+Thus the retention of the king was peace; his escape, civil war.
+The court were plotting innumerable plans to effect his escape. La
+Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, was fully awake to the
+responsibility of guarding him with the utmost vigilance. The king was
+apparently left at perfect liberty, but he was continually watched.
+The queen was exceedingly anxious for flight. The king was ever
+vacillating, but generally, influenced by such advisers as Mirabeau
+and La Fayette, inclined to accept the Revolution. He was also haunted
+with the idea that his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, wished to frighten
+him into flight, that the Assembly might declare the throne vacant, and
+place the sceptre in the duke's hand as the sworn friend and supporter
+of the Revolution.
+
+Mirabeau had commenced his career as one of the most ardent
+advocates of reform, but he now wished to arrest the progress of the
+revolutionary chariot, as he affirmed that it had passed beyond its
+proper goal. His course was attributed by some to bribery on the part
+of the court. His friends say that he was only influenced by his own
+patriotic intelligence. At St. Cloud there is a retired summer-house,
+embowered in foliage, at the summit of a hill which crowns the highest
+part of the park. The queen appointed an interview with Mirabeau at
+this secluded spot.
+
+The statesman of gigantic genius, who seemed to hold in his hand
+the destinies of France, left Paris on horseback one evening, under
+pretense of visiting a friend. Avoiding observation, he turned aside
+into a by-path until he reached a back gate of the park. Here he
+was met in the dark by a nobleman, who conducted him to the retreat
+of the queen, who was waiting to receive him. His constitution was
+already undermined by dissipation and unintermitted labors. His cheeks
+were sunken, his eyes inflamed, his complexion sallow, and a flabby
+corpulency announced the ravages of disease; but, notwithstanding all
+these defects, his genial spirit and courtly bearing made him one of
+the most fascinating of men.[259]
+
+The queen was then thirty-five years of age. Care and grief had sadly
+marred her marvelous beauty. Her proud spirit was chagrined in being
+compelled to look for support to one of the leaders of the people. But
+little is known respecting what passed at this private interview. At
+its close Mirabeau said to the queen,
+
+"Madam, when your august mother admitted one of her subjects to the
+honor of her presence, she never dismissed him without allowing him to
+kiss her hand."
+
+The queen, responding to the gallantry, graciously presented her hand.
+Mirabeau, bowing profoundly, kissed it, and then, raising his head,
+said proudly,
+
+"Madam, the monarchy is saved."[260]
+
+Suddenly Mirabeau became rich, set up a carriage, furnished his house
+sumptuously, and gave magnificent entertainments. He immediately
+commenced a course of cautious but vigorous measures to overthrow the
+Constitution and establish one less democratic, which should give more
+stability and efficiency to the royal power. He affirmed that this was
+essential to the peace and prosperity of France, and that, instead of
+being bought over by the court, he had bought the court over to his
+views.
+
+"But suppose the court refuses," said one of his friends, "to adopt
+your plans?"
+
+"They have promised me every thing," Mirabeau replied.
+
+"But suppose they should not keep their word?" it was rejoined.
+
+"Then," said Mirabeau, "I will overthrow the throne and establish a
+republic."
+
+It can hardly be denied that the Constitution was too democratic for a
+monarchy and hardly democratic enough for a republic. In the natural
+course of events public opinion would sway either to strengthening
+the throne or to diminish still more its prerogatives. There were now
+four parties in France. The first consisted of the old aristocratic
+classes of the clergy and the nobles, now mostly emigrants, and busy
+in effecting a coalition of surrounding monarchies to quell the
+Revolution, and by fire and sword to reinstate the rejected despotism
+of the Bourbons.
+
+The second class was composed of the king and Mirabeau, with the queen
+reluctantly assenting to its principles, and others of the nobles
+and priests who were disposed, some from choice and others from the
+consciousness of necessity, partially to accept the Revolution. They
+were willing to adopt a constitution which should seriously limit
+the old prerogatives of the crown. But they wished to repudiate the
+constitution now adopted, and to form one less democratic, which would
+still grant many prerogatives to the king.
+
+The third party consisted of the great majority of the Assembly, headed
+by sincere and guileless patriots like La Fayette, and sustained
+probably by the great majority of the purest and best men in the
+kingdom, who were in favor of the constitution which the nation had
+accepted. While they did not regard it as perfect, they felt that it
+was a noble advance in the right direction, and that the salvation
+of the liberties of France now depended upon allegiance to this
+constitution.
+
+There was a fourth class, restless, tumultuous, uninformed, composed of
+the lowest portion of the populace, who could ever be roused to phrensy
+by the cry of "Aristocracy," who were ripe for any deeds of violence,
+and who regarded that firmness of law which protected order, property,
+and life as tyranny. They occupied the lowest possible platform of
+democracy.
+
+Such was the condition of France as the Constituent Assembly now
+endeavored to consolidate the new institutions and to bring harmony
+from the chaos into which the nation had been plunged. While in these
+circumstances of unparalleled peril, combined Europe was watching for
+an opportunity to pounce upon the distracted nation.
+
+All public functionaries were required to take oath to the new
+constitution. The clergy, as bound by the laws of the Romish Church,
+appealed to the Pope for instructions. At the same time the opposing
+bishops and nobles wrote to the Pope urging him to withhold his
+assent.[261] The king had sanctioned the decrees. The Pope, under
+various pretexts, postponed an answer. Many of the bishops and curates
+consequently refused to take the oath. The Assembly was not disposed
+to wait for the decision of a foreign potentate, and, accepting those
+bishops and curates who took the oath, immediately nominated new
+bishops and curates to take the place of those who refused. Justly
+and frankly the Assembly declared that it wished to do no violence to
+conscience, but that it could not appoint as public functionaries those
+men who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution
+of the kingdom. This increased exasperation, and enabled many of the
+bishops to appeal to the fanatic populace to rise in defense of the
+endangered Church.
+
+The emigrants now made a general rendezvous at Coblentz, in the
+territory of the Elector of Treves, and at other points of the
+frontier.[262] These men, composing what was called the court,
+consisted mainly of the higher nobles who had long been pampered with
+the favors of the monarchy, and who looked with contempt upon the
+nobles of the rural districts. Haughty, dissolute, and frivolous, they
+scorned any appeal to the popular arm, even to popular fanaticism for
+support. The only recourse to which they would condescend were the
+armies of England, Austria, and Prussia. The rural nobles, on the
+other hand, and the rural bishops, were secretly organizing their
+friends within the kingdom to fall fiercely in civil war upon the
+patriots so soon as the solid battalions of the allies should cross the
+frontiers.[263]
+
+In this state of things the king's aunts decided to leave France.
+They had proceeded in their carriage on the way to Rome as far as
+Arnay-le-Duc, when they were arrested. The feverish state of the public
+mind led to suspicions that their emigration might accelerate impending
+perils. The Assembly took the matter into deliberation whether the
+ladies should be permitted to depart. The question was settled by a
+keen sally of Menou.
+
+[Illustration: MOB OPPOSING THE FLIGHT OF THE KING'S AUNTS.]
+
+"All Europe," said he, "will be astonished to learn that a great
+Assembly has spent several days in deciding whether two old ladies
+shall hear mass at Paris or at Rome."
+
+The worthy ladies continued the journey without interruption. The
+king's next elder brother, usually called Monsieur, subsequently Louis
+XVIII., remained with the king in Paris. The next brother, however, the
+Count d'Artois, subsequently Charles X., was actively participating
+with the emigrants at Coblentz. The very difficult question respecting
+emigration was now brought forward in the Assembly. It seemed to be a
+gross act of tyranny to prohibit French citizens from withdrawing from
+or entering France at their pleasure. On the other hand the enemies
+of regenerated France were daily leaving the kingdom with all the
+resources they could collect; and from the frontier, where they were
+plotting foreign and civil war, they were continually entering the
+kingdom to make preparations for the invasion.
+
+Mirabeau, who was at this time conspiring for the escape of the king,
+with his accustomed vehemence and his overpowering audacity, opposed
+any law against emigration.[264]
+
+"I admit," said he, "that a bad use is made of this liberty at the
+present moment. But that by no means authorizes this absurd tyranny. I
+beg you to remember that I have all my life combated against tyranny,
+and that I will combat it wherever I find it. That popularity to which
+I have aspired, and which I have enjoyed, is not a feeble reed. I will
+thrust it deep into the earth, and will make it shoot up in the soil
+of justice and of reason. And I now solemnly swear, if a law against
+emigration is voted, I swear to disobey you."[265]
+
+The Assembly was truly in a dilemma. They could not prohibit emigration
+without grossly violating that declaration of rights which they had
+just adopted with solemnities which had arrested the attention of the
+world. They could not permit this flood of emigration without exposing
+France to ruin; for it was well known that the nobles, with all the
+wealth they could accumulate, were crossing the frontiers merely to
+organize themselves into armies for the invasion of France.
+
+Mirabeau never displayed more power than on this occasion, in overawing
+and commanding the Assembly. He succeeded in arresting the measure.
+This, however, was his last triumph. Disease was making rapid ravages,
+his frame was exhausted, and death approached. A sudden attack of
+colic confined him to his chamber, and soon all hope of recovery was
+relinquished. He was still the idol of the people, and crowds, in
+breathless silence, thronged around his abode, anxious to receive
+bulletins of his health. The king and the people alike mourned, for
+both were leaning upon that vigorous arm.
+
+He could not repress an expression of satisfaction in view of his
+labors and his accomplishments. To his servants he said, "Support this
+head, the greatest in France." "William Pitt," he remarked, "is the
+minister of preparations. He governs with threats. I would give him
+some trouble if I should live."[266] On the morning of his death he
+said to an attendant,
+
+"Open the window. I shall die to-day. All that can now be done is to
+envelop one's self in perfumes, to crown one's self with flowers,
+to surround one's self with music, that one may sink quietly into
+everlasting sleep."
+
+Soon, in a paroxysm of extreme agony, he called for opium, saying, "You
+promised to save me from needless suffering."
+
+To quiet him a cup was presented, and he was deceived with the
+assurance that it contained the desired fatal opiate. He swallowed
+the draught, and in a moment expired, in the forty-second year of his
+age. It was the 2d of April, 1791. His death caused profound grief.
+All parties vied alike in conferring honor upon his remains. The
+nation went into mourning, a magnificent funeral was arranged, and the
+body was deposited in the tomb with pomp surpassing that which had
+accompanied the burial of the ancient kings of France. Suspicions are
+still cherished that Mirabeau died the victim of poison.[267]
+
+The funeral of Mirabeau was the most imposing, popular, and extensive
+of any recorded in history, always excepting that unparalleled display
+of a nation's gratitude and grief which accompanied the transfer of the
+remains of Napoleon from St. Helena to the Invalides. It is estimated
+that four hundred thousand men took a part in the funeral pageant of
+Mirabeau. The streets were draped in mourning, and pavements, windows,
+balconies, and house-tops were thronged with sad and silent spectators.
+
+La Fayette headed the immense procession, and was followed by the
+whole Constituent Assembly, and by the whole club of Jacobins, who,
+in a dense mass, assumed to be chief mourners on the occasion, though
+Mirabeau had for some time held himself aloof from their tumultuous
+meetings. It was eight o'clock in the evening before the procession
+arrived at the Church of Saint Eustache, where a funeral oration was
+pronounced by Cérutti. The arms of twenty thousand of the National
+Guard were then discharged at once. The crash caused the very walls of
+the church to rock, shivering to atoms every pane of glass.
+
+It was now night, and, by the light of a hundred thousand torches,
+the procession resumed its course. New instruments of music had been
+invented, which were then heard for the first time--the trombone and
+the tamtam. As the vast procession traversed the streets through the
+gloomy shades of night, illumined by the glare of flickering torches,
+with the tolling of bells, blending, now with the wail of the chant and
+now with the pealing requiems of martial bands, all the elements of
+sublimity seemed combined to affect the heart and overawe the soul. It
+was near midnight when the sarcophagus was deposited in its tomb at the
+Church of Saint Geneviève, over whose portal was inscribed these words,
+
+ "AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE."
+
+Mirabeau was the master-spirit of the Revolution. After his death
+there were multitudes struggling for the leadership, with no man of
+sufficient prominence to attain and retain it. The funeral of Mirabeau
+was the funeral of emancipated France. From that hour the Revolution
+was on the rush to ruin.
+
+"Time," writes Michelet, "which reveals every thing, has revealed
+nothing that really proves the reproach of treason to be well founded.
+Mirabeau's real transaction was an error, a serious, fatal error, but
+one that was then shared by all in different degrees. At that time all
+men, of every party, from Cazalès and Maury down to Robespierre, and
+even to Marat, believed France to entertain Royalist opinions. All
+men wanted a king. The number of Republicans was truly imperceptible.
+Mirabeau believed that it was necessary to have a king with power,
+or no king at all. It is true that Mirabeau appears to have received
+sums to defray the expense of his immense correspondence with the
+Departments--a sort of ministry that he was organizing at his own
+house. He makes use of this subtle expression--this excuse which does
+not excuse him--that he had not been bought; _that he was paid, not
+sold_."[268]
+
+[Illustration: FUNERAL OF MIRABEAU.]
+
+The death of Mirabeau seemed to paralyze the hopes of the king, and
+he now resolved to spare no endeavors to secure his escape. On the
+18th of April the king took his carriage at Versailles, intending
+to ride to St. Cloud. A rumor spread through the city that he was
+contemplating flight. The populace collected and stopped the horses. La
+Fayette immediately hastened to the spot with a company of the guards,
+dispersed the mob, who offered no other violence than to obstruct
+the departure of the king, and cleared a passage. The king, however,
+who now wished to have it appear that he was held a prisoner, as most
+certainly he virtually was, refused to go, and returned indignantly
+into the palace.
+
+By the advice of his ministers he repaired to the Assembly, and
+complained warmly of the insult he had encountered. The king was
+received with the utmost kindness by the Assembly, cordially greeted,
+and was assured that every thing should be done to prevent the possible
+occurrence of another similar outrage.
+
+To disarm suspicion and appease the public mind the king, on the 23d of
+April, sent a letter to the foreign embassadors declaring that he had
+no intention of leaving France, that he was resolved to be faithful to
+the oath which he had taken to the Constitution, and that all those who
+intimated any thing to the contrary were his enemies and the enemies
+of the country. He soon after, however, declared to an envoy sent to
+him from the Emperor Leopold, that this letter by no means contained
+his real sentiments, but that it was wrung from him by the peril of his
+situation.[269]
+
+A conference of the foreign powers was held on the 20th of May, 1791,
+at Mantua, in Italy, where Leopold, Emperor of Austria, and brother of
+Marie Antoinette, then chanced to be. At this conference Count d'Artois
+appeared in behalf of the emigrants. Prussia was represented by Major
+Bischofverder, England by Lord Elgin, and Louis XVI. by the Count de
+Durfort. Several other of the kingdoms and principalities of Europe
+were represented on the occasion. The Count de Durfort returned from
+this conference to Louis XVI. in Paris, and brought him the following
+secret declaration in the name of the Emperor Leopold:[270]
+
+Austria engaged to assemble thirty-five thousand men on the frontiers
+of Flanders. At the same time fifteen thousand men from the smaller
+German States would attack Alsace. Fifteen thousand Swiss troops were
+to be marched on Lyons, and the King of Sardinia, whose daughter
+the Count d'Artois had married, was to assail Dauphiné. The king of
+Spain, cousin of Louis XVI., was to gather twenty thousand troops
+upon the slopes of the Pyrenees, to fall like an avalanche down upon
+southern France. Prussia engaged to co-operate cordially. The King of
+England, notwithstanding the eloquence of Burke's pamphlet, could not
+yet venture to call upon the liberty-loving English to engage in this
+infamous crusade against the independence and the liberty of a sister
+kingdom. But the king, as Elector of Hanover, engaged to take an active
+part in the war. A protest against the Revolution was to be drawn up
+in the name of the whole house of Bourbon, whose _divine right_ to
+despotism in France had been questioned by the French people, and this
+protest was to be signed by those branches of the Bourbons who were
+occupying the thrones of Spain, Naples, and Parma.[271]
+
+Plans for the invasion having been thus arranged, Louis XVI. resolved
+immediately to effect his escape to the frontier. He could then place
+himself at the head of these foreign armies, and lash France into
+obedience, and consign those patriots who had been toiling for liberty
+to the dungeon and the scaffold.
+
+Never was the condition of a nation more full of peril, or apparently
+more hopeless. This impending destruction was enough to drive any
+people into the madness of despair. It is hard to wear the fetters of
+bondage even when one has never known any thing better. But, after
+having once broken those chains and tasted the sweets of liberty, then
+to have the shackles riveted anew is what few human spirits can endure.
+
+It was not the intention of the king immediately to leave France.
+He arranged to go to Montmedy, about two hundred miles from Paris,
+taking the very retired Chalons road through Clermont and Varennes.
+The Marquis of Bouillé, a general entirely devoted to the court party,
+formed a camp at Montmedy to receive the king, under the pretense of
+watching hostile movements on the frontiers. Small detachments of
+cavalry were also very quietly posted at different points on the road
+to aid in the flight. All the arrangements were made for starting on
+the 20th of June.[272]
+
+The king, though on the whole a worthy man, and possessing some
+excellent traits of character, was in some points weak almost to
+imbecility. All the energy of the family was with the queen, and she,
+with the Marquis of Bouillé, planned the escape. They were often
+thwarted, however, in their wishes by the obstinacy of the king. La
+Fayette was entirely deceived, and but few even of the court were
+intrusted with the secret. Still, rumors of flight had been repeatedly
+circulated, and the people were in a state of constant anxiety lest
+the court should carry off the king. They hardly believed that the
+king himself wished to join the emigrants, and to urge war against the
+Constitution which he had sworn to accept.
+
+The Swiss Guards still surrounded the Tuileries. They were stationed,
+however, only at the exterior posts. The interior of the palace, the
+staircases, and the communications between the rooms were occupied by
+the National Guard, in whom the nation could place more reliance. It
+was a long-established custom that troops should be thus stationed
+throughout the palace, that the royal family might be protected from
+impertinence or from any irruption of popular violence. Since the
+terrible scenes of the 5th and 6th of October it became more important
+than ever that a strong guard should encircle the royal family. But
+while the ostensible duty of this guard was only to protect the king
+from insult, it had also a secret mission to prevent the king's escape.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 258: "I have read many histories of revolutions, and can
+affirm what a Royalist avowed in 1791, that never had any great
+revolution cost less bloodshed and weeping. In reality, only one
+class, the clergy, was able, with any appearance of truth, to call
+itself robbed; and, nevertheless, the result of that spoliation was,
+that the great bulk of the clergy, starved under the old system
+for the emolument of a few prelates, had at length a comfortable
+livelihood."--_Michelet_, p. 417.]
+
+[Footnote 259: "If I had never lived with Mirabeau," says Dumont, "I
+should never have known what a man can make of one day--what things may
+be placed within the interval of twelve hours. A day for this man is
+more than a week or a month is for others. The mass of things he guided
+on together was prodigious; from the scheming to the executing, not a
+moment lost."--_Dumont_, p. 311.]
+
+[Footnote 260: Michelet, p. 333.]
+
+[Footnote 261: Thiers, vol. i., p. 166. Ferrières, t. ii., p. 198.]
+
+[Footnote 262: "Many of the emigrants had joined the army in a state
+of complete destitution. Others were spending improvidently the last
+relics of their fortunes. All were in good spirits, for the camp life
+was free and joyous. They confidently believed that the end of autumn
+would find them restored to their splendid homes, to their groves, to
+their forests, and to their dove-cots."--_Chateaubriand's Memoirs of
+the Duke de Berri._]
+
+[Footnote 263: See Recueil de divers Ecrits relatif à la Revolution, p.
+62; also Chateaubriand's Memoirs of the Duke de Berri.
+
+In reference to England Michelet remarks, with much truth: "The
+first power is aristocracy, the second aristocracy, and the third
+aristocracy. This aristocracy goes on incessantly recruiting its body
+with all those who grow rich. To be rich in order to be noble is the
+absorbing thought of the Englishman. Property, specially territorial
+and feudal, is the religion of the country."--_Michelet's French
+Revolution_, p. 432.]
+
+[Footnote 264: "The meeting ended at half past five, and Mirabeau went
+to the house of his sister, his intimate and dear confidante, and said
+to her, 'I have pronounced my death-warrant. It is now all over with
+me, for they will kill me.'"--_Michelet_, p. 461.]
+
+[Footnote 265: The peculiar character of Mirabeau is illustrated by
+the following well-authenticated anecdote. He was, on one occasion,
+reading a report to the Assembly upon some riots in Marseilles, which
+he affirmed were fomented by the partisans of the court. He was
+incessantly interrupted by the aristocratic party with such abusive
+epithets as "calumniator, liar, assassin, scoundrel." He stopped
+a moment, looked at them with an imperturbable smile, and, in his
+most honeyed tones, said, "Gentlemen, I wait till these amenities be
+exhausted."--_Dumont, Souvenirs_, p. 278.]
+
+[Footnote 266: The English _people_ were at this time generally in
+sympathy with the Revolution. The aristocratic _government_ of England
+was in deadly hostility to it. In 1792, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, then
+head scholar in Jesus College, Cambridge, wrote an Ode to France,
+commencing with the words,
+
+ "When France, in wrath, her giant limbs upreared,
+ And, with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea,
+ Stamped her strong foot, and said she would be free,
+ Bear witness for me how I hoped and feared."
+
+In consequence of this ode, and his avowed attachment to the
+principles of the Revolution, he became so obnoxious to his superiors
+that he was constrained to leave the college abruptly, without a
+degree.--_Cyclopædia of English Literature, Article S.T. Coleridge._]
+
+[Footnote 267: M. Thiers, in the impetuosity of his narrative, is not
+always accurate in details. He gives the 20th of April as the date of
+Mirabeau's death. Mignet assigns it to the 2d of March. Nearly all
+other authorities agree upon the 2d of April. It is indeed wonderful
+that upon such a subject there should be such a diversity of statement.
+The event at the time was deemed so momentous, that the Jacobin Club
+voted that the anniversary of his death should, through all future
+time, be celebrated with funereal pomp.]
+
+[Footnote 268: Mirabeau claims, and his friends claim for him, and
+probably with justice, that he wished to be the mediator between the
+Revolution and the monarchy--to save royalty and liberty, believing
+that, under the circumstances, royalty was essential to liberty. But
+the folly of the court thwarted every endeavor. They would not accede
+to any measure of justice and moderation. The court wished only to make
+him unpopular. Mirabeau saw his position, from which no struggles could
+extricate him, and he died of disappointment and grief. Had he not then
+died, he would, in a few months, have inevitably perished upon the
+scaffold. See _Mémoires de Mirabeau_, vol. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 269: Bertrand de Moleville.]
+
+[Footnote 270: Mignet, p. 101. Villiaumé, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 271: Fox and others of the most illustrious of the English
+commoners had in the parliament expressed their sympathy for the French
+patriots. A very strenuous effort was made to unite the Whig party
+in opposition to liberty in France. A meeting was held at Burlington
+House. Mr. Burke was the organ of the aristocracy. The animated
+discussion was continued from ten o'clock at night until three in the
+morning. But the differences of opinion were found irreconcilable,
+and only resulted in the permanent alienation of Fox and Burke.--_See
+Lectures on the French Revolution, by Prof. Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p.
+84.]
+
+La Fayette, to whom the whole business was intrusted, oppressed with
+the responsibility of his office, was continually, by night and by day,
+visiting the posts. To the officers who had charge of the night-watch
+he had given secret orders that the king was not to be permitted to
+leave the palace after midnight. Thus the king was truly a prisoner,
+and he was fully conscious of it, though every possible effort was
+adopted to conceal from him the humiliating fact.
+
+M. Bouillé and the queen were compelled to yield to the whims of the
+king, and to adopt measures which threatened to frustrate the plan. The
+king insisted upon having an immense carriage constructed which could
+take the whole party, though the unusual appearance of the carriage
+would instantly attract all eyes; he insisted upon traveling a very
+unfrequented route, which would excite the curiosity of every one who
+should see the carriage pass; he insisted upon stationing military
+detachments along the route, though Bouillé urged that such detachments
+if small could render no service, and if large would excite suspicion;
+he insisted upon taking the governess of the children, because the
+governess said that she loved the children too much to be separated
+from them, though Bouillé urged that instead of the incumbrance of a
+governess they should take in the carriage an officer accustomed to
+traveling, and who could aid in any unexpected emergency. The king,
+though fickle as the wind upon questions of great moment, was, like all
+weak men, inflexible upon trifles.[273]
+
+At midnight of the 20th of June, the king, the queen, Madame Elizabeth,
+the sister of the king, the two royal children, and Madame Tourzel
+their governess, carefully disguised themselves in one of the interior
+rooms of the Tuileries. Creeping cautiously down, in three successive
+parties, an obscure flight of stairs, and emerging by a gate which
+was contrived to be left unguarded, the fugitives, mingling with the
+groups of people who ever at that time were leaving the chateau,
+crossed the Carrousel, and, taking different streets, groped along
+through the darkness until they all met on the Quai des Théatins, where
+two hackney-coaches awaited them. In breathless silence they took
+their seats. The Count de Fersen, a Prussian noble, young, handsome,
+enthusiastic, who was inspired with a chivalric admiration of Marie
+Antoinette, had made all the arrangements for the escape from the
+city. Disguised as a coachman, he conducted the king, who led the
+young dauphin by the hand. The count immediately mounted the box of
+the coach which contained the royal family, and drove rapidly some
+twelve miles to the little town of Bondy, where the capacious carriage
+constructed for the king was waiting before the door of an Englishman,
+Mr. Crawford. At the same hour in a similar manner the king's brother,
+Monsieur the Count of Provence, subsequently Louis XVIII., left the
+Palace of the Luxembourg, and with his family traveled all night toward
+Flanders, where he crossed the frontiers in safety.
+
+At Bondy the king, the queen, Madame Elizabeth, the two children,
+Maria Theresa being about ten years of age and Louis seven, with
+their governess, took their seats in the large carriage. One of the
+body-guard of the king, disguised as a servant, sat on the box, and
+another, as footman, sat behind. M. de Vallory rode on horseback, that
+he might gallop forward and order the relays of horses. The waiting
+women of the queen, who, by the strangest infatuation, had been
+included in the party, took the other carriage.
+
+The Marquis of Bouillé, an energetic, heroic man, finding that he could
+not control the arrangements of the king, did every thing in his power
+to avert the suspicion which the strange-looking cortège would be
+likely to excite. He had a passport prepared, in which the governess
+was represented as a German baroness, Madame de Korff, traveling
+with her two children. The king was her valet-de-chambre, the queen
+her waiting-maid. The proverbial wealth of the German barons and the
+peculiar style of the equipage to which they were accustomed happily
+favored this idea.[274]
+
+The morning was just beginning to dawn as Count Fersen kissed the
+hands of the king and queen and left them to prosecute their perilous
+journey, while he took flight for the frontier through Flanders. The
+coach was drawn by six horses, who were driven at the utmost speed,
+relays of horses having been established at short stages. The sun at
+length rose bright and cheerful. The country was smiling in all the
+verdure of blooming June. Every revolution of the wheels was bearing
+them farther from Paris. It was hardly possible that their flight
+could be discovered until a late hour in the morning. There were no
+telegraphs in those days to send intelligence with lightning speed
+to arrest their flight. Having six or eight hours the start of their
+pursuers, and being abundantly supplied with fresh horses, escape
+seemed now almost certain. Hope began to cheer their hearts.
+
+Some slight interruptions had retarded their progress, and it was about
+three o'clock in the afternoon when they entered Chalons, some ninety
+miles from Paris. The queen, with an exultant smile, exclaimed, "All
+goes well. If we were to have been stopped at all it would have been
+before now."
+
+At Chalons they exchanged horses. The king now felt that he was safe,
+for the Marquis of Bouillé had posted detachments of troops at every
+important point between Chalons and Montmedy. With characteristic
+imprudence, as the carriage was surrounded with idlers at Chalons, the
+king put his head out of the window, showing his well-known face to the
+crowd. The postmaster instantly recognized the king, but, being himself
+an ardent Royalist, divulged not his secret, but aided in putting in
+the fresh horses, and ordered the postillions to drive on.
+
+About ten miles from Chalons is the bridge of Sommeville, which crosses
+a narrow stream, where the Duke of Choiseul and M. Goguelat were
+stationed with fifty hussars. They were to secure the king's passage,
+and then to remain and block up the road against all pursuers. Faithful
+to the plan, they were at the bridge, with the mounted hussars, at the
+appointed hour. The strange assemblage of a military force at that spot
+excited the curiosity of the peasants, and a great crowd was gathered.
+Every mind throughout France was then in a very sensitive state. The
+crowd increased, and in the adjoining villages the alarm-bells were
+beginning to ring. As the royal carriages did not appear for five or
+six hours later than they were expected, the Duke of Choiseul, to
+appease the ferment, left the spot, and the people then dispersed.
+
+Soon after the detachment had left the king arrived, and was surprised
+to find no troops. It was then between four and five o'clock in the
+evening. In great perplexity and anxiety he drove rapidly on two hours
+farther to St. Menehould, where he was to find another detachment of
+troops; but the Duke of Choiseul had sent forward to St. Menehould and
+Chalons, informing the detachments there that he had waited six hours
+for the arrival of the king; that the plan had probably miscarried;
+that excitement was rapidly rising among the people; and that the
+detachments had better retire.
+
+The king, unaware of all this, was astonished and bewildered in still
+finding no troops, and naturally, but imprudently, again looked out of
+the window. The excited crowd which was gathered around the carriages
+suspected that they contained the royal family. A young man named
+Drouet, son of the postmaster, instantly recognized the king, from
+his resemblance to the imprint on the coins in circulation. Without
+communicating his discovery to any one, he mounted a horse, and, taking
+a cross road, galloped some twelve or fifteen miles to Varennes, to
+inform the municipality and cause the arrest of the party.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 272: "The princes," writes M. Fromont, "conceived the plan
+of forming legions of all the loyal subjects of the king. Desiring
+to be at the head of those Royalists whom I had commanded in 1789, I
+wrote to Count d'Artois, begging his royal highness to grant me the
+commission of colonel, worded so that every Royalist who would raise a
+legion might hope for a like favor. The members of his council thought
+it so strange that a _commoner_ should aspire to a military commission,
+that one of them said to me angrily, 'Why did you not ask for a
+bishopric?'"--_Recueil de divers Ecrits relatifs à la Revolution_, p.
+62.]
+
+[Footnote 273: "What grieves us, moreover, among other things, in
+this journey to Varennes, and lessens the idea we would like to
+entertain of the king's goodness of heart, is the indifference with
+which he sacrificed, by his departure, and abandoned to death men
+who were sincerely attached to him. By the force of circumstances La
+Fayette found himself to be the involuntary guardian of the king, and
+responsible to the nation for his person. He had shown in various ways,
+and sometimes even in compromising the Revolution, that he desired,
+beyond every thing else, the restoration of the kingly power, as the
+guarantee of order and tranquillity. There was every reason to suppose
+that, at the startling news of the king's departure, La Fayette would
+be torn to pieces.
+
+"La Fayette, receiving warnings from several quarters, would believe
+nobody but the king himself. He went to him and asked him whether there
+was any truth in the reports. Louis XVI. gave such a decided, simple
+answer, and in such a good-natured manner, that La Fayette went away
+completely satisfied, and it was merely to calm the anxiety of the
+public that he doubled his guard."--_Michelet_, p. 573.]
+
+[Footnote 274: The passport was made out as follows: "De par le roi.
+Mandons de laisser passer Madame le Baron de Korff, se rendant à
+Franckfort avec ses deux enfants, une femme de chambre, un valet de
+chambre, et trois domestiques."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ARREST OF THE ROYAL FUGITIVES.
+
+ Arrival at Varennes.--The Party arrested.--Personal Appearance of the
+ King.--The Guards fraternize with the People.--Indignation of the
+ Crowd.--The Captives compelled to return to Paris.--Dismay of M. de
+ Bouillé.--Excitement in Paris.--The Mob ransack the Tuileries.--Acts
+ of the Assembly.--Decisive Action of La Fayette.--Proclamation of the
+ King.--The Jacobin Club.--Unanimity of France.
+
+
+The carriages were driven rapidly forward, while the royal family sat
+perplexed and silent, yet quite unprepared for the doom which was
+impending. An hour's drive brought them to Clermont. Here the king
+found two squadrons of horse, under Count de Dumas. But the detachments
+of dragoons moving to and fro had excited suspicion, and the populace
+of Clermont had been roused, and gathered alarmingly around the
+carriages.
+
+The municipal authorities examined the passports of the travelers,
+and, finding all apparently correct, allowed them to proceed, but,
+calling out a detachment of the National Guard, forbade the Dragoons to
+leave the town. The Dragoons, whose sympathies were with the people,
+and who knew not on what mission they had been led by their officers,
+immediately fraternized with the Guards, and their commander, Count
+Dumas, was indebted to the fleetness of his horse for his escape from
+arrest. It was midnight when the carriages arrived at Varennes. This
+little town is situated on both banks of a narrow stream united by a
+bridge. A tower is at one end of the bridge, supported by a massive and
+gloomy arch, which arch must be traversed with care to enter upon the
+bridge, and where a very slight obstacle would prevent any advance;
+"a relic," says Lamartine, "of the feudal system, in which the nobles
+captured the serfs, and where, by a strange retribution, the people
+were destined to capture the monarchy."
+
+The royal family, entirely exhausted with sleeplessness, anxiety,
+and the travel of twenty-four hours, were all asleep, when the few
+scattering lights of the town were perceived. They were to change
+horses here, and the king was distinctly informed that they would find
+the horses _before crossing the river_. It was, however, afterward
+decided, without communicating the change to the king, that the fresh
+horses should be stationed on the other side of the bridge. Thus
+the carriages could cross the bridge at full speed, and, in case of
+any popular tumult, could more easily effect a change of horses and
+departure on the other side.
+
+The king and queen, greatly alarmed in finding no relay of horses,
+themselves left the carriage, and groped about through the darkened
+streets seeking for them in vain. A few lights burned dimly here
+and there in the houses, but all else was the silence and gloom of
+midnight. The king even knocked at a few doors where lights were seen,
+and inquired for the relays. The half-roused sleepers could give him no
+intelligence.
+
+In thus traveling by relays of horses in Europe, each relay has its
+postillions, who go their appointed stage only. The postillions who had
+drawn the carriage from the last post-house, entirely unconscious of
+the dignity of their passengers, having fulfilled their appointed task,
+weary of waiting, threatened to unharness their horses and leave the
+carriage in the street until the relay should arrive. By dint of bribes
+the king induced them to cross the bridge and continue the journey.
+
+Just as they entered the arch beneath the tower to cross the bridge,
+and when enveloped in almost Egyptian darkness, the horses were stopped
+by a cart which obstructed the way. Some men seized the bridles of the
+leaders, and one man on horseback shouted at the window of the carriage
+the appalling words,
+
+"In the name of the nation, stop! You are driving the king."
+
+Drouet had effectually accomplished his design. Taking a shorter
+road than that which the carriage pursued, he rode directly to a
+stable, communicated his secret to the inn-keeper and sent him to give
+the alarm, while he, with a few comrades whom he hastily gathered,
+barricaded the bridge with the cart and such other heavy articles as
+they could lay their hands upon. The delay upon the other side just
+gave them time to do this before the carriage entered the vaulted
+archway.
+
+The king and queen were thunderstruck, and their hearts sank in
+dismay. Immediately they perceived the signs of a great tumult. The
+village bells were ringing. Lights were flashing through the gloom.
+An undefined uproar seemed to increase in the streets, while crowds
+were collecting on the bridge. One man with a lantern in his hand half
+entered the carriage and cast the light full upon the faces of each one
+of the inmates. The travelers were then commanded to alight and exhibit
+their passports. Drouet, taking the passports, conducted the captives
+in their carriage back again from the bridge to the door of the mayor
+of the little town, a grocer by the name of Sausse.
+
+Here there was quite a debate. The passports were made out correctly.
+The party corresponded with the description. They all declared that
+they were the Baroness de Korff with her attendants. Sausse appeared
+to be satisfied. But Drouet, a young man of unusual intelligence and
+energy, demanded,
+
+"Why is not the passport signed by the President of the National
+Assembly? And if you are foreigners, how is it that you have influence
+to procure fifty dragoons to escort you at St. Menehould, and as many
+more at Clermont? And why is there a detachment of hussars waiting for
+you at Varennes?"
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. ARRESTED AT VARENNES.]
+
+In the eagerness of the altercation it became very evident that
+the counterfeit servants were not menials, and that the assumed
+baroness was not accustomed to exercise authority over her pretended
+maid-servant and valet de chambre. By this time a sufficient number
+of the National Guard had assembled to prevent the possibility of the
+rescue of the captives by the Hussars. The queen, seeing that all
+farther attempts at deception were useless, and indignant at the
+disrespect with which her husband was treated, exclaimed,
+
+"Since you acknowledge him to be your king, speak to him with the
+respect which you owe him!"
+
+[Illustration: SCENE AT VARENNES.]
+
+The whole party had thus far remained in the carriage. The tumult was
+rapidly increasing. The bells were ringing, guns firing, drums beating,
+and a crowd of men and women, in disordered dresses and eagerly
+vociferating, was fast gathering around the captives. Lights in the
+distance were seen hurrying to and fro, and armed men in tumultuous
+bands of excitement and consternation were rushing from all directions.
+Respectfully Sausse, who appears to have been a very humane man, urged
+them to alight, and for their own protection to enter the door of the
+grocery. They did so, and sat down upon the boxes, barrels, and bags
+which were scattered around. The king now, to save himself from farther
+insults, appealed to the loyalty of his subjects. He rose, and with
+dignity said to the crowd,
+
+"Yes! I am your king. Behold the queen and my children. We entreat you
+to treat us with the respect which the French have always shown to
+their sovereigns."
+
+With the exception of that courtliness of manners which is almost the
+inheritance of high birth, there was nothing in the king's personal
+appearance to inspire deference. Though a somewhat educated and
+accomplished man, he was totally destitute of any administrative skill
+or of any initiative powers. He would have embellished almost any
+situation in private life, as a kind-hearted, conscientious, exemplary
+man. The costume of a servant, a steward, a tutor, a clerk, was far
+more in accordance with his abilities and his character than the
+insignia of royalty. His figure was swollen by a flabby obesity, the
+result of a ravenous appetite and indolent habits. His legs were too
+short for his body; the expression of his countenance unintellectual
+and stolid.
+
+As he appeared before the peasants and townsmen of Varennes that night,
+exhausted with fatigue and terror, in the mean dress of a _valet_, in
+a disordered wig, his fat cheeks pale and shrunken, with livid lips
+aghast and speechless, he excited first emotions of surprise, then
+of contempt, then of unfeigned pity. "What, that the king! that the
+queen!" the crowd exclaimed in amazement. The piteous spectacle brought
+tears into the eyes even of many of the most hostile and obdurate.
+
+Varennes was but thirty miles from Montmedy, which, though in France,
+was directly on the Germanic frontier. Thus the citizens of Varennes
+were at but a few hours' march from those terrible armies of the
+Continent which were threatening to sweep over France with flame
+and blood. Knowing that their town might be one of the first to
+encounter the horrors of war, they had been living in the midst of
+the most terrific alarms. They had hoped that the king was, in heart,
+in sympathy with the nation, and would place himself at the head of
+the nation to resist the invaders. Surprise, grief, and indignation
+struggled in their hearts as they found that the king was actually
+endeavoring to escape from France to join their enemies. None but those
+who live on the frontier at such a time can fully realize the terrible
+significance of the words _the enemy_.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the multitude, "the king running away, abandoning us,
+his children, and becoming a traitor to the nation; going over to the
+_enemy_, to aid them to burn our homes and massacre us all!"
+
+Some wept; others execrated; others threatened to shoot the king upon
+the spot. The simple-hearted peasants were, in intelligence, mere
+children. They had been educated to regard the monarchy as paternal
+and the king as their father. Choiseul and Goguelat, who, it will be
+remembered, were stationed at the bridge of Sommeville with fifty
+hussars, now came clattering into the streets of Varennes with their
+detachment. At the same time Count Dumas arrived, who had escaped alone
+from his dragoons, they having abandoned him at St. Menehould.
+
+The grocer's shop was surrounded with a crowd armed with muskets,
+pitchforks, and axes. Notwithstanding many fierce threats, the officers
+forced their way through the crowd and entered the shop. There they
+found the royal family in a deplorable condition. The little boy,
+Louis, the dauphin, was happily asleep on a low cot bed. His sister,
+Maria Theresa, three years older, in great terror, was sitting on
+a bench between her governess and her aunt Elizabeth, clinging
+tremblingly to their hands. The king and queen were standing by the
+side of M. Sausse, imploring him to permit them to continue on their
+way.
+
+Choiseul, grasping significantly the hilt of his sword, said boldly to
+the king, "Sire, please give immediate orders to depart. I have forty
+hussars. No time is to be lost. In one hour they will be gained over by
+the people."
+
+This was true. The hussars were Germans. Blindly obeying their
+officers, they had no idea of the commission upon which they had been
+sent. They were now surrounded by the populace, and were listening,
+with surprise and sympathy, to their narrative of the events. At
+this critical moment the municipality of Varennes, accompanied by
+the officers of the National Guard in that place, entered the shop.
+Accustomed as they had long been to revere and almost to adore royalty,
+for the rural districts had by no means kept pace with Paris in
+disregard of the throne, the officers threw themselves upon their knees
+before the king and said,
+
+"In God's name, sire, do not forsake us; do not quit the kingdom."
+
+"It is not my intention," the king replied, "to leave France. The
+insults I have suffered force me to leave Paris. I am going only to
+Montmedy, and I invite you to accompany me thither; only give orders, I
+pray you, for my carriages to be got ready."
+
+The municipal authorities departed to deliberate, begging the king to
+wait till the light should dawn. It was now two o'clock in the morning.
+The chances of escape were every moment diminishing. The crowd, armed
+with such weapons as they could on the moment seize, had become
+formidable; the bridge was so barricaded that it could not be passed;
+and but little reliance could be placed in the fidelity of the hussars.
+There was, however, a ford near by, where the stream could be passed
+on horseback. Choiseul and Goguelat entreated the king and queen, with
+the ladies, immediately to mount on horseback, the king holding the
+dauphin on the saddle, and, protected by the forty hussars, to cross
+the stream, and attempt to effect their escape.
+
+The queen, whose personal heroism never forsook her, looked at her
+children, thought of the bullets which might be showered upon them,
+and, yielding to a mother's love, hesitated. The king also, who never
+dishonored himself by an act of cowardice, thought only of the peril of
+those who were dearer to him than life, and said,
+
+"But can you assure me that in this struggle a shot may not strike the
+queen, my sister, or the children? Besides, the municipality does not
+forbid to let us pass; it merely requests me to wait till daybreak.
+Moreover, the Marquis de Bouillé is at Stenay, but twenty-four miles
+distant. He can not fail to learn of my detention, and he will be here
+with his troops in the morning."
+
+Another weary hour of agitation, tumult, and gathering excitement
+passed away, and the clock struck three. The hussars were now
+completely gained over by the people, and were drinking with them "To
+the Nation."
+
+The municipal authorities, having briefly deliberated, returned to the
+king with this short but terrible announcement,
+
+"The people, being absolutely opposed to the king continuing his
+journey, have resolved to dispatch a courier to the National Assembly
+in order to be informed of its intentions."
+
+M. de Goguelat now went out into the surging crowd to judge if it were
+possible to fight their way through. Mounting his horse he rode slowly
+around, when Drouet approached him and said, "You want to carry off the
+king, but you shall not have him alive."
+
+The carriage was surrounded by a body of the National Guard. Goguelat
+approached the carriage with a few hussars who still hesitatingly
+obeyed his orders, when the major in command of the detachment of the
+National Guard said to him, "One step farther, and I shoot you."
+
+Goguelat spurred his horse on, when a pistol was discharged. Two
+bullets struck him, and he fell bleeding to the ground. He was,
+however, able to rise and enter the shop, but the hussars immediately
+with acclaim avowed themselves the soldiers of the nation. Goguelat
+had observed also that at the end of the street there were two cannons
+planted which seemed ready to fire upon them. There was no longer the
+possibility of escape by force, unless M. de Bouillé should chance to
+arrive in season with his well-trained dragoons.
+
+As Goguelat, wounded and covered with blood, again entered the presence
+of the royal family, they presented a heart-rending spectacle. The
+queen was sitting upon a bench between two boxes of candles, piteously
+pleading with the grocer's wife to intercede with her husband in their
+behalf.
+
+"You are a mother, madame," said the queen; "you are a wife; the fate
+of a wife and mother is in your hands. Think what I must suffer for
+these children, for my husband. At one word from you I shall owe them
+to you. The Queen of France will owe you more than her kingdom, more
+than life."
+
+There is an instinct, unreflecting, in the human heart, which says that
+it would have been _noble_ in the woman to have periled every thing
+to save the queen. The universal heart does homage to disinterested
+benevolence, even when it is unthinking and mistaken. But in this case
+the good woman, with very natural and prosaic common sense, said,
+
+"I wish it were in my power to help you. But bless me! you are thinking
+of your husband and I am thinking of mine. Every woman for her own
+husband."
+
+This speech certainly did not indicate a heroic nature. But it is
+obvious that M. Sausse had now no power to save the king. Matters had
+proceeded far beyond his control. If he could by any stratagem have
+facilitated the flight, his own life would have been the inevitable
+forfeit. It would have been treason to the nation. Humanity also seemed
+imperiously to demand that the king should be stopped. His escape would
+place him at the head of foreign and hostile armies to ravage France
+with the horrors of war, and to quench the kindling flame of liberty in
+blood.
+
+The queen, whose energetic mind foresaw the awful future, was
+overwhelmed and burst into tears. The king had now lost all
+self-possession, and was bewildered as a child. The people, who began
+to be apprehensive that the troops of Bouillé might come to the
+rescue, were crowding the door and shouting, "Back, back to Paris."
+
+The king was urged to show himself, that he might tranquilize the
+people. He went to a window and looked out upon the excited multitude,
+over whom a few torches shed a lurid light. The sight of the king at
+first produced profound silence. The people then, as versatile as
+children, were so affected by the appearance of the king in his servile
+dress, and with his woe-worn countenance, that many wept; and while not
+one word of insult was heard, many cried out, in compassionate tones,
+_Vive le Roi_!
+
+The day was then just beginning to dawn. Gradually the sun rose, and
+shone upon a strange spectacle. The guns, the drums, the alarm-bells
+had roused the whole country around. Ten thousand men had already
+assembled in Varennes, choking the narrow street where the grocery
+stood. From all directions the country people were seen hurrying to the
+town, as the strange tidings of the attempted flight and arrest were
+spreading far and wide. As the crowd increased in the streets, and the
+gloom of night was dispelled by the bright blaze of day, the tumult
+rose higher and higher. All sympathy for the royal family seemed to
+give place to a feeling of indignation, that they should be stealing
+away to lead foreign armies to make war upon the liberties of France.
+
+At seven o'clock the door opened, and the king beheld, to his surprise,
+an officer of the National Guard of Paris. His dress was disordered,
+and he was dusty and worn with hurried travel. The man was greatly
+agitated when he found himself in the presence of the king, and could
+only stammer, in broken and almost incoherent phrase, the words,
+
+"Sire, all Paris is being murdered; our wives and children are perhaps
+assassinated; you shall not go any farther; sire, the interests of the
+state; yes, sire, our wives and our children."
+
+The queen seized the hand of the officer, and, leading him to a humble
+bed in the corner, where the two royal children, Maria and Louis,
+utterly exhausted, were sleeping, said to him, as she pointed to the
+children,
+
+"Am I not a mother also?"[275]
+
+The king, interrupting her, turned abruptly to the officer, and said,
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Sire," he replied, "I have a decree of the Assembly."
+
+"Where is it?" inquired the king.
+
+"My comrade has it," was the reply.
+
+Just then the door opened, and M. de Romeuf entered. He was an
+aide-de-camp of the Marquis de la Fayette and a true patriot, while at
+the same time he was well known by the royal family as a friend of the
+king. He entered, holding the decree in his hand, greatly agitated;
+and, as he beheld the humiliating condition of the sovereign of France,
+and was conscious of the most painful duty devolving upon himself, he
+could not restrain his emotions, but bowed his head and wept bitterly.
+There is not a generous heart on earth which will not be in sympathy
+with that grief.
+
+As the queen raised her eyes and saw M. de Romeuf enter, she exclaimed,
+with surprise and indignation,
+
+"What, sir, is it you? Oh! I could never have believed it possible."
+Romeuf replied sadly, "We have done only our duty; but we hoped not to
+have overtaken your majesties."[276]
+
+The king took from the hand of Romeuf the decree of the Assembly
+and hastily read it. It was an order enjoining upon all public
+functionaries "to stop, by all the means in their power, _the abduction
+of the king_, and to prevent the continuance of the journey."
+
+The king indignantly threw the decree upon the bed where the children
+were sleeping, and exclaimed, in words whose truth he then by no means
+fully realized,
+
+"_There is no longer any King in France_."
+
+The queen, with pardonable but very injudicious passion, picked up the
+decree of the National Assembly and threw it upon the floor, saying
+vehemently,
+
+"It shall not defile my children."
+
+"Madame," said Romeuf sorrowfully to the queen, to whom he was much
+attached, "in the name of your safety, your glory, I entreat you to
+control your grief. Would you rather have any one but me witness these
+passions?"
+
+The gentle reproach recalled the queen to herself, and she nerved
+herself to endurance, calmness, and dignity. The mental agony of
+that dreadful night had already turned her hair from auburn into the
+whiteness of snow.
+
+It was greatly feared that the troops of Bouillé might come and rescue
+the king. Preparations for the departure were therefore hastened.
+Six horses were harnessed into the carriage, and the royal family,
+notwithstanding they did every thing in their power to cause delay,
+were forced to take their seats. The queen would not allow any one to
+touch her son, but carried him in her own arms to the carriage.
+
+The melancholy cortège now commenced its slow progress toward Paris,
+escorted by four thousand of the National Guard.
+
+M. de Bouillé, as we have mentioned, was at Stenay, at but the distance
+of eight leagues from Varennes, with several regiments of soldiers
+under his command, waiting the arrival of the king. Had the king but
+reached that stage he would have been safe. Bouillé was in a state of
+great anxiety, and during the night had rode forward to within six
+miles of Varennes, hoping to meet the king. Perplexed by the delay,
+and anxious lest he should be abandoned by his soldiers, in whom he
+could place but little confidence, he rode back to Stenay, and had just
+arrived there, at half past four in the morning, when he received the
+intelligence that the king was arrested, that the alarm-bells were
+ringing, that the whole country was aroused, and the National Guard
+in Stenay, Metz, and Verdun were rapidly forming in defense of the
+_Nation_.
+
+Under these circumstances there was but one regiment in whom M. Bouillé
+could repose any confidence--the Royal German--and but one officer, his
+own son, in whom he could confide.
+
+Bouillé was an energetic and brave man. He immediately called out the
+German regiment, and by the influence of impassioned language and
+enormous bribes to every man induced them to start for the rescue.
+Almost with the speed of the whirlwind these strongly mounted dragoons
+swept the space intervening between Stenay and Varennes. It was a
+quarter of nine o'clock before they reached the town. The National
+Guard, anticipating this movement, was strongly posted to repel them.
+As Bouillé was reconnoitring in preparation for an attack, he was
+informed that the king had been gone more than an hour and a half;
+that the bridge was broken down, the streets barricaded; that M. de
+Choiseul, M. de Goguelat, and M. de Dumas were prisoners; that their
+hussars had fraternized with the people; that the garrisons of Metz
+and Verdun were rapidly approaching to attack him, and that the whole
+country around was swarming with troops and National Guards roused by
+the peril of the nation.
+
+The horses of the dragoons were entirely exhausted by the forced drive
+of twenty-four miles; the soldiers themselves gave manifest symptoms of
+hesitation. All hope was gone. Bouillé slowly, sadly, silently retraced
+his steps. At Stenay popular enthusiasm had gained all hearts. His
+soldiers abandoned him, and he narrowly escaped with his life across
+the frontier to Luxembourg.
+
+We must now return to Paris to record the scenes which transpired
+there after the flight of the king. At seven o'clock in the morning
+of the 21st of June the servants at the Tuileries, on entering the
+apartments of the king and queen, found the beds undisturbed and the
+rooms deserted. The alarm was speedily spread through the palace, and
+flew from the chateau like wild-fire through the streets and into the
+faubourgs. "The king has escaped!" was upon all lips. The crowd, in
+countless thousands, rushed to the Tuileries. They pressed in at the
+doors and up the stairs, and explored all the mysterious interior of
+the palace. The most vile and degraded of the population of the city
+are always foremost on such occasions. The awe which they at first felt
+soon gave place to derision.
+
+A portrait of the king was taken from his bed-chamber and hung up at
+the gate of the chateau. A fruit-woman emptied her basket of cherries
+upon the queen's bed, and sat down upon the bed to sell her venture,
+saying "It is the Nation's turn to-day to take their ease." Some one
+placed a cap from the queen's wardrobe upon the head of a young girl.
+She threw it contemptuously on the floor and trampled upon it, saying
+"It will sully my forehead."
+
+For several hours the whole city was in a state of intense
+consternation. The departure of the king was associated in all minds
+with the approach of foreign armies, the bombardment of Paris, the
+sweep of dragoons through the streets, the assassination of the
+patriots, and the extinction of liberty. The alarm-bells rang, drums
+beat to arms, minute-guns were fired, and the National Guard rallied at
+all their rendezvous. But in the midst of these alarms there appeared
+an apparition which excited intense alarm in the bosoms of all the
+friends of enlightened liberty and order.
+
+It consisted of vast gatherings of haggard, wretched-looking men, the
+most worthless and abandoned of the population of a great city, under
+their own fierce leaders, armed with pikes and all wearing a red cap,
+the _bonnet rouge_. Santerre, a brewer, an uneducated man, of vast
+energies, and of great power to lead the passions of the populace,
+led a band of two thousand of these red-caps through the streets. The
+indignation of the people was now roused to the highest pitch against
+the king, and against all who were supposed to have connived at his
+flight. La Fayette was loudly accused of treason in having allowed the
+king to escape. His coolness and presence of mind alone saved him from
+the fury of the mob.
+
+At nine o'clock the Constituent Assembly met, calm, yet fully conscious
+of the momentous state of affairs. The president immediately informed
+them that M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, had come to acquaint them that
+the king and royal family had been _carried off_, during the night, by
+some enemies of the nation. These noble men conducted, in this crisis,
+with their accustomed moderation and dignity. Hesitating to assume that
+the king had perjured himself by violating the oath he had so solemnly
+taken to sustain the Constitution, they adopted the more generous idea
+of his abduction.
+
+La Fayette, at eight o'clock, had been informed of the escape, and
+immediately hastened to the Tuileries, where he found M. Bailly, the
+Mayor of Paris, and M. Beauharnais, President of the National Assembly.
+They were both oppressed in view of the momentous posture of affairs,
+and were lamenting the hours which must elapse before the Assembly
+could be convoked and a decree issued authorizing pursuit. The course
+pursued by La Fayette upon this occasion was worthy of his heroic and
+noble nature. He proved himself a consistent disciple of his great
+friend and model, Washington.
+
+"Is it your opinion," inquired La Fayette, "that the arrest of the king
+and royal family is absolutely essential to the public safety, and can
+alone preserve us from civil war?"
+
+"No doubt can be entertained upon that subject," both replied.
+
+"Well, then," returned La Fayette, "I take upon myself all the
+responsibility of this arrest."
+
+He immediately issued an order to the National Guard throughout France
+for the arrest of the king.[277] It was placed in the hands of two of
+his officers, who set out instantly on the pursuit.
+
+Leaving the Tuileries, La Fayette hastened on horseback to the Hôtel de
+Ville. He passed excited crowds, who inveighed bitterly against him,
+accusing him of traitorous complicity in the king's flight. Arriving at
+the Place de Grève, in front of the Hôtel de Ville, he found one of his
+officers, the Duke d'Aumont, in the hands of the infuriate mob, who
+were on the point of massacring him.
+
+La Fayette instantly plunged into the crowd, by his authoritative voice
+and gesture overawed them, and at the imminent peril of his own life
+rescued his friend. A moment's hesitation, an emotion of cowardice, and
+both would inevitably have perished. An infuriate man, almost delirious
+with rage, approached La Fayette, and, shaking his fist in his face,
+exclaimed,
+
+"You are a traitor. You have permitted the king to escape, and now
+France is ruined."
+
+"How ruined?" La Fayette replied, serenely smiling. "France has
+twenty-five millions of inhabitants; the salary of the king is
+twenty-five millions of francs. Every one of us gains twenty sous by
+Louis XVI. relieving us of this payment."
+
+This pleasantry created a general laugh, and the words, repeated
+through the crowd, soon restored good-nature. The heroism of La Fayette
+also struck their imaginations, and he was greeted with applause as he
+rode away.
+
+He then hastened to the Assembly, which was now convened. Some of
+the deputies had suspected him as conniving at the flight, and as he
+entered a few murmurs arose. He, however, ascended the tribune and
+gained a hearing. He proposed that his second officer in command, M.
+de Gouvion, to whom had been especially intrusted the guard of the
+Tuileries, should be examined by the Assembly.
+
+"I will answer for this officer," said he, "and take upon myself the
+responsibility of his acts."
+
+M. de Gouvion was summoned to their bar, and testified that all the
+ordinary outlets from the palace were carefully guarded. The king could
+only have escaped in disguise and through some unusual mode of egress.
+M. Bailly confirmed this testimony, and La Fayette was reinstated in
+the confidence of the patriots.
+
+The people, who had suspected La Fayette, refused to allow the _aides_
+whom he had dispatched to pass the barriers. The Assembly immediately
+issued an order sanctioning the measures of La Fayette, and the
+officers were permitted to depart. The ministers of the king were then
+summoned, and a decree passed that all orders were to be received
+from the Assembly alone. With calmness truly majestic, and with
+unanimity which apparently pervaded every act, thought, and resolution,
+preparations were adopted to meet the fearful invasion which was
+impending.
+
+It was decreed at every hazard to defend the Constitution. The Assembly
+assumed the Regency. Couriers were dispatched on every road toward
+the frontiers to arrest every individual leaving the kingdom. Guns
+were ordered from the arsenals more effectually to arm the National
+Guard. These measures were so manifestly just and vital, that the most
+interested partisans of the old despotism ventured no opposition.
+
+While engaged in passing these decrees, M. de la Porte, superintendent
+of the civil list, entered, bringing with him a private note and
+a memorial which he had received from the king. The memorial was
+dated the 20th of June, and was written and signed by the king. It
+was entitled "_Proclamation of the King to all the French upon his
+Departure from Paris_."
+
+In this long recital of his grievances the king complained that he
+had only a _suspensive veto_; that his salary was cut down to five
+millions of dollars annually, which was not sufficient to support
+him comfortably; that he was very badly lodged in the palace of the
+Tuileries; that he had been incessantly annoyed by the National
+Assembly, the clubs, and the journals, and that he was not properly
+applauded when he appeared in public. He bitterly censured the decrees
+of the National Assembly, and avowed that of his own free will he left
+Paris, that he might at a safe distance from Paris regain his lost
+power.[278]
+
+M. de la Porte placed this memorial and the private note to him, which
+accompanied it, upon the table, stating, however, his wish that the
+private note might not be read. With delicacy and honor worthy of
+commemoration it was returned to him unopened. The memorial was read
+and was listened to in respectful silence. The Assembly pitying the
+weakness of the king took no action upon it whatever.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE JACOBIN CLUB.]
+
+When the National Assembly was in session at Versailles there was a
+club organized by the deputation from Bretaigne, called the Breton
+Club. It was composed of the patriotic members of the Assembly. After
+the removal of the Assembly to Paris this club held its meetings in
+an old smoky convent of the Jacobin monks, and was hence called the
+Jacobin Club. It rapidly increased, admitting members not belonging to
+the Assembly, until it numbered twelve hundred members in Paris alone.
+Its affiliated clubs were established all over the kingdom, and were
+filled with the most ardent advocates of reform. In less than two years
+they numbered two thousand four hundred societies in as many towns.
+
+The Jacobin Club soon became so intensely and fiercely democratic,
+that La Fayette, who was one of its original members, and others of
+the more conservative of the patriots, withdrew from its tumultuous
+gatherings. This club was now rapidly assuming the reins of government,
+and marshaling the mob as its resistless and terrific arm of defense,
+a weapon wielded by the Revolution of incalculable and terrible power.
+It soon became the relentless and despotic sovereign of France, more
+relentless and more despotic than any single sovereign who ever sat
+upon a throne.
+
+La Fayette, upon leaving the Assembly, hastened to the club of the
+Jacobins, which already in numbers and influence rivaled the Assembly.
+He was here also successful in stemming the torrent of obloquy which
+was beginning to roll against him. As he left the club he met, on the
+Quai Voltaire, Camille Desmoulins. The impetuous journalist, in a state
+of intense excitement, hastened toward the white horse on which La
+Fayette rode, and exclaimed:
+
+"Monsieur de la Fayette, for more than a year I have constantly spoken
+ill of you. This is the moment to convict me of falsehood. Prove that I
+am a calumniator. Cover me with infamy by saving the state."
+
+La Fayette grasped the hand of Desmoulins, whose patriotism he
+respected, and replied,
+
+"I have always recognized you as a good citizen. You will see that you
+have been deceived. Our common oath is to live free or to die. All goes
+well. There is but one feeling in the Assembly. The common danger has
+united all parties."
+
+"But why," rejoined Desmoulins, "does the Assembly affect to speak of
+the _carrying off_ (enlévement) of the king in its decrees, when the
+king himself writes that he escaped of his own free will? What baseness
+or what treason in the Assembly to use such language, when we are
+threatened by three millions of bayonets!"
+
+"The word _carrying off_," La Fayette replied, "is a mistake in
+dictation, which the Assembly will correct. This conduct of the king is
+infamous."
+
+The news of the flight of the king created consternation through all
+the departments of France. It was regarded as the signal for both
+foreign and civil war, and all expected immediately to hear the tramp
+of hostile legions. With singular unanimity the people of France
+rallied to meet the crisis. From the Gironde a message was sent to the
+Assembly, saying,
+
+"We have eighty thousand men enrolled in the National Guard, who are
+all ready to march. But we have not as many guns as we have intrepid
+and patriotic men. Send us arms."
+
+The municipality of Villepaux sent word, "We are all ready to be torn
+into ribbons rather than allow the integrity of the Constitution to be
+violated."
+
+"Our fields," wrote the citizens of Allier and Nivernais, "are covered
+with harvests and men. Men and harvests are alike at the service of the
+country, if she needs them."
+
+"We are but few, but we are determined," wrote the inhabitants of
+a little town in Normandy. "We have but two hundred men capable of
+bearing arms, but they are young, strong, and courageous. They are all
+ready to rush upon any foe who shall invade the soil of France."
+
+Bordeaux assured the Assembly that it would immediately send two
+thousand four hundred men to meet the foe. The whole kingdom was in
+this blaze of patriotic enthusiasm. The ladies, ever participating
+in devotion to a noble cause, sent in their jewelry to the Assembly,
+saying,
+
+"Change these ornaments into arms. It is not in our power to combat for
+our country; but we can at least aid in arming our brave defenders."
+
+Merchants left their shops, artisans their benches, and laborers the
+fields, to toil as volunteers in throwing up fortifications around the
+exposed towns. All hearts seemed to vibrate with the same hopes and
+fears, and all hands united in the same patriotic toils. The partisans
+of the court, few in numbers, were silent, waiting for the approach of
+foreign armies before they should throw off the mask and avow their
+treason.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 275: Mirabeau, after his interview with Marie Antoinette,
+remarked in confidence to a friend, "You know the queen. Her force of
+mind is prodigious. She is a man for courage."--_Dumont_, p. 211.]
+
+[Footnote 276: Napoleon, at St. Helena, speaking in the light of
+subsequent events, said, "The National Assembly never committed so
+great an error as in bringing back the king from Varennes. A fugitive,
+and powerless, he was hastening to the frontier, and in a few hours
+would have been out of the French territory. What should they have
+done in these circumstances? Clearly have facilitated his escape, and
+declared the throne vacant by his desertion. They would thus have
+avoided the infamy of a regicide government, and attained their great
+object of republican institutions. Instead of which, by bringing him
+back, they encumbered themselves with a sovereign whom they had no just
+reason for destroying, and lost the inestimable advantage of getting
+quit of the royal family without an act of cruelty."]
+
+[Footnote 277: Our readers will not generally sympathize with Lamartine
+in the exclamation, "This was a dictatorship, and the most personal of
+all dictatorships, that a single man, taking the place of the Assembly
+and the whole nation, thus assumed. He, on his private authority and
+the right of his civic foresight, struck at the liberty and perhaps at
+the life of the lawful ruler of the nation. This order led Louis XVI.
+to the scaffold, for it restored to the people the victim who had just
+escaped their clutches."--_History of the Girondists, by Alphonse de
+Lamartine_, vol. i., p. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 278: Histoire de la Rev. Fr., par Villiaumé, p. 13.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+RETURN OF THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM VARENNES.
+
+ Proclamation of Marat.--Three Commissioners sent to meet the
+ King.--Address to the Nation from the Assembly.--The slow and painful
+ Return.--Conversation between Barnave and the Queen.--Brutality of
+ Pétion.--Sufferings of the Royal Family.--Reception of the King in
+ Paris.--Conduct of the Queen.--Noble Avowal of La Fayette.--Statement
+ of the King.--Menace of Bouillé.
+
+
+Almost immediately after the flight of the king the club of the
+Jacobins became the most formidable power in France. It embraced all
+the desperate and the reckless advocates of reform. Marat, one of its
+most popular and energetic members, the morning after the flight of the
+king, issued the following proclamation to the populace of Paris:[279]
+
+"People! behold the loyalty, the honor, the religion of kings. Remember
+Henry III. and the Duke of Guise. At the same table with his enemy
+did Henry receive the sacrament, and swear on the same altar eternal
+friendship. Scarcely had he quit the table than he distributed poniards
+to his followers, summoned the duke to his cabinet, and there saw him
+fall, pierced with wounds. Trust then to the oaths of princes!
+
+"On the morning of the 19th, Louis XVI. laughed at his oath and enjoyed
+beforehand the alarm his flight would cause you. The Austrian woman has
+seduced La Fayette. Louis XVI., disguised in a priest's robe, fled with
+the dauphin, his wife, his brother, and all the family. He now laughs
+at the folly of the Parisians, and will soon swim in their blood.
+Citizens! this escape has been long prepared by the traitors of the
+National Assembly. You are on the brink of ruin; hasten to provide for
+your safety. Instantly choose a dictator. Let your choice fall upon the
+citizen who has, up to the present, displayed most zeal, activity, and
+intelligence, and do all he bids you to do to strike at your foes. This
+is the time to lop off the heads of Bailly, La Fayette, and all the
+scoundrels of the staff, all the traitors of the Assembly. A tribune, a
+military tribune, or you are lost without hope."
+
+Similar impassioned appeals were issued from all the Jacobin journals,
+and the nation was roused to phrensy. The popularity of the king was
+now gone, and he was almost universally regarded as a traitor, plotting
+to deluge the kingdom in blood.
+
+At ten o'clock in the evening of the 22d of June a courier arrived
+in Paris with a letter from the municipality of Varennes announcing
+the arrest of the king. The cry resounded from street to street, "He
+is arrested! he is arrested!" Three commissioners were immediately
+appointed, Latour Maubourg, Pétion, and Barnave, invested with
+authority to secure the return of the king and the royal family, and
+they were enjoined to observe all the respect due to their rank. The
+Assembly also issued an address to the French nation, containing the
+following sentiments:
+
+"The king swore, on the 14th of July, to protect the Constitution;
+he has therefore consented to perjure himself. The changes made in
+the Constitution of the kingdom are attributed to a _few_ of the
+factious. We are _twenty-six millions_ of factious. We have preserved
+the monarchy because we believe it useful to France. We have doubtless
+reformed it, but it was to save it from its abuses and its excesses. We
+have granted the yearly sum of fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000)
+to maintain the legitimate splendor of the throne. We have reserved to
+ourselves the right of declaring war, because we would not that the
+blood of the people should belong to the ministers.[280] Frenchmen, all
+is organized. Every man is at his post. The Assembly watches over all.
+You have naught to fear save from yourselves, should your just emotion
+lead you to commit any violence or disorders. The people who seek to be
+free should remain unmoved in great crises.
+
+"Behold Paris, and imitate the example of the capital. All goes on
+as usual. The tyrants will be deceived. Before they can bend France
+beneath their yoke, the whole nation must be annihilated. Should
+despotism venture to attempt it, it will be vanquished; or even though
+it triumph, it will triumph over naught but ruins."
+
+Let us now return to Varennes, and accompany the royal family on their
+melancholy route to Paris. We left the royal carriages, under the
+escort of the National Guard, just starting from Varennes on their
+return. It was eight o'clock in the morning. The progress toward
+Chalons was slow, for the carriages could only keep pace with the
+guards. The heat was intense, and clouds of dust almost suffocated
+the captives. For a time emotions were too deep for utterance, and
+not a word was spoken. But often torrents of abuse fell upon the ears
+of the king from the crowds who seemed to line the way. At times the
+crowd was so dense that with some difficulty the guards forced their
+way through. But for the protection of their bayonets, the whole royal
+family would probably have fallen victims to the popular fury.
+
+The commissioners from the Assembly met the carriages between Dormans
+and Epernay, and immediately assumed the command of the troops, and
+took the royal family under their charge. The whole populace, excited
+as it was, respected the orders of the Assembly. Latour Maubourg, a
+gentleman of noble character and an intimate friend of La Fayette, was
+ardently attached to the Constitution, while at the same time he was
+anxious to save the monarchy. The tendencies of both of his colleagues
+were to a more radical democracy. Hoping to excite their sympathy in
+behalf of fallen greatness, he yielded to his companions the honor of
+being with the royal family in their carriage, while he took the second
+coach, with Madame de Tourzel and some other ladies of the party.
+Barnave and Pétion entered the king's carriage to share his danger and
+to shield him from insult. Barnave sat on the back seat, between the
+king and the queen. Pétion sat in front, between Maria Theresa, the
+daughter of the king, and Madame Elizabeth, his sister. The little
+dauphin, seven years of age, sat on the lap now of one, then of another.
+
+Barnave was a young lawyer of distinguished abilities and generous
+impulses. He was a man of polished manners, of attractive person, and
+of accomplished education. His generous heart was saddened by the
+pitiable condition of his captives. He did every thing he could, by
+kindness and respectful attentions, to mitigate their woe. An obnoxious
+priest at one time approached the carriage with an ostentatious
+demonstration of his attachment to the court party, now threatening
+France with invasion. The exasperated people fell upon him, and he
+would probably have been massacred but for the energetic interposition
+of Barnave.
+
+"Frenchmen!" he exclaimed, "will you, a nation of brave men, become a
+nation of murderers?"
+
+He would have sprung out of the carriage to have rescued the priest
+had not Madame Elizabeth, who had already appreciated his noble
+character, held him in by the skirt of his coat. She feared that he
+also, now almost their sole defender, might be torn in pieces. At
+first the queen sat closely veiled and maintained unbroken silence.
+But gradually the character of Barnave won the esteem of the whole
+party. The king entered calmly into conversation with Barnave upon
+the momentous questions of the day. Barnave replied with courtesy and
+sympathy, though still faithful in his devotion to liberty and sincere
+in his advocacy of a constitutional throne. The queen, much mollified,
+at length withdrew her veil and gradually became social and almost
+confiding.
+
+Barnave spoke of the great mistakes which the Royalists had made in
+refusing to accept a _constitutional monarchy_, thus exposing the
+throne to entire overthrow and the nation to democratic anarchy.
+
+"What were the means," inquired the queen, "which you would have
+advised me to resort to?"
+
+"Popularity, madam," was the reply.
+
+"But how," continued the queen, "could I have obtained popularity? It
+was all taken from me."
+
+"Ah, madam," said Barnave, "it was much easier for you to conquer it
+than for me to obtain it."[281]
+
+The queen subsequently remarked to Madame Campan that Barnave "was a
+young man full of intelligence and noble sentiments, and one every way
+worthy to inspire esteem. A feeling of pride," she continued, with
+candor which honors her memory, "has caused him to applaud all that
+tends to smooth the way to honors and glory for the class in which he
+was born. If power should ever again fall into our hands the pardon of
+Barnave is written before in our hearts."
+
+The royal family only occasionally alighted for a moment at an inn as
+the horses were being changed. By day and by night they continued their
+slow progress, taking all their refreshments in the carriage. Barnave,
+with that delicacy which is instinctive in noble natures, never for a
+moment forgot the rank of his august captives. Being pressed by the
+queen to take some refreshment, he replied,
+
+"Madam, the deputies of the National Assembly, under circumstances so
+solemn, ought to trouble your majesty solely with their mission, and by
+no means with their wants."
+
+Pétion was a very different character. He was one of those coarse and
+vulgar demagogues who have done so much to cast dishonor upon the
+word _democracy_. His brutality disgusted the whole party. Equality
+of rights was with him but social insolence. He affected a rude
+familiarity with the royal family, munching his food like a boor and
+throwing the rind of fruit and the bones of fowls out of the window,
+at the risk of hitting the king in the face. The king made a slight
+attempt, by introducing conversation with him, to awaken some sympathy.
+
+"It was my wish," said the king, "to increase the force of the
+executive power. I did not think that this constitutional act could
+be maintained without more power being placed in the hands of the
+sovereign, since France does not wish to be a republic."
+
+"Not yet, to be sure," Pétion brutally replied; "the French are not yet
+quite ripe enough for a republic."
+
+No more conversation was held with Pétion. The movement of the
+carriages, encumbered by the escort and the immense crowds who thronged
+the way, was very slow. Four days were occupied in the return. It was
+seven o'clock in the evening of the 25th when the long procession
+entered Paris. As the carriages approached the suburbs the crowd
+increased in density. It had been a day of intense heat. The blaze
+of the sun, reflected by the pavements and by the bayonets which
+surrounded the carriage, was almost intolerable. The carriages were
+continually enveloped in a dense cloud of dust. The inmates panted for
+breath and were bathed in perspiration. One of the children suffered so
+much that the queen, alarmed, appealed to the compassion of the crowd.
+
+"See, gentlemen," she said, letting down one of the windows, "in what a
+state my poor children are; one is choking."
+
+A brutal wretch exclaimed, in an under tone, "We will soon choke you,
+after another fashion."
+
+Generally the crowd looked on in amazement and silence. Feelings of
+pity and humanity triumphed over indignation. Great eagerness was
+of course manifested to catch a sight of the king and queen, but
+well-armed guards on horseback surrounded the carriages. La Fayette
+came out of the city to meet the cortège at a few miles distance and
+to assume the command. Apprehensive of violence from the infuriate
+populace of Paris, if the immense cortège, now numbering nearly three
+hundred thousand and rapidly increasing, were to pass through the
+narrow streets of the city, the carriages were ordered to take a
+circuit and enter by the broad avenue of the Elysian Fields, which
+conducted directly to the Tuileries. As an additional precaution he
+placed troops in a deep line on both sides of the avenue from the
+Barrier de l'Etoile to the palace.
+
+It was resolved that the king should be received in silence, without
+applause and without abuse. Placards were posted every where with the
+laconic announcement,
+
+"Whoever applauds the king shall be flogged; whoever insults him shall
+be hanged."[282]
+
+The procession now entered the city amid the clashing of sabres, the
+trampling of horses, and the confused, suppressed murmurs of half
+a million of men. It was another sublime act in that most terrible
+tragedy of time. It can not be described; it can not be fully
+conceived; it has never been paralleled.
+
+The crowd-encompassed, dust-enveloped carriages entered the city at the
+close of one of the most lovely of June afternoons. The cloudless sun,
+still an hour above the horizon, shone brilliantly upon the spectacle,
+gilding steeples and domes as with rejoicing light. The whole military
+array of Paris, horsemen, artillery, and infantry, lined that majestic
+avenue. Behind them the whole population of Paris seemed to flood the
+field, filling windows, balconies, house-tops, steeples, trees, and
+every point of observation.
+
+La Fayette and his staff first made their appearance as the vast
+procession commenced its entrance. A numerous cavalcade of mounted
+guards then succeeded. These were followed by the two royal carriages,
+each drawn by six horses, and surrounded by dragoons whose sabres
+gleamed in the rays of the setting sun. Several regiments of artillery
+and infantry, in compact order, ensued, and then came a motley mass of
+three hundred thousand stragglers, men, women, and children, whom the
+strange event had gathered from all the suburbs of the metropolis.
+
+Almost perfect silence reigned. It was like a procession of the shades
+of the departed in the spirit land. There was no ringing of bells, no
+explosion of cannon, no plaudits of the multitude, no bursts of martial
+bands in requiems or jubilata. The king, humiliated, sunk back in his
+carriage, and concealed himself as far as possible from observation.
+The bayonets of the soldiers held in check the ferocious and brutal
+wretches who would gladly have assailed the monarch with execrations.
+The same power closed the lips of the Royalists, who would have greeted
+their sovereign with applause.
+
+Thousands gazed upon the scene in silent sympathy, with their eyes
+bathed in tears. They loved the cause of constitutional liberty; they
+wept over the infatuation and folly of the king. The reception was
+sublime in its appropriateness. No honors were conferred upon the king,
+for surely he deserved none. No abuse assailed him, for that would but
+have degraded those who offered it.
+
+[Illustration: RETURN OF THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM VARENNES.]
+
+The crowd grew more and more dense as the carriages entered the garden
+of the Tuileries, and the way became so obstructed by the throng that
+it was with no little difficulty that a passage was secured. As soon as
+the carriages arrived at the door of the palace, near the end of the
+terrace, the royal family alighted and passed through a double file
+of the National Guard drawn up for their protection. In this hour of
+misfortune, those who had been most hostile to the despotism of the
+court vied with each other in their endeavors to protect fallen royalty
+from indignities. The Viscount of Noailles, a warm friend of reform,
+and a humane, magnanimous man, approached the queen, who was the
+last to alight from the carriage, and offered her his arm to conduct
+her into the palace. The queen, with imprudent but perhaps pardonable
+pride, haughtily rejected the aid of the friend of the people, and,
+seeing one of the partisans of the court near by, asked his arm.
+
+The hall of the Assembly, since destroyed, looked out upon the garden
+of the Tuileries. The excitement of the hour suspended the sitting, but
+it was immediately resumed when the king had safely entered the palace.
+The king seemed perfectly calm. La Fayette, with profound respect and
+with his sympathies most deeply moved, presented himself at the king's
+apartment, and, making no allusion to the unprecedented scene which had
+transpired, said, "Has your majesty any orders to give me?"
+
+"It appears to me," replied the king with a smile, "that I am much more
+under your orders than you are under mine." The conduct of the queen
+in this trying hour was peculiarly unfortunate. The royal family then
+needed every friend it could win. But the queen, losing the control of
+her passions, seemed to bid defiance to all who were not the partisans
+of the court, and endeavored to gratify her resentment in goading those
+she deemed her foes by those taunts of action which are even more
+exasperating than words.
+
+Assuming that La Fayette was her jailer, she approached that noble
+patriot, who was willing to shed the last drop of his blood to save her
+from indignities, and handed him the keys of her trunks. La Fayette,
+wounded by conduct so ungenerous, and commiserating the condition of
+the queen, bowed, refusing to receive them, and, in tones saddened by
+pity and sorrow, declared that no one would think of interfering with
+her private property.
