1 
 
 
 
 
 ^^Ms 
 
 
 H 
 9 

 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 rREICH REVOLUTIOI, 
 
 ITS 
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. MACLEAN ROWAN. 
 
 ' Da veulent etre litres et ils ne savent pas etre justes." — Sibteb. 
 
 VOL. I; 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
 
 846 & 848 BROADWAY. 
 
 M.DCCC.UV.
 
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In the little work here presented to the public, 
 the faults of the people are more insisted upon than 
 those of the rulers, because it is written for the 
 former, not for the latter ; and because, if the latter 
 have a lesson to learn from history, the former have 
 a still greater one, and one that, if well learned by 
 them, will suffice for both. Despotism and tyranny 
 are almost impossible evils in our day, but the love 
 of liberty is so great, that the important task now 
 is to enlighten and to regulate that love, so that, in 
 their headlong career for the attainment of a good, 
 the people place not themselves in the way of the 
 very evils they seek to avoid. They have to learn, 
 that for nations as for individuals, happiness de- 
 pends upon virtue and wisdom, and that therefore 
 liberty, which is happiness, does not mean merely 
 freedom from restraint, and cannot be attained 
 through crimes. 
 
 There is not pmrhaps m bi§J(JiX^ more striking 
 
 VOL. I. X^ / ^1^^,0
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 example of how incompatible liberty is with cor- 
 ruption, than that period of the French Revolution, 
 the Reign of Terror, when every citizen* in the 
 state, without exception, had the right of voting, 
 and was thus considered represented, and when the 
 representatives of the people presented the most 
 hideous assembly of vicious tyrants and despots 
 which the world has ever witnessed. 
 
 * This word is here used in its usual acceptation, thongh 
 nothing can be farther from the proper idea of the duties of 
 citizenship, than the notions and practice of the French of 
 that day.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAua 
 
 Introductory Sketch ofi^he early History cf France— Louis 
 
 XIV 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Regency— General depravity of the Court— State of the Fi- 
 nances—Fraudulent transactions— Infamous measures 
 —System of Law— Brilliant prospects— Reverse of the 
 picture— Dubois— Death of the Duke of Orleans— His 
 rule a disastrous period for France— French Literature 
 —Voltaire— Duke de Bourbon— Fleury— Bull Unigeni- 
 tus — Parliament exiled — Stanislas — Treaty of Vienna . 26 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 War — Madame de Pompadour— The Savans — Schools of 
 Philosophy— The Noblesse— The Clergy— The People 
 —The Middle Classes— The Jansenists— Contests be- 
 tween the Parliament and the Archbishop of Paris — 
 Interference of the King— War with England in North 
 America ..... ... 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Rising importance of France as a Nation — The Philoso- 
 phers — BUnd security of the Government — Fall of the 
 Jesuits — Death of the Dauphin— State of the Finances — 
 Marriage of Louis with Marie Antoinette — Suppression 
 of the Parliaments — Misery of the People — Facte de 
 Famine- Death of Louis XV 50
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FAOK 
 
 Accession of Louis XVI. — His Ciiaracter — Maurepas — Tur- 
 got — His projected Reforms — Reinstatement of the 
 Parliament — Turgot's Measures — His Colleagues — Ma- 
 rie Antoinette — Riots in Paris — Turgot's Dismissal — 
 Joseph II 61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Necker — War between England and her American Colo- 
 nies — FrankUn — Enthusiasm in his favor — War- 
 Compte rendu of Necker— His resignation — Calonne — 
 Growing hatred of the People to the Court and the 
 Queen — Prodigality of the Court — The Diamond Neck- 
 lace — Convocation of the Notables — Ruinous state of 
 the Finances — Dismissal of Calonne — Brienne — Con- 
 tentions in the Parliament — Which is exiled to Troyes 
 — Recalled — Duke of Orleans — Struggles between the 
 Government and the Parhament — Convocation of the 
 States-General . . . . . 71 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The States-General — Ruinous Financial Measures of Bri- 
 enne — His Resignation — Necker — His Popularity — Dis- 
 cussions on the formation, &c., of the Ttates-General — 
 Misery of the People— Commotions — Opening of the 
 States-General — Dissensions between the three Etats 
 — National Assembly — Royal Sitting — General Revo- 
 lutionary Agitation 88 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Deliberations of the National Assembly — Constitution of 
 France— General Agitation — Disaffection of the Sol- 
 diers — Dismissal of Necker — Outbursts of the Revolu- 
 tionists in consequence — Paris in the hands of the Mob 
 —Taking of the Bastille— Dreadful Cruelties— The Aa-
 
 CONTENTS. 9 
 
 FACE 
 
 eembly and the King— Mirabeau's Speech— Reconciia- 
 tion between the King and the Assembly— Deputation 
 of Members to Paris— The King goes to Paris— Returns 
 to Versailles— Murder ofM. de Foulon and his Son-in- 
 law — Emigration 107 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Recall of Necker— InabiUty of the Assembly to govern— 
 Disturbances throughout France— Frightful Atrocities 
 committed by the Peasantry— Proceedings of the Na- 
 tional Assembly— Despoiling of the Privileged Classes- 
 Desecration of the Churches— Dissent of the King use- 
 less—Declaration of Rights— The Assembly iniimida- 
 ted by the Mob— State of Paris— Dismal Prospects for 
 France— Military Banquet — Dreadful Tumult — The 
 Mob proceeds to Versailles— Deputation to the King — 
 The Palace forced by the Mob— Danger of the Queen 
 —The Royal Family taken to Paris . . . .123 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Emigration of many of the Deputies— The National Assem- 
 bly holds its Sittings at the Tuileries— Martial Law pro- 
 claimed — Formation of the New Constitution — Finan- 
 cial Embarrassments — Extraordinary Proposition of 
 Necker — Supported by Mirabeau — Appropriation of the 
 Property of the Church— Assignais— State of Parties— 
 The Clubs . . 140 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Reports of Counter-Revolutions — Disaffection of the com- 
 mon soldiers— The King appears at the Assembly — His 
 speech received with universal applause — Distrust again 
 exhibited— Execution of Favras — Counter-revolution- 
 ary projects — Debates in the Assembly — Civil Consti- 
 tution of the Clergy — F6te in the Champ de Mars —
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Revolt in the Army — Clergy required to swear to main- 
 tain the Civil Constitution iast decreed — The King com- 
 pelled at length to sanction this decree — Opposition of 
 the Clergy — Mortification of the King .... 15G 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The King secretly solicits the aid of Foreign Powers — Pro- 
 ject of Mirabeau — His Death — The King not allowed 
 to go to St. Cloud — His Remonstrance — Secret Con- 
 vention with Foreign Powers — Flight of the King and 
 Queen — Discovered and Arrested— The Royal Family 
 brought back to Paris — Decree of the Assembly— An- 
 swer of the King to the Commissaries deputed by the 
 Assembly — Republican Agitation — Decree preserving 
 just the Shadow of Monarchy — Riots at the Champ de 
 Mats — National Guards fire upon the People — Former 
 Idols now execrated — Treaty of Pilnitz — Preparations 
 for War— The Constitution completed — The King ac- 
 cepts it — Dissolution of the Assembly . . . IM
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Introductory Sketch of the early History of France — Louis XIV. 
 
 Every one who has taken a view of the French Re- 
 volution of 1789, must have felt that deeds such as those 
 it gave rise to, and national phrensy such as it gave evi- 
 dence of, could only be the consequences of centuries of 
 corruption ; and every writer on these events has, there- 
 fore, sought in history to trace the causes that could 
 produce such lamentable results. 
 
 Strange that though all have gone back to search for 
 the origin of evil, none (or at least very few) have done 
 so to search for that good, the departure from which 
 must be the origin of evil, and the remnants of which 
 must have been the principle of vitality, which prevented 
 entire destruction. When societies are first formed by 
 a number of individuals, renouncing some of their nat- 
 ural and individual rights in order the more securely to 
 enjoy the rest, all men are in the same condition, and 
 the regulations they enter into are consequently such as 
 shall ensure the same benefits to all.* But the very 
 means for doing this, become the means for the few tc 
 
 benefit themselves at the expense of the many, and the 
 
 1 _ 
 
 * I do not mean to eay that this is done dehberately and with full con- 
 sciousness, but it is the result of existing circumstances, and probably also 
 of those instincts of order and justice, of which man received the stamp 
 upon his soul, when he was made in the image of God.
 
 12 mTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 
 
 liberty of the people, therefore, at later periods becomes 
 dependent upon the degree of the primitive feeling of 
 individual rights, harmonized with the good of all, which 
 is still extant among them. The existence of this feel- 
 ing must again be dependent upon the extent to which 
 the institutions which were originally planned for the 
 maintenance of liberty are kept up.* But in our times 
 it has been forgotten that liberty can only exist where a 
 nation understands its own affairs, and that where this 
 <6 the case, revolution is out of the question. 
 
 Since the French Revolution spread its pernicious 
 doctrines in the world, the idea of liberty has, in almost 
 all minds, been connected with change, and novelty, and 
 revolution has become, as it were, the necessary and 
 only means for the attainment of liberty. Simplicity 
 and stability have not been thought of, as having the 
 least connection with liberty ; therefore has there been 
 no searching for it in the ancient institutions of the na- 
 tions, but in the theories and speculations of philosophers ; 
 as if freedom were an abstract idea, and not a state of 
 being. 
 
 Some writers have sought for the causes of the French 
 Revolution in the character of the people, which, accord- 
 ing to them, has, throughout its history, evinced itself in 
 the same way ; that is, whenever the people of France 
 has had any share of power, either legally or illegally 
 obtained, the result has been anarchy and bloodshed. 
 But this seems a very arbitrary and superficial way of 
 deciding the matter, for though it must be admitted that 
 races, as individuals, have inherent qualities and tenden- 
 
 * There lias never been a free nation which has not had in its natural con- 
 Btitution germs of liberty as ancient as itself; and nations have never effica 
 ciously attempted to develop, by their fundamental written laws, other right* 
 ♦.ban those that existed in their natural constitution. — De Maistrk.
 
 INTRODUCTORY SKKTCH 13 
 
 eies, still these qualities and tendencies can be modified 
 and even destroyed by outward circumstances, and oth- 
 ers be planted in their place. When races divide into 
 nations, these nations, though springing from the same 
 source, then develop a different individuality, and it is 
 probable that the minds of the founders and the first 
 lawgivers of nations give their own individual stamp to 
 the people. Certain it is, that the histories of France 
 and England, two nations sprung from the same source, 
 present a remarkable contrast. While in England the 
 Teutonic race goes on for centuries, developing its ad- 
 mirable institutions according to the exigencies of the 
 times, in France these institutions are deteriorated by 
 intermixture with foreign alloy, and the spirit of the 
 race changes. The struggles through which every na- 
 tion has to pass in the progress of its development, in 
 England, under all their various forms, have always ex- 
 hibited a decided tendency towards liberty, that is, to- 
 wards the establishing and guarantying of the rights 
 of all classes of the community ; while in France these 
 struggles have always been for power, for immunity from 
 the burdens of the state, not for equal partition of them. 
 First, we have the immediate descendants of Clovis 
 contending for universal power ; then the mayors of the 
 palace usurping the place of their masters, and aiming 
 at even more extensive power and dominion. During 
 this time the history of France presents a frightful pic- 
 ture of crimes, treason, invasions, and wars. But still 
 a kind of superstitious reverence seemed attached to the 
 person of the sovereign ; a remnant, perhaps, of the 
 spirit of those simple ages when men revered in their 
 governors the representatives of their own unity, and 
 the sanctity of their laws. However debased in power, 
 the sovereign was allowed to retain his station, and 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 14 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 when Pepin became ambitious of joining the dignity of 
 monarch to the reality of power which he had long pos- 
 sessed, he was obliged to sanctify the deed by the appro- 
 bation of the Pope, and the whole people. 
 
 His son, Charlemagne, found himself master of one 
 of the greatest empires of the world. This great mon- 
 arch, one of those master-minds that seem to suffice for 
 all things, and in whom were combined the conqueror 
 and the legislator, that is, the destroyer and the builder, 
 laid no sound foundation however to his edifice ; he com- 
 menced that system of centralization, to which may, 
 perhaps, be attributed the political incapacity of the 
 people of France, who, losing by degrees even the tra- 
 ditions of that self-government which they had enjoyed 
 in more barbarous ages, when they attained power knew 
 not how to use it for the attainment of liberty ; for 
 though power in a monarch may destroy the liberty of the 
 people, power (or rather, freedom from restraint) regained 
 by that people, is not sufficient to re-establish liberty. 
 
 When under the feeble successors of Charlemagne 
 the power of the sovereign again declined, it was not 
 the people, but the subordinate lords of the state, who 
 caught it as it fell from their hands ; and while in Eng- 
 land the feudal system introduced by the conquering 
 nation, was by a powerful sovereign at once grafted on, 
 and made to harmonize with the free institutions of his 
 new subjects, in France it arose out of the weakness of 
 the monarch, and became as it were the establishing of 
 anarchy as a permanent system. Every petty lord be- 
 came the sovereign despot in his own dominions. The 
 difference between the king and his vassals was in dig- 
 nity rather than in actual power. 
 
 From this time even the form of national assemblies, 
 (\vhich, a remnant of the ancient liberty of the Teutonic
 
 HUGH CAPET. 15 
 
 race, had been kept up until about seventy years after 
 Charlemagne) entirely disappeared, and the royal coun- 
 cil then became composed only of barons, tenants in 
 chief, prelates, and household officers. The great vas- 
 sals of the crown acted for themselves in their own 
 dominions, assisted by similar councils, and the kings 
 iiad not the power of enforcing laws in the domains of 
 their vassals. Whenever they were desirous of making 
 a general regulation they were obliged to enter into an 
 agreement with their vassals for the purpose. 
 
 Every kind of misfortune, says a French historian, 
 fell at once upon France. The throne and the altar, 
 laws and truth, duties and religion, were all swallowed 
 up in the gulf of anarchy. Individual interests strug- 
 ghng violently with the general interest, produced a 
 monstrous mixture of the ruins of the ancient govern- 
 ment and ancient discipline. The bishops, following the 
 example of the temporal lords, shook off the yoke of 
 obedience, and having made themselves dukes and 
 counts, were engrossed by their ambitious plans, and the 
 necessity of defending themselves by arms : consider- 
 ing their flocks, not as souls for which they were to an- 
 swer before God, but as slaves upon whom tbey could 
 trample as despots. 
 
 The degenerate descendants of Pepin and Charle- 
 magne were in their turn succeeded by one of their vas- 
 sals, Hugh Capet ; who, by uniting to the crown domains 
 several considerable fiefs, as well as by his personal 
 qualities, again restored some of the ancient power of 
 the crown : and thenceforward the sovereigns, having 
 legained a position, were constant in endeavors to ex- 
 tend their own power, and to curb that of their vas- 
 sals. For this end they conferred privileges upon the 
 uowns. National assemblies, comprising the third estate,
 
 16 
 
 THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS. 
 
 or the Commons, were again convoked, but so often abus- 
 ed and wasted the power thus, given to them, that these 
 assemblies frequently ended in bloodshed and riot. 
 
 Though these, as well as other free-sounding institu- 
 tions, thenceforward appear regularly in the history of 
 France, it is the power of the crown that goes on in- 
 creasing, not the liberty of the people ; and whenever 
 comparative order and prosperity bless the land, it seems 
 rather the free gift of the sovereign than the result of 
 the comprehension of the citizens of their rights, and of 
 their exertions for the attainment of that which might 
 ensure the enjoyment of them. 
 
 The earliest records we have of the parliaments of 
 France do not reach beyond the twelfth century, in the 
 reign of Louis VI. The parliament of Paris is gener- 
 ally considered the most ancient, though it is probable 
 the other principalities had institutions of a similar kind, 
 at a period almost as remote. This body was originally 
 ambulatory, following the king's court wherever it went, 
 until the reign of Philip le Bel, at the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century, when it became fixed at Paris. Since 
 that time it was rarely removed, and that only on some 
 very extraordinary occasions. Thenceforward it nf.et at 
 regular periods, twice in the year, until, under the reign 
 of Charles VI., at the close of the same century, it be- 
 came perpetual. 
 
 The parliament was considered chiefly as a judicial 
 court, but it had other functions, which, as the royal au- 
 thority gradually encroached upon its privileges, became 
 of scarcely any importance.* 
 
 * The most important privilege vested in the Parhament as a constitu- 
 tional body, was the right to examine the laws presented to it by the king 
 before registering them, which was one of its functions, and to protest against 
 them in case they were not in accordance with the fundamental statutes of 
 the realm. This right beceme an empty sound at a later period, when the
 
 THE STATES-GENERVL. 17 
 
 As the judicial business increased, it was found ne- 
 cessary to admit lawyers into the parliament, who thence 
 by degrees took a higher position. From the reign of 
 St. Louis, in the middle of the thirteenth century, they 
 began to form a powerful class in the community, being 
 favored by the kings, who wished by this new-created 
 noblesse de robe to counterbalance the power of the no- 
 blesse de Vepee. 
 
 The most revolting acts of injustice under the forms 
 of law, were, however, perpetrated in the reigns of the 
 successors of Louis IX., (St. Louis,) and the parliament 
 was powerless to remedy the frightful evils under which 
 the country was suffering. 
 
 Louis XL, with a firm hand and an indomitable will, 
 but often by base means, re-established order and power 
 in the empire ; but his system was that of absolutism, 
 and though the great were curbed, the people did not 
 obtain more liberty. 
 
 In the assembly of the States-General, convoked in 
 1484, in the reign of Charles VIII. , the Commons took 
 a prominent part, and some burst of popular feeling might 
 then have afforded a hope that the people were becom- 
 ing better acquainted with their rights. Philip Pot, the 
 deputy from Burgundy, made a very remarkable speech, 
 in which were the germs of a republican spirit very un- 
 usual in those days. " In the beginning," said he, " the 
 sovereign people created kings by its suffrage. Princes 
 are appointed not in order to enrich themselves at the 
 expense of the people, but, forgetting their own inter- 
 ests, to enrich the state, and promote the public welfare 
 .... I include in the term people, not merely the pop- 
 kings usurped tlie power oi forcing the registering of their decrees in a bed 
 of justice. Where is the liuman institution which can prevent a corrupt 
 people from bemg enslaved ■? 
 
 2*
 
 18 RICHELIEU. 
 
 ulace or only the subjects of the kingdom, but men of 
 every class, even the princes."* 
 
 These fine principles, however, were perhaps merely 
 declamatory words for him who uttered them, as well as 
 for those who heard them ; the nation, accustomed to be 
 governed, was incapable of governing itself, and this 
 convocation of the States-General ended without bring- 
 ing any accession of liberty to the people. 
 
 During the next reign, that of Louis XII., the laws 
 did not oppress, but protected the people, and the king 
 sought out the ablest and best men to fill the courts, so 
 that justice should be administered impartially; but 
 nothing was done towards giving the nation constitu- 
 tional rights. The long series of civil and religious 
 wars which succeeded, and extended over the whole of 
 the sixteenth century, exhausted the country and weak- 
 ened the royal authority, but nothing had been gained 
 for the liberty of the lower classes. When the reign of 
 Henry lY. at length restored religious peace to the coun- 
 try, rigorous laws and heavy taxes still oppressed the 
 people. 
 
 Louis XIII., or rather his minister Richelieu, who 
 reigned in his name, destroyed the power and independ- 
 ence of the nobiliiy, but the state of the people continued 
 to be miserable, the finances were exhausted, and indus- 
 try and commerce neglected. The active spirit of the 
 nation, paralyzed by suffering, seemed only to revive for 
 factious struggles. 
 
 The words of Mazarin addressed to the deputies of the 
 parliament of Paris during the minority of Louis XIV 
 ehow what were the pretensions of the crown at that 
 period. The parliament, the chambre des comptes, the 
 cour des aides, and the grand conseil, had signed an 
 
 * Masselin. Lavallee.
 
 THE WAR OP THE FRONDE. 19 
 
 arret (Tunion, which caused some anxiety to the minis- 
 ter, who having ordered the deputies of the parliament 
 to appear before him, declared to them that the queen 
 regent could not allow such arrets. The magistrates 
 answered, that there was nothing in this arret contrary 
 to the service of the king. " If the king," replied Ma- 
 zarin, " did not choose that you should wear gold lace 
 upon your collars, it would be necessary to discontinue 
 wearing it, for it is not so much the thing forbidden, as 
 it is the fact that it is forbidden, which constitutes the 
 crime." 
 
 The war of the Fronde, which was the result of this 
 manifestation of arbitrary power, also proves that the 
 spirit of the nobility was not yet broken, though it was on 
 this occasion again obliged to submit to the superior power 
 of the crown. At this time (1660) peace was established 
 throughout Europe. The Stuarts were again restored 
 to the throne of England, and monarchy was universally 
 triumphant. It was a solemn epoch in the history of 
 Europe. " Royalty, freed from its ancient shackles, be- 
 came everywhere almost absolute. In France, in Spain, 
 in the greater number of the States of the Germanic 
 empire, it had subdued the feudal aristocracy, and ceased 
 to protect the liberty of the commons, no longer having 
 occasion to oppose them to other enemies. The no- 
 bility, {la haute noblesse,) as if it had lost the feeling of 
 its defeat, pressed around the throne, almost proud of 
 the renown of its conqueror. The middle classes, (la 
 bourgeoisie,) scattered and of a timid spirit, while en- 
 joying the growing order, and a welfare until then un- 
 known, labored to enrich and enlighten themselves, but 
 as yet without aspiring to take part in the gov^ernment 
 of the state. Everywhere the pomp of the courts, the 
 promptitude of the administration, proclaimed the pre-
 
 20 LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH. 
 
 ponderance of the royal power. The belief in the di- 
 vine right and supremacy of kings was prevalent, and 
 even but feebly resisted where it was not recognised. 
 In short, the progress of civilization, of letters, of the 
 arts of peace and internal prosperity, embellished this 
 triumph of pure monarchy, inspired princes with pre- 
 sumptuous confidence, and the people with contentment 
 mixed with admiration."* 
 
 The moment in which Louis XIV. took the reins of 
 government in his own hands, was the signal of this new 
 era in the history of Europe. 
 
 Mazarin, like Richelieu, though he achieved great 
 things, left the finances in a deplorable condition. No 
 sooner, however, had Louis XIV. attained his majority, 
 than he applied himself with all the vigor of his noble 
 but ambitious character, to the laying the surest founda- 
 tions for the glory of his name. The finances were 
 improved, commerce and manufactures encouraged, and 
 the country rendered strong and respected without, and 
 prosperous within. But even here the germ of evil was 
 laid beside the germ of good, for Colbert forgot, in his 
 zeal to place France on an equal footing with the first 
 manufacturing countries of the world, that one class of 
 a nation cannot with impunity be benefited at the ex- 
 pense of another, and the restrictions placed upon the 
 trade in corn, as well as other protective measures, 
 through which an undue interference of government was 
 exercised, did not fail to produce a future harvest of 
 evil. 
 
 Louis XIV. commenced with an ardent desire for the 
 happiness of his people, and he was indefatigable in at- 
 tending to the affairs of the nation ; but he wished to 
 grasp all power, and was unwilling to delegate it to oth- 
 
 * Guizot's Histoire de la Revolution (TAngieterre, vol i., p. <J.
 
 LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH. 21 
 
 ers. His ideas upon the rights and duties of kings were 
 absolute in the extreme. 
 
 All historians from whom we obtain records of his 
 reign, agree in representing Louis in this light ; the fol- 
 lowing are said to be his ideas of the kingly character. 
 " The interests of the state should be his first considera- 
 tion. To command others he must raise himself above 
 them, and neither execute, nor order any tiling which 
 may be unworthy of himself, of the position which he 
 fills, nor of the dignity of the state. He who works for 
 the state, works for himself; the welfare of the one, con- 
 stitutes the glory of the other. When the first is ele- 
 vated, happy, and powerful, he who is the cause of its 
 prosperity, will be glorious."* 
 
 " The king represents the whole nation, all power re- 
 sides in his hands, and there can be no other in the king- 
 lom than that which he establishes. The nation has no 
 yital power ; in France it resides entirely in the person 
 of the king."t 
 
 " Kings are absolute lords, and have consequently the 
 full and entire disposal of the property of the clergy as 
 well as the laity. "J 
 
 " He who has given kings to the world has willed that 
 they should be respected as His lieutenants, reserving 
 to himself the sole right of examining their conduct. It 
 is His will that whoever is born a subject should obey 
 blindly."^ 
 
 " A king ought to decide for himself, because decision 
 has need of a master spirit, and in cases where reason 
 
 * SUde de Louis XIV., cli. 28. 
 
 t Manuscrit (tun Cmtr de Droit, composed for the instruction of the Duke 
 de Bourgogne, quoted by Lemontky, in his Essai sur la Monarchic d« 
 lAmis XJV., p. 15. 
 
 J Mcmoirr de iMuis XIV., vx)l. ii., p. 121. 
 
 S Idem, p. £i&.
 
 22 LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH. 
 
 does not prompt him, he must yield to tlie instinct which 
 God has put in all men, especially in kings."* 
 
 Louis XIV. did not long remain content with the glory 
 of rendering his people happy. The mania of foreign 
 conquest seized him, and a succession of glorious victo- 
 ries, followed by as great disasters, together with an in- 
 ordinate love of pomp and magnificence, to which indeed 
 France is indebted for some of its finest monuments, 
 soon again reduced the people to a state of suffering ; 
 and though this reign is considered the most glorious 
 period of French history, it was under cover of its bril- 
 liancy that the first seeds of the future Revolution were 
 sown. 
 
 Towards the close of this reign the whole aspect ot 
 France was changed. The lands were lying waste, the 
 provinces depopulated ; the nation unquiet and discour- 
 aged ; the government hated and despised. The finan- 
 ces were in a deplorable state, and no other resource 
 left to restore them but a bankruptcy. 
 
 Further loans were out of the question. In order to 
 raise eight millions (320,000/.) of ready money, the gov- 
 ernment signed bills for thirty-two millions, (1,280,000/.) 
 The whole debt now amounted to two thousand tliree 
 hundred millions, (92,000,000/.) The expenditure of 
 1715 was estimated at two hundred and five millions, 
 (8,200,000/.,) while the revenue to meet it was only one 
 hundred and seventy-five millions, (7,000,000/.) Dark 
 clouds hung over the destinies of France, and Louis, 
 alone in his gorgeous palace, with his successor a child 
 of five years old, pursued by dark and melancholy 
 thoughts, gave himself up to Madame de Maintenon, and 
 buried himself in religious devotions, which took a fanatic 
 character from the influence of his confessor, Father Le- 
 
 * Mcmoire de Louis XIV., vol i.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC* OPINION. 23 
 
 tellier, an austere and hard-hearted Jesuit, who had suc- 
 ceeded the excellent Father Lachaise, and who dishon- 
 ored the end of this reign by contemptible persecutions. 
 
 Louis XIV., like all despotic monarchs, detested all 
 prominent individualities in the state, and the nobility, 
 whose power and importance had been already so con- 
 siderably diminished, dwindled under this reign into mere 
 minions of the court, and though they continued in the 
 enjoyment of their privileges, they no longer formed a 
 body in the state. On the other side, the middle class- 
 es {bourgeoisie) renewed their alliance with the crown ; 
 enriched by their industry and distinguished by their in- 
 telligence, they soon took possession of all those places 
 which were formerly reserved for the nobility alone, and 
 among them was gradually developed that new power, 
 public opinion,* which, ever varying and ever led, though 
 ever with a false semblance of independence, became a 
 mighty rival of the monarchs of Europe. 
 
 But of all the germs of a future Revolution, none were 
 so big with disastrous consequences as the dissensions 
 between the Jansenistsf and the Jesuits, which, though 
 originally a purely theological question, was soon em- 
 braced by the whole public, and Jesuit and Jansenist be- 
 came the noms de guerre of the two factions that divided 
 the state. 
 
 The cause of the Jesuits and that of the absolute 
 
 * It may be objected that public opinion must always have existed, but 
 I use the word deliberately, as implying those vague theoretical and un- 
 healthy speculations, on states and government, which have since then 
 gone on augmenting to such a degree, in contradistinction to that judgment 
 upon affairs, that watchfulness as to the acts of governments, which must 
 always be salutary. 
 
 fThe peculiar feature of Jansenism, and the one that has made it be 
 looked upon as more dangerous to the Roman Catholic Church than any of 
 the schismatic churches, is, that though differing from the Church in cer- 
 tain doctrines, and though condemned and even anathematized by the 
 Church for this difference, they nevertheless persisted in forcing themselves 
 (inon the Church, and considering themselves as inseparable from it.
 
 24 THE JANSENISTS AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 power of the king, seemed in all minds to be intimately 
 connected ; whoever therefore hated the government ha- 
 ted the Jesuits, and took part with the Jansenists, who 
 were thus made to represent the party of the opposition. 
 It was not, however, that all those who embraced Mo- 
 linism, or Jansenism, were at all anxious about grace or 
 free will, (the points in dispute between the two reli- 
 gious parties,) but during those times when society was 
 still earnestly religious, struggles for political interests 
 wore the guise of theological discussions ; and Louis 
 XIV., who was profoundly ignorant in these matters, 
 nevertheless detested, with royal instinct, all that be- 
 longed to the Jansenists, because he found ranged under 
 their banner all he had ever struggled against : the no- 
 bles, the magistracy, the liberties of the provinces, the 
 remnants of the Fronde, and behind all these, the re- 
 formers. This party had grown with the faults and mis- 
 fortunes of Louis XIV. ; it had blamed the war of suc- 
 cession, it had blamed the peace of Utrecht ; it censured 
 all the acts of the government, it exaggerated the misery 
 of the people ; it accused the king of inertness, of cru- 
 elty, of cowardice ; it said that he had entered into the 
 order of the Jesuits, and that his confessor had made 
 him take the oath of obedience. 
 
 It was a base opposition, working covertly, but it was 
 the more alarming from its vagueness and mysterious- 
 ness ; its presence being felt everywhere, even among 
 the ministers, the court, and the clergy, it having been 
 joined by a great party of the latter, the Benedictines, 
 the Oratorians, and other learned rehgious bodies. 
 
 Its fall was determined at court, but no one at that 
 time suspected that the struggle thus commenced was 
 to last fifty years, and was to be one of the principal 
 causes of the ruin of the monarchy and of religion.
 
 DEATH OF LOUIS XIT. 25 
 
 The growing strength of the Jansenists may, perhaps, 
 have been greatly owing to the ennui which the court 
 inspired, for the tastes of Ihe courtiers had by no means 
 changed with the tastes of the king. The semblance of 
 austere manners and great devotion was put on to please 
 a king, who, fallen as he was in their eyes, was still the 
 dispenser of favors, but the love of pleasure and frivolity 
 was at the bottom of their hearts ; and court and people 
 awaited with equal impatience the death of their form- 
 erly idolized monarch. 
 
 No sooner had this event taken place than the con- 
 tempt in which he was held was manifested by the set- 
 ting aside of his will, in which he had determined that 
 during the minority of his successor, the kingdom should 
 be governed by a council of regency, headed by his le- 
 gitimatized son, the Duke of Maine. The Duke of Or- 
 leans, supported by the parliament,* (gained over by the 
 prospects of greater power held out to it by the Duke,) 
 protested against this arrangement, as a violation of the 
 constitution of the state, which enacted that supreme 
 power should be vested in one alone, and as first prince 
 of the blood he was named sole regent, in spite of the 
 opposition of the Duke of Maine and his party. 
 
 * The character of the magistrates of that day has been eloquently de- 
 scribed by a contemporary writer, renowned for his strict impartiality : 
 *' What magistrate of our day would interrupt his amusements, because, I 
 will not say the peace of mind, but because the honor, or even the hfe of 
 an unfortunate being was at stalie ? Tlie title of magistrate is but too 
 often a charter of idleness, bought on account of the honor it confers, 
 and the functions exercised merely from bienseance. To ask a magistrate 
 for justice, when he is intent upon amusing himself is considered an insult 
 ind a proof of bad manners. Their amusements are the sacred j art of, 
 Jieir lives, which no one dares intrude upon; and they prefer to wear out 
 •he patience of an unfortunate client, and risk losing a good cause, to cur- 
 tailing a few moments from their sleep, or breaking off a game of cards or a 
 avelegs conversation."— Flechier, Panegyrique de St. Louii. 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 CORRUPTION OF MORALS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Regency — General depravity of the Court — State of the Finances — Fraudu- 
 lent transactions — Infamous measures — System of Law — Brilliant pros- 
 pects — Reverse o^the picture — Duboi^— Death of the Duke of Orleans — 
 His rule a disastrous period for France — French Literature — Voltaire — 
 Duke de Bourbon — Fleury — Bull Unigenitus — Parliament exiled — Stan- 
 islas — Treaty of Vienna. 
 
 Immediately on the Duke of Orleans being named 
 regent, a violent reaction took place. The parliament 
 having been called in to pronounce upon the last w^ill of 
 the monarch who had so long held it in subjection, hoped 
 to regain some power ; and the nobles hastened again to 
 take the precedency of that class, which the protection 
 of Louis XIV. had alone enabled to maintain its position. 
 The mask of hypocrisy was thrown aside, and the cour- 
 tiers vied with one another in surpassing their master 
 in every species of vice. The corruption of morals 
 which had hitherto been the infamous distinction of the 
 court, was now spread through all classes, for the jovial 
 ease and familiarity of the regent were imitated by his 
 worthy disciples, and no roof was too humble, no home 
 too sacred, no den of vice too low for them to make it 
 the scene of their debauchery. 
 
 The external policy of France during the regency, 
 •directed by the execrable Dubois, who found it more ad- 
 vantageous to serve the enemies of his country than to 
 attend to its interests, was of a nature still further to add 
 to the national degradation, and, as if no species of de- 
 moralization should be left untried during this disgrace- 
 ful period of French history, the financial measures 
 which were resorted to were of the most iniquitous cha- 
 racter. 
 
 The greatest difficulties which Louis XIV. had be- 
 queathed to his successor resided in the state of the
 
 MEASURES OF THE REGENT. 27 
 
 .finances. The expenditure was rated at two hundred 
 and forty-three millions of francs, (9,720,000/.,^ the 
 revenue did not exceed a hundred and eighty-six mil- 
 lions, (7,440,000/.,) two years of which had been ex- 
 pended in advance, and bills amounting tQ seven hundred 
 and forty-three millions (29,720,000/.) were due, be- 
 sides eighty-six millions (3,440,000/.) of the rents de 
 I'Hotel de Ville. The poverty of the people was equal 
 to the poverty of the royal treasury, and the only new 
 taxes which could possibly be levied must therefore of 
 necessity have been imposed upon the property of the 
 nobles and the clergy. But the regent dared not brave 
 the resistance he was sure to meet with in this quarter, 
 and several palliatives were therefore suggested. 
 
 Instigated by his hatred of the financiers, the austere 
 St. Simon proposed to convoke the States-General and 
 to declare a national bankruptcy, but this plan was re- 
 sisted by the Duke de Noailles, and rejected by the re- 
 gent from fear of the States-General, not from any feel- 
 ing of honor, for he did not shrink from adopting, in the 
 midst of peace, the fraudulent measures to which Louis 
 XIV. had had recourse, to save France from dismem- 
 berment. He suppressed a great number of offices which 
 had been previously created, without reimbursing the 
 sums for which they had been bought. He remelted and 
 debased the coin of the realm, but did not gain by this op- 
 eration more than seventy millions, (2,800,000/.,) because 
 the re-coinage was partly performed out of the country ; 
 he revised the whole of the standing debt, and reduced 
 it to two hundred and fifty millions, (10,000,000/.,) which 
 he liquidated by an issue of government bonds, (billets 
 dfetat,) bearing interest of four per cent. ; he diminished 
 the interest on a part of the rentes of the H6tel de Ville ; 
 and lastly, he created tribunals, called chambres ardentes,
 
 28 NATIONAL DEPRAVITY. 
 
 to examine into the frauds and illicit gains of the farm- 
 ers-general. These tribunals were surrounded by cir- 
 cumstances of terror and tyranny, which contrasted 
 strangely with the usual good-natured weakness of the 
 regent's character. The names of four hundred and 
 sixty fathers of families were placed on the lists for pro- 
 scription, and the most abominable means were resorted 
 to in order to swell their number. Informers received 
 rich rewards ; servants were encouraged to denounce 
 their masters under borrowed names ; those who at- 
 tempted to censure the denouncers were punished with 
 death ; spies were placed upon the financiers in their 
 own houses, and the inquiries instituted went as far 
 back as 1688. The greatest consternation reigned 
 among the financiers; many of them committed sui- 
 cide, others fled from the country ; the prisons were 
 filled ; luxury began to disappear ; capital lay dormant ; 
 and industry and commerce ceased. The people, who 
 at first applauded the persecutions directed against those 
 whom they with true instinct looked upon as enemies, 
 began to murmur when several financiers were sent to 
 the galleys, and one condemned "to death. At length 
 the persecuted in their despair had recourse to the cour- 
 tiers, buying their intercession and interest in obtaining 
 a diminution of the burdens laid upon them. The no- 
 blesse, for the sake of gain, willingly lent themselves to 
 this baseness. The ladies of the court made a traffic of 
 their influence. The members of the chambre ardente 
 dishonored themselves by their venality. The public 
 exulted at the ability shown by the farmers-general in 
 parrying the attacks directed against them, and punished 
 with songs and bon-mots the baseness and the cupidity of 
 their protectors. 
 
