The French Revolution, Volume 1.
The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2
by Hippolyte A. Taine
CONTENTS:
ANARCHY
PREFACE
BOOK FIRST. Spontaneous Anarchy.
CHAPTER I. The Beginnings of Anarchy
CHAPTER II. Paris up to the 14th of July
CHAPTER III. Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789
CHAPTER IV. PARIS
BOOK SECOND. The constituent Assembly, and the Result of its Labors
CHAPTER I. The Constituent Assembly
CHAPTER II. The Damage
CHAPTER III. The Constructions - The Constitution of 1791.
BOOK THIRD. The Application of the Constitution
CHAPTER I. The Federations
CHAPTER II. Sovereignty of Unrestrained Passions
CHAPTER III. Development of the ruling Passion
PREFACE
This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" will
consist of two volumes. - Popular insurrections and the laws of the
Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France;
this forms the subject of the present volume. - A party arises
around an extreme doctrine, grabs control of the government, and
rules in conformity with its doctrine. This will form the subject
of the second volume.
A third volume would be required to criticize and evaluate the
source material. I lack the necessary space: I merely state the
rule that I have observed. The trustworthiest testimony will always
be that of an eyewitness, especially
* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, and intelligent man,
* When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the
dictate of the facts themselves,
* When it is obvious that his sole object is to preserve or furnish
information,
* When his work instead of a piece of polemics planned for the needs
of a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular effect is
a legal deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a
private letter, or a personal memento.
The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it merits
confidence, and supplies superior material. - I have found many of
this kind in the national archives, principally in the manuscript
correspondence of ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, magistrates,
and other functionaries; of military commanders, officers in the
army, and gendarmerie; of royal commissioners, and of the Assembly;
of administrators of departments, districts, and municipalities,
besides persons in private life who address the King, the National
Assembly, or the ministry. Among these are men of every rank,
profession, education, and party. They are distributed by hundreds
and thousands over the whole surface of the territory. They write
apart, without being able to consult each other, and without even
knowing each other. No one is so well placed for collecting and
transmitting accurate information. None of them seek literary
effect, or even imagine that what they write will ever be published.
They draw up their statements at once, under the direct impression
of local events. Testimony of this character, of the highest order,
and at first hand, provides the means by which all other testimony
ought to be verified. - The footnotes at the bottom of the pages
indicate the condition, office, name, and address of those decisive
witnesses. For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as
possible their own words. In this way the reader, confronting the
texts, can interpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he
will have the same documents as myself for arriving at his
conclusions, and, if he is pleased to do so, he may conclude
otherwise. As for allusions, if he finds any, he himself will have
introduced them, and if he applies them he is alone responsible for
them. To my mind, the past has features of its own, and the
portrait here presented resembles only the France of the past. I
have drawn it without concerning myself with the discussions of the
day; I have written as if my subject were the revolutions of
Florence or Athens. This is history, and nothing more, and, if I
may fully express myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too
highly to make a cloak of it for the concealment of another.
(December 1877).
_________________________________________________________________
BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.
CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.
I.
Dearth the first cause. - Bad crops. The winter of 1788 and 1789.
- High price and poor quality of bread. - In the provinces. - At
Paris.
During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-
Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him of the taking
of the Bastille. "It is a revolt, then?" exclaimed the King.
"Sire!" replied the Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even
more serious. Not only had power slipped from the hands of the
King, but also it had not fallen into those of the Assembly. It now
lay on the ground, ready to the hands of the unchained populace, the
violent and over-excited crowd, the mobs, which picked it up like
some weapon that had been thrown away in the street. In fact, there
was no longer any government; the artificial structure of human
society was giving way entirely; things were returning to a state of
nature. This was not a revolution, but a dissolution.
Two causes excite and maintain the universal upheaval. The first
one is food shortages and dearth, which being constant, lasting for
ten years, and aggravated by the very disturbances which it excites,
bids fair to inflame the popular passions to madness, and change the
whole course of the Revolution into a series of spasmodic stumbles.
When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices to cause an
overflow. So was it with the extreme distress of the eighteenth
century. A poor man, who finds it difficult to live when bread is
cheap, sees death staring him in the face when it is dear. In this
state of suffering the animal instinct revolts, and the universal
obedience which constitutes public peace depends on a degree more or
less of dryness or damp, heat or cold. In 1788, a year of severe
drought, the crops had been poor. In addition to this, on the eve
of the harvest,[1] a terrible hail-storm burst over the region
around Paris, from Normandy to Champagne, devastating sixty leagues
of the most fertile territory, and causing damage to the amount of
one hundred millions of francs. Winter came on, the severest that
had been seen since 1709. At the close of December the Seine was
frozen over from Paris to Havre, while the thermometer stood at 180
below zero. A third of the olive-trees died in Provence, and the
rest suffered to such an extent that they were considered incapable
of bearing fruit for two years to come. The same disaster befell
Languedoc. In Vivarais, and in the Cevennes, whole forests of
chestnuts had perished, along with all the grain and grass crops on
the uplands. On the plain the Rhone remained in a state of overflow
for two months. After the spring of 1789 the famine spread
everywhere, and it increased from month to month like a rising
flood. In vain did the Government order the farmers, proprietors,
and corn-dealers to keep the markets supplied. In vain did it
double the bounty on imports, resort to all sorts of expedients,
involve itself in debt, and expend over forty millions of francs to
furnish France with wheat. In vain do individuals, princes,
noblemen, bishops, chapters, and communities multiply their
charities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a debt of 400,000
livres, one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning after
the hailstorm, and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred
poor persons for six weeks[2]. But it had been too devastating.
Neither public measures nor private charity could meet the
overwhelming need. In Normandy, where the last commercial treaty
had ruined the manufacture of linen and of lace trimmings, forty
thousand workmen were out of work. In many parishes one-fourth of
the population[3] are beggars. Here, "nearly all the inhabitants,
not excepting the farmers and landowners, are eating barley bread
and drinking water;" there, "many poor creatures have to eat oat
bread, and others soaked bran, which has caused the death of several
children." -- "Above all," writes the Rouen Parliament, "let help be
sent to a perishing people . . .. Sire, most of your subjects
are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is given to
those who do buy it " -- Arthur Young,[4] who was traveling through
France at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and
the distress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound
-- that is to say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed
artisans flock to the relief works, where they can earn only twelve
sous a day. In Lorraine, according to the testimony of all
observers, "the people are half dead with hunger." In Paris the
number of paupers has been trebled; there are thirty thousand in the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. Around Paris there is a short supply
of grain, or it is spoilt[5]. In the beginning of July, at
Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could not have baked"
if the police officers had not increased the price of bread to five
sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to
send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition
to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small
consumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt
grain." At Villeneuve- le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two
lots last sent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed
without wheat." At Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent
that buyers of it throw the detestable bread, which it makes in the
face of the sub-delegate. At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and
smells bad; the " poor wretches," says an employee, "must be hard
pressed with hunger to put up with it." At Fontainebleau "the
barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour, and to make
bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several times." This
bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it has come to
this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through
wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often
attacked on the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the
famished people." At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same
person from buying more than two bushels in the same market." In
short, provisions are so scarce that there is a difficulty in
feeding the soldiers; the minister dispatches two letters one after
another to order the cutting down of 250,000 bushels of rye before
the harvest[6]. Paris thus, in a perfect state of tranquility,
appears like a famished city put on rations at the end of a long
siege, and the dearth will not be greater nor the food worse in
December 1870, than in July 1789.
"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[7]
"the more did the dearth increase." Every baker's shop was
surrounded by a crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most
grudging economy. This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and
bitter, producing inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels.
I have seen flour of detestable quality at the military school and
at other depots. I have seen portions of it yellow in color, with
an offensive smell; some forming blocks so hard that they had to be
broken into fragments by repeated blows of a hatchet. For my own
part, wearied with the difficulty of procuring this poor bread, and
disgusted with that offered to me at the tables d'hôte, I avoided
this kind of food altogether. In the evening I went to the Café du
Caveau, where, fortunately, they were kind enough to reserve for me
two of those rolls which are called flutes, and this is the only
bread I have eaten for a week at a time."
But this resource is only for the rich. As for the people, to get
bread fit for dogs, they must stand in a line for hours. And here
they fight for it; "they snatch food from one another." There is no
more work to be had; "the work-rooms are deserted;" often, after
waiting a whole day, the workman returns home empty-handed. When he
does bring back a four-pound loaf it costs him 3 francs 12 sous;
that is, 12 sous for the bread, and 3 francs for the lost day. In
this long line of unemployed, excited men, swaying to and fro before
the shop-door, dark thoughts are fermenting: "if the bakers find no
flour to-night to bake with, we shall have nothing to eat to-
morrow." An appalling idea; -- in presence of which the whole power
of the Government is not too strong; for to keep order in the midst
of famine nothing avails but the sight of an armed force, palpable
and threatening. Under Louis XIV and Louis XV there had been even
greater hunger and misery; but the outbreaks, which were roughly and
promptly put down, were only partial and passing disorders. Some
rioters were at once hung, and others were sent to the galleys. The
peasant or the workman, convinced of his impotence, at once returned
to his stall or his plow. When a wall is too high one does not even
think of scaling it. -- But now the wall is cracking -- all its
custodians, the clergy, the nobles, the Third-Estate, men of
letters, the politicians, and even the Government itself, making the
breach wider. The wretched, for the first time, discover an issue:
they dash through it, at first in driblets, then in a mass, and
rebellion becomes as universal as resignation was in the past.
II.
Expectations the second cause. - Separation and laxity of the
administrative forces. - Investigations of local assemblies. - The
people become aware of their condition. - Convocation of the
States-General. - Hope is born. The coincidence of early
Assemblies with early difficulties.
It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of
light, and gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For
the last fifty years it has been rising, and its rays, which first
illuminated the upper class in their splendid apartments in the
first story, and next the middle class in their entresol and on the
ground floor. They have now for two years penetrated to the cellars
where the people toil, and even to the deep sinks and obscure
corners where rogues and vagabonds and malefactors, a foul and
swarming herd, crowd and hide themselves from the persecution of the
law. -- To the first two provincial assemblies instituted by Necker
in 1778 and 1779, Loménie de Brienne has in 1787 just added nineteen
others; under each of these are assemblies of the arrondissement,
under each assembly of the arrondissement are parish assemblies[8].
Thus the whole machinery of administration has been changed. It is
the new assemblies which assess the taxes and superintend their
collection; which determine upon and direct all public works; and
which form the court of final appeal in regard to matters in
dispute. The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected
representative[9], thus lose three-quarters of their authority.
Conflicts arise, consequently, between rival powers whose frontiers
are not clearly defined; command shifts about, and obedience is
diminished. The subject no longer feels on his shoulders the
commanding weight of the one hand which, without possibility of
interference or resistance, held him in, urged him forward, and made
him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of the parish
arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians, "husband-
men,"[10] and often common farmers, sit by the side of lords and
prelates. They listen to and remember the vast figure of the taxes
which are paid exclusively, or almost exclusively, by them -- the
taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and road dues, and
assuredly on their return home they talk all this over with their
neighbor. These figures are all printed; the village attorney
discusses the matter with his clients, the artisans and rustics, on
Sunday as they leave the mass, or in the evening in the large public
room of the tavern. These little gatherings, moreover, are
sanctioned, encouraged by the powers above. In the earliest days of
1788 the provincial assemblies order a board of inquiry to be held
by the syndics and inhabitants of each parish. Knowledge is wanted
in detail of their grievances. What part of the revenue is
chargeable to each impost? What must the cultivator pay and how much
does he suffer? How many privileged persons there are in the parish,
what is the amount of their fortune, are they residents, and what
their exemptions amount to? In replying, the attorney who holds the
pen, names and points out with his finger each privileged
individual, criticizes his way of living, and estimates his fortune,
calculates the injury done to the village by his immunities,
inveighs against the taxes and the tax-collectors. On leaving these
assemblies the villager broods over what he has just heard. He sees
his grievances no longer singly as before, but in mass, and coupled
with the enormity of evils under which his fellows suffer. Besides
this, they begin to disentangle the causes of their misery: the King
is good -- why then do his collectors take so much of our money?
This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind -- why then do they
make us pay in their place? -- Imagine that a sudden gleam of reason
should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between
the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its
first ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who
bridle and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured
travelers and sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of
the vehicle add their own and that of their luggage.
Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed
brooding, a new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded: -- that
of an oppressed multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd
scattered far beyond the visible horizon, everywhere ill used,
starved, and fleeced. Towards the end of 1788 we begin to detect in
the correspondence of the intendants and military commandants the
dull universal muttering of coming wrath. Men's characters seem to
change; they become suspicious and restive. -- And just at this
moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to
direct themselves.[11]. In the month of November 1787, the King
declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the 5th of
July 1788, he calls for memoranda (des mémoires) on this subject
from every competent person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes
the date of the session. On the 5th of October he convokes the
notables, in order to consider the subject with them. On the 27th
of December he grants a double representation to the Third-Estate,
because "its cause is allied with generous sentiments, and it will
always obtain the support of public opinion." The same day he
introduces into the electoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of
curés[12], "because good and useful pastors are daily and closely
associated with the indigence and relief of the people," from which
it follows "that they are much more familiar with their sufferings"
and necessities. On the 24th January 1789, he prescribes the
procedure and method of the meetings. After the 7th of February
writs of summons are sent out one after the other. Eight days
after, each parish assembly begins to draw up its memorial of
grievances, and becomes excited over the detailed enumeration of all
the miseries which it sets down in writing. -- All these appeals
and all these acts are so many strokes, which reverberate, in the
popular imagination. "It is the desire of His Majesty," says the
order issued, "that every one, from the extremities of his kingdom,
and from the most obscure of its hamlets, should be certain of his
wishes and protests reaching him." Thus, it is all quite true: there
can be no mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are
invited to speak out, they are summoned, and they are consulted.
There is a disposition to relieve them; henceforth their misery
shall be less; better times are coming. This is all they know about
it. A few month after, in July,[13] the only answer a peasant girl
can make to Arthur Young is, "something was to be done by some great
folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how." The
thing is too complicated, beyond the reach of a stupefied and
mechanical brain. - One idea alone emerges, the hope of immediate
relief. The persuasion that one is entitled to it, the resolution
to aid it with every possible means. Consequently, an anxious
waiting, a ready fervor, a tension of the will simply due to the
waiting for the opportunity to let go and take off like a
irresistible arrow towards the unknown end which will reveal itself
all of a sudden. Hunger is to mark this sudden target out for them.
The market must be supplied with wheat; the farmers and land-owners
must bring it; wholesale buyers, whether the Government or
individuals, must not be allowed to send it elsewhere. The wheat
must be sold at a low price; the price must be cut down and fixed,
so that the baker can sell bread at two sous the pound. Grain,
flour, wine, salt, and provisions must pay no more duties.
Seignorial dues and claims, ecclesiastical tithes, and royal or
municipal taxes must no longer exist. On the strength of this idea
disturbances broke out on all sides in March, April, and May.
Contemporaries " do not know what to think of such a scourge;[14]
they cannot comprehend how such a vast number of criminals, without
visible leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhere to commit the
same excesses just at the time when the States-General are going to
begin their sittings." The reason is that, under the ancient régime,
the conflagration was smoldering in a closed chamber; the great door
is suddenly opened, the air enters, and immediately the flame breaks
out.
III.
The provinces during the first six months of 1789. - Effects of the
famine.
At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which are
extinguished or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the
same place, or very near it, the sparks again appear. Their number,
like their recurrence, shows the vastness, depth, and heat of the
combustible matter, which is about to explode. In the four months,
which precede the taking of the Bastille, over three hundred
outbreaks may be counted in France. They take place from month to
month and from week to week, in Poitou, Brittany, Touraine,
Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Alsace,
Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Provence. On the 28th
of May the parliament of Rouen announces robberies of grain,
"violent and bloody tumults, in which men on both sides have
fallen," throughout the province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain,
Granville, Evreux, Bernay, Pont-Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in
other sections besides. On the 20th of April Baron de Bezenval,
military commander in the Central Provinces, writes: "I once more
lay before M. Necker a picture of the frightful condition of
Touraine and of Orléanais. Every letter I receive from these two
provinces is the narrative of three or four riots, which are put
down with difficulty by the troops and constabulary,"[15] -- and
throughout the whole extent of the kingdom a similar state of things
is seen. The women, as is natural, are generally at the head of
these outbreaks. It is they who, at Montlhéry, rip open the sacks
of grain with their scissors. On learning each week, on market day
that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four, or seven
sous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread,
with the small salaries of the men, and when work fails,[16] how can
a family be fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the
doors of the bakers. Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the
crowd makes a push; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked
down. The shop is invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the
buyers and of the famished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no
pay, and running away with the booty. -- Sometimes a party is made
up beforehand[17] At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the
villagers for four leagues around, armed with stones, knives, and
cudgels, to the number of four thousand, compel the metayers and
farmers, who have brought grain with them, to sell it at 3 livres,
instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel. They threaten to do the
same thing on the following market-day: but the farmers do not
return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers must be at hand,
or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, in
Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with
cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town,
threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are
not given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it
amongst themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the
next crop comes round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two
sous the pound, and to increase the day's wages four sous. --
Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is not the people who obey
the authorities, but the authorities who obey the people. Consuls,
sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused
and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they
are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows.
Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd is mad,
and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping
that at the next market-day there will be more soldiers and better
precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violent outbreak,"[18]
they decide to take the wheat belonging to the Jacobin monks, and,
protected by the troops, to sell it to the people at a third below
its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is attacked, they are
forced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At Angoulême,
to avoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to
renounce his dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of
bread, and compensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated
they let everything take its course; the people sack their dwellings
and get the upper hand; they announce by sound of trumpet that all
their demands are granted. On other occasions, the mob dispenses
with their services and acts for itself. If there happens to be no
grain on the market-place, the people go after it wherever they can
find it -- to proprietors and farmers who are unable to bring it for
fear of pillage; to convents, which by royal edict are obliged
always to have one year's crop in store; to granaries where the
Government keeps its supplies; and to convoys which are dispatched
by the intendants to the relief of famished towns. Each for himself
-- so much the worse for his neighbor. The inhabitants of Fougères
beat and drive out those who come from Ernée to buy in their market;
a similar violence is shown at Vitré to the in-habitants of
Maine.[19] At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grain started for
Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didier that
ordered for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. In
vain are escorts added to the convoys; troops of men and women,
armed with hatchets and guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods
along the road, and seize the horses by their bridles; the saber has
to be used to secure any advance. In vain are arguments and kind
words offered, "and in vain even is wheat offered for money; they
refuse, shouting out that the convoy shall not go on." They have
taken a stubborn stand, their resolution being that of a bull
planted in the middle of the road and lowering his horns. Since the
wheat is in the district, it is theirs; whoever carries it off or
withholds it is a robber. This fixed idea cannot be driven out of
their minds. At Chant-nay, near Mans,[20] they prevent a miller
from carrying that which he had just bought to his mill. At
Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act of sending
his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in force to
gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is found is
nearly killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the taps
running. At Nevers, the bakers not having put bread on their
counters for four days, the mob force the granaries of private
persons, of dealers and religious communities. "The frightened
corn-dealers part with their grain at any price; most of it is
stolen in the face of the guards," and, in the tumult of these
searches of homes, a number of houses are sacked. -- In these days
woe to all who are concerned in the acquisition, commerce, and
manipulation of grain! Popular imagination requires living beings to
who it may impute its misfortunes, and on whom it may gratify its
resentments. To it, all such persons are monopolists, and, at any
rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine establishment is
invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[21] At Amiens "the
people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the houses of two
merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained by the
soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other
"groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three
persons whom they suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur
Geslin, being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and
finding no wheat, a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an
accomplice! The crowd rush at him, and he is wounded and almost cut
in pieces. -- It is very evident that there is no more security in
France; property, even life, is in danger. The primary possession,
food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced
and precarious. The local officials everywhere call for aid,
declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand regular troops.
And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized,
and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the blind
madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which profit
by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political
commotion frees from restraint.
IV.
Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.
We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt,
poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[22] have become,
and how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many
recruits for the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a
disturbance each one of them fills his pouch. Around Caux,[23] even
up to the environs of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quévrevilly, Préaux,
Saint-Jacques, and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of
armed bandits force their way into the houses, particularly the
parsonages, and lay their hands on whatever they please. To the
south of Chartres "three or four hundred woodcutters, from the
forests of Bellème, chop away everything that opposes them, and
force grain to be given up to them at their own price." In the
vicinity of Étampes, fifteen bandits enter the farmhouses at night
and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him with a conflagration.
In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, of Verger, and
of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de Besselard, the estate
of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing along the road
to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy. "The
seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy and
Cambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license of
that pursuit." The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by
the bandits. Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one
who is half-honest, and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in
spite of himself; repeats the act, allured on by impunity or by
gain. In fact, "it is not dire necessity which impels them;" they
make a speculation of cupidity, a new sort of illicit trade. An old
soldier, saber in hand, a forest-keeper, and "about eight persons
sufficiently lax, put themselves at the head of four or five hundred
men, go off each day to three or four villages. Here they force
everybody who has any wheat to give it to them at 24 livres," and
even at 18 livres, the sack. Those among the band, who say that
they have no money, carry away their portion without payment.
Others, after having paid what they please, re-sell at a profit,
which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a good business,
and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. At the
next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatened
to come and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle
and sell the meat in the villages at the rate of two sous the
pound." -- In every important insurrection there are similar evil-
does and vagabonds, enemies to the law, savage, prowling
desperadoes, who, like wolves, roam about wherever they scent a
prey. It is they who serve as the directors and executioners of
public or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-five masked men, with
guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him,
beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers along with the
title-deeds and papers which be has in keeping for the Count de
Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on their
side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.[24] -- They are
known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of
destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and
their rags. Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four
days, the town is at their mercy.[25] The stores are forced open,
train wagons are discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and
seminaries are put to ransom. They invade the dwelling of the
attorney-general, who has begun proceedings against them, and want
to tear him to pieces. They break his mirrors and his furniture,
leave the premises laden with booty, and go into the town and its
outskirts to pillage the manufactories and break up or burn all the
machinery. -- Henceforth these constitute the new leaders: for in
every mob it is the boldest and least scrupulous who march ahead and
set the example in destruction. The example is contagious: the
beginning was the craving for bread, the end is murder and arson;
the savagery which is unchained adding its unlimited violence to the
limited revolt of necessity.
V.
Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.
Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in
spite of the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it
irresistible is the belief of its being authorized, and that by
those whose duty it is to repress it. Here and there words and
actions of a brutal frankness break forth, and reveal beyond the
somber present a more threatening future -- After the 9th of
January, 1789, among the mob which attacks the Hôtel-de-Ville and
besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vive la
Liberté![26] .mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard." A few
months later, around Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes,
alleging that the memorial of their seneschal's court demands their
abolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in
many places;" many of the communities even maintain that they will
pay no more taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall
have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In Isère
it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal
dues" shall no longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected
by this dare not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people
have come to the conclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease,"
and, on the 29th of June, on hearing of the meeting of the three
orders, "astonished by the illuminations and signs of public
rejoicing," they believe that the good time has come." They think of
forcing the delivery of meat to them at four sous the pound, and
wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate to them the
prospective abolition of octrois.[27] and that, meanwhile, the
King, in favor of the re-assembling of the three orders, has granted
three days' freedom from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons ought
to enjoy the same privilege." Upon this the crowd, rushing off to
the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and Perrache, and to the
Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the
registers, sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and
pillage the wine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor
has circulated all round through the country that there is free
entrance into the town for all provisions. During the following
days the peasantry stream in with enormous files of wagons loaded
with wine and drawn by several oxen, so that, in spite of the re-
established guard, it is necessary to let them enter all day without
paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of July that these can again
be collected. -- The same thing occurs in the southern provinces,
where the principal imposts are levied on provisions. There also
the collections are suspended in the name of public authority. At
Agde,[28] "the people, considering the so-called will of the King as
to equality of classes, are foolish enough to think that they are
everything and can do everything." Thus do they interpret in their
own way and in their own terms the double representation accorded to
the Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently, with
general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and
if the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not
suppressed. They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up
out of their body." The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and
the notables, against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in
the country, are obliged to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their
demands shall be granted. Three days afterwards they exact a
diminution of one-half of the tax on grinding, and go in quest of
the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill, sinks down
in the street and seats himself on a stone; they compel him
forthwith to sign an act of renunciation, and hence "his mill,
valued at 15,000 livres, is reduced to 7,500 livres." -- At Limoux,
under the pretext of searching for grain, they enter the houses of
the comptroller and tax contractors, carry off their registers, and
throw them into the water along with the furniture of their clerks.
-- In Provence it is worse; for most unjustly, and through
inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are all levied on
flour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread is
directly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest
enemy, and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into
insurrections against the State.
VI.
The first jacquerie in Province. - Feebleness or ineffectiveness of
repressive measures.
Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the mass
of gunpowder. Everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place on
the very day on which the electoral assembly meets. From forty to
fifty riots occur in the provinces in less than a fortnight.
Popular imagination, like that of a child, goes straight to its
mark. The reforms having been announced, people think them
accomplished and, to make sure of them, steps are at once taken to
carry them out. Now that we are to have relief, let us relieve
ourselves. "This is not an isolated riot as usual," writes the
commander of the troops;[29] "here the faction is united and
governed by uniform principles; the same errors are diffused through
all minds. . . . . The principles impressed on the people are
that the King desires equality. No more bishops or lords, no more
distinctions of rank, no tithes, and no seignorial privileges.
Thus, these misguided people fancy that they are exercising their
rights, and obeying the will of the King." -- The effect of
sonorous phrases is apparent. The people have been told that the
States-General were to bring about the "regeneration of the kingdom"
The inference is "that the date of their assembly was to be one of
an entire and absolute change of conditions and fortunes." Hence,
"the insurrection against the nobles and the clergy is as active as
it is widespread." "In many places it was distinctly announced that
there was a sort of war declared against landowners and property,"
and "in the towns as well as in the rural districts the people
persist in declaring that they will pay nothing, neither taxes,
duties, nor debts." -- Naturally, the first assault is against the
piquèt, or flour-tax. At Aix, Marseilles, Toulon, and in more than
forty towns and market-villages, this is summarily abolished; at
Aupt and at Luc nothing remains of the weighing-house but the four
walls. At Marseilles the home of the slaughter-house contractor and
at Brignolles that of the director of the leather excise, are
sacked. The determination is "to purge the land of excise-men. " -
- This is only a beginning; bread and other provisions must become
cheap, and that without delay. At Arles, the Corporation of
sailors, presided over by M. de Barras, consul, had just elected its
representatives. By way of conclusion to the meeting, they pass a
resolution insisting that M. de Barras should reduce the price of
all comestibles. On his refusal, they "open the window, exclaiming,
'We hold him, and we have only to throw him into the street for the
rest to pick him up.'" Compliance is inevitable. The resolution is
proclaimed by the town-criers, and at each article which is reduced
in price the crowd shout, "Vive le Roi, vive M. Barras !" -- One
must yield to brute force. But the inconvenience is great for,
through the suppression of the flour-tax, the towns have no longer a
revenue. On the other hand, as they are obliged to indemnify the
butchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of 2,500
livres a day.
In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion of
having contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils, which the
people endure! At Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor,
who signs the tax-list, and of the keeper of the records. They are
trodden under foot, and their houses are ransacked. At Manosque,
the Bishop of Sisteron, who is visiting the seminary, is accused of
favoring a monopolist. On his way to his carriage, on foot, he is
hooted and menaced. He is first pelted with mud, and then with
stones. The consuls in attendance, and the sub-delegate, who come
to his assistance, are mauled and repulsed. Meanwhile, some of the
most furious begin, before his eyes, "to dig a ditch to bury him
in." Protected by five or six brave fellows, amidst a volley of
stones, and wounded on the head and on many parts of his body, he
succeeds in reaching his carriage. He is finally only saved because
the horses, which are likewise stoned, run away. Foreigners,
Italians, bandits, are mingled with the peasants and artisans, and
expressions are heard and acts are seen which indicate a
jacquerie.[30] "The most excited said to the bishop, 'we are poor
and you are rich, and we mean to have all your property.'"[31]
Elsewhere, "the seditious mob exacts contributions from all people
in good circumstances. At Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged
from top to bottom, and thirty others partly half. -- At Aupt, M.
de Montferrat, in defending himself, is killed and "hacked to
pieces." -- At La Seyne, the mob, led by a peasant, assembles by
beat of drum. Some women fetch a bier, and set it down before the
house of a leading bourgeois, telling him to prepare for death, and
that "they will have the honor of burying him." He escapes; his
house is pillaged, as well as the bureau of the flour-tax. The
following day, the chief of the band "obliges the principal
inhabitants to give him a sum of money to indemnify, as he states
it, the peasants who have abandoned their work," and devoted the day
to serving the public. -- At Peinier, the Président de Peinier, an
octogenarian, is "besieged in his chateau by a band of a hundred and
fifty artisans and peasants," who bring with them a consul and a
notary. Aided by these two functionaries, they force the president
"to pass an act by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every
description " -- At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M.
de Forbin-Janson. They sack the house of his business agent,
pillage the château, and demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings,
and escutcheons. They enter the cellars, stave in the casks, and
carry away everything that can be carried, "the transportation
taking two days;" all of which cause damages of a hundred thousand
crowns to the marquis. -- At Riez they surround the episcopal
palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and compromise with the
bishop on a promise of fifty thousand livres," and want him to burn
his archives. -- In short, the sedition is social for it singles
out for attack all that profit by, or stand at the head of, the
established order of things.
Seeing them act in this way, one would say that the theory of the
Contrat-Social had been instilled into them. They treat magistrates
as domestics, promulgate laws, and conduct themselves like
sovereigns. They exercise public power, and establish, summarily,
arbitrarily, and brutally, whatever they think to be in conformity
with natural right. -- At Peinier they exact a second electoral
assembly, and, for themselves, the right of suffrage. -- At Saint-
Maximin they themselves elect new consuls and officers of justice.
-- At Solliez they oblige the judge's lieutenant to give in his
resignation, and they break his staff of office. -- At Barjols
"they use consuls and judges as their town servants, announcing that
they are masters and that they will themselves administer justice."
-- In fact, they do administer it, as they understand it -- that is
to say, through many exactions and robberies! One man has wheat; he
must share it with him who has none. Another has money; he must
give it to him who has not enough to buy bread with. On this
principle, at Barjols, they tax the Ursulin nuns 1,800 livres, carry
off fifty loads of wheat from the Chapter, eighteen from one poor
artisan, and forty from another, and constrain canons and
beneficiaries to give acquittances to their farmers. Then, from
house to house, with club in hand, they oblige some to hand over
money, others to abandon their claims on their debtors, "one to
desist from criminal proceedings, another to nullify a decree
obtained, a third to reimburse the expenses of a lawsuit gained
years before, a father to give his consent to the marriage of his
son." -- All their grievances are brought to mind, and we all know
the tenacity of a peasant's memory. Having become the master, he
redresses wrongs, and especially those of which he thinks himself
the object. There must be a general restitution; and first, of the
feudal dues which have been collected. They take of M. de
Montmeyan's business agent all the money he has as compensation for
that received by him during fifteen years as a notary. A former
consul of Brignolles had, in 1775, inflicted penalties to the amount
of 1,500 or 1,800 francs, which had been given to the poor; this sum
is taken from his strong box. Moreover, if consuls and law officers
are wrongdoers, the title deeds, rent-rolls, and other documents by
which they do their business are still worse. To the fire with all
old writings -- not only office registers, but also, at Hyères, all
the papers in the town hall and those of the principal notary. --
In the matter of papers none are good but new ones -- those which
convey some discharge, quittance, or obligation to the advantage of
the people. At Brignolles the owners of the gristmills are
constrained to execute a contract of sale by which they convey their
mills to the commune in consideration of 5,000 francs per annum,
payable in ten years without interest -- an arrangement which ruins
them. On seeing the contract signed the peasants shout and cheer,
and so great is their faith in this piece of stamped paper that they
at once cause a mass of thanksgiving to be celebrated in the
Cordeliers. Formidable omens these! Which mark the inward purpose,
the determined will, and the coming deeds of this rising power. If
it prevails, its first work will be to destroy all ancient
documents, all title deeds, rent-rolls, contracts, and claims to
which force compels it to submit. By force likewise it will draw up
others to its own advantage, and the scribes who do it will be its
own deputies and administrators whom it holds in its rude grasp.
Those who are in high places are not alarmed; they even find that
there is some good in the revolt, inasmuch as it compels the towns
to suppress unjust taxation.[32] The new Marseilles guard, formed
of young men, is allowed to march to Aubagne, "to insist that M. le
lieutenant criminel and M. l'avocat du Roi release the prisoners."
The disobedience of Marseilles, which refuses to receive the
magistrates sent under letters patent to take testimony, is
tolerated. And better still, in spite of the remonstrances of the
parliament of Aix, a general amnesty is proclaimed; "no one is
excepted but a few of the leaders, to whom is allowed the liberty of
leaving the kingdom." The mildness of the King and of the military
authorities is admirable. It is admitted that the people are
children, that they err only through ignorance, that faith must be
had in their repentance, and, as soon as they return to order, they
must be received with paternal effusions. -- The truth is, that
the child is a blind Colossus, exasperated by sufferings. hence
whatever it takes hold of is shattered -- not only the local wheels
of the provinces, which, if temporarily deranged, may be repaired,
but even the incentive at the center which puts the rest in motion,
and the destruction of which will throw the whole machinery into
confusion.
__________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Marmontel, "Mémoires," II. 221. -- Albert Babeau, "Histoire
de la Révolution Française," I. 91, 187. (Letter by Huez Mayor of
Troyes, July 30, 1788.)- -- Archives Nationales, H. 1274. (Letter
by M. de Caraman, April 22, 1789.) H. 942 (Cahier des demandes des
Etats de Languedoc). - Buchez et Roux, "Histoire Parlementaire,"
I. 283.
[2] See " The Ancient Régime," p.34. Albert Babeau, I. 91. (The
Bishop of Troyes gives 12,000 francs, and the chapter 6,000, for the
relief workshops.)
[3] "The Ancient Regime," 350, 387.--Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement
de Normandie," VII. 505-518. (Reports of the Parliament of
Normandy, May 3,1788. Letter from the Parliament to the King, July
15, 1789.)
[4] Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," June 29th, July 2nd and 18th
-- " Journal de Paris," January 2, 1789. Letter of the curé of
Sainte-Marguerite.
[5] Buchez and Roux, IV. 79-82. (Letter from the intermediary
bureau of Montereau, July 9, 1789; from the maire of Villeneuve-le-
Roi, July 10th; from M. Baudry, July 10th; from M. Prioreau, July
11th, etc.) -- Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France," 2nd
part, ch. XXI, p. 5.
[6] Roux et Buchez, ibid. "It is very unfortunate," writes the
Marquis d'Autichamp, "to be obliged to cut down the standing crops
ready to be gathered in; but it is dangerous to let the troops die
of hunger."
[7] Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France," ch. XXXIX, V,
37. -- De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la Révolution,"
p. 5l3. -- Deposition of Maillard (Criminal Inquiry of the
Châtelet concerning the events of October 5th and 6th).
[8] De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution," 272-290. De
Lavergne, "Les Assemblées provinciales," 109. Procès-verbaux des
assemblées provinciales, passim.
[9] A magistrate who gives judgment in a lower court in cases
relative to taxation. These terms are retained because there are no
equivalents in English. (Tr.)
[10] "Laboureurs," -- this term, at this epoch, is applied to those
who till their own land. (Tr.)
[11] Duvergier. "Collection des lois et décrets," I. 1 to 23, and
particularly p. 15.
[12] Parish priests. (SR.)
[13] Arthur Young, July 12th , 1789 (in Champagne).
[14] Montjoie, 1st part, 102.
[15] Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII. 508. -- "
Archives Nationales," H. 1453.
[16] Arthur Young, June 29th (at Nangis).
[17] "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the Duc de Mortemart,
Seigneur of Bray, May 4th; of M. de Ballainvilliers, intendant of
Languedoc, April 15th.
[18] "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant, M.
d'Agay, April 30th; of the municipal officers of Nantes, January
9th; of the intendant, M. Meulan d'Ablois, June 22nd; of M. de
Ballainvilliers, April 15th.
[19] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de
Langeron, July 4th; of M. de Meulan d'Ablois, June 5th; "Minutes of
the meeting of la Maréchaussée de Bost," April 29th. Letters of M.
de Chazerat, May 29th; of M. de Bezenval, June 2nd; of the
intendant, M. Amelot, April 25th.
[20] '"Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of M. de Bezenval, May
27th; of M. de Ballainvilliers, April 25th; of M. de Foullonde,
April 19th.
[21] "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant, M.
d'Aine, March 12th; of M. d'Agay, April 30th; of M. Amelot, April
25th; of the municipal authorities of Nantes, January 9th, etc.
[22] "The Ancient Régime," pp. 380-389.
[23] Floquet, VII. 508, (Report of February 27th). - Hippeau, "La
Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 377. (Letter of M. Perrot, June
23rd.) -- " Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. de
Sainte-Suzanne, April 29th. Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of M. de
Rochambeau, May 16th Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of the Abbé Duplaquet,
Deputy of the Third Estate of Saint-Quentin, May 17th. Letter of
three husbandmen in the environs of Saint-Quentin, May 14th.
[24] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de
Perigord, military commandant of Languedoc, April 22nd.
[25] Floquet, VII. 511 (from the 11th to the 14th July).
[26] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the municipal
authorities of Nantes, January 9th; of the sub-delegate of Ploërmel,
July 4th; ibid. F7, 2353. Letter of the intermediary commission of
Alsace, September 8th ibid. F7, 3227. Letter of the intendant,
Caze de la Bove, June 16th ; ibid. H. 1453. Letter of Terray,
intendant of Lyons, July 4th; of the prévot des échevins, July 5th
and 7th.
[27] (A tax on all goods entering a town. SR.)
[28] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the mayor and
councils of Agde, April 21st; of M. de Perigord, April 19th, May
5th.
[29] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. de Caraman,
March 23rd, 26th 27th 28th; of the seneschal Missiessy, March 24th;
of the mayor of Hyères, March 25th, etc.; ibid. H. 1274; of M. de
Montmayran, April 2nd; of M. de Caraman, March 18th , April 12th; of
the intendant, M. de la Tour, April 2nd; of the procureur-géneral,
M. d'Antheman, April 17th, and the report of June 15th; of the
municipal authorities of Toulon, April 11th; of the sub-delegate of
Manosque, March 14th; of M. de Saint-Tropez, March 21st. - Minutes
of the meeting, signed by 119 witnesses, of the insurrection at Aix,
March 5th, etc.
[30] An uprising of the peasants. The term is used to indicate a
country mob in contradistinction to a city or town mob.-Tr.
[31] "Archives Nationales," H.1274. Letter of M. de la Tour, April
2nd (with a detailed memorandum and depositions).
[32] "Archives Nationales," H. 1274. Letter of M. de Caraman,
April 22nd: ---"One real benefit results from this misfortune. . .
The well-to-do class is brought to sustain that which exceeded the
strength of the poor daily laborers. We see the nobles and people
in good circumstances a little more attentive to the poor peasants:
they are now habituated to speaking to them with more gentleness."
M. de Caraman was wounded, as well as his Son, at Aix, and if the
Soldiery, who were stoned, at length fired on the crowd, he did not
give the order. -- Ibid, letter of M. d'Anthéman, April 17th; of M.
de Barentin, June 11th.
CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY.
I.
Mob recruits in the vicinity.- Entry of vagabonds. - The number of
paupers.
INDEED it is in the center that the convulsive shocks are strongest.
Nothing is lacking to aggravate the insurrection -- neither the
liveliest provocation to stimulate it, nor the most numerous bands
to carry it out. The environs of Paris all furnish recruits for it;
nowhere are there so many miserable wretches, so many of the
famished, and so many rebellious beings. Robberies of grain take
place everywhere -- at Orleans, at Cosne, at Rambouillet, at Jouy,
at Pont-Saint-Maxence, at Bray-sur-Seine, at Sens, at Nangis.[1]
Wheat flour is so scarce at Meudon, that every purchaser is ordered
to buy at the same time an equal quantity of barley. At Viroflay,
thirty women, with a rear-guard of men, stop on the main road
vehicles, which they suppose to be loaded with grain. At Montlhéry
stones and clubs disperse seven brigades of the police. An immense
throng of eight thousand persons, women and men, provided with bags,
fall upon the grain exposed for sale. They force the delivery to
them of wheat worth 40 francs at 24 francs, pillaging the half of it
and conveying it off without payment. "The constabulary is
disheartened," writes the sub-delegate; "the determination of the
people is wonderful; I am frightened at what I have seen and heard."
-- After the 13th of July, 1788, the day of the hail-storm, despair
seized the peasantry; well disposed as the proprietors may have
been, it was impossible to assist them. "Not a workshop is
open;[2] the noblemen and the bourgeois, obliged to grant delays in
the payment of their incomes, can give no work." Accordingly, "the
famished people are on the point of risking life for life," and,
publicly and boldly, they seek food wherever it can be found. At
Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Eragny, Neuville, Chenevières, at Cergy,
Pontoise, Ile-Adam, Presle, and Beaumont, men, women, and children,
the hole parish, range the country, set snares, and destroy the
burrows. "The rumor is current that the Government, informed of the
damage done by the game to cultivators, allows its destruction . .