+
+The unhappy queen so far forgot herself as peevishly to throw the keys
+into La Fayette's hat, which was upon the table. This was the conduct
+of a spoiled child. Such was Marie Antoinette. It was this spirit which
+accelerated her passage to the scaffold. The compassion of La Fayette
+triumphed over resentment. Overlooking the insult, he calmly replied,
+
+"Madam, you must pardon me the trouble I give you in returning these
+keys. I certainly can not touch them."
+
+"Well, then," replied the queen, pettishly, "I shall find other persons
+less scrupulous than you are."[283]
+
+Such conduct on the part of the queen was ever adding to her
+unpopularity. The king was much more considerate. Though by no means
+equal to the queen in energy, he had a far more comprehensive view
+of the real attitude of affairs. Had the spirit of the queen been
+dominant, it is possible that the Revolution in its infancy might
+have been crushed with an iron hand. All the disciplined armies of
+Europe were ready to fall upon the unorganized and unarmed populace
+of France, and to chastise them into submission. Had the moderate
+and humane spirit of the king prevailed, the Constitution might have
+been accepted; the king might have been revered and beloved as a
+constitutional monarch, and France might have passed from despotism to
+free institutions without bloodshed. But the discordant union of the
+defiant energies of the one and the yielding moderation of the other
+rendered ruin inevitable.
+
+The king entered into a brief conversation with La Fayette, in which
+the devoted patriot said to his monarch,
+
+"Your majesty is well aware of my attachment to your royal person, but
+at the same time, you were not ignorant that, if you separated yourself
+from the cause of the people, I should side with the people."
+
+"This is true," replied the king. "You follow your principles. And I
+tell you frankly that until lately I had believed you had surrounded
+me by a turbulent faction of persons of your own way of thinking, but
+that yours was not the real opinion of France. I have learned during my
+journey that I was deceived, and that the general wish is in accordance
+with your views."
+
+The conduct of the Assembly in this momentous crisis, when the
+liberties of France were so fearfully imperiled, was firm and noble. On
+the day of the king's return they passed decrees suspending him from
+his functions, until they should have heard, through a committee of
+three, the declarations of the king and queen. With that delicacy which
+had ever, thus far, characterized the action of the Assembly, these
+decrees were passed in terms of studied decorum, and the king and queen
+were shielded from answering before the whole Assembly, which would
+have been required of any offenders of less exalted rank. A guard was
+placed over the royal family, and was made responsible for its safe
+custody.[284]
+
+Barnave, covered with the dust of his journey, hastened to the
+Assembly, and gave the official announcement of the return of the king.
+Both the king and the queen had learned to repose great confidence in
+this noble young man, and Barnave assisted the king in composing the
+declaration to be presented to the commissioners of the Assembly in
+extenuation of his flight.[285] The king could hardly have expected
+that the assertions which he made in this document could be credited
+by the Assembly. "Never was it my intention," said he, "to leave
+the kingdom. I had no concert either with foreign powers, or with
+my relatives, or with any of the French emigrants. I had selected
+Montmedy, because, being near the frontiers, I should have been better
+able to oppose every kind of invasion of France, had a disposition been
+shown to attempt any. One of my principal motives for quitting Paris
+was to set at rest the argument of my non-freedom, which was likely to
+furnish occasion for disturbances."
+
+He concluded this declaration in words characteristic of his whole
+course. "I have ascertained during my journey that public opinion
+is decidedly in favor of the Constitution. I did not conceive that
+I could fully judge of this public opinion in Paris. As soon as I
+had ascertained the general will, I hesitated not, as I have never
+hesitated, to make a sacrifice of every thing that is personal to me.
+I will gladly forget all the crosses that I have experienced, if I can
+but ensure the peace and felicity of the nation."[286]
+
+Thus the king pledged himself anew to support the Constitution. The
+Assembly received these asseverations in respectful silence, though it
+was no longer possible for them to give the king credit for sincerity.
+While the king was thus apologizing, Bouillé, who had fled to the
+protection of foreign armies, sent a menacing letter to the Assembly,
+in the name of the allied sovereigns of Europe, containing the
+following declarations:
+
+"I know your means of defense," he wrote. "They are nothing; and your
+chastisement shall be an example to other people. Listen to the words
+of a man who regards you and your people but with indignation and
+horror. I know the roads. I will guide the foreign armies which will
+assail you. There shall not rest one stone upon another in Paris, if
+you dare to touch a hair of the head of my king."[287]
+
+If Bouillé had wished to provoke the nation to throw down the head of
+the king as a gauntlet of defiance to the foes of the liberties of
+France, he could have done nothing more effectual than the utterance of
+such a menace. Both parties were now preparing vigorously for war. The
+emigrants at Coblentz, proclaiming that the king was a prisoner, and
+could no longer have any will of his own, declared monsieur the king's
+elder brother (Louis XVIII.) to be Regent of France. The most vigorous
+measures were adopted for accumulating troops and munitions of war for
+the great invasion.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 279: Marat, who edited "The Friend of the People," was, says
+Lamartine, "the fury of the Revolution. He had the clumsy tumblings of
+the brute in his thought and its gnashings of teeth in his style. His
+journal smelt of blood in every line."--_History of the Girondists_,
+vol. i., p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 280: The Constitution conferred upon _the king and the
+Assembly_ the right of making peace and war. The king complained
+bitterly that he was no longer authorized alone to declare war and make
+peace.]
+
+[Footnote 281: Mémoires de Madame de Campan, t. ii., p. 150.]
+
+[Footnote 282: "Quiconque applaudira le roi sera bâttonné; quiconque
+l'insultera sera pendu."]
+
+[Footnote 283: La Fayette's Memoirs.]
+
+[Footnote 284: Robespierre was opposed to this act of special respect,
+and exclaimed,
+
+"What means this obsequious exception? Do you fear to degrade royalty
+by handing over the king and queen to ordinary tribunals? A citizen,
+a _citoyenne_, any man, any dignity, however elevated, can never be
+degraded by the law."]
+
+[Footnote 285: Thiers, vol. i., p. 185.]
+
+[Footnote 286: Even Lamartine says, "The king addressed to the
+commissioners of the Assembly a reply, the bad faith of which called
+for the smile rather than the indulgence of his enemies."--_Lamartine's
+Hist. of the Girondists_, vol. i., p. 105.
+
+"The Assembly accepted the declaration of the king, although it
+was evident to them that the king did not intend merely to go to
+Montmedy, where no preparations had been made to receive him, but
+that he intended to go to the magnificent monastery of Orval, three
+leagues beyond the frontier, in Luxembourg, then occupied by the
+Austrians. Troops, commanded by the Prince of Condé, were there
+awaiting his arrival. The flight of the king was the signal for the
+loyalist officers to desert. All those of a regiment in garrison at
+Dunkirk fled to the Austrians, carrying with them the banners of the
+regiment."--_Hist. de la Rev. Française, par Villiaumé_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+COMMOTION IN PARIS.
+
+ The Remains of Voltaire removed to the Pantheon.--Decision of
+ the Assembly on the Flight of the King.--Thomas Paine.--Views
+ of the Constitutional Monarchists.--Message from La Fayette
+ to the King of Austria.--The Jacobins summon the Populace to
+ the Field of Mars.--Mandate of the Jacobins.--The Crowd on the
+ Field of Mars dispersed by the Military.--Completion of the
+ Constitution.--Remarkable Conversation of Napoleon.--The King
+ formally accepts the Constitution.--Great, but transient, Popularity
+ of the Royal Family.
+
+
+In the midst of these stormy scenes the Assembly voted to remove
+the remains of Voltaire, which had slumbered for thirteen years in
+the obscure abbey of Scellières in Champagne, to the Pantheon in
+Paris. On the 11th of July his coffin was received with great pomp
+at the barriers, and conducted to a pedestal on the ancient site of
+the Bastille, constructed from one of the foundation-stones of the
+fortress. Voltaire had once been imprisoned in that gloomy citadel.
+Upon the pedestal which supported the coffin were engraved the words,
+
+"Receive on this spot, where despotism once fettered thee, the honors
+decreed thee by thy country."
+
+The next day a brilliant sun invited the whole population of Paris to
+the fête. The car which bore the coffin to the Pantheon was drawn by
+twelve white horses, harnessed four abreast. They were very richly
+caparisoned, and led by postillions in antique attire. An immense body
+of cavalry headed the procession. The wail of requiems and the roar of
+muffled drums blended with the booming of minute guns from the adjacent
+heights. The sarcophagus was preceded, surrounded, and followed by
+the National Assembly, the municipal authorities of the city, and by
+deputations from all the illustrious and dignified bodies of France.
+Scholars, laborers, artists, and, conspicuously, all the actors and
+actresses of Paris, took part in the pageant. Arches, with garlands of
+leaves and wreaths of roses, spanned the streets. Groups of beautiful
+girls, dressed in white, carpeted the path with flowers. At intervals,
+bands of music were placed, saluting the car as it approached with
+bursts of melody. Before each of the principal theatres the procession
+stopped, and a hymn was sung in commemoration of the achievements of
+the great dramatist. It was ten o'clock at night before the immense
+procession reached the Pantheon. The coffin was deposited between those
+of Descartes and Mirabeau.
+
+[Illustration: THE REMAINS OF VOLTAIRE TRANSFERRED TO THE PANTHEON.]
+
+It was the pen of Voltaire which overthrew despotism in France. It was
+also the pen of Voltaire which banished for so long from human hearts
+thoughts of God and of future responsibility. Thus then sprung up,
+in the place of the despotism he had overthrown, another despotism
+a thousand fold more terrible. With consummate genius and utter
+destitution of all moral principle, he was the demon of destruction,
+sweeping the good and the bad alike into indiscriminate ruin. He
+could fawn upon the infamous Frederic, and palliate his vices. He was
+ever ready to bow the knee to the paramours of Louis XV. There was no
+prostitution of genius which could cause him to blush. The venomous
+spirit with which he pursued the religion of Christ is fully expressed
+by his motto, "_Crush the wretch_." The genius of Voltaire induced
+France to attempt to establish liberty without religion. The terrific
+result will probably dissuade from any future repetition of that
+experiment.
+
+The club of the Jacobins was greatly roused by the moderation of the
+Assembly, and began to clamor for the entire overthrow of the monarchy
+and the establishment of a republic. On the evening of the 15th of July
+a meeting of the club was held at which four thousand persons were
+present. It was a scene of wild enthusiasm. La Fayette, Barnave, and
+others who were in favor of a constitutional monarchy were denounced
+as traitors. Robespierre and Danton were the orators of the evening,
+and they were greeted with thunders of applause. A petition was sent to
+the Assembly, which assumed the tone of an order, demanding that the
+king should be deposed as a perfidious traitor to his oaths. It was a
+meeting of the mob virtually repudiating the Assembly, and assuming for
+itself both legislative and executive power. The tumultuous gathering
+was not dispersed until after midnight. Here originated that spirit of
+lawless violence which subsequently transformed Paris into a field of
+blood.
+
+On the 16th the commissioners made their report to the Assembly on
+the flight of the king. Both the commissioners and the Assembly
+were disposed to be lenient. They were already very anxious in view
+of popular tumult and menacing anarchy. They had still no wish to
+overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. Such a measure
+would be full of danger to France in its distracted state, and would
+exasperate a thousand fold the surrounding monarchies. There was no
+one for whom they wished to exchange their present king. He was the
+legitimate monarch, which gave him vast power over all the aristocracy
+of Europe. He had sworn to defend the Constitution, and it was so
+manifestly for his interest now to consent to be a constitutional
+monarch that it was hoped that he would sincerely accept that popular
+cause which would secure for him popular support. Though no one doubted
+that it had been the intention of the vacillating monarch to throw
+himself into the midst of foreign armies, and by the aid of their
+artillery and swords to force the Old Régime again upon France, a very
+generous report, exculpating the king from blame, was presented and
+adopted.
+
+Influenced by these views, it was argued that the king had committed
+no crime. He surely had a right, if he wished, to take a journey to
+Montmedy. There was no proof that he intended any thing more, he had
+violated no law. The Assembly therefore decreed that "in the journey
+there was nothing culpable."[288]
+
+The Jacobin press now became very bold. "No more king," exclaimed
+Brissot in the _Patriot_; "let us be Republicans. Such is the cry at
+the Palais Royal, and it does not gain ground fast enough."
+
+"No king! no protector! no regent!" shouted Fauchet in the _Bouche de
+Fer_ (the Mouth of Iron).
+
+An address was read to the Jacobin Club openly demanding the
+annihilation of royalty; and though this address was received at first
+with murmurs--for the majority, even of the Jacobins, were not then
+prepared for such a step--the new doctrine with marvelous rapidity
+spread through the lower orders of Paris, and very speedily gained the
+ascendency in the club. Danton mounted the tribune of the Jacobin Club
+on the 23d of June, and demanded the forfeiture of the throne. "Your
+king," said he, "is either a knave or an idiot. If we must have one of
+the two, who would not prefer the latter?"
+
+The Jacobin Club had now become very formidable. It already numbered
+eighteen hundred members in Paris alone, each of whom was admitted to
+its meetings by a ticket. Two hundred and fifty affiliated clubs were
+scattered throughout the principal cities. It occupied the large chapel
+of the Convent, and had its president, its secretaries, its tribune,
+its regular order of business, and its journal, in which its debates
+and resolutions were published. Many of the ablest members of the
+Assembly were members of the club, and their most powerful efforts of
+eloquence were addressed to the club, regarding its voice as beginning
+to be more potent than that of the Assembly. The Jacobin Club was
+rapidly becoming the great power of the kingdom, with an excitable mob
+ever at its disposal as its military arm.
+
+The Journal of the Jacobins, edited by Laclos, a confidant of the Duke
+of Orleans, overwhelmed the monarch with a torrent of insults and
+objurgations. Thomas Paine, the notorious reviler of Christianity, was
+then in Paris, and one of the most violent of the Jacobin Club. He
+wrote an inflammatory address, which was posted on all the walls of
+Paris, urging the peremptory dethronement of the king.
+
+The views entertained by La Fayette and the Constitutional Monarchists
+can not be better conveyed than in the eloquent language of Barnave, in
+a speech addressed to the Assembly on this occasion.
+
+"I will not dilate," said he, "on the advantages of monarchical
+government. You have proved your conviction by establishing it in
+your country. Some men, whose motives I shall not impugn, seeking
+for examples to adduce, have found in America a people occupying a
+vast territory with a scanty population, nowhere surrounded by very
+powerful neighbors, having forests for their boundaries, and having
+for customs the feelings of a new race, and who are wholly ignorant
+of those factitious passions and impulses which effect revolutions of
+government. They have seen a republican government established in that
+land, and have thence drawn the conclusion that a similar government
+was suitable for us.
+
+"But if it be true that in our territory there is a vast population;
+that we have a multitude of men exclusively devoted to those
+intellectual speculations which excite ambition and the love of fame;
+that powerful neighbors compel us to form one compact body in order
+to resist them--if these circumstances are wholly independent of
+ourselves, then it is undeniable that the sole existing remedy lies in
+a monarchical government.
+
+"When a country is populous and extensive, there are but two modes
+of assuring to it a solid and permanent existence. Either you must
+organize those parts separately, placing in each section of the empire
+a portion of the government, thus maintaining security at the expense
+of unity, strength, and all the advantages which result from a great
+and homogeneous association, or else you will be forced to centralize
+an unchangeable power, which, never renewed by the law, presenting
+incessant obstacles to ambition, resists with advantage the shocks,
+rivalries, and rapid vibrations of an immense population, agitated by
+all the passions engendered by long-established society.
+
+"These facts decide our position. We can only be strong through a
+_federative government_, which no one here has the madness to propose,
+or by a _monarchical government_ such as you have established. You have
+intrusted to an _inviolable_ king the exclusive function of naming the
+agents of his power, but you have made those agents responsible.
+
+"Immense damage is done us when that revolutionary impetus, which has
+destroyed every thing there was to destroy, and which has urged us to
+the point where we must at last pause, is perpetuated. The Revolution
+can not advance one step farther without danger. In the line of
+_liberty_ the first act which follows is the annihilation of royalty.
+In the line of _equality_ the first act which must follow is an attempt
+on all property. It is time to end the Revolution. It ought to stop
+when the nation is free, and all men have equal rights. If it continue
+in trouble it is dishonored, and we with it. Yes! all the world ought
+to agree that the common interest is involved in now closing the
+Revolution.
+
+"Those who have lost ought to perceive that it is impossible to make
+the Revolution retrograde. Those who fashioned the Revolution should
+see that it has attained its consummation. Kings themselves--if from
+time to time profound truths can penetrate the councils of kings,
+if occasionally the prejudices which surround them will permit the
+sound views of a great and philosophical policy to reach them--kings
+themselves must learn that there is for them a wide difference between
+the example of a great reform in government and that of the abolition
+of royalty; that if we pause here, where we are, they are still kings!
+But, be their conduct what it may, let the fault come from them and not
+from us. Regenerators of the empire, follow straightly your undeviating
+line. You have been courageous and potent--be to-day wise and moderate.
+In this will consist the glorious termination of your efforts. Then
+again returning to your domestic hearths you will obtain, if not
+blessings, at least the silence of calumny."
+
+Though these views of moderation were opposed alike by the aristocrats
+and the Jacobins, they were accepted with applause by the great
+majority of the Assembly. Aristocrats and Jacobins now combined to
+disturb in every possible way the action of the Assembly. They both
+hoped through tumult and anarchy to march into power. Mobs began to
+reassemble in the streets of Paris, and cries of treason were uttered
+against La Fayette and his fellow-constitutionalists. Already in the
+market-place, at the Palais Royal, and in the hall of the Jacobins,
+individuals denounced that Constitution as tyrannical which the nation
+had so recently, with unutterable enthusiasm, sworn to support.[289]
+
+La Fayette, Barnave, the Lameths, Talleyrand, and other illustrious
+friends of a constitutional monarchy, sent a confidential note to the
+Emperor of Austria, assuring him that the Constitution conferred as
+much power upon the king as it was possible now to obtain from the
+French nation; that any invasion of France by the allies would only
+exasperate the people, bring the Jacobins into power, endanger the
+life of the king, and that it could not be successful in restoring the
+Old Régime. The king was consulted upon this measure, and gave it his
+approval.[290]
+
+Notwithstanding these warnings, the monarchs of Europe, who were
+trembling lest the spirit of liberty, rising in France, should
+undermine their despotic thrones, resolved to crush the patriots
+beneath the tramp of their dragoons. Leopold of Austria, Frederick
+William of Prussia, and Count d'Artois, with Bouillé and other of
+the emigrants, met at Pilnitz, and on the 27th of August signed
+an agreement that the French Revolution was an "open revolt," "a
+scandalous usurpation of power," and that all the governments of Europe
+were bound to unite to abate the nuisance.[291]
+
+The Jacobin Club, it will be remembered, in a stormy midnight debate,
+had drawn up a petition to the Assembly demanding the deposition of the
+king as a perjured traitor. They wished, by a demonstration of popular
+enthusiasm, to terrify the Assembly into obedience to their mandate.
+Accordingly, the whole populace of Paris were summoned to meet on the
+Field of Mars, to sign, with much parade, the petition on the Altar of
+Federation, which had not yet been taken down.
+
+At an early hour on the morning of the 17th of July the multitude
+began to congregate. It was the Sabbath-day. Every scene in the drama
+of the Revolution seems to have been arranged on the sublimest scale.
+Soon from fifty to one hundred thousand, including the lowest of the
+population of Paris, were thronging the field, and clambering over the
+gigantic altar.[292] Two men were seized, under the absurd accusation
+that they were intending to blow up the altar and all upon it by means
+of a barrel of gunpowder. The cry of "Aristocrats!" which passed like a
+tornado through the crowd, precluded any trial, and settled their doom.
+The two unhappy men were literally torn to pieces, and their heads
+were borne about on pikes by brutal wretches who were now beginning to
+emerge from dens of obscurity into confidence and power.
+
+The rumor of these murders and of the threatening attitude of the mob
+spread through the city and reached the ears of the Assembly. The
+principal ringleaders of the Jacobins were nowhere to be found, and it
+was asserted and generally believed that they were in a secret place,
+that they might escape responsibility, while, through their agents,
+they were rousing the mob to a demonstration which should overawe the
+Assembly. In the midst of the wildest imaginable scene of tumult and
+uproar, the _mandate_ of the Jacobins--for it could with no propriety
+be called a _petition_--was placed upon the altar upon many separate
+sheets of paper, and speedily received six thousand signatures. This
+was a new order, drawn up at the moment, for the original document
+could not be found. It read as follows:
+
+"Representatives of the people! your labors are nearly ended. A great
+crime has been committed. Louis has fled, abandoning his post. The
+country is on the verge of ruin. The king has been arrested, brought
+back to Paris, and the people demand that he be tried. You declare that
+he shall be king. The people do not wish it, and therefore annul your
+decree. The king has been carried off by the two hundred and ninety-two
+_aristocrats_ who have themselves declared that they have no longer a
+voice in the National Assembly. Your decree is annulled, because it is
+in opposition to the voice of the people, your sovereign. Repeal it.
+The king has abdicated by crime. Receive his abdication."
+
+Nothing could be more execrable than this usurpation of authority
+by the mob. The Assembly was composed of the representatives of
+twenty-five millions of people, acting under the calm deliberation
+which the forms of law exacted. And here six thousand men, women, and
+boys, belched forth perhaps from the dens of infamy in Paris, and
+arming themselves with a mob of fifty thousand of the most degraded
+of the populace of a great city, assumed to be _the nation_--the law
+makers and the law executors of the kingdom of France.[293]
+
+The municipality ordered La Fayette, with a detachment of the National
+Guard, to proceed to the scene of tumult and disperse the rioters. The
+moment the soldiers appeared they were received with hisses, shouts,
+and a shower of stones from the populace. Several of the stones struck
+La Fayette, and he narrowly escaped death from a pistol-shot fired
+at him. The attitude of the mob was so threatening that La Fayette
+retired for a stronger force. He soon returned, accompanied by Bailly,
+the mayor of the city, and all the municipal authorities, and followed
+by ten thousand of the National Guard. The red flag, which proclaimed
+that the city was placed under martial law, was now floating from the
+Hôtel de Ville. The tramp of ten thousand men,[294] with the rolling
+of artillery and the beating of four hundred drums, arrested the
+attention of the throng. The troops, debouching by three openings which
+intersected the glacis, were, as by magic, drawn up facing the throng.
+M. Bailly, upon horseback, displayed the red flag, in accordance with
+the Riot Act law, and ordered the mob to disperse.[295]
+
+The response was a shout from fifty thousand men, women, and boys of
+"Down with the red flag! Down with Bailly! Death to La Fayette!" The
+clamor became hideous, and a shower of mud and stones fell upon La
+Fayette and the mayor, and several pistol-shots from a distance were
+discharged at them. The crowd, accustomed to lawlessness, did not
+believe that the municipal government would dare to order the soldiers
+to fire.
+
+[Illustration: PUBLICATION OF MARTIAL LAW ON THE FIELD OF MARS, JULY
+17, 1791.]
+
+La Fayette, with mistaken humanity, ordered the advance guard to fire
+into the air. The harmless volley was followed by shouts of derision
+and defiance. It now became necessary to give the fatal order. One
+volley swept the field. The crash was followed by a shriek, as four
+hundred dead or wounded fell upon the plain, and as the smoke passed
+away the whole tumultuous mass was seen flying in terror over the
+embankments and through the avenues. The artillerymen, with the
+coolness of trained soldiers, were just upon the point of opening their
+fire of grapeshot upon the panic-stricken fugitives, when La Fayette,
+unable to make his voice heard through the uproar, heroically threw
+himself before the cannon, and thus saved the lives of thousands. The
+National Guard, saddened by the performance of a duty as painful as
+it was imperious, returned in the evening through the dark streets of
+Paris and dispersed to their homes.[296]
+
+The next day M. Bailly appeared before the Assembly, and, in terms of
+dignity and manly sorrow, reported the triumph of the law. Both the
+National Assembly and the municipality of Paris voted their cordial
+approval of the conduct of Bailly and La Fayette. The Jacobin press,
+however, gave utterance to the fiercest invectives. Bailly and La
+Fayette were denounced as murderers, and every effort was made to
+exasperate the passions of the populace.
+
+Amid such scenes of agitation and violence the Assembly concluded
+its task of forming a constitution. The important document, which
+was but partially finished at the great celebration on the 14th of
+July, 1790, was now completed. None were, however, fully satisfied
+with the Constitution. The aristocratic party abhorred the democratic
+spirit with which it was pervaded, and yet wished to make it still
+more obnoxiously democratic, that monarchical Europe might be more
+thoroughly exasperated. The Jacobins held it up to derision and
+execration because it was not democratic enough. The moderate party,
+represented by such men as La Fayette and Barnave, wished to invest
+the king with more power, but dared not attempt any revision of the
+Constitution, with the aristocrats and the Jacobins both ready to
+combine against them.
+
+Napoleon was at this time a young officer in the army, twenty-three
+years of age. His brother Joseph was studying law in Italy. The whole
+family had warmly espoused the popular cause. From the beginning
+Napoleon was the ardent advocate of equal rights, and the determined
+foe of mob violence. At this early period of the Revolution, he
+expressed the views to which he adhered through the whole of his career.
+
+There was about this time a large party given by M. Necker. All the
+illustrious men and women of Paris were present. The youthful Napoleon,
+then quite a boy in appearance, and almost a stranger in Paris, was
+introduced to this brilliant assembly by his friend the Abbé Raynal.
+The genius of Napoleon, and his commanding conversational eloquence,
+soon drew around him quite a group.
+
+"Who is that young man," inquired the proud Alfieri, "who has collected
+such a group around him?"
+
+"He is," replied the abbé, "a protégé of mine, and a young man of
+extraordinary talent. He is very industrious, well read, and has made
+remarkable attainments in history, mathematics, and all military
+science."
+
+The Bishop of Autun commended the soldiers for having refused to obey
+their officers, who had ordered them, on a certain occasion, by a
+discharge of musketry, to disperse a mob.
+
+"Excuse me, my lord," said Napoleon, in tones of earnestness which
+arrested general attention, "if I venture to interrupt you, but, as I
+am an officer, I must claim the privilege of expressing my sentiments.
+It is true that I am young, and it may appear presumptuous in me to
+address so many distinguished men. But during the past three years
+I have paid intense attention to our political troubles. I see with
+sorrow the state of our country, and I will incur censure rather than
+pass unnoticed principles which are not only unsound, but which are
+subversive of all government.
+
+"As much as any I desire to see all abuses, antiquated privileges,
+and usurped rights annulled. Nay, as I am at the commencement of my
+career, it will be my best policy, as well as my duty, to support the
+progress of popular institutions, and to promote reform in every branch
+of the public administration. But as, in the last twelve months, I have
+witnessed repeated alarming popular disturbances, and have seen our
+best men divided into factions which threaten to be irreconcilable, I
+sincerely believe that now, _more than ever_, a strict discipline in
+the army is absolutely necessary for the safety of our constitutional
+government and for the maintenance of order.
+
+"Nay, if our troops are not compelled unhesitatingly to obey the
+commands of the executive, we shall be exposed to the blind fury of
+democratic passions which will render France the most miserable country
+on the globe. The ministry may be assured that, if the daily-increasing
+arrogance of the Parisian mob is not repressed by a strong arm and
+social order rightly maintained, we shall see not only this capital
+but every other city in France thrown into a state of indescribable
+anarchy, while the real friends of liberty, the enlightened patriots
+now working for the best good of our country, will sink beneath a set
+of demagogues who, with louder cries for freedom on their tongues, will
+be in reality but a horde of savages, worse than the Neros of old."[297]
+
+The whole future career of Napoleon was in consistency with the spirit
+of these remarks. "I frankly declare," said Napoleon, subsequently,
+"that if I were compelled to choose between the old monarchy and
+Jacobin misrule, I should infinitely prefer the former."
+
+On the 3d of September the Constitution was presented to the king for
+his acceptance with imposing ceremonies.[298] At nine o'clock in the
+evening a deputation left the chamber of the Assembly, and, escorted
+by a numerous and brilliant guard of honor, entered the Chateau of
+the Tuileries. The multitudes who thronged the way applauded loudly.
+The king, surrounded by his ministers and other high officers of the
+kingdom, received the deputation in his council-chamber. M. Thouret,
+president of the commission, presented the Constitution to the king,
+saying,
+
+"Sire! the representatives of the nation come to present to your
+majesty the constitutional act which consecrates the indefeasible
+rights of the French people, which gives to the throne its true
+dignity, and regenerates the government of the empire."
+
+The king, with a countenance expressive of satisfaction, received the
+document, and replied that he would examine it, and, after the shortest
+possible delay, communicate his decision to the Assembly. On the 13th
+he sent a message to the Assembly, which Barnave had assisted him in
+drawing up, and which contained the following conciliatory and noble
+sentiments:
+
+"I have examined the Constitution. I accept it and will carry it into
+execution. The will of the people is no longer doubtful to me, and
+therefore I accept the Constitution. I freely renounce the co-operation
+I had claimed in this work, and I declare that when I have renounced
+it no other but myself has any right to claim it. Let the absent who
+are restrained by the fear of persecutions return to their country
+in safety. Let us consent to a mutual forgiveness of the past and
+obliterate all accusations arising from the events of the Revolution
+in a general reconciliation. I do not refer to those which have been
+caused by an attachment to me. Can you see any guilt in them? I will
+present myself to-morrow at noon to the National Assembly, and take
+oath to the Constitution in the very place where it has been drawn up."
+
+This frank and cordial assent was unanticipated. It created a burst of
+extraordinary joy. La Fayette, in response to the suggestion of the
+king, immediately proposed a general amnesty for all acts connected
+with the Revolution. The motion was carried by acclaim. For a moment
+all parties seemed again to be united, prisons were thrown open,
+captives liberated, and shouts of fraternity and happiness resounded
+through Paris.
+
+The next day the king went to the Assembly and took his seat by the
+side of the president. He was received by all the members standing, and
+they remained standing while he addressed them. With the most earnest
+expression of sincerity and satisfaction, the king said,
+
+"I come to consecrate solemnly here the acceptance I have given to
+the Constitutional Act. I swear to be faithful to the nation and the
+law, and to employ all the powers delegated to me for maintaining the
+Constitution and carrying its decrees into effect. May this great and
+memorable epoch be that of the re-establishment of peace, and become
+the gage of the happiness of the people and the prosperity of the
+empire."
+
+As the king withdrew the whole Assembly enthusiastically escorted him
+to his palace. But it was a bitter trial for the once absolute monarch
+to lay aside his unlimited power and become a constitutional king. The
+monarch, though feeling humiliated, was still enabled to maintain his
+aspect of smiles and composure until he reached the privacy of his own
+apartment. He then threw himself into a chair, and, losing all control,
+burst into tears.[299] A weeping king excites universal sympathy. The
+heroic struggles of twenty millions of people to gain their liberties
+also secure the sympathy and the admiration of every noble heart.
+
+On the 18th of November the Constitution was proclaimed in the streets
+of Paris. Every thing was done which art could devise to invest the
+scene with splendor.
+
+[Illustration: PROCLAMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE MARKET-PLACE.]
+
+Paris was again in a delirium of joy. The bells rang, salvos of
+artillery were fired, and the acclamations of hundreds of thousands,
+blending with peals of music from martial bands, filled the air with a
+confusion of all the sounds of exultation. The people were never weary
+of calling the king, the queen, the children, to the windows of the
+palace, and whenever they appeared they were greeted with outbursts of
+love and joy.[300]
+
+On the 18th there was another magnificent festival on the Field of
+Mars. The Constitution was read to the people. It was accepted by them
+with the simultaneous shout from three hundred thousand voices of
+"_Vive la Nation! Vive le Roi!_" No discordant cry was heard. "After
+the tempest, those who have been beaten by it, as well as those who
+have not suffered, enjoy in common the serenity of the sky." In the
+evening Paris and all France blazed with illuminations and resounded
+with the shout of enfranchised millions. Balloons rose, from which
+copies of the Constitution were scattered as snow-flakes upon the
+multitude. The Elysian Fields, from the Arc de l'Etoile to the
+Tuileries, was brilliant with garlands and stars and pyramids of flame.
+Every tree blazed with quivering tongues of fire. Majestic orchestras
+pealed forth the notes of national triumph, and a multitude which no
+man could number filled that most magnificent avenue of Europe with
+plays, dances, shouts, and songs of exultation.
+
+La Fayette, on his well-known white charger, rode at the head of his
+staff through the almost impenetrable throng, accompanied by the king,
+the queen, and their children. Enthusiasm now reached its culminating
+point. Hats were thrown into the air, and from the whole mighty mass,
+as by electric sympathy, rose the cry "_Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!
+Vive le Dauphin!_"
+
+The king and queen were overjoyed in view of the happiness of the
+people, and of the love thus spontaneously and enthusiastically
+manifested for the royal family. The queen was bewildered by so
+marvelous a change. But four weeks before the royal family were
+conducted as captives through that same avenue, surrounded by the same
+countless throng, and not a voice bade them welcome. They could then
+read in every eye the expression of hatred and defiance. The contrast
+led the queen to exclaim, "They are no longer the same people." Even
+her proud heart was touched, and she, for the first time, began to feel
+some respect for popular rights. Returning to the palace, of her own
+accord she stepped out upon the balcony, and presented her children to
+the crowd who thronged the terrace. They received such greeting as can
+only come from hearts glowing with sincerity and joy. These days of
+rejoicing were terminated by an offering of thanksgiving to God, as the
+sublime chant of the _Te Deum_ was sung in the cathedral of Nôtre Dame.
+
+The Constituent Assembly, having now completed its task, prepared to
+dissolve. As a conclusive reply to all who had accused it of ambitious
+designs to perpetuate its powers, and as a magnanimous display of
+patriotic disinterestedness, it decreed that none of its members should
+be re-eligible to the next Legislature.
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 30th of September, the king,
+surrounded by his ministers, entered the Assembly. He was no longer the
+hostage of the nation, but its recognized sovereign; the guard which
+the law assigned him being now placed under his own command. Upon his
+entrance the applause was so enthusiastic and prolonged that for some
+time he was unable to commence speaking. He then said,
+
+"Gentlemen, after the completion of the Constitution, you have resolved
+on to-day for the termination of your labors. I will exercise all the
+power confided to me in assuring to the Constitution the respect and
+obedience which is its due. For you, gentlemen, who, during a long and
+painful career, have evinced an indefatigable zeal in your labors,
+there remains a last duty to fulfill, when you are scattered over the
+face of the empire. It is to enlighten your fellow-citizens as to the
+spirit of the laws you have made; to purify and unite opinions by the
+example you will give to the love of order and submission to the laws.
+Be, on your return to your homes, the interpreters of my sentiments
+to your fellow-citizens. Tell them that the king will always be their
+first and most faithful friend; that he desires to be loved by them,
+and can only be happy with them and by them."
+
+The king left the hall amid the loudest acclamations. They were
+the last with which he was greeted. Thouret, the president of the
+Assembly, as soon as the king had retired, said in a loud voice, "The
+Constituent Assembly pronounces its mission accomplished, and that its
+sittings now terminate." Thus closed the truly patriotic Assembly. It
+had accomplished the greatest and the most glorious revolution ever
+achieved in so short a time, and with so little violence. Repressing
+alike the despotism of aristocracy and the lawlessness of the mob, it
+established a constitution containing the essential elements of liberty
+protected by law. Under this constitution France might have advanced
+in prosperity. But the aristocrat and the Jacobin combined in its
+overthrow. They were fatally successful in their efforts.
+
+It is interesting to observe how differently the same events were
+regarded by different minds. Bertrand de Moleville, a warm partisan of
+the aristocracy, says,
+
+"Thus terminated this guilty Assembly, whose vanity, ambition,
+cupidity, ingratitude, ignorance, and audacity have overturned the most
+ancient and the noblest monarchy of Europe, and rendered France the
+theatre of every crime, of every calamity, and of the most horrible
+catastrophe. Can these treacherous representatives ever justify
+themselves in the eyes of the nation for having so unworthily abused
+their confidence and their powers?"
+
+On the other hand, the democratic historians, the "Two Friends
+of Liberty," while regretting that the Constitution was not more
+thoroughly democratic, say,
+
+"The Constitution of 1791, with all its faults, forever deserves
+the gratitude of the French people, because it has destroyed, never
+to return, every trace of feudalism, imposts the most fatal to
+agriculture, the privileges of particular persons, the usurpations
+of the priesthood over the civil power, and the proud pretensions of
+ancient corporations; because it has realized what philosophy for ages
+has in vain wished, and what monarchs the most absolute have never
+dared to undertake; and because it has established that uniformity
+which no one could have ever hoped for in an empire formed by gradual
+accretions from time to time, and with which, under a good government,
+there is no prosperity which France may not realize."
+
+But whatever may be the estimate which political partisans may place
+upon the labors of the Assembly, no intelligent man will now deny that
+the great majority of that body were true patriots, sincerely desiring
+the welfare of their country. It will be admitted by all that they
+abolished judicial torture, placed all men upon the basis of equality
+in the eye of the law, annulled obnoxious privileges, introduced vast
+reform into commercial jurisprudence, established liberty of worship
+and of conscience, suppressed monastic vows, abolished the execrable
+system of _lettres de cachet_, rendered personal liberty sacred,
+introduced equality of taxation, and swept away those provincial
+jealousies and that interior line of custom-houses which had for ages
+seriously embarrassed the internal trade of the kingdom. All feudal
+rights were abrogated, industry encouraged, and the citizens of the
+kingdom were enrolled into a National Guard, for the preservation of
+domestic peace and to resist aggression.
+
+This most noble reform combined Europe assailed with all its marshaled
+bayonets. The crime deluged the Continent in woe. After nearly a
+quarter of a century of conflagration and carnage, French liberty was
+trampled into the bloody mire of Waterloo, and the Old Régime was
+reinstated.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 287: "Je connais vos moyens de defense; ils sont nul. Et
+votre châtiment servira d'exemple aux autres peuples. Voilà ce que voit
+vous dire un homme qui n'a pour vous et votre peuple qu'indignation et
+horreur. Je connais les chemins; je guiderais les armées étrangères qui
+vous attaqueront. Si l'on ôte un seul cheven de la tête de mon roi, il
+ne restera pas pièrre sur pièrre à Paris. Adieu, messieurs."--_Histoire
+de la Revolution Française, par Villaumé_, p. 160.]
+
+[Footnote 288: The Assembly, while exonerating the king, condemned
+Bouillé and three _Guards du Corps_ who accompanied the king in his
+flight. It is impossible to refute the _logic_ with which Robespierre
+opposed this decision. "The measures you propose," he said, "can not
+but dishonor you. If you adopt them, I demand to declare myself the
+advocate of _all_ the accused. I will be the defender of the three
+_Guards du Corps_, the governess, even of Monsieur de Bouillé. By the
+principles of your committee, _no crime has been committed_. Where
+there is no crime _there can be no accomplices_. Gentlemen, to visit
+the weaker culprit when the greater one escapes is cowardice. You must
+condemn all or acquit all." To this no reply was made. The Assembly
+voted.]
+
+[Footnote 289: "The Republican party now began to appear. The struggle,
+which lay at first between the Assembly and the court, then between
+the Constitutionalists and the aristocrats, was now about to commence
+between the Constitutionalists and the Republicans."--_Mignet_, p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 290: Villiaumé, p. 112; Desodoards, p. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 291: Hist. de la Rev. Fr., par Villiaumé, p. 112. "The
+Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Count d'Artois met
+at Pilnitz, where they made the famous declaration of the 27th of
+August, which, far from improving the condition of the king, would have
+imperiled him, had not the Assembly, in its wisdom, continued to follow
+out its new designs, regardless at once of the clamors of the multitude
+at home and of the foreign powers."--_Mignet_, p. 107.]
+
+[Footnote 292: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 293: "It is easy to discern how many a hasty and tremulous
+hand has traced the witness of its fury or ignorance upon this
+document. Many were even unable to write. A circle of ink with a
+cross in the centre marks their anonymous adhesion to the petition.
+Some female names are to be seen, and numerous names of children
+are discernible from the inaccuracy of their hand, guided by
+another."--_History of the Girondists, Lamartine_, vol. i., p. 125.
+
+This document is still preserved in the archives of the municipality
+of Paris. On it may be read the names of Chaumette, Maillard, Hebert,
+Hauriot, Santerre, and others who subsequently became most conspicuous
+in deeds of cruelty and infamy.]
+
+[Footnote 294: History of the Girondists, Lamartine, vol. i., p. 126.]
+
+[Footnote 295: The Riot Act established by the Constitution was a
+great improvement upon the Riot Act of England. It declared that
+the municipal officers, if the public peace is endangered, shall
+declare that military force must be produced; and the signal of this
+declaration shall be a red flag upon the Hôtel de Ville, and then
+carrying before them a red flag through the streets, wherever they,
+with their armed force, go. On the appearance of the red flag, all
+crowds refusing instantly to disperse shall be held criminal, and
+shall be liable to be dispersed by force. In a crowd a _voice_ can not
+always be heard, but a _red flag_ can always be seen. The crowd, though
+thus dispersed, were authorized to depute six persons to state their
+grievance to the government.]
+
+[Footnote 296: There are many conflicting partisan accounts of this
+event. The most careful and thorough investigation has led me to the
+statement given above. When the Jacobins came into power they sent
+Bailly to the guillotine for this noble deed. La Fayette would have
+perished with him had he not been sheltered in the dungeons of Olmutz.
+Bailly, in his narrative of this affair, says that there were but
+twelve killed and about as many wounded.]
+
+[Footnote 297: The narrative of this interview is given in full in
+Chambers' Edinburgh Journal. It was communicated to that journal by
+an Italian gentleman, a pupil of Condorcet, who was present on the
+occasion.]
+
+[Footnote 298: The Constitution was commenced the 17th of June, 1789,
+and completed the 3d of September, 1791.]
+
+[Footnote 299: Madame Campan's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 300: All contemporary history unites in testifying to the
+enthusiasm displayed on this occasion.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE APPROACH OF WAR.
+
+ Sentiments of the King and Queen upon the Constitution.--The
+ Legislative Assembly.--Its democratic Spirit.--The King's
+ Speech.--Painful Scene.--The Queen plans Escape.--Riot in the
+ Theatre.--Infatuation of the Aristocrats.--Insult to the Duke
+ of Orleans.--Embarrassment of the Allies.--Replies to the King
+ from the European Powers.--The Emigrants at Coblentz.--The King's
+ Veto.--Letters of the King to his Brothers.--Their Replies.--Cruel
+ Edicts.--Pétion chosen Mayor.--The King visits the Assembly.--Rise of
+ the Republican Party.
+
+
+The monarch of France, though deprived of absolute power, was still in
+the enjoyment of extensive prerogatives. The Assembly had conferred
+upon him the title of King of the French, an annual income of five
+millions of dollars, the command of the armies, and the right of
+suspending the national decrees. The king and queen were probably at
+this time sincere in their resolve to be resigned to the change, and
+to accept the Constitution. In the first interview which Bertrand de
+Moleville, a Royalist whom the king had appointed Minister of Marine,
+had with the king, the following remarks were made by the monarch:
+
+"In my opinion the Constitution has serious defects, and if I had
+been at liberty to address some observations to the Assembly, very
+beneficial reforms might have resulted from them. But now it is too
+late, and I have accepted it, such as it is. I have sworn to cause it
+to be executed, and I ought to be, and will be, strictly faithful to my
+oath."
+
+"But may I be permitted," inquired the minister, "to ask your majesty
+if the queen's opinion on this point agrees with the king's?"
+
+"Yes, precisely," said the king; "she will tell you so herself."
+
+"I went down stairs," continues Bertrand de Moleville in his
+interesting narrative, "to the queen, who, after declaring with extreme
+kindness that she, as well as the king, felt under much obligation to
+me for having accepted the ministry under such critical circumstances,
+added these words:
+
+"'The king has acquainted you with his intentions relative to the
+Constitution. Do you think that the only plan he has to follow is to
+adhere to his oath?'
+
+"'Most certainly, madam,' I replied.
+
+"'Well, then,' said the queen, 'be assured that nothing shall induce
+us to change. Come, M. Bertrand, courage! I hope that with patience,
+firmness, and perseverance, all is not yet lost.'"[301]
+
+Just before the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, elections had
+been held, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, to
+choose the first _Legislative Assembly_. This legislature was to be
+renewed every two years. No member of the Constitutional Assembly was
+eligible. The Legislative Assembly, consequently, was composed mostly
+of obscure men with but little political experience. They numbered
+seven hundred and forty-five.
+
+The Legislative Assembly was convened the 1st day of October, the day
+after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, and in the hall
+which had been occupied by that body.[302] At its first sitting it was
+observed that the exterior aspect of the Assembly had greatly changed;
+that nearly all the white heads had disappeared; and that France had
+fallen into the hands of young men. Sixty of the deputies were under
+twenty-six years of age. The spirit of the new Assembly was developed
+in its first decrees. A deputation was sent to inform the king that the
+Assembly was organized. The president of the deputation, in conformity
+with court etiquette, approached the king, and, when at four paces
+distance, bowed and said,
+
+"Sire, the Assembly is formed, and has deputed us to inform your
+majesty."
+
+Upon reporting the result of their mission, some of the deputies were
+offended that the ancient titles of royalty had been retained.
+
+"I demand," cried one, "that this title of _majesty_ be no longer
+employed."
+
+"I demand," exclaimed another, "that this title of _Sire_ be abolished.
+It is only an abbreviation of Seigneur, which recognizes a sovereignty
+in the man to whom it is given. There is no other majesty here than
+that of the law and the people. Let us leave the king no other title
+than that of King of the French."
+
+In the room there was a gilded chair, raised above the seat of the
+president, which was occupied by the king when he attended the
+Assembly. It had always been a respectful custom for the members to
+remain uncovered when the king was present, and to stand while he
+addressed them. It was the custom for the king, in addressing the
+Assembly, to be seated and to wear his hat.
+
+"Let this scandalous gilded chair be removed," another said. "Let an
+equality exist between us and the king as regards ceremony. When he is
+uncovered and standing, let us stand and uncover our heads. When he is
+covered and seated, let us sit and wear our hats."
+
+These decrees, abolishing the respect due to rank, and the courtesies
+so essential to mitigate the ferocity of political strife, were
+promptly passed. The Constitutional party throughout France were
+generally mortified and alarmed, and the king was deeply wounded. He
+declared that the Constitution did not require of him to expose the
+monarchical dignity to insult, and that he would not preside at the
+opening of the legislative body in person, but would assign the duty
+to his ministers.[303] Alarmed by the decision of the king and by the
+indications of public disapproval, the Assembly, after a debate of two
+days, repealed the obnoxious decrees.
+
+The Jacobins regarded the repeal as a defeat, and in the Assembly,
+in their clubs, and in their journals, did what they could to rouse
+the indignation of the populace. The royalist journals also united
+with them in the attempt to overwhelm this return to moderation with
+derision. "See," they cried, "how contemptible is this revolution; how
+conscious of its own weakness. See, in two days, how often it has given
+itself the lie." The Royalists still persisted in their endeavor to
+goad the revolutionary party to every conceivable outrage, that Europe
+might be more effectually roused to crush the Revolution.[304]
+
+On the 7th the king proceeded to the Assembly. He was received,
+apparently, with unanimous applause, some shouting energetically "_Vive
+le Roi!_" and others, still more energetically, "_Vive sa majesté!_"
+The king's speech was conciliatory, and was received with warm
+approval. The members of the Assembly, however, retained their seats
+while the king was addressing them. Louis regarded this as an insult,
+and it wounded him most keenly.
+
+The queen attended the sitting in a private box. The disrespect
+with which the king was treated pierced her very soul. She sat as
+in a stupor of silence, her countenance, pallid and wan, betraying
+the bitterness of her anguish. The king, upon leaving the Assembly,
+hastened immediately to the private apartment of the queen. He was so
+pale and agitated that the queen uttered an exclamation of surprise.
+The unhappy monarch threw himself upon a sofa, and, pressing a
+handkerchief to his eyes, said,
+
+"All is lost! Ah! madam, and you are witness to this humiliation. What!
+you are come to France to see--"
+
+"These words," writes Madame Campan, "were interrupted by sobs. The
+queen threw herself upon her knees before him, and pressed him in her
+arms. I remained with them, not from any blamable curiosity, but from
+a stupefaction which rendered me incapable of determining what I ought
+to do. The queen said to me, '_Oh go, go_,' with an accent which
+expressed, 'Do not remain to witness the dejection and despair of your
+sovereign.' I withdrew, struck with the contrast between the shouts
+of joy without the palace, and the profound grief which oppressed the
+sovereigns within."
+
+The queen resolved immediately to leave Paris and to return to her
+friends in Vienna, that from the heart of Austria she might plan for
+the recovery of the throne. The king so far fell in with this plan
+as to write a letter which M. Goguelat was to take to the emperor.
+During the whole day the garden and court-yard of the Tuileries were
+thronged, and the rejoicing shouts of the people filled the air. The
+ignorant populace, believing that the king and the queen shared their
+joy, called loudly for them to take an airing in their carriage in the
+Elysian Fields. It was not deemed prudent to decline. With heavy hearts
+they entered their carriage, and rode slowly along the magnificent
+avenue, escorted by the officers of the Parisian army. Here a new
+insult awaited them. Though they were repeatedly greeted with shouts
+of "_Vive le Roi!_" a gigantic man, with stentorian voice, kept near
+the carriage window, ever interrupting those shouts with the cry, "_No,
+don't believe them_. _Vive la Nation!_" This one ill-omened voice,
+incessantly reiterated, sank deep into their hearts, and obliterated
+all impressions of public acclaim. In the deepest dejection they
+returned to the palace.[305]
+
+That night Paris blazed with illuminations, and the shouts of joyful
+revelry filled all the streets; but in these resounding plaudits the
+queen heard but the death-knell of the monarchy, and, in the retirement
+of her boudoir, she was at midnight planning her escape from France.
+
+It was deemed by the king and queen of the utmost importance to assume
+publicly the appearance of content. A few evenings after this, the
+royal family attended the Théâtre Italien. As Madame Duguzon sang the
+words, "_Ah! how I love my mistress_," she turned to the royal box,
+and gracefully courtesied to the queen. Immediately many Jacobins
+in the pit shouted, "No mistress! no master! liberty!" This caused
+others to shout, "Long live the king! long live the queen!" Still
+more energetically the Jacobins replied, "No king! no queen!" In an
+instant the theatre was thrown into a Babel of tumult. The infuriated
+antagonists from words proceeded to blows, and a fierce fight took
+place under the eyes of the royal family. News of the affray spread
+rapidly through Paris, and the excitable mob was rapidly gathering,
+when the royal guards surrounded the king and queen and bore them
+safely to the palace. This was the last time the royal family ventured
+into the theatre.[306]
+
+The queen was all this time carrying on a private correspondence with
+the foreign powers in cipher, and through her agents was conferring
+with William Pitt in London. "The queen told me," writes Madam Campan,
+"that her secret envoy was returned from London, and that all he had
+been able to wring from Pitt, whom he found alarmingly reserved, was,
+that _he would not suffer the French monarchy to fall_; that to suffer
+the revolutionary spirit to erect an organized republic in France would
+be a great error as regarding the tranquillity of Europe."[307]
+
+The queen complained that she herself was greatly embarrassed by the
+arrogance of the nobles. "When I do any thing," she said to Madame
+Campan, "which the _noblesse_ do not like, I am treated with marked
+neglect. No one will come to my card-parties, and the king is left in
+solitude."[308]
+
+The Royalists, indeed, seem to have been abandoned to utter
+infatuation. They did every thing in their power to insult and
+exasperate those who were not their political confederates. The Duke
+of Orleans went to the Tuileries to attend the king's levee. The
+courtiers who thronged the anterooms, as soon as he entered, crowded
+around him, hustled him about, trod on his toes, and punched him with
+their elbows. "Gentlemen," they shouted to each other, "watch the
+dishes!" implying that the duke was provided with poison to sprinkle
+upon the refreshments. The duke was at last compelled to retire without
+seeing the royal family. The crowd followed him to the staircase,
+and, as he descended, spit upon him, covering his head and clothes
+with saliva. The duke supposed, though erroneously, that the king and
+queen instigated this unpardonable outrage. It is not strange that
+this man, when his hour of power came, voted to send the king to the
+guillotine.[309]
+
+The queen was unrelenting in her hostility to La Fayette, and often
+treated him with the most irritating rudeness. "Her aversion," says
+Madame Campan, "for the general increased daily, and grew so powerful
+that when, toward the end of the Revolution, he seemed willing to
+support the tottering throne she could never bring herself to incur
+so great an obligation to him."[310] On one occasion La Fayette met
+the queen in a private interview, while his aids waited for him in the
+saloon. Some of the ladies of the court, to insult La Fayette and his
+aids, said loudly, "_It is very alarming to see the queen alone with a
+rebel and a brigand_."
+
+The feelings of the king were now so outraged that he could not
+cheerfully persevere in his resolves to maintain the new order of
+affairs. The allied sovereigns were, however, so embarrassed by the
+acceptance of the Constitution by the king, and by the reiterated
+declaration of the king that he accepted and adopted the whole system
+of governmental reform, that they hesitated for a time to carry into
+execution the declaration of Pilnitz. Louis XVI. notified all the
+courts of Europe of the change which had been introduced into the
+government of France, and sent to them all, with much ceremonial pomp,
+a copy of the Constitution elegantly engrossed upon satin paper. The
+allies could no longer pretend that they were waging war against a
+_revolted people_. It was now necessary, if they continued hostile, to
+assail the legitimate king, and to deny, in the face of the world, that
+the government of France had any right to mitigate the severity of its
+despotism.
+
+The courts of Europe were quite bewildered by the new aspect which
+affairs thus assumed. It was necessary for them to take some notice
+of the courteous communication which had been transmitted to them.
+Leopold of Austria seemed disposed to give up the conflict, thinking
+that the safety of his sister Marie Antoinette would be promoted by
+peace. He therefore returned a pacific answer. Prussia and England sent
+back courteous replies with assurances of their amicable intentions.
+Holland, the Italian principalities, and Switzerland assumed a friendly
+attitude. Russia was cold, haughty, and reserved. Gustavus of Sweden
+returned the insulting reply that the King of France was a prisoner,
+and that his assent to the Constitution was obtained upon compulsion,
+and therefore deserved no respect from the foreign powers.[311] The
+Electors of Treves and of Mentz, in whose territories the emigrants
+had mostly taken refuge, returned evasive and unsatisfactory replies.
+Spain, also, while declaring that she had no wish to disturb the
+internal tranquillity of France, could not conceal her displeasure that
+free institutions were established so near her borders.
+
+The emigrants, however, were still rallying at Coblentz and making
+formidable preparations for war. The king was vacillating. It is
+certain that he sent, apparently, the most sincere injunctions to the
+emigrants at Coblentz to disband and to return to France, accepting the
+new order of things. It is equally certain that he kept up a private
+correspondence with the emigrants, encouraging them to persevere and to
+march to his rescue.[312]
+
+This hostile gathering at Coblentz, ever threatening the kingdom with
+invasion, kept France in a continual state of ferment. The Minister of
+War reported to the Assembly that nineteen hundred of the officers of
+the army had deserted their posts and joined the menacing foe. After a
+long and very anxious debate, a decree was passed declaring that the
+French emigrants assembled at Coblentz were believed to be conspiring
+against France; that if, on the 1st of January next, they still
+continued assembled, they should be declared guilty of conspiracy,
+prosecuted as such, and punished with death; and that the revenues of
+those who refused to comply with this decree should be levied, during
+their lives, for the benefit of the nation, without prejudice to the
+rights of wives, children, and lawful creditors.[313]
+
+The king, on the 10th of November, returned this law with his _veto_.
+It was an imposing scene. All the ministers of the king, in a body,
+went to the Assembly. It was generally understood that the power of the
+_veto_ was to be exercised. Breathless silence pervaded the Assembly.
+The bill was returned to the president with the official formula,
+"_The king will examine it_." Loud murmurs immediately rose from all
+parts of the house, and the ministers retired, leaving the Assembly in
+deep irritation. The conviction was strengthened that the king was in
+sympathy with the conspirators.
+
+To efface this impression the king the next day issued a proclamation
+to the emigrants exhorting them to cease to harass France by their
+threatening attitude, and like good citizens to return and respect
+the established laws of their country. He entreated them not to compel
+him to employ severe measures against them. As to the charge that he
+was deprived of his liberty, he said that the _veto_ which he had just
+interposed in their favor was sufficient proof of the freedom of his
+actions. At the same time he published two very decisive letters to his
+two brothers. To Louis he wrote as follows:
+
+ "Paris, November 11, 1791.
+
+ "To Louis Stanislas Xavier, French Prince, the King's Brother,--I
+ wrote to you, my brother, on the 16th of October last, and you ought
+ not to have had any doubt of my real sentiments. I am surprised that
+ my letter has not produced the effect which I had a right to expect
+ from it. In order to recall you to your duty I have used all the
+ arguments that ought to touch you most. Your absence is a pretext for
+ all the evil disposed; a sort of excise for all the deluded French,
+ who imagine that they are serving me by keeping all France in an
+ alarm and agitation, which are the torment of my life.
+
+ "The Revolution is finished. The Constitution is completed. France
+ wills it; I will maintain it. Upon its consolidation now depends the
+ welfare of the monarchy. The Constitution has conferred rights upon
+ you; it has attached to them one condition which you ought to lose no
+ time in fulfilling. Believe me, brother, and repel the doubts which
+ pains are taken to excite in you respecting my liberty. I am going
+ to prove to you, by a most solemn act, and in a circumstance which
+ interests you, that I can act freely. Prove to me that you are my
+ brother and a Frenchman by complying with my entreaties. Your proper
+ place is by my side; your interests, your sentiments alike urge you
+ to come and resume it. I invite you, and, if I may, I order you to do
+ so. (Signed), Louis."
+
+In a similar strain he wrote to his brother Charles. But neither the
+proclamation to the emigrants nor the letters to his brothers produced
+any effect. The Count of Provence (Louis XVIII.), in his reply, said,
+
+"The order which the letter contains for me to return and resume my
+place by your majesty's person is not the free expression of your will.
+My honor, my duty, nay, even my affection alike forbid me to obey."
+
+The Count of Artois (Charles X.) replied,
+
+"The decisions referred to in this letter have furnished me with a
+fresh proof of the moral and physical captivity in which our enemies
+dare to hold your majesty. After this declaration your majesty will
+think it natural that, faithful to my duty and the laws of honor, I
+should not obey orders evidently wrung from you by violence."
+
+Another very serious difficulty now arose. The Constitution established
+freedom of conscience and of worship. It, however, justly required that
+all governmental officers should take the oath of allegiance to the
+Constitution. The Church had been so long in intimate alliance with the
+State, that that alliance was not severed, and the clergy, as public
+functionaries who received their salaries from the national treasury,
+were consequently required to take the oath. Any one was at liberty to
+refuse to take this oath. By so doing he merely forfeited employment
+by the nation. He was still permitted to perform the functions of the
+ministry for any who were disposed to support him as their pastor.
+
+In the Province of Vendée the majority of the clergy refused to take
+the oath, and carried with them the immense majority of the simple and
+superstitious peasants. The churches in which they had ministered were
+immediately assigned to other priests who had taken the oath. The great
+mass of the people abandoned the churches and followed their nonjuring
+pastors to private houses, barns, and into the fields. Great enthusiasm
+was excited, and the nonjuring priests endeavored to excite the people
+against their colleagues who had taken the oath, and against the people
+who accepted their ministrations. Acts of violence were frequent and
+civil war was imminent.
+
+The Legislative Assembly was alarmed, and endeavored to meet the
+difficulty by adopting measures totally hostile to the free spirit of
+the Constitution. They resolved that the nonjuring priests should again
+be called upon to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution;
+that, if they refused, they should be not only deprived of all salary,
+but should be removed from their parishes, and even imprisoned, if need
+be, that they might not excite their former parishioners to civil war.
+They were also forbidden to exercise the privilege of private worship.
+The administrative bodies were required to transmit a list of such
+priests to the Assembly, with notes relative to the conduct of each one.
+
+These decrees were surely unconstitutional. The bishops and the priests
+who were endangered by them sent to the king an earnest remonstrance
+against them. Many of the most influential of the Constitutionalists
+were opposed to them as both tyrannical and cruel. The king was so
+moved that he said to his ministers, who coincided with him in opinion,
+"They shall take my life before they shall compel me to sanction such
+decrees."
+
+The king returned the bill with his _veto_, and aggravated the odium
+this would naturally excite by retaining, contrary to the solicitations
+of his best friends, nonjuring ecclesiastics to perform the religious
+services of his chapel. Though we can not commend the _prudence_ we
+must respect the _spirit_ which impelled him to say,
+
+"The Constitution decrees freedom of religious worship for every body.
+The king is surely entitled to that liberty as much as his subjects."
+
+All argument was on one side, but peril, more powerful than argument,
+on the other. "The nonjuring priests," it was exclaimed, "are exciting
+civil war. The law of self-defense renders it imperative that we should
+strike them down."
+
+Upon the completion of the Constitution, La Fayette, emulating the
+character of Washington, resigned the command of the National Guard
+and retired to his estates. Bailly also resigned his post as mayor of
+Paris. The command of the Guard was intrusted to six generals, who were
+to exercise it in rotation. A new mayor of Paris was to be chosen. La
+Fayette was the candidate of the Constitutionalists, and Pétion of
+that radical portion of the Republicans who were termed Jacobins. The
+aristocracy, with their accustomed infatuation, supported Pétion with
+their influence and with a large outlay of money. They feared that a
+constitutional monarchy might be sustained, but they believed that the
+Jacobins would introduce such anarchy as might secure the recall of the
+old monarchy.
+
+"The Marquis de la Fayette," said the queen, "only desires to be Mayor
+of Paris that he may be _mayor of the palace_. Pétion is a Jacobin and
+a Republican; but he is a fool, incapable of ever being the leader of
+a party. He will be a nullity of a mayor. Besides, it is possible that
+the knowledge of the interest we take in his election may bring him
+over to the king."[314]
+
+Pétion was chosen by a large majority. Bitterly did the king and queen
+afterward bewail his election. But thus through all this tragedy did
+they spurn those who alone had the heart and the ability to help them.
+
+In the midst of these troubles the most alarming rumors were every day
+reaching Paris respecting the threatening aspect of the emigrants. All
+along the Germanic frontiers, at Strasbourg, Coblentz, Worms, they
+were marshaling their battalions and collecting munitions of war.
+Exasperated by these persistent and audacious threats, the Assembly
+sent a deputation of twenty-four members to the king with a decree
+declaring that the Electors of Treves and Mentz, and other princes
+of the Germanic empire should be required to break up these hostile
+assemblages formed within their territories for the invasion of France.
+M. de Vaublanc, who headed the deputation, said to the king,
+
+"Sire, if the French who were driven from their country by the
+revocation of the Edict of Nantes had assembled in arms on the
+frontiers, and had been protected by Germanic princes, we ask you,
+sire, what would have been the conduct of Louis XIV.? Would he have
+suffered these assemblages? That which he would have done for the
+sake of his authority, your majesty can not hesitate to do for the
+maintenance of the Constitution."
+
+The king, anxious to regain the ground he had lost by his _veto_,
+decided to go to the Assembly and reply in person to their message. On
+the evening of the 14th of December, his coming having been previously
+announced, he entered the hall. He was received with the most frigid
+silence. His speech, however, soon enkindled enthusiasm and applause.
+
+He assured the Assembly that he warmly sympathized with them in all
+their solicitude for the honor of France, that he had already signified
+to the Electors of Treves and Mentz that the continued assemblage of
+troops within their borders for the invasion of France would be deemed
+cause for war. He said that he had written to Leopold, the Emperor
+of Germany, demanding his interference to prevent the gathering of
+troops, hostile to France, within the limits of the Germanic empire,
+and concluded with the declaration that he would faithfully guard the
+Constitution, and that he appreciated the glory of being the king of a
+free people.[315]
+
+This speech was received with great applause, and it was immediately
+voted that it should be sent to each of the eighty-three departments
+of the empire. Immediately upon the king's retiring, the Count Louis
+de Narbonne, minister of war, entered, and informed the Assembly that
+one hundred thousand men were immediately to be assembled, by order of
+the king, upon the Rhine, to repel invasion; that three generals were
+appointed to command them--Luckner, Rochambeau, and La Fayette; that
+he was about to set out immediately to inspect the fortresses on the
+frontiers. At the same time all the diplomatic agents who were accused
+of favoring the aristocratic party were removed, and more democratic
+officers were appointed in their place. These measures were so popular,
+and gave such evidence that the king sincerely intended to defend the
+Constitution, that even the obnoxious _vetos_ were accepted without
+farther murmurs.
+
+These measures were prosecuted with vigor. Luckner and Rochambeau,
+having been appointed marshals of France, hastened to the frontiers. La
+Fayette soon followed them. Battalions of the National Guard escorted
+him as he left Paris, and he was greeted every where with shouts of
+applause.
+
+The emigrants were unanimous in their desire for the invasion of
+France, for the entire overthrow of the Constitution, and the
+restoration of the Old Régime. Leopold of Austria, however, anxious
+for the safety of his sister Marie Antoinette, and embarrassed by the
+king's acceptance of the Constitution, was desirous of effecting some
+compromise by which a constitution should be permitted to France, but
+one much more aristocratic in its provisions. Gustavus of Sweden and
+Catherine of Russia were eager for prompt and energetic war. Catherine
+wrote a strong letter to Leopold to rouse him to action.
+
+"The King of Prussia," she wrote, "for a mere incivility offered to
+his sister, sent an army into Holland to punish the affront. And will
+the Emperor of Austria patiently suffer insults and affronts to be
+heaped upon his sister, the Queen of France, the degradation of her
+rank and dignity, and the overthrow of the throne of a king who is his
+brother-in-law and his ally?"[316]
+
+Under this state of affairs, the French embassador, in January, 1792,
+was instructed to inform the Austrian government that there was reason
+to apprehend that a coalition was being formed against the sovereignty
+and independence of France, and to inquire of Leopold whether he
+did or did not intend to interfere against the French Revolution.
+Thus pressed, the Austrian cabinet returned an answer containing the
+following avowal:
+
+"When France gave to Europe the spectacle of a lawful king forced by
+atrocious violence to fly, protesting solemnly against the acquiescence
+which they had extorted from him, and a little afterward stopped and
+detained prisoner by his subjects--yes, it then _did_ concern the
+brother-in-law and the ally of the king to invite the other powers
+of Europe to join with him in a declaration to France that they all
+view the cause of his most Christian majesty as their own; that they
+demand that this prince and his family be set at liberty and have power
+to go where they please; and they require for these royal personages
+inviolability and due respect, which by the law of nature and nations
+are due from subjects to their princes; that they will unite to avenge
+in the most signal manner every farther attempt that may be committed,
+or may be suffered to be committed, against the liberty, the honor, and
+the safety of the king, the queen, and the royal family; and that,
+finally, they will not acknowledge as constitutional and legally
+established in France any laws but those which shall have the voluntary
+acquiescence of the king, enjoying perfect liberty. But if, on the
+other hand, these demands are not complied with, they will in concert
+employ all the means in their reach to put a stop to the scandalous
+usurpation of power which bears the appearance of an open rebellion,
+and which, from the dangers of the example, it concerns all the
+governments of Europe to repress."
+
+The Republican party in the Legislative Assembly were called the
+Girondists because their leaders were generally from the department
+of the Gironde. The evidence to them was conclusive, and is now
+universally admitted, that the king, instead of sustaining the
+Constitution, was conspiring with the emigrants and the foreign powers
+for its overthrow. The Girondists, thus assured that the king was
+hostile to constitutional liberty while pretending that he was its
+friend that he might more effectually assail it, were anxious for his
+dethronement and for the establishment of a republic. Candor surely
+can not censure them. Twenty-five millions of men were not bound to
+place their liberties in the hands of a monarch who was conspiring with
+foreign foes to enslave them anew.
+
+The Republican party increased so rapidly and swayed such an influence
+that the king was compelled early in 1792 to dismiss his Royalist
+ministers, and to call into his cabinet the leaders of the Republicans,
+Dumouriez, Roland, and others. He was compelled very reluctantly to
+take this step, and soon by them he was compelled, with still greater
+reluctance, to declare war against Austria.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 301: Bertrand de Moleville, t. vi., p. 22. See also Mémoires
+de Madame Campan, t. ii., p. 161.]
+
+[Footnote 302: "This Assembly (the Constituent) had consisted of the
+most imposing body of men that had ever represented, not only France,
+but the human race. The men of the Constituent Assembly were not
+Frenchmen, they were universal men. They were, and they felt themselves
+to be, workmen of God, called by him to restore social reason, and
+found right and justice throughout the universe. The declaration of
+the Rights of Man proves this. Thus there was not one of its apostles
+who did not proclaim peace among the nations. Mirabeau, La Fayette,
+Robespierre himself, erased war from the symbol which they presented to
+the nation."--_Hist. of the Girondists, by Lamartine_, vol. i., p. 250.]
+
+[Footnote 303: Lamartine, in cautious apology for these decrees, says,
+"The people was a slave, freed but yesterday, and who still trembled at
+the clank of his chains."--_Hist. of the Girondists_, vol. i., p. 210.]
+
+[Footnote 304: "The aristocratic party preferred any thing, even the
+Jacobins, to the establishment of the constitutional laws. The most
+unbridled disorders seemed preferable, because they buoyed up the hope
+of a total change; and, twenty times over, upon occasions when persons
+but little acquainted with the secret policy of the court expressed the
+apprehensions they entertained of the popular societies, the initiated
+answered that a sincere Royalist ought to favor the Jacobins."--_Madame
+Campan_, vol. ii., p. 162.]
+
+[Footnote 305: "What King Louis is, and can not help being, readers
+already know. A king who can not take the Constitution, nor reject the
+Constitution, nor do any thing at all but miserably ask, 'What shall I
+do?'"--_Carlyle, History of the French Revolution_, vol. ii., p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 306: The king's government hired hand-clappers and
+applauders. Fifty thousand dollars a month were devoted to
+paragraph-writers and journalists. Two hundred and eighty applauders
+were hired at three shillings each a day to clap and shout whenever the
+king made his appearance, and to crowd the galleries of the Legislative
+Assembly whenever the king presented himself there. The account-books
+of this expenditure still exist.--_Montgaillard_, vol. iii., p. 141.]
+
+[Footnote 307: Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 189.]
+
+[Footnote 308: Id., 174.]
+
+[Footnote 309: Bertrand Moleville, vol. i., p. 177. Bertrand was an
+eye-witness of this scene, which he graphically describes.]
+
+[Footnote 310: Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 127.]
+
+[Footnote 311: The Empress Catharine of Russia wrote to Marie
+Antoinette a letter with her own hand, containing the following
+sentence: "Kings ought to proceed in their career, undisturbed by the
+cries of the people, as the moon pursues her course unimpeded by the
+howling of dogs."--_Madame Campan_, vol. i., p. 207.]
+
+[Footnote 312: Mémoires de Madame Campan, t. ii., p. 172.]
+
+[Footnote 313: Thiers, vol. i., p. 204.]
+
+[Footnote 314: Bertrand's Private Memoirs, vol. v., p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 315: There was an earnest debate in February, 1800, in the
+British House of Commons as to who were the aggressors in this war. Mr.
+Pitt denounced the French as the aggressors. Mr. Fox, on the contrary,
+affirmed that the war was unavoidable on the part of France from the
+menacing conduct of the German powers.]
+
+[Footnote 316: Mémoires de Bouillé, p. 314.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+AGITATION IN PARIS, AND COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES.
+
+ Death of Leopold.--Assassination of Gustavus.--Interview between
+ Dumouriez and the Queen.--Discussion in the Assembly.--The Duke
+ of Brunswick.--Interview of Barnave with the Queen.--Interview
+ between Dumouriez and the King.--Dismissal of M. Roland.--The Palace
+ invaded.--Fortitude of the King.--Pétion, the Mayor.--Affecting
+ Interview of the Royal Family.--Remarks of Napoleon.
+
+
+On the 1st of March, 1792, the Emperor Leopold died. His son, Francis
+II., a young man twenty-four years of age, ascended the throne. The
+court of Leopold had been a harem of unblushing sensuality and sin. He
+did not condescend to spread any veil over his amours. His attachments
+were numerous and fugitive, and his guilty favorites associated with
+each other and braved the frowns of the humiliated queen amid the
+voluptuousness of the palace. At the time of his death there dwelt with
+him Donna Maria, a young girl from Tuscany, whose surpassing charms had
+given her celebrity throughout Europe as "the beautiful Florentine;"
+a Polish girl of great attractions, Mademoiselle Prokache; and the
+Countess of Walkenstein, whose charms of person and fascination of
+manners gave her celebrity through all the European courts. Upon this
+latter favorite alone he lavished gifts, in drafts on the Bank of
+Vienna, to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. There were also
+various other of these favorites of infamy, inferior in notoriety
+and rank. The annals of Roman story may be searched in vain to find a
+monarch more utterly profligate. Immediately after his death his widow
+said to her son Francis,
+
+"My son, you have before you the sad proofs of your father's disorderly
+life and of my long afflictions. Remember nothing of them except my
+forgiveness and his virtues. Imitate his great qualities, but beware
+lest you fall into the same vices, in order that you may not, in your
+turn, put to the blush those who scrutinize your life."
+
+Marie Antoinette doubted not that her cousin Francis would be as
+devoted to her interests as her brother Leopold had been. Fifteen days
+after the death of Leopold, Gustavus III. of Sweden was assassinated
+at a masked ball by the nobles of his court. His death momentarily
+embarrassed the movements of the emigrants, for he was actively engaged
+in raising an army for the invasion of France.[317]
+
+The allies were now vigorously raising troops and directing their march
+towards the frontiers of France. Some hoped that the demonstration
+would overawe the French and frighten them into submission. Others were
+eager, by prompt invasion, to submit the question to the arbitrament
+of battle. The Assembly speedily dispatched to the threatened frontier
+three armies of defense. Rochambeau was placed in command of the army
+of the north, at Flanders, consisting of 63,000 men; La Fayette was
+sent to the army of the centre, at Metz, which was 52,000 strong;
+Luckner occupied Alsace, with 48,000 troops.[318]
+
+In calling the Girondists into the ministry, General Dumouriez, a brave
+and veteran soldier, was appointed to the ministry of foreign affairs.
+With great vigor he prosecuted arrangements for the defense of France.
+In addition to the troops, amounting to 163,000, stationed along the
+northwestern frontier from Dunkirk to Besançon, he raised a fourth army
+to repel invasion from Spain through the passes of the Pyrenees.
+
+Dumouriez had acquired great popularity in the club of the Jacobins
+by frequenting their meetings, and by wearing the red cap of liberty,
+an emblem borrowed from the Phrygians. The queen was highly indignant
+that one in sympathy with the Jacobins should be called into the
+ministry, and, as she was now heartily in sympathy with the emigrants
+and the allies, she was provoked by the vigorous measures adopted to
+repel them. Dumouriez was a soldier, not a statesman; a man of heroic
+character, brave, impulsive, and generous. He had great power over
+the mind of the king; and the queen, anxious to see him, appointed
+an audience. In the memoirs of Dumouriez we find a narrative of this
+interview. Upon being ushered into her apartment, he found the queen,
+with flushed cheeks, rapidly pacing the floor, and giving every
+indication of extreme excitement. Dumouriez, embarrassed by this aspect
+of affairs, advanced in silence to a corner of the fire-place, when
+the queen turned toward him and abruptly said, with an air and tone of
+anger,
+
+"Sir, you are all-powerful at this moment, but it is through the favor
+of the people, who soon break their idols in pieces. Your existence
+depends upon your conduct. It is said that you possess great abilities.
+You must be aware that neither the king nor myself can endure these
+innovations, nor the Constitution. This I tell you frankly. Choose your
+side."
+
+"Madame," Dumouriez replied, "I am deeply pained by the secret which
+your majesty has just imparted to me. I will not betray it. But I
+stand between the king and my nation, and I belong to my country.
+Permit me to say that the welfare of the king, your own, and that of
+your children, are linked with the Constitution. You are surrounded
+by enemies who are sacrificing you to their private interests. The
+Constitution, when once in vigor, so far from bringing misery upon
+the king, will constitute his happiness and glory. It is absolutely
+necessary that he should concur in establishing it solidly and
+speedily."
+
+The queen could never endure contradiction. Losing all self-control,
+she exclaimed, in a loud and angry tone, "The Constitution will not
+last. Take care of yourself."
+
+Dumouriez quietly and firmly replied, "Madame, I am past fifty; my life
+has been crossed by many perils; and, in accepting the ministry, I was
+thoroughly sensible that _responsibility_ was not the greatest of my
+dangers."
+
+The queen, in the blindness of her passion, saw fit to interpret this
+remark as an insinuation that she might cause him to be assassinated.
+With inflamed cheeks and tears gushing into her eyes, she replied,
+
+"Nothing more was wanting but to calumniate me. You seem to think me
+capable of causing you to be murdered."
+
+The scene had now become painful in the extreme, and Dumouriez, greatly
+agitated, answered,
+
+"God preserve me, madame, from doing you so cruel an injury. The
+character of your majesty is great and noble. You have given heroic
+proofs of it which I have admired, and which have attached me to you.
+Believe me, I have no interest in deceiving you. I abhor anarchy and
+crime as much as you do. But this is not a transient popular movement,
+as you seem to think. It is an almost unanimous insurrection of a
+mighty nation against inveterate abuses. Great factions fan this flame.
+In all of them there are villains and madmen. In the Revolution I keep
+in view only the king and the entire nation; all that tends to part
+them leads to their mutual ruin. I strive as much as possible to unite
+them. If I am an obstacle to your designs, tell me so. I will instantly
+send my resignation to the king, and hide myself in some corner to
+mourn over your fate and that of my country."[319]
+
+This conversation restored Dumouriez to the confidence of the queen,
+and she conversed frankly and with a friendly spirit with him upon her
+griefs and perils.
+
+"You see me," she said, "very sad. I dare not approach the window which
+looks into the garden. Yesterday evening I went to the window toward
+the court just to take a little air. A gunner of the guard addressed me
+in terms of vulgar abuse, adding, 'How I should like to see your head
+on the point of my bayonet!' In this horrid garden you see on one side
+a man, mounted on a chair, reading aloud the most abominable calumnies
+against us; on the other, a military man or an abbé dragged through
+one of the basins, overwhelmed with abuse, and beaten, while others
+are playing at ball, or quietly walking about. What an abode! what a
+people!"
+
+The Austrian monarchy, supported by the other powers of Europe, now
+sent to France the insolent demand that the French monarchy should
+be restored almost to its pristine despotic power; that the three
+estates of the realm--the clergy, the nobles, and the _tiers état_,
+should be re-established, and that there should be the restitution of
+Church property. It is not surprising that an independent nation of
+twenty-five millions should have resented such impertinence. There was
+a general cry of indignation from the Assembly, which was re-echoed
+by the people, and new vigor was infused on both sides into the
+preparations for the war.