 Thus was the government again defrauded of treasure
 
 JOHN LAW. 29 
 
 by means of the immorality it had itself contributed to 
 disseminate. Out of two hundred and twenty millions, 
 (8,800,000/.,) which it was calculated would be raised 
 by these arbitrary taxes, only fifteen millions (600,000/.) 
 found their way into the treasury ; government bonds 
 {billets (Tetat) fell eighty per cent, in value, and the 
 public credit was entirely destroyed. 
 
 These measures were followed by that unequalled sys- 
 tem of fraud, known by the name of its inventor, Law.* 
 
 * John Law, born about 1681, was a native of Edinburgh ; in early life 
 he showed great talents, and was in consequence eniployoil to arrange the 
 revenue and accounts of Scotland, which occupation, no doubt, gave a bias 
 to his mind in favor of financial schemes. Through his persuasion the first 
 public bank of circulation in Paris was established by the regent in 1716, 
 and its management was intrusted to the projector. This bank obtained the 
 privilege for twenty years for issuing notes, w hich, however, were exchange- 
 able on demand for coil- of the realm. 
 
 The public debt at thii time amounted to one thousand five hundred mil- 
 lions, (60,000,000^.,) an I was at from sixty to seventy per cent, discount. 
 Law's bank was formec with the view of paying off this debt, by giving the 
 public creditor the opti >n of subscribing for bank shares and paying for the 
 same in the public stock at par. As an inducement for purchasing these 
 bank shares, the Miseit-bippi Company was Ibrnied with a capital of one 
 hundred millions (4,000,000/.) and joined to the bank. This company pur- 
 chased the patent which had been granted to the Sieur Crozat in 1712, giv- 
 ing possession of t'.ic country of the Mississippi under the nnnie of Louisi- 
 ana. The sole ri^l.t of trading to that quarter for twenty-five years was 
 vested in the comi,a(iy. Many other advantages were given to the bank and 
 the company in tn* form of privileges and monopolies ; still it was a long 
 time before all thw number of shares were subscribed for. In 1719. the 
 French East in'Sia Company and the Senegal Company were both incorpo- 
 rated with the Mississippi Company, which in consequence then enjoyed the 
 monopoly ot the trade of France. Such advantages soon began to operate 
 upon public (^pinion, and crowds rushed forward to make investments in the 
 stock of me company, so that in August of 1719, its price was driven up to 
 five hundred per cent. In this month the general farm of all the public 
 revenues of the country was granted to the company, allof whose privileges 
 were by the same arret prolonged to the year 1770. In consideration of 
 tliese concessions, the company agreed to advance to the government, for 
 paying off the public debt, one thousand two hundred millions (48,000,000/.) 
 at three per cent. A further sum of fifty millions ('2,000,000/.) was paid by, 
 the company for the exclusive privilege of coining during nine years. In a. 
 few weeks the atcc': rote in price to one thousand two hundred per cent., 
 when one hundroc' ar A fifty millions (0,000,000/.) were adde<l to the capital 
 by fresh Bdl:<fiiy'.'7* at one thousand per cent., and this new capital 
 wasdiWdid iatj \i f small shares, so that its purchase might be within 
 
 3*
 
 30 law's bank. 
 
 There are moments of madness among nations, and 
 no people have experienced this oftener than the French, 
 who are fickle, sanguine, and full of ardor for every thing 
 new. One of these dangerous periods had now arrived. 
 It was long since glory had been the passion of the na- 
 tion. Upon matters of religion, calmness even to indif- 
 ference prevailed. Since the time of the Fronde, nonfe 
 sighed any longer for libert)'. The last traces of the 
 spirit of chivalry were effaced ; nothing but pleasure 
 was now desired, and the unbridled love of pleasure 
 awakened cupidity. All schemes for the gratification 
 of this passion, which was now become an epidemic, were 
 readily embraced ; and Law's system was well calcula- 
 ted to lay hold of the imagination of those who understood 
 nothing of it, but that it promised immense profits. Ig- 
 norance in matters of finance was very great in France; 
 all the science of the capitalists consisted in lending out 
 their money at usurious interest. 
 
 The projects of this man were dazzling and imposing 
 to those who could not investigate them and discover the 
 unsoundness of their foundation. All rushed forward to 
 reap the golden harvest. The shares in his bank, and 
 other companies which he formed, rose to an enormous 
 price. Those whom Law had at first allured by his 
 
 the reach of a still larger class. By this means tlie company was enabled 
 tf> lend to the government an additional sum of three hundred millions 
 (10,000,OOOZ.) at three percent. In the midst of all this speculation, the 
 bank had issued notes to the amount of one thousand millions (40,000,000/.,) 
 and the abundance of money began to work very injurious effects. From 
 November, 1719, to the following April, the price of Mississippi stock 
 continued to rise until it reached to two thousand and fifty per cent. 
 The immense circulation of money, however, produced a reaction, Uie 
 stock fell, and bank notes became depreciated in value. Many expe- 
 dients were practised by Law to prevAit this downward movement. 
 A forced and fictitious value was given to the paper money, and much in- 
 justice and tyranny was practised. To put a stop to these evils, the regent 
 had recoui 'e to a measure still more pernicious and iniquitous ; he issued an 
 .arret reducnig the stock and the bank jioles to half of their nominal value. 
 The ruin of the whole was soou accomplished after this step.
 
 DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC CREDIT. 31 
 
 brilliant promises, employed the activity of their minds 
 in enticing others. The story of these plausible schemes 
 flew from mouth to mouth, and he who showed himself 
 incredulous must have been gifted with no common 
 courage. The fabrication of paper required for issue 
 would have been found too slow, though the number of 
 workmen and clerks engaged in preparing it, had been 
 doubled and quadrupled. The inhabitants of the provin- 
 ces looked with an envious eye upon the good fortune 
 which seemed to smile upon the Parisians. They flocked 
 to the capital ; never before was there so great a con- 
 course in Paris, excitement so general, luxury so ex- 
 travagant. This ferment continued to increase from 
 1716 to 17'20, till at length the issue of paper money, or 
 bills circulated as money, became so enormous that the 
 prices of all commodities rose exorbitantly, and land was 
 sold at fifty years' purchase. Tliose capitalists who 
 were large holders of notes realized their fortunes by the 
 purchase of land, and thus so large a quantity of notes 
 were thrown into the market tbat they began to fall in 
 value. An arret appeared reducing tlie nominal value 
 of the notes to one half, but they could now no longer be 
 circulated at more than a tenth of their value. Then 
 another arret was sent forth revoking the first. Many 
 other arbitrary edicts were issued in the course of a 
 month, but confidence could not be restored, and the 
 bubble burst. This great financial houleversement aug- 
 mented the distress of the treasury, and destroyed public 
 credit, depraved the higher classes still more, and ex- 
 cited many bad passions ; but on the other hand it gave 
 an impulse to commerce, and did not, in fact, impover- 
 ish France as a country. The capital remained, though 
 distress was brought to individuals by change of property. 
 " History," says Lemontey, "ought to signalize this epoch
 
 32 THE BULL UNIGENITUS. 
 
 as a most remarkable point of difference in the progress 
 of the rulers and the ruled ; a point, whence the people al- 
 ways advancing in intelligence and wealth, and their chiefs 
 constantly retrograding with their prejudices and their 
 timidity, prepared frightful convulsions for both parties." 
 As if nothing sacred should be left unprofaned during 
 this reign, Dubois, the master of Philip of Orleans in all 
 those infamous vices in which he proved himself so great 
 a proficient, was decorated with the purple of the church. 
 He was first appointed Archbishop of Cambrai, and no 
 murmurs of discontent were heard, when the See which 
 the reverend Fenelon had occupied was desecrated by 
 this monster. No means were then spared to obtain for 
 him the cardinal's hat. The two rivals, George I. and 
 James Stuart, were interested in his favor, and we need 
 not add that this could not have been by fair means. The 
 consent of the Emperor of Germany and the King of 
 Spain was gained, eight millions of francs were expended 
 at Rome, and Dubois at length gave himself up entirely 
 to the Jesuits. The dissensions about the bull Uniseni- 
 ius* continued. Several bishops, as well as the uni- 
 
 * So called from its opening words, " Unigcnitus Dei Filivs." It was 
 issued by Clement XI. in 1713, condemning a hundred and one propositions 
 in a devotional work, written by Pere Giuesnel. This book had been uni- 
 versally read during a period of forty years, and great aslcnishment was ex- 
 cited in the Christian world by this bull of condemnation, since the greater 
 part of the propivsitions which were thus condemned seemed to be orlhodox. 
 But (iuesnel was a Jansenist, and the previous note upon this sect wi/1 
 throw some light upon the matter. A great clamor was raised against the 
 bull in France ; the parliament would for a length of time not enregister it 
 except with modifications. Louis XIV., under the influence of the .lesuits, 
 considered this opposition as a revolt, and it is asserted that no less than 
 30,000 lettres de cachet were issued in consequence of it. Bui the persecu- 
 ted Jansenists on their side did not spare their enemies, and among other 
 weapons used ridicule; as a proof of Louis XIV. 's hatred of Jansenism, it 
 was said that a courtier having asked a favor for his brother, the king re- 
 plied that thsfi brother was suspected of being a Jansenist, to which the 
 courtier gave in answer, " Sire, what calumny ! I can assure your Majesty 
 that my brother is an atheist." The king replied in a reassured tone, " Ah, 
 that is a different thing !"
 
 DEATH OF THE DUKE OP ORLEANS. 33 
 
 versity, had appealed to a future council of the church 
 against this bull, and the regent was therefore much em- 
 barrassed, when Dubois, whose power over him was un- 
 limited, urged him to abandon the Jansenists. By dint 
 of intimidation the parliament was made to record the 
 bull without any modifications, and it thus became the 
 law of the stare and of the church, (1720.) 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, this great service rendered 
 to the papal see, Clement XL refused to name Dubois 
 cardinal, but at his death, which ensued shortly after, the 
 French faction in the conclave promised its support to 
 Cardinal Conti, upon condition of his fulfilling the wishes 
 of the ambitious upstart, Conti was weak enough to 
 yield, but very soon after died, it is said, in consequence 
 of the remorse he felt at having profaned the sanctity of 
 religion, by thus throwing its mantle over every thing 
 that was hideous in vice. 
 
 Soon after the king's attaining his majority, the Duke 
 of Orleans, who dared not immediately exchange his ti- 
 tle of regent for that of minister, had his favorite nomi- 
 nated to this post, but death soon put a stop to his ad- 
 ministration, which was not wanting in vigor and activ 
 ity. He was succeeded as minister by the Duke of Or- 
 leans, who, however, survived him only a few months. 
 The lampoon placed on the tomb of the indolent mother 
 of this prince, is one among the many instances of the 
 contempt in which his memory was held. " Here lies 
 Idleness — the mother of all the vices." 
 
 The eight years of the government of the regent had 
 a fatal influence on the future destinies of France. He 
 corrupted the morals of the nation by his example, de- 
 stroyed the finances of the state by disastrous experi- 
 ments, betrayed the interests of France to England, and 
 brought the church into disrepute by placing a monstei
 
 34 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of vice on the steps of the altar. Only one part of his 
 conduct can be passed without censure ; he treated the 
 young king with invariable tenderness and respect, and 
 exerted himself to instil into his mind sound political 
 views, and even instructed him himself in several branches 
 of the science of government, which, from culpable neg- 
 ligence, not from incapacity, he had failed to practise 
 during his own regency. 
 
 The amends he might thus have made to France for 
 the disasters he had brought upon the country, were 
 counteracted by the king's preceptor, Villeroi, who was 
 in the habit of taking his royal pupil to the window, and 
 pointing out to him the crowd assembled below, told him 
 that the thousands that he saw there were his property 
 to do with as he liked ; a lesson which was better suited 
 to the degenerate mind of Louis XV., who, totally in- 
 different to the welfare of the millions over whom he was 
 appointed to watch, spent their substance on his own vile 
 pleasures, while he led the monarchy on to its ruin. 
 
 The social state of the eighteenth century arising out 
 of feudal manners, and having nothing in it which was 
 feudal, except recollections, forms, and broken frag- 
 ments, was a state of society the foundations of which 
 existed no longer ; it was in discord with ideas, and was 
 governed less by institutions than by customs. The 
 death-blow having been given to the feudal system, the 
 next task was to clear away the rubbish which impeded 
 the march of intellect, to annihilate the world of the mid- 
 dle ages, and to lay the foundations of a new world. 
 Society in the middle ages being the work entirely of 
 Christianity, and that having been the principal instru- 
 ment which demolished the ancient world, Christianity 
 was considered by the new philosophy as the symbol and 
 the cause of barbarism ; as the enemy, the defeat of
 
 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 35 
 
 which was to draw with it all remains of the feudal sys- 
 tem, and begin the era of modern civilization. 
 
 The ruin of Christianity was then the end of the phi- 
 losophy of the eighteenth century ; but this work of at- 
 tempted destruction presents three distinct periods : that 
 of Epicurean deism, and of scientific reform, preached by 
 Voltaire ; that of the atheism of Diderot, and of the po- 
 litical reform of Montesquieu; and that of the reaction 
 of ideality, and of the democratic efforts of Rousseau. 
 
 Until this epoch philosophical literature was limited 
 to licentious tales, satirical verses, and declamatory 
 pamphlets. The esprits forts had not put forward their 
 skepticism except in Bayle's IHctionary, an immense 
 arsenal of erudition, and of dialectics, against religion, 
 the scholiasts, and the middle ages. The spirit of in- 
 vestigation now became active in analyzing, experiment- 
 ing on and dissolving every thing. Philosophy, licen- 
 tious and correctional. Epicurean and philanthropical, 
 issued for the first time from the schools, showed itself 
 abroad, and pretended to regenerate mankind. The 
 taste for political studies spread. Questions relative to 
 the social state, to morals, to the institutions of the peo- 
 ple, occupied ill thinking minds. Sciences of which 
 even the names did not exist before, political economy, 
 and statistics, now arose. Literature, invaded by the 
 exact sciences and by philosophy, became occupied 
 more with ideas than with words, and desired before all, 
 to instruct, reform, and put forth doctrines. France 
 was a great tribune to which all Europe listened, while 
 discourses were held on man, his nature, his rights, his 
 interests ; and whence Voltaire, become the representa- 
 tive and the great master of his age, propagated his ideas 
 of destruction, with a satanic energy, by his sententious 
 tragedies, his innumerable letters, his satirical pamph-
 
 36 THE DURE OF BOURBON. 
 
 lets, and above all, by his historical works, in which his 
 profound intelligence of the past is continually falsified 
 by his hatred against the middle ages.* 
 
 The Duke of Orleans was succeeded in the ministry 
 by the Duke of Bourbon, a weak and profligate fool, who 
 was entirely governed by his wicked mistress, the Mar- 
 quise de Prie. His administration only lasted three 
 years, and was distinguished by no other event than the 
 breaking off of the intended marriage between the king 
 and an Infant of Spain, in consequence of an intrigue of 
 Madame de Prie, in which, says Lacretelle, " all the 
 vices conspired in favor of virtue," if indeed the splendor 
 of the crown of France can be considered a compensation 
 for all the bitter humiliations which were the lot of the 
 virtuous Maria Leczinski, as the wife of the vulgar de- 
 bauchee with whom she shared this splendor. 
 
 The power which the Duke of Bourbon and his mis- 
 tress had hoped to ensure to themselves by placing a 
 protegee of their own upon the throne, was, neverthe- 
 less, soon wrested from them, in consequence of a very 
 rigorous edict against the Protestants, which exaspera- 
 ted the so-called philosophers of the day ; while a tax of 
 one-fiftieth imposed upon all landed property of the no- 
 bility and clergy, enlisted the privileged classes against 
 them ; and a scarcity of food, in which it was thought 
 they speculated for their own gain, made the populace 
 rise, and occasioned some bloodshed. 
 
 The king's preceptor, Fleury, though of a very ad- 
 vanced age, now took the reins of government, and an 
 administration of economy, industry, and probity, ensur- 
 ed a calm of some duration, in which the country began 
 to revive. The finances were no longer given over to 
 courtiers and stock-brokers — the variations in the mone- 
 
 * Lavall6e.
 
 DISSENSIONS REVIVED. 37 
 
 tary system ceased ; the tailles were diminished, and the 
 tax of one-fiftieth discontinued. The general receipts 
 amounted to a hundred and forty millions, (5,600,000/.,) 
 which were really paid into the treasury, and the credit 
 of the state was respected. In consequence of the good 
 faith which the minister showed in all transactions, he 
 was enabled without much difficulty to raise a loan of 
 eighteen millions, (720,000/.) 
 
 This period of calm v/as again disturbed by dissensions 
 about the bull Unigenitus, which though seemingly of 
 little importance now, at that period contributed greatly 
 to bring the government into discredit, and to prepare 
 the field for incredulity. Fleury, who was an adherent 
 of the Jesuits, allowed no persecutions to be directed 
 against the Jansenists, several magistrates were exiled, 
 a bishop was imprisoned, and several doctors excluded 
 from the University of Paris. The king held a bed of 
 justice,* and the bull was again enregistered without 
 modifications. The parliament protested in an arrets 
 which went even further than the articles of 1682. The 
 arret was annulled, and the king forbade the parliament 
 to deliberate on public matters. The magistrates pro- 
 tested against this royal prohibition by ceasing to exer- 
 cise their legal functions, and to administer justice, in 
 consequence of whtch they were exiled but again recall- 
 ed, when they assumed a semblance of submission, and 
 the dissensions recommenced, without leading to any 
 
 * Lit de Justice. The king on such occasions proceeded to parliaraen* 
 with greater pomp and ceremonious state than on ordinary royal sittings. 
 Under these circumstances, announcing that he was holding abed of justice 
 —it was considered the law that his order to register could no longer be dis- 
 obeyed. No discussions were allowed, obedience only was required. Tho 
 king had the power of banishing the whole parliament, in case of its being 
 refractory, and this prerogative was frequently exercised during the last two 
 centuries, the mcmbera being sent to some town fifty or sixty miles from 
 
 Paris. A 
 
 VOL. I. 4r
 
 38 THE TREATY OF VIENNA. 
 
 Other result than to scandalize all minds ; the unbelievers 
 alone profited by the ridicule that fell upon both par- 
 ties. 
 
 The death of Augustus II., king of Poland, in 1733, 
 presented an excellent opportunity for France to stand 
 forward in support of that country, which had already 
 been marked out by its neighbors, Austria, Russia, and 
 Prussia, for destruction. The Poles, who by their inter- 
 nal factions had given rise to the culpable hopes of these 
 neighbors, seeing the dangers by which they were threat- 
 ened, sought to avert them by choosing for themselves 
 a national king. The diet bound itself by oath never to 
 •elect a foreign prince : all minds turned toward Stanis- 
 las Leczinski, father of the Queen of France, and the 
 support of that country was solicited. But Cardinal 
 Fleury did not sufficiently comprehend the future to be 
 aware of the opportunity which thus presented itself of 
 putting a stop to the progress of Russia, and when Stan- 
 islas was elected king by an immense majority, the 
 means provided for him by France were so inefficient, 
 that a despicable minority, gained over by the gold of 
 the enemies of their country, were enabled to make a 
 counter election under the protection of foreign bayonets. 
 Stanislas was obliged to fly from Warsaw, and the small 
 French force sent to his assistance vpas destroyed by the 
 Russians. 
 
 Though Fleury did not comprehend the policy marked 
 out for France with regard to Russia, he did not misun- 
 derstand the national policy with regard to Austria, and 
 availed himself of the war to wrest some advantages 
 from this ancient enemy of France. His measures 
 were in this case so well taken, and the French gener- 
 als carried on matters so successfully, that the epoch 
 of the treaty of Vienna, (1735,) which concluded this
 
 TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 39 
 
 war, is considered the only glorious moment of the reign 
 of Louis XV. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 War — Madame de Pompadour — The Savans — Schools of Philosophy — ^The 
 Noblesse — The Clergy — The People — The Middle Classes — The Jansen- 
 ists — Contests between the Parliament and the Archbishop of Paris — In- 
 terference of the King — War with England in North America. 
 
 The war which soon after broke out between Eng- 
 land and Spain, wherein France took a prominent part 
 without any definite object, and carried it on at an im- 
 mense expense of men and treasures, was concluded 
 by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, where Louis, though 
 in a position at the moment to stipulate for some in- 
 demnities for the 500,000 men that had been sacrificed, 
 for the ruined navy, and for twelve hundred millions 
 (48,000,000Z.) added to the national debt, chose to renounce 
 every advantage for France, saying that he would treat 
 as a king, and not as a shopkeeper ; concealing under 
 these absurd words his desire to conclude a war which 
 swallowed up the sums which he would rather squander 
 upon his infamous pleasures. 
 
 This conduct was dictated to Louis by his then reign- 
 ing mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, who had suc- 
 ceeded to the last of the five sisters de Nesle, who had 
 each in their turn enjoyed this disgraceful distinction. 
 Madame de Pompadour, a woman of low birth, but of 
 great beauty and brilliant education, aided by some na- 
 tural abilities, was not satisfied with the title of the king's 
 mistress, (though such was the state of morality in the 
 court of France, that this position was envied by the 
 first ladies of the realm,) but she aimed at being a state
 
 40 MADAME DE POMPADOUR. 
 
 personage, and she did really for fifteen years enjoy all 
 the power of a minister of state. The court was se- 
 duced by lier entertainments and her prodigality ; the 
 literary men, particularly Voltaire, were gained by pen- 
 sions and by flattery ; and the public were won over by 
 an affectation of benevolence, charity, and a mock air 
 of philosophy and highmindedness. Louis XV. enjoyed 
 the only happiness his degenerate soul was capable of 
 appreciating ; he was left in peace in his private apart- 
 ments, where he led a life of indolence and profligacy, 
 surrounded by a few favorite courtiers, and relieved of 
 the care and the pomp of royalty. Madame de. Pompa- 
 dour, indifferent to the affections of the king, though 
 anxious to maintain a post so flattering to her ambition, 
 devised means to attain her object, the infamy of which 
 has happily never been equalled. She instituted the 
 Pare au cerf, of infamous notoriety, where, while she 
 pandered to the base appetites of the royal libertine, she 
 systematically degraded and demoralized her own sex. 
 
 A government sunk into such depths of immorality 
 was but too favorable for the progress of social dissolu- 
 tion, and attacks against religion began to assume a most 
 alarming character. 
 
 All minds were in a state of ferment. The different 
 bodies disputed the direction of the most important af- 
 fairs of state ; the contest lay principally between the par- 
 liament and the clergy. All aspired to authority, while 
 the monarch allowed his to decline ; all were in move- 
 ment, while he remained inactive. The disputes of the 
 priesthood and the magistracy became so furious that 
 a civil and religious war was to be feared. Some few 
 statesmen, who desired to maintain peace ; worldly peo- 
 ple, who feu.fed to be interrupted in the midst of their 
 pleasures; and, lastly, the sincerely pious, who disavow-
 
 THE NEW SCHOOLS. 41 
 
 ed, in the name of religion, those excesses of which they 
 were made the pretext, called on the men of letters to 
 calm this violent commotion. These last joined to- 
 gether to stifle_, with the subject of dispute, the horrors 
 of fanaticism which threatened to reappear ; but they 
 worked for this end by different means. Several among 
 them wished to bring about a complete indifference to 
 religion ; others directed the minds of men to the ob- 
 servation of nature ; while some proposed for their ex- 
 amination the highest thoughts on social order. Among 
 these were some of great learning and of ardent char- 
 acter, endowed with that perseverance necessary for 
 great undertakings, and with that ability which makes 
 them successful. They loved novelty either from the 
 impulse of native genius or from the desire of celebrity, 
 which was their ruling passion.* Voltaire continued to 
 undermine the social edifice, led on as it would seem by 
 the mere love of destruction ; but though he continued 
 to be the first power in the literature of that day, his 
 writings, devoid of all political ideas, no longer satisfied 
 the ardor of the public, not only intent upon destruction, 
 but also upon reform, and three new schools were estab- 
 lished in accordance with the wants and desires of the 
 times. These v/ere Montesquieu's political school, 
 Quesnay's school of political economy, and the school 
 of materialism represented by the Encydopedie. 
 
 Montesquieu was the first of the philosophical reform- 
 ers who attempted to mark out a theory of government 
 in conformity with their ideas, and when his Esprit des 
 Lois appeared in 1748, this first dogmatical work on in- 
 stitutions was received with enthusiasm, though, com- 
 pared to the irreligious boldness of other works of the 
 
 * Lacretelle. 
 
 4*
 
 42 THE MATERIALISTS. 
 
 day, it must have appeared very moderate. This very 
 moderation, however, ensured its success, for it was not 
 only the reformers who found in it a wide field for specu- 
 lation, but all the statesmen of Europe were proud of 
 proclaiming themselves his disciples. 
 
 The economists, headed by Quesnay, directed their 
 efforts for reform towards the science of administration, 
 found in the vices of the existing system, the fountain 
 from which flowed all the miseries of France, and based 
 upon the ameliorations they proposed making, the bright- 
 est hopes of future prosperity. Quesnay considered 
 agriculture as the source of all wealth, and declaimed 
 against the government which pressed upon the farmer 
 and the proprietor in many different ways ; he combated 
 the existing mercantile system with its protections and 
 prohibitions, and claimed entire liberty of commerce, 
 particularly in corn ; he wished to reduce all imposts to 
 one tax upon the net produce of land. Though this 
 school did not enjoy as great popularity as the less prac- 
 tical ones, which allowed greater scope for the imagina- 
 tion, the effects of the principles it advocated were more 
 immediately felt, and France was indebted to its efforts 
 for the famous edict of 1754, which took off' all restric- 
 tions on the trade in corn. 
 
 The Dictionnaire Encyclopedique, which is generally 
 considered the great caldron wherein was concocted all 
 the poisonous ingredients which, during the revolution 
 of 1789, spread a moral pestilence over the world, owed 
 its origin to Diderot and D'Alembert, the chiefs of the 
 school of materialism, which denied the existence of 
 every thing which did not come under the cognizance of 
 the senses, — of every thing the existence of which can- 
 not be mathematically demonstrated ; in one word, the 
 existence of the soul, and of the Deity, but nevertheless
 
 INDIFFERENCE OP THE KING. 43 
 
 maintained the perfectibility of human nature. It was 
 their zeal for the propagation of this last idea which 
 gave rise to the Encyclopedie, that immense repository 
 of human knowledge, begun in 1751, "which was meant 
 to be a vast engine of war against religion, which was 
 in reality but a tower of Babel, to which all minds, even 
 those of the most contradictory characters, brought their 
 stone."* 
 
 While the work of social destruction was progressing, 
 the government, though too weak to venture upon any 
 open acts of despotism, permitted the most arbitrary 
 systems to be carried on in every branch of administra- 
 tion. The king, who maintained an external appearance 
 of religious devotion in the^midst of his licentious pleas- 
 ures, expressed himself loudly against all innovations ; 
 but though he foresaw the future catastrophe, he troubled 
 himself very little about it, consoling himself with the 
 words : " Afler us the deluge." His mistress, his cour- 
 tiers, and even his ministers, not only regarded the pro- 
 gress of the philosophers as harmless, but were them- 
 selves imbued with their doctrines, and tlie resistance 
 of the government to the growth of incredulity was weak 
 and undecided, while by administrative measures, it 
 openly favored its progress and undermined the power 
 of the church. It supported the Jesuits, yet it forbade 
 the establishment of any new convents or monasteries 
 without the royal consent. An edict was promulgated 
 (1749) which deprived the clergy of the right of acquir- 
 ing nev" property ; propositions were made to substitute 
 a regular tax upon church property, for the usual don 
 gratuit of the clergy. In a word, the government, 
 though affecting to despise public opinion, was led en- 
 
 * Lavallee.
 
 44 DEGENERACY OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 tirely by it, but at the same time it sought in no way te 
 meet the salutary reforms that were called for. The 
 imposts were augmented, the privileges of the faxjs des 
 etats were suppressed without resistance, every abuse 
 was continued, and nothing worthy of commendation was 
 established. The nobility generally, particularly the 
 noblesse de coiir, far from considering themselves threat- 
 ened by the philosophical ideas which were spreading sc 
 fast, on the contrary adopted these notions themselves, 
 not from conviction, or with any view of carrying thei^ 
 out into practice, but from a frivolous love of novelty 
 and notoriety, and particularly because the epicurean 
 doctrines of Voltaire favored their licentious manners. 
 Though some of the nobles showed so much alarm at 
 the spreading of the new doctrine, that, according to 
 Duclos, " they feared the philosophers as thieves feared 
 the lamp-post," it was nevertheless the fashion to pat- 
 ronise even the most unscrupulous among the atheists, 
 and to associate with them on a footing of perfect equal- 
 ity, in spite of the great distinction which was even then 
 made between the nobles and the roturiers, to which class 
 a great many of the literary men belonged. But the no- 
 bility of that day cannot be better characterized than by 
 saying that it imitated all the vices of the king.* 
 
 The clergy, wavering between intolerance and frivolity, 
 wishing to put a stop to the spreading of the opinions of 
 the day, yet too frequently adopting the morals of the 
 times, invoking against skepticism the despised severity 
 of a corrupt power, instead of combating it with know- 
 ledge and capacity — the clergy, and particularly the high 
 clergy, remained weak, and were defeated on all sides 
 in the midst of the general movement. They had no 
 
 * Villemain, Lavallee.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 45 
 
 replies to give to Voltaire's falsehoods, sarcasms, and 
 false erudition ; they scarcely ventured to emit a few 
 feeble apologies, or some ineffective charges drawn up 
 without skill or power. They were much more anxious 
 to preserve their riches, than to proclaim their crucified 
 God ; being incapable of any longer guiding the human 
 mind, they began to quail before it, and trembling, called 
 upon it to stop. The dogmas of evangelical morality 
 were no longer heard from the pulpit, for the clergy 
 sought forgiveness for their holy mission, by a display 
 of worldly complacency. Faith was replaced by com- 
 mon morality, charity by social justice, the laws of God 
 by the rights of the people. The sanctuary was aban- 
 doned. 
 
 After contemplating the condition of this royalty, so 
 inert and degraded — of this noblesse, so vicious and tend- • 
 ing towards social dissolution — of this clergy, without 
 virtue, without zeal, and without learning ; let us see 
 what part those sections of the nation played upon whom 
 all the social inequalities pressed so heavily. The lower 
 classes, both in town and country, were brutal, ignorant, 
 and miserable ; more miserable in some respects than 
 they had been in the middle ages. Industry was shack-, 
 led by the corporations, the apprenticeships, the system 
 of oaths ; all this legislation of Colbert became an intol- 
 erable combination of petty tyrannies. Agriculture was 
 oppressed by feudal service, tithes, forced labor, right 
 of chase, and a crowd of absurd privileges enjoyed by 
 the nobility. The working classes had preserved their 
 religious faith, because they were under the influence 
 of only the poor and evangelical part of the clergy. 
 They detested the great landed proprietors, (seigneurs,) 
 because they found in them their immediate and constant 
 tyrants ; they had not any affection for the government,
 
 46 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 in which they saw nothing but insatiable and merciless 
 tax-gatherers, a despotic police, a luxurious and corrupt 
 court, and a debauched king. Philosophical ideas had 
 not penetrated as far as the multitude, but they had nev- 
 ertheless a sort of instinctive desire for social renovation, 
 which resolved itself, according to their view, in the 
 abolition of all privileges. 
 
 The middle classes (la bourgeoisie) had never been so 
 active, so rich, so enlightened ; it was those classes who 
 formed public opinion, and who were the strength of the 
 state. They equalled the noblesse in fortune and in 
 style of living, and surpassed the clergy in education ; 
 they possessed the social virtues in a much higher de- 
 gree than these two classes, yet they were not permitted 
 to attain to superior rank in the army, nor to ecclesiasti- 
 cal dignities, nor to high offices in the administration : 
 almost all the weight of the taxes fell upon them ; it was 
 they who had the most to suffer from the tyranny of the 
 ministers, from the vengeance of the courtiers, from the 
 iniquity ofthe police. These classes were full of ardor 
 in embracing the new opinions called philosophical, full 
 of confidence in their own strength, and of faith in the 
 future. Beholding the highest ranks of society revelling 
 in the depths of sin, and parading with effrontery all their 
 coarse depravity before the eyes of the public, feeling 
 that those in authority did less for them in proportion as 
 their strength and their desires increased ; they began 
 to think that it belonged to them to take affairs into their 
 own hands ; and already they meditated on the necessity 
 of calling at the same time on the crown for liberty, on 
 the aristocracy for equality, and on the clergy for the 
 rights ofthe human intellect.* 
 
 * Guizot.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 47 
 
 Just as the antagonism against the higher classes was 
 revealing itself, and gradually gaining strength, the con- 
 tests between these classes, contests which had hitherto 
 formed a prominent feature in French history, had ceased 
 This was the necessary consequence of their common 
 decay. The aristocracy and the clergy, submissive to 
 the throne, protected it by the sword and the censer, in 
 return for its defence of their privileges. These three 
 parties, reconciled to each other, entered into an intimate 
 and mutual alliance for maintaining all existing things, 
 whether just or unjust, by all and any means whatever — 
 an imprudent alliance, at least on the part of the clergy, 
 and of the throne, whose conversion rather than whose 
 ruin the people desired, and which hastened their com- 
 mon destruction. 
 
 Tiie state of public feeling towards the middle of the 
 eighteenth century seemed to threaten an approaching 
 war between the people and the ruling powers. But the 
 people had not yet concentrated all their strength and all 
 their hatred ; the ruling powers had not yet heaped up 
 the measure of their iniquities. The clergy were yet to 
 complete their fall by miserable disputes, through which 
 the two parties dividing society, the Jesuits and the Jan- 
 senists, would be destroyed. 
 
 In the mean time disputes continued between the cler- 
 gy and the Jansenists, whose only adherents were now 
 to be found in the parliaments, and the measures which 
 were taken finally to put them down, were unfortunately 
 of a nature still farther to aggravate the evils to which 
 these dissensions had given rise. 
 
 According to orders received from the archbishop, the 
 curates of Paris refused to administer the last sacrament 
 to those who could not present a lillet de confession, 
 signed by a Molinist priest, (1752.) Upon learning this
 
 48 THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the parliament interfered in a most intemperate manner, 
 ordered a curate who had acted in conformity to the or- 
 ders of his superior to be arrested, declared that the bull 
 was not an article of faith, and forbade the clergy to re- 
 fuse the sacrament. The latter, however, pereisted, 
 and the parliament then had recourse to military force, 
 and had the sacrament administered in the midst of their 
 bayonets. It is easily conceived what must have been 
 the effects of such scandalous scenes on a skeptical and 
 demoralized public. A mixture of fanaticism and im- 
 piety, rage and ridicule, produced a most deplorable state 
 of anarchy, which was fast dissolving the social body. 
 The court wavered between the two parties ; the min- 
 isters were ranged upon different sides. At last the par- 
 liament seized upon the property of the Archbishop of 
 Paris, remonstrated vigorously against the ministerial 
 despotism which supported the clergy, and declared that 
 It would remain sitting until it had obtained justice. In 
 consequence of these measures the whole parliament 
 was exiled, (1753,) and a chamdre provisoire wsis created 
 to administer justice ; public opinion, however, was so 
 opposed to this chamber, that the parliament was soon 
 recalled, but at the same time all discussions on religious 
 subjects were forbidden by order of the king, who was 
 disagreeably disturbed in his pleasures by these discus- 
 sions. 
 
 The clergy, however, soon recommenced the disputes ; 
 the court then declared itself in favor of the parliament, 
 and the Archbishop of Paris was in his turn exiled. But 
 in the exultation of victory, the parliament forgot moder- 
 ation ; it suppressed a very indulgent brief of Benedict 
 XIV., who had endeavored to put a stop to the dissen- 
 sions ; it openly attacked the bull that had been declared 
 the law of the state, and insisted upon uniting itself with
 
 MEASURES TO SUPPRESS THE PARLIAMENT. 49 
 
 'he other parliaments of the kingdom, which should thus 
 form a kind of confederacy ; refused to enregister the 
 taxes, and aimed at arrogating to itself the power of the 
 States-General. 
 
 The king, incited by the clergy, determined to put 
 down the refractory magistrates in a most decided man- 
 ner, and for that end held a bed of justice, wherein all 
 the steps taken by the parliament were declared illegal, 
 and this body was prohibited for the future from inter- 
 fering in these matters. 
 
 The chambre des enqueles was suppressed, the organi- 
 zation of the other chambers altered, and who ever dared 
 to stray from the duties imposed upon them, were threat- 
 ened with the royal displeasure. Upon this one hundred 
 and fifty members of the parliament tendered their resig- 
 nation. Paris was in a ferment, and ready to revolt at 
 the slightest word from the magistrates, for though the 
 parliament, as well as all the other bodies in the state, 
 was thoroughly demoralized, and had swerved entirely 
 from its original intention, it was identified by the peo- 
 ple with the cause of resistance to the royal power, and 
 therefore looked upon as one of the guardians of their 
 liberties. Its disgrace was considered a public calamity, 
 and full vent was given to the feelings of disgust and 
 execration with which the king was regarded. 
 
 In the mean time war had broken out between Eng- 
 land and France in North America, and was soon suc- 
 ceeded by the seven years' war, during which the king 
 and the nobility of France forfeited their last claims to 
 the esteem of the people, and during which the disasters 
 of the army were only equalled by the miserable state 
 of the finances. Madame de Pompadour, who chose the 
 rahiisters as she did the generals, from among the class 
 of abject courtiers that surrounded her, considered do- 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 50 THEORIES. 
 
 cility to her demands the first quality in the comptrollei 
 of the finances, and immense sums were squandered 
 away for the most infamous purposes, while the ministers 
 of finance were reduced to the most immoral and disas- 
 trous means for furnishing the treasury. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Rising importance of France as a Nation — The Philosopliers — Blind securi- 
 ty of tlie Government — Fall of the Jesuits — Death of the Dauphin — Slate 
 of the Finances — Marriage of Louis wiih Marie Antoinette — Suppression 
 of tlie Parliaments — Misery of tlie People — Facte de Famine — Death of 
 Louis XV. 
 