. and really the hares ravaged about a fifth of the crop. At first
an arrest is made of nine of these poachers; but they are released,
"taking circumstances into account." Consequently, for two months,
there is a slaughter on the property of the Prince de Conti and of
the Ambassador Mercy d'Argenteau; in default of bread they eat
rabbits. -- Along with the abuse of property they are led, by a
natural impulse, to attack property itself. Near Saint-Denis the
woods belonging to the abbey are devastated. "The farmers of the
neighborhood carry away loads of wood, drawn by four and five
horses;" the inhabitants of the villages of Ville-Parisis, Tremblay,
Vert-Galant, Villepinte, sell it publicly, and threaten the wood-
rangers with a beating. On the 15th of June the damage is already
estimated at 60,000 livres. -- It makes little difference whether
the proprietor has been benevolent, like M. de Talaru,[3] who had
supported the poor on his estate at Issy the preceding winter. The
peasants destroy the dike which conducts water to his communal mill;
condemned by the parliament to restore it, they declare that not
only will they not obey. Should M. de Talaru try to rebuild it they
will return with three hundred armed men, and tear it away the
second time.
For those who are most compromised Paris is the nearest refuge. For
the poorest and most exasperated, the door of nomadic life stands
wide open. Bands rise up around the capital, just as in countries
where human society has not yet been formed, or has ceased to exist.
During the first two weeks of May[4] near Villejuif a band of five
or six hundred vagabonds strive to force Bicêtre and approach Saint-
Cloud. They arrive from thirty, forty, and sixty leagues off, from
Champagne, from Lorraine, from the whole circuit of country
devastated by the hailstorm. All hover around Paris and are there
engulfed as in a sewer, the unfortunate along with criminals, some
to find work, others to beg and to rove about under the injurious
prompting of hunger and the rumors of the public thoroughfares.
During the last days of April,[5] the clerks at the tollhouses note
the entrance of "a frightful number of poorly clad men of sinister
aspect." During the first days of May a change in the appearance of
the crowd is remarked. There mingle in it "a number of foreigners,
from all countries, most of them in rags, armed with big sticks, and
whose very aspect announces what is to be feared from them."
Already, before this final influx, the public sink is full to
overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase of
population in Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by
recent demolition and constructions. Think of all the craftsmen
whom the stagnation of manufactures, the augmentation of octrois,
the rigor of winter, and the dearness of bread have reduced to
extreme distress. Remember that in 1786 "two hundred thousand
persons are counted whose property, all told, has not the intrinsic
worth of fifty crowns." Remember that, from time immemorial, these
have been at war with the city watchmen. Remember that in 1789
there are twenty thousand poachers in the capital and that, to
provide them with work, it is found necessary to establish national
workshops. Remember "that twelve thousand are kept uselessly
occupied digging on the hill of Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per
day. Remember that the wharves and quays are covered with them,
that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them, and that, around the
palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of disarmed
justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors of the
bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of
obtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which
they will storm any obstacle to which their attention may be
directed.
II. The Press.
Excitement of the press and of opinion. - The people make their
choice.
Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two
years, it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the
entire ancient régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the
people is sure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than
he chooses to lead. -- The moment the Parliament of a large city
refuses to register fiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service.
On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads
of the soldiery, and the military force is powerless. At Rennes, to
put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent
camp of four regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, under the
command of a Marshal of France, is required.[6] - The following
year, when the Parliaments now side with the privileged class, the
disturbances again begin, but this time against the Parliaments. In
February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, the magistrates are hooted
at, chased in the streets, besieged in the town hall, and obliged to
conceal themselves or take to flight. -- If such is the disposition
in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the capital of the
kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after the
dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place
Dauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy,
disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody
as this, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot
bursts out a second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go
and burn the residences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the
lieutenant of police. -- Clearly a new ferment has been infused
among the ignorant and brutal masses, and the new ideas are
producing their effect. They have for a long time imperceptibly
been filtering downwards from layer to layer After having gained
over the aristocracy, the whole of the lettered portion of the
Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all the young, they have
insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousand fissures into
the class which supports itself by the labor of its own hands.
Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and
affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers,
purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of
letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest
tone, the same diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses
and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places.
They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not
present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution,
some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the
messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.
Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into
political passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of
the King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from
everybody, both speech and the press alter in tone.[7] Instead of
general conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with
a view to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand,
preaching as shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet.
Revolutionary pamphlets appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que
le Tiers?" by Sieyès; "Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti;
"Considerations sur les Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-
Etienne; "Ma Pétition," by Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux,"
by M. d'Entraigues, and, a little later, "La France libre," par
Camille Desmoulins, and others by hundreds and thousands.[8] All of
which are repeated and amplified in the electoral assemblies, where
new-made citizens come to declaim and increase their own
excitement.[9] The unanimous, universal and daily shout rolls along
from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs, into markets,
workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789, Necker
avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that even the
troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the
fisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls
come to recommend the interests of the people to the bodies of
electors, and to sing rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the
month of June pamphlets are in all hands; "even lackeys are poring
over them at the gates of hotels." In the month of July, as the King
is signing an order, a patriotic valet becomes alarmed and reads it
over his shoulder. -- There is no illusion here; it is not merely
the bourgeoisie which ranges itself against the legal authorities
and against the established regime. It is the entire people as
well. The craftsmen, the shopkeepers and the domestics, workmen of
every kind and degree, the mob underneath the people, the vagabonds,
street rovers, and beggars, the whole multitude, which, bound down
by anxiety for its daily bread, had never lifted its eyes to look at
the great social order of which it is the lowest stratum, and the
whole weight of which it bears.
III.
The Réveillon affair.
Suddenly the people stirs, and the superposed scaffolding totters.
It is the movement of a brute nature exasperated by want and
maddened by suspicion. -- Have paid hands, which are invisible
goaded it on from beneath? Contemporaries are convinced of this, and
it is probably the case.[10] But the uproar made around the
suffering brute would alone suffice to make it shy, and explain its
arousal. - On the 21st of April the Electoral Assemblies have
begun in Paris; there is one in each quarter, one for the clergy,
one for the nobles, and one for the Third-Estate. Every day, for
almost a month, files of electors are seen passing along the
streets. Those of the first degree continue to meet after having
nominated those of the second: the nation must needs watch its
mandatories and maintain its imprescriptible rights. If this
exercise of their rights has been delegated to them, they still
belong to the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of
interposing when it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels
fast; immediately after the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it
reaches the Third-Estate of the streets. Nothing is more natural
than the desire to lead one's leaders: the first time any
dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands on those who halt and make
them march on as directed. On a Saturday, April 25th,[11] a rumor
is current that Réveillon, an elector and manufacturer of wall-
paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, a commissioner, have "spoken
badly" at the Electoral Assembly of Sainte-Marguerite. To speak
badly means to speak badly of the people. What has Réveillon said?
Nobody knows, but popular imagination with its terrible powers of
invention and precision, readily fabricates or welcomes a murderous
phrase. He said that "a working-man with a wife and children could
live on fifteen sous a day." Such a man is a traitor, and must be
disposed of at once; "all his belongings must be put to fire and
sword." The rumor, it must be noted, is false.[12] Réveillon pays
his poorest workman twenty-five sous a day, he provides work for
three hundred and fifty, and, in spite of a dull season the previous
winter, he kept all on at the same rate of wages. He himself was
once a workman, and obtained a medal for his inventions, and is
benevolent and respected by all respectable persons. -- All this
avails nothing; bands of vagabonds and foreigners, who have just
passed through the barriers, do not look so closely into matters,
while the Journeymen, the carters, the cobblers, the masons, the
braziers, and the stone-cutters whom they go to solicit in their
lodgings are just as ignorant as they are. When irritation has
accumulated, it breaks out haphazardly.
Just at this time the clergy of Paris renounce their privileges in
way of imposts,[13] and the people, taking friends for adversaries,
add in their invectives the name of the clergy to that of Réveillon.
During the whole of the day, and also during the leisure of Sunday,
the fermentation increases; on Monday the 27th, another day of
idleness and drunkenness, the bands begin to move. Certain
witnesses encounter one of these in the Rue Saint-Sévérin, "armed
with clubs," and so numerous as to bar the passage. "Shops and
doors are closed on all sides, and the people cry out, 'There's the
revolt!'" The seditious crowd belch out curses and invectives
against the clergy, "and, catching sight of an abbé, shout
'Priest!'" Another band parades an effigy of Réveillon decorated
with the ribbon of the order of St. Michael, which undergoes the
parody of a sentence and is burnt on the Place de Grève, after which
they threaten his house. Driven back by the guard, they invade that
of a manufacturer of saltpeter, who is his friend, and burn and
smash his effects and furniture.[14] It is only towards midnight
that the crowd is dispersed and the insurrection is supposed to have
ended. On the following day it begins again with greater violence;
for, besides the ordinary stimulants of misery[15] and the craving
for license, they have a new stimulant in the idea of a cause to
defend, the conviction that they are fighting "for the Third-
Estate." In a cause like this each one should help himself; and all
should help each other. "We should be lost," one of them exclaimed,
"if we did not sustain each other." Strong in this belief, they sent
deputations three times into the Faubourg Saint-Marceau to obtain
recruits, and on their way, with uplifted clubs they enrol,
willingly or unwillingly, all they encounter. Others, at the gate
of Saint-Antoine, arrest people who are returning from the races,
demanding of them if they are for the nobles or for the Third-
Estate, and force women to descend from their vehicles and to cry
"Vive le Tiers-Etat "[16]. Meanwhile the crowd has increased
before Réveillon's dwelling; the thirty men on guard are unable to
resist; the house is invaded and sacked from top to bottom; the
furniture, provisions, clothing, registers, wagons, even the poultry
in the back-yard, all is cast into blazing bonfires lighted in three
different places; five hundred louis d'or, the ready money, and the
silver plate are stolen. Several roam through the cellars, drink
liquor or varnish at haphazard until they fall down dead drunk or
expire in convulsions. Against this howling horde, a corps of the
watch, mounted and on foot, is seen approaching;[17] also a hundred
cavalry of the "Royal Croats," the French Guards, and later on the
Swiss Guards. "Tiles and chimneys are rained down on the soldiers,"
who fire back four files at a time. The rioters, drunk with brandy
and rage, defend themselves desperately for several hours; more than
two hundred are killed, and nearly three hundred are wounded; they
are only put down by cannon, while the mob keeps active until far
into the night. - Towards eight in the evening, in the rue
Vieille-du-Temple, the Paris Guard continue to make charges in order
to protect the doors which the miscreants try to force. Two doors
are forced at half-past eleven o'clock in the Rue Saintonge and in
the Rue de Bretagne, that of a pork-dealer and that of a baker.
Even to this last wave of the outbreak which is subsiding we can
distinguish the elements which have produced the insurrection, and
which are about to produce the Revolution. -- Starvation is one of
these: in the Rue de Bretagne the band robbing the baker's shop
carries bread off to the women staying at the corner of the Rue
Saintonge. -- Brigandage is another: in the middle of the night M.
du Châtelet's spies, gliding alongside of a ditch, "see a group of
ruffians" assembled beyond the Barrière du Trône, their leader,
mounted on a little knoll, urging them to begin again; and the
following days, on the highways, vagabonds are saying to each other,
"We can do no more at Paris, because they are too sharp on the look-
out; let us go to Lyons!" There are, finally, the patriots: on the
evening of the insurrection, between the Pont-au-Change and the
Pont-Marie, the half-naked ragamuffins, besmeared with dirt, bearing
along their hand-barrows, are fully alive to their cause; they beg
alms in a loud tone of voice, and stretch out their hats to the
passers, saying, "Take pity on this poor Third-Estate!" -- The
starving, the ruffians, and the patriots, all form one body, and
henceforth misery, crime, and public spirit unite to provide an
ever-ready insurrection for the agitators who desire to raise one.
IV. The Palais-Royal.
But the agitators are already in permanent session. The Palais-
Royal is an open-air club where, all day and even far into the
night, one excites the other and urges on the crowd to blows. In
this enclosure, protected by the privileges of the House of Orleans,
the police dare not enter. Speech is free, and the public who avail
themselves of this freedom seem purposely chosen to abuse it. --
The public and the place are adapted to each other.[18] The Palais-
Royal, the center of prostitution, of play, of idleness, and of
pamphlets, attracts the whole of that uprooted population which
floats about in a great city, and which, without occupation or home,
lives only for curiosity or for pleasure -- the frequenters of the
coffee-houses, the runners for gambling halls, adventurers, and
social outcasts, the runaway children or forlorn hopefuls of
literature, arts, and the bar, attorneys' clerks, students of the
institutions of higher learning, the curious, loungers, strangers,
and the occupants of furnished lodgings, these amounting, it is
said, to forty thousand in Paris. They fill the garden and the
galleries; "one would hardly find here one of what were called the
"Six Bodies,"[19] a bourgeois settled down and occupied with his own
affairs, a man whom business and family cares render serious and
influential. There is no place here for industrious and orderly
bees; it is the rendezvous of political and literary drones. They
flock into it from every quarter of Paris, and the tumultuous,
buzzing swarm covers the ground like an overturned hive. "Ten
thousand people," writes Arthur Young,[20] "have been all this day
in the Palais-Royal;" the press is so great that an apple thrown
from a balcony on the moving floor of heads would not reach the
ground. The condition of these heads may be imagined; they are
emptier of ballast than any in France, the most inflated with
speculative ideas, the most excitable and the most excited. In this
pell-mell of improvised politicians no one knows who is speaking;
nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there as in the
theater, unknown among the unknown, requiring sensational
impressions and strong emotions, a prey to the contagion of the
passions around him, borne along in the whirl of sounding phrases,
of ready-made news, growing rumors, and other exaggerations by which
fanatics keep outdoing each other. There are shouting, tears,
applause, stamping and clapping, as at the performance of a tragedy;
one or another individual becomes so inflamed and hoarse that he
dies on the spot with fever and exhaustion. In vain has Arthur
Young been accustomed to the tumult of political liberty; he is
dumb-founded at what he sees.[21] According to him, the excitement
is "incredible. . . . We think sometimes that Debrett's or
Stockdale's shops at London are crowded; but they are mere deserts
compared to Desenne's and some others here, in which one can
scarcely squeeze from the door to the counter . . . .Every hour
produces its pamphlet; 13 came out to-day, 16 yesterday, and 92 last
week. 95% of these productions are in favor of liberty;" and by
liberty is meant the extinction of privileges, numerical
sovereignty, the application of the Contrat-Social, "The Republic",
and even more besides, a universal leveling, permanent anarchy, and
even the jacquerie. Camille Desmoulins, one of the orators,
commonly there, announces it and urges it in precise terms:
"Now that the animal is in the trap, let him be battered to
death... Never will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand
palaces, mansions, and châteaux, two-fifth of the property of
France, will be the recompense of valor. Those who pretend to be
the conquerors will be conquered in turn. The nation shall be
purged."
Here, in advance, is the program of the Reign of Terror.
Now all this is not only read, but declaimed, amplified, and turned
to practical account. In front of the coffee-houses "those who have
stentorian lungs relieve each other every evening."[22] "They get
up on a chair or a table, they read the strongest articles on
current affairs, . .. . the eagerness with which they are heard,
and the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of more
than common hardiness or violence against the present Government,
cannot easily be imagined." "Three days ago a child of four years,
well taught and intelligent, was promenaded around the garden, in
broad daylight, at least twenty times, borne on the shoulders of a
street porter, crying out, 'Verdict of the French people: Polignac
exiled one hundred leagues from Paris; Condé the same; Conti the
same; Artois the same; the Queen, -- I dare not write it.'" A hall
made of boards in the middle of the Palais-Royal is always full,
especially of young men, who carry on their deliberations in
parliamentary fashion : in the evening the president invites the
spectators to come forward and sign motions passed during the day,
and of which the originals are placed in the Café Foy.[23] They
count on their fingers the enemies of the country; "and first two
Royal Highnesses (Monsieur and the Count d'Artois), three Most
Serene Highnesses (the Prince de Condé, Duc de Bourbon, and the
Prince de Conti), one favorite (Madame de Polignac), MM. de
Vandreuil, de la Trémoille, du Châtelet, de Villedeuil, de Barentin,
de la Galaisière, Vidaud de la Tour, Berthier, Foulon, and also M.
Linguet." Placards are posted demanding the pillory on the Pont-Neuf
for the Abbeé Maury. One speaker proposes "to burn the house of M.
d'Espréménil, his wife, children and furniture, and himself: this is
passed unanimously." -- No opposition is tolerated. One of those
present having manifested some horror at such sanguinary motions,
"is seized by the collar, obliged to kneel down, to make an apology,
and to kiss the ground. The punishment inflicted on children is
given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one of the fountain-basins,
after which they him over to the mob, who roll him in the mud." On
the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot, and flung
from hand to hand. A few days after, on the 22nd of June, there are
two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all the functions
of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those of the
judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner. -- Its
idols are sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty
of lése-majesté, and at once punished. In the first week of July,
an abbé who speaks ill of Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the
bust of Necker is stripped by the fishwomen, and beaten until she is
covered with blood. War is declared against suspicious uniforms.
"On the appearance of a hussar," writes Desmoulins, "they shout,
'There goes Punch!' and the stone-cutters fling stones at him. Last
night two officers of the hussars, MM. de Sombreuil and de Polignac,
came to the Palais-Royal. . . chairs were flung at them, and they
would have been knocked down if they had not run away. The day
before yesterday they seized a spy of the police and gave him a
ducking in the fountain. They ran him down like a stag, hustled
him, pelted him with stones, struck him with canes, forced one of
his eyes out of its socket, and finally, in spite of his entreaties
and cries for mercy, plunged him a second time in the fountain. His
torments lasted from noon until half-past five o'clock, and he had
about ten thousand executioners." -- Consider the effect of such a
focal center at a time like this. A new power has sprung up
alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highways and public
squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. It is driven
onward by coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions and the vehemence
of mountebanks, while the bare arms which have just accomplished the
work of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, form its
bodyguard and ministerial cabinet.
V.
Popular mobs become a political force. - Pressure on the Assembly. -
Defection of the soldiery.
This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming
to its nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds
resistance, it strikes. -- The people of Versailles, in the streets
and at the doors of the Assembly, daily "come and insult those whom
they call aristocrats."[24] On Monday, June 22nd, "d'Espréménil
barely escapes being knocked down; the Abbé Maury. . . owes his
escape to the strength of a curé, who takes him up in his arms and
tosses him into the carriage of the Archbishop of Arles." On the
23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris and the Keeper of the Seals are
hooted, railed at, scoffed at, and derided, until they almost sink
with shame and rage." So formidable is the tempest of rage with
which they are greeted, that Passeret, the King's secretary, who
accompanies the minister, dies of the excitement that very day. On
the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost knocked down by a stone
striking him on the head. On the 25th, the Archbishop of Paris is
saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude pursuing him
and pelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the windows
are all shattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the
French Guards, the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise
that he will join the deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way
in which the rude hand of the people effects a reunion of the
Orders. It bears as heavily on its own representatives as on its
adversaries. "Although our hall was closed to the public," says
Bailly, "there were always more than six hundred spectators."[25]
These were not respectful and silent, but active and noisy, mingling
with the deputies, raising their hands to vote in all cases, taking
part in the deliberations, by their applause and hisses: a
collateral Assembly which often imposes its own will on the other.
They take note of and put down the names of their opponents,
transmit them to the chair-bearers in attendance at the entrance of
the hall, and from them to the mob waiting for the departure of the
deputies, these names are from now considered as the names of public
enemies.[26] Lists are made out and printed, and, at the Palais-
Royal in the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed. --
It is under this brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and,
amongst them, that by which the commons declare themselves the
National Assembly and assume supreme power. The night before,
Malouet had proposed to ascertain, by a preliminary vote, on which
side the majority was. In an instant all those against had gathered
around him to the number of three hundred. "Upon which a mans
springs out from the galleries, falls upon him and takes him by the
collar exclaiming, 'Hold your tongue, you false citizen!' " Malouet
is released and the guard comes forward, "but terror has spread
through the hall, threats are uttered against opponents, and the
next day we were only ninety." Moreover, the lists of their names
had been circulated; some of them, deputies from Paris, went to see
Bailly that very evening. One amongst them, "a very honest man and
good patriot," had been told that his house was to be set on fire.
Now his wife had just given birth to a child, and the slightest
tumult before the house would have been fatal. Such arguments are
decisive. Consequently, three days afterwards, at the Tennis-court,
but one deputy, Martin d'Auch, dares to write the word "opposing"
after his name. Insulted by many of colleagues, "at once denounced
to the people who had collected at the entrance of the building, he
is obliged to escape by a side door to avoid being cut to pieces,"
and, for several days, to keep away from the meetings.[27] - Owing
to this intervention of the galleries the radical minority,
numbering about thirty,[28] lead the majority, and they do not allow
them to free themselves. -- On the 28th of May, Malouet, having
demanded a secret session to discuss the conciliatory measures which
the King had proposed, the galleries hoot at him, and a deputy, M.
Bourche, addresses him in very plain terms. "You must know, sir,
that we are deliberating here in the presence of our masters, and
that we must account to them for our opinions." This is the doctrine
of the Contrat-Social. Through timidity, fear of the Court and of
the privileged class, through optimism and faith in human nature,
through enthusiasm and the necessity of adhering to previous
actions, the deputies, who are novices, provincial, and given up to
theories, neither dare nor know how to escape from the tyranny of
the prevailing dogma. -- Henceforth it becomes the law. All the
Assemblies, the Constituent, the Legislative, the Convention,[29]
submit to it entirely. The public in the galleries is the admitted
representatives of the people, under the same title, and even under
a higher title, than the deputies. Now, this public is that of the
Palais-Royal, consisting of strangers, idlers, lovers of novelties,
Paris romancers, leaders of the coffee-houses, the future pillars of
the clubs, in short, the wild enthusiasts among the middle-class,
just as the crowd which threatens doors and throws stones is
recruited from among the wild enthusiasts of the lowest class. Thus
by an involuntary selection, the faction which constitutes itself a
public power is composed of nothing but violent minds and violent
hands. Spontaneously and without previous concert dangerous
fanatics are joined with dangerous brutes, and in the increasing
discord between the legal authorities this is the illegal league
which is certain to overthrow all.
When a commanding general sits in council with his staff-officers
and his counselors, and discusses the plan of a campaign, the chief
public interest is that discipline should remain intact, and that
intruders, soldiers, or menials, should not throw the weight of
their turbulence and thoughtlessness into the scales which have to
be cautiously and firmly held by their chiefs. This was the express
demand of the Government;[30] but the demand was not regarded; and
against the persistent usurpation of the multitude nothing is left
to it but the employment of force. But force itself is slipping
from its hands, while growing disobedience, like a contagion, after
having gained the people is spreading among the troops. - From the
23rd of June,[31] two companies of the French Guards refused to do
duty. Confined to their barracks, they on the 27th break out, and
henceforth "they are seen every evening entering the Palais-Royal,
marching in double file." They know the place well; it is the
general rendezvous of the abandoned women whose lovers and parasites
they are.[32] "The patriots all gather around them, treat them to
ice cream and wine, and debauch them in the face of their officers."
-- To this, moreover, must be added the fact that their colonel, M.
du Châtelet, has long been odious to them, that he has fatigued them
with forced drills, worried them and diminished the number of their
sergeants; that he suppressed the school for the education of the
children of their musicians; that he uses the stick in punishing the
men, and picks quarrels with them about their appearance, their
board, and their clothing. This regiment is lost to discipline: a
secret society has been formed in it, and the soldiers have pledged
themselves to their ensigns not to act against the National
Assembly. Thus the confederation between them and the Palais-Royal
is established. -- On the 30th of June, eleven of their leaders,
taken off to the Abbaye, write to claim their assistance. A young
man mounts a chair in front of the Café Foy and reads their letter
aloud; a band sets out on the instant, forces the gate with a
sledge-hammer and iron bars, brings back the prisoners in triumph,
gives them a feast in the garden and mounts guard around them to
prevent their being re-taken. -- When disorders of this kind go
unpunished, order cannot be maintained; in fact, on the morning of
the 14th of July, five out of six battalions had deserted. -- As to
the other corps, they are no better and are also seduced.
"Yesterday," Desmoulins writes, "the artillery regiment followed the
example of the French Guards, overpowering the sentinels and coming
over to mingle with the patriots in the Palais-Royal . . .. We
see nothing but the rabble attaching themselves to soldiers whom
they chance to encounter. 'Allons, Vive le Tiers-Etat!' and they
lead them off to a tavern to drink the health of the Commons."
Dragoons tell the officers who are marching them to Versailles: "We
obey you, but you may tell the ministers on our arrival that if we
are ordered to use the least violence against our fellow-citizens,
the first shot shall be for you." At the Invalides twenty men,
ordered to remove the cocks and ramrods from the guns stored in a
threatened arsenal, devote six hours to rendering twenty guns
useless; their object is to keep them intact for plunder and for the
arming of the people.
In short, the largest portion of the army has deserted. However
kind a superior officer might be, the fact of his being a superior
officer secures for him the treatment of an enemy. The governor,
"M. de Sombreuil, against whom these people could utter no
reproach," will soon see his artillerists point their guns at his
apartment, and will just escape being hung on the iron-railings by
their own hands. Thus the force which is brought forward to
suppress insurrection only serves to furnish it with recruits. And
even worse, for the display of arms that was relied on to restrain
the mob, furnished the instigation to rebellion.
VI.
July 13th and 14th 1789.
The fatal moment has arrived; it is no longer a government which
falls that it may give way to another; it is all government which
ceases to exist in order to make way for an intermittent despotism,
for factions blindly impelled on by enthusiasm, credulity, misery,
and fear.[33] Like a tame elephant suddenly become wild again, the
mob throws off it ordinary driver, and the new guides who it
tolerates perched on its neck are there simply for show. In future
it will move along as it pleases, freed from control, and abandoned
to its own feelings, instincts, and appetites. -- Apparently, there
was no desire to do more than anticipate its aberrations. The King
has forbidden all violence; the commanders order the troops not to
fire;[34] but the excited and wild animal takes all precautions for
insults; in future, it intends to be its own conductor, and, to
begin, it treads its guides under foot. -- On the 12th of July,
near noon,[35] on the news of the dismissal of Necker, a cry of rage
arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille Desmoulins, mounted on a table,
announces that the Court meditates "a St. Bartholomew of patriots."
The crowd embrace him, adopt the green cockade which he has
proposed, and oblige the dancing-saloons and theaters to close in
sign of mourning: they hurry off to the residence of Curtius, and
take the busts of the Duke of Orleans and of Necker and carry them
about in triumph. -- Meanwhile, the dragoons of the Prince de
Lambesc, drawn up on the Place Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of
chairs at the entrance of the Tuileries, and are greeted with a
shower of stones and bottles.[36] Elsewhere, on the Boulevard,
before the Hôtel Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped
from their barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the "Royal
Allemand." - The alarm bell is sounding on all sides, the shops
where arms are sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded;
fifteen or sixteen well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the
districts to be assembled and armed. -- The new sovereign, the
people in arms and in the street, has declared himself.
The dregs of society at once come to the surface. During the night
between the 12th and 13th of July,[37] "all the barriers, from the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those
of the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and set
on fire." There is no longer an octroi; the city is without a
revenue just at the moment when it is obliged to make the heaviest
expenditures; but this is of no consequence to the mob, which, above
all things, wants to have cheap wine. "Ruffians, armed with pikes
and sticks, proceed in several parties to give up to pillage the
houses of those who are regarded as enemies to the public welfare."
"They go from door to door crying, 'Arms and bread!' During this
fearful night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each
trembling at home for himself and those belonging to him." On the
following day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to
bandits and the lowest of the low. One of the bands hews down the
gate of the Lazarists, destroys the library and clothes-presses, the
pictures, the windows and laboratory, and rushes to the cellars;
where it staves in the casks and gets drunk: twenty-four hours after
this, about thirty of them are found dead and dying, drowned in
wine, men and women, one of these being at the point of childbirth.
In front of the house[38] the street is full of the wreckage, and of
ruffians who hold in their hands, " some, eatables, others a jug,
forcing the passers-by to drink, and pouring out wine to all comers.
Wine runs down into the gutter, and the scent of it fills the air;"
it is a drinking bout: meanwhile they carry away the grain and flour
which the monks kept on hand according to law, fifty-two loads of it
being taken to the market. Another troop comes to La Force, to
deliver those imprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde
Meuble, carrying away valuable arms and armour. Mobs assemble
before the hotel of Madame de Breteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which
they intend to ransack, in order to punish their proprietors. M. de
Crosne, one of the most liberal and most respected men of Paris,
but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant of the police, is
pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is sacked. --
During the night between the 13th and 14th of May, the baker's shops
and the wine shops are pillaged; "men of the vilest class, armed
with guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people open their doors and
give them something to eat and drink, as well as money and arms."
Vagrants, ragged men, several of them "almost naked," and "most of
them armed like savages, and of hideous appearance;" they are " such
as one does not remember to have seen in broad daylight;" many of
them are strangers, come from nobody knows where.[39] It is stated
that there were 50,000 of them, and that they had taken possession
of the principal guard-houses.
During these two days and nights, says Bailly, "Paris ran the risk
of being pillaged, and was only saved from the marauders by the
National Guard." Already, in the open street,[40] "these creatures
tore off women's shoes and earrings," and the robbers were beginning
to have full sway. -- Fortunately the militia organized itself and
the principal inhabitants and gentlemen enrolled themselves; 48,000
men are formed into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie buy
guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabers or pistols
for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are hung on the
spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again becomes
political. But, whatever its object, it remains always wild,
because it is in the hands of the mob. Dusaulx, its panegyrist,
confesses[41] that "he thought he was witnessing the total
dissolution of society." There is no leader, no management. The
electors who have converted themselves into the representatives of
Paris seem to command the crowd, but it is the crowd which commands
them. One of them, Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no
other resource but to send for six barrels of gun-powder, and to
declare to the assailants that he is about to blow everything into
the air. The commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de
Salles, has twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an
hour, and, more than once, the whole committee is near being
massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the
discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, "a concourse
of fifteen hundred men pressed by a hundred thousand others who are
forcing an entrance," the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset
one over another, the enclosure of the bureau pushed back against
the president's chair, a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of
judgment," the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and "people beside
themselves, for the most part not knowing where they are nor what
they want." -- Each district is also a petty center, while the
Palais-Royal is the main center. Propositions, " accusations, and
deputations travel to and fro from one to the other, along with the
human torrent which is obstructed or rushes ahead with no other
guide than its own inclination and the chances of the way. One wave
gathers here and another there, their strategy consisting in pushing
and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is effected only because
they are let in. If they get into the Invalides it is owing to the
connivance of the soldiers. -- At the Bastille, firearms are
discharged from ten in the morning to five in the evening against
walls forty feet high and thirty feet thick, and it is by chance
that one of their shots reaches an invalid on the towers. They are
treated the same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as
possible. The governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders
the cannon to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the
garrison swear not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the
first of the deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger
dispatched from the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he
receives several discharges without returning them, and lets the
first bridge be carried without firing a shot.[42] When, at length,
he does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second
bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is going to
do so. In short, his forbearance and patience are excessive, in
conformity with the humanity of the times. The people, in turn, are
infatuated with the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with
the smell of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they
can think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their
expedients being on a level with their tactics. A brewer fancies
that he can set fire to this block of masonry by pumping over it
spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with phosphorus. A young
carpenter, who has some archaeological notions, proposes to
construct a catapult. Some of them think that they have seized the
governor's daughter, and want to burn her in order to make the
father surrender. Others set fire to a projecting mass of buildings
filled with straw, and thus close up the passage. "The Bastille was
not taken by main force," says the brave Elie, one of the
combatants; "it surrendered before even it was attacked,"[43] by
capitulation, on the promise that no harm should be done to anybody.
The garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to
fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing,[44] and, on
the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense
crowd. Eight or nine hundred men only[45] were concerned in the
attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the
faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers and wine-dealers, mixed
with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille, however, and all
the streets in the vicinity, were crowded with the curious who came
to witness the sight; "among them," says a witness,[46] "were a
number of fashionable women of very good appearance, who had left
their carriages at some distance." To the hundred and twenty men of
the garrison looking down from their parapets it seemed as though
all Paris had come out against them. It is they, also, who lower
the drawbridge an introduce the enemy: everybody has lost his head,
the besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely
because they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely
have they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and the
latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; "each one
fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells." Sudden
omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too strong for human
nature; giddiness is the result; men see red, and their frenzy ends
in ferocity.
For the peculiarity of a popular insurrection is that nobody obeys
anybody; the bad passions are free as well as the generous ones;
heroes are unable to restrain assassins. Elie, who is the first to
enter the fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in
advance, the French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of war, try
to keep their word of honor; but the crowd pressing on behind them
know not whom to strike, and they strike at random. They spare the
Swiss soldiers who have fired at them, and who, in their blue
smocks, seem to them to be prisoners; on the other hand, by way of
compensation, they fall furiously on the invalides who opened the
gates to them; the man who prevented the governor from blowing up
the fortress has his wrist severed by the blow of a saber, is twice
pierced with a sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one
of the districts of Paris is promenaded through the streets in
triumph. The officers are dragged along and five of them are
killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the way. During the
long hours of firing, the murderous instinct has become aroused, and
the wish to kill, changed into a fixed idea, spreads afar among the
crowd which has hitherto remained inactive. It is convinced by its
own clamor; a hue and cry is all that it now needs; the moment one
strikes, all want to strike. "Those who had no arms," says an
officer, "threw stones at me;[47] the women ground their teeth and
shook their fists at me. Two of my men had already been
assassinated behind me. I finally got to within some hundreds of
paces of the Hôtel-de-Ville, amidst a general cry that I should be
hung, when a head, stuck on a pike, was presented to me to look at,
while at. the same moment I was told that it was that of M. de
Launay," the governor. - The latter, on going out, had received
the cut of a sword on his right shoulder; n reaching the Rue Saint-
Antoine "everybody pulled his hair out and struck him." Under the
arcade of Saint-Jean he was already "severely wounded." Around him,
some said, "his head ought to be struck off;" others, "let him be
hung;" and others, "he ought to be tied to a horse's tail." Then, in
despair, and wishing to put an end to his torments, he cried out,
"Kill me," and, in struggling, kicked one of the men who held him in
the lower abdomen. On the instant he is pierced with bayonets,
dragged in the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's
a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the
nation demands his head to exhibit to the public," and the man who
was kicked is asked to cut it off. -- This man, an unemployed
cook, a simpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going
on," thinks that as it is the general opinion, the act is patriotic,
and even believes that he "deserves a medal for destroying a
monster." Taking a saber which is lent to him, he strikes the bare
neck, but the dull saber not doing its work, he takes a small black-
handled knife from his pocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he
knows how to cut meat," he finishes the operation successfully.
Then, placing the head on the end of a three-pronged pitchfork, and
accompanied by over two hundred armed men, "not counting the mob,"
he marches along, and, in the Rue Saint-Honoré, he has two
inscriptions attached to the head, to indicate without mistake whose
head it is. -- They grow merry over it: after filing alongside of
the Palais-Royal, the procession arrives at the Pont-Neuf, where,
before the statue of Henry IV., they bow the head three times,
saying, "Salute thy master ! " -- This is the last joke: it is to be
found in every triumph, and inside the butcher, we find the rogue.
VII.
Murders of Foulon and Berthier.
Meanwhile, at the Palais-Royal, other buffoons, who with the levity
of gossips sport with lives as freely as with words, have drawn u.
During the night between the 13th and 14th of July, a list of
proscriptions, copies of which are hawked about. Care is taken to
address one of them to each of the persons designated, the Comte
d'Artois, Marshal de Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc, Baron de
Bezenval, MM. de Breteuil, Foulon, Berthier, Maury, d'Espréménil,
Lefèvre d'Amécourt, and others besides.[48] A reward is promised to
whoever will bring their heads to the Café de Caveau. Here are
names for the unchained multitude; all that now is necessary is that
some band should encounter a man who is denounced; he will go as far
as the lamppost at the street corner, but not beyond it. -
Throughout the day of the 14th, this improvised tribunal holds a
permanent session, and follows up its decisions with its actions.
M. de Flesselles, provost of the merchants and president of the
electors at the Hôtel-de-Ville, having shown himself somewhat
lukewarm,[49] the Palais-Royal declares him a traitor and sends him
off to be hung. On the way a young man fells him with a pistol-
shot, others fall upon his body, while his head, borne upon a pike,
goes to join that of M. de Launay. -- Equally deadly accusations
and of equally speedy execution float in the air and from every
direction. "On the slightest pretext," says an elector, "they
denounced to us those whom they thought opposed to the Revolution,
which already signified the same as enemies of the State. Without
any investigation, there was only talk of the seizure of their
persons, the ruin of their homes, and the razing of their houses.
One young man exclaimed: 'Follow me at once, let us start off at
once to Bezenval's!'" -- Their brains are so frightened, and their
minds so distrustful, that at every step in the streets "one's name
has to be given, one's profession declared, one's residence, and
one's intentions . . .. One can neither enter nor leave Paris
without being suspected of treason." The Prince de Montbarrey,
advocate of the new ideas, and his wife, are stopped in their
carriage at the barrier, and are on the point of being cut to
pieces. A deputy of the nobles, on his way to the National
Assembly, is seized in his cab and conducted to the Place de Grève;
the corpse of M. de Launay is shown to him, and he is told that he
is to be treated in the same fashion. - Every life hangs by a
thread, and, on the following days, when the King had sent away his
troops, dismissed his Ministers, recalled Necker, and granted
everything, the danger remains just as great. The multitude,
abandoned to the revolutionaries and to itself, continues the same
bloody antics, while the municipal chiefs[50] whom it has elected,
Bailly, Mayor of Paris, and Lafayette, commandant of the National
Guard, are obliged to use cunning, to implore, to throw themselves
between the multitude and the unfortunates whom they wish to
destroy.
On the 15th of July, in the night, a woman disguised as a man is
arrested in the court of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and so maltreated that
she faints away; Bailly, in order to save her, is obliged to feign
anger against her and have her sent immediately to prison. From the
14th to the 22nd of July, Lafayette, at the risk of his life, saves
with his own hand seventeen persons in different quarters.[51] -- On
the 22nd of July, upon the denunciations which multiply around Paris
like trains of gunpowder, two administrators of high rank, M.
Foulon, Councillor of State, and M. Berthier, his son-in-law, are
arrested, one near Fontainebleau, and the other near Compiègne. M.
Foulon, a strict master,[52] but intelligent and useful, expended
sixty thousand francs the previous winter on his estate in giving
employment to the poor. M. Berthier, an industrious and capable
man, had officially surveyed and valued Ile-de-France, to equalize
the taxes, and had reduced the overcharged quotas first one-eighth
and then a quarter. But both of these gentlemen have arranged the
details of the camp against which Paris has risen; both are publicly
proscribed for eight days previously by the Palais-Royal, and, with
a people frightened by disorder, exasperated by hunger, and
stupefied by suspicion, an accused person is a guilty one. -- With
regard to Foulon, as with Réveillon, a story is made up, coined in
the same mint, a sort of currency for popular circulation, and which
the people itself manufactures by casting into one tragic expression
the sum of its sufferings and rankling memories:[53] "He said that
we were worth no more than his horses; and that if we had no bread
we had only to eat grass." -- The old man of seventy-four is brought
to Paris, with a truss of hay on his head, a collar of thistles
around his neck, and his mouth stuffed with hay. In vain does the
electoral bureau order his imprisonment that he may be saved; the
crowd yells out: "Sentenced and hung!" and, authoritatively,
appoints the judges. In vain does Lafayette insist and entreat
three times that the judgment be regularly rendered, and that the
accused be sent to the Abbaye. A new wave of people comes up, and
one man, "well dressed," cries out: "What is the need of a sentence
for a man who has been condemned for thirty years?" Foulon is
carried off; dragged across the square, and hung to the lamp post.
The cord breaks twice, and twice he falls upon the pavement. Re-
hung with a fresh cord and then cut down, his head is severed from
his body and placed on the end of a pike.[54] Meanwhile, Berthier,
sent away from Compiègne by the municipality, afraid to keep him in
his prison where he was constantly menaced, arrives in a cabriolet
under escort. The people carry placards around him filled with
opprobrious epithets; in changing horses they threw hard black bread
into the carriage, exclaiming, "There, wretch, see the bread you
made us eat!" On reaching the church of Saint-Merry, a fearful storm
of insults burst forth against him. He is called a monopolist,
"although he had never bought or sold a grain of wheat." In the eyes
of the multitude, who has to explain the evil as caused by some
evil-doer, he is the author of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye,
his escort is dispersed and he is pushed over to the lamp post.
Then, seeing that all is lost, he snatches a gun from one of his
murderers and bravely defends himself. A soldier of the "Royal
Croats" gives him a cut with his saber across the stomach, and
another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had cut off the head
of M. de Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand him the heart
to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go to the Hôtel-
de-Ville to show their trophies to M. de Lafayette. On their return
to the Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in a tavern,
the people demand these two remains. They throw them out of the
window and finish their supper, whilst the heart is marched about
below in a bouquet of white carnations. -- Such are the spectacles
which this garden presents where, a year before, "good society in
full dress" came on leaving the Opera to chat, often until two
o'clock in the morning, under the mild light of the moon, listening
now to the violin of Saint-Georges, and now to the charming voice of
Garat.