+
+The king was sorely perplexed. In the event of war, victory would but
+strengthen the Revolutionary party; defeat would expose him to the
+charge of treason in feebly conducting hostilities. But France would
+not yield to this insulting foreign dictation, and the pressure of
+public opinion fell so strong upon the king that he was constrained,
+much against his will, to issue a declaration of war. Pale and
+care-worn the king entered the Assembly, and, after presenting through
+his minister a report of the demands of Austria, with a faltering voice
+read his speech.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "you have heard the result of the negotiation in
+which I have been engaged with the court of Vienna. The conclusions of
+the report have been unanimously adopted by my council. I have myself
+adopted them. All would rather have war than see the dignity of the
+French people any longer insulted and the national security threatened.
+Having employed all possible means to obtain peace, I come now,
+agreeably to the terms of the Constitution, to propose to the National
+Assembly war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia."[320]
+
+The proposal was received with shouts of "_Vive le Roi_," and the
+decree was passed by a great majority.[321] In the debates which the
+question of war had excited, great eloquence was displayed in the
+Assembly. M. Isnard spoke in terms of enthusiasm which brought the
+whole Assembly to their feet.
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.]
+
+"Capitulations," said he, "are proposed to you. It is proposed to
+increase the power of the king--of a man whose will can paralyze that
+of a whole nation--of a man who receives thirty millions ($6,000,000)
+while thousands of citizens are perishing from want. It is proposed to
+bring back the nobility. Were all the nobles on earth to attack us, the
+French, holding their gold in one hand, and their sword in the other,
+would combat that haughty race, and force it to endure the punishment
+of equality.
+
+"Tell Europe that you will respect the Constitutions of all other
+countries, but that, if a war of kings is raised against France, you
+will raise a war of people against kings. The battles which nations
+fight at the command of despots are like the blows which two friends,
+excited by a perfidious instigator, strike at each other in the dark.
+The moment a light appears they embrace and take vengeance on him who
+deluded them. In like manner, if, at the moment when the hostile armies
+shall be engaged with ours, the light of philosophy bursts upon their
+sight, the nations will embrace each other before the face of dethroned
+tyrants, of consoled earth, and of delighted heaven."[322]
+
+Vergniaud, the illustrious leader of the Gironde, said eloquently, "Our
+resolution has spread alarm among all thrones, for it has given an
+example of the destruction of the despotism which sustains them. Kings
+hate our Constitution because it renders men free, and they would reign
+over slaves. This hate has been manifested on the part of the Emperor
+of Germany by all the measures he has adopted to disturb us or to
+strengthen our enemies and encourage those Frenchmen who have rebelled
+against the laws of their country.
+
+"Let us demand that the _emigrants_ be dispersed. I might demand that
+they be given up to the country they insult and to punishment. But
+no. If they have been greedy for our blood, let us not show ourselves
+greedy for theirs. Their crime is having wished to destroy their
+country. Let them be vagrants and wanderers on the face of the earth,
+and let their punishment be never to find a country."
+
+The most vigorous preparations were now made on both sides for the
+prosecution of the war. Francis of Austria and Frederick of Prussia
+met the Duke of Brunswick, Generallissimo of the Confederation, at
+Frankfort. The duke, who had married a sister of George III. of
+England, was an energetic, veteran soldier, fifty years of age. His
+head-quarters were at Coblentz, a town at the confluence of the Moselle
+and the Rhine, in the state of the Elector of Treves. Twenty-two
+thousand French emigrants had assembled there in arms. Seven French
+princes of the House of Bourbon were marshaling them for battle against
+their native land--to crush the people struggling for liberty--to rivet
+anew the fetters of the most execrable despotism. These princes were
+the two brothers of the king, Louis and Charles, the one subsequently
+Louis XVIII., the other Charles X.; the Duke of Berri and the Duke of
+Angoulême, sons of Charles; the Prince of Condé, cousin of the king,
+his son, the Duke of Bourbon, and his grandson, the Duke d'Enghien.
+All the military noblesse of the kingdom, with the exception of the few
+who had accepted the Constitution, had deserted their garrisons and
+united in the most atrocious act of treason. They were not only ready
+to march themselves, but were combining despotic Europe to march with
+them to crush the liberties of their country.
+
+The peril of the king was now hourly increasing, for he was playing
+a double part. While publicly declaring war he was secretly carrying
+on a correspondence with the emigrants and with the foreign powers,
+encouraging them to make war upon France. This was known by some, and
+suspicions of the king's sincerity were spreading rapidly among the
+people. He had many papers in his possession, which, if discovered,
+would cause his ruin. To conceal them he had an iron chest built
+into the thick wall of one of his apartments. This was done by the
+confidential locksmith who had been his companion at the forge for ten
+years. The wall was painted to resemble large stones. The openings of
+the panel were masked in the brown grooves. But after constructing this
+safe the king was apprehensive that his locksmith would betray him,
+and he consequently intrusted a portfolio containing many of his most
+important papers to the care of Madame Campan.
+
+On the 28th of April, one week after the declaration of war, a very
+ill-advised attack was made by the French in three detachments upon
+three separate positions of the Austrians. But the Austrians, minutely
+informed of the plan, were prepared, in stronger numbers, to meet their
+foes. The undisciplined French troops were driven back in confusion and
+shame. They thought that the king had treacherously ordered them to be
+led into a snare. The populace generally adopted the same belief. After
+this the troops, on both sides, widely dispersed and poorly provided
+with ammunition, provisions, and camp-equipage, could only observe each
+other for several weeks, and make preparation for the opening of the
+campaign.
+
+Suspicions of the insincerity of the king were rapidly spreading among
+the people, while those acquainted with the royal family saw plainly
+that they were placing all their reliance in hopes of assistance from
+the armed emigrants. Barnave, who, since the return from Varennes, had
+periled his influence and his life in his endeavor to save the royal
+family, finding all his efforts rejected, and that the king and queen
+were rushing to ruin, solicited a last audience with the queen.
+
+"Your misfortunes," said he, "and those which I anticipate for France
+determined me to sacrifice myself to serve you. I see that my advice
+does not agree with the views of your majesties. I augur but little
+advantage from the plan you are induced to pursue; you are too remote
+from your succors; you will be lost before they reach you. Most
+ardently do I wish I may be mistaken in so lamentable a prediction. But
+I am sure to pay my head for the interest your misfortunes have raised
+in me and the services I have sought to render you. I request for my
+sole reward the honor of kissing your hand."
+
+The queen, her eyes suffused with tears, presented her hand to Barnave,
+and he, with much emotion imprinting a kiss upon it, took his leave.
+His devotion to the queen, however, cost him his life. Hardly a year
+elapsed ere he was led to the scaffold.
+
+Two decrees had been passed by the Assembly which were quite obnoxious
+to the king. One decree enacted that any nonjuring priest who should be
+denounced by twenty citizens as endeavoring to excite faction should be
+banished the kingdom. The other established a camp of twenty thousand
+men[323] under the walls of Paris for its protection. The king,
+expecting that the foreign armies would soon arrive and rescue him, put
+his veto upon both of these measures. Dumouriez entreated the king to
+sanction these decrees, but in vain, and he was compelled to resign his
+post in the ministry. He was immediately commissioned to the frontiers
+to aid in the war against the invaders. As he entered the cabinet of
+the king to render in his accounts and to take leave, the king said,
+
+"You go, then, to join the army of Luckner?"
+
+"Yes, sire," replied Dumouriez, "and I am delighted to leave this
+tumultuous city. I have but one regret--your majesty is in danger."
+
+"Yes," replied Louis, with a sigh, "I certainly am."
+
+"Ah! sire," returned the minister, "you can no longer suppose that I
+spoke from any interested motive. Let me implore you not to persist in
+your fatal resolution."
+
+"Speak no more of it," said the king, "my part is taken."
+
+"Ah! sire," rejoined Dumouriez, "you said the same when in this very
+chamber in the presence of the queen you gave me your word."
+
+"I was wrong then," replied the king, "and I repent that I did so."
+
+"It is now, sire, that you are wrong," continued Dumouriez, "not then.
+I shall see you no more. They abuse your religious scruples. They are
+leading you to a civil war. You are without force, and you will be
+overpowered. History will accuse you of having caused the calamities of
+France."
+
+"God is my witness," said Louis in tones of the deepest affliction,
+and at the same time placing his hands affectionately upon those of
+Dumouriez, "that I wish the happiness of France."
+
+Tears gushed into the eyes of Dumouriez, and his voice was broken with
+emotion as he replied, "I do not doubt it, sire; but you are answerable
+to God, not only for the purity but for the enlightened direction of
+your intentions. You think that you are protecting religion, and you
+are destroying it. The priests will be massacred. You will lose your
+crown, perhaps your wife, your children."
+
+There was a moment of silence, during which the king pressed the hand
+of his faithful friend; Dumouriez then continued:
+
+"Sire, if all the French knew you as I know you, our calamities would
+soon be at an end. You wish the happiness of France. You have been
+sacrificing yourself to the nation ever since 1789. Continue to do so,
+and our troubles will soon cease, the Constitution will be established,
+the French will return to their natural character, and the remainder of
+your reign will be happy."
+
+"I expect my death," the king rejoined mournfully, "and I forgive my
+enemies. I thank you for the sensibility you have shown. You have
+served me well, and you have my esteem, and you shall have proofs of it
+if I am ever to see a better day."
+
+The king then rose, and, to conceal his emotion, went hastily to a
+window. Dumouriez gathered up his papers slowly that he might have time
+to regain his composure. As he was leaving the room the king again
+approached him, and in a tremulous tone said "Adieu! may all happiness
+attend you." They parted, both in tears.[324]
+
+M. Roland, Minister of the Interior, presented a letter to the king,
+urging him to sanction the decrees, and to adopt a course more in
+accordance with the spirit of constitutional liberty. This letter has
+obtained world-wide celebrity. It was written by Madame Roland, the
+wife of the minister, one of the most extraordinary women of that or
+any other age. She was, in fact, the soul of the Republican party. The
+leaders of that party met every evening in her saloon, and her sagacity
+originated the measures which they adopted. She was a woman of heroic
+mould, and endowed with wonderful powers of intellect and eloquence.
+The letter contained a lively exposition of the peril to which the king
+was exposed by opposing the establishment of constitutional liberty in
+France. The indignation of the king was aroused by its plain utterance,
+and he instantly dismissed the Republican minister, Roland, with his
+associates, Servan and Clavieres. Roland presented to the Assembly the
+letter which had caused his dismission. It roused the indignation of
+the Assembly against the king, and fanned Paris into almost a flame
+of fury. The letter was printed and copies sent to the eighty-three
+departments, and a vote was passed that the three ministers whom the
+king had rejected retained the entire confidence of the nation. This
+was another accusation against the king, which greatly increased his
+unpopularity.
+
+The vetos of the king and the dismissal of the popular ministers roused
+a new storm of indignation. Neither the king nor queen could appear
+at the windows of the palace without exposing themselves to the most
+atrocious insults of language and gesture from the brutal men who ever
+thronged the garden.[325]
+
+The king lost all heart, and sank into the most deplorable condition
+of mental and physical weakness. For ten days he wandered restlessly
+through his apartments with a bewildered, vacant stare, without
+uttering a single word even to his wife and children, and scarcely
+making any reply to questions addressed to him. His sister, Madame
+Elizabeth, endeavored to interest him in a game of backgammon. He sat
+listlessly at the board, mechanically throwing the dice, and simply
+repeating the words which belong to the game.
+
+"The queen," says Madame Campan, "roused him from this state, so fatal
+at a critical period, when every minute increased the necessity for
+action, by throwing herself at his feet, urging every idea calculated
+to excite alarm, and employing every affectionate expression. She
+represented, also, what he owed to his family, and went so far as
+to tell him that, if they were doomed to fall, they ought to fall
+honorably, and not to wait to be both smothered upon the floor of their
+apartment."[326]
+
+On the 20th of June there was an immense gathering of the populace
+of Paris, and of delegates from other parts of the kingdom, to
+celebrate the anniversary of the meeting in the tennis-court, and to
+present a petition to the king urging him to withdraw his vetos. Deep
+apprehensions were felt in several quarters respecting the results of
+the day. Pétion, who was then mayor of the city, did not venture to
+prohibit the celebration, but adopted the precaution of doubling the
+guard of the Tuileries.
+
+[Illustration: FESTIVAL IN HONOR OF LIBERTY.]
+
+Early in the morning the whole city was in commotion, and vast crowds
+were hurrying to the various points of concentration. The Assembly met
+at eleven o'clock, and was alarmed in view of the possible issues of
+the day, and agitated by discordant councils. The session soon became
+tumultuous, the Constitutionalists wishing to repress the disorder
+which the Jacobins were ready to foment. In this state of affairs a
+letter was brought into the Assembly from Santerre, a brewer, who had
+become notorious as a leader of the populace.[327] It stated that the
+citizens were merely celebrating the anniversary of the 20th of June;
+that they were calumniated in the Assembly; and that they beg to be
+admitted to the bar of the Assembly that they might confound their
+slanderers.
+
+The reading of this letter vastly increased the tumult. In the midst
+of cries of order, and a scene of indescribable confusion, it was
+announced that the petitioners, with arms and banners, in a prolonged
+procession of thirty thousand men, were approaching the hall. All power
+of law seemed paralyzed, and bewilderment and consternation reigned.
+Soon the head of the procession, like a lava-flood, crowded in at the
+door, and, pressed by the resistless mass behind, was forced slowly
+through the hall, and made its egress at an opposite portal. They bore
+enormous tables, upon which were placed the Declaration of Rights.
+Around these tables danced women and boys waving olive-branches and
+brandishing pikes, thus emblematically declaring themselves ready for
+peace or war.
+
+The enormous procession filed slowly through the hall, shouting in
+deafening chorus the famous "_Ça ira_" (bravely it goes), armed
+with every conceivable weapon, and waving banners inscribed with
+revolutionary devices. Several bore ragged breeches upon poles, while
+the crowd around shouted, "_Vivent les sans culottes!_" One man bore on
+the point of a pike a calf's heart, with the inscription beneath, "_The
+heart of an aristocrat_."[328]
+
+For three hours this extraordinary scene continued. The Assembly,
+agitated with grief and indignation, had no resource but submission.
+The mob, having passed through the hall of the Assembly, now attempted
+to enter the garden of the Tuileries, but the gates were closed and
+defended by numerous detachments of the National Guard. The king,
+however, perhaps hoping, by a show of confidence, to disarm the
+mob, ordered the garden gates to be thrown open. The mob, like an
+inundation, rushed in, and with their mighty mass soon filled the whole
+inclosure. Some cried out for the king to show himself. Others shouted,
+"Down with the _veto_!" A few voices kindly gave utterance to the old
+excuse, "The king means well, but he is imposed upon."
+
+The mob, which now appeared countless and almost limitless, flowing
+out from the garden by the gate leading to the Pont Royal, proceeded
+along the quay and through the wickets of the Louvre into the Place du
+Carrousel. They were soon gathered in a dense mass before the royal
+gate of the palace. A strong guard there refused them admittance.
+Santerre brought up two pieces of cannon to blow down the gate. Two
+municipal officers then strangely ordered the gates to be thrown open.
+
+The multitude rushed impetuously into the court, filling it in an
+instant, and crowding into the vestibule of the palace. It was now four
+o'clock in the afternoon. They clambered the magnificent staircase,
+even dragging a piece of cannon up to the first floor, and poured in
+locust legions into every part of the palace. Wherever they found a
+door barred against them they speedily, with swords and hatchets, hewed
+it down.
+
+The king was in one of the interior apartments, surrounded by some of
+the servants of his household and by several officers of the National
+Guard. His sister, Madame Elizabeth, happened to be with him; but the
+queen, who was in another room with her children, had not been able to
+join her husband, so sudden had been the irruption. The crowd arrested
+her in her flight in the council-chamber. She begged earnestly to be
+led to her husband, but the throng pouring by was so dense that it
+was impossible. Her friends placed her in a corner, and rolled the
+council-table before her as a barrier.
+
+There she stood stupefied with horror, and her eyes suffused with
+tears, while the low and brutal masses, with no apparent exasperation,
+end, or aim, crowded by. Her daughter clung to her side, terrified and
+weeping. Her son, but seven years of age, too young to understand the
+terrible significance of such an inundation, gazed upon the spectacle
+with half alarmed, half pleased wonder. Some of the palace-guard
+gathered around the group for its protection. Occasional scowls and
+mutterings of defiance and insult alarmed the queen in behalf of her
+children rather than herself. Some one handed her son the red cap of
+the Jacobins. The queen, hoping that it might appease the mob, placed
+it upon his head.
+
+Just then Santerre came along, forcing his way with the crowd. He spoke
+kindly to the queen, repeating the only excuse which could be made for
+her, "Madame, you are imposed upon." Seeing the red cap upon the head
+of the dauphin, he, with a sense of delicacy hardly to be expected in
+so coarse a man, took it and threw it aside, saying, "The child is
+stifling." He then urged the people to treat the queen with respect.
+
+A young girl stopped before the queen and assailed her with an
+incessant volley of imprecations.
+
+"Have I ever," said the queen, calmly, "done you any wrong?"
+
+"No," replied the girl, "not me personally; but you are the cause of
+the misery of the nation."
+
+"You have been told so," answered the queen; "but you are deceived.
+As the wife of the King of France and mother of the dauphin, I am a
+Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again. I can be happy
+only in France. I was happy when you loved me."
+
+These words touched the heart of the passionate but not hardened girl,
+and she began to weep, saying,
+
+"I ask your pardon. It was because I did not know you. I see that you
+are good."
+
+While these scenes were transpiring in the council-chamber, the cries
+of the mob were heard at the door of the king's apartment, and blows
+from a hatchet fell heavily upon the panels. As a panel, driven by a
+violent blow, fell at the king's feet, he ordered the door to be thrown
+open. A forest of pikes and bayonets appeared, and the crowd rushed in.
+The king, with that courage of resignation which never forsook him,
+stepped forward with dignity to meet the rabble, and said, "Here I am."
+
+His friends immediately threw themselves around him, forming a rampart
+with their bodies. The mob, who seemed to have no definite object
+in view, fell back, and the friends of the king placed him in the
+embrasure of a window, where he could more easily be protected from the
+pressure. There was a moment's lull, and then came renewed clamor and
+uproar. Some said that they had a petition which they wished to present
+to the king. Others shouted, "No veto! No priests! No aristocrats! The
+camp near Paris."
+
+The king stood upon a bench, and with marvelous serenity gazed upon the
+unparalleled spectacle. Légendre, the butcher, one of the leaders of
+the mob, stepped up, and with a firm voice demanded in the name of the
+people the sanction of the two decrees which the king had vetoed.[329]
+
+"This is not the place, neither is this the time," answered the king,
+firmly, "to grant such a request. I will do all the Constitution
+requires."
+
+This bold answer seemed to exasperate the crowd, and they shouted, as
+it were defiantly, "_Vive la Nation!_"
+
+"Yes," replied the king, heroically, "_Vive la Nation!_ and I am its
+best friend."
+
+"Prove it, then," cried one of the rabble, thrusting toward him, on the
+end of a pike, the red cap of the Jacobins.
+
+The king took the cap and placed it upon his head. The mob responded
+with shouts of applause. The day was oppressively hot, and the king,
+who was very corpulent, was almost suffocated with the heat and the
+crowd. A drunken fellow, who had a bottle and a glass, staggered up to
+the king, and offered him a tumbler of wine, saying, "If you love the
+people, drink to their health."
+
+Though the king had long been apprehensive of being poisoned, he took
+the glass and without hesitation drank its contents. Again he was
+greeted with shouts of applause. Some of the crowd, as they caught
+sight of Madame Elizabeth, cried out, "There is the Austrian woman!"
+The unpopularity of the queen excited murmurs and imprecations, and the
+princess was in great danger of violence. Some of her friends around
+her endeavored to undeceive the mob.
+
+"Leave them," said the generous and heroic princess, "leave them to
+think that I am the queen, that she may have time to escape."
+
+The Assembly was immediately informed of the invasion of the palace.
+The Constitutionalists were indignant. The Jacobins were satisfied,
+for they wished to see the king and the king's party frightened into
+obedience. An angry and almost furious altercation ensued in the
+Assembly. A deputation of twenty-four members was, however, immediately
+sent to surround the king, and this deputation was renewed every half
+hour. But the deputies could not force their way through the crowd.
+Hoisted upon the shoulders of the grenadiers they endeavored in vain to
+harangue the mob to order. It was half past five o'clock, an hour and a
+half after the attack upon the Tuileries had commenced, before Pétion,
+the Mayor of Paris, made his appearance in the presence of the king.
+He attempted an apology for coming so late, saying,
+
+"I have only just learned the situation of your majesty."
+
+[Illustration: THE CAP OF LIBERTY PLACED UPON THE KING.]
+
+"That is very astonishing," replied the king, "for it is a long time
+that it has lasted."
+
+"It was half past four," Pétion rejoined, "when I heard of the attack.
+It took me half an hour to get to the palace; and I could not overcome
+the obstacles which separated me from your majesty until the present
+moment. But fear nothing, sire; you are in the midst of your people."
+
+Louis XVI., taking the hand of a grenadier who stood by his side,
+placed it upon his heart, saying, "Feel whether it beats quicker than
+usual."
+
+This noble answer again elicited applause. The mayor then, mounting the
+shoulders of four grenadiers, addressed the mob, urging them to retire.
+
+"Citizens, male and female," said he, "you have used with moderation
+and dignity your right of petition. You will finish this day as you
+begun it. Hitherto your conduct has been in conformity with the law,
+and now, in the name of the law, I call upon you to follow my example
+and to retire."
+
+The crowd obeyed and slowly moved off through the long suite of
+apartments of the chateau. As soon as they began to retire the king
+and his sister threw themselves into each other's arms, and neither
+was able to repress a flood of tears. Locked in an embrace they left
+the room to find the queen. She, with her children, had just regained
+her apartment. The meeting of the royal family, after these scenes
+of violence, insult, and terror, drew tears into the eyes of all
+the beholders. One of the deputies, Antoine Merlin of Thionville,
+though one of the most virulent of the Jacobins, could not refrain
+from weeping. Marie Antoinette observing it, and knowing his bitter
+hostility to the court, said,
+
+"You weep to see the king and his family treated so cruelly by a people
+whom he has always wished to render happy."
+
+"It is true, madam," replied Merlin, "I weep over the misfortunes of
+a beautiful, tender-hearted woman and mother of a family. But do not
+mistake; there is not one of my tears for the _king_ or the _queen_; I
+hate kings and queens."
+
+At this moment the king, from the reflection of a mirror, saw the _red
+bonnet_ still upon his head. A crimson glow flushed his face and he
+hastily threw the badge of the Jacobin from him. Sinking into a chair
+he for a moment buried his face in his handkerchief, and then, turning
+a saddened look to the queen, said,
+
+"Ah, madame, why did I take you from your country to associate you with
+the ignominy of such a day!"
+
+It was eight o'clock in the evening before the apartments and corridors
+of the palace ceased to echo with the voices and the footsteps of
+the barbarian invaders. Detachments of the National Guard gradually
+assembled, the court-yard and the garden were cleared, and night
+with its silence and darkness again settled down over the wretched
+royal family in the halls of their palace, and the wretched famishing
+outcasts wandering through the streets. Such was the 20th of June, 1792.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte, then twenty-two years of age, was in Paris, and
+with indignation witnessed this spectacle of lawlessness. Bourrienne
+thus describes the event: "In the month of April, 1792, I returned to
+Paris, where I again met Bonaparte, and renewed the friendship of our
+youthful days. I had not been fortunate, and adversity pressed heavily
+upon him. We passed our time as two young men of three and twenty may
+be supposed to have done who had little money and less occupation. At
+this time he was soliciting employment from the Minister of War, and I
+at the office of foreign affairs.
+
+"While we were thus spending our time the 20th of June arrived,
+a sad prelude of the 10th of August. We met by appointment at a
+restaurateur's, in the Rue St. Honoré, near the Palais Royal. On going
+out we saw a mob approaching in the direction of the market-place,
+which Bonaparte estimated at from five to six thousand men. They were
+a parcel of blackguards, armed with weapons of every description, and
+shouting the grossest abuse, while they proceeded at a rapid rate
+toward the Tuileries. This mob appeared to consist of the vilest and
+most profligate of the population of the suburbs.
+
+[Illustration: THE ATTACK UPON THE TUILERIES.]
+
+"'Let us follow the rabble,' said Bonaparte. We got the start of them,
+and took up our station on the terrace bordering on the river. It was
+there that he was an eye-witness of the scandalous scenes which ensued,
+and it would be difficult to describe the surprise and indignation
+which they excited in him. Such weakness and forbearance, he said,
+could not be excused. But when the king showed himself at the window
+which looked out upon the garden, with the red cap which one of the
+mob had just placed upon his head, he could no longer repress his
+indignation.
+
+"'What madness!' he loudly exclaimed. 'How could they have allowed that
+rabble to enter? Why did they not sweep away four or five hundred of
+them with the cannon? The rest would then have speedily taken to their
+heels.'"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 317: At the moment of Leopold's death all was ready for
+hostilities. Two hundred thousand men were under arms for the invasion.
+The Duke of Brunswick, who was placed in command, was at Berlin
+receiving the final commands of the king. Another Prussian general was
+at Vienna receiving from Leopold advice as to the time and point of
+attack. Leopold, whose constitution was shattered by debauchery, was
+taken suddenly sick, and, after two days of excruciating pain, died
+in convulsions. His death was probably caused by an immoderate use of
+drugs to recruit his system, enervated by dissipation. This event for a
+short time paralyzed the energies of the coalition. See History of the
+Girondists, by Lamartine, vol. i., p. 364.]
+
+[Footnote 318: Memoirs of Count Mathieu Dumas, vol. i., p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 319: Dumouriez's Memoirs, book iii., ch. vi. Madame Campan
+gives an account of this interview with a little different coloring.
+"One day," she writes, "I found the queen in extreme agitation. She
+told me that she knew not what to do; that the leaders of the Jacobins
+had offered themselves to her through Dumouriez, or that Dumouriez,
+forsaking the party of the Jacobins, had come and offered himself to
+her; that she had given him an audience; that, being alone with her, he
+had thrown himself at her feet, and told her that he had put on the red
+cap, and even pulled it down over his ears, but that he neither was,
+nor ever could be, a Jacobin; that the Revolution had been suffered to
+roll on to that mob of disorganizers, who, aspiring only to pillage,
+were capable of every thing. While speaking with extreme warmth, he had
+taken hold of the queen's hand and kissed it with transport, saying,
+'Allow yourself to be saved.' The queen told me that it was impossible
+to believe the protestations of a traitor; that all his conduct was so
+well known that the wisest plan was not to trust in him, and, besides,
+the princes earnestly recommended that no confidence should be placed
+in any proposal from the interior."--_Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 202.]
+
+[Footnote 320: Francis was not yet elected Emperor of Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 321: Condorcet, in a paper which he drew up in exposition of
+the motives which led to this strife, says, "The veil which concealed
+the intentions of our enemy is at length torn. Citizens, which of you
+could subscribe to these ignominious proposals? Feudal servitude and
+a humiliating inequality; bankruptcy and taxes which you alone would
+pay; tithes and the Inquisition; your possessions, bought upon the
+public faith, restored to their former usurpers; the beasts of the
+chase re-established in their right of ravaging your fields; your blood
+profusely spilled for the ambitious projects of a hostile house--such
+are the conditions of the treaty between the King of Hungary and
+perfidious Frenchmen! Such is the peace which is offered to you! No!
+never will you accept it!"--_Exposition of the motives which determined
+the National Assembly to decree, on the formal proposal of the King,
+that there is reason to declare war against the King of Hungary and
+Bohemia, by M. Condorcet._]
+
+[Footnote 322: Prof. Wm. Smyth, of the University of Cambridge,
+England, though cherishing no sympathies with the revolutionary party
+in France, in his admirable lectures upon the French Revolution, with
+his accustomed candor, says,
+
+"The question then is, Was this (the conduct of Austria) an
+interference in the internal affairs of France that justified a
+declaration of war on the part of France or not? This is a point on
+which, under the extraordinary circumstances of the case, reasoners
+may differ, but I conceive that it was. The rulers of France, at the
+time, saw themselves menaced, stigmatized, and, as nearly as possible,
+proscribed by a foreign power on account of their conduct to their
+own king, in their own country. They could expect nothing but exile,
+imprisonment, and death if these foreign powers invaded their country
+in defense of the monarchy and succeeded; and not only this, but, in
+that case, a counter-revolution was inevitable.
+
+"I must confess that, with all my horror of war, of counsels of
+violence, of enthusiastic and furious men like these Girondists, and
+of dreadful and guilty men like these Jacobins, I must confess that
+upon this particular point of the Austrian war I am, on the whole,
+compelled to agree with them. I see not how, upon any other principle,
+the peace of the world can be maintained, or the proper sovereignty
+and independence of nations be preserved, nor, finally, upon any other
+principle, what chance there can ever be for the general cause of the
+freedom of mankind."]
+
+[Footnote 323: Dumas, vol. i., p. 213.]
+
+[Footnote 324: Memoirs of Dumouriez.]
+
+[Footnote 325: "The most menacing cries were uttered aloud, even in the
+Tuileries. They called for the destruction of the throne and the murder
+of the sovereign. These insults assumed the character of the very
+lowest of the mob. The queen, one day, hearing roars of laughter under
+her windows, desired me to see what it was about. I saw a man, almost
+undressed, turning his back toward her apartments. My astonishment and
+indignation were apparent. The queen rose to come forward. I held her
+back, telling her it was a very gross insult offered by one of the
+rabble."--_Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p.
+205.]
+
+[Footnote 326: Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 206.]
+
+[Footnote 327: Montjoie, one of the most decided of Royalist writers,
+thus describes Santerre: "The muscular expansion of his tall person,
+the sonorous hoarseness of his voice, his rough manners, and his easy
+and vulgar eloquence, of course made him a hero among the lower rabble.
+And, in truth, he had gained a despotic empire over the dregs of the
+faubourgs. He moved them at will, but that was all he knew how to do,
+or could do, for, as to the rest, he was neither wicked nor cruel. He
+engaged blindly in all conspiracies, but he never was guilty of the
+execution of them, either by himself or by those who obeyed him. He
+was always concerned for an unfortunate person, of whatever party he
+might be. Affliction and tears disarmed his hands."--_History of Marie
+Antoinette, by Montjoie_, p. 295.]
+
+[Footnote 328: Madame Campan says, "There was one representing a
+gibbet, to which a dirty doll was suspended; the words '_Marie
+Antoinette à la lanterne_' were written beneath it. Another was a board
+to which a bullock's heart was fastened, with an inscription round it,
+'_Heart of Louis XVI._;' and then a third showed the horns of an ox,
+with an obscene legend."--_Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 212.]
+
+[Footnote 329: Léegendre was a butcher of Paris. He was one of the most
+violent leaders of the mob. In 1791 he was deputed by the city of Paris
+to the National Convention. In 1793 he voted for the king's death,
+and, the day before his execution, proposed to the Jacobins to cut
+him into eighty-four pieces, and send one to each of the eighty-four
+departments. He died at Paris in 1797, aged forty-one, and bequeathed
+his body to the surgeons, "in order to be useful to mankind after his
+death."--_Biographie Moderne._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE THRONE ASSAILED.
+
+ Angry Interview between the King and the Mayor.--Decisive
+ Action of La Fayette.--Expectations of the Queen.--Movement of
+ the Prussian Army.--Efforts of the Priests.--Secret Committee
+ of Royalists.--Terror in the Palace.--The Queen's View of the
+ King's Character.--Parties in France.--Energetic Action of the
+ Assembly.--Speech of Vergniaud.
+
+
+The next day after the fearful scenes of the 20th of June, the Assembly
+held a very tumultuous sitting. Various measures were proposed to
+prevent a repetition of armed petitions, and the filing of processions
+through the hall. The Jacobins were, however, in sympathy with the
+mob; and the Royalists, waiting the approach of foreign armies, had
+no wish to introduce order but by the sword of invasion. It was
+apprehended that the mob, who had now risen above the power of law,
+might again invade the palace. In the afternoon of the 21st, crowds
+began to assemble at various points, but the mayor, Pétion, succeeded
+in inducing them to disperse. He then hastened to the king, and said to
+him,
+
+"Sire, there is no longer cause for alarm. Order is restored. The
+people have become tranquil and satisfied."
+
+The king, who now appreciated the peril of his position, was
+exasperated, and replied, with suppressed emotion, "That is not true."
+
+"Sire--" rejoined Pétion.
+
+"Be silent," said the king sternly, interrupting him.
+
+"It befits not the magistrate of the people," replied Pétion, "to be
+silent when he does his duty and speaks the truth."
+
+"The tranquillity of Paris rests on your head," added the king.
+
+"I know my duty," Pétion replied, "and shall perform it."
+
+The king could no longer restrain himself, and passionately exclaimed,
+"Enough; go and perform it. Retire."
+
+Pétion, thus summarily turned out of doors, bowed and left. The report
+of the angry interview was speedily spread through Paris. It was
+rumored _through the palace_ that the mob were preparing to rise to
+murder the king and all the royal family. It was rumored _through the
+streets_ that the Royalists were endeavoring to provoke the people to
+rise, that they might shoot them down with artillery. The mayor issued
+a proclamation urging the people not to allow themselves to be excited
+to fresh commotions. The king issued a proclamation, spirited and
+defiant in its tone, and yet calculated only to exasperate those whom
+he had no power to restrain.[330]
+
+La Fayette, who was at this time with his division of the army on the
+frontiers, heard these tidings from Paris with intense alarm. Had the
+court not prevented his election as mayor, the outrages of the 20th
+of June could not have occurred. His only hope for France was in the
+Constitution. The invasion of the Legislative Assembly by the mob, the
+irruption into the palace, and the outrages inflicted upon the royal
+family, impressed him with shame and horror. He saw the terrific reign
+of anarchy approaching, and was fully conscious that no one could
+attempt to resist the popular torrent but at the peril of his life.
+He wrote a very earnest letter of remonstrance to the Assembly, and
+resolved to hasten immediately to Paris, and to brave every possible
+danger in endeavoring to restore to his country the dominion of law.
+Making all the arrangements in his power, that his temporary absence
+might not be detrimental to the military operations then in progress,
+he set out for the capital, and arrived there on the 28th of June.[331]
+He thought that he might rely upon the National Guard to aid him in
+maintaining the Constitution, and that, throwing himself into the
+breach to save the monarchy and the king, he might place some reliance
+upon the co-operation of the court. But the court hated La Fayette
+and constitutional liberty, and wished for no assistance but from the
+armies of the allies, through whom they might dictate terms to the
+re-enslaved people.
+
+La Fayette, immediately upon his arrival in Paris, sent a message
+to the Assembly that he wished for permission to address them.
+At half-past one of the 28th of June, he entered the hall. The
+Constitutionalists received him with plaudits. The Republicans, both
+the Girondists and the Jacobins, were silent. The general, in his bold
+and spirited address, spoke of the disgrace which the outrages of the
+20th of June had brought upon the nation, and the indignation which it
+had excited in the army, and urged that the instigators of the riot
+should be prosecuted; that the Jacobin Club, ever urging violence and
+revolution, should be suppressed; and that the Constitution and the
+laws should be maintained by all the armed force of the government.
+
+This speech introduced an angry debate, in which La Fayette was
+reproached with neglecting his own duties in the army to meddle with
+matters in which he had no concern. La Fayette left the Assembly in the
+midst of the debate, and repaired to the palace to see what assistance
+he could render to the king and queen. The courtiers surrounding the
+monarch, with their wonted infatuation, assailed La Fayette with the
+most abusive epithets. The king and queen received him with great
+coldness, and refused to accept from him of any sympathy or aid.
+
+"If the court and the people attached to the king," writes the Marquis
+de Ferrières, a decided Royalist, "had but resolved to support La
+Fayette, there was force to have annihilated the two factions. But the
+queen recoiled from any idea of owing her safety to a man whom she
+had resolved to ruin. They refused to enter into his views, and they
+thus rejected the only means of safety that Providence offered them.
+Inexplicable blindness, if an explanation were not afforded by the
+approaching entry of the foreign troops and the confidence reposed in
+them."
+
+The historian Toulongeon, describing these events, says, "Retired to
+his hotel, La Fayette set himself to consider what was the force of
+which he could avail himself. A review of the first division of the
+National Guard was fixed for the next morning at break of day. The king
+was to pass along the line, and La Fayette was then to harangue the
+troops. But the mayor, Pétion, _was advertised of their movements by
+the queen_, who feared the success of La Fayette even more than that of
+the Jacobins, and a counter-order was given, and the review did _not_
+take place."
+
+La Fayette returned to the army thwarted and disheartened. His
+retirement in despair from Paris was the last expiring sigh of the
+Constitutional party. From this moment the Jacobins resolved upon his
+destruction, and that very evening his effigy was burned at the Palais
+Royal. Bertrand de Moleville, one of the most false and envenomed of
+the Royalist writers, condemns La Fayette for thus leaving Paris. But
+even Professor Smyth, whose English sympathies are strongly with the
+court, exclaims,
+
+"M. Bertrand de Moleville may surely be asked, on this occasion, what
+resource was left for La Fayette but to move away from Paris, if the
+king and the court, for whom he was hazarding both his fame and his
+safety, would not honor him with the slightest countenance? Was it
+to be endured that they were to seem neutral and indifferent, at the
+least, and sitting with folded arms, while he was to be left to rush
+into a combat in the Assembly and in the streets of Paris with their
+furious and murderous enemies, and with the men who had just been
+assailing the king in his palace, and who evidently only waited for an
+opportunity to rob him of his crown and take away his life; was this,
+I repeat, to be endured? Many are the sensations by which the heart
+of man may be alienated and imbittered, but there are few more fitted
+for that purpose than to find indifference to services offered, and
+ingratitude for sacrifices made."[332]
+
+Both the king and the queen knew that Prussia had already combined with
+Austria, and was secretly marching an army of eighty thousand men under
+the Duke of Brunswick to unite with the emigrants at Coblentz. The
+queen thought that the allies would be in Paris in six weeks. She was
+minutely informed of their contemplated movements; when they would be
+at Verdun, when at Lille; and she, in confidence, informed her ladies
+that she expected to be rescued in a month.[333]
+
+The peril of France was now truly great, and the patriots were deeply
+agitated. Foreign armies were approaching. The king not only was taking
+no effectual measures for the defense of the kingdom, but had vetoed
+the decrees of the Assembly raising an army for the protection of the
+capital, and was also believed to be in sympathy and in traitorous
+correspondence with the foe. France was threatened with invasion, and
+the court of France was virtually guiding the march of the invading
+armies, weakening every point of defense, and striving to betray the
+patriot forces into the hands of the enemy. The only excuse which
+history can offer for the king is, that he was the tool of others, and
+so weak and characterless that he was unconscious of the enormity of
+his crime. But this excuse, which ought to have commended him to pity,
+could not be an argument for maintaining him upon his throne.
+
+Though it was well known to all intelligent men that the Prussian
+armies were marching to unite with the Austrian for the invasion of
+France, yet the king, in grossest violation of duty, had made no
+communication of the fact to the Legislative Assembly. All the great
+roads were crowded with priests, nobles, and their partisans, hastening
+to join the emigrants at Coblentz. Couriers were every where traversing
+Europe, from St. Petersburg to Rome, from Stockholm to Madrid, from
+Berlin to Naples, openly announcing the coalition of all Europe to
+crush the revolution in France, and declaring that the armies would
+move in such force that the French would not be able to resist them
+for a single month. The allies were not unwilling to have their plans
+known and even exaggerated, for some of them hoped that the terror
+of the threat might be sufficient to drive the French patriots to
+submission.[334]
+
+It was consequently proclaimed, not officially, but with great
+soundings of trumpets, that Spain was to indemnify herself for the
+war by taking possession of the four beautiful southern provinces
+of France which lean against the Pyrenees--Navarre, Roussillon,
+Languedoc, and Guienne. The King of Sardinia was to receive the
+provinces adjacent to his kingdom, whose romantic valleys penetrated
+the lower Alps--Dauphiny, Provence, Lyonnois, and Bretagne. The
+Stadtholder of Holland was to extend his sway over the Provinces of
+Flanders and Picardy. Austria was to grasp the provinces adjoining the
+Rhine--Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne. The Swiss were offered Franche
+Comte if they would join the coalition. And, finally, England was
+to regain her old possession of Normandy, and was to seize all the
+colonial possessions of France in the two Indies.[335]
+
+Though the British _government_ was at this time strongly in sympathy
+with the coalition, it did not venture openly to join the alliance,
+for the masses of the British _people_ were cordially with the French
+patriots and rejoiced in the establishment of constitutional liberty in
+France. These extravagant threats filled Europe. It was every where
+assumed that only a small minority of the French people were opposed to
+the Old Régime, and that the mass of the nation would at once arise and
+welcome the invading armies.
+
+With this terrific storm from without menacing the liberties of France,
+a large number of priests who had refused to accept the Constitution
+were plying all the energies of the most potent superstition earth
+has ever known to rouse the ignorant peasantry against civil and
+religious liberty. They were told that eternal damnation was their
+inevitable doom if they were not willing to lay down their lives in
+defense of the king and the Pope; and that eternal blessedness was
+the sure inheritance of all who should labor and pray for holy mother
+Church. The queen, it was well known, was in constant conference with
+the enemy, counseling, encouraging, and aiding with all the pecuniary
+means she could obtain from the revenues of France. The king was a
+weak-minded, fickle man, with no decision of his own, and entirely at
+the disposal of those who surrounded him. Being quite in subjection
+to the imperial mind of the queen, he delayed adopting any vigorous
+measure to repel the approaching foe, thwarted the decrees of the
+Assembly, and allowed his own enormous salary of six millions of
+dollars to be appropriated by the queen and her counselors to hasten
+the march of foreign invaders upon Paris.
+
+In the very palace of the Tuileries a secret committee of old Royalists
+were in session every day, planning for the enemy, informing them
+of all the movements in Paris, advising them as to the best points
+of attack, and organizing, in different parts of the empire, their
+partisans to rise in civil war the moment the first thunderings of
+hostile artillery should be heard upon the plains of France. Here
+surely was a combination of wrong and outrage sufficient to drive any
+people mad.[336]
+
+During the whole month of July the interior of the palace was the abode
+of terror. The inmates, apprehensive every hour of attack, had no
+repose by day or night. Almost daily there was an alarm that the mob
+was gathering. "During the whole month," writes Madame Campan, "I was
+never once in bed. I always dreaded some night attack. One morning,
+about one o'clock, footsteps were heard in the anteroom of the queen's
+chamber, and then a violent struggle and loud outcries, as the groom
+of the chambers grasped a man who was stealthily approaching with a
+dagger, apparently to assassinate the queen."
+
+"I begin to fear," said the queen one day, "that they will bring the
+king to a trial. Me they will assassinate. But what will become of our
+poor children? If they assassinate me, so much the better; they will
+rid me of an existence that is painful."
+
+"One morning, at about four o'clock, near the close of July," writes
+Madame Campan, "a person came to give me information that the Faubourg
+St. Antoine was preparing to march against the palace. We knew that at
+least an hour must elapse before the populace, assembled upon the site
+of the Bastille, could reach the Tuileries. It seemed to me sufficient
+for the queen's safety that all about her should be awakened. I went
+softly into her room. She was asleep. I did not awaken her.
+
+"The king had been awakened, and so had Madame Elizabeth, who had gone
+to him. The queen, yielding to the weight of her griefs, slept till
+nine o'clock on that day, which was very unusual with her. The king had
+already been to know whether she was awake. I told him what I had done,
+and the care I had taken not to disturb her rest. He thanked me, and
+said,
+
+"'I was awake, and so was the whole palace. She ran no risk. I am very
+glad to see her take a little rest. Alas! her griefs double mine.'
+
+"What was my chagrin, when the queen, awaking and learning what had
+passed, began to weep bitterly from regret at not having been called.
+In vain did I reiterate that it was only a false alarm, and that she
+required to have her strength recruited.
+
+"'My strength is not exhausted,' said she; 'misfortune gives us
+additional strength. Elizabeth was with the king, and I was asleep!
+I, who am determined to perish by his side. I am his wife. I will not
+suffer him to incur the smallest risk without my sharing it.'"
+
+The queen appears to have understood very perfectly the character of
+her dejected, spiritless, long-suffering husband. "The king," said
+she, "is not a coward. He possesses abundance of passive courage, but
+he is overwhelmed by an awkward shyness, a mistrust of himself, which
+proceeds from his education as much as from his disposition. He is
+afraid to command, and, above all things, dreads speaking to assembled
+numbers. He lived like a child, and always ill at ease, under the eyes
+of Louis XV., until the age of twenty-one. This constraint confirmed
+his timidity. Circumstanced as we are, a few well-delivered words
+addressed to the Parisians would multiply the strength of our party
+a hundred-fold. He will not utter them. What can be expected from
+those addresses to the people which he has been advised to post up?
+Nothing but fresh outrages. As for myself, I could do any thing, and
+would appear on horseback if necessary; but, if I really were to begin
+to act, that would be furnishing arms to the king's enemies. The cry
+against _the Austrian_, and against the sway of a female, would become
+general in France, and, moreover, by showing myself I should render
+the king a mere nothing. A queen who is not regent ought, under these
+circumstances, to remain passive or to die."[337]
+
+There were now three prominent parties in France. First, the Royalists,
+with the queen and the court, controlling the ever-vacillating king,
+at their head. They were plotting, through foreign armies and civil
+war, to restore the political and ecclesiastical despotism of the Old
+Régime. This party would have been utterly powerless but for the aid of
+foreign despots. Second came the Constitutional party, with La Fayette
+at its head. The king _professed_ to belong to this party, and at
+times, perhaps, with sincerity, but, overruled by others, he conducted
+with a degree of feebleness and fickleness which amounted to treachery.
+This party had originally embraced nearly the whole nation. Never did
+a nobler set of men undertake national reform than were the leaders
+of the French Revolution. They sought only the happiness of France,
+were anxious for peace with all nations, were decidedly conservative
+in their views. They had no desire to overthrow the French monarchy,
+but wished only to limit that monarchy by a Constitution which should
+secure to the nation civil and religious liberty.
+
+But the Constitutional party was now daily growing weaker, simply
+because its best friends saw that it was impossible to maintain the
+Constitution while the king himself was co-operating with foreign
+armies for its overthrow. Why should the people sustain a king, and
+furnish him with a salary of five millions of dollars a year, only to
+enable him to overthrow the Constitution and reinstate the rejected
+despotism? Thus were thousands of the purest men in France driven with
+great reluctance to the conviction that constitutional liberty could
+only be preserved by dethroning the king and establishing a republic.
+They were originally decidedly in favor of a constitutional monarchy.
+They felt that the transition was altogether too great and too sudden
+from utter despotism to republican freedom. The vast mass of the
+peasant population in France could neither read nor write. They were
+totally unacquainted with the forms of popular government. They were
+as ignorant as children, and almost entirely under the tutelage of the
+priests, to whom they believed that the keys of heaven and of hell had
+been intrusted. The establishment of republican forms would render
+France still more obnoxious to surrounding monarchies, and therefore
+they had wished to maintain the monarchy, and they took the British
+Constitution and not the American republic as their model, wishing,
+however, to infuse more of the popular element into their Constitution
+than has been admitted into the aristocratic institutions of England.
+
+But now they found, to their surprise and grief, that all Europe was
+combining against their liberties, and that the king, instead of
+being grateful that his throne was preserved to him, was lamenting
+his loss of despotic power, and was co-operating with combined Europe
+for the re-enslavement of France. This left the friends of liberty
+no alternative. They must either hold out their hands to have the
+irons riveted upon them anew, or they must dethrone the king, rouse
+the nation to repel invasion, and attempt the fearful experiment
+of a republican government with a nation turbulent, unenlightened,
+and totally unaccustomed to self-control. In the old despotism
+there was no hope. It presented but poverty, chains, and despair.
+In republicanism, with all its perils, there was at least _hope_.
+Hence arose republicanism. It was the child of necessity. In the
+Constituent Assembly not an individual was to be found who advocated a
+republic.[338] But after the flight of the king to Varennes, republican
+sentiments, as the only hope of the nation, rapidly gained ground, and
+at the very commencement of the Legislative Assembly we see that a
+republican party is already organized. From the beginning there were
+two divisions of this party--the conservative republicans, called
+Girondists, because their leaders were from the department of the
+Gironde; and the radical democrats, called Jacobins from the hall where
+the club held its meeting.
+
+All France was now in a state of alarm. The Assembly passed a very
+solemn decree announcing that _the country is in danger_. It declared
+its sitting to be permanent, that the king might not dissolve it. All
+the citizens were required to give up their arms that they might be
+suitably distributed to the defenders of the country. Every man, old
+and young, capable of bearing arms was ordered to be enrolled in the
+National Guards for the public defense. M. Vergniaud, the leader of
+the Girondists, a man of exalted virtue and of marvelous powers of
+eloquence, concluded a speech which roused the enthusiasm of the whole
+Assembly by proposing a firm but respectful message to Louis XVI.,
+which should oblige him to choose between France and foreigners, and
+which should teach him that the French were resolved to perish or
+triumph with the Constitution.
+
+"It is in the name of _the king_," said Vergniaud, "that the French
+princes have endeavored to raise up Europe against us. It is to
+avenge the _dignity of the king_ that the treaty of Pilnitz has been
+concluded. It is to come to the _aid of the king_ that the sovereign
+of Hungary and Bohemia makes war upon us, and that Prussia is marching
+toward our frontiers. Now, I read in the Constitution,
+
+"'If the king puts himself at the head of an army and directs its
+forces against the nation, or if he does not oppose by a formal act an
+enterprise of this kind, that may be executed in his name, he shall be
+considered as having abdicated royalty.'
+
+"What is a formal act of opposition? If one hundred thousand Austrians
+were marching toward Flanders, and one hundred thousand Prussians
+toward Alsace, and the king were to oppose to them ten or twenty
+thousand men, would he have done a formal act of opposition? If the
+king, whose duty it is to notify us of imminent hostilities, apprised
+of the movements of the Prussian army, were not to communicate any
+information upon the subject to the National Assembly; if a camp of
+reserve necessary for stopping the progress of the enemy into the
+interior were proposed, and the king were to substitute in its stead
+an uncertain plan which it would take a long time to execute; if the
+king were to leave the command of an army to an intriguing general
+(La Fayette) of whom the nation was suspicious. If another general
+(Luckner) familiar with victory were to demand a re-enforcement, and
+the king were by a refusal to say to him, _I forbid thee to conquer_,
+could it be asserted that the king had performed a formal act of
+opposition.
+
+"If while France were swimming in blood the king were to say to you,
+'It is true that the enemies pretend to be acting for me, for my
+dignity, for my rights, but I have proved that I am not the accomplice.
+I have sent armies into the field; these armies were too weak, but
+the Constitution does not fix the degree of their force. I have
+assembled them too late; but the Constitution does not fix the time
+for collecting them. I have stopped a general who was on the point of
+conquering, but the Constitution does not order victories. I have had
+ministers who deceived the Assembly and disorganized the government,
+but their appointment belonged to me. The Assembly has passed useful
+decrees which I have not sanctioned, but I had a right to act so.
+I have done all that the Constitution enjoined me. It is therefore
+impossible to doubt my fidelity to it.'
+
+"If the king were to hold this language would you not have a right to
+reply, 'O king, who, like Lysander, the tyrant, have believed that
+truth was not worth more than falsehood, who have feigned a love for
+the laws, merely to preserve the power which enabled you to defy
+them--was it defending us to oppose to the foreign soldiers forces
+whose inferiority left not even uncertainty as to their defeat? Was it
+defending us to thwart plans tending to fortify the interior? Was it
+defending us not to check a general who violated the Constitution, but
+to enchain the courage of those who were serving it? No! no! man, in
+whom the generosity of the French has excited no corresponding feeling,
+insensible to every thing but the love of despotism, you are henceforth
+nothing to that Constitution which you have so unworthily violated,
+nothing to that people which you have so basely betrayed.'"
+
+This was the first time any one had ventured to speak in the Assembly
+of the forfeiture of the crown, though it was a common topic in the
+journals and in the streets. The speech of Vergniaud was received with
+vehement applause. The king, alarmed, immediately sent a message to
+the Assembly informing them that Prussia had allied her troops with
+those of Austria in their march upon France. This message, thus tardily
+extorted, was received by the Assembly with a smile of contempt.
+
+It was now manifest, beyond all dispute, that the foe of French liberty
+most to be dreaded was the king and the court. M. Brissot, who had been
+the bosom friend and the ardent eulogist of La Fayette, could no longer
+sustain the king. Ascending the tribune he gave bold utterance to the
+sentiment of the nation.
+
+"Our peril," said he, "exceeds all that past ages have witnessed. The
+country is in danger, not because we are in want of troops--not because
+those troops want courage. No! it is in danger because its force is
+paralyzed. And who has paralyzed it. A man--_one man_, the man whom
+the Constitution has made its chief, and whom perfidious advisers have
+made its foe. You are told to fear the Kings of Prussia and Hungary; I
+say the chief force of those kings is _at the court_, and it is _there_
+we must first conquer them. They tell you to strike at the dissentient
+priests. I tell you to strike at the _Tuileries_, and fell all the
+priests with a single blow. You are told to persecute all factious and
+intriguing conspirators. They will all disappear if you knock loud
+enough at the door of the _Cabinet of the Tuileries_; for that cabinet
+is the point to which all these threads tend, where every scheme is
+plotted, and whence every impulse proceeds. This is the secret of our
+position; this is the source of the evil, and here the remedy must be
+applied."[339]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 330: "Immediately after the 20th of June," writes Madame
+Campan, "the queen lost all hope but from foreign succors. She wrote to
+implore her own family, and the brothers of the king; and her letters
+became probably more and more pressing, and expressed her fears from
+the tardy manner in which the succors seemed to approach."--_Memoirs of
+Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 214.]
+
+[Footnote 331: "Marshal Luckner blamed extremely the intention La
+Fayette announced of repairing to Paris, 'because,' said he, 'the _sans
+culottes_ (ragamuffins) will cut off his head.' But as this was the
+sole objection he made, the general resolved to set out alone."--_La
+Fayette's Memoirs._]
+
+[Footnote 332: Lectures on the French Revolution, vol. ii., p. 296.
+"The queen and the court," writes Prof. Smyth, "could never endure La
+Fayette, as having been the first great mover and originator of the
+Revolution; the cause, as he thought, of the liberties of his country,
+but a cause with which they unfortunately had no sympathy."
+
+"The queen said to me," writes Madame Campan, "that La Fayette was
+offered to them as a resource, but that it would be better for them to
+perish than to owe their safety to a man who had done them the most
+mischief, or to place themselves under the necessity of treating with
+him."--_Mémoires of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p.
+223.]
+
+[Footnote 333: Thiers, vol. i., p. 278.]
+
+[Footnote 334: "The king had committed himself, on the subject of
+the Constitution, to the allied powers, in the instructions he had
+given to Mallet du Pan, and was no longer at liberty, even if he had
+been disposed, on account of any such object as the Constitution, to
+have united himself with La Fayette, not even though La Fayette was
+endeavoring to accomplish the great point, of all others to be most
+desired, the overthrow of the Girondists and the Jacobins. On the
+whole, the court must be considered as now preferring the chance of
+the invasion of the allied powers, and the king the chance of some
+mediation between them and the people of France, that is, the chance
+of better terms than the Constitution offered. This must, I think, be
+supposed the line of policy that was now adopted. It was one full of
+danger, and, on the whole, a mistake; but with the expectation that
+was then so generally entertained of the certain success of the allied
+powers, a mistake not unnatural."--_Prof. Smyth's Lectures_, vol. ii.,
+p. 295.]
+
+[Footnote 335: Hist. Phil. de la Rev. de Fr., par Ant. Fantin
+Desodoards, t. ii., p. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 336: "A court apparently in concert with the enemy resorted
+to no means for augmenting the armies and exciting the nation, but,
+on the contrary, employed the _veto_ to thwart the measures of the
+legislative body, and the _civil list_ (the king's salary) to secure
+partisans in the interior."--_Thiers_, vol. i., p. 280.]
+
+[Footnote 337: Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 230.]
+
+[Footnote 338: "It becomes evident that a republic was desired only
+from despair of the monarchy, that it never was a fixed fact, and that,
+on the very eve of attaining it, those who were accused of having long
+paved the way to it, would not sacrifice the public weal for its sake,
+but would have consented to a constitutional monarchy, if it were
+accompanied with sufficient safeguards."--_Thiers_, vol. i., p. 308.]
+
+[Footnote 339: M. Brissot was a lawyer of considerable literary
+distinction, who, when but twenty years of age, had been imprisoned in
+the Bastille for some of his political writings. He was a passionate
+admirer of the Americans, and despairing, in consequence of the
+fickleness or treachery of the king, of a constitutional monarchy,
+endeavored to secure for France a republic. About a year from the time
+of the above speech he perished with the rest of the Girondists upon
+the scaffold.--_Biographe Moderne._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE THRONE DEMOLISHED.
+
+ The Country proclaimed in Danger.--Plan of La Fayette for the
+ Safety of the Royal Family.--Measures of the Court.--Celebration
+ of the Demolition of the Bastille.--Movement of the Allied
+ Army.--Conflicting Plans of the People.--Letter of the Girondists to
+ the King.--Manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick.--Unpopularity of La
+ Fayette.--The Attack upon the Tuileries, Aug. 10th.--The Royal Family
+ take Refuge in the Assembly.
+
+
+The danger to which the country was exposed had now united
+Constitutionalists and Republicans, or rather had compelled most of
+the Constitutionalists to become Republicans. A patriotic bishop,
+whose soul was glowing with the spirit of true Christian fraternity,
+addressed the Assembly in an appeal so moving, that, like reconciled
+brothers, the two parties rushed into each other's arms to unite in the
+defense of that liberty which was equally dear to them all.
+
+On the 11th of July the solemn proclamation was made with great pomp
+through the streets of Paris and of France, that _the country was in
+danger_. Minute guns were fired all the day. The bells tolled, and the
+reveille was beat in all quarters of the city summoning the National
+Guard to their posts. A cavalcade of horse paraded the streets with
+a large banner containing the inscription, _Citizens, the country is
+in danger_. At all the principal places the cortège? halted and the
+legislative decree was read. Rendezvous were established in all parts
+of the city for the enlistment of volunteers. Unparalleled enthusiasm
+pervaded all classes. In Paris alone fifteen thousand were enrolled the
+first day.
+
+Petitions were poured in upon the Assembly from all parts of the empire
+declaring that the king had forfeited the crown, and demanding his
+dethronement. This sudden change, these bold utterances, threw the
+court into consternation. The king's life now was in imminent peril,
+and he resolved if possible to effect his escape. Several plans were
+suggested which seemed to him, with his constitutional feebleness of
+purpose, too hazardous to be undertaken. La Fayette, with generous
+credulity, still tried to believe the king sincere in his acceptance
+of constitutional liberty, and he proposed a plan which would have
+saved the king and would have saved France had there been a particle
+of sincerity in the bosom of the monarch. It was most noble in La
+Fayette thus to forget the insults he had received from the court, and
+to peril his life in the endeavor to save a family who had only loaded
+him with injuries. His plan, boldly conceived, was as patriotic as it
+was humane, and needed but sincerity on the part of the king to secure
+its triumphant execution. It was an amiable weakness on the part of La
+Fayette still to believe that the king could by any possibility be led
+to espouse the Revolution. His proposition was briefly this:
+
+[Illustration: THE COUNTRY PROCLAIMED IN DANGER.]
+
+"General Luckner and I," said he to the king, "will come to Paris to
+attend the celebration of the demolition of the Bastille on the 14th
+of July. In company with us, the next day, the king with his family
+shall visit Compiègne, fifty miles north of Paris. The people will
+have sufficient confidence in us to make no opposition. Should there
+be opposition we will have a sufficient force of dragoons at hand to
+strike by surprise and release you. Ten squadrons of horse-artillery
+shall there receive the monarch and conduct him to the army on
+the frontiers. The king shall then issue a decided proclamation
+forbidding his brothers and the emigrants to advance another step
+toward the invasion of France, declaring, in terms which can not be
+misinterpreted, his determination to maintain the Constitution, and
+announcing his readiness to place himself at the head of the army to
+repel the enemy. This decisive measure will satisfy France that the
+king is its friend not its foe. The allies can make no headway against
+France united under its monarch. The king can then return triumphant to
+Paris, amid the universal acclamations of the people, a constitutional
+monarch beloved and revered by his subjects."[340]
+
+This was the wisest course which, under the circumstances, could
+possibly have been pursued. It was constitutional. It would have been
+the salvation of the king and of France. Many of the king's personal
+friends entreated him, with tears, to repose confidence in La Fayette,
+and to comply with the counsels of the only man who could rescue him
+from destruction. But the fickle-minded king was now in the hands
+of the queen and the courtiers, and was guided at their pleasure.
+All their hopes were founded in the re-establishment of despotism by
+foreign invasion. The generous plan of La Fayette was rejected with a
+cold and almost insulting repulse.
+
+"The best advice," replied the king, "which can be given to La Fayette
+is to continue to serve as a bugbear to the factions by the able
+performance of his duty as a general."
+
+The queen was so confident that in a few weeks the allied armies
+would be in Paris, and that any acts of disrespect on the part of the
+people would only tend to hasten their march, that when Colombe, the
+aid-de-camp of La Fayette, remonstrated against the infatuation of so
+fatal a decision, she replied, "We are much obliged to your general for
+his offer, but the best thing which could happen to us would be to be
+confined for two months in a tower."
+
+When La Fayette was thus periling his life to save the royal family he
+knew that, by the queen's orders, pamphlets filled with calumny were
+composed against him, and were paid for out of the king's salary.[341]
+
+The court was secretly and very energetically recruiting defenders
+for the approaching crisis. They had assembled at the Tuileries a
+regiment of Swiss mercenaries, amounting to about a thousand men,
+who, under rigid military discipline, would be faithful to the king.
+A large number of general and subaltern officers, strong royalists,
+were provided with lodgings in Paris, awaiting any emergence. Several
+hundred royalist gentlemen from the provinces, in chivalrous devotion
+to the monarchy, were residing in hotels near the Tuileries, always
+provided with concealed weapons, and with cards which gave them
+admission at any hour into the palace. Secret bodies of loyalists were
+organized in the city, who were also ready to rush, at a given signal,
+to the defense of the inmates of the Tuileries. The servants in the
+chateaux were very numerous, and were all picked men. There were also
+in garrison in Paris ten thousand troops of the line who were devoted
+to the king.
+
+With such resources immediately at hand, and with nearly all the
+monarchies of Europe in alliance to march to their rescue, it is not
+surprising that the king and queen should have felt emboldened to brave
+the perils which surrounded them.[342] The Royalists were exultant,
+and already, in the provinces of La Vendée and on the Rhone, they had
+unfurled the white banner of the Bourbons, were rallying around it by
+thousands, and had commenced the slaughter of the patriots who, in
+these provinces, were in the minority.
+
+[Illustration: STORMING THE BASTILLE.]
+
+Such was the state of affairs when the 14th of July arrived, the day
+for the great celebration of the demolition of the Bastille. The king
+and queen could not avoid participating in the ceremonies, though it
+was greatly feared that attempts might be made for their assassination.
+A breast-plate, in the form of an under waistcoat, was secretly made
+for the king, consisting of fifteen folds of Italian silk, strongly
+quilted, which was found, upon trial, to be proof against dagger or
+bullet. Madame Campan wore it for three days before an opportunity
+could be found for the king to try it on unperceived. The king, as he
+drew it on, said,
+
+"It is to satisfy the queen that I submit to this inconvenience."
+
+A corset of similar material was also prepared for the queen. She,
+however, refused to wear it, saying, "If the rebels assassinate me it
+will be a most happy event. It will release me from the most sorrowful
+existence, and may save from a cruel death the rest of the family."
+
+The Field of Mars was the site for the festival. Eighty-three gorgeous
+tents were reared, representing the eighty-three departments of
+France. Before each of these was planted a tree of liberty, from the
+tops of which waved the tricolored banner. On one side of this vast
+parade-ground there was an immense tree planted, called the tree of
+feudalism. Its boughs were laden with memorials of ancient pride and
+oppression--blue ribbons, tiaras, cardinals' hats, St. Peter's keys,
+ermine, mantles, titles of nobility, escutcheons, coats of arms, etc.
+It was in the programme of the day that the king, after taking anew the
+oath of fidelity to the Constitution, was to set fire to the tree of
+feudalism with all its burden of hoary abuses.
+
+The king and royal family joined the procession at the Tuileries,
+and with saddened hearts and melancholy countenances performed their
+part in the ceremonies. "The expression of the queen's countenance,"
+says Madame de Staël, "on this day will never be effaced from my
+remembrance. Her eyes were swollen with tears, and the splendor of her
+dress and the dignity of her deportment formed a striking contrast with
+the train that surrounded her."
+
+When the procession arrived at the Field of Mars, where an immense
+concourse was assembled, the queen took her station upon a balcony
+which was provided for her, while the king was conducted slowly through
+the almost impenetrable throng to the altar where the oath was to be
+administered. The queen narrowly and anxiously watched his progress
+with a glass. In ascending the altar the monarch took a false step, and
+seemed to fall. The queen, thinking he had been struck by a dagger,
+uttered a shriek of terror, which pierced the hearts of all around her.
+The king, however, ascended the altar, and took the oath.
+
+The people wished him then to set fire to the feudal tree. But he
+declined, very pertinently remarking that there was no longer any
+feudalism in France. Some of the deputies of the Assembly then lighted
+the pile, and as it was wreathed in flames the shoutings of the
+multitude testified their joy. The partisans of the king succeeded in
+raising a few shouts of _Vive le Roi_, which lighted up a momentary
+smile upon the wan face of the king. But these were the last flickering
+gleams of joy. The royal family returned in deepest dejection to the
+palace. They were conscious that they had but performed the part of
+captives in gracing a triumph, and they never again appeared in the
+streets of Paris until they were led to their execution.
+
+The alarming decree of the Assembly that _the country was in
+danger_, and the call for every man to arm, had thrown all France
+into commotion. The restless, violent, and irresponsible are ever
+the first to volunteer for war. These were rapidly organized in the
+departments into regiments and battalions, and sent on to Paris.
+Thus, notwithstanding the veto of the king, an immense force was fast
+gathering in the capital, and a force who felt that the king himself
+was the secret treacherous foe from whom they had the most to fear.
+The Assembly, dreading conspiracy at home more than open war from
+abroad, now sent the king's troops, upon whose fidelity to the nation
+they could not rely, to the frontiers. The court opposed this measure,
+as they did not wish to strengthen even the feeble resistance which
+they supposed the allies would have to encounter, and also wished to
+retain these troops for their own protection against any desperate
+insurrection of the people. The king consequently wished to interpose
+his veto, but was advised that he could not safely adopt that measure
+in the then exasperated state of the public mind. The removal of these
+troops very decidedly weakened the strength of the Royalists in Paris.
+
+Such was the state of affairs on the 28th of July, when the allied
+army, amounting in its three great divisions to one hundred and
+thirty-eight thousand men, commenced its march upon France.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRUSSIANS CROSSING THE FRONTIERS OF FRANCE.]
+
+The Duke of Brunswick was to pass the Rhine at Coblentz, ascend the
+left bank of the Moselle, and march upon Paris by the route of Longwy,
+Verdun, and Chalons. His immense force of cavalry, infantry, and
+artillery, with its enormous array of heavy guns and its long lines
+of baggage and munition wagons, covered a space of forty miles. The
+Prince of Hohenlohe, marching in a parallel line some twenty miles on
+his left, led a division of the emigrants and the Hessian troops. His
+route led him through Thionville and Metz. The Count de Clairfayt,
+an Austrian field-marshal, who has been esteemed the ablest general
+opposed to the French during the Revolutionary war, conducted the
+Austrian troops and another division of the emigrants along other
+parallel roads upon the right, to fall upon La Fayette, who was
+stationed before Sedan and Mézieres. It was supposed that he would
+easily scatter the feeble forces which Louis XVI. had permitted to be
+stationed there; and then he was to press rapidly upon Paris by Rheims
+and Soissons.[343]
+
+The friends of liberty now saw no possible way of rescuing France
+from its peril and of saving themselves from the scaffold, but by
+wresting the executive power from the king and the court, who were in
+co-operation with the foe. This could only be done by a _revolution_,
+for the Constitution conferred no right upon the Assembly to dethrone
+the king. The Girondists or moderate Republicans, detesting the
+Jacobins and appalled in view of the anarchy which would ensue from
+arming the mob of Paris, wished to have the _Assembly_ usurp the power
+and dethrone the king. The Jacobins, who hoped to ride into authority
+upon the waves of popular tumult, deliberately resolved to demolish the
+throne by hurling against it the infuriate masses of the people. It was
+calling into action the terrible energies of the earthquake and the
+tornado, knowing that their ravages, once commenced, could be arrested
+by no earthly power.
+
+The plan first formed was to rouse the people in resistless numbers,
+march upon the Tuileries, take the king a prisoner, and hold him in the
+Castle of Vincennes as a hostage for the good conduct of the emigrants
+and the allies. The appointed day came, and Paris was thrown into a
+state of terrible confusion. But the court had been admonished of the
+movement. The palace was strongly defended, and in consequence of some
+misunderstanding it was found that there was not sufficient concert of
+action to attempt the enterprise.
+
+A new scheme was now formed, energetic and well-adapted to the
+effectual accomplishment of its purpose. At the ringing of the tocsin
+forty thousand men were to be marshaled in the faubourg St. Antoine.
+Another immense gathering of the populace was to rally in the faubourg
+St. Marceau. All the troops in the metropolis from the provinces were
+to be arrayed at the encampment of the Marseilles battalion. They were
+then to march simultaneously to the palace, fill the garden and the
+court of the Carrousel, and invest the Tuileries on all sides. Here
+they were to encamp with all the enginery of war, and fortify their
+position by ditches, barricades, and redoubts. No blood was to be shed.
+There was to be no assault upon the palace, and no forcible entry. The
+king was to be blockaded, and the Assembly was to be informed that the
+populace would not lay down their arms until the king was dethroned,
+and the Legislature had adopted measures to secure the safety of the
+country.[344] In this plan there was something generous and sublime. It
+endeavored to guard carefully against disorder, pillage, and blood. It
+was the majestic movement of the people rising in self defense against
+its own executive in combination with foreign foes. Barbaroux, the
+leader of the Marseillese, sketches this plan in pencil. It was copied
+by Fournier, and adopted by Danton and Santerre.[345]
+
+Several of the leaders of the Girondists, anxious to avert the fearful
+crisis now impending, wrote a noble letter to the king containing
+considerations just and weighty, which ought to have influenced him to
+corresponding action. The letter was written by Vergniaud, Gaudet, and
+Gensonné, three of the brightest ornaments of the Legislative Assembly.
+
+"It ought not to be dissembled," said these men to the king, "that it
+is the conduct of the executive power that is the immediate cause of
+all the evils with which France is afflicted, and of the dangers with
+which the throne is surrounded. They deceive the king who would lead
+him to suppose that it is the effervesence of the clubs, the manoeuvres
+of particular agitators and powerful factions that have occasioned and
+continued those disorderly movements, of which every day increases the
+violence, and of which no one can calculate the consequences. Thus to
+suppose is to find the cause of the evil in what are only the symptoms.
+The only way to establish the public tranquillity is for the king to
+surround himself with the confidence of his people. This can only be
+done by declaring, in the most solemn manner, that he will receive
+no augmentation of his power that shall not be freely and regularly
+offered him by the French nation without the assistance or interference
+of any foreign powers.
+
+"What would be, perhaps, sufficient at once to re-establish confidence
+would be for the king to make the coalesced powers acknowledge the
+independence of the French nation, cease from all farther hostilities,
+and withdraw the troops that menace our frontiers. It is impossible
+that a very great part of the nation should not be persuaded that the
+king has it in his power to put an end to the coalition; and while that
+coalition continues and places the public liberty in a state of peril,
+it is in vain to flatter the king that confidence can revive."
+
+The court regarded this letter as insolent, and the king returned an
+answer which declared that he should pay no attention whatever to its
+suggestions.
+
+On the 30th of July the troops from Marseilles had arrived, five
+hundred in number, composed of the most fiery and turbulent spirits
+of the South. The clubs and journals and shouts of the people had for
+some time been demanding of the Assembly the suspension of the king.
+But the Assembly, restrained by respect for the Constitution, hesitated
+in the adoption of a measure so revolutionary and yet apparently so
+necessary. The insurrection now planned, unless it could be quelled by
+the king's forces, was sure to accomplish its end. If the Assembly did
+not in its consternation pronounce the throne vacant, or if the king
+did not in his terror abdicate, the whole royal family was to be held
+in a state of blockade, and it could not be disguised that they were
+in danger of falling victims to the rage of the ungovernable mob. This
+was the plan deliberately formed and energetically executed. It was
+patriotism's last and most terrible resort. Humanity is shocked by the
+measure. Yet we must not forget that foreign armies were approaching,
+and the king was in complicity with them, and thwarting all measures
+for effectual resistance. The court was organizing the partisans of the
+king to unite with the foreigners in all the horrors of civil war. A
+nation of twenty-five millions of freemen were again to be enslaved.
+All the patriots who had been instrumental in securing liberty for
+France were to be consigned to exile, the dungeon, and the scaffold.
+If ever a people were excusable in being thrown into a state of blind
+ungovernable fury, it was the people of France in view of such threats.
+
+Paris was in this state of panic when the atrocious proclamation of
+the Duke of Brunswick reached the city. The king had sent a secret
+embassador, Mallet du Pan, to the allies, suggesting the tone of
+the manifesto he wished them to issue. Some of his suggestions they
+adopted, and added to them menaces as cruel and bloody as any deeds
+ever perpetrated by a mob.
+
+"Their majesties," said the duke in this manifesto, "the emperor,
+and the king of Prussia, having intrusted me with the command of the
+combined armies, assembled by their orders on the frontiers of France,
+I am desirous to acquaint the inhabitants of that kingdom with the
+motives which have determined the measures of the two sovereigns, and
+the intentions by which they are guided."
+
+He then stated that one object which the sovereigns had deeply at heart
+was "to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France; to stop
+the attacks directed against the throne and the altar, to re-establish
+the regal power, to restore to the king the security and liberty of
+which he is deprived, and to place him in a condition to exercise the
+legitimate authority which is his due."
+
+He then declared, in violation of all the rules of civilized warfare,
+that "such of the national guards as shall have fought against the
+troops of the two allied courts, and who shall be taken in arms, shall
+be punished as rebels against their king." This doomed every French
+patriot who should resist the invaders to be shot or hanged.
+
+"The inhabitants of cities, towns, and villages," continued this savage
+declaration, "who shall dare to defend themselves against the troops of
+their imperial and royal majesties, and to fire upon them either in the
+open field or from their houses, shall be instantly punished with all
+the rigor of the laws of war, and their houses demolished or burned.
+
+"The city of Paris and all its inhabitants without distinction, are
+required to submit immediately to the king, to set him at entire
+liberty, to insure to him, as well as to all the royal personages,
+the inviolability and respect which subjects owe their sovereigns.
+Their imperial and royal majesties hold the members of the National
+Assembly, of the department, of the district, of the municipality, and
+of the National Guard of Paris, the justices of the peace, and all
+others whom it may concern, personally responsible with their lives
+for all that may happen; their said majesties declaring, moreover, on
+their faith and word as emperor and king, that if the palace of the
+Tuileries is forced or insulted, that if the least violence, the least
+outrage is offered to their majesties the king and queen and to the
+royal family, if immediate provision is not made for their safety,
+their preservation, and their liberty, they will take an exemplary and
+ever-memorable vengeance, _by giving up the city of Paris to military
+execution and total destruction, and the rebels guilty of outrages to
+the punishments they shall have deserved_."[346]
+
+This ferocious document was printed in all the Royalist papers in
+Paris on the 28th of July. The king immediately issued a message
+disavowing any agency in the manifesto. But the people no longer had
+any confidence in the word of the king. Paris was thrown into a state
+of terrible agitation. The forty-eight sections of Paris met, and
+commissioned the mayor, Pétion, to appear before the General Assembly,
+and petition, in their name, the dethronement of the king. On the 3d
+of August, Pétion, at the head of a numerous deputation, presented
+himself before the Assembly. In an address, calm, unimpassioned, but
+terrible in its severity, he retraced the whole course of the king from
+the commencement of the Revolution, and closed with the solemn demand
+for the dethronement of Louis XVI., as the most dangerous enemy of the
+nation. The Assembly was embarrassed by its desire to adhere to the
+Constitution which it had sworn to obey. The dethronement of the king
+was not a _constitutional_ but a _revolutionary_ act. A long and stormy
+debate ensued, during which the hall was flooded with petitions against
+the king. The king's friends were again intensely anxious to secure his
+escape. But the king would not listen to their plans, for he was so
+infatuated as to believe that the Duke of Brunswick would soon, by an
+unimpeded march, be in Paris for his rescue.
+
+The sympathy which La Fayette had manifested for the royal family
+had now ruined him in the esteem of the populace. He was every where
+denounced as a traitor, and a strong effort was made to compel the
+Assembly to indite a bill of accusation against him. But La Fayette's
+friends in the chamber rallied, and he was absolved from the charge of
+treason by a vote of four hundred and forty-six against two hundred
+and eighty. The populace was so exasperated by this result that they
+heaped abuse upon all who voted in his favor, and several of them were
+severely maltreated by the mob. The National Assembly had now become
+unpopular. It was ferociously denounced in the club of the Jacobins and
+in all the corners of the streets. In the mean time the insurrectionary
+committee, formed from the Jacobin club, were busy in preparation for
+the great insurrection. All hearts were appalled, for all could see
+that a cloud of terrific blackness was gathering, and no one could tell
+what limit there would be to the ravages of the storm.
+
+At midnight, on the 9th of August, the dismal sound of the tocsin was
+heard. From steeple to steeple the boding tones floated through the
+dark air. A thousand drums beat the alarm at the appointed rendezvous,
+and the booming of guns shook the city. In an hour all Paris was in
+tumult. The clatter of iron hoofs, the rumbling of heavy artillery,
+the tramp of disciplined battalions, and the rush and the clamor of a
+phrensied mob, presented the most appalling scene of tumult and terror.
+A city of a million and a half of inhabitants was in convulsions. The
+friends of the king hurried to the palace, announcing with pale lips
+that the terrible hour had come. The event needed no announcement, for
+the whole city was instantly trembling beneath earthquake throes. The
+king, the queen, the two children, and Madame Elizabeth had assembled
+tremblingly in one of the rooms of the palace, as lambs huddle together
+when wolves are howling round the fold. Marie Antoinette was imperially
+brave, but she could not in that hour look upon her helpless son and
+daughter and not feel her maternal heart sink within her. Louis XVI.
+had the endurance of a martyr, but he could not, unmoved, contemplate
+the woes of his family.