 While the degradation of the government continued 
 to progress, France rose as a nation. The supremacy 
 which it had obtained under Louis XIV., by the glory of 
 its arms and its social splendor, was inferior to that 
 which it enjoyed under Louis XV., simply by the force 
 of intellect. Literature stood in the place flf glory, 
 power, and liberty. All eyes were upon her. There 
 was not a sovereign or a statesman who, either from hy- 
 pocrisy or from blindness, did not flatter political philoso- 
 phy, hoping to make it an instrument either of despotism 
 or of popularity. 
 
 Theories were formed by M'hich the happiness of the 
 human race was to be ensured ; probity, honor, citizen- 
 ship, the love of humanity, appeared such simple vir- 
 tues, that attempts were made to reduce them to rules, 
 the same as an arithmetical calculation. These noble 
 sentiments were submitted to an analysis, from which it 
 was said they would come out purer and more fruitful in 
 good, but which had no other effect than to corrupt them. 
 
 In this great shipwreck of all ideas, moral and reli-
 
 ROUSSEAU. 51 
 
 gious, political and social ; in this anarchy of thou<rht, 
 which tended to pass into action ; while Voltaire and 
 the Encyclopedists, Montesquieu and the Economists 
 only destroyed, — a powerful genius arose, who pretend- 
 ed to build up, to reanimate ideality, to lay a political 
 foundation for a new state of society : this was J. J. 
 Rousseau. The skepticism of Voltaire, the atheism of 
 Diderot, the egoism of Helvetius, appeared much less 
 attractive than the Sociuian faith, the passionate spiritu- 
 ality, and even the ideas of self-devotion and of duty, 
 put forth by this unstable man of genius. Till he ap- 
 peared, the philosophers had sought to convert only the 
 higher classes to their doctrines ; but he addressed the 
 masses. None had more boldly promoted a political re- 
 volution. Yet this pretended re-constructor destroyed 
 more than all the othei-s ; he excited the sympathies more, 
 and had more disciples. His school was more sincere, 
 more serious, more enthusiastic, than the other schools 
 of philosophy ; it had a true and generous faith in the 
 future ; it saw the revolution approach with a grave and 
 solemn joy. But unhappily it was wholly visionary, rev- 
 elling in theories which could not be reduced to practice, 
 and wanting that firm foundation of religious principle 
 without which all reforms must in time prove fallacious. 
 
 Rousseau's character and conduct as a man were des- 
 picable ; showing that impulse or personal feeling, rather 
 than principle, impelled him to put forth his vague and 
 unsound fancies with regard to the social state ; thus he 
 has left a memory more worthy of the tears than of the 
 gratitude of posterity. 
 
 What a lesson do the pernicious effects of the theories 
 of these philosophers read to future ages. All foresaw* 
 
 * Voltaire wrote exultingly : "I have done more in my time than Luthel 
 and Calvin ; every thing 1 see gives evidence of the seedu of a revolution,
 
 52 FALL OP THE JESUITS. 
 
 a revolution, all vaguely expected that some unknown 
 good would arise out of the ashes of that destruction 
 which they so mercilessly assisted in bringing about. 
 Genius and profound thought were engaged in forming 
 theories for the renovation of France ; they destroyed 
 but could not build up, because they were wanting in 
 the vital principle. Religion, veneration, humility, reli- 
 ance on God, were forgotten in the all-absorbing sense 
 of the dignity and perfectibility of our own nature. There 
 was nothing divine in these speculations for the improve- 
 ment of mankind, and therefore they crumbled into dust, 
 involving in their own ruin, venerable institutions, in 
 which still was preserved, though amid corruption, that 
 latent spark of divine good, which might have revivified 
 and again given life to the whole. 
 
 After the conclusion of the seven years' war, the 
 rumbling of the volcano that was soon to burst in France 
 became more and more distinct, and one stone after an- 
 other was loosened from the ancient monarchy of France, 
 while the rulers looked on in calm content, thinking that 
 it was their strength which was destroying what was in 
 their way, not aware that the edifice was crumbling to 
 pieces from internal rottenness. The Jesuits, whose 
 power had, for the last century, been on the wane, and 
 who had particularly suffered in public opinion in France, 
 since their dissensions with the Jansenists, at last suc- 
 cumbed under the blows which were directed against 
 them from all sides, and the church, one of the pillars of 
 
 which will infallibly arrive, and which I shall not have the pleasure of wit- 
 nessing. The smothered flame is spreading nearer and nearer, and it will 
 burst out on the first occasion ; then there will be a fine turmoil. The 
 young are very happy ; they will see extraordinary things." — Lettre a M. 
 de Chauvdin, 17G2. 
 
 Rouspeau wrote in 17C0 : " VVe approach the time of crisis and the ageot 
 revolution. I consider it impossible that the great powers of Europe can 
 last much longer."
 
 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 53 
 
 the state, lost its firmest support. The court, the royal 
 family, and all ranks in the kingdom, were in so excited 
 a state, that Louis XV. felt himself obliged to take meas- 
 ures against the Jesuits ; but while consenting to their 
 abolition, he wished it to appear that he had been forced 
 into this measure, as if the greatest danger to kings was 
 not in acknowledging the constraint under which they 
 act. The parliament exulted, but its time was also soon 
 to come. 
 
 While the king continued his profligate course, regard- 
 less of public affairs, he was overtaken by domestic ca- 
 lamities. The dauphin, whose virtues formed a touching 
 contrast to the depravity of the court, died, (1765,) leav- 
 ing three sons, all future kings of France. Louis, in the 
 first access of his grief, returned to the bosom of his 
 family, and for a while seemed to have renounced his 
 vicious habits ; but this was but of short duration, and 
 on the death of his amiable queen in 1768, he replunged 
 into all his former excesses. 
 
 The peace had sufficed, in a certain measure, to re- 
 store industry and commerce, but it could not re-estab- 
 iish the finances. The seven years' war had added 
 thirty-four millions of rentes to the debt. Although all 
 the war taxes were continued, the expenses every year 
 exceeded the receipts. The financial operations were 
 carried on by anticipating and borrowing. \n the col- 
 lecting and distributing of the revenue, defalcations and 
 robberies were committed to an extent which it is impossi- 
 ble to ascertain. All the comptrollers sank under these 
 difficulties ; as soon as they spoke of the reduction of 
 ex] enses, of the equal assessment of imposts, of reforms 
 in the collecting of taxes ; they raised against them- 
 selves the court, the privileged, and the farmers of the 
 revenues. Choiseul, an indifferent statesman, troubled 
 
 5*
 
 64 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 himself but little as to the state of the finances, which 
 was undermining the foundation of the throne. He 
 hoped one day to restore these by the suppression of mon- 
 asteries, and a tax upon ecclesiastical property. Like al- 
 most all the nobles, he stopped at the philosophy of Vol- 
 taire, and his hatred against the clergy ; he despised the 
 Encyclopedists, and hated Rousseau ; he wished to re- 
 store the monarchy, by regenerating the noblesse, and 
 by giving it the support of the parliaments. 
 
 During this dreadful state of the finances and misery 
 of the working classes, while a distressing scarcity and 
 consequent riots raged in Paris, the marriage of the Dukf> 
 de Berri, become dauphin by the death of his father, 
 took place with the Archduchess Marie Antoinette, 
 daughter of Maria Theresa, empress of Austria. The 
 festivals in honor of this event were celebrated with the 
 most ej^traordinary pomp and prodigality, forming a re- 
 volting contrast to the scenes through which the poorer 
 classes were struggling. During a fete given in the 
 Place Louis XV., a frightful catastrophe occurred, in 
 which eleven or twelve hundred persons lost their lives : 
 a fearful omen of the mistakes and misfortunes which 
 were to follow, and darken the future lives of this amia- 
 ble and ill-fated young couple. The parliaments, since 
 their victory over the Jesuits, believed themselves the 
 prop of society, and the masters of the government. 
 While on one side they reacted violently against in- 
 credulity, in pursuing the philosophers and their works, 
 and endeavored to reanimate the fanaticism extinguished 
 by the iniquitous condemnation of Galas and La Barre,* 
 
 * Calas, a Protf^stant of Toulouse, accused of having killed his son who 
 wished to become a Catholic, was condemned to the wheel and executed. 
 His innocence was afterwards ascertained, and fully established through the 
 generous and unremitting exertions of Voltaire. 
 
 La Barre, "vehemently suspected of liaving broken a cross," waa be 
 beaded.
 
 DISMISSAL OF CHOISEUL. 55 
 
 on the other hand they braved the governors and intend- 
 ants of the provinces, and were opposed to all money 
 edicts. The government finding them too strong for its 
 weakness, resolved upon their ruin. 
 
 Choiseul upheld the pretensions of the parliament, 
 which continued to increase till it came to an open strug- 
 gle with the throne. The king held a bed of justice, 
 and annulled its arret against the Duke d'Aiguillon — 
 the parliament declined to continue its judicial functions. 
 The minister having excited, by his unconcealed dis- 
 gust, the enmity of the new and infamous mistress of 
 the king, she succeeded in obtaining his exile. This 
 dismissal was considered as a public calamity, especially 
 when his place was filled by D'Aiguillon. This man 
 had been governor of Brittany, and had excited the 
 most violent hatred by his tyranny and extortion. The 
 attorney-general, La Chalotais, declared that it was the 
 united wish of all Brittany to be delivered from so 
 worthless a governor. La Chalotais, the friend of Choi- 
 seul, and the enemy of the Jesuits, well known by his 
 report against the order, had been, by the secret intrigues 
 of the Jesuits, and on the information of the governor, 
 arrested, accused of a conspiracy for overthrowing the 
 monarchy, and threatened with sentence of death. The 
 parliaments had made energetic remonstrances, and pub- 
 lic opinion was strongly in favor of the accused. Through 
 the entreaties of CHoiseul, the king had stopped the 
 proceedings, and sent Chalotais into exile. D'Aiguillon, 
 recalled from the government of Brittany, had assisted 
 in the intrigue for the downfall of the minister, and he 
 and his coadjutors soon completed their work, by the 
 suppression of the parliament. 
 
 On the night of the 19th January, 1771, all the mem- 
 bers of parliament were arrested in tteir houses, and
 
 56 FALL OF THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 summoned to answer simply " Yes," or " No," to an or' 
 der for resuming their functions. All answered " No.' 
 Then an arret of the council declared their places for- 
 feited, and condemned them to exile. 
 
 The power which the parliaments possessed, the 
 place which they held in the kingdom, the prominent 
 part which they had been able so lately to play, all con- 
 curred in creating a belief that a revolution must follow 
 such a cotip d''etat, which even Louis XIV. would not 
 have attempted. Princes and peers protested ; the com 
 dcs aides and the provincial parliaments were loud in 
 remonstrances and menaces. But the agitation stopped 
 there. The philosophers applauded, as they had ap- 
 plauded the destruction of the Jesuits. The govern- 
 ment still continued to work for them. The people re- 
 mained unmoved. In order to gain public opinion, it 
 was decreed that justice should be exercised gratuitously, 
 that magisterial places should no longer be hereditary, 
 and that a new code, both civil and criminal, should be 
 formed. These were reforms which the philcsophers 
 had many times called for. 
 
 The king held a bed of justice, in which he formally 
 suppressed the parliament of Paris, and the cour des 
 aides ; transformed the grand conseil into a new par- 
 liament, and divided its jurisdiction into six conscils su- 
 perieurs. This was the work of the Chancellor Mau 
 peou, who was in strict alliance with the favorite. 
 
 All the other parliaments submitted with more or less 
 opposition to the same recomposition ; and at the end 
 of a year this great body of the magistracy had disap- 
 peared, as if by enchantment, and without resistance. 
 " Everybody was stupified by a change so easily made. 
 The court was so blind as to believe that the nation 
 wished for a des^witic monarchy ; no one understood the
 
 EXULTATION OF THE COURT. 57 
 
 terrible lesson which it taught. It showed that all the 
 wheels of the government machinery were entirely rot- 
 ton, since even the organ of resistance, touched by the 
 finger of the minion of a prostitute, fell into dust. But 
 neither Louis XV. nor Maupeou discerned any thing 
 more than that the king was stronger than Louis XIV., 
 — the chancellor greater than Richelieu. They had re- 
 stored absolute' monarchy, since the two parties which 
 divided society — the Jesuits and the Jansenists — had 
 disappeared. With what phrensy were all the social 
 powers then struck, since they strove only to destroy 
 each other ! And by what hands ! Madame de Pom- 
 padour had overthrown the Jesuits, Madame Dubarry the 
 Jansenists. These were the champions of the govern- 
 ment of Louis XV. Blind royalty ! that applauded it- 
 self for having broken the only two weapons which 
 could resist innovation, and who believed itself at the 
 apogee of its power, because it remained alone before 
 the people !" 
 
 The ruin of the parliaments enabled the corrupt court 
 to traffic with still greater impunity in places, pensions, 
 and every thing by which money could be obtained. The 
 expenses of the king and his abandoned mistress were 
 enormous, and the deficiency of .the year (in 1770) 
 amounted to seventy-four millions. A national bank- 
 ruptcy ensued ; and the people were grievously oppress- 
 ed by the injustice and dishonesty which were practised 
 by the government to raise money. 
 
 The middle class, with its flourishing commerce, sup- 
 ported this enormous burden ; but it was not so with the 
 people, who, besides the shackles placed upon industry, 
 and the numberless charges which took from them the 
 produce of their labor, had also to suffer from continual 
 scarcities of food, brought on by the most infamous ma-
 
 58 FACTE DE FAMINE. 
 
 ncBuvres. Freedom of internal commerce in grain, de- 
 creed in 1754, had been revoked during the seven years' 
 war; but, in 1764, the economists had caused it to be 
 re-established, and even had obtained liberty for exporta- 
 tion. Then a secret society was formed, (in which the 
 king himself held shares for ten millions of francs,) 
 which bought up all the corn and exported it, thus caus- 
 ing the price to rise enormously, and then reimported 
 the same grain with immense profits. The public clamor 
 became so great, that in 1770 the minister was obliged 
 to forbid the free circulation of grain, but the pacte de 
 famine was not destroyed. The buying up continued 
 in the interior. The king openly jobbed in the prices 
 of corn, boasting to everybody of the infernal lucre 
 which he made out of his suffering subjects. The so- 
 ciety did not bring into the market the grain so iniqui- 
 tously bought up, till the latest moment, when either the 
 people must have revolted or have died of hunger. No 
 one dared to expose this abominable pacte, which had 
 accomplices everywhere, even in the parliaments. Wri- 
 ters were forbidden, under pain of death, to speak of the 
 finances, and the least complaint was stifled in the dun- 
 geons of the Bastille. The people, on the other hand, 
 pushed to the extremity of misery, conceived the most 
 atrocious hatred against the government, the nobles, and 
 the wealthy — hatred which was one day to turn into 
 frightful vengeance. 
 
 Thus the despotism and the vices of the government 
 but too well prepared the soil for the reception of the 
 seed which the philosophers were busy in sowing, and 
 the people of France were fast approaching that state, 
 when to hold in reverence what was sanctified by the 
 lapse of centuries was considered narrow-minded pre- 
 judice ; when the goddess Reason ! ! became the only
 
 DEATH OF LOUIS XV. 59 
 
 deity before which they bent their knee ; when they en- 
 tirely forgot that " all institutions that are not based upon 
 a religious idea can only be transient ;" when " the di- 
 vine right of kings" was scoffed at by every fool, who 
 was incapable of comprehending the deep wisdom em- 
 bodied in those words ; when the laws of France — rthat 
 which made France, France — were made to commit 
 suicide upon themselves, by pronouncing judgment 
 ao^ainst the Monarch, at once the source and the basis 
 of all law ;* and when even those who wished to prove 
 that France must be monarchical, dared to go no higher 
 for their proof than to say that " France was geometri- 
 cally monarchical." 
 
 At length death (1774) released France from the des- 
 picable king who had brought monarchy into contempt. 
 " But figure his thoughts, when death is now clutching 
 at his own heart-strings ; unlocked for, inexorable ! 
 Yes, poor Louis ; Death has found thee. No palace 
 walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries, or gilt buckram 
 of stiffest ceremonial, could keep him out ; but he is here 
 — here at thy very life-breath, and will extinguish it. 
 Thou, whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera 
 and scenic show, at length becomest a reality. Sumptu- 
 ous Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void 
 immensity. Time is done, and all the scaffolding of 
 Time falls, wrecked with hideous clangor, round thy 
 «oul. The pale kingdoms yawn open : there must thou 
 <5nter, — naked, all unkinged, and await what is appointed 
 
 * The cease of Majesty 
 
 Dies not alone ; but, like a gulf, doth draw 
 What's near it, with it : it is a massy wheel 
 Fix'd on the summit of ihe highest mount. 
 To those huge spokes ten thousand lesser things 
 Are mortised and adjoin'd ; which, when it falls, 
 Each small annexmcnt, petty consequence. 
 Attends the boist'rous ruin. — t^HAKSPEARK.
 
 60 DEATH OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 thee ! Unhappy man ; tliere as thou tnrnest in dull ago- 
 ny on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine J 
 Purgatory and hell-fire, now all too possible, in the pios- 
 pect : in the retrospect, — alas ! wliat thing didst thou 
 do, that were not better undone, — what mortal didst thou 
 generously help, — what sorrow hadst thou mercy on "? Do 
 the ' five hundred thousand' ghosts, who sank shame- 
 fully on so many battle-fields, from Rosbach to Quebec, 
 that thy harlot might take revenge for an epigram, crowd 
 round thee in this hour ] Thy foul harem : the curses of 
 mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters'? Miserable 
 man ! thou hast done evil as thou couldst. Thy whole 
 existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of na- 
 ture — the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert 
 thou a fabulous griffin, devouring the works of men, 
 daily dragging virgins to thy cave : clad also in scales 
 that no spear would pierce, — no spear but death's ! A 
 griffin — not fabulous, but real ! Frightful, O Louis, seem 
 these moments for thee. We will pry no further into 
 the horrors of a sinner's deathbed. 
 
 " And yet let no meanest man lay flattering unction to 
 his soul. Louis was a ruler ; but art not thou a «io one 1 
 His wide France, look at it from the fixed stars, (them • 
 selves not yet infinitude,) is no wider than thy narrow 
 brick-field, where thou too didst faithfully, or didst un- 
 faithfully. Man, ' symbol of eternity, imprisoned into 
 time !' it is not thy works, which are all mortal, infinite- 
 ly little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but 
 only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or 
 continuance."* 
 
 It was the populace who had insulted the remains ot 
 Louis XIV. ; all classes of the nation outraged the memo- 
 ry of Louis XV. But the tokens of contempt and ha 
 
 * Carlylc's French. Revolution. Vol. i., p. 25.
 
 LOUIS XVI. 61 
 
 tred were exhausted in a few days. All were happy to 
 be able to forget a king, who for so long a time had been 
 considered incurably weak and wicked. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Accession of Louis XVI. — His Character — Maurepas — Turgot — His pro- 
 jected Reforms — Reinstatement of the Parliament — Turgot's Measures — 
 His Colleagues — Marie Antoinette — Riots in Paris — Turgot's Dismissal — 
 Joseph U. 
 
 Louis XVL, who succeeded to the throne at the age 
 of twenty, had been brought up away from the corrupt 
 atmosphere of his grandfather's court ; but though he 
 had, by nature and'education, received every quality that 
 gives grace and happiness to private life, he was unfor- 
 tunately deficient in those sterner attributes of the mind, 
 and in that firmness and decision of character of which 
 no prince ever stood more in need. Called to the throne 
 under circumstances of most peculiar difficulty, called, 
 as it were, to stop the downward course of a mighty 
 avalanche, he found in himself no other power than the 
 pious prayers and the benevolent wishes of a pure and 
 honest heart. He was habitually serious, and embar- 
 rassed in manner, and wore an air of sadness, as if he 
 had had s^me presentiment of his destiny. He dared 
 not express all the benevolence which was in his heart. 
 Because he was timid he was thought to be suspicious. 
 Though there was nothing in him which denoted Jinesse, 
 he discovered vice in others even under an exterior of 
 most bewitching elegance. The court seemed to be to 
 him a foreign soil, in which every thing perplexed him. 
 He was austere and simple in appearance, industrious in 
 his habits, penetrated with a high sense of his duties, 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 62 
 
 MAUREPAS. 
 
 and full of excellent intentions ; but he was at the same 
 time timid and narrow-minded, wanting in dignity of. 
 manner, and, more than all, wanting in energy and per- 
 severance. His mind was not powerful enough to pene- 
 trate beyond the vague theories of the speculators and 
 reformers of the day, and to find in the ancient constitu- 
 tion of the realm the true limits to his own power, and 
 the proper guarantees of the liberty of his people ; it 
 therefore recoiled before the immense task which was 
 before him, while his heart yearned to perform it. 
 
 His first choice of a minister was a most unfortunate 
 one, and contributed greatly to stamp the character of 
 irresolution upon his reign ; for the Comte de Maurepas, 
 though of advanced age, and though disgraced under 
 Louis XT., for opposition to his mistr'ess, was, neverthe- 
 less, a man of a most frivolous and unprincipled charac- 
 ter, a courtier rather than a statesman, and therefore 
 always inclined to consider his master's favor, and not 
 the interests of the state. With a master siich as Louis, 
 the forijier would always have been the result of the 
 latter, had the power of his intellect equalled the purity 
 of his intentions ; but, as it was, he soon became con- 
 fused by the varying representations of the conflicting 
 parties, and contracted the habit of using half measures, 
 of continual changes of system, of inconsistent exertions 
 of power, and of doing every thing by others, and nothing 
 by himself It seemed for a moment, however, as if the 
 state and the king were to be saved from the dangers 
 that threatened them, by a man who, to all the benevo- 
 lent qualities of Louis, joined that firmness and perseve- 
 rance in action, and that comprehensiveness of intellect, 
 which are necessary for projecting and putting into prac- 
 tice great and useful reforms. Turgot, one of the min- 
 isters whom Maurepas had associated with liimself.
 
 TURCOT. 63 
 
 together with Miromesnil, Saint-Germain, Sartine, and 
 Vergennes, was a man ol profound, persevering, and 
 energetic genius. He entertained the most exalted no- 
 tions of the destinies of mankind, and joined- to very 
 extensive information and great practical knowledge of 
 men and affairs, a consummate acquaintance with every 
 branch of administration. He had acquired a high re- 
 putation by his writings, and by the wonders of adminis- 
 tration which he had performed as Intendant of Limoges, 
 and was considered by public opinion, when he was 
 called to the department of the finances, as the only 
 statesman of the day. Indeed, if there had been in the 
 king sufficient energy of character to support his minis- 
 ter, and in the people the traditions of true liberty, to 
 meet and to second his efforts, a revolution might have 
 been effected, which, emanating from the crown, would 
 have re-established its consideration, and reawakened 
 in the people the sense of veneration, and of obedience 
 to established ancient forms, and spared it the fearful 
 career of madness and crime which ended in a despot- 
 ism greater than any under which it had suffered ; a 
 despotism which, in spite of constitutional forms, still 
 weighs upon the unconscious people of France. For, 
 though Napoleon fell, his work lives, and the iron bonds 
 of centralization, which he laid round France, are enter- 
 ing into her soul, unknown to herself, and destroying the 
 very instincts of liberty. 
 
 The principal projects which at that time occupied the 
 minds of the public were, unlimited freedom of trade, 
 gradually introduced ; the suppression of many unjust 
 taxes levied upon necessary articles of consumption ; 
 and, above all, the abolition of the excise upon salt, {ga- 
 belle,) of forced labor, (corcces,) and of feudal services ; 
 the conversion of the two-twentieths (tax on revenue)
 
 64 turgot's projects. 
 
 and the poll-tax into a territorial impost, to which both 
 clergy and nobility should be subject ; the equal partitiop . 
 of the land-tax, according to the register of lands, {ca- 
 dastre () liberty of conscience; the recall of fugitive 
 Protestants ; the suppression of monasteries, leaving the 
 existing occupants the possession for life ; the redemp- 
 tion of feudal duties, as far as consistent with a respect 
 for property; the abolition of torture, and a revision of 
 the criminal code ; a single civil code in place of the 
 prevailing mixture of common law {droit coutumier) and 
 Roman law ; uniformity of weights and measures ; the 
 suppression of wardenships and privileges of corpora- 
 tions, and of all obstacles to the free exercise of indus- 
 try ; the abolition or modification of every thing which 
 produced differences of interest in the various provinces 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 Turgot undertook to satisfy these wants ; and, not- 
 withstanding the miserable state of the finances, his 
 declaration on accepting office was, " No bankruptcies, 
 no augmentation of imposts, no new loans." But to put 
 into execution so many innovations, in opposition to so 
 many private interests, a sovereign will was required, 
 capable of crushing all resistance ; and the king hesita- 
 ted upon entering upon this vast career. His heart 
 yearned towards the measures which were to ensure the 
 happiness of his people, but his timidity recoiled before 
 the difficulties which lay in the way of their execution, 
 and his good nature was averse to give pain to a few, 
 tliough for the benefit of the many. 
 
 Maurepas, on his side, was frightened at projects 
 which he did not comprehend ; and both prepared in 
 advance the failure of the great minister, by creating a 
 centre of union for the interested feelings of those castes 
 and individuals, who defended abuses and resisted inno-
 
 FINANCIAL REFORMS. 65 
 
 rations. Looking around for means of strength, the 
 latter saw, in the reinstatement of the parliaments, 
 a hope of the maintenance of their privileges ; and 
 Maurepas being gained over to their plans, which co- 
 incided perfectly with his own desire of curbing the 
 growing power of the minister of finance, the king was 
 importuned with prayers and advice to adopt this meas- 
 ure. In vain did Turgot urge that the proposed system 
 of local administraticn and municipal courts offered much 
 greater and surer guarantees to the people against the 
 despotism that they so much feared, and that the parlia- 
 ment, regarding its reinstatement as a sign of its own 
 strength, and not as a boon of the sovereign, would but 
 be the more presumptuous and the more to be feared, 
 because of its long disgrace. Maurepas, on his side, 
 insisted on the necessity of this measure, to counter- 
 balance the power of the clergy and of the philosophers ; 
 and the king at last yielded, thinking that the re-estab- 
 lishment of this ancient institution could but tend to 
 strengthen the social order. But institutions lose their 
 value when men lose the thoughts which have given 
 rise to them, and the parliament of Paris, which had for 
 years only been the mouthpiece of a faction, had not 
 imbibed a new spirit during the time of its disgrace, and, 
 instead of becoming the true defender of liberty, by 
 promoting wholesome reforms, but at the same time 
 stemming the torrent of innovations which threatened to 
 become too violent, it took the character of an adversary 
 of royalty and a defender of all other privileges, thus pre- 
 venting reform from emanating from its proper source, 
 and forcing the people to take it into their own hands. 
 
 Turgot, on entering the ministry, found the financea 
 embarrassed by a deficit of twenty-tvvo millions of francs, 
 (880,OOOZ.,) and the revenue of the coming years an- 
 
 6*
 
 66 RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 ticipated to the amount of seventy-eight millions, 
 (3,120,000/.) In two years he paid off twenty-four mil- 
 lions (960,000/.) of the debt in arrears, made up twenty- 
 eight millions (1,120,000/.) of the anticipated revenue, and 
 reimbursed fifty millions (2,000 000/.) of /a debte consli- 
 tuee. He created a caisse crcsconiples, the origin of the 
 bank of France, which was the first establishment of the 
 kind attempted since tiie time of Law, and abolished a 
 number of restrictions that weighed upon industry and 
 agriculture. But with these he perhaps abolished many 
 an ancient regulation, which, being in contradiction with 
 surrounding circumstances, seemed w-orse than worth- 
 less in the eyes of those who looked no deeper than the 
 surface, but which were links of a chain which, though 
 broken, might have been mended, and would have formed 
 that bond between the past and the future which ought 
 never to be dissevered. 
 
 But Turgot, with all his virtues, was still a man of 
 the eighteenth century, and with him, therefore, reform 
 and innovation were synonymous. 
 
 With regard to agriculture, Turgot agreed with Sully, 
 and was wont to say, "that the husbandman and the 
 shepherd were the true purveyors of the state." With 
 regard to industry, his views were much more elevated 
 and extended than those of Colbert, and he proclaimed 
 that " the right to work is the first property which man 
 possesses, and is the most sacred and the most impre- 
 scriptible." In order to relieve these two great sources 
 of prosperity from the obstacles that impeded their full 
 development, three great innovations were requisite ; 
 these were, the abolition of the restrictions upon the 
 corn trade, the suppression of wardenships and privi- 
 leges of corporations, and the imposition of a land-tax to 
 be equal for all ; upon these rocks his power was split.
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 67 
 
 Maurepas was jealous of the favor with which Turgot 
 was regarded by the king ; the court was alarmed at 
 the system of economy proposed by the minister, and 
 the nobility saw that the course followed by the govern- 
 ment was most threatening to their privileges ; for the 
 colleagues of Turgot had followed his example, and 
 ?ach, in his department, sought to introduce reforms. 
 Thus Saint Germain attacked the nobility in their mili- 
 ary honors, and suppressed several corps of the king's 
 household troops. Sartine had succeeded in suppressing 
 some of the pretensions of the royal navy, most insult- 
 mg to the merchantmen ; and Malesherbes, a friend of 
 Turgot's, who had been admitted to the royal council as 
 minister of the household, reformed the odious system 
 of letires de cachet* proposed the suppression of the cen- 
 sorship, and wished to re-establish the edict of Nantes. 
 
 The orders of the state threatened by these innova- 
 tions, entered into a conspiracy against Turgot, which 
 was the more formidable from their having induced the 
 queen to take part in it, who, though she loved her hus- 
 
 * So called, because these were folded and sealed letters, in contradis- 
 tinction to " Letters Patent," wliicli were open. They were employed on 
 various occasions, on which the king's personal and royal authority was 
 to be exercised. Sometimes on most unimportant matters ; hut the use of 
 them which is best known, was to order the banishment or imprisonment 
 of any person who had not been proceeded against in any course of law. 
 Tliis unlimited power of imprisonment was a most fearful engine of despot- 
 ism. It is supposed to have been coeval with the earliest ages of the 
 monarchy. The first instance on record is said to be that of Ciueen Brune- 
 hault, who in this manner banished St. Columban, at the beginning of the 
 seventh century. The arbitrary power thus vested in monarchy was sub- 
 ject to no '■ontrol whatever, and exercised without any responsibility, 
 limited only by the caprice, or the fears, or the virtue, of the reigning king. 
 The following is the form of a lettre de cachet : 
 
 " M. . I write you this letter to acquaint you that it is my pleasure 
 
 that you convey the body of to the prison of within 
 
 hours. Herein fail not. Whereupon I pray God to have you in his holy 
 ond worthy keeping." 
 
 This was signed by the king, and countersigned by a secretary of state.
 
 68 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
 
 band for his virtues, could not help seeing that his was 
 a character more likely to be led than to give support, 
 and she was not averse to exercising that ascendency 
 over him which he was so willing to allow her. Marie 
 Antoinette was of a lively and amiable disposition, but, 
 though the ambition of holding, or at least of having the 
 appearance of holding the reins of state, had been sug- 
 gested to her by the courtiers, who hoped to benefit 
 themselves by it, she w^as nowise, either by education 
 or natural capacities, suited for this task. Her mind did 
 not incline towards the profound and grave studies which 
 are requisite for the attainment of the science of govern- 
 ment, and the education she had received at her mother's 
 court was not of a nature to inspire the serious thoughts 
 which her peculiar situation required. To please the 
 French was her principal study — but to please them as a 
 woman, not as a queen ; to please them in their frivolity 
 as they showed themselves at her court, not to please 
 them in that serious cliaracter which was every day 
 more and more developing itself without the precincts 
 of the court. From being amused at the intrigues going 
 on around her, she soon came to the wish of conducting 
 ihem herself; but she was too good, too credulous, and 
 of too lively a temperament to excel in an art which re- 
 quires profound dissimulation, great perseverance, and 
 coldness of heart. 
 
 As soon as Turgot became minister he hastened to 
 re-establish the free circulation of grain between the 
 different provinces ; and while he endeavored to combat 
 the fears of the people with regard to fi-eedom in the 
 external trade in corn, he deferred, for the present, 
 passing this latter measure. The society of the pacte 
 de famine, against whose machinations Turgot had flat- 
 :.o»Ou kiimseif he had taken efficient means, nevertheless
 
 RIOTS. 69 
 
 produced a factitious scarcity in order to counteract his 
 projects. The edict was attacked as if it had been the 
 greatest imprudence to permit the French to give food 
 to their fellow-countrymen. Riots took place in Paris 
 and its neighborhood in the month of May, 1775, on ac- 
 count of the high price of corn ; people, paid by the chief 
 instigators, pillaged the markets of the capital, scattered 
 the grain and flour along the streets and roads, and threw 
 them into the river, and demolished the ovens and maga- 
 zines of the bakers, thus doing every thing to produce 
 the famine of which they made a pretext as the cause 
 of their violence. These hired brigands went even so 
 far as to annoy the king at Versailles, and the latter 
 then gave a striking proof of the kindness of his heart 
 and the weakness of his character, by going out upon 
 the balcony of the palace to address the rioters, and 
 promise them a reduction in the price of bread. It was 
 with great difficulty that Turgot could obtain his per- 
 mission to suppress these robberies by force ; and from 
 that moment the minister lost the confidence of the king. 
 Those who conspired against him now redoubled their 
 attacks ; and when the edict for the suppression of the 
 wardenships was presented to the parliament, they re- 
 fused to enregister it. Nothing daunted, Turgot advised 
 the king to hold a bed of justice, in which it was en- 
 registered ; but this was the last effort he obtained, for 
 Louis was now fast giving way before the resistance he 
 encountered, and before the remonstrances of the court 
 and the queen, who upbraided him with degrading the 
 royal power by all his innovations. Malesherbes, irri- 
 tated by the many base obstacles which were placed in 
 his way, quitted the ministry ; but Turgot, more perse- 
 vering and more courageous, waited until the king re- 
 quested him to give in his resignation, in tendering which,
 
 70 JOSEPH II. 
 
 he said to the weak monarch : " The destiny of princes 
 who are led by their courtiers is that of Charles I." 
 
 An event apparently insignificant, which took place 
 at this time, contributed considerably to increase, or ra- 
 ther gave an opportunity to vent the growing unpopularity 
 of the queen and the court. This was the visit of the 
 queen's brother, Joseph II., emperor of Austria, who 
 travelled under the simple title of the Count Falkensteiu, 
 and won the hearts of the people intent upon equality 
 and economy, by the affability of his manners and the 
 simplicity of his entourage, which served to heighten by 
 contrast the profusion and luxury of the French court, 
 and to render it more odious in the eyes of the people. 
 The king's next brother, afterwards Louis XVIII., had 
 just returned from a very expensive journey in the 
 southern provinces of France, and the Comte d'Artois 
 proposed to follow his example. It is said that the king, 
 wishing to give his young brother a lesson, expressed 
 in his presence, to the Count of Falkenstein, his surprise 
 at seeing him travel with so small a retinue. " I have 
 often travelled with a much smaller one," replied the 
 son of Maria Theresa ; and the king, pointing to the 
 Comte d'Artois, said, " And there is a young gentleman 
 who demands one hundred and fifty horses for a journey 
 to Breste." But the Comte d'Artois nevertheless ob- 
 tained what he asked for.
 
 NECKER. 71 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Necker — War between England and her American Colonies — Franklin — En- 
 thusiasm in his favor — War — Compte rendu of NecUer — His resignation 
 — Calonne — Growing hatred of the People to the Court and the Uuten — 
 Prodigality of the Court — The Diamond Necklace — Convocation oftlie 
 Notables — Ruinous state of the Finances — Dismissal of (Calonne — Bri- 
 enne — Contentions in the Parliament — Which is exiled to Troj-cs — Recall- 
 ed — Duke of Orleans — Struggles between the Government and the Par- 
 liament — Convocation of the States-General. 
 
 The murmurs which were raised at the dismissal of 
 Turgot, would probably have ended in some violent de- 
 monstration, had he not been almost immediately suc- 
 ceeded by a man who possessed the confidence of" the 
 public, and had not the minds of the people been divert- 
 ed by the approach of a war which was called for by 
 public opinion. Turgot was succeeded by Clugny, 
 whose short ministry was signalized by the introduction 
 of lotteries and by ttje re-establishment of corvees and 
 maitrises in 1766. He was in his turn succeeded by 
 Necker, a Genevese banker established in France, who 
 had rapidly accumulated great wealth, and who, an adept 
 in the art of gaining favor from all men, was generally 
 designated as the only man who could restore the finan- 
 ces ; but during his ministerial career he proved himself 
 more capable of devising palliatives, than of inventing 
 radical cures, and as long as he restricted himself to the 
 former, he met with less resistance than his more inflexi- 
 ble predecessor. 
 