VIII.
Paris in the hands of the people.
Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia
nor the new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law.
"They did not dare," says Bailly,[55] "oppose the people who, eight
days before this, had taken the Bastille." -- In vain, after the
last two murders, do Bailly and Lafayette indignantly threaten to
withdraw; they are forced to remain; their protection, such as it
is, is all that is left, and, if the National Guard is unable to
prevent every murder, it prevents some of them. People live as they
can under the constant expectation of fresh popular violence. "To
every impartial man," says Malouet, "the Terror dates from the 14th
of July". - On the 17th, before setting out for Paris, the King
attends communion and makes his will in anticipation of
assassination. From the 16th to the 18th, twenty personages of high
rank, among others most of those on whose heads a price is set by
the Palais-Royal, leave France: The Count d'Artois, Marshal de
Broglie, the Princes de Condé, de Conti, de Lambesc, de Vaudemont,
the Countess de Polignac, and the Duchesses de Polignac and de
Guiche. -- The day following the two murders, M. de Crosne, M.
Doumer, M. Sureau, the most zealous and most valuable members of the
committee on subsistence, all those appointed to make purchases and
to take care of the storehouses, conceal themselves or fly. On the
eve of the two murders, the notaries of Paris, being menaced with a
riot, had to advance 45,000 francs which were promised to the
workmen of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; while the public treasury,
almost empty, is drained of 30,000 livres per day to diminish the
cost of bread. -- Persons and possessions, great and small, private
individuals and public functionaries, the Government itself, all is
in the hands of the mob. "From this moment," says a deputy,[56]
"liberty did not exist even in the National Assembly . . . France
stood dumb before thirty factious persons. The Assembly became in
their hands a passive instrument, which they forced to serve them in
the execution of their projects." -- They themselves do not lead,
although they seem to lead. The great brute, which has taken the
bit in its mouth, holds on to it, and it's plunging becomes more
violent. Not only do both spurs which maddened it, I mean the
desire for innovation and the daily scarcity of food, continue to
prick it on. But also the political hornets which, increasing by
thousands, buzz around its ears. And the license in which it revels
for the first time, joined to the applause lavished upon it, urges
it forward more violently each day. The insurrection is glorified.
Not one of the assassins is sought out. It is against the
conspiracy of Ministers that the Assembly institutes an inquiry.
Rewards are bestowed upon the conquerors of the Bastille; it is
declared that they have saved France. All honors are awarded to the
people-to their good sense, their magnanimity, and their justice.
Adoration is paid to this new sovereign: he is publicly and
officially told, in the Assembly and by the press, that he possesses
every virtue, all rights and all powers. If he spills blood it is
inadvertently, on provocation, and always with an infallible
instinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so pure?"
The greater number of people prefers the theories of their books to
the experience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they
have fashioned for themselves. At the worst their dream, driven out
from the present, takes refuge in the future. To-morrow, when the
Constitution is complete, the people, made happy, will again become
wise: let us endure the storm, which leads us on to so noble a
harbor.
Meanwhile, beyond the King, inert and disarmed, beyond the Assembly,
disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people - that
is to say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand
individuals gathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm,
suddenly and irresistibly made legislators, judges, and
executioners. A formidable power, undefined and destructive, on
which no one has any hold, and which, with its mother, howling and
misshapen Liberty, sits at the threshold of the Revolution like
Milton's two specters at the gates of Hell.
. . Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
but ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd
Within unseen . . .
........the other shape,
If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd
For each seem'd either: black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
* * * * * *
The monster moving onward came as fast,
With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.
________________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Miron, lieutenant
de police, April 26th; of M. Joly de Fleury, procureur-général, May
29th; of MM. Marchais and Berthier, April 18th and 27th, March 23rd,
April 5th, May 5th. - Arthur Young, June 10th and 29th. "Archives
Nationales," H. 1453 Letter of the sub-delegate of Montlhéry, April
14th.
[2] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the sub-delegate
Gobert, March 17th; of the officers of police, June 15th : -- " On
the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of March the inhabitants of Conflans
generally rebelled against the game law in relation to the rabbit."
[3] Montjoie, 2nd part, ch. XXI. p.14 (the first week in June).
Montjoie is a party man; but he gives dates and details, and his
testimony, when it is confirmed elsewhere, deserves, to be admitted.
[4] Montjoie, 1st part, 92-101. - "Archives Nationales," H.
1453. Letter of the officer of police of Saint-Denis: "A good many
workmen arrive daily from Lorraine as well as from Champagne," which
increases the prices.
[5] De Bezenval, "Mémoires," I.353. Cf. "The Ancient Regime,"
p.509. - Marmontel, II, 252 and following pages. - De Ferrières,
I. 407.
[6] Arthur Young, September 1st, 1788
[7] Barrère, "Mémoires," I. 234.
[8] See, in the National Library, the long catalogue of those which
have survived.
[9] Malouet, I. 255. Bailly, I. 43 (May 9th and 19th). --
D'Hezecques, "Souvenirs d'un page de Louis XV." 293. --De
Bezenval, I. 368.
[10] Marmontel, II, 249. -- Montjoie, 1st part, p. 92. -- De
Bezenval, I. 387: "These spies added that persons were seen
exciting the tumult and were distributing money."
[11] "Archives Nationales," Y.11441. Interrogatory of the Abbé Roy,
May 5th. -- Y.11033, Interrogatory (April 28th and May 4th) of
twenty-three wounded persons brought to the Hôtel-Dieu -- These two
documents are of prime importance in presenting the true aspect of
the insurrection; to these must he added the narrative of M. de
Bezenval, who was commandant at this time with M. de Châtelet.
Almost all other narratives are amplified or falsified through party
bias.
[12] De Ferrières, vol. III. note A. (justificatory explanation
by Réveillon).
[13] Bailly I. 25 (April 26th).
[14] Hippeau, IV. 377 (Letters of M. Perrot, April 29th).
[15] Letter to the King by an inhabitant of the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine -"Do not doubt, sire, that our recent misfortunes are due to
the dearness of bread"
[16] Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes yeux," etc.
I. 25: "We turned back and were held up by small bands of
scoundrels, who insolently proposed to us to shout 'Vive Necker!
Vive le Tiers-Etat !'" His two companions were knights of St.
Louis, and their badges seemed an object of "increasing hatred."
"The badge excited coarse mutterings, even on the part of persons
who appeared superior to the agitators."
[17] Dampmartin, ibid. i. 25 : " I was dining this very day at the
Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, in the Rue Saint-Louis." He leaves the house on
foot and witnesses the disturbance. "Fifteen to Sixteen hundred
wretches, the excrement of the nation, degraded by shameful vices,
covered with rags, and gorged with brandy, presented the most
disgusting and revolting spectacle. More than a hundred thousand
persons of both sexes and of all ages and conditions interfered
greatly with the operations of the troops. The firing soon
commenced and blood flowed: two innocent persons were wounded near
me."
[18] De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la Révolution."
Thirty-one gambling-houses are counted here, while a pamphlet of the
day is entitled "Pétition des deux mill cent filles du Palais-
Royal."
[19] Montjoie, 2nd part, 144. -- Bailly, II, 130.
[20] Arthur Young, June 24th, 1789. - Montjoie, 2nd part, 69.
[21] Arthur Young, June 9th, 24th, and 26th. - "La France libre,"
passim, by C. Desmoulins.
[22] C. Desmoulins, letters to his father, and Arthur Young, June
9th.
[23] Montjoie, 2nd part, 69, 77, 124, 144. C. Desmoulins, letter,
of June 24th and the following days.
[24] Etienne Dumont, "Souvenirs," p.72. - C. Desmoulins, letter
of; June 24th. - Arthur Young, June 25th. - Buchez and Roux,
II. 28.
[25] Bailly, I. 227 and 179. - Monnier, "Recherches sur les
causes," etc. I. 289, 291; II.61; -- Malouet, I. 299; II. 10.
-- "Actes des Apôtres," V.43. (Letter of M. de Guillermy, July
31st, 1790). - Marmontel, I. 28: "The people came even into the
Assembly, to encourage their partisans, to select and indicate their
victims, and to terrify the feeble with the dreadful trial of open
balloting."
[26] Manuscript letters of M. Boullé, deputy, to the municipal
authorities of Pontivy, from May 1st, 1789, to September 4th, 1790
(communicated by M. Rosenzweig, archivist at Vannes). June 16th,
1789: "The crowd gathered around the hall . . . was, during these
days, from 3,000 to 4,000 persons."
[27] Letters of M. Boullé, June 23rd. "How sublime the moment, that
in which we enthusiastically bind ourselves to the country by a new
oath! . . . . Why should this moment be selected by one of our
number to dishonor himself? His name is now blasted throughout
France. And the unfortunate man has children! Suddenly overwhelmed
by public contempt he leaves, and falls fainting at the door,
exclaiming, 'Ah! this will be my death!' I do not know what has
become of him since. What is strange is, he had not behaved badly
up to that time, and he voted for the Constitution."
[28] De Ferrières, I. 168. - Malouet, I. 298 (according to him
the faction did not number more than ten members), -- idem II. 10.
- Dumont, 250.
[29] "Convention nationale" governed France from 21st September 1792
until Oct. 26th 1796. We distinguish between three different
assemblies, "la Convention Girondine" 1792-93, "the Mountain," 1793-
94 and "la Thermidorienne, from 1794-1795. (SR).
[30] Declaration of June 23rd, article 15.
[31] Montjoie, 2nd part, 118. -- C. Desmoulins, letters of June
24th and the following days. A faithful narrative by M. de Sainte-
Fère, formerly an officer in the French Guard, p.9. -- De Bezenval,
III, 413. - Buchez and Roux, II. 35. -- "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER
(Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes,
Librarie Plon, Paris 1893..
[32] Peuchet ("Encyclopédie Méthodique," 1789, quoted by Parent
Duchâtelet): "Almost all of the soldiers of the Guard belong to that
class (the procurers of public women): many, indeed, only enlist in
the corps that they may live at the expense of these unfortunates."
[33] Gouverneur Morris, "Liberty is now the general cry; authority
is a name and no longer a reality." (Correspondence with Washington,
July 19th.)
[34] Bailly. I. 302. "The King was very well-disposed; his
measures were intended only to preserve order and the public peace.
. . Du Châtelet was forced by facts to acquit M. de Bezenval of
attempts against the people and the country." -- Cf. Marmontel,
IV. 183; Mounier, II, 40.
[35] Desmoulins, letter of the 16th July. Buchez and Roux, II. 83.
[36] Trial of the Prince de Lambesc (Paris, 1790), with the eighty-
three depositions and the discussion of the testimony. - It is the
crowd which began the attack. The troops fired in the air. But one
man, a sieur Chauvel, was wounded slightly by the Prince de Lambesc.
(Testimony of M. Carboire, p.84, and of Captain de Reinack, p.
101.) "M. le Prince de Lambesc, mounted on a gray horse with a gray
saddle without holsters or pistols, had scarcely entered the garden
when a dozen persons jumped at the mane and bridle of his horse and
made every effort to drag him off. A small man in gray clothes
fired at him with a pistol. . . . The prince tried hard to free
himself, and succeeded by making his horse rear up and by
flourishing his sword; without, however, up to this time, wounding
any one. . . . He deposes that he saw the prince strike a man on
the head with the flat of his saber who was trying to close the
turning-bridge, which would have cut off the retreat of his troops
The troops did no more than try to keep off the crowd which assailed
them with stones, and even with firearms, from the top of the
terraces." -- The man who tried to close the bridge had seized the
prince's horse with one hand; the wound he received was a scratch
about 23 lines long, which was dressed and cured with a bandage
soaked in brandy. All the details of the affair prove that the
patience and humanity of the officer, were extreme. Nevertheless
"on the following day, the 13th, some one posted a written placard
on the crossing Bussy recommending the citizens of Paris to seize
the prince and quarter him at once." -- (Deposition of M. Cosson,
p.114.
[37] Bailly, I. 3, 6. -- Marmontel, IV. 310
[38] Montjoie, part 3, 86. "I talked with those who guarded the
château of the Tuileries. They did not belong to Paris. . . . A
frightful physiognomy and hideous apparel." Montjoie, not to be
trusted in many places, merits consultation for little facts of
which he was an eye-witness. -- Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 374. -
Dusaulx, "L'œuvre des sept jours," 352. - Revue Historique,"
March, 1876. Interrogatory of Desnot. His occupation during the
13th of July (published by Guiffrey).
[39] Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I. 531. "Peaceable people fled at
the sight of these groups of strange, frantic vagabonds. Everybody
closed their houses . . . . When I reached home, in the Saint-
Denis quarter, several of these brigands caused great alarm by
firing off guns in the air."
[40] Dusaulx, 379.
[41] Dusaulx, 359, 360, 361, 288, 336. " In effect their entreaties
resembled commands, and, more than once, it was impossible to resist
them."
[42] Dusaulx, 447 (Deposition of the invalides).-- "Revue
Rétrospective," IV. 282 (Narrative of the commander of the thirty-
two Swiss Guards).
[43] Marmontel, IV. 317.
[44] Dusaulx, 454. "The soldiers replied that they would accept
whatever happened rather than cause the destruction of so great a
number of their fellow-citizens."
[45] Dusaulx, 447. The number of combatants, maimed, wounded, dead,
and living, is 825. -- Marmontel, IV. 320. "To the number of
victors, which has been carried up to 800, people have been added
who were never near the place."
[46] "Memoires", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, 1767-1862),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.
Vol. I. p.52. Pasquier was eye-witness. He leaned against the fence
of the Beaumarchais garden and looked on, with mademoiselle Contat,
the actress, at his side, who had left her carriage in the Place-
Royale. -- Marat, "L'ami du peuple," No. 530. "When an unheard-of
conjunction of circumstances had caused the fall of the badly
defended walls of the Bastille, under the efforts of a handful of
soldiers and a troop of unfortunate creatures, most of them Germans
and almost all provincials, the Parisians presented themselves the
fortress, curiosity alone having led them there."
[47] Narrative of the commander of the thirty-two Swiss. --
Narrative of Cholat, wine-dealer, one of the victors. --
Examination of Desnot (who cut off the head of M. de Launay).
[48] Montjoie, part 3, 85. -- Dusaulx, 355, 287, 368.
[49] Nothing more. No Witness states that he had seen the pretended
note to M. do Launay. According to Dusaulx, he could not have had
either the time or the means to write it.
[50] Bailly, II. 32, 74, 88, 90, 95, 108, 117, 137, 158, 174. "I
gave orders which were neither obeyed nor listened to. . . .
They gave me to understand that I was not safe." (July 15th.) "In
these sad times one enemy and one calumnious report sufficed to
excite the multitude. All who had formerly held power, all who had
annoyed or restrained the insurrectionists, were sure of being
arrested."
[51] M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," III. 264. Letter of July 16th,
1789. "I have already saved the lives of six persons whom they were
hanging in different quarters."
[52] Poujoulat. "Histoire de la Révolution Française," p.100 (with
supporting documents). Procès-verbaux of the Provincial Assembly,
lle-de-France (1787), p.127.
[53] For instance: "He is severe with his peasants." -- "He gives
them no bread, and he wants them then to eat grass." "He wants them
to eat grass like horses."-- "He has said that they could very well
eat hay, and that they are no better than horses." -- The same story
is found in many of the contemporary jacqueries.
[54] Bailly, II. 108. "The people, less enlightened and as
imperious as despots, recognize no positive signs of good
administration but success."
[55] Bailly, II, 108, 95. - Malouet, II, 14.
[56] De Ferrières, I. 168.
CHAPTER III.
I.
Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789. - Destruction of the
Government. - To whom does real power belong?
However bad a particular government may be, there is something still
worse, and that is the suppression of all government. For, it is
owing to government that human wills form a harmony instead of
chaos. It serves society as the brain serves a living being.
Incapable, inconsiderate, extravagant, engrossing, it often abuses
its position, overstraining or misleading the body for which it
should care, and which it should direct. But, taking all things
into account, whatever it may do, more good than harm is done, for
through it the body stands erect, marches on and guides its steps.
Without it there is no organized deliberate action, serviceable to
the whole body. In it alone do we find the comprehensive views,
knowledge of the members of which it consists and of their aims, an
idea of outward relationships, full and accurate information, in
short, the superior intelligence which conceives what is best for
the common interests, and adapts means to ends. If it falters and
is no longer obeyed, if it is forced and pushed from without by a
violent pressure, it ceases to control public affairs, and the
social organization retrogrades by many steps. Through the
dissolution of society, and the isolation of individuals, each man
returns to his original feeble state, while power is vested in
passing aggregates that like whirlwinds spring up from the human
dust. -- One may divine how this power, which the most competent
find it difficult to apply properly, is exercised by bands of men
springing out of nowhere. It is a matter of supplies, of their
possessions, price and distribution. It is a matter of taxes, its
proportion, apportionment and collection; of private property, its
varieties, rights, and limitations It is a problem of public
authority, its allocation and its limits; of all those delicate
cogwheels which, working into each other, constitute the great
economic, social, and political machine. Each band in its own
canton lays its rude hands on the wheels within its reach. They
wrench or break them haphazardly, under the impulse of the moment,
heedless and indifferent to consequences, even when the reaction of
to-morrow crushes them in the ruin that they cause to day. Thus do
unchained Negroes, each pulling and hauling his own way, undertake
to manage a ship of which they have just obtained mastery. -- In
such a state of things white men are hardly worth more than black
ones. For, not only is the band, whose aim is violence, composed of
those who are most destitute, most wildly enthusiastic, and most
inclined to destructiveness and to license. But also, as this band
tumultuously carries out its violent action, each individual the
most brutal, the most irrational, and most corrupt, descends lower
than himself, even to the darkness, the madness, and the savagery of
the dregs of society. In fact, a man who in the interchange of
blows, would resist the excitement of murder, and not use his
strength like a savage, must be familiar with arms. He must be
accustomed to danger, be cool-blooded, alive to the sentiment of
honor, and above all, sensitive to that stern military code which,
to the imagination of the soldier, ever holds out to him the
provost's gibbet to which he is sure to rise, should he strike one
blow too many. Should all these restraints, inward as well as
outward, be wanting, the man plunges into insurrection. He is a
novice in the acts of violence, which he carries out. He has no
fear of the law, because he abolishes it. The action begun carries
him further than he intended to go. Peril and resistance exasperate
his anger. He catches the fever from contact with those who are
fevered, and follows robbers who have become his comrades.[1] Add
to this the clamors, the drunkenness, the spectacle of destruction,
the nervous tremor of the body strained beyond its powers of
endurance, and we can comprehend how, from the peasant, the laborer,
and the bourgeois, pacified and tamed by an old civilization, we see
all of a sudden spring forth the barbarian. Or still worse, the
primitive animal, the grinning, sanguinary, wanton baboon, who
giggles while he slays, and gambols over the ruin he has
accomplished. Such is the actual government to which France is
given up, and after eighteen months' experience, the best qualified,
most judicious and profoundest observer of the Revolution will find
nothing to compare it to but the invasion of the Roman Empire in the
fourth century.[2] "The Huns, the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Goths
will come neither from the north nor from the Black Sea; they are in
our very midst."
II.
The provinces. - Destruction of old Authorities. - Inadequacy of
new Authorities
When in a building the principal beam gives way, cracks follow and
multiply, and the secondary joists fall in one by one for lack of
the prop, which supported them. In a similar manner the authority
of the King being broken, all the powers, which he delegated, fall
to the ground.[3] Intendants, parliaments, military commands, grand
provosts, administrative, judicial, and police functionaries in
every province, and of every branch of the service, who maintain
order and protect property, taught by the murder of M. de Launey,
the imprisonment of M. de Besenval, the flight of Marshal de
Broglie, the assassinations of Foullon and Bertier, know what it
costs should they try to perform their duties. Should it be
forgotten local insurrections intervene, and keep them in mind of
it.
The officer in command in Burgundy is a prisoner at Dijon, with a
guard at his door; and he is not allowed to speak with any one
without permission, and without the presence of witnesses.[4] The
Commandant of Caen is besieged in the old palace and capitulates.
The Commandant of Bordeaux surrenders Château-Trompette with its
guns and equipment. The Commandant at Metz, who remains firm,
suffers the insults and the orders of the populace. The Commandant
of Brittany wanders about his province "like a vagabond," while at
Rennes his people, furniture, and plate are kept as pledges. As
soon as he sets foot in Normandy he is surrounded, and a sentinel is
placed at his door. -- The Intendant of Besançon takes to flight;
that of Rouen sees his dwelling sacked from top to bottom, and
escapes amid the shouts of a mob demanding his head. - At Rennes,
the Dean of the Parliament is arrested, maltreated, kept in his room
with a guard over him, and then, although ill, sent out of the town
under an escort. -- At Strasbourg "thirty-six houses of magistrates
are marked for pillage."[5] -- At Besançon, the President of the
Parliament is constrained to let out of prison the insurgents
arrested in a late out-break, and to publicly burn the whole of the
papers belonging to the prosecution. - In Alsace, since the
beginning of the troubles, the provosts were obliged to fly, the
bailiffs and manorial judges hid themselves, the forest-inspectors
ran away, and the houses of the guards were demolished. One man,
sixty years of age, is outrageously beaten and marched about the
village, the people, meanwhile, pulling out his hair; nothing
remains of his dwelling but the walls and a portion of the roof.
All his furniture and effects are broken up, burnt or stolen. He is
forced to sign, along with his wife, an act by which he binds
himself to refund all penalties inflicted by him, and to abandon all
claims for damages for the injuries to which he has just been
subjected. -- In Franche-Comté the authorities dare not condemn
delinquents, and the police do not arrest them; the military
commandant writes that "crimes of every kind are on the increase,
and that he has no means of punishing them." Insubordination is
permanent in all the provinces; one of the provincial commissions
states with sadness:
"When all powers are in confusion and annihilated, when public
force no longer exists, when all ties are sundered, when every
individual considers himself relieved from all kinds of obligation,
when public authority no longer dares make itself felt, and it is a
crime to have been clothed with it, what can be expected of our
efforts to restore order? "[6]
All that remains of this great demolished State is forty thousand
groups of people, each separated and isolated, in towns and small
market villages where municipal bodies, elected committees, and
improvised National Guards strive to prevent the worst excesses. --
But these local chiefs are novices; they are human, and they are
timid. Chosen by acclamation they believe in popular rights; in the
midst of riots they feel themselves in danger. Hence, they
generally obey the crowd.
"Rarely," says one of the provincial commissions reports, "do the
municipal authorities issue a summons; they allow the greatest
excesses rather than enter upon prosecutions for which, sooner or
later, they may be held responsible by their fellow-citizens. . .
. Municipal bodies have no longer the power to resist anything."
Especially in the rural districts the mayor or syndic, who is a
farmer, makes it his first aim to make no enemies, and would resign
his place if it were to bring him any "unpleasantness" with it. His
rule in the towns, and especially in large cities, is almost as lax
and more precarious, because explosive material is accumulated here
to a much larger extent, and the municipal officers, in their arm-
chairs at the town-hall, sit over a mine which may explode at any
time. To-morrow, perhaps, some resolution passed at a tavern in the
suburbs, or some incendiary newspaper just received from Paris, will
furnish the spark. - No other defense against the populace is at
hand than the sentimental proclamations of the National Assembly,
the useless presence of troops who stand by and look on, and the
uncertain help of a National Guard which will arrive too late.
Occasionally these townspeople, who are now the rulers, utter a cry
of distress from under the hands of the sovereigns of the street who
grasp them by the throat. At Puy-en-Velay,[7] a town of twenty
thousand inhabitants, the présidial,[8] the committee of twenty-four
commissioners, a body of two hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men
of the guard of burgesses, are "paralyzed, and completely stupefied,
by the vile populace. A mild treatment only increases its
insubordination and insolence." This populace proscribes whomsoever it
pleases, and six days ago a gibbet, erected by its hands, has announced
to the new magistrates the fate that awaits them.
" What will become of us this winter," they exclaim, "in our
impoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the
prey of wild beasts!"
III.
Public feeling. - Famine
These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, their
misery has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid
waste, and the soil broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce
hailstorm, and a deluge of rain. In the south, the crop proved to
be moderate and even insufficient.
"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc," writes the
intendant,[9] "would be to give an account of calamities of every
description. The panic which prevails in all communities, and which
is stronger than all laws, stops traffic, and would cause famine
even in the midst of plenty. Commodities are enormously expensive,
and there is a lack of cash. Communities are ruined by the enormous
outlays to which they are exposed: The payment of the deputies to
the seneschal's court, the establishment of the burgess guards,
guardhouses for this militia, and the purchase of arms, uniforms,
and outlays in forming communes and permanent councils. To this
must be add the cost of the printing of all kinds, and the
publication of trivial deliberations. Further the loss of time due
to disturbances occasioned by these circumstances, and the utter
stagnation of manufactures and of trade." All these causes combined
"have reduced Languedoc to the last extremity."-
In the Center, and in the North, where the crops are good,
provisions are not less scarce, because wheat is not put in
circulation, and is kept concealed.
"For five months," writes the municipal assembly of Louviers,[10]
"not a farmer has made his appearance in the markets of this town.
Such a circumstance was never known before, although, from time to
time, high prices have prevailed to a considerable extent. On the
contrary, the markets were always well supplied in proportion to the
high price of grain."
In vain the municipality orders the surrounding forty-seven
parishes to provide them with wheat. They pay no attention to the
mandate; each for himself and each for his own house; the intendant
is no longer present to compel local interests to give way to public
interests.
"In the wheat districts around us," says a letter from one of the
Burgundy towns, "we cannot rely on being able to make free
purchases. Special regulations, supported by the civic guard,
prevent grain from being sent out, and put a stop to its
circulation. The adjacent markets are of no use to us. Not a sack
of grain has been brought into our market for about eight months."
At Troyes, bread costs four sous per pound, at Bar-sur-Aube, and in
the vicinity, four and a half sous per pound. The artisan who is
out of work now earns twelve sous a day at the relief works, and, on
going into the country, he sees that the grain crop is good. What
conclusion can he come to but that the dearth is due to the
monopolists, and that, if he should die of hunger, it would be
because those scoundrels have starved him? -- By virtue of this
reasoning whoever has to do with these provisions, whether
proprietor, farmer, merchant or administrator, all are considered
traitors. It is plain that there is a plot against the people: the
government, the Queen, the clergy, the nobles are all parties to it;
and likewise the magistrates and the wealthy amongst the bourgeoisie
and the rich. A rumor is current in the Ile-de-France that sacks of
flour are thrown into the Seine, and that the cavalry horses are
purposely made to eat unripe wheat in stalk. In Brittany, it is
maintained that grain is exported and stored up abroad. In
Touraine, it is certain that this or that wholesale dealer allows it
to sprout in his granaries rather than sell it. At Troyes, a story
prevails that another has poisoned his flour with alum and arsenic,
commissioned to do so by the bakers. -- Conceive the effect of
suspicions like these upon a suffering multitude! A wave of hatred
ascends from the empty stomach to the morbid brain. The people are
everywhere in quest of their imaginary enemies, plunging forward
with closed eyes no matter on whom or on what, not merely with all
the weight of their mass, but with all the energy of their fury.
IV.
Panic. - General arming.
>From the earliest of these weeks they were already alarmed.
Accustomed to being led, the human herd is scared at being left to
itself; it misses its leaders who it has trodden under foot; in
throwing off their trammels it has deprived itself of their
protection. It feels lonely, in an unknown country, exposed to
dangers of which it is ignorant, and against which it is unable to
guard itself. Now that the shepherds are slain or disarmed, suppose
the wolves should unexpectedly appear! - And there are wolves - I
mean vagabonds and criminals - who have but just issued out of the
darkness. They have robbed and burned, and are to be found at every
insurrection. Now that the police force no longer puts them down,
they show themselves instead of keeping themselves concealed. They
have only to lie in wait and come forth in a band, and both life and
property will be at their mercy. - Deep anxiety, a vague feeling of
dread, spreads through both town and country: towards the end of
July the panic, like a blinding, suffocating whirl of dusts,
suddenly sweeps over hundreds of leagues of territory. The brigands
are coming! They are burning the crops! They are only six leagues
off, and then only two - the refugees who have run away from the
disorder prove it.
On the 28th of July, at Angoulême,[11] the alarm bell is heard about
three o'clock in the afternoon; the drums beat to arms, and cannon
are mounted on the ramparts. The town has to be put in a state of
defense against 15,000 bandits who are approaching, and from the
walls a cloud of dust on the road is discovered with terror. It
proves to be the post-wagon on its way to Bordeaux. After this the
number of brigands is reduced to 1,500, but there is no doubt that
they are ravaging the country. At nine o'clock in the evening
20,000 men are under arms, and thus they pass the night, always
listening without hearing anything. Towards three o'clock in the
morning there is another alarm, the church bells ringing and the
people forming a battle array. They are convinced that the brigands
have burned Ruffec, Vernenil, La Rochefoucauld, and other places.
The next day countrymen flock in to give their aid against bandits
who are still absent. "At nine o'clock," says a witness, "we had
40,000 men in the town, to whom we showed our gratitude." As the
bandits do not show themselves, it must be because they are
concealed; a hundred horsemen, a large number of men on foot, start
out to search the forest of Braçonne, and to their great surprise
they find nothing. But the terror is not allayed; "during the
following days a guard is kept mounted, and companies are enrolled
among the townsmen," while Bordeaux, duly informed, dispatches a
courier to offer the support of 20,000 men and even 30,000. "What
is surprising," adds the narrator, is that at ten leagues off in the
neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbance took place, and
at about the same hour." -- All that is required is that a girl,
returning to the village at night, should meet two men who do not
belong to the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne.
Whole parishes, on the strength of this, betake themselves at night
to the woods, abandoning their houses, and carrying away their
furniture; "the fugitives trod down and destroyed their own crops;
pregnant women were injured in the forests, and others lost their
wits." Fear lends them wings. Two years after this, Madame Campan
was shown a rocky peak on which a woman had taken refuge, and from
which she was obliged to be let down with ropes. -- The people at
last return to their homes, and resume their usual routines. But
such large masses are not unsettled with impunity; a tumult like
this is, in itself, a lively source of alarm. As the country did
rise, it must have been on account of threatened danger and if the
peril was not due to brigands, it must have come from some other
quarter. Arthur Young, at Dijon and in Alsace,[12] hears at the
public dinner tables that the Queen had formed a plot to undermine
the National Assembly and to massacre all Paris. Later on he is
arrested in a village near Clermont, and examined because he is
evidently conspiring with the Queen and the Comte d'Entraigues to
blow up the town and send the survivors to the galleys.
No argument, no experience has any effect against the multiplying
phantoms of an over-excited imagination. Henceforth every commune,
and every man, provide themselves with arms and keep them ready for
use. The peasant searches his hoard, and "finds from ten to twelve
francs for the purchase of a gun." "A national militia is found in
the poorest village." Burgess guards and companies of volunteers
patrol all the towns. Military commanders deliver arms, ammunition,
and equipment, on the requisition of municipal bodies, while, in
case of refusal, the arsenals are pillaged, and, voluntarily or by
force, four hundred thousand guns thus pass into the hands of the
people in six months.[13] Not content with this they must have
cannon. Brest having demanded two, every town in Brittany does the
same thing; their self-esteem is at stake as well as a need of
feeling themselves strong. - They lack nothing now to render
themselves masters. All authority, all force, every means of
constraint and of intimidation is in their hands, and in theirs
alone; and these sovereign hands have nothing to guide them in this
actual interregnum of all legal powers, but the wild or murderous
suggestions of hunger or distrust.
V.
Attacks on public individuals and public property. - At Strasbourg.
- At Cherbourg. - At Mauberge. - At Rouen. - At Besançon. - At
Troyes.
It would take too much space to recount all the violent acts which
were committed, - convoys arrested, grain pillaged, millers and corn
merchants hung, decapitated, slaughtered, farmers called upon under
the threats of death to give up even the seed reserved for sowing,
proprietors ransomed and houses sacked.[14] These outrages,
unpunished, tolerated and even excused or badly suppressed, are
constantly repeated, and are, at first, directed against public men
and public property. As is commonly the case, the rabble head the
march and stamp the character of the whole insurrection.
On the 19th of July, at Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return
to office, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, which
it witnesses. Five or six hundred beggars,[15] their numbers soon
increased by the petty tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the
magistrates only having time to fly through a back door. The
soldiers, on their part, with arms in their hands, allow all these
things to go on, while several of them spur the assailants on. The
windows are dashed to pieces under a hailstorm of stones, the doors
are forced with iron crowbars, and the populace enter amid a burst
of acclamations from the spectators. Immediately, through every
opening in the building, which has a facade frontage of eighty feet,
" there is a shower of shutters, sashes, chairs, tables, sofas,
books and papers, and then another of tiles, boards, balconies and
fragments of wood-work." The public archives are thrown to the wind,
and the surrounding streets are strewed with them; the letters of
enfranchisement, the charters of privileges, all the authentic acts
which, since Louis XIV, have guaranteed the liberties of the town,
perish in the flames. Some of the rabble in the cellars stave in
casks of precious wine; fifteen thousand measures of it are lost,
making a pool five feet deep in which several are drowned. Others,
loaded with booty, go away under the eyes of the soldiers without
being arrested. The havoc continues for three days; a number of
houses belonging to some of the magistrates "are sacked from garret
to cellar." When the honest citizens at last obtain arms and restore
order, they are content with the hanging of one of the robbers;
although, in order to please the people, the magistrates are changed
and the price of bread and meat is reduced. - It is not surprising
that after such tactics, and with such rewards, the riot should
spread through the neighborhood far and near: in fact, starting from
Strasbourg it overruns Alsace, while in the country as in the city,
there are always drunkards and rascals found to head it.
No matter where, be it in the East, in the West, or in the North,
the instigators are always of this stamp. At Cherbourg, on the 21st
of July,[16] the two leaders of the riot are " highway robbers," who
place themselves at the head of women of the suburbs, foreign
sailors, the populace of the harbor, and it includes soldiers in
workmen's smocks. They force the delivery of the keys of the grain
warehouses, and wreck the dwellings of the three richest merchants,
also that of M. de Garantot, the sub-delegate: "All records and
papers are burnt; at M. de Garantot's alone the loss is estimated at
more than 100,000 crowns at least." -- The same instinct of
destruction prevails everywhere, a sort of envious fury against all
who possess, command, or enjoy anything. At Maubeuge, on the 27th
of July, at the very assembly of the representatives of the
commune,[17] the rabble interferes directly in its usual fashion. A
band of nail and gun-makers takes possession of the town-hall, and
obliges the mayor to reduce the price of bread. Almost immediately
after this another band follows uttering cries of death, and smashes
the windows, while the garrison, which has been ordered out, quietly
contemplates the damage done. Death to the mayor, to all rulers,
and to all employees! The rioters force open the prisons, set the
prisoners free, and attack the tax-offices. The octroi offices are
demolished from top to bottom: they pull down the harbor offices and
throw the scales and weights into the river. All the custom and
excise stores are carried off; and the officials are compelled to
give acquaintances. The houses of the registrar and of the sheriff,
that of the revenue comptroller, two hundred yards outside the town,
are sacked; the doors and the windows are smashed, the furniture and
linen is torn to shreds, and the plate and jewelry is thrown into
the wells. The same havoc is committed in the mayor's town-house,
also in his country-house a league off. "Not a window, not a door,
not one article or eatable " is preserved; their work, moreover, is
conscientiously done, without stopping a moment, "from ten in the
evening up to ten in the morning on the following day." In addition
to this the mayor, who has served for thirty-four years, resigns his
office at the solicitation of the well-disposed but terrified
people, and leaves the country. -- At Rouen, after the 24th of
July,[18] a written placard shows, by its orthography and its style,
what sort of intellects composed it and what kind of actions are to
follow it:
"Nation, you have here four heads to strike off, those of Pontcarry
(the first president), Maussion (the intendant), Godard de Belbœuf
(the attorney-general), and Durand (the attorney of the King in the
town). Without this we are lost, and if you do not do it, people
will take you for a heartless nation."
Nothing could be more explicit. The municipal body, however, to
whom the Parliament denounces this list of proscriptions, replies,
with its forced optimism, that
"no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed;
he may and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling,
satisfied that there is not a person in the city who would not fly
to his rescue."
This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as it
pleases. On the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on in
security for ten days. One of them is a man named Jourdain, a
lawyer of Lisieux, and, like most of his brethren, a demagogue in
principles; the other is a strolling actor from Paris named Bordier,
famous in the part of harlequin,[19] a bully in a house of ill-fame,
"a night-rover and drunkard, and who, fearing neither God nor
devil," has taken up patriotism, and comes down into the provinces
to play tragedy, and that, tragedy in real life. The fifth act
begins on the night of the 3rd of August, with Bordier and Jourdain
as the principal actors, and behind them the rabble along with
several companies of fresh volunteers. A shout is heard, "Death to
the monopolists! death to Maussion! we must have his head!" They
pillage his hotel: many of them become intoxicated and fall asleep
in his cellar. The revenue offices, the toll-gates of the town, the
excise office, all buildings in which the royal revenue is
collected, are wrecked. Immense bonfires are lighted in the streets
and on the old market square; furniture, clothes, papers, kitchen
utensils, are all thrown in pell-mell, while carriages are dragged
out and tumbled into the Seine. It is only when the town-hall is
attacked that the National Guard, beginning to be alarmed, makes up
its mind to seize Bordier and some others. The following morning,
however, at the shout of Carabo, and led by Jourdain, the prison is
forced, Bordier set free, and the intendant's residence, with its
offices, is sacked a second time. When, finally, the two rascals
are taken and led to the scaffold, the populace is so strongly in
their favor as to require the pointing of loaded cannon on them to
keep them down. -- At Besançon,[20] on the 13th of August, the
leaders consist of the servant of an exhibitor of wild animals, two
goal-birds of whom one has already been branded in consequence of a
riot, and a number of "inhabitants of ill-repute," who, towards
evening, spread through the town along with the soldiers. The
gunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the throat and
want to throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the
commandant, M. de Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing
to give it they tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong
to the Third-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters:
subsequently they demand the head of the intendant, M. de Caumartin,
forcibly enter his dwelling and break up his furniture. On the
following day the rabble and the soldiers enter the coffee-houses,
the convents, and the inns, and demand to be served with wine and
eatables as much as they want, and then, heated by drink, they burn
the excise offices, force open several prisons, and set free all the
smugglers and deserters. To put an end to this saturnalia a grand
banquet in the open air is suggested, in which the National Guard is
to fraternize with the whole garrison; but the banquet turns into a
drinking-bout, entire companies remaining under the tables dead
drunk; other companies carry away with them four hogsheads of wine,
and the rest, finding themselves left in the lurch, are scattered
abroad outside the walls in order to rob the cellars of the
neighboring villages. The next day, encouraged by the example set
them, a portion of the garrison, accompanied by a number of workmen,
repeat the expedition in the country. Finally, after four days of
this orgy, to prevent Besançon and its outskirts from being
indefinitely treated as a conquered country, the burgess guard, in
alliance with the soldiers who have remained loyal, rebel against
the rebellion, go in quest of the marauders and hang two of them
that same evening. -- Such is rioting![21] an irruption of brute
force which, turned loose on the habitations of men, can do nothing
but gorge itself, waste, break, destroy, and do damage to itself;
and if we follow the details of local history, we see how, in these
days, similar outbreaks of violence might be expected at any time.
At Troyes,[22] on the 18th of July, a market-day, the peasants
refuse to pay the entrance duties; the octroi having been suppressed
at Paris, it ought also to be suppressed at Troyes. The populace,
excited by this first disorderly act, gather into a mob for the
purpose of dividing the grain and arms amongst themselves, and the
next day the town-hall is invested by seven or eight thousand men,
armed with clubs and stones. The day after, a band, recruited in
the surrounding villages, armed with flails, shovels, and pitch-
forks, enters under the leadership of a joiner who marches at the
head of it with a drawn saber; fortunately, "all the honest folks
among the burgesses "immediately form themselves into a National
Guard, and this first attempt at a Jacquerie is put down. But the
agitation continues, and false rumors constantly keep it up. - On
the 29th of July, on the report being circulated that five hundred
"brigands" had left Paris and were coming to ravage the country, the
alarm bell sounds in the villages, and the peasants go forth armed.
Henceforth, a vague idea of some impending danger fills all minds;
the necessity of defense and of guarding against enemies is
maintained. The new demagogues avail themselves of this to keep
their hold on the people, and when the time comes, to use it against
their chiefs. - It is of no use to assure the people that the
latter are patriots; that the recently welcomed Necker with
enthusiastic shouts; that the priests, the monks, and canons were
the first to adopt the national cockade; that the nobles of the city
and its environs are the most liberal in France; that, on the 20th
of July, the burgess guard saved the town; that all the wealthy give
to the national workshops; that Mayor Huez, "a venerable and honest
magistrate," is a benefactor to the poor and to the public. All the
old leaders are objects of distrust. -- On the 8th of August, a mob
demands the dismissal of the dragoons, arms for all volunteers,
bread at two sous the pound, and the freedom of all prisoners. On
the 19th of August the National Guard rejects its old officers as
aristocrats, and elects new ones. On the 27th of August, the crowd
invade the town-hall and distribute the arms amongst themselves. On
the 5th of September, two hundred men, led by Truelle, president of
the new committee, force the salt depot and have salt delivered to
them at six sous per pound. -- Meanwhile, in the lowest quarters of
the city, a story is concocted to the effect that if wheat is scarce
it is because Huez, the mayor, and M. de St. Georges, the old
commandant, are monopolists, and now they say of Huez what they said
five weeks before of Foulon, that "he wants to make the people eat
hay." The many-headed brute growls fiercely and is about to spring.