+
+The friends of the king speedily rallied, and brought up all their
+forces for his defense. The apartments of the palace were filled with
+Royalist gentlemen armed with swords, pistols, and even with shovels
+and tongs. Nine hundred Swiss guards, upon whom it was thought reliance
+could be reposed, were placed on the stairs, in the halls, and the
+large saloons. Six or eight hundred mounted dragoons were in one of the
+court-yards. Several battalions of the National Guard, who were most
+friendly to the king, were stationed in the garden with twelve pieces
+of artillery.[347] The defenders of the palace amounted in all to about
+four or five thousand men. But many of these were very lukewarm in
+their loyalty, and might at any moment be expected to fraternize with
+the populace.[348]
+
+Pétion, the mayor, was sent for. He came, and after an awkward
+interview retired, leaving Mandat, who was general-in-chief of the
+National Guard, commander of the troops at the Tuileries. It was a
+sultry night. Every window at the Tuileries was thrown open, and the
+inmates listened anxiously to the uproar which rose from every part
+of the city. The queen and Madame Elizabeth ascended to a balcony
+opening from one of the highest stories of the palace. The night was
+calm and beautiful, the moon brilliant in the west, and Orion and the
+Pleiades shining serenely in the east.[349] There the queen and the
+princess stood for some time, trembling and in silence as the peal of
+bells, the clangor of drums, the rumbling of artillery wheels, and the
+shouts of the advancing bands, filled the air. From every direction,
+the east, the west, the north and the south, the portentous booming
+of the tocsin was heard, and infuriated insurgents, in numbers which
+could not be counted, through all the streets and avenues, were pouring
+toward the palace. The bridges crossing the river echoed with their
+tread, while the blaze of bonfires and the gleam of torches added to
+the appalling sublimities of the scene.[350]
+
+The queen broke the silence. Pointing to the moon she said, "Before
+that moon returns again, either the allies will be here and we shall be
+rescued, or I shall be no more. But let us descend to the king."
+
+The spectacle seemed but to have aroused the energies of Marie
+Antoinette. The spirit of her imperial mother glowed in her bosom.[351]
+Her cheeks were pale as death, her lips were compressed, her eyes
+flashed fire, and, as she returned to the room where her husband stood
+bewildered and submissive to his lot, she approached a grenadier, drew
+a pistol from his belt, and, presenting it to her husband, said,
+
+"Now, sire! now is the time to show yourself a king."
+
+But Louis XVI. was a quiet, patient, enduring man, with nothing
+imperial in his nature. With the most imperturbable meekness he took
+the pistol and handed it back to the grenadier. The mayor, Pétion, an
+active member of the Jacobin Club, had manifested no disposition to
+render effectual aid in the defense of the palace. But lest it should
+seem that he was heading the mob, he had reluctantly signed an order,
+as he left the Tuileries, authorizing the employment of force to repel
+force.
+
+The insurgents had organized an insurrectional committee at the Hôtel
+de Ville, and immediately sent a summons for Mandat to present himself
+before them. Mandat, misinformed, understood that the summons came
+from the municipal government, and, as in duty bound, promptly obeyed.
+He had hardly left the palace ere word was brought back to the king
+that he had been assassinated by the mob. There was no longer any
+leader at the palace; no one to organize the defense; no one to issue
+commands. The soldiers in the court of the Tuileries and in the Garden
+were looking listlessly about and bandying jokes with the mob who were
+crowding against the iron railing.[352]
+
+It was, however, now decided that the king should descend into the
+courts of the Carrousel, in the rear of the palace, and into the
+Garden, in front, to review the troops and ascertain the spirit with
+which they were animated.
+
+The king was very fat, had an awkward hobbling gait, and a countenance
+only expressive of a passionless nature. He was dressed in a plain
+mourning-suit, with silk stockings, and buckles in his shoes. His dress
+was quite disarranged. In the early part of the night he had thrown
+himself upon a sofa for rest, and thus his hair, which was powdered and
+curled on one side, was without powder and in disorder on the other.
+Apprehensive that he might be assassinated before morning, he had
+spent some time in devotional exercises with his confessor, and his
+cheeks deathly pale, his swollen eyes and his trembling lips, plainly
+showed that he had been weeping. Thus he presented the aspect but of
+a king in his degradation. Had he been a spirited man, in uniform,
+mounted on horseback, he might, perhaps, have rallied the enthusiasm
+of the troops. As it was he could excite no other emotion than that of
+compassion, blended, perhaps, with contempt.
+
+It was five o'clock of one of the most brilliant of summer mornings
+as the king, followed by the queen and his children, and accompanied
+by six staff officers, descended the marble stairs of the Tuileries
+and entered the royal court. The music of martial bands greeted him,
+the polished weapons of the soldiers gleamed in the rays of the sun as
+they presented arms, and a few voices rather languidly shouted _Vive le
+Roi_. Others, however, defiantly shouted _Vive la Nation_, thus showing
+that many of those who were marshaled for his defense were ready to
+unite with his assailants. The king stammered out a few incoherent
+words and returned to the palace.
+
+The appearance of the queen in this terrible hour riveted every eye and
+excited even the enthusiasm of her foes. Her flushed cheek, dilated
+nostril, compressed lip, and flashing eye invested her with an imperial
+beauty almost more than human. Her head was erect, her carriage proud,
+her step dignified, and she looked around her upon applauding friends
+and assailing foes with a majesty of courage which touched every heart.
+Even the most ardent patriots forgot for the moment their devotion
+to liberty in the enthusiasm excited by the heroism of the queen.
+Re-entering the palace, the queen, in despair, ascended the stairs to
+the saloon, saying,
+
+"All is lost. The king has shown no energy. A review like this has done
+us more harm than good."
+
+The king, however, instead of ascending to his apartment, passed
+through the palace into the Garden to ascertain the disposition of
+the troops stationed there. With his small retinue he traversed the
+whole length of the Garden. Some of the battalions received him
+with applause, others were silent, while here and there voices in
+continually increasing numbers cried, "_Down with the veto; down with
+the tyrant_." As the king turned to retrace his steps, menaces and
+insults were multiplied. Some of the gunners even left their guns and
+thrust their fists in his face, assailing him with the most brutal
+abuse. The clamor penetrated the interior of the palace and the queen,
+turning pale as death, sank into a chair, exclaiming,
+
+"Great God! they are hooting the king. We are all lost."
+
+The king returned to the palace, pale, exhausted, perspiring at every
+pore, and overwhelmed with confusion and shame. He immediately retired
+to his cabinet. Roederer,[353] chief magistrate of the Department of
+the Seine, who had witnessed the hostile disposition of the troops,
+now hastened to the chateau and asked permission to speak to his
+majesty in private, with no witnesses but the royal family. He entered
+the royal cabinet and found the king with his elbows resting on his
+knees and his face buried in his hands. All retired but the royal
+family and the king's ministers.
+
+"Sire," said M. Roederer, "you have not a moment to lose. Neither the
+number nor the disposition of the men here assembled can guarantee your
+life or the lives of your family. There is no safety for you but in the
+bosom of the Assembly."
+
+The hall of the Assembly was in the old monastery of the Feuillants,
+situated on the western side of the Garden, where the Rue de Rivoli
+now runs. The royal family could consequently descend into the Garden,
+which was filled with troops collected there for their defense, and
+crossing the Garden could enter the hall with but little exposure.
+
+But such a refuge to the high-spirited queen was more dreadful than
+death. It was draining the cup of humiliation to its dregs.
+
+"Go to the Assembly!" exclaimed the queen; "never! never will I take
+refuge there. Rather than submit to such infamy I would prefer to be
+nailed to the walls of the palace."
+
+"It is there only," M. Roederer replied, "that the royal family can
+be in safety. And it is necessary to escape immediately. In another
+quarter of an hour, perhaps, we shall not be able to command a retreat."
+
+"What," rejoined the queen, "have we no defenders? Are we alone?"
+
+"Yes, madame," replied Roederer, "we are alone. The troops in the
+Garden and in the court are fraternizing with your assailants and
+turning their guns against the palace. All Paris is on the march.
+Action is useless. Resistance is impossible."
+
+A gentleman present, who had been active in promoting reform, ventured
+to add his voice in favor of an immediate retreat to the Assembly. The
+queen turned upon him sternly, and said,
+
+"Silence, sir, silence! It becomes you to be silent here. When the
+mischief is done, those who did it should not pretend to wish to remedy
+it."[354]
+
+M. Roederer resumed, saying, "Madame, you endanger the lives of your
+husband and your children. Think of the responsibility which you take
+upon yourself."
+
+The king raised his head, fixed a vacant stare of anguish for a moment
+on M. Roederer, and then, rising, said, "Marchons" (_Let us go_).
+
+The queen, unable any longer to shut her eyes to the fatality, turning
+to M. Roederer, eagerly added, "You, sir, are answerable for the life
+of the king and for that of my son."
+
+"Madame," M. Roederer replied, "we undertake to die by your side, but
+that is all we can promise." It was then eight o'clock in the morning.
+
+A guard of soldiers was instantly called in, and the melancholy cortège
+left the palace. The Swiss troops and the loyalist gentlemen, who
+filled the apartments, looked on in consternation and despair. There
+was no apparent escape for them, and they seemed to be abandoned to
+their fate. As the king was crossing the threshold he thought of his
+friends, and his heart seemed to misgive him. He hesitated, stopped,
+and, turning to M. Roederer, said, "What is to become of our friends
+who remain behind?" M. Roederer pacified the king by assuring him,
+though falsely, that by throwing aside their arms and their uniform
+they would be able to escape in safety.
+
+They then entered the Garden and crossed it, unopposed, between the
+two files of bayonets. The leaves of autumn strewed the paths, and the
+young dauphin amused himself in kicking them as he walked along. It is
+characteristic of the mental infirmities of the king that in such an
+hour he should have remarked, "There are a great many leaves. They fall
+early this year."
+
+When they arrived at the door at the foot of the staircase which led to
+the hall of the Assembly, they found an immense crowd of men and women
+there blocking up the entrance. "They shall not enter here," was the
+cry; "they shall no longer deceive the nation. They are the cause of
+all our misfortunes. Down with the veto! Down with the Austrian woman!
+Abdication or death!"
+
+"Sire," said one, in compassionate tones to the king, "Don't be afraid.
+The people are just. Be a good citizen, sire, and send the priests and
+your wife away from the palace."
+
+The soldiers endeavored to force their way through the crowd, and, in
+the struggle, the members of the royal family were separated from each
+other. A stout grenadier seized the dauphin and raised him upon his
+shoulders. The queen, terrified lest her child was to be taken from
+her, uttered a piercing shriek. But the grenadiers pressed forward
+through the crowd, and, entering the hall with the king and queen,
+placed the prince royal on the table of the Assembly.
+
+The illustrious Girondist M. Vergniaud was in the chair. The king
+approached him and said,
+
+"I have come hither to prevent a great crime. I thought I could not be
+safer than with you."
+
+"You may rely, sire," Vergniaud replied, "on the firmness of the
+Assembly. Its members have sworn to die in supporting the rights of the
+people and the constituted authority."
+
+The king took his seat. There were but few members present. A mournful
+silence pervaded the hall as the deputies, with saddened countenances
+and sympathetic hearts, gazed upon the king, the queen, Madame
+Elizabeth, the beautiful young princess, and the dauphin, whom the
+queen held by the hand. All angry feelings died in presence of the
+melancholy spectacle, for all felt that a storm was now beating against
+the throne which no human power could allay.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 340: La Fayette's Memoirs.
+
+"M. de La Fayette seemed not to have been quite discouraged by the
+ill-success of his former embassy; for on the 10th of July M. de Lally
+came to me with a long letter written by M. La Fayette from his army,
+in which he drew a plan, ready as he said, for execution, to open the
+way for the king through his enemies, and to establish him in safety
+either in Compiègne or in the north part of France, surrounded by his
+constitutional guards and his faithful army,"--_Bertrand de Moleville._]
+
+[Footnote 341: "That there should be no more sympathy," says Professor
+Smyth, "expressed by the king or the Royalists ever after, with the
+elevated nature of the principles of La Fayette or the steadiness of
+his loyalty, whenever he saw, as he thought, the king in danger, is
+quite intolerable; and there are no occasions on which the royal party
+appear to so little advantage as when it is desirable that they should
+show some little candor, some common justice to La Fayette."--_Lectures
+on French Revolution_, vol. ii., p. 298.]
+
+[Footnote 342: History of the Girondists, Lamartine, vol. ii., p. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 343: "Russia and England secretly approved the attacks of the
+European league, without as yet co-operating with it."--_Mignet_, p.
+142. The British _government_ were at this time restrained from active
+measures by the British _people_, the great mass of whom sympathized
+with the French in their struggle for liberty.]
+
+[Footnote 344: "The chiefs," says Bertrand do Moleville, "of the
+Gironde faction, who had planned the insurrection, did not, at that
+time, intend to overset the monarchy. Their design was to dethrone
+the king, make the crown pass to his son, and establish a council of
+regency."]
+
+[Footnote 345: Lamartine's History of the Girondists, vol. 2, p. 40.
+Barbaroux, one of the most active of the leaders in this movement, "a
+man of genius, fine affections, and noble sentiments," in his memoirs
+writes, "It was our wish that this insurrection in the cause of liberty
+should be majestic as is Liberty herself; holy as are the rights which
+she alone can ensure, and worthy to serve as an example to every
+people, who, to break the chains of their tyrants, have only to show
+themselves."]
+
+[Footnote 346: "The greatest sensation was produced in our own country
+of Great Britain, and all over Europe, by a manifesto like this, which
+went in truth to say, that two military powers were to march into a
+neighboring and independent kingdom to settle the civil dissensions
+there as they thought best, and to punish by military law, as rebels
+and traitors, all who presumed to resist them. No friend to freedom
+or the general rights of mankind could, for a moment, tolerate such
+a procedure as this. Even the success of the Jacobins and Anarchists
+was thought preferable to the triumph of invaders like these."--_Prof.
+Smyth's Lectures on the Fr. Rev._, vol. ii., p. 326.]
+
+[Footnote 347: The Garden of the Tuileries includes an area of about
+sixty-seven acres. A whole army could encamp there.]
+
+[Footnote 348: One of the officers of the staff said to Madame Campan,
+in the midst of this scene of terror and confusion, "Put your jewels
+and money into your pockets. Our dangers are unavoidable. The means
+of defense are unavailing. Safety might be obtained from some degree
+of energy in the king; but that is the only virtue in which he is
+deficient."--_Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 240.]
+
+[Footnote 349: Roederer, Chronique de Cinquante Jours.]
+
+[Footnote 350: "List! through the placid midnight; clang of the distant
+storm-bell. Steeple after steeple takes up the wondrous tale. Black
+courtiers listen at the windows opened for air; discriminate the
+steeple-bells. This is the tocsin of St. Roch; that, again, is _it_
+not St. Jaques, named _de la Boucherie_? Yes, messieurs! or even St.
+Germain l'Auxerrois, hear ye it not? The same metal that rang storm two
+hundred and twenty years ago; but by a majesty's order then; on St.
+Bartholomew's Eve!"--_Carlyle_, vol. ii., p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 351: "The behavior of Marie Antoinette was magnanimous in the
+highest degree. Her majestic air, her Austrian lip and aquiline nose,
+gave her an air of dignity which can only be conceived by those who
+beheld her in that trying hour."--_Peltier._]
+
+[Footnote 352: Where the iron railing now stands which separates the
+spacious court of the Tuileries from the Carrousel, so called because
+Louis XIV., in 1662, held a great tournament here, there were, in 1792,
+rows of small houses and sheds. The court was then divided by railings
+into three divisions. The central one, which was rather larger than the
+others, was called the Cour Royale. The king's troops were stationed in
+these courts, while the insurgents were filling the Carrousel. These
+court-yards, now thrown into one, afforded Napoleon ample space for the
+review of his troops.]
+
+[Footnote 353: M. Roederer, a constitutional monarchist, was one of
+the most illustrious men of the Revolution. Denounced by the Jacobins
+he was compelled, like La Fayette, to seek refuge in flight. Upon
+Napoleon's return from Egypt he aided effectually in rescuing France
+from anarchy, and in establishing the Consulate and the Empire. He
+co-operated cordially with the Emperor in his plans of reform, was the
+chief instrument in concluding a treaty between France and the United
+States, and took a large share in the regeneration of the Kingdom of
+Naples by Joseph Bonaparte. When Napoleon fell beneath the blows of
+allied Europe, Roederer, in sadness, withdrew to retirement.--_Enc.
+Am._]
+
+[Footnote 354: Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 274, note.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE ROYAL FAMILY IMPRISONED.
+
+ Tumult and Dismay in the Assembly.--Storming the Tuileries.--Aspect
+ of the Royal Family.--The Decree of Suspension.--Night in the
+ Cloister.--The Second Day in the Assembly.--The Royal Family
+ Prisoners.--Third Day in the Assembly.--The Temple.--The Royal Family
+ Transferred to the Temple.
+
+
+But few of the excited thousands who crowded all the approaches to the
+Tuileries were conscious that the royal family had escaped from the
+palace. The clamor rapidly increased to a scene of terrific uproar.
+First a few gun-shots were heard, then volleys of musketry, then the
+deep booming of artillery, while shouts of onset, cries of fury, and
+the shrieks of the wounded and the dying filled the air. The hall of
+the Assembly was already crowded to suffocation, and the deputies stood
+powerless and appalled. A tumultuous mass pressed the door. Blows,
+pistol-shots, and groans of death were heard beneath the windows, and
+it was every moment apprehended that the assassins would break into
+the hall, and that the royal family and all their defenders would
+be cut down. Several bullets shattered the windows, and one or two
+cannon-balls passed through the roof of the building. Every one was
+exposed to fearful peril.
+
+There was no longer any retreat for the king. By the side of the
+president's chair there was a space inclosed by an iron railing,
+appropriated to the reporters. Several of the members aided the king in
+tearing down a portion of this railing, and all the royal family sought
+refuge there. At this moment the door of the hall was attacked, and
+tremendous blows seemed to shake the whole building. "We are stormed!"
+shouted one of the deputies. There was, however, no escape for any one
+in any direction, and for some moments there was witnessed a scene of
+confusion and terror which no language can describe.
+
+At the same time there was a frightful conflict raging in and around
+the palace. Immediately upon the departure of the king, all the
+Swiss troops, who were hated as foreign mercenaries hired to shoot
+down the French, were drawn into the palace from the court-yard, and
+were mingled in confusion through its apartments with the loyalist
+gentlemen, the officers, and the domestics. Notwithstanding the vast
+dimensions of the palace, it was so crowded that there was scarcely
+space to move.
+
+[Illustration: STORMING THE TUILERIES, AUGUST 10, 1792.]
+
+The throng in the Carrousel attacked one of the gates, broke it
+down, and rushed into the royal court, which was nearly vacated by
+the retirement of the Swiss. The companies of the National Guard in
+the Carrousel, instead of opposing, looked approvingly on, and were
+evidently quite disposed to lend the assailants a helping hand. A large
+piece of timber was placed at the foot of the staircase of the palace
+in the form of a barrier, and behind this were intrenched in disorder,
+crowding the steps, the Swiss and some of the National Guard who
+adhered to the king.[355]
+
+Just then the whole Faubourg St. Antoine came marching along in solid
+column. They marched through the Carrousel, entered the court, and
+placed six pieces of cannon in battery to open a fire upon the palace.
+It was to avoid, if possible, a conflict, that the guards had been
+withdrawn from the court into the palace. The shouts of a countless
+multitude applauded this military movement of the mob. The Swiss had
+received command from the king not to fire. The crowd cautiously
+pressed nearer and nearer to the door, and at length, emboldened by the
+forbearance of the defenders of the palace, seized, with long poles to
+which hooks were attached, one after another of the sentinels, and,
+with shouts, captured and disarmed them. Thus five of the Swiss troops
+were taken prisoners.
+
+[Illustration: MASSACRE OF THE ROYAL GUARD, AUGUST 10, 1792.]
+
+At last a single shot was fired, no one can tell on which side. It was
+the signal for blood. The Swiss, crowded upon the magnificent marble
+stairs, rising one above another, occupied a very formidable position.
+They instantly opened a deadly fire. Volley succeeded volley, and every
+bullet told upon the dense mass crowding the court. At the same moment,
+from every window of the palace, a storm of shot was showered down upon
+the foe. In a moment the pavement was red with blood, and covered with
+the dying and the dead. The artillerymen abandoned their pieces, and
+the whole multitude rushed pell-mell, trampling the dead and wounded
+beneath them in frantic endeavors to escape from the court into the
+Carrousel. In a few moments the whole court was evacuated, and remained
+strewed with pikes, muskets, grenadiers' caps, and gory bodies.
+
+The besiegers, however, soon rallied. Following the disciplined troops
+from Marseilles, who were led by able officers, the multitude returned
+with indescribable fury to the charge. Cannon-balls, bullets, and
+grapeshot dashed in the doors and the windows. Most of the loyalist
+gentlemen escaped by a secret passage through the long gallery of
+the Louvre, as the victorious rabble, with pike, bayonet, and sabre,
+poured resistlessly into the palace and rushed through all its
+apartments. The Swiss threw down their arms and begged for quarter.
+But the pitiless mob, exasperated by the slaughter of their friends,
+knew no mercy. Indiscriminate massacre ensued, accompanied with every
+conceivable act of brutality. For four hours the butchery continued, as
+attics, closets, cellars, chimneys, and vaults were searched, and the
+terrified victims were dragged out to die. Some leaped from the windows
+and endeavored to escape through the Garden. They were pursued and
+mercilessly cut down. Some climbed the marble monuments. The assassins,
+unwilling to injure the statuary, pricked them down with their bayonets
+and then slaughtered them at their feet. Seven hundred and fifty Swiss
+were massacred in that day of blood.
+
+The Assembly during these hours were powerless, and they awaited in
+intense anxiety the issue of the combat. Nothing can more impressively
+show the weak and frivolous mind of the king than that, in such an
+hour, seeing the painter David in the hall, he inquired of him,
+
+"How soon shall you probably have my portrait completed?"
+
+David brutally replied, "I will never, for the future, paint
+the portrait of a tyrant until his head lies before me on the
+scaffold."[356]
+
+The queen sat in haughty silence. Her compressed lip, burning eye, and
+hectic cheek indicated the emotions of humiliation and of indignation
+with which she was consumed. The young princess wept, and her fevered
+face was stained with the dried current of her tears. The dauphin, too
+young to appreciate the terrible significance of the scene, looked
+around in bewildered curiosity.
+
+At eleven o'clock reiterated shouts of victory, which rose from the
+Garden, the palace, the Carrousel, and all the adjoining streets and
+places, proclaimed that the triumph of the people was complete. The
+Assembly, now overawed, unanimously passed a decree suspending the
+king, dismissing the Royalist ministers, recalling the Girondist
+ministry, and convoking a National Assembly for the trial of the king.
+As Vergniaud read, in accents of grief, this decree to which the
+Assembly had been forced, the king listened intently, and then said
+satirically to M. Coustard, who was standing by his side,
+
+"This is not a very _constitutional_ act."
+
+"True," M. Coustard replied; "but it is the only means of saving your
+majesty's life."
+
+The Assembly immediately enacted the decrees, which the king had
+vetoed, banishing the refractory priests and establishing a camp
+near Paris. Danton,[357] whose tremendous energies had guided the
+insurrection, was appointed Minister of Justice. Monge, the illustrious
+mathematician, by the nomination of his equally illustrious friend
+Condorcet, was placed at the head of the Marine. Lebrun, a man of
+probity and untiring energy, was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+Thus was the whole government effectually revolutionized and
+reorganized. During all the long hours of this day the royal family
+sat in the crowded Assembly almost suffocated with heat, and enduring
+anguish which no tongue can tell. The streets were filled with uproar,
+and the waves of popular tumult dashed against the old monastery of the
+Feuillans, even threatening to break in the doors. The regal victims
+listened to the decrees which tore the crown from the brow of the king,
+and which placed his sceptre in the hands of his most envenomed foes.
+In the conflict with the defenders of the palace, between three and
+four thousand of the populace had perished, in revenge for which nearly
+eight hundred of the inmates of the Tuileries had been massacred. The
+relatives of the slain citizens, exasperated beyond measure, were
+clamorous for the blood of the king as the cause of the death of their
+friends. There was no possible covert for the royal family but in the
+Assembly. Fifty armed soldiers, with bayonets fixed, surrounded them in
+their box, and yet it was every moment feared that the populace would
+break in and satiate their rage with the blood of the monarch and his
+family.
+
+The king was ever famed for his ravenous appetite. Even in the midst of
+these terrific scenes he was hungry and called for food. Bread, wine,
+and cold viands were brought to him. He ate and drank voraciously to
+the extreme mortification of the queen, who could not but perceive how
+little respect the conduct of the king inspired. Neither she, Madame
+Elizabeth, nor the children could taste of any food. They merely
+occasionally moistened their fevered lips with iced water.
+
+It was now ten o'clock in the evening. The night was calm and
+beautiful. The tumult of the day was over, but the terrific excitement
+of the scene had brought the whole population of Paris out into
+the promenades. Fires were still blazing beneath the trees of the
+Tuileries, consuming the furniture which had been thrown from the
+windows of the chateau. Lurid flames flashed from the barracks of the
+Swiss in the court-yard, which had been set on fire, streaming over the
+roof of the palace, and illuminated both banks of the Seine.
+
+The whole number slain during the day, Royalists and Revolutionists,
+amounted to over four thousand. Many of the dead had been removed by
+relatives, but the ground was still covered with the bodies of the
+slain, who were entirely naked, having been stripped of their clothing
+by those wretches who ever swarm in the streets of a great city, and
+who find their carnival in deeds of violence and blood. By order of the
+insurrectional committee at the Hôtel de Ville, who had deposed the
+municipal government and usurped its authority, these dead bodies were
+collected and piled in vast heaps in the court-yards, in the Garden,
+in the Place Louis XV., and in the Elysian Fields. Immense quantities
+of wood were thrown upon them, and the whole city was illuminated by
+the glare of these funeral fires. The Swiss and the Marsellais, the
+Royalists and the Jacobins, were consumed together, and the ashes were
+swept clean from the pavement into the Seine.
+
+As these scenes at midnight were transpiring in the streets, the
+Assembly sent a summary of its decrees to be read by torch-light to the
+groups of the people. It was hoped that these decrees would satisfy
+them, and put a stop to any farther acts of violence on the morrow.
+It was two o'clock in the morning before the Assembly suspended its
+sitting. For seventeen hours the royal family had sat in the reporters'
+box, enduring all of humiliation and agony which human hearts can feel.
+
+In the upper part of the old monastery, above the committee-rooms
+of the Assembly, there was a spacious corridor, from which opened
+several cells formerly used by the monks. These cells, with walls of
+stone and floors of brick, and entirely destitute of furniture, were
+as gloomy as the dungeons of a prison. Here only could the king and
+his family find safety for the night. Some articles of furniture were
+hastily collected from different parts of the building, and four of
+these rooms were prepared for the royal party. Five nobles, who had
+heroically adhered to the king in these hours of peril, occupied one,
+where, wrapped in their cloaks and stretched out upon the floor, they
+could still watch through the night over the monarch. The king took
+the next. It was furnished with a table, and a plain wooden bedstead.
+He bound a napkin around his head for a night-cap, and threw himself,
+but partially undressed, upon his uncurtained bed. The queen, with her
+two children, took the next cell. Madame Elizabeth, with the governess
+of the children, Madame de Tourzel, and the Princess Lamballe, who had
+joined the royal family in the evening, took the fourth. Thus, after
+thirty-six hours of sleeplessness and terror, the royal family were
+left to such repose as their agitated minds could attain.
+
+The sun had long arisen when the queen awoke from her fevered slumber.
+She looked around her for a moment with an expression of anguish, and
+then, covering her eyes with her hands, exclaimed,
+
+"Oh, I hoped that it had all been a dream!"
+
+The whole party soon met in the apartment of the king. As Madame
+Tourzel led in the two royal children, Marie Antoinette looked at them
+sadly, and said,
+
+"Poor children! how heart-rending it is, instead of handing down to
+them so fine an inheritance, to say, it ends with us!"
+
+"I still see, in imagination," writes Madame Campan, "and shall always
+see, that narrow cell of the Feuillans, hung with green paper; that
+wretched couch where the dethroned queen stretched out her arms to us,
+saying that our misfortunes, of which she was the cause, aggravated
+her own. There, for the last time, I saw the tears, I heard the sobs
+of her whom her high birth, the endowments of nature, and, above all,
+the goodness of her heart, had seemed to destine for the ornament of a
+throne and for the happiness of her people."
+
+The tumult of the streets still penetrated their cells, and warned them
+that they had entered upon another day of peril. The excited populace
+were still hunting out the aristocrats, and killing them pitilessly
+wherever they could be found. At ten o'clock the royal family were
+conducted again to the Assembly, probably as the safest place they
+could occupy, and there they remained all day. Several of the Swiss
+had been taken prisoners on the previous day, and by humane people had
+been taken to the Assembly that their lives might be saved. The mob now
+clamored loudly at the door of the hall, and endeavored to break in,
+demanding the lives of the Swiss and of the escort of the king, calling
+them murderers of the people. Vergniaud, the president, was so shocked
+by their ferocity that he exclaimed, "Great God, what cannibals!"
+
+At one time the doors were so nearly forced that the royal family
+were hurried into one of the passages, to conceal them from the
+mob. The king, fully convinced that the hour of his death had now
+come, entreated his friends to provide for their safety by flight.
+Heroically, every one persisted in sharing the fate of the king. Danton
+hastened to the Assembly, and exerted all his rough and rude energy to
+appease the mob. They were at length pacified by the assurance that the
+Swiss, and all others who had abetted in the slaughter of the people
+on the preceding day, should be tried by a court-martial and punished.
+With great difficulty the Assembly succeeded in removing the Swiss and
+the escort of the king to the prison of the Abbaye.
+
+At the close of this day the king and his family were again conducted
+to their cells, but they were placed under a strict guard, and their
+personal friends were no longer permitted to accompany them. This last
+deprivation was a severe blow to them all, and the king said bitterly,
+
+"I am, then, a prisoner, gentlemen. Charles I. was more fortunate than
+myself. His friends were permitted to accompany him to the scaffold."
+
+Another morning dawned upon this unhappy family, and again they were
+led to the hall of the Assembly, where they passed the weary hours of
+another day in the endurance of all the pangs of martyrdom.
+
+It was at length decided that the royal family, for safe keeping,
+should be imprisoned in the tower of the Temple. This massive, sombre
+building, in whose gloomy architecture were united the palace, the
+cloister, the fortress, and the prison, was erected and inhabited by
+the Knights Templar of the Middle Ages. Having been long abandoned it
+was now crumbling to decay. It was an enormous pile which centuries
+had reared near the site of the Bastille, and with its palace, donjon,
+towers, and garden, which was choked with weeds and the débris of
+crumbling walls, covered a space of many acres.
+
+[Illustration: THE TEMPLE.]
+
+The main tower was one hundred and fifty feet high, nine feet thick
+at the base, surrounded by a wide, deep ditch, and inclosed by an
+immensely high wall. This tower was ascended by a very narrow flight
+of circular stairs, and was divided into four stories, each containing
+a bare, dismal room about thirty feet square. The iron doors to these
+rooms were so low and narrow that it was necessary to stoop almost
+double to enter them. The windows, which were but slits in the thick
+wall, were darkened by slanting screens placed over them, and were also
+secured by stout iron bars.
+
+Such were the apartments which were now assigned to the former
+occupants of the Tuileries, Versailles, and Fontainebleau. It was a
+weary ride for the royal captives through the Place Vendôme and along
+the Boulevards to the Temple. An immense crowd lined the road. All the
+royal family, with Pétion, the mayor, occupied one carriage, and the
+procession moved so slowly that for two hours the victims were exposed
+to the gaze of the populace before the carriages rolled under the
+arches of the Temple. It was late in the afternoon when they left the
+Assembly, and the shades of night darkened the streets ere they reached
+the Temple.
+
+The Assembly had surrendered the safe-keeping of the king to the
+Commune of Paris, and appropriated one hundred thousand dollars to
+meet the expenses of the royal family until the king should be brought
+to trial. Conscious that an army of nearly two hundred thousand men
+was within a few days' march of Paris, hastening to rescue the king,
+and that there were thousands of Royalists in the city, and tens of
+thousands in France, who were ready at any moment to lay down their
+lives to secure the escape of the monarch, and conscious that the
+escape of the king would not only re-enslave France, but consign every
+friend of the Revolution to the dungeon or the scaffold, they found
+it necessary to adopt the most effectual measures to hold the king
+securely. They, therefore, would no longer allow the friends of the
+king to hold free communication with him.
+
+The Temple itself, by outworks, had been promptly converted into a
+fortress, and was strongly garrisoned by the National Guard. Twelve
+commissioners were without interruption to keep watch of the king's
+person. No one was allowed to enter the tower of the Temple without
+permission of the municipality. Four hundred dollars were placed in
+the hands of the royal family for their petty expenses. They were
+not intrusted with more, lest it might aid them to escape. A single
+attendant, the king's faithful valet Clery,[358] was permitted to
+accompany the captives. It does not appear that the authorities
+wished to add unnecessary rigor to the imprisonment. Thirteen cooks
+were provided for the kitchen, that their table might be abundantly
+supplied. One of these only was allowed to enter the prison and aid
+Clery in serving at the table, the expenses of which for two months
+amounted to nearly six thousand dollars.[359]
+
+It was an hour after midnight when the royal family were led from the
+apartments of the Temple to which they had first been conducted to
+their prison in the tower. The night was intensely dark. Dragoons with
+drawn sabres marched by the side of the king, while municipal officers
+with lanterns guided their steps. Through gloomy and dilapidated
+halls, beneath massive turrets, and along the abandoned paths of the
+garden, encumbered with weeds and stones, they groped their way until
+they arrived at the portals of the tower, whose summit was lost in
+the obscurity of night. As in perfect silence the sad procession was
+passing through the garden, a valet-de-chambre of the king inquired in
+a low tone of voice whither the king was to be conducted.
+
+"Thy master," was the reply, "has been used to gilded roofs. Now he
+will see how the assassins of the people are lodged."
+
+The three lower rooms of the tower were assigned to the captives. They
+had been accompanied by several of their friends who adhered to them
+in these hours of adversity. All were oppressed with gloom, and many
+shed bitter tears. Still they were not in _despair_. Powerful armies
+were marching for their rescue, and they thought it not possible that
+the French people, all unprepared for war, could resist such formidable
+assailants. A week thus passed away, when on the 19th the municipal
+officers entered and ordered the immediate expulsion of all not of the
+royal family. This harsh measure was deemed necessary in consequence
+of the conspiracies which were formed by the Royalists for the rescue
+of the king. Unfeeling jailers were now placed over them, and, totally
+uninformed of all that was passing in the world without, they sank into
+the extreme of woe.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 355: "Napoleon se trouvait au 10ième Août à Paris; il avait
+été présent à l'action. Il m'écrevit une lettre très détaillée, que je
+lus à mes collègues du directoire du département; voici les deux traits
+principaux. 'Si Louis XVI. se fût montré à cheval la victoire lui fût
+restée; c'est ce qui m'a paru, à l'esprit qui animait les groupes le
+matin.
+
+"'Après la victoire des Marseillais, j'en vis un sur le point de tuer
+un garde du corps; je lui dis,
+
+"'Homme du midi, sauvons ce malheureux!
+
+"'Es tu du midi?
+
+"'Oui!
+
+"'Eh, bien! sauvons le!'"--_Mémoires du Roi Joseph_, t. i., p. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 356: History of the Girondists, by Lamartine, vol. ii., p.
+77.]
+
+[Footnote 357: Danton was one of the fiercest of the Jacobins. Madame
+Roland, a political opponent, thus describes him: "I never saw any
+countenance that so strongly expressed the violence of brutal passions,
+and the most astonishing audacity, half disguised by a jovial air,
+an affectation of frankness, and a sort of simplicity, as Danton's.
+In 1778 he was a needy lawyer, more burdened with debts than causes.
+He went to Belgium to augment his resources, and, after the 10th of
+August, had the hardihood to avow a fortune of £158,333 ($791,665),
+and to wallow in luxury while preaching sans culottism and sleeping
+on heaps of slaughtered men." "Danton," says Mignet, "was a gigantic
+revolutionist. He deemed no means censurable so they were useful. He
+has been termed the Mirabeau of the populace. Mirabeau's vices were
+those of a patrician. Danton's those of a democrat. He was an absolute
+exterminator without being personally ferocious; inexorable toward
+masses, humane, generous even, toward individuals."--_Mignet_, p. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 358: "Clery we have seen and known, and the form and manners
+of that model of pristine faith and loyalty ran never be forgotten.
+Gentlemanlike and complaisant in his manners, his deep gravity
+and melancholy features announced that the sad scenes in which he
+had acted a part so honorable were never for a moment out of his
+memory."--_Scott's Life of Napoleon._]
+
+[Footnote 359: Thiers's Hist. French Revolution, vol. ii., p. 26.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE MASSACRE OF THE ROYALISTS.
+
+ Supremacy of the Jacobins.--Their energetic Measures.--The Assembly
+ threatened.--Commissioners sent to the Army.--Spirit of the Court
+ Party in England.--Speech of Edmund Burke.--Triumphant March of the
+ Allies.--The Nation summoned _en masse_ to resist the Foe.--Murder of
+ the Princess Lamballe.--Apology of the Assassins.--Robespierre and
+ St. Just.--Views of Napoleon.
+
+
+The majestic armies of the Allies were now rapidly on the march toward
+France, and there was no force on the frontiers which could present any
+effectual resistance. La Fayette was at Sedan, about one hundred and
+fifty miles northwest of Paris, at the head of twenty thousand troops
+who were devoted to him. His opposition to the Jacobins had already
+caused him to be denounced as a traitor, and it was feared that he
+might go over to the enemy, and by his strong influence carry not only
+his own troops, but those of General Luckner with him. The condition of
+the Patriots was apparently desperate. The Allies were confident of a
+triumphant and a rapid march to Paris, where all who had sacrilegiously
+laid hands upon the old despotism of France would be visited with
+condign punishment.
+
+The Jacobin Club was now the sovereign power in France. It was more
+numerous than the Legislative Assembly, and its speakers, more able
+and impassioned, had perfect control of the populace. The Jacobins
+had, by the insurrection, or rather revolution of the 10th of August,
+organized a new municipal government. Whatever measure the Jacobin Club
+decided to have enforced it sent to the committee which the club had
+organized as the city government at the Hôtel de Ville. This committee
+immediately demanded the passage of the decree by the Legislative
+Assembly. If the Assembly manifested any reluctance in obeying, they
+were informed that the tocsin would be rung, the populace summoned, and
+the scenes of the 10th of August renewed, to make them willing. Such
+was now the new government instituted in France.
+
+The _Commune of Paris_, as this municipal body at the Hôtel de Ville
+was called, immediately entered upon the most vigorous measures to
+break up the conspiracy of the Royalists, that they might not be
+able to rise and join the invading armies of the Allies. The French
+Patriots had two foes equally formidable to dread--the emigrants with
+the Allies marching upon the frontiers, composing an army nearly two
+hundred thousand strong, and the Royalists in France, who were ready,
+as soon as the Allies entered the kingdom, to raise the standard of
+civil war, and to fall upon the Patriots with exterminating hand.
+There was thus left for the leaders of the Revolution only the choice
+between killing and being killed. It was clear that they must now
+either exterminate their foes or be exterminated by them. And it must
+on all hands be admitted that the king and the court, by refusing to
+accept constitutional liberty, had brought the nation to this direful
+alternative.
+
+To prevent suspected persons from escaping, no one was allowed
+to leave the gates of Paris without the most careful scrutiny of
+his passport. A list was made out of every individual known to be
+unfriendly to the Revolution, and all such were placed under the
+most vigilant surveillance. The citizens were enjoined to denounce
+all who had taken any part in the slaughter of the citizens on the
+10th of August. All writers who had supported the Royalist cause were
+ordered to be arrested, and their presses were given to Patriotic
+writers. Commissioners were sent to the prisons to release all who had
+been confined for offenses against the court. As it was feared that
+the army, influenced by La Fayette, might manifest hostility to the
+revolutionary movement in Paris, which had so effectually demolished
+the Constitution, commissioners were sent to enlighten the soldiers
+and bring them over to the support of the people. It was at first
+contemplated to assign the palace of the Luxembourg as the retreat
+of the royal family. The Commune of Paris, however, decided that the
+public safety required that they should be held in custody where escape
+would be impossible, and that their safe-keeping should be committed to
+the mayor, Pétion, and to Santerre, who had been appointed commander of
+the National Guards.
+
+The Assembly, alarmed at the encroachments of the self-constituted
+_Commune of Paris_, ordered a re-election of a municipal government
+to take the place of that which the insurrection had dissolved. The
+Commune instantly dispatched a committee to inform the Assembly that if
+they made any farther move in that direction the tocsin should again
+be rung, and that the populace, who had stormed the Tuileries, should
+be directed against their hall. The deputies, overawed by the threat,
+left the Commune in undisputed possession of its power. The Commune
+now demanded of the Assembly the appointment of a special tribunal to
+punish the Royalists who had fired upon the people from the Tuileries,
+and those who "as conspirators and traitors" were ready to join the
+Allies as soon as they should enter France. The Assembly hesitated. The
+Commune sent Robespierre at the head of a deputation to inform them in
+those emphatic terms which he ever had at his command, that the country
+was in danger, that the Allies and emigrants were on the march, that no
+delay could be tolerated, and that if the decree were not immediately
+passed _the tocsin should be rung_. The appalling threat was efficient,
+and the decree, though some heroically opposed, was passed.[360] Such
+was the origin of the first revolutionary tribunal.
+
+[Illustration: LA FAYETTE IN PRISON AT OLMUTZ.]
+
+As soon as the commissioners from Paris arrived at the camp of La
+Fayette they were by his orders arrested and imprisoned, and the
+soldiers took anew the oath of fidelity to the _law_ and the _king_.
+The news of their arrest reached Paris on the 17th, and excited intense
+irritation. La Fayette was denounced more vehemently than ever, and
+a fresh deputation was dispatched to the army. La Fayette was now
+ruined. The court was ready to hang him for his devotion to liberty.
+The Jacobins thirsted for his blood because he thwarted their plans.
+Every hour his situation became more desperate, and it was soon evident
+that he could do no more for his country, and that there was no refuge
+for him but in flight. On the 20th, accompanied by a few friends, he
+secretly left his army, and took the road to the Netherlands. When
+he reached the Austrian outposts at Rochefort, he was arrested as a
+criminal in defiance of all law. With great secrecy he was taken into
+the interior of Austria, and thrown into a dungeon in the impregnable
+fortress of Olmutz. His only crime was that he had wished to introduce
+_constitutional liberty_ to his country. This, in the eye of despots,
+was an unpardonable sin. Here we must leave him to languish five years
+in captivity, deprived of every comfort. Many efforts were made in vain
+for his release. Washington wrote directly to the Emperor of Austria in
+his behalf, but without effect. It was not till Napoleon, thundering at
+the walls of Vienna with his invincible legions, demanded the release
+of La Fayette, in 1797, that the doors of his dungeon were thrown
+open.[361]
+
+The British _people_ sympathized deeply with La Fayette, but the
+British _government_ assailed him with unrelenting ferocity. On the
+17th of March, 1794, General Fitzpatrick moved an address in the House
+of Commons, to his majesty, requesting his interference with the King
+of Prussia in behalf of La Fayette. Mr. Fox advocated the measure in a
+speech of great eloquence and power. Nothing can more clearly show the
+spirit of the court party in England at this time than the speeches
+made by them on this occasion. William Pitt assailed La Fayette in the
+most unfeeling manner, declaring that "he would never admit that La
+Fayette was a true friend of liberty or deserved well of his country
+or of Europe." "He said," writes Prof. Smyth, "every thing that it
+is painful to read--he was rendered insensible on this occasion to
+all the better notions of his education and natural intuitions of
+his understanding. There is no pleasure in reading the abstract of
+his speech. It might have been made by the most vulgar minister that
+ever appeared. Edmund Burke followed in a speech of unmeasured abuse.
+In glowing colors he depicted all the scenes of violence which had
+occurred in France, and, declaring La Fayette responsible for them
+all," concluded with the words, "I would not debauch my humanity by
+supporting an application like the present in behalf of such a horrid
+ruffian."[362] Mr. Windham followed in the same strain. He expressed
+exultation in view of the calamities which had fallen upon this
+great patriot. "La Fayette," said he, "has brought himself into that
+state into which all fomenters of great and ruinous revolutions must
+necessarily fall; he has betrayed and ruined his country and his king.
+I am not sorry. I rejoice to see such men drink deep of the cup of
+calamity which they have prepared for the lips of others; and I never
+will consent to do an act which will put a premium on revolution, and
+which will give the example of sanction to treason, and of reward to
+rebellion."
+
+Such was the spirit of the court of St. James at this time. These
+speeches were made after La Fayette had been languishing for two
+years in the dungeons of Olmutz, exposed to almost every conceivable
+indignity, the particulars of which Mr. Fox had affectingly narrated.
+The debate was concluded by Mr. Dundas, who thanked Mr. Windham for
+his admirable speech. When the vote was taken but fifty were found
+in sympathy with La Fayette, while one hundred and thirty-two voted
+against him.
+
+The two sovereigns of Prussia and Austria were now at Mayence. Sixty
+thousand Prussians were marching in single column by Luxembourg upon
+Longwy, flanked on the right by twenty thousand Austrians, and on the
+left by twenty-six thousand Austrians and Hessians. This majestic force
+was strengthened by several co-operating corps of French emigrants,
+destined to attack exposed positions, and to afford rallying points
+for treason. The invaders crossed the frontiers unimpeded, and after
+a short and bloody strife captured Longwy. Onward they rushed. The
+feeble, undisciplined patriots, could make no resistance, and fled
+rapidly before them. Thionville and Verdun were surrounded, and after
+a short but terrific storm of balls and shells capitulated. There were
+many Royalists in each of these towns, and they received the invaders
+with every demonstration of joy. Their daughters in congratulatory
+procession met the King of Prussia at the gates and strewed his path
+with flowers.
+
+The garrison of Verdun might have held out for several days, though
+they would have eventually been compelled to surrender. General
+Beaurepaire urged very strenuously that they should maintain the siege
+to the last possible moment. But the defensive council of the city,
+with whom rested the decision, voted an immediate capitulation.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Beaurepaire, "I have sworn never to surrender but
+with my life. You may live in disgrace, since you wish it; but as for
+me, faithful to my oath, behold my last words: _I die free_."
+
+Immediately he discharged a pistol-shot through his brain, and fell
+dead before them. The Convention decreed to him the honors of the
+Pantheon, and granted a pension to his widow.
+
+[Illustration: SUICIDE OF BEAUREPAIRE.]
+
+The victorious allies, having surmounted these first obstacles, now
+plunged into the defiles of the Argonne, and in fierce and bloody
+assaults drove before them the troops of Dumouriez, who had hoped in
+these forest-encumbered passes to present effectual resistance to the
+foe. The invaders were now triumphantly marching on the high-road
+to Paris, and fugitives were continually arriving in the metropolis,
+declaring that the army of the north was destroyed, and that there was
+no longer any obstacle to the advance of the enemy. No language can
+describe the consternation which pervaded the capital. The exultation
+in the enemy's camp was immense. The "cobblers and tailors," as the
+emigrants contemptuously called the Patriots, were running away, it was
+said, like sheep.[363]
+
+As each day brought tidings of the fearful strides which the Allies
+were making toward the capital, indescribable terror was enkindled. The
+Constitutionalists and the Girondists were utterly paralyzed. But the
+leaders of the Jacobins--Danton, Robespierre, and Marat--resolved that,
+if they were to perish, their Royalist enemies should perish with them.
+It was known that the Royalists intended, as soon as the Allies should
+be in Paris, to rise, liberate the king, and with the immense moral
+force they would attain by having the king at their head, join the
+invaders. Nothing would then remain for the Revolutionists but exile,
+death, and the dungeon.[364]
+
+It was now with them but a desperate struggle for life. They must
+either destroy or be destroyed. The first great peril to be apprehended
+was the rising of the Royalists in Paris. The barriers were immediately
+ordered to be closed, and guard-boats were stationed on the river that
+no one might escape. At the beat of the drum every individual was
+enjoined to repair to his home. Commissioners then, accompanied by an
+armed force, visited every dwelling. Party lines were so distinctly
+drawn that the Royalists could not easily escape detection. At the
+knock of the commissioners they held their breath with terror. Many
+attempted concealment in chimneys, in cellar-vaults, beneath the
+floors, and in recesses covered by pictures of tapestry. But workmen,
+accustomed to all such arts, accompanied the commissioners. Chimneys
+were smoked, doors burst open, and cellars, floors, and walls sounded.
+In one short night five thousand suspected persons were torn from their
+homes and dragged to prison. Every man was deemed guilty who could not
+prove his devotion to the popular cause.[365]
+
+Still the enemy was approaching. "In three days," rumor said, "the
+Prussians will be in Paris." The whole city was in a state of phrensy,
+and ready for any deed of desperation which could rescue them from
+their peril. Danton entered the Assembly and ascended the tribune with
+pallid face and compressed lips. Silence, as of the grave, awaited his
+utterance.
+
+"The enemy," said he, "threatens the kingdom, and the Assembly must
+prove itself worthy of the nation. It is by a convulsion that we have
+overthrown despotism; it is only by another vast national convulsion
+that we shall drive back the despots. It is time to urge the people to
+precipitate themselves _en masse_ against their enemies. The French
+nation wills to be free, and it shall be."
+
+There was lurking beneath these words a terrible significance then
+little dreamed of. Jacobins and Girondists were now united by the
+pressure of a common and a terrible danger. A decree was immediately
+passed for every citizen in Paris capable of bearing arms to repair to
+the Field of Mars, there to be enrolled to march to repel the Allies.
+It was the morning of the Sabbath. The _générale_ was beat, the tocsin
+rung, alarm-guns fired, and placards upon the walls, and the voice
+of public criers, summoned every able-bodied man to the appointed
+rendezvous. The philosophic Vergniaud, in a word, explained to Paris
+the necessity and the efficacy of the measure.[366]
+
+"The plan of the enemy," said he, "is to march directly to the capital,
+leaving the fortresses behind him. Let him do so. This course will be
+our salvation and his ruin. Our armies, too weak to withstand him, will
+be strong enough to harass him in the rear. When he arrives, pursued
+by our battalions, he will find himself face to face with our Parisian
+army drawn up in battle array under the walls of the capital. There,
+surrounded on all sides, he will be swallowed up by the soil which he
+has profaned."
+
+In the midst of the uproar of the multitudes surging through the
+streets, as the bells were ringing, drums beating, and the armed
+citizens hurrying to the Field of Mars, the rumor was widely circulated
+that the Royalists had formed a conspiracy to strike down their
+jailers, break from their prisons, liberate the king, take possession
+of the city, rally all their confederates around them, and thus throw
+open the gates of Paris to the Prussians. It was manifest to all that,
+in the confusion which then reigned, and when the thunders of the
+Prussian and Austrian batteries were hourly expected to be heard from
+the heights of Montmartre, this was far from an impracticable plan.
+It was certain that the Royalists would attempt it, whether they had
+already formed such a plan or not.
+
+It is, however, probable that shrewd men, foreseeing this peril, had
+deliberately resolved to hurl the mob of Paris upon the prisons for the
+assassination of all the Royalists, before emptying the city of its
+defenders to march to meet the foe. While the bewildered masses were in
+this state of terrific excitement, six hackney-coaches left the Hôtel
+de Ville, conducting twenty-four Royalist priests, who had refused to
+take the oath, to the prisons of the Abbaye. The people crowding around
+and following the carriages began to murmur. "Here are the traitors,"
+said they, "who intend to murder our wives and children while we are on
+the frontiers."
+
+The first carriage reached the door of the prison. One priest alighted.
+He was instantly seized, and fell pierced by a thousand poniards. It
+was the signal for the slaughter of the whole. The murderers fell upon
+every carriage, and in a few moments all but one, who miraculously
+escaped, were slain. This hideous massacre roused the populace as the
+tiger is roused when he has once lapped his tongue in blood. The cry
+was raised, "To the Carmelites, to the Carmelites." In this prison two
+hundred priests were confined. The mob broke in and butchered them all.
+
+[Illustration: BUTCHERY AT THE CARMELITES.]
+
+A man by the name of Maillard headed this mob, which consisted of but a
+few hundred men. Having finished the work at the Carmelites and gorged
+themselves with wine, Maillard exclaimed, "Now to the Abbaye." The
+blood-stained crew rushed after him through the streets, and dashed
+in the doors of the prison. The Abbaye was filled with debtors and
+ordinary convicts as well as suspected aristocrats. As the mob rushed
+into the corridor one of the jailers mounted a stool, and, addressing
+the assassins, said, "My friends, you wish to destroy the aristocrats,
+who are the enemies of the people, and who meant to murder your wives
+and children while you were at the frontiers. You are right no doubt;
+but you are good citizens; you love justice; and you would be very
+sorry to steep your hands in innocent blood."
+
+"Yes, certainly," one of the leaders replied.
+
+"Well, then," continued the jailer, "when you are rushing like furious
+tigers upon men who are strangers to you, are you not liable to
+confound the innocent with the guilty?"
+
+These thoughts seemed to impress them, and it was immediately decided
+that Maillard should judge each prisoner. He took his seat at a table;
+the prison list was placed in his hands, and the prisoners, one by one,
+were brought before his prompt and terrible tribunal. It was agreed, in
+order to spare unnecessary suffering, that when the judge should say,
+"Sir, you must go to the prison of La Force," as soon as the prisoner
+was led out into the court-yard he should be cut down.
+
+A Swiss officer was first brought forward. "It was you," said Maillard,
+"who murdered the people on the 10th of August."
+
+"We were attacked," the unfortunate man replied, "and only obeyed our
+superior officers."
+
+"Very well," said Maillard, "we must send you to the prison of La
+Force."
+
+He was led into the court-yard and instantly slain. Every Swiss
+soldier in the prison met the same fate. Thus the work went on with
+terrible expedition until one hundred and eighty were put to death.
+All the women were left unharmed. Many who were brought before the
+tribunal were acquitted, and the crowd manifested great joy in
+rescuing them as their friends. Amid these horrid scenes there were
+some gleams of humanity. The Governor of the Invalides was doomed to
+death. His daughter clasped her father in her arms and clung to him so
+despairingly that the hearts of the assassins were melted. One, in a
+strange freak, presented her with a cup of blood, saying, "If you would
+save your father drink this blood of an aristocrat." She seized the cup
+and drained it. Shouts of applause greeted the act, and her father was
+saved.[367]
+
+All the night long these horrid scenes were continued. Every prison in
+Paris witnessed the same massacres, accompanied with every conceivable
+variety of horrors.
+
+The unfortunate Princess Lamballe, bosom friend of Marie Antoinette,
+was confined in the prison of La Force. She was brought before the
+revolutionary judge, and after a brief interrogation she was ordered
+to "swear to love liberty and equality; to swear to hate the king,
+the queen, and royalty." "I will take the first oath," the princess
+replied; "the second I can not take; it is not in my heart." One of the
+judges, wishing to save her, whispered in her ear, "Swear every thing
+or you are lost." But the unhappy princess was now utterly bewildered
+with terror, and could neither see nor hear. Her youth and beauty
+touched the hearts even of many of these brutal men. They desired her
+rescue, and endeavored to lead her safely through the crowd. Cry out,
+said they, 'long live the nation,' and you will not be harmed. But as
+she beheld the pavement strewn with corpses of the slain, she could not
+utter a word. Her silence was taken for defiance. A sabre blow struck
+her down. The murderers fell upon her like famished wolves upon a lamb.
+Her body was cut into fragments, and a band of wretches, with her head
+and heart upon pikes, shouted "_Let us carry them to the foot of the
+throne_." They rushed through the streets to the Temple, and shouted
+for the king and queen to look out at the windows. A humane officer, to
+shield them from the awful sight, informed them of the horrors which
+were transpiring. The queen fainted. As the king and Madame Elizabeth
+bent over her, for hours they were appalled by the clamor of the rabble
+around the walls of the Temple.
+
+At last the prisons were emptied, and the murderers themselves became
+weary of blood. It is impossible to ascertain the numbers who perished.
+The estimate varies from six to twelve thousand. The Commune of Paris,
+which was but the servant of the Jacobin Club, issued orders that no
+more blood should be shed. Assuming that the assassination was demanded
+by the public danger, and that the wretches who had perpetrated it had
+performed a patriotic though a painful duty, they rewarded them for
+their work. Nothing can more clearly show the terrible excitation of
+the public mind, produced by a sense of impending danger, than that
+a circular should have been addressed to all the communes of France,
+giving an account of the massacre as a necessary and a praiseworthy
+deed. In this extraordinary memorial, signed by the Administrators of
+the Committee of Surveillance, the writers say,
+
+ "Brethren and Friends,--A horrid plot, hatched by the court, to
+ murder all the Patriots of the French empire, a plot in which a great
+ number of members of the National Assembly are implicated, having, on
+ the ninth of last month, reduced the Commune of Paris to the cruel
+ necessity of employing the power of the people to save the nation, it
+ has not neglected any thing to deserve well of the country.
+
+ "Apprised that barbarous hordes are advancing against it, the Commune
+ of Paris hastens to inform its brethren in all the departments that
+ part of the ferocious conspirators confined in the prisons have
+ been put to death by the people--acts of justice which appear to
+ it indispensable for repressing by terror the legions of traitors
+ encompassed by its walls, at the moment when the people were about
+ to march against the enemy; and no doubt the nation, after the long
+ series of treasons which have brought it to the brink of the abyss,
+ will eagerly adopt this useful and necessary expedient; and all the
+ French will say, like the Parisians, 'We are marching against the
+ enemy, and we will not leave behind us brigands to murder our wives
+ and children.'"
+
+The instigators of these atrocious deeds defended the measure as one
+of absolute necessity. "We must all go," it was said, "to fight the
+Prussians, and we can not leave these foes behind us, to rise and take
+the city and assail us in the rear." "If they had been allowed to
+live," others said, "in a few days we should have been murdered. It was
+strictly an act of self-defense." Danton ever avowed his approval of
+the measure, and said, "I looked my crime steadfastly in the face and
+I did it." Marat is reproached as having contributed to the deed.[368]
+Robespierre appears to have given his assent to the massacre with
+reluctance, but it is in evidence that he walked his chamber through
+the whole night in agony, unable to sleep.
+
+At eleven o'clock at night of this 2d of September Robespierre and St.
+Just retired together from the Jacobin Club to the room of the latter.
+St. Just threw himself upon the bed for sleep. Robespierre exclaimed in
+astonishment,
+
+"What, can you think of sleeping on such a night? Do you not hear the
+tocsin? Do you not know that this night will be the last to perhaps
+thousands of our fellow-creatures, who are men at the moment you fall
+asleep, and when you awake will be lifeless corpses?"
+
+"I know it," replied St. Just, "and deplore it; and I wish that I
+could moderate the convulsions of society; but what am I?" then,
+turning in his bed, he fell asleep. In the morning, as he awoke, he saw
+Robespierre pacing the chamber with hasty steps, occasionally stopping
+to look out of the window, and listening to the noises in the streets.
+"What, have you not slept?" asked St. Just.
+
+"Sleep!" cried Robespierre; "sleep while hundreds of assassins murdered
+thousands of victims, and their pure or impure blood runs like water
+down the streets! Oh no! I have not slept. I have watched like remorse
+or crime. I have had the weakness not to close my eyes, but _Danton, he
+has slept_."[369]
+
+Paris was at this time in a state of such universal consternation, the
+government so disorganized, and the outbreak so sudden and so speedy in
+its execution, that the Legislative Assembly, which was not in sympathy
+with the mob, and which was already overawed, ventured upon no measures
+of resistance.[370]
+
+But there can be no excuse offered in palliation of such crimes.
+Language is too feeble to express the horror with which they ever
+must be regarded by every generous soul. But while we consign to the
+deepest infamy the assassins of September, to equal infamy let those
+despots be consigned who, in the fierce endeavor to rivet the chains
+of slavery anew upon twenty-five millions of freemen, goaded a nation
+to such hideous madness. The allied despots of Europe roused the
+people to a phrensy of despair, and thus drove them to the deed. Let
+it never be forgotten that it was _despotism_, not _liberty_, which
+planted the tree which bore this fruit. If the government of a country
+be such that there is no means of redress for the oppressed people
+but in the horrors of insurrection, that country must bide its doom,
+for, sooner or later, an outraged people will rise. While, therefore,
+we contemplate with horror the outrages committed by the insurgent
+people, with still greater horror must we contemplate the outrages
+perpetrated by proud oppressors during long ages, consigning the people
+to ignorance and degradation. They who _brutalize_ a people should be
+the last to complain that, when these people rise in the terribleness
+of their might, they behave _like brutes_. There is no safety for any
+nation but in the education, piety, and liberty of its masses.[371]
+
+The Duke of Brunswick, urging resistlessly on his solid columns,
+battering down fortresses, plunging through defiles, anticipated
+no check. But on the 20th of September, to his great surprise, he
+encountered a formidable army intrenched upon the heights of Valmy,
+near Chalons, apparently prepared for firm resistance. Here Dumouriez,
+with much military skill, had rallied his retreating troops. All
+France had been roused and was rushing eagerly to his support. Paris,
+no longer fearing a rise of the Royalists, was dispatching several
+thousand thoroughly-armed men from the gates every day to strengthen
+the camp at Valmy, which was hardly a hundred miles from Paris.
+Dumouriez, when first assailed, had less than forty thousand troops in
+his intrenchments, but the number rapidly increased to over seventy
+thousand.
+
+These were nearly all inexperienced soldiers, but they were inspired
+with intense enthusiasm, all struggling for national independence, and
+many conscious that defeat would but conduct them to the scaffold.
+Macdonald,[372] who afterward so gloriously led the columns at Wagram,
+and Kellerman, who subsequently headed the decisive charge at Marengo,
+were aids of Dumouriez. Louis Philippe also, then the Duke of Chartres
+and eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, signalized himself on the
+patriot side at the stern strife of Valmy.
+
+The Duke of Brunswick brought forward his batteries and commenced a
+terrific cannonade. Column after column was urged against the redoubts.
+But the young soldiers of France, shouting _Vive la Nation_, bravely
+repulsed every assault. The Prussians, to their inexpressible chagrin,
+found it impossible to advance a step. Here the storm of battle raged
+with almost incessant fury for twenty days. The French were hurrying
+from all quarters to the field; the supplies of the invaders were cut
+off; dysentery broke out in their camp; autumnal rains drenched them;
+winter was approaching; and they were compelled, in discomfiture and
+humiliation, to turn upon their track and retire.
+
+On the 15th of October the Allies abandoned their camp and commenced
+a retreat. They retired in good order, and recrossed the frontier,
+leaving behind them twenty-five thousand, who had perished by sickness,
+the bullet, and the sword. Dumouriez did not pursue them with much
+vigor, for the army of the Allies was infinitely superior in discipline
+to the raw troops under his command.
+
+Winter was now at hand, during which no external attack upon France was
+to be feared. All government was disorganized, and the question which
+agitated every heart was, "What shall be done with the king?"
+
+The Duke of Chartres, subsequently Louis Philippe, King of the
+French, then a young man but seventeen years of age, after vigorously
+co-operating with Dumouriez in repelling the invaders, returned to
+Paris. He presented himself at the audience of Servan, Minister of War,
+to complain of some injustice. Danton was present, and, taking the
+young duke aside, said to him,
+
+"What do you do here? Servan is but the shadow of a minister. He can
+neither help nor harm you. Call on me to-morrow and I will arrange your
+business."
+
+The next day Danton, the powerful plebeian, received the young
+patrician with an air of much affected superiority. "Well, young man,"
+said he, "I am informed that your language resembles murmurs; that you
+blame the great measures of government; that you express compassion for
+the victims and hatred for the executioners. Beware; patriotism does
+not admit of lukewarmness, and you have to obtain pardon for your great
+name."
+
+The young prince boldly replied, "The army looks with horror on
+bloodshed any where but on the battle-field. The massacres of September
+seem in their eyes to dishonor liberty."
+
+"You are too young," Danton replied, "to judge of these events; to
+comprehend these you must be in our place. For the future be silent.
+Return to the army; fight bravely; but do not rashly expose your life.
+France does not love a republic; she has the habits, the weaknesses,
+the need of a monarchy. After our storms she will return to it, either
+through her vices or necessities, and you will be king. Adieu, young
+man. Remember the prediction of Danton."[373]
+
+In reference to these scenes Napoleon remarked at St. Helena, on
+the 3d of September, 1816, "To-day is the anniversary of a hideous
+remembrance; of the massacres of September, the St. Bartholomew of
+the French Revolution. The atrocities of the 3d of September were not
+committed under the sanction of government, which, on the contrary,
+used its endeavors to punish the crime. The massacres were committed
+by the mob of Paris, and were the result of fanaticism rather than
+of absolute brutality. The Septembriseurs did not pillage, they only
+wished to murder. They even hanged one of their own party for having
+appropriated a watch which belonged to one of their victims.
+
+"This dreadful event arose out of the force of circumstances and
+the spirit of the moment. We must acknowledge that there has been
+no political change unattended by popular fury, as soon as the
+masses enter into action. The Prussian army had arrived within
+one hundred miles of Paris. The famous manifesto of the Duke of
+Brunswick was placarded on all the walls of the city. The people had
+persuaded themselves that the death of all the Royalists in Paris was
+indispensable to the safety of the Revolution. They ran to the prisons
+and intoxicated themselves with blood, shouting _Vive la Revolution_.
+Their energy had an electric effect, from the fear with which it
+inspired one party, and the example which it gave to the other. One
+hundred thousand volunteers joined the army, and the Revolution was
+saved.
+
+"I might have preserved my crown by turning loose the masses of the
+people against the advocates of the restoration. You well recollect,
+Montholon, when, at the head of your _faubouriens_, you wished to
+punish the treachery of Fouché and proclaim my dictatorship. I did not
+choose to do so. My whole soul revolted at the thought of being king
+of another mob. As a general rule no social revolution can take place
+without terror. Every revolution is in principle a revolt, which time
+and success ennoble and render legal, but of which terror has been one
+of the inevitable phases. How, indeed, can we say to those who possess
+fortune and public situations, '_Begone and leave us your fortunes and
+your situations_,' without first intimidating them, and rendering any
+defense impossible. In France this point was effected by the lantern
+and the guillotine."[374]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 360: "As a citizen, as a magistrate of the people," said one
+of the deputation, "I come to inform you that at twelve o'clock this
+night the tocsin will be rung and the alarm beaten. The people are
+weary of not being avenged. Beware lest they do themselves justice. I
+demand that you forthwith decree that a citizen be appointed by each
+section to form a criminal tribunal."--_Thiers_, i, 341.]
+
+[Footnote 361: "However irritated they might be by La Fayette's
+behavior at the outset of the Revolution, the present conduct of the
+monarchs toward him was neither to be vindicated by morality, the law
+of nations, nor the rules of sound policy. Even if he had been amenable
+for a crime against his own country, we know not what right Austria or
+Prussia had to take cognizance of it."--_Scott's Life of Napoleon._]
+
+[Footnote 362: "Such were the reasonings and expressions of Mr.
+Burke on this striking occasion. So entirely was the mind of this
+extraordinary man now over excited and overthrown; so entirely
+estranged from those elevated feelings and that spirit of philanthropic
+wisdom which have made his speeches in the American contest, and many
+paragraphs of his Reflections on this Revolution of France, so justly
+the admiration of mankind."--_Prof. Smyth's Lectures on the French
+Revolution_, vol. ii., p. 409.]
+
+[Footnote 363: Jean Debry, in the Assembly, exclaimed with fervor,
+"The most instant and vigorous measures must be adopted in defense
+of our country. The expense must not be thought of. Within fifteen
+days we shall enjoy freedom or meet with death. If we are conquered
+we shall have no need of money, for we shall not exist. If we are
+victorious, still we shall not feel the want of money, for we shall be
+_free_."--_Journal of John Moore, M.D._, vol. i., p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 364: "The intelligence of the flight of La Fayette, the
+entry of the army of the coalition into the French territory, the
+capture of Longwy, and the surrender of Verdun burst like thunder in
+Paris, and filled every heart with consternation, for France had never
+approached more nearly those sinister days which presage the decay
+of nations. Every thing was dead in her save the desire of living;
+the enthusiasm of the country and liberty survived. Abandoned by all,
+the country did not abandon itself. Two things were required to save
+it--time and a dictatorship. Time? The heroism of Dumouriez afforded
+it. The dictatorship? Danton assumed it in the name of the Commune of
+Paris."--_Lamartine, Hist. Gir._, vol, ii., p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 365: Dr. John Moore, a very intelligent English physician,
+who, in company with Lord Lauderdale, was in Paris during all these
+scenes, writes in his journal, "This search was made accordingly in the
+course of last night and this morning. The commissioners were attended
+with a body of the National Guards, and all avenues of the section were
+watched to prevent any persons from escaping. They did not come to our
+hotel till about six in the morning. I attended them through every
+room, and opened every door of our apartments. They behaved with great
+civility. We had no arms but pistols, which lay openly on the chimney.
+They admired the nicety of the workmanship of one pair, but never
+offered to take them."--Vol. i., p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 366: "The people are told that there was a horrid plot
+between the Duke of Brunswick and certain traitors in Paris; that as
+soon as all the new levies were completed, and all the men intended for
+the frontiers had marched out of Paris, then those same traitors were
+to take command of a large body of men, now dispersed over the capital
+and its environs, who have been long in the pay of the court, though
+they also are concealed; that these concealed leaders at the head of
+their concealed troops were to have thrown open the prisons and to arm
+the prisoners, then to go to the Temple, set the royal family free, and
+proclaim the king; to condemn to death all the Patriots who remain in
+Paris, and most of the wives and children of those who have marched out
+of it against the enemies of their country."--_Moore's Journal_, vol.
+i., p. 144.]
+
+[Footnote 367: "Some inexplicable and consolatory acts astonish us amid
+these horrors. The compassion of Maillard appeared to seek for the
+innocent with as much care as his vengeance sought for the guilty. He
+exposed his life to snatch victims from his executions."--_Lamartine,
+History of the Girondists_, vol. ii., p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 368: M. Chabot, a patriotic orator, who had been a Franciscan
+friar, spoke in the Society of Jacobins as follows of Marat: "Marat is
+reproached with being of a sanguinary disposition; that he contributed
+to the late massacres in the prisons. But in so doing he acted in the
+true spirit of the Revolution, for it was not to be expected that
+while our bravest patriots were on the frontiers we should remain here
+exposed to the rage of the prisoners, who were promised arms and the
+opportunity of assassinating us. It is well known that the plan of the
+aristocrats has always been, and still is, to make a general carnage of
+the common people. Now, as the number of the latter is to that of the
+former in the proportion of ninety-nine to one, it is evident that he
+who proposes to kill one to prevent the killing of ninety-nine is not a
+blood-thirsty man."]
+
+[Footnote 369: Lamartine, _History of the Girondists_, ii., 132.]
+
+[Footnote 370: Dr. Moore, while denouncing in the strongest terms the
+brutality of the populace, says, "In such an abominable system of
+oppression as the French labored under before the Revolution, when the
+will of one man could control the course of law, and his mandate tear
+any citizen from the arms of his family and throw him into a dungeon
+for years or for life--in a country where such a system of government
+prevails, insurrection, being the sole means of redress, is not only
+justifiable, but it is the duty of every lover of mankind and of
+his country, as soon as any occasion presents itself which promises
+success."]
+
+[Footnote 371: "Amid the disorders and sad events which have taken
+place in this country of late, it is impossible not to admire the
+generous spirit which glows all over the nation in support of its
+independency. No country ever displayed a nobler or more patriotic
+enthusiasm than pervades France at this period, and which glows with
+increasing ardor since the publication of the Duke of Brunswick's
+manifesto, and the entrance of the Prussians into the country. None but
+those whose minds are obscured by prejudice or perverted by selfishness
+will refuse this justice to the general spirit displayed by the French
+in defense of their national independence. A detestation of the
+excesses committed at Paris, not only is compatible with an admiration
+of this spirit, but it is such well-informed minds alone as possess
+sufficient candor and sensibility to admire the one, who can have a due
+horror of the other."--_Journal of John Moore, M.D._, vol. i., p. 160.]
+
+[Footnote 372: "The young Macdonald, descended from a Scotch family
+transplanted to France, was aid-de-camp to Dumouriez. He learned at
+the camp of Grandpré, under his commander, how to save a country.
+Subsequently he learned, under Napoleon, how to illustrate it. A hero
+at his first step, he became a marshal of France at the end of his
+life."--_Lamartine, Hist. Gir._, ii., 158.]
+
+[Footnote 373: History of the Girondists, by Lamartine, ii., 185.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE KING LED TO TRIAL.
+
+ Assassination of Royalists at Versailles.--Jacobin Ascendency.--The
+ National Convention.--Two Parties, the Girondists and the
+ Jacobins.--Abolition of Royalty.--Madame Roland.--Battle of
+ Jemappes.--Mode of life in the Temple.--Insults to the Royal
+ Family.--New Acts of Rigor.--Trial of the King.--Separation of the
+ Royal Family.--The Indictment.--The King begs for Bread.
+
+
+The massacre of the Royalists in Paris was not followed by any general
+violence throughout the kingdom, for it was in Paris alone that the
+Patriots were in imminent danger. In Orleans, however, there were
+a number of Royalists imprisoned under the accusation of treason.
+These prisoners were brought to Versailles on the night of the 9th of
+September to be tried. A band of assassins from Paris rushed upon the
+carriages, dispersed the escort, and most brutally murdered forty-seven
+out of fifty-three.[375] They then went to the prison, where twelve
+were taken out, and, after a summary trial, assassinated.
+
+In the mean time elections were going on for the National Convention.
+The Jacobin Clubs, now generally dominant throughout France, almost
+every where controlled the elections. Some sober Patriots hoped that
+the Convention would be disposed and able to check the swelling
+flood of anarchy. But others, when they saw that the most violent
+Revolutionists were chosen as deputies, and that they would be able to
+overawe the more moderate Patriots by the terrors of the mob, began to
+despair of their country. Paris sent to the Convention Robespierre,
+Danton, Marat, Chabot, and others who have attained terrible notoriety
+through scenes of consternation and blood. The Girondists in the
+Convention, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Barbaroux, Gensonné, though much
+in the minority, were heroic men, illustrious in intelligence and
+virtue. There was no longer a Royalist party, not even a Constitutional
+Royalist party, which dared to avow itself in France. The court and the
+Allies had driven France to the absolute necessity of a Republic.
+
+On the 20th of September the Legislative Assembly was dissolved, and at
+the same hour and in the same hall the National Convention commenced
+its session. The spirit of the Girondists may be seen in their first
+motion.
+
+"Citizen representatives," said M. Manuel, "in this place every thing
+ought to be stamped with a character of such dignity and grandeur as to
+fill the world with awe. I propose that the President of the Assembly
+be lodged in the Tuileries, that in public he shall be preceded by
+guards, that the members shall rise when he opens the Assembly. Cineas,
+the embassador of Pyrrhus, on being introduced to the Roman senate,
+said that they appeared like an assembly of kings."
+
+This proposition was contemptuously voted down by the Jacobins. Collot
+d'Herbois, one of the leading Jacobins, then proposed the immediate
+abolition of royalty. "The word king," said he, "is still a talisman,
+whose magic power may create many disorders. The abolition of royalty
+therefore is necessary. Kings are in the moral world that which
+monsters are in the natural. Courts are always the centre of corruption
+and the work-houses of crime."
+
+No one ventured to oppose this, and the president declared that by a
+unanimous vote _royalty was abolished_. It was then voted the 22d of
+September, 1792, should be considered the first day of the first year
+of the Republic, and that all documents should follow the date of this
+era. It was on the eve of this day that intelligence arrived of the
+cannonade of Valmy, in which the Patriot armies had beaten back the
+foe. For one short night Paris was radiant with joy.
+
+The most illustrious of the Girondists met that evening in the saloon
+of Madame Roland, and celebrated, with almost religious enthusiasm,
+the advent of the Republic. Madame Roland, in the accomplishment of
+the most intense desire of her heart, appeared radiant with almost
+supernatural brilliance and beauty. It was observed that M. Roland
+gazed upon her with a peculiar expression of fondness. The noble and
+gifted Vergniaud conversed but little, and pensive thoughts seemed to
+chasten his joy.
+
+At the close of the entertainment he filled his glass, and proposed to
+drink to the eternity of the Republic.
+
+"Permit me," said Madame Roland, "after the manner of the ancients, to
+scatter some rose-leaves from my bouquet in your glass."
+
+Vergniaud held out his glass, and some leaves were scattered on the
+wine. He then said, in words strongly prophetic of their fate, "We
+should quaff, not roses, but cypress-leaves, in our wine to-night.
+In drinking to a republic, stained at its birth with the blood of
+September, who knows that we do not drink to our own death? No matter;
+were this wine my blood, I would drain it to liberty and equality."
+
+To this all responded with the words _Vive la République_. But a few
+months elapsed ere almost every individual then present perished on the
+scaffold.
+
+[Illustration: BATTLE OF JEMAPPES.]
+
+In the mean time Dumouriez, with thirty-five thousand men, was pursuing
+a division of the retreating Allies, consisting of twenty-five thousand
+Austrians, under General Clairfayt, through Belgium. On the 4th of
+November he overtook them strongly intrenched upon the heights of
+Jemappes. One day was consumed in bringing up his forces and arranging
+his batteries for the assault. Sixty thousand men were now arrayed for
+a deadly strife. One hundred pieces of cannon were in battery to hurl
+into the dense ranks destruction and death. On the morning of the 6th
+the storm of war commenced. All the day long it raged with pitiless
+fury. In the evening ten thousand of the dying and the dead covered
+the ground, and the Austrians were every where retreating in dismay.
+This new victory caused great rejoicing in Paris, and inspired the
+revolutionary party with new courage.
+
+The day at length arrived for the trial of the king. It was the 11th
+of December. For four months the royal family, with ever-alternating
+hopes and fears, which had been gradually deepening into despair, had
+now endured the rigors of captivity. The king, with that wonderful
+equanimity which distinguished him through all these days of trial,
+immediately upon taking possession of his gloomy abode introduced
+system into the employment of his time.
+
+His room was on the third story. He usually rose at six o'clock,
+shaved himself, and carefully dressed his hair. He then entered a
+small room or closet, which opened from his sleeping-room, and engaged
+in devotional reading and prayer for an hour. He was not allowed to
+close the door, for a municipal officer ever stationed in his room
+was enjoined never to allow the king to leave his sight. He then read
+till nine o'clock, during which time his faithful servant, Clery, put
+the room in order, and spread the table for the breakfast of the royal
+family. At nine o'clock the queen, the children, and Madame Elizabeth
+came up from the rooms which they occupied below to breakfast.
+
+The meal occupied an hour. The royal family then all descended to the
+queen's room, where they passed the day. The king employed himself
+in instructing his son, giving him lessons in geography, which was a
+favorite study of the king; teaching him to draw and color maps, and
+to recite choice passages from Corneille and Racine. The queen assumed
+the education of her daughter, while her own hands and those of Madame
+Elizabeth were busy in needle-work, knitting, and working tapestry.
+
+At one o'clock, when the weather was fine, the royal family were
+conducted by four municipal officers into the spacious but dilapidated
+garden for exercise and the open air. The officials who guarded the
+king were frequently changed. Sometimes they chanced to be men of
+humane character, who, though devoted to the disinthrallment of France
+from the terrible despotism of ages, still pitied the king as the
+victim of circumstances, and treated him with kindness and respect. But
+more generally these men were vulgar and rabid Jacobins, who exulted
+in the opportunity of wreaking upon the king the meanest revenge. They
+chalked upon the walls of the prison, "The guillotine is permanent and
+ready for the tyrant Louis." "Madame Veto shall swing." "The little
+wolves must be strangled." Under a gallows, to which a figure was
+suspended, was inscribed the words, "Louis taking an air-bath." From
+such ribald insults the monarch had no protection.