 The war between England and her American colonies 
 had broken out ; the latter had declared their independ- 
 ence. These events produced a great fermentation in 
 Europe, but nowhere more than in France, whose phi- 
 losophers saw in the legislators of America their own 
 disciples ; and enthusiasm was at its height, when Frank- 
 lin, already celebrated for his invention of the liglitning-
 
 72 WAR. 
 
 rod, arrived in Paris in 1777 to solicit succors for the 
 new republic. The man "who had snatched the thun- 
 ders from heaven, and the sceptre from the hands of ty- 
 rants," was flattered and sought by the ladies and gen- 
 tlemen of the court as well as by the philosophers,* and 
 before the second year of his mission had elapsed, il 
 was considered impossible to deny a fleet and an army 
 to the countrymen of Franklin. War was clamored for 
 on all sides ; the people demanded it from sympathy 
 with the democrats, the nobles from a desire to weaker 
 England and to wash out the disgrace of the seven years' 
 war ; the mercantile class hoped that it would open to 
 them immense markets, and the statesmen thought it a 
 good opportunity for the crown to regain some popularity. 
 All were disappointed save the democrats, who subse- 
 quently found a new and powerful ally in the enthusiasm 
 for liberal institutions, brought home by the young 
 French officers who served as volunteers in the Ameri- 
 can war, and who never paused to consider whether the 
 seed that sprouted so vigorously in the virgin soil of 
 America would not have to be deluged in blood before 
 it could germinate in the exhausted soil of France. 
 
 Though the war had not realized the expectations to 
 which it had given rise, and least of all the financial 
 benefits which Necker had hoped to derive from it, this 
 minister had lost none of his influence over the king ; but 
 his restless vanity, not content with this advantage, was 
 ever seeking the applause of the multitude, and he now 
 proposed a plan which, of all the innovations as yet pro- 
 jected, approached the nearest to democratic forms, and 
 was most calculated to whet the appetite for inquiry into 
 
 * A good distinction has been made by some English historians, in desig 
 nating those so-calie d philosophers, and separating them as a class by adopt 
 ing in English the terms Philosophes and Philosophism when speakins ol 
 them and theii doctrines.
 
 \ COMPTE RENDU. 7Z 
 
 the government of the state, which was daily growing 
 keener. This was the publication of his Compte rendu, 
 i. e., the exposition of the administration of the finances 
 . during his ministry, a measure which he pretended was 
 indispensable for the establishment of public credit, 
 which was according to him the true secret of the finan- 
 cial prosperity of England. In this exposition, publish- 
 ed in 1781, and which for the first time initiated the na- 
 tion into the so long guarded mystery of the receipts and 
 expenditure of the state, he pointed out every fault 
 committed by his predecessors, and proudly indicated 
 himself as the sole corrector of these faults ; but in spite 
 of all his demonstrations to prove that he had remedied 
 all evils, and that the revenue now exceeded the expen- 
 diture by ten millions, the truth of this statement did not 
 seem very clear to others, and he himself soon after 
 contradicted it when he was obliged to have recourse to 
 Turgot's project of abolishing all immunities in matters 
 of imposts. When this measure was proposed it no 
 longer remained a secret, that not only was the deficit 
 not covered, but that it amounted to forty-six millions. 
 
 By adopting Turgot's measures Necker also called to 
 life the enmities and the perfidious intrigues which caus- 
 ed the fall of that minister. The court was indignant at 
 the democratic innovations of the Comple rendu; which 
 was represented as a degradation of the royalty of France 
 to a level with the royalty of England, and taught the 
 queen to blush at what was termed the roturier tenden- 
 cies of her royal consort. Necker, attacked on all sides, 
 and but feebly supported by the king, who was intimida- 
 ted by the clamors of the courtiers, tendered his resig- 
 nation, (1781,) and the murmurs were then transferred 
 from the court to the public. 
 
 At the death of Maurepas, which soon followed, the 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 74 CALONNE. 
 
 place of prime minister was left vacant, but the power 
 of the functionary was entirely vested in the hands of 
 the queen, who henceforward became the sole adviser 
 of the king, and used her influence to promote to office 
 the chosen men of the court, entirely regardless of pub- 
 lic opinion, that giant which was daily growing in strength, 
 and not only growing in strength but growing in hatred 
 to her world — the court — and to her who was its life and 
 soul ; and stamped it with the character of light-hearted 
 prodigality, that aroused the indignation of its adversary. 
 Joly de Fleury, who succeeded Necker, added three 
 hundred millions to the debts of the state, and though 
 D'Ormesson, the next in succession, endeavored to in- 
 troduce some economical measures, they were very in- 
 efficient, and when a court intrigue had supplanted him 
 by Calonne, (1783,) a clever and audacious, but frivolous, 
 dishonest, and despised magistrate, profusion again be- 
 came the order of the day. Calonne, who owed his new 
 post particularly to the Comte d'Artois, the protector of 
 all the licentious and vicious nobles who so obstinately 
 resisted all reforms, was adored by the court and by the 
 queen, whose expensive tastes he not only did not re- 
 strict, but encouraged.* The poor king listened with the 
 same confiding simplicity that he vouchsafed to all who 
 approached him, to the flattering tales of this audacious 
 deceiver, who spoke of prosperity and plenty in the 
 midst of difficulties and want ; and he enjoyed a period 
 of calm in contemplation of the happiness that was pre- 
 paring for his people. So great indeed was Calome's 
 art, and so sincere did he seem in his belief in the effi- 
 cacy of the expedients he proposed, that even the capi- 
 
 • Calonne is said to have answered the queen, who exprepfed a wish but 
 at the same time a fear that it was a matter of ilifiiculty : " Madam, if it U 
 but difficult it is done, if it is impossible it shall be done."
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE COURT. 75 
 
 talists were beguiled, and he continued for three years 
 making loans, anticipating the revenue, issuing money 
 edicts, {edits bursaux,) and imposing additional taxes 
 with a facility which none of his predecessors had ex- 
 perienced. 
 
 In the mean while the people, or rather their leaders — 
 I'or when do masses ever act otherwise thar. in following 
 the impulses given them by those, who, while pretending 
 to serve them, command them"! — the leaders were prepar- 
 ing to pass from theory to practice, and the sentimental 
 love of humanity, the rights of man, and the justice of 
 equality, which were heard in enthusiastic expressions 
 from all lips, were strange precursors of the l)loody 
 scenes which were to ensue, when the intellectual off- 
 spring of the eighteenth century was to preside over 
 /he destinies of France. However, this people in their 
 love for all mankind did not incUide the court, and still 
 less the young queen, who was persecuted for the faults 
 of liveliness and thoughtlessness, with a rancor and 
 hatred with which that same people had not visited even 
 the dark sins of Louis XV. and his mistresses. 
 
 They saw but the profuse magnificence of the king's 
 and the princes' households, greater even than that of 
 the superb Louis XIV., carried on at the expense of 
 eighty-six millions per annum, besides eighteen millions 
 paid out in pensions. They saw the enormous debts of 
 the Comte d'Artois, payments of which were constantly 
 being made from the public purse, the destructively 
 luxurious tastes of the queen, which had to be gratified, 
 and the costly presents which were lavished on the cour- 
 tiers — while they, the people, were suffering every kind 
 of privation ; and the time was gone by, when they had 
 regarded even the brilliant faults of the court with a 
 kind of stupid admiration. It was shown at a later date.
 
 76 THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 that the demands for ready money {ordonnances du comp' 
 tani) amounted in eiglit years to eight hundred and six- 
 ty-one millions, (34,440,000/.) 
 
 The king did not personally participate in these prodi- 
 galities ; as simple in tastes as he was austere in morals, 
 he was ready to make any sacrifice that merely regarded 
 himself; but he allowed full scope to the queen and the 
 courtiers, and as a reward for his weakness, he did not 
 enjoy authority even in his own court, or respect in his 
 own family. The nobles, persuaded that they needed 
 but a superb and majestic king like Louis XIV. to pre- 
 vent a revolution, were displeased at the undignified 
 manners and the vulgar tastes of Louis XVL The 
 queen, kind and benevolent, but enamored of pleasures 
 and fetes, wished to please everybody, and to see noth- 
 ing but smiles around her, and allowed herself to be 
 persuaded that it was incumbent upon her to govern her 
 husband in his weakness. Eager to be adored, rather 
 than to be respected, she compromised her dignity by 
 a giddiness of conduct which gave rise to the most in- 
 jurious reports. The most atrocious pamphlets and the 
 most disgusting songs were written about her. She 
 was insulted in her honor as a wife, and attacked in her 
 friendship for the Duchess of Polignac and the Comte 
 d'Artois, and lastly the abominable affair of the diamond 
 necklace proved sufficiently what were the feelings of 
 the public for the royal house. In this infamous plot the 
 Queen of France was accused of having sold her honor 
 to a reverend prelate of the church, the Cardinal de Ro- 
 han, for an ornament of immense value, and her name 
 was coupled with that of a common prostitute. There 
 is not the slightest doubt of the innocence of Marie An- 
 toinette, yet such was public opinion with regard to her, 
 that the parliament acquitted the Cardinal de Rohan, and
 
 CONVOCATION OF THE NOTABLES. 77 
 
 there was not a voice raised among the people in favor 
 of the outraged honor of the royal family. 
 
 Three years had elapsed since Calonne's accession to 
 office, and the time was at last come when he found 
 himself bankrupt in expedients and deceptions ; when 
 he was obliged to confess to the king that the debt had 
 increased eight hundred millions, (32,000,000^. ;) when 
 even he, the flatterer of all parties, could devise no other 
 means o^ safety than the plan of the virtuous Turgot, 
 with one blow to destroy all privileges. But, depending 
 upon his own talents of persuasion to cajole the privi- 
 leged classes into those concessions which his more 
 straight-forward predecessors had failed to obtain, he 
 advised the king to convoke an assembly of the Notables, 
 (all the classes in the state enjoying the immunities of no- 
 bility.) This assembly was opened on the 22d of Feb- 
 ruary, 1787, and Calonne, in a very clever speech, announ- 
 ced that the deficit which had not been covered by Necker, 
 and had gone on increasing ever since, now amounted to 
 one hundred and twelve millions, (4,480,000/.,) and that 
 this state of the finances could only be remedied by radi- 
 cal changes in the administration. He submitted, there- 
 fore, to the consideration of the assembly, a proposal for 
 the suppression oi corvees, the abolition of the system of 
 farming the finances, to be replaced by provincial assem- 
 blies, charged with the assessment of the taxes, and a 
 land-tax denominated subvention territoriale, without 
 distinction of privileges, to be sub,stituted for the two- 
 twentieths on income. Besides these, many other of 
 Turgot's measures, such as free trade in corn, suppres- 
 sion of internal custom-duties, &c., were submitted tc 
 the assembly, and the audacious minister who dared to 
 propose them, was looked upon by those whom he had 
 
 flattered and fawned upon in vain, as a base traitor, who 
 
 'J*
 
 78 THE NEW MINISTER. 
 
 was trying to save himself at their expense ; while the 
 people, who would have received them with enthusiasm 
 if they had been proposed by Turgot, regarded them 
 with suspicion, as coming from so impure a source. 
 
 It was generally reported that the deficit amounted 
 to one hundred and forty millions, (5,600,000/.,) instead 
 of one hundred and twelve millions (4,480,000/.) as 
 stated by the minister, and that all the difficulties were 
 owing to the frauds and deceptions he had practised. 
 The Notables gave the king to understand that the re- 
 forms would be acceded to if proposed by another, and 
 the Comte d'Artois having abandoned liis protege, the 
 king gave him his dismissal. He was replaced by Lo- 
 menie de Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, an ambitious, 
 but irresolute and incapable prelate, who had not one 
 quality to recommend him to the post in which he was 
 placed, but who had obtained, no one knew why, a great 
 reputation for the manner in which he conducted the ad- 
 ministration of his see. 
 
 The Notables, bound by the promise they had made 
 previous to Calonne's dismissal, now consented to all 
 the proposed reforms with seeming alacrity and good- 
 Tvill, but secretly relying upon the opposition which the 
 new measures would encounter in the parliament. They 
 were not disappointed, for Brienne, instead of availing 
 himself of the propitious moment, and presenting all the 
 new ordinances at once to be enregistered, let time 
 elapse, then presented them one after another, and thus 
 allowed tlie parliament to concert its plan of resistance. 
 The ordinances concerning the corn trade, the corvees, 
 and the provincial assemblies, passed without difficulty ; 
 but when the subvention territoriale, that great bugbear 
 of the privileged classes, was presented, (June, 1787,) in 
 company with an edict upon stamp duties, which was
 
 OPPOSING PARTIES. 79 
 
 even feared by the people, the parliament, cloaking the 
 interestedness of its opposition to the one, under the 
 popularity of its resistance to the other, resounded with 
 violent declamations against the minister and the court, 
 whose prodigality, it maintained, was the cause of all the 
 difficulties. 
 
 The opposition was conducted by two men of opposite 
 characters : the one, D'Espremenil, was a most violent 
 declaimer, and nothing more than a supporter of privi- 
 leges ; the other, Duport, was of a calm and energetic 
 mind, whose views extended much further than the tri- 
 umph of the parliamentary aristocracy. The opposition 
 of the parliament, though directed against measures of 
 reform, was nevertheless popular ; first, because these 
 measures were considered inefficient, and secondly, be- 
 cause the people being accustomed to see in the parlia- 
 ment the defender of public liberties, took it for granted 
 that it was still so, because it opposed the court ; this 
 popular approbation of parliament, acting in direct oppo- 
 sition to its interests, proves not only the growth of the 
 revolutionary spirit, but its blindness. 
 
 In the heat of one of the parliamentary debates, the 
 word Slates-General was accidentally pronounced, and 
 from that moment it became the watchword of all parties. 
 It seemed as if it had at once defined the vague ideas 
 that were floating in all minds, and interests the most 
 opposed saw in it a hope of rescue. Every order of the 
 state had proved itself degenerate and corrupt, yet from 
 the assemblage of this corruption it was thought new 
 buds of hope would spring for France. The parliament 
 was the first to avail itself of the idea suggested by the 
 term States-General, and supported its refusal to enre- 
 gister the new ordinances, by declaring its incompetency 
 to impose new taxes, a right which was vested in the
 
 80 COMPROMISE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 States-General alone. This was tantamount to declaring, 
 that for centuries the. king and the parliament had been 
 usurpers of the rights of the people, and was an adver- 
 tisement to the latter to reclaim their rights. 
 
 The court was greatly alarmed by this declaration, 
 and the king held a bed of justice, to force the parlia- 
 ment to enregister the two new taxes. The next day 
 the parliament declared its forced compliance invalid, and 
 was in consequence exiled to Troyes. At the same 
 time the Comte de Provence, the king's eldest brother, 
 was sent to the coiir des comptes to have the edicts en- 
 registered, and the popular approbation of this prince, 
 who was supposed to be favorably inclined for reforms, 
 was expressed on this occasion in the streets of Paris, 
 by a shower of flowers, and bursts of applause, while the 
 hatred entertained for the Comte d'Artois, sent on a 
 similar mission to the cour des aides, broke out in vio- 
 lent aggression, and he was with difficulty rescued from 
 the enraged mob. Following the example of the 
 parliament, the two courts declared themselves under 
 constraint while enregistering the edicts, and all the 
 provincial parliaments followed the same course. 
 
 The interested motives of the parliament, which it 
 sought to deck with a semblance of deference for the 
 rights of the people, were not long in appearing, for it 
 soon entered into a compromise with Brienne, and upon 
 condition of his withdrawing the edicts most opposed to 
 its class-interests, consented to enregister the others ; but 
 at the same time the minister promised that the States- 
 General should be convoked at the end of five years. 
 
 The parliament returned to Paris on the 10th of Sep- 
 tember, and on the 20th a royal sitting took place, in 
 which Brienne presented two edicts, the one relative to 
 the creation of successive loans, amounting to four hun-
 
 GOVERNMENT PROJECTS. 61 
 
 dred and twenty millions, (16,800,000/.,) the other 
 restoring the civil rights of the Protestants, a tardy 
 reparation of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, ob- 
 tained by Malesherbes. 
 
 The discussions became very violent, and as the na- 
 ture of the sitting (whether it was a bed of justice or 
 merely a royal sitting) had been left undetermined, at 
 the moment that the president proceeded to count the 
 votes, the Duke of Orleans rose, with marks of violent 
 gitation in his countenance, and addressing himself to 
 the king, demanded if this assembly was a bed of jus- 
 tice or a free consultation ■? The king replied that it 
 was a royal sitting ; but when the counsellors, Fretean, 
 Sabatier, and D'Espremenil, had risen and declaimed 
 with their usual violence, the king, on the impulse of the 
 moment, transformed the sitting into a bed of justice, 
 and forced the recording of the edicts. 
 
 This act was, however, immediately on the king's 
 leaving the assembly, declared null and void, but the 
 next day the two counsellors, Freteau and Sabatier, 
 were banished to the isles of Hieres, and the Duke of 
 Orleans to his estate of Villers-Coterets. 
 
 This duke was the great-grandson of the regent, a 
 prince of profligate morals and weak intellect — a de- 
 clared enemy of the queen — and hated and calumniated 
 by the court party. He had, in consequence, adopted 
 the popular cause, and to him were attributed a great 
 many of the troubles which agitated France. He soon 
 returned from his exile ; for his pride bending before the 
 ennui that he experienced, he condescended to entreat 
 the intercession of the queen in his favor. 
 
 In the mean while the parliament made threatening re- 
 presentations ; Brienne was not able to raise the loans ; 
 the country was in a state of great fermentation, and
 
 82 GOVERNMENT PROJECTS. 
 
 the clamors for the States-General became universal ; 
 though the king had seemed to recoil from this measure 
 in the bed of justice which he had lately held. At this 
 juncture the government resolved to make a bold stroke 
 to get rid of the parliamentary opposition, and to deprive 
 the people of every pretext for revolts, by taking itself 
 the initiative in reform. Measures were taken, that this 
 plan should not be known before the moment of its exe- 
 cution ; and sealed orders were dispatched to all the 
 governors of the provinces to fix one day for the pro- 
 mulgation of the project throughout France, and to hold 
 the army in readiness to support the royal commands. 
 But D'Espremenil, who had, by surreptitious means, ob- 
 tained possession of a copy of the projected edicts, 
 informed the parliament in time of the thunderbolt sus- 
 pended over its head. This assembly, thrown into the 
 greatest consternation by the announcement of a plan 
 which considerably reduced its judicial power, and alto- 
 gether annihilated its political power, was, at the same 
 time, at the greatest loss how to avail itself of its timely 
 knowledge of the threatening dangers ; for it could not 
 deliberate on a project which had not been laid before it, 
 nor could it passively submit to such a blow. In this 
 embarrassment it had recourse to an expedient which, 
 had its full value been understood by the nation, and had 
 it been followed by the other orders of the state, might 
 have given a new coloring to the Revolution, which 
 might then, indeed, have been a bright era in the history 
 of France, and a noble example to the nations of Europe. 
 The parliament took its stand on the " old ivays of the 
 constitution." It revised and re-established, by an ex- 
 press act, all the constituent laws of the monarchy, which, 
 of course, comprised its own existence and rights. By 
 this measure the projects of government were in no way
 
 PROPOSED REFORMS. 83 
 
 anticipated, while they were, at the same time, com- 
 pletely thwarted. 
 
 On the 5th of May, 1788, the parliament of Paris de- 
 clared : 
 
 " That France is a monarchy governed by a king ac- 
 cording to the laws, and that of these laws, many which 
 are fundamental, render sacred and inviolable — 1. The 
 right of the reigning family to the throne, descending 
 from male to male, by order of primogeniture. 2. The 
 right of the nation freely to grant subsidies by the organ 
 of the States-General, regularly convoked and composed. 
 3. The customs and capitulations of the provinces. 4. 
 The permanency of magistrates. 5. The right of courts 
 to execute in every province the will of the king, and to 
 order it to be recorded, provided it is in conformity with 
 the constituent laws of the province, and the funda- 
 mental laws of the state. 6. The right of each citizen 
 never to be delivered up to any other than his natural 
 judges, who are those which the law points out. 7. The 
 right, without which all others are useless, of every in- 
 dividual, on being arrested, to demand trial without delay. 
 This protest is directed against every attempt which 
 may be made against the above principles." 
 
 To this energetic measure the ministry replied by the 
 arrest of D'Espremenil and another counsellor, which 
 took place in the midst of the assembled parliament, 
 where they had sought refuge. The officer sent to 
 arrest them, not knowing them, called upon them to 
 present themselves. This appeal was at first received 
 with profound silence ; afterwards all the magistrates, 
 with one voice, declared themselves to be D'Esprerae- 
 nils. After a third summons, however, the latter gave 
 himself into the custody of the officer, and was carried 
 off amidst the tumult of the populace. Three days after,
 
 84 PROPOSED REFORMS. 
 
 (May 8th,) the princes, the peers, and the magistrates, 
 were convoked at Versailles, where the king held a bed 
 of justice, in which he explained his views as to the 
 reforms required, and made all the concessions of which 
 he was capable. " There is not an extravagance," said 
 the king, " of which my parliament has not been guilty 
 
 within the last year I owe it to my subjects, to 
 
 myself, and to my successors, to arrest them. ... A 
 great state must have but one king, one law, one re- 
 cording ; its tribunals must not have too extended a 
 jurisdiction ; it must have parliaments for which the 
 most important causes must be reserved ; one sole court 
 must be the depository of its laws, and be charged with 
 recording them ; and, lastly, the States-General must be 
 assembled whenever the necessities of the state make it 
 urgent. Such is the restoration which my love for my 
 subjects has prepared for them." The chancellor then 
 read the ordinances bearing upon the proposed reforms, 
 and by which the chambres des requites et ties enquetes 
 (courts of petitions and of inquiry) were suppressed, and 
 the jurisdiction of the parliaments limited by the crea- 
 tion of inferior tribunals. The tribunaux cf exception 
 were abolished, the criminal laws reformed, and lastly a 
 cour pleniere (plenary court) was created, to consist of 
 all the lords, the bishops, the counsellors of the state, 
 and the members of the great chamber of the parliament 
 of Paris, and which alone was to be charged with the 
 recording of the laws. 
 
 But all these reforms, though good in themselves, no 
 longer satisfied public opinion, which, growing more in- 
 ordinate in its desires the more it was fed by royal 
 concessions, seemed now to have arrived at the point 
 where excitement, not any definite object, is the thing 
 craved for. Besides, the States-General were now up-
 
 OPPOSITIO^f TO THEM. 85 
 
 perraost in all minds, to them turned all hopes ; the 
 reforms were, therefore, received with universal disap- 
 probation, and the parliament which, during the royal 
 sitting, had, by deep silence, expressed its opposition, 
 assembled the next day at a tavern at Versailles, regu- 
 larly to enter its protest against the proceedings and the 
 proposed measures. Nor were the provincial parlia- 
 ments more submissive. E.xcept that of Douai, all 
 refused to enregister the royal edict, and the parliament 
 of Rhenns even went so far as to declare all those in- 
 famous who should accept a seat in the cour fleniere. 
 In consequence, many of those whom the king had most 
 relied upon refused to do so. In several of the provinces 
 the most active measures were taken to resist the king's 
 orders ; and when the soldiers were called out to coerce 
 the refractory burghers, it was found that the troops 
 were not more to be depended upon than the citizens. 
 Even the clergy added its reprobation to the universal 
 discontent, and protested, in a general assembly, against 
 the acts of the minister, and demanded the speedy con- 
 vocation of the States-General. In fine, to complete 
 the general discontent, the facte de famine, which Neck- 
 er had been unable to dissolve, but which had been 
 kept in restraint by the character of the king, availing 
 itself of the edict which for the fourth time abolished all 
 restrictions on the corn-trade, recommenced its infamous 
 machinations, and excited the populace to fury. 
 
 Brienne having tried in vain every expedient which 
 had been suggested to him, and finding himself at last 
 without the support of the ancient institutions of the 
 realm, while the scheme of his new-invented cour ple- 
 niere had proved abortive, now also began to look to the 
 States-General for relief, and they were accordingly 
 convoked for the 5th of May, 1789. 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 86 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Stutes General — Ruinous Financial Mfasiires of Brienne — His Resig- 
 nation — Neclier — His Popularity — Discussions on ilie Formalion, &c., of 
 the States-General — Misery ofthe People — Commotions — Openins of tha 
 States-General — Dissensions between tlie T)iree Estates — National As- 
 sembly — Royal Sitting — General Revolutionary Agitation. 
 
 As more than a century and a half had elapsed since 
 the assembly of the States-General had been held, and 
 as there had been so little appreciation of the value of 
 this institution, that no records were left as to its consti- 
 tutions, its forms, and its functions, the minister, desir- 
 ing to make himself popular, appealed to the " thinkers" 
 among the nation to draw up memorials upon the com- 
 position and the attributes of the coming assembly, thus 
 engrafting upon the name of a time-honored institution 
 a speculative theory, the offspring of a period of destruc- 
 tion. But the 5th May was yet distant, and the minister 
 was without money. The king's strong-box at Versailles 
 contained no more than two thousand louis d'ors, though 
 the Archbishop's sacrilegious hand had been laid even 
 upon the money which the charitable public of Paris had 
 contributed to the relief of the poor, who had suffered 
 from the dreadful hailstorms that had lately ravaged 
 France. New means must be devised, and Brienne, 
 perplexed and powerless, proposed to call Necker to his 
 aid ; but the latter wisely refused to associate himself 
 with a minister who had incurred so much odium. The 
 Archbishop, left to his own resources, issued paper mon- 
 ey to bear interest, and to be redeemed with specie next 
 year. He published a proclamation, (16th August, 
 1788,) declaring that all payments at the royal treasury 
 should henceforth be made three-fifths in specie, and 
 the rest in paper. Public indignation was at its height, 
 and the minister, having ensured to himself and his
 
 REINSTATEMENT OF NECKER. 87 
 
 family all the advantages he could hope for, thought it 
 advisable to resign, strenuously advising the king to let 
 Necker be his successor. 
 
 Necker was reinstated in office the very day that 
 Brienne resigned, and the people manifested tlieir de- 
 light at a change which they looked upon as a triumph 
 over the court, by riotous assemblies, in which the re- 
 tiring minister w'as burnt in effigy, while the portrait of 
 his successor was paraded through the streets stuck 
 upon a pole. During three days, blood flowed in the 
 streets of Paris — ominous drops from the ocean which 
 was soon to inundate France. 
 
 Intoxicated by the incense which was everywhere 
 offered to him, Necker, on resuming office, thought 
 himself, as others thought him, destined to be the saviour 
 of France ; but the endeavors of a mere financier, were 
 he ever so clever, could no more suffice to right the 
 state of France : it was too late. Before he could take 
 measures to prevent the exportation of corn, the pacte 
 de famine had bought up all the corn, and produced a 
 scarcity, the effects of which were the more fearful, on 
 account of the harvest of 1788 having been a very bad 
 one. The minister was obliged to sacrifice forty mil- 
 lions to stop the rise in the price of corn, and having 
 revoked the edicts of Brienne, and recalled the parlia- 
 ment, he exerted every means to carry on the govern- 
 ment until the opening of the States-General. This 
 was the theme of all conversations, the subject of every 
 thought. Newspapers and pamphlets were filled with 
 discussions on their constitution ; and the philosophers, 
 the economists, or by whatever name the unruly heads 
 of that day were denominated, were in agitation day and 
 night, at the clubs which had been formed after the 
 fashion of England, deliberating upon the two important
 
 88 THE THIRD ESTATE. 
 
 questions : whether the third estate was not to be repre- 
 sented by a greater number of deputies than the nobles 
 or the cLergy, and whether the votes were to be taken 
 by order or by head. The Abbe Sieyes, one of the 
 most enthusiastic believers in the new creeds of the phi- 
 losophers of France, and himself the founder of one, 
 wrote a pamphlet, with the title. What is the Thira 
 Estate ? and answered his own query, by saying it was 
 every thing. And this answer, which was responded to 
 throughout France, may be said to contain the history 
 of the coming revolution. It is the confession of faith 
 of men preparing to regenerate an ancient monarchy, 
 by the overthrow of every thing existing whence regene- 
 ration might spring — of men destroying the past, where, 
 though buried under the ashes of centuries of abuse, still 
 glimmered the vital spark that had given birth to the 
 nation, and lent it power to grow ; and then calling upon 
 the nation, in whom they had destroyed all divine 
 thoughts, to rear a fabric of wisdom and liberty, with the 
 aid of the creeds they had substituted for all that until 
 then had been held sacred. 
 
 In a well-regulated state, there is no one class to be 
 
 . every thing. There is a people consisting of all classes 
 to be good and happy ; that this can be as little possible 
 
 «(even less) when the lower classes are all powerful, 
 than when the upper ones are so, no event in history has 
 more clearly proved than this self-same French Revolu- 
 tion. Undue power in the higher classes will produce 
 despotism and oppression, but it will always maintain 
 some kind of government, which is certainly preferable 
 to none. Undue power possessed by the lower classes 
 invariably produces anarchy, that worst of all despot- 
 isms, because it is one from which they are not even 
 themselves exempt.
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 89 
 
 The people, of course, raised its voice to demand the 
 double representation of the third estate, and the vote 
 by head, maintaining that, in the contrary case, every 
 reform would be met by a coalition of the two privileged 
 orders : and the latter taking the alarm, had again re- 
 C'urse to the support of the parliament, which, fright- 
 ened at the danger it had itself called forth, threw off 
 its mask, and manifested clearly its aristocratic tend- 
 encies, by demanding that the forms of IGl 4 should be 
 adopted. From this moment its popularity was lost, 
 but the people did not profit by the lesson which their 
 misconception of the character of the parliament might 
 have taught them. Necker, who was an admirer of the 
 English constitution, and who flattered himself that he 
 should be able, in a great measure, to conduct the Revo- 
 lution, was determined upon giving the third estate a 
 double representation ; but whether it were in the hope 
 of engaging the privileged classes to submit to the re- 
 forms, or from a desire to render them still more unpop- 
 ular, he convoked an assembly of the Notables, to give 
 their opinion as to the composition of the States-General. 
 Of the six bureaus into which this assembly was divided, 
 one only voted for the double representation of the third 
 estate ; but the king, " in accordance with the wishes 
 of the minority of the Notables, vj'xih. the demands of the 
 provincial assemblies, and with the advice of the in- 
 numerable addresses presented to him on this occa- 
 sion," ordered that the number of deputies should not 
 be less than one thousand ; that they should be elected 
 from all the bailiwicks of the kingdom ; and that the 
 number of the deputies of the third class should be 
 equal to that of the two first ranks joined together; 
 but whether the votes were to be collected individu- 
 ally, or by order, was left to the assembly itself to de- 
 
 8*
 
 90 MIRABKAU. 
 
 termine, and thus the seeds of discord were sown in 
 advance. 
 
 The royal declaration was received wi4h universal 
 enthusiasm, and the elections were immediately com- 
 menced, according to the regulations laid down by the 
 government. All Frenchmen above the age of twenty- 
 five, and who were subjected to the poll-tax, elected two 
 deputies out of every hundred inhabitants present at the 
 election, to represent them at the election of the baili- 
 wick : and these deputies in their turn elected delegates 
 to the States-General. As for the cler.'ry and the no- 
 bility, the individuals possessing benefices or fiefs elected 
 their own deputies ; and the others elected one manda- 
 tory for every ten, who again chose the deputies for the 
 States-General. 
 
 The elections were everywhere animated, but no- 
 where broke out into open tumult except in the pays 
 des etats, where the local liberties gave a last sign of 
 their existence, and the provincial assemblies struggled 
 hard for the power of choosing from their own mem- 
 bers their deputies for the Slates-General. In Brittany, 
 where the nobles most strenuously opposed the preten- 
 sions of the tiers ctats, differences between them and the 
 bourgeois broke out into open violence, and the whole 
 province associated itself with the neighboring provin- 
 ces against the " fanatic aristocrats." In Provence the 
 Comte de Mirabeau, a man of low morals but great in- 
 tellectual ability, having been repelled by the nobles, 
 offered the advantages of his eloquence to the tiers. 
 He was carried in triumph through all the towns, and 
 became the leader of the minority of the privileged class- 
 es that joined cause with the commons. 
 
 In Paris the elections were disturbed by a riot in the 
 faubourg St. Antoine, got up by the workmen in a pa-
 
 RIOTS AND MISERY. 91 
 
 per manufactory, under pretence of talcing revenge on 
 their master, who wanted to reduce their wages. Re- 
 veillon, the manufacturer, was burnt in effigy, his house 
 pillaged and burnt, and so great was the resistance when 
 the military were sent out to coerce the mob, that no less 
 than six hundred persons were killed in this miserable af- 
 fray. Every thing seemed to conspire to lead the unhappy 
 people into riot and tumult ; their misery was at its 
 height ; commerce and industry were paralyzed by the 
 poverty of the finances ; the storm lowering on the hori- 
 zon made the capitalists wary ; the pacte de famine con- 
 tinued its abominable speculations, and, to crown all, the 
 winter of 1789 was as rigorous as that of 1709. From 
 all sides came accounts of disturbances caused by actual 
 starvation. The country resounded with cries of hatred 
 and fury against the nobles and the monopolizers. The 
 large towns, and principally Paris, were invaded by bands 
 of hideous, savage-looking, audacious creatures, who 
 seemed rather to be inspired by hatred, than by a wish 
 of gain, and who contaminated the better-intentioned 
 classes of their fellow-sufferers with their love of disor- 
 der and bloodshed. The higher classes of society, turn- 
 ing away from the true causes of these fearful and evil- 
 boding apparitions, because they were not inclined to 
 profit by the lessons whidi they held out to them, at- 
 tributed them to all kinds of extraneous causes, among 
 which the gold of the Duke of Orleans and the ministry 
 of England were the most conspicuous. 
 
 In the mean while the instructions of the constituents 
 of the different orders to their representatives were 
 drawn up, and by the diversity of their character showed 
 what would be the nature of the coming contest. Un- 
 doubtedly all one's sympathies at this the outset of the 
 Revolution go witli the popular party, who, however
 
 92 THE THREE ESTATES. 
 
 confused and vague in their ideas, were nevertheless the 
 spokesmen of a suffering and oppressed multitude, and 
 who really at this juncture seemed regenerated by the 
 great thoughts that animated them, while the nobles 
 seemed unable to rise above the narrowest class-interests, 
 unwilling to make any the Slightest concessions, and 
 even showing themselves hostile to the clergy. As for 
 the latter, the part they played seems the most difficult 
 to pronounce upon. Every order in the state must of 
 necessity have become degenerate before a nation can 
 present such a spectacle as that held up by the French 
 during this revolution ; and there can be no doubt that 
 the Church, the institution which above all others has 
 to watch over national morals, must have neglected its 
 duties, and itself degraded its sacred character, before 
 the people could arrive at such a stage of corruption as 
 to dare to set at naught law and right, and openly to de- 
 clare its contempt for all that has ever been held most 
 sacred among nations. There is no doubt that had there 
 been one order in France which had been content to 
 maintain its own imprescriptible rights, and had had within 
 it the mental strength and honesty to resist all encroach- 
 ment, it would have formed a moral support to, and even 
 a moral regenerator of the other orders. Whatever 
 may have been the faults of the French clergy, however, 
 they cannot be blamed for their resistance to the tiers 
 etat ; for being aware of the innovating tendencies of the 
 times, they must have felt that the sacred precincts once 
 invaded by the new apostles of the " rights of man," it 
 would be impossible to stop the torrent, which in sweep- 
 ing away the time-honored edifice would tear asunder 
 every sacred bond, and that religion and morality would 
 be buried in the same grave, as the ancient constitution 
 of the Church and the State.
 
 OPENING OF THE STATES-GENERAL. 93 
 
 The period for the opening of the States-General had 
 arrived. On the preceding day, the 4th May, the king, 
 accompanied by the three orders and all the dignitaries 
 of the state, went in solemn procession to the cathedral 
 of Notre Dame, where neither pomp nor magnificence 
 was spared, to render imposing a ceremony in which a 
 whole nation assembled at the foot of the altar to offer 
 up prayers for its own safety in the crisis which was ap- 
 proaching ; and notwithstanding the unworthy scenes 
 which followed this solemn moment, we can scarcely 
 doubt the correctness of the accounts, that the purest 
 patriotism on that day animated all hearts, and that for 
 a moment all hatreds were forgotten. But, alas ! na- 
 tions cannot be regenerated by momentary impulses, and 
 centuries of sin must at last bring their own punishment. 
 
 On the 5th May, 1789, the session of the States-Gen- 
 eral was opened at Versailles. The king and queen took 
 their seats on an elevated throne, the court in the gal- 
 leries, while the two superior orders were ranged on 
 both sides of the royal throne, and the third estate occu- 
 pied the seats at the extremity of the room. So far, 
 nothing was altered in the ancient etiquette of these as- 
 semblies ; but when the king by covering his head gave 
 the signal for the nobles and clergy to do the same, it 
 immediately became evident that the humble places of 
 the individuals at the extremity of the room were no 
 wise in accordance with the feelings that animated them ; 
 for, contrary to ancient usage, the tiers ctat followed 
 the example of the privileged classes, and placed theii 
 hats on their heads. The king pronounced a speech, 
 which, though containing expressions of the most benevo- 
 lent feelings towards his people, did not touch in a de- 
 cided manner upon the contemplated reforms, and must 
 therefore have been a great disappointment to those
 
 94 VERIFICATION OF POWERS. 
 
 who had gone so far in their enthusiasm and hopes, as 
 to have dreamed of even the king's abdicating his throne, 
 in order to receive it again from the hands of the nation. 
 
 Necker in his turn made a long and fatiguing speech 
 on the state of the finances, which, however important 
 it might have been, was far from satisfactory to those 
 who, in their impatience to embody their own wisdom 
 in the new constitution they were planning for France, 
 had never condescended to inquire whether the liberty 
 and prosperity of a people are not in as great a measure 
 dependent upon the administrative system of the state, 
 as upon its constitutional forms. 
 