As usual, instead of restraining him, they try to manage him.
"You must put your authority aside for a moment," writes the deputy
of Troyes to the sheriffs," and act towards the people as to a
friend; be as gentle with them as you would be with your equals, and
rest assured that they are capable of responding to it."
Thus does Huez act, and he even does more, paying no attention to
their menaces, refusing to provide for his own safety and almost
offering himself as a sacrifice.
"I have wronged no one," he exclaimed; "why should any one bear me
ill-will?"
His sole precaution is to provide something for the unfortunate poor
when he is gone: he bequeaths in his will 18,000 livres to the poor,
and, on the eve of his death, sends 100 crowns to the bureau of
charity. But what avail self-abnegation and beneficence against
blind, insane rage! On the 9th of September, three loads of flour
proving to be unsound, the people collect and shout out,
"Down with the flour-dealers! Down with machinery! Down with the
mayor! Death to the mayor, and let Truelle be put in his place! "
Huez, on leaving his court-room, is knocked down, murdered by kicks
and blows, throttled, dragged to the reception hall, struck on his
head with a wooden-shoe and pitched down the grand staircase. The
municipal officers strive in vain to protect him; a rope is put
around his neck and they begin to drag him along. A priest, who
begs to be allowed at least to save his soul, is repulsed and
beaten. A woman jumps on the prostrate old man, stamps on his face
and repeatedly thrusts her scissors in his eyes. He is dragged
along with the rope around his neck up to the Pont de la Selle, and
thrown into the neighboring ford, and then drawn out, again dragged
through the streets and in the gutters, with a bunch of hay crammed
in his mouth.[23]
In the meantime, his house as well as that of the lieutenant of
police, that of the notary Guyot, and that of M. de Saint-Georges,
are sacked; the pillaging and destruction lasts four hours; at the
notary's house, six hundred bottles of wine are consumed or carried
off; objects of value are divided, and the rest, even down to the
iron balcony, is demolished or broken; the rioters cry out, on
leaving, that they have still to burn twenty-seven houses, and to
take twenty-seven heads. "No one at Troyes went to bed that fatal
night."- During the succeeding days, for nearly two weeks, society
seems to be dissolved. Placards posted about the streets proscribe
municipal officers, canons, divines, privileged persons, prominent
merchants, and even ladies of charity; the latter are so frightened
that they throw up their office, while a number of persons move off
into the country; others barricade themselves in their dwellings and
only open their doors with saber in hand. Not until the 26th does
the orderly class rally sufficiently to resume the ascendancy and
arrest the miscreants. -- Such is public life in France after the
14th of July: the magistrates in each town feel that they are at the
mercy of a band of savages and sometimes of cannibals. Those of
Troyes had just tortured Huez after the fashion of Hurons, while
those of Caen did worse; Major de Belzance, not less innocent, and
under sworn protection,[24] was cut to pieces like Laperouse in the
Fiji Islands, and a woman ate his heart.
VI.
Taxes are no longer paid. - Devastation of the Forests. - The new
game laws.
It is, under such circumstances, possible to foretell whether taxes
come in, and whether municipalities that sway about in every popular
breeze will have the authority to collect the odious revenues. --
Towards the end of September,[25] I find a list of thirty-six
committees or municipal bodies which, within a radius of fifty
leagues around Paris, refuse to ensure the collection of taxes. One
of them tolerates the sale of contraband salt, in order not to
excite a riot. Another takes the precaution to disarm the employees
in the excise department. In a third the municipal officers were
the first to provide themselves with contraband salt and contraband
tobacco.
At Peronne and at Ham, the order having come to restore the toll-
houses, the people destroy the soldiers' quarters, conduct all the
employees to their homes, and order them to leave within twenty-four
hours, under penalty of death. After twenty months' resistance
Paris will end the matter by forcing the National Assembly to give
in and by obtaining the final suppression of its octroi.[26] -- Of
all the creditors whose hand each one felt on his shoulders, that of
the exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest; hence
this is the first whose grasp is to be shaken off; there is none
which is more heartily detested or which receives harsher treatment.
Especially against collectors of the salt-tax, custom-house
officers, and excisemen the fury is universal. These,
everywhere,[27] are in danger of their lives and are obliged to fly.
At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to pieces the
director of the excise." At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house is
devastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife
to the throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou
must perish that there may be no more of thy race."
For four hours the clerks are on the point of being torn to pieces;
through the entreaties of the lord of the manor, who sees scythes
and sabers aimed at his own head, they are released only on the
condition that they "abjure their employment." -- Again, for two
months following the taking of the Bastille, insurrections break out
by hundreds, like a volley of musketry, against indirect taxation.
>From the 23rd of July the Intendant of Champagne reports that "the
uprising is general in almost all the towns under his command." On
the following day the Intendant of Alençon writes that, in his
province, "the royal dues will no longer be paid anywhere." On the
7th of August, M. Necker states to the National Assembly that in the
two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon it has been necessary
to reduce the price of salt one-half; that "in an infinity of places
" the collection of the excise is stopped or suspended; that the
smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by "convoys and by open force
" in Picardy, in Lorraine, and in the Trois-Évêchés; that the
indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general and the
receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep their
engagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in
the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of
the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the
muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to
their energy.
"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a
prey to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to
constrain them and to secure to the State its dues? -- The clergy,
the nobles, wealthy townsmen, and certain brave artisans and
farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even sometimes give spontaneously.
But in society those who possess intelligence, who are in easy
circumstances and conscientious, form a small select class; the
great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go
only under constraint; there is but one way to collect the taxes,
and that is to extort them. From time immemorial, direct taxes in
France have been collected only by bailiffs and seizures; which is
not surprising, as they take away a full half of the net income.
Now that the peasants of each village are armed and form a band, let
the collector come and make seizures if he dare ! -- " Immediately
after the decree on the equality of the taxes," writes the
provincial commission of Alsace,[28] "the people generally refused
to make any payments, until those who were exempt and privileged
should have been inscribed on the local lists." In many places the
peasants threaten to obtain the reimbursement of their installments,
while in others they insist that the decree should be retrospective
and that the new rate-payers should pay for the past year. "No
collector dare send an official to distrain; none that are sent dare
fulfill their mission." -- " It is not the good bourgeois" of whom
there is any fear, "but the rabble who make the latter and every one
else afraid of them;" resistance and disorder everywhere come from
"people that have nothing to lose." -- Not only do they shake off
taxation, but they usurp property, and declare that, being the
Nation, whatever belongs to the Nation belongs to them. The forests
of Alsace are laid waste, the seignorial as well as communal, and
wantonly destroyed with the wastefulness of children or of maniacs.
"In many places, to avoid the trouble of removing the woods, they
are burnt, and the people content themselves with carrying off the
ashes." -- After the decrees of August 4th, and in spite of the law
which licenses the proprietor only to hunt on his own grounds, the
impulse to break the law becomes irresistible. Every man who can
procure a gun begins operations;[29] the crops which are still
standing are trodden under foot, the lordly residences are invaded
and the palings are scaled; the King himself at Versailles is
wakened by shots fired in his park. Stags, fawns, deer, wild boars,
hares, and rabbits, are slain by thousands, cooked with stolen wood,
and eaten up on the spot. There is a constant discharge of musketry
throughout France for more than two months, and, as on an American
prairie, every living animal belongs to him who kills it. At
Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the hares and partridges of
the barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhausted of fish; the
court of the chateau even is entered, to fire on the pigeon-house
and destroy the pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, of which
they have too many, are offered to the proprietor for sale -- It is
"the patriots" of the village with "smugglers and bad characters"
belonging to the neighborhood who make this expedition; they are
seen in the front ranks of every act of violence, and it is not
difficult to foresee that, under their leadership, attacks on public
persons and public property will be followed by attacks on private
persons and private property.
VII.
Attack upon private individuals and private property. - Aristocrats
denounced to the people as their enemies. - Effect of news from
Paris.- Influence of the village attorneys. - Isolated acts of
violence. - A general rising of the peasantry in the east. - War
against the castles, feudal estates, and property. - Preparations
for other Jacqueries.
Indeed, an outlawed class already exists, they are called "
aristocrats." This deadly term, applied at first to the nobles and
prelates in the States-General who declined to take part in the
reunion of the three orders, is extended so as to embrace all whose
titles, offices, alliances, and manner of living distinguish them
from the multitude. That which entitled them to respect is that
which marks them out as objects of ill-will; while the people, who,
though suffering from their privileges, did not regard them
personally with hatred, are now taught to consider them as their
enemies. Each, on his own estate, is held accountable for the evil
designs attributed to his brethren at Versailles, and, on the false
report of a plot at the center, the peasants classify him as one of
the conspirators.[30] Thus does the peasant jacquerie commence, and
the fanatics who have fanned the flame in Paris are to do the same
in the provinces. "You wish to know the authors of the agitation,"
writes a sensible man to the committee of investigation; "you will
find them amongst the deputies of the Third-Estate," and especially
among the attorneys and advocates. "These dispatch incendiary
letters to their constituents, which letters are received by
municipal bodies alike composed of attorneys and of advocates....
they are read aloud in the public squares, while copies of them are
distributed among all the villages. In these villages, if any one
knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the manor, it
is the legal practitioner," the born enemy of the lord of the manor,
whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered by
his power, and never failing to blacken everything.[31] It is
highly probable that he is the one who composes and circulates the
placards calling on the people, in the King's name, to resort to
violence. -- At Secondigny, in Poitou, on the 23rd of July,[32] the
laborers in the forest receive a letter "which summons them to
attack all the country gentlemen round about, and to massacre
without mercy all those who refuse to renounce their privileges....
promising them that not only will their crimes go unpunished, but
that they will even be rewarded." M. Despretz-Montpezat,
correspondent of the deputies of the nobles, is seized, and dragged
with his son to the dwelling of the procurator-fiscal, to force him
to give his signature; the inhabitants are forbidden to render him
assistance "on pain of death and fire." "Sign," they exclaim, "or we
will tear out your heart, and set fire to this house !" At this
moment the neighboring notary, who is doubtless an accomplice,
appears with a stamped paper, and says to him, "Monsieur, I have
just come from Niort, where the Third-Estate has done the same thing
to all the gentlemen of the town; one, who refused, was cut to
pieces before our eyes." -- "We are compelled to sign renunciations
of our privileges, and give our assent to one and the same taxation,
as if the nobles had not already done so." The band gives notice
that it will proceed in the same fashion with all the chateaux in
the vicinity, and terror precedes or follows them. "Nobody dares
write," M. Despretz sends word; " I attempt it at the risk of my
life." -- Nobles and prelates become objects of suspicion
everywhere; village committees open their letters, and they have to
suffer their houses to be searched.[33] They are forced to adopt
the new cockade: to be a gentleman, and not wear it, is to deserve
hanging. At Mamers, in Maine, M. de Beauvoir refuses to wear it,
and is at the point of being put into the pillory and felled. Near
La F1èche, M. de Brissac is arrested, and a message is sent to Paris
to know if he shall be taken there, "or be beheaded in the
meantime." Two deputies of the nobles, MM. de Montesson and de Vassé
who had come to ask the consent of their constituents to their
joining the Third-Estate, are recognized near Mans; their honorable
scruples and their pledges to the constituents are considered of no
importance, nor even the step that they are now taking to fulfill
them; it suffices that they voted against the Third-Estate at
Versailles; the populace pursues them and breaks up their carriages,
and pillages their trunks. -- Woe to the nobles, especially if they
have taken any part in local rule, and if they are opposed to
popular panics! M. Cureau, deputy-mayor of Mans,[34] had issued
orders during the famine, and, having retired to his chateau of
Nouay, had told the peasants that the announcement of the coming of
brigands was a false alarm; he thought that it was not necessary to
sound the alarm bell, and all that was necessary was that they
should remain quiet. Accordingly he is set down as being in league
with the brigands, and besides this he is a monopolist, and a buyer
of standing crops. The peasants lead him off; along with his son-
in-law, M. de Montesson, to the neighboring village, where there
are judges. On the way "they dragged their victims on the ground,
pummeled them, trampled on them, spit in their faces, and besmeared
them with filth." M. de Montesson is shot, while M. Cureau is killed
by degrees; a carpenter cuts off the two heads with a double-edged
ax, and children bear them along to the sound of drums and violins.
Meanwhile, the judges of the place, brought by force, draw up an
official report stating the finding of thirty louis and several
bills of the Banque d'Escompte in the pockets of M. de Cureau, on
the discovery of which a shout of triumph is set up: this evidence
proves that they were going to buy up the standing wheat ! -- Such
is the course of popular justice. Now that the Third-Estate has
become the nation, every mob thinks that it has the right to
pronounce sentences, which it carries out, on lives and on
possessions.
These explosions are isolated in the western, central and southern
provinces; the conflagration, however, is universal in the east. On
a strip of ground from thirty to fifty leagues broad, extending from
the extreme north down to Provence. Alsace, Franche-Comté,
Burgundy, Mâconnais, Beaujolais, Auvergne, Viennois, Dauphiny, the
whole of this territory resembles a continuous mine which explodes
at the same time. The first column of flame which shoots up is on
the frontiers of Alsace and Franche-Comté, in the vicinity of
Belfort and Vésoul, a feudal district, in which the peasant, over-
burdened with taxes, bears the heavier yoke with greater impatience.
An instinctive argument is going on in his mind without his knowing
it. "The good Assembly and the good King want us to be happy,
suppose we help them! They say that the King has already relieved us
of the taxes, suppose we relieve ourselves of paying rents! Down
with the nobles! They are no better than the tax-collectors! " -- On
the 16th of July, the chateau of Sancy, belonging to the Princesses
de Beaufremont, is sacked, and on the 18th those of Lure, Bithaine,
and Molans.[35] On the 29th, an accident which occurs with some
fire-works at a popular festival at the house of M. de Mesmay, leads
the lower class to believe that the invitation extended to them was
a trap, and that there was a desire to get rid of them by
treachery.[36] Seized with rage they set fire to the chateau, and
during the following week[37] destroy three abbeys, ruin eleven
chateaux and pillage others. " All records are destroyed, the
registers and court-rolls are carried off; and the deposits
violated." -- Starting from this spot, "the hurricane of
insurrection" stretches over the whole of Alsace from Huningue to
Landau.[38] The insurgents display placards, signed Louis, stating
that for a certain lapse of time they shall be permitted to exercise
justice themselves, and, in Sundgau, a well-dressed weaver,
decorated with a blue belt, passes for a prince, the King's second
son. They begin by falling on the Jews, their hereditary leeches;
they sack their dwellings, divide their money among themselves, and
hunt them down like so many fallow-deer. At Bâle alone, it is said
that twelve hundred of these unfortunate fugitives arrived with
their families. -- The distance between the Jew creditor and the
Christian proprietor is not great, and this is soon cleared.
Remiremont is only saved by a detachment of dragoons. Eight hundred
men attack the chateau of Uberbrünn. The abbey of Neubourg is taken
by storm. At Guebwiller, on the 31st of July, five hundred
peasants, subjects of the abbey of Murbach, make a descent on the
abbot's palace and on the house of the canons. Cupboards, chests,
beds, windows, mirrors, frames, even the tiles of the roof and the
hinges of the casements are hacked to pieces: "They kindle fires on
the beautiful inlaid floors of the apartments, and there burn up the
library and the title-deeds." The abbot's superb carriage is so
broken up that not a wheel remains entire. "Wine streams through
the cellars. One cask of sixteen hundred measures is half lost; the
plate and the linen are carried off." -- Society is evidently being
overthrown, while with the power, property is changing hands.
These are their very words. In Franche-Comte[39] the inhabitants of
eight communes come and declare to the Bernardins of Grâce-Dieu and
of Lieu-Croissant "that, being of the Third-Estate, it is time now
for the people to rule over abbots and monks, considering that the
domination of the latter has lasted too long," and thereupon they
carry off all the titles to property and to rentals belonging to the
abbey in their commune. In Upper Dauphiny, during the destruction
of M. de Murat's chateau, a man named Ferréol struck the furniture
with a big stick, exclaiming, "Hey, so much for you, Murat; you have
been master a good while, now it's our turn!"[40] Those who rifle
houses, and steal like highway robbers, think that they are
defending a cause, and reply to the challenge, "Who goes there?" "We
are for the brigand Third-Estate!" -- Everywhere the belief prevails
that they are clothed with authority, and they conduct themselves
like a conquering horde under the orders of an absent general. At
Remiremont and at Luxeuil they produce an edict, stating that "all
this brigandage, pillage, and destruction" is permitted. In
Dauphiny, the leaders of the bands say that they possess the King's
orders. In Auvergne, "they follow imperative orders, being advised
that such is his Majesty's will." Nowhere do we see that an
insurgent village exercises personal vengeance against its lord. If
the people fire on the nobles they encounter, it is not through
personal hatred. They are destroying the class, and do not pursue
individuals. They detest feudal privileges, holders of charters,
the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made to pay, but
not the nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane
intentions, compassionate, and even often beneficent. At Luxeuil,
the abbot, who is forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment
of his seignorial rights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among
them for forty-six years, and has been wholly devoted to them.[41]
In the canton of Crémieu, "where the havoc is immense," all the
nobles, write the municipal officers, are "patriots and benevolent."
In Dauphiny, the engineers, magistrates, and prelates, whose
chateaux are sacked, were the first to espouse the cause of the
people and of public liberties against the ministers. In Auvergne,
the peasants themselves "manifest a good deal of repugnance to act
in this way against such kind masters." But it must be done; the
only concession which can be made in consideration of the kindness
which had been extended to them is, not to burn the chateau of the
ladies of Vanes, who had been so charitable; but they burn all their
title-deeds, and torture the business agent at three different times
by fire, to force him to deliver a document which he does not
possess; they then only withdraw him from the fire half-broiled,
because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy for him. They are
like the soldiers on a campaign who execute orders with docility,
for which necessity is the only plea, and who, without regarding
themselves as brigands, commit acts of brigandage.
But here the situation is more tragic, for it is war in the midst of
peace, a war of the brutal and barbaric multitude against the highly
cultivated, well-disposed and confiding, who had not anticipated
anything of the kind, who had not even dreamt of defending
themselves, and who had no protection. The Comte de Courtivron,
with his family, was staying at the watering-place of Luxeuil with
his uncle, the Abbé of Clermont-Tonnerre, an old man of seventy
years. On the 19th of July, fifty peasants from Fougerolle break
into and demolish everything in the houses of an usher and a
collector of the excise. Thereupon the mayor of the place intimates
to the nobles and magistrates who are taking the waters, that they
had better leave the house in twenty-four hours, as "he had been
advised of an intention to burn the houses in which they were
staying," and he did not wish to have Luxeuil exposed to this danger
on account of their presence there. The following day, the guard,
as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town and to
force the abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are
extorted, records and cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects
are stolen. M. de Courtivron escaping with his uncle during the
night, the alarm bell is sounded and they are pursued, and with
difficulty obtain refuge in Plombières. The bourgeoisie of
Plombières, however, for fear of compromising themselves, oblige
them to depart. On the road two hundred insurgents threaten to kill
their horses and to smash their carriage, and they only find safety
at last at Porentruy, outside of France. On his return, M. de
Courtivron is shot at by the band which has just pillaged the abbey
of Lure, and they shout out at him as he passes, "Let's massacre the
nobles!" Meanwhile, the chateau of Vauvilliers, to which his sick
wife had been carried, is devastated from top to bottom; the mob
search for her everywhere, and she only escapes by hiding herself in
a hay-loft. Both are anxious to fly into Burgundy, but word is sent
them that at Dijon "the nobles are blockaded by the people," and
that, in the country, they threaten to set their houses on fire. --
There is no asylum to be had, either in their own homes nor in the
homes of others, nor in places along the roads, fugitives being
stopped in all the small villages and market-towns. In Dauphiny[42]
"the Abbess of St. Pierre de Lyon, one of the nuns, M. de Perrotin,
M. de Bellegarde, the Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, and the Chevalier
de Moidieu, are arrested at Champier by the armed population, led to
the Côte Saint-André, confined in the town-hall, whence they send to
Grenoble for assistance," and, to have them released, the Grenoble
Committee is obliged to send commissioners. Their only refuge is in
the large cities, where some semblance of a precarious order exists,
and in the ranks of the City Guards, which march from Lyons, Dijon,
and Grenoble, to keep the inundation down. Throughout the country
scattered chateaux are swallowed up by the popular tide, and, as the
feudal rights are often in plebeian hands, it insensibly rises
beyond its first overflow. -- There is no limit to an insurrection
against property. This one extends from abbeys and chateaux to the
"houses of the bourgeoisie."[43] The grudge at first was confined
to the holders of charters; now it is extended to all who possess
anything. Well-to-do farmers and priests abandon their parishes and
fly to the towns. Travelers are put to ransom. Thieves, robbers,
and returned convicts, at the head of armed bands, seize whatever
they can lay their hands on. Cupidity becomes inflamed by such
examples; on domains which are deserted and in a state of confusion,
where there is nothing to indicate a master's presence, all seems to
lapse to the first comer. A small farmer of the neighborhood has
carried away wine and returns the following day in search of hay.
All the furniture of a chateau in Dauphin is removed, even to the
hinges of the doors, by a large reinforcement of carts. -- " It is
the war of the poor against the rich," says a deputy, "and, on the
3rd of August, the Committee on Reports declares to the National
Assembly "that no kind of property has been spared." In Franche-
Comté, "nearly forty chateaux and seignorial mansions have been
pillaged or burnt."[44] From Lancers to Gray about three out of
five chateaux are sacked. In Dauphin twenty-seven are burned or
destroyed; five in the small district of Viennese, and, besides
these, all the monasteries -- nine at least in Auvergne, seventy-
two, it is said, in Mâconnais and Beaujolais, without counting those
of Alsace. On the 31st of July, Lally-Tollendal, on entering the
tribune, has his hands full of letters of distress, with a list of
thirty-six chateaux burnt, demolished, or pillaged, in one province,
and the details of still worse violence against persons:[45]
"in Languedoc, M. de Barras, cut to pieces in the presence of his
wife who is about to be confined, and who is dead in consequence; in
Normandy, a paralytic gentleman left on a burning pile and taken off
from it with his hands burnt; in Franche-Comté, Madame de Bathilly
compelled, with an ax over her head, to give up her title-deeds and
even her estate; Madame de Listenay forced to do the same, with a
pitchfork at her neck and her two daughters in a swoon at her feet;
Comte de Montjustin, with his wife, having a pistol at his throat
for three hours; and both dragged from their carriage to be thrown
into a pond, where they are saved by a passing regiment of soldiers;
Baron de Montjustin, one of the twenty-two popular noblemen,
suspended for an hour in a well, listening to a discussion whether
he shall be dropped down or whether he should die in some other way;
the Chevalier d'Ambly, torn from his chateau and dragged naked into
the village, placed on a dung-heap after having his eyebrows and all
his hair pulled out, while the crowd kept on dancing around him."
In the midst of a disintegrated society, under the semblance only of
a government, it is manifest that an invasion is under way, an
invasion of barbarians which will complete by terror that which it
has begun by violence, and which, like the invasions of the Normans
in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ends in the conquest and
dispossession of an entire class. In vain the National Guard and
the other troops that remain loyal succeed in stemming the first
torrent; in vain does the Assembly hollow out a bed for it and
strive to bank it in by fixed boundaries. The decrees of the 4th of
August and the regulations which follow are but so many spiders'
webs stretched across a torrent. The peasants, moreover, putting
their own interpretation on the decrees, convert the new laws into
authority for continuing in their course or beginning over again.
No more rents, however legitimate, however legal!
"Yesterday,"[46] writes a gentleman of Auvergne, we were notified
that the fruit-tithe (percières) would no longer be paid, and that
the example of other provinces was only being followed which no
longer, even by royal order, pay tithes." In Franche-Comté "numerous
communities are satisfied that they no longer owe anything either to
the King or to their lords. . . . The villages divide amongst
themselves the fields and woods belonging to the nobles." --
It must be noted that charter-holding and feudal titles are still
intact in three-fourths of France, that it is the interest of the
peasant to ensure their disappearance, and that he is always armed.
To secure a new outbreak of jacqueries, it is only necessary that
central control, already thrown into disorder, should be withdrawn.
This is the work of Versailles and of Paris; and there, at Paris as
well as at Versailles, some, through lack of foresight and
infatuation, and others, through blindness and indecision -- the
latter through weakness and the former through violence -- all are
laboring to accomplish it.
____________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Dusaulx, 374. " I remarked that if there were a few among the
people at that time who dared commit crime, there were several who
wished it, and that every one endured it." -- " Archives
Nationales," DXXIX, 3. (Letter of the municipal authorities of
Crémieu, Dauphiny, November 3, 1789.) "The care taken to lead them
first to the cellars and to intoxicate them, can alone give a
conception of the incredible excesses of rage to which they gave
themselves up in the sacking and burning of the chateaux."
[2] Mercure de France, January 4, 1792. ("Revue politique de
l'année 1791," by Mallet du Pan.)
[3] Albert Babeau, I. 206. (Letter of the deputy Camuzet de
Belombre, August 22, 1789.) The executive power is absolutely gone
to-day." -- Gouverneur Morris, letter of July 31, 1789: "This
country is now as near in a state of anarchy as it is possible for a
community to be without breaking up."
[4] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Amelot, July
24th; H. 784, of M. de Langeron, October 16th and 18th . -- KK.
1105. correspondence of M. de Thiard, October 7th and 30th,
September 4th. -- Floquet, VII. 527, 555. - Guadet, "Histoire
des Girondins" (July 29, 1789).
[5] M. de Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353 (July 18th). - Sauzay,
"Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le Département de
Doubs," I. 128 (July 19th.) -- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3253.
(Letter of the deputies of the provincial commission of Alsace,
September 8th.) D. XXIX. I. note of M. de Latour-du-Pin, October
28, 1789. - Letter of M. de Langeron, September 3rd; of Breitman,
garde-marteau, Val Saint-Amarin (Upper Alsace), July 26th.
[6] Léonce de Lavergne, 197. (Letter of the intermediate commission
of Poitou, the last month in 1789.) -- Cf. Brissot (Le patriote
français, August, 1789). "General insubordination prevails in the
provinces because the restraints of executive power are no longer
felt. What were but lately the guarantees of that power? The
intendants, tribunals, and the army. The intendants are gone, the
tribunals are silent, and the army is against the executive power
and on the side of the people. Liberty is not a nourishment for
unprepared stomachs."
[7] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of the clergy,
consuls, présidial-councillors and principal merchants of Puy-en-
Velay, September 16, 1789.) -- H. 1453. (letter of the Intendant
or Alençon, July 18th). "I must not leave you in ignorance of the
multiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of my jurisdiction. The
impunity with which they flatter themselves, because the judges are
afraid of irritating the people by examples of severity, only
emboldens them. Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks,
spread false reports about particular persons whom they accuse of
concealing grain, or of not belonging to the Third-Estate, and,
under this pretext, they pillage their houses, taking whatever they
can find, the owners only avoiding death by flight."
[8] A body of magistrates forming one of the lower tribunals.-[Tr.]
[9] "Archives Nationales," H. 942. (Observations of M. de
Ballainvilliers, October 30, 1789.)
[10] "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 1. Letter of the municipal
assembly of Louviers, the end of August, 1789. - Letter of the
communal assembly of Saint-Bris (bailiwick of Auxerre), September
25th. - Letter of the municipal officers of Ricey-Haut, near Bar-
sur-Seine, August 25th; of the Chevalier d'Allouville, September
8th.
[11] "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. I. Letter of M. Briand-
Delessart (Angoulême, August 1st). -- Of M. Bret, Lieutenant-
General of the provostship of Mardogne, September 5th. -- Of the
Chevalier de Castellas (Auvergue), September 15th (relating to the
night between the 2nd and 3rd of August). - Madame Campan, II.
65.
[12] Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," July 24th and 31st, August
13th and 19th.
[13] De Bouillé, 108. - " Archives Nationales," KK. 1105.
Correspondence of M. deThiard, September 20, 1789 (apropos of one
hundred guns given to the town of Saint-Brieuc). "They are not of
the slightest use, but this passion for arms is a temporary epidemic
which must be allowed to subside of itself. People are determined
to believe in brigands and in enemies, whereas neither exist." --
September 25th, "Vanity alone impels them, and the pride of having
cannon is their sole motive."
[14] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. Amelot, July
17th and 24th. "Several wealthy private persons of the town
(Auxonne) have been put to ransom by this band, of which the largest
portion consists of ruffians." - Letter of nine cultivators of
Breteuil (Picardy) July 23rd (their granaries were pillaged up to
the last grain the previous evening). "They threaten to pillage our
crops and set our barns on fire as soon as they are full. M.
Tassard, the notary, has been visited in his house by the populace,
and his life has been threatened." Letter of Moreau, Procureur du
Roi at the Senechal's Court at Bar-le-Duc, September 15, 1789, D,
XXIX, 1. "On the 27th of July the people rose and most cruelly
assassinated a merchant trading in wheat. On the 27th and 28th his
house and that of another were sacked," etc.
[15] Chronicle of Dominick Schmutz ("Revue d'Alsace," V. III. 3rd
series. These are his own expressions: Gesindel, Lumpen-gesindel.
-- De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353. - Arthur Young (an eye-
witness), July 21st. -- Of Dampmartin (eye-witness), I. 105. M.
de Rochambeau shows the usual indecision and want of vigor: whilst
the mob are pillaging houses and throwing things out of the windows,
he passes in front of his regiments (8,000 men) drawn up for action,
and says, "My friends, my good friends, you see what is going on.
How horrible! Alas! these are your papers, your titles and those of
your parents." The soldiers smile at this sentimental prattle.
[16] Dumouriez (an eye-witness), book III. ch. 3. - The trial
was begun and judgment given by twelve lawyers and an assessor, whom
the people, in arms, had themselves appointed. -- Hippeau, IV.
382.
[17] Archives Nationales," F7 3248. (Letter of the mayor, M.
Poussiaude de Thierri, September 11th.)
[18] Floquet, VII. 551.
[19] De Goncourt, "La Société française pendant la Révolution," 37.
[20] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the officers of
the bailiwick of Dôle, August 24th. - Sauzay I. 128.
[21] There is a similar occurrence at Strasbourg, a few days after
the sacking of the town-hall. The municipality having given each
man of the garrison twenty sous, the soldiers abandon their post,
set the prisoners free at the Pont-Couvert, feast publicly in the
streets with the women taken out of the penitentiary, and force
innkeepers and the keepers of drinking-places to give up their
provisions. The shops are all closed, and, for twenty-four hours,
the officers are not obeyed. (De Dampmartin, I. 105.)
[22] Albert Babeau, I. 187-273. -- Moniteur, II. 379. (Extract
from the provost's verdict of November 27, 1789.)
[23] Moniteur, ibid. Picard, the principal murderer, confessed
"that he had made him suffer a great deal; that the said sieur Huez
did not die until they came near the Chaudron Inn ; that he
nevertheless intended to make him suffer more by stabbing him in the
neck at the corner of each street, (and) by contriving it so that he
might do it often, as long as there was life in him; that the day on
which M. Huez died yielded him ten francs, together with the neck-
buckle of M. Hues, found on him when he was arrested in his flight."
[24] Mercure de France, , September 26, 1789. Letters of the
officers of the Bourbon regiment and of members of the general
committee of Caen. - Floquet, VII. 545.
[25] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. - Ibid. D. XXIX. I.
Note of M. de la Tour-du-Pin, October 28th.
[26] Decree, February 5, 1789, enforced May 1st following.
[27] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the count de
Montausier, August 8th, with notes by M. Paulian, director of the
excise (an admirable letter, modest and liberal, and ending by
demanding a pardon for people led astray). -- H. 1453. Letter of
the attorney of the election district of Falaise, July 17th, etc. -
- Moniteur, I. 303, 387, 505 (sessions of August 7th and 27th and
of September 23rd). "The royal revenues are diminishing steadily."
-- Buchez and Roux, III. 219 (session of October 24, 1789).
Discourse of a deputation from Anjou: "Sixty thousand men are armed;
the barriers have been destroyed, the clerks' horses have been sold
by auction; the employees have been told to withdraw from the
province within eight days. The inhabitants have declared that they
will not pay taxes so long as the salt-tax exists.
[28] "Archives Nationales,"F7 3253 (Letter of September 8, 1789).
[29] Arthur Young, September 30th. "It is being said that every
rusty gun in Provence is at work, killing all sorts of birds; the
shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about my ears." -
- Beugnot, I.142. - "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter
of the Chevalier d'Allonville, September 8, 1789 (Near Bar-sur-
Aube). "The peasants go in armed bands into the woods belonging to
the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines, which they cut down. They saw up the
oaks and transport them on wagons to Pont-Saint-Dizier, where they
sell them. In other places they fish in the ponds and break the
embankments."
[30] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the assessor of
the police of Saint-Flour, October 3, 1789. On the 31st of July, a
rumor is spread that the brigands are coming. On the 1st of August
the peasants arm themselves. "They amuse themselves by drinking,
awaiting the arrival of the brigands; the excitement increases to
such an extent as to make them believe that M. le Comte d'Espinchal
had arrived in disguise the evening before at Massiac, that he was
the author of the troubles disturbing the province at this time, and
that he was concealed in his chateau." On the strength of this shots
are fired into the windows, and there are searches, etc.
[31] "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX, I, Letter of Etienne Fermier,
Naveinne, September 18th (it is possible that the author, for the
sake of caution, took a fictitious name). - The manuscript
correspondence of M. Boullé, deputy of Pontivy, to his constituents,
is a type of this declamatory and incendiary writing. - Letter of
the consuls, priests, and merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16th.
- " The Ancient Régime," p. 396.
[32] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of M. Despretz-
Montpezat, a former artillery officer, July 24th (with several other
signatures). On the same day the alarm bell is sounded In fifty
villages on the rumor spreading that 7,000 brigands, English and
Breton, were invading the country.
[33] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of Briand-
Delessart, August 1st (domiciliary visits to the Carmelites of
Angoulême where it is pretended that Mme. de Polignac has just
arrived. - Beugnot, I. 140. -- Arthur Young, July 20th, etc. -
Buchez and Roux, IV. 166. Letter of Mamers, July 24th; of Mans,
July 26th.
[34] Montjoie, ch. LXXII, p. 93 (according to acts of legal
procedure). There was a soldier in the band who had served under M.
de Montesson and who wanted to avenge himself for the punishments he
had undergone in the regiment.
[35] Mercure de France, August 20th (Letter from Vésoul, August
13th).
[36] M. de Memmay proved his innocence later on, and was
rehabilitated by a public decision after two years' proceedings
(session of June 4, 1791; Mercure of June 11th).
[37] Journal des Débats et Décrets, I. 258. (Letter of the
municipality of Vésoul, July 22nd. -- Discourse of M. de
Toulougeon, July 29th.)
[38] De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353. -- "Archives Nationales,"
F7, 3253. (Letter of M. de Rochamheau, August 4th.) -- Chronicle
of Schmutz (ibid. ), p. 284. "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I.
(Letter of Mme. Ferrette, of Remiremont, August 9th.)
[39] Sauzay, I. 180. (Letters of monks, July 22nd and 26th.)
[40] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of M. de
Bergeron, attorney to the présidial of Valence, August 28th, with
the details of the verdict stated.) Official report of the militia
of Lyons, sent to the president of the National Assembly, August
10th. (Expedition to Serrière, in Dauphiny, July 31st.)
[41] Letter of the Count of Courtivron, deputy substitute (an eye-
witness). -- "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the
municipal officers of Crémieu (Dauphiny), November 3rd. Letter of
the Vicomte de Carbonnière (Auvergne), August 3rd. -- Arthur Young,
July 30th (Dijon) says, apropos of a noble family which escaped
almost naked from its burning chateau, " they were esteemed by the
neighbors; their virtues ought to have commanded the love of the
poor, for whose resentment there was no cause."
[42] "Archives Nationales," XXIX. I. (Letter of the commission of
the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)
[43] "Désastres du Mâconnais," by Puthod de la Maison-Rouge (August,
1789). "Ravages du Mâconnais." -- Arthur Young, July 27th. -
Buchez and Roux, IV. 215, 214. -- Mercure de France, September 12,
1789. (Letter by a volunteer of Orleans.) "On the 15th of August,
eighty-eight ruffians, calling themselves reapers, present
themselves at Bascon, in Beauce, and, the next day, at a chateau in
the neighborhood, where they demand within an hour the head of the
son of the lord of the manor, M. Tassin, who can only redeem himself
by a contribution of 1,600 livres and the pillaging of his cellars.
[44] Letter of the Count de Courtivron. - Arthur Young, July 31st.
- Buchez and Roux, II. 243. - Mercure de France, August 15, 1789
(sitting of the 8th, discourse of a deputy from Dauphiné.) --
Mermet, "Histoire de la Ville de Vienne," 445 -- " Archives
Nationales," ibid. (Letter of the commission of the States of
Dauphiny, July 31st.) -- "The list of burnt or devastated chateaux
is immense." The committee already cites sixteen of them. --
Puthod de la Maison-Rouge, ibid. : "Were all devastated places to
be mentioned, it would be necessary to cite the whole province "
(Letter from Mâcon). "They have not the less destroyed most of the
chateaux and bourgeois dwellings, either burning them and or else
tearing them down."
[45] Lally-Tollendal, "Second Letter to my Constituents," 104.
[46] Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité," p.60 (a few days after
the 4th of August). - "Archives Nationales," H. 784. Letters of
M. de Langeron, military commander at Besançon, October 16th and
18th . -- Ibid. , D. XXIX. I. Letter of the same, September
3rd.-- Arthur Young (in Provence, at the house of Baron de la Tour-
d'Aignes). "The baron is an enormous sufferer by the Revolution; a
great extent of country which belonged in absolute right to his
ancestors, has been granted for quit-rents, ceus, and other feudal
payments, so that there is no comparison between the lands retained
and those thus granted by his family. . . . The solid payments
which the Assembly have declared to be redeemable are every hour
falling to nothing, without a shadow of recompense . . . The
situation of the nobility in this country is pitiable; they are
under apprehensions that nothing will be left them, but simply such
houses as the mob allows to stand unburned; that the small farmers
will retain their farms without paying the landlord his half of the
produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there is actually
neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it. This
chateau, splendid even in ruins, with the fortune and lives of the
owners, is at the mercy of an armed rabble."
CHAPTER IV. PARIS.
I.
Paris. -- Powerlessness and discords of the authorities. -- The
people, king.
THE powerlessness, indeed, of the heads of the Government, and the
lack of discipline among all its subordinates, are much greater in
the capital than in the provinces. -- Paris possesses a mayor,
Bailly; but "from the first day, and in the easiest manner
possible,"[1] his municipal council, that is to say, "the assembly
of the representatives of the commune, has accustomed itself to
carry on the government alone, overlooking him entirely." There is a
central administration, the municipal council, presided over by the
mayor; but, "at this time, authority is everywhere except where the
preponderating authority should be; the districts have delegated it
and at the same time retained it;" each of them acts as if it were
alone and supreme. -- There are secondary powers, the district-
committees, each with its president, its clerk, its offices, and
commissioners; but the mobs of the street march on without awaiting
their orders; while the people, shouting under their" windows,
impose their will on them; -- in short, says Bailly again,
"everybody knew how to command, but nobody knew how to obey."
"Imagine," writes Loustalot[2] himself; "a man whose feet, hands,
and limbs possessed each its own intelligence and will, whose one
leg would wish to walk when the other one wanted to rest, whose
throat would close when the stomach demanded food, whose mouth would
sing when the eyelids were weighed down with sleep; and you will
have a striking picture of the condition of things in the capital"
There are "sixty Republics"[3] in Paris; each district is an
independent, isolated power, which receives no order without
criticizing it, always in disagreement and often in conflict with
the central authority or with the other districts. It receives
denunciations, orders domiciliary visits, sends deputations to the
National Assembly, passes resolutions, posts its bills, not only in
its own quarter but throughout the city, and sometimes even extends
its jurisdiction outside of Paris. Everything comes within its
province, and particularly that which ought not to do so. -- On the
18th of July, the district of Petits-Augustins[4] "decrees in its
own name the establishment of justices of the peace," under the
title of tribunes, and proceeds at once to elect its own, nominating
the actor Molé. On the 30th, that of the Oratoire annuls the
amnesty which the representatives of the commune in the Hôtel-de-
Ville had granted, and orders two of its members to go to a distance
of thirty leagues to arrest M. de Bezenval. On the 19th of August,
that of Nazareth issues commissions to seize and bring to Paris the
arms deposited in strong places. From the beginning each assembly
sent to the Arsenal in its own name, and "obtained as many
cartridges and as much powder as it desired." Others claim the right
of keeping a watchful eye over the Hôtel-de-Ville and of
reprimanding the National Assembly. The Oratoire decides that the
representatives of the commune shall be invited to deliberate in
public. Saint-Nicholas des Champs deliberates on the veto and begs
the Assembly to suspend its vote. -- It is a strange spectacle,
that of these various authorities each contradicting and destroying
the other. To-day the Hôtel-de-Ville appropriates five loads of
cloth which have been dispatched by the Government, and the district
of Saint-Gervais opposes the decision of the Hôtel-de-Ville. To-
morrow Versailles intercepts grain destined for Paris, while Paris
threatens, if it is not restored, to march on Versailles. I omit
the incidents that are ridiculous:[5] anarchy in its essence is both
tragic and grotesque, and, in this universal breaking up of things,
the capital, like the kingdom, resembles a bear-garden when it does
not resemble a Babel.