+
+A burly brutal wretch, named Rocher, was one of the keepers of
+the Tower. He went swaggering about with a bunch of enormous keys
+clattering at his belt, seeming to glory in his power of annoying,
+by petty insults, a _king_ and a _queen_. When the royal family were
+going out into the garden he would go before them to unlock the doors.
+Making a great demonstration in rattling his keys, and affecting much
+difficulty in finding the right one, all the party would be kept
+waiting while he made all possible delay and noise in drawing the
+bolts and swinging open the ponderous doors. At the side of the last
+door he not unfrequently stationed himself with his pipe in his mouth,
+and puffed tobacco-smoke into the faces of the king, the queen, and
+the children. Some of the guards stationed around would burst into
+insulting laughter in view of these indignities, which the king endured
+with meekness which seems supernatural.
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AND THE ROYAL FAMILY IN THE TEMPLE.]
+
+The recital of such conduct makes the blood boil in one's veins, and
+leads one almost to detest the very name of liberty. But then we must
+not forget that it was despotism which formed these hideous characters;
+that, age after age and century after century, kings and nobles had
+been trampling upon the people, crushing their rights, lacerating their
+heart-strings, dooming fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, by
+millions upon millions, to beggary, degradation, and woe. It was time
+for the people to rise at every hazard and break these chains. And
+while humanity must weep over the woes of Louis XVI. and his unhappy
+household, humanity can not forget that there are other families and
+other hearts who claim her sympathies, and that this very Louis XVI.
+was at this very time doing every thing in his power, by the aid of the
+armies of foreign despots, to bring the millions of France again under
+the sway of the most merciless despotism. And it can not be questioned
+that, had kings and nobles regained their power, they would have
+wreaked a more terrible vengeance upon the re-enslaved people than the
+people wreaked upon them.
+
+For an hour the royal family continued walking in the garden. From the
+roofs of the adjacent houses and the higher windows they could be seen.
+Every day at noon these roofs and windows were crowded by those anxious
+to obtain a view of the melancholy group of captives. Frequently they
+were cheered by gestures of affection from unknown friends. Tender
+words were occasionally unrolled in capital letters, or a flower to
+which a pebble was attached would fall at their feet. These tokens of
+love, slight as they were, came as a balm to their lacerated hearts.
+So highly did they prize them, that regardless of rain, cold, and
+snow, and the intolerable insults of their guards, they looked forward
+daily with eagerness to their garden walk. They recognized particular
+localities as belonging to their friends, saying, "such a house is
+devoted to us; such a story is for us; such a room is loyal; such a
+window friendly."
+
+At two o'clock the royal family returned to the king's room, where
+dinner was served. After dinner the king took a nap, while the queen,
+Madame Elizabeth, and the young princess employed themselves with their
+needles, and the dauphin played some game with Clery, whose name should
+be transmitted with honor to posterity as faithful in misfortune. When
+the king awoke from his nap he usually read aloud to his family for an
+hour or two until supper-time. Soon after supper, the queen, with her
+children and Madame Elizabeth, retired to their rooms for the night.
+With hearts bound together by these terrible griefs, they never parted
+but with a tender and sorrowful adieu.[376]
+
+Such was the monotonous life of the royal family during the four months
+they occupied the Temple before the trial of the king. But almost every
+day of their captivity some new act of rigor was enforced upon them. As
+the armies of the Allies drew nearer, and city after city was falling
+before their bombardments, and Paris was in a phrensy of terror,
+apprehensions of a conspiracy of the king with the Royalists, and of
+their rising and aiding the invaders with an outburst of civil war, led
+to the adoption of precautions most irksome to the captives.
+
+Municipal officers never allowed any member of the royal family to be
+out of their sight, except when they retired to bed at night. They
+then locked the doors, and placed a bed against the entrance to each
+apartment, and there an officer slept, so as to prevent all possibility
+of egress. Every day Santerre, commander of the National Guard, made
+a visit of inspection to all the rooms with his staff. At first the
+royal family had been allowed pen, ink, and paper, but this privilege
+was soon withdrawn, and at last the cruel and useless measure was
+adopted of taking from them all sharp instruments, such as knives,
+scissors, and even needles, thus depriving the ladies not only of a
+great solace, but of the power of repairing their decaying apparel.
+It was not the intention of the Legislative Assembly that the royal
+family should be exposed to needless suffering. Four hundred dollars
+were placed in their hands at the commencement of their captivity
+for their petty expenses, and the Governor of the Temple was ordered
+to purchase for them whatever they might need, five hundred thousand
+francs ($100,000) having been appropriated by the Convention for their
+expenses.[377]
+
+They were not allowed to see the daily journals, which would have
+informed them of the triumphant march of the Allies, but occasionally
+papers were sent to them which recorded the victories of the Republic.
+Clery, however, devised a very shrewd expedient to give them some
+information of the events which were transpiring. He hired a newsman
+to pass daily by the windows of the Temple, under the pretense of
+selling newspapers, and to cry out the principal details contained in
+them. Clery, while apparently busy about the room, was always sure to
+be near the window at the appointed hour, listening attentively. At
+night, stooping over the king's bed to adjust the curtains, he hastily
+whispered the news he had thus gathered. All this required the greatest
+caution, for a municipal officer was always in the room, watching every
+movement.
+
+Early in the morning of the 11th of December all Paris was in commotion
+to witness the trial of the king, which was to commence on that day.
+The beating of drums in the street, the mustering of military squadrons
+at their appointed places of rendezvous, the clatter of hoofs, and the
+rumbling of artillery over the pavements penetrated even the gloomy
+apartments of the Temple, and fell appallingly upon the ears of the
+victims there.
+
+The royal family were at breakfast as they heard these ominous sounds,
+and they earnestly inquired the cause. After some hesitation the king
+was informed that the Mayor of Paris would soon come to conduct him
+to his trial, and that the troops gathering around the Temple were to
+form his escort. He was also required immediately to take leave of
+his family, and told that he could not be permitted to see them again
+until after his trial. Expressions of heart-rending anguish and floods
+of tears accompanied this cruel separation. The king pleaded earnestly
+and with gushing eyes that, at least, he might enjoy the society of his
+little son, saying,
+
+"What, gentlemen! deprive me of even the presence of my son--a child of
+seven years!"
+
+But the commissioners were inexorable. "The Commune thinks," said they,
+"that, since you are to be _au secret_ during your trial, your son
+must necessarily be confined either with you or his mother; and it has
+imposed the privation upon that parent who, from his sex and courage,
+was best able to support it."
+
+The queen, with the children and Madame Elizabeth, were conducted to
+the rooms below. The king, overwhelmed with anguish, threw himself into
+a chair, buried his face in his hands, and, without uttering a word,
+remained immovable as a statue for two hours. At noon M. Chambon,[378]
+the Mayor of Paris, with Santerre, commander of the National Guard,
+and a group of officers, all wearing the tricolored scarf, entered the
+king's chamber.
+
+Chambon, with solemnity and with a faltering voice, informed the king
+of the painful object of their mission, and summoned him, in the name
+of the Convention, as _Louis Capet_, to appear before their bar.
+
+"Gentlemen," replied the king, "Capet is not my name. It is the name
+of one of my ancestors. I could have wished that my son, at least, had
+been permitted to remain with me during the two hours I have awaited
+you. However, this treatment is but a part of the system adopted toward
+me throughout my captivity. I follow you, not in obedience to the
+orders of the Convention, but because my enemies are more powerful than
+I."
+
+Immediately rising, he put on his great-coat, took his hat, and,
+following the mayor, and followed by the staff of officers, descended
+the stairs of the tower.
+
+Before the massive portal of the Temple the carriage of the mayor was
+drawn up, surrounded by a guard of six hundred picked men. A numerous
+detachment of cavalry, as an advance-guard, dragging six pieces of
+cannon, led the melancholy procession which was conducting a monarch
+to the judgment-bar and to death. A similar body of cavalry followed
+in the rear with three pieces of cannon. These precautions were deemed
+necessary to guard against any possible rescue by the Royalists.
+Every soldier was supplied with sixteen rounds of cartridges, and the
+battalions marched in such order that they could instantly form in line
+of battle. The National Guard lined the streets through which they
+passed, one hundred thousand men being under arms in Paris that day.
+
+The cavalcade passed slowly along the Boulevards. The house-tops,
+the windows, the side-walks, were thronged with countless thousands.
+The king, deprived of his razor, had been unable to shave, and his
+face was covered with shaggy hair; his natural corpulence, wasted
+away by imprisonment, caused his garments to hang loose and flabby
+about him; his features were wan through anxiety and suffering. Thus,
+unfortunately, every thing in his personal appearance combined
+to present an aspect exciting disgust and repulsion rather than
+sympathy. The procession passed down the Place Vendôme and thence to
+the Monastery of the Feuillants. The king alighted. Santerre took his
+arm and led him to the bar of the Convention. There was a moment of
+profound silence. All were awe-stricken by the solemnity of the scene.
+The president, Barrere,[379] broke the silence, saying,
+
+"Citizens! Louis Capet is before you. The eyes of Europe are upon you.
+Posterity will judge you with inflexible severity. Preserve, then, the
+dignity and the dispassionate coolness befitting judges. You are about
+to give a great lesson to kings, a great and useful example to nations.
+Recollect the awful silence which accompanied Louis from Varennes--a
+silence that was the precursor of the judgment of kings by the people."
+Then, turning to the king, Barrere said, "Louis, the French nation
+accuses you. Be seated, and listen to the Act of Accusation." It was
+then two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+The formidable indictment was read. The king was held personally
+responsible for all the acts of hostility to popular liberty
+which had occurred under his reign. A minute, truthful, impartial
+recapitulation of those acts, which we have recorded in the previous
+pages, constituted the accusation. The king listened attentively to the
+reading, and without any apparent emotion. The accusation consisted
+of fifty-seven distinct charges. As they were slowly read over, one
+by one, the president paused after each and said to the king, "What
+have you to answer?" But two courses consistent with kingly dignity
+were open for the accused. The one was to refuse any reply and to
+take shelter in the inviolability with which the Constitution had
+invested him. The other was boldly to avow that he had adopted the
+measures of which he was accused, believing it to be essential to the
+welfare of France that the headlong progress of the Revolution should
+be checked. Neither would have saved his life, but either would have
+rescued his memory from much reproach. But the king, cruelly deprived
+of all counsel with his friends, dragged unexpectedly to his trial, and
+overwhelmed with such a catalogue of accusations, unfortunately adopted
+the worst possible course. The blame of some of the acts he threw
+upon his ministers; some facts he denied; and in other cases he not
+only prevaricated but stooped to palpable falsehood. When we reflect
+upon the weak nature of the king and the confusion of mind incident
+to an hour of such terrible trial, we must judge the unhappy monarch
+leniently. But when the king denied even the existence of the iron
+chest which the Convention had already found, and had obtained proof
+to demonstration that he himself had closed up, and when he denied
+complicity with the Allies, proofs of which, in his own handwriting,
+were found in the iron safe, it is not strange that the effect should
+have been exceedingly unfavorable to his defense.[380]
+
+[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF THE IRON SAFE.]
+
+This interrogation was continued for three hours, at the close of which
+the king, who had eaten nothing since his interrupted breakfast, was
+so exhausted that he could hardly stand. Santerre then conducted him
+into an adjoining committee-room. Before withdrawing, however, the king
+demanded a copy of the accusation, and counsel to assist him in his
+defense. In the committee-room the king saw a man eating from a small
+loaf of bread. Faint with hunger, the monarch approached the man, and,
+in a whisper, implored a morsel for himself.
+
+"Ask aloud," said the man, retreating, "for what you want." He feared
+that he should be suspected of some secret conspiracy with the king.
+
+"I am hungry," said Louis XVI., "and ask for a piece of your bread."
+
+"Divide it with me," said the man. "It is a Spartan breakfast. If I had
+a root I would give you half."
+
+The king entered the carriage eating his crust. The same cavalcade as
+in the morning preceded and accompanied him. The same crowds thronged
+the streets and every point of observation. A few brutal wretches,
+insulting helplessness, shouted _Vive la Révolution!_ and now and then
+a stanza of the Marseillaise Hymn fell painfully upon his ear. Chambon,
+the mayor, and Chaumette, the public prosecutor, were in the carriage
+with the king. Louis, having eaten as much of the half loaf of bread
+as he needed, had still a fragment in his hand.
+
+"What shall I do with it?" inquired the simple-hearted monarch.
+Chaumette relieved him of his embarrassment by tossing it out of the
+window.
+
+"Ah," said the king, "it is a pity to throw bread away when it is so
+dear."
+
+"True," replied Chaumette; "my grandmother used to say to me, 'Little
+boy, never waste a crumb of bread; you can not make one.'"[381]
+
+"Monsieur Chaumette," Louis rejoined, "your grandmother appears to me
+to have been a woman of great good sense."
+
+It was half-past six o'clock, and the gloom of night enveloped the
+Temple, when Louis was again conducted up the stairs of the tower to
+his dismal cell. He piteously implored permission again to see his
+family. But Chambon dared not grant his request in disobedience to the
+commands of the Commune.
+
+The most frivolous things often develop character. It is on record
+that the toils and griefs of the day had not impaired the appetite
+of the king, and that he ate for supper that night "six cutlets, a
+considerable portion of a fowl, two eggs, and drank two glasses of
+white wine and one of Alicante wine, and forthwith went to bed."[382]
+
+During these dreadful hours the queen, with Madame Elizabeth and the
+children, were in a state of agonizing suspense, not even knowing but
+that the king was being led to his execution. Clery, however, late in
+the evening, went to their room and informed them of all the details he
+had been able to gather respecting the king's examination.
+
+"Has any mention been made of the queen?" asked Madame Elizabeth. "Her
+name was not mentioned," Clery replied, "in the act of accusation."
+
+"Ah," rejoined the princess, "perhaps they demand my brother's life as
+necessary for their safety; but the queen--these poor children--what
+obstacle can their lives present to their ambition?"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 374: Napoleon at St. Helena, 394.]
+
+[Footnote 375: Peltier.]
+
+[Footnote 376: The queen undressed the dauphin, when he repeated the
+following prayer, composed by the queen and remembered and recorded by
+her daughter: "Almighty God, who created and redeemed me, I love you!
+Preserve the days of my father and my family. Protect us against our
+enemies. Give my mother, my aunt, my sister, the strength they need to
+support their troubles."--_Lamartine, History of the Girondists_, vol.
+ii., p. 287.]
+
+[Footnote 377: "We must not exaggerate the faults of human nature, and
+suppose that, adding an execrable meanness to the fury of fanaticism,
+the keepers of the imprisoned family imposed on it unworthy privations,
+with the intention of rendering the remembrance of its past greatness
+the more painful. Distrust was the sole cause of certain refusals.
+Thus, while the dread of plots and secret communications prevented
+them from admitting more than one attendant into the interior of the
+prison, a numerous establishment was employed in preparing their food.
+Thirteen persons were engaged in the duties of the kitchen, situated
+at some distance from the tower. The report of the expenses of the
+Temple, where the greatest decency is observed, where the prisoners are
+mentioned with respect, where their sobriety is commended, where Louis
+XVI. is justified from the low reproach of being too much addicted
+to wine--these reports, which are not liable to suspicion, make the
+total expenses of the table amount in two months to 28,745 livres
+($5749)."--_Thiers_, vol. ii., p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 378: "M. Chambon, the successor of Bailly and Pétion,
+was a learned and humane physician, whom public esteem rather than
+Revolutionary favor had raised to the dignity of the first magistrate
+of Paris. Of _modéré_ principles, kind and warm-hearted, accustomed,
+by his profession, to sympathize with the unfortunate, compelled to
+execute orders repugnant to his feelings, the pity of the man was
+visible beneath the inflexibility of the magistrate."--_Lamartine,
+Hist. des Girondistes_, vol. ii., p. 321.]
+
+[Footnote 379: "Barrere escaped during the different ebullitions of the
+Revolution because he was a man, without principle or character, who
+changed and adapted himself to every side. He had the reputation of
+being a man of talent, but I did not find him such. I employed him to
+write, but he displayed no ability. He used many flowers of rhetoric,
+but no solid argument."--_Napoleon at St. Helena._]
+
+[Footnote 380: Gamain, the locksmith, who for ten years had worked
+for and with the king, and who had aided him in constructing this
+iron safe, basely betrayed the secret. The papers were all seized and
+intrusted by the Convention to a committee of twelve, who were to
+examine and report upon them. This Judas received, as his reward from
+the Convention, a pension of two hundred and forty dollars a year. See
+France and its Revolutions, by Geo. Long, Esq., p. 241.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.
+
+ Close of the Examination.--The King's Counsel.--Heroism of
+ Malesherbes.--Preparations for Defense.--Gratitude of the King.--The
+ Trial.--Protracted Vote.--The Result.--The King solicits the
+ Delay of Execution for three Days.--Last Interview with his
+ Family.--Preparation for Death.--The Execution.
+
+
+As soon as the king had withdrawn from the Assembly, that body was
+thrown into great tumult in consequence of the application of Louis for
+the assistance of counsel. It was, however, after an animated debate,
+which continued until the next day, voted that the request of the king
+should be granted, and a deputation was immediately sent to inform the
+king of the vote, and to ask what counsel he would choose. He selected
+two of the most eminent lawyers of Paris--M. Tronchet and M. Target.
+Tronchet heroically accepted the perilous commission. Target, with
+pusillanimity which has consigned his name to disgrace, wrote a letter
+to the Convention stating that his principles would not allow him to
+undertake the defense of the king.[383] The venerable Malesherbes, then
+seventy years of age, immediately wrote a letter to the president,
+imploring permission to assume the defense of the monarch. This
+distinguished statesman, a friend of monarchy and a personal friend of
+the monarch, had been living in the retirement of his country-seat,
+and had taken no part in the Revolution. By permission of the Commune
+he was conducted, after he had been carefully searched, to the Temple.
+With a faltering step he entered the prison of the king. Louis XVI.
+was seated reading Tacitus. The king immediately arose, threw his arms
+around Malesherbes in a cordial embrace, and said,
+
+"Ah, is it you, my friend! In what a situation do you find me! See to
+what my passion for the amelioration of the state of the people, whom
+we have both loved so much, has reduced me! Why do you come hither?
+Your devotion only endangers your life and can not save mine."
+
+Malesherbes, with eyes full of tears, endeavored to cheer the king with
+words of hope.
+
+"No!" replied the monarch, sadly. "They will condemn me, for they
+possess both the power and the will. No matter; let us occupy ourselves
+with the cause as if we were to gain it. I shall gain it in fact, since
+I shall leave no stain upon my memory."
+
+The two defenders of the king were permitted to associate with them
+a third, M. Deséze, an advocate who had attained much renown in his
+profession. For a fortnight they were employed almost night and day
+in preparing for the defense. Malesherbes came every morning with the
+daily papers, and prepared for the labors of the evening. At five
+o'clock Tronchet and Deséze came, and they all worked together until
+nine.
+
+In the mean time the king wrote his will; a very affecting document,
+breathing in every line the spirit of a Christian. He also succeeded
+in so far eluding the vigilance of his keepers as to open a slight
+correspondence with his family. The queen pricked a message with a
+pin upon a scrap of paper, and then concealed the paper in a ball of
+thread, which was dropped into a drawer in the kitchen, where Clery
+took it and conveyed it to his master. An answer was returned in a
+similar way. It was but an unsatisfactory correspondence which could
+thus be carried on; but even this was an unspeakable solace to the
+captives.
+
+At length the plan of defense was completed. Malesherbes and the king
+had furnished the facts, Tronchet and Deséze had woven them all into
+an exceedingly eloquent and affecting appeal. Deséze read it aloud
+to the king and his associates. The pathetic picture he drew of the
+vicissitudes of the royal family was so touching that even Malesherbes
+and Tronchet could not refrain from weeping, and tears fell from the
+eyes of the king. At the close of the reading, the king turned to
+Deséze, and, in the spirit of true majesty of soul, said,
+
+"I have to request of you to make a painful sacrifice. Strike out of
+your pleading the peroration. It is enough for me to appear before
+such judges and show my entire innocence. I will not move their
+feelings."[384]
+
+Deséze was very reluctant to accede to this request, but was
+constrained to yield. After Tronchet and Deséze had retired that night,
+the king, left alone with Malesherbes, seemed to be troubled with some
+engrossing thought. At last he said,
+
+"I have now a new source of regret. Deséze and Tronchet owe me nothing.
+They devote to me their time, exertions, and perhaps their life. How
+can I requite them? I possess nothing; and were I to leave them a
+legacy it would not be paid; besides, what fortune could repay such a
+debt?"
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AND MALESHERBES.]
+
+"Sire," replied Malesherbes, "their consciences and posterity will
+reward them. But it is in your power to grant them a favor they will
+esteem more than all those you had it in your power to bestow upon them
+formerly."
+
+"What is it?" added the king.
+
+"Sire, embrace them," Malesherbes replied.
+
+The next day, when they entered his chamber, the king approached them
+and pressed each to his heart in silence. This touching testimonial
+of the king's gratitude, and of his impoverishment, was to the noble
+hearts of these noble men an ample remuneration for all their toil and
+peril.
+
+The 26th of December had now arrived, the day appointed for the final
+trial. At an early hour all Paris was in commotion, and the whole
+military force of the metropolis was again marshaled. The sublimity
+of the occasion seemed to have elevated the character of the king
+to unusual dignity. He was neatly dressed, his beard shaved, and
+his features were serene and almost majestic in their expression of
+imperturbable resignation. As he rode in the carriage with Chambon, the
+mayor, and Santerre, the commander of the National Guard, he conversed
+cheerfully upon a variety of topics. Santerre, regardless of the
+etiquette which did not allow a subject to wear his hat in the presence
+of his monarch, sat with his hat on. The king turned to him, and said,
+with a smile,
+
+"The last time, sir, you conveyed me to the Temple, in your hurry you
+forgot your hat; and now, I perceive, you are determined to make up for
+the omission."
+
+On entering the Convention the king took his seat by the side of his
+counsel, and listened with intense interest to the reading of his
+defense, watching the countenances of his judges to see the effect it
+was producing upon their minds. Occasionally he whispered, and even
+with a smile, to Malesherbes and Tronchet. The Convention received the
+defense in profound silence.
+
+The defense consisted of three leading divisions. First, it was argued
+that by the Constitution the king was inviolable, and not responsible
+for the acts of the crown--that the Ministers alone were responsible.
+He secondly argued that the Convention had no right to try the king,
+for the Convention were his accusers, and, consequently, could not act
+as his judges. Thirdly, while protesting, as above, the inviolability
+of the king, and the invalidity of the Convention to judge him, he
+then proceeded to the discussion of the individual charges. Some of
+the charges were triumphantly repelled, particularly that of shedding
+French blood on the 10th of August. It was clearly proved that the
+people, not Louis XVI., were the aggressors. As soon as Deséze had
+finished his defense, the king himself rose and said, in a few words
+which he had written and committed to memory,
+
+"You have heard the grounds of my defense. I shall not repeat them. In
+addressing you, perhaps for the last time, I declare that my conscience
+reproaches me with nothing, and that my defenders have told you the
+truth. I have never feared to have my public conduct scrutinized. But
+I am grieved to find that I am accused of wishing to shed the blood of
+my people, and that the misfortunes of the 10th of August are laid to
+my charge. I confess that the numerous proofs I have always given of my
+love for the people ought to have placed me above this reproach."
+
+He resumed his seat. The President then asked if he had any thing more
+to say. He declared he had not, and retired with his counsel from the
+hall. As he was conducted back to the Temple, he conversed with the
+same serenity he had manifested throughout the whole day. It was five
+o'clock, and the gloom of night was descending upon the city as he
+re-entered his prison.
+
+No sooner had the king left the hall than a violent tumult of debate
+commenced, which was continued, day after day, with a constant
+succession of eager, agitated speakers hurrying to the tribune, for
+twelve days. Some were in favor of an immediate judgment, some were for
+referring the question to the people; some demanded the death of the
+king, others imprisonment or exile. On the 7th of January all seemed
+weary of these endless speeches, and the endless repetition of the
+same arguments. Still, there were many clamorous to be heard; and,
+after a violent contest, it was voted that the decisive measure should
+be postponed for a week longer, and that on the 14th of January the
+question should be taken.
+
+The fatal day arrived. It was decreed that the subject should be
+presented to the Convention in the three following questions: _First_,
+Is Louis guilty? _Second_, Shall the decision of the Convention be
+submitted to the ratification of the people? The whole of the 15th was
+occupied in taking these two votes. Louis was unanimously pronounced
+to be guilty, with the exception of ten who refused to vote, declaring
+themselves incapable of acting both as accusers and judges. On the
+question of an appeal to the people, 281 voices were for it, 423
+against it.[385] And now came the _third_ great and solemn question,
+What shall be the sentence? Each member was required to write his vote,
+sign it, and then, before depositing it, to ascend the tribune and give
+it audibly, with any remarks which he might wish to add.
+
+The voting commenced at seven o'clock in the evening of the
+16th, and continued all night, and without any interruption, for
+twenty-four hours. All Paris was during the time in the highest state
+of excitement, the galleries of the Convention being crowded to
+suffocation. Some voted for death, others for imprisonment until peace
+with allied Europe, and then banishment. Others voted for death, with
+the restriction that the execution should be delayed. They wished to
+save the king, and yet feared the accusation of being Royalists if
+they did not vote for his death. The Jacobins all voted for death.
+They had accused their opponents, the Girondists, of being secretly in
+favor of royality, and as such had held them up to the execration of
+the mob. The Girondists wished to save the king. It was in their power
+to save him. But it required more courage, both moral and physical,
+than ordinary men possess, to brave the vengeance of the assassins of
+September who were hovering around the hall.
+
+It was pretty well understood in the Convention that the fate of
+the king depended upon the Girondist vote, and it was not doubted
+that the party would vote as did their leader. It was a moment of
+fearful solemnity when Vergniaud ascended the tribune. Breathless
+silence pervaded the Assembly. Every eye was fixed upon him. His
+countenance was pallid as that of a corpse. For a moment he paused,
+with downcast eyes, as if hesitating to pronounce the dreadful word.
+Then, in a gloomy tone which thrilled the hearts of all present, he
+said, _Death_.[386] Nearly all the Girondists voted for death, with
+the restriction of delaying the execution. Many of the purest men
+in the nation thus voted, with emotions of sadness which could not
+be repressed. The noble Carnot gave his vote in the following terms:
+"Death; and never did word weigh so heavily on my heart."
+
+When the Duke of Orleans was called, deep silence ensued. He was cousin
+of the king, and first prince of the blood. By birth and opulence he
+stood on the highest pinnacle of aristocratic supremacy. Conscious
+of peril, he had for a long time done every thing in his power to
+conciliate the mob by adopting the most radical of Jacobin opinions.
+The Duke, bloated with the debaucheries which had disgraced his life,
+ascended the steps slowly, unfolded a paper, and read in heartless
+tones these words:
+
+"Solely occupied with my duty, convinced that all who have attempted,
+or shall attempt hereafter, the sovereignty of the people, merit death,
+I vote for death."
+
+The atrocity of this act excited the abhorrence of the Assembly, and
+loud murmurs of disapprobation followed the prince to his seat. Even
+Robespierre despised his pusillanimity, and said,
+
+"The miserable man was only required to listen to his own heart, and
+make himself an exception. But he would not or dare not do so. The
+nation would have been more magnanimous than he."[387]
+
+At length the long scrutiny was over, and Vergniaud, who had presided,
+rose to announce the result. He was pale as death, and it was observed
+that not only his voice faltered, but that his whole frame trembled.
+
+"Citizens," said he, "you are about to exercise a great act of justice.
+I hope humanity will enjoin you to keep the most perfect silence. When
+justice has spoken humanity ought to be listened to in its turn."
+
+He then read the results of the vote. There were seven hundred and
+twenty-one voters in the Convention. Three hundred and thirty-four
+voted for imprisonment or exile, three hundred and eighty-seven for
+death, including those who voted that the execution should be delayed.
+Thus the majority for death was fifty-three; but as of these forty-six
+demanded a suspension of the execution, there remained but a majority
+of seven for immediate death. Having read this result, Vergniaud, in a
+sorrowful tone, said, "I declare, in the name of the Convention, that
+the punishment pronounced against Louis Capet is death."[388]
+
+The counsel of Louis XVI., who, during the progress of the vote, had
+urged permission to speak, but were refused, were now introduced. In
+the name of the king, Deséze appealed to the people from the judgment
+of the Convention. He urged the appeal from the very small majority
+which had decided the penalty. Tronchet urged that the penal code
+required a vote of two thirds to consign one to punishment, and that
+the king ought not to be deprived of a privilege which every subject
+enjoyed. Malesherbes endeavored to speak, but was so overcome with
+emotion that, violently sobbing, he was unable to continue his speech,
+and was compelled to sit down. His gray hairs and his tears so moved
+the Assembly that Vergniaud rose, and, addressing the Assembly, said,
+"Will you decree the honors of the sitting to the defenders of Louis
+XVI.?" The unanimous response was, "Yes, yes."
+
+It was now late at night, and the Convention adjourned. The whole of
+the 18th and the 19th were occupied in discussing the question of the
+appeal to the people. On the 20th, at three o'clock in the morning,
+the final vote was taken. Three hundred and ten voted to sustain
+the appeal; three hundred and eighty for immediate death. All the
+efforts to save the king were now exhausted, and his fate was sealed.
+A deputation was immediately appointed, headed by Garat, Minister of
+Justice, to acquaint Louis XVI. with the decree of the Convention.
+
+At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 20th, Louis heard the noise of
+a numerous party ascending the steps of the tower. As they entered
+his apartment he rose and stepped forward with perfect calmness and
+dignity to meet them. The decree of the Convention was read to the
+king, declaring him to be guilty of treason, that he was condemned to
+death, that the appeal to the people was refused, and that he was to be
+executed within twenty-four hours.
+
+The king listened to the reading unmoved, took the paper from the hands
+of the secretary, folded it carefully, and placed it in his portfolio.
+Then turning to Garat, he handed him a paper, saying,
+
+"Monsieur Minister of Justice, I request you to deliver this letter to
+the Convention."
+
+Garat hesitated to take the paper, and the king immediately rejoined,
+"I will read it to you," and read, in a distinct, unfaltering voice, as
+follows:
+
+"I demand of the Convention a delay of three days, in order to prepare
+myself to appear before God. I require, farther, to see freely the
+priest whom I shall name to the commissaries of the Commune, and that
+he be protected in the act of charity which he shall exercise toward
+me. I demand to be freed from the perpetual surveillance which has
+been exercised toward me for so many days. I demand, during these
+last moments, leave to see my family, when I desire it, without
+witnesses. I desire most earnestly that the Convention will at once
+take into consideration the fate of my family, and that they be allowed
+immediately to retire unmolested whithersoever they shall see fit to
+choose an asylum. I recommend to the kindness of the nation all the
+persons attached to me. There are among them many old men, and women,
+and children, who are entirely dependent upon me, and must be in want."
+
+The delegation retired. The king, with a firm step, walked two or
+three times up and down his chamber, and then called for his dinner.
+He sat down and ate with his usual appetite; but his attendants refused
+to let him have either knife or fork, and he was furnished only with a
+spoon. This excited his indignation, and he said, warmly,
+
+"Do they think that I am such a coward as to lay violent hands upon
+myself? I am innocent, and I shall die fearlessly."
+
+Having finished his repast, he waited patiently for the return of the
+answer from the Convention. At six o'clock, Garat, accompanied by
+Santerre, entered again. The Convention refused the delay of execution
+which Louis XVI. had solicited, but granted the other demands.
+
+In a few moments M. Edgeworth, the ecclesiastic who had been sent for,
+arrived. He entered the chamber, and, overwhelmed with emotion, fell at
+the monarch's feet and burst into tears. The king, deeply moved, also
+wept, and, as he raised M. Edgeworth, said,
+
+"Pardon me this momentary weakness. I have lived so long among my
+enemies that habit has rendered me indifferent to their hatred, and
+my heart has been closed against all sentiments of tenderness; but
+the sight of a faithful friend restores to me my sensibility, which I
+believed dead, and moves me to tears in spite of myself."
+
+The king conversed earnestly with his spiritual adviser respecting his
+will, which he read, and inquired earnestly for his friends, whose
+sufferings moved his heart deeply. The hour of seven had now arrived,
+when the king was to hold his last interview with his family. But even
+this could not be in private. He was to be watched by his jailers, who
+were to hear every word and witness every gesture. The door opened,
+and the queen, pallid and woe-stricken, entered, leading her son by
+the hand. She threw herself into the arms of her husband, and silently
+endeavored to draw him toward her chamber.
+
+"No, no," whispered the king, clasping her to his heart; "I can see you
+only here."
+
+Madame Elizabeth, with the king's daughter, followed. A scene of
+anguish ensued which neither pen nor pencil can portray. The king sat
+down, with the queen upon his right hand, his sister upon his left,
+their arms encircling his neck, and their heads resting upon his
+breast. The dauphin sat upon his father's knee, with his arm around
+his neck. The beautiful princess, with disheveled hair, threw herself
+between her father's knees, and buried her face in his lap. More than
+half an hour passed during which not an articulate word was spoken; but
+cries, groans, and occasional shrieks of anguish, which pierced even
+the thick walls of the Temple and were heard in the streets, rose from
+the group.
+
+For two hours the agonizing interview was continued. As they gradually
+regained some little composure, in low tones they whispered messages
+of tenderness and love, interrupted by sobs, and kisses, and blinding
+floods of tears. It was now after nine o'clock, and in the morning the
+king was to be led to the guillotine. The queen implored permission for
+them to remain with him through the night. The king, through tenderness
+for his family, declined, but promised to see them again at seven
+o'clock the next morning. As the king accompanied them to the staircase
+their cries were redoubled, and the princess fainted in utter
+unconsciousness at her father's feet. The queen, Madame Elizabeth, and
+Clery carried her to the stairs, and the king returned to the room,
+and, burying his face in his hands, sank, exhausted, into a chair.
+After a long silence he turned to M. Edgeworth and said,
+
+"Ah! monsieur, what an interview I have had! Why do I love so fondly?
+Alas! why am I so fondly loved? But we have now done with time. Let us
+occupy ourselves with eternity."
+
+[Illustration: LAST INTERVIEW BETWEEN LOUIS XVI. AND HIS FAMILY.]
+
+The king passed some time in religious conversation and prayer, and,
+having arranged with M. Edgeworth to partake of the sacrament of the
+Lord's Supper in the earliest hours of the morning, at midnight threw
+himself upon his bed, and almost immediately fell into a calm and
+refreshing sleep.
+
+The faithful Clery and M. Edgeworth watched at the bedside of the king.
+At five o'clock they woke him. "Has it struck five?" inquired the king.
+"Not yet by the clock of the tower," Clery replied; "but several of the
+clocks of the city have struck." "I have slept soundly," remarked the
+king. "I was much fatigued yesterday."
+
+He immediately arose. An altar had been prepared in the middle of the
+room composed of a chest of drawers, and the king, after engaging
+earnestly in prayer, received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Then
+leading Clery into the recess of a window, he detached from his watch
+a seal, and took from his finger a wedding-ring, and handing them to
+Clery, said,
+
+"After my death you will give this seal to my son, this ring to the
+queen. Tell her I resign it with pain that it may not be profaned with
+my body. This small parcel contains locks of hair of all my family:
+that you will give her. Say to the queen, my dear children, and my
+sister, that I had promised to see them this morning, but that I
+desired to spare them the agony of such a bitter separation twice
+over. How much it has cost me to depart without receiving their last
+embraces!"
+
+He could say no more, for sobs choked his utterance. Soon recovering
+himself, he called for scissors, and cut off his long hair, that he
+might escape the humiliation of having that done by the executioner.
+
+A few beams of daylight began now to penetrate the gloomy prison
+through the grated windows, and the beating of drums, and the rumbling
+of the wheels of heavy artillery were heard in the streets. The king
+turned to his confessor, and said,
+
+"How happy I am that I maintained my faith on the throne! Where should
+I be this day but for this hope? Yes, there is on high a Judge,
+incorruptible, who will award to me that measure of justice which men
+refuse to me here below."
+
+Two hours passed away, while the king listened to the gathering of
+the troops in the court-yard and around the Temple. At nine o'clock a
+tumultuous noise was heard of men ascending the staircase. Santerre
+entered, with twelve municipal officers and ten gens d'armes. The king,
+with commanding voice and gesture, pointed Santerre to the door, and
+said,
+
+"You have come for me. I will be with you in an instant. Await me
+there."
+
+Falling upon his knees, he engaged a moment in prayer, and then,
+turning to M. Edgeworth, said,
+
+"All is consummated. Give me your blessing, and pray to God to sustain
+me to the end."
+
+He rose, and taking from the table a paper which contained his last
+will and testament, addressed one of the municipal guard, saying, "I
+beg of you to transmit this paper to the queen." The man, whose name
+was Jacques Roux, brutally replied, "I am here to conduct you to the
+scaffold, not to perform your commissions."
+
+"True," said the king, in a saddened tone, but without the slightest
+appearance of irritation. Then carefully scanning the countenances of
+each member of the guard, he selected one whose features expressed
+humanity, and solicited him to take charge of the paper. The man, whose
+name was Gobeau, took the paper.
+
+The king, declining the cloak which Clery offered him, said, "Give
+me only my hat." Then, taking the hand of Clery, he pressed it
+affectionately in a final adieu, and, turning to Santerre, said, "Let
+us go." Descending the stairs with a firm tread, followed by the armed
+escort, he met a turnkey whom he had the evening before reproached
+for some impertinence. The king approached him and said, in tones of
+kindness,
+
+"Mathey, I was somewhat warm with you yesterday; excuse me for the sake
+of this hour."
+
+As he crossed the court-yard, he twice turned to look up at the windows
+of the queen's apartment in the tower, where those so dear to him
+were suffering the utmost anguish which human hearts can endure. Two
+gens d'armes sat upon the front seat of the carriage. The king and
+M. Edgeworth took the back seat. The morning was damp and chill, and
+gloomy clouds darkened the sky. Sixty drums were beating at the heads
+of the horses, and an army of troops, with all the most formidable
+enginery of war, preceded, surrounded, and followed the carriage. The
+noise of the drums prevented any conversation, and the king sat in
+silence in the carriage, evidently engaged in prayer. The procession
+moved so slowly along the Boulevards that it was two hours before
+they reached the Place de la Révolution. An immense crowd filled the
+place, above whom towered the lofty platform and blood-red posts of the
+guillotine.
+
+[Illustration: EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.]
+
+As the carriage stopped the king whispered to M. Edgeworth, "We have
+arrived, if I mistake not." The drums ceased beating, and the whole
+multitude gazed in the most solemn silence. The two gens d'armes
+alighted. The king placed his hand upon the knee of the heroic
+ecclesiastic, M. Edgeworth, and said to the gens d'armes,
+
+"Gentlemen, I recommend to your care this gentleman. Let him not be
+insulted after my death. I entreat you to watch over him."
+
+"Yes, yes," said one, contemptuously; "make your mind easy, we will
+take care of him. Let us alone."
+
+Louis alighted. Two of the executioners came to the foot of the
+scaffold to take off his coat. The king waved them away, and himself
+took off his coat and cravat, and turned down the collar of his shirt,
+that his throat might be presented bare to the knife. They then came
+with cords to bind his hands behind his back.
+
+"What do you wish to do?" said the king, indignantly.
+
+"Bind you," they replied, as they seized his hands, and endeavored to
+fasten them with the cords.
+
+"Bind me!" replied the king, in tones of deepest feeling. "No, no; I
+will never consent. Do your business, but you shall not bind me."
+
+The executioners seized him rudely, and called for help. "Sire," said
+his Christian adviser, "suffer this outrage, as a last resemblance to
+that God who is about to be your reward."
+
+"Assuredly," replied the king, "there needed nothing less than the
+example of God to make me submit to such an indignity." Then, holding
+out his hands to the executioners, he said, "Do as you will! I will
+drink the cup to the dregs."
+
+With a firm tread he ascended the steep steps of the scaffold, looked
+for a moment upon the keen and polished edge of the axe, and then,
+turning to the vast throng, said, in a voice clear and untremulous,
+
+"People, I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me! I pardon the
+authors of my death, and pray to God that the blood you are about to
+shed may not fall again on France."
+
+He would have continued, but the drums were ordered to beat, and his
+voice was immediately drowned. The executioners seized him, bound him
+to the plank, the slide fell, and the head of Louis XVI. dropped into
+the basket.
+
+No one has had a better opportunity of ascertaining the true character
+of the king than President Jefferson. Speaking of some of the king's
+measures he said, "These concessions came from the very heart of the
+king. He had not a wish but for the good of the nation; and for that
+object no personal sacrifice would ever have cost him a moment's
+regret; but his mind was weakness itself, his constitution timid,
+his judgment null, and without sufficient firmness even to stand
+by the faith of his word. His queen, too, haughty and bearing no
+contradiction, had an absolute ascendency over him; and round her were
+rallied the king's brother, D'Artois, the court generally, and the
+aristocratic part of his ministers, particularly Breteuil, Broglio,
+Vauguyon, Foulon, Luzerne--men whose principles of government were
+those of the age of Louis XIV. Against this host, the good counsels of
+Necker, Montmorin, St. Priest, although in unison with the wishes of
+the king himself, were of little avail. The resolutions of the morning,
+formed under their advice, would be reversed in the evening by the
+influence of the queen and the court."
+
+The Royalists were exceedingly exasperated by the condemnation of the
+king. A noble, Lepelletier St. Fargeau, who had espoused the popular
+cause, voted for the king's death. The Royalists were peculiarly
+excited against him, in consequence of his rank and fortune. On the
+evening of the 20th of January, as Louis was being informed of his
+sentence, a life-guardsman of the king tracked Lepelletier into a
+restaurateur's in the Palais Royal, and, just as he was sitting down to
+the table, stepped up to him and said,
+
+"Art thou Lepelletier, the villain who voted for the death of the king?"
+
+"Yes," replied Lepelletier, "but I am not a villain. I voted according
+to my conscience."
+
+"There, then," rejoined the life-guardsman, "take that for thy reward,"
+and he plunged his sword to the hilt in his side. Lepelletier fell
+dead, and his assassin escaped before they had time to arrest him.
+
+This event created intense excitement, and increased the conviction
+that the Royalists had conspired to rescue the king, by force of arms,
+at the foot of the scaffold.
+
+[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF LEPELLETIER DE ST. FARGEAU.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 381: Hist. Parl., vol. xxi., p. 314.]
+
+[Footnote 382: Résumé du Rapport du Commissaire Albertier, Hist. Parl.,
+vol. xxi., p. 319.]
+
+[Footnote 383: One of Napoleon's first acts upon becoming First Consul
+was to show his appreciation of the heroism of Tronchet by placing
+him at the head of the Court of Cassation. "Tronchet," he said, "was
+the soul of the civil code, as I was its demonstrator. He was gifted
+with a singularly profound and correct understanding, but he could not
+descend to developments. He spoke badly, and could not defend what he
+proposed."--_Napoleon at St. Helena_, p. 192.]
+
+[Footnote 384: Lacretelle.]
+
+[Footnote 385: Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 342.]
+
+[Footnote 386: "The crowd in the galleries received with murmurs
+all votes that were not for death, and they frequently addressed
+threatening gestures to the Assembly itself. The deputies replied to
+them from the interior of the hall, and hence resulted a tumultuous
+exchange of menaces and abusive epithets. This fearfully ominous scene
+had shaken all minds and changed many resolutions. Vergniaud, who
+had appeared deeply affected by the fate of Louis XVI., and who had
+declared to his friends that he never could condemn that unfortunate
+prince, Vergniaud, on beholding this tumultuous scene, imagined that
+he saw civil war kindled in France, and pronounced sentence of death,
+with the addition, however, of Mailhe's amendment (which required that
+the execution should be delayed). On being questioned respecting his
+change of opinion, he replied that he thought he saw civil war on the
+point of breaking out, and that he durst not balance the life of an
+individual against the welfare of France."--_Thiers's History of the
+French Revolution_, vol. ii., p. 68.]
+
+[Footnote 387: "Robespierre was by no means the worst character who
+figured in the Revolution. He opposed trying the queen. He was not an
+atheist; on the contrary, he had publicly maintained the existence of a
+Supreme Being, in opposition to many of his colleagues. Neither was he
+of opinion that it was necessary to exterminate all priests and nobles,
+like many others. Robespierre wanted to proclaim the king an outlaw,
+and not to go through the ridiculous mockery of trying him. Robespierre
+was a fanatic, a monster; but he was incorruptible, and incapable
+of robbing or of causing the deaths of others, either from personal
+enmity or a desire of enriching himself. He was an enthusiast, but one
+who really believed that he was acting right, and died not worth a
+sou. In some respects Robespierre may be said to have been an honest
+man."--_Napoleon at St. Helena_, p. 590.]
+
+[Footnote 388: "Of those who judged the king many thought him willfully
+criminal; many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual
+conflict with the horde of kings who would war against a generation
+which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one
+should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the
+Legislature. I should have shut up the queen in a convent, putting
+harm out of her power, and placed the king in his station, investing
+him with limited powers, which I verily believe he would honestly have
+exercised, according to the measure of his understanding."--_Thomas
+Jefferson, Life by Randall_, vol. i., p. 533. There were obviously
+insuperable objections to the plan thus suggested by Mr. Jefferson.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE REIGN OF TERROR.
+
+ Charges against the Girondists.--Danton.--The French Embassador
+ ordered to leave England.--War declared against England.--Navy of
+ England.--Internal War.--Plot to assassinate the Girondists.--Bold
+ Words of Vergniaud.--Insurrection in La Vendée.--Conflict between
+ Dumouriez and the Assembly.--Flight of Dumouriez.--The Mob aroused
+ and the Girondists arrested.--Charlotte Corday.--France rises _en
+ masse_ to repel the Allies.--The treasonable Surrender of Toulon.
+
+
+The execution of the king roused all Europe against republican France.
+The Jacobins had gained a decisive victory over the Girondists, and
+succeeded in turning popular hatred against them by accusing them of
+being enemies of the people, because they opposed the excesses of the
+mob; of being the friends of royalty, because they had wished to save
+the life of the king; and of being hostile to the republic, because
+they advocated measures of moderation.[389]
+
+Danton was now the acknowledged leader of the Jacobins. He had obtained
+the entire control of the mob of Paris, and could guide their terrible
+and resistless energies in any direction. With this potent weapon in
+his hand he was omnipotent, and his political adversaries were at his
+mercy. The Reign of Terror had now commenced. The Girondists made a
+heroic attempt to bring to justice the assassins of September, but the
+Jacobins promptly stopped the proceedings.
+
+The aristocracy of birth was now effectually crushed, and the Jacobins
+commenced a warfare against the aristocracy of wealth and character.
+An elegant mansion, garments of fine cloth, and even polished manners,
+exposed one to the charge of being an aristocrat, and turned against
+him the insults of the rabble. Marat was particularly fierce, in his
+journal, against the aristocracy of the burghers, merchants, and
+statesmen.
+
+Upon the arrival of the courier in London conveying intelligence of the
+execution of the king, M. Chauvelin, the French embassador, was ordered
+to leave England within twenty-four hours.
+
+"After events," said Pitt, "on which the imagination can only dwell
+with horror, and since an infernal faction has seized on the supreme
+power in France, we could no longer tolerate the presence of M.
+Chauvelin, who has left no means untried to induce the people to rise
+against the government and the laws of this country."
+
+The National Convention at once declared war against England.[390]
+Pitt, with almost superhuman energy, mustered the forces of England
+and Europe for the strife. In less than six months England had entered
+into a treaty of alliance with Russia, Prussia, Austria, Naples,
+Spain, and Portugal, for the prosecution of the war; and had also
+entered into treaties by which she promised large subsidies to Hesse
+Cassel, Sardinia, and Baden. England thus became the soul of this
+coalition, which combined the whole of Europe, with the exception of
+Venice, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey, against France.
+These combined armies were to assail the Republic by land, while the
+invincible fleet of England was to hurl a storm of shot and shells into
+all her maritime towns.
+
+France, at this time, had but one hundred and fifty-nine vessels of
+war all told. England had four hundred and fifteen, and her ally,
+Holland, one hundred. Most of these were large ships, heavily armed;
+and, consequently, England had but little fear that any French armies
+could reach her isles.[391] Parliament voted an extraordinary supply
+of £3,200,000 ($16,000,000). One hundred and thirty-one thousand
+Austrians, one hundred and twelve thousand Prussians, and fifty
+thousand Spaniards were speedily on the march to assail France at every
+point on the frontier.[392]
+
+The Royalists in La Vendée rose in arms against the Republic, and
+unfurled the white banner of the Bourbons. France was now threatened
+more fearfully than ever before with external and internal war. The
+Convention, controlled by the Jacobins and appalled by the danger,
+decreed a levy of three hundred thousand men to repel the assailants,
+and also organized an extraordinary revolutionary tribunal, invested
+with unlimited powers to arrest, judge, and punish any whom they should
+deem dangerous to the Republic. Violence filled the land, terror
+reigned every where, and even Robespierre was heard to exclaim, "I am
+sick of the Revolution."
+
+Dumouriez had driven the Austrians out of Belgium and the Netherlands,
+and was at the head of an army of about seventy-five thousand men.
+Disgusted with the anarchy which reigned in France, he formed the bold
+design of marching upon Paris with his army, dispersing the Convention,
+abolishing the Republic, reinstituting a constitutional monarchy by
+establishing the Constitution of 1791, and by placing a king, probably
+the son of the Duke of Orleans, subsequently Louis Philippe, upon the
+throne. The Jacobins, goaded by these accumulating dangers--all Europe
+assailing France from without, and Royalists plotting within--were
+prepared for any measures of desperation. The Girondists, with
+unavailing heroism, opposed the frantic measures of popular violence,
+and the Jacobins resolved to get rid of them all by a decisive blow.
+The assassins of September were ready to ply the dagger, under the
+plea that murder was patriotism. A plan was formed to strike them all
+down, in the Convention, on the night of the 10th of March. But the
+Girondists, informed of the plot, absented themselves from the meeting
+and the enterprise failed. The bold spirit of the Girondists was avowed
+in the words of Vergniaud:
+
+"We have witnessed," said he, "the development of that strange system
+of liberty in which we are told 'You are free, but think with us, or we
+will denounce you to the vengeance of the people; you are free, but
+bow down your head to the idol we worship, or we will denounce you to
+the vengeance of the people; you are free, but join us in persecuting
+the men whose probity and intelligence we dread, or we will denounce
+you to the vengeance of the people.' Citizens! we have reason to
+fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will devour successively all
+its children, and only engender despotism and the calamities which
+accompany it."
+
+The Province of La Vendée contained a population of about three hundred
+thousand. It was a rural district where there was no middle class. The
+priests and the nobles had the unlettered peasantry entirely under
+their influence. Three armies were raised here against the Republic, of
+about twelve thousand each. Royalists from various parts of the empire
+flocked to this region, and emigrants were landed upon the coast to
+join the insurgents. For three years a most cruel and bloody war was
+here waged between the Royalists and the Republicans.
+
+The intelligence of this formidable insurrection increased the panic
+of the Convention. A law was passed disarming all who had belonged to
+the privileged class, and declaring those to be outlaws who should be
+found in any hostile gathering against the Republic. The emigrants
+were forbidden to land in France under the penalty of death. Every
+house in the kingdom was to inscribe upon its door the names of all its
+inmates, and was to be open at all times to the visits of the Vigilance
+Committee.
+
+Dumouriez sullied his character by surrendering to the Austrians
+several fortresses, and agreeing with them that he would march upon
+Paris and restore a monarchical government to France. The Austrians
+trusted that he would place upon the throne the young son of Louis
+XVI., though it was doubtless his intention to place there the young
+Duke of Chartres (Louis Philippe), who would be the representative of
+popular ideas.
+
+The Jacobin Club sent a deputation of three of its members to the
+camp, to sound the views of Dumouriez. The general received them with
+courtesy, but said, with military frankness,
+
+"The Convention is an assembly of tyrants. While I have three inches of
+steel by my side that monster shall not exist. As for the Republic, it
+is an idle word. I had faith in it for three days. There is only one
+way to save the country; that is, to re-establish the Constitution of
+1791 and a king."
+
+"Can you think of it!" one of the deputation exclaimed; "the French
+view royalty with horror. The very name of Louis is an abomination."
+
+"What does it signify," replied Dumouriez, "whether the king be called
+Louis, or Jacques, or Philippe?"
+
+"And what are your means to effect this revolution?" they inquired.
+
+"My army," Dumouriez proudly replied. "From my camp or from the
+stronghold of some fortress they will express their resolve for a king."
+
+"But your plan will peril the lives of the rest of the royal family in
+the Temple."
+
+"If every member of that family in France or at Coblentz should
+perish," Dumouriez replied, "I can still find a chief. And if any
+farther barbarities are practiced upon the Bourbons in the Temple
+I will surround Paris with my army and starve the Parisians into
+subjection."
+
+The deputation returned to Paris with their report, and four
+commissioners were immediately dispatched, accompanied by the Minister
+of War, to summon Dumouriez to the bar of the Convention. Dumouriez
+promptly arrested the commissioners and sent them off to the Austrians,
+to be retained by them as hostages.
+
+[Illustration: DUMOURIEZ ARRESTING THE ENVOYS.]
+
+The Convention immediately offered a reward for the head of Dumouriez,
+raised an army of forty thousand men to defend Paris, and arrested all
+the relatives of the officers under Dumouriez as hostages.
+
+Dumouriez now found that he had not a moment to lose. Perils were
+accumulating thick around him. There were many indications that it
+might be difficult to carry the army over to his views. On the 4th of
+April, as he was repairing to a place of rendezvous with the Austrian
+leaders, the Prince of Coburg and General Mack, a battalion of
+soldiers, suspecting treachery, endeavored to stop him. He put spurs
+to his horse and distanced pursuit, while a storm of bullets whistled
+around his head. He succeeded, after innumerable perils, in the
+circuitous ride of a whole day, in reaching the head-quarters of the
+Austrians. They received him with great distinction, and offered him
+the command of a division of their army. After two days' reflection, he
+said that it was with the soldiers of France he had hoped to restore
+a stable government to his country, accepting the Austrians only as
+auxiliaries; but that as a Frenchman he could not march against France
+at the head of foreigners. He retired to Switzerland. The Duke of
+Chartres (Louis Philippe), in friendlessness and poverty, followed him,
+and for some time was obliged to obtain a support by teaching school.
+
+The Jacobins now accused their formidable rivals, the Girondists,
+of being implicated in the conspiracy of Dumouriez. Robespierre, in
+a speech of the most concentrated and potent malignity, urged that
+France had relieved herself of the aristocracy of birth, but that
+there was another aristocracy, that of wealth, equally to be dreaded,
+which must be crushed, and that the Girondists were the leaders
+of this aristocracy. This was most effectually pandering to the
+passions of the mob, and directing their fury against the Girondists.
+The Girondists were now in a state of terrible alarm. They knew the
+malignity of their foes, and could see but little hope for escape.
+They had overturned the throne of despotism, hoping to establish
+constitutional liberty: they had only introduced Jacobin phrensy and
+anarchy. Immense crowds of armed men paraded the streets of Paris,
+surrounded the Convention, and demanded vengeance against the leaders
+of the Gironde.[393]
+
+The moderate Republicans, enemies of these acts of violence, striving
+to stem the torrent, endeavored to carry an act of accusation against
+Marat. He was charged with having encouraged assassination and carnage,
+of dissolving the National Convention, and of having established a
+power destructive of liberty.
+
+Marat replied to the accusation by summoning the mob to his aid. They
+assembled in vast, tumultuous throngs, and the tribunal, overawed,
+after the trial of a few moments, unanimously acquitted him. This was
+the 24th of April. The mob accompanied him back to his seat in the
+Convention. He was borne in triumph into the hall in the arms of his
+confederates, his brow encircled by a wreath of victory.
+
+"Citizen President," shouted one of the burly men who bore Marat, "we
+bring you the worthy Marat. Marat has always been the friend of the
+people, and the people will always be the friends of Marat. If Marat's
+head must fall, our heads must fall first."
+
+As he uttered these words he brandished a battle-axe defiantly, and
+the mob in the aisles and crowded galleries vehemently applauded. He
+then demanded permission for the escort to file through the hall. The
+president, appalled by the hideous spectacle, had not time to give his
+consent before the whole throng, men, women, and boys, in rags and
+filth, rushed pell-mell into the hall, took the seats of the vacant
+members, and filled the room with indescribable tumult and uproar,
+shouting hosannas to Marat. The successful demagogue could not but
+boast of his triumph. Ascending the tribune, he said,
+
+"Citizens! indignant at seeing a villainous faction betraying the
+Republic, I endeavored to unmask it and to _put the rope about its
+neck_. It resisted me by launching against me a decree of accusation. I
+have come off victorious. The faction is humbled, but not crushed.
+Waste not your time in decreeing triumphs. Defend yourselves with
+enthusiasm."
+
+[Illustration: MARAT'S TRIUMPH.]
+
+Robespierre now demanded an act of accusation against the Girondists.
+Resistance was hopeless. The inundation of popular fury was at its
+flood, sweeping every thing before it. The most frightful scenes of
+tumult took place in the Convention, members endeavoring by violence to
+pull each other from the tribune.[394]
+
+The whole Convention was now in a state of dismay, eighty thousand
+infuriate men surrounding it with artillery and musketry, declaring
+that the Convention should not leave its hall until the Girondists
+were arrested. The Convention, in a body, attempted to leave and force
+its way through the crowd, but it was ignominiously driven back. Under
+these circumstances it was voted that the leaders of the Girondists,
+twenty-two in number, should be put under arrest. This was the 2d of
+June, 1793.[395]
+
+The Jacobins, having thus got rid of their enemies, and having the
+entire control, immediately decided to adopt a new Constitution, still
+more democratic in its character; and a committee was appointed to
+present one within a week. But the same division which existed in the
+Convention between the Jacobins and the Girondists existed all over
+France. In many of the departments fierce battles rose between the two
+parties.
+
+In the mean time the Allies were pressing France in all directions. The
+Austrians and Prussians were advancing upon the north; the Piedmontese
+threading the passes of the maritime Alps; the Spaniards were prepared
+to rush from the defiles of the Pyrenees, and the fleet of England
+threatened every where the coast of France on the Mediterranean and the
+Channel.[396]
+
+With amazing energy the Convention aroused itself to meet these perils.
+A new Constitution, exceedingly democratic, was framed and adopted.
+Every Frenchman twenty-one years of age was a voter. Fifty thousand
+souls were entitled to a deputy. There was but a single Assembly. Its
+decrees were immediately carried into execution.[397]
+
+Danton, Robespierre, and Marat were now the idols of the mob of Paris
+and the real sovereigns of France. All who ventured opposition to them
+were proscribed and imprisoned. Members of the Republican or Girondist
+party every where, all over France, were arrested, or, where they were
+sufficiently numerous to resist, civil war raged.
+
+At Caen there was a very beautiful girl, Charlotte Corday, twenty-five
+years of age, highly educated and accomplished. She was of spotless
+purity of character, and, with the enthusiasm of Madame Roland, she had
+espoused the cause of popular constitutional liberty. The principles
+of the Girondist party she had embraced, and the noble leaders of that
+party she regarded almost with adoration.
+
+When she heard of the overthrow of the Girondists and their
+imprisonment, she resolved to avenge them, and hoped that, by striking
+down the leader of the Jacobins, she might rouse the Girondists
+scattered over France to rally and rescue liberty and their country. It
+was a three days' ride in the diligence from Caen to Paris. Arriving at
+Paris on Thursday the 11th of July, she carefully inspected the state
+of affairs, that she might select her victim, but confided her design
+to no one.
+
+Marat appeared to her the most active, formidable, and insatiable in
+his proscription. She wrote him a note as follows:
+
+"Citizen: I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your country
+inclines me to suppose you will listen with pleasure to the secret
+events of that part of the Republic. I will present myself at your
+house. Have the goodness to give orders for my admission, and grant me
+a moment's private conversation. I can point out the means by which you
+can render an important service to France."
+
+She dispatched this note from her hotel, the Inn de la Providence in
+the Rue des Vieux Augustins, went to the Palais Royal and purchased a
+large sheath knife, and, taking a hackney-coach, drove to the residence
+of Marat, No. 44 Rue de l'Ecole de Médecine. It was Saturday night.
+Marat was taking a bath and reading by a light which stood upon a
+three-footed stool. He heard the rap of Charlotte, and called aloud to
+the woman who, as servant and mistress, attended him, and requested
+that she might be admitted.
+
+Marat was a man of the most restless activity. Eagerly he inquired
+respecting the proscribed at Caen and of others who were opposed to
+Jacobin rule. Charlotte, while replying coolly, measured with her eye
+the spot she should strike with the knife. As she mentioned some names,
+he eagerly seized a pencil and began to write them down, saying,
+
+"They shall all go to the guillotine."
+
+"To the guillotine?" exclaimed Charlotte, and, instantly drawing the
+knife from her bosom, plunged it to the handle directly in his heart.
+
+The miserable man uttered one frantic shriek of "Help!" and fell back
+dead into the water. The paramour of Marat and a serving-man rushed in,
+knocked Charlotte down with a chair, and trampled upon her. A crowd
+soon assembled. Without the slightest perturbation she avowed the
+deed. Her youth and beauty alone saved her from being torn in pieces.
+Soldiers soon arrived and conveyed her to prison.
+
+"The way to avenge Marat," exclaimed Robespierre from the tribune in
+tones which caused France to tremble, "is to strike down his enemies
+without mercy."
+
+The remains of the wretched man, whom all the world now execrates,
+were buried with the highest possible honors. His funeral at midnight,
+as all Paris seemed to follow him to his grave in a torch-light
+procession, was one of the most imposing scenes of the Revolution.
+
+On Wednesday morning Charlotte was led to the Revolutionary Tribunal
+in the Palace of Justice. She appeared there dignified, calm, and
+beautiful. The indictment was read, and they were beginning to
+introduce their witnesses, when Charlotte said,
+
+"These delays are needless. It is I that killed Marat."
+
+There was a moment's pause, and many deplored the doom of one so
+youthful and lovely. At last the president inquired, "By whose
+instigation?"
+
+"By that of no one," was the laconic reply.
+
+"What tempted you?" inquired the president.
+
+"His crimes," Charlotte answered; and then, continuing in tones of
+firmness and intensity which silenced and overawed all present, she
+said,
+
+"I killed one man, to save a hundred thousand; a villain, to save the
+innocent; a savage wild beast, to give repose to my country. I was a
+Republican before the Revolution. I never wanted energy."[398]
+
+[Illustration: CHARLOTTE CORDAY ARRESTED.]
+
+She listened to her doom of immediate death with a smile, and was
+conducted back to the prison, to be led from thence to the guillotine.
+A little after seven o'clock on this same evening a cart issued from
+the Conciergerie, bearing Charlotte, in the red robe of a murderess,
+to the guillotine. A vast throng crowded the streets, most of whom
+assailed her with howls and execrations. She looked upon them with a
+serene smile, as if she were riding on an excursion of pleasure. She
+was bound to the plank. The glittering axe glided through the grove,
+and the executioner, lifting her severed head, exhibited it to the
+people, and then brutally struck the cheek.
+
+Robespierre and Danton, the idols of the mob, now divided the supreme
+power between them. The organization of a revolutionary government was
+simply the machine by means of which they operated.
+
+On the 10th of August there was another magnificent festival in Paris
+to commemorate the adoption of the Jacobin Constitution. The celebrated
+painter David arranged the fête with great artistic skill, and again
+all Paris, though on the verge of ruin, was in a blaze of illumination
+and in a roar of triumph. The Austrian armies were now within fifteen
+days' march of Paris, and there was no organized force which could
+effectually arrest their progress. But the fear of the old Bourbon
+despotism rallied the masses to maintain, in preference, even the
+horrors of Jacobin ferocity. The aristocrats crushed the _people_; the
+Jacobins crushed the _aristocrats_. The populace naturally preferred
+the latter rule.
+
+And now France rose, as a nation never rose before. At the motion of
+Danton it was decreed on the 23rd of August,
+
+"From this moment until when the enemy shall be driven from the
+territory of the French Republic, _all the French_ shall be in
+permanent requisition for the service of the armies. The young men
+shall go forth to fight. The married men shall forge the arms and
+transport the supplies. The women shall make tents and clothes, and
+attend on the hospitals. The children shall make lint out of rags; the
+old men shall cause themselves to be carried to the public places, to
+excite the courage of the warriors, to preach hatred of kings and love
+of the Republic."
+
+[Illustration: MARCH OF VOLUNTEERS.]
+
+All unmarried men or widowers without children, between the ages of
+eighteen and twenty-five, were to assemble at appointed rendezvous and
+march immediately. This act raised an army of one million two hundred
+thousand men. The men between twenty-five and thirty were to hold
+themselves in readiness to follow. And those between thirty and sixty
+were to be prepared to obey orders whenever they should be summoned to
+the field. There is sublimity, at least, in such energy.
+
+All France was instantly converted into a camp, resounding with
+preparations for war. In La Vendée the friends of the Bourbons had
+rallied. The Convention decreed its utter destruction, the death of
+every man, conflagration of the dwellings, destruction of the crops,
+and the removal of the women and children to some other province, where
+they should be supported at the expense of the government. It was
+sternly resolved that no mercy whatever should be shown to Frenchmen
+who were co-operating with foreigners to rivet anew upon France the
+chains of Bourbon despotism. These decrees were executed with merciless
+fidelity. The illustrious Carnot, who, to use his own words, "had the
+ambition of the three hundred Spartans, going to defend Thermopylæ,"
+organized and disciplined fourteen armies, and selected for them able
+leaders.
+
+[Illustration: EXECUTION IN LA VENDÉE.]
+
+While matters were in this condition, the inhabitants of Marseilles,
+Lyons, and Toulon rose, overpowered the Jacobins, and, raising the
+banner of the Bourbons, invited the approach of the Allies. Toulon was
+the naval arsenal of France, a large French fleet crowded its port,
+and its warehouses were filled with naval stores. Lord Hood, with an
+English squadron, was cruising off the coast. The Royalists, Admiral
+Troyoff at their head, gave the signal to the English, and basely
+surrendered to them the forts, shipping, and stores. It was a fearful
+loss to the Revolutionists. Lord Hood, the British admiral, immediately
+entered with his fleet, took possession, and issued a proclamation in
+which he said,
+
+"Considering that the sections of Toulon have, by the commissioners
+whom they have sent to me, made a solemn declaration in favor of Louis
+XVII. and a monarchical government, and that they will use their
+utmost efforts to break the chains which fetter their country, and
+re-establish the Constitution as it was accepted by their defunct
+sovereign in 1789, I repeat by this present declaration that I take
+possession of Toulon, and shall keep it solely as a deposit for Louis
+XVII., and that only till peace is re-established in France."[399]
+
+An army of sixty thousand men was sent against rebellious Lyons.
+The city, after a prolonged siege and the endurance of innumerable
+woes, was captured. The Convention decreed that it should be utterly
+destroyed, and that over its ruins should be reared a monument with
+the inscription, "_Lyons made war upon Liberty: Lyons is no more!_"
+The cruelties inflicted upon the Royalists of this unhappy city are
+too painful to contemplate. The imagination can hardly exaggerate
+them. Fouché and Collot d'Herbois, the prominent agents in this bloody
+vengeance, were atheists. In contempt of Christianity, they ordered the
+Bible and the Cross to be borne through the streets on an ass; the ass
+was compelled to drink of the consecrated wine from the communion-cup.
+Six thousand of the citizens of Lyons perished in these sanguinary
+persecutions, and twelve thousand were driven into exile. The
+Revolutionary Tribunal was active night and day condemning to death.
+One morning a young girl rushed into the hall, exclaiming,
+
+"There remain to me, of all our family, only my brothers. Mother,
+father, sisters, uncles--you have butchered all. And now you are going
+to condemn my brothers. In mercy ordain that I may ascend the scaffold
+with them."
+
+Her prayer of anguish was refused, and the poor child threw herself
+into the Rhone.
+
+The Royalist insurrection in La Vendée, after a long and terrible
+conflict, was crushed out. No language can describe the horrors of
+vengeance which ensued. The tale of brutality is too awful to be told.
+Demons could not have been more infernal in mercilessness.
+
+"Death by fire and the sword," writes Lamartine, "made a noise,
+scattered blood, and left bodies to be buried and be counted. The
+silent waters of the Loire were dumb and would render no account. The
+bottom of the sea alone would know the number of the victims. Carrier
+caused mariners to be brought as pitiless as himself. He ordered them,
+without much mystery, to pierce plug-holes in a certain number of
+decked vessels, so as to sink them with their living cargoes in parts
+of the river.
+
+"These orders were first executed secretly and under the color of
+accidents of navigation. But soon these naval executions, of which the
+waves of the Loire bore witness even to its mouth, became a spectacle
+for Carrier and for his courtiers. He furnished a galley of pleasure,
+of which he made a present to his accomplice Lambertye, under pretext
+of watching the banks of the river. This vessel, adorned with all
+the delicacies of furniture, provided with all the wines and all the
+necessaries of feasting, became the most general theatre of these
+executions. Carrier embarked therein sometimes himself, with his
+executioners and his courtesans, to make trips upon the water. While he
+yielded himself up to the joys of love and wine on deck, his victims,
+inclosed in the hold, saw, at a given signal, the valves open, and the
+waves of the Loire swallow them up. A stifled groaning announced to the
+crew that hundreds of lives had just breathed their last under their
+feet. They continued their orgies upon this floating sepulchre.
+
+[Illustration: MASSACRES IN LYONS.]
+
+"Sometimes Carrier, Lambertye, and their accomplices rejoiced in the
+cruel pleasure of this spectacle of agony. They caused victims of
+either sex, in couples, to mount upon the deck. Stripped of their
+garments, they bound them face to face, one to the other--a priest
+with a nun, a young man with a young girl. They suspended them, thus
+naked and interlaced, by a cord passed under the shoulders through a
+block of the vessel. They sported with horrible sarcasms on this parody
+of marriage in death, and then flung the victims into the river. This
+cannibal sport was termed 'Republican Marriages.'"
+
+[Illustration: DROWNING VICTIMS IN THE LOIRE.]
+
+Robespierre, informed of these demoniac deeds, recalled Carrier, but
+he did not dare to bring an act of accusation against the wretch, lest
+he should peril his own head by being charged with sympathy with the
+Royalists. It is grateful to record that Carrier himself was eventually
+conducted, amid the execrations of the community, to the scaffold.[400]
+
+The prisons of Paris were now filled with victims. Municipal
+instructions, issued by Chaumette, catalogued as follows those who
+should be arrested as suspected persons: 1. Those who, by crafty
+addresses, check the energy of the people. 2. Those who mysteriously
+deplore the lot of the people, and propagate bad news with affected
+grief. 3. Those who, silent respecting the faults of the Royalists,
+declaim against the faults of the Patriots. 4. Those who pity those
+against whom the law is obliged to take measures. 5. Those who
+associate with aristocrats, priests, and moderates, and take an
+interest in their fate. 6. Those who have not taken an active part
+in the Revolution. 7. Those who have received the Constitution with
+indifference and have expressed fears respecting its duration. 8.
+Those who, though they have done nothing against liberty, have done
+nothing for it. 9. Those who do not attend the sections. 10. Those who
+speak contemptuously of the constituted authorities. 11. Those who
+have signed counter-revolutionary petitions. 12. The partisans of La
+Fayette, and those who marched to the charge in the Champ de Mars.
+
+There were but few persons in Paris who were not liable to be arrested,
+by the machinations of any enemy, upon some one of these charges. Many
+thousands were soon incarcerated. The prisons of the Maire, La Force,
+the Conciergerie, the Abbaye, St. Pelagie, and the Madelonettes were
+crowded to their utmost capacity. Then large private mansions, the
+College of Duplessis, and finally the spacious Palace of the Luxembourg
+were converted into prisons, and were filled to suffocation with the
+suspected. In these abodes, surrendered to filth and misery, with
+nothing but straw to lie upon, the most brilliant men and women of
+Paris were huddled together with the vilest outcasts. After a time,
+however, those who had property were permitted to surround themselves
+with such comforts as their means would command. From these various
+prisons those who were to be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal
+were taken to the Conciergerie, which adjoined the Palace of Justice,
+where the tribunal held its session. A trial was almost certain
+condemnation, and the guillotine knew no rest. Miserable France was now
+surrendered to the Reign of Terror. The mob had become the sovereign.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 389: Mignet, p. 192.]
+
+[Footnote 390: "The Convention, finding England already leagued with
+the coalition, and consequently all its promises of neutrality vain and
+illusive, on the 1st of February, 1793, declared war against the King
+of Great Britain and the Stadtholder of Holland, who had been entirely
+guided by the cabinet of St. James's since 1788."--_Mignet_, vol. i.,
+p. 195.]
+
+[Footnote 391: Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 395.]
+
+[Footnote 392: "It was in Spain, more particularly, that Pitt set
+intrigues at work to urge her to the greatest blunder she ever
+committed--that of joining England against France, her only maritime
+ally."--_Thiers_, vol. ii., p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 393: In reference to the terrific conflict between the
+privileged classes and the enslaved people, Prof. Smyth writes,
+"My conclusion is that neither the high party nor the low have the
+slightest right to felicitate themselves on their conduct during this
+memorable revolution. No historian, no commentator on these times can
+proceed a moment, but on the supposition that, while he is censuring
+the faults of the one, he is perfectly aware of the antagonistic faults
+of the other; that each party is to take its turn; and that the whole
+is a dreadful lesson of instruction both to the one and the other.
+_I have dwelt with more earnestness on the faults of the popular
+leaders, because their faults are more natural and more important;
+because the friends of freedom (hot and opinionated though they be) are
+still more within the reach of instruction than are men of arbitrary
+temperament, than courts and privileged orders, who are systematically
+otherwise._"--_Prof Smyth, Fr. Rev._, vol. iii., p. 245.
+
+The story of the French Revolution has too often been told in this
+spirit, veiling the atrocities of the oppressors and magnifying the
+inhumanity of the oppressed. While truth demands that all the violence
+of an enslaved people, in despair bursting their bonds, should be
+faithfully delineated, truth no less imperiously demands that the
+mercilessness of proud oppressors, crushing millions for ages, and
+goading a whole nation to the madness of despair, should be also
+impartially described.]
+
+[Footnote 394: In the Convention, each one who addressed the body
+ascended to a desk on the platform, called the tribune.]
+
+[Footnote 395: Thiers, vol. ii., p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 396: The Allies acted without union, and, under disguise of
+a holy war, concealed the most selfish views. The Austrians wanted
+Valenciennes; the King of Prussia, Mayence; the English, Dunkirk;
+the Piedmontese aspired to recover Chambéry and Nice; the Spaniards,
+the least interested of all, had nevertheless some thoughts of
+Roussillon.--_Thiers_, vol. ii., p. 217.]
+
+[Footnote 397: "As the Constitution thus made over the government
+to the multitude, as it placed the power in a disorganized body, it
+would have been at all times impracticable, but at a period of general
+warfare it was peculiarly so. Accordingly, it was no sooner made than
+suspended."--_Mignet._]
+
+[Footnote 398: Procès de Charlotte Corday (Hist. Parl., vol. xxviii.,
+p. 311, 338).]
+
+[Footnote 399: After the death of Louis XVI. the Royalists considered
+the young Dauphin, then imprisoned in the tower, as the legitimate
+king, with the title of Louis XVII.]
+
+[Footnote 400: Carrier was heard to say one day, while breakfasting in
+a restaurant, that France was too densely populated for a republic, and
+that it was necessary to kill off at least one third of the inhabitants
+before they could have a good government. It is estimated that fifteen
+thousand were massacred in La Vendée at his command.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+EXECUTION OF MARIE ANTOINETTE AND MADAME ELIZABETH.
+
+ Marie Antoinette in the Temple.--Conspiracies for the Rescue of the
+ Royal Family.--The young Dauphin torn from his Mother.--Phrensy of
+ the Queen.--She is removed to the Conciergerie.--Indignities and
+ Woes.--The Queen led to Trial.--Letter to her Sister.--The Execution
+ of the Queen.--Madame Elizabeth led to Trial and Execution.--Fate of
+ the Princess and the Dauphin.
+
+
+The populace now demanded the head of Marie Antoinette, whom they had
+long been taught implacably to hate.[401] We left her on the 21st of
+January in the Temple, overwhelmed with agony. Swoon succeeded swoon as
+she listened to the clamor in the streets which accompanied her husband
+to the guillotine. The rumbling of the cannon, on their return, and the
+shouts of _Vive la République_ beneath her windows announced that the
+tragedy was terminated. The Commune cruelly refused to allow her any
+details of the last hours of the king, and even Clery, his faithful
+servant, was imprisoned, so that he could not even place in her hands
+the lock of hair and the marriage ring which the king had intrusted to
+him.
+
+Many conspiracies were formed for the rescue of the royal family, which
+led to a constant increase of the rigors of their captivity. The queen
+refused to resume her walks in the garden as she could not endure to
+pass the door of the king's apartment. But, after long seclusion, for
+the sake of the health of her children she consented to walk with them
+each day, for a few moments, on the platform of the tower. The Commune
+immediately ordered the platform to be surrounded with high boards,
+so that the captives might not receive any tokens of recognition from
+their friends.
+
+For four months Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and the children
+had the consolation of condoling with each other in their misery.
+But on the night of the 4th of July the clatter of an armed band was
+heard ascending the tower, and some commissioners tumultuously entered
+her chamber. They read to her a decree announcing that her son, the
+dauphin, was to be taken from her and imprisoned by himself. The poor
+child, as he listened to the reading of this cruel edict, was frantic
+with terror. He threw himself into his mother's arms and shrieked out,
+
+"Oh! mother, mother, do not abandon me to those men. They will kill me
+as they did papa."
+
+The queen, in a delirium of agony, grasped her child and placing
+him upon the bed behind her, with eyes glaring like a tigress, bade
+defiance to the officers, declaring that they should tear her in pieces
+before they should take her boy. Even the officers were overcome by her
+heart-rending grief, and for two hours refrained from taking the child
+by violence. The exhausted mother at length fell in a swoon, and the
+child was taken, shrieking with terror, from the room. She never saw
+her son again.
+
+A few weeks of woe passed slowly away, when, early in August, she was
+awakened from her sleep just after midnight by a band of armed men who
+came to convey her to the prison of the Conciergerie, where she was to
+await her trial. The queen had already drained the cup of misery to the
+dregs, and nothing could add to her woe. She rose, in the stupor of
+despair, and began to dress herself in the presence of the officers.
+Her daughter and Madame Elizabeth threw themselves at the feet of the
+men, and implored them not to take the queen from them. They might as
+well have plead with the granite blocks of their prison.
+
+Pressing her daughter for a moment convulsively to her heart, she
+covered her with kisses, spoke a few words of impassioned tenderness
+to her sister, and then, as if fearing to cast a last look upon these
+objects of her affection, hurried from the room. In leaving she struck
+her forehead against the beam of the low door.
+
+"Did you hurt yourself?" inquired one of the men.
+
+"Oh no!" was her reply, "nothing now can farther harm me."
+
+A carriage was waiting for her at the door. Escorted by _gens d'armes_
+she was conducted, through the gloom of midnight, to the dungeon where
+she was to await her condemnation.
+
+[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE IN THE CONCIERGERIE.]
+
+The world-renowned prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of
+subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of the _Palais de Justice_.