 The next day each oi'der of the deputies assembled in 
 the separate chambers assigned to them, there to pro- 
 ceed to the verification of powers, and a discussion im- 
 mediately arose as to whether this was to be a general 
 or a separate transaction, effected by each order inde- 
 pendent of the others. This question of mere form was 
 invested with an undue degree of importance, because 
 under it was hidden the much graver one, whether the 
 states were to deliberate and vote by order or in a gen- 
 eral assembly. 
 
 The tiers etat, which, on account of tlieir numbers, 
 occupied the chamber appropriated to the general as- 
 sembly, did not neglect this first opportunity of putting 
 forward their pretensions, and sent a deputation to the 
 two other orders, to let them know that they were 
 awaiting their arrival to proceed to the verification of 
 powers. The nobles immediately replied, that the three 
 orders forming distinct assemblies, they should of 
 course proceed to verify separately the powers of their 
 deputies, and they acted accordingly ; the clergy, how- 
 ever, among whom were comprised a great number 
 of country curates, whose sympathies were all with
 
 DISCUSSIONS. 95 
 
 the tiers etat, did ntit give a decided refusal, but pro- 
 posed that commissioners should be appointed to obvi- 
 ate the difficulties. The proposal was acceded to, and 
 the two first orders declared, in these conferences, that 
 they would renounce their privileges in matters of tax- 
 ation, but that they would persist in refusing to vote by 
 head. The tiers accepted the concession, but on their 
 side obstinately refused to submit to separate verifica- 
 tions and deliberations. The conferences still remained 
 open : as a new method of adjustment, it was proposed 
 that the powers of the whole states should be con- 
 firmed by commissioners elected from the three orders. 
 The nobility, whose resistance was said to be insti- 
 gated by the queen and the Comte d'Artois, again re- 
 fused to consent ; and on the same day declared, that, 
 for the present session, they insisted on the separate 
 verifications, but that for the future, the question could 
 be decided by the states. This took place on the 27th 
 of May ; thus twenty-two days had passed in useless 
 discussion within the assembly, while, without, excite- 
 ment was daily increasing. The Salle des Menus Plai- 
 sirs, occupied by the tiers, was daily visited by crowds 
 of people, who mixed among the deputies, were probably 
 inspired by them, and then disseminated among the 
 people the accounts they had there received. The clubs, 
 both at Paris and Versailles, w-here the deputies assem- 
 bled in the evening, became more and more animated. 
 The gardens of the Palais Royal were crowded every 
 night with people, murmuring, and cursing the aristo- 
 crats and the priests. The philosophy of the Revolution, 
 which the Abbe Maury (one of the deputies of the cler- 
 gy) described in the words, " Ote-loi que jc ivby meis^'' 
 (Get out of the way that I may get into your place,) was 
 beginning to declare itself openly in the streets, though
 
 96 GROWING EXCITEMENT. 
 
 in the chambers of the States-General it still retained 
 its mask of patriotism. 
 
 The time that had elapsed had been profitably em- 
 ployed out of the chamber, and the tiers ctat now deter- 
 mined upon taking more decisive measures within. On 
 the day of the above-mentioned declaration from the 
 nobility, Mirabeau having now become the leader of the 
 popular party, who were not over-scrupulous as to the 
 private character of the men they followed, proposed 
 that the clergy should be called upon for the last time to 
 explain themselves, and to join the tiers elat, which now 
 chose to style itself the Commons, though, as to the 
 character, the position, and the principles of the majority 
 of its members, it might with more truth have been 
 styled the Rabble. A deputation, headed by Target, 
 was sent in consequence to the clergy, to invite them, 
 " in the name of the God of peace, and the national in- 
 terests," to join the deputies of the people in the com- 
 mon hall, to consult, on the best means of re-establishing 
 that concord which was so necessary for the safety of 
 public affairs. 
 
 The clergy were partly inclined to cede, but at last it 
 was determined to avoid a decision until an appeal could 
 be made to the king. His majesty reopened the con- 
 ferences by a plan for conciliation, which was adopted 
 by the clergy but rejected by the nobles. The commons 
 continued studiously to avoid every step which could be 
 considered as binding them to proceed as a separate 
 chamber, and acted with a firmness and resolution, 
 which would call forth all our admiration had it been 
 shown in a struggle for legitimate, not for illegitimate 
 power, and did the sequel allow us to believe that they 
 really had the interests of the people as much at heart, 
 as they had them on their lips. Still it is with diffidence
 
 THE TIERS ETAT. 97 
 
 that one pronounces upon the intentions of men, who had 
 had their minds so confused by the philosophic tenets of 
 their times, who had been so bewildered by doctrines 
 "on the rights of man," that they may really have been 
 led to forget, that a part of the rights of individual, iso- 
 lated man must be sacrificed, when he wishes to enjoy 
 the benefits of society ; and they may really have been 
 sincerely working for the establishment of these rights, 
 by undermining the society to which they belonged. 
 But whatever may have been their intentions, tneir acts 
 bequeathed misery and crimes unparalleled, to those 
 masses who were looking up to them with unlimited 
 confidence. It is when reflecting upon this misery and 
 these crimes, produced by the acts of those wko, with 
 presumptuous audacity, took upon themselves to despise 
 every safeguard of the common welfare which the past 
 history of their country offered, and to create, at one 
 stroke, a constitution which should answer every exi- 
 gency of the times, that we almost forget the more pas- 
 sive faults of the other orders of the state, while the 
 whole weight of our indignation falls upon these self- 
 sufficient law-breakers and constitution-makers. 
 
 The alarm of the court increased ; Paris was in vio- 
 lent agitation — the aristocracy were accused of trying to 
 destroy the States-General ; the scarcity of provisions 
 augmented ; bands of starving wretches, known in the 
 history cf these times under the name of brigands, roved 
 about the country, burning and pillaging the huts of the 
 poor as well as the palaces of the wealthy. Those who 
 had all their lives been at war with law, had an instinc- 
 tive foreboding that their great oppressor was to be 
 crushed, and gave earnest of how they intended to use 
 their liberty. Those on the other side who had some- 
 thing to lose, began to league themselves together, not 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 98 ITS DECISIVE MEASURES. 
 
 only to preserve their property, but also to defend theii 
 deputies, little thinking that it was these very deputies 
 who were undermining the edifice, and letting loose those 
 evils from which they already began to suffer. 
 
 The moment was decisive for the tiers etals. The 
 propositions made to them were such as they could not 
 refuse upon any plausible pretext, and to avoid accepting, 
 the first revolutionary step must be taken. Upon the 
 12th June, it was resolved that the two orders should, 
 for the last time, be invited individually, as well as col- 
 lectively, to join tlie commons, to assist, to concur in, 
 and to submit to the verification of powers in common. 
 At the same time, an address was sent to the king, to 
 announce the resolution to which the commons had 
 come. The two orders replied that they must deliber- 
 ate, and the king, that he would make known his inten- 
 tions ; according to the concerted plan, the commons 
 awaited neither, but proceeded to the calling over the 
 bailiwicks, and the verification of the powers of those 
 that were absent, as of those that were present, during 
 which time they were joined by three curates, delegates 
 from Poitou, and members of the assembly of the clergy. 
 The next day six more were added to the number, and 
 the triumph of the popular party began. 
 
 When the verification of the powers was concluded, 
 the assembly, anxious to break with the past, rejected 
 the name of the States-General, which must indeed to 
 them have been a burdensome restraint, and a discus- 
 sion arose as to what name they should assume. Mira- 
 beau proposed that of representatives of the French peo- 
 ple, Mounier, deputy of Grenoble, that of the majority 
 deliberating in the absence of the minority ; the deputy 
 Legrand, that of the National Assembly, which latter 
 was finally adopted, after a discussion that lasted till
 
 NATIOr»AL ASSEMBLY. 99 
 
 midnight. On the next day (17th June) the proposition 
 was put to the vote, and adopted by a majority of four 
 hundred and ninety-one against ninety, and the commons 
 declared themselves constituted a National Assembly, in 
 a document drawn up by Abbe Sieyes. 
 
 " The asseml)ly deliberating after the verification of 
 its powers, declares that it is composed of representatives 
 chosen by ninety-six hundredths at least ol the nation. 
 Such a mass of deputation cannot remain inactive on ac- 
 count of the absence of the deputies of some bailiwicks, or 
 of some class of the citizens ; for the absentees, who have 
 been summoned, cannot hinder those present from exer- 
 cising the plentitude of their rights, especially when the 
 exercise of these rights is an imperious and pressing 
 duty. 
 
 " Further, since it only belongs to representatives 
 whose powers have been verified, to fulfil the national 
 will, and that all the verified representatives ought to be 
 in this assembly, it must of necessity be concluded, that 
 to it, it belongs, and to none but it, to interpret and re- 
 present the general will of the nation. 
 
 " There cannot exist between the throne and this as- 
 sembly any veto, or negative power. 
 
 " The national assembly declares, then, that the gen- 
 eral business of national redress can and ought to be be- 
 gun without delay by the deputies present, and that they 
 ought to pursue it without any interruption or ofrstacle. 
 
 " The denomination of National Assembly is the only 
 one which suits the assembly in the actual state of things : 
 first, because the members who compose it, are the only 
 representatives legitimately and publicly known and veri- 
 fied ; secondly, because they are deputed by nearly the 
 whole of the nation ; and lastly, because representation 
 being one and indivisible, no deputy, in whatever order
 
 100 CONSTERNATION OF THE COURT. 
 
 or class he may be chosen, has a right to exercise hia 
 powers separately from this assembly. 
 
 " The assembly will never lose the hope of uniting in 
 its bosom all the deputies at present absent. It will 
 never cease to call upon them to fulfil the obligation 
 which is imposed upon them, of joining the assembly of 
 the States-General. At whatever moment in the session 
 which is about to open, the absent members may present 
 themselves, the assembly declares beforehand, that it 
 will with alacrity receive them, and cordially co-operate 
 with them in their efforts to regenerate the kingdom." 
 
 Immediately after this resolution was passed, an ad- 
 dress was voted to the king and to the nation, and all the 
 members took a solemn oath " to execute with zeal and 
 fidelity, the functions with which they were charged," 
 and then to give a proof of its power, as well as from a 
 desire not to impede the march of administration, it le- 
 galized the existing taxes, though established without 
 the consent of the nation, and decided that they should 
 continue for the present to be raised in the usual manner, 
 except in the case that the assembly should be dissolved ; 
 it placed the debts of the state " under the safeguard of 
 the honor of the nation." Finally, it announced that it 
 would immediately proceed to examine into the causes 
 of the existing scarcity, and of the public suffering. 
 
 The court, stupified at the evidence of so much firm- 
 ness and audacity, was thrown into a state of still great- 
 er consternation the next day, on learning that the clergy, 
 after a tumultuous deliberation, in which a majority of 
 one hundred and forty-nine, composed of the curates, 
 had carried it over a minority of one hundred and fifteen, 
 had joined the commons. 
 
 The nobles, the parliament, the princes of the blood, 
 and the queen, all joined in endeavors to make the king
 
 MEASURES AGAINST THE TIERS ETAT. 101 
 
 feel in all its threatening dangerousness, the usurpation 
 of the tiers ctat, and Necker advised to put a stop to its 
 illegal proceedings by a royal sitting, in which the king 
 should make all the concessions which were demanded, 
 and should himself order the union of the three estates 
 into one single assembly. 
 
 Strange, that already at this early stage, Louis XVI. 
 should have been advised to present that extraordinary 
 anomaly : a king legalizing a revolution, the evident ten- 
 dency of which was to subvert the constitution, in vir- 
 tue of which he held the power that he was thus advised 
 to prostrate. There seems not even among the men de- 
 voted to royalty, to have been one who understood, that 
 the sanctity of law and the sanctity of royalty are in- 
 dissolubly connected, and that when the one is violated, 
 the other must fall. 
 
 The court supported the proposal of Necker, and it 
 was determined that a bold and decisive step should be 
 taken. In the mean while measures were resorted to, in 
 order to prevent the meeting of the assembly, until the 
 royal sitting should take place, which greatly exaspera- 
 ted the public mind, and led to farther revolutionary 
 proceedings. 
 
 On the 20th of June, the very day appointed for the 
 union of the clergy with the commons, and without any 
 previous notice to the assembly, except a verbal message 
 to its president, Bailly, a placard was stuck on the great 
 door of the assembly-room, announcing that the States- 
 General could not meet on that or on the two following 
 days, on account of the preparations to be made for the 
 royal sitting, which his majesty intended to hold on 
 the 23d. 
 
 Nothing exceeded the astonishment and indignation 
 of the deputies, when they presented themselves at the 
 
 9*
 
 102 OATH OF THE JEU DE PAUME. 
 
 door of tlieir assembly-room, and found it shut against 
 them ; many proposed forcing the entrance in spite of 
 the soldiers who guarded it, but upon their being joined 
 by Bailly, they had recourse to less violent means. The 
 president placing himself at the head of the deputies, de- 
 manded admittance, which being refused by the officer 
 on guard, in virtue of a royal order which he produced, 
 the president called upon those present to witness, that 
 he protested in the name of the National Assembly 
 against this refusal of admittance ; after which, tie de- 
 puties, whose number amounted to almost six hundred, 
 assembled in a noisy and discontented group in the 
 " avenue de Pans," which affords a view of the palace 
 of Versailles, at the windows of which, it is said, the 
 courtiers were observed watching and laughing at the 
 disconsolate legislators, shivering in the cold and driz- 
 zling rain. 
 
 But the tiers etat, nothing daunted, was determined 
 upon holding its sitting, and was merely deliberating 
 upon where it should take place. Some proposed fol- 
 lowing the king to Marly, whither he had retired ; others 
 wished to hold their assembly on the plain before the 
 palace windows ; but at last some one named the Tennis 
 X!ourt (Jeu de Paume) close by in the Rue St. Francois ; 
 and braving the perils of thus forming into an assembly, 
 which more able authorities would have dispersed by 
 force, the deputies repaired to this hall, which was im- 
 mediately surrounded by the populace, who sympathized 
 most ardently with all that was going on. iVIounier 
 opened the session with a speech, in which he said, 
 " Wounded in our rights and in our dignity — acquainted 
 with the vivacity of the intrigues, and with the violence 
 of the animosity by which the king is forced on to take 
 disastrous measures, it is our duty to bind ourselves by
 
 PETTY OPPOSITION OF THE COURT. 103 
 
 a solemn oath, not to desert the cause of the public wel- 
 fare and the national interests." In consequence here- 
 of, the president Bailly, mounting upon a table, pronoun- 
 ced the following oath : " We swear never to desert the 
 national assembly, and to assemble whenever circum- 
 stances render it necessary, until the constitution of the 
 state is framed and based upon solid foundations." 
 Every arm was raised, and an enthusiastic " We swear," 
 burst from all lips, whilst the populace without respond- 
 ed to the shout. 
 
 The court, thrown into new alarm and anxiety by 
 these extraordinary proceedings, closed this new assem- 
 bly-room by hiring the Tennis Court for its own diver- 
 sions ; the persevering deputies were not thereby pre- 
 vented from acting in accordance with their oath, and 
 aorain assembled on the 22d of June, in the church of 
 St. Louis, where they were joined by one hundred and 
 forty-eight members of the clergy, and two of the nobili- 
 ty, and they adjourned till the next day, the one appoint- 
 ed for the royal sitting, full of anxiety as to what it was 
 to bring. 
 
 The military, who were marshalled in great array on 
 the 23d of May, proved what were the feelings of the 
 court towards the assembly, and the deep silence in 
 which the people contemplated the pomp of the royal 
 cortege, proved what were the feelings of the people to- 
 wards the court. 
 
 It had been intimated to the commons on the previous 
 day, that no discussions would be allowed on the morrow, 
 and the exasperation occasioned by the breach of the 
 usual parliamentary forms, according to which a royal 
 sitting admitted full liberty of discussion, was farther 
 aggravated, when on the day of the royal sitting they 
 were kept for half an hour in the rain without the side
 
 104 \ THE ROYAL SITTING. 
 
 door, through which they were to be admitted, under 
 the pretence that it was yet too early. When at last 
 their impatience grew so violent, that it was considered 
 dangerous to put it to a farther test, and they were ad- 
 mitted, they found the court and the two other orders 
 already seated. It has been said in'excuse of the court, 
 that they had had recourse to this pitiful and paltry ex- 
 pedient to prevent the quarrels that would most likely 
 have arisen, during the scuffle for places ; but even if this 
 be really so, one cannot but regret that the king should 
 have had such injudicious advisers, and that he himself 
 should not have been aware, that-wounded self-esteem is 
 an unquiet and revengeful feeling. 
 
 The king, in opening the sitting, spoke with unusual 
 severity, but his weakness was already too well known 
 for this semblance of firmness to produce any eifect. 
 " It is my command," said he, " that the distinction be- 
 tween the three orders of the state be not infringed : the 
 deputies forming three chambers, and deliberating separ- 
 ately, except when with the royal sanction they shall 
 deliberate in common, can alone be considered as form- 
 ing a body representing the nation. Wherefore I declare 
 null and void the resolutions adopted by the tiers etat, as 
 being illegal and unconstitutional." He further prohibit- 
 ed them from occupying themselves with questions rela- 
 tive to the ancient and constituent rights of the three 
 orders, the form of the constitution of the state, feudal 
 and seigniorial rights and property, &c. &c. ; and lastly, 
 he submitted to their examination, and adopted in ad- 
 vance, the following innovations ; taxes and loans to be 
 submitted to the consent of the representatives of the na- 
 tion ; the budget to be published ; abolition of all immu- 
 nities with regard to taxation, individual liberty to be 
 established, as well as liberty of the press ; the estab-
 
 INDIGNATION OF THE ASSEMBLY. 105 
 
 lishment of provincial assemblies, the abolition of cor- 
 vees, internal customs, duties, &c. The king added, 
 " I can with truth say, that never has any monarch done 
 so much for any nation." But commands and conces- 
 sions both came too late — too late for the former to be 
 obeyed — too late for the latter to be appreciated. When 
 a people has arrived at the point that it can force its 
 governors into concessions, it is but little inclined to be 
 grateful when they are made. 
 
 When the king left the assembly, after having com- 
 manded it to resume its sittings next day, according to 
 the regulations he had laid down, he was followed by 
 the nobles and a part of the clergy, but the commons, 
 who, during the whole sitting, had maintained a deep 
 and evil-boding silence, retained their jilaces, interchang- 
 ing looks of the utmost astonishment. At length Mira- 
 beau rising addressed them as follows : " Gentlemen, I 
 confesst hat what we have just heard might be the sav- 
 ing of our country, were not the presence of despotism 
 always dangerous. What means this insulting dictator- 
 ship 1 What means this display of arms, this violation 
 of the national temple, in order to render you happy 1 
 Who is it that has given you these commands 1 Your 
 functionary 1 Who is it that issues imperious laws 1 
 Your functionary ? He who ought to receive them 
 from us, who constitute a political priesthood, which 
 must not be violated ; from us, in fine, from whom 
 twenty-five millions of men expect certain happiness, 
 because it will, by universal consent, be given and re- 
 ceived by all ! I call upon you to exert your dignity 
 and your legislative power, and to call to mind the reli- 
 gious obligations of your oath, which will not suffer you 
 to separate until the constitution is made and establish- 
 ed." The grand master of the ceremonies here entered
 
 106 GENERAL EXCITEMENT. 
 
 to reiterate the king's orders to adjourn, and was re- 
 plied to by Mirabeau, " Go tell your master that we are 
 here by the power of the people, and will not be driven 
 hence but by the power of the bayonet." The whole 
 assembly shouted their concurrence, and Si^yes rising 
 said, " We have sworn, and our oath shall not be a vain 
 one, we have sworn to re-establish the rights of the 
 people. The authorities which have appointed us for 
 this great undertaking, demand a constitution. Who 
 can make one without us ■? Who can make one if it be 
 not us 1 Gentlemen, you are to-day what you were 
 yesterday." Upon which the assembly unanimously 
 declared that it persisted in the resolutions already ta- 
 ken, and decreed the inviolability of its members. 
 
 In the mean while the court, ignorant of what was 
 passing in the assembly, was congratulating itself upon 
 the probable effect of its vigorous measures ; and it is 
 said the queen, unhappily abandoning herself to a blind 
 confidence, in her joy held up her son in her arms, pre- 
 senting him to her devoted servants, who were express- 
 ing their satisfaction at the triumphs gained over her 
 factious subjects, when the happy dreams in which they 
 were indulging, were dispelled by the shouts of the 
 populace thanking Necker for having absented himself 
 from the royal sitting. 
 
 A contemporary has well described the state of the 
 country at this period, and the effect produced by the 
 acts of the court, in the following words ; " It would be 
 impossible to describe the shuddering that came over 
 me, at the bare mention of the words, ' The king has 
 annulled every thing.' I felt the secret fire burning 
 under my feet ; it needed but one word, and civil war 
 would have burst over the land." The public sympathy 
 with, and the approbation of, the acts of the National
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. 107 
 
 Assembly, were expressed in addresses that poured in 
 from all parts of the country, among which was one 
 from the rabble of the Palais Royal, ominous of the 
 heavings of society that were throwing up the mud from 
 the bottom t; the surface. A complete system of com- 
 mittees of correspondence had already been organized 
 all over the country, to convey the electric shock from 
 the assembly to its remotest parts ; but lest these means 
 should not be sufficient to spread the revolutionary doc- 
 trines, the clubs also had their committees of insurrec- 
 tion. These clubs had become so e.xcited, that the 
 Abbe Sieyes himself declared that he could no longer 
 frequent them, because " they proposed crimes as expe- 
 dients." 
 
 France was inundated with papers and pamphlets ad- 
 vocating the most extreme measures. Whoever dared 
 to hold a middle course, and preach moderation, was de- 
 nounced as an aristocrat and a traitor. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Deliberations of the National Assembly — Constitution of France — General 
 Agitation — Disaffection of the Soldiers — Dismissal of Necker — Outbursts 
 of the Revolutionists in consequence — Paris in the hands of the Mob — 
 Takingof the Bastille — Dreadful Cruelties — The Assembly and the king — 
 Mirabeau's Speech — Reconciliation between the King and the Assembly 
 — Deputation of Members to Paris — The King goes to Paris — Returns to 
 Versailles — Murder of M. de Foulon and his Son-in-law — Emigration. 
 
 On the 24th of June, the court took no further meas- 
 ures to prevent the meeting of the assembly than send- 
 ing in carpenters and other workmen, escorted by a few 
 soldiers, to demolish the temporary galleries that had 
 been raised for the ceremony of the preceding day ; but
 
 108 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 the deputies continued their deliberations, in spite of 
 hammering and noise, and were joined by the majority 
 of the clergy and the minority of the nobles, who, hav- 
 ing endeavored in vain to influence the rest of their par- 
 ty, had at last decided upon separating from them ; and 
 two days after, the king, alarmed at the growing audaci- 
 ty of the mob, himself invited the rest of the two orders 
 to join the assembly, but though they ceded to the royal 
 entreaties, they did not fail to behave so as to intimate 
 their protest against the legality of the assembly in its 
 present form. 
 
 However, the deliberations upon the constitution to 
 be given to the kingdom went on, and the necessity for 
 such a step was always supported by the absurd asser- 
 tion, that France (a monarchy that had stood for fourteen 
 centuries) had no constitution, an assertion that proves 
 more than any thing else how vague must have been the 
 ideas of the assembly upon such subjects,* and M. Lally 
 
 * M. Thiers, one of the inheritors of the principles and statesmanship of 
 those days, says, in a note to liis History of the Frevch Revolution, "The 
 question, as to whether she had or had not a constitution, seems to me to 
 be one of the most important of tiie Revolution, for it is only the absence of 
 fundamental laws, that can justify our undertaking to frame them." And 
 M. Thiers then quotes, as his authority for maintaining that France had no 
 constitution, a speech of M. Lally Tollendal in the National Assembly. Let 
 us see, however, if other and more competent judges have not asserted the 
 reverse, and if M. Thiers, in the above-quoted passage, has not pronounced 
 thecondemnationof the legislative labors of the National Assembly. In 1795, 
 several members of the ancient magistracy of France drew up a work under 
 the title of Developincnt of the Fundamental Principles of the French 
 Monarchy, in which they state that " the constitution attributes to the king 
 the legislative power. From him emanate all laws: he has the right to ad- 
 minister justice himself, or to have it administered by his officers ; the right 
 of pardon, and of granting all privileges and recompenses ; of appointing to 
 the offices of the state, and of conferring nobility ; of convoking and of dia 
 solving national assemblies, whenever he in his wisdom shall judge it con- 
 venient. The king has, moreover, the right of making war and peace, and 
 of assembUng the armies," (p. 28.) "The king only governs by the laws, 
 and is not invested with the pow'er of doing every thing that his appetites 
 may suggest," (p. 364.) " There are laws which the kings themselves have 
 declared themselves happily unable to break. These are the statutea of tke
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. 109 
 
 Tollendal, one of the members of the minority of the no- 
 bles that had first joined the Tiers, lived to see and to 
 deplore the consequences of his sincere but injudicious 
 zeal for the welfare of the people. 
 
 In the mean while, the court drew together troops 
 from all sides ; 40,000 men were stationed about Paris 
 and Versailles, but the courtiers, with their usual care- 
 lessness, took all their measures as publicly as possible, 
 
 realm, distinguished from the laws of circumstances, or the laws not having 
 reference to the constitution, which are denominated the king's laics," (p. 
 29.) "The kings, as supreme legislators, have always, in promulgating 
 their laws, spoken in the affirmative. There is, however, a consent of the 
 people ; but a consent which is merely the expression of the wishes, the 
 gratitude, and the acceptance of the people," (p. 271.) "The nation is 
 represented by three orders, divided into three chambers, and deliberating 
 separately : the result of the deliberations, if unanimous, present the resolu- 
 tions of tlie States General," (p. 332.) "The laws of the realm cannot be 
 passed e.xcept in a general assembly of the whole kingdom, and with the 
 concurrence of the three orders of the state. The king cannot derogate these 
 laws, and, if he dares to violate them, all that he does may be annulled by 
 his successor," (pp. 292 and 293.) "The necessity of the consent of the na- 
 tion to the imposition of taxes, is an incontestable truth, and is recognised aa 
 such by the kings," (p. 302.) "The resolutions of the two orders cannot 
 be considered binding to the third, unless by its own consent," (p. 302.) 
 "The consent of the Slates-General is necessary for the validity of every 
 perpetual alienation of the domains," (p. 303.) And the same watchful- 
 ness is recommended to them, in order to prevent any partial dismember- 
 ment of the realm. "Justice is administered in the king's name by magis- 
 trates, who are to examine the laws, and to see that they are not in opposp- 
 tion to the fundamental statutes of the kingdom," (p. 345.) "A part of 
 the duty of these magistrates is to resist the sovereign when he is in error," 
 (p. 345.) "The military power mu.^t not interfere with the civil adminis- 
 tration. The governors of provinces have no command, save in what cot»- 
 cerns the armed force, which they may make use of against the enemies of 
 the state, but not against the citizens, who are subjected to the tribunals of 
 the state," (p. 3G4.) "The magistrates are unremovable, and their import- 
 ant offices cannot be considered vacated except by the death of the occii. 
 pant, by his voluntary resignation, or by legal forfeiture," (p. 356.) " In 
 causes that concern the king, he is obliged to plead before his tribunals 
 against his people," (p. 367.) A profound writer, commenting on this work, 
 gays, " If it be remarked that the.se excellent laws were not executed, in that 
 case it was the fault of the French people, and there is no more hope of lib- 
 erty for them : for, when a people does not know how to avail itself of ita 
 existing fundamental laws, it is useless for it to seek for others, — it is a sign, 
 that it is not made for liberty, or that it is irredeemably corrupt." — Ds Mai»» 
 TRK, Considerations sur la France, p. 107. 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 110 DISAFFECTION OF THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 and acted without any fixed plan, so that their array of 
 troops served more to betray their weakness than to en- 
 sure the safety of their party. The capital was in a 
 state of the most dreadful fermentation, in consequence 
 of the alarming reports that were spread as to the inten- 
 tions of the court. It was said that the king was goin» 
 to dissolve the National Assembly, to declare a national 
 bankruptcy, to reduce the town by famine, &c. &c. ; 
 and the citizens, as well as the populace, were preparing 
 not only to counteract these projects, but to anticipate 
 them. The Palais Royal, the usual place of meeting 
 of the agitators and news-hunters, was crowded with 
 people who came to learn, and to descant on the delibera- 
 tions of the assembly, to excite each other to resistance 
 to the legal authorities, and to win over by violent ha- 
 rangues those who were not already willing to go to any 
 length to break all existing laws, in order to have the 
 pleasure of making new ones. On the 30th June an 
 event took place, which must have been to the court 
 one of the most portentous signs of the times, as it prov- 
 ed that even the army was not to be depended upon. 
 Attempts had repeatedly been made to corrupt the troops 
 stationed in Paris, and particularly the French guards, 
 who had their permanent quarters there. These at- 
 tempts had not been unsuccessful. The soldiers had 
 several times taken part in the revolutionary demon- 
 strations of the populace, and had declared that they 
 would never draw a trigger against their fellow-citizens. 
 On the 30th, several soldiers who had been imprisoned 
 for similar conduct were violently released by the Paris- 
 ian mob, who then addressed a petition in their favor to 
 the National Assembly, which, in its turn, recommended 
 them to the clemency of the king. The guards were 
 imprisoned again to save appearances, but liberated the
 
 DISMISSAL OF NECKER. Ill 
 
 next day. The National Assembly participated in the 
 terrors of the capital, and, trembling for its own safety, 
 in seeing the road between Paris and Versailles blocked 
 up by troops, kept up a regular correspondence with the 
 plotters in the former city, with the mob of the Palais 
 Royal, and with the electors, who had declared on the 
 12th May that they would remain together to support the 
 deliberations of the States-General. At last, anxious to 
 ascertain its real position, it openly denounced the gov- 
 ernment to the- nation, and, in an address to the king, 
 demanded the removal of the troops, which impeded the 
 freedom of their deliberations. The king replied to this 
 address that he had called the regiments together to pre- 
 vent any disturbances, and if the States-General felt 
 themselves constrained in their deliberations, they were 
 at liberty to retire to Soissons or Noyon, a permission 
 which was translated into a desire to place them be- 
 tween two camps, and was consequently not acted upon. 
 The court, which had long been divided between con- 
 flicting opinions, — some being for the most extreme 
 measures of coercion, others, among whom was Necker, 
 for concessions, — now grown bolder, determined to strike 
 a decisive blow, and Necker, who had hitherto been im- 
 plored to retain his office, in order that his popularity 
 might in some measure shield the court against the pub- 
 lic animosity, was now dismissed, together with the 
 other liberal members of the ministry, and they were 
 replaced by ultra-aristocrats. Necker's dismissal, which 
 even bore the semblance of banishment, as he left France 
 the very same day, was known in Paris the next day (12th 
 Tuly, 1789) and caused the greatest uneasiness. Not- 
 withstanding the number of troops dispersed about the 
 town, and in the neighborhood, great crowds collected 
 together, particularly in the gardens of the Palais Royal,
 
 112 CAMILLE DESMOULINS. 
 
 where a young man, Camille Desmoulins, mounted upon 
 a chair, pistol in hand, and harangued the bystanders : 
 " Citizens," said he, " there is not a moment to lose. 
 The dismissal of Necker is the signal for a St. Bartholo- 
 mew of patriots. This very evening the foreign battal- 
 ions will leave their camp in the Champ de Mars, to 
 come and murder us. We have but one resource left, 
 and that is to fly to arms." " To arms !" reiterated his 
 inflammable auditors ; and, following the example of 
 their leader, each man plucked a leaf from the trees of 
 the garden, and stuck it in his hat as a cockade. They 
 next proceeded to the shop of a wax-worker, seized upon 
 the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, (whose 
 gold, it is said, had not a little part in the enthusiastic 
 exhibitions which so frequently took place,) and paraded 
 them through the street. Camille Desmoulins' predic- 
 tions of the movements of the troops then, of course, 
 proved true ; but the havoc committed by the regiment 
 of cavalry, headed by the Prince de Lambesc, which 
 charged the mob assembled in the Tuileries Gardens, 
 was not great. However, the accounts of all tliese en- 
 counters between the royalists and the people, are so dif- 
 ferently given by the different parties, each charging the 
 other with the greatest excesses, that it is difficult to 
 discern the truth. It may with probability be inferred 
 that both parties have been greatly in fault, for civil war 
 is a fearful instigator of evil passions. The fury of the 
 people became more and more uncontrollable ; the alarm- 
 bell sounded, the barriers were burnt, the shops of the 
 armorers pillaged, and troops of brigands, mingling with 
 the people, augmented the terror and the devastation, by 
 burning and pillaging wherever they went. The French 
 guards, fully imbued with all the revolutionary notions, 
 left their barracks,- where the authorities had command-
 
 TUMULTS. 
 
 113 
 
 ed them to be held under restraint, and, bayonet in hand, 
 charged the regiments that remained faithful, and drove 
 them from their posts. 
 
 During this time the electors had assembled at the 
 Hotel de Ville, whence they directed the riots, and 
 taking upon themselves the authority of the municipal- 
 ity, they delivered the arms of the Hotel de Ville into 
 the hands of the multitude, and ordered the convocation 
 of the assemhUes primaires of the districts, and finally 
 decreed the formation of a civic guard of forty thousand 
 men, bearing a blue and red cockade, the colors of Paris. 
 This city was left in the hands of the mob during the 
 night, and the next morning things bore a still more tu- 
 multuous aspect. The militia was formed, and joined 
 by the soldiers of the French guard, and of the police 
 force, iguet.) 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, who in his restless ardor was 
 everywhere, had arranged a separate militia of the stu- 
 dents of the university and of the school of medicine ; 
 and the lawyers' clerks had formed themselves into a 
 volunteer corps. Wherever arms were to be had, they 
 were seized upon by the mob, who also, for want of 
 more regular weapons, laid hold of any thing that came 
 within their grasp. The pavement of the streets was 
 torn up to form barricades, and large stones were car- 
 ried into the houses to be used as missiles against the 
 troops, who played but a sorry part in all this turmoil, 
 for want of energy and judgment in their commanders. 
 The Baron de Besenval, the commandant, complains of 
 havinc- been left without orders from Versailles, while 
 he, in his turn, is accused of having spared the mob, in 
 the hopes that they would spare the splendid mansion 
 which he had lately fitted up for himself in the most 
 magnificent style ; but whatever the cause, the result 
 
 10*
 
 114 TAKING OF THE BASTILLE. 
 
 waj, that nothing was done to stop the lawless proceed- 
 ings of the capital. The third day (July 14th, 1789) 
 the mob attacked the Hotel des Invalides, where they 
 gained possession of twenty-eight thousand muskets and 
 twenty pieces of field artillery, and thence proceeded to 
 the Bastille, which had for centuries been the strong- 
 hold of despotism and the dungeon of its victims, there 
 to wreak their vengeance upon the innocent governor 
 and the garrison, consisting of one hundred and fourteen 
 Swiss and invalids, and there to surpass, by their atro- 
 cities, all the horrors that the grim old walls had evei 
 yet witnessed.* 
 
 The governor, De Launay, it is said, had received 
 orders from Besenval to hold out until the evening ; at 
 all events, the commander of a royal fortress surely 
 could not be expected to surrender because he was 
 called upon to do so by a rebellious mob ; but the time 
 had already come when it was considered high treason 
 against the nation not to submit to and take a part in 
 any of its crimes ; and when, after a protracted resist- 
 ance, and having in vain tried to blow up the fort, the 
 gallant governor was forced to surrender, the fury of the 
 mob was at its height. The garrison, though it had 
 laid down its arms, was with difficulty saved from ex- 
 termination. A young and beautiful girl, supposed to 
 be the daughter of De Launay, was seized, and upon the 
 point of being burnt alive, when she was saved by the 
 heroism of a young soldier. Every thing that was val- 
 uable within the fortress was destroyed ; and in their 
 
 * It is melancholy, that when we have to record the destruRlion of a 
 heartless despotism which for centuries had weighed upon a suffering peo- 
 ple, that the acts of that perple should be such that the sympathizing heart 
 sickens, and almost steels itself against the woes of those who show them- 
 aelves so little deserving of liberty. But so it is — the morals of a people 
 and its governors depend mutually upon each other, and go on acting and 
 reacting in one unbroken chain of cause and effect.
 
 DREADFUL SCENES. 115 
 
 blind fury the mob continued to fire their muskets when 
 there were no more enemies to attack, and thus de- 
 stroyed the lives of many of their comrades. When the 
 work of destruction was terminated, they rushed, shout- 
 ing and yelling, towards the Hotel de Ville, carrying one 
 of the French guards, crowned with laurel, in triumph on 
 their shoulders, while the keys and the rules of Jie Bas- 
 tille were borne before him stuck upon a pole. At the 
 moment that they penetrated into the town-hall, a blood- 
 stained hand raised above the multitude presented the 
 buckle of a shirt-collar, belonging to the governor De 
 Launay, who had just been decapitated.* 
 
 It is said in honor of the French guards, who had 
 joined the people, and who were present at these butch- 
 eries, that they did their utmost to save the unhappy 
 victims. But the fury of the mob could not be checked, 
 and their thirst for blood was not yet satisfied. Their 
 next victim was Flesselles, the provost of the merchants, 
 whom they accused of treason. He was seized in the 
 midst of the frightened electors assembled at the Hotel 
 de Ville, and dragged away to the Palais Royal, there 
 to be judged ; but the impatience of the miscreants 
 would not wait for this mockery, and he was struck 
 dovvTi by a shot from a pistol on one of the quays. 
 