But behind all these discordant authorities the real sovereign, who
is the mob, is very soon apparent. -- On the 15th of July it
undertakes the demolition of the Bastille of its own accord, and
this popular act is sanctioned ; for it is necessary that
appearances should be kept up; even to give orders after the blow is
dealt, and to follow when it is impossible to lead.[6] A short time
after this the collection of the octroi at the barriers is ordered
to be resumed; forty armed individuals, however, present themselves
in their district and say, that if guards are placed at the octroi
stations, "they will resist force with force, and even make use of
their cannon." -- On the false rumor that arms are concealed in the
Abbey of Montmartre, the abbess, Madame de Montmorency, is accused
of treachery, and twenty thousand persons invade the monastery. --
The commander of the National Guard and the mayor are constantly
expecting a riot; they hardly dare absent themselves a day to attend
the King fête at Versailles. As soon as the multitude can assemble
in the streets, an explosion is imminent. "On rainy days," says
Bailly, "I was quite at my ease." -- It is under this constant
pressure that the Government is carried on; and the elect of the
people, the most esteemed magistrates, those who are in best repute,
are at the mercy of the throng who clamor at their doors. In the
district of St. Roch,[7] after many useless refusals, the General
Assembly, notwithstanding all the reproaches of its conscience and
the resistance of its reason, is obliged to open letters addressed
to Monsieur, to the Duke of Orleans, and to the Ministers of War, of
Foreign Affairs, and of the Marine. In the committee on
subsistence, M. Serreau, who is indispensable and who is confirmed
by a public proclamation, is denounced, threatened, and constrained
to leave Paris. M. de la Salle, one of the strongest patriots among
the nobles, is on the point of being murdered for having signed an
order for the transport of gunpowder;[8] the multitude, in pursuit
of him, attach a rope to the nearest street-lamp, ransack the Hôtel-
de-Ville, force every door, mount into the belfry, and seek for the
traitor even under the carpet of the bureau and between the legs of
the electors, and are only stayed in their course by the arrival of
the National Guard.
The people not only sentence but they execute, and, as is always the
case, blindly. At Saint-Denis, Chatel, the mayor's lieutenant,
whose duty it is to distribute flour, had reduced the price of bread
at his own expense: on the 3rd of August his house is forced open at
two o'clock in the morning, and he takes refuge in a steeple; the
mob follow him, cut his throat and drag his head along the streets.
-- Not only do the people execute, but they pardon -- and with equal
discernment. On the 11th of August, at Versailles, as a parricide
is about to be broken on the wheel, the crowd demand his release,
fly at the executioner, and set the man free.[9] Veritably this is
sovereign power like that of the oriental sovereign who arbitrarily
awards life or death! A woman who protests against this scandalous
pardon is seized and comes near being hung; for the new monarch
considers as a crime whatever is offensive to his new majesty.
Again, he receives public and humble homage. The Prime Minister, on
imploring the pardon of M. de Bezenval at the Hôtel-de-Ville, in the
presence of the electors and of the public, has put it in
appropriate words:
"It is before the most unknown, the obscurest citizen of Paris that
I prostrate myself; at whose feet I kneel."
A few days before this, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and at Poissy, the
deputies of the National Assembly not only kneel down in words, but
actually, and for a long time, on the pavement in the street, and
stretch forth their hands, weeping, to save two lives of which only
one is granted to them. - Behold the monarch by these brilliant
signs! Already do the young, who are eager imitators of all actions
that are in fashion, ape them in miniature; during the month which
follows the murder of Berthier and Foulon, Bailly is informed that
the gamins in the streets are parading about with the heads of two
cats stuck on the ends of two poles.[10]
II. .
The distress of the people. - The dearth and the lack of work. -
How men of executive ability are recruited.
A pitiable monarch, whose recognized sovereignty leaves him more
miserable than he was before! Bread is always scarce, and before the
baker's doors the row of waiting people does not diminish. In vain
Bailly passes his nights with the committee on supplies; they are
always in a state of terrible anxiety. Every morning for two months
there is only one or two days' supply of flour, and often, in the
evening, there is not enough for the following morning.[11] The
life of the capital depends on a convoy which is ten, fifteen,
twenty leagues off; and which may never arrive: one convoy of twenty
carts is pillaged on the 18th of July, on the Rouen road; another,
on the 4th of August, in the vicinity of Louviers. Were it not for
Salis' Swiss regiment, which, from the 14th of July to the end of
September, marches day and night as an escort, not a boat-load of
grain would reach Paris from Rouen.[12] -- The commissaries charged
with making purchases or with supervising the expeditions are in
danger of their lives. Those who are sent to provinces are seized,
and a column of four hundred men with cannon has to be dispatched to
deliver them. The one who is sent to Rouen learns that he will be
hung if he dares to enter the place. At Mantes a mob surrounds his
cabriolet, the people regarding whoever comes there for the purpose
of carrying away grain as a public pest; he escapes with difficulty
out of a back door and returns on foot to Paris. -- From the very
beginning, according to a universal rule, the fear of a short supply
helps to augment the famine. Every one lays in a stock for several
days; on one occasion sixteen loaves of four pounds each are found
in an old woman's garret. The bakings, consequently, which are
estimated according to the quantity needed for a single day, become
inadequate, and the last of those who wait at the bakers' shops for
bread return home empty-handed. -- On the other hand the
appropriations made by the city and the State to diminish the price
of bread simply serve to lengthen the rows of those who wait for it;
the countrymen flock in thither, and return home loaded to their
villages. At Saint-Denis, bread having been reduced to two sous the
pound, none is left for the inhabitants. To this constant anxiety
add that of unemployment. Not only is there no certainty of there
being bread at the bakers' during the coming week, but many know
that they will not have money in the coming week with which to buy
bread. Now that security has disappeared and the rights of property
are shaken, work is wanting. The rich, deprived of their feudal
dues, and, in addition thereto of their rents, have reduced their
expenditure; many of them, threatened by the committee of
investigation, exposed to domiciliary visits, and liable to be
informed against by their servants, have emigrated. In the month of
September M. Necker laments the delivery of six thousand passports
in fifteen days to the wealthiest inhabitants. In the month of
October ladies of high rank, refugees in Rome, send word that their
domestics should be discharged and their daughters placed in
convents. Before the end of 1789 there are so many fugitives in
Switzerland that a house, it is said, brings in more rent than it is
worth as capital. With this first emigration, which is that of the
chief spendthrifts, the Count d'Artois, Prince de Conti, Duc de
Bourbon, and so many others, the opulent foreigners have left, and,
at the head of them, the Duchesse de l'Infantado, who spent 800,000
livres a year. There are only three Englishmen in Paris.
It used to be a city of luxury, it was the European hot-house of
costly and refined pleasures, but once the glass was broken then the
delicate plants perish, their lovers leave, and there is no
employment now for the innumerable hands which cultivated them.
Fortunate are they who at the relief works obtain a miserable sum by
handling a pick-axe! "I saw," says Bailly, "mercers, jewellers, and
merchants implore the favor of being employed at twenty sous the
day." Enumerate, if you can, in one or two recognized callings, the
hands which are doing nothing:[13] 1,200 hair-dressers keep about
6,000 journeymen; 2,000 others follow the same calling in private-
houses; 6,000 lackeys do but little else than this work. The body
of tailors is composed of 2,800 masters, who have under them 5,000
workmen. "Add to these the number privately employed -- the
refugees in privileged places like the abbeys of Saint-Germain and
Saint-Marcel, the vast enclosure of the Temple, that of Saint-John
the Lateran, and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and you will find at
least 12,000 persons cutting, fitting, and sewing." How many in
these two groups are now idle! How many others are walking the
streets, such as upholsterers, lace-makers, embroiderers, fan-
makers, gilders, carnage-makers, binders, engravers, and all the
other producers of Parisian nick-nacks! For those who are still at
work how many days are lost at the doors of bakers' shops and in
patrolling as National Guards! Gatherings are formed in spite of the
prohibitions of the Hôtel-de-Ville,[14] and the crowd openly discuss
their miserable condition: 3,000 journeymen-tailors near the
Colonnade, as many journeymen-shoemakers in the Place Louis XV., the
journeymen-hairdressers in the Champs-Elysees, 4,000 domestics
without places on the approaches to the Louvre, -- and their
propositions are on a level with their intelligence. Servants
demand the expulsion from Paris of the Savoyards who enter into
competition with them. Journeymen-tailors demand that a day's wages
be fixed at forty sous, and that the old-clothes dealers shall not
be allowed to make new ones. The journeymen-shoemakers declare that
those who make shoes below the fixed price shall be driven out of
the kingdom. Each of these irritated and agitated crowds contains
the germ of an outbreak -- and, in truth, these germs are found on
every pavement in Paris: at the relief works, which at Montmartre
collect 17,000 paupers; in the Market, where the bakers want to hang
the flour commissioners, and at the doors of the bakers, of whom
two, on the 14th of September and on the 5th of October, are
conducted to the lamp post and barely escape with their lives. -- In
this suffering, mendicant crowd, enterprising men become more
numerous every day: they consist of deserters, and from every
regiment; they reach Paris in bands, often 250 in one day. There,
"caressed and fed to the top of their bent,"[15] having received
from the National Assembly 50 livres each, maintained by the King in
the enjoyment of their advance-money, entertained by the districts,
of which one alone incurs a debt of 14,000 livres for wine and
sausages furnished to them, "they accustom themselves to greater
expense," to greater license, and are followed by their companions.
"During the night of the 31st of July the French Guards on duty at
Versailles abandon the custody of the King and betake themselves to
Paris, without their officers, but with their arms and baggage,"
that "they may take part in the cheer which the city of Paris
extends to their regiment." At the beginning of September, 16,000
deserters of this stamp are counted.[16] Now, among those who
commit murder these are in the first rank; and this is not
surprising when we take the least account of their antecedents,
education, and habits. It was a soldier of the "Royal Croat" who
tore out the heart of Berthier. They were three soldiers of the
regiment of Provence who forced the house of Chatel at Saint-Denis,
and dragged his head through the streets. It is Swiss soldiers who,
at Passy, knock down the commissioners of police with their guns.
Their headquarters are at the Palais-Royal, amongst women whose
instruments they are, and amongst agitators from whom they receive
the word of command. Henceforth, all depends on this word, and we
have only to contemplate the new popular leaders to know what it
will be.
III.
The new popular leaders.- Their ascendancy .- Their education. -
Their sentiments.- Their situation. - Their councils. - Their
denunciations. -
Administrators and members of district assemblies, agitators of
barracks, coffee-houses, clubs and public thoroughfares, writers of
pamphlets, penny-a-liners are multiplying as fast as buzzing insects
are hatched on a sultry night. After the 14th of July thousands of
jobs have become available for released ambitions; "attorneys,
notaries' clerks, artists, merchants, shopkeepers, comedians and
especially advocates;[17] each wants to be either an officer, a
director, a councillor, or a minister of the new reign; while
journals, which are established by dozens,[18] form a permanent
tribune, where speakers come to court the people to their personal
advantage." Philosophy, fallen into such hands, seems to parody
itself; and nothing equals its emptiness, unless it be its
mischievousness and success. Lawyers, in the sixty assembly
districts, roll out the high-sounding dogmas of the revolutionary
catechism. This or that one, passing from the question of a party
wall to the constitution of empires, becomes the improvised
legislator, so much the more inexhaustible and the more applauded as
his flow of words, showered upon his hearers, proves to them that
every capacity and every right are naturally and legitimately
theirs.
"When that man opened his mouth," says a cold-blooded witness, "we
were sure of being inundated with quotations and maxims, often
apropos of street lamp posts, or of the stall of a herb-dealer. His
stentorian voice made the vaults ring; and after he had spoken for
two hours, and his breath was completely exhausted, the admiring and
enthusiastic shouts which greeted him amounted almost to frenzy.
Thus the orator fancied himself a Mirabeau, while the spectators
imagined themselves the Constituent Assembly, deciding the fate of
France."
The journals and pamphlets are written in the same style. Every
brain is filled with the fumes of conceit and of big words; the
leader of the crowd is he who raves the most, and he guides the wild
enthusiasm which he increases.
Let us consider the most popular of these chiefs ; they are the
green or the dry fruit of literature, and of the bar. The newspaper
is the stall which every morning offers them for sale, and if they
suit the overexcited public it is simply owing to their acid or
bitter flavor. Their empty, unpracticed minds are wholly void of
political conceptions; they have no capacity or practical
experience. Desmoulins is twenty-nine years of age, Loustalot
twenty-seven, and their intellectual ballast consists of college
reminiscences, souvenirs of the law schools, and the common-places
picked up in the houses of Raynal and his associates. As to Brissot
and Marat, who are ostentatious humanitarians, their knowledge of
France and of foreign countries consists in what they have seen
through the dormer windows of their garrets, and through utopian
spectacles. In minds like these, empty or led astray, the Contrat-
Social could not fail to become a gospel; for it reduces political
science to a strict application of an elementary axiom which
relieves them of all study, and hands society over to the caprice of
the people, or, in other words, delivers it into their own hands. -
- Hence they demolish all that remains of social institutions, and
push on equalization until everything is brought down to the same
level.
"With my principles," writes Desmoulins,[19] "is associated the
satisfaction of putting myself where I belong, of showing my
strength to those who have despised me, of lowering to my level all
whom fortune has placed above me: my motto is that of all honest
people: 'No superiors!'"
Thus, under the great name of Liberty, each vain spirit seeks its
revenge and finds its nourishment. What is sweeter and more natural
than to justify passion by theory, to be factious in the belief that
this is patriotism, and to cloak the interests of ambition with the
interests of humanity?
Let us picture to ourselves these directors of public opinion as
they were three months earlier: Desmoulins, a briefless barrister,
living in furnished lodgings with petty debts, and on a few louis
extracted from his relations. Loustalot, still more unknown, was
admitted the previous year to the Parliament of Bordeaux, and has
landed at Paris in search of a career. Danton, another second-rate
lawyer, coming out of a hovel in Champagne, borrowed the money to
pay his expenses, while his stinted household is kept up only by
means of a louis which is given to him weekly by his father-in-law,
who is a coffee-house keeper. Brissot, a strolling Bohemian,
formerly employee of literary pirates, has roamed over the world for
fifteen years, without bringing back with him either from England or
America anything but a coat out at elbows and false ideas; and,
finally, Marat; a writer that has been hissed, an abortive scholar
and philosopher, a misrepresenter of his own experiences, caught by
the natural philosopher Charles in the act of committing a
scientific fraud, and fallen from the top of his inordinate ambition
to the subordinate post of doctor in the stables of the Comte
d'Artois. -- At the present time, Danton, President of the
Cordeliers, can arrest any one he pleases in his district, and his
violent gestures and thundering voice secure to him, till something
better turns up, the government of his section of the city. A word
of Marat's has just caused Major Belzunce at Caen to be
assassinated. Desmoulins announces, with a smile of triumph, that
"a large section of the capital regards him as one among the
principal instigators of the Revolution, and that many even go so
far as to say that he is the author of it." Is it to be supposed
that, borne so high by such a sudden jerk of fortune, they wish to
put on the drag and again descend? and is it not clear that they
will aid with all their might the revolt which hoists them towards
the loftiest summits? -- Moreover, the brain reels at a height like
this ; suddenly launched in the air and feeling as if everything was
tottering around them, they utter exclamations of indignation and
terror, they see plots on all sides, imagine invisible cords pulling
in an opposite direction, and they call upon the people to cut them.
With the full weight of their inexperience, incapacity, and
improvidence, of their fears, credulity, and dogmatic obstinacy,
they urge on popular attacks, and their newspaper articles or
discourses are all summed up in the following phrases:
"Fellow-citizens, you, the people of the lower class, you who listen
to me, you have enemies in the Court and the aristocracy. The
Hôtel-de-Ville and the National Assembly are your servants. Seize
your enemies with a strong hand, and hang them, and let your
servants know that they must quicken their steps!"
Desmoulins styles himself "District-attorney of the gallows,"[20]
and if he at all regrets the murders of Foulon and Berthier, it is
because this too expeditious judgment has allowed the proofs of
conspiracy to perish, thereby saving a number of traitors: he
himself mentions twenty of them haphazard, and little does he care
whether he makes mistakes.
"We are in the dark, and it is well that faithful dogs should bark,
even at all who pass by, so that there may be no fear of robbers."
>From this time forth Marat[21] denounces the King, the ministers,
the administration, the bench, the bar, the financial system and the
academies, all as "suspicious;" at all events the people only suffer
on their account.
"The Government is monopolizing grain, to make us to pay through
the nose for a poisonous bread."
The Government, again, through a new conspiracy is about to blockade
Paris, so as to starve it with greater ease. Utterances of this
kind, at such a time, are firebrands thrown upon fear and hunger to
kindle the flames of rage and cruelty. To this frightened and
fasting crowd the agitators and newspaper writers continue to repeat
that it must act, and act alongside of the authorities, and, if need
be, against them. In other words, We will do as we please; we are
the sole legitimate masters;
"in a well-constituted government, the people as a body are the real
sovereign: our delegates are appointed only to execute our orders ;
what right has the clay to rebel against the potter?"
On the strength of such principles, the tumultuous club which
occupies the Palais-Royal substitutes itself for the Assembly at
Versailles. Has it not all the titles for this office? The Palais-
Royal "saved the nation" on the 12th and 13th of July. The Palais-
Royal, "through its spokesmen and pamphlets," has made everybody and
even the soldiers "philosophers." It is the house of patriotism,
"the rendezvous of the select among the patriotic," whether
provincials or Parisians, of all who possess the right of suffrage,
and who cannot or will not exercise it in their own district. "It
saves time to come to the Palais-Royal. There is no need there of
appealing to the President for the right to speak, or to wait one's
time for a couple of hours. The orator proposes his motion, and, if
it finds supporters, mounts a chair. If he is applauded, it is put
into proper shape. If he is hissed, he goes away. This was the way
of the Romans." Behold the veritable National Assembly ! It is
superior to the other semi-feudal affair, encumbered with "six
hundred deputies of the clergy and nobility," who are so many
intruders and who "should be sent out into the galleries." -- Hence
the pure Assembly rules the impure Assembly, and "the Café Foy lays
claim to the government of France."
IV.
Intervention by the popular leaders with the Government. - Their
pressure on the Assembly.
On the 30th of July, the harlequin who led the insurrection at Rouen
having been arrested, "it is openly proposed at the Palais Royal[22]
to go in a body and demand his release." -- On the 1st of August,
Thouret, whom the moderate party of the Assembly have just made
President, is obliged to resign; the Palais-Royal threatens to send
a band and murder him along with those who voted for him, and lists
of proscriptions, in which several of the deputies are inscribed,
begin to be circulated. -- From this time forth, on all great
questions-the abolition of the feudal system, the suppression of
tithes, a declaration of the rights of man, the dispute about the
Chambers, the King's power of veto,[23] the pressure from without
inclines the balance: in this way the Declaration of Rights, which
is rejected in secret session by twenty-eight bureaus out of thirty,
is forced through by the tribunes in a public sitting and passed by
a majority. -- Just as before the 14th of July, and to a still
greater extent, two kinds of compulsion influence the votes, and it
is always the ruling faction which employs both its hands to
throttle its opponents. On the one hand this faction takes post on
the galleries in knots composed nearly always of the same persons,
"five or six hundred permanent actors," who yell according to
understood signals and at the word of command.[24] Many of these
are French Guards, in civilian clothes, and who relieve each other:
previously they have asked of their favorite deputy "at what hour
they must come, whether all goes on well, and whether he is
satisfied with those fools of parsons (calotins) and the
aristocrats." Others consist of low women under the command of
Théroigne de Méricourt, a virago courtesan, who assigns them their
positions and gives them the signal for hooting or for applause.
Publicly and in full session, on the occasion of the debate on the
veto, "the deputies are applauded or insulted by the galleries
according as they utter the word 'suspensive,' or the word
'indefinite.' " "Threats," (says one of them) "circulated; I heard
them on all sides around me." These threats are repeated on going
out: "Valets dismissed by their masters, deserters, and women in
rags," threaten the refractory with the lamp post, "and thrust their
fists in their faces. In the hall itself, and much more accurately
than before the 14th of July, their names are taken down, and the
lists, handed over to the populace," travel to the Palais-Royal,
from where they are dispatched in correspondence and in newspapers
to the provinces.[25] - Thus we see the second means of
compulsion; each deputy is answerable for his vote, at Paris, with
his own life, and, in the province, with those of his family.
Members of the former Third-Estate avow that they abandon the idea
of two Chambers, because "they are not disposed to get their wives'
and children's throats cut." On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue,
the most noisy of the Palais-Royal barkers, marches off to
Versailles, at the head of 1,500 men, to complete the conversion of
the Assembly. This garden club indeed, from the heights of its
great learning, integrity, and immaculate reputation, decides that
the ignorant, corrupt, and doubtful deputies must be got rid of."
That they are such cannot be questioned, because they defend the
royal sanction; there are over 600 and more, 120 are deputies of the
communes, who must be expelled to begin with, and then must be
brought to judgment.[26] In the meantime they are informed, as well
as the Bishop of Langres, President of the National Assembly, that
"15,000 men are ready to light up their chateaux and in particular
yours, sir." To avoid all mistake, the secretaries of the Assembly
are informed in writing that " 2,000 letters" will be sent into the
provinces to denounce to the people the conduct of the malignant
deputies: "Your houses are held as a surety for your opinions: keep
this in mind, and save yourselves !" At last, on the morning of the
1st of August, five deputations from the Palais-Royal, one of them
led by Loustalot, march in turn to the Hôtel-de-Ville, insisting
that the drums should be beaten and the citizens be called together
for the purpose of changing the deputies, or their instructions, and
of ordering the National Assembly to suspend its discussion on the
veto until the districts and provinces could give expression to
their will: the people, in effect, alone being sovereign, and alone
competent, always has the right to dismiss or instruct anew its
servants, the deputies. On the following day, August 2nd, to make
matters plainer, new delegates from the same Palais-Royal suit
gestures to words; they place two fingers on their throats, on being
introduced before the representatives of the commune, as a hint
that, if the latter do not obey, they will be hung.
After this it is vain for the National Assembly to make any show of
indignation, to declare that it despises threats, and to protest its
independence; the impression is already produced. "More than 300
members of the communes," says Mounier, "had decided to support the
absolute veto." At the end of ten days most of these had gone over,
several of them through attachment to the King, because they were
afraid of "a general uprising," and "were not willing to jeopardize
the lives of the royal family." But concessions like these only
provoke fresh extortions. The politicians of the street now know by
experience the effect of brutal violence on legal authority.
Emboldened by success and by impunity, they reckon up their strength
and the weakness of the latter. One blow more, and they are
undisputed masters. Besides, the issue is already apparent to
clear-sighted men. When the agitators of the public thoroughfares,
and the porters at the street-corners, convinced of their superior
wisdom, impose decrees by the strength of their lungs, of their
fists, and of their pikes, at that moment experience, knowledge,
good sense, cool-blood, genius, and judgment, disappear from human
affairs, and things revert back to chaos. Mirabeau, in favor of the
veto for life, saw the crowd imploring him with tears in their eyes
to change his opinion :
"Monsieur le Comte, if the King obtains this veto, what will be the
use of a National Assembly? We shall all be slaves "[27]
Outbursts of this description are not to be resisted, and all is
lost. Already, near the end of September, the remark applies which
Mirabeau makes to the Comte de la Marck:
"Yes, all is lost; the King and Queen will be swept away, and you
will see the populace trampling on their lifeless bodies."
Eight days after this, on the 5th and 6th of October, it breaks out
against both King and Queen, against the National Assembly and the
Government, against all government present and to come; the violent
party which rules in Paris obtains possession of the chiefs of
France to hold them under strict surveillance, and to justify its
intermittent outrages by one permanent outrage.
V.
The 5th and 6th of October.
Once more, two different currents combine into one torrent to hurry
the crowd onward to a common end. -- On the one hand are the
cravings of the stomach, and women excited by the famine:
"Now that bread cannot be had in Paris, let us go to Versailles and
demand it there; once we have the King, Queen, and Dauphin in the
midst of us, they will be obliged to feed us;" we will bring back
"the Baker, the Bakeress, and the Baker's boy."
-- On the other hand, there is fanaticism, and men who are pushed
on by the need to dominate.
"Now that our chiefs yonder disobey us, -- let us go and make them
obey us forthwith; the King is quibbling over the Constitution and
the Rights of Man -- make him approve them ; his guards refuse to
wear our cockade -- make them accept it; they want to carry him off
to Metz -- make him come to Paris, here, under our eyes and in our
hands, he, and the lame Assembly too, will march straight on, and
quickly, whether they like it or not, and always on the right road."
-- Under this confluence of ideas the expedition is arranged.[28]
Ten days before this, it is publicly alluded to at Versailles. On
the 4th of October, at Paris, a woman proposes it at the Palais-
Royal; Danton roars at the Cordeliers; Marat, "alone, makes as much
noise as the four trumpets on the Day of Judgment." Loustalot writes
that a second revolutionary paroxysm is necessary." "The day
passes," says Desmoulins, "in holding councils at the Palais-Royal,
and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the ends of the bridges, and
on the quays... in pulling off the cockades of but one color....
These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats of the lamp
post, in case of fresh offense; a soldier who is trying to refasten
his, changes his mind on seeing a hundred sticks raised against
him."[29] These are the premonitory symptoms of a crisis; a huge
ulcer has formed in this feverish, suffering body, and it is about
to break.
But, as is usually the case, it is a purulent concentration of the
most poisonous passions and the foulest motives. The vilest of men
and women were engaged in it. Money was freely distributed. Was it
done by intriguing subalterns who, playing upon the aspirations of
the Duke of Orleans, extracted millions from him under the pretext
of making him lieutenant-general of the kingdom? Or is it due to the
fanatics who, from the end of April, clubbed together to debauch the
soldiery, and stir up a body of ruffians for the purpose of leveling
and destroying everything around them?[30] There are always
Machiavellis of the highways and of houses of ill-fame ready to
excite the foul and the vile of both sexes. On the first day that
the Flemish regiment goes into garrison at Versailles an attempt is
made to corrupt it with money and women. Sixty abandoned women are
sent from Paris for this purpose, while the French Guards come and
treat their new comrades. The latter have been treated at the
Palais-Royal, while three of them, at Versailles, exclaim, showing
some crown pieces of six livres, "What a pleasure it is to go to
Paris! one always comes back with money !" In this way, resistance
is overcome beforehand. As to the attack, women are to be the
advanced guard, because the soldiers will scruple to fire at them;
their ranks, however, will be reinforced by a number of men
disguised as women. On looking closely at them they are easily
recognized, notwithstanding their rouge, by their badly-shaven
beards, and by their voices and gait.[31] No difficulty has been
found in obtaining men and women among the prostitutes of the
Palais-Royal and the military deserters who serve them as bullies.
It is probable that the former lent their lovers the cast-off
dresses they had to spare. At night all will meet again at the
common rendezvous, on the benches of the National Assembly, where
they are quite as much at home as in their own houses.[32] -- In any
event, the first band which marches out is of this stamp, displaying
the finery and the gaiety of the profession; "most of them young,
dressed in white, with powdered hair and a sprightly air;" many of
them "laughing, singing, and drinking," as they would do at setting
out for a picnic in the country. Three or four of them are known by
name -- one brandishing a sword, and another, the notorious
Théroigne. Madeleine Chabry Louison, who is selected to address the
King, is a pretty grisette who sells flowers, and, no doubt,
something else, at the Palais-Royal. Some appear to belong to the
first rank in their calling, and to have tact and the manners of
society -- suppose, for instance, that Champfort and Laclos sent
their mistresses. To these must be added washerwomen, beggars,
bare-footed women, and fishwomen, enlisted for several days before
and paid accordingly. This is the first nucleus, and it keeps on
growing; for, by compulsion or consent, the troop incorporates into
it, as it passes along, all the women it encounters -- seamstresses,
portresses, housekeepers, and even respectable females, whose
dwellings are entered with threats of cutting off their hair if they
do not fall in. To these must be added vagrants, street-rovers,
ruffians and robbers -- the lees of Paris, which accumulate and come
to the surface every time agitation occurs: they are to be found
already at the first hour, behind the troop of women at the Hôtel-
de-Ville. Others are to follow during the evening and in the night.
Others are waiting at Versailles. Many, both at Paris and
Versailles, are under pay: one, in a dirty whitish vest, chinks gold
and silver coin in his hand. -- Such is the foul scum which, both
in front and in the rear, rolls along with the popular tide;
whatever is done to stem the torrent, it widens out and will leave
its mark at every stage of its overflow.
The first troop, consisting of four or five hundred women, begin
operations by forcing the guard of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which is
unwilling to make use of its bayonets. They spread through the
rooms and try to burn all the written documents they can find,
declaring that there has been nothing but scribbling since the
Revolution began.[33] A crowd of men follow after them, bursting
open doors, and pillaging the magazine of arms. Two hundred
thousand francs in Treasury notes are stolen or disappear; several
of the ruffians set fire to the building, while others hang an abbé.
The abbé is cut down, and the fire extinguished only just in time:
such are the interludes of the popular drama. In the meantime, the
crowd of women increases on the Place de Grève, always with the same
unceasing cry, "Bread!" and "To Versailles!" One of the conquerors
of the Bastille; the usher Maillard, offers himself as a leader. He
is accepted, and taps his drum; on leaving Paris, he has seven or
eight thousand women with him, and, in addition, some hundreds of
men ; by dint of remonstrances, he succeeds in maintaining some kind
of order amongst this rabble as far as Versailles. -- But it is a
rabble notwithstanding, and consequently so much brute force, at
once anarchical and imperious. On the one hand, each, and the worst
among them, does what he pleases -- which will be quite evident this
very evening. On the other hand, its ponderous mass crushes all
authority and overrides all rules and regulations -- which is at
once apparent on reaching Versailles. -- Admitted into the
Assembly, at first in small numbers, the women crowd against the
door, push in with a rush, fill the galleries, then the hall, the
men along with them, armed with clubs, halberds, and pikes, all
pell-mell, side by side with the deputies, taking possession of
their benches, voting along with them, and gathering about the
President, who, surrounded, threatened, and insulted, finally
abandons the position, while his chair is taken by a woman.[34] A
fishwoman commands in a gallery, and about a hundred women around
her shout or keep silence at her bidding, while she interrupts and
abuses the deputies:
"Who is that speaker there? Silence that blabbermouth; he does not
know what he is talking about. The question is how to get bread.
Let papa Mirabeau speak -- we want to hear him."
A decree on subsistence having been passed, the leaders demand
something in addition; they must be allowed to enter all places
where they suspect any monopolizing to be going on, and the price of
"bread must be fixed at six sous the four pounds, and meat at six
sous per pound."
"You must not think that we are children to be played with. We are
ready to strike. Do as you are bidden."
All their political injunctions emanate from this central idea. And
further:
"Send back the Flemish regiment -- it is a thousand men more to
feed, and they take bread out of our mouths." -- "Punish the
aristocrats, who hinder the bakers from baking." "Down with the
skull-cap; the priests are the cause of our trouble! " -- "Monsieur
Mounier, why did you advocate that villainous veto? Beware of the
lamp post ! "
Under this pressure, a deputation of the Assembly, with the
President at its head, sets out on foot, in the mud, through the
rain, and watched by a howling escort of women and men armed with
pikes: after five hours of waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the
King, besides the decree on subsistence, about which there was no
difficulty, the acceptance, pure and simple, of the Declaration of
Rights, and his sanction to the constitutional articles. -- Such is
the independence of the King and the Assembly.[35] Thus are the new
principles of justice established, the grand outlines of the
Constitution, the abstract axioms of political truth under the
dictatorship of a crowd which extorts not only blindly, but which is
half-conscious of its blindness.
"Monsieur le President," some among the women say to Mounier, who
returns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us?
will it give poor folks bread in Paris?"
Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and the
abandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling.[36]
They slip through into the lines of the regiment drawn on the
square, in spite of the sentinels. Théroigne, in an Amazonian red
vest, distributes money among them.
"Side with us," some say to the men; "we shall soon beat the King's
Guards, strip off their fine coats and sell them."
Others lie sprawling on the ground, alluring the soldiers, and make
such offers as to lead one of them to exclaim, "We are going to have
a jolly time of it !" Before the day is over, the regiment is
seduced; the women have, according to their own idea, acted for a
good motive. When a political idea finds its way into such heads,
instead of ennobling them, it becomes degraded there; its only
effect is to let loose vices which a remnant of modesty still keeps
in subjection, and full play is given to luxurious or ferocious
instincts under cover of the public good. -- The passions,
moreover, become intensified through their mutual interaction;
crowds, clamor, disorder, longings, and fasting, end in a state of
frenzy, from which nothing can issue but dizzy madness and rage. --
This frenzy began to show itself on the way. Already, on setting
out, a woman had exclaimed,
"We shall bring back the Queen's head on the end of a pike!"[37]
On reaching the Sèvres bridge others added,
"Let us cut her throat, and make cockades of her entrails!"
Rain is falling; they are cold, tired, and hungry, and get nothing
to eat but a bit of bread, distributed at a late hour, and with
difficulty, on the Place d'Armes. One of the bands cuts up a
slaughtered horse, roasts it, and consumes it half raw, after the
manner of savages. It is not surprising that, under the names of
patriotism and "justice," savage ideas spring up in their minds
against "members of the National Assembly who are not with the
principles of the people," against "the Bishop of Langres, Mounier,
and the rest." One man in a ragged old red coat declares that "he
must have the head of the Abbé Maury to play nine-pins with." But it
is especially against the Queen, who is a woman, and in sight, that
the feminine imagination is the most aroused.
"She alone is the cause of the evils we endure .... she must be
killed, and quartered."
-- Night advances; there are acts of violence, and violence
engenders violence.
"How glad I should be," says one man, "if I could only lay my hand
on that she-devil, and strike off her head on the first curbstone !"
Towards morning, some cry out,
"Where is that cursed cat? We must eat her heart out... We'll take
off her head, cut her heart out, and fry her liver I "
-- With the first murders the appetite for blood has been awakened;
the women from Paris say that "they have brought tubs to carry away
the stumps of the Royal Guards," and at these words others clap
their hands. Some of the riffraff of the crowd examine the rope of
the lamp post in the court of the National Assembly, and judging it
not to be sufficiently strong, are desirous of supplying its place
with another "to hang the Archbishop of Paris, Maury, and
d'Espréménil." -- This murderous, carnivorous rage penetrates even
among those whose duty it is to maintain order, one of the National
Guard being heard to say that "the body-guards must be killed to the
last man, and their hearts torn out for a breakfast."
Finally, towards midnight, the National Guard of Paris arrives; but
it only adds one insurrection to another, for it has likewise
mutinied against its chiefs.[38]
"If M. de Lafayette is not disposed to accompany us," says one of
the grenadiers, "we will take an old grenadier for our commander."
Having come to this decision, they sought the general at the Hôtel-
de-Ville, and the delegates of six of the companies made their
instructions known to him.
"General, we do not believe that you are a traitor, but we think
that the Government is betraying us.... The committee on
subsistence is deceiving us, and must be removed. We want to go to
Versailles to exterminate the body-guard and the Flemish regiment
who have trampled on the national cockade. If the King of France is
too feeble to wear his crown, let him take it off; we will crown his
son and things will go better."
In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Grève;
in vain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing
silence. Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and
Saint-Marceau, swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare
the lamp-post. He then dismounts and endeavors to return to the
Hôtel-de-Ville, but his grenadiers bar the way:
"Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us !"
Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which
is also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the
Hôtel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order
to march, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse."
Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and
along with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness.
On this side the National Guard of Versailles, posted around the
chateau, together with the people of Versailles, who bar the way
against vehicles, have closed up every outlet.[39] The King is
prisoner in his own palace, he and his, with his ministers and his
court, and with no defense. For, with his usual optimism, he has
confided the outer posts of the chateau to Lafayette's soldiers,
and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which he is to maintain up to
the last,[40] he has forbidden his own guards to fire on the crowd,
so that they are only there for show. With common right in his
favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had just obliged his
troops to renew, what could he have to fear? What could be more
effective with the people than trust in them and prudence? And by
playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!
>From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace-
railings. Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's
repose,[41] which hour suffices for them.[42] A populace armed with
pikes and clubs, men and women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight
National Guards, forces them to fire on the King's Guards, bursts
open a door, seizes two of the guards and chops their heads off.
The executioner, who is a studio model, with a heavy beard,
stretches out his blood-stained hands and glories in the act; and so
great is the effect on the National Guard that they move off;
through sensibility, in order not to witness such sights: such is
the resistance! In the meantime the crowd invade the staircases,
beat down and trample on the guards they encounter, and burst open
the doors with imprecations against the Queen. The Queen runs off;
just in time, in her underclothes; she takes refuge with the King
and the rest of the royal family, who have in vain barricaded
themselves in the Œil-de-Boeuf, a door of which is broken in: here
they stand, awaiting death, when Lafayette arrives with his
grenadiers and saves all that can be save -- their lives, and
nothing more. For, from the crowd huddled in the marble court the
shout rises, "To Paris with the King !" a command to which the King
submits.
Now that the great hostage is in their hands, will they deign to
accept the second one? This is doubtful. On the Queen approaching
the balcony with her son and daughter, a howl arises of "No
children!" They want to have her alone in the sights of their guns,
and she understands that. At this moment M. de Lafayette, throwing
the shield of his popularity over her, appears on the balcony at her
side and respectfully kisses her hand. The reaction is
instantaneous in this over-excited crowd. Both the men and
especially the women, in such a state of nervous tension, readily
jump from one extreme to another, rage bordering on tears. A
portress, who is a companion of Maillard's,[43] imagines that she
hears Lafayette promise in the Queen's name "to love her people and
be as much attached to them as Jesus Christ to his Church." People
sob and embrace each other; the grenadiers shift their caps to the
heads of the body-guard. Everything will be fine : "the people have
won their King back." -- Nothing is to be done now but to rejoice;
and the cortege moves on. The royal family and a hundred deputies,
in carriages, form the center, and then comes the artillery, with a
number of women bestriding the cannons; next, a convoy of flour.
Round about are the King's Guards, each with a National Guard
mounted behind him; then comes the National Guard of Paris, and
after them men with pikes and women on foot, on horseback, in cabs,
and on carts; in front is a band bearing two severed heads on the
ends of two poles, which halts at a hairdresser's, in Sèvres, to
have these heads powdered and curled;[44] they are made to bow by
way of salutation, and are daubed all over with cream; there are
jokes and shouts of laughter; the people stop to eat and drink on
the road, and oblige the guards to clink glasses with them; they
shout and fire salvos of musketry; men and women hold each other's
hands and sing and dance about in the mud. -- Such is the new
fraternity: a funeral procession of legal and legitimate
authorities, a triumph of brutality over intelligence, a murderous
and political Mardi-gras, a formidable masquerade which, preceded by
the insignia of death, drags along with it the heads of France, the
King, the ministers, and the deputies, that it may constrain them to
rule to until according to its frenzy, that it may hold them under
its them pikes until it is pleased to slaughter them.
VI.
The Government and the nation in the hands of the revolutionary
party.
This time there can be no mistake: the Reign of Terror is fully and
firmly established. On this very day the mob stops a vehicle, in
which it hopes to find M. de Virieu, and declares, on searching it,
that "they are looking for the deputy to massacre him, as well as
others of whom they have a list."[45] Two days afterwards the Abbé
Grégoire tells the National Assembly that not a day passes without
ecclesiastics being insulted in Paris, and pursued with "horrible
threats." Malouet is advised that "as soon as guns are distributed
among the militia, the first use made of them will be to get rid of
those deputies who are bad citizens," and among others of the Abbé
Maury. "The moment I stepped out into the streets," writes Mounier,
"I was publicly followed. It was a crime to be seen in my company.
Wherever I happened to go, along with two or three of my companions,
it was stated that an assembly of aristocrats was forming. I had
become such an object of terror that they threatened to set fire to
a country-house where I had passed twenty-four hours; and, to
relieve their minds, a promise had to be given that neither myself
nor my friends should be again received into it." In one week five
or six hundred deputies have their passports[46] made out, and hold
themselves ready to depart. During the following month one hundred
and twenty give in their resignations, or no longer appear in the
Assembly. Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, the Bishop of Langres, and
others besides, quit Paris, and afterwards France. Mallet du Pan
writes, "Opinion now dictates its judgment with steel in hand.
Believe or die is the anathema which vehement spirits pronounce, and
this in the name of Liberty. Moderation has become a crime." After
the 7th of October, Mirabeau says to the Comte de la Marck:
"If you have any influence with the King or the Queen, persuade
them that they and France are lost if the royal family does not
leave Paris. I am busy with a plan for getting them away."