+More gloomy tombs the imagination can hardly conceive. Down the
+dripping and slimy steps the queen was led, by the light of a tallow
+candle, until, through a labyrinth of corridors, she approached the
+iron door of her dungeon. The rusty hinges grated as the door was
+opened, and she was thrust in. Two soldiers accompanied her, with drawn
+swords, and who were commanded, in defiance of all the instincts of
+delicacy, not to allow her to be one moment absent from their sight.
+The one candle gave just light enough to reveal the horrors of her
+cell. The floor was covered with mud, and streams of water trickled
+down the stone walls. A miserable pallet, with a dirty covering of
+coarse and tattered cloth, a small pine table, and a chair constituted
+the only furniture. So deep was the fall from the saloons of Versailles.
+
+Here the queen remained for two months, her misery being slightly
+alleviated by the kind-heartedness of Madame Richard, the wife of the
+jailer, who did every thing the rigorous rules would admit to mitigate
+her woes. With her own hand she prepared food for the queen, obtained
+for her a few articles of furniture, and communicated to her daily
+such intelligence as she could obtain of her sister and her children.
+The friends of the queen were untiring in their endeavors, by some
+conspiracy, to effect her release. A gentleman obtained admittance
+to the queen's cell, and presented her with a rose, containing a
+note hidden among its petals. One of the _gens d'armes_ detected the
+attempt; and the jailer and his wife, for their suspected connivance,
+were both arrested and thrown into the dungeons.
+
+Other jailers were provided for the prison, M. and Madame Bault;
+but they also had humane hearts, and wept over the woes of Marie
+Antoinette. The queen's wardrobe consisted only of two robes, one
+white, one black, and three chemises. From the humidity of her cell
+these rapidly decayed, with her shoes and stockings, and fell into
+tatters. Madame Bault was permitted to assist the queen in mending
+these, but was not allowed to furnish any new apparel. Books and
+writing materials were also prohibited. With the point of her needle
+she kept a brief memorandum of events on the stucco of her walls, and
+also inscribed brief lines of poetry and sentences from Scripture.
+
+On the 14th of October the queen was conducted from her dungeon to
+the halls above for trial. Surrounded by a strong escort, she was led
+to the bench of the accused. Her accusation was that she abhorred the
+Revolution which had beheaded her husband and plunged her whole family
+into unutterable woe.
+
+The queen was dressed in the garb of extreme poverty. Grief had
+whitened her hair, and it was fast falling from her head. Her eyes were
+sunken, and her features wan and wasted with woe.
+
+"What is your name?" inquired one of the judges.
+
+"I am called Marie Antoinette of Lorraine, in Austria," answered the
+queen.
+
+"What is your condition?" was the next question.
+
+"I am widow of Louis, formerly King of the French," was the reply.
+
+"What is your age?"
+
+"Thirty-seven."
+
+The long act of accusation was then read. Among other charges was the
+atrocious one of attempting, by depravity and debauchery, to corrupt
+her own son, "with the intention of enervating the soul and body
+of that child, and of reigning, in his name, over the ruin of his
+understanding."
+
+The queen recoiled from this charge with a gesture of horror, and, when
+asked why she did not reply to the accusation, she said,
+
+"I have not answered it because there are accusations to which nature
+refuses to reply. I appeal to all mothers if such a crime be possible."
+
+The trial continued for two days. When all the accusations had been
+heard, the queen was asked if she had any thing to say. She replied,
+
+"I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my
+husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone
+remains. Take it; but do not make me suffer long."
+
+[Illustration: TRIAL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.]
+
+At four o'clock on the morning of the 16th she listened to her sentence
+condemning her to die. In the dignity of silence, and without the
+tremor of a muscle, she accepted her doom. As she was led from the
+court-room to her dungeon, to prepare for her execution, the brutal
+populace, with stampings and clappings, applauded the sentence. Being
+indulged with pen and paper in these last hours, she wrote as follows
+to her sister:
+
+ "October 16th, half past four in the morning.
+
+ "I write you, my sister, for the last time. I have been condemned,
+ not to an ignominious death--that only awaits criminals--but to go
+ and rejoin your brother. Innocent as he, I hope to show the same
+ firmness as he did in these last moments. I grieve bitterly at
+ leaving my poor children; you know that I existed but for them and
+ you--you who have, by your friendship, sacrificed all to be with us.
+ In what a position do I leave you. I have learned, by the pleadings
+ on my trial, that my daughter was separated from you. Alas! my poor
+ child. I dare not write to her. She could not receive my letter. I
+ know not even if this may reach you. Receive my blessing for both.
+
+ "I hope one day, when they are older, they may rejoin you and rejoice
+ in liberty at your tender care. May their friendship and mutual
+ confidence form their happiness. May my daughter feel that, at her
+ age, she ought always to aid her brother with that advice with which
+ the greater experience she possesses and her friendship should
+ inspire her. May my son, on his part, render to his sister every care
+ and service which affection can dictate. Let my son never forget the
+ last words of his father. I repeat them to him expressly. _Let him
+ never attempt to avenge our death._"
+
+Having finished the letter, which was long, she folded it and kissed
+it repeatedly, "as if she could thus transmit the warmth of her lips
+and the moisture of her tears to her children." She then threw herself
+upon the pallet and slept quietly for two or three hours. A few rays
+of morning light were now struggling in through the grated bars of
+the window. The daughter of Madame Bault came in to dress her for the
+guillotine. She put on her white robe. A white handkerchief covered her
+shoulders, and a white cap, bound around her temples by a black ribbon,
+covered her hair.
+
+It was a cold autumnal morning, and a chill fog filled the streets of
+Paris. At eleven o'clock the executioners led her from her cell. She
+cordially embraced the kind-hearted daughter of the concierge, and,
+having with her own hands cut off her hair, allowed herself to be
+bound, without a murmur, and issued from the steps of the Conciergerie.
+Instead of a carriage, the coarse car of the condemned awaited her
+at the gateway of the prison. For a moment she recoiled from this
+unanticipated humiliation, but immediately recovering herself she
+ascended the cart. There was no seat in the car, and, as her hands
+were bound behind her, she was unable to support herself from the
+jolting over the pavement. As she was jostled rudely to and fro, in
+the vain attempt to preserve her equilibrium, the multitudes thronging
+the streets shouted in derision. They had been taught to hate her, to
+regard her not only as the implacable foe of popular liberty, which she
+was, but as the most infamous of women, which she was not. "These,"
+they cried, "are not your cushions of Trianon."
+
+It was a long ride to the scaffold, during which the queen suffered
+all that insult, derision, and contumely can inflict. The procession
+crossed the Seine by the _Pont au Change_, and traversed the _Rue St.
+Honoré_. Upon reaching the Place of the Revolution the cart stopped
+for a moment near the entrance of the garden of the Tuileries. Marie
+Antoinette for a few moments contemplated in silence those scenes of
+former happiness and grandeur. A few more revolutions of the wheels
+placed her at the foot of the guillotine. She mounted to the scaffold,
+and inadvertently trod upon the foot of the executioner.
+
+"Pardon me," said the queen, with as much courtesy as if she had been
+in one of the saloons of Versailles. Kneeling, she uttered a brief
+prayer, and then, turning her eyes to the distant towers of the Temple,
+she said,
+
+"Adieu, once again, my children; I go to rejoin your father."
+
+She was bound to the plank, and as it sank to its place the gleaming
+axe slid through the groove, and the head of the queen fell into
+the basket. The executioner seized the gory trophy by the hair, and,
+walking around the scaffold, exhibited it to the crowd. One long cry of
+_Vive la République!_ arose, and the crowd dispersed.
+
+While these fearful scenes were passing, Madame Elizabeth and the
+princess remained in the tower of the Temple. Their jailers were
+commanded to give them no information whatever. The young dauphin was
+imprisoned by himself.
+
+Six months of gloom and anguish which no pen can describe passed away,
+when, on the night of the 9th of May, 1794, as Madame Elizabeth and the
+young princess, Maria Theresa, were retiring to bed, a band of armed
+men, with lanterns, broke into their room, and said to Madame Elizabeth,
+
+"You must immediately go with us."
+
+"And my niece?" anxiously inquired the meek and pious aunt, ever
+forgetful of self in her solicitude for others. "Can she go too?"
+
+"We want you only now. We will take care of her by-and-by," was the
+unfeeling answer.
+
+The saint-like Madame Elizabeth saw that the long-dreaded hour of
+separation had come, and that her tender niece was to be left,
+unprotected and alone, exposed to the brutality of her jailers. She
+pressed Maria Theresa to her bosom, and wept in uncontrollable grief.
+But still, endeavoring to comfort the heart-stricken child, she said,
+
+"I shall probably soon return again, my dear Maria."
+
+"No, you won't, citoyenne," rudely interrupted one of the officers.
+"You will never ascend these stairs again. So take your bonnet, and
+come down."
+
+The soldiers seized her, led her down the stairs, and thrust her into
+a carriage. It was midnight. Driving violently through the streets,
+they soon reached the gateway of the Conciergerie. The Revolutionary
+Tribunal was, even at that hour, in session. The princess was dragged
+immediately to their bar. With twenty-four others of all ages and both
+sexes, she was condemned to die. Her crime was that she was sister of
+the king, and in heart hostile to the Revolution. She was led to one
+of the dungeons to be dressed for the scaffold. In this hour Christian
+faith was triumphant. Trusting in God, all her sorrows vanished, and
+her soul was in perfect peace.
+
+With her twenty-two companions, all of noble birth, she was placed in
+the cart of the condemned, her hands bound behind her, and conducted to
+the guillotine. Madame Elizabeth was reserved to the last. One by one
+her companions were led up the scaffold before her, and she saw their
+heads drop into the basket. She then peacefully placed her head upon
+the pillow of death, and passed away, one of the purest and yet most
+suffering of earthly spirits, to the bosom of her God.
+
+The young dauphin lingered for eighteen months in his cell, suffering
+inconceivable cruelties from his jailer, a wretch by the name of Simon,
+until he died on the 9th of June, 1795, in the tenth year of his age.
+Maria Theresa now alone remained of the family of Louis XVI. She had
+now been in prison more than two years. At length, so much sympathy was
+excited in behalf of this suffering child, that the Assembly consented
+to exchange her with the Austrian government for four French officers.
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS XVII. IN PRISON.]
+
+On the 19th of December, 1795, she was led from the Temple, and, ample
+arrangements having been made for her journey, she was conducted, with
+every mark of respect and sympathy, to the frontiers. In the Austrian
+court, love and admiration encircled her. But this stricken child of
+grief had received wounds which time could never entirely heal. A full
+year passed before a smile could ever be won to visit her cheek. She
+subsequently married her cousin, the Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles
+X. With the return of the Bourbons she returned to her ancestral halls
+of the Tuileries and Versailles. But upon the second expulsion of the
+Bourbons she fled with them, and died, a few years ago, at an advanced
+age, universally respected. Such was the wreck of the royal family of
+France by the storm of revolution.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 401: Thomas Jefferson, during his residence in Paris, formed
+a very unfavorable opinion of Marie Antoinette. Speaking of the good
+intentions of Louis XVI., he says, "But he had a queen of absolute sway
+over his weak mind and timid virtue, and of a character the reverse of
+his in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies
+of Burke with some smartness of fancy but no sound sense, was proud,
+disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will,
+eager in pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires
+or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gamblings and dissipations,
+with those of the Count d'Artois and others of her clique, had been
+a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into
+action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it,
+her inflexible perverseness and dauntless spirit led herself to the
+guillotine, drew the king on with her, and plunged the world into
+crimes and calamities which will for ever stain the pages of modern
+history. I have ever believed that had there been no queen there would
+have been no revolution. The king would have gone hand in hand with the
+wisdom of his sounder counselors, who, guided by the increased lights
+of the age, wished only, with the same pace, to advance the principles
+of their social Constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course
+of these sovereigns I shall neither approve nor condemn."--_Life of
+Jefferson, by Randall_, vol i., p. 533.
+
+As Jefferson was intimate with La Fayette and other prominent popular
+leaders, it is evident that these views were those which were generally
+entertained of the queen at that time. It is deeply to be regretted
+that no subsequent developments can lead one to doubt that they were
+essentially correct. While we weep over the woes of the queen we must
+not forget that she was endeavoring with all her energy to rivet the
+chains of unlimited despotism upon twenty-five millions of people.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE JACOBINS TRIUMPHANT.
+
+ Views of the Girondists.--Anecdote of Vergniaud.--The
+ Girondists brought to Trial.--Suicide of Valazé.--Anguish
+ of Desmoulins.--Fonfrede and Ducos.--Last Supper of the
+ Girondists.--Their Execution.--The Duke of Orleans;
+ his Execution.--Activity of the Guillotine.--Humane
+ Legislation.--Testimony of Desodoards.--Anacharsis Cloots.--The New
+ Era.
+
+
+The Jacobins now resolved to free themselves from all internal foes,
+that they might more vigorously cope with all Europe in arms against
+them. Marie Antoinette was executed the 16th of October. On the
+22d, the Girondists, twenty-two in number, were brought before the
+Revolutionary Tribunal. They were the most illustrious men of the
+most noble party to which the Revolution had given birth. They had
+demolished a despotic throne that they might establish a constitutional
+monarchy upon the model of that of England.[402] With great generosity
+they had placed Louis XVI. on that throne, and he had feigned to accept
+the Constitution. But with hypocrisy which even his subsequent woes can
+not obliterate, he secretly rallied his nobles around him, or rather
+allowed them to use him as their leader, and appealed to the armies of
+foreign despotisms to overthrow the free Constitution and re-establish
+the old feudal tyranny.
+
+"The question thenceforth was, whether their sons should, as in
+times past (as in Mr. Burke's splendid Age of Chivalry), be sent to
+manure Europe with their bodies, in wars undertaken at the nod of
+a courtesan--whether their wives and daughters, cursed with beauty
+enough to excite a transient emotion of sensuality, should be lured and
+torn from them and debauched--whether every man who dared to utter a
+manly political thought or to assert his rights against rank should be
+imprisoned at pleasure without a hearing--whether the toiling masses,
+for the purpose of supporting lascivious splendor, of building _Parcs
+aux Cerfs_, of pensioning discarded mistresses, of swiftly enriching
+corrupt favorites and minions of every stamp, should be so taxed that
+the light and air of heaven hardly came to them untaxed, and that they
+should be so sunk by exactions of every kind in the dregs of indigence
+that a short crop compelled them to live on food that the hounds,
+if not the swine, of their task-masters would reject; and, finally,
+whether, when, in the bloody sweat of their agony, they asked some
+mitigation of their hard fate, they should be answered by the bayonets
+of foreign mercenaries; and a people--stout manhood, gentle womanhood,
+gray-haired age, and tender infancy, turned their pale faces upward
+and shrieked for food, fierce, licentious nobles should scornfully bid
+them eat grass."[403]
+
+In this terrible dilemma, the Girondists felt compelled to abandon the
+newly-established Constitutional monarchy, which had proved treacherous
+to its trust, and to fall back upon a republic, as their only asylum
+from destruction, and as the only possible refuge for French liberty.
+But the populace of France, ignorant and irreligious, were unfitted
+for a republic. Universal suffrage threw the power into the hands of
+millions of newly-emancipated slaves. Violence and blood commenced
+their reign. The Girondists in vain endeavored to stem the flood. They
+were overwhelmed. Such is their brief history.
+
+The Girondists had been for some time confined in the dungeons of the
+Conciergerie. They were in a state of extreme misery. Vergniaud, one
+of the most noble and eloquent of men, was their recognized leader.
+His brother-in-law, M. Alluaud, came to the prison to bring him some
+money. A child of M. Alluaud, ten years of age, accompanied his father.
+Seeing his uncle with sunken eyes and haggard cheeks and disordered
+hair, and with his garments falling in tatters around him, the child
+was terrified, and, bursting into tears, clung to his father's knees.
+
+"My child," said Vergniaud, taking him in his lap, "look well at me.
+When you are a man you can say that you saw Vergniaud, the founder of
+the Republic, at the most glorious period, and in the most splendid
+costume he ever wore--that in which he suffered the persecution of
+wretches, and in which he prepared to die for liberty."
+
+The child remembered these words, and repeated them fifty years after
+to Lamartine. At ten o'clock in the morning of the 26th of October
+the accused were brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Two files
+of _gens d'armes_ conducted them into the hall of audience and placed
+them on the prisoners' bench.[404] The _act of accusation_, drawn up by
+Robespierre and St. Just,[405] from an exceedingly envenomed pamphlet
+written by Camille Desmoulins, entitled _History of the Faction of the
+Gironde_, was long and bitter. The trial lasted several days.
+
+On the 30th of October, at eight o'clock in the evening, the debate was
+closed. At midnight they were summoned to the bar to hear the verdict
+of the jury. It declared them all guilty of treason, and condemned
+them to die in the morning. One of the condemned, Valazé, immediately
+plunged a concealed poniard into his heart, and fell dead upon the
+floor. Camille Desmoulins, on hearing the verdict, was overwhelmed with
+remorse, and cried out,
+
+"It is my pamphlet which has killed them. Wretch that I am, I can not
+bear the sight of my work. I feel their blood fall on the hand that
+has denounced them."
+
+There were two brothers, Fonfrede and Ducos, among the condemned,
+sitting side by side, both under twenty-eight years of age. Fonfrede
+threw his arms around the neck of Ducos, and bursting into tears said,
+
+"My dear brother, I cause your death; but we shall die together."
+
+Vergniaud sat in silence, with an expression of proud defiance and
+contempt. Lasource repeated the sententious saying of one of the
+ancients, "I die on the day when the people have lost their reason. You
+will die when they have recovered it." As they left the court to return
+to their cells, there to prepare for the guillotine, they spontaneously
+struck up together the hymn of the Marseillais:
+
+ "Allons, enfans de la patrie,
+ Le jour de gloire est arrivé;
+ Contre nous de la tyrannie
+ L'étendard sanglant est levé."[406]
+
+As they passed along the corridors of the prison, their sublime requiem
+echoed along the gloomy vaults, and awoke the sleepers in the deepest
+dungeons. They were all placed in one large room opening into several
+cells. The lifeless body of Valazé was deposited in one of the corners;
+for, by a decree of the Tribunal, his remains were to be taken in the
+cart of the condemned to be beheaded with the rest. A sumptuous banquet
+was sent in to them by their friends as their last repast. The table
+was richly spread, decorated with flowers, and supplied with all the
+delicacies which Paris could furnish. A Constitutional priest, the
+Abbé Lambert, a friend of the Girondists, had obtained admission to
+the prison, to administer to them the last supports of religion and to
+accompany them to the guillotine. To him we are indebted for the record
+of these last scenes.
+
+Vergniaud, thirty-five years of age, presided. He had but little to
+bind him to life, having neither father nor mother, wife nor child. In
+quietness and with subdued tones they partook of their repast. When
+the cloth was removed, and the flowers and the wine alone remained,
+the conversation became more animated. The young men attempted with
+songs and affected gayety to disarm death of its terror; but Vergniaud,
+rallying to his aid his marvelous eloquence, endeavored to recall them
+to more worthy thoughts.
+
+"My friends," said he, sorrowing more over the misfortunes of the
+Republic than over his own, "we have killed the tree by pruning it.
+It was too aged. The soil is too weak to nourish the roots of civic,
+liberty. This people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting
+itself. It will return to its kings as babes return to their toys. We
+were deceived as to the age in which we were born and in which we die
+for the freedom of the world."
+
+"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" asked Ducos. Each
+answered according to his skepticism or his faith. Vergniaud again
+spake. "Never," says the Abbé Lambert, "had his look, his gesture, his
+language, and his voice more profoundly affected his hearers." His
+discourse was of the immortality of the soul, to which all listened
+deeply moved, and many wept.
+
+[Illustration: THE GIRONDISTS ON THEIR WAY TO EXECUTION.]
+
+A few rays of morning light now began to struggle in at their dungeon
+windows. The executioners soon entered to cut off their hair and robe
+them for the scaffold. At ten o'clock they were marched in a column to
+the gate of the prison, where carts, surrounded by an immense crowd,
+awaited them. As they entered the carts they all commenced singing
+in chorus the Marseilles Hymn, and continued the impassioned strains
+until they reached the scaffold. One after another they ascended the
+scaffold. Sillery was the first who ascended. He was bound to the
+plank, but continued in a full, strong voice to join in the song, till
+the glittering axe glided down the groove and his head dropped into the
+basket. Each one followed his example. The song grew fainter as head
+after head fell, till at last one voice only remained. It was that of
+Vergniaud. As he was bound to the plank he commenced anew the strain,
+
+ "Allons, enfans de la patrie,
+ Le jour de gloire est arrivé."
+
+The axe fell, and the lips of Vergniaud were silent in death. In
+thirty-one minutes the executioner had beheaded them all. Their bodies
+were thrown into one cart, and were cast into a grave by the side of
+that of Louis XVI.[407]
+
+On the 6th of November the Duke of Orleans was taken from prison and
+led before the Tribunal. As there was no serious charge to be brought
+against him, he had not apprehended condemnation. But he was promptly
+doomed to die. As he was conducted back to his cell to prepare for
+immediate death, he exclaimed, in the utmost excitement of indignation,
+
+"The wretches! I have given them all--rank, fortune, ambition, honor,
+the future reputation of my house--and this is the recompense they
+reserve for me!"
+
+At three o'clock he was placed in the cart with three other condemned
+prisoners. The prince was elegantly attired and all eyes were riveted
+upon him. With an air of indifference he gazed upon the crowd, saying
+nothing which could reveal the character of his thoughts. On mounting
+the scaffold the executioner wished to draw off his boots.
+
+"No, no," said the duke, "you will do it more easily afterward."
+
+He looked intently for a moment at the keen-edged axe, and, without
+a word, submitted to his fate. Madame Roland and others of the most
+illustrious of the friends of freedom and of France soon followed
+to the scaffold. And now every day the guillotine was active as the
+efficient agent of government, extinguishing all opposition and
+silencing every murmur. The prisons were full, new arrests were every
+day made, and dismay paralyzed all hearts. Four thousand six hundred in
+the prisons of Paris alone were awaiting that trial which almost surely
+led to condemnation.
+
+The Jacobin leaders, trembling before Europe in arms, felt that there
+was no safety for France but in the annihilation of all internal foes.
+Danton, Marat, Robespierre, were not men who loved blood and cruelty;
+they were resolute fanatics who believed it to be well to cut off the
+heads of many thousand reputed aristocrats, that a nation of thirty
+millions might enjoy popular liberty. While the Revolutionary Tribunal
+was thus mercilessly plying the axe of the executioner, the National
+Convention, where these Jacobins reigned supreme, were enacting many
+laws which breathed the spirit of liberty and humanity. The taxes
+were equally distributed in proportion to property. Provision was made
+for the poor and infirm. All orphans were adopted by the Republic.
+Liberty of conscience was proclaimed. Slavery and the slave-trade were
+indignantly abolished. Measures were adopted for a general system of
+popular instruction, and decisive efforts were made to unite the rich
+and the poor in bonds of sympathy and alliance.[408]
+
+We can not give a better account of the state of Paris at this time
+than in the words of Desodoards, a calm philosophic writer, who had
+ardently espoused the cause of the Revolution, and who consequently
+will not be suspected of exaggeration.
+
+"What then," says he, "was this Revolutionary government? Every right,
+civil and political, was destroyed. Liberty of the press and of thought
+was at an end. The whole people were divided into two classes, the
+privileged and the proscribed. Property was wantonly violated, _lettres
+de cachet_ re-established, the asylum of dwellings exposed to the most
+tyrannical inquisition, and justice stripped of every appearance of
+humanity and honor. France was covered with prisons; all the excesses
+of anarchy and despotism struggling amid a confused multitude of
+committees; terror in every heart; the scaffold devouring a hundred
+every day, and threatening to devour a still greater number; in every
+house melancholy and mourning, and in every street the silence of the
+tomb.
+
+"War was waged against the tenderest emotions of nature. Was a tear
+shed over the tomb of father, wife, or friend, it was, according to
+these Jacobins, a robbery of the Republic. Not to rejoice when the
+Jacobins rejoiced was treason to freedom. All the mob of low officers
+of justice, some of whom could scarcely read, sported with the lives of
+men without the slightest shame or remorse. Often an act of accusation
+was served upon one person which was intended for another. The officer
+only _changed the name_ on perceiving his error, and often did _not_
+change it. Mistakes of the most inconceivable nature were made with
+impunity. The Duchess of Biron was judged by an act drawn up against
+her agent. A young man of _twenty_ was guillotined for having, as it
+was alleged, a _son_ bearing arms against France. A lad of sixteen,
+by the name of Mallet, was arrested under an indictment for a man of
+forty, named Bellay.
+
+"'What is your age?' inquired the president, looking at him with some
+surprise.
+
+"'Sixteen,' replied the youth.
+
+"'Well, you are quite forty in crime,' said the magistrate; 'take him
+to the guillotine.'
+
+"From every corner of France victims were brought in carts to the
+Conciergerie. This prison was emptied every day by the guillotine, and
+refilled from other prisons. These removals were made in the dark,
+lest public sympathy should be excited. Fifty or sixty poor creatures,
+strait bound, conducted by men of ferocious aspect, a drawn sabre
+in one hand and a lighted torch in the other, passed in this manner
+through the silence of night. The passenger who chanced to meet them
+had to smother his pity. A sigh would have united him to the funeral
+train.
+
+[Illustration: READING THE LIST OF THE VICTIMS IN THE PRISONS OF PARIS.]
+
+"The prisons were the abode of every species of suffering. The despair
+which reigned in these sepulchres was terrific: one finished his
+existence by poison; another dispatched himself by a nail; another
+dashed his head against the walls of his cell; some lost their
+reason. Those who had sufficient fortitude waited patiently for the
+executioner. Every house of arrest was required to furnish a certain
+number of victims. The turnkeys went with these mandates of accusation
+from chamber to chamber in the dead of night. The prisoners, starting
+from their sleep at the voice of their Cerberuses, supposed their end
+had arrived. Thus warrants of death for thirty threw hundreds into
+consternation.[409]
+
+"At first the sheriffs ranged fifteen at a time in their carts, then
+thirty, and about the time of the fall of Robespierre preparations had
+been made for the execution of one hundred and fifty at a time. An
+aqueduct had been contrived to carry off the blood. In these batches,
+as they were called, were often united people of the most opposite
+systems and habits. Sometimes whole generations were destroyed in a
+day. Malesherbes, at the age of eighty, perished with his sister, his
+daughter, his son-in-law, his grandson, and his granddaughter. Forty
+young women were brought to the guillotine for having danced at a ball
+given by the King of Prussia at Verdun. Twenty-two peasant women, whose
+husbands had been executed in La Vendée, were beheaded."
+
+Such was the thraldom from which, at last, the empire of Napoleon
+rescued France. Nothing less than the strength of his powerful arm
+could have wrought out the achievement.
+
+In the midst of such scenes it is not strange that all respect should
+have been renounced for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Jacobins of
+Paris crowded the Convention, demanding the abjuration of all forms of
+religion and all modes of worship. They governed the Convention with
+despotic sway. The Commune of Paris, invested with the local police of
+the city, passed laws prohibiting the clergy from exercising religious
+worship outside the churches. None but friends and relatives were to be
+allowed to follow the remains of the dead to the grave. All religious
+symbols were ordered to be effaced from the cemeteries, and to be
+replaced by a statue of Sleep. The following ravings of Anacharsis
+Cloots, a wealthy Prussian baron, who styled himself the orator of the
+human race, and who was one of the most conspicuous of the Jacobin
+agitators, forcibly exhibits the spirit of the times:[410]
+
+"Paris, the metropolis of the globe, is the proper post for the orator
+of the human race. I have not left Paris since 1789. It was then that I
+redoubled my zeal against the pretended sovereigns of earth and heaven.
+I boldly preached that there is no other god but Nature, no other
+sovereign but the human race--the people-god. The people is sufficient
+for itself. Nature kneels not before herself. Religion is the only
+obstacle to universal happiness. It is high time to destroy it."
+
+The popular current in Paris now set very strongly against all
+religion. Infidel and atheistic principles were loudly proclaimed. The
+unlettered populace, whose faith was but superstition, were easily
+swept along by the current. The Convention made a feeble resistance,
+but soon yielded to the general impulse. In the different sections of
+Paris, gatherings of the populace abjured all religion. The fanaticism
+spread like wild-fire to the distant departments. The churches were
+stripped of their baptismal plate and other treasures, and the plunder
+was sent to the Convention. Processions paraded the streets, singing,
+derisively, Hallelujahs, and profaning with sacrilegious caricature
+all the ceremonies of religion. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was
+administered to an ass.
+
+The Convention had appointed a committee of twelve men, called the
+Committee of Public Safety, and invested them with dictatorial power.
+The whole revolutionary power was now lodged in their hands. They
+appointed such sub-committees as they pleased, and governed France
+with terrific energy. The Revolutionary Tribunal was but one of their
+committees. In all the departments they established their agencies. The
+Convention itself became powerless before this appalling despotism.
+This dictatorship was energetically supported by the mob of Paris; and
+the city government of Paris was composed of the most violent Jacobins,
+who were in perfect fraternity with the Committee of Public Safety.
+St. Just, who proposed in the Convention the establishment of this
+dictatorship, said,
+
+"You must no longer show any lenity to the enemies of the new order of
+things. Liberty must triumph at any cost. In the present circumstances
+of the Republic the Constitution can not be established; it would
+guarantee impunity to attacks on our liberty, because it would be
+deficient in the violence necessary to restrain them."
+
+This Committee, overawing the Convention, constrained the establishment
+of a new era. To obliterate the Sabbath, they divided the year into
+twelve months of thirty days each, each month to consist of three weeks
+of ten days each. The tenth day was devoted to festivals. The five
+surplus days were placed at the end of the year, and were consecrated
+to games and rejoicing. Thus energetically were measures adopted to
+obliterate entirely all traces of the Sabbath. There were thousands in
+France who looked upon these measures with unutterable disgust, but
+they were overwhelmed by the powers of anarchy. Anxiously they waited
+for a deliverer. In Napoleon they found one, who was alike the foe of
+the despotism of the Bourbons and the despotism of the mob.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 402: La Fayette was an illustrious member of this party.
+Even Jefferson advised to make the English Constitution the model for
+France. He was present at the opening of the Assembly of Notables,
+and soon after wrote to La Fayette, "Keeping the good model of your
+neighboring country before your eyes, you may get on step by step
+toward a good Constitution. Though that model is not perfect, yet, as
+it would unite more suffrages than any new one which could be proposed,
+it is better to make that the object."--_Life of Thomas Jefferson, by
+Henry S. Randall_, vol. i., p. 406.]
+
+[Footnote 403: Henry S. Randall, Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 529.]
+
+[Footnote 404: "Never since the Knights Templar had a party appeared
+more numerous, more illustrious, or more eloquent. The renown of the
+accused, their long possession of power, their present danger, and
+that love of vengeance which arises in men's hearts at the spectacle
+of mighty reverses of fortune, had collected a crowd in the precincts
+of the Revolutionary Tribunal. A strong armed force surrounded the
+gates of the Conciergerie and the Palais de Justice. The cannon, the
+uniforms, the sentinels, the _gens d'armes_, the naked sabres, all
+announced one of those political crises in which a trial is a battle
+and justice an execution."--_Hist. Gir., Lamartine_, vol. ii., p. 169.]
+
+[Footnote 405: Such is the statement of Lamartine. Thiers, however,
+says that the act was drawn up by Amar, a barrister of Grenoble.]
+
+[Footnote 406:
+
+ "Come, children of your country, come,
+ The day of glory dawns on high,
+ And tyranny has wide unfurl'd
+ Her blood-stained banner in the sky."]
+
+[Footnote 407: Edmund Burke has most unpardonably calumniated these
+noble men. Even Prof. Smyth, who espouses his opinions, says, "Burke
+was a man who, from the ardor of his temperament and the vehemence of
+his eloquence, might be almost said to have ruined every cause and
+every party that he espoused. No mind, however great, that will not bow
+to the superiority of his genius; yet no mind, however inferior, that
+will not occasionally feel itself entitled to look down upon him, from
+the total want which he sometimes shows of all calmness and candor,
+and even, at particular moments, of all reasonableness and propriety
+of thought."--_Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol.
+iii., p. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 408: History of the Girondists, Lamartine, vol. iii., p. 291.]
+
+[Footnote 409: "There were in the prisons of Paris on the 1st of
+September, 1793, 597; October 1, 2400; November 1, 3203; December 1,
+4130; and in six months after, 11,400."--_Hist. Phil. de la Rev. de
+France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards._]
+
+[Footnote 410: Cloots declared himself "the personal enemy of Jesus
+Christ." France adopted the atheistic principles of Cloots, and sent
+him to the guillotine. See article Cloots, Enc. Am.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+FALL OF THE HEBERTISTS AND OF THE DANTONISTS.
+
+ Continued Persecution of the Girondists.--Robespierre opposes the
+ Atheists.--Danton, Souberbielle, and Camille Desmoulins.--The _Vieux
+ Cordelier_.--The Hebertists executed.--Danton assailed.--Interview
+ between Danton and Robespierre.--Danton warned of his
+ Peril.--Camille Desmoulins and others arrested.--Lucile, the Wife
+ of Desmoulins.--Letters.--Execution of the Dantonists.--Arrest and
+ Execution of Lucile.--Toulon recovered by Bonaparte.
+
+
+The leaders of the Girondists were now destroyed, and the remnants
+of the party were prosecuted with unsparing ferocity. On the 11th of
+November, Bailly, the former mayor, the friend of La Fayette, the
+philanthropist and the scholar, was dragged to the scaffold. The day
+was cold and rainy. His crime was having unfurled the red flag in the
+Field of Mars, to quell the riot there, on the 17th of July, 1791.
+He was condemned to be executed on the field which was the theatre
+of his alleged crime. Behind the cart which carried him they affixed
+the flag which he had spread. A crowd followed, heaping upon him the
+most cruel imprecations. On reaching the scaffold, some one cried out
+that the field of the federation ought not to be polluted with his
+blood. Immediately the mob rushed upon the guillotine, tore it down,
+and erected it again upon a dunghill on the banks of the Seine. They
+dragged Bailly from the tumbril, and compelled him to make the tour of
+the Field of Mars on foot. Bareheaded, with his hands bound behind him,
+and with no other garment than a shirt, the sleet glued his hair and
+froze upon his breast. They pelted him with mud, spat in his face, and
+whipped him with the flag, which they dipped in the gutters. The old
+man fell exhausted. They lifted him up again, and goaded him on. Blood,
+mingled with mire, streamed down his face, depriving him of human
+aspect. Shouts of derision greeted these horrors. The freezing wind and
+exhaustion caused an involuntary shivering. Some one cried out, "You
+tremble, Bailly." "Yes, my friend," replied the heroic old man, "but
+it is with cold."[411] After five hours of such a martyrdom, the axe
+released him from his sufferings.
+
+Pétion and Buzot wandered many days and nights in the forest. At
+length their remains were found, half devoured by wolves. Whether they
+perished of cold and starvation, or sought relief from their misery in
+voluntary death, is not known.
+
+The illustrious Condorcet, alike renowned for his philosophical genius
+and his eloquent advocacy of popular rights, had been declared an
+outlaw. For several months he had been concealed in the house of Madame
+Verney, a noble woman, who periled her own life that she might save
+that of her friend. At last Condorcet, learning from the papers that
+death was denounced against all who concealed a proscribed individual,
+resolved, at every hazard, to leave the roof of his benefactress. For
+some time he wandered through the fields in disguise, until he was
+arrested and thrown into prison. On the following morning, March 28,
+1794, he was found dead on the floor of his room, having swallowed
+poison, which for some time he carried about with him.
+
+"It would be difficult in that or any other age to find two men of
+more active or, indeed, enthusiastic benevolence than Condorcet and
+La Fayette. Besides this, Condorcet was one of the most profound
+thinkers of his time, and will be remembered as long as genius is
+honored among us. La Fayette was no doubt inferior to Condorcet in
+point of ability, but he was the intimate friend of Washington, on
+whose conduct he modeled his own, and by whose side he had fought for
+the liberties of America; his integrity was, and still is, unsullied,
+and his character had a chivalrous and noble turn which Burke, in his
+better days, would have been the first to admire. Both, however, were
+natives of that hated country whose liberties they vainly attempted
+to achieve. On this account Burke declared Condorcet to be guilty of
+'impious sophistry,' to be a 'fanatic atheist and furious democratic
+republican,' and to be capable of the 'lowest as well as the highest
+and most determined villainies.' As to La Fayette, when an attempt was
+made to mitigate the cruel treatment he was receiving from the Prussian
+government, Burke not only opposed the motion made for that purpose in
+the House of Commons, but took the opportunity of grossly insulting the
+unfortunate captive, who was then languishing in a dungeon. So dead had
+he become on this subject, even to the common instincts of our nature,
+that in his place in parliament he could find no better way of speaking
+of this injured and high-souled man than by calling him a ruffian. 'I
+would not,' says Burke, '_debase_[412] my humanity by supporting an
+application in behalf of so horrid a ruffian.'"[413]
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF CONDORCET.]
+
+Madame Roland was led to the guillotine, evincing heroism which the
+world has never seen surpassed. Her husband, in anguish, unable to
+survive her, and hunted by those thirsting for his blood, anticipated
+the guillotine by plunging a stiletto into his own heart.
+
+Danton and Robespierre were both opposed to such cruel executions, and
+especially to the establishment in France of that system of atheism
+which degraded man into merely the reptile of an hour. When Robespierre
+was informed of the atrocities which attended the execution of Bailly,
+in shame and grief he shut himself up in his room, saying, with
+prophetic foresight, to his host Duplay, "It is thus that they will
+martyrize ourselves."
+
+Hebert[414] and the atheists were now dominant in the Commune of Paris,
+and Danton and Robespierre organized a party to crush them. Hebert soon
+saw indications of this movement, and began to tremble. He complained
+in the Jacobin Club that Robespierre and Danton were plotting against
+him. Robespierre was present on the occasion, and, with his accustomed
+audacity, immediately ascended the tribune and hurled his anathemas
+upon the heads of these blood-crimsoned fanatics.
+
+"There are men," said he, "who, under the pretext of destroying
+superstition, would fain make a sort of religion of atheism itself.
+Every man has a right to think as he pleases; whoever would make a
+crime of this is a madman. But the legislator who should adopt the
+system of atheism would be a hundred times more insane. The National
+Convention abhors such a system. It is a political body, not a maker
+of creeds. _Atheism is aristocratic._ The idea of a great Being who
+watches over oppressed innocence and who punishes triumphant guilt is
+quite popular. The people, the unfortunate, applaud me. _If God did not
+exist, it would behoove man to invent him._"
+
+One of the last evenings in the month of January, Danton, Souberbielle,
+one of the members of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Camille
+Desmoulins came from the Palace of Justice together. It was a cold
+gloomy winter's night. It had been a day of blood. Fifteen heads had
+fallen upon the guillotine and twenty-seven were condemned to die
+on the morrow. These three men were all appalled by the progress of
+events, and for some time walked along in silence. On reaching Pont
+Neuf, Danton turned suddenly round to Souberbielle and said,
+
+"Do you know that, at the pace we are now going, there will speedily
+be no safety for any person? The best patriots are confounded with
+traitors. Generals who have shed their blood for the Republic perish on
+the scaffold. I am weary of living. Look there; the very river seems to
+flow with blood."
+
+"True," replied Souberbielle, "the sky is red, and there are many
+showers of blood behind those clouds. Those who were to be judges have
+become but executioners. When I refuse an innocent head to their knife
+I am accused of sympathy with traitors. What can I do? I am but an
+obscure patriot. Ah, if I were Danton!"
+
+"All this," replied Danton, "excites horror in me. But be silent.
+Danton sleeps; he will awake at the right moment. I am a man of
+revolution, but not a man of slaughter. But you," he added, addressing
+Camille Desmoulins, "why do you keep silence?"
+
+"I am weary of silence," was Desmoulins's reply. "My hand weighs
+heavily, and I have sometimes the impulse to sharpen my pen into a
+dagger and stab these scoundrels. Let them beware. My ink is more
+indelible than their blood. It stains for immortality."
+
+"Bravo!" cried Danton. "Begin to-morrow. You began the Revolution; be
+it you who shall now most thoroughly urge it. Be assured this hand
+shall aid you. You know whether or not it be strong."
+
+The three friends separated at Danton's door. The doom of the miserable
+Hebert and his party was now sealed. Robespierre, Danton, and Camille
+Desmoulins were against him. They could wield resistless influences.
+The next day Camille Desmoulins commenced a series of papers called
+the _Vieux Cordelier_. He took the first number to Danton and then to
+Robespierre. They both approved, and the warfare against Hebert and
+his party was commenced. The conflict was short and desperate; each
+party knew that the guillotine was the doom of the vanquished.[415]
+Robespierre and Danton were victors. Hebert, Cloots, and their friends,
+nineteen in number, were arrested and condemned to death. On the 24th
+of March, 1794, five carts laden with the Hebertists proceeded from the
+Conciergerie to the guillotine. Cloots died firmly. Hebert was in a
+paroxysm of terror, which excited the contempt and derision of the mob.
+
+The bold invectives against the Reign of Terror in the _Vieux
+Cordelier_, written by Desmoulins, began to alarm the Committee of
+Public Safety. Danton and Robespierre were implicated. They were
+accused of favoring moderate measures, and of being opposed to
+those acts of bloody rigor which were deemed necessary to crush the
+aristocrats. Danton and Desmoulins were in favor of a return to mercy.
+Robespierre, though opposed to cruelty and to needless carnage, was
+sternly for death as the doom of every one not warmly co-operating with
+the Revolution. To save himself from suspicion he became the accuser of
+his two friends. And now it came the turn of Danton and Desmoulins to
+tremble. For five years Danton and Robespierre had fought together to
+overthrow royalty and found the Republic. But Danton was disgusted with
+carnage, and had withdrawn from the Committee of Public Safety.
+
+"Danton, do you know," said Eglantine to him one day, "of what you are
+accused? They say that you have only launched the car of the Revolution
+to enrich yourself, while Robespierre has remained poor in the midst of
+the monarchical treasures thrown at his feet."
+
+"Well," replied Danton, "do you know what that proves? that I love
+gold, and that Robespierre loves blood. Robespierre is afraid of money
+lest it should stain his hands."
+
+Robespierre earnestly wished to associate Danton with him in all the
+rigor of the Revolutionary government, for he respected the power of
+this bold, indomitable man. They met at a dinner-party, through the
+agency of a mutual friend, when matters were brought to a crisis. They
+engaged in a dispute, Danton denouncing and reviling the acts of the
+Revolutionary Tribunal, and Robespierre defending them, until they
+separated in anger. The friends of Danton urged him either to escape by
+flight or to take advantage of his popularity and throw himself upon
+the army.
+
+"My life is not worth the trouble," said Danton. "Besides, I am weary
+of blood. I had rather be guillotined than be a guillotiner. They dare
+not attack me. I am stronger than they."
+
+A secret meeting of the Committee of Public Safety was convened by
+night, and Danton was accused of the "treason of clemency." A subaltern
+door-keeper heard the accusation, and ran to Danton's house to warn
+him of his peril and to offer him an asylum. The young and beautiful
+wife of Danton, with tears in her eyes, threw herself at his feet, and
+implored him, for her sake and for that of their children, to accept
+the proffered shelter. Danton proudly refused, saying,
+
+"They will deliberate long before they will dare to strike a man like
+me. While they deliberate I will surprise them."
+
+He dismissed the door-keeper and retired to bed. At six o'clock _gens
+d'armes_ entered his room with the order for his arrest.
+
+"They dare, then," said Danton, crushing the paper in his hand. "They
+are bolder than I had thought them to be."
+
+He dressed, embraced his wife convulsively, and was conducted to
+prison. At the same hour Camille Desmoulins and fourteen others, the
+supposed partisans of Danton, were also arrested. It was the 31st of
+March. Danton was taken to the Luxembourg. Here he found Desmoulins and
+his other friends already incarcerated. As Danton entered the gloomy
+portals of the prison he said,
+
+"At length I perceive that, in revolutions, the supreme power
+ultimately rests with the most abandoned."[416]
+
+A crowd of the _detained_ immediately gathered around him, amazed at
+that freak of fortune which had cast the most distinguished leader of
+the Jacobins into the dungeons of the accused. Danton was humiliated
+and annoyed by the gaze, and endeavored to veil his embarrassment under
+the guise of derision.
+
+"Yes," said he, raising his head and forcing loud laughter, "it is
+Danton. Look at him well. The trick is well played. We must know how
+to praise our enemies when they conduct adroitly. I would never have
+believed that Robespierre could have juggled me thus." Then softening,
+and growing more sincere, he said, "Gentlemen, I hoped to have been the
+means of delivering you all from this place; but here I am among you,
+and no one can tell where this will end."
+
+The accused Dantonists--accused of advocating moderate measures in
+the treatment of the enemies of the Revolution--were soon shut up in
+separate cells. The report of the arrest of men of such acknowledged
+power, and who had been so popular as patriots, spread anxiety and
+gloom through Paris. The warmest friends of the arrested dared not
+plead their cause; it would only have imperiled their own lives.
+
+Even in the Assembly great excitement was produced by these important
+arrests. The members gathered in groups and spoke to each other in
+whispers, inquiring what all this meant and where it was to end. At
+last, Légendre ventured to ascend the tribune, and said,
+
+"Citizens, four members of this Assembly have been arrested during
+the night. Danton is one. I know not the others. Citizens, I declare
+that I believe Danton to be as pure as myself; yet he is in a dungeon.
+They feared, no doubt, that his replies would overturn the accusations
+brought against him. I move, therefore, that, before you listen to any
+report, you send for the prisoners and hear them."
+
+Robespierre immediately ascended the tribune and replied,
+
+"By the unusual agitation which pervades this Assembly--by the
+sensation the words of the speaker you have just heard have produced,
+it is manifest that a question of great interest is before us--a
+question whether two or three individuals shall be preferred to the
+country. The question to-day is whether the interests of certain
+ambitious hypocrites shall prevail over the interests of the French
+nation. Légendre appears not to know the names of those who have been
+arrested. All the Convention knows them. His friend Lacroix is among
+the prisoners. Why does he pretend to be ignorant of it? Because he
+knows that he can not defend Lacroix without shame. He has spoken of
+Danton, doubtless because he thinks that a privilege is attached to
+this name. No! we will have no privilege. No! we will have no idols. We
+shall see to-day whether the Convention will break a false idol, long
+since decayed, or whether in its fall it will crush the Convention and
+the French people.
+
+"I say, whoever now trembles is guilty, for never does innocence dread
+public surveillance. Me, too, have they tried to alarm. It has been
+attempted to make me believe that the danger which threatens Danton
+might reach me. I have been written to. The friends of Danton have sent
+me their letters; have besieged me with their importunities. They have
+thought that the remembrance of a former acquaintance, that a past
+belief in false virtues, might determine me to relax in my zeal and my
+passion for liberty. Well, then, I declare that none of these motives
+have touched my soul with the slightest impression; my life is for my
+country, my heart is exempt from fear.
+
+"I have seen in the flattery which has been addressed to me, in the
+concern of those who surrounded Danton, only signs of the terror which
+they felt, even before they were threatened. And I, too, have been the
+friend of Pétion; as soon as he was unmasked I abandoned him. I have
+also been acquainted with Roland; he became a traitor and I denounced
+him. Danton would take their place, and in my eyes he is but an enemy
+to his country."
+
+Légendre, appalled, immediately retracted, and trembling for his
+life, like a whipped spaniel, crouched before the terrible dictator.
+At that moment St. Just came in, and read a long report against the
+members under arrest. The substance of the vague and rambling charges
+was that they had been bought up by the aristocrats and were enemies
+to their country. The Assembly listened without a murmur, and then
+unanimously, and even with applause, voted the impeachment of Danton
+and his friends. "Every one sought to gain time with tyranny, and gave
+up others' heads to save his own."[417]
+
+The Dantonists were men of mark, and they now drank deeply of that
+bitter chalice which they had presented to so many lips. Camille
+Desmoulins, young, brilliant, enthusiastic, was one of the most
+fascinating of men. His youthful and beautiful wife, Lucile, he loved
+to adoration. They had one infant child, Horace, their pride and joy.
+Camille was asleep in the arms of his wife when the noise of the butt
+end of a musket on the threshold of his door aroused him. As the
+soldiers presented the order for his arrest, he exclaimed, in anguish,
+"This, then, is the recompense of the first voice of the Revolution."
+
+Embracing his wife for the last time, and imprinting a kiss upon the
+cheek of his child asleep in the cradle, he was hurried to prison.
+Lucile, frantic with grief, ran through the streets of Paris to plead
+with Robespierre and others for her husband; but her lamentations were
+as unavailing as the moaning wind. In the following tender strain
+Camille wrote his wife:
+
+ "My prison recalls to my mind the garden where I spent eight years
+ in beholding you. A glimpse of the garden of the Luxembourg brings
+ back to me a crowd of remembrances of our loves. I am alone, but
+ never have I been in thought, imagination, feeling nearer to you,
+ your mother, and to my little Horace. I am going to pass all my time
+ in prison in writing to you. I cast myself at your knees; I stretch
+ out my arms to embrace you; I find you no more. Send me the glass on
+ which are our two names; a book, which I bought some days ago, on
+ the immortality of the soul. I have need of persuading myself that
+ there is a God more just than man, and that I can not fail to see you
+ again. Do not grieve too much over my thoughts, dearest; I do not yet
+ despair of men. Yes! my beloved, we will see ourselves again in the
+ garden of the Luxembourg. Adieu, Lucile! Adieu, Horace! I can not
+ embrace you; but in the tears which I shed it appears that I press
+ you again to my bosom.
+
+ Thy Camille."
+
+Lucile, frantic with grief, made the most desperate efforts to gain
+access to Robespierre, but she was sternly repulsed. She then thus
+imploringly wrote to him,
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Can you accuse us of treason, you who have profited so much by the
+ efforts we have made for our country? Camille has seen the birth of
+ your pride, the path you desired to tread, but he has recalled your
+ ancient friendship and shrunk from the idea of accusing a friend, a
+ companion of his labors. That hand which has pressed yours has too
+ soon abandoned the pen, since it could no longer trace your praise;
+ and you, you send him to death. But, Robespierre, will you really
+ accomplish the deadly projects which doubtless the vile souls which
+ surround you have inspired you with? Have you forgotten those bonds
+ which Camille never recalls without grief? you who prayed for our
+ union, who joined our hands in yours, who have smiled upon my son
+ whose infantile hands have so often caressed you? Can you, then,
+ reject my prayers, despise my tears, and trample justice under foot?
+ For you know it yourself, we do not merit the fate they are preparing
+ for us, and you can avert it. If it strike us, it is you who will
+ have ordered it. But what is, then, the crime of my Camille?
+
+ "I have not his pen to defend him. But the voice of good citizens,
+ and your heart, if it is sensible, will plead for me. Do you believe
+ that people will gain confidence in you by seeing you immolate your
+ best friends? Do you think that they will bless him who regards
+ neither the tears of the widow nor the death of the orphan? Poor
+ Camille! in the simplicity of his heart, how far was he from
+ suspecting the fate which awaits him to-day! He thought to labor
+ for your glory in pointing out to you what was still wanting to our
+ republic. He has, no doubt, been calumniated to you, Robespierre, for
+ you can not believe him guilty. Consider that he has never required
+ the death of any one--that he has never desired to injure by your
+ power, and that you were his oldest and his best friend. And you are
+ about to kill us both! For to strike him is to kill me--"
+
+The unfinished letter she intrusted to her mother, but it never
+reached the hands of Robespierre. The prisoners were soon taken to the
+Conciergerie and plunged into the same dungeon into which they had
+thrown the Girondists. The day of trial was appointed without delay. It
+was the 3d of April. As the prisoners, fourteen in number, were arrayed
+before the Tribunal, the president, Hermann, inquired of Danton, in
+formal phrase, his name, age, and residence.
+
+"My name," was the proud and defiant reply, "is Danton, well enough
+known in the Revolution. I am thirty-five years old. My residence will
+soon be void, and my name will exist in the Pantheon of history."
+
+To the same question Camille Desmoulins replied, "I am thirty-three, a
+fatal age to revolutionists,--the age of the _sans culotte_ Jesus when
+he died."
+
+The trial lasted three days. Danton, in his defense, struggled like a
+lion in the toils. An immense crowd filled the court and crowded the
+surrounding streets. The windows were open, and the thunders of his
+voice were frequently heard even to the other side of the Seine. The
+people in the streets, whom he doubtless meant to influence, caught up
+his words and transmitted them from one to another. Some indications
+of popular sympathy alarmed the Tribunal, and it was voted that the
+accused were wanting in respect to the court, and should no longer be
+heard in their defense. They were immediately condemned to die.
+
+They were reconducted to their dungeon to prepare for the guillotine.
+The fortitude of Camille Desmoulins was weakened by the strength of
+his domestic attachments. "Oh, my dear Lucile! Oh, my Horace! what
+will become of them!" he incessantly cried, while tears flooded his
+eyes. Seizing a pen, he hastily wrote a few last words to Lucile, which
+remain one of the most touching memorials of grief.
+
+[Illustration: DANTON'S DEFENSE.]
+
+"I have dreamed," he wrote, "of a republic which all the world would
+have adored. I could not have believed that men were so cruel and
+unjust. I do not dissimulate that I die a victim to my friendship for
+Danton. I thank my assassins for allowing me to die with Philippeaux.
+Pardon, my dear friend, my true life which I lost from the moment they
+separated us. I occupy myself with my memory. I ought much rather to
+cause you to forget it, my Lucile. I conjure you do not call to me by
+your cries. They would rend my heart in the depths of the tomb. Live
+for our child; talk to him of me; you may tell him what he can not
+understand, that I should have loved him much. Despite my execution, I
+believe there is a God. My blood will wash out my sins, the weakness of
+my humanity; and whatever I have possessed of good, my virtues and my
+love of liberty, God will recompense it. I shall see you again one day.
+
+"O my Lucile, sensitive as I was, the death which delivers me from the
+sight of so much crime, is it so great a misfortune? Adieu, my life, my
+soul, my divinity upon earth! Adieu, Lucile! my Lucile! my dear Lucile!
+Adieu, Horace! Annette! Adèle! Adieu, my father! I feel the shore of
+life fly before me. I still see Lucile! I see her, my best beloved! my
+Lucile! My bound hands embrace you, and my severed head rests still
+upon you its dying eyes."
+
+As Danton re-entered the gloomy corridor of the prison he said,
+"It was just a year ago that I was instrumental in instituting the
+Revolutionary Tribunal. I beg pardon of God and men. I intended it as a
+measure of humanity, to prevent the renewal of the September massacres,
+and that no man should suffer without trial. I did not mean that it
+should prove the scourge of humanity."
+
+Then, pressing his capacious brow between his hands, he said, "They
+think that they can do without me. They deceive themselves. I was the
+statesman of Europe. They do not suspect the void which this head
+leaves."
+
+"As to me," he continued, in cynical terms, "I have enjoyed my moments
+of existence well. I have made plenty of noise upon earth. I have
+tasted well of life. Let us go to sleep," and he made a gesture with
+head and arms as if about to repose his head upon a pillow.
+
+After a short pause he resumed, "We are sacrificed to the ambition of a
+few dastardly brigands. But they will not long enjoy the fruit of their
+villainy. I drag Robespierre after me. Robespierre follows me to the
+grave." At four o'clock the executioners entered the Conciergerie to
+bind their hands and cut off their hair.
+
+"It will be very amusing," said Danton, "to the fools who will gape
+at us in the streets, but we shall appear otherwise in the eyes of
+posterity."
+
+When the executioners laid hold of Camille Desmoulins, he struggled
+in the most desperate resistance. But he was speedily thrown upon
+the floor and bound, while the prison resounded with his shrieks and
+imprecations. The whole fourteen Dantonists were placed in one cart.
+Desmoulins seemed frantic with terror. He looked imploringly upon the
+crowd, and incessantly cried,
+
+"Save me, generous people! I am Camille Desmoulins. It was I who called
+you to arms on the 14th of July. It was I who gave you the national
+cockade."
+
+He so writhed and twisted in the convulsions of his agony that his
+clothes were nearly torn from his back. Danton stood in moody silence,
+occasionally endeavoring to appease the turbulence of Desmoulins.
+
+Herault de Séchelles first ascended the scaffold. As he alighted from
+the cart he endeavored to embrace Danton. The brutal executioner
+interposed.
+
+"Wretch," said Danton, "you will not, at least, prevent our heads from
+kissing presently in the basket."
+
+Desmoulins followed next. In his hand he held a lock of his wife's
+hair. For an instant he gazed upon the blade, streaming with the blood
+of his friend, and then said, turning to the populace,
+
+"Look at the end of the first apostle of liberty. The monsters who
+murder me will not survive me long."
+
+The axe fell, and his head dropped into the basket. Danton looked
+proudly, imperturbably on as, one after another, the heads of his
+thirteen companions fell. He was the last to ascend the scaffold. For a
+moment he was softened as he thought of his wife.
+
+"Oh my wife, my dear wife," said he, "shall I never see you again?"
+Then checking himself, he said, "But, Danton, no weakness." Turning to
+the executioner, he proudly remarked, "You will show my head to the
+people; it will be well worth the display."
+
+His head fell. The executioner, seizing it by the hair, walked around
+the platform, holding it up to the gaze of the populace. A shout
+of applause rose from the infatuated people. "Thus," says Mignet,
+"perished the last defenders of humanity and moderation, the last who
+sought to promote peace among the conquerors of the Revolution and
+pity for the conquered. For a long time after them no voice was raised
+against the dictatorship of terror, and from one end of France to the
+other it struck silent and redoubled blows. The Girondists had sought
+to prevent this violent reign, the Dantonists to stop it. All perished,
+and the conquerors had the more victims to strike, the more the foes
+arose around them."
+
+The Robespierrians, having thus struck down the leaders of the moderate
+party, pursued their victory, by crushing all of the advocates of
+moderation from whom they apprehended the slightest danger. Day after
+day the guillotine ran red with blood. Even the devoted wife of Camille
+Desmoulins, but twenty-three years of age, was not spared. It was her
+crime that she loved her husband, and that she might excite sympathy
+for his fate. Resplendent with grace and beauty, she was dragged before
+the Revolutionary Tribunal. Little Horace was left an orphan, to cry in
+his cradle. Lucile displayed heroism upon the scaffold unsurpassed by
+that of Charlotte Corday or Madame Roland. When condemned to death she
+said calmly to her judges,
+
+"I shall, then, in a few hours, again meet my husband. In departing
+from this world, in which nothing now remains to engage my affections,
+I am far less the object of pity than are you."
+
+Robespierre had been the intimate friend of Desmoulins and Lucile. He
+had often eat of their bread and drunk of their cup in social converse.
+He was a guest at their wedding. Madame Duplessis, the mother of
+Lucile, was one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of France.
+In vain she addressed herself to Robespierre and all his friends, in
+almost frantic endeavors to save her daughter.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.]
+
+"Robespierre," she wrote to him, "is it not enough to have assassinated
+your best friend; do you desire also the blood of his wife, of my
+daughter? Your master, Fouquier Tinville, has just ordered her to be
+led to the scaffold. Two hours more and she will not be in existence.
+Robespierre, if you are not a tiger in human shape, if the blood of
+Camille has not inebriated you to the point of losing your reason
+entirely, if you recall still our evenings of intimacy, if you recall
+to yourself the caresses you lavished upon the little Horace, and how
+you delighted to hold him upon your knees, and if you remember that
+you were to have been my son-in-law, spare an innocent victim! But, if
+thy fury is that of a lion, come and take us also, myself, Adèle [her
+other daughter], and Horace. Come and tear us away with thy hands still
+reeking in the blood of Camille. Come, come, and let one single tomb
+reunite us."
+
+To this appeal Robespierre returned no reply. Lucile was left to her
+fate. In the same car of the condemned with Madame Hebert she was
+conducted to the guillotine. She had dressed herself for the occasion
+with remarkable grace. A white gauze veil, partially covering her
+luxuriant hair, embellished her marvelous beauty. With alacrity and
+apparent cheerfulness she ascended the steps, placed her head upon the
+fatal plank, and a smile was upon her lips as the keen-edged knife,
+with the rapidity of the lightning's stroke, severed her head from her
+body.
+
+While these cruel scenes were transpiring in Paris, and similar scenes
+in all parts of France, the republican armies on the frontiers were
+struggling to repel the invading armies of allied Europe. It was the
+fear that internal enemies would rise and combine with the foreign foe
+which goaded the Revolutionists to such measures of desperation. They
+knew that the triumph of the Bourbons was their certain death. The
+English were now in possession of Toulon, the arsenal of the French
+navy, which had been treasonably surrendered to an English fleet by the
+friends of the Bourbons. A republican army had for some months been
+besieging the city, but had made no progress toward the expulsion of
+the invaders.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young man about twenty-five years of age and
+a lieutenant in the army, was sent to aid the besiegers. His genius
+soon placed him in command of the artillery. With almost superhuman
+energy, and skill never before surpassed, he pressed the siege, and,
+in one of the most terrific midnight attacks which ever has been
+witnessed, drove the British from the soil of France. This is the first
+time that Napoleon appears as an actor in the drama of the Revolution.
+The achievement gave him great renown in the army. On this occasion
+the humanity of Napoleon was as conspicuous as his energy. He abhorred
+alike the tyrannic sway of the Bourbons and the sanguinary rule of the
+Jacobins. One of the deputies of the Convention wrote to Carnot, then
+Minister of War, "I send you a young man who distinguished himself
+very much during the siege, and earnestly recommend you to advance him
+speedily. If you do not, he will most assuredly advance himself."
+
+At St. Helena Napoleon said, "I was a very warm and sincere Republican
+at the commencement of the Revolution. I cooled by degrees, in
+proportion as I acquired more just and solid ideas. My patriotism sank
+under the political absurdities and monstrous domestic excesses of our
+legislatures."[418]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 411: "Few victims ever met with viler executioners; few
+executioners with so exulted a victim. Shame at the foot of the
+scaffold, glory above, and pity every where. One blushes to be a man in
+contemplating this people. One glories in this title in contemplating
+Bailly."--_Lamartine, Hist. Gir._, vol. iii., p. 282.]
+
+[Footnote 412: In Parl. Hist., "I would not _debauch_ my humanity."]
+
+[Footnote 413: History of Civilization in England, by Henry Thomas
+Buckle, vol. i., p. 338.]
+
+[Footnote 414: Hebert was a low fellow, impudent, ignorant, and
+corrupt, and connected with one of the theatres in Paris. He was an
+ardent Jacobin, and established a paper called "Father Duchesne,"
+which, from its ribaldry, was eagerly sought for by the populace. He
+was one of the leaders of the prison massacres on the 10th of August.
+His paper was the zealous advocate of atheism. He it was who brought
+the disgusting charge against the queen that she had endeavored to
+pollute her own son, and had committed incest with him, a child of
+eight years. Robespierre even was indignant at the foul accusation, and
+exclaimed, "Madman! was it not enough for him to have asserted that she
+was a Messalina, without also making an Agrippina of her?"--_Biographie
+Moderne._]
+
+[Footnote 415: In this celebrated pamphlet, the "Old Cordelier,"
+Desmoulins thus powerfully describes France, while pretending to
+describe Rome under the emperors: "Every thing, under that terrible
+government, was made the groundwork of suspicion. Does a citizen
+avoid society and live retired by his fireside? That is to ruminate
+in private on sinister designs. Is he rich? That renders the danger
+greater that he will corrupt the citizens by his largesses. Is he poor?
+None so dangerous as those who have nothing to lose. Is he thoughtful
+and melancholy? He is revolving what he calls the calamities of his
+country. Is he gay and dissipated? He is concealing, like Cæsar,
+ambition under the mask of pleasure. The natural death of a celebrated
+man has become so rare that historians transmit it, as a matter worthy
+of record, to future ages. The tribunals, once the protectors of life
+and property, have become the mere organs of butchery."
+
+Speaking of Hebert, he said, "Hebert, the head of this turbulent
+and atrocious faction, is a miserable intriguer, a caterer for the
+guillotine, a traitor paid by Pitt, a thief expelled for theft from his
+office of check-taker at a theatre."--_Le Vieux Cordelier._]
+
+[Footnote 416: Rioufle, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 417: Mignet, p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 418: Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 125.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.
+
+ Inexplicable Character of Robespierre.--Cécile Regnault.--Fête
+ in honor of the Supreme Being.--Increase of Victims.--The
+ Triumvirate.--Suspicions of Robespierre.--Struggle between
+ Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.--Conspiracy against
+ Robespierre.--Session of the 27th of July.--Robespierre and his
+ Friends arrested.--Efforts to save Robespierre.--Peril of the
+ Convention.--Execution of Robespierre and his Confederates.
+
+
+Robespierre, who was now apparently at the height of his power,
+is one of the most inexplicable of men. His moral character was
+irreproachable; no bribes could corrupt him; he sincerely endeavored
+to establish a republic founded upon the basis of popular liberty
+and virtue; and self-aggrandizement seems never to have entered into
+his aims. He was not a blood-thirsty man; but was ready, with frigid
+mercilessness, to crush any party which stood in the way of his plans.
+His soul appears to have been almost as insensible to any generous
+emotion as was the blade of the guillotine.[419] He seems to have
+mourned the apparent necessity of beheading Danton. Repeatedly he was
+heard to say, perhaps hypocritically,
+
+"Oh, if Danton were but honest! If he were but a true Republican! What
+would I not give for the lantern of Diogenes to read the heart of
+Danton, and learn if he be the friend or the enemy of the Republic?"
+
+Robespierre would gladly have received the aid of Danton's powerful
+arm, but, finding his old friend hostile to his measures, he pitilessly
+sent him to the guillotine. And yet there is evidence that he at times
+was very weary of that work of death which he deemed it necessary to
+prosecute.[420]
+
+"Death," said he, "always death; and the scoundrels throw all the
+responsibility upon me. What a memory shall I leave behind me if this
+lasts! Life is a burden to me."
+
+On the 7th of May, 1794, Robespierre made a very eloquent speech in
+the Convention advocating the doctrines of a Supreme Being and the
+immortality of the soul. He presented the following decrees, which were
+adopted by acclamation:
+
+"_Art. 1._ The French people recognize the existence of the Supreme
+Being and the immortality of the soul.
+
+"_Art. 2._ They acknowledge that the worship worthy of the Supreme
+Being is one of the duties of man."
+
+There were some unavailing attempts now made to assassinate
+Robespierre; one, very singular in its character, by a beautiful
+girl, Cécile Regnault, but seventeen years of age. She called at
+Robespierre's house and asked to see him. Her appearance attracted
+suspicion, and she was arrested. In her basket a change of clothes was
+found and two knives. She was led before the Tribunal.
+
+[Illustration: CÉCILE REGNAULT ARRESTED.]
+
+"What was the object of your visit to Robespierre?" the president
+inquired.
+
+"I wished," she replied, "to see what a tyrant was like."
+
+"Why did you provide yourself with the change of clothes?"
+
+"Because," she calmly replied, "I expected to be sent to prison and
+then to the guillotine."
+
+"Did you intend to stab Robespierre?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I never wished to hurt any one in my life."
+
+"Why are you a Royalist?" the president continued.
+
+"Because," she replied, "I prefer one king to sixty tyrants."
+
+She was sent to the guillotine with all her family relations. The
+conduct of this girl is quite inexplicable, and it is doubted
+whether she seriously contemplated any crime. When she called to see
+Robespierre _she left her knife in her room in a basket_! Eight carts
+were filled with victims to avenge this crime.[421]
+
+Robespierre was now so popular with the multitude that all Paris
+rallied around him with congratulations.
+
+The 8th of May was appointed as a festival in honor of the Supreme
+Being. Robespierre, the originator of the movement, was chosen
+President of the Convention, that he might take the most conspicuous
+part on the occasion. The morning dawned with unusual splendor. For
+that one day the guillotine was ordered to rest. An amphitheatre was
+erected in the centre of the garden of the Tuileries, and the spacious
+grounds were crowded with a rejoicing concourse. The celebrated painter
+David had arranged the fête with the highest embellishments of art.
+At twelve o'clock Robespierre ascended a pavilion and delivered a
+discourse.
+
+"Republican Frenchmen," said he, "the ever fortunate day which the
+French people dedicated to the Supreme Being has at length arrived.
+Never did the world which he created exhibit a spectacle so worthy of
+his attention. He has beheld tyranny, crime, and imposture reigning on
+earth. He beholds at this moment a whole nation, assailed by all the
+oppressors of mankind, suspending the course of its heroic labors to
+lift its thoughts and its prayers toward the Supreme Being who gave it
+the mission to undertake and the courage to execute them."
+
+Having finished his brief address, he descended and set fire to
+a colossal group of figures representing Atheism, Discord, and
+Selfishness, which the idea of a God was to reduce to ashes. As they
+were consumed, there appeared in their place, emerging from the
+flames, the statue of Wisdom. After music, songs, and sundry symbolic
+ceremonies, an immense procession was formed, headed by Robespierre,
+which proceeded from the Tuileries to the Champ de Mars. Here, after
+the performance of pageants as imposing as Parisian genius could
+invent and Parisian opulence execute, the procession returned to the
+Tuileries, where the festival was concluded with public diversions.[422]
+
+The pre-eminence which Robespierre assumed on this occasion excited
+great displeasure, and many murmurs reached his ears. Robespierre, the
+next day, entered complaints against those who had murmured, accused
+them of being Dantonists and enemies of the Revolution, and wished to
+send them to the guillotine. Each member of the Convention began to
+feel that his head was entirely at the disposal of Robespierre, and
+gradually became emboldened to opposition.
+
+The legal process by which victims were arrested and sent to the
+guillotine had now become simple and energetic in the extreme. Any
+man complained to the Committee of Public Safety of whom he would,
+as _suspected_ of being unfriendly to the Revolution. The committee
+immediately ordered the arrest of the accused. The eighteen prisons of
+Paris were thus choked with victims. Each evening Fouquier Tinville,
+the public accuser, received from the Committee of Public Safety a
+list of those whom he was to take the next day to the Revolutionary
+Tribunal. If the committee, for any reason, had not prepared a list,
+Fouquier Tinville was allowed to select whom he pleased. To be
+_suspected_ was almost certain death. From the commencement of this
+year (1794) the executions had increased with frightful rapidity.
+In January eighty-three were executed; in February, seventy-five;
+in March, one hundred and twenty-three; in April, two hundred and
+sixty-three; in May, three hundred and twenty-four; in June, six
+hundred and seventy-two; in July, eight hundred and thirty-five.[423]
+
+Carts were continually passing from the gates of the Conciergerie
+loaded with prisoners, who were promptly condemned and sent immediately
+to the scaffold. Malesherbes, the intrepid and venerable defender of
+Louis XVI., living in retirement in the country, was dragged, with all
+his family, to the scaffold. If a man were rich, he was suspected of
+aristocracy and was sent to the guillotine. If he were learned, his
+celebrity exposed him to suspicion, and his doom was death. If he were
+virtuous, he was accused of sympathy for the victims of the guillotine,
+and was condemned to the scaffold. There was no longer safety but
+in vice and degradation. The little girls who had been led by their
+fathers to attend a ball given by the King of Prussia at Verdun were
+all arrested, brought to Paris, and condemned and executed. "The
+eldest," says Lamartine, "was eighteen. They were all clothed in white
+robes. The cart which carried them resembled a basket of lilies whose
+heads waved to the motion of the arm. The affected executioners wept
+with them." Josephine Beauharnais, afterward the bride of Napoleon, was
+at this time in one of the dungeons of Paris, sleeping upon a wretched
+pallet of straw, and expecting daily to be led to execution.
+
+Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon were the three leading men in the
+Committee of Public Safety, and were hence called the Triumvirate. All
+began now to be weary of blood, and yet no one knew how to stem the
+torrent or when the carnage would cease. The Reign of Terror had become
+almost as intolerable as the tyranny of the old kings, but not fully
+so; the Reign of Terror crushed thousands who could make their woes
+heard; despotism crushed _millions_ who were dumb. There was no hope
+for France but in some energetic arm which, assuming the dictatorship,
+should rescue liberty from the encroachments of kings and from being
+degraded by the mob. Robespierre was now the most prominent man in
+France and the most popular with the multitude. His friends urged him
+to assume the dictatorship.
+
+Jealousy of Robespierre's ambition now began to arise, and his
+enemies rapidly increased. Whispers that he had become a traitor
+to the Republic and was seeking kingly power began to circulate.
+Popular applause is proverbially fickle. Robespierre soon found that
+he could not carry his measures in the Committee of Public Safety,
+and, disgusted and humiliated, he absented himself from the sittings.
+He attempted to check the effusion of blood, but was overruled by
+those even more pitiless than himself. He now determined to crush
+the committee. Political defeat was death. He must either send the
+committee to the scaffold or bow his own head beneath the knife. It was
+a death-struggle short and decisive. Pretended lists were circulated of
+the heads Robespierre demanded. Many in the Convention were appalled.
+Secret nightly councils were held to array a force against him. The mob
+of Paris he could command. Henriot, the chief of the military force,
+was entirely subservient to his will. He reigned supreme and without
+a rival in the Jacobin Club. His power was apparently resistless. But
+despair nerved his foes.
+
+Three very able men, accustomed to command--Tallien, Barras, and
+Fréron--headed the conspiracy against Robespierre. The party thus
+organized was called the _Thermidorien_, because it was in the month
+of Thermidor (July) that they achieved their signal victory, and,
+trampling upon the corpse of Robespierre and of his adherents, ascended
+to power. But nearly all these men, of all these parties, seem to have
+had no sense whatever of responsibility to God, or of Christianity
+as the rule of life. They had one and all rejected the Gospel of our
+Savior, and had accepted human philosophy alone as their guide. They
+were men, many of them, great in ability, illustrious in many virtues,
+sincerely loving their country, and too proud to allow themselves to be
+degraded by bribes or plunder. As the general on the battle-field will
+order movements which will cut down thousands of men, thus did these
+Revolutionists, without any scruples of conscience, send hundreds daily
+to the guillotine, not from love of blood, but because they believed
+that the public welfare demanded the sacrifice. And yet there was a
+cowardly spirit impelling these massacres. No one dared speak a word in
+behalf of mercy, lest he should be deemed in sympathy with aristocrats.
+He alone was safe from suspicion who was merciless in denunciation of
+the suspected. It is, however, remarkable that nearly all the actors
+in these scenes of blood, even in the hour of death, protested their
+conscientiousness and their integrity.
+
+Robespierre was now involved in inextricable toils. He was weary of
+blood. The nation was becoming disgusted with such carnage.[424] He
+was universally recognized as the leading mind in the government, and
+every act was deemed his act. His enemies in the Committee of Public
+Safety plied the guillotine with new vigor, knowing that the public
+responsibility would rest on Robespierre. Robespierre was strongly
+opposed to that reckless massacre, and yet dared not interfere to save
+the condemned. His own dearest friends were arrested and dragged to the
+guillotine, and yet Robespierre was compelled to be silent. Earnestly
+he was entreated to assume the dictatorship, and rescue France from
+its measureless woe. Apparently he could have done it with ease. He
+refused; persistently and reiteratedly refused. What were his motives
+none now can tell. Some say cowardice prevented him; others affirm that
+true devotion to the Republic forbade him. The fact alone remains; he
+refused the dictatorship, saying again and again, "No! no Cromwell; not
+even I myself."
+
+Robespierre retired for some weeks from the Committee of Public Safety,
+while blood was flowing in torrents, and prepared a very elaborate
+discourse, to be delivered in the Convention, defending himself and
+assailing his foes.
+
+On the morning of the 26th of July Robespierre appeared in the
+Convention, prepared to speak. His Jacobin friends, forewarned, crowded
+around him, and his partisans thronged the galleries. His foes were
+appalled, and trembled; but they rallied all their friends. It was
+a decisive hour, and life or death was suspended on its issues. The
+speech, which he read from a carefully-prepared manuscript, was long
+and exceedingly eloquent. His foes felt that they were crushed, and a
+silence as of death for a moment followed its delivery. The printing of
+the speech was then voted, apparently by acclamation, and the order for
+its transmission to all the Communes of the Republic.
+
+The foes of Robespierre were now emboldened by despair. Their fate
+seemed sealed, and consequently there was nothing to be lost by any
+violent struggle in self-defense. Cambon ventured an attack, boldly
+declaring, "One single man paralyzes the National Convention, and that
+man is Robespierre." Others followed with more and more vigorous blows.
+Robespierre was amazed at the audacity. The charm of his invincibility
+was gone. It soon appeared that there was a strong party opposed
+to Robespierre, and by a large majority it was voted to revoke the
+resolution to print the speech.
+
+Robespierre, mute with alarm, left the Convention, and hastened to his
+friends in the Club of Jacobins. He read to them the speech which the
+Convention had repudiated. They received it with thunders of applause
+and with vows of vengeance. Robespierre, fainting with exhaustion,
+said, in conclusion,
+
+"Brothers, you have heard my last will and testament. I have seen
+to-day that the league of villains is so strong that I can not hope to
+escape them. I yield without a murmur! I leave to you my memory; it
+will be dear to you, and you will defend it."
+
+Many were affected even to tears, and, crowding around him, conjured
+him to rally his friends in an insurrection. Henriot declared his
+readiness to march his troops against the Convention. Robespierre,
+knowing that death was the inevitable doom of the defeated party,
+consented, saying,
+
+"Well, then, let us separate the wicked from the weak. Free the
+Convention from those who oppress it. Advance, and save the country. If
+in these generous efforts we fail, then, my friends, you shall see me
+drink hemlock calmly."
+
+David, grasping his hand, enthusiastically exclaimed, "Robespierre,
+if you drink hemlock, I will drink it with you." "Yes," interrupted a
+multitude of voices, "all! we all will perish with you. To die with
+you is to die with the people."
+
+One or two of Robespierre's opponents had followed him from the
+Convention to the Hall of the Jacobins. Couthon pointed them out and
+denounced them. The Jacobins fell upon them and drove them out of the
+house wounded and with rent garments. With difficulty they escaped with
+their lives. Robespierre witnessed this violence, and dreading the
+effects of a general insurrection, withdrew his consent to adopt means
+so lawless and desperate. He probably felt that, strongly supported as
+he was, he would be able the next day to triumph in the Convention.
+
+"At this refusal," says Lamartine, "honest, perhaps, but impolitic,
+Coffinhal, taking Payan by the arm and leading him out of the room,
+said,
+
+"'You see plainly that his virtue could not consent to insurrection.
+Well! since he will not be saved, let us prepare to defend ourselves
+and to avenge him.'"
+
+The night was passed by both parties in preparing for the decisive
+strife of the next day. The friends of Robespierre were active in
+concerting, in all the quarters of Paris, a rising of the people to
+storm the Convention. Tallien, Barras, Fréron, Fouché, slept not.
+They were informed of all that had passed at the Jacobins, and their
+emissaries brought them hourly intelligence through the night of the
+increasing tumult of the people. They made vigorous preparations for
+the debate within the walls and for the defense of the doors against
+the forest of pikes with which it was about to be assailed. Barras was
+intrusted with the military defense. It was resolved that Robespierre
+should be cried down and denounced by internal tumult and not permitted
+to speak. Each party, not knowing the strength of its opponents, was
+sanguine of success.
+
+The morning of the 27th of July dawned, and as Robespierre entered the
+Convention, attired with unusual care, and with a smile of triumph
+upon his lips, silence and stillness reigned through the house. St.