 While these scenes of riot and bloodshed were going 
 on at Paris, the greatest terror and anxiety prevailed at 
 Versailles, both at court and in the assembly. The 
 former, in hourly fear of seeing the Paris mob moving 
 towards Versailles, lined the road between the two 
 towns with troops, and did every thing to raise the 
 courage and ensure the fidelity of the men, without, how- 
 e\8T, taking any decisive step, though it is asserted by 
 
 * It is said that his head was cut off by a cook who was preBeot with 
 his kitchen-knife.
 
 116 RESOLUTIONS OF THE ksSEMBLY. 
 
 several historians, that a plan was concerted for putting 
 down the Revolution by force of arms, for dissolving the 
 National Assembly, after having forced it to subscribe 
 to the king's declaration of the 23d of June, and for 
 assisting the empty treasury by issuing a hundred mil- 
 lions of government notes. 
 
 The assembly had been anxiously watching for ac- 
 counts from the capital ; it is said by the partisans of 
 the Revolution, who maintain that the assembly had been 
 fully aware of the projects of the court, that it saw new 
 danger to itself in these measures, but nevertheless con- 
 tinued its sittings. As soon as it had received intelli- 
 gence of the events of the 12th, a deputation was sent to 
 the king to demand the removal of the troops, whose 
 presence they maintained was the cause of all the tur- 
 moil, and begging him, in their stead, to form a burgess 
 guard. The king replied, that he could not accede to 
 their demands, because Paris was not able to defend 
 itself. Upon receiving this answer, the assembly passed 
 resolutions insisting upon the removal of the troops, and 
 on the establishment of a burgess guard, declaring the 
 .ministers and all the agents of the government responsi- 
 ble, casting upon the actual counsellors of the king, how- 
 ever elevated their rank, the whole responsibility of the 
 misfortunes which were preparing. It consolidated the 
 national debt, and persisted in all its former decrees, and 
 then, after having expressed its disapprobation of the re- 
 moval of M. Necker and his colleagues, declared itself 
 permanent, and elected the Marquis de Lafayette* as vice- 
 president. 
 
 * This young nobleman owed his popularity to the part lie had taken in 
 the American war, where he had gained the friendship of Washington and 
 the respect of his countrymen, and wlience he returned witl] ideas of liberty 
 which were quite in consonance with the popular wishes of France at tlie 
 time.
 
 SPEECH OF MIRABEAU. 117 
 
 Upon receiving further accounts of the scenes going 
 on at Paris, new deputations were sent to the king, 
 which equally failed in eliciting any satisfactory reply. 
 The king was, however, now seriously alarmed, though 
 the court affected to laugh at the pretensions of the mob 
 to reduce the Bastille, — a fortress which had stood the 
 siege of the great (3onde ; and when at last the Duke de 
 Liancourt, one of the deputies, a personal friend of the 
 king's, and who held a situation in his household, which 
 gave him access to his person at all times, broke into the 
 king's bed-chamber in the night to announce the fall of 
 the Bastille, a general consternation prevailed. " What, 
 a revolt!" exclaimed his majesty. " Not a revolt, sire," 
 replied the duke, " a revolution." He prevailed upon the 
 king to repair to the assembly th* next morning to give 
 it aproof of his confidence. But in the interval the as- 
 sembly, which had also been greatly moved at the ac- 
 counts from the capital, had resumed its sitting, and, 
 ignorant of the change which had taken place in the 
 king's disposition, a new deputation was determined on, 
 and was on the point of departing when it was detained 
 by Mirabeau. " Tell the king," cried he, " tell him 
 boldly, that the hordes of foreigners by which we are 
 surrounded were visited yesterday by the princes, the 
 princesses, and their favorites, and have received their 
 presents, their caresses, and their exhortations. Tell 
 him, that during the whole night these foreign satellites, 
 gorged with wine and money, liave predicted in their in- 
 pious songs the subjugation of France, and that their 
 brutal prayers iavoked the destruction of the National 
 Assembly. Tell him, that even in his own palace, his 
 courtiers have danced to the sound of this barbarous mu- 
 sic, and that such were the scenes which ushered in the 
 St. Bartholomew. Tell him, that Henry IV., whose
 
 118 THE KING AND THE ASSEMBLY RECONCILED. 
 
 name is blessed throughout the universe, that one among 
 his forefathers who ought to be his model, introduced pro- 
 visions into rebellious Paris, besieged by himself, and that 
 his ferocious counsellers will not allow that corn which 
 commerce brings, to enter into Paris when faithful and 
 famishing." 
 
 But scarcely was this speech pronounced, and the ap- 
 plause of the assembly silenced by Mirabeau himself, 
 when the king entered, accompanied by his two brothers 
 only, and in a simple and touching speech reassured the 
 assembly, and told them that he had ordered the with- 
 drawal of the troops. " You have doubted me," he said 
 in conclusion ; " well, then, I will confide myself to you." 
 The sullen silence with which he had been received was 
 now interrupted by lively exclamations of joy, and the 
 king was escorted home by the whole assembly, accom- 
 panied by the shouts of the multitude. A deputation of 
 one hundred members then repaired to Paris, which was 
 preparing to withstand a siege, to announce the recon- 
 ciliation of the king with the representatives of the peo- 
 ple, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. 
 Bailly and Lafayette were among the delegates, and the 
 former was offered the mayoralty of the city, the latter 
 the command of the burgess guard. Both accepted, and 
 advised the king to follow them to Paris, to put the seal 
 to his reconciliation with his people. 
 
 The king consented, and fixed the 17th July for his 
 visit. The state of Paris became every day more alarm- 
 ing. The barriers were closed, the regular authorities 
 suspended, the streets lined with patrols and cannon, 
 while hordes of murderers carried dismay and consterna-. 
 tion everywhere ; but, notwithstanding all these fearful 
 manifestations, the king remained faithful to his word. 
 So sure was he, however, of not returning unscathed from
 
 CONCESSIONS OF THE KING. 119 
 
 the dangers that beset his path, that he spent great part 
 of the night previous to his departure for Paris in regula- 
 ting the regency, and early in the morning, after attending 
 religious exercises, took an affecting leave of his discon- 
 solate family, who had tried in vain to conquer his reso- 
 lution. 
 
 He set off, accompanied by a deputation from the as- 
 sembly, and arrived at the Hotel de Ville, surrounded by 
 d dark and threatening multitude, who had not one cheer 
 for the monarch, whose chief fault was that weakness 
 which rendered him incapable of inflicting pain upon oth- 
 ers, though for their benefit, but who dared to encounter 
 every danger which threatened his own person alone. It 
 was only at the moment when the king appeared at the 
 window of the Hotel de Ville, with the national cockade 
 in his hat, that the slightest cheer was heard from the 
 mob. After having confirmed the formation of the na- 
 tional guard, and of the provincial and municipal govern- 
 ment, in a word, after having assented to the revolution 
 effected by physical force, he returned to Versailles, 
 where his safe arrival produced the greatest joy. 
 
 But though Louis was safe, royalty was degraded, and 
 France was thenceforward, for years, to know no other 
 rulers than an infuriated multitude. Those that had con- 
 jured up the storm, thinking that they should ride as 
 masters upon it, and lay it when it suited their purpose, 
 now perceived that the fundamental laws of a state can- 
 not be touched with impunity, and when once the veil is 
 torn from the sanctuary of the temple, all reverence 
 ceases ; that the law of the land cannot be violated, and 
 still continue to be effective. 
 
 One anecdote, the truth of which has never been con- 
 tested, will sufhce to show what was the state of Paris 
 after the king had left. Among the ministers who re-
 
 120 MURDER OF FOULON. 
 
 placed Necker and his colleagues was a M. de Foulon, 
 who is described as being hated by the people for the 
 heartless levity with which he had spoken of their suf- 
 ferings, at a time in which they were complaining that 
 they had no bread. " Let the canaille eat grass and this 
 ties ; it is good enough for them," M. de Foulon is re- 
 ported to have said, and the people, eager to grasp at 
 any, however absurd, accusation against the classes that 
 they had been taught to hate, marked out M. de Foulon 
 as the object of universal execration. Foulon being fully 
 aware of the hatred which he had excited, and bemg old 
 and weak, fled from Versailles on the 15th July, took 
 refuge in one of his own country-houses, and gave out 
 that he had died of an apoplectic fit. The death and 
 funeral of one of his servants happened very opportunely 
 to give a semblance of truth to this fiction, but soon after 
 the ingenious secret was betrayed, and the old man was 
 dragged from his house by the exasperated villagers, 
 who, binding his hands, and placing a garland of nettles 
 round his neck, and a bouquet of thistles in his breast, 
 drove him before them to Paris, kicking and cursing him 
 all the way. Arrived at Paris, he was brought before 
 the mayor and the committee of electors, sitting at the 
 Hotel de Ville, who tried in vain to rescue him from the 
 mob, by persuading the people that the more guilty he 
 was, the more necessary it was that he should be tried 
 by the laws. 
 
 Law was a powerless word in the mouth of those who 
 had themselves signed the death-warrant of the laws 
 of the realm, and the impatient mob insisted upon carry- 
 ing Foulon to the Place de Gr^ve, there to execute jus- 
 tice upon him at their favorite lamp-post. Resistance 
 was vain, every man in that fierce multitude was gasp- 
 ing for blood, and the report that Necker was returning
 
 MURDER OF BERTHIER. 121 
 
 to Versailles, and had recommended a general anmesty, 
 made them more fearful of seeing their hopes of ven- 
 geance frustrated. And to the Place de Gr^ve they 
 dragged the white-headed old rnan, tied a rope round his 
 neck, and hauled him over the lanterne. Three times 
 the rope broke — three times the miserable sufferer was 
 precipitated to the ground, crying for mercy, and re- 
 ceiving kicks and insults in reply. When at last life 
 had departed, the head was cut off and stuck upon a 
 pike, and while some paraded this through the streets, 
 others dragged the headless trunk after them. Or/ their 
 way they met a mounted escort, and a crowd of people 
 on foot, conducting Foulon's son-in-law, Berthier, who 
 had been taken prisoner at Compiegne, to the Hotel de 
 Ville, there to submit to a kind of legal interrogatory, 
 which was, however, again interrupted by the cries of 
 the multitude : " Finish with him, the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine* is coming ! The Palais Royal is coming ! 
 They will have his head !" and the next minute the 
 guard which Lafayette had placed at the door was swept 
 away, and the hall was inundated by the people, who 
 were again victorious, in spite of the resistance of the 
 authorities, and of the brave slruDrales of Berthier him- 
 self. Attempts were made to hang him on the same 
 lamp-post which had just witnessed the death of his 
 father-in-law, but he struggled so fiercely that he was 
 pierced by several bayonets before the mob could ac- 
 complish their project. It is said that even before life 
 was extinct, one of these vile wretches tore the heart 
 from his panting bosom, and the mob, then rushing back to 
 the Hotel de Ville, presented it to Bailly and Lafayette. 
 May we not suppose that at this, and other similar 
 
 * The Faubourg gt. Antoine is inliabited by the worst rabble of Paris. 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 122 EMIGRATION. 
 
 fearful sights, which now daily met their eyes, the con- 
 science of these men must have smote them, and that 
 they must have asked themselves, who it was that had 
 let loose these bloodhounds, who it was that had con- 
 verted the brilliant capital of a civilized country into a 
 den of murderers and robbers 1 The adherents of the 
 ancient state of things, who, on their side, had, by obsti- 
 nate and interested resistance to wholesome and timely 
 reform, contributed so greatly to bring about the misfor- 
 tunes under which they were now suffering, began to 
 fly from the dangers which they did not know how to 
 meet, and the king and queen, nobly sacrificing their 
 own happiness for the welfare of those the}'^ loved, per- 
 suaded many of their most faithful servants to leave 
 France. Several princes of the blood, among whom the 
 king's unpopular brother, the Comte d'Artois, also left 
 the country, and from that period the tide of emigration 
 may be considered as fairly set in, and every day saw 
 the peaceful, the lovers of order, abandoning their coun- 
 try and their king to the lawless hordes who were now 
 predominant, and seeking in foreign lands those com- 
 forts which they could not enjoy at home.
 
 RECALL OF NECKER. 133 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Recall of Necker — Inability of tlie Assembly to govern — Disturbances 
 throughout France — Frightful Atrocities committed by t!ie Peasantry — 
 Proceedings of the National Assembly — Despoiling of the Privileged 
 Classes — Desecration of the Churches — Dissent of the King useless — 
 Declaration of Rights — The Assembly intimidated by the Mob — State of 
 Paris — Dismal Prospects for France — Military Banquet — Dreadful Tu- 
 mult — The ISIob proceeds to Versailles — Deputation to the King — The 
 Palace forced by the Mob — Danger of the Queen — The Royal Family 
 taken to Paris. 
 
 On the 28fii of July, Necker, who had been recalled 
 in accordance with the desire of the assembly and of the 
 people, arrived at Versailles, after having traversed 
 France accompanied by a shonting multitude, who hailed 
 him as the guardian angel of the country, and to whom 
 he recommended peace and order. He was received by 
 the king with embarrassment, but by the National As- 
 sembly, who considered his recall as their triumph, he 
 was greeted enthusiastically. 
 
 At Paris, where lie may be said to have enjoyed a 
 regular ovation, he demanded from the electors and the 
 representatives a general amnesty ;* which was imme- 
 diately granted. But a few days afterwards the amnesty 
 was revoked, on the plea of its being illegal for an ad- 
 ministrative body to condemn or to pardon ; for, when it 
 served their purposes, these men could even renounce 
 the power of the moment. 
 
 Besides recalling Necker, the king had chosen his 
 own counsellors from among the majority of the assem- 
 bly, and seemed sincerely inclined to follow in the revo- 
 lutionary movement. But calm and prosperity did not 
 
 * It is not one of the least strange anomalies of the times, to see the 
 minister of the king of France appealing to a revolutionary body for a 
 measure which, even in its levolulionary capacity, it was incompetent to 
 erunt.
 
 124 EXCESSES OP THE POPULACE. 
 
 therefore return to the land. Obedience and subordina- 
 tion had become obsolete terms among the French, and 
 the people, having once seized the sceptre of power, 
 were determined not to let it again be wrested from them. 
 Paris remained in a state of the utmost agitation. The 
 electors had transmitted their functions to a committee 
 of one hundred and twenty administrators elected by the 
 several districts. But this new municipal government, 
 having no laws by which to be guided, being surrounded 
 by obstacles of every kind, and having to attend to every 
 thing : to the administration of justice, (as far as that 
 was allowed them by their masters, the mob,) to the 
 provisioning of the town, to police regulations, and army 
 discipline, succumbed under the immensity of the bur- 
 den ; while the national guard, commanded by Lafay- 
 ette, was equally insufficient to maintain order. The 
 provinces had followed the example of Paris, and seve- 
 ral towns had demolished the fortresses that commanded 
 them, as Paris had demolished the Bastille. Suddenly 
 the report was spread that bands of brigands were trav- 
 ersing the country, cutting down the harvests, and de- 
 stroying the granaries. The whole pojuilation flew to 
 arms, and these arms, once in their hands, were immedi- 
 ately turned against their fellow-citizens. 
 
 The peasantry commenced a new Jacquerie against 
 their landlords ; they laid waste their property, and burnt 
 down their houses, taking good care that the archives, 
 containing title-deeds, &c., should not escape the flames, 
 which circumstance seems to prove that the peasantry 
 had among them advisers better versed in the know- 
 ledge of law than they themselves. They refused to 
 pay their taxes, and in many cases committed the most 
 outrageous cruelties against their masters — cruelties 
 which we would willingly pass over in silence, were it
 
 ATROCITIES. 125 
 
 not necessarj'' to show what are the acts of a people who 
 have set law at defiance, and what is the retribution 
 that a false system brings upon itself. 
 
 One gentleman, the owner of a chfiteau, was sus- 
 pended in a well for an hour and a half, while his perse- 
 cutors were deliberating upon what should be his mode 
 of death. Another, the Chevalier d'Ambli, was dragged 
 naked through the village, and buried in a dung-heap, 
 after his eyebrows and hair had been plucked out by the 
 roots, the mob dancing round him all the while. In 
 Normandy, a gentleman afflicted with the palsy was 
 thrown into the fire, and only escaped with the loss of 
 his hands. A gentleman's steward was tortured and 
 burnt until his feet were consumed, to make him srive 
 up his master's title-deeds. But it was not men alone on 
 whom these savages exercised their fury. In Franche- 
 Compte, Madame de Batilly was almost torn to pieces, 
 and was forced to resign all claims to her property, 
 while an axe was held suspended over her head. The 
 Countess of Montessu was dragged with her husband from 
 their carriage into the middle of the road, a pistol was 
 held at her breast for three hours, and she was finally 
 thrown into a pond. 
 
 Matrons with their daughters were seen flying from 
 their burning houses in the middle of the night, with 
 nothing but their night-clothes on, too happy if the losa 
 of their property was the only thing they had to bewail. 
 
 Churches, churchmen, and church property were as 
 little spared as nobles and their chateaux, and the peo- 
 ple, not content with hating the clergy, openly proclaimed 
 their hatred of religion, not alone in their deeds, but in 
 words. 
 
 While the people were thus practically showing the 
 sense in which they understood liberty and the rights of 
 
 11*
 
 126 RELINQUISHMENT OF PRIVILEGES. 
 
 men, the members of the National Assembly, not re- 
 awakened from their delusive dreams by even these 
 fearful realities, were busied in drawing up a written 
 declaration of the rights of man, which was, to serve as 
 the basis of the much-talked-of constitution. Some- 
 times, indeed, the voice of reason was raised to suggest 
 that, under existing circumstances, every thing that' 
 could add new fuel to the fire that was raging without, 
 ought to be avoided ; but this voice was soon put down 
 by the clamors from the galleries, where the executive 
 of France, the rabble,* sat in lordly power, controlling 
 the acts of its servants. There is in the spectacle of 
 the assembly at this time, something that most forcibly 
 recalls the old German legends, in which w^e see con- 
 jurers ruled and tyrannized over by the evil spirits they 
 have themselves invoked. 
 
 On the 4th August, 1789, a vote was carried that 
 there should be a declaration of the rights of man, but 
 on that same day arrived such overwhelming tidings of 
 the murders and ravages of all kinds which were bein^ 
 perpetrated throughout the country, that, seized with a 
 sudden panic, the members of the privileged classes, 
 who had hitherto sought to maintain their rights, now 
 vied with each other in sacrificing them on the altar of 
 their country, as it was termed. The Viscomte de 
 Noailles gave the signal, by proposing the redemption 
 of feudal rights, and the suppression of personal servi- 
 tude. The Duke du Chatelet proposed redeeming all 
 the tithes by changing them into a pecuniary tax. The 
 
 * Though I use the word rabble, it is not to be supposed that these as- 
 semblages of men consisted merely of those wo are wont to denominate by 
 that name in England. But I use this word because, whatever was their 
 position hi society, the deeds of those men were such as to leave no other 
 designation for them. One cannot apply the name of people or nation to 
 an assembly of madmen and murderers, be their numbers ever so great.
 
 PROTEST OF THi; ABRE SIEVES. 127 
 
 Bishop of Chartres proposed the suppression of the ex- 
 clusive right of the chase, the Count of Virien. that of 
 pigeon-house and dove-cotes ; others the abolition of 
 seignorial jurisdictions, the venality of the offices of 
 magistrates, pecuniary immunities, and inequality of im- 
 posts ; also the abolition of the perquisites of the cures ; 
 of the annats of the court of Rome, of the plurality of 
 benefices ; of pensions obtained without titles, &c. The 
 deputies of the pmjs des elais, seized next by this phrensy 
 for self-sacrifice, then stood up to renounce the privi- 
 leges of their provinces, and were followed by the towns 
 and corporate bodies, all offering up their privileges. 
 At last, the assembly, in a transport of enthusiasm, pro- 
 claimed Louis XVI. the restorer of French liberty, and 
 a medal was struck in commemoration of this day, which 
 a witty royalist has denominated the St. Bartiiolomew 
 of property ; and there were not a few, who, participating 
 in this opinion, on the 5th of August, regretted the en- 
 thusiasm of the 4th, and remonstrated as to the propriet} 
 of the resolutions passed on that day. The Abbe Sieyes 
 himself, who, as vicar-general of the bishopric of Char- 
 tres, and canon and chancellor of the cathedral of Char- 
 tres, had to bear a great many of the sacrifices which 
 the clergy had made, was, by this home-thrust to his 
 pocket, at once brought back to common sense, and he de- 
 clared that the proposition to abolish tithes altogether, by 
 which the declaration that the tithes should be redeem- 
 able was followed up on the morrow, was an attempt at 
 wholesale robbery. It was on this occasion that he 
 pronounced the words which have been chosen as a 
 motto to this work. He was answered by Mirabeau in 
 these wo;ds: "My dear Abbe, you have let loose the 
 bull, and now you are complaining of his giving you a 
 touch of his horns ;" and so indeed it was ; the clergy
 
 128 OPPOSITION OF THE KING. 
 
 and the nobles, those who had acted from the enthust- 
 asm of the moment, as well as those who had given way 
 to a power they had not strength to resist, now felt the 
 dire consequences of having joined a chamber composed 
 of twice their numbers, and mostly consisting of men 
 who had neither interests nor property at stake. All 
 equilibrium in the state was gone, and the vessel was 
 fast foundering. But that there was still dignity of 
 sentiment left in the conquered minority, we may see 
 from the words with which the Arclibishop of Paris, 
 seeing that resistance was useless, surrendered on the 
 6th of August, in the name of the whole clergy, all the 
 tithes into the hands of the nation. "Let the Gospel," 
 said he, " be preached ; let divine service be performed 
 with decency and dignity ; let the church be provided 
 with virtuous and zealous pastors ; let the poor be suc- 
 cored. This is the true destination of ouj riches ; these 
 are the objects of our ministry and of our wishes; for 
 ourselves personally we rely, without bargain and with- 
 out reserve, on a just and generous nation." But, alas! 
 the nation to which these words were addressed, was 
 as anxious to cast oif its allegiance to its God, as to its 
 authorities, (indeed how could it be otherwise, for who- 
 soever fears the Lord fears the law ;) and the churches 
 so nobly resigned to its care, were, in a few short 
 months, shut up, or converted into barracks, storehouses, 
 or club-rooms, and the most conscientious of the clergy 
 persecuted unto death, or wandering as exiles in foreign 
 lands. 
 
 When Louis XVI. heard of the proceedings of the 
 4th August, he said that force alone should make him 
 sanction the destitution of his nobility and of hi.< clergy; 
 " For when I cede," added he, " there will be in France 
 neither monarch nor monarchy." These woi Is were
 
 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 129 
 
 too true, and, when the king repulsed the decrees pre- 
 sented for his sanction, the assembly nevertheless adopt 
 ed them as constitutive, and declared the royal sanctio? 
 needless. Nothing was left to the king but to promul 
 gate them. 
 
 The assembly was now clearly "divided into three par- 
 ties, which were generally designated by the place they 
 occupied in the chamber. The right was the party of 
 the court, the nobles, and the clergy, and their orators 
 were Cazalis,.a young captain of dragoons, and the Abbe 
 Maury. The left was the popular party, whose most 
 prominent members, besides IMirabeau and the Abbe 
 Sieyes, were Barnave, Lameth, and Duport, a young 
 counsellor who had distinguished himself in the parlia- 
 ment. The centre was occupied by a small number of 
 the popular party, who, having gone as far as they 
 thought right, were now anxious to stop, and whose 
 opinions, in accordance with Necker's, called for the 
 English constitution. The most remarkable men among 
 these were Lally Tollendal, Mounier, and Mallouet. 
 
 After having struck down with one blow the long- 
 standing feudal structure, the representatives of the peo- 
 ple went on, seriously occupying themselves with the 
 projected declaration of the rights of man, which did not 
 fail, in the progress of discussion, to present itself to 
 many of the members of the assembly in all its absur- 
 dity.* 
 
 * " I remember that long discussion which lasted for weeks, ' says an 
 eyewitness, ".as a season of mortal ennui: there were empty disputations 
 about terms, — tliere was an accumulation of metapliysical rubbish, and an 
 overpowering loquacity, — the as.-embly seemed converted into a disputatious 
 Bchool of Sorbonne, and all the apprentices in legislation made their essays 
 in these puerilities. After many models had been rejected, a committee of 
 five was appointed to draw up a new one. Mirabeau, one of the five, had 
 the generosity which was ordinary to him to take the whole task upon him- 
 self, and then give it to his private friends to perform it for him. There then 
 we were — Duroverai, Claviere, Mirabeau, and myself— composing, dia-
 
 130 DEBATES OF THE ASSEMBLY. 
 
 But the word had been pronounced, and the rabble in 
 the gallery did not mean to give up the hopes which the 
 words, " All men are born free and equal," with which 
 this declaration was to be headed, held out to them ; and 
 alter having confused, and bewildered, and tired each 
 other for many consecutive days with vague theories 
 and disputations, a declaration, replete with contradic- 
 tions and inconsequences, was at last published, and pro- 
 claimed in the first days of September, and the assem- 
 bly then proceeded to debate on the form to be given to 
 the future constitution. According to the instructions 
 from the constituents to their representatives, which 
 were all unanimous in demanding a representative mon- 
 archy, it would have been supposed that tlie constitution 
 of England would have presented itself to all minds ; 
 but since then things had taken a different turn, and in 
 deeds, if not in words, the nation had already passed 
 from absolute monarchy to a democratic republic. How 
 was it to be supposed that a house of lords could be es- 
 tablished, after the furious scenes we have seen enacted 
 against the nobility, and after the nobility had itself re- 
 nounced all its rights ; and how is it to be supposed that 
 
 puling, writing a word and scratching out four words, exhausting ourselves 
 over this ridiculous tusk, and producing at last a piece of p;itehwork, a mis- 
 erable mosaic of tlie pretended natural rights of men, whicii had never ex- 
 isted. During the course of this triste compilation, I made refiectiona 
 which I ha<l never made until then. 1 felt the falseness nnd the absurdity of 
 Uie work, wliich was notliing but a puerile fiction. The declaration of 
 rights, paid I, may be made after the constitution, but not before it; for 
 rights exist by laws, and cannot precede them. Such m;ixims, besides, are 
 dangerous. We ought not to bind legislators by general propositions, which 
 we may afterwards be obliged to modify and limit. Above all things, we 
 oughtnot to bind ihem by false maxims. It is not true that " J311 men are 
 born free and equal." They are not born free. On the contrary, they are 
 born in a state of helplessness and neces^ary dependence. And where are 
 they born equal ? Where can Ihey be so born? Do we mean equality of 
 fortune, of talent, of virtue, of industry, of condition 7 The falsehood ]a 
 manifest. Volumes would be required to give an appearance of sense to 
 this equality which you proclaim without any exception." — Dumont.
 
 DEBATES OF THE ASSEMBLY. 131 
 
 an insane people, rioting in the unlimited possession of 
 power, would deliver up again willingly to the monarch, 
 who had become a mere puppet in their hands, the scep- 
 tre which they had snatched from him 1 No ; anarchy 
 was let loose, and was not to be bound again, before the 
 sins of those who had invoked it had brought their retri- 
 bution of sufferings upon their heads, and therefore were 
 the principles that were laid as the foundation of the 
 new constitution those of the Abbe Sieves : " The peo- 
 ple commands, the king executes." So fully were these 
 principles adopted, that it was even matter of long dis- 
 cussion v,'hether the kmg should have an absolute or only 
 a suspensive ue/o; during which discussion the people 
 in the gallery, though perfectly ignorant of the meaning 
 of the word, continually cried out a has le vehu merely 
 because it was something that was to be granted to the 
 king. During all this time, however, the assembly 
 went on professing its respect and affection for his Ma- 
 jesty, and its attachment to a constitutional monarchy, 
 and it would be unjust to think that none of these men 
 were sincere ; but in state affairs ignorance is crime, and, 
 therefoi-e, whatever may have been their intentions, in 
 point of fact, every one of them was guilty of the down- 
 fall of the French monarchy. It was at length deter- 
 mined that the legislative power should be vested in a 
 single assembly, that this assembly should be permanent, 
 and that it should alone possess the power of proposing 
 laws. The absolute veto was still warmly maintained, 
 but the people, exasperated at the thought that their re- 
 presentatives should deliberate upon a measure which 
 they in their ignorance had put down as connected with 
 every kind of despotism under which they had as yet 
 suffered, began to make most violent demonstrations. 
 At the Palais Royal motions were made against the as-
 
 133 ANARCHY. 
 
 sembly ; the deputies, who still adhered to the king, 
 were threatened with being recalled, with being put upon 
 their trial, with having " their chateaux lighted up." A 
 general convocation of the districts was called for, and 
 it was proposed, and even attempted, to march against 
 Versailles. Lafayette tried in vain to arrest the multi- 
 tude, bloody frays took place between the mob and the 
 national guards, and murmurs were raised against the 
 despotism of the bourgeois. The assembly gave way 
 before these demonstrations, and a majority of six hun- 
 dred and seventy-three voices, against three hundred 
 and fifteen, voted for the king having the power to pro- 
 nounce a suspending veto only, during two sessions of 
 the legislature, (21st September, 1789.) But this vote 
 did not restore order and tranquillity to the capital, where 
 the scarcity of provisions was daily more and more poi- 
 gnantly felt, and where every vestige of authority or sub- 
 ordination was destroyed. 
 
 The municipality had to send to distant parts of the 
 country for corn, Avhich was sold at great loss, and which 
 was obliged to be brought into town under military es- 
 cort, to escape the pillage of the famished country peo- 
 ple ; and while the people were in this state of suffer- 
 ing, every" day brought new mortal inquietudes to those 
 who still bore the name of authorities. Mayor Bailly 
 was sinking under his cares, and Lafayette was in daily 
 expectation of riots, which he should not be able to put 
 down ; and to crown the whole, the sixty districts into 
 which the capital was divided took the character of sixty 
 independent republics, each giving orders in opposition 
 to those of the community, had its own police, its own 
 armed force, which entered into open struggles with 
 those of the community, and much was not wanting to 
 make them break out into open warfare.
 
 MILITARY BANQUET. 133 
 
 Dull and dreary were, indeed, the prospects of France 
 — anarchy and distrust reigned through the land. The 
 aristocracy was suspected of entertaining projects of 
 vengeance ; the princes who had left the country were 
 supposed to be seeking the succors of foreigners ; the 
 king, who had merely adopted certain articles of the 
 declaration of rights, saying, that he could not sanction 
 the others until the constitution was ready, was also 
 looked upon with distrust. Reports of a new conspiracy 
 of the court against the people were generally credited 
 among the latter, and it was said that the king was going 
 to fly to Metz, and to march an army against Paris, and 
 that the queen was in correspondence with the Comte 
 d'Artois, and with her brother the emperor of Germany. 
 A new regiment added to the garrison of Versailles, and 
 two thousand body-guards quartered in the palace, 
 occasioned the greatest alarm, and the Palais Royal de- 
 creed that the king ought to be separated from those who 
 surrounded him, and ought to be brought to Paris, where 
 his presence would ensure a sufficient supply of provisions, 
 and would accelerate the completion of the constitution. 
 
 A banquet given on the 3d of October by the gardes 
 du corps (body-guards) to the officers of the garrison of 
 Versailles, gave the signal for scenes more atrocious 
 than any of those which had as yet taken place. It 
 was said that the king and queen had appeared at the 
 banquet amid the enthusiastic cheers of the officers and 
 guards, and that, towards the end of the repast, the 
 guests, excited by the wine which had circulated freely, 
 had trampled the national cockade under their feet, in- 
 sulted the National Assembly, and threatened an assault 
 upon Paris. The suspicions against the court were 
 confirmed by these reports, and it was said that a plan 
 was laid for reducing Paris by famine. 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 134 
 
 The people assembled in great masses on all sides, 
 and on the morning of the 5th of October, a woman, who 
 had taken possession of a drum, traversed the streets, 
 crying out : " Bread ! bread !" gathering around her 
 thousands of her own sex, (among whom, however, it is 
 supposed there were many men in women's clothes,) 
 with whom she proceeded to the Hotel de Ville, where 
 they made a desperate attack ; the national guards 
 posted at the entrance giving way before them, they 
 rushed into the interior of the building, followed by men 
 armed with pickaxes, who pillaged the armory. When 
 this was done, Maillard, one of the heroes of the attack 
 upon the Bastille, cried out, " Let us on to Versailles !" 
 and " To Versailles ! to Versailles !" was echoed on all 
 sides ; and the hideous assembly set itself in motion, 
 carrying with it wagons, arms, and cannons, and re- 
 cruiting their numbers with all the women they met on 
 their way. 
 
 In the mean time the representatives of the commune 
 had arrived, and the tocsin had called together the na- 
 tional guards, but the love of anarchy had taken such 
 strong possession of all minds that there was no peace- 
 able set of citizens to appeal to. When, therefore, La- 
 fayette exhorted the people to order, a grenadier of the 
 national guards stepping forward, replied, in the name 
 of his comrades : " The people are unhappy — the source 
 of their misfortunes is at Versailles — the king must be 
 brought to Paris — and those who have outraged the na- 
 tional cockade must be exterminated." In vain did 
 their commander represent to them the sufferings that 
 such conduct would occasion ; new shouts of " To Ver- 
 sailles !" was all the reply he obtained, and the mob 
 moved on. Troops of savage men from the faubourgs 
 had already joined the female furies, and accompanied
 
 THE MOB AT THE PALACE-GATE. 135 
 
 them on their way, uttering the most fearful impreca- 
 tions and threats against the court and tiie king, but 
 more especially against the queen, whose unpopularity 
 had gone on increasing ever since the commencement 
 of the disorders. After eight hours' useless resistance, 
 Lafayette at last prevailed upon the municipality to 
 order him to Versailles with his guards, and he set out 
 accompanied by two of its members. 
 
 The greatest consternation prevailed at court at the 
 news of the extraordinary army which was approaching, 
 and which was descried through a thick fog in the Paris 
 avenue between five and six in the afternoon. 
 
 The drums immediately beat the gcnerale, the iron 
 gates of the palace yard were locked, and the body 
 guard ordered out to defend them. In the morning the 
 assembly had sent a deputation to the palace, to demand 
 the " pure and simple" acceptation of the declaration of 
 rights, which being refused, had given rise to loud mur- 
 murs of discontent, which ended in a general denun- 
 ciation of the court, and particularly of the banquet giv- 
 en by the guards. In the midst of this tumult news 
 was brought to the assembly of the approach of the 
 mob, and towards four o'clock, when they were in the 
 act of breaking up, hordes of women rushed mto the 
 room with loud cries. Maillard, who was at their head, 
 harangued the assembly, exposed the misery of the peo- 
 ple, and vaguely accused persons of high standing of 
 having brought about the scarcity by foul means. After 
 having in vain attempted to appease this vociferous mul- 
 titude, the assembly (hoping to force the king at this 
 critical juncture to subscribe to their wishes) at last de- 
 termined to depute the president Mounier to the king to 
 submit to him the declaration of rights, but they were 
 obliged to allow twelve women chosen by the mob to
 
 136 ARRIVAL OF LAFAYETTE. 
 
 accompany him. The king received them with his 
 visual kindness, gave orders that provisions (the want of 
 which was the excuse for every riot) should be taken to 
 Paris, and promised to accept unconditionally the de- 
 claration of rights. But during this time the mob with- 
 out, growing impatient, attacked the body-guards, who, 
 however, persevered in strictly maintaining the defen- 
 sive, until, upon the king's order, they withdrew to their 
 quarters, pursued and shot at by the Versailles militia, 
 though they did not return a single shot. The court 
 was in the greatest agitation, and a council was held to 
 decide whether the king should fly or remain. The car- 
 riages were even ordered to the door, but the traces 
 having been cut by the national guards of Versailles, the 
 king, who was very unwilling to take any extreme meas- 
 ures, signed his acceptance of the declaration of rights, 
 and decided upon remaining, in order not to give way, it 
 is said, before the Duke of Orleans, who was strongly 
 suspected of being at the bottom of all the riots and dis- 
 orders. But the fact of the assembly's having chosen 
 the moment of confusion for pressing upon the king the 
 declaration of rights, certainly leaves very great room 
 for suspicions as to the part it may have had in this tu- 
 multuous rising. 
 
 After the king had refused to leave Versailles, it was 
 proposed that the queen at least should remove with her 
 children to Rambouillet, a palace eight miles from 
 thence ; but she steadily refused to leave the king while 
 he was in danger, and said, that if the mob wished for 
 her death, she knew how to confront it. 
 
 In the mean time night had broken in, and the clamors 
 of the savage multitude against the queen and the aris- 
 tocrats spread terror and dismay through the court. At 
 midnight the arrival of Lafayette and the Parisian army
 
 IRRUPTION INTO THE PALACE. 137 
 
 was announced. The commander immediately present- 
 ed himself before the king, together with the two depu- 
 ties from the municipality, to assure his majesty of the 
 fidelity of the national guards at Paris, and to express to 
 him the wishes of the inhabitants of that town, which 
 were to the effect, that he should allow himself to be 
 guarded by the militia alone, — that he should find means 
 of assuring the subsistence of the people, — that he should 
 remove to the capital, and hasten the conclusion of the 
 constitution. The king answered evasively to the last- 
 mentioned proposals, but acceded to Lafayette's entreat- 
 ies to be allowed to replace the troops of the line, who 
 defended the palace, by his guards, part of which was 
 composed of the former French guards. About two 
 o'clock every thing seemed comparatively quiet, when 
 Lafayette persuaded the royal family, as well as the 
 members of the assembly, to take a little rest ; but the 
 sounds which reached them from the public houses, in 
 which the mob had sought shelter from the pelting rain, 
 or from the fires round which bivouacked those who 
 could find no other refuge, gave them sufficiently to un- 
 derstand that this quiet could not be of long duration. 
 