He prefers everything to the present situation, "even civil war;"
for "war, at least, invigorates the soul," while here, "under the
dictatorship of demagogues, we are being drowned in slime." Given up
to itself, Paris, in three months, "will certainly be a hospital,
and, perhaps, a theater of horrors." Against the rabble and its
leaders, it is essential that the King should at once coalesce "with
his people," that he should go to Rouen, appeal to the provinces,
provide a Centre for public opinion, and, if necessary, resort to
armed resistance. Malouet, on his side, declares that "the
Revolution, since the 5th of October, "horrifies all sensible men,
and every party, but that it is complete and irresistible." Thus the
three best minds that are associated with the Revolution -- those
whose verified prophecies attest genius or good sense; the only ones
who, for two or three years, and from week to week, have always
predicted wisely, and who have employed reason in their
demonstrations -- these three, Mallet du Pan, Mirabeau, Mabuet,
agree in their estimate of the event, and in measuring its
consequences. The nation is gliding down a declivity, and no one
possesses the means or the force to arrest it. The King cannot do
it : "undecided and weak beyond all expression, his character
resembles those oiled ivory balls which one vainly strives to keep
together."[47] And as for the Assembly, blinded, violated, and
impelled on by the theory it proclaims, and by the faction which
supports it, each of its grand decrees only renders its fall the
more precipitate.
________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Bailly, " Mémoires," II. 195, 242.
[2] Elysée Loustalot, journalist, editor of the paper "Révolutions
de Paris," was a young lawyer who had shown a natural genius for
innovative journalism. He was to die already in 1790. (SR.)
[3] Montjoie, ch. LXX, p. 65.
[4] Bailly, II. 74, 174, 242, 261, 282, 345, 392.
[5] Such as domiciliary visits and arrests apparently made by
lunatics. ("Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris.") -- And
Montjoie, ch. LXX. p.67. Expedition of the National Guard against
imaginary brigands who are cutting down the crops at Montmorency and
the volley fired in the air. -- Conquest of Ile-Adam and Chantilly.
[6] Bailly, II. 46, 95, 232, 287, 296.
[7] "Archives de la Préfecture de Police," minutes of the meeting of
the section of Butte des Moulins, October 5, 1789.
[8] Bailly, II. 224. -- Dusaulx, 418, 202, 257, 174, 158. The
powder transported was called poudre de traite (transport); the
people understood it as poudre de traître (traitor). M. de la Salle
was near being killed through the addition of an r. It is he who
had taken command of the National Guard on the 13th of July.
[9] Floquet, VII. 54. There is the same scene at Granville, in
Normandy, on the 16th of October. A woman had assassinated her
husband, while a soldier who was her lover is her accomplice; the
woman was about to he hung and the man broken on the wheel, when the
populace shout, "The nation has the right of pardon," upset the
scaffold, and save the two assassins.
[10] Bailly, II. 274 (August 17th).
[11] Bailly, II, 83, 202, 230, 235, 283, 299.
[12] Mercure de France, the number for September 26th. - De
Goncourt, p. 111.
[13] Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," I, 58; X. 151.
[14] De Ferrières, I. 178. -- Buchez and Roux, II. 311, 316. --
Bai11y, II. 104, 174, 207, 246, 257, 282.
[15] Mercure de France, September 5th, 1789. Horace Walpole's
Letters, September 5, 1789. -- M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 272.
During the week following the 14th of July, 6,000 soldiers deserted
and went over to the people, besides 400 and 800 Swiss Guards and
six battalions of the French Guards, who remain without officers,
and do as they please. Vagabonds from the neighboring villages
flock in, and there are more than "30,000 strangers and vagrants" in
Paris.
[16] Bailly, II. 282. The crowd of deserters was so great that
Lafayette was obliged to place a guard at the barriers to keep them
from entering the city. "Without this precaution the whole army
would have come in."
[17] De Ferrières, I. 103. -- De Lavalette, I. 39. -- Bailly, I. 53
(on the lawyers). "It may be said that the success of the
Revolution is due to this class." -- Marmontel, II. 243 "Since the
first elections of Paris, in 1789, I remarked," he says, "this
species of restless intriguing men, contending with each other to be
heard, impatient to make themselves prominent....It is well known
what interest this body (the lawyers) had to change Reform into
Revolution, the Monarchy into a Republic; the object was to organize
for itself a perpetual aristocracy." -- Buchez and Roux, II. 358
(article by C. Desmoulins). "In the districts everybody exhausts
his lungs and his time in trying to be president, vice-president,
secretary or vice-secretary"
[18] Eugène Hatin, "Histoire de la Presse," vol. V. p. 113. "Le
Patriote français" by Brissot, July 28, 1789. -- "L'Ami du Peuple,"
by Marat, September 12, 1789. -- "Annales patriotiques et
littéraires," by Carra and Mercier, October 5, 1789, -- "Les
Révolutions de Paris," chief editor Loustalot, July 17th, 1789. -
"Le Tribun du peuple," letters by (middle of 1789). - "Révolutions
de France et de Brabant," by C. Desmoulins, November 28, 1789; his
"France libre" (I believe of the month of August, and his "Discours
de la Lanterne" of the month of September). - "The Moniteur" does
not make its appearance until November 24, 1789. In the seventy
numbers which follow, up to February 3, 1790, the debates of the
Assembly were afterwards written out, amplified, and put in a
dramatic form. All numbers anterior to February 3, 1790, are the
result of a compilation executed in the year IV. The narrative part
during the first six months of the Revolution is of no value. The
report of the sittings of the Assembly is more exact, but should be
revised sitting by sitting and discourse by discourse for a detailed
history of the National Assembly. The principal authorities which
are really contemporary are, "Le Mercure de France," "Le Journal de
Paris," "Le point de Jour" by Barrère, the "Courrier de Versailles,"
by Gorsas, the "Courrier de Provence" by Mirabeau, the "Journal des
Débats et Décrets," the official reports of the National assembly,
the "Bulletin de l'Asemblée Nationale," by Marat, besides the
newspapers above cited for the period following the 14th of July,
and the speeches, which are printed separately.
[19] C. Desmoulins, letters of September 20th and of subsequent
dates. (He quote, a passage from Lucan in the sense indicated). --
Brissot, "Mémoires," passim. -- Biography of Danton by Robinet. (See
the testimony of Madame Roland and of Rousselin de Saint-Albin.)
[20] "Discours de la Lanterne." See the epigraph of the engraving.
[21] Buchez and Roux; III. 55; article of Marat, October lst.
"Sweep all the suspected men out of the Hôtel-de-Ville. . . . .
Reduce the deputies of the communes to fifty; do not let them remain
in office more than a month or six weeks, and compel them to
transact business only in public." -- And II. 412, another article
by Marat. -- Ibid. III. 21. An article by Loustalot. - C.
Desmoulins, "Discours de la Lanterne," passim. -- Bailly, II. 326.
[22] Mounier, "Des causes qui ont empêche les Français d'être
libre," I. 59. - Lally-Tollendal, second letter, 104. --
Bailly, II. 203.
[23] De Bouillé, 207. -- Lally-Tollendal, ibid, 141, 146. --
Mounier, ibid., 41, 60.
[24] Mercure de France, October 2, 1790 (article of Mallet du Pan:
"I saw it"). Criminal proceedings at the Châtelet on the events of
October 5th and 6th. Deposition of M. Feydel, a deputy, No. 178. -
- De Montlosier, i. 259. -- Desmoulins (La Lanterne). "Some members
of the communes are gradually won over by pensions, by plans for
making a fortune and by flattery. Happily, the incorruptible
galleries are always on the side of the patriots. They represent
the tribunes of the people seated on a bench in attendance on the
deliberations of the Senate and who had the veto. They represent
the metropolis and, fortunately, it is under the batteries of the
metropolis that the constitution is being framed." (C. Desmoulins,
simple-minded politician, always let the cat out of the bag.)
[25] "Procédure du Châtelet," Ibid. Deposition of M. Malouet (No.
111). "I received every day, as well as MM. Lally and Mounier,
anonymous letters and lists of proscriptions on which we were
inscribed. These letters announced a prompt and violent death to
every deputy that advocated the authority of the King."
[26] Buchez and Roux, I. 368, 376. -- -- Bailly, II. 326, 341. -
Mounier, ibid., 62, 75.
[27] Etienne Dumont, 145. -- Correspondence between Comte de
Mirabeau and Comte de la Marck.
[28] "Procédure criminelle du Châtelet," Deposition 148. - Buchez
and Roux, III. 67, 65. (Narrative of Desmoulins, article of
Loustalot.) Mercure de France, number for September 5, 1789.
"Sunday evening, August 30, at the Palais-Royal, the expulsion of
several deputies of every class was demanded, and especially some of
those from Dauphiny. . . They spoke of bringing the King to Paris as
well as the Dauphin. All virtuous citizens, every incorruptible
patriot, was exhorted to set out immediately for Versailles."
[29] These acts of violence were not reprisals; nothing of the kind
took place at the banquet of the body-guards (October 1st). "Amidst
the general joy," says an eye-witness, I heard no insults against
the National Assembly, nor against the popular party, nor against
anybody. The only cries were 'Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! We will
defend them to the death!'" (Madame de Larochejacquelein, p.40. -
Ibid. Madame Campan, another eye-witness.) -- It appears to be
certain, however, that the younger members of the National Guard at
Versailles turned their cockades so as to be like other people, and
it is also probable that some of the ladies distributed white
cockades. The rest is a story made up before and after the event to
justify the insurrection. -- Cf. Lerol, "Histoire de Versailles,"
II. 20-107. Ibid. p. 141. "As to that proscription of the
national cockade, all witnesses deny it." The originator of the
calumny is Gorsas, editor of the Courrier de Versailles.
[30] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 88, 110, 120,
126, 127, 140, 146, 148. -- Marmontel, "Mémoires," a conversation
with Champfort, in May, 1789. -- Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 398.
(According to the evidence of Garat, Champfort gave all his savings,
3,000 livres, to defray the expenses of maneuvers of this
description.) -- Malouet (II. 2). knew four of the deputies "who
took direct part in this conspiracy."
[31] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." 1st. On the Flemish
soldiers. Depositions 17, 20, 24, 35, 87, 89, 98. -- 2nd. On the
men disguised as women. Depositions 5, 10, 14, 44, 49, 59, 60, 110,
120, 139, 145, 146, 148. The prosecutor designates six of them to
be seized. -- 3rd. On the condition of the women of the expedition.
Depositions 35, 83, 91, 98, 146, and 24. -- 4th. On the money
distributed. Depositions 49, 56, 71, 82, 110, 126.
[32] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 61. "During the
night scenes, not very decent, occurred among these people, which
the witness thought it useless to relate."
[33] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 35, 44, 81. --
Buchez and Roux, III. 120. (Minutes of the meeting of the Commune,
October 5th.) Journal de Paris, October 12th. A few days after, M.
Pic, clerk of the prosecutor, brought "a package of 100,000 francs
which he had saved from the enemies' hands," and another package of
notes was found thrown, in the hubbub, into a receipt-box.
[34] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 61, 77, 81,
148, 154. -- Dumont, 181. -- Mounier, "Exposé justificatif," and
specially "Fait relatif à la dernière insurrection."
[35] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 168. The witness
sees on leaving the King's apartment " several women dressed as
fish-wives, one of whom, with a pretty face, has a paper in her
hand, and who exclaims as she holds it up, 'He! F..., we have forced
the guy to sign.' "
[36] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 89, 91, 98.
"Promising all, even raising their petticoats before them."
[37] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet," Depositions 9, 20, 24, 30,
49, 61, 82, 115, 149, 155.
[38] Procédure criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 7, 30, 35, 40. -
- Cf. Lafayette, "Mémoires," and Madame Campan, "Mémoires."
[39] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 24. A number of
butcher-boys run after the carriages issuing from the Petite-Ecurie
shouting out, "Don't let the curs escape!"
[40] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 101, 91, 89,
and 17. M. de Miomandre, a body-guard, mildly says to the ruffians
mounting the staircase: "My friends, you love your King, and yet you
come to annoy him even in his palace!"
[41] Malouet, II. 2. "I felt no distrust," says Lafayette in 1798;
"the people promised to remain quiet."
[42] "Procédure Criminelle du Chatelet." Depositions 9, 16, 60, 128,
129, 130, 139, 158, 168, 170. -- M. du Repaire, body-guard, being
sentry at the railing from two o'clock in the morning, a man passes
his pike through the bars saying, "You embroidered b. . . , your
turn will come before long." M. de Repaire, " retires within the
sentry-box without saying a word to this man, considering the orders
that have been issued not to act."
[43] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 82, 170 --
Madame Campan. II. 87. -- De Lavalette, I.33. -- Cf. Bertrand de
Molleville, Mémoires."
[44] Duval," Souvenirs de la Terreur," I. 78. (Doubtful in almost
everything, but here he is an eye-witness. He dined opposite the
hair-dresser's, near the railing of the Park of Saint-Cloud.) -- M.
de Lally-Tollendal's second letter to a friend. "At the moment the
King entered his capital with two bishops of his council with him in
the carriage, the cry was heard, "Off to the lamp post with the
bishops!"
[45] De Montlosier, I. 303. -- Moniteur, sessions of the 8th, 9th,
and 10th of October. -- Malouet, II. 9, 10, 20. -- Mounier,
Recherches sur les Causes, etc.," and "Addresse aux Dauphinois."
[46] De Ferrières, I. 346. (On the 9th of October, 300 members have
already taken their passports.) Mercure de France, No. of the 17th
October. Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I. 116,
126, 364.
[47] Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I.175. (The
words of Monsieur to M. de la Marck.)
BOOK SECOND. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, AND THE RESULT OF ITS
LABORS.
CHAPTER I.
THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. - CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OF
GOOD LAWS.
Among the most difficult undertakings in this world is the
formulation of a national constitution, especially if this is to be
a complete and comprehensive work. To replace the old structures
inside which a great people has lived by a new, different,
appropriate and durable set of laws, to apply a mold of one hundred
thousand compartments on to the life of twenty-six million people,
to construct it so harmoniously, adapt it so well, so closely, with
such an exact appreciation of their needs and their faculties, that
they enter it of themselves and move about it without collisions,
and that their spontaneous activity should at once find the ease of
familiar routine, - is an extraordinary undertaking and probably
beyond the powers of the human mind. In any event, the mind
requires all its powers to carry the undertaking out, and it cannot
protect itself carefully enough against all sources of disturbance
and error. An Assembly, especially a Constituent Assembly,
requires, outwardly, security and independence, inwardly, silence
and order, and generally, calmness, good sense, practical ability
and discipline under competent and recognized leaders. Do we find
anything of all this in the Constituent Assembly?
I.
These conditions absent in the Assembly - Causes of disorder and
irrationality - The place of meeting - The large number of deputies
- Interference of the galleries - Rules of procedure wanting,
defective, or disregarded.- The parliamentary leaders -
Susceptibility and over-excitement of the Assembly - Its paroxysms
of enthusiasm. - Its tendency to emotion. -It encourages
theatrical display - Changes which these displays introduce in its
good intentions.
We have only to look at it outwardly to have some doubts about it.
At Versailles, and then at Paris, the sessions are held in an
immense hall capable of seating 2,000 persons, in which the most
powerful voice must be strained in order to be heard. It is not
calculated for the moderate tone suitable for the discussion of
business; the speaker is obliged to shout, and the strain on the
voice communicates itself to the mind; the place itself suggests
declamation; and this all the more readily because the assemblage
consists of 1,200, that is to say, a crowd, and almost a mob. 'At
the present day (1877), in our assemblies of five or six hundred
deputies, there are constant interruptions and an incessant buzz;
there is nothing so rare as self-control, and the firm resolve to
give an hour's attention to a discourse opposed to the opinions of
the hearers. -- What can be done here to compel silence and
patience? Arthur Young on different occasions sees "a hundred
members on the floor at once," shouting and gesticulating.
"Gentlemen, you are killing me!" says Bailly, one day, sinking with
exhaustion. Another president exclaims in despair, "Two hundred
speaking at the same time cannot be heard; will you make it
impossible then to restore order in the Assembly?" The rumbling,
discordant din is further increased by the uproar of the
galleries.[1]
"In the British Parliament," writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw the
galleries cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happened
unintentionally to laugh too loud."
Here, the thronging crowd of spectators, stringers, delegates from
the Palais-Royal, soldiers disguised as citizens, and prostitutes
collected and marshaled, applaud, clap their hands, stamp and hoot,
at their pleasure. This is carried to so great an extent that M.
de Montlosier ironically proposes "to give the galleries a voice in
the deliberations."[2] Another member wishes to know whether the
representatives are so many actors, whom the nation sends there to
endure the hisses of the Paris public. Interruptions, in fact, take
place as in a theater, and, frequently, if the members do not give
satisfaction, they are forced to desist. On the other hand, the
deputies who are popular with this energetic audience, on which they
keep and eye, are actors before the footlights: they involuntarily
yield to its influence, and exaggerate their ideas as well as their
words to be in unison with it. Tumult and violence, under such
circumstances, become a matter of course, and the chances of an
Assembly acting wisely are diminished by one-half; on becoming a
club of agitators, it ceases to be a conclave of legislators.
Let us enter and see how this one proceeds. Thus encumbered, thus
surrounded and agitated, does it take at least those precautions
without which no assembly of men can govern itself. When several
hundred persons assemble together for deliberation, it is evident
that some sort of an internal police is necessary; first of all,
some code of accepted usage, some written precedents, by which its
acts may be prepared and defined, considered in detail, and properly
passed. The best of these codes it ready to hand: at the request
of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over the standing orders of the
English House of Commons.[3} But with the presumption of novices,
they pay no attention to this code; they imagine it is needless for
them; they will borrow nothing from foreigners; they accord no
authority to experience, and, not content with rejecting the forms
it prescribes, "it is with difficulty they can be made to follow any
rule whatever." They leave the field open to the impulsiveness of
individuals; any kind of influence, even that of a deputy, even of
one elected by themselves, is suspected by them; hence their choice
of a new president every fortnight. - They submit to no constraint
or control, neither to the legal authority of a parliamentary code,
nor to the moral authority of parliamentary chiefs. They are
without any such; they are not organized in parties; neither on one
side nor on the other is a recognized leader found who fixes the
time, arranges the debate, draws up the motion, assigns parts, and
gives the rein to or restrains his supporters. Mirabeau is the
only one capable of obtaining this ascendancy; but, on the opening
of the Assembly, he is discredited by the notoriety of his vices,
and, towards the last, is compromised by his connections with the
Court. No other is of sufficient eminence to have any influence;
there is too much of average and too little of superior talent. -
Their self-esteem is, moreover, as yet too strong to allow any
concessions. Each of these improvised legislators has come
satisfied with his own system, and to submit to a leader to whom he
would entrust his political conscience, to make of him what three
out of four of these deputies should be, a voting machine, would
require an apprehension of danger, some painful experience, an
enforced surrender which he is far from realizing.[4] For this
reason, save in the violent party, each acts as his own chief,
according to the impulse of the moment, and the confusion may be
imagined. Strangers who witness it, lift their hands in pity and
astonishment. "They discuss nothing in their Assembly," writes
Gouverneur Morris,[5] "One large half of the time is spent in
hallowing and bawling.... Each Man permitted to speak delivers the
Result of his Lubrications," amidst this noise, taking his turn as
inscribed, without replying to his predecessor, or being replied to
by his successor, without ever meeting argument by argument; so
that while the firing is interminable, "all their shots are fired in
the air." Before this "frightful clatter" can be reported, the
papers of the day are obliged to make all sorts of excisions, to
prune away "nonsense," and reduce the "inflated and bombastic
style." Chatter and clamor, that is the whole substance of most of
these famous sittings.
"You would hear," says a journalist, "more yells than speeches; the
sittings seemed more likely to end in fights than in decrees. . . .
Twenty times I said to myself, on leaving, that if anything could
arrest and turn the tide of the Revolution, it would be a picture of
these meetings traced without caution or adaptation. . . All my
efforts were therefore directed to represent the truth, without
rendering it repulsive. Out of what had been merely a row, I
concocted a scene. . . I gave all the sentiments, but not always in
the same words. I translated their yells into words, their furious
gestures into attitudes, and when I could not inspire esteem, I
endeavored to rouse the emotions."
There is no remedy for this evil; for, besides the absence of
discipline, there is an inward and fundamental cause for the
disorder. These people are too susceptible. They are Frenchmen,
and Frenchmen of the eighteenth century; brought up in the amenities
of the utmost refinement, accustomed to deferential manners, to
constant kind attentions and mutual obligations, so thoroughly
imbued with the instinct of good breeding that their conversation
seems almost insipid to strangers.[6] -- And suddenly they find
themselves on the thorny soil of politics, exposed to insulting
debates, flat contradictions, venomous denunciation, constant
detraction and open invective; engaged in a battle in which every
species of weapon peculiar to a parliamentary life is employed, and
in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely able to keep cool.
Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highly strung
nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the accommodations and
amiabilities of universal urbanity. They are at once beside
themselves. - And all the more so because they never anticipated a
battle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming
idyll, in which everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears
around the throne and save the country amid mutual embraces.
Necker himself arranges, like a theater, the chamber in which the
sessions of the Assembly are to be held.[7] "He was not disposed to
regard the Assemblies of the States-General as anything but a
peaceful, imposing, solemn, august spectacle, which the people would
enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenly changes into a drama, he is so
frightened that it seems to him as if a landslide had occurred that
threatened, during the night, to break down the framework of the
building. - At the time of the meeting of the States-General,
everybody is delighted; all imagine that they are about to enter the
promised land. During the procession of the 4thof May,
"tears of joy," says the Marquis de Ferrières, "filled my eyes. . .
. In a state of sweet rapture I beheld France supported by
Religion" exhorting us all to concord. "The sacred ceremonies, the
music, the incense, the priests in their sacrificial robes, that
dais, that orb radiant with precious stones. .. I called to my
mind the words of the prophet. . . . My God, my country, and my
countrymen, all were one with myself! "
Such emotions repeatedly explode in the course of the session, and
resulted in the passage of laws which no one could have imagined.
"Sometimes,"[8] writes the American ambassador, "a speaker gets up
in the midst of a deliberation, makes a fine discourse on a
different subject, and closes with a nice little resolution which is
carried with a hurrah. Thus, in considering the plan of a national
bank proposed by M. Necker, one of them took it into his head to
move that every member should give his silver buckles, which was
agreed to at once, and the honorable mover laid his upon the table,
after which the business went on again."
Thus, over-excited, they do not know in the morning what they will
do in the afternoon, and they are at the mercy of every surprise.
When they are seized with these fits of enthusiasm, infatuation
spreads over all the benches; prudence gives way, all foresight
disappears and every objection is stifled. During the night of the
4th of August,[9] "nobody is master of himself . The Assembly
presents the spectacle of an inebriated crowd in a shop of valuable
furniture, breaking and smashing at will whatever they can lay their
hands on."
"That which would have required a year of care and reflection,"
says a competent foreigner, "was proposed, deliberated over, and
passed by general acclamation. The abolition of feudal rights, of
titles, of the privileges of the provinces, three articles which
alone embraced a whole system of jurisprudence and statesmanship,
were decided with ten or twelve other measures in less time than is
required in the English Parliament for the first reading of an
important bill."
"Such are our Frenchmen," says Mirabeau again, "they spend a month
in disputes about syllables, and overthrow, in a single night, the
whole established system of the Monarchy !"[10]
The truth is, they display the nervousness of women, and, from one
end of the Revolution to the other, this excitability keeps on
increasing.
Not only are they excited, but the pitch of excitement must be
maintained, and, like the drunkard who, once stimulated, has
recourse again to strong waters, one would say that they carefully
try to expel the last remnants of calmness and common sense from
their brains. They delight in pompous phrases, in high-sounding
rhetoric, in declamatory sentimental strokes of eloquence: this is
the style of nearly all their speeches, and so strong is their
taste, they are not satisfied with the orations made amongst
themselves. Lally and Necker, having made "affecting and sublime"
speeches at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Assembly wish them to be
repeated before them:[11] this being the heart of France, it is
proper for it to answer to the noble emotions of all Frenchmen.
Let this heart throb on, and as strongly as possible, for that is
its office, and day by day it receives fresh impulses. Almost all
sittings begin with the reading of flattering addresses or of
threatening denunciations. The petitioners frequently appear in
person, and read their enthusiastic effusions, their imperious
advice, their doctrines of dissolution. To-day it is Danton, in
the name of Paris, with his bull visage and his voice that seems a
tocsin of insurrection; to-morrow, the vanquishers of the Bastille,
or some other troop, with a band of music which continues playing
even into the hall. The meeting is not a conference for business,
but a patriotic opera, where the eclogue, the melodrama, and
sometimes the masquerade, mingle with the cheers and the clapping of
hands.[12] -- A serf of the Jura is brought to the bar of the
Assembly aged one hundred and twenty years, and one of the members
of the cortège, " M. Bourbon de la Crosnière, director of a
patriotic school, asks permission to take charge of an honorable old
man, that he may be waited on by the young people of all ranks, and
especially by the children of those whose fathers were killed in the
attack on the Bastille." [13] Great is the hubbub and excitement.
The scene seems to be in imitation of Berquin,[14] with the
additional complication of a mercenary consideration.
But small matters are not closely looked into, and the Assembly,
under the pressure of the galleries, stoops to shows, such as are
held at fairs. Sixty vagabonds who are paid twelve francs a head,
in the costumes of Spaniards, Dutchmen, Turks, Arabs, Tripolitans,
Persians, Hindus, Mongols, and Chinese, conducted by the Prussian
Anacharsis Clootz, enter, under the title of Ambassadors of the
Human Race, to declaim against tyrants, and they are admitted to the
honors of the sitting. On this occasion the masquerade is a stroke
devised to hasten and extort the abolition of nobility.[15] At other
times, there is little or no object in it; its ridiculousness is
inexpressible, for the farce is played out as seriously and
earnestly as in a village award of prizes. For three days, the
children who have taken their first communion before the
constitutional bishop have been promenaded through the streets of
Paris; at the Jacobin club they recite the nonsense they have
committed to memory; and, on the fourth day, admitted to the bar of
the Assembly, their spokesman, a poor little thing of twelve years,
repeats the parrot-like tirade. He winds up with the accustomed
oath, upon which all the others cry out in their piping, shrill
voices, " We swear ! " As a climax, the President, Trejlhard, a
sober lawyer, replies to the little gamins with perfect gravity in a
similar strain, employing metaphors, personifications, and
everything else belonging to the stock-in-trade of a pedant on his
platform:
"You merit a share in the glory of the founders of liberty,
prepared as you are to shed your blood in her behalf."
Immense applause from the "left" and the galleries, and a decree
ordering the speeches of both president and children to be printed.
The children, probably, would rather have gone out to play; but,
willingly or unwillingly, they receive or endure the honors of the
sitting.[16]
Such are the tricks of the stage and of the platform by which the
managers here move their political puppets. Emotional
susceptibility, once recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes
an instrument of intrigue and constraint. The Assembly, having
accepted theatrical exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest,
is obliged to tolerate them when they become mere sham and
buffoonery. At this vast national banquet, over which it meant to
preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all
France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality;
but it has touched glasses with the populace, and by degrees, under
the pressure of its associates, it has descended to adulterated and
burning drinks, to a grotesque unwholesome inebriety which is all
the more grotesque and unwholesome, because it persists in believing
itself to be reason.
II.
Inadequacy of its information - Its composition - The social
standing and culture of the larger number - Their incapacity.
Their presumption - Fruitless advice of competent men.- Deductive
politics - Parties - The minority; its faults - The majority; its
dogmatism.
If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals!
But reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French
Assembly, except the two following this, have there ever been fewer
political intellects. - Strictly speaking, with careful search,
there could undoubtedly be found in France, in 1789, five or six
hundred experienced men, such as the intendants and military
commanders of every province; next to these the prelates,
administrators of large dioceses the members of the local
"parlements," whose courts gave them influence, and who, besides
judicial functions, possessed a portion of administrative power; and
finally, the principal members of the Provincial Assemblies, all of
them influential and sensible people who had exercised control over
men and affairs, at once humane, liberal, moderate, and capable of
understanding the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of a great
reform; indeed, their correspondence, full of facts, stated with
precision and judgment, when compared with the doctrinaire rubbish
of the Assembly, presents the strongest possible contrast. - But
most of these lights remain under a bushel; only a few of them get
into the Assembly; these burn without illuminating, and are soon
extinguished in the tempest.' I. The venerable Machault is not there,
nor Malesherbes; there are none of the old ministers or the marshals
of France. Not one of the intendants is there, except Malouet, and
by the superiority of this man, the most judicious of the Assembly,
one can judge the services which his colleagues would have rendered.
Out of two hundred and ninety-one members of the clergy,[17] there
are indeed forty-eight bishops or archbishops and thirty-five abbots
or canons, but, being prelates and with large endowments, they
excite the envy of their order, and are generals without any
soldiers. We have the same spectacle among the nobles. Most of
them, the gentry of the provinces, have been elected in opposition
to the grandees of the Court. Moreover, neither the grandees of
the Court, devoted to worldly pursuits, nor the gentry of the
provinces, confined to private life, are practically familiar with
public affairs. A small group among them, twenty-eight magistrates
and about thirty superior officials who have held command or have
been connected with the administration, probably have some idea of
the peril of society; but it is precisely for this reason that they
seem to be behind the age and remain without influence. - In the
Third-Estate, out of five hundred and seventy-seven members, only
ten have exercised any important functions, those of intendant,
councillor of state, receiver-general, lieutenant of police,
director of the mint, and others of the same category. The great
majority is composed of unknown lawyers and people occupying
inferior positions in the profession, notaries, royal attorneys,
register commissaries, judges and assessors of; the présidial,
bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple practitioners
confined from their youth to the narrow circle of an inferior
jurisdiction or to a routine of scribbling, with no escape but
philosophical excursions in imaginary space under the guidance of
Rousseau and Raynal. There are three hundred and seventy-three of
this class, to whom may be added thirty-eight farmers and
husbandmen, fifteen physicians, and, among the manufacturers,
merchants, and capitalists, some fifty or sixty who are their equals
in education and in political capacity. Scarcely one hundred and
fifty proprietors are here from the middle class.[18] To these four
hundred and fifty deputies, whose condition, education, instruction,
and mental range qualified them for being good clerks, prominent men
in a commune, honorable fathers of a family, or, at best,
provincial academicians, add two hundred and eight curés, their
equals; this makes six hundred and fifty out of eleven hundred and
eighteen deputies, forming a positive majority, which, again, is
augmented by about fifty philosophical nobles, leaving out the weak
who follow the current, and the ambitious who range themselves on
the strong side. - We may divine what a chamber thus made up can
do, and those who are familiar with such matters prophesy what it
will do.[19]
"There are some able men in the National Assembly," writes the
American minister, "yet the best heads among them would not be
injured by experience, and, unfortunately, there are great numbers
who, with much imagination, have little knowledge, judgment, or
reflection."
It would be just as sensible to select eleven hundred notables from
an inland province and entrust them to the repair of an old frigate.
They would conscientiously break the vessel up, and the frigate they
would construct in its place would founder before it left port.
If they would only consult the pilots and professional shipbuilders!
-- There are several of such to be found around them, whom they
cannot suspect, for most of them are foreigners, born in free
countries, impartial, sympathetic, and, what is more, unanimous.
The Minister of the United States writes, two months before the
convocation of the States-General:[20]
"I, a republican, and just, as it were, emerged from that Assembly
which has formed one of the most republican of republican
constitutions, - I preach incessantly respect for the prince,
attention to the rights of the nobility, and moderation, not only in
the object, but also in the pursuit of it."
Jefferson, a democrat and radical, expresses himself no
differently. At the time of the oath of the Tennis Court, he
redoubles his efforts to induce Lafayette and other patriots to make
some arrangement with the King to secure freedom of the press,
religious, liberty, trial by jury, the habeas corpus, and a national
legislature, - things which he could certainly be made to adopt, -
and then to retire into private life, and let these institutions act
upon the condition of the people until they had rendered it capable
of further progress, with the assurance that there would be no lack
of opportunity for them to obtain still more.
"This was all," he continues, "that I thought your countrymen able
to bear soberly and usefully."
Arthur Young, who studies the moral life of France so
conscientiously, and who is so severe in depicting old abuses,
cannot comprehend the conduct of the Commons.
"To set aside practice for theory . . . in establishing the
interests of a great kingdom, in securing freedom to 25,000,000 of
people, seems to me the very acme of imprudence, the very
quintessence of insanity."
Undoubtedly, now that the Assembly is all-powerful, it is to be
hoped that it will be reasonable:
"I will not allow myself to believe for a moment that the
representatives of the people can ever so far forget their duty to
the French nation, to humanity, and their own fame, as to suffer any
inordinate and impracticable views - any visionary or theoretic
systems - . . . to turn aside their exertions from that security
which is in their hands, to place on the chance and hazard of public
commotion and civil war the invaluable blessings which are certainly
in their power. I will not conceive it possible that men who have
eternal fame within their grasp will place the rich inheritance on
the cast of a die, and, losing the venture, be damned among the
worst and most profligate adventurers that ever disgraced humanity."
As their plan becomes more definite the remonstrances become more
decided, and all the expert judges point out to them the importance
of the wheels which they are willfully breaking.
"As they have[21] hitherto felt severely the authority exercised
over them in the name of their princes, every limitation of that
authority seems to them desirable. Never having felt the evils of
too weak an executive, the disorders to be apprehended from anarchy
make as yet no impression" -- "They want an American
Constitution,[22] but with a King instead of a President, without
reflecting they have no American citizens to support that
Constitution. . . If they have the good sense to give the nobles,
as nobles, some portion of the national power, this free
constitution will probably last, But otherwise it will degenerate
either into a pure monarchy, or a vast republic, or a democracy.
Will the latter last? I doubt it. I am sure that it will not,
unless the whole nation is changed."
A little later, when they renounce a parliamentary monarchy to put
in its place "a royal democracy," it is at once explained to them
that such an institution applied to France can produce nothing but
anarchy, and finally end in despotism.
"Nowhere[23] has liberty proved to be stable without a sacrifice
of its excesses, without some barrier to its own omnipotence. . . .
Under this miserable government . . . the people, soon weary of
storms, and abandoned without legal protection to their seducers or
to their oppressors, will shatter the helm, or hand it over to some
audacious hand that stands ready to seize it."
Events occur from month to month in fulfillment of these
predictions, and the predictions grow gloomier and more gloomy. It
is a flock of wild birds:[24]
"It is very difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will settle
when it flies so wild. . . . This unhappy country, bewildered in
the pursuit of metaphysical whims, presents to our moral view a
mighty ruin. The Assembly, at once master and slave, new in power,
wild in theory, raw in practice, engrossing all functions without
being able to exercise any, has freed that fierce, ferocious people
from every restraint of religion and respect. . . . Such a state
of things cannot last . . . The glorious opportunity is lost and
for this time, at least, the Revolution has failed."
We see, from the replies of Washington, that he is of the same
opinion. On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, the ablest
practician, and Burke, the ablest theorist, of political liberty,
express the same judgment. Pitt, after 1789, declares that the
French have overleaped freedom. After 1790, Burke, in a work which
is a prophecy as well as a masterpiece, points to military
dictatorship as the termination of the Revolution, "the most
completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth." Nothing
is of any effect. With the exception of the small powerless group
around Malouet and Mounier, the warnings of Morris, Jefferson,
Romilly, Dumont, Mallet du Pan, Arthur Young, Pitt and Burke, all of
them men who have experience of free institutions, are received with
indifference or repelled with disdain. Not only are our new
politicians incapable, but they think themselves the contrary, and
their incompetence is aggravated by their infatuation.
"I often used to say, "writes Dumont,[25] "that if a hundred
persons were stopped at haphazard in the streets of London, and a
hundred in the streets of Paris, and a proposal were made to them to
take charge of the Government, ninety-nine would accept it in Paris
and ninety-nine would refuse it in London . . . The Frenchman
thinks that all difficulties can be overcome by a little quickness
of wit. Mirabeau accepted the post of reporter to the Committee on
Mines without having the slightest tincture of knowledge on the
subject."
In short, most of them enter politics "like the gentleman who, on
being asked if he knew how to play on the harpsichord, replied, 'I
cannot tell, I never tried, but I will see.' "
"The Assembly had so high an opinion of itself, especially the
left side of it, that it would willingly have undertaken the framing
of the Code of Laws for all nations. . . Never has so many men been
seen together, fancying that they were all legislators, and that
they were there to correct all the errors of the past, to remedy all
mistakes of the human mind, and ensure the happiness of all ages to
come. Doubt had no place in their minds, and infallibility always
presided over their contradictory decrees." --
This is because they have a theory and because, according to their
notion, this theory renders special knowledge unnecessary. Herein
they are thoroughly sincere, and it is of set purpose that they
reverse all ordinary modes of procedure. Up to this time a
constitution used to be organized or repaired like a ship.
Experiments were made from time to time, or a model was taken from
vessels in the neighborhood; the first aim was to make the ship
sail; its construction was subordinated to its work; it was
fashioned in this or that way according to the materials on hand; a
beginning was made by examining these materials, and trying to
estimate their rigidity, weight, and strength. - All this is
reactionary; the age of Reason has come and the Assembly is too
enlightened to drag on in a rut. In conformity with the fashion of
the time it works by deduction, after the method of Rousseau,
according to an abstract notion of right, of the State and of the
social compact.[26] According to this process, by virtue of
political geometry alone, they shall have the perfect vessel and
since it perfect it follows that it will sail, and that much better
than any empirical craft. - They legislate according to this
principle, and one may imagine the nature of their discussions.
There are no convincing facts, no pointed arguments; nobody would
ever imagine that the speakers were gathered together to conduct
real business. Through speech after speech, strings of hollow
abstractions are endlessly renewed as in a meeting of students in
rhetoric for the purpose of practice, or in a society of old
bookworms for their own amusement. On the question of the veto
"each orator in turn, armed with his portfolio, reads a dissertation
which has no bearing whatever" on the preceding one, which makes a
"sort of academical session,"[27] a succession of pamphlets fresh
every morning for several days. On the question of the Rights of
Man fifty-four speakers are placed on the list.
"I remember," says Dumont, "that long discussion, which lasted for
weeks, as a period of deadly boredom, -- vain disputes over words, a
metaphysical jumble, and most tedious babble; the Assembly was
turned into a Sorbonne lecture-room,"
and all this while chateaux were burning, while town-halls were
being sacked, and courts dared no longer hold assize, while the
distribution of wheat was stopped, and while society was in course
of dissolution. In the same manner the theologians of the Easter
Roman Empire kept up their wrangles about the uncreated light of
Mount Tabor while Mahomet II was battering the walls of
Constantinople with his cannon. - Ours, of course, are another
sort of men, juvenile in feeling, sincere, enthusiastic, even
generous, and further, more devoted, laborious, and in some cases
endowed with rare talent. But neither zeal, nor labor, nor talent
are of any use when not employed in the service of a sound idea; and
if in the service of a false one, the greater they are the more
mischief they do.
Towards the end of the year 1789, there can be not doubt of this;
and the parties now formed reveal their presumption, improvidence,
incapacity, and obstinacy. "This Assembly," writes the American
ambassador,[28] "may be divided into three parties; --
one called the aristocrats, consists of the high clergy, the
parliamentary judges, and such of the nobility as think they ought
to form a separate order." This is the party which offers resistance
to follies and errors, but with follies and errors almost equally
great. In the beginning "the prelates,[29] instead of conciliating
the curés, kept them at a humiliating distance, affecting
distinctions, exacting respect," and, in their own chamber, "ranging
themselves apart on separate benches." The nobles, on the other
hand, the more to alienate the commons, began by charging these
with, "revolt, treachery, and treason," and by demanding the use of
military force against them. Now that the victorious Third-Estate
has again overcome them and overwhelms them with numbers, they
become still more maladroit, and conduct the defense much less
efficiently than the attack. "In the Assembly," says one of them,
"they do not listen, but laugh and talk aloud;" they take pains to
embitter their adversaries and the galleries by their impertinence.
"They leave the chamber when the President puts the question and
invite the deputies of their party to follow them, or cry out to
them not to take part in the deliberation : through this desertion,
the clubbists become the majority, and decree whatever they please."
It is in this way that the appointment of judges and bishops is
withdrawn from the King and assigned to the people. Again, after
the return from Varennes, when the Assembly finds out that the
result of its labors is impracticable and wants to make it less
democratic, the whole of the right side refuses to share in the
debates, and, what is worse, votes with the revolutionaries to
exclude the members of the Constituent from the Legislative
Assembly. Thus, not only does it abandon its own cause, but it
commits self-destruction, and its desertion ends in suicide. --
A second party remains, "the middle party,"[30] which consists of
well-intentioned people from every class, sincere partisans of a
good government; but, unfortunately, they have acquired their ideas
of government from books, and are admirable on paper. But as it
happens that the men who live in the world are very different from
imaginary men who dwell in the heads of philosophers, it is not to
be wondered at if the systems taken out of books are fit for nothing
but to be upset by another book. Intellects of this stamp are the
natural prey of utopians. Lacking the ballast of experience they
are carried away by pure logic and serve to enlarge the flock of
theorists. - The latter form the third party, which is called the
"enragés (the wild men), and who, at the expiration of six months,
find themselves "the most numerous of all."
"It is composed," says Morris, "of that class which in America is
known by the name of pettifogging lawyers, together with a host of
curates and many of those persons who in all revolutions throng to
the standard of change because they are not well.[31] This last
party is in close alliance with the populace and derives from this
circumstance very great authority."