+Just, in behalf of Robespierre, commenced the onset. A scene of tumult
+immediately ensued of which no adequate description can be given.
+Robespierre immediately saw that his friends were far outnumbered by
+his foes, and was in despair. Pale and excited, he attempted to ascend
+the tribune. Tallien seized by the coat and dragged him away, while
+cries of _Down with the tyrant_ filled the house.[425]
+
+"Just now," shouted Tallien, taking the tribune from which he had
+ejected Robespierre, "I demanded that the curtain should be withdrawn;
+it is so; the conspirators are unmasked and liberty will triumph. Up
+to this moment I had preserved utter silence because I was aware that
+the tyrant had made a list of proscriptions. But I was present at the
+sitting of the Jacobins. I beheld the formation of the army of this
+second Cromwell, and I armed myself with this poniard, with which to
+pierce his heart if the National Convention had not the courage to
+order his arrest."
+
+[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE ATTEMPTING HIS DEFENSE.]
+
+With these words he drew a dagger and pointed it menacingly at the
+breast of Robespierre. At the same time he moved the arrest of
+Henriot and others of the leading men of that party. The motion was
+tumultuously carried. In vain Robespierre attempted to gain a hearing.
+Cries of "Down with the tyrant" filled the house, and menaces,
+reproaches, and insults were heaped upon him without measure. The
+wretched man, overwhelmed by the clamor, turned pale with indignation,
+and shouted "President of assassins, will you hear me?" "No! no! no!"
+seemed to be the unanimous response. In the midst of the uproar Louchet
+moved the arrest of Robespierre. The proposition was received with
+thunders of applause.[426] The brother of Robespierre, a young man
+of gentle, affectionate nature and many virtues, who was universally
+esteemed, now rose, and said,
+
+"I am as guilty as my brother. I have shared his virtues, I wish to
+share his fate."
+
+Robespierre instantly interposed, saying, "I accept my condemnation.
+I have deserved your hatred. But, crime or virtue, my brother is not
+guilty of that which you strike in me."
+
+Shouts and stamping drowned his voice. As cries of _Vive la République_
+rose on all sides, Robespierre quietly folded his arms, and, with a
+contemptuous smile, exclaimed, "The Republic! it is destroyed; for
+scoundrels triumph." It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. The two
+Robespierres, Couthon, St. Just, and Lebus were led by _gens d'armes_
+from the Convention across the Place du Carrousel to the Hôtel de
+Brionne, where the Committee of General Safety were in session. A crowd
+followed the prisoners with derision and maledictions. As they entered
+the Carrousel a procession of carts, containing forty-five victims on
+their way to the guillotine, met them.
+
+After a very brief examination Robespierre was sent to the Luxembourg.
+His confederates were distributed among the other prisons of Paris. The
+Mayor of Paris and Henriot were in the mean time active in endeavors
+to excite an insurrection to rescue the prisoners. The following
+proclamation was issued from the Hôtel de Ville:
+
+"Brothers and friends! the country is in imminent danger! The wicked
+have mastered the Convention, where they hold in chains the virtuous
+Robespierre. To arms! to arms! Let us not lose the fruits of the 18th
+of August and the 2d of June."
+
+Henriot, waving his sword, swore that he would drag the scoundrels who
+voted the arrest of Robespierre through the streets tied to the tail of
+his horse. This brutal man was now in such a state of intoxication as
+to be incapable of decisive action. Flourishing a pistol, he mounted
+his horse, and, with a small detachment of troops, galloped to the
+Luxembourg to rescue his friend. He was met on the way by the troops of
+the Convention, who had been ordered to arrest him. They seized him,
+dragged him from his horse, bound him with their belts, and threw him
+into a guard-house, almost dead-drunk. In the mean time the populace
+rescued all the prisoners, and carried them in triumph to the mayor's
+room at the Hôtel de Ville. Robespierre, however, notwithstanding the
+most earnest entreaties of the Jacobins and the municipal government,
+refused to encourage or to accept the insurrection, or to make escape
+from arrest. "Made prisoner," writes Lamartine, "by command of his
+enemies, he resolved either to triumph or fall submissive to the law
+only; added to which, he firmly believed the Revolutionary Tribunal
+would acquit him of all laid to his charge; or, if not, and if even
+condemned to death, 'the death of one just man,' said he, 'is less
+hurtful to the Republic than the example of a revolt against the
+national representation.'"
+
+News was brought to the Hôtel de Ville of the arrest of Henriot.
+Coffinhal, Vice-president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, immediately
+rallied the mob, rushed to the Tuileries, released Henriot, who was by
+this time somewhat sobered, and brought him back to the Hôtel de Ville.
+Henriot, exasperated by his arrest, placed himself at the head of his
+troops and marched with a battery against the Convention. At this stage
+of the affair no one could judge which party would be victorious. The
+city government, with the populace at its disposal, was on one side;
+the Convention, with its friends, on the other.[427]
+
+It was now seven o'clock in the evening, and the deputies of the
+Convention, fully conscious of their peril, seemed almost speechless
+with terror. Robespierre and his confederates were rescued and
+protected by the city government; the mob was aroused, and the
+National Guard, under their leader, Henriot, were marching against
+the Convention. The Revolutionary Tribunal, which alone could condemn
+Robespierre, it was feared would acquit him by acclamation. He would
+then be led back in triumph to the Convention, and his foes would
+be speedily dragged to the guillotine. The dismal tolling of the
+tocsin now was heard; in the Jacobin Club the oath was taken to live
+or die with Robespierre; the rallying masses were crowding in from
+the faubourgs; cannon were pointed against the Convention; and three
+thousand young students seized their arms and rendezvoused as a
+body-guard for Robespierre.
+
+In this critical hour the Convention, nerved by despair, adopted those
+measures of boldness and energy which could alone save them from
+destruction. As they were deliberating, Henriot placed his artillery
+before their doors and ordered them to be blown open. The deputies
+remained firmly in their seats, saying, "Here is our post, and here we
+will die." The friends of the Convention, who crowded the galleries,
+rushed out and spread themselves through the streets to rally defenders
+for the laws. Several of the deputies also left the hall, threw
+themselves among the soldiers, and, remonstrating with them, pointed to
+Henriot, and said,
+
+"Soldiers! look at that drunken man! who but a drunkard would ever
+point his arms against his country or its representatives? Will you,
+who have ever deserved so much from your country, cast shame and
+dishonor on her now?"
+
+[Illustration: DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE CONVENTION, HEADED BY HENRIOT.]
+
+The Convention had outlawed Henriot and appointed Barras to the
+command of the National Guard in his place. The soldiers began to
+waver. Henriot, affrighted, put spurs to his horse and fled. Barras,
+an energetic man, was now in command, and the tide had thus suddenly
+and strongly turned in favor of the Convention. It was now night, and
+the gleam of ten thousand torches was reflected from the multitudes
+surging through the streets. Barras, on horseback, with a strong
+retinue, traversed the central quarters of Paris, rallying the citizens
+to the defense of the Convention. Eighteen hundred bold, well-armed
+men were soon marshaled before the doors. With two other bands he
+marched along parallel streets to the Place de Grève, where he drove
+off the disorderly crowd and secured all the approaches to the Hôtel
+de Ville. Robespierre was still in one of the rooms of the Hôtel de
+Ville, surrounded by his confederates and by the members of the city
+government. They implored him to authorize an insurrection, assuring
+him that his name would rally the populace and rescue them all from
+inevitable death. But Robespierre persistently refused, declaring that
+he would rather die than violate the laws established by the people.
+
+A detachment of soldiers, sent by Barras, cautiously ascended the
+steps, and entered the _Salle de l'Egalité_ to rearrest the rescued
+prisoners. As they were ascending the stairs Lebas discharged a pistol
+into his heart and fell dead. The younger Robespierre leaped from the
+window into the court-yard, breaking his leg by his fall. Coffinhal,
+enraged in contemplating the ruin into which the drunken imbecility of
+Henriot had involved them, seized him and threw him out of a window of
+the second story upon a pile of rubbish, exclaiming,
+
+"Lie there, wretched drunkard! You are not worthy to die on a scaffold!"
+
+Robespierre sat calmly at a table, awaiting his fate. One of the _gens
+d'armes_ discharged a pistol at him. The ball entered his left cheek,
+fracturing his jaw and carrying away several of his teeth. His head
+dropped upon the table, deluging with blood the papers which were
+before him. The troops of the Convention now filled the Hôtel de Ville,
+arresting all its inmates. The day was just beginning to dawn as the
+long file of prisoners were led out into the Place de Grève to be
+conducted to the hall of the Convention.[428]
+
+First came Robespierre, borne by four men on a litter. His fractured
+jaw was bound up by a handkerchief, which was steeped in blood. Couthon
+was paralytic in his limbs. Unable to walk, he was also carried in the
+arms of several men. They had carelessly let him fall, and his clothes
+were torn, disarranged, and covered with mud. Robespierre the younger,
+stunned by his fall and with his broken limb hanging helplessly down,
+was conveyed insensible in the arms of two men. The corpse of Lebas
+was borne next in this sad train, covered with a table-cloth spotted
+with his blood. Then followed St. Just, bareheaded, with dejected
+countenance, his hands bound behind him. Upward of eighty members
+of the city government, bound two and two, completed the melancholy
+procession.
+
+It was five o'clock in the morning when the captives were led to the
+Tuileries. In the mean time Légendre had marched to the assembly-room
+of the Jacobins, dispersed them, locked their doors, and brought the
+keys to the President of the Convention.[429]
+
+Robespierre was laid upon a table in an anteroom, while an interminable
+crowd pressed in and around to catch a sight of the fallen dictator.
+The unhappy man was overwhelmed with reproaches and insults, and
+feigned death to escape this moral torture. The blood was freely
+flowing from his wound, coagulating in his mouth, and choking him
+as it trickled down his throat. The morning was intensely hot; not a
+breath of pure air could the wounded man inhale; insatiable thirst and
+a burning fever consumed him; and thus he remained for more than an
+hour, enduring the intensest pangs of bodily and mental anguish. By
+order of the Convention, he and his confederates were then removed to
+the Committee of General Safety for examination; from which tribunal
+they were sent to the Conciergerie, where they were all thrown into the
+same dungeon to await their trial, which was immediately to take place
+before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+
+[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE LYING WOUNDED ON THE TABLE OF THE CITY HALL.]
+
+A few hours of pain, anguish, and despair passed away, when at three
+o'clock in the afternoon the whole party were conveyed to that
+merciless court which was but the last stepping-stone to death. The
+trial lasted but a few moments. They were already condemned, and it was
+only necessary to prove their identity. The Convention was victorious,
+and no man of the Revolutionary Tribunal dared to resist its will.
+Had the Commune of Paris conquered in this strife, the obsequious
+Tribunal, with equal alacrity, would have consigned the Deputies to the
+guillotine.
+
+At five o'clock the carts of the condemned received the prisoners.[430]
+The long procession advanced through the Rue St. Honoré to the Place
+de la Révolution. The fickle crowd thronged the streets, heaping
+imprecations upon the man to whom they would have shouted hosanna had
+he been a victor. Robespierre, his brother, Couthon, Henriot, all
+mangled, bleeding, and with broken bones, were thrown into the first
+cart with the corpse of Lebas. As the cart jolted over the pavement
+shrieks of anguish were extorted from the victims. At six o'clock they
+reached the steps of the guillotine. Robespierre ascended the scaffold
+with a firm step; but, as the executioner brutally tore the bandage
+from his inflamed wound, he uttered a shriek of torture which pierced
+every ear. The dull sullen sound of the falling axe was heard, and the
+head of Robespierre fell ghastly into the basket. For a moment there
+was silence, and then the crowd raised a shout as if a great victory
+had been achieved and the long-sought blessings of the Revolution
+attained.[431]
+
+[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE AND HIS COMPANIONS LED TO EXECUTION.]
+
+Thus died Robespierre, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. His
+character will probably ever remain a mystery. "His death was the date
+and not the cause of the cessation of terror. Deaths would have ceased
+by his triumphs, as they did by his death. Thus did Divine justice
+dishonor his repentance, and cast misfortune on his good intentions,
+making of his tomb a gulf filled up. It has made of his memory an
+enigma of which history trembles to pronounce the solution, fearing to
+do him injustice if she brand it as a crime, or to create horror if she
+should term it a virtue. This man was, and must ever remain, shadowy
+and undefined."[432]
+
+Twenty-two were beheaded with Robespierre. The next day seventy who
+were arrested at the Hôtel de Ville were sent to the guillotine. The
+following day twelve more bled upon the scaffold. In three days one
+hundred and fourteen perished, untried, by that tyranny which had
+supplanted the tyranny of Robespierre.[433]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 419: "Mr. Alison gives currency to an atrocious slander
+against Robespierre, for which he has adduced no authority, and which
+is contradicted by the whole evidence of Robespierre's life. 'He
+(Philippe Egalité) was detained,' says Alison, 'above a quarter of
+an hour in front of the Palais Royal, by order of Robespierre, who
+had asked in vain for the hand of his daughter in marriage, and had
+promised, if he would relent in that extremity, to excite a tumult
+which would save his life.'"--_Life of Robespierre, by G.H. Lewes_, p.
+265.]
+
+[Footnote 420: "Danton regarded the austere principles of Robespierre
+as folly. He thought that the Republicans could not maintain their
+power but by surrounding themselves with the consideration which wealth
+confers, and he consequently thought it necessary to close their eyes
+against the sudden acquisition of wealth of certain Revolutionists.
+Robespierre, on the contrary, flattered himself that he could establish
+a republic in France based on virtue, and when he was thoroughly
+persuaded that Danton was an obstacle to that system he abandoned
+him."--_Biographie Universelle._]
+
+[Footnote 421: Du Broca.]
+
+[Footnote 422: "Robespierre had a prodigious force at his disposal.
+The lowest orders, who saw the Revolution in his person, supported him
+as the best representative of its doctrines and interests; the armed
+force of Paris, commanded by Henriot, was at his command. He had entire
+sway over the Jacobins, whom he admitted and ejected at pleasure; all
+important posts were occupied by his creatures; he had formed the
+Revolutionary Tribunal and the new committee himself."--_Mignet_, p.
+256.]
+
+[Footnote 423: Thiers, vol. iii., p. 68, note from Quarterly Review.]
+
+[Footnote 424: Prudhomme, a Republican, who wrote during this period of
+excitement, has left six volumes of the details of the Reign of Terror.
+Two of these contain an alphabetical list of all the persons put to
+death by the Revolutionary Tribunals. He gives the following appalling
+statement of the victims:
+
+ Nobles 1,278
+ Noble women 750
+ Wives of laborers and artisans 1,467
+ Nuns 350
+ Priests 1,135
+ Men not noble 13,623
+ ------
+ Total sent to the guillotine 18,603 18,603
+ Women who died of premature delivery 3,400
+ Women who died in childbirth from grief 348
+ Women killed in La Vendée 15,000
+ Children killed in La Vendée 22,000
+ Men slain in La Vendée 900,000
+ Victims under Carrier at Nantes 32,000
+ Victims at Lyons 31,000
+ ----------
+ Total 1,022,351
+
+This list, appalling as it is, does not include those massacred in the
+prisons, or those shot at Toulon or Marseilles.]
+
+[Footnote 425: The full report of this terrible scene, as contained
+in the Moniteur of the 11th Thermidor, is one of the most exciting
+narratives in history. In the conflict Robespierre appears immeasurably
+superior to his opponents in dignity and argument. But he is
+overwhelmed and crushed by the general clamor. He struggles valiantly,
+and falls like a strong man armed.]
+
+[Footnote 426: "In the height of the terrible conflict, when
+Robespierre seemed deprived by rage of the power of articulation,
+a voice cried out, '_It is Danton's blood that is choking you_.'
+Robespierre, indignant, recovered his voice and courage to exclaim,
+'Danton! Is it, then, Danton you regret? Cowards! why did you
+not defend him?' There was spirit, truth, and even dignity in
+this bitter retort--the last words that Robespierre ever spoke in
+public."--_Quarterly Review._]
+
+[Footnote 427: The state of the times is illustrated by the fact that
+Barrere is reported to have gone to the Convention with two speeches
+in his pocket, one assailing Robespierre and the other defending him.
+He knew not which party would triumph, and he was prepared to join the
+strongest.]
+
+[Footnote 428: Though it has generally been represented that
+Robespierre attempted to commit suicide, the evidence now seems to be
+conclusive that he did not. See Lamartine's History of the Girondists,
+vol. iii., p. 527.]
+
+[Footnote 429: Légendre, the butcher, was a deputy of the Convention.
+He was a man of extraordinary nerve, and had been one of the most
+furious members of the society of Jacobins.--_Biog. Universelle._]
+
+[Footnote 430: There is some confusion respecting the dates of these
+events; but we follow the dates as given by Lamartine.]
+
+[Footnote 431: "Robespierre," said Napoleon, "was by no means the worst
+character who figured in the Revolution. He opposed trying the queen.
+He was not an atheist; on the contrary, he had publicly maintained the
+existence of a Supreme Being in opposition to many of his colleagues.
+Neither was he of opinion that it was necessary to exterminate all
+priests and nobles, like many others. Marat, for example, maintained
+that it was necessary that six hundred thousand heads should fall.
+Robespierre wanted to proclaim the king an outlaw, and not to go
+through the ridiculous mockery of trying him. Robespierre was a
+fanatic, a monster, but he was incorruptible, and incapable of robbing
+or causing the deaths of others either from personal enmity or a desire
+of enriching himself. He was an enthusiast, but one who really believed
+that he was acting right, and died not worth a sou. In some respects
+Robespierre may be said to have been an honest man."--_Napoleon at St.
+Helena_, p. 590.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE THERMIDORIANS AND THE JACOBINS.
+
+ The Reign of Committees.--The Jeunesse Dorée.--The Reaction.--Motion
+ against Fouquier Tinville.--Apotheosis of Rousseau.--Battle
+ of Fleurus.--Brutal Order of the Committee of Public
+ Welfare.--Composition of the two Parties.--Speech of Billaud
+ Varennes.--Speech of Légendre.--The Club-house of the Jacobins
+ closed.--Victories of Pichegru.--Alliance between Holland and
+ France.--Advance of Kleber.--Peace with Prussia.--Quiberon.--Riot in
+ Lyons.
+
+
+The fall of Robespierre was hailed with general enthusiasm, for he was
+believed to be the chief instigator of that carnage which, in reality,
+at the time of his fall, he was struggling to repress. There were now
+in the Convention the headless remains of four parties, the Girondists,
+Hebertists, Dantonists, and Robespierrians. The able leaders of all
+these parties had, each in their turn, perished upon the scaffold.
+There now arose from these ruins a party, which was called, as we have
+before remarked, _Thermidorians_, from the month Thermidor (_July_),
+in which its supremacy commenced. A new government was immediately and
+noiselessly evolved, the result of necessity. The extreme concentration
+of power in the Committee of Public Safety, over which Robespierre
+had been supposed to rule as a dictator, was now succeeded by a
+dissemination of power, wide and ineffective. Sixteen committees became
+the executive of France; one Assembly its legislative power. These
+committees were composed of members numbering from twelve to fifty.
+The Committee of Public Welfare contained twelve, and superintended
+military and diplomatic operations; that of General Safety sixteen, and
+had the direction of the police; that of Finance forty-eight. Such was
+the new government, under which, after the fall of Robespierre, the
+Republic struggled along.
+
+The horrors of the Reign of Terror were now producing a decided
+reaction. Many of the young men of Paris, who abhorred the past scenes
+of violence, organized themselves into a band called the Jeunesse
+Dorée, or Gilded Youth, and commenced vigorous opposition to the
+Jacobins. They wore a distinctive dress, and armed themselves with
+a short club loaded with lead. Frequent conflicts took place in the
+streets between the two parties, in which the Jeunesse Dorée were
+generally victorious. The Terrorists having become unpopular, and being
+in the decided minority, the guillotine was soon allowed to rest. Mercy
+rapidly succeeded cruelty. The captives who crowded the prisons of
+Paris were gradually liberated, and even the Revolutionary Tribunal was
+first modified and then abolished.
+
+[Illustration: APOTHEOSIS OF ROUSSEAU, OCTOBER 11, 1794.]
+
+The reaction was so strong, annulling past decrees, liberating
+suspected Loyalists, and punishing violent Revolutionists, that even
+many of the true friends of popular rights were alarmed lest the
+nation should drift back again under the sway of old feudal despotism.
+M. Fréron, in the following terms, moved, in the Convention, an act of
+accusation against the execrable Fouquier Tinville, who had been public
+accuser:
+
+"I demand that the earth be at length delivered from that monster, and
+that Fouquier be sent to hell, there to wallow in the blood he has
+shed."
+
+The decree was passed by acclamation. In the space of eight or ten days
+after the fall of Robespierre, out of ten thousand suspected persons
+not one remained in the prisons of Paris.[434] For many weeks nothing
+of moment occurred in the Convention but the petty strife of factions.
+On the 11th of October the remains of Rousseau were transferred to the
+Pantheon with all the accompaniments of funeral pageantry. They were
+deposited by the side of the remains of Voltaire. Upon his tomb were
+inscribed the words, "Here reposes the man of nature and of truth."
+
+[Illustration: BATTLE OF FLEURUS.]
+
+About a month before the fall of Robespierre, on the 26th of June, the
+celebrated battle of Fleurus was fought. The sanguinary engagement
+extended along a semicircle nearly thirty miles in extent. The French
+had brought up about eighty thousand troops, to oppose an equal number
+of the Allies. The French, under Pichegru, were victorious at every
+point, and the Allies were compelled to retreat. They rallied for a
+short time in the vicinity of Brussels, but were soon again compelled
+to retire, and all Belgium fell into the hands of the Republicans.
+
+About the middle of July two armies of the French, amounting to
+one hundred and fifty thousand, effected a junction in the city of
+Brussels. The Committee of Public Safety had passed an inhuman decree
+that no quarter should be given to the English. The soldiers refused
+obedience to this decree. A sergeant, having taken some English
+prisoners, brought them to an officer.
+
+"Why did you spare their lives?" the officer inquired.
+
+"Because," the sergeant replied, "it was saving so many shots."
+
+"True," rejoined the officer, "but the Representatives will oblige us
+to shoot them."
+
+"It is not we," retorted the sergeant, "who will shoot them. Send them
+to the Representatives. If they are barbarous enough, why, let them
+kill and eat them if they like."[435]
+
+While the French armies were gaining these signal victories all along
+the Rhine, war was raging with almost equal ferocity in the ravines of
+the Alps and at the base of the Pyrenees, as the Republicans struggled
+to repel the invading hosts of Austria, England, and Spain.
+
+The Thermidorians and the Jacobins were now the two great parties
+struggling for power all over France. The Thermidorians were the
+moderate conservative party, and the Jacobins called them Aristocrats.
+The Jacobins were the radical, progressive, revolutionary party, and
+the Thermidorians called them Terrorists. The more intelligent and
+reputable portion of the community were with the Thermidorians; the
+women, weary of turmoil and blood, were very generally with them; and
+the very efficient military band of young men called the _Jeunesse
+Dorée_ (gilded youth), who belonged to the rich and middle classes,
+were very efficient supporters of this party, hurling defiance upon
+the Jacobins, and ever ready for a street fray with their clubs. The
+Jacobins were composed of the mob, generally headed by those vigorous,
+reckless, determined men who usually form what Thiers calls "the
+ferocious democracy." Fréron's journal, _The Orator of the People_,
+was the eloquent advocate of the Thermidorians, now rising rapidly to
+power, and it launched incessant and merciless anathemas against the
+_revolutionary canaille_. The females who advocated Jacobinism were
+called _the furies of the guillotine_, because they had frequently
+formed circles around the scaffold, assailing the victims with ribald
+abuse. These two parties were so equally divided, and the strife was
+so fierce between them, that scenes of fearful uproar frequently took
+place not only in the Convention but throughout all France. The spirit
+of the Jacobins at this time may be seen in the following brief extract
+from a speech of Billaud Varennes:
+
+"People talk," said he, "of shootings and drownings, but they do
+not recollect that the individuals for whom they feel pity had
+furnished succors to the banditti. They do not recollect the cruelties
+perpetrated on our volunteers, who were hanged upon trees and shot in
+files. If vengeance is demanded for the banditti, let the families of
+two hundred thousand Republicans, mercilessly slaughtered, come also
+to demand vengeance. The course of counter-revolutionists is known.
+When, in the time of the Constituent Assembly, they wanted to bring
+the Revolution to trial, they called the Jacobins _disorganizers_
+and shot them in the Field of Mars. After the 2d of September, when
+they wanted to prevent the establishment of the Republic, they called
+them _quaffers of blood_ and loaded them with atrocious calumnies.
+They are now recommencing the same machinations; but let them not
+expect to triumph. The Patriots have been able to keep silence for a
+moment, but the lion is not dead when he slumbers, and when he awakes
+he exterminates all his enemies. The trenches are open, the Patriots
+are about to rouse themselves and to resume all their energy. We have
+already risked our lives a thousand times. If the scaffold awaits us,
+let us recollect that it was the scaffold which covered the immortal
+Sidney with glory."
+
+This speech, reported in the journal of the Jacobins, called the
+_Journal de la Montagne_, created great excitement, and gave rise to
+one of the stormiest debates in the Convention. The Jacobins were
+accused of wishing to direct the mob against the Convention. They,
+on the other hand, accused the Thermidorians of releasing well-known
+Royalists from prison, and of thus encouraging a counter-revolution.
+Légendre, speaking in behalf of the Thermidorians, in reply to the
+Jacobins, said,
+
+"What have you to complain of, you who are constantly accusing us? Is
+it because citizens are no longer sent to prison by hundreds? because
+the guillotine no longer dispatches fifty, sixty, or eighty persons per
+day? Ah! I must confess that in this point our pleasure differs from
+yours, and that our manner of sweeping the prisons is not the same. We
+have visited them ourselves; we have made, as far as it was possible
+to do so, a distinction between the Aristocrats and the Patriots; if
+we have done wrong, here are our heads to answer for it. But while we
+make reparation for crimes, while we are striving to make you forget
+that those crimes are your own, why do you go to a notorious society to
+denounce us, and to mislead the people who attend there, fortunately in
+no great numbers? I move that the Convention take measures to prevent
+its members from going and preaching up rebellion at the Jacobins'."
+
+The conflict extended from the Convention into the streets, and
+for several days there were serious riots. Angry groups in hostile
+bands paraded the gardens of the Tuileries and the Palais Royal--the
+partisans of the Thermidorians shouting "_Down with the Terrorists and
+Robespierre's tail_." Their opponents shouted "_The Jacobins forever!
+Down with the Aristocrats!_"
+
+On the 9th of November there was a battle between the two parties in
+the Rue St. Honoré, in and around the hall of the Jacobins, which
+lasted for several hours. A number of the women, called Furies of the
+Guillotine, who mingled in the fray, were caught by the _Jeunesse
+Dorée_, and, in defiance of all the rules of chivalry, had their
+clothes stripped from their backs and were ignominiously whipped. It
+was midnight before the disturbance was quelled. A stormy debate ensued
+next day in the Convention.
+
+"Where has tyranny," said Rewbel, "been organized? At the Jacobins'.
+Where has it found its supporters and satellites? At the Jacobins'.
+Who have covered France with mourning, carried despair into families,
+filled the country with prisons, and rendered the Republic so odious
+that a slave, pressed down by the weight of his irons, would refuse to
+live under it? The Jacobins. Who regret the frightful government under
+which we have lived? The Jacobins. If you have not now the courage to
+declare yourselves, you have no longer a Republic, because you have
+Jacobins."
+
+Influenced by such sentiments, the Convention passed a decree "to
+close the door of places where factions arise and where civil war is
+preached."
+
+[Illustration: THE CLUB-HOUSE OF THE JACOBINS CLOSED.]
+
+Thus terminated the long reign of the Jacobin Club. The act was greeted
+with acclaim by the general voice of France.[436]
+
+The French, who had twelve hundred thousand men under arms, were now
+in possession of all the important points on the Rhine, and every
+where held their assailants at bay.[437] The latter part of December,
+Pichegru, driving the allied Dutch, English, and Austrians before him,
+crossed the Meuse on the ice and entered Holland. The Republican party
+in Holland was numerous and detested their rulers. They immediately
+prepared to rise and welcome their friends, the French. In this
+desperate situation the Stadtholder implored a truce, offering as a
+condition of peace neutrality and indemnification for the expenses of
+the war.[438] Pichegru refused the truce; but sent the terms of peace
+for the consideration of the government in Paris. The proffered terms
+were refused, and Pichegru was ordered to press on and restore the
+Dutch Republic. At the head of two hundred thousand troops he spread,
+like a torrent, over all Holland. He was every where received with open
+arms and as a deliverer. The Allies, with the emigrants, fled in all
+directions, some by land and some by sea. A portion of the Dutch fleet,
+at anchor near the Texel, was frozen in by the unparalleled severity
+of the winter. A squadron of horse-artillery galloped across the ice
+and summoned it to surrender. The fleet was compelled to strike its
+flags to these novel assailants. On the 20th of January, 1795, Pichegru
+entered Amsterdam in triumph. The inhabitants crowded from the walls to
+meet him, shouting "_The French Republic forever! Liberty forever!_"
+
+[Illustration: THE FRENCH ENTERING AMSTERDAM ON THE ICE.]
+
+Holland, organizing as the Republic of the United Provinces, on the
+16th of May entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the
+French Republic, to be perpetual during the continuance of the war.
+The two infant republics needed mutual support to resist the combined
+monarchies of England and the Continent.[439]
+
+While Pichegru was gaining such victories on the Lower Rhine and in
+Holland, Kleber was also, on the Upper Rhine, driving the Austrians
+before him. He boldly crossed the river in the impetuous pursuit, and
+carried the horrors of war into the enemies' country. Soon, however, he
+was crowded with such numbers of antagonists that he was compelled, in
+his turn, to commence a retreat. Again, re-enforcements arriving, he
+assumed the offensive. Thus the tide of war ebbed and flowed.
+
+Prussia, alarmed by these signal victories of the Republican troops,
+and threatened with invasion, was anxious to withdraw from the
+coalition. The king sent a commissioner to Pichegru's head-quarters to
+propose peace. The commissioners from the two countries met at Basle,
+and on the 5th of April a treaty of peace was signed. The French agreed
+to evacuate the Prussian provinces they had occupied on the right bank
+of the Rhine, and the Prussian monarchy agreed that there should be
+peace, amity, and a good understanding between the King of Prussia and
+the French Republic.
+
+[Illustration: THE FRENCH CROSSING THE RHINE UNDER KLEBER.]
+
+Spain, also, trembling in view of the triumphant march of Dugommier
+through the defiles of the Pyrenees, made proposals of accommodation,
+promising to acknowledge the Republic and to pay indemnities for the
+war. Peace with the Peninsula was signed at Basle on the 12th of July.
+This peace, which detached a Bourbon from the coalition, was hailed
+throughout France with transports of joy.[440]
+
+[Illustration: VICTORY OF QUIBERON.]
+
+[Illustration: MASSACRE IN LYONS LED BY THE PRIESTS.]
+
+England, Austria, and Naples still remained firm in their determination
+to crush the Republic. William Pitt led the ministry with his warlike
+measures, and triumphed over the peaceful policy of Sheridan and Fox.
+He thus, for a quarter of a century, converted all Europe into a field
+of blood. Roused by the energies of Pitt, the English government
+organized a very formidable expedition, to be landed in La Vendée, to
+rouse and rally the Royalists all over France, and thus to reinvigorate
+the energies of civil war. A squadron was fitted out, consisting of
+three 74-gun ships, two frigates of 44 guns, four frigates of 30 to
+36 guns, and several gun-boats and transports. This was the first
+division, which, as soon as it was established in France, was to be
+followed by another. The fleet came to anchor in the Bay of Quiberon
+on the 25th of June. A motley mass of about seven thousand men were
+speedily landed; the Royalists soon joined them, making an army of
+some thirteen thousand. General Hoche, who had for some time been
+valiantly and most humanely struggling for the pacification of La
+Vendée, marched to repel them. A few bloody battles ensued, in which
+the unhappy invaders were driven into a narrow peninsula, where, by a
+midnight assault, they most miserably perished. A few only escaped to
+the ships; many were drowned, and a large number were mercilessly put
+to the sword. The Convention had decreed the penalty of death to any
+Frenchman who should enter France with arms in his hands.
+
+At Lyons there was a general rising of the Royalists and the
+reactionary party against the Revolutionists. The Royalists proved
+themselves not one whit behind the Jacobins in the energy with which
+they could push their Reign of Terror. Led by the priests, the Royalist
+mob broke into the prisons and murdered seventy or eighty prisoners who
+were accused of revolutionary violence. One prison was set on fire, and
+all its inmates perished miserably in the flames.
+
+The disturbances in Lyons were soon quelled, and Hoche, having
+annihilated the force which the English had landed in the Bay of
+Quiberon, gradually succeeded in introducing tranquillity into La
+Vendée. Many of the Royalists came to his camp to seek terms of
+reconciliation with the Republic.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 432: History of the Girondists, by Lamartine, vol. iii., p.
+535.]
+
+[Footnote 433: "Mirabeau, Marat, Brissot, Danton, Robespierre were
+all heads cut off in succession; and all succeeding heads were saved
+only by having recourse to one head and one arm in the Emperor
+Napoleon."--_Life and Works of John Adams_, vol. vi., p. 547.
+
+Though Mirabeau died a natural death, he would unquestionably have been
+guillotined had he lived a few months longer.
+
+Meda, the officer of the Convention who arrested Robespierre and his
+associates at the Hôtel de Ville, thus describes the event: "The head
+of my column moved forward; a terrible noise ensued; my ten pieces of
+artillery were brought forward and ready; those opposed to me in like
+manner. I threw myself between the two lines. I flew to the cannoneers
+of the enemy. I spoke to them of their country; of the respect due to
+the national representation; in short, I do not well remember what I
+said, but the result was that they all came over to us. I instantly
+dismounted, seized my pistols, addressed myself to my grenadiers, and
+made for the staircase of the Hôtel de Ville." He describes the manner
+in which he forced his way up the stairs, broke open the door, and
+found about fifty people assembled in the room in great confusion.
+Robespierre was sitting at a table, his head leaning upon his hand. "I
+rushed upon him," he continues, in his narrative, "presented my sabre
+to his breast, 'Yield, traitor,' I cried. 'It is thou art the traitor,'
+he replied, 'and I will have thee shot.' I instantly drew out one of my
+pistols, and fired at him. I aimed at his breast, but the ball hit him
+about the chin, and shattered all his left jaw. He fell from his chair.
+At the sound of the explosion his brother threw himself through the
+window. The uproar was immense. I cried '_Vive la République_!'"]
+
+[Footnote 434: Lacretelle.]
+
+[Footnote 435: Thiers, vol. iii., p. 84.]
+
+[Footnote 436: "This popular body had powerfully served the
+Revolution when, in order to repel Europe, it was necessary to
+place the government in the multitude, and to give the Republic all
+the energy of defense; but now it only obstructed the new order of
+things."--_Mignet_, 282.]
+
+[Footnote 437: "At one time France had seventeen hundred thousand
+fighters on foot."--_Toulongeon_, vol. iii., p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 438: Thiers, vol. iii., p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 439: "The first act of the Representatives was to publish
+a proclamation, in which they declared that they would respect all
+private property, excepting, however, that of the Stadtholder; that
+the latter, being the only foe of the French Republic, his property
+belonged to the conquerors as an indemnification for the expenses of
+the war; that the French entered as friends of the Batavian nation, not
+to impose upon it any religion or any form of government whatever, but
+to deliver it from its oppressors, and to confer upon it the means of
+expressing its wishes. This proclamation, followed up by corresponding
+acts, produced a most favorable impression."--_Thiers_, vol. iii., p.
+184.]
+
+[Footnote 440: "Tuscany, forced, in spite of herself, to give up her
+neutrality by the English ambassador, who, threatening her with an
+English squadron, had allowed her but twelve hours to decide, was
+impatient to resume her part, especially since the French were at the
+gates of Genoa. Good understanding and friendship were re-established
+between the two states."--_Thiers_, vol. iii., p. 230.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+DISSOLUTION OF THE CONVENTION.
+
+ Famine in Paris.--Strife between the Jeunesse Dorée and the
+ Jacobins.--Riots.--Scene in the Convention.--War with the Allies.--A
+ new Constitution.--Insurrection of the Sections.--Energy of General
+ Bonaparte.--Discomfiture of the Sections.--Narrative of the Duchess
+ of Abrantes.--Clemency of the Convention.--Its final Acts and
+ Dissolution, and Establishment of the Directory.
+
+
+Let us return to Paris. The unprecedented severity of the winter had
+caused fearful suffering among the populace of Paris. The troubled
+times had broken up all the ordinary employments of peace. The war,
+which had enrolled a million and a half of men under arms, had left
+the fields uncultivated and deserted. A cruel famine wasted both city
+and country. The Jacobins, who, though their clubs were closed, still
+met at the corners of the streets and in the coffee-houses, took
+advantage of this public misery to turn popular indignation against
+the victorious Thermidorians. Tumults were again renewed, and hostile
+partisans met in angry conflicts. The young men of the two parties had
+frequent encounters in the pits of the theatres, bidding each other
+defiance, and often proceeding to blows.
+
+At the Théâtre Feydean, as in many other places, there was a bust of
+Marat, who was still idolized by the Jacobins. The young men of the
+Jeunesse Dorée, in expression of their detestation of Marat, and as an
+insult to the Jacobins, climbed the balcony, threw down the bust, and
+with shouts of execration dragged it through the mire of the streets.
+
+[Illustration: THE JEUNESSE DOREÉ THROWING THE BUST OF MARAT INTO THE
+GUTTER.]
+
+The Jacobins, exasperated, swore to avenge the insult. Strongly armed,
+they paraded the streets, carrying a bust of Marat in triumph, and
+swearing bloody vengeance upon any who might attempt to disturb their
+march. The firmness of the Convention alone averted a sanguinary
+conflict. The public distress, intense and almost universal,
+embarrassed and overwhelmed the Convention with the most difficult
+questions in the endeavor to afford relief. On the 15th of March the
+supply of food in Paris was so small that it was deemed necessary to
+put the inhabitants upon rations, each individual being allowed but
+one pound of bread per day. Agitation and tumults were now rapidly
+increasing, and there were daily riots. The Convention was continually
+besieged and insulted by haggard multitudes with petitions which
+assumed the tone of fiercest threats. Scenes of confusion ensued which
+bade defiance to all law, and which there was no authority to repress.
+
+On the 20th of May there was one of the most fearful tumults which the
+Revolution had yet witnessed. At five in the morning the _générale_ was
+beating in the public squares and the tocsin ringing in the faubourgs.
+The populace were rapidly mustering for any deeds of violence to which
+their leaders might conduct them. At eleven o'clock the Convention
+commenced its sitting. One of the members brought in a plan, which he
+had secretly obtained, of a very efficiently-organized insurrection.
+A crowd, mostly of women, filled the galleries. As the plan was read,
+which appalled the deputies, the galleries vociferously applauded. The
+Convention passed a few harmless decrees, such as, 1st, that the city
+government was responsible for any attack upon the Convention; 2d, that
+all the citizens were bound to receive orders from the Convention; and
+3d, that there should be no insurrection. These decrees but provoked
+the derision of the galleries. The tumult now became so great, the
+women shouting "Bread!" and shaking their fists at the president and
+the deputies, that all business was at a stand, and not a word of
+debate could be heard.
+
+At length, some soldiers were sent into the galleries with bayonets,
+and the women were driven into the streets. They soon, however,
+returned, aided by their friends. They battered down all the doors
+and broke in and filled the hall with an armed, shouting, brutal mob.
+Some of the citizens rallied for the defense of the Convention, and a
+fierce battle raged within the hall and around the doors. Pistols and
+muskets were discharged, swords clashed, bayonet crossed bayonet, while
+yells and shrieks and imprecations deafened the ear. Drunken women
+strode over the benches and clambered to the president's chair. A young
+deputy, Feraud, was stabbed, then shot; his head was cut off, and,
+pierced by a pike, was thrust into the face of the president, Boissy
+d'Anglas, who most heroically maintained his post and his composure
+through all these perilous scenes. For six hours the tumult raged
+unabated. It was now seven o'clock in the evening, and the mob drove
+all the deputies, like a flock of sheep, into the centre of the hall,
+surrounded them with bristling bayonets and pikes, and ordered them to
+issue decrees for the relief of the people. At length, near midnight,
+a detachment of the National Guard arrived, dispersed the crowd around
+the palace, and, entering the hall with fixed bayonets, scattered the
+rioters. Tranquillity being restored, one of the members rose and said,
+
+"It is then true that this Assembly, the cradle of the Republic, has
+once more well nigh been its tomb. Fortunately, the crime of the
+conspirators is prevented. But, Representatives, you would not be
+worthy of the nation if you were not to avenge it in a signal manner."
+
+[Illustration: SCENE IN THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.]
+
+The rest of the night was passed in devising schemes to crush the
+Jacobin power which had organized this insurrection. The Duchess
+of Abrantes, who was then in Paris, thus alludes to these events:
+"While the most frightful scenes," she writes, "were passing in the
+Convention, the respectable inhabitants of Paris shut themselves up
+in their houses, concealed their valuables, and awaited, with fearful
+anxiety, the result. Toward evening my brother, whom we had not seen
+during the day, came home to get something to eat; he was almost
+famished, not having tasted food since the morning. Disorder still
+raged, and we heard the most frightful noise in the streets, mingled
+with the beating of drums. My brother had scarcely finished his hasty
+repast when General Bonaparte arrived to make a similar claim upon our
+hospitality. He also had tasted nothing since the morning, for all
+the restaurateurs were closed. He soon dispatched what my brother had
+left, and as he was eating he told us the news of the day. It was most
+appalling; my brother had informed us but of part. He did not know of
+the assassination of the unfortunate Feraud, whose body had been cut
+almost piecemeal. 'They took his head,' said Bonaparte, 'and presented
+it to poor Boissy d'Anglas, and the shock of this fiend-like act was
+almost death to the president in his chair. Truly,' added he, 'if we
+continue thus to sully our Revolution, it will be a disgrace to be a
+Frenchman.'"[441]
+
+Alarmed by the advance of anarchy, the Convention immediately
+instituted proceedings against several prominent Jacobin members, who
+were known to be ringleaders of the insurrection. They were arrested
+and consigned to imprisonment in the Castle of Ham. Paris was declared
+to be in a state of siege, and Pichegru, then in the full lustre of his
+glory, was appointed commander of the armed force. The carriages which
+conveyed the arrested deputies to the Castle of Ham had to pass through
+the Elysian Fields. The Jacobins assembled in strong numbers and
+endeavored to rescue them. The energy of Pichegru repelled the attempt.
+A fight ensued, with cannon and small arms, in which several lives were
+lost.
+
+While these melancholy scenes were transpiring in Paris, the
+combined fleets and armies of England, Austria, and Naples were
+fiercely assailing the Republic at every vulnerable point. England,
+being undisputed mistress of the sea, had nothing to fear from the
+conflagration which she was kindling all over Europe. To stimulate
+impoverished Austria to the war, the British government loaned her
+$23,000,000 (£4,600,000). She augmented her own naval force to a
+hundred thousand seamen, put into commission one hundred and eight
+ships of the line, and raised her land forces to one hundred and fifty
+thousand men.[442]
+
+The question to be decided was, whether France had a right to abolish
+monarchy and establish a republic. It is in vain for the Allies to say
+that they were contending against the outrages which existed in France,
+for their hostile movements preceded these scenes of carnage, and were
+the efficient cause of nearly all the calamities that ensued. And,
+deplorable as was the condition of France during the Reign of Terror,
+even that reign was far more endurable by the masses of the people than
+the domination of the old feudal despotism.
+
+Carlyle makes the following appalling statement, the truth of which
+will not be denied by any careful student of the Old Régime:
+
+"History, looking back over this France through long times--back
+to Turgot's time, for instance, when dumb Drudgery staggered up to
+its king's palace, and, in wide expanse of sallow faces, squalor,
+and winged raggedness, presented hieroglyphically its petition of
+grievances, and, for answer, got hanged on a new gallows forty feet
+high--confesses mournfully _that there is no period in which the
+general twenty-five millions of France suffered less than in this
+period which they named the Reign of Terror!_
+
+"But it was not the dumb millions that suffered here; it was the
+speaking thousands, and hundreds, and units, who shrieked and
+published, and made the world ring with their wail, as they could and
+should; that is the grand peculiarity. The frightfulest births of time
+are never the loud-speaking ones, for these soon die; they are the
+silent ones, which live from century to century."[443]
+
+The Royalist emigrants, taking advantage of the clemency of the
+Thermidorians, began now to return to France in great numbers, and were
+very active every where in trying to promote a counter-revolution, and
+in forming conspiracies to overthrow the Republic and re-establish the
+Bourbons. They were supplied with immense sums of money to expend as
+bribes.
+
+A new Constitution was formed to meet the new emergencies of the
+country. Instead of one General Assembly, they had two legislative
+bodies. The Senate, called the _Council of the Ancients_, consisted
+of two hundred and fifty members, of at least forty years of age, and
+all were to be either widowers or married; one third to be renewed
+every year. The lower house, called the _Council of the Five Hundred_,
+was to be composed of members of at least thirty years of age, to be
+renewed also annually by one third. Instead of an executive of sixteen
+committees, _five Directors_ were intrusted with the executive power,
+to be renewed annually by one fifth. Thus organized, the ship of state
+was again launched upon its stormy voyage, to encounter tempests
+without and mutiny within. This Constitution was the work of the
+moderate Republican party, and restored the ascendency of the middle
+class. As such it was obnoxious to the Jacobins.[444] France was now so
+rent by hostile parties that no Constitution could long stand.
+
+The old Constituent Assembly had, by a decree which was intended to be
+very patriotic and self-denying, excluded itself from the Legislative
+Assembly which was to succeed it. This act, however, proved to be
+injudicious and disastrous. The Legislative Assembly, wishing to secure
+a majority friendly to moderate Republicanism in the two bodies to be
+elected under the new Constitution, _decreed that two thirds of their
+own members should be elected_ to the two new legislative bodies.
+This _decree_, which was accepted with great unanimity by France
+as a whole, was exceedingly obnoxious to the Royalists and to the
+Jacobins of Paris, both of whom hoped to obtain a majority under the
+new Constitution. These two extremes now joined hands, and, as usual,
+appealed for support to insurrection and the terrors of the mob. There
+was no excuse for this violence, for the _Constitution_ was accepted
+almost unanimously by France, and the _decrees_ by an immense majority.
+It was in Paris alone that there was any opposition, and even there the
+opposition was only to the _decrees_. Still, Royalists and Jacobins
+united to crush the will of the nation by a Parisian mob.
+
+Paris was divided in forty-eight electoral sections or wards. The
+section of Lepelletier was the focus of the gathering storm. The tocsin
+was rung, drums beat, and armed bands collected. The Convention sent
+General Menou, a kind-hearted man, to surround this section and disarm
+it. Overawed by the high rank of the leaders, Menou parleyed with them,
+and, at length, alarmed by their numbers, their strength, and their
+determination, by a sort of capitulation disgracefully retreated.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte was then in Paris, out of employment, and was that
+evening at the Théâtre Feydeau. Some friends came and informed him of
+the scenes which were transpiring. He immediately left the theatre and
+hastened to the gallery of the Assembly, to witness the effect which
+would be produced upon that body by the tidings of the retreat of
+Menou.[445]
+
+He found the Assembly in great commotion. Some one had moved the arrest
+of Menou, and his trial for treason. It was a scene of tumult and
+alarm, many speaking at once. Barras, who had acquired some reputation
+for intrepidity and energy, was appointed as chief of the forces in
+the place of Menou. Barras, who was well acquainted with the energetic
+character of Napoleon, and who probably saw him in the gallery,
+immediately requested that General Bonaparte should be appointed as his
+second in command. Barras knew his man, and was willing to surrender to
+the young brigadier-general the entire superintendence of the military
+arrangements to quell the revolt.
+
+The Convention had five thousand troops at its command. The sections
+now, with clamor and tumult, were marching upon them with forty-five
+thousand. Barras was a man of commanding stature and of powerful
+frame. Napoleon, though he had acquired at Toulon a high reputation
+in the army, was but little known in Paris. When Barras introduced
+to the Convention the young general, a small, slender, pale-faced,
+smooth-cheeked youth, who seemed to be not more than eighteen years of
+age, all were surprised.
+
+[Illustration: NAPOLEON BEFORE THE CONVENTION.]
+
+"Are you willing," inquired the president, "to undertake the defense of
+the Convention?"
+
+"Yes," was the laconic reply.
+
+The president hesitated, and then continued, "But are you aware of the
+magnitude of the undertaking?"
+
+Napoleon fixed that eagle eye upon him which few could meet
+without quailing, and replied, "Perfectly; and I am in the habit
+of accomplishing that which I undertake. But one condition is
+indispensable. I must have the unlimited command, entirely untrammeled
+by any orders from the Convention."
+
+There was no time for debate; and even the most stupid could see that
+in such an hour the public safety could only be secured by the prompt,
+concentrated action of a single mind, sufficiently powerful to meet
+the emergency. The characteristic traits of Napoleon's character were
+perhaps never more conspicuously displayed than on this occasion--his
+self-reliance, his skill in the choice of agents, his careful
+preparation against the possibility of defeat, and his fortitude in
+doing whatever might be necessary for the accomplishment of his plans.
+
+Not a moment was lost. At Sablons, a few miles from Paris, there was a
+park of forty pieces of artillery. Napoleon dispatched a young soldier,
+whom he well knew, of most chivalrous daring and impetuosity, Joachim
+Murat, to secure the guns. At the head of three hundred horse he was
+almost instantly on the gallop, and arrived at Sablons just in time
+to rescue the artillery from a smaller band of the insurrectionists,
+who had also been dispatched to secure it. The guns were brought to
+the Tuileries. They were promptly ranged to sweep all the avenues
+leading to the Tuileries. The cavalry and a part of the infantry were
+placed in reserve in the garden of the palace and in the Carrousel.
+The Convention awoke fully to a sense of its danger and to the energy
+of its commander when soldiers brought eight hundred muskets into the
+hall, with which the deputies were to arm themselves and advance to
+battle if necessary. Detachments of troops were dispatched to seize
+by surprise all the provisions and ammunition in Paris, and convey
+them to a safe dépôt in the Tuileries. A hospital for the wounded
+was established in the palace, provided with necessaries for every
+emergency. The troops of all kinds at Napoleon's disposal, variously
+estimated at from five to eight thousand, were strongly posted in the
+leading streets, at the bridges, in the Place Vendôme, and in the Place
+de la Révolution. A strong detachment was sent to occupy the heights
+of Meudon, Napoleon intending to retreat there, with the Convention,
+in case of defeat. One section in Paris had voted with the immense
+majority of the nation for the decrees. Chests of arms were sent to
+that section to arm the voters in defense of the laws. A detachment was
+sent to the road to St. Germain, to intercept any cannon from being
+brought from that direction.
+
+All this was accomplished in one short night, the 4th of October,
+Napoleon seeming to infuse his own energy into every one around him. In
+the mean time the sections, though by no means aware of the spirit they
+were doomed to encounter, were not idle. They had organized a kind of
+insurrectionary government, outlawed the committees of the Convention,
+and had established a tribunal to punish those who should resist its
+sovereignty. Several energetic generals, Jacobins, and also Royalists,
+creeping from their retreats, offered their services to lead the attack
+upon the Convention. General Danican, a Royalist, who had been a
+general of brigade in the civil war which had desolated La Vendée, was
+appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the insurrection. He had
+the National Guard, forty thousand strong, well armed, officered, and
+disciplined, under his command. The morning of the 5th dawned.
+
+The alarm-bells were now ringing and the _générale_ beating. The armed
+hosts of the sections were mustering at their appointed rendezvous and
+preparing to march upon the Convention. The members, in their seats,
+in silence and awe awaited the assault, upon the issue of which their
+lives were suspended. Napoleon, pale, solemn, and perfectly calm, was
+waiting, resolved that the responsibility of the first blow should fall
+upon his assailants, and that he would take the responsibility of the
+second.
+
+Soon the enemy were seen advancing from every direction, in masses
+which filled the narrow streets of the city. With music and banners
+they marched to attack the besieged on every side, confident, from
+their numbers, of an easy victory. They did not believe that the few
+and feeble troops of the Convention would dare to resist the populace
+of Paris, but cherished the delusion that a few shots from their own
+side would put all opposition to flight. Thus unhesitatingly they came
+within sweep of the grapeshot with which Napoleon had charged his guns.
+The troops of the Convention stood firm. The insurgents opened a volley
+of bullets upon them. It was the signal for an instantaneous discharge,
+direct, sanguinary, merciless, from every battery. A storm of grape
+swept the streets. The columns of the assailants wavered, turned, fled,
+and still the storm pursued them. One of the strongest battalions of
+the insurgents had posted itself on the steps of the Church of Saint
+Roche, where it occupied a commanding position for firing upon the
+gunners of the Convention. Napoleon directed his artillery to advance
+upon them by the cul de sac Dauphin, and immediately threw into their
+crowded ranks a storm of grapeshot. The insurgents fought manfully
+for a time, but were soon compelled to retreat, leaving the steps of
+the church covered with the slain. As they fled, Napoleon pushed his
+artillery up the street, and, wheeling to the right and the left, swept
+the whole length of the Rue St. Honoré. In two hours the victory was
+achieved, forty thousand men were vanquished by five thousand, the
+streets were cleared, and Napoleon returned in calm triumph to the
+Tuileries.[446]
+
+It is interesting to catch a glimpse of Napoleon in his domestic life
+at this time. The Duchess of Abrantes writes, "My parents arrived in
+Paris on the 4th of September. Two days after my father was very ill.
+Bonaparte, apprised by my brother, came immediately to see us. He
+appeared to be affected by the state of my father, who, though in great
+pain, insisted on seeing him. He came every day, and in the morning he
+sent or called himself to inquire how he had passed the night. I can
+not recollect his conduct at that period without sincere gratitude.
+
+[Illustration: THE SECTIONS AT SAINT ROCHE.]
+
+"He informed us that Paris was in such a state as must necessarily lead
+to a convulsion. The sections were in, if not open, at least almost
+avowed insurrection. The section Lepelletier, which was ours, was the
+most turbulent, and, in fact, the most to be dreaded. Its orators did
+not scruple to deliver the most incendiary speeches. They asserted that
+the power of the assembled people was above the laws. 'Matters are
+getting from bad to worse,' said Bonaparte; 'the counter-revolution
+will shortly break forth, and it will, at the same time, become the
+source of disasters.'
+
+"As I have said, he came every day; he dined with us and passed
+the evening in the drawing-room, talking in a low tone beside the
+easy-chair of my mother, who, worn out with fatigue, dozed for a few
+moments to recruit her strength, for she never quitted my father's
+pillow. I recollect that, one evening, my father being very ill, my
+mother was weeping and in great tribulation. It was ten o'clock. At
+that time it was impossible to induce any of the servants of the hotel
+to go out after nine. Bonaparte said nothing. He ran down stairs and
+posted away to Duchannais, whom he brought back with him in spite of
+his objections. The weather was dreadful; the rain poured in torrents.
+Bonaparte had not been able to meet with a hackney coach to go to M.
+Duchannais; he was wet through. Yes, indeed, at that period Bonaparte
+had a heart susceptible of attachment.
+
+"Meanwhile we became more and more alarmed every day by the dangers
+which manifested themselves around us. Paris rung with the tumult of
+the factions, each of which drew the sword and hoisted its standard.
+Against the Convention, then the only real authority, were arrayed the
+sections, which for some days past again declared war against it. Paris
+resembled a garrison town. At night we heard the sentries calling to
+and answering one another, as in a besieged town. The strictest search
+was made for arms and ammunition.
+
+"For some years my mother had been subject to nervous paroxysms. At
+such times she disliked to have any body about her. On reaching the
+drawing-room I found her all in tears and in one of the most violent
+spasms. General Bonaparte was with her, endeavoring to soothe her. He
+told me that on his arrival he found her on the point of attacking the
+adjunct of the section to prevent his entering my father's chamber. 'I
+should be glad to spare your mother such scenes,' said he; 'I have not
+much influence, nevertheless I will go myself to the section. I will
+see the president if possible and settle the business at once. Paris is
+all on fire, especially since this morning. It is necessary to be very
+cautious in every thing one does and in all one says. Your brother must
+not go out any more. Attend to all this, for your mother is in a sad
+state.'
+
+"This was a dreadful night for my father. The next morning the
+_générale_ was beat. The streets were already very unsafe, though
+people were still passing to and fro in Paris, as though they were not
+going to cut one another's throats a few hours afterward. The tumult
+became very great at dusk; the theatres were nevertheless open. Indeed,
+we are a nation of lunatics!
+
+"On the morning of the 12th Vendémiaire (October 4) Bonaparte, who had
+called according to custom, appeared to be lost in thought. He went
+out, came back, went out again, and again returned when we were at our
+dessert. 'I breakfasted very late,' said he, 'at Bourrienne's. They
+talked politics there till I was quite tired of the subject. I will try
+to learn the news, and if I have any thing interesting I will come and
+tell you.'
+
+"We did not see him again. The night was tumultuous, especially in
+our section. The whole Rue de la Loi was bristling with bayonets.
+Barricades were already set up in our streets. On the morning of the
+13th (October 5) my father was very ill. For some hours we flattered
+ourselves that matters would be adjusted between the Convention and
+the rebels; but about half past four the firing of the cannon began.
+The effect on my poor father was terrible. He gave a piercing shriek,
+calling for assistance, and was seized with the most violent delirium.
+All the scenes of the Revolution passed in review before him, and every
+discharge that he heard was a blow struck at him personally. What a
+day! what an evening! what a night! Every pane of glass was broken in
+pieces. Toward evening the section fell back upon us. The fighting was
+continued almost under our window, but when it had come to St. Roche we
+imagined that the house was tumbling about our ears.
+
+"My father was in the agonies of death; he shouted, he wept. Never, no,
+never, shall I suffer what I did during that terrible night. Next day
+tranquillity was restored, we were told, in Paris. I can scarcely give
+any account of the 14th. Toward evening Bonaparte came for a moment; he
+found me dissolved in tears. When he learned the cause his cheerful and
+open countenance suddenly changed. My mother entered at that moment.
+She knew no more than I how important a part Bonaparte had played on
+that great day. 'Oh!' said my mother, 'they have killed my husband.
+You, Napoleon, can feel for my distress. Do you recollect that on the
+first Prairial, when you came to sup with me, you told me that you had
+just prevented Barras from bombarding Paris? Do you recollect it? For
+my part I have not forgotten it.'
+
+"Many persons have alleged that Napoleon always regretted that day.
+Be that as it may, he was always exceedingly kind to my mother in
+these moments of affliction, though himself in circumstances that
+could not but outweigh all other interests. He was like a son--like a
+brother."[447]
+
+The Convention treated the insurrectionists, who had thus been so
+severely punished, with the utmost clemency.[448] Napoleon received
+the thanks of the Convention and a brilliant reception. The Convention
+united Belgium with France; decreed that the punishment of death
+should be abolished as soon as a general peace with Europe could be
+effected; changed the name of the Place of the Revolution to the Place
+of Concord; pronounced an amnesty for all acts connected with the
+Revolution, excepting one person implicated in the last revolt; and
+then, on the 26th of October, 1795, the President of the Convention
+pronounced these words,
+
+"The National Convention declares that its mission is accomplished, and
+its session is closed."
+
+With one united shout--_The Republic forever!_--the deputies left the
+hall and dispersed to their homes.
+
+To the States-General fell the task, after a terrific struggle with
+king and nobles, to create the Constituent Assembly, a great national
+congress, whose function it was to moderate the despotism of the throne
+by conferring upon a nation of twenty-five millions of people, after
+ages of oppression, constitutional liberty. The Constituent Assembly,
+which succeeded the States-General, abolished those old institutions of
+feudal servitude which had become utterly unendurable, and established
+a constitutional monarchy, taking as a model, in the main, the British
+Constitution. The Legislative Assembly then took the place of the
+Constituent, to enact laws in harmony with this Constitution. It
+soon, however, found that the king was in league with despotic Europe
+to overthrow constitutional liberty and restore the old despotism.
+It consequently suspended the king, and the Constitution with which
+his power was inseparably interwoven, and dissolved itself.[449] The
+National Convention, which succeeded, commenced its deliberations on
+the 21st of September, 1792.
+
+"The Convention," says Thiers, "found a dethroned king, an annulled
+Constitution, an administration entirely destroyed, a paper money
+discredited, old skeletons of regiments worn out and empty. Thus it
+was not liberty that it had to proclaim in presence of an enfeebled
+and despised throne, it was liberty that it had to defend against all
+Europe--a very difficult task. Without being for a moment daunted,
+it proclaimed the Republic in the face of the hostile armies; it
+then sacrificed the king, to cut off all retreat from itself; it
+subsequently took all the powers into its own hands, and constituted
+itself a dictatorship. Voices were raised in its bosom which talked
+of _humanity_, when it wished to hear of nothing but _energy_; it
+stifled them. This dictatorship, which the necessity of the general
+preservation had obliged it to arrogate to itself over all France,
+twelve of its members soon arrogated to themselves over it, for the
+same reason, and on account of the same necessity. From the Alps to the
+sea, from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, these twelve dictators seized upon
+all, both men and things, and commenced the greatest and the most awful
+struggle with the nations of Europe ever recorded in history. They
+spilt torrents of blood, till, having become useless from victory, and
+odious by the abuse of strength, they fell.
+
+"The Convention then took the dictatorship again into its own
+hands, and began, by degrees, to relax the springs of that terrible
+administration. Rendered confident by victory, it listened to humanity,
+and indulged its spirit of regeneration. It aimed at every thing good
+and great, and pursued this purpose for a year; but the parties crushed
+under its pitiless authority revived under its clemency. Two factions,
+in which were blended, under infinite variety of shades, the friends
+and the foes of the Revolution, attacked it by turns. It vanquished
+the one and the other, and, till the last day, showed itself heroic
+amid dangers. Lastly, it framed a Republican Constitution, and, after
+a struggle of three years with Europe, with the factions, with itself,
+mutilated and bleeding, it dissolved itself, and transmitted the
+government of France to the Directory."[450]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 441: Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 442: Thiers, vol. iii., p. 242. New Annual Register.]
+
+[Footnote 443: Carlyle's History of the French Revolution, vol. ii., p.
+460.]
+
+[Footnote 444: "This Constitution was the best, the wisest, the most
+liberal, and the most provident that had as yet been established or
+projected; it contained the result of six years' revolutionary and
+legislative experience."--_Mignet_, p. 301.]
+
+[Footnote 445: Las Casas.]
+
+[Footnote 446: There is no exaggeration in the following account of the
+condition of France at this time: "Since France had become Republican
+every species of evil had accumulated upon its devoted head. Famine,
+a total cessation of commerce, civil war, attended by its usual
+accompaniments--conflagration, robbery, pillage, and murder. Justice
+was interrupted; the sword of the law wielded by iniquity; property
+spoliated; confiscation rendered the order of the day; the scaffold
+permanently erected; calumnious denunciations held in the highest
+estimation. Nothing was wanting to the general desolation."--_Hist. de
+la Conv._, vol. ii., p. 215, 216.]
+
+[Footnote 447: Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, p. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 448: "After this memorable conflict, when Bonaparte had been
+publicly received with enthusiasm by the Convention, who declared that
+he and Barras deserved well of their country, a great change took place
+in him, and the change in regard to attention to his person was not the
+least remarkable. He now never went out but in a handsome carriage, and
+he lived in a very respectable house, Rue des Capucines. In short, he
+had become an important, a necessary personage, and all without noise,
+as if by magic."--_Duchess of Abrantes._]
+
+[Footnote 449: The States-General held its session from May 6, 1789.]
+
+[Footnote 450: Thiers, Fr. Rev., vol. iii., p. 333.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE DIRECTORY.
+
+ Constitution of the Directory.--Distracted State of Public
+ Affairs.--New Expedition to La Vendée.--Death of the
+ Dauphin.--Release of the Princess.--Pacification of La Vendée.--Riots
+ in London.--Execution of Charette.--Napoleon takes command of the
+ Army of Italy.--The first Proclamation.--Triumphs in Italy.--Letter
+ of General Hoche.--Peace with Spain.--Establishment of the Cispadane
+ Republic.--Negotiations with England.--Contemplated Invasion of
+ Ireland.--Memorials of Wolfe Tone.--Deplorable State of Public
+ Affairs.--Description of Napoleon.--Composition of the Directory.
+
+
+The government of the Directory went into operation on the 27th
+of October, 1795. The two legislative bodies, the Council of the
+Ancients and the Council of the Five Hundred, met and chose for the
+five directors Lareveillère Lepeaux, Le Tourneur, Rewbel, Carnot, and
+Barras. "Among these," says Thiers, "there was not a man of genius, nor
+even any man of high reputation, excepting Carnot. But what was to be
+done at the end of a sanguinary revolution which, in a few years, had
+devoured several generations of men of genius of every description?
+In the Assemblies there was not left one extraordinary orator; in
+diplomacy there remained not one celebrated negotiator."[451] The
+state of public affairs at this time was deplorable in the extreme.
+Innumerable factions disturbed the state. A very sanguinary war was
+raging around the frontiers. The embers of civil war were still
+smoldering and frequently bursting out into flame. Three powerful
+parties were struggling almost with the energies of despair for
+the supremacy--the old Royalists, the Thermidorians or moderate
+Republicans, and the Jacobins, who wielded, as the great instrument of
+terror, the energies of the Parisian mob. Many of the most intelligent
+men already foresaw that there was no hope for distracted France but
+in the action of some mighty mind which could mould the tumultuous
+elements and evolve order from the confusion.[452]
+
+The British government, undismayed by the disaster of Quiberon, now
+sent another expedition to the shores of La Vendée to rouse the
+Royalists to insurrection. The expedition consisted of two thousand
+English infantry, five hundred horse, several regiments of French
+emigrants, a great number of officers to take command of the marshaled
+peasantry, and arms, ammunition, provisions, clothing, and gold in
+abundance. Should this expedition successfully land and rally around it
+the Royalist insurgents in promising numbers, it was immediately to be
+followed by another still more powerful. The Count d'Artois (Charles
+X.) was placed in command of this force. Charette, a very intrepid
+Royalist chieftain, had raised some ten thousand peasants, and was in
+command of the coast to welcome the invaders. But General Hoche fell
+upon the insurgent Vendeeans and scattered them; and the English fleet,
+after hovering for some time along the coast, being unable to effect
+a landing, and disappointed in the support they hoped to have met,
+abandoned the enterprise and returned to England.[453]
+
+While the coast of France was thus threatened the Allies on the Rhine
+gained some very decisive victories, and drove the routed Republicans
+before them. There was no money in the treasury of the Directory. The
+paper money, which had been freely issued, had become almost worthless,
+and the armies were now in destitution and rags. Such were the
+difficulties with which the new government had to grapple.[454]
+
+On the 8th of June the dauphin died in the Temple. While he lived he
+was considered by the Royalists the legitimate King of France, under
+the title of Louis XVII. Upon his death the emigrants declared the
+Count of Provence king, and he assumed the title of Louis XVIII. It
+will be remembered that the Convention sent some deputies to arrest
+Dumouriez, and that he seized these commissioners and handed them
+over to the Austrians as hostages. The Directory now exchanged the
+young princess, who still survived in woeful captivity, for these
+commissioners and a few other distinguished prisoners held by the
+Austrians. It was the 19th of December when this unhappy child left her
+cell, where she had endured agonies such as few on earth had known, to
+be conveyed back to the palaces of her maternal ancestors.
+
+The guns of Napoleon, quelling the insurgent sections, had established
+the government of the Directory. To secure Paris and France from
+similar scenes of violence, an imposing force was organized, called
+the Army of the Interior, and Napoleon was placed in command. As by
+magic, under his efficient command, this body was organized into the
+highest discipline and efficiency, and, overawing the discontented,
+maintained public order. A formidable camp of these troops was
+established at Grenelle. But for Napoleon the Directory could not
+have come into being. But for Napoleon it could not have lived a
+year, struggling against the conspiracies which ever crowded it.[455]
+General Hoche, operating with singular wisdom and humanity, succeeded
+in the pacification of the inhabitants of La Vendée. They surrendered
+their arms, and peace was restored to that distracted region. Still
+William Pitt clamored for war against the French Republic. The English
+_people_ were indignant at these unjust assaults against a neighboring
+nation struggling to throw off the chains of intolerable servitude,
+and demanded peace with France. The liberty-loving Englishmen met in
+immense gatherings in the open air, and denounced the war system in
+the most bold and decisive resolves. As the king rode to Parliament
+the populace pursued him, pelted his carriage with stones, broke
+the windows, and it was asserted that an air-gun was fired at him.
+Pitt, riding on horseback, was recognized by the populace, and with
+difficulty escaped from their hands covered with mud. Fox and Sheridan
+in Parliament were loud and eloquent in the denunciation of the war
+measures of the ministry.[456] Pitt endeavored to defend himself
+against the assaults of the opposition by saying that _English blood_
+had not been shed. "True," replied Sheridan, "English blood has not
+been shed, but English honor has oozed from every pore."
+
+The Allies, exhilarated by their successes on the Rhine, prepared to
+press the war with new vigor. Pitt obtained from Parliament a new loan
+of thirty-five millions of dollars. General Bonaparte was promoted from
+the command of the Army of the Interior to that of the Army of Italy.
+He immediately entered upon that Italian campaign which gave him renown
+throughout the world.
+
+Though the Vendeeans had surrendered their arms and were rejoicing in
+the enjoyment of peace, Charette wandered about the country, refusing
+all overtures at reconciliation, and striving, with great energy, to
+rouse new forces of insurrection. The entire pacification of La Vendée
+now depended upon the capture of Charette. With almost unparalleled
+energy and bravery he succeeded for several months in eluding his foes.
+At last, on the 24th of March, 1796, he fell into an ambuscade. He was
+armed to the teeth, and fought with the ferocity of a tiger at bay. He
+received several sabre-blows before he fell and was secured. At his
+examination he with dignity averred his detestation of republicanism
+and his devotion to royalty. He had deluged the land with the blood of
+civil war, and, as a traitor, was doomed to die. On the 30th of March
+he was led out to execution. A platoon of soldiers was drawn up but a
+few paces before him. He stood erect, with his eyes unbandaged, and,
+apparently without the tremor of a nerve, gave the command to fire.
+He fell dead, pierced by many bullets. He had displayed marvelous
+heroism in a bad cause. Refusing to submit to laws established by the
+overwhelming majority of his countrymen, he was deluging the land in
+blood in the endeavor to rivet again upon France the chains of the most
+intolerable despotism. The Royalists all over Europe mourned his death.
+But France rejoiced, for the fall of Charette terminated the civil war.
+
+One hundred thousand men had been under the command of General
+
+Hoche in the strife of La Vendée. These were now at liberty to march
+to repel the foreign invader. Two powerful armies, of eighty thousand
+each, were collected on the Rhine. But they could not hold their ground
+against the outnumbering Austrians. In one of these engagements the
+distinguished young general Marceau was killed. He was struck by a ball
+fired by a Tyrolean marksman, and fell from his horse mortally wounded.
+His soldiers, on the rapid retreat, were unable to rescue him, and he
+was left in his blood to the humanity of the victors. The Austrians
+generously did every thing in their power for his relief, but he died,
+three days after, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.
+
+[Illustration: LA CHARETTE TAKEN PRISONER.]
+
+About thirty thousand French soldiers, in rags, destitute of the
+munitions of war, and almost famished, were ineffectually struggling
+against their foes on the southern slopes of the Apennines. Napoleon
+was placed in command of these starving troops, but the government
+was unable to supply him with any funds for the prosecution of the
+war. On the 27th of March he placed himself at the head of these
+enfeebled and discouraged battalions. Young generals, who subsequently
+obtained great renown--Angereau, Massena, Laharpe, Serrurier, and
+Berthier--composed the officers of his staff. The levy _en masse_ had
+filled the ranks with young men from good families, well informed,
+distinctly understanding the nature of the conflict, detesting the old
+feudal despotism which allied Europe was striving to impose upon them
+anew, and enthusiastically devoted to the principles of liberty and
+equal rights which the Revolution was endeavoring to implant. Though
+most of them were young, they had many of them spent years in the
+field, had seen many bloody battles, and, inured to the hardships of
+war, were veteran soldiers. Sixty thousand Piedmontese and Austrians,
+under Colli and Beaulieu, crowded the northern slopes and the crest
+of the mountains, endeavoring to force their way through the defiles
+upon France. Napoleon's first words to his troops roused them as with
+electric fire.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF GENERAL MARCEAU.]
+
+"Soldiers," said he, "you are ill fed, almost naked. The government
+owes you much, but can do nothing for you. Your patience, your courage,
+do you honor, but procure you neither glory nor advantage. I am about
+to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. You will there
+find large cities, rich provinces; you will there find honor, glory,
+and wealth. Soldiers of Italy, will your courage fail you?"
+
+On the 12th of April his troops were in motion. A series of desperate
+battles and of resplendent victories ensued. At the close of two weeks
+Napoleon issued the following proclamation:
+
+"Soldiers, in a fortnight you have gained six victories, taken
+twenty-one pairs of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, several
+fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You have
+made fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded more than ten
+thousand men. You had hitherto been fighting for barren rocks, rendered
+glorious by your courage, but useless to the country. You now rival,
+by your services, the army of Holland and the Rhine. Destitute of
+every thing, you have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles
+without cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches
+without shoes, bivouacked without brandy and often without bread.
+The Republican phalanxes, the soldiers of liberty alone, could have
+endured what you have endured. Thanks be to you for it, soldiers. Your
+grateful country will owe to you its prosperity; and if your conquest
+at Toulon foreboded the glorious campaign of 1793, your present
+victories forbode one still more glorious. The two armies which so
+lately attacked you boldly, are fleeing affrighted before you. The
+perverse men who laughed at your distress, and rejoiced in thought at
+the triumph of your enemies, are confounded and trembling.
+
+"But, soldiers, you have done nothing, since more remains to be done.
+Neither Turin nor Milan is yours. The ashes of the conquerors of
+Tarquin are still trampled upon by the murderers of Basseville."[457]
+
+Napoleon now summoned all his energies to drive the Austrians out of
+Italy. In two months the work was done; and Paris, France, Europe was
+electrified by the narrative of deeds of daring and success, such as
+war had never recorded before. In all the towns and cities of Italy the
+French armies were received as deliverers, for the subjugated Italians
+were eager to throw off the hateful yoke of Austrian despotism.
+Napoleon, having unbounded confidence in himself, and but very little
+respect for the weak men who composed the Directory, took all matters
+of diplomacy, as well as war, into his own hands, and, sustained by the
+enthusiasm of his soldiers, settled the affairs of Italy according to
+his own views of expediency.
+
+The Royalists, hoping for the overthrow of the Republic and for the
+return of Louis XVIII., were exceedingly chagrined by these victories.
+They left no means of calumny untried to sully the name of Napoleon.
+Europe was filled with falsehoods respecting him, and reports were
+circulated that General Hoche was to be sent from Paris to arrest him
+in the midst of his army. These rumors assumed such importance that the
+government wrote a letter to Napoleon contradicting them; and General
+Hoche, with the magnanimity of a man incapable of jealousy, over his
+own name published a letter expressing his admiration of the commander
+of the Army of Italy.
+
+"Men," he wrote, "who, concealed or unknown during the first years
+of the foundation of the Republic, now think only of seeking the
+means of destroying it, and speak of it merely to slander its firmest
+supporters, have, for some days past, been spreading reports most
+injurious to the armies, and to one of the general officers who
+commanded them. Can they, then, no longer attain their object by
+corresponding openly with the horde of conspirators resident at
+Hamburg? Must they, in order to gain the patronage of the masters
+whom they are desirous of giving to France, vilify the leaders of
+the armies? Why is Bonaparte, then, the object of the wrath of
+these gentry? Is it because he beat themselves and their friends in
+Vendémiaire?[458] Is it because he is dissolving the armies of kings,
+and furnishing the Republic with the means of bringing this honorable
+war to a glorious conclusion? Ah! brave young man, where is the
+Republican soldier whose heart does not burn with the desire to imitate
+thee? Courage, Bonaparte! lead our victorious armies to Naples, to
+Vienna; reply to thy personal enemies by humbling kings, by shedding
+fresh lustre over our armies, and leave to us the task of upholding thy
+glory."
+
+Still the Royalists were busy with incessant plots and intrigues for
+the overthrow of the government. The treasury was utterly bankrupt,
+paper money, almost utterly worthless, flooded the land, and the
+finances were in a state of inextricable embarrassment. The Jacobins
+and the Royalists were equally eager to demolish the Directory by any
+conceivable measures of treason and violence. Never was a nation in a
+more deplorable state, harassed by a foreign war which demanded all its
+energies, and torn by domestic dissensions which no human wisdom seemed
+capable of healing.
+
+The Jacobins adopted even the desperate measure to feign a Royalist
+insurrection; to scatter white cockades, the emblem of Bourbon power;
+to shout _Vive le Roi!_ and to discharge musketry and throw petards
+into the streets, that the people, alarmed by the peril of Bourbon
+restoration, might throw themselves into the arms of the Jacobins
+for protection.[459] A mob of nearly a thousand most determined men
+marched, in the night of the 10th of September, upon the camp at
+Grenelle, hoping to fraternize with the soldiers in this treasonable
+endeavor to overthrow the government. Several hundreds fell dead or
+wounded in this frantic attempt.
+
+[Illustration: NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 10, 1796.]
+
+The Directory now attempted to enter into peaceful relations with other
+powers, and effected a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive,
+with Spain. Envoys were also sent to the Ottoman Porte and to Venice
+for the same purpose. Piedmont had sued for peace and obtained it.
+The Italians of Upper Italy, exulting in their emancipation from the
+Austrians, under the protection of Napoleon established the Cispadane
+Republic. Without the support of his strong arm they could not for a
+day resist the encroachments of the surrounding despotisms. The first
+National Assembly of this infant republic met at Modena, October 16,
+1796. The people were electrified with delight at this unexpected
+achievement of freedom. The Assembly sent an address to Napoleon,
+informing him of the principles of their new government.
+
+"Never forget," said Napoleon, in his reply, "that laws are mere
+nullities without the force necessary to support them. Attend to
+your military organization, which you have the means of placing on a
+respectable footing. You will then be more fortunate than the people
+of France, for you will arrive at liberty without passing through
+the ordeal of revolution."
+
+The Directory had for some time been attempting to effect peace with
+England. On the 18th of December the British government stated on what
+terms it would consent to sheathe the sword. M. Thiers expresses the
+feelings of France in reference to this offer in the following terms:
+
+"Thus France, having been iniquitously forced into war, after
+she had expended enormous sums, and from which she had come off
+victorious--France was not to gain a single province, while the
+northern powers had just divided a kingdom between them (Poland), and
+England had recently made immense acquisitions in India. France, who
+still occupied the line of the Rhine, and who was mistress of Italy,
+was to evacuate the Rhine and Italy at the bare summons of England!
+Such conditions were absurd and inadmissible. The very proposal of them
+was an insult, and they could not be listened to."[460]
+
+To conquer a peace, the Directory now meditated a direct attack upon
+England. The Catholic Irish, over three millions in number, hating
+implacably their English conquerors, were ardent to rise, under the
+guarantee of France, and establish a republican government. They had
+sent secret agents to Paris to confer with the Directory. Wolfe Tone,
+one of the leaders of the Irish revolutionists, addressed memorials to
+the French Directory soliciting aid.