 At five o'clock Lafayette threw himself on his bed to 
 seek rest, and at six o'clock a violent attack was made 
 upon the body-guards. Many of them were killed ; 
 those who endeavored to escape were pursued like wild 
 beasts, and fifteen having been seized were taken before 
 the palace and there murdered. The main body of the 
 rioters then rushed upon the palace, and penetrated into 
 the interior, shouting and indulging in the grossest in- 
 vectives against the king and the queen, wlio, v. arned 
 only just in time by one of the faithful guards, who lost 
 his life in the prosecution of his duty, had just escaped 
 from her bed-chamber, when a party of the assassins 
 
 12*
 
 138 THE QUEEN. 
 
 rushing in, advanced towards the bed with uplifted spike 
 ready to strike the fatal blow. 
 
 In the mean time the body-guards having rallied after 
 the first surprise, and being assisted by the paid compa- 
 nies of the national guard, succeeded in repelling the as- 
 sailants from the palace ; and upon Lafayette's arrival 
 some kind of order was restored. 
 
 But the crowd before the palace continued to vocife- 
 rate, "The king must go to Paris," and Lafayette 
 having depicted in the most frightful colors the dangers 
 of a refusal, Louis XVL again putting on the so-called 
 national cockade, the badge of rioters and murderers, 
 presented himself at the balcony once more to degrade 
 himself before the mob, and to declare himself their 
 humble slave. He was received with shouts of " Vive 
 le roi,^'' but the queen's name was again mentioned, ac- 
 companied by threats and invectives. According to the 
 accounts of the royalists, this princess (who from the 
 commencement showed a courage and a greatness of 
 soul of which we cannot but regret the want in her hus- 
 band) appeared upon the balcony holding the dauphin 
 by the one hand and the princess royal by the other. 
 But voices crying out " No children !" the prince and 
 princess were sent in, and the queen stood in all the ma- 
 jesty of her beauty, calnaly casting her eyes upon the as- 
 sembled multitude, whi^h, struck with admiration, burst 
 into exclamations of applause. 
 
 According to other accounts, the queen appeared on 
 the balcony accompanied by Lafayette, who, being una- 
 ble to make himself heard, respectfully kissed her ma- 
 jesty's hand, to make known the reconciliation which 
 had taken place. 
 
 The storm now gradually subsided. Early in tho 
 morning the king had proposed to the assembly to trans-
 
 PROCESSION TO PARIS. 139 
 
 fer its sittings to the palace, in order to ensure, by its 
 presence, the safety of the royal family. But this propo- 
 sition had been rejected, and a deputation only of thirty- 
 six members sent to the palace. When, however, the 
 king had determined to go to Paris, in accordance with 
 the wishes of the people, the National Assembly decreed 
 that the person of the king was inseparable from the re- 
 presentatives of the people, and that a deputation of one 
 hundred members should accompany him. 
 
 The first bands of the mob had already moved towards 
 Paris to announce their victory, carrying with them the 
 heads of two body-guards who had shown the greatest 
 valor in defending their royal master. They arrived at 
 twelve o'clock, but were dispersed by a detachment of 
 guards sent after them by Lafayette. Two hours later 
 arrived the commencement of a cortege, the end of which 
 only entered Paris at ten o'clock at night, and which for 
 strangeness and wildness has probably never been equal- 
 led. First came the regiment of Flanders, the Swiss, 
 and the artillery. Then wagons loaded with ragged 
 women and drunken men, streaming with tri-colored 
 ribands, and singing obscene songs. These were fol- 
 lowed by sixty wagon-loads of corn, after which came 
 the national guard, interspersed with women armed in 
 the most grotesque way with the weapons and helmets 
 of the murdered guards, men of a wild and savage ap- 
 pearance, and disarmed body-guards. After them came 
 the National Assembly on horseback or in carriages, 
 then the carriages of the royal family, to whom this 
 journey had been one continued scene of insult and of 
 horror, surrounded by detachments of the depraved 
 hordes that had visited Versailles. The whole was 
 closed by wagons containing flour and luggage. 
 
 To all that was hideous to the eye and lacerating to
 
 140 THE KING AT THE TUILERIES. 
 
 the heart in this scene, was added all that is offensive 
 to the ear. Among obscene songs, frightful threats, 
 and still more frightful exclamations of joy, were heard 
 shouts of, " We shall no longer starve, we are bringing 
 the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Emigration of many of the Deputies — The National Assembly holds its Sit- 
 tings at the Tuileric'S — Martial Law Proclaimed — Formation of the New 
 Constitution — Financial Embarrassments — Extraordinary Proposition of 
 Necker — Supported by Mirabeau — Appropriation of the Property of the 
 Church — Assignats — State of Parties— The Clubs. 
 
 After the king had taken up his abode at the Tuiler- 
 ies some kind of outward tranquillity was for a time re- 
 established, for even the furious mob could not refrain 
 from acknowledging his sincere desire to do all the good 
 he could ; but the immense number of emigrations* which 
 
 * No less than three hundred deputies demanded foreign passports after 
 the scene of the 5th and 6th October, and among them were two of the 
 most moderate and most sincere members of the assembly, Mounier and 
 Lally Tollendal, the latter of whom has left upon record, in the subjoined 
 letter, the feelings of horror with which he viewed the ruthless deeds of 
 those who dared to deck themselves with the name of patriots, and at the 
 same time it gives a vivid description of the scenes we have just sketched. 
 . . . . " But let us speak of the resolution which I have taken ; I can per- 
 fectly justify it to my conscience. Neither that guilty city, nor that still 
 more guilty assembly, deserve that T should justify myself to them : but I 
 am desirous that you and those who think like you, should not condemn 
 me. 1 swear to you that the state of my health rendered it impossible for 
 me to attend to my business, but even without considering my functions, it 
 was beyond my power any longer to support the horror which I felt at the 
 eight of that blood — those heads — that queen almost murdered — that king 
 carried along like a slave, surrounded by assassins, and preceded by the 
 heads of his unfortunate guards. Those perfidious janizaries — those assas- 
 sins — those cannibal women — that cry of Jill the bishops to the lamp-post, at 
 the very moment when the king was entering Paris, with the bishops be- 
 longing to his council in his carriage — a musket which I saw discharged at 
 the queen's carriage ; M. Bailly calling that a happy day. The a.ssembly 
 baving declared in the morning that it was below its dignity to go in a body
 
 THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AT PARIS. 141 
 
 Wok place at this period, shows that minds were nowise 
 at rest, and that greater disorders were expected to fol- 
 low. And indeed how could it be otherwise, while the 
 assembly continued its work of destruction, while the 
 chief of the state was but a prisoner and a puppet in the 
 hands of his subjects, and while there was not in the 
 state one power to resist the brute force which the mob 
 had learned so well how to use, and which was ever at the 
 command of such men as Camille Desmoulins, Marat, 
 jL.:id others, who knew the secret of exciting ignoble 
 passions, and were not ashamed of availing themselves 
 of it. 
 
 Thirteen days after the king's arrival in Paris, he was 
 followed by the whole of the National Assembly, which 
 installed itself first in the Archbishop's palace, and after- 
 wards in the Salle de Manege, in the Tuileries, and 
 
 to remain with the king, M. Mirabeau saying, with impunity, in the assem- 
 bly, that the vessel of state, far from being retarded in its course, would 
 proceed more rapidly than ever towards its regeneration. M. Barnave 
 laughing with him, while floods of hluud flowed around us. The virtuous 
 Mounier, escaping by a miracle from twenty assassins who wished to add 
 his head to their other trophies. These are the things that made me swear 
 never again to put my foot into that den uf cannibals, (the National Assem- 
 bly,) where I had no more strength to raise my voice, and where for six 
 weeks I had raised it in vain. The only thing which was left for Mounier^ 
 myself, and other honest men to do, was to leave it. No feehng of fear has 
 actuated me. 1 would blush to deny it if it were so. I have even received, 
 on my route, applause and acclamations from that people which is even 
 less guilty than those who have roused its evil passions : but that applause, 
 those acclamations, which might have flattered others, made me shudder. 
 It is before my indignation, before the horror, before the pyhsical convul- 
 sions which the sight alone of all that blood caused me, that I have given 
 way. One may brave death once, one may even brave it many times, if it 
 is needed, but no power under the heavens, no opinion, either public or pri- 
 vate, has the right to condemn me to suffer uselessly a thousand deaths in 
 every minute — to condemn me to die of despair and rage in the midst of the 
 triumphs, of the crimes, which I have been unable to prevent. They will 
 banish me, they will confiscate my property. I will dig the earth for my 
 bread, may I only not see them again. This is my justification ; you may 
 read it, show it, copy it: so much tlie worse for those who cannot under- 
 stand it; but I HJiall not he wrong for having given it to them." — E.xtracl 
 of a Letter from M. Lally 'J'oUendal, to a friend.
 
 142 MARTIAL LAW. 
 
 commenced a kind of inquiry into the proceedings of the 
 people, which, however, resulted in nothing more than 
 the temporary banishment of the Duke of Orleans, whom, 
 though nothing was proved against him, and though a 
 prince of very little talent or capacity of any kind, it has 
 served the purpose of different parties to designate as 
 the instigator of all the atrocious acts which blot the an- 
 nals of those times. The assembly then resumed its 
 constitution-making, but was soon interrupted again by 
 new riots, occasioned by the renewed scarcity of provis- 
 ions; and being now in the midst of the danger, and hav- 
 ing learned that its members were nowise considered sa- 
 cred bjf the people, it was deemed necessary to take 
 strong measures of defence, and martial law was pro- 
 claim.ed in Paris. By this law the municipalities were 
 made responsible for the public tranquillity ; in case of 
 riots they were empowered to call in the aid of the 
 troops or of the militia ; and after three warnings, were 
 ordered to employ force against seditious assemblies. 
 This law was not passed without opposition, particularly 
 from Robespierre, deputy of Arras, who having also be- 
 come ambitious of power, courted the suffrages of the 
 mob, w^hich it required no great genius to see was at 
 that moment its sole dispenser. Still this time order 
 was triumphant in the assembly, the members of which 
 in truth began to feel rather uneasy at the chaos around 
 thenp out of which they had to create a new world. 
 
 One cannot but think that at this juncture, even among 
 these men, most of whom affected to be free-thinkers, 
 there must have been a vague feeling that such power 
 belongs to the Almighty alone, and that man, if he wants 
 to build, must have something to build upon, were that 
 something even but a mud bank, or a fetid swamp ; and 
 that he who destroys the foundation, and attempts to
 
 SPOLIATION OK THE CLERGY. 143 
 
 build upon the vacuum it leaves, is but a madman or a 
 knave. But should even this gleam of truth have forced 
 itself upon them, they had no longer the power of retra- 
 cing their footsteps; the impulse was given, faith was 
 destroyed, and human arrogance had taken its place. 
 
 Thus though recourse was had to soiiicof the ancient 
 institutions of the country, such as the court of the Cha- 
 telet, to inquire into and put a stop to the disorders that 
 were daily l„\-lng place, the assembly at the same time 
 went on with its work of destruction. It had abolished 
 the feudal system, but there was another body in the 
 state, with ancient rights and ancient authority, which 
 had as yet not been wholly divested of these. " The 
 clergy possessed property. They had received it from 
 princes under the name of feudal gratifications, and from 
 the faithful under the title of legacies. If the property 
 of individuals, the fruit and reward of labor, ought to 
 be respected, that which had been bestowed on a body 
 of men on conditions altogether different, ought to yield 
 to the empire of the law. It was for the service of re- 
 ligion they had been given, or at least under this pretext, 
 but religion being a public service, the law might provide 
 means of accomplishing this object in any way deemed 
 most advantageous to the public interest."* The Abbe 
 Maury on this occasion, as Abbe Sieyes on a previous 
 one, stood up in defence of the clergy, and pointed out 
 the peril to all property, if such a measure were carried. 
 But Mirabeau, who had replied to Abbe Sieyes by a bon 
 mot, now decided the hesitating assembly by a play 
 
 * Thiers. M. Thiers follows up this passage by saying that th»; assem- 
 bly, by taking possession of the property of tlie clergy, secured to itself 
 those immense financial resources which so long supported the Revolution. 
 These were then " the services of religion which the law" thought proper 
 to substitute for tliose to wiiich it was applied by the clergy. What law ia 
 Uo 1 What religion ■? What do these men understand by law and religion 1
 
 144 FRANCE DIVIDED INTO DEPARTMENTS. 
 
 upon words. He suggested that instead of saying that 
 the property of the clergy belonged to the state, they 
 should say that it was at the disposal of the state, and the 
 discussion was immediately terminated by a great ma- 
 jority in favor of the measure. In the mean time the 
 constitution began by degrees to rise on the foundation 
 which had been laid on the 4th of August, and the reso- 
 lutions passed on that memorable night, became the 
 starting-point of a political organization, in which par- 
 ticular existences, either of individuals or of institutions^ 
 were to disappear in the national unity. " It was ne- 
 cessary first to produce this unity in the land, by doing 
 away with those provinces which still seemed to be but 
 so many different nations which the dynasty of the Ca- 
 pets had gathered together, without confounding them in 
 the monarchial unity. A decree akolished the division 
 of the kingdom into provinces, and divided France into 
 eighty-three departments, almost equal in population and 
 extent, and which were subdivided into districts, cantons, 
 and communes. This division took into account neither 
 local customs, local traditions, nor local existences ; the 
 surface of the land was taken as its only basis ; the prov- 
 inces were deprived of their privileges, their parliaments, 
 and their separate administrations ; even their historical 
 names, which recalled to the mind thoughts of independ- 
 ence, were blotted out, and new names, derived from 
 the physical construction of the soil, announced that 
 there were no more dutchies, no pays d^eiats, no Bretons, 
 no Proven^aux ; there were only France, and French- 
 men. This was the chief work of the assembly ; it com- 
 pleted the destruction of the feudal system, broke for- 
 ever the chain of olden times, commenced the era of 
 new social systems, and united all the strength of the 
 state in one powerful centralization ; in a word, it waa
 
 FRANCE DIVIDED INTO DEPARTMENTS. 145 
 
 the constitutive act of the national unity, which had 
 been prosecuted with so much perseverance, since the 
 time of Hugh Capet, and thus attained after eight cen- 
 turies of struggles."* 
 
 The whole political system was harmonized with the 
 departmental division, and for this end the administra- 
 tion of the departments was confided to a council of 
 thirty-six members, and to an executive directory of 
 five members ; the districts had similar authorities sub- 
 ordinate to those of the department, and the commune 
 was directed by a council and a municipality, which was 
 again subordinate to the authorities of the district. This- 
 was the material basis of the new system ; the moral 
 basis was the election of all these authorities by the 
 people. The acting citizens, that is, all those who paid* 
 a contribution of the value of three days' work, (one- 
 mark of silver,) chose from among the citizens who paict 
 a contribution of one hundred and fifty, or two hundred 
 days' work, electors, who in their turn nominated the 
 deputies for the National Assembly, the administrators 
 of the department, of the district, and of the commune,, 
 and the judges, the bishops, and the curates. The par- 
 liaments were abolished, and in their stead three new 
 orders of tribunals erected, whose members were elect- 
 ed, and only temporary : there was a criminal tribunal 
 for every department, a civil tribunal for every district,, 
 and a justice-of-peace for every canton. Besides these,. 
 a supreme court was established, charged with the func- 
 tions of watching over and preserving the judicial forms. 
 Trial by jury was admitted in criminal cases only. 
 
 * Lavall6e. I give this description in the words of a French writer, be- 
 cause though he is by no means one of the most immoderate of the partisana 
 of the Revolution, they convey the spirit in which these clianges were UBn 
 dertaken, and tlie way '.n wliich Frenchmen of our day account for the tec 
 bors of the Natiopal Assembly. 
 
 VOL,. I. 13
 
 146 EXTRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTIONS. 
 
 In order to give a clearer conception of the new con- 
 stitution which the assembly prepared for France, I have 
 somewhat anticipated the date ; for all these regulations 
 ■were not at once established, and by degrees, as they 
 were decreed, they awoke new resistances, and brought 
 out more decidedly the different parties in the state, so 
 that between the contests of the supporters of the old 
 order of things, and the enactors of the new, general 
 confusion prevailed, and even those earnestly inclined 
 to submit to whatever were the rules of the kingdom, 
 were embarrassed what part to take. 
 
 The passing of the decree (2d December, 1789) which 
 put the assembly in possession of the property of the 
 clergy, was perhaps greatly accelerated by the extraor- 
 dinary financial embarrassments which impeded the 
 march of the revolution. The assembly had from time 
 to time suspended its legislative discussions, to satisfy 
 the most urgent wants of the treasury, and had adopted, 
 almost without discussion, the provisional means pro- 
 posed by Necker. But a loan of thirty millions, decreed 
 on the 9th of August, had not succeeded, and a subse- 
 quent one of eighty millions, decreed on the 27th of the 
 same month, had been insuificient, as all the ordinary 
 sources of revenue were stopped by the abolition and 
 reduction of many taxes, and by the difficulty of collect- 
 ing those that remained. It was then that Necker pro- 
 posed an extraordinary contribution of a fourth of the 
 national income, payable in advance, and that Mirabeau 
 supported him by that burst of eloquence which carried 
 the measure. "In relation,'' said he, "to a ridicalous 
 motion which never had any importance, except in weak 
 imaginations, or in the perfidious designs of dishonest 
 men, you have lately heard these furious words : ' Cati- 
 line is at the gates of Rome, and ive deliberate /' and
 
 ASSIGNATS. 147 
 
 there was around us neither Catiline, nor factions, nor 
 perils, nor Rome ; but to-day the bankruptcy, the hide- 
 ous bankruptcy is here ; it threatens to swallow up your- 
 selves, your property, your honor, and you deliberate !" 
 The measure thus carried, had also produced only a 
 momentary relief, and therefore recourse was had to the 
 decree which had declared the property of the church 
 national property. The difficulties were not, however, 
 got rid of, even by these extraordinary means. When 
 a decree ordered the sale of church domains to the 
 amount of four hundred millions, it was found that pur- 
 chasers did not present themselves, for the rapidity with 
 which the innovations followed upon each other, and the 
 general confusion they produced, impressed even the 
 most superficial minds with an idea of the precipitancy 
 and instability of the new regulations, and men were 
 unwilling to part with their cash for property, the legal- 
 ity of the possession of which might soon be disputed. 
 The " commune" of Paris helped the assembly out of this 
 dilemma. It proposed, and the assembly resolved, that 
 the municipalities should be authorized to purchase these 
 domains from the state, and to sell them again to private 
 individuals, when they should present themselves ; but 
 as the municipalities had not ready money to pay down 
 at once, it was decided that they should pay in bills, 
 with which bills the treasury would, in its turn, pay its 
 creditors. Afterwards it was found better, instead of 
 these municipal bills, or assignats, as they were denom- 
 inated, to create exchequer bills, to which they gave a 
 forced circulation, and which became, in reality, a paper 
 money, as a decree limited the quantity of assignats to 
 the value of the ecclesiastical property which was put 
 up for sale, and ordered the immediate destruction of all 
 redeemed assignats. But the power of infringing, as
 
 148 THE CLUBS. 
 
 well as the power of decreeing, was in the hands of the 
 assembly, and at a later period, assignats were circu- 
 lated to an amount immensely surpassing that of the 
 value of the lands — a measure, say the partisans of the 
 Revolution, and of the doctrines of expediency, " which 
 was not very perfect in a financial point of view, but 
 which was most excellent in a political point of view, 
 as it was the saving of the Revolution." Thus a revo- 
 lution which commenced in tlie name of a suffering 
 people, supported itself by still further impoverishmg 
 that people. 
 
 During the debates which were going on in the as- 
 sembly, the parties became daily more decidedly marked, 
 and each had again, without the assembly, its supporters 
 and instigators, particularly among the clubs, which 
 grew in importance as the revolutionary movement ex- 
 tended, and in some of which were already germinating 
 the still more democratical movement which was to suc- 
 ceed to the existing one. The most prominent among 
 them, was that of the " Friends of the Constitution," 
 first formed at Versailles by Lafayette and other of the 
 Breton deputies, but which was now transferred to Paris, 
 and established in the ancient convent of the Jacobins 
 in the Rue St. Honore, from which it took its name of 
 the Jacobin Club, a name which has become but too 
 fatally notorious in the history of these times. From 
 this period dates the admission into its body of persons 
 quite unconnected with the assembly, and a change in 
 the spirit of its members, who soon separated. One 
 party, at the head of which were Danton and Camille 
 Desmoulins, for whose hot patriotism even the revolu- 
 tionary eloquence of the Jacobins was too lukewarm, 
 established themselves in the convent of the Cordeliers, 
 the name of which they took ; another party, whose
 
 THE CLUBS. 14ft 
 
 moderate principles repugned the violent proceedings of 
 the Jacobins, and which was particularly influenced by 
 Lafayette, and afterwards joined by all the moderate 
 men of the times, took the name of the " Club of 1789 ; 
 Friends of the Monarchial Constitution," afterwards 
 converted into that of the " Feuillans," after their place 
 of meeting, the convent of the Feuillans. It is said that 
 the Jacobin Club counted no less than three hundred 
 similar establishments in France, which were in direct 
 correspondence, and forty-four thousand in indirect cor- 
 respondence with it. What was its influence and power, 
 may be judged from this immense extension, and what 
 was the character of its influence cannot be better de- 
 scribed than by quoting the words of a writer of the 
 present day, who says, when speaking of the eloquence 
 of its members, it was " impassioned, dull, droning, 
 patriotic eloquence : implacable, unfertile save for de- 
 struction, which was indeed its work : most wearisome, 
 though most deadly."* 
 
 The activity of these clubs was powerfully aided by 
 the innumerable newspapers that were in circulation, 
 and by the oratory of the hundreds of mob patriots, who, 
 following the example of their betters, harangued the 
 passers-by from the top of the corner-stones, or from a 
 tub, a barrel, or an old chair, and passed their opinions 
 upon state affairs, and national regeneration. 
 
 * Carlyle. 
 
 13*
 
 J50 HOPES OF THE COURT PARTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Keports of Countcr-Revolutions — Disaffection of the common soldier^- 
 The King appears at the Assembly — His speech received witli universa. 
 applause — Distrust again exhibited — Execution of Favras — Counter-revo- 
 lutionary projects — Debates in the Assembly — Civil Constitution of tlie 
 Clergy — Fete in the Champ de Mars — Revolt in the Army — Clergy re- 
 quired to swear to maintain the civil constitution just decreed — The 
 King compelled at length to sanction tliis decree — Opposition of flio 
 Clergy — Mortification of the King. 
 
 At the commencement of the year 1790, the com- 
 parative cahn which had succeeded the king's removal 
 to Paris, began again to give way before a general agi- 
 tation and uneasiness, particularly caused by the number 
 of reports that were in circulation as to the counter- 
 revolutionary intentions of the court, which was sup- 
 posed sometimes to base its hopes upon succors from 
 without through the instrumentality of the emigrants, 
 particularly of the Comte d'Artois, who had sought 
 refuge at Turm, and sometimes on the army under 
 Marshal Bouille,* and even on the assistance of certain 
 parties in the assembly. f 
 
 * Bouille, stationed at Metz, commanded a large division of the army, 
 and a vast extent of frontier, and possessing all the feelings of the aristoc- 
 racy, though not in their excess, he did every thing in his power to preserve 
 his troops from rising. He was a man of great courage, much talent, and 
 great integrity, and could not therefore fail to be disgusted with the weak- 
 ness of the court and the base and clandestine measures of its agents. 
 
 t From the period of the court's removal to Paris, Lafayette's conduct 
 becomes more clear, and thenceforward he cannot but be regarded as a 
 eincere adherent of the Constitutional Monarchy ; as one of those who, 
 disgusted with the outrages committed by that revolution which tliey began 
 in hope and sincerity, earnestly endeavored to put down anarchy, and to 
 bring about a reconciliation between all parlies which should ensure the 
 happiness of the country. He therefore approached the court, and was 
 received by it vviih more cordial feelings than before. It is said, however, 
 that the queen, who was in fact the directing spirit of the court, hoped 
 more from Mirabeau, whom she had succeeded in winning, and who, in 
 , point of genius, was vastly superior to Lafayette. Of all the men of the 
 Revolution, none have been so differently judged as Mirabeau. After a 
 Youlb spent in vice and wild adventures, he presented himself to the nobles
 
 SUPPOSED CONSPIRACY. 151 
 
 Violent affrays often took place between the army 
 and the populace, and frequently the common soldiers, 
 who were devoted to the new order of things, while the 
 officers adhered to the old, delivered up the latter to the 
 vengeance of the people. The clergy, particularly in 
 Brittany, where they had most influence, protested 
 against the alienation of their property, and excited their 
 flocks to support their interests ; the parliaments also 
 made a last struggle for their ancient rights and privi- 
 leges, and all these movements were in the minds of the 
 people and the assembly connected with the plans of the 
 court. At this time a Marquis de Favras, an advent 
 tnrer who had sought his fortune in different parts of 
 Europe, was brought before the court of the Chatelet 
 accused of being at the head of a conspiracy to promote 
 the flight of the king, to assassinate 13ailly and Lafay- 
 
 of Provence as a candidate for their suffrages for the States General, but 
 being indignantly rejected by his peers, lie turned to the Tiers Etat, offer- 
 ing himself as advocate of interests the very reverse of those of the nobility. 
 What mattered it to him'? he had no conviclions to follow up, he merely 
 sought a stage on which he could act before the world. Wlien there, 
 though his voice was the one wliich was most frequently raised to threaten 
 and coerce royalty and its instruments, it was his voice also that was 
 raised to prevent despotism from being merely transferred from the crown 
 to the representatives of tlie people, and to maintain for the crown the pre- 
 rogatives without wliich the monarch would be a mere puppet. But it 
 was his voice also which determined the fall of those ancii nt institutions 
 whose birth was cotemporary with that of the monarchy, wliich was left 
 a foundering wreck when they fell. Like ail the men of his day, Rlira- 
 beau had no clear and defined object for which he was laboring, and 
 though the superiority of his genius often afforded him glimpses of the 
 truth, when others were in utter darkness, lie had not in his heart that 
 love of truth which would have led him to toil unceasingly for its at- 
 tainment when lie had once discerned it. True genius will always dis- 
 cern truth, but it is the moral character of the man, that will decide 
 whether this discernment will lead to great results or not. There never 
 was a truly great man (even in the general acceptation of the term, which 
 does not of necessity comprise moral greatness) without faith, and it ii 
 this absence of faith that is the cause of our not s: eing one great man 
 during the French Revolution. The infamous celebrities of the reign of 
 terror, were but mediocrities led by circumstances, not commanding them.
 
 152 
 
 ette, whose National Guards still guarded the palace, 
 and to march an army of Swiss and Piedmontese against 
 Paris. The alarm was general, and it was whispered 
 that Monsieur, the king's eldest brother, who had once 
 had some connection with Fayras, was not a stranger to 
 this plot. The prince presented himself at the Hotel 
 de Ville, and protested against the insinuations directed 
 against him ; and the king, alarmed at the. Agitation 
 created by this new suspicion, was advised to take steps 
 to conciliate public opinion. On the 4th of February 
 he in consequence repaired to the assembly, where his 
 presence was quite unexpected, and where he was re- 
 ceived with great applause. After the assembly was 
 again seated, the king, standing, addressed to them a 
 speech, in which he expatiated on the troubles to which 
 France was a prey, the efforts which had been made to 
 calm them, and to provide for the subsistence of the 
 people ; he recapitulated the proceedings of the assem- 
 bly, glancing at the efforts he had himself made to attain 
 the same objects in the provincial assemblies, and finally 
 showed that he had throughout manifested a desire for 
 reforms. He added that he thought it particularly in- 
 cumbent upon him to ally himself more closely to the 
 representatives of the nation, at the moment when they 
 had submitted to him decrees, destined to give a new 
 organization to the kingdom. He would endeavor to 
 promote this new system, he said, with all his power, 
 and would consider every attempt to resist it as highly 
 criminal, and punish it with all the severity of the Jaws. 
 These last words were enthusiastically applauded, and 
 the king proceeded to notice the sacrifices which he had 
 himself made, and called upon all those who were simi- 
 larly situated, to imitate his resignation, and to let the 
 advantages of their country console them for the sacri-
 
 THE king's speech. 153 
 
 fices of their private interests. After having, promised 
 to defend the constitution, he added : " I will do more ; 
 in concert 'with the queen, who partakes of all my sen- 
 timents, I will prepare betimes the mind and heart of 
 my son,* for this new order of things which circum- 
 stances have brought about ; I will accustom him from 
 his earliest days to be happy in seeing the French peo- 
 ple happy, and to acknowledge forever, in spite of the 
 language of flatterers, that a wise constitution will pre- 
 seive him from the dangers of inexperience, and that a 
 lawful liberty will add a new value to the sentiments of 
 love and fidelity, of which the nation has for so many 
 ages given such touching proofs to its kings." At this 
 part of the speech the transports were universal, and 
 for a moment it might have been supposed that the sen- 
 timents of which the king had spoken, were still glow- 
 ing in all hearts. The king continued — e.xpressing his 
 anxiety about the respect due to the ministers of re- 
 ligion, and to the rights of property, and timidly recom- 
 mending the assembly not to undertake too many things 
 at once, and representing how necessary it was to es- 
 tablish the authority of the executive power, without 
 which there could be no lasting power within the king- 
 dom, no respect abroad, no effective government. He 
 endei?. by professing his attachment to the new constitu- 
 tion, his ardent desire for the peace, happiness, and 
 prosperity of France, and exhorting his subjects to fol- 
 low his example. 
 
 Unmixed applause from the assembly, from the gal- 
 
 * 'What had been the impression this unhappy child had received of the 
 Revolution may be judged by the touching anecdote told by Mde. Campan. 
 Walking on tlie day after their arrival at Paris, in the garden of the Tuil- 
 eries, with the queen, the dauphin, on seeing some scuffle take place in 
 the street, rushed into his mother's arms, asking in an agony of terror: 
 " Mamma, mamma, is today going to be yesterday again 1"
 
 154 EXECUTION OF FAVRAS. 
 
 leries, and from the people without, applause in which 
 even the queen had a share, proved the complete suc- 
 cess of the step the king had taken. No sooner had 
 he departed than the assembly voted an address of 
 thanks to him and the queen, and then following the roy- 
 al example, each of its members took oath " to be true 
 to the nation, the law, and the king, and to rnaintain with 
 all his power the constitution decreed by tne National 
 Assembly and accepted by the king." 
 
 This as every other feeling at that time communica- 
 ting itself like an electric shock from one to another, 
 the whole nation was soon repeating the oath ; but even 
 before the enthusiasm at this reconciliation between the 
 people and the king could reach the more distant parts 
 of the kingdom, distrust had already sprung up anew 
 among the parties. Favras had been condemned to 
 death by the Chatelet, though protesting that he was in- 
 nocent, and was hanged on the Place de Greve, to the 
 great satisfaction of the populace, who had long been 
 impatient to enjoy the example of equality represented 
 by the spectacle of a marquis dangling from a common 
 gibbet, which it surrounded with a kind of savage de- 
 light, indulging in atrocious jests, and parodying in dif- 
 ferent manners the death-struggle of the unfortunate suf- 
 ferer.* 
 
 In the south a regular connection was maintained with 
 the Comte d'Artois and the emigrants at Turin, and dif- 
 ferent counter-revolutionary projects were entertained. 
 The " haute noblesse" refusing, it is said, to let any 
 other class have a part in re-establishing the ancient 
 state of things, for fear of having to share the advanta- 
 ges with it, was determined to re-establish the throne by 
 the succors of foreign courts alone, while the ^^ petite 
 
 * Thiers.
 
 A NEW ELECTION PROPOSED. 155 
 
 noblesse,'''' rejecting with indignation such a plan as little 
 better than treason, proposed to reawaken the ancient 
 spirit of fanaticism of these provinces, and to make the 
 religious ardor of the people and their attachment to their 
 priests serve the purposes of the crown.* 
 
 The ancient hatred of the Catholics for the Protest- 
 ants was fomented, and it broke out in open violence, 
 when the assembly refused, on the 13th Ji.ly, 1790, to 
 recognise the Catholic faith as the religion of the state. 
 The discussion of this question occasioned the most vio- 
 lent scenes in the assembly, and is said to have been 
 brought about by the court, which seems at that period 
 to have been most active in secret machinations against 
 the Revolution, in order to bring the assembly into dis- 
 repute with those among the French who still clung to 
 their ancient faith. A few days afterwards another 
 question was mooted, which is also attributed to the 
 court. The new organization was completed, and as 
 the people were to be convoked t^o elect their magistrates, 
 it was proposed that they should, at the same time, elect 
 new deputies to replace those who actually formed the 
 National Assembly, and whose power, it was maintained 
 by those who framed the proposition, was limited to,one 
 year, which was now very near its expiration. This 
 proposition was, indeed, pregnant with so inuch confu- 
 sion and disorder, that no one can help suspecting its 
 origin, whether we incline to the side of those who 
 pretend that it was a project of the court, which, think- 
 ing that the aristocracy and the clergy would I le able to 
 exercise a pre-eminent influence over a new election, 
 deemed it a means of regaining power ; or whether we 
 look upo n it as an attempt of the republican party, whose 
 
 * M. Froment, Recueil de divers Ecrits relcitifs a la Reeolulion. M. 
 Froment was one of the chief actora in the plans carried on between th« 
 provinces of the Bouth and Turin.
 
 156 A NEW ELECTION PROPOSED. 
 
 centre was the Jacobin club, at once to obtain that pow- 
 er, which they but too soon gained. However this 
 might be, the proposition was vehemently rejected, and 
 the assembly decreed that new elections should not be 
 proceeded to, until it should be deemed proper by its 
 own body. These debates were soon followed by others 
 no less violent, on the following momentous questions — • 
 whether the right of declaring war and peace should ap- 
 pertain to the crown or to the assembly, and on the civil 
 conslilution of the clergy. The first question was left 
 entirely to IMirabeau and Barnave, the former suj.port- 
 ing the right of the crown, the latter advancing the 
 claims of the assembly, and looked upon as the cham- 
 pion of the rights of the people, though he, in fact, only 
 clothed the same proposition in different words. Mira- 
 beau, on this occasion, excited such hostility among the 
 populace, that the report of his having sold his services 
 to the court, which had long circulated in whispers, was 
 now loudly proclaimed, and a pamphlet was hawked 
 about the streets, having for title, " High Treason of the 
 Comte dc Mtrabeau.'''' But these attacks only lent new 
 vigor to Mirabeau's eloquence, which gained the first 
 decisive victory for the crown which it had won since 
 the commencement of the Revolution. It was decreed 
 that the king should notify to the assembly the com- 
 mencement of hostilities, and propose the decree of war 
 or of peace, on which the assembly was to deliberate, 
 and present the result of its deliberations for the sanction 
 of the king. 
 
 By the civil constitution of the clergy was understood 
 the placing of the whole ecclesiastical establishment of 
 the state on the same footing as the judiciary. Every 
 department was to have its bishop as it had its superior 
 tribunal and administration, and bishops and curates
 
 CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY. 157 
 
 were to be elected as were the administrators and judges. 
 This arrangement, which completely destroyed the con- 
 stitution of the church, dissevered the bonds which bound 
 it to Rome, and made it entirely dependent upon the 
 people, of course met with the most violent resistance 
 from the clergy, who appealed to the pope against these 
 decisions. 
 
 But discord was now again to be suspended for a mo- 
 ment to give place to one of those wonderful scenes of, 
 almost idyllic love and harmony to which this strange 
 people seemed to abandon itself with as much delight as 
 it did to the diabolical scenes of carnage and suffering in 
 which it had already taken part, and which were to be 
 far surpassed in the future. 
 
 The strange love of excitement, whatever its nature, 
 as evinced at this time, furnishes one of the strongest 
 proofs that the Revolution, though originally caused by 
 a false and wicked system, was carried on by a kind of 
 national intoxication without an aim or an object. 
 