All powerful passions are on its side, not merely the irritation
of the people tormented by misery and suspicion, not merely the
ambition and self-esteem of the bourgeois, in revolt against the
ancient régime, but also the inveterate bitterness and fixed ideas
of so many suffering minds and so many factious intellects,
Protestants, Jansenists, economists, philosophers, men who, like
Fréteau, Rabout-Saint-Etienne, Volney, Sieyès, are hatching out a
long arrears of resentments or hopes, and who only await the
opportunity to impose their system with all the intolerance of
dogmatism and of faith. To minds of this stamp the past is a dead
letter; example is no authority; realities are of no account; they
live in their own Utopia. Sieyès, the most important of them all,
judges that "the whole English constitution is charlatanism,
designed for imposing on the people;"[32] he regards the English "as
children in the matter of a constitution," and thinks that he is
capable of giving France a much better one. Dumont, who sees the
first committees at the houses of Brissot and Clavières, goes away
with as much anxiety as "disgust."
"It is impossible," he says, "to depict the confusion of ideas,
the license of the imagination, the burlesque of popular notions.
One would think that they saw before them the world on the day after
the Creation."
They seem to think, indeed, that human society does not exist, and
that they are appointed to create it. Just as well might
ambassadors "of hostile tribes, and of diverse interests, set
themselves to arrange their common lot as if nothing had previously
existed." There is no hesitation. They are satisfied that the
thing can be easily done, and that, with two or three axioms of
political philosophy, the first man that comes may make himself
master of it. Immoderate conceit of this kind among men of
experience would seem ridiculous; in this assembly of novices it is
a strength. A flock which has lost its way follows those who
appears to forge ahead; they are the most irrational but they are
the most confident, and in the Chamber as in the nation it is the
daredevils who become leaders.
III. THE POWER OF SIMPLE, GENERAL IDEAS.
Ascendancy of the revolutionary party - Theory in its favor - The
constraint thus imposed on men's minds - Appeal to the passions -
Brute force on the side of the party - It profits by this -
Oppression of the minority.
Two advantages give this party the ascendancy, and these advantages
are of such importance that henceforth whoever possesses them is
sure of being master. - In the first place the prevailing theory is
on the side of the revolutionaries, and they alone are, in the
second place, determined thoroughly to apply it. This party,
therefore, is the only one which is consistent and popular in the
face of adversaries who are unpopular and inconsequent. Nearly all
of the latter, indeed, defenders of the ancient régime, or partisans
of a limited monarchy, are likewise imbued with abstract principles
and philosophical speculation. The most refractory nobles have
advocated the rights of man in their memorials. Mounier, the
principal opponent of the demagogues, was the leader of the commons
when they proclaimed themselves to be the National -Assembly.[33]
This is enough: they have entered the narrow defile which leads to
the abyss. They had no idea of it at the first start, but one step
leads to another, and, willing or unwilling, they march on, or are
pushed on. When the abyss comes in sight it is too late; they have
been driven there by the logical results of their own concessions;
they can do nothing but wax eloquent and indignant; having abandoned
their vantage ground, they find no halting-place remaining. - There
is an enormous power in general ideas, especially if they are
simple, and appeal to the passions. None are simpler than these,
since they are reducible to the axiom which assumes the rights of
man, and subordinate to them every institution, old or new. None
are better calculated to inflame the sentiments, since the doctrine
enlists human arrogance and pride in its service, and, in the name
of justice, consecrates all the demands of independence and
domination. Consider three-fourths of the deputies, immature and
prejudiced, possessing no information but a few formulas of the
current philosophy, with no thread to guide them but pure logic,
abandoned to the declamation of lawyers, to the wild utterances of
the newspapers, to the promptings of self-esteem, to the hundred
thousand tongues which, on all sides, at the bar of the Assembly, at
the tribune, in the clubs, in the streets, in their own breasts,
repeat unanimously to them, and every day, the same flattery:
"You are sovereign and omnipotent. Right is vested in you alone.
The King exists only to execute your will. Every order, every
corporation, every power, every civil or ecclesiastical association
is illegitimate and null the moment you declare it to be so. You
may even transform religion. You are the fathers of the country.
You have saved France, you will regenerate humanity. The whole
world looks on you in admiration; finish your glorious work --
forward, always forward."
Superior good sense and rooted convictions could alone stand firm
against this flood of seductions and solicitations; but vacillating
and ordinary men are carried away by it. In the harmony of
applause which rises, they do not hear the crash of the ruins they
produce. In any case, they stop their ears, and shun the cries of
the oppressed; they refuse to admit that their work could possibly
bring about evil results; they accept the sophisms and untruths
which justify it; they allow the assassinated to be calumniated in
order to excuse the assassins; they listen to Merlin de Douay, who,
after three or four jacqueries, when pillaging, arson, and murder
are going on in all the provinces, has just declared in the name of
the Committee on Feudalism[34] that "a law must be presented to the
people, the justice of which may enforce silence on the feudatory
egoists who, for the past six months, so indecently protest against
plunder; the wisdom of which may restore to a sense of duty the
peasant who has been led astray for a moment by his resentment of a
long oppression." And when Raynal, the surviving patriarch of the
philosophic party, one day, for a wonder, takes the plain truth with
him into their tribune, they resent his straightforwardness as an
outrage, and excuse it solely on the ground of his imbecility. An
omnipotent legislator cannot depreciate himself; like a king he is
condemned to self-admiration in his public capacity. "There were
not thirty deputies amongst us," says a witness, "who thought
differently from Raynal," but "in each other's presence the credit
of the Revolution, the perspective of its blessings, was an article
of faith which had to be believed in;" and, against their own
reason, against their conscience, the moderates, caught in the net
of their own acts, join the revolutionaries to complete the
Revolution.
Had they refused, they would have been compelled; for, to obtain
the power, the Assembly has, from the very first, either tolerated
or solicited the violence of the streets. But, in accepting
insurrectionists for its allies, it makes them masters, and
henceforth, in Paris as in the provinces, illegal and brutal force
becomes the principal power of the State. "The triumph was
accomplished through the people; it was impossible to be severe with
them;"[35] hence, when insurrections were to be put down, the
Assembly had neither the courage nor the force necessary. "They
blame for the sake of decency; they frame their deeds by
expediency." and in turn justly undergo the pressure which they
themselves have sanctioned against others. Only three or four
times do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too daring --
after the murder of the baker François, the insurrection of the
Swiss Guard at Nancy, and the outbreak of the Champ de Mars -- feel
that they themselves are menaced, vote for and apply martial law,
and repel force with force. But, in general, when the despotism of
the people is exercised only against the royalist minority, they
allow their adversaries to be oppressed, and do not consider
themselves affected by the violence which assails the party of the
"right:" they are enemies, and may be given up to the wild beasts.
In accordance with this, the "left " has made its arrangements; its
fanaticism has no scruples; it is principle, it is absolute truth
that is at stake; this must triumph at any cost. Besides, can
there be any hesitation in having recourse to the people in the
people's own cause? A little compulsion will help along the good
cause, and hence the siege of the Assembly is continually renewed.
This was the practice already at Versailles before the 6th of
October, while now, at Paris, it is kept up more actively and with
less disguise.
At the beginning of the year 1790,[36] the band under pay comprises
seven hundred and fifty effective men, most of them deserters or
soldiers drummed out of their regiments, who are at first paid five
francs and then forty sous a day. It is their business to make or
support motions in the coffee-houses and in the streets, to mix with
the spectators at the sittings of the sections, with the groups at
the Palais-Royal, and especially in the galleries of the National-
Assembly, where they are to hoot or applaud at a given signal.
Their leader is a Chevalier de Saint-Louis, to whom they swear
obedience, and who receives his orders from the Committee of
Jacobins. His first lieutenant at the Assembly is a M. Saule, "a
stout, small, stunted old fellow, formerly an upholsterer, then a
charlatan hawker of four penny boxes of grease (made from the fat of
those that had been hung - for the cure of diseases of the kidneys)
and all his life a sot .... who, by means of a tolerably shrill
voice, which was always well moistened, has acquired some reputation
in the galleries of the Assembly." In fact, he has forged admission
tickets he has been turned out; he has been obliged to resume "the
box of ointment, and travel for one or two months in the provinces
with a man of letters for his companion." But on his return,
"through the protection of a groom of the Court, he obtained a piece
of ground for a coffee-house against the wall of the Tuileries
garden, almost alongside of the National Assembly," and now it is at
home in his coffee-shop behind his counter that the hirelings of the
galleries " come to him to know what they must say, and to be told
the order of the day in regard to applause." Besides this, he is
there himself; "it is he who for three years is to regulate public
sentiment in the galleries confided to his care, and, for his useful
and satisfactory services, the Constituent Assembly will award him a
recompense," to which the Legislative Assembly will add " a pension
of six hundred livres, besides a lodging in an apartment of the
Feuillants."
We can divine how men of this stamp, thus compensated, do their
work. From the top of the galleries[37] they drown the demands of
the "right" by the force of their lungs; this or that decree, as,
for instance, the abolition of titles of nobility, is carried, "not
by shouts, but by terrific howls."[38] On the arrival of the news of
the sacking of the Hôtel de Castries by the populace, they applaud.
On the question coming up as to the decision whether the Catholic
faith shall be dominant, "they shout out that the aristocrats must
all be hung, and then things will go on well." Their outrages not
only remain unpunished, but are encouraged: this or that noble who
complains of their hooting is called to order, while their
interference and vociferations, their insults and their menaces, are
from this time introduced as one of the regular wheels of
legislative operations. Their pressure is still worse outside the
Chamber.[39] The Assembly is obliged several times to double its
guard. On the 27th of September, 1790, there are 40,000 men around
the building to extort the dismissal of the Ministers, and "motions
for assassination" are made under the windows, On the 4th of
January, 1791, whilst on a call of the house the ecclesiastical
deputies pass in turn to the tribune, to take or refuse the oath to
the civil constitution of the clergy, a furious clamor ascends in
the Tuileries, and even penetrates into the Chamber. "To the lamp
post with all those who refuse! " On the 27th of September, 1790, M.
Dupont, economist, having spoken against the assignats, is
surrounded on leaving the Chamber and hooted at, hustled, pushed
against the basin of the Tuileries, into which he was being thrown
when the guard rescued him. On the 21st of June, 1790, M. de
Cazalès just misses "being torn to pieces by the people."[40]
Deputies of the "right" are threatened over and over again by
gestures in the streets and in the coffee-houses; effigies of them
with ropes about the neck are publicly displayed. The Abbé Maury
is several times on the point of being hung: he saves himself once
by presenting a pistol. Another time the Vicomte de Mirabeau is
obliged to draw his sword. M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, having voted
against the annexation of the Comtat to France, is assailed with
chairs and clubs in the Palais-Royal, pursued into a porter's room
and from thence to his dwelling; the howling crowd break in the
doors, and are only repelled with great difficulty. It is
impossible for the members of the "right" to assemble together; they
are "stoned" in the church of the Capuchins, then in the Salon
Français in the Rue Royale, and then, to crown the whole, an
ordinance of the new judges shuts up their hall, and punishes them
for the violence which they have to suffer.[41] In short they are at
the mercy of the mob. The most moderate, the most liberal, and the
most manly both in heart and head, Malouet, declares that "in going
to the Assembly he rarely forgot to carry his pistols with him."[42]
"For two years," he says, "after the King's flight, we never enjoyed
one moment of freedom and security."
" On going into a slaughter-house," writes another deputy, "you see
some animals at the entrance which still have a short time to live,
until the hour comes to dispatch them. Such was the impression
which the assemblage of nobles, bishops, and parliamentarians[43] on
the right side made on my mind every time I entered the Assembly,
the executioners of the left side permitting them to breathe a
little longer."
They are insulted and outraged even upon their benches; "placed
between peril within and peril without, between the hostility of the
galleries,"[44] and that of the howlers at the entrance, " between
personal insults and the abbey of Saint-Germain, between shouts of
laughter celebrating the burning of their chateaux and the clamors
which, thirty times in a quarter of an hour, cry down their
opinions," they are given over and denounced "to the ten thousand
Cerberuses " of the journals and of the streets, who pursue them
with their yells and "cover them with their slaver." Any expedient
is good enough for putting down their opposition, and, at the end of
the session, in full Assembly, they are threatened with "a
recommendation to the departments," which means the excitement of
riots and of the permanent jacquerie of the provinces against them
in their own houses. - Parliamentary strategy of this sort,
employed uninterruptedly for twenty-nine months, finally produces
its effect. Many of the weak are gained over;[45] even on
characters of firm temper fear has a hold; he who would march under
fire with head erect shuddered at the idea of being dragged in the
gutter by the rabble ; the brutality of the populace always
exercises a material ascendancy over finely strung nerves. On the
12th of July, 1791,[46] the call of the house decreed against the
absentees proves that one hundred and thirty-two deputies no longer
appear in their places. Eleven days before, among those who take
no further part in the proceedings. Thus, before the completion of
the Constitution, the whole of the opposition, more than four
hundred members, over one-third of the Assembly, is reduced to
flight or to silence. By dint of oppression, the revolutionary
party has got rid of all resistance, while the violence which gave
to it ascendancy in the streets, now gives to it equal ascendance
within the walls of Parliament.
IV.
Refusal to supply the ministry - Effects of this mistake -
Misconception of the situation - The committee of investigation -
Constant alarms - Effects of ignorance and fear on the work of the
Constituent Assembly.
Generally in an omnipotent assembly, when a party takes the lead
and forms a majority, it furnishes the Ministry; and this fact
suffices to give, or to bring back to it, some glimpse of common
sense. For its leaders, with the Government in their own hands,
become responsible for it, and when they propose or pass a law, they
are obliged to anticipate its effect. Rarely will a Secretary of
War or of the Navy adopt a military code which goes to establish
permanent disobedience in the army or in the navy. Rarely will a
Secretary of the Treasury propose an expenditure for which there is
not a sufficient revenue, or a system of taxation that provides no
returns. Placed where full information can be procured, daily
advised of every details, surrounded by skillful counselors and
expert clerks, the chiefs of the majority, who thus become heads of
the administration, immediately drop theory for practice; and the
fumes of political speculation must be pretty dense in their minds
if they exclude the multiplied rays of light which experience
constantly sheds upon them. Let the most stubborn of theorists
take his stand at the helm of a ship, and, whatever be the obstinacy
of his principles or his prejudices, he will never, unless he is
blind or led by the blind, persist in steering always to the right
or always to the left. Just so after the flight to Varennes, when
the Assembly, in full possession of the executive power, directly
controls the Ministry, it comes to recognize for itself that its
constitutional machine will not work, except in the way of
destruction; and it is the principal revolutionaries, Barnave,
Duport, the Lameths, Chapelier, and Thouret,[47] who undertake to
make alterations in the mechanisms so as to lessen its friction.
But this source of knowledge and reason, however, to which they are
momentarily induced to draw, in spite of themselves and too late,
has been turned off by themselves from the very beginning. On the
6th of November, 1789, in deference to principle and in dread of
corruption, the Assembly had declared that none of its members
should hold ministerial office. We see it in consequence deprived
of all the instruction which comes from direct contact with affairs,
surrendered without any counterpoise to the seductions of theory,
reduced by its own decision to become a mere academy of legislation
only.
Nay, still worse, through another effect of the same error, it
condemns itself by its own act to constant fits of panic. For,
having allowed the power which it was not willing to assume to slip
into indifferent or suspect hands, it is always uneasy, and all its
decrees bear an uniform stamp, not only of the willful ignorance
within which it confines itself, but also of the exaggerated or
chimerical fears in which its life is passed. - Imagine a ship
conveying a company of lawyers, literary men, and other passengers,
who, supported by a mutinous and poorly fed crew, take full command,
but refuse to select one of their own number for a pilot or for the
officer of the watch. The former captain continues to nominate
them; through very shame, and because he is a good sort of man, his
title is left to him, and he is retained for the transmission of
orders. If these orders are absurd, so much the worse for him; if
he resists them, a fresh mutiny forces him to yield; and even when
they cannot be executed, he has to answer for their being carried
out. In the meantime, in a room between decks, far away from the
helm and the compass, our club of amateurs discuss the equilibrium
of floating bodies, decree a new system of navigation, have the
ballast thrown overboard, crowd on all sail, and are astonished to
find that the ship heels over on its side. The officer of the
watch and the pilot must, evidently, have managed the maneuver
badly. They are accordingly dismissed and others put in their
place, while the ship heels over farther yet and begins to leak in
every joint. Enough: it is the fault of the captain and the old
staff of officers, They are not well-disposed; for a beautiful
system of navigation like this ought to work well; and if it fails
to do so, it is because some one interferes with it. It is
positively certain that some of those people belonging to the former
régime must be traitors, who would rather have the ship go down than
submit; they are public enemies and monsters. They must be seized,
disarmed, put under surveillance, and punished. - Such is the
reasoning of the Assembly. Evidently, to reassure it, a message
from the Minister of the Interior chosen by the Assembly, to the
lieutenant of police whom he had appointed, to come to his office
every morning, would be all that was necessary. But it is deprived
of this simple resource by its own act, and has no other expedient
than to appoint a committee of investigation to discover crimes of
"treason against the nation."[48] What could be more vague than
such a term? What could be more mischievous than such an
institution? -- Renewed every month, deprived of special agents,
composed of credulous and inexperienced deputies, this committee,
set to perform the work of a Lenoir or a Fouché, makes up for its
incapacity by violence, and its proceedings anticipate those of the
Jacobine inquisition.[49] Alarmist and suspicious, it encourages
accusations, and, for lack of plots to discover, it invents them.
Inclinations, in its eyes, stand for actions, and floating projects
become accomplished outrages. On the denunciation of a domestic
who has listened at a door, on the gossip of a washerwoman who has
found a scrap of paper in a dressing-gown, on the false
interpretation of a letter, on vague indications which it completes
and patches together by the strength of its imagination, it forges a
coup d'état, makes examinations, domiciliary visits, nocturnal
surprises and arrests;[50] it exaggerates, blackens, and comes in
public session to denounce the whole affair to the National
Assembly. First comes the plot of the Breton nobles to deliver
Brest to the English;[51] then the plot for hiring brigands to
destroy the crops; then the plot of 14th of July to burn Paris; then
the plot of Favras to murder Lafayette, Necker, and Bailly; then the
plot of Augeard to carry off the King, and many others, week after
week, not counting those which swarm in the brains of the
journalists, and which Desmoulins, Fréron, and Marat reveal with a
flourish of trumpets in each of their publications.
"All these alarms are cried daily in the streets like cabbages and
turnips, the good people of Paris inhaling them along with the
pestilential vapors of our mud."[52]
..............Now, in this aspect, as well as in a good many others, the
Assembly is the people; satisfied that it is in danger,[53] it makes
laws as the former make their insurrections, and protects itself by
strokes of legislation as the former protects itself by blows with
pikes. Failing to take hold of the motor spring by which it might
direct the government machine, it distrusts all the old and all the
new wheels. The old ones seem to it an obstacle, and, instead of
utilizing them, it breaks them one by one -- parliaments, provincial
states, religious orders, the church, the nobles, and royalty. The
new ones are suspicious, and instead of harmonizing them, it puts
them out of gear in advance -- the executive power, administrative
powers, judicial powers, the police, the gendarmerie, and the
army.[54] Thanks to these precautions it is impossible for any of
them to be turned against itself; but, also, thanks to these
precautions, none of them can perform their functions.[55]
In building, as well as in destroying, the Assembly had two bad
counselors, on the one hand fear, on the other hand theory; and on
the ruins of the old machine which it had demolished without
discernment, the new machine, which it has constructed without
forecast, will work only to its own ruin.
__________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Arthur Young, June 15, 1789. - Bailly, passim, -- Moniteur,
IV. 522 (June 2, 1790). - Mercure de France (Feb. 11 1792).
[2] Moniteur, v. 631 (Sep. 12, 1790), and September 8th (what is
said by the Abbé Maury). - Marmontel, book XIII. 237. -
Malouet, I. 261. - Bailly, I. 227.
[3] Sir Samuel Romilly, "Mémoires," I. 102, 354. - Dumont, 158.
(The official rules bear are dated July 29, 1789.)
[4] Cf. Ferrières, I. 3. His repentance is affecting.
[5] Letter from Morris to Washington, January 24, 1790 See page 382,
"A diary of the French revolution", Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn.
1972. - Dumont 125 - Garat, letter to Condorcet.
[6] Arthur Young, I. 46. "Tame and elegant, uninteresting and
polite, the mingled mass of communicated ideas has power neither to
offend nor instruct. . . . . All vigor of thought seems excluded
from expression. . . . . Where there is much polish of character
there is little argument." -- Cabinet des Estampes. See
engravings of the day by Moreau, Prieur, Monet, representing the
opening of the States-General. All the figures have a graceful,
elegant, and genteel air.
[7] Marmontel, book XIII. 237. - Malouet, I. 261. - Ferrières, I.
19.
[8] Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790. - Likewise (De Ferrières,
I.71) the decree on the abolition of nobility was not the order of
the day, and was carried by surprise.
[9] Ferrières, I. 189. - Dumont, 146.
[10] Letter of Mirabeau to Sieyès, June 11, 1790. "Our nation of
monkeys with the throats of parrots." -- Dumont, 146. "Sieyès and
Mirabeau always entertained a contemptible opinion of the
Constituent Assembly."
[11] Moniteur, I, 256, 431 (July 16 and 31, 1789). - Journal des
Débats et Décrets, 105, July 16th "A member demands that M. de Lally
should put his speech in writing. "The whole Assembly has repeated
this request."
[12] Moniteur. (March 11, 1790). "A nun of St. Mandé, brought to the
bar of the house, thanks the Assembly for the decree by which the
cloisters are opened, and denounces the tricks, intrigues, and even
violence exercised in the convents to prevent the execution of the
decree." -- Ibid. March 29, 1790. See the various addresses which
are read. " At Lagnon, the mother of a family assembled her ten
children, and swore with them and for them to be loyal to the nation
and to the King." -- Ibid. June 5, 1790. "M. Chambroud reads the
letter of the collector of customs of Lannion, in Brittany, to a
priest, a member of the National Assembly. He implores his
influence to secure the acceptance of his civic oath and that of all
his family, ready to wield either the censer, the cart, the scales,
the sword, or the pen. On reading a number of these addresses the
Assembly appears to be a supplement of the Petites Affiches (a small
advertising journal in Paris).
[13] Moniteur, October 23, 1789.
[14] A well-known writer of children's stories.-[Tr.]
[15] Ferrières, II. 65 (June 10,1790). - De Montlosier, I.
402. "One of these puppets came the following day to get his money
of the Comte de Billancourt, mistaking him for the Duc de Liancourt.
'Monsieur,' says he, 'I am the man who played the Chaldean
yesterday.'
[16] Buchez and Roux, X. 118 (June 16, 1791).
[17] See the printed list of deputies, with the indication of their
baillage or sénéchaussée, quality, condition, and profession.
[18] De Bouillé, 75. - When the King first saw the list of the
deputies, he exclaimed," What would the nation have said if I had
made up my council or the Notables in this way?" (Buchez and Roux,
IV. 39.)
[19] Gouverneur Morris, July 31, 1789.
[20] Gouverneur Morris, February 25, 1789. - Lafayette,
"Mémoires," V. 492. Letter of Jefferson, February 14, 1815. -
Arthur Young, June 27 and 29, 1789.
[21] Morris, July 1, 1789.
[22] Morris, July 4, 1789.
[23] Mallet du Pan, Mercure, September 26, 1789.
[24] Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790; November 22, 1790.
[25] Dumont, 33, 58, 62.
[26] Sir Samuel. Romilly, "Mémoirs," I. 102. "It was their
constant course first, decree the principle and leave the drawing up
of what they had so resolved (or, as they called it, la rédaction)
for later. It is astonishing how great an influence it had on
their debates and measures. - Ibid. I. 354. Letter by
Dumont, June 2, 1789. "They prefer their own folly to all the
results of British experience. They revolt at the idea of
borrowing anything from our government, which is scoffed at here as
one of the iniquities of human reason; although they admit that you
have two or three good laws; but that you should presume to have a
constitution is not to be sustained."
[27] Dumont, 138, 151.
[28] Morris, January 24, 1790.
[29] Marmontel, XII. 265. - Ferrières, . I. 48¸ II. 50,
58, 126. - Dumont, 74.
[30] Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790. - According to Ferrières
this party comprised about three hundred members.
[31] Here Ambassador Morris describes the kind of man who should
form the backbone of all later revolutions whether communist or
fascist ones. (SR.)
[32] Dumont, 33, 58, 62.
[33] De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées Provinciales," 384.
Deliberations of the States of Dauphiny, drawn up by Mournier and
signed by two hundred gentlemen (July, 1788). "The rights of man
are derived from nature alone, and are independent of human
conventions.
[34] Report by Merlin de Douai, February 8, 1790, p.2. -- Malouet,
II, 51.
[35] Dumont, 133. - De Montlosier, I, 355, 361.
[36] Bertrand de Molleville, II. 221 (according to a police
report). - Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution," I. 215.
(Report of the agent Dutard, May 13, 1793) -- Lacretelle, "Dix Ans
d'Epreuves," p.35. "It was about midnight when we went out in the
rain, sleet, and snow, in the piercing cold, to the church of the
Feuillants, to secure places for the galleries of the Assembly,
which we were not to occupy till noon on the following day. We
were obliged, moreover, to contend for them with a crowd animated by
passions, and even by interests, very different from our own. We
were not long in perceiving that a considerable part of the
galleries was under pay, and that the scenes of cruelty which gave
pain to us were joy to them. I cannot express the horror I felt on
hearing those women, since called tricoteuses, take a delight in the
already homicidal doctrines of Robespierre, enjoying his sharp voice
and feasting their eyes on his ugly face, the living type of envy."
(The first months of 1790.)
[37] Moniteur, V. 237 (July 26, 1790); V. 594. (September 8,
1790); V. 631 (September 12, 1790); VI. 310 (October 6, 1790).
(Letter of the Abbé Peretti.)
[38] De Ferrières, II. 75. - Moniteur, VI. 373 (September 6,
1790). - M. de Virieu. "Those who insult certain members and
hinder the freedom of debate by hooting or applause must be
silenced. Is it the three hundred spectators who are to be our
judges, or the nation?" M. Chasset, President: "Monsieur opinionist,
I call you to order. You speak of hindrances to a free vote; there
has never been anything of the kind in this Assembly."
[39] Sauzay, I 140. Letter of M. Lompré, liberal deputy, to M.
Séguin, chanoine (towards the end of November, 1789). "The service
becomes more difficult every day; we have become objects of popular
fury, and, when no other resource was left to us to avoid the
tempest but to get rid of the endowments of the clergy, we yielded
to force. It had become a pressing necessity, and I should have
been sorry to have had you still here, exposed to the outrages and
violence with which I have been repeatedly threatened."
[40] Mercure de France, Nos. of January 15, 1791; October 2, 1790;
May 14,1791.-- Buchez and Roux, V. 343 (April 13, 1790); VII. 76
(September 2, 1790); X. 225 ( June 21, 1791). - De Montlosier,
I. 357. - Moniteur, IV, 427.
[41] Archives of the Police, exposed by the Committee of the
district of Saint-Roch. Judgment of the Police Tribunal, May 15,
1790.
[42] Malouet, II. 68. - De Montlosier, II. 217, 257 (Speech of
M. Lavie, September 18, 1791).
[43] I.e. members of the old local parlements.
[44] Mercure, October 1, 1791. (Article by Mallet du Pan.)
[45] Malouet II. 66. "Those only who were not intimidated by
insults or threats, nor by actual blows, could come forward as
opponents."
[46] Buchez and Roux, X. 432, 465.
[47] Malouet, II, 153.
[48] Decrees of July 23rd and 28th, 1789. - "Archives Nationales."
Papers of Committee of Investigation, passim. Among other affairs
see that of Madame de Persan (Moniteur, V. 611, sitting of September
9, 1790), and that of Malouet ("Mémoires II. 12).
[49] Buchez and Roux, IV. 56 (Report of Garan de Coulon); V. 49
(Decision of the Committee of Investigation, December 28, 1789).
[50] The arrests of M. de Riolles, M. de Bussy, etc., of Madame de
Jumilhac, of two other ladies, one at Bar-le-Duc and the other of
Nancy, etc.
[51] Sitting of July 28, 1789, the speeches of Duport and Rewbell,
etc. - Mercure, No. of January 1, 1791 (article by Mallet du
Pan). - Buchez and Roux, V. 146l "Behold five or six successive
conspiracies -- that of the sacks of flour, that of the sacks of
money, etc. (Article by Camille Desmoulins.)
[52] "Archives de la Préfecture de Police." Extract from the
registers of the deliberations of the Conseil-Général of the
district of Saint-Roch, October 10 1789: Arrête: to request all the
men in the commune to devote themselves, with all the prudence,
activity, and force of which they are capable, to the discovery,
exposure, and publication of the horrible plots and infernal
treachery which are constantly meditated against the inhabitants of
the capital; to denounce to the public the authors, abettors, and
adherents of the said plots, whatever their rank may be; to secure
their persons and insure their punishment with all the rigor which
outrages of this kind call for." The commandant of the battalion and
the district captains come daily to consult with the committee.
"While the alarm lasts, the first story of each house is to be
lighted with lamps during the night: all citizens of the district
are requested to be at home by ten o'clock in the evening at the
latest, unless they should be on duty. . . . All citizens are
invited to communicate whatever they may learn or discover in
relation to the abominable plots which are secretly going on in the
capital."
[53] Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31, 1790 ("Actes des Apôtres,"
V. 56). "During these two nights (July 13th and 14th, 1789) that we
remained in session I heard one deputy try to get it believed that
an artillery corps had been ordered to point its guns against our
hall; another, that it was undermined, and that it was to be blown
up; another went so far as to declare that he smelt powder, upon
which M. le Comte de Virieu replied that power had no odor until it
was burnt."
[54] Dumont, 351. "Each constitutional law was a party triumph."
[55] Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceed to
weaken a nation prior to their take-over.(SR.)
CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.
I.
Two principal vices of the ancient régime. - Two principal reforms
proposed by the King and the privileged classes. - They suffice for
actual needs. - Impracticable if carried further.
In the structure of the old society there were two fundamental vices
which called for two reforms of corresponding importance.[1]
In the first place, those who were privileged having ceased to
render the services for which the advantages they enjoyed
constituted their compensation and their privileges were no longer
anything but a gratuitous charge imposed on one portion of the
nation for the benefit of the other. Hence the necessity for
suppressing them.
In the second place, the Government, being absolute, made use of
public resources as if they were its own private property,
arbitrarily and wastefully;[2] it was therefore necessary to impose
upon it some effective and regular restraints.
To render all citizens equal before taxation, to put the purse of
the tax-payers into the hands of their representatives, such was the
twofold operation to be carried out in 1789; and the privileged
class as well as the King willingly lent themselves to it. Not
only, in this respect, were the memorials of nobles and clergy in
perfect harmony, but the monarch himself; in his declaration of the
23rd of June, 1789, decreed the two articles. Henceforth, every tax
or loan was to obtain the consent of the States-General; this
consent was to be renewed at each new meeting of the States; the
public estimates were to be annually published, discussed,
specified, apportioned, voted on and verified by the States; there
were to be no arbitrary assessments or use of public funds;
allowances were to be specially assigned for all separate services,
the household of the King included. In each province or district-
general, there was to be an elected Provincial Assembly, one-half
composed of ecclesiastics and nobles, and the other half of members
of the Third-Estate, to apportion general taxes, to manage local
affairs, to decree and direct public works, to administer hospitals,
prisons, workhouses, and to continue its function, in the interval
of the sessions, through an intermediary commission chosen by
itself; so that, besides the principal control of the center, there
were to be thirty subordinate controlling powers at the extremities.
There was to be no more exemption or distinction in the matter of
taxation; the roadtax (covée) was to be abolished, also the right of
franc-fief[3] imposed on plebeians; the rights of mortmain,[4]
subject to indemnity, and internal customs duties. There was to be
a reduction of the captaincies, a modification of the salt-tax and
of the excise, the transformation of civil justice, too costly for
the poor, and of criminal justice, too severe for the humbler
classes. Here we have, besides the principal reform, equalization
of taxes; the beginning and inducement of the more complete
operation which is to strike off the last of the feudal manacles.
Moreover; six weeks later, on the 4th of August; the privileged, in
an outburst of generosity, come forward of their own accord to cut
off or undo the whole of them. This double reform thus encountered
no obstacles, and, as Arthur Young reported to his friends, it
merely required one vote to have it adopted.[5]
This was enough; for all real necessities were now satisfied. On
the one hand, through the abolition of privileges in the matter of
taxation, the burden of the peasant and, in general, on the small
tax-payer was diminished one-half, and perhaps two thirds; instead
of paying fifty-three francs on one hundred francs of net income, he
paid no more than twenty-five or even sixteen;[6] an enormous
relief, and one which, with the proposed revision of the excise and
salt duties, made a complete change in his condition. Add to this
the gradual redemption of ecclesiastical and feudal dues: and after
twenty years the peasant, already proprietor of a fifth of the soil,
would, without the violent events of the Revolution, in any case
have attained the same degree of independence and well-being which
he was to achieve by passing through it. On the other hand, through
the annual vote on the taxes, not only were waste and arbitrariness
in the employment of the public funds put a stop to, but also the
foundations of the parliamentary system of government were laid:
whoever holds the purse-strings is, or becomes, master of the rest;
henceforth in the maintenance or establishment of any service, the
assent of the States was to be necessary. Now, in the three
Chambers which the three orders were thenceforward to form, there
were two in which the plebeians predominated. Public opinion,
moreover, was on their side, while the King, the true constitutional
monarch, far from possessing the imperious inflexibility of a
despot, did not now possess the initiative of an ordinary person.
Thus the preponderance fell to the communes, and they could legally,
without any collision, execute multiply, and complete, with the aid
of the prince and through him, all useful reforms.[7] -- This was
enough; for human society, like a living body, is seized with
convulsions when it is subjected to operations on too great a scale,
and these, although restricted, were probably all that France in
1789 could endure. To equitably reorganize afresh the whole system
of direct and indirect taxation; to revise, recast, and transfer to
the frontiers the customs-tariffs; to suppress, through negotiations
and with indemnity, feudal and ecclesiastical claims, was an
operation of the greatest magnitude, and as complex as it was
delicate. Things could be satisfactorily arranged only through
minute inquiries, verified calculations, prolonged essays, and
mutual concessions. In England, in our day, a quarter of a century
has been required to bring about a lesser reform, the transformation
of tithes and manorial-rights; and time likewise was necessary for
our Assemblies to perfect their political education,[8] to get of
their theories, to learn, by contact with practical business, and in
the study of details, the distance which separates speculation from
practice; to discover that a new system of institutions works well
only through a new system of habits, and that to decree a new system
of habits is tantamount to attempting to build an old house. --
Such, however, is the work they undertake. They reject the King's
proposals, the limited reforms, the gradual transformations.
According to them, it is their right and their duty to re-make
society from top to bottom. Such is the command of pure reason,
which has discovered the Rights of Man and the conditions of the
Social Contract.
II
Nature of societies, and the principle of enduring constitutions.
Apply the Social Contract, if you like, but apply it only to those
for whom it was drawn up. These were abstract beings, belonging
neither to a period nor to a country, perfect creatures hatched out
under the magic wand of a metaphysician. They had as a matter of
fact come into existence by removing all the characteristics which
distinguish one man from another,[9] a Frenchman from a Papuan, a
modern Englishman from a Briton in the time of Caesar, and by
retaining only the part which is common to all.[10] The essence thus
obtained is a prodigiously meager one, an infinitely curtailed
extract of human nature, that is, in the phraseology of the day,
"A BEING WITH A DESIRE TO BE HAPPY AND THE FACULTY OF REASONING,"
nothing more and nothing else. After this pattern several million
individuals, all precisely alike, have been prepared while, through
a second simplification, as extraordinary as the first one, they are
all supposed to be free and all equal, without a past, without
kindred, without responsibility, without traditions, without
customs, like so many mathematical units, all separable and all
equivalent, and then it is imagined that, assembled together for the
first time, these proceed to make their primitive bargain. From the
nature they are supposed to possess and the situation in which they
are placed, no difficulty is found in deducing their interests,
their wills, and the contract between them. But if this contract
suits them, it does not follow that it suits others. On the
contrary, if follows that is does not suit others; the inconvenience
becomes extreme on its being imposed on a living society; the
measure of that inconvenience will be the immensity of the distance
which divides a hollow abstraction, a philosophical phantom, an
empty insubstantial image from the real and complete man.
In any event we are not here considering a specimen, so reduced and
mutilated as to be only an outline of a human being; no, we are to
the contrary considering Frenchmen of the year 1789. It is for them
alone that the constitution is being made: it is therefore they
alone who should be considered; they are manifestly men of a
particular species, having their peculiar temperament, their special
aptitudes, their own inclinations, their religion, their history,
all adding up into a mental and moral structure, hereditary and
deeply rooted, bequeathed to them by the indigenous stock, and to
which every great event, each political or literary phase for twenty
centuries, has added a growth, a transformation or a custom. It is
like some tree of a unique species whose trunk, thickened by age,
preserves in its annual rings and in its knots, branches, and
curvatures, the deposits which its sap has made and the imprint of
the innumerable seasons through which it has passed. Using the
philosophic definition, so vague and trite, to such an organism, is
only a puerile label teaching us nothing. -- And all the more
because extreme diversities and inequalities show themselves on this
exceedingly elaborate and complicated background, -- those of age,
education, faith, class and fortune; and these must be taken into
account, for these contribute to the formation of interests,
passions, and dispositions. To take only the most important of
these, it is clear that, according to the average of human life,[11]
one-half of the population is composed of children, and, besides
this, one-half of the adults are women. In every twenty inhabitants
eighteen are Catholic, of whom sixteen are believers, at least
through habit and tradition. Twenty-five out of twenty-six millions
of Frenchmen cannot read, one million at the most being able to do
so; and in political matters only five or six hundred are competent.
As to the condition of each class, its ideas, its sentiments, its
kind and degree of culture, we should have to devote a large volume
to a mere sketch of them.
There is still another feature and the most important of all. These
men who are so different from each other are far from being
independent, or from contracting together for the first time. They
and their ancestors for eight hundred years form a national body,
and it is because they belong to this body that they live, multiply,
labor, make acquisitions, become enlightened and civilized, and
accumulate the vast heritage of comforts and intelligence which they
now enjoy. Each in this community is like the cell of an organized
body; undoubtedly the body is only an accumulation of cells, but the
cell is born, subsists, develops and attains its individual ends
only be the healthy condition of the whole body. Its chief
interest, accordingly, is the prosperity of the whole organism, and
the fundamental requirement of all the little fragmentary lives,
whether they know it or not, is the conservation of the great total
life in which they are comprised as musical notes in a concert. --
Not only is this a necessity for them, but it is also a duty. We
are all born with a debt to our country, and this debt increases
while we grow up; it is with the assistance of our country, under
the protection of the law, upheld by the authorities, that our
ancestors and parents have given us life, property, and education.
Each person's faculties, ideas, attitudes, his or her entire moral
and physical being are the products to which the community has
contributed, directly or indirectly, at least as tutor and guardian.
By virtue of this the state is his creditor, just as a destitute
father is of his able-bodied son; it can lay claim to nourishment,
services, and, in all the force or resources of which he disposes,
it deservedly demands a share. -- This he knows and feels, the
notion of country is deeply implanted within him, and when occasion
calls for it, it will show itself in ardent emotions, fueling steady
sacrifice and heroic effort. -- Such are veritable Frenchmen, and
we at once see how different they are from the simple,
indistinguishable, detached monads which the philosophers insist on
substituting for them. Their association need not be created, for
it already exists; for eight centuries they have a "common weal "
(la chose publique). The safety and prosperity of this common weal
is at once their interest, their need, their duty, and even their
most secret wish. If it is possible to speak here of a contract,
their quasi-contract is made and settled for them beforehand. The
first article, at all events, is stipulated for, and this overrides
all the others. The nation must not be dissolved. Public
authorities must, accordingly, exist, and these must be respected.
If there are a number of these, they must be so defined and so
balanced as to be of mutual assistance, instead of neutralizing each
other by their opposition. Whatever government is adopted, it must
place matters in the hands best qualified to conduct them. The law
must not exist for the advantage of the minority, nor for that of
the majority, but for the entire community. -- In regard to this
first article no one must derogate from it, neither the minority nor
the majority, neither the Assembly elected by the nation, nor the
nation itself, even if unanimous. It has no right arbitrarily to
dispose of the common weal, to put it in peril according to its
caprice, to subordinate it to the application of a theory or to the
interest of a single class, even if this class is the most numerous.
For, that which is the common weal does not belong to it, but to the
whole community, past, present, and to come. Each generation is
simply the temporary manager and responsible trustee of a precious
and glorious patrimony which it has received from the former
generation, and which it has to transmit to the one that comes after
it. In this perpetual endowment, to which all Frenchmen from the
first days of France have brought their offerings, there is no doubt
about the intentions of countless benefactors; they have made their
gifts conditionally, that is, on the condition that the endowment
should remain intact, and that each successive beneficiary should
merely serve as the administrator of it. Should any of the
beneficiaries, through presumption or levity, through rashness or
one-sidedness, compromise the charge entrusted to them, they wrong
all their predecessors whose sacrifices they invalidate, and all
their successors whose hopes they frustrate. Accordingly, before
undertaking to frame a constitution, let the whole community be
considered in its entirety, not merely in the present but in the
future, as far as the eye can reach. The interest of the public,
viewed in this far-sighted manner, is the end to which all the rest
must be subordinate, and for which a constitution provides. A
constitution, whether oligarchic, monarchist, or aristocratic, is
simply an instrument, good if it attains this end, and bad if it
does not attain it, and which, to attain it, must, like every
species of mechanism, vary according to the ground, materials, and
circumstances. The most ingenious is illegitimate if it dissolves
the State, while the clumsiest is legitimate if it keeps the State
intact. There is none that springs out of an anterior, universal,
and absolute right. According to the people, the epoch, and the
degree of civilization, according to the outer or inner condition of
things, all civil or political equality or inequality may, in turn,
be or cease to be beneficial or hurtful, and therefore justify the
legislator in removing or preserving it. It is according to this
superior and salutary law, and not according to an imaginary and
impossible contract, that he is to organize, limit, delegate and
distribute from the center to the extremities, through inheritance
or through election, through equalization or through privilege, the
rights of the citizen and the power of the community.