+
+"The Catholics of Ireland," said he, "are 3,150,000, all trained from
+their infancy in an hereditary hatred and abhorrence of the English
+name. For these five years they have fixed their eyes most earnestly
+on France, whom they look upon, with great justice, as fighting their
+battles, as well as that of all mankind who are oppressed. Of this
+class I will stake my head there are 500,000 who would fly to the
+standard of the Republic if they saw it once displayed in the cause of
+liberty and their country.
+
+"The Republic may also rely with confidence on the support of the
+Dissenters, actuated by reason and reflection, as well as the Catholics
+impelled by misery and inflamed by detestation of the English name.
+In the year 1791 the Dissenters of Belfast first formed the Club of
+United Irishmen, so called because in that club, for the first time,
+Dissenters and Catholics were seen together in harmony and union.
+Corresponding clubs were rapidly formed, the object of which was to
+subvert the tyranny of England, establish the independence of Ireland,
+and frame a free republic on the broad basis of liberty and equality.
+
+"The Catholics also have an organization, commencing about the same
+time with the clubs last mentioned, but composed of Catholics only. In
+June last it embraced the whole peasantry of the provinces of Ulster,
+Leinster, and Connaught, three fourths of the nation, and I have little
+doubt that it has since extended into Munster, the remaining province.
+The eyes of this whole body, which may be said, almost without a
+figure, to be the people of Ireland, are turned with the most anxious
+expectation to France for assistance and support. The oath of their
+union recites that they will be faithful to the united nations of
+France and Ireland."[461]
+
+An expedition to Ireland was secretly resolved upon. A fleet of
+fifteen sail of the line, twenty frigates, six luggers, and fifty
+transports, containing sixteen thousand troops, sailed on the 16th of
+December to land in Bantry Bay, on the coast of Ireland. But the very
+night after the squadron left port a heavy storm arose, in which one
+ship foundered and the fleet was widely dispersed. A singular series of
+casualties ensued. Some of the ships entered the bay, but not finding
+their companions, after waiting a short time, returned to France.
+Other ships of the expedition soon after entered, but, finding the
+bay deserted, they also returned. The expedition thus proved a total
+failure.[462]
+
+The inefficient Directory was quite unable to rectify the disorders
+into which the internal affairs of the state were plunged. They uttered
+loud complaints, which did but increase discontent and disgust. The
+press, being entirely free, indulged in the utmost violence; Royalists
+and Jacobins assailing the feeble government without mercy and
+thwarting its operations in every possible way. The army of Italy was
+triumphant--almost miraculously so. Every where else the Republic was
+in disgrace. The Directory endeavored to throw the blame of the public
+calamities upon the two Councils, and published the following message,
+which was as true as it was ill-advised:
+
+"All departments are distressed. The pay of the troops is in arrear;
+the defenders of the country, in rags and enervated by want, in disgust
+are led to desertion. The hospitals are destitute of furniture, fire,
+and drugs. The charitable institutions, utterly impoverished, repel the
+poor and infirm. The creditors of the state, the contractors who supply
+the armies, with difficulty obtain but a small portion of the sums that
+are their due. Distress keeps aloof men who could perform the same
+services better and cheaper. The roads are cut up; the communications
+interrupted. The public functionaries are without salary; from one end
+of the Republic to the other judges and administrators may be seen
+reduced to the horrible alternative either of dragging on, with their
+families, a miserable existence, or of being dishonored by selling
+themselves to intrigue. The evil-disposed are every where busy. In many
+places murder is being organized, and the police, without activity,
+without energy, because it is without pecuniary means, can not put a
+stop to these disorders."
+
+All eyes were directed to the achievements of Napoleon, who, with
+superhuman energy, was destroying army after army of the Allies,
+astounding Europe by his exploits, and exciting the admiration of his
+countrymen. Thiers thus describes the position he then occupied in the
+public mind:
+
+"Sickness, together with the excessive fatigues of the campaign, had
+weakened him extremely. He could scarcely sit on horseback; his cheeks
+were hollow and livid. His whole appearance was deplorable. His eyes
+alone, still bright and piercing as ever, indicated that the fire
+of his soul was not extinguished. His physical proportions formed a
+singular contrast with his genius and his renown, a contrast amusing to
+soldiers at once jovial and enthusiastic. Notwithstanding the decline
+of his strength, his extraordinary energy supported him and imparted an
+activity which was applied to all objects at once.
+
+"He had begun what he called _the war against robbers_. Intriguers
+of all kinds had thronged to Italy for the purpose of introducing
+themselves into the administration of the armies and profiting by the
+wealth of that fine country. While simplicity and indigence pervaded
+the armies of the Rhine, luxury pervaded that of Italy--luxury as great
+as its glory. The soldiers, well clothed and well fed, were every where
+cordially received, and lived in pleasure and abundance. The officers,
+the generals, participated in the general opulence, and laid the
+foundations of their fortunes.
+
+"Bonaparte, who had within him all the passions, but who, at that
+moment, was engrossed by one passion, that of glory, lived in a simple
+and austere manner, seeking relaxation only in the society of his wife,
+to whom he was tenderly attached, and who had come, at his desire, to
+his head-quarters. Indignant at the disorders of the administration,
+he strictly scrutinized the minutest details, verified by personal
+inspection the accounts of the companies, denounced the dishonest
+administrators without mercy, and caused them to be prosecuted."
+
+Among the Directors, Carnot was one of the noblest of men. The purity
+of his character slander has never attempted to taint. Barras was
+a fearless soldier and a shameless debauchee. He boasted of the
+profligacies in which he openly indulged, and he rioted in boundless
+extravagance, which he supported through corruption and bribes. Rewbel
+was a lawyer, a man of ability and integrity.[463] These three men had
+belonged to different political parties during the Revolution, and each
+detested the others. Lareveillère was an honest man, but destitute of
+those commanding qualities so essential to the post he occupied. Le
+Tourneur was a vain, good-natured man who merely echoed the voice of
+Carnot. All the Directors but Barras occupied, with their families,
+apartments in the Palace of the Luxembourg. In the public mind this
+discordant Directory consisted of two parties, Barras, Rewbel, and
+Lareveillère in the majority, and Carnot and Le Tourneur in the
+opposition.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 451: Thiers, History of the French Revolution, vol. iii., p.
+338.]
+
+[Footnote 452: "France, exhausted by every species of suffering, had
+lost even the power of uttering a complaint; and we had all arrived
+at such a point of depression that death, if unattended by pain,
+would have been wished for even by the youngest human being, because
+it offered the prospect of repose, and every one panted for that
+blessing at any price. But it was ordained that many days, months, and
+years should still continue in that state of horrible agitation, the
+true foretaste of the torments of hell."--_Memoirs of the Duchess of
+Abrantes_, p. 296.]
+
+[Footnote 453: A _Republican_ does not view this endeavor on the
+part of the British government to foment civil war in France as a
+_Royalist_ views it. "It is _painful_," says Mr. Alison, "to reflect
+how different might have been the issue of the campaign had Great
+Britain really put forth its strength in the contest, and, instead of
+landing a few thousand men on a coast bristling with bayonets, sent
+thirty thousand men to make head against the Republicans till the
+Royalist forces were so organized as to be able to take the field with
+regular troops." It was this persistent determination, on the part of
+the British government and allied Europe, that France should not enjoy
+free institutions, which led to nearly all the sanguinary scenes of the
+French Revolution, and which, for nearly a quarter of a century, made
+Europe red with blood.]
+
+[Footnote 454: "All these forces [of the Republic] were in a state
+of extreme penury, and totally destitute of the equipments necessary
+for the carrying on of a campaign. They had neither caissons, nor
+horses, nor magazines. The soldiers were almost naked and the generals,
+even, frequently in want of the necessaries of life. Multitudes had
+taken advantage of the relaxation of authority following the fall of
+Robespierre to desert and return to their homes, and the government,
+so far from being able to bring them back to their colors, were
+not even able to levy conscripts in the interior to supply their
+place."--_Alison_, vol. i., p. 369.
+
+Paper money had been issued to the almost incredible amount of
+2,000,000,000 dollars, or 10,000,000,000 francs. This paper money had
+so depreciated that a pound of sugar cost eighty dollars in paper
+money.]
+
+[Footnote 455: Thiers, Hist. French Rev., vol. iii., p. 353.]
+
+[Footnote 456: Ibid., vol. iii., p. 364.]
+
+[Footnote 457: M. Basseville, an envoy of the French Republic at Rome,
+was attacked by a mob and cruelly murdered.]
+
+[Footnote 458: Quelling the insurgent sections.]
+
+[Footnote 459: Thiers's French Revolution, vol. iv., p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 460: Thiers's French Revolution, vol. iv., p. 66.]
+
+[Footnote 461: Wolfe Tone's First Memorial to the French Directory,
+vol. ii., p. 187.]
+
+[Footnote 462: "It is a curious subject for speculation what might have
+been the result had Hoche succeeded in landing with sixteen thousand of
+his best troops on the Irish shores. To those who consider, indeed, the
+patriotic spirit, indomitable valor, and persevering character of the
+English people, and the complete command they had of the sea, the final
+issue of such a contest can not appear doubtful; but it is equally
+evident that the addition of such a force and so able a commander
+to the numerous bodies of Irish malcontents would have engendered
+a dreadful domestic war, and that the whole energies of the empire
+might for a very long period have been employed in saving itself from
+dismemberment."--_Alison's History of Europe_, vol. i., p. 444.]
+
+[Footnote 463: "Carnot, Barras, Rewbel, and Lareveillère had been
+members of the Convention; and, although none of them had been famous
+during the Reign of Terror for any atrocious act, still the three
+first had voted the death of the king--a vote which, notwithstanding
+the fatal though powerful considerations that may be presented
+in alleviation, placed them among the most furious Jacobins, and
+was prejudicial to the respect with which they ought to have been
+invested."--_Memoirs of Lavalette._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE OVERTHROW OF THE DIRECTORY AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULATE.
+
+ Proclamation of Napoleon.--March into Austria.--Letter to the
+ Archduke Charles.--Preliminaries of Peace.--Union of Parties
+ against the Directory.--Triumph of the Directory.--Agency of
+ Napoleon.--Severe Measures of the Directory.--Indignation
+ of Napoleon.--Dictatorship of the Directory.--Dismay of the
+ Royalists.--Treaty of Campo Formio.--Napoleon's Address to the
+ Cispadane Republic.--Remarks of Napoleon.--Plan for the Invasion of
+ India.--Expedition to Egypt.--New Coalition.--Rastadt.
+
+
+It was now the month of March, 1797, and Napoleon, having driven
+the Austrians out of Italy, issued the following proclamation, an
+unexaggerated statement of facts which amazed and appalled hostile
+Europe:
+
+"Soldiers! the capture of Mantua has put an end to the war of Italy.
+You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and seventy
+actions. You have taken 100,000 prisoners, 500 field-pieces, 2000
+heavy cannon, and four pontoon trains. The contributions laid on
+the countries you have conquered have fed, maintained, and paid the
+army; besides which, you have sent thirty millions ($6,000,000) to
+the Minister of Finance for the use of the public treasury. You have
+enriched the Museum of Paris with three hundred master-pieces of
+ancient and modern Italy, which it had required thirty centuries to
+produce. You have conquered for the Republic the finest countries in
+Europe. The kings of Sardinia and Naples, the Pope, and the Duke of
+Parma are separated from the coalition. You have expelled the English
+from Leghorn, Genoa, and Corsica. Still higher destinies await you. You
+will prove yourselves worthy of them. Of all the foes who combined to
+stifle our Republic in its birth the emperor alone remains."
+
+On the 16th of March the little army of Bonaparte crossed the
+Tagliamento to march upon Vienna, there to compel Austria to cease
+the iniquitous war which now for six years had desolated Europe.
+Battle after battle ensued, and the Austrians met the French only to
+be vanquished. On the 31st of March Napoleon wrote to the Archduke
+Charles, who was brother of the emperor and commander-in-chief of the
+Austrian forces, as follows:
+
+"General-in-Chief: brave soldiers make war and desire peace. Has not
+this war lasted six years? Have we not slain men enough and inflicted
+calamities enough on suffering humanity? It cries out on all sides.
+Europe, which had taken up arms against the French Republic, has laid
+them down. Your nation alone is left, and yet blood is about to be
+spilled more abundantly than ever.
+
+"The Executive Directory of the French Republic communicated to his
+majesty the emperor its desire to put an end to the war which afflicts
+both nations. The intervention of the Court of London has opposed this
+wish. Is there, then, no hope of arrangement? And must we continue to
+slaughter one another for the interests and the passions of a nation
+which knows nothing of the calamities of war? You, general, who are by
+birth so near to the throne, and above all the petty passions which
+so frequently actuate ministers and governments, are you determined
+to merit the title of benefactor of the whole human race and the real
+savior of Germany?
+
+"Imagine not, general, that I mean by this that it is not possible to
+save her by the force of arms. But, even supposing that the chances of
+war turn in your favor, Germany will not, on that account, be the less
+ravaged. As for me, general, if the overture which I have the honor to
+make to you can save the life of a single man, I shall be prouder of
+the civic crown which I shall feel that I have deserved than of the
+melancholy glory which can result from military successes."[464]
+
+The archduke replied that he was commanded to prosecute the war, and
+had no authority to enter into conference upon terms of peace.[465]
+The war was now prosecuted with renewed vigor, as the French drove
+the Austrians through the defiles of the Tyrol, and entered the
+plains of Germany. But a few days passed ere Napoleon arrived within
+sight of the steeples of Vienna. The capital was in consternation;
+the people demanded peace; the archduke urged it, declaring himself
+quite unable to protect the city. The Austrian court now implored the
+clemency of the conqueror, and sent commissioners to Napoleon, at his
+head-quarters at Leoben, with full powers to settle the basis of peace.
+The preliminaries were signed at Leoben on the 18th of April, which put
+a stop to the effusion of blood.
+
+By the election in May of one third of the two legislative bodies,
+the counter-revolutionists had obtained a majority in both chambers.
+This exceedingly elated the Royalists. The two Councils now commenced
+a furious war against the Republican Directory, seeking to overthrow
+it, and to re-establish, not the old Bourbon despotism, but the
+constitutional monarchy of 1791. There were now four parties in the
+field. The old Bourbon party, the friends of constitutional monarchy,
+the Republicans, and the Jacobins. Three of these parties united
+against the Directory, each hoping, in the overthrow of the Directors,
+to establish its own principles. One of the Directors was to leave. The
+Royalists succeeded in placing Barthélemy, a counter-revolutionist,
+in his place. The conflict which now arose was whether the Republican
+Directory should be abolished or maintained. A stern conflict was
+evidently rising. The Directory headed one party, the two Councils the
+other. In accordance with the disastrous temper of the times, both
+parties began to count bayonets instead of votes, that the question
+might be settled on a field of blood. The emigrants and the priests
+returned in great numbers, forged passports being transmitted to them
+from Paris.
+
+The Councils had a legislative guard of fifteen hundred men, and hoped
+to avail itself of the National Guard, not then fully reorganized.
+They also placed great reliance on Pichegru, who was treasonably
+plotting the restoration of the Bourbons. The Constitution did
+not allow any of the standing army to approach within thirty-six
+miles of Paris. In defiance of this provision, the Directory, under
+pretense of sending a fresh expedition to Ireland, assembled twelve
+thousand veteran troops under the walls of the metropolis. General
+Bonaparte, aware of the peril of the Directory, and of the danger of
+the restoration of royalty, had sent the intrepid Augereau to Paris
+to assist the Directory in any emergency. The Directory was the
+established government of the nation, and, imbecile as it was, its
+overthrow by violence at that time could only lead to anarchy and
+blood.[466]
+
+[Illustration: AUGEREAU AT THE PONT TOURNANT.]
+
+At midnight on the 17th Fructidor (September 3d), twelve thousand men,
+with forty pieces of cannon, were silently marched into the city, and
+surrounded the Tuileries. A body of the Legislative Guard was stationed
+at the Pont Tournant, the entrance-passage to the garden. Augereau
+approached them at the head of a numerous staff. "Are you Republicans?"
+said he. The soldiers immediately lowered their arms, and shouted
+"_Vive Augereau! Vive le Directoire!_" They fraternized at once with
+the troops of the Directory. The victory was gained; no blood was shed.
+At six o'clock in the morning, when the citizens awoke, they were
+surprised to find that a revolution had taken place during the night.
+
+The three victorious directors condemned to banishment their two
+colleagues, Carnot and Barthélemy, forty-two members of the Council
+of Five Hundred, eleven of the Council of Ancients, several Royalist
+agents, and forty-two editors, publishers, and proprietors of
+counter-revolutionary journals. It is but a wretched extenuation for
+these deeds of violence, to assert that, had the Councils gained the
+victory, they would have treated the Directory in the same way. The
+Directory thus assumed the dictatorship over unhappy, distracted
+France; but even that was better than anarchy, and almost any thing
+was better than a return to the old Bourbon despotism.[467] This
+signal defeat crushed the hopes of the Royalists. The minority of the
+Councils, who were in the interests of the Directory, were reassembled
+in the Odeon and the School of Medicine, and with this organization
+the government attempted to carry on the distracted affairs of the
+nation.[468]
+
+On the 12th of August Augereau had written to General Bonaparte,
+
+"Nothing is more certain than that, if the public mind is not
+essentially changed before the approaching elections, every thing is
+lost, and a civil war remains as our last resource."
+
+On the 23d of September Napoleon wrote to Augereau, "The whole army
+applauds the wisdom and energy which you have displayed in this crisis,
+and has rejoiced sincerely at the success of the patriots. It is only
+to be hoped, now, that moderation and wisdom will guide your steps.
+That is the most ardent wish of my heart."[469]
+
+But Napoleon was indignant when he heard of the excessive severity
+adopted by the Directory. "It might have been right," he wrote,
+"to deprive Carnot, Barthélemy, and the fifty deputies of their
+appointments, and put them under surveillance in some cities in the
+interior. Pichegru, Willot, Imbert, Colonne, and one or two others
+might justly have expiated their treason on the scaffold.[470] But
+to see men of great talent, such as Portalis, Ducoudray, Fontanes;
+tried patriots, such as Boissy d'Anglas, Dumolard, Murinais; supreme
+magistrates, such as Carnot and Barthélemy, condemned without either
+trial or accusation, is frightful. What! to punish with transportation
+a number of writers of pamphlets, who deserved only contempt and a
+trifling correction, was to renew the proscriptions of the Roman
+triumvirs. It was to act more cruelly than Fouquier Tinville; since
+he, at least, put the accused on their trial, and condemned them
+only to death. All the armies, all the people were for a Republic.
+State necessity could not be alleged in favor of so revolting an
+injustice, so flagrant a violation of the laws and the rights of the
+citizens."[471]
+
+The Royalists were dismayed by this sudden disaster. The priests
+and emigrants, who had returned in great numbers, fled again to the
+frontiers. Those who were advancing toward France retreated back to
+Switzerland and Germany. M. Merlin and M. François--the one a lawyer,
+the other a man of letters, and both upright Republicans--were chosen
+in the place of Carnot and Barthélemy. The guilt of Pichegru was fully
+established. Moreau, in crossing the Rhine, had taken the papers
+of General Klinglin, in which he had found the whole treasonable
+correspondence of Pichegru with the Prince of Condé.
+
+The Directors now pushed the measures of government with Revolutionary
+energy. The British government, finding themselves deprived of every
+ally, sent Lord Malmesbury to Paris to negotiate for peace. The British
+ministry were willing to give up the colonies which they had wrested
+from France, but would not give up the colonies they had wrested from
+the _allies of France_, Spain and Holland. It is difficult to see how
+the Directory, with any sense of honor whatever, could, under such
+circumstances, have abandoned its allies. Upon this point there was a
+rupture, and war with England continued to rage.[472]
+
+On the 28th of October the treaty of Campo Formio was signed, which
+secured peace with the Emperor of Germany. The Directors had sent to
+Napoleon an ultimatum which would have prevented the possibility of
+peace. Napoleon boldly rejected their demands, and made peace on his
+own terms. The nation hailed the peace with such joy, and Napoleon was
+now so boundlessly popular, that the Directors did not dare to refuse
+their ratification. Napoleon was now prepared to return to France. He
+had established the Cisalpine Republic, and compelled its recognition
+by the only powers which could endanger its existence. Before leaving
+Italy he thus addressed this state in the infancy of its freedom:
+
+"You are the first people in history who have become free without
+factions, without revolutions, without convulsions. We have given
+you freedom; take care to preserve it. To be worthy of your destiny,
+make only discreet and moderate laws; cause them to be executed with
+energy; favor the diffusion of knowledge, and respect religion. Compose
+your army, not of disreputable men, but of citizens imbued with the
+principles of the Republic and closely linked to its prosperity. You
+have, in general, need to impress yourselves with the feeling of your
+strength, and with the dignity which befits the freeman. Divided, and
+bowed down for ages by tyranny, you would not, unaided, have conquered
+your liberty. In a few years, if left to yourselves, no power on earth
+will be strong enough to wrest it from you. Till then France will
+protect you against the attacks of your neighbors; its political system
+will be united with yours."[473]
+
+The blessings of the Italians were showered upon Napoleon as he
+departed. As he entered France he was every where greeted with love,
+admiration, and enthusiasm. His progress through the departments was
+a triumphal march. In Paris he was received with salvos of artillery,
+ringing of bells, illuminations, and the huzzas of the multitude. In
+the laconic address of Napoleon to the authorities of government in
+their grand reception, he uttered sentiments in perfect accordance with
+his whole precedent and subsequent career.
+
+"The French people," said he, "in order to be free had kings to combat.
+To obtain a Constitution founded on reason it had the prejudices of
+eighteen centuries to overcome. The Constitution of the year III. and
+you have triumphed over all obstacles. Religion, feudality, royalty,
+have successively, for twenty centuries past, governed Europe. But from
+the peace which you have just concluded dates the era of representative
+governments. You have succeeded in organizing the great nation whose
+vast territory is circumscribed only because Nature herself has fixed
+its limits. You have done more. The two finest countries in Europe,
+formerly so renowned for the arts, the sciences, and the great men
+whose cradle they were, see with the greatest hopes genius and freedom
+issuing from the tomb of their ancestors. These are two pedestals on
+which destiny is about to place two powerful nations. I have the honor
+to deliver to you the treaty signed at Campo Formio, and ratified by
+his majesty the emperor. Peace secures the liberty, the prosperity,
+and the glory of the Republic. When the happiness of the French people
+shall be seated on _better organic laws_, all Europe will become free."
+
+Napoleon, having returned to Paris, sought seclusion, laid aside his
+military dress, and devoted himself with great assiduity to studies of
+natural and political science. He was chosen a member of the Institute,
+and took his seat between the distinguished philosophers Lagrange and
+Laplace. He wrote the following note in acceptance of his election:
+
+"The suffrage of the distinguished men who compose the Institute honors
+me. I feel sensibly that before I can become their equal I must long be
+their pupil. The only true conquests, those which awaken no regret, are
+those we obtain over ignorance. The most honorable, as the most useful
+pursuit of nations, is that which contributes to the extension of the
+human intellect. The real greatness of the French Republic ought
+henceforth to consist in not permitting the existence of one new idea
+which has not been added to the national stock."
+
+When subsequently speaking of this period of his life he remarked,
+"Mankind are, in the end, always governed by superiority of
+intellectual qualities, and none are more sensible of this than the
+military profession. When, on my return to Paris from Italy, I assumed
+the dress of the Institute and associated with men of science, I knew
+what I was doing. I was sure of not being misunderstood by the lowest
+drummer of the army."
+
+He was frequently consulted by the Directory on important questions.
+He had no confidence in the government of the Directory, and only lent
+it his support so far as to prevent the restoration of royalty. The
+Directory wished him to take command of a new army, to try to conquer,
+on the shores of England, a peace with that government which now alone
+continued the war. With that object in view he visited the coast
+and carefully scrutinized the resources at command for the invasion
+of England. He, however, pronounced the project too hazardous, and
+convinced the Directory that the only vulnerable point which England
+presented was in India. In accordance with this suggestion a secret
+expedition was fitted out to invade India by the way of Egypt.
+
+On the 19th of May, 1798, the Egyptian expedition sailed from Toulon.
+To settle innumerable minor affairs in reference to the Germanic
+States, a Congress of Embassadors, from Austria, France, and Germany
+had now for some months been in session at Rastadt. The British
+government in the mean time vigorously commenced endeavors to ally the
+monarchies of Europe in a new war against France. It appealed to the
+fears of all the sovereigns by showing them that the toleration of any
+republican institutions in Europe endangered all their thrones.
+
+"England," says Thiers, "with a view to foment this fear had filled all
+the courts with her emissaries. She urged the new king of Prussia to
+relinquish his neutrality, and to preserve Germany from the inundation.
+She endeavored to work upon the wrong-headed and violent emperor
+Paul. She strove to alarm Austria, and offered her subsidies if she
+would renew the war. She excited the silly passions of the Queen of
+Naples."[474]
+
+All over Europe war began again to menace France. While the
+commissioners were negotiating at Rastadt, the armies of the new
+coalition commenced their march. There was no alternative before them.
+Principles of liberty were spreading rapidly through Europe; and the
+despotic monarchs could only maintain their thrones by quenching that
+spirit in blood. They were compelled either to fight or to surrender.
+"The monarchs did right to defend their thrones," say the Royalists.
+"The people did right to defend their liberties," say the Republicans.
+So long as there are in the world advocates of aristocratic assumption
+and advocates of popular rights so long will these points be
+controverted. The Queen of Naples commenced hostilities, without any
+declaration of war, by sending an army of fifty thousand men to drive
+the French out of Italy, in November, 1798. The French armies now
+crossed the Rhine and entered Germany. The Russian and the Austrian
+armies were immediately on the move. The French embassadors at Rastadt
+received orders to leave in twenty-four hours. At nine o'clock in the
+evening of the 28th of April the three ministers, Debry, Bonnier,
+and Roberjeot, set out with their families. They occupied three
+carriages. They had hardly left the town, when, in the darkness, a
+troop of Austrian hussars rushed upon them, and, dragging the helpless
+embassadors from their coaches, cut them down in the presence of their
+wives and children. The ruffians plundered the carriages and carried
+off all the papers. Debry, though left senseless and supposed to be
+dead, revived, and, covered with wounds and blood, crawled back to
+Rastadt. This execrable violation of the law of nations, so unheard
+of among civilized people, excited the detestation of Europe. War,
+ferocious and implacable, was again renewed in all its horrors.[475]
+
+[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF THE EMBASSADORS AT RASTADT.]
+
+Every thing was now in confusion, and universal discontent rose up
+around the Directory. France was distracted by hostile parties,
+while triumphant armies were crowding her frontiers. All social ties
+were dissolved. Unprincipled rapacity characterized the measures of
+government. Religion was abolished and the administration of justice
+seemed a farce. The laws were disregarded; violence reigned unchecked;
+intriguing factions succeeded each other, while Jacobins, Royalists,
+and Republicans were struggling for the supremacy. The people,
+disgusted with this state of anarchy, were longing for a deliverer who
+would rescue the government from disgrace and at the same time save
+France from falling back under the despotism of the Bourbons.
+
+Napoleon, in Egypt, informed of this state of affairs, decided
+immediately to return to France. He landed at Frejus on the 9th of
+October, 1799, and traversed France, from the Mediterranean to Paris,
+through a constant scene of rejoicing. Such universal enthusiasm
+awaited him, that without the shedding of a drop of blood he overthrew
+the imbecile government of the Directory and established the Consulate.
+The nation received this change with almost universal applause. For the
+narrative of these events and the subsequent career of the Revolution
+the reader must be referred to the History of Napoleon Bonaparte.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 464: Mémoires de Napoléon, dict. au Montholon et Gourgaud,
+vol. iv., p. 96, 97.]
+
+[Footnote 465: "Unquestionably, sir," replied the duke, "I desire as
+much as you the attainment of peace for the happiness of the people
+and of humanity. Considering, however, that in the situation which I
+hold, it is no part of my business to inquire into and determine the
+quarrel of the belligerent powers, and that I am not furnished, on the
+part of the emperor, with any plenipotentiary powers for treating, you
+will excuse me, general, if I do not enter into negotiation with you
+touching a matter of the highest importance, but which does not lie
+within my department. Whatever shall happen, either respecting the
+future chances of war or the prospects of peace, I request you to be
+equally convinced of my distinguished esteem."]
+
+[Footnote 466: "The Directory became alarmed for their own existence.
+It had already been ascertained that 190 of the deputies had been
+engaged to restore the exiled royal family, while the Directory could
+only reckon on the support of 130; and the Ancients had resolved, by
+a large majority, to transfer the seat of the Legislature to Rouen,
+on account of its proximity to the western provinces, whose Royalist
+principles had always been so decided. The next election, it was
+expected, would nearly extinguish the Revolutionary party; and the
+Directory were aware that the transition was easy, for regicides,
+as the greater part of them were, from the Luxembourg to the
+scaffold."--_Alison_, vol. i., p. 491.]
+
+[Footnote 467: "We may say that, on the 18th Fructidor of the year
+V., it was necessary that the Directory should triumph over the
+counter-revolution, by decimating the Councils; or that the Councils
+should triumph over the Republic, by overthrowing the Directory. The
+question thus stated, it remains to inquire, _first_, if the Directory
+could have conquered by any other means than a _coup d'état_, and,
+_secondly_, whether it misused its victory."--_Mignet_, p. 338.]
+
+[Footnote 468: "Though France suffered extremely from the usurpation
+which overthrew its electoral government, and substituted the empire of
+force for the chimeras of democracy, there seems no reason to believe
+that a more just or equitable government could, at that period, have
+been substituted in its room."--_Alison_, vol. i., p. 496.]
+
+[Footnote 469: Bourrienne, vol. i., p. 250.]
+
+[Footnote 470: These men were in constant correspondence with the
+Bourbons, and were conspiring for their restoration.]
+
+[Footnote 471: Mémoires de Napoleon, dict. au Montholon et Gourgaud,
+vol. iv., p. 233.
+
+"The 18th Fructidor is the true era of the commencement of military
+despotism in France. The subsequent government of the country was but
+a succession of illegal usurpations on the part of the depositaries of
+power, in which the people had no share, and by which their rights were
+equally invaded, until tranquillity was restored by the vigorous hand
+of Napoleon."--_Alison_, vol. i., p. 496.]
+
+[Footnote 472: Mignet says, "The offers of Pitt not being sincere, the
+Directory did not allow itself to be deceived by diplomatic stratagems.
+The negotiations were twice broken off, and war continued between the
+two powers. While England negotiated at Lille, she was preparing at St.
+Petersburg the triple alliance or second coalition."--_Mignet_, p. 341.]
+
+[Footnote 473: Mem. de Napoleon, dict. au Month, et Gourgaud, vol. iv.,
+p. 271.
+
+The English Tory historians, such as Scott and Alison, denounce France
+vehemently for refusing to abandon her allies, Spain and Holland, for
+the sake of peace with England. At the same time they load Napoleon
+with epithets of infamy for refusing to continue a bloody war with
+Austria for the sake of protecting an aristocratic and perfidious
+enemy, Venice, from the rapacity of Austria, an ally with Venice in the
+unjust war upon France. The remarks of Alison upon this subject are a
+melancholy exhibition of the power of prejudice to prevent the sense
+of justice. "Austria," writes T.W. Redhead, "nefariously appropriated
+the possessions of a faithful and attached ally, while France did but
+consent to the despoilment of a hostile government, ready to assail her
+upon the least reverse."--_The French Revolutions_, vol. ii., p. 100.]
+
+[Footnote 474: Thiers, vol. iv., p. 334.]
+
+[Footnote 475: "Our plenipotentiaries were massacred at Rastadt,
+and notwithstanding the indignation expressed by all France at that
+atrocity, vengeance was still very tardy in overtaking the assassins.
+The two Councils were the first to render a melancholy tribute of honor
+to the victims. Who that saw that ceremony ever forgot its solemnity?
+Who can recollect without emotion the religious silence which reigned
+throughout the hall and galleries when the vote was put? The president
+then turned toward the curule chairs of the victims, on which lay
+the official costume of the assassinated representatives, covered
+with black crape, bent over them, pronounced the names of Roberjeot
+and Bonnier, and added, in a voice the tone of which was always
+thrilling, Assassinated at the Congress of Rastadt. Immediately all the
+representatives responded, '_May their blood be upon the heads of their
+murderers_.'"--_Duchess of Abrantes_, p. 206.]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+ Abbaye, butchery at the, 302.
+
+ Abrantes (Duchess of), statement of, 400.
+
+ Allies, condition and force of the, 295;
+ vanquished at Valmy, 306.
+
+ American War, its influence upon France, 61.
+
+ Amnesty, a general, obtained by Necker, 139;
+ opposed by Mirabeau, 139.
+
+ Anecdote of Verginaud in the prison, 354.
+
+ Anne (of Austria), her regency, 27.
+
+ Anniversary of destruction of Bastille, preparation for the, 181.
+
+ Aristocracy, destroyed by universal education, 46;
+ of wealth warred against, 331.
+
+ Arms taken by the people, 119.
+
+ Army, desertion of the officers of the, 241;
+ (of the interior), formation of the, 412.
+
+ Arrangement between king and exiled Parliament, 69.
+
+ Arrest of the royal family in their flight, 202.
+
+ Assembly (of Notables) meet and overthrow Calonne, 67;
+ dissolution of the, 68;
+ National, the name chosen, 91;
+ hall of the, closed, 93;
+ shut out of tennis-court, 96;
+ ordered by the king to dissolve, 98;
+ good advice of, to the people, 105;
+ petition to the, for a removal of the foreign troops, 112;
+ declares itself permanent, 113;
+ reconciliation of, to the king, 125;
+ recognized government of France, 127;
+ three parties in the, 144;
+ Marat's opinion of the, 146;
+ members of the, threatened, 149;
+ change of name, 167;
+ (Constituent), vote themselves the Church treasures, 170;
+ resolve of, concerning the king's escape, 210;
+ preparations for defense by the, 211;
+ address of, to the French nation, 215;
+ threatened by Marquis Bouillé, 222;
+ decree of, declaring journey of the king faultless, 224;
+ influence of the, declining, 226;
+ denounced as traitors, 226;
+ receives the mandate of the Jacobins, 228;
+ Constitution completed by the, 230;
+ decree of, dissolving itself, 234;
+ dissolution of the, 235;
+ (Legislative), sends forces to the frontier, 247;
+ sends the king's troops to the frontier, 276;
+ unpopularity of, 280;
+ the king seeks refuge with the, 285;
+ the, stormed by the mob, 286;
+ decrees the suspension of the king, 289;
+ overawed by the Jacobins, 295;
+ decree of, that two thirds of their own number should be elected to the
+ new legislative bodies, 403.
+ See also Convention.
+
+ Assignats, how secured, 170.
+
+ Augereau, bloodless victory of, 423.
+
+ Austria, reply of, to the French embassador, 245;
+ Francis II. ascends the throne of, 246;
+ demands of, that France should restore despotic power, 249.
+
+ Autun (Bishop of), answer of Napoleon to the, 231.
+
+
+ Bagatelle, pleasure-house of the Count d'Artois, 72.
+
+ Bailly (Mons.), attempt to eject him from Assembly, 101;
+ resigns presidency of the Assembly, 105;
+ testimony of, regarding the king, 111;
+ resigns his post as Mayor of Paris, 243;
+ execution of, 362.
+
+ Banishment of Parliament to Troyes, 69;
+ result of, in Paris, 69.
+
+ Bank, establishment of a, 36.
+
+ Bankruptcy in France, 36; the national, described 63;
+ a partial, 76.
+
+ Barnave, character of, 216;
+ influence of conversation of, on queen, 217;
+ speech of, on governments, 225;
+ his last interview with the queen, 252.
+
+ Baronial times, France during the, 22.
+
+ Barras, assumes the command of the National Guard, 384;
+ nominates Napoleon as commander of the army, 404.
+
+ Barry (Madam du), character of, 43.
+
+ Bastille, storming of the, decided upon, 118;
+ attack on the, 120;
+ surrendered by its garrison, 121;
+ garrisoned by the people, 123;
+ influence of the fall of, upon the court, 123;
+ the, ordered to be demolished, 130;
+ description of the, 53;
+ anniversary of destruction of, 182;
+ site of the, converted into a ball-room, 186.
+
+ Beaurepaire (General), suicide of, 299.
+
+ Bed of justice, the custom, 68.
+
+ Beggary now becoming universal, 169.
+
+ Bensenval exhorts De Launey to be firm, 120.
+
+ Berthier, character of, 135;
+ death of, 137.
+
+ Bertrand de Moleville, interview of, with the king, 236.
+
+ Bible, how used by the Papists, 48;
+ reason of its rejection by corrupt men, 49.
+
+ Bill of Rights and Constitution, 145.
+
+ Billaud Varennes, speech of, 392.
+
+ Birth, in the minds of the nobility, superior even to genius, 45.
+
+ Bohemia, war declared against, by France, 249.
+
+ Boissy d'Anglas, heroism of, 400.
+
+ Bonaparte (Napoleon), his boyhood, 76;
+ eloquence of, 230;
+ opinion of, touching discipline of troops, 231;
+ confers the cross of the Legion of Honor upon a tragedian, 178;
+ remarks of, upon the riot, 301;
+ his first action in the Revolution, 374;
+ intrusted with the defense of Paris, 405;
+ receives the thanks of the Convention, 409;
+ his support of the Directory, 413;
+ ill health of, 420;
+ letter of, to Archduke Charles, 421;
+ reply to the same, 422;
+ return of, to Paris, 426;
+ return of, from Egypt, 429.
+
+ Bouillé (Marquis de), plans and executes the escape of the royal
+ family, 196;
+ attempt of, to rescue the king, 209;
+ letter of, to the Assembly, 222.
+
+ Bourrienne, statement of, in regard to the mob of 20th of June, 260.
+
+ Bread, scarcity of, 152.
+
+ Brézé, his attempt to enforce orders of the king, 99;
+ receives orders not to neglect the Assembly, 100.
+
+ Brienne (Archbishop), succeeds Calonne, 67;
+ his measure for the preservation of the national credit, 68;
+ dissolves the Assembly of Notables, 68;
+ his fall, 68;
+ his perplexity, 73;
+ determines to break down Parliament, 73;
+ his plan, 73;
+ desires Necker to take controllership of finances, 76;
+ resigns and goes to Italy, 77.
+
+ Brissot (Mons.), speech of, against the king, 270.
+
+ Broglie (Marshal) commands in Versailles, 103;
+ letter of, to Prince of Condé, 111.
+
+ Brunswick (Duke of), proclamation of the, 279.
+
+ Burke (Edmund), "Reflections" by, 187;
+ his speech on the imprisonment of La Fayette, 298.
+
+ Buzot, death of, 362.
+
+
+ Cæsar, subjugation of Gaul by, 17.
+
+ Calonne, his appointment as minister of finance, 65;
+ his measures, popularity, and success, 65;
+ recommends an assembly of notables, 66;
+ his banishment from office, 67.
+
+ Camille Desmoulins. See Desmoulins.
+
+ Campan (Madame), her account of the queen's troubles, 72;
+ statement of, concerning the king, 238.
+
+ Capetian dynasty, extent of the, 24.
+
+ Carlovingian dynasty (the), 20;
+ end of the, 24.
+
+ Carlyle, statement of, 402.
+
+ Carmelites, butchery at the, 302.
+
+ Carnot, energy of, in organizing armies, 341;
+ purity of, 420;
+ banishment of, 424.
+
+ Carrier, horrible brutality of, 342.
+
+ Catalan (Monsieur), imprisonment of, in the Bastille, 56.
+
+ Catherine (of Russia), letter of, to Leopold, 245.
+
+ Catholics incited by the ecclesiastics against the Protestants, 174.
+
+ Cécile Regnault arrested on suspicion of being an assassin, 376.
+
+ Champagne (Count of), generosity of the, 23.
+
+ Champs de Mai, change of the name of Champs de Mars to, 20.
+
+ Champs de Mars, meetings on the, 19.
+
+ Charette, arrest and execution of, 413.
+
+ Charlemagne, policy of the government of, 20;
+ Christianity during the reign of, 21.
+
+ Charles X. See D'Artois.
+
+ Charles Martel, power and death of, 20.
+
+ Charlotte Corday, character of, 337;
+ assassinates Marat, 338;
+ execution of, 339.
+
+ Chateauroux (Duchess of), death of, 39.
+
+ Chatelet, convicts of, driven into cells by the people, 115.
+
+ Choiseul (Duke de), boldness of, 205.
+
+ Christianity, corruptions of the Catholic Church imputed to, 47;
+ confounded with its corruptions, 47;
+ the corner-stone of democracy, 48;
+ two classes of assailants, 49;
+ decrees advocating the existence of the Supreme Being, 375;
+ state of, during Charlemagne's reign, 21;
+ renunciation of, 360.
+ See also Supreme Being.
+
+ Church, decrepitude of the, invites attack, 48;
+ its protection of vice in high places, 48;
+ the, deprived of its property by the vote of the Assembly, 170;
+ members of the, deprived of their position for refusing to take the
+ oath, 191;
+ the, affected by the Constitution, 242.
+
+ Cispadane Republic, the first Assembly of the, 417.
+
+ Citizens of Paris placed under surveillance, 296.
+
+ Citizens' Guard organized, 116.
+ See also Guard.
+
+ Clergy, their opposition to Calonne's measures, 67;
+ character of the, 23;
+ endeavor of the, to use religion against the Revolution, 173;
+ vast wealth of the, 170.
+
+ Clermont, danger of the king at, 200.
+
+ Clery, his faithful devotion to the royal family, 313;
+ shrewd expedient of, to ascertain news, 314.
+
+ Clovis, character of, illustrated, 18;
+ the reign of, 19.
+
+ Coblentz, preparations for war at, 241.
+
+ Cockade of the Revolution chosen, 117;
+ accepted by Louis XVI., 130;
+ the queen's idea of its meaning, 132;
+ the tricolor, the uniform of France, 138.
+
+ Committee of Public Safety, establishment of the, 361.
+
+ Commune of Paris, efforts of the, to break up the conspiracy of the
+ Royalists, 295.
+
+ "Compte Rendu au Roi," effect of the publication of, 63.
+
+ Condorcet, death of, 362.
+
+ Conspiracy of nobles to overturn Assembly, 102.
+
+ Constitution, assent of the king to the, 232;
+ notice of the, by the European powers, 240;
+ accepted by the king, 175;
+ and Bill of Rights, 145;
+ a new Jacobin, enacted, 337;
+ proclamation of the, 233;
+ presentation of the, to the king, 231;
+ formation of, by the Assembly, 230.
+
+ Constitutional party, cause of the decline of the, 268.
+
+ Convention (National), the, declares war against England, 331;
+ liberal laws enacted by the, 358;
+ attack on the, by Henriot, 384;
+ stormy meeting at the, between the Jacobins and Thermidorians, 393;
+ decrees of, against the insurrection, 400;
+ session of the, 409;
+ remarks of Thiers on the, 410;
+ elections for the, 508;
+ spirit of the, 509.
+
+ Corn-dealers, attack upon the, 134.
+
+ Council (of the Ancients), formation of the, 403;
+ (of Five Hundred), the, 403.
+
+ Count d'Artois (Charles X.) placed in command of an army from
+ England, 412;
+ letter of Napoleon to, 421;
+ his reply, 422.
+
+ Court, extravagance of the, 49;
+ haste of, to leave Versailles, 58;
+ more feared by the people than the Parliament, 71;
+ the, driven to the importation of Swiss troops, 104;
+ how affected by capture of the Bastille, 123;
+ employs emissaries to buy up and destroy the bread, 152;
+ its plans, 156;
+ exultation of, at the arrival of the Flanders regiment, 157;
+ the, prosecutes Mirabeau and the Duke of Orleans, 188.
+
+ Courtiers' reasons for unbelief, 49.
+
+ Credit, public, condition of, in France at this time, 65.
+
+ Crown, policy of the officers of the, in keeping the nobles poor, 46;
+ salary of the, fixed, 177.
+
+ Currency, recoining of the, 35.
+
+
+ D'Agoust (Captain) turns the Parliament of Paris into the street, 75.
+
+ D'Aguillon (Duke), services of the, 139.
+
+ D'Artois (Count), accused of adultery with the queen, 72.
+
+ D'Aumont (Duke), defense of, by La Fayette, 211.
+
+ D'Espréménil obtains the edict establishing the courts, 73;
+ discovers Brienne's plan to the Parliament, 74.
+
+ D'Estaing (Admiral), commander of the National Guards of Versailles, 156;
+ letter of, to Marie Antoinette, 157.
+
+ Danton appointed minister of justice, 290;
+ remarkable prediction of, to Louis Philippe, 307;
+ arrested and executed, 366.
+
+ Dauphin, imprisonment of the, 351;
+ death of the, 412.
+
+ De Launey, conduct of, at the storming of the Bastille, 119;
+ attempts to blow up the Bastille, 121;
+ death of, 122.
+
+ De Tocqueville, his reasons for the bad odor of Christianity, 48;
+ explanation of, concerning
+ the blindness of the ruling classes to their danger, 49.
+
+ Death, how regarded by revolutionary writers, 47.
+
+ Debts of France at the death of Louis XIV., 35.
+
+ Decisions (judicial), bought and sold, 49.
+
+ Declaration of Louis XVI. of the object of his leaving Paris, 221.
+
+ Decree establishing the courts a perfect failure, 75, 76.
+
+ Deséze, appeal of, for the king, 324.
+
+ Desmoulins (Camille), incites to rebellion, 108;
+ his oratory, 149;
+ speech of, on the ten dollar decree, 172;
+ interview of, with La Fayette, 213;
+ remorse of, on the condemnation of the Girondists, 354;
+ letter of, to his wife, 368;
+ terror of, at the prospect of death, 371;
+ execution of, 372.
+
+ Desmoulins (Lucile), letter of, to Robespierre, 368;
+ heroism and condemnation of, 371;
+ execution of, 373.
+
+ Desodoards, his description of the state of Paris, 358.
+
+ Despotism of the Court more oppressive than that of the Parliament, 71.
+
+ Dessault, his "_crime_" and sufferings, 55;
+ years of, in prison, 56.
+
+ Diamond Necklace, the, 72.
+
+ Diderot, his connection with the "Encyclopedia," 48;
+ commences by attacking Christianity, 48;
+ imprisonment of, 48.
+
+ Directory, formation of the, 411;
+ Napoleon's agency in supporting the, 413;
+ message of the, 419;
+ the two parties in the, 420.
+
+ Drouet discovers the king, 200;
+ arrests the royal family at Varennes, 201.
+
+ Dubois, character of, 36.
+
+ Duke of Orleans regent, 34;
+ character of the regency, 35;
+ death of the, 36;
+ insult of, at the Tuileries, 240.
+
+ Dumont, description of affairs by, 114;
+ account of Mirabeau's influence, 149.
+
+ Dumouriez, interview of, with the queen, 247;
+ entreats the king to sanction the decree of the Assembly, 253;
+ his traitorous surrender of fortresses to the Austrians, 333;
+ retires to Switzerland, 334.
+
+
+ Ecclesiastics superseded in office for refusing the oath, 191.
+
+ Edgeworth (Monsieur), visits the king at the Temple, 325.
+
+ Edict of Nantes, proclamation of, by Henry IV., 31;
+ revocation of, by Louis XIV., 31.
+
+ Edicts issued against Protestants by Louis XIV., 29.
+
+ Education removes the superiority of the hereditary nobility, 46.
+
+ Electors of Paris solicit the organization of Citizens' Guard, 112;
+ deputation of, 115;
+ by their acts become a new government, 117.
+
+ Elizabeth (Madame, sister of the queen), execution of, 351.
+
+ England, war declared against, by the National Convention, 331;
+ determination of, to crush the Republic, 396;
+ energy of, in prosecuting the war against France, 402;
+ expedition from, to rouse the Royalists, 411;
+ her price for peace, 418.
+
+ Enthusiasm in France awakened by American Revolution, 60.
+
+ Equality, universal, origin of inquiry into, 47.
+
+ Etiquette, want of, on the part of the Assembly toward the king, 238.
+
+ Europe, reply of the powers of, to the French Constitution, 240.
+
+ Executions, rapid increase of, 377.
+
+ Extravagance of Court, effect of, on nation, 49.
+
+
+ Famine in Paris, 398.
+
+ Fanaticism excited by the ecclesiastics, 174.
+
+ Fauchet (Abbé), sermon of, 144.
+
+ Favorites of the king accustomed to obtain blank and sealed _lettres
+ de cachet_, 53.
+
+ Favrus (Marquis of), accused of attempt to assassinate La Fayette
+ and Bailly, 175;
+ trial and sentence of, 179.
+
+ Fersen (Count), aids the royal family in their flight, 199.
+
+ Feudal system, rise of the, from the remains of Charlemagne's empire, 22;
+ period of the, 24;
+ state of society to which it is adapted, 46;
+ like darkness before light, is dispersed by popular intelligence, 46;
+ its decline, 46;
+ privileges of the, surrendered, 140.
+
+ Field of Mars, assemblage of the people at the, 301.
+
+ Flesselles (Mayor), cheats the people, 118;
+ death of, 122.
+
+ Fleurus, battle of, 391.
+
+ Food, want of, begins to be felt, 133.
+
+ Foulon, account of, 135;
+ death of, 136.
+
+ Fouquier Tinville, fall of, 391.
+
+ France, origin of the name of, 18;
+ condition of, during reign of Louis XIV., 34;
+ the sources of peril of, 264;
+ the three parties in, 267;
+ invaded by the Allies in 1792, 276;
+ utter confusion in, 428.
+
+ Francis II. ascends the throne of Austria, 246.
+
+ François, a baker, hung by the mob, 167.
+
+ Franklin (Benjamin), effect of his simplicity upon the French, 61.
+
+ Fraternity the watch-word of the masses, 47;
+ this principle the soul of the Revolution, 47.
+
+ Frederick II. of Prussia, friendship of, for Voltaire, 49.
+
+ Free institutions supported by education, 46.
+
+ French Academy established, 27.
+
+
+ Gamin, master blacksmith to the king, 65;
+ account by, of the king's character, 65.
+
+ Garde du Corps, conflict of, with the people, 161.
+
+ Gaul, its appearance in ancient times, 17;
+ subjugation of, by Cæsar, 17;
+ the home of war and tumult, 18.
+
+ Generosity of the king and others, 152.
+
+ Genius, inability of, to efface ignoble birth, 45.
+
+ Girondists, cause of the name of, 246;
+ joy of the, on the Republic being proclaimed, 309;
+ plot to assassinate the, 332;
+ the, arrested, 337;
+ brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, 353;
+ condemnation of the, 354;
+ last supper of the, 355;
+ execution of the, 356.
+
+ Goguelat (M. de), shot by the National Guard, 206.
+
+ "Golden age of kings," the, 29.
+
+ Government, its desire to keep the people poor, 50;
+ the, of the National Assembly established, 127.
+
+ Grenelle, attack on the camp at, 417.
+
+ Grenoble, Parliament at, refuses to surrender to the _lettres de
+ cachet_, 75.
+
+ Guard, National, formed and placed under command, 126.
+
+ Guards, the French, protect the people, 110;
+ refuse to accept _pardon_, 128.
+
+ Guillotin (Dr.), proposes the use of his instrument, 173.
+
+ Gustavus III. (of Sweden), assassination of, 247.
+
+
+ Hebert, the leader in Paris, 364;
+ downfall and death of, 365.
+
+ Hebertists, execution of the, 365.
+
+ Henriot, arrest of, 383.
+
+ Henry (of Bourbon), death of, 27.
+
+ Henry III., the last of the Valois, death of, 27.
+
+ Henry IV. ascends the throne, 27;
+ character of his reign, 27;
+ death of, 27.
+
+ Holland, the Allies driven from, 394.
+
+ Hugh Capet seizes the French throne, 24.
+
+ Hungary, war declared against, by France, 249.
+
+
+ Imprisonment, horrors of, in the Bastille, 54.
+
+ Infidel writers during reign of Louis XV., 42.
+
+ Infidelity becomes the fashion, and why, 48.
+
+ Insult to the deputies of the people, 86.
+
+ Insurrection, cause of failure of the, 46;
+ reason for, 46;
+ planned against the National Convention, 400.
+
+ Intellect, if of the lower class, thought lightly of, 45.
+
+ Invasion, the fear of, arms France, 142.
+
+ Ireland, hatred of the people of, against England, 418;
+ expedition to, 419.
+
+ Iron chest, building of the, 252.
+
+ Isnard (Monsieur), speech of, on the Austrian war, 249.
+
+ Italian campaign, the victories of the, 421.
+
+ Italy, the campaign in, 415.
+
+
+ Jacobin Club, demand of, for the deposition of
+ the king, 227;
+ present their mandate to the Assembly, 228;
+ their resolve to dethrone the king, 277;
+ become the dominant power in France, 295;
+ club-house of the, closed, 394.
+
+ Jacobins, origin of the, 75;
+ arrive at the summit of their power, 214;
+ the influence of the, 225.
+
+ Jacquerie, insurrection of the, 26.
+
+ Jefferson (Thomas), opinion of, on the condition of the French, 52;
+ letter of, to Mr. Jay, on the States-General, 81;
+ probably aided in composition of Bill of Rights, 107;
+ assists in preparing the Declaration of Rights, 147;
+ remarks of, upon the questions of the day, 154;
+ opinion of, concerning Louis XVI., 329.
+
+ Jemappes, battle of, 310.
+
+ Jeunesse Dorée, rise of the band of, 390.
+
+ Joseph II. of Austria, reply of, upon the subject of the American
+ War of Independence, 61.
+
+ Josephine Beauharnais imprisoned in Paris, 378.
+
+ Judges bought their offices and sold their decisions, 49.
+
+
+ King. See Louis XVI.
+
+ Kleber, victories of, on the Upper Rhine, 395.
+
+
+ Laclos, editor of the Jacobin Journal, 225.
+
+ La Fayette (Marquis de), advocates the American War of Independence, 61;
+ his boldness at the Assembly of Notables, 67;
+ joins the National Assembly, 101;
+ vice-president of National Assembly, 106;
+ presents the Assembly with the Bill of Rights, 107;
+ made commander of the National Guard, 126;
+ informs the Parisians of the king's speech, 126;
+ attempt of, to save Foulon, 136;
+ makes the Declaration of Rights, 147;
+ danger of, 150;
+ popularity of, declines, 155;
+ his knowledge of the royalist plots, 156;
+ saves the palace from destruction, 161;
+ presents and reconciles the queen to the people, 163;
+ ensures the safety of the queen's guard, 163;
+ confidence of, in the people, 183;
+ takes the oath of fidelity, 183;
+ accused by the people of treason, 210;
+ issues an order for arrest of the king, 210;
+ assumption of power by, 210;
+ boldness of, in rescuing d'Aumont, 211;
+ interview of, with Desmoulins, 213;
+ insult to, by the queen, 220;
+ unpopularity of, 226;
+ dispersion of the Jacobin mob by, 228;
+ aversion of the queen toward, 240;
+ resigns the command of the National Guard, 243;
+ his speech to the Assembly on the outrages of 20th of June, 263;
+ burned in effigy, 264;
+ his plan for saving the king, 271;
+ calumniated by orders of the queen, 273;
+ denounced as a traitor, 280;
+ arrested and imprisoned at Olmutz, 297.
+
+ La Force, prison of, broken open, 115.
+
+ La Pérouse, instructions for his voyage framed, 58.
+
+ La Vendée, rise of the Royalists in, 332;
+ insurrection at, crushed, 342;
+ horrible executions in, 343.
+
+ Lamballe (Princess), trial and execution of, 303.
+
+ Lamotte, Comtesse, 72.
+
+ Land, proportion owned by the tax-payers, 50;
+ difficulty of purchasing, 52.
+
+ Latude, his imprisonment, 56;
+ account of his captivity, 57.
+
+ Launey (M. de), character of, 118.
+
+ Lebrun appointed minister of foreign affairs, 290.
+
+ Lefebvre (Abbé), distributes powder to the people, 117.
+
+ Légendre, attempt of, to save Danton, 367.
+
+ Legislative Assembly, formation of the, 237;
+ measures of the, against the non-conforming priests, 243.
+ See also Assembly.
+
+ Legislature, how should it be constituted? 148.
+
+ Leopold, death of, 246.
+ See also Austria.
+
+ Lepelletier, assassination of, 330.
+
+ Letters, anonymous, to Louis XV., 41;
+ men of, regarded as curiosities, 46.
+
+ _Lettres de cachet_, blank, filled up by the king's favorites, 53;
+ number issued during the reign of Louis XV., 55;
+ ease with which they were obtained, 55;
+ abolished by the National Assembly, 236.
+
+ Liancourt (Duke of), midnight interview of, with the king, 123.
+
+ Libertines still infidels, but not openly, 47.
+
+ Literature and art, state of, during reign of Louis XIV., 33.
+
+ Loan, one hundred millions of dollars on people alone, 69.
+
+ Louis Capet. See Louis XVI.
+
+ Louis Philippe, poverty of, 334;
+ prediction of Danton to, 507.
+
+ Louis XIII., his reign, 27.
+
+ Louis XIV., death of, 33;
+ state of society during his reign, 25;
+ character of, 29.
+
+ Louis XV., marriage of, 38;
+ length of the reign of, 38;
+ political reasons of, for countenancing Voltaire, 49;
+ one hundred and fifty thousand _lettres de cachet_ during the
+ reign of, 55;
+ death of, 57.
+
+ Louis XVI., absolute power of, 53;
+ character of, 58;
+ commencement of, as king, 58;
+ appointment of his ministers, 59;
+ love of, for blacksmiths' work, 65;
+ orders Parliament to register decree taxing all lands alike, 68;
+ banishes Parliament to Troyes, 69;
+ banishes the Duke d'Orleans, 70;
+ decrees an equal representation in States-General, 79;
+ orders Brézé not to molest the National Assembly, 100;
+ character of, by M. Bailly, 111;
+ midnight interview of Duke of Liancourt with, 123;
+ visits and explains himself to the Assembly, 124;
+ conducted in triumph to the
+ palace, 125;
+ his loss of power, 127;
+ recalls Necker, 128;
+ visits the Parisians, 129;
+ accepts the acts of the people, 130;
+ accepts the tricolored cockade, 130;
+ reception of, by the French people, 131;
+ gives money to the poor, 133;
+ decides to obey the people, 162;
+ walks alone among the people, 166;
+ rumors of attempts to carry off, 175;
+ visit of, to the Assembly, 175;
+ speech of, at the Assembly, 176;
+ takes the oath to the people, 184;
+ effect of the death of Mirabeau upon, 195;
+ intentions of, relating to flight, 196;
+ surrounded by the National Guards, 197;
+ flight of, 198;
+ discovered by Drouet, 200;
+ arrested at Varennes, 201;
+ appearance of, after arrest, 204;
+ influence of the appearance of, 207;
+ carried back to Paris, 208;
+ prophetical exclamation of, 208;
+ injudicious memorial of, 212;
+ return of, to Paris from Varennes, 215;
+ entrance of, into Paris, 218;
+ offers a declaration of the object of his leaving Paris, 221;
+ presentation of the Constitution to, 231;
+ cordial assent of, to the Constitution, 232;
+ takes the oath to support the Constitution, 232;
+ reception of, by the Assembly, 234;
+ experience of, in the variableness of the mob, 234;
+ remarks of, to Bertrand de Moleville, 236;
+ the Assembly addressed by, 238;
+ proclamation of, to the emigrants at Coblentz, 242;
+ letter of, to Louis Stanislas Xavier, 242;
+ his protection of the non-conforming priests, 243;
+ speech of, to the Assembly, 244;
+ declares war against Austria, 246;
+ speech of, to the Assembly on the demands of Austria, 249;
+ deplorable dejection of, 254;
+ character of, described by the queen, 267;
+ plans for the escape of, 271;
+ his silk breast-plate, 275;
+ petitions for his dethronement, 280;
+ insulted in the garden, 283;
+ takes refuge with the National Assembly, 285;
+ suspended by the National Assembly, 289;
+ a prisoner, 292;
+ taken to the Temple, 294;
+ insults of, at the Temple, 311;
+ summoned to appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal, 315;
+ trial of, 316;
+ anecdote concerning, 317;
+ informed of his condemnation, 324;
+ his last interview with his family, 325;
+ his bequests, 326;
+ his execution, 329.
+
+ Louis XVII. See Dauphin.
+
+ Louis XVIII. (Count of Provence), reply of, to the letter of the
+ king to, 242.
+
+ Lourtalot (Monsieur), incites to the rescue of the soldiers, 104.
+
+ Lyons captured by the Revolutionists, 342;
+ rising of the Royalists at, 398.
+
+
+ Maillard, his judicial labors at the prison of Abbaye, 303.
+
+ Mailly (Madame de), favorite of Louis XV., 38.
+
+ Malesherbes, execution of, 360.
+
+ Marat (Jean Paul), his advice to the people, 105;
+ opinion of, concerning National Assembly,
+ 146;
+ desires to abrogate the death penalty, 173;
+ speech of, to the Jacobin Club, 214;
+ trial and victory of, 335;
+ assassination of, 338;
+ bust of, thrown into the mud, 398.
+
+ Marceau, death of, 414.
+
+ Maria, wife of Louis XV., 38.
+
+ Maria Theresa a prisoner, 292;
+ taken to the Temple, 294;
+ liberation of, 351;
+ marriage and death of, 352.
+
+ Marie Antoinette, education of, 58;
+ her position, 71;
+ at Trianon, her troubles, 72;
+ accused of adultery with the Count d'Artois, 72;
+ involved with Comtesse Lamotte in the public estimation, 72;
+ intrusts her son to the nobility, 100;
+ effect of seeing the tricolor worn by the king, 132;
+ takes the oath of fidelity, 185;
+ plans the escape of the king, 197;
+ flight of, 198, 199;
+ arrested at Varennes, 201;
+ indignation of, at the disrespect shown to the king, 203;
+ pleads with the mayor's wife, 206;
+ insult of, to La Fayette, 220;
+ respect of, for popular rights, 234;
+ anguish of, at the disrespect shown the king, 238;
+ her hatred of La Fayette, 240;
+ attempt to assassinate, 266;
+ her opinion of the king's character, 267;
+ adventures of, in the mob of 20th of June, 287;
+ the dauphin ordered to be taken from, 346;
+ taken to the Conciergerie, 347;
+ trial of, 348;
+ condemnation and letter of, to her sister, 349;
+ execution of, 350.
+
+ Marly, palace of, 35.
+
+ Massat, imprisonment of, in the Bastille, 56.
+
+ Masses, wretchedness of the, 47;
+ their condition during the reign of Louis XV., 52.
+
+ Memorial of the king on leaving Paris, 212.
+
+ Mercenaries, foreign, collected in Paris, 104.
+
+ Merovingian dynasty, the, 18.
+
+ Mirabeau, his course to identify himself with the people, 80;
+ character of, 80;
+ his expulsion from the Parliament, 80;
+ his aspect at the States-General, 86;
+ his formal "Letters to my Constituents," 87;
+ speech of, upon the dissolution, 99;
+ compares American and English revolutions with that of France, 102;
+ speech of, concerning the movements of the army, 106;
+ his position in the Assembly, 107;
+ instruction to, of the deputy to the king, 124;
+ opposes the amnesty, 139;
+ how regarded by the Parisians, 149;
+ his motives explained, 152;
+ supports the confiscation of church property, 171;
+ defends the Convention from the charge of usurpation, 174;
+ physical condition of, 189;
+ interview of, with the queen, 189;
+ plans of, to overturn the Constitution, 190;
+ opposition of, to law against emigration, 191;
+ plot of, for the king's escape, 192;
+ death of, 193;
+ funeral of, 194.
+
+ Mob becomes fast and furious, 168;
+ actions of the, on the 20th of June, 1792, 255.
+
+ Moleville (Bertrand de), remarks of, on the Assembly, 235.
+
+ Molière, his reception at the Courtiers' table, 45.
+
+ Monarchy supported by the Papacy, 48.
+
+ Monge appointed minister of the marine, 290.
+
+ Monopolists, hatred of the people against, 134.
+
+ Montesquieu explains the national policy to the people, 47.
+
+ Moors, incursions of the, into France, 20.
+
+
+ Napoleon. See Bonaparte.
+
+ National bankruptcy described, 63.
+
+ National Guard formed, 126;
+ losing influence, 150;
+ dispersion of a mob by the, 229.
+
+ Necker, appointment of, as minister of finance, 60;
+ policy of, 60;
+ his position and struggles, 62;
+ his "Compte rendu au Roi" and its effect, 63;
+ recommends formation of provincial parliaments, 63;
+ his measures and their reception, 64;
+ recalled, 77;
+ effects upon the people of his recall, 77;
+ applauded by the people for refusing to attend the royal sitting, 100;
+ remarks of, on the conspiracy of the nobles against the National
+ Assembly, 102;
+ his advice disregarded, 107;
+ dismissal of, 108;
+ recalled, 128;
+ return of, to Paris, 138;
+ resignation of, 189.
+
+ Nemours (Duke of), his accusation and punishment, 54.
+
+ Noailles (Viscount de), services of, 139;
+ arm of the, rejected by the queen, 220.
+
+ Nobility, their doctrine regarding the lower class, 45;
+ hereditary, state of society which abolishes, 46;
+ much dissatisfied with the decree of equality of representation, 79;
+ triumph of the, 96, 97;
+ ordered by the king to join the National Assembly, 101;
+ dissatisfaction of the, with the Assembly, 101;
+ conspiracy of the, to overturn Assembly, 102;
+ yield their feudal rights, 140;
+ plots of the, 156;
+ religion of the, 170;
+ plans of the, 191.
+ See also Nobles.
+
+ Nobles obliged to unite with the king, and to promise to submit to all
+ the taxes, 90;
+ abandonment of their chateaux for a metropolitan residence, 45;
+ income of, in province of Limousin, according to Turgot, 45;
+ position of the, in the days of feudal grandeur, 46;
+ now hated by the peasants, 46;
+ all taxation steadily opposed by the, 65-68;
+ every where resist the decree of Brienne, 75;
+ their plan for managing the States-General, 84;
+ exult in their supposed victory, 100;
+ forty-seven join the National Assembly, 101;
+ obstruct the action of the Assembly, 105;
+ plan of, to regain their ascendency, 141.
+
+ Normandy, revolt in, 24.
+
+ Notables (Assembly of), recommended by Calonne, 66;
+ the meeting, 67;
+ meeting of, called to settle questions about the States-General, 78.
+
+
+ Oath of fidelity taken, 184.
+
+ Orleans (Duke of), enters his protest in Parliament against the king's
+ commands, 70;
+ banished by the king, 70;
+ contemplates usurpation, 71;
+ joins the National Assembly, 101.
+
+ Orleans, massacre of the Royalists of, 308.
+
+ _Oubliettes_, description of, 55.
+
+
+ Paine (Thomas), one of the Jacobins, 224.
+
+ Papacy the right arm of monarchy, 48.
+
+ _Parc aux Cerfs_, institution of, 40.
+
+ Paris, from what it sprung, 19;
+ state of, on July 12, 1789, 111;
+ garrisoned by the people, 124;
+ municipal government of, arrogates supreme power, 145;
+ events at, on the king's escape, 209;
+ a new mayor of, chosen, 243;
+ mob in, on the 9th of August, 1792, 281;
+ arrest of the Royalists of, 300;
+ festival in, to celebrate the Jacobin Constitution, 339;
+ famine in, 398.
+
+ Parliament asserts that it has no power to register decrees, 68;
+ custom of, to register king's decrees, 68;
+ passes resolution concerning States-General, 69;
+ its desire to obtain feudal privileges, 73;
+ forced to surrender D'Espréménil and De Monsabert, 74;
+ meets and declares its session permanent, 74;
+ method of the, in receiving the king's commissioners, 76;
+ its condemnation of La Fayette, 298;
+ of the provinces abolished, 172.
+
+ Parties, number of, in France, 190.
+
+ Patronage of men of letters by nobility, nature of, 46.
+
+ Paupers, numbers of, 169.
+
+ Peasants, their hatred of the nobility and crowd, 46;
+ call them "vultures," 46;
+ their fear of tax-collectors, 50;
+ their difficulties, 52.
+
+ "_Pensées Philosophiques_" burned by execution, 48.
+
+ People side with the Parliament, 71;
+ support their enemies, the Parliaments, 73;
+ enjoined to send in account of grievances to the States-General, 79;
+ condition of the, 83;
+ send in requests to the Assembly, 105;
+ bear the busts of Necker and Orleans in triumph, 109;
+ sack the convents for wine and wheat, 115;
+ arm and garrison the Bastille, 123;
+ escort the king to the palace, 125;
+ of Paris desire the king to visit them, 129;
+ becoming soldiers from fear of invasion, 142;
+ demand of the, that the king shall go to Paris, 162;
+ influence of the king's appearance upon the, 207;
+ enthusiasm of the, at the reading of the Constitution, 234.
+
+ Pepin ascends the throne, 20.
+
+ Persecution of Protestants renewed, 37;
+ the argument of the Church, 48.
+
+ Pétion chosen Mayor of Paris, 244;
+ dilatory conduct of, in the mob of 20th of June, 259;
+ his dismissal from the Tuileries, 262;
+ petitions the Assembly for the dethronement of the king, 280;
+ found dead in the forest, 362.
+
+ Pharamond, chief of the Franks, 18;
+ obtains supremacy over Gaul, 18.
+
+ Philip (the Fair) establishes his Parliament in Paris, 24.
+
+ Philip VI. crowned at Rheims, 25;
+ luxury of the court of, 25.
+
+ Philosophy, of the writers on, 47;
+ of Revolutionary writers, results of, 47.
+
+ Pichegru appointed commander of the Parisian forces, 401.
+
+ Piety, its rarity forms an admirable foil to show up the corruption
+ surrounding, 48.
+
+ Pitt (William), his approval of Burke's book, 187;
+ statement of, to the French envoy, 240;
+ his opinion of La Fayette, 298.
+
+ Political economy simplified for the masses, 47.
+
+ Politics superior in influence to religion over Louis XV., 49.
+
+ Pompadour (Madame de), character of, 39;
+ death of, 43.
+
+ Popular sovereignty, when legitimated in France, 62.
+
+ Poverty of nobles in every thing but pride, 45.
+
+ Power of France in the hands of nobility, 64;
+ aid of foreign, to the noblesse, 196.
+
+ Priests, attempts of, to rouse the populace, 177.
+
+ Prisons, for what purposes used by Jesuits, 55;
+ number of, in Paris, 55;
+ terrible suffering in the, 359.
+
+ Privileged class, number of, in France during the reign of Louis XV., 45;
+ dissatisfied with Turgot's measures, 60;
+ calculation of numerical strength of, 64.
+
+ Privileges (feudal). See Feudal.
+
+ Protestants, persecution of, by Louis XIV., 29;
+ number of, in France, 30;
+ "dragooned into Catholic faith," 30;
+ escape of, from France, 32;
+ persecution of, renewed, 37.
+
+ Province of Vendée, religious troubles in, 243. See La Vendée.
+
+ Provinces, France divided into, 171.
+
+ Provincial Parliaments, formation of, recommended by Necker, 63.
+ See also Parliament.
+
+ Prussia, desire of, to withdraw from the coalition, 396.
+
+ Public credit, condition of, in France now, 65.
+
+
+ Rastadt, assassination of the embassadors at, 428.
+
+ Rebellion, people incited to, by Camille Desmoulins, 108.
+
+ "Reflections," by Edmund Burke, 187.
+
+ Reform, few of the nobility in favor of, 79.
+
+ Reign of Terror, France surrendered to the, 345;
+ more endurable than the old dominion, 402.
+
+ Religion, how represented by Revolutionary writers, 47;
+ becomes the policy of the nobles, 170;
+ the aid of, brought to bear, by the clergy, 173.
+ See also Christianity.
+
+ Renville (Constant de), confinement of, in the Bastille, 53.
+
+ Republicans, increase of the, 246.
+
+ Revolution, its outbreak and failure explained, 46;
+ list of the victims of the, 379.
+
+ Revolutionary Tribunal, origin of the, 296;
+ trial of the king before the, 322.
+
+ Richelieu (Cardinal), his character and influence as a politician, 27;
+ his death, 27;
+ cruelty of, to Dessault, 55;
+ iron-hearted firmness of, 56.
+
+ Riot, description of the first, 82;
+ fomented to prevent meeting of the States-General, 82.
+
+ Robespierre (Maximilian), first appearance of, 88;
+ desires to abolish the death penalty, 173;
+ demands an act of accusation against the Girondists, 336;
+ turns against Danton and Desmoulins, 365;
+ speech of, against Danton, 367;
+ inexplicable character of, 375;
+ decrees of, in favor of the existence of the Supreme Being, 375;
+ supposed attempt to assassinate, 396;
+ dawning opposition to, 377; urged to assume the dictatorship, 378;
+ defeat of, in the Convention, 380;
+ arrest of, with his brother, 383;
+ assassination and rearrest of, 386;
+ condemnation of, 387;
+ execution of, 388.
+
+ Roederer (Monsieur), interview of, with the royal family, 284.
+
+ Rohan (Cardinal), involved with Comtesse Lamotte, 72.
+
+ Roland (Monsieur), dismissal of, from the office of minister of
+ the interior, 254;
+ death of, 363.
+
+ Roland (Madame), her letter to the king, 254;
+ anecdote concerning, 309;
+ death of, 363.
+
+ Rollo, an incident related of, 23.
+
+ Roman empire, decline of the, 17.
+
+ Romeuf (M. de), arrest of the king by, 208.
+
+ Rousseau employs his eloquence for Revolution, 47.
+
+ Royal decree, customs regarding it, 68.
+
+ Royal family, flight of the, 198;
+ their mode of life in the Temple, 311.
+ See also Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
+
+
+ Sabbath, attempts to obliterate the, 361.
+
+ Salt, duty on, abolished, 172.
+
+ Santerre appointed to the command of the National Guard, 296.
+
+ Sausse (Madame), answer of, to the applications of the queen, 206.
+
+ Schools established by Charlemagne, 21.
+
+ Sermon of the Bishop of Nancy, 86;
+ of Abbé Fauchet, 144.
+
+ Sheriff obliged to have a guard, 50.
+
+ Sièyes (Abbé), his pamphlet, 78;
+ his motion in the States-General, 89;
+ its success, 90;
+ second pamphlet of, 90.
+
+ Societies, the jealousy with which they were regarded, 46.
+
+ Society, state of, during the reign of Louis XIV., 28;
+ state of, at the death of Louis XIV., 33.
+
+ Soldiers, brutal conduct of, 30;
+ become discontented, 103;
+ coalesce with the people, 103;
+ arrested for their oath, 104;
+ scatter the first mob, 109;
+ a loyal regiment from Flanders ordered to Paris, 157.
+
+ Sombrueil, governor of Hôtel des Invalides, character of, 119.
+
+ Spain, treaty of France with, 396.
+
+ Speech of Marat to the Jacobin Club, 215.
+
+ St. Etienne, curate of, heads the people, 119.
+
+ St. Huruge, account of him, 150.
+
+ States-General convened for May, 76;
+ debates which arose upon the summoning of, 78;
+ representation in, how to be determined, 79;
+ equal representation in, decreed by the king, 79;
+ the people enjoined to send in account of their grievances to the, 79;
+ number of members of, 81;
+ convened, 83;
+ delegates to, received by the king, 83;
+ opening of the, 85, 86;
+ boldness of the third estate, 87;
+ Necker's reception at the, 87;
+ attempt of, to ensnare the third estate, 87;
+ the conflict in the, 88.
+ See also Assembly and Convention.
+
+ Supreme Being, decrees in favor of the, 375;
+ festival in honor of the, 376.
+
+ Suspected persons, schedule of those liable to arrest, 344.
+
+ Suspensive veto, the, approved, 151.
+
+ Swiss, the, refuse to fire upon their comrades, 110.
+
+
+ Talleyrand, his remark concerning the diamond necklace, 72.
+
+ Tallien, speech of, against Robespierre, 381.
+
+ Talma, incident connected with the marriage of, 178.
+
+ Taxation so universal that the inventor of a new one was regarded
+ as a man of genius, 49;
+ the burden of, fell upon unprivileged classes solely, 49;
+ artifices used by the peasants to elude, 50;
+ proportion of land owned by the payers of, 50;
+ expedients of the collector of, to obtain the, 50;
+ burden of, computed, 51;
+ equality of, when nobles would permit it, 98.
+
+ Temple, description of the, 293.
+
+ Tennis-court, celebration of the meeting at, 255.
+
+ Texel, capture of the fleet at, 395.
+
+ Theatre, Jacobin riot in the, 239.
+
+ Thermidorians, origin of the, 379;
+ supremacy of the, 389.
+
+ Thiers, remarks of, on the National Convention, 410.
+
+ Third estate triumphant, 101.
+
+ Thouret (Monsieur), presents Constitution to the king, 231.
+
+ Thuriot (Monsieur), summons Bastille to surrender, 120.
+
+ Title-deeds destroyed by the peasantry, 143.
+
+ Titles of noble blood sold, 50.
+
+ Tollendal, Lally, speech of, 126.
+
+ Toulon surrendered to the Allies, 341.
+
+ Tree of feudalism, burning of the, 275.
+
+ Trials ordered to be public, 172.
+
+ Tribune, a military, advised by Marat, 215.
+
+ Tricolor worn by the king, 132.
+
+ Tuileries besieged, 286.
+
+ Turgot (Monsieur), his appointment and career as minister of
+ finance, 59, 60;
+ his measures, how accepted, 60.
+
+
+ Unbelief among the courtiers, reasons for, 49.
+
+ United States, Revolution of, compared with that of France, 46.
+
+
+ Valmy, battle of, 306.
+
+ Valois, history of the house of, 26.
+
+ Varennes (the), king and royal family arrived at, 201;
+ municipality of, request the king to _wait_, 205.
+
+ Vaublanc (M. de), speech of, to the king, 244.
+
+ Vergniaud (Monsieur), charges of, against the king, 269;
+ prophetic solicitude of, 309;
+ sentences the king to death, 323;
+ spirit of the Girondists avowed by, 332;
+ remark of, in the prison to the son of M. Alluaud, 354.
+
+ Versailles, chateau of, commenced by Richelieu, 27;
+ palace of, 35.
+
+ Veto, struggle on the part of the nobility to make it absolute, 149.
+
+ Vice protected by the Church, 48.
+
+ Victims, list of the, of the Revolution, 379.
+
+ Vienne, Archbishop of, president of National Assembly, 106.
+
+ Vincennes, brilliant festivities and spectacles at, 25.
+
+ Voltaire applies his force to assailing the corruption of the Church, 47;
+ unfairness of his criticisms on Christianity, 47;
+ befriended by Frederick II. of Prussia, 49;
+ revisits Paris, 62;
+ his reception, 62;
+ his death, 62;
+ removed to the Pantheon in Paris, 222.
+
+ Voting for the deputies in Paris, 79.
+
+
+ Wars, why waged by princes, 51.
+
+ Women of Paris, their march to Versailles, 159;
+ deputation of, to the king, 160.
+
+ Writers, revolutionary, views of, on religion, 47;
+ their influence in brutalizing the people, 47;
+ the leading, were infidels, 47.
+
+
+ Xavier (Louis Stanislas), letter of the king to, 242.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59162 ***
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