 The troubles in the south had given rise to confedera- 
 tions between those who were devoted to the Revolution, 
 which were entered into with a kind of solemnity, the 
 confederates swearing in public to the accompaniment 
 of drums and fifes, and with flying banners, and other fes- 
 tive demonstrations, that they would stand by each other 
 in all trials. And as this passion for swearing seemed 
 to have taken possession of the whole people, these con- 
 federations, promoted by the Jacobin club, and not dis- 
 couraged by the National Assembly, soon spread over 
 the whole kingdom,* and were to be crowned by the gen- 
 
 *It is strange that all French historians persist in seeing in those demon- 
 Btrations evidence of the faith of the people in the Revolution, whereas, in 
 Uuth, they prove that the nation felt (though without accounting to itself 
 for the feeling) that it was in a state of di<:?oiution. 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 158 FETE OF THE CHAMP DE MARS. 
 
 eral confederation of the whole of France, which, ac- 
 cording to the proposition of the municipality of Paris, 
 was to be celebrated in the capital by deputations from 
 all the national guards, and from all the regiments of the 
 arrhy, on the 14th of July, the anniversary of the taking 
 of the Bastille.* The description of tliis fete, certainly 
 one of the most extraordinary the world has ever wit- 
 nessed, is given in the following words by a contempo- 
 rary, M. de Ferri^res : 
 
 " The confederates arrived from all parts of the em- 
 pire ; they were lodged in private houses, whose posses- 
 sors were anxious to furnish beds, sheets, wood, and all 
 that might contribute to render their stay in the capital 
 agreeable and comfortable. The municipality took 
 measures to prevent this great confluence of strangers 
 from troubling the public tranquillity. Twelve thousand 
 laborers worked without ceasing at the preparations in 
 the Champ de Mars. Notwithstanding the activity 
 with which this work was carried on, it advanced but 
 slowly. It was feared that it could not be finished for 
 the 14th July, the day which was irrevocably fixed for the 
 ceremony, being the famous epoch of the insurrection of 
 Paris and the taking of the Bastille. In this difficulty 
 the districts invited, in the name of the nation, the good 
 citizens to join the workmen. This civic invitation 
 electrified every one ; the women partook of the enthu- 
 siasm, and propagated it ; seminarists, novices, sisters 
 
 * As a prelude to this feast of harmony and brotherly love, the assembly 
 decfped that the feeling which the populace had Biven utterance to under 
 the gibbet of the Marquis de Favras should be still further indulged, and 
 that nobility and titles, and all their distinguishing marks, such as armorial 
 bearings, liveries, &c., &c., should be abolished, and thenceforward men 
 were to be distinguished by their merits alone. Mirabeau, notwithstandinf 
 his affected disdain fur the class to which he belonged by birth, is said not 
 to have been quite indifferent to the sacriiice of giving up his title, and to 
 have exclaimed {31st August, 1790) upon the occasion, "With your Ri- 
 Quelti, (his family name,) you have confused all Europe for tliree days."
 
 THE PROCESSION. 159 
 
 of religious orders, and monks grown old in solitude, 
 left their monasteries, and repaired to the Champ de 
 Mars with spades on their shoulders, and carrying ban- 
 ners ornamented with patriotic emblems. The scene 
 which this plain presented was as singular as it was in- 
 teresting. The most dissimilar characters were associ- 
 ated togetlier with the most perfect equality ; a dishev- 
 elled courtesan and a virtuous matron might be seen 
 working together as fellow-laborers, a capuchin and a 
 chevalier of St. Louis drawing the same dray a porter 
 and a petU-mailre digging at the same piece of ground, 
 a robust fish-woman and an elegant lady of rank filling 
 the same barrow. The rich, the poor, the well-dressed 
 and the ragged, old men, children, comedians, soldiers, 
 clerks — some at work, some at rest, actors and specta- 
 tors, afforded together a spectacle full of life and motion. 
 Moveable taverns and portable shops ; songs and excla- 
 mations of joy, the sounds of drums and military music, 
 the clatter of spades, the roll of barrows, and the voice 
 of laborers encouraging each other, completed the charm 
 and gayety of this enchanting scene. 
 
 " The 14th of July, the day of the confederation, ar- 
 rived. If this grand ceremony had not the sesious and 
 august character of a fete, at the same time religious and 
 national, a character which is nearly irreconcilable with 
 the temper of the French people, it presented a delight- 
 ful and animated picture of joy and enthusiasm a thou- 
 sand times more touching. The confederates, ranged 
 by departments under eighty-three banners, set out from 
 the Place de la Bastille ; the troops of the line, bands of 
 sailors, the Parisian national guard, drums, bands of mu- 
 sic, and flags, opened and closed the march. 
 
 " The confederates traversed the streets of St. Martin, 
 St, Denis, and St. Honore, and proceeded to a bridge
 
 160 THE PROCESSION. 
 
 of boats built on the river. They were received in theii 
 progress by the acclamations of an immense populace, 
 who thronged the windows, the streets, and the quays. 
 Wine, hams, and fruit, were let down to them from the 
 windows, and the people hailed them with benedictions. 
 The National Assembly joined the procession at the 
 Place Louis XV., and marched between a battalion of 
 veterans and of scholars of the military school ; a sta- 
 tion expressively emblematic, which seemed to intimate 
 that in them the interests of all ages were united. 
 
 " Meanwhile more than three hundred thousand per- 
 sons had been assembling from Paris and the environs, 
 at the Champ de Mars, since six o'clock in the morning. 
 They were seated on the grass bank which formed a circus 
 round the plain, dripping with rain, and splashed with 
 mud, and holding up umbrellas to keep off the torrents 
 which poured upon them, and on the slightest symptom 
 of returning sunshine, wiping their faces, adjusting their 
 dresses, and awaiting with smiles the arrival of the Na- 
 tional Assembly. As soon as the first confederates 
 arrived, they struck up a dance. Those who followed 
 imitated their example. This spectacle of so great an 
 assemblage of men come from all parts of France, 
 banishing all memory of the past, all thought of the 
 present, and all apprehension of the future, and giving 
 unrestrained vent to the gayety of the moment ; and of 
 three hundred thousand spectators of every age, and 
 both sexes, following their movements with their eyea, 
 beating time with their feet, and forgetting the rain, 
 hunger, and the wearisomeness of waiting so many 
 hours, was worthy the contemplation of a philosopher. 
 At last the whole procession entered the Champ de 
 Mars ; the dancing ceased, and the Bishop of Autun* 
 
 * The celebrated Talleyrand.
 
 ADMINISTERING THE OATH. 161 
 
 proceeded to solemnize the mass. Lafayette, at the 
 head of the Parisian militia, and of the naval and mili- 
 tary deputies, then approached the altar, and swore, in 
 the name of the troops and confederates, to be faithful 
 to the nation, the law, and the king. The discharge of 
 four pieces of artillery announced to France this solemn 
 adjuration. The president of the National Assembly 
 repeated the same oath. The people took it up, and 
 the words I swear it, rent the air. The king rose up 
 and proclaimed with a loud voice, /, King of France, 
 swear to employ the power with which a constitutional 
 act of the state has invested me, to maintain the consti- 
 tution decreed hy the National Assembly, and accepted 
 by me. The queen, at the same time taking the dauphin 
 in her arms, and holding him up to the people, exclaimed : 
 Behold my son; he joins me in these sentiments. This 
 unexpected exclamation called forth a thousand shouts 
 of Vive le Roi ! Vive la Reine ! Vive le Dauphin ! 
 Bands of military music, the roar of artillery, and the 
 acclamations of the people, then closed the ceremony 
 with stunning and triumphant harmony." 
 
 With the festive decorations disappeared the seemino- 
 concord, and France was again the theatre of fierce 
 struggles. All Bouille's endeavors had been in vain ; ' 
 the army, inspired by the pervading spirit, had revolted, 
 first at Metz, then at Nancy, at which last place an en- 
 gagement (31st August, 1790) ensued between the 
 troops who had remained faithful, and the rebels, in 
 which the latter were conquered, and for a time order 
 was re-established. 
 
 Necker, whose influence and popularity had long been 
 or. the wane, made a last ineffectual protest agai ist the 
 issuing of eight hundred millions' worth of assignats, 
 decreed by the assembly, and then tendered his resigna- 
 
 14*
 
 162 OPPOSITION OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 tion, and his example was soon followed by his col- 
 leagues in the ministry, who were indeed but mere nul- 
 lities, and who had been made to understand that such 
 was the desire of the assembly. 
 
 The king, whose position became more and moie 
 painful, began at this period to entertain thoughts of 
 flying from the capital, thoughts which he had a long 
 time rejected, because he judged that his flight would 
 be the signal for civil war ; but things now began to 
 wear such an aspect, that this evil seemed at all events 
 to be inevitable. 
 
 The popular party, exasperated by the continued 
 efforts of the clergy in the western and southern pro- 
 vinces, to get up counter-revolutionary movements, 
 decreed, as a means of crushing their resistance, that 
 the ecclesiastics, as well as all other functionaries, 
 sTiould take the civil oath before their " communes" and 
 in their churches, and in addition to this, that they should 
 swear to maintain the civil constitution of the clergy. 
 Those that refused were to be considered as having 
 forfeited their situation, and it was ordered that lists 
 should be made out with the names of those who took, 
 and those who did not take, the oaths. These decrees 
 were presented to the king for his sanction. He secret- 
 ly referred them to the pope, who refused his concur- 
 rence ; but riots having again taken place, the king gave 
 his sanction, and thereby greatly exasperated the clergy, 
 who persisted in their resistance to a measure which 
 they considered illegal in the extreme. With the ex- 
 ception of sixty-four curates, all the ecclesiastics mem- 
 bers of the assembly refused to take the oaths, (27th 
 November, 1790,) and their example was followed by 
 five-sixths of the clergy of the realm. They were, in 
 consequence, dismissed from their functions, and their
 
 DIVISION OP THE CLERGY. 163 
 
 places filled with more tractable occupants. But the 
 dismissed ecclesiastics protested against these proceed- 
 ings, declared their successors to be illegal intruders, 
 and excommunicated all those who should receive the 
 sacrament from their hands. 
 
 To all the other anomalies in the state, was thus 
 added the deplorable spectacle of two distinct clergies, 
 the one in open opposition to the new laws of the state, 
 the other heretical according to the ancient laws of the 
 church. The revolutionary party lost the support of 
 men whose moral character ensured respect, while the 
 adherents of the ancien regime regained, by their means, 
 a part of the people, who in some of the provinces of 
 France were devotedly attached to their priests, who 
 had always been to them true friends and protectors. 
 The refractory clergy thus became the most formidable 
 opponents of the revolution, while the constitutional 
 clergy (as they were called) brought it into the greatest 
 disrepute by the looseness of their morals and the im- 
 piety of their doctrines. To the doubts and anxieties 
 to which the king, in consequence of his weak but con- 
 scientious character, had long been a prey, were now 
 added the reproaches of his conscience for not having 
 had the strength to protest against the violation of the 
 ecclesiastical constitution, and the humiliation, felt even 
 by him who had submitted to so much, at having even 
 his ministers forced upon him by the popular will.
 
 164 THE king's letter. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Tlie King secretly solicits the aid of Foreign Powers— Project of Mirabeau 
 —His Death— The King not allowed to go to St. Cloud— His Remon- 
 strance—Secret Convention with Foreign Powers— Flight of the King 
 and Queen — Discovered and Arrested — The Royal Family brought back 
 to Paris— Decree of the Assembly— Answer of the King to the Comml')- 
 saries deputed by the Assembly— Republican Agitation— Decr<^ preserv- 
 ing just (he Shadow of Monarchy— Riots at the Champ de Mars— Na- 
 tional Guaids fire upon the People— Former Idols now execrated- Treaty 
 of Pilnilz— Preparations for War— The Constitution completed— The 
 King accepts it— Dissolution of the Assembly. 
 
 The king-, though now apparently determined upon 
 taking some step to emancipate. himself from the thral- 
 dom in which he was kept, still wavered between the 
 different means held out to him. On one side he neo-o- 
 tiated with the sovereigns of Europe, to whom he sent 
 the Baron de Bretueuil to solicit their aid in re-estab- 
 lishing his authority, and wrote, on the 30th December, 
 1790, to the king of Prussia, "I claim with confidence 
 your support at a moment when, notwithstanding my 
 acceptation of the new constitution, the factions openly 
 show their intention to destroy what remains of the mon- 
 archy. I have addressed myself to the emperor, to the 
 empress of Russia, to the kings of Spain and Sweden, 
 and have presented to them the idea of a congress of 
 the principal powers of Europe, supported by a strong 
 army, as the best means of arresting the factions here, 
 and of re-establishing a more durable state of affairs ; 
 and of preventing the evil under which we are suffering 
 from spreading to the other stales of Europe. I hope 
 that your majesty will approve of my ideas, and will 
 keep my secret inviolably."* On the other side, the 
 
 * Histoire Parlcmentaire de la Revolution, vol. x. Though the mig- 
 fortunes of Louis XVI. give him the greatest claims to our compassion and 
 our forbearance, one cannot help feeling indignant at seeing a king who had
 
 DEATH OF MIRABEAU. 165 
 
 connection with Mirabeau, whose confidence in his own 
 power inspired others with an equal idea of his import- 
 ance, was more sedulously cultivated, and regular plans 
 for the counter-revolutionary movement were concerted 
 with him. 
 
 In the mean time emigration had increased to such a 
 degree, that it was considered necessary to put a stop 
 to it ; but when the measure was proposed in the Na- 
 tional Assembly, Mirabeau declared against it, and car- 
 ried the victory by his usual audacity, though he could 
 not prevent a decree from being passed relative to the 
 residence of functionaries, in which it was declared, that 
 if the king left the kingdom he should be considered as 
 having abdicated. 
 
 But neither this, nor his being denounced in the 
 Jacobin Club as a traitor, prevented Mirabeau from 
 prosecuting his plan of persuading the king to fly to 
 Lyoos, to take up his stand there as a mediator between 
 the emigration and the assembly, by giving a new con- 
 stitution to the realm, which should consecrate all the 
 great principles of the Revolution. He encouraged 
 the king by assurances of having gained a party in the 
 assembly, among the orators of the now all-powerful 
 clubs, and among the administrators of thirty-six depart- 
 ments. The king at last acquiesced ; Bpuille was made 
 acquainted with the royal intentions, and the means of 
 execution were being discussed, when death put an end 
 to Mirabeau's career, on the 2d April, 1791. His 
 death was considered a public calamity, and his body 
 was deposited in the church of St. Genevieve, converted 
 into a pantheon destined to receive the great men of 
 revolutionized France. 
 
 not ventured one courageous step to maintain his own dignity thus appealing 
 to foreign aid-
 
 .166 THE king's detention in PARIS. 
 
 The death of Mirabeau did not alter the determination 
 of the court to leave Paris, but it made its movements 
 less decided, and gave a new character to the flight, 
 which, undertaken under Mirabeau's auspices, would 
 never have been considered as a complete breach with 
 'the assembly and the people, but which, concerted with 
 Bouille and the emigrants alone, was, when it took place, 
 regarded as nothing less than high treason to the state ; 
 for though the men of those days held very light the 
 ancient laws of the monarchy, they required from the 
 monarch very strict adherence to those they had impos- 
 ed upon him. 
 
 On the 18th April the king proposed going to St. 
 Cloud, (a summer palace in the environs of Paris,) to 
 spend the Easter-week there, but the people, suspecting 
 that this was but a pretext, assembled in great numbers 
 round the carriage, and cut the traces. Lafayette was 
 unable to disperse them, as his guards refused to obey 
 his orders, and the king was obliged to return to the 
 Tuileries, whence he repaired to the assembly, by which 
 he was received with every mark of deference, to com- 
 plain of the violence used against him. The partisans 
 of the Revolution assert that the king sought every op- 
 portunity to make it appear he was under restraint ; but 
 though we may disapprove of the double-dealing to 
 which Louis in his weakness too often had recourse, 
 we cannot but see that the restraint in which he waa 
 held was so manifest, that there was no necessity for 
 calling in the aid of false semblances. 
 
 This new outrage confirmed the king in his decision, 
 by flight to regain an independent position ; but to ensure 
 success by lulling the people into false security, he de- 
 scended to unworthy duplicity. He affected a greater 
 zeal than ever for the Revolution, wrote a letter to his
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT. IC*' 
 
 ambassadors at foreign courts, proclaiming- his attach- 
 ment to the new constitution, disavowing the intention 
 of flying, which was attributed to him, and declaring all 
 those his enemies who should doubt of his being in a 
 state of perfect freedom ; but at the same time couch- 
 ing his letter in such terms as to indicate that violence 
 had forced it from him, and empowering his brother, the 
 Comte d'Artois, to seek an interview with the emperor 
 Leopold, who was then at Mantua, to solicit him to con- 
 cert with the otlier princes definitive measures to be 
 taken in his tavor. In this interview, it was determined 
 that thirty-five thousand Austrians should be marched 
 into Flanders, fifteen thousand into Alsace, while thirty 
 thousand Piedmontese were to move towards Lyons, and 
 twenty thousand Spaniards towards the Pyrenees. 
 
 The emperor promised the co-operation of the king 
 of Prussia and the neutrality of England,* and a protes- 
 tation written in the name of the house of Bourbon was 
 to be signed by the kings of Naples and of Spain, by the 
 infant of Parma, and by the expatriated princes. The 
 greatest secrecy was to be maintained, and the king was 
 recommended to remain perfectly quiet. Louis XVL 
 at first accepted the convention, and determined upon 
 acting in accordance with it ; but there was a schism in 
 the emigrant camp, and when Bretueuil, who belonged 
 to the party which was not acting at Mantua, advised 
 the king's flight, his advice was finally adopted, and 
 Bouille was apprized that the king had determined upon 
 deferring no longer. The general, in consequence, drew 
 together the troops he could best depend upon in a camp 
 at Montmedy, a place upon the frontiers, where the king 
 had decided to take his stand, and prepared every thing 
 in the best way to secure the safety of the monarch, 
 
 * Thiers.
 
 168 OBSTACLES AND DELAYS. 
 
 giving, as a pretext for all these preparations, certain 
 movements of the powers without. The 20th of June 
 was fixed as the day of the king's departure. The 
 queen, who always showed much more decision and dig 
 nity of character than Louis, had undertaken all the ar- 
 rangements to be made on the route from Paris to Cha- 
 lons, while Bouille was to provide the means of safety 
 from that place to Montmedy. Small detachments of 
 cavalry were, under the pretext of escorting a treasure, 
 to be stationed at short distances from each other on the 
 route, and Bouille himself was to meet the royal . fugi- 
 tives some distance in advance of Montmedy. The 
 queen had found means of securing a secret egress from 
 the palace, and the royal family were to travel with false 
 passports and under feigned names. The greatest se- 
 crecy had been maintained, but by some unknown means 
 a part of the plan must have transpired, as the national 
 guard on service at the palace was doubled. But in 
 spite of this redoubled vigilance, on the 21st June, (the 
 departure had been postponed for one day,) at midnight, 
 the king, tlifi queen, Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister, 
 and Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal 
 children, with her pupils, (all in disguise,) succeeded in 
 escaping from the palace unseen.* Madame de Tour- 
 zel and the children immediately got into a glass coach, 
 driven by Count Fersen, a young Swedish nobleman, 
 disguised as coachman, and were soon joined by the 
 king and Madame Elizabeth ; but the queen, who was 
 accompanied by a garde du corps, and was the last who 
 
 * The king's two aunts had left the kingdom two months before, but had 
 been arrested at the frontiers until the National Assembly should be apprized 
 of their intention. A great debate ensued, and was only ended by one of 
 the deputies exclaiming that Europe would be astonished to find that the 
 National Assembly of France had deliberated two days upon whetlier two 
 old women should liear mass at Paris or nt Rome.
 
 THE ROYAL FLIGHT. 169 
 
 left the palace, met M. de Lafayette's carriage, escorted 
 by torch-bearers, and, endeavoring to escape notice, lost 
 her way, and did not rejoin her companions until an hour 
 after : an hour spent by them in mortal anxiety. When 
 they were all safe in the carriage Count Fersen got upon 
 the box, but he being also but imperfectly acquainted 
 with the intricacies of Paris, more precious time was 
 lost before they reached the Porte St. Martin and got 
 into the berlin, drawn by six fleet horses, which there 
 awaited them. Madame de Tourzel was supposed to be 
 the mother of the family, under the name of Madame 
 de Korflf, and the king her valet de chamhre. The berlin 
 was preceded by three gardes du corfs disguised as 
 couriers and servants. During the night the royal fugi- 
 tives proceeded unimpeded ; and the Comte de Provence, 
 the king's eldest brother, with his consort, in the mean 
 time directed their flight towards Flanders, taking an- 
 other route in order not to awaken suspicion. 
 
 At eight o'clock in the morning, Paris was still igno- 
 rant of the king's flight, but soon after the secret trans- 
 pired and circulated with the rapidity of lightning. La 
 fayette, though despairing of being able to overtake the 
 fugitives, immediately sent out three aides-de-camp iii 
 pursuit of them, taking upon himself the responsibility 
 of the written orders which he gave them, and which 
 were couched in terms as if he believed the king had 
 been carried off by force. This supposition, which as- 
 sured to the king more respectful treatment, was also 
 adopted by the assembly,* in which the moderate party 
 now had the ascendant. The assembly calmly waited 
 the issue of affairs, while occupied in the measures to 
 be taken in the alarming crisis, but in the sections and 
 the clubs there were uproar and joyful acclamations ; 
 
 * Tliiers. 
 ▼OL. 1. 15
 
 170 THE ROYAL FLIGHT. 
 
 all the insignia of royalty were destroyed by them, and 
 their organs, the journals, in their usual coarse and infa- 
 mous language, congratulated France on "having got 
 rid of an idiotic king, and of a wicked woman, who, to 
 the wantonness of Messalina, joined the bloodthirstiness 
 of the Medicis." "Now is the moment," proclaimed 
 Marat, in his particular newspaper, " now is the moment 
 when the heads of the ministers, of Lafayette, of Bailly, 
 of all the rogues of the municipality, of all the traitors 
 of the assembly ought to fall ;" and when we remember 
 the forty-four thousand branch associations of the Jaco- 
 bin Club, of which these monsters were the mouthpieces, 
 and where their sentiments found ready echo, we may 
 form a conception of the spirit which animated France. 
 The longings of the people of France were expressed 
 in the hideous ravings of Marat, of Camille Desmoulins, 
 of Danton, and whatever were the names of the ranters 
 in the Jacobin and Cordelier Clubs, whose love of their 
 country seemed to inspire them with nothing but a fierce 
 hatred of all those, who, by trying to maintain any kind 
 of order, were of course considered as mortal enemies, 
 by men whose chief aim was disorder. 
 
 In the mean time the royal fugitives had proceeded 
 on their way, without, however, meeting the military 
 detachments which had been posted on the route to pro- 
 tect them. The people had expressed so much sus- 
 picion and uneasiness at the unexpected presence of 
 them, that they had been obliged to withdraw, in order 
 not to create danger instead of ensuring safety. Al- 
 ready at Chalons, the king, who had the imprudence to 
 be looking out of the carriage window, had been recog- 
 nised, but the mayor of the place, being fortunately a 
 stanch royalist, had prevented the person who made 
 the discovery from revealing it. At St. Menehould
 
 ARREST OF THE KING. 171 
 
 fortune was less favorable, the king repeated the im- 
 prudence, and was again recognised, and this time by a 
 fierce republican, Drouet, the son of the postmaster of 
 the place. He had not time to have the king arrested 
 on the spot, but hastened on to Varennes, the next sta- 
 tion, pursued by a brave soldier who suspected his in- 
 tention and hoped to detain him. But in vain ; Drouet 
 arrived at Varennes before the unhappy fugitives, and 
 having apprized the municipality, instant measures were 
 taken for the legal arrestation of the king. The latter 
 protested for a long while, assuring the authorities that 
 they were mistaken, that he was not the king, but when 
 they insisted, and the dispute was waxing warm, the 
 queen impatiently exclaimed ; " Since you recognise 
 him as your king, then treat him at least with due re- 
 spect." 
 
 The king, seeing that further dissimulation was use- 
 less, now tried to engage the people present in his favor, 
 and turning to M. Sausse, the functionary who had 
 arrested him, he protested that he had not intended to 
 leave the kingdom, but merely wished to place himself 
 in a 'position where he could act more independently ; 
 then, throwing his arms round Sausse, the unhappy 
 monarch wept, and implored him in touching terms to 
 save his wife and his children ; and the queen, taking 
 the dauphin in her arms, joined her prayers to his. 
 Sausse, though moved, remained firm, and entreated the 
 king to return to Paris, but Louis would not hear of this, 
 and insisted on proceeding to Montmedy. At this junc- 
 ture two cavalry detachments arrived, and the royal 
 family thought themselves saved ; but on learning that 
 the king was arrested, the common soldiers declared 
 that they were for the nation, and that they would not 
 be accomplices in his flight. In the mean time the na-
 
 172 RETURN TO PARIS. 
 
 tional guards in the environs had been summoned, and 
 were gathered together in great numbers, and all hope 
 was vain. The night passed in anxious suspense. At 
 six o'clock in the morning Lafayette's aide-de-camp 
 arrived with his order, and the royal travelling-carriage 
 was again turned towards Paris. Bouille, who had 
 been apprized in the middle of the night of what had 
 happened, had immediately put himself at the head of a 
 regiment of cavalry, and spurred on by the anxiety that 
 devoured him, arrived at Varennes an hour and a half 
 after the royal family's departure, and found the town 
 already prepared to resist his entrance. The bridge 
 over the river that he would have to pass in order to 
 follow the royal family was also thrown down, so that 
 the time that would be lost in overcoming these ob- 
 stacles, made all hope of overtaking and rescuing the 
 king vain, and Bouille retired with a heart bleeding for 
 his royal master. He immediately passed the frontiers, 
 and when in security, wrote a letter to the assembly, 
 generously taking upon himself the whole blame of the 
 king's flight, and threatening immediately to attack 
 France at the head of a foreign army, in case any vio- 
 lence was attempted against the king's person. 
 
 When the arrest of the king was made known at 
 Paris, the people manifested the greatest delight, and 
 the assembly immediately deputed three of its members 
 to meet the monarch and accompany him to Paris. The 
 commissaries chosen were all of the left side ; they 
 were Petion, Barnave, and Latour-MauboiJrg. The 
 latter followed in a carriage with Madame de Tourzel, 
 the two former took their seats in the royal carriage, 
 where Petion seems to have vented his patriotism in 
 basely humiliating the unhappy family, on whose pri- 
 Tacy he had forced himself; while Barnave's young
 
 THE KING SUSPENDED FROM HIS FUNCTIONS. 173 
 
 enthusiastic soul, already moved to pity by the sight of 
 fallen grandeur, learned in conversation with the queen 
 and princess Elizabeth, to appreciate their noble char- 
 acters and elevated minds, and began, as Mirabeau had 
 done before him, to dream of reconciling the king and 
 the constitution. The queen, on her side, was charmed 
 with the courteous politeness and real merit of the young 
 deputy, and from that moment gave him her full esteem 
 and confidence.* 
 
 During the journey, which lasted eight days, the 
 revolutionary spirit of the departments was strongly 
 manifested ; more than one hundred thousand national 
 guards gathered along the royal route, to serve as es- 
 corts, and even the presence of the commissaries of the 
 assembly could not protect the royal family from their 
 insults and abuse. At Paris, where it had been pla- 
 carded on all the walls, that " whoever applauded the 
 king should be beaten, whoever insulted him should be 
 hanged," they were received by an immense crowd, in 
 threatening silence ; and saved by the eflorts of Lafay- 
 ette and his guards from further outrages, they again 
 entered the Tuileries, where, in consequence of a de- 
 cree of the assembly, declaring that the king was pro- 
 visionally suspended from his functions, he was for a 
 time guarded like a state-prisoner. 
 
 This decree had, however, not passed without violent 
 opposition ; two hundred and ninety deputies had pro- 
 tested against it, and had even refused to take part in 
 the debate upon it, in order to render invalid the opera- 
 tions of the assembly, (30th June, 1791.) Barnave and 
 the two Lameths had now entered into regular connec- 
 tion with the court, and Barnave himself drew up the 
 king's answer to the commissaries deputed by the as- 
 
 * Madame Campari. 
 
 15*
 
 174 A REPUBLIC PROPOSED. 
 
 sembly to interrogate liim. In tliis answer the king 
 gave as a reason for his flight, the desire of making 
 himself fully acquainted with public opinion, and proved, 
 by numerous facts, that it was not his intention to leave 
 the kingdom. Otherwise, this document contains a 
 series of downright falsehoods, which being cleverly 
 managed, has obtained for it, from M. Thiers, and other 
 worshippers of the doctrines of expediency, the reputa- 
 tion of a " master-work of cleverness ;" but the lovers 
 of truth and true dignity of character, cannot but de- 
 plore that Louis XVI., who knew so well liov\ to bear 
 his sufferings, when they did at last come in their most 
 fearful shape, should so often have condescended to un- 
 worthy means to help himself out of his difficulties. 
 
 Violent discussions took place in the assembly, upon 
 the mviolability of the king's person, and the re-estab- 
 lishment of his authority. The moderate party had still 
 the ascendant ; the Jacobins, however, whose principles 
 were represented in the assembly by Robespierre, Pe- 
 tion, Buzot, and a few others, would not hear of any 
 re-establishment of authority or prerogative, but insisted 
 that the king's flight was equivalent to an abdication, 
 and that the assembly had now to proclaim his having 
 forfeited the throne, and to establish a republic. It was 
 the first time that the word was pi'onounced in the as- 
 sembly, though things without, from the very com- 
 mencement, had a decided tendency towards it, this 
 being one of the phases through which the state had to 
 pass before it reached the complete state of anarchy 
 which must inevitably follow, where the very founda- 
 tions of the slate are shaken, and where the system of 
 levelhng had begun as it had in France. Who was 
 there in France to say to the people, " So far shalt 
 thou go and no farther," when the people had learned
 
 DECREE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 175 
 
 thdt no rights are inviolable, when brute force is pre- 
 dominant. The journals, the districts, the leaders of 
 the clubs, were incessantly crying out, " We will have 
 no more kings !" and the Jacobins resolved to lay upon 
 the " altar of the fatherland," at the Champ de Mars, a 
 petition to this effect, for signatures. 
 
 The assembly found itself surpassed, and returned to 
 Its monarchial ideas ; the party headed by Barnave, 
 Lameth, and Duport, who had hitherto directed the 
 democratic movement, united with the centre ; all those 
 who were- devoted to the constitution rallied ; and though 
 It was easy to foresee what would be the position of the 
 king, replaced upon his tottering throne, without respect, 
 without esteem, and without power, the majority hoped 
 to save the constitution, by saving the royal authority.* 
 
 It was decreed that the king should be denied the 
 exercise of the executive power, until the constitution 
 should be completed, and should be presented for his ac- 
 ceptation ; that at that period his prerogatives, his con- 
 stitutional guards, and civil list, should be restored to 
 him ; but if he should retract his oath, if he should put 
 himself at the head of foreign armies, or should allow 
 war to be declared in France in his name, he should be 
 considered as having abdicated, should fall into the rank 
 of a simple citizen, and should be liable to be brought 
 to judgment for acts undertaken after this abdication. 
 
 The repu!)licans were enraged at this decree, and en- 
 deavored to make the people rise; they persisted in 
 signing their petition, though the resolution was now al- 
 ready passed, and formed menacing assemblies at the 
 Champ de Mars, where several persons were massacred, 
 (17th July.) The assembly summoned the municipality, 
 
 * Lavallce.
 
 176 REPUBLICAN RIOTS. 
 
 and enjoined it to use all the means prescribed by law 
 to put down the riots, and Bailly and Lafayette, with 
 his national guards, repaired to the scene of action, where 
 six thousand signatures had already been affixed to the 
 petition, and where they were received with insults and 
 abuse. During several hours they tried in vain to ap- 
 pease the mad multitude, and were at last obliged to 
 proclaim martial law ; but their summonses were replied 
 to by hootings and a shower of stones, and a pistol-shot 
 was fired at Lafayette, for now the time was come when 
 the former idols of the people were in their turn to be 
 ' broken. Lafayette ordered his men to fire, and after 
 several lives were lost, the crowd dispersed, and the re- 
 publican party were for a time intimidated ; but the na- 
 tional guard soon began to regret having fired upon the 
 people. Bailly and Lafayette were held up to execra- 
 tion, and Barnave, Duport, and Lameth, and all moder- 
 ate men in the kingdom, were included in the same ha- 
 tred with which the members of the Feuillans and the 
 emigrants were regarded. 
 
 The most disgusting feature in all the ravings to 
 which these continual denunciations gave rise, is the 
 constant introduction of the words liberty and patriot- 
 ism, in speeches replete with the grossest selfishness, 
 and in which bloodthirstiness and love of rapine are 
 conspicuous in every line. The love of their fellow- 
 citizens, which these men, for whom no hypocrisy was 
 too base, pretended to be the mover of all their actions 
 and all their words, looked very much like the love of 
 the vampire for the body whose blood he hopes to suck. 
 
 While things were in this state at Paris, the emi- 
 grants, whose hopes had risen with the king's flight, 
 were struck with consternation when Monsieur, his 
 brother, arrived alone at Brussels, and they got tidings
 
 DECLARATION OF FOREIGN POWERS. 177 
 
 of Louis's arrest. There was now nothing to be expect- 
 ed but from the assistance of foreign powejs, who were 
 willing to lend their aid ; for the principles set forth 
 by the French revolution were of a nature to enlist all 
 monarchs against them. 
 
 The Emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Comte 
 d'Artois, met at Pilnitz, where they signed a treaty on 
 the 27th of August, which prepared for the invasion of 
 Prance, and which was followed by a declaration, where- 
 in the sovereigns, considering the case of Louis XVL 
 as their own, demanded from France, on peril of their 
 declaring war against the country, that the king shouW 
 be liberated, and replaced on his throne ; that the Nation- 
 al Assembly should be dissolved ; and that the princes of 
 the empire having possessions in Alsace, should be re- 
 established in their feudal rights. But this declaration, 
 far from ameliorating the king's position, only still far- 
 ther exasperated the people against him, and their ha- 
 tred of their own king extended to all other monarchs, 
 who were denominated tyrants, and were threatened 
 with having their people revolutionized. The assembly 
 prepared for resistance, the frontiers were put in a state 
 of defence, one hundred thousand national guards were 
 levied, and though a great number of the young officers 
 of the line took their dismissal, France was not in need of 
 defenders, for, however divided within, the revolutionary 
 party had but one mind as to resistance to foreign foes. 
 
 While occupied with these preparations, the assembly 
 still continued its legislative labors, which were now ap- 
 proaching their termination, and the members who were 
 weary and unsatisfied, and the people who longed for 
 novelty and new excitement, looked forward to this ter- 
 mination with no small degree of satisfaction. It only 
 remained to unite all the constitutional decrees into one
 
 178 CONSTITUTIONAL DECREES. 
 
 body, in order to present them for the acceptance of 
 the king, and then for the members of the assembly to 
 withdraw, in accordance with the decree of the 1st May, 
 which declared that none of the members of the existing 
 assembly could enter into the next one, or even receive an 
 appointment Aom the king. In vain had Duport said on 
 that occasion, " Since we are glutted with principles, 
 how is it that we are not advised that stability is also a 
 principle of government 1 Shall we expose the French 
 nation, whose temper is fickle and headstrong, to a new 
 revolution, every two years, in laws and in opinion?" 
 
 It was too late then to speak of stability or common 
 sense ; the fiercest passions were roused on all sides, and 
 the assembly bent before them, and left the work for 
 which they had toiled, and which thby thought sufficient 
 to reconstitute the nation, to the guardianship of those 
 who, being elected in the heat of the revolulionaiy move- 
 ment, could of course only be the representatives of the 
 fiercest passions and the worst feelings of the people. 
 It is the fashion among French historians, to denomi- 
 nate this renunciation of farther part in the government 
 of the state, as imprudent generosity ; it is sufficient to 
 point out the folly of such an act, to prove that no mo- 
 tives of generosity (which, in such a case as this, could 
 only arise out of criminal ignorance) can possibly ex- 
 cuse it. Lafayette and Bailly were not behindhand in 
 this rivalship of " generosity," but also resigned their 
 functions, when the labors of the assembly were conclu- 
 ded. The national guard of Paris was then reorganiz- 
 ed, and in accordance with the principles of the day, no 
 commander-general was again nominated, but the chefs 
 de legion exercised by turns the functions during one 
 month. 
 
 When the constitutional decrees were all collected, it
 
 THE KING ACCEPTS THE CONSTITUTION. 179 
 
 was suggested that they ought to be revised ; but those 
 who feared that alterations might be introduced which 
 they were nowise inclined to accept, protested vehe- 
 mently against the revision, and the assembly was 
 obliged to content itself by declaring that France had 
 the right of reviewing its constitution, but that it would 
 be prudent not to use that right for thirty years. 
 
 The constitutional act, when completed, was presented 
 to the kina^, who was then restored to liberty, and re- 
 invested with his rights. After a few days' delibera- 
 tion, the king wrote to the assembly : " I accept the 
 cotistitution, I pledge myself to defend it from every 
 danger within, and against every attack from without, 
 and to enforce its execution by every means in my 
 power." On the following morning he went in person 
 to the assembly to repeat his acceptation of a constitu- 
 tion which he was not in a position to refuse, and the 
 respect which was henceforth to be paid to the chief of 
 the state, was shown to him, by his chair being placed 
 on an equal line with that of the president, and by the 
 assembly remaining seated while he got up to address 
 them. For thus it had been determined before his ar- 
 rival, " because the king was only the chief functionary 
 of the state, while they (the deputies) represented the 
 state itself, and the sovereignty of the people." When 
 the president in his turn rose to reply to the king, and 
 observed that the king remained seated, he again sat 
 down, and delivered his speech in this position. Th«« 
 unhappy Louis, when returned to the Tuileries after 
 this fearful trial, sank down upon a chair, and after 
 covering his face with his hands, wept aloud, while the 
 queen, throwing herself upon her knees before him, en- 
 circled him with her arms.* But the people without 
 
 * Madame Campan.
 
 180 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DISSOLVED. 
 
 shouted and exulted, every man feeling himself greater, 
 because a fellow-man who happened to be born to a 
 throne, and to expectations of happiness and glory, had 
 been made to ta'ste the bitter cup of humiliation and 
 human misery. 
 
 The period between this day and the 30th September, 
 when the National Assembly dissolved itself, was taken 
 up by fttes and rejoicings, in which the unhappy suf- 
 ferers were obliged to play a prominent part. On the 
 30th, the king again repaired to the assembly, to deliver 
 another hollow speech, and when he had left, one of the 
 deputies, rising, proclaimed with a powerful voice, ad- 
 dressing himself to the people : " The Constituent As- 
 sembly declares that its mission is accomplished, and 
 that it terminates at this moment its sittings." 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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 University of California Library 
 Los Angeles 
 
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