III.
The estates of a society. - Political aptitude of the aristocracy.
- Its disposition in 1789. - Special services which it might have
rendered. - The principle of the Assembly as to original equality.
- Rejection of an Upper Chamber. - The feudal rights of the
aristocracy. - How far and why they were worthy of respect. - How
they should have been transformed. - Principle of the Assembly as
to original liberty. - Distinction established by it in feudal
dues; application of its principle. - The lacunae of its law. -
Difficulties of redemption. - Actual abolition of all feudal liens.
- Abolition of titles and territorial names. - Growing prejudice
against the aristocracy. - Its persecutions. - The emigration. -
Was it necessary to begin by making a clean sweep, and was it
advisable to abolish or only to reform the various orders and
corporations? -- Two prominent orders, the clergy and the nobles,
enlarged by the ennobled plebeians who had grown wealthy and
acquired titled estates, formed a privileged aristocracy side by
side with the Government, whose favors it might receive on the
condition of seeking them assiduously and with due acknowledgment,
privileged on its own domains, and taking advantage there of all
rights belonging to the feudal chieftain without performing his
duties. This abuse was evidently an enormous one and had to be
ended. But, it did not follow that, because the position of the
privileged class on their domains and in connection with the
Government was open to abuse, they should be deprived of protection
for person and property on their domains, and of influence and
occupation under the Government. -- A favored aristocracy, when it
is unoccupied and renders none of the services which its rank admits
of, when it monopolizes all honors, offices, promotions,
preferences, and pensions,[12] to the detriment of others not less
needy and deserving, is undoubtedly a serious evil. But when an
aristocracy is subject to the common law, when it is occupied,
especially when its occupation is in conformity with its aptitudes,
and more particularly when it is available for the formation of an
upper elective chamber or an hereditary peerage, it is a vast
service. -- In any case it cannot be irreversibly suppressed; for,
although it may be abolished by law, it is reconstituted by facts.
The legislator must necessarily choose between two systems, that
which lets it lie fallow, or that which enables it to be productive,
that which drives it away from, or that which rallies it round, the
public service. In every society which has lived for any length of
time, a nucleus of families always exists whose fortunes and
importance are of ancient date. Even when, as in France in 1789,
this class seems to be exclusive, each half century introduces into
it new families; judges, governors, rich businessmen or bankers who
have risen to the tope of the social ladder through the wealth they
have acquired or through the important offices they have filled; and
here, in the medium thus constituted, the statesman and wise
counselor of the people, the independent and able politician is most
naturally developed. - Because, on the one hand, thanks to his
fortune and his rank, a man of this class is above all vulgar
ambitions and temptations. He is able to serve gratis; he is not
obliged to concern himself about money or about providing for his
family and making his way in the world. A political mission is no
interruption to his career; he is not obliged, like the engineer,
merchant, or physician, to sacrifice either his business, his
advancement, or his clients. He can resign his post without injury
to himself or to those dependent on him, follow his own convictions,
resist the noisy deleterious opinions of the day, and be the loyal
servant, not the low flatterer of the public. Whilst, consequently,
in the inferior or average conditions of life, the incentive is
self-interest, with him the grand motive is pride. Now, amongst the
deeper feelings of man there is none which is more adapted for
transformation into probity, patriotism, and conscientiousness; for
the first requisite of the high-spirited man is self-respect, and,
to obtain that, he is induced to deserve it. Compare, from this
point of view, the gentry and nobility of England with the
"politicians" of the United States. - On the other hand, with equal
talents, a man who belongs to this sphere of life enjoys
opportunities for acquiring a better comprehension of public affairs
than a poor man of the lower classes. The information he requires
is not the erudition obtained in libraries and in private study. He
must be familiar with living men, and, besides these, with
agglomerations of men, and even more with human organizations, with
States, with Governments, with parties, with administrative systems,
at home and abroad, in full operation and on the spot. There is but
one way to reach this end, and that is to see for himself, with his
own eyes, at once in general outline and in details, by intercourse
with the heads of departments, with eminent men and specialists, in
whom are gathered up the information and the ideas of a whole class.
Now the young do not frequent society of this description, either at
home or abroad, except on the condition of possessing a name,
family, fortune, education and a knowledge of social observances.
All this is necessary to enable a young man of twenty to find doors
everywhere open to him to be received everywhere on an equal
footing, to be able to speak and to write three or four living
languages, to make long, expensive, and instructive sojourns in
foreign lands, to select and vary his position in the different
branches of the public service, without pay or nearly so, and with
no object in view but that of his political culture Thus brought up
a man, even of common capacity, is worthy of being consulted. If he
is of superior ability, and there is employment for him, he may
become a statesman before thirty; he may acquire ripe capacities,
become prime Minister, the sole pilot, alone able, like Pitt,
Canning, or Peel, to steer the ship of State between the reefs, or
give in the nick of time the touch to the helm which will save the
ship. -- Such is the service to which an upper class is adapted.
Only this kind of specialized stud farm can furnish a regular supply
of racers, and, now and then, the favorite winner that distances all
his competitors in the European field.
But in order that they may prepare and educate themselves for this
career, the way must be clear, and they must not be compelled to
travel too repulsive a road. If rank, inherited fortune, personal
dignity, and refined manners are sources of disfavor with the
people; if, to obtain their votes, he is forced to treat as equals
electoral brokers of low character; if impudent charlatanism, vulgar
declamation, and servile flattery are the sole means by which votes
can be secured, then, as nowadays in the United States, and formerly
in Athens, the aristocratic body will retire into private life and
soon settle down into a state of idleness. A man of culture and
refinement, born with an income of a hundred thousand a year, is not
tempted to become either manufacturer, lawyer, or physician. For
want of other occupation he loiters about, entertains his friends,
chats, indulges in the tastes and hobbies of an amateur, is bored or
enjoys himself. As a result one of society's great forces is thus
lost to the nation. In this way the best and largest acquisition of
the past, the heaviest accumulation of material and of moral
capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upper
branches of the social tree, not only the old ones but the young
ones, remain sterile. When a vigorous branch passes above the rest
and reaches the top it ceases to bear fruit. The élite of the
nation is thus condemned to constant and irremediable failures
because it cannot find a suitable outlet for its activity. It wants
no other outlet, for in all directions its rival, who are born below
it, can serve as usefully and as well as itself. But this one it
must have, for on this its aptitudes are superior, natural, unique,
and the State which refuses to employ it resembles the gardener who
in his fondness for a plane surface would repress his best
shoots.[13] -- Hence, in the constructions which aim to utilize the
permanent forces of society and yet maintain civil equality, the
aristocracy is brought to take a part in public affairs by the
duration and gratuitous character of its mission, by the institution
of an hereditary character, by the application of various machinery,
all of which is combined so as to develop the ambition, the culture,
and the political capacity of the upper class, and to place power,
or the control of power, in its hands, on the condition that it
shows itself worthy of exercising it. -- Now, in 1789, the upper
class was not unworthy of it. Members of the parliaments, the
noblemen, bishops, capitalists, were the men amongst whom, and
through whom, the philosophy of the eighteenth century was
propagated. Never was an aristocracy more liberal, more humane, and
more thoroughly converted to useful reforms;[14] many of them remain
so under the knife of the guillotine. The magistrates of the
superior tribunals, in particular, traditionally and by virtue of
their institution, were the enemies of excessive expenditure and the
critics of arbitrary acts. As to the gentry of the provinces, "they
were so weary," says one of them,[15] "of the Court and the
Ministers that most of them were democrats." For many years, in the
Provincial Assemblies, the whole of the upper class, the clergy,
nobles, and Third-Estate, furnishes abundant evidence of its good
disposition, of its application to business, its capacity and even
generosity. Its mode of studying, discussing, and assigning the
local taxation indicates what it would have done with the general
budget had this been entrusted to it. It is evident that it would
have protected the general taxpayer as zealously as the taxpayer of
the province, and kept as close an eye upon the public purse at
Paris as on that of Bourges or of Montauban. -- Thus were the
materials of a good chamber ready at hand, and the only thing that
had to be done was to convene them. On having the facts presented
to them, its members would have passed without difficulty from a
hazardous theory to common-sense practice, and the aristocracy which
had enthusiastically given an impetus to reform in its saloons
would, in all probability, have carried it out effectively and with
moderation in the Parliament.
Unhappily, the Assembly is not providing a Constitution for
contemporary Frenchmen, but for abstract beings. Instead of seeing
classes in society one placed above the other, it simply sees
individuals in juxtaposition; its attention is not fixed on the
advantage of the nation, but on the imaginary rights of man. As all
men are equal, all must have an equal share in the government.
There must be no orders in a State, no avowed or concealed political
privileges, no constitutional complications or electoral
combinations by which an aristocracy, however liberal and capable,
may put its hands upon any portion of the public power. -- On the
contrary, because it was once privileged to enjoy important and
rewarding public employment, the candidacy of the upper classes is
now suspect. All projects which, directly or indirectly, reserve or
provide a place for it, are refused: At first the Royal Declaration,
which, in conformity with historical precedents, maintained the
three orders in three distinct chambers, and only summoned them to
deliberate together "on matters of general utility." Then the plan
of the Constitutional Committee, which proposed a second Chamber,
appointed for life by the King on the nomination of the Provincial
Assemblies. And finally the project of Mounier who proposed to
confide to these same Assemblies the election of a Senate for six
years, renewed by thirds every two years. This Senate was to be
composed of men of at least thirty-five years of age, and with an
income in real property of 30,000 livres per annum. The instinct of
equality is too powerful and a second Chamber is not wanted, even if
accessible to plebeians. Through it,[16]
"The smaller number would control the greater;" ... "we should fall
back on the humiliating distinctions" of the ancient regime; "we
should revivify the germ of an aristocracy which must be
exterminated.".... "Moreover, whatever recalls or revives feudal
Institutions is bad, and an Upper Chamber is one of its remnants."
...."If the English have one, it is because they have been forced to
make a compromise with prejudice."
The National Assembly, sovereign and philosophic, soars above their
errors, their trammel; and their example. The depository of truth,
it has not to receive lessons from others, but to give them, and to
offer to the world's admiration the first type of a Constitution
which is perfect and in conformity with principle, the most
effective of any in preventing the formation of a governing class;
in closing the way to public business, not only to the old noblesse,
but to the aristocracy of the future; in continuing and exaggerating
the work of absolute monarchy; in preparing for a community of
officials and administrators; in lowering the level of humanity; in
reducing to sloth and brutalizing or blighting the elite of the
families which maintain or raise themselves; and in withering the
most precious of nurseries, that in which the State recruits its
statesmen.[17]
Excluded from the Government, the aristocracy is about to retire
into private life. Let us follow them to their estates: Feudal
rights instituted for a barbarous State are certainly a great draw-
back in a modern State. If appropriate in an epoch when property
and sovereignty were fused together, when the Government was local,
when life was militant, they form an incongruity at a time when
sovereignty and property are separated, when the Government is
centralized, when the regime is a pacific one. The bondage which,
in the tenth century, was necessary to re-established security and
agriculture, is, in the eighteenth century, purposeless thralldom
which impoverishes the soil and fetters the peasant. But, because
these ancient claims are liable to abuse and injurious at the
present day, it does not follow that they never were useful and
legitimate, nor that it is allowable to abolish them without
indemnity On the contrary, for many centuries, and, on the whole, so
long as the lord of the manor resided on his estates this primitive
contract was advantageous to both parties, and to such an extent
that it has led to the modern contract. Thanks to the pressure of
this tight bandage, the broken fragments of the community can be
again united, and society once more recover its solidity, force, and
activity. -- In any event, that the institution, like all human
institutions, took its rise in violence and was corrupted by abuses
is of little consequence; the State, for eight hundred years,
recognized these feudal claims, and, with its own consent and the
concurrence of its Courts, they were transmitted, bequeathed, sold,
mortgaged, and exchanged, like any other species of property. Only
two or three hundred, at most, now remained in the families of the
original proprietors. "The largest portion of the titled estates,"
says a contemporary,[18] "have become the property of capitalists,
merchants, and their descendants; the fiefs, for the most part,
being in the hands of the bourgeois of the towns." All the fiefs
which, during two centuries past, have been bought by new men, now
represent the economy and labor of their purchasers. -- Moreover;
whoever the actual holders may be, whether old or whether new men,
the State is under obligation to them, not only by general right --
and because, from the beginning, it is in its nature the guardian of
all property, -- but also by a special right, because it has itself
sanctioned this particular species of property. The buyers of
yesterday paid their money only under its guarantee; its signature
is affixed to the contract, and it has bound itself to secure to
them the enjoyment of it. If it prevents them from doing so, let it
make them compensation; in default of the thing promised to them, it
owes them the value of it. Such is the law in cases of
expropriation for public utility; in 1834, for instance, the
English, for the legal abolition of slavery, paid to their planters
the sum of £20,000,000. -- - But that is not sufficient: when, in
the suppression of feudal rights, the legislator's thoughts are
taken up with the creditors, he has only half performed his task;
there are two sides to the question, and he must likewise think of
the debtors. If he is not merely a lover of abstractions and of
fine phrases, if that which interests him is men and not words, if
he is bent upon the effective enfranchisement of the cultivator of
the soil, he will not rest content with proclaiming a principle,
with permitting the redemption of rents, with fixing the rate of
redemption, and, in case of dispute, with sending parties before the
tribunals. He will reflect that the peasantry, jointly responsible
for the same debt will find difficulty in agreeing among themselves;
that they are afraid of litigation; that, being ignorant, they will
not know how to set about it; that, being poor, they will be unable
to pay; and that, under the weight of discord, distrust, indigence,
and inertia, the new law will remain a dead letter, and only
exasperate their cupidity or kindle their resentment. In
anticipation of this disorder the legislator will come to their
assistance ; he will interpose commissions of arbitration between
them and the lord of the manor; he will substitute a scale of
annuities for a full and immediate redemption; he will lend them the
capital which they cannot borrow elsewhere; he will establish a
bank, rights, and a mode of procedure, -- in short, as in Savoy in
1771, in England in 1845,[19] and in Russia in 1861, he will relieve
the poor without despoiling the rich; he will establish liberty
without violating the rights of property; he will conciliate
interests and classes; he will not let loose a brutal peasant revolt
(Jacquerie) to enforce unjust confiscation; and he will terminate
the social conflict not with strife but with peace.
It is just the reverse in 1789 In conformity with the doctrine of
the social contract, the principle is set up that every man is born
free, and that his freedom has always been inalienable. If he
formerly submitted to slavery or to serfdom, it was owing to his
having had a knife at his throat; a contract of this sort is
essentially null and void. So much the worse for those who have the
benefit of it at the present day; they are holders of stolen
property, and must restore it to the legitimate owners. Let no one
object that this property was acquired for cash down, and in good
faith; they ought to have known beforehand that man and his liberty
are not commercial matters, and that unjust acquisitions rightly
perish in their hands.[20] Nobody dreams that the State which was a
party to this transaction is the responsible guarantor. Only one
scruple affects the Assembly ; its jurists and Merlin, its reporter,
are obliged to yield to proof; they know that in current practice,
and by innumerable ancient and modern titles, the noble in many
cases is nothing but an ordinary lessor, and that if, in those
cases, he collects his dues, it is simply in his capacity as a
private person, by virtue of a mutual contract, because he has given
a perpetual lease of a certain portion of his land; and he has given
it only in consideration of an annual payment in money or produce,
or services, together with another contingent claim which the farmer
pays in case of the transmission of the lease. These two
obligations could not be canceled without indemnity; if it were
done, more than one-half of the proprietors in France would be
dispossessed in favor of the farmers. Hence the distinction which
the Assembly makes in the feudal dues. -- On the one hand it
abolishes without indemnity all those dues which the noble receives
by virtue of being the local sovereign, the ancient proprietor of
persons and the usurper of public. powers; all those which the
lessee paid as serf, subject to rights of inheritance, and as former
vassal or dependent. On the other hand, it maintains and decrees as
redeemable at a certain rate all those which the noble receives
through his title of landed proprietor and of simple lessor; all
those which the lessee pays by virtue of being a free contracting
party, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of landed estate.
-- By this division it fancies that it has respected lawful
ownership by overthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the
feudal scheme of obligations, it has separated the wheat from the
chaff.[21]
But, through the principle, the drawing up and the omissions of its
law, it condemns both to a common destruction; the fire on which it
has thrown the chaff necessarily burns up the wheat. -- Both are
in fact bound up together in the same sheaf. If the noble formerly
brought men under subjection by the sword, it is also by the sword
that he formerly acquired possession of the soil. If the subjection
of persons is invalid on account of the original stain of violence,
the usurpation of the soil is invalid for the same reason. And if
the sanction and guarantee of the State could not justify the first
act of brigandage, they could not justify the second; and, since the
rights which are derived from unjust sovereignty are abolished
without indemnity, the rights which are derived from unjust
proprietorship should be likewise abolished without compensation. -
- The Assembly, with remarkable imprudence, had declared in the
preamble to its law that "it abolished the feudal system entirely,"
and, whatever its ulterior reservations might be, the fiat has gone
forth. The forty thousand sovereign municipalities to which the
text of the decree is read pay attention only to the first article,
and the village attorney, imbued with the rights of man, easily
proves to these assemblies of debtors that they owe nothing to their
creditors. There must be no exceptions nor distinctions: no more
annual rents, field-rents, dues on produce, nor contingent rents,
nor lord's dues and fines, or fifths.[22] If these have been
maintained by the Assembly, it is owing to misunderstanding,
timidity, inconsistency, and on all sides, in the rural districts,
the grumbling of disappointed greed or of unsatisfied necessities is
heard:[23]
"You thought that you were destroying feudalism, while your
redemption laws have done just the contrary. . . . Are you not
aware that what was called a Seigneur was simply an unpunished
usurper? . . That detestable decree of 1790 is the ruin of lease-
holders. It has thrown the villages into a state of consternation.
The nobles reap all the advantage of it. . Never will redemption
be possible. Redemption of unreal claims! Redemption of dues that
are detestable!"
In vain the Assembly insists, specifies and explains by examples and
by detailed instructions the mode of procedure and the conditions of
redemption. Neither the procedure nor its conditions are
practicable. It has made no provisions for facilitating the
agreement of parties and the satisfaction of feudal liens, no
special arbitrators, nor bank for loans, nor system of annuities.
And worse still, instead of clearing the road it has barred it by
legal arrangements. The lease-holder is not to redeem his annual
rent without at the same time compounding for the contingent rent:
he is not allowed on his own to redeem his quota since he is tied up
in solidarity with the other partners. Should his hoard be a small
one, so much the worse for him. Not being able to redeem the whole,
he is not allowed to redeem a part. Not having the money with which
to relieve himself from both ground-rents and lord's dues he cannot
relieve himself from ground-rents. Not having the money to
liquidate the debt in full of those who are bound along with him-
self, he remains a captive in his ancient chains by virtue of the
new law which announces to him his freedom.
In the face of these unexpected trammels the peasant becomes
furious: His fixed idea, from the outbreak of the Revolution, is
that he no longer owes anything to anybody, and, among the speeches,
decrees, proclamations, and instructions which rumor brings to his
ears, he comprehends but one phrase, and is determined to comprehend
no other, and that is, that henceforth his obligations are removed.
He does not swerve from this, and since the law hinders, instead of
aiding him, he will break the law. In fact, after the 4th of
August, 1789, feudal dues cease to be collected. The claims which
are maintained are not enforced any more than those which are
suppressed. Whole communities come and give notice to the lord of
the manor that they will not pay any more rent. Others, with sword
in hand, compel him to give them acquittances. Others again, to be
more secure, break open his safe, and throw his title-deeds into the
fire.[24] Public force is nowhere strong enough to protect him in
his legal rights. Officers dare not serve writs, the courts dare
not give judgment, administrative bodies dare not decree in his
favor. He is despoiled through the connivance, the neglect, or the
impotence of all the authorities which ought to defend him. He is
abandoned to the peasants who fell his forests, under the pretext
that they formerly belonged to the commune; who take possession of
his mill, his wine-press, and his oven, under the pretext that
territorial privileges are suppressed.[25] Most of the gentry of the
provinces are ruined, without any resource, and have not even their
daily bread; for their income consisted in seignorial rights, and in
rents derived from their real property, which they had let on
perpetual leases, and now, in accordance with the law, one-half of
this income ceases to be paid, while the other half ceases to be
paid in spite of the law. One hundred and twenty-three millions of
revenue, representing two thousand millions and a half of capital in
the money of that time, double, at least, that of the present day,
thus passes as a gift, or through the toleration of the National
Assembly, from the hands of creditors into those of their debtors.
To this must be added an equal sum for revenue and capital arising
from the tithes which are suppressed without compensation, and by
the same stroke. -- This is the commencement of the great
revolutionary operation, that is to say, of the universal bankruptcy
which, directly or indirectly, is to destroy all contracts, and
abolish all debts in France. Violations of property, especially of
private property, cannot be made with impunity. The Assembly
desired to lop off only the feudal branch; but, in admitting that
the State can annul, without compensation, the obligations which it
has guaranteed, it put the ax to the root of the tree, and other
rougher hands are already driving it in up to the haft.
Nothing now remains to the noble but his title, his territorial
name, and his armorial bearings, which are innocent distinctions,
since they no longer confer any jurisdiction or pre-eminence upon
him, and which, as the law ceases to protect him, the first comer
may borrow with impunity. Not only, moreover, do they do no harm,
but they are even worthy of respect. With many of the nobles the
title of the estate covers the family name, the former alone being
made use of. If one were substituted for the other, the public
would have difficulty in discovering M. de Mirabeau, Lafayette, and
M. de Moutmorency, under the new names Riquetti, M. Mottié, and M.
Bouchard. Besides, it would be wrong to the bearer of it, to whom
the abolished title is a legitimate possession, often precious, it
being a certificate of quality and descent, an authentic personal
distinction of which he cannot be deprived without losing his
position, rank, and worth, in the human world around him. -- The
Assembly, however, with a popular principle at stake, gives no heed
to public utility, nor to the rights of individuals. The feudal
system being abolished, all that remains of it must be got rid of.
A decree is passed that "hereditary nobility is offensive to reason
and to true liberty;" that, where it exists, "there is no political
equality."[26] Every French citizen is forbidden to assume or retain
the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis, chevalier, and the like,
and to bear any other than the "true name of his family;" he is
prohibited from making his servants wear liveries, and from having
coats-of-arms on his house or on his carriage. In case of any
infraction of this law a penalty is inflicted upon him equal to six
times the sum of his personal taxes; he is to be struck off the
register of citizens, and declared incapable of holding any civil or
military office. There is the same punishment if to any contract or
acquittance he affixes his accustomed signature; if; through habit
or inadvertence, he adds the title of his estate to his family name
-- if; with a view to recognition, and to render his identity
certain, he merely mentions that he once bore the former name. Any
notary or public officer who shall write, or allow to be written, in
any document the word ci-devant (formerly) is to be suspended from
his functions. Not only are old names thus abolished, but an effort
is made to efface all remembrance of them. In a little while, the
childish law will become a murderous one. It will be but a little
while and, according to the terms of this same decree, a military
veteran of seventy-seven years, a loyal servant of the Republic, and
a brigadier-general under the Convention, will be arrested on
returning to his native village, because he has mechanically signed
the register of the revolutionary committee as Montperreux instead
of Vannod, and, for this infraction, he will be guillotined along
with his brother and his sister-in-law.[27]
Once on this road, it is impossible to stop; for the principles
which are proclaimed go beyond the decrees which are passed, and a
bad law introduces a worse. The Constituent Assembly[28] had
supposed that annual dues, like ground-rents, and contingent dues,
like feudal duties (lods et rentes), were the price of an ancient
concession of land, and, consequently, the proof to the contrary is
to be thrown upon the tenant. The Legislative Assembly is about to
assume that these same rentals are the result of an old feudal
usurpation, and that, consequently, the proof to the contrary must
rest with the proprietor. His rights cannot be established by
possession from time immemorial, nor by innumerable and regular
acquittances; he must produce the act of enfeoffment which is many
centuries old, the lease which has never, perhaps, been written out,
the primitive title already rare in 1720,[29] and since stolen or
burnt in the recent jacqueries: otherwise he is despoiled without
indemnity. All feudal claims are swept away by this act without
exception and without compensation.
In a similar manner, the Constituent Assembly, setting common law
aside in relation to inheritances ab intestato, had deprived all
eldest sons and males of any advantages.[30] The Convention,
suppressing the freedom of testamentary bequest, prohibits the
father from disposing of more than one-tenth of his possessions; and
again, going back to the past, it makes its decrees retrospective:
every will opened after the 14th of July, 1789, is declared invalid
if not in conformity with this decree; every succession from the
14th of June, 1789, which is administered after the same date, is
re-divided if the division has not been equal; every donation which
has been made among the heirs after the same date is void. Not only
is the feudal family destroyed in this way, but it must never be
reformed. The aristocracy, being once declared a venomous plant, it
is not sufficient to prime it away, but it must be extirpated, not
only dug up by the root, but its seed must be crushed out. -- A
malignant prejudice is aroused against it, and this grows from day
to day. The stings of self-conceit, the disappointments of
ambition, and envious sentiments have prepared the way. Its hard,
dry kernel consists of the abstract idea of equality. All around
revolutionary fervor has caused blood to flow, has embittered
tempers, intensified sensibilities, and created a painful abscess
which daily irritation renders still more painful. Through steadily
brooding over a purely speculative preference this has become a
fixed idea, and is becoming a murderous one. It is a strange
passion, one wholly of the brains, nourished by magniloquent
phrases, but the more destructive, because phantoms are created out
of words, and against phantoms no reasoning nor actual facts can
prevail. This or that shopkeeper who, up to this time, had always
formed his idea of nobles from his impressions of the members of the
Parliament of his town or of the gentry of his canton, now pictures
them according to the declamations of the club and the invectives of
the newspapers. The imaginary figure, in his mind, has gradually
absorbed the living figure: he no longer sees the calm and engaging
countenance, but a grinning and distorted mask. Kindliness or
indifference is replaced by animosity and distrust; they are
overthrown tyrants, ancient evil-doers, And enemies of the public;
he is satisfied beforehand and without further investigation that
they are hatching plots. If they avoid being caught, it is owing to
their address and perfidy, and they are only the more dangerous the
more inoffensive they appear. Their sub-mission is merely a feint,
their resignation hypocrisy, their favorable disposition, treachery.
Against these conspirators who cannot be touched the law is
inadequate; let us stretch it in practice, and as they wince at
equality let us try to make them bow beneath the yoke.
In fact, illegal persecution precedes legal prosecution ; the
privileged person who, by the late decrees, seems merely to be
brought within the pale of the common law, is, in fact; driven
outside of it. The King, disarmed, is no longer able to protect
him; the partial Assembly repels his complaints ; the committee of
inquiry regards him as a culprit when he is simply oppressed. His
income, his property, his repose, his freedom, his home, his life,
that of his wife and of his children, are in the hands of an
administration elected by the crowd, directed by clubs, and
threatened or violated by the mob. He is debarred from the
elections. The newspapers denounce him. He undergoes domiciliary
visits. In hundreds of places his chateau is sacked; the assassins
and incendiaries who depart from it with their hands full and
steeped in blood are not prosecuted, or are shielded by an
amnesty:[31] it is established by innumerable precedents that he may
be run down with impunity. To prevent him from defending himself,
companies of the National Guard come and seize his arms: he must
become a prey, and an easy prey, like game kept back in its
enclosure for an approaching hunt. -- In vain he abstains from
provocation and reduces himself to the standing of a private
individual. In vain does he patiently endure numerous provocations
and resist only extreme violence. I have read many hundreds of
investigations in the original manuscripts, and almost always I have
admired the humanity of the nobles, their forbearance, their horror
of bloodshed. Not only are a great many of them men of courage and
all men of honor, but also, educated in the philosophy of the
eighteenth century, they are mild, sensitive, and deeds of violence
are repugnant to them. Military officers especially are exemplary,
their great defect being their weakness: rather than fire on the
crowd they surrender the forts under their command, and allow
themselves to be insulted and stoned by the people. For two
years,[32] "exposed to a thousand outrages, to defamation, to daily
peril, persecuted by clubs and misguided soldiers," disobeyed,
menaced, put under arrest by their own men, they remain at their
post to prevent the ranks from being broken up; "with stoic
perseverance they put up with contempt of their authority that they
may preserve its semblance, their courage is of that rarest kind
which consists in remaining at the post of duty, impassive beneath
both affronts and blows. -- Through a wrong of the greatest
magnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors of the
Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the common
plebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege the
antechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the
nursery of the army and the fleet," the elite of the agricultural
proprietors, also many gentlemen who look after and turn to account
the little estates on which they live, and "who have not left their
homes a year in their lives," become the pariahs of their
canton.[33] After 1789, they begin to feel that their position is
no longer tenable.[34]
" It is absolutely in opposition to the rights of man," says another
letter from Franche-Comté, "to find one's self in perpetual fear of
having one's throat cut by scoundrels who are daily confounding
liberty with license."
"I never knew anything so wearying," says another letter from
Champagne, "as this anxiety about property and security. Never was
there a better reason for it. A moment suffices to let loose an
intractable population which thinks that it may do what it pleases,
and which is carefully sustained in that error"
"After the sacrifices that we have made," says a letter from
Burgundy, "we could not expect such treatment. I thought that our
property would be the last violated because the people owed us some
return for staying at home in the country to expend among them the
few resources that remain to us. . . (Now), I beg the Assembly to
repeal the decree on emigration; otherwise it may be said that
people are purposely kept here to be assassinated. . . In case it
should refuse to do us this justice, I should be quite as willing to
have it decree an act of proscription against us, for we should not
then be lulled to sleep by the protection of laws which are
doubtless very wise, but which are not respected anywhere."
" It is not our privileges," say several others, "it is not our
nobility that we regret; but how is the persecution to which we are
abandoned to be supported? There is no safety for us, for our
property, or for our families. Wretches who are our debtors, the
small farmers who rob us of our incomes, daily threaten us with the
torch and the lamp post. We do not enjoy one hour of repose; not a
night that we are certain to pass through without trouble. Our
persons are given up to the vilest outrages, our dwellings to an
inquisition of armed tyrants; we are robbed of our rentals with
impunity, and our property is openly attacked. We, being now the
only people to pay imposts, are unfairly taxed; in various places
our entire incomes would not. suffice to pay the quota which
crushes us. We can make no complaint without incurring the risk of
being massacred. The tribunals and the administrative bodies, the
tools of the multitude, daily sacrifice us to its attacks. Even the
Government seems afraid of compromising itself by claiming the
protection of the laws on our behalf. It is sufficient to be
pointed out as an aristocrat to be without any security. If our
peasants, in general, have shown more honesty, consideration, and
attachment toward us, every bourgeois of importance, the wild
members of clubs, the vilest of men who sully a uniform, consider
themselves privileged to insult us, and these wretches go unpunished
and are protected! Even our religion is not free. One of our number
has had his house sacked for having shown hospitality to an old curé
of eighty belonging to his parish who refused to take the oath.
Such is our fate. We are not so base as to endure it. Our right to
resist oppression is not due to a decree of the National Assembly,
but to natural law. We are going to leave, and to die if necessary.
But to live under such a revolting anarchy ! Should it not be broken
up we shall never set foot in France again!"
The operation is successful. The Assembly, through its decrees and
institutions, through the laws it enacts and the violence which it
tolerates, has uprooted the aristocracy and cast it out of the
country. The nobles, now the reverse of privileged, cannot remain
in a country where, while respecting the law, they are really beyond
its pale. Those who first emigrated on the 15th of July, 1789,
along with the Prince de Condé, received at their houses the evening
before they left a list of the proscribed on which their names
appeared, and a reward was promised to whoever would bring their
heads to the cellar of the Palais-Royal -- Others, in larger
numbers, left after the occurrences of the 6th of October. --
During the last months of the Constituent Assembly,[35]
"the emigration goes on in companies composed of men of every
condition. . .. Twelve hundred gentlemen have left Poitou alone;
Auvergne, Limousin, and ten other provinces have been equally
depopulated of their landowners. There are towns in which nobody
remains but common. workmen, a club, and the crowd of devouring
office-holders created by the Constitution. All the nobles in
Brittany have left, and the emigration has begun in Normandy, and is
going on in the frontier provinces.
"More than two-thirds of the army will be without officers." On
being called upon to take the new oath in which the King's name is
purposely omitted, "six thousand officers send in their
resignation."
The example gradually becomes contagious; they are men of the sword,
and their honor is at stake. Many of them join the princes at
Coblentz, and. subsequently do battle against France in the belief
that they are contending only against their executioners.
The treatment of the nobles by the Assembly is the same as the
treatment of the Protestants by Louis XIV.[36] In both cases the
oppressed are a superior class of men. In both cases France has
been made uninhabitable for them. In both cases they are reduced to
exile, and they are punished because they exiled them selves. In
both cases it ended in a confiscation of their property, and in the
penalty of death to all who should harbor them. In both cases, by
dint of persecution, they are driven to revolt. The insurrection of
La Vendée corresponds with the insurrection of the Cévennes; and the
emigrants, like the refugees of former times, will be found under.
the flags of Prussia and of England. One hundred thousand Frenchmen
driven out at the end of the seventeenth century, and one hundred
thousand driven out at the end of the eighteenth century! Mark how
an intolerant democracy completes the work of an intolerant
monarchy. The moral aristocracy was mowed down in the name of
uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed down in the name of
equality. For the second time, an absolute principle, and with the
same effect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society.
The success is complete. One of the deputies of the Legislative
Assembly, early in its session, on being informed of the great
increase in emigration, joyfully exclaims,
"SO MUCH THE BETTER; FRANCE IS BEING PURGED!"
She is, in truth, being depleted of one-half of her best blood.
IV.
Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in the ecclesiastical bodies. - How
the State used its right of overseeing and reforming them. - Social
usefulness of corporations.- The sound part in the monastic
institution. - Zeal and services of nuns. - How ecclesiastical
possessions should be employed. - Principle of the Assembly as to
private communities, feudal rights and trust-funds. - Abolition and
expropriation all corporations. - Uncompensated suppression of
tithes.- Confiscation of ecclesiastical possessions. - Effect on
the Treasury and on expropriated services. -The civil constitution
of the clergy.- Rights of the Church in relation to the State. -
Certainty and effects of a conflict. - Priests considered as State-
functionaries.- Principal stipulations of the law. - Obligations of
the oath. - The majority of priests refuse to take it. - The
majority of believes on their side. - Persecution of believers and
of priests.
There remained the corporate, ecclesiastic, and lay bodies, and,
notably, the oldest, most opulent, and most considerable of all the
regular and secular clergy. -- Grave abuses existed here also, for,
the institution being founded on ancient requirements, had not
accommodated itself to new necessities.[37] There were too many
episcopal sees, and these were arranged according to the Christian
distribution of the population in the fourth century; a revenue
still more badly apportioned -- bishops and abbés with one hundred
thousand livres a year, leading the lives of amiable idlers, while
curés, overburdened with work, have but seven hundred; in one
monastery nineteen monks instead of eighty, and in another four
instead of fifty;[38] a number of monasteries reduced to three or to
two inhabitants, and even to one; almost all the congregations of
men going to decay, and many of them dying out for lack of
novices;[39] a general lukewarmness among the members, great laxity
in many establishments, and with scandals in some of them; scarcely
one-third taking an interest in their calling, while the remaining
two-thirds wish to go back to the world,[40] -- it is evident from
all this that the primitive inspiration has been diverted or has
cooled; that the endowment only partially fulfills its ends; that
one-half of its resources are employed in the wrong way or remain
sterile; in short, that there is a need of reformation in the body.
-- That this ought to be effected with the co-operation of the
State and even under its direction is not less certain. For a
corporation is not an individual like other individuals, and, in
order that it may acquire or possess the privileges of an ordinary
citizen, something supplementary must be added, some fiction, some
expedient of the law. If the law is disposed to overlook the fact
that a corporation is not a natural personage, if it gives to it a
civil personality, if it declares it to be capable of inheriting, of
acquiring and of selling, if it becomes a protected and respected
proprietor, this is due to the favors of the State which places its
tribunal and gendarmes at its service, and which, in exchange for
this service, justly imposes conditions on it, and, among others,
that of being useful and remaining useful, or at least that of never
becoming harmful. Such was the rule under the Ancient Régime, and
especially since the Government has for the last quarter of a
century gradually and efficaciously worked out a reform. Not only,
in 1749, had it prohibited the Church from accepting land, either by
donation, by testament, or in exchange, without royal letters-patent
registered in Parliament; not only in 1764 had it abolished the
order of Jesuits, closed their colleges and sold their possessions,
but also, since 1766, a permanent commission, formed by the King's
order and instructed by him, had lopped off all the dying and dead
branches of the ecclesiastical tree.[41] There was a revision of the
primitive Constitutions; a prohibition to every institution to have
more than two monasteries at Paris and more than one in other towns;
a postponement of the age for taking vows -- that of sixteen being
no longer permitted -- to twenty-one for men and eighteen for
women; an obligatory minimum of monks and nuns for each
establishment, which varies from fifteen to nine according to
circumstances; if this is not kept up there follows a suppression or
prohibition to receive novices: owing to these measures, rigorously
executed, at the end of twelve years "the Grammontins, the Servites,
the Celestins, the ancient order of Saint-Bénédict, that of the Holy
Ghost of Montpellier, and those of Sainte-Brigitte, Sainte-Croix-de-
la-Bretonnerie, Saint-Ruff, and Saint-Antoine," - in short, nine
complete congregations had disappeared. At the end of twenty years
three hundred and eighty-six establishments had been suppressed, the
number of monks and nuns had diminished one-third, the larger
portion of possessions which had escheated were usefully applied,
and the congregations of men lacked novices and complained that they
could not fill up their ranks. If the monks were still found to be
too numerous, too wealthy, and too indolent, it was merely necessary
to keep on in this way; before the end of the century, merely by the
application of the edict, the institution would be brought back,
without brutality or injustice, within the scope of the development,
the limitations of fortune, and the class of functions acceptable to
a modern State.
But, because these ecclesiastical bodies stood in need of reform it
does not follow that it was necessary to destroy them, nor, in
general, that independent institutions are detrimental to a nation.
Organized purposely for a public service, and possessing, nearly or
remotely under the supervision of the State, the faculty of self-
administration, these bodies are valuable organs and not malign
tumors.
In the first place, through their institution, a great public
benefit is secured without any cost to the government - worship,
scientific research, primary or higher education, help for the poor,
care of the sick - all set apart and sheltered from the cuts which
public financial difficulties might make necessary, and supported by
the private generosity which, finding a ready receptacle at hand,
gathers together, century after century, its thousands of scattered
springs: as an example, note the wealth, stability, and usefulness
of the English and German universities.
In the second place, their institution furnishes an obstacle to the
omnipotence of the State; their walls provide a protection against
the leveling standardization of absolute monarchy or of pure
democracy. A man can here freely develop himself without donning
the livery of either courtier or demagogue, he can acquire wealth,
consideration and authority, without being indebted to the caprices
of either royal or popular favor; he can stand firm against
established or prevailing opinions sheltered by associates bound by
their esprit de corps. Such, at the present day (1885), is the
situation of a professor at Oxford, Göttingen, and Harvard Such,
under the Ancient Régime, were a bishop, a member of the French
Parliaments, and even a plain attorney. What can be worse than
universal bureaucracy, producing a mechanical and servile
uniformity! Those who serve the public need not all be Government
clerks; in countries where an aristocracy has perished, bodies of
this kind are their last place of refuge.
In the third place, through such institutions, distinct original
societies may come to be inside the great commonplace world. Here
special personalities may find the only existence that suits them.
If devout or laborious, not only do these afford an outlet for the
deeper needs of conscience, of the imagination, of activity, and of
discipline, but also they serve as dikes which restrain and direct
them in a channel which will lead to the creation of a masterpiece
of infinite value. In this way thousands of men and women fulfill
at small cost, voluntarily and gratis, and with great effect, the
least attractive and more repulsive social needs, thus performing in
human society the role which, inside the ant-hill, we see assigned
to the sexless worker-ant.[42]
Thus, at bottom, the institution was really good, and if it had to
be cauterized it was merely essential to remove the inert or
corrupted parts and preserve the healthy and sound parts. -- Now,
if we take only the monastic bodies, there were more than one-half
of these entitled to respect. I omit those monks, one-third of whom
remained zealous and exemplary-the Benedictines, who continue the
"Gallia Christiana," with others who, at sixty years of age, labor
in rooms without a fire; the Trappists, who cultivate the ground
with their own hands, and the innumerable monasteries which serve as
educational seminaries, bureaus of charity, hospices for shelter,
and of which all the villages in their neighborhood demand the
conservation by the National Assembly.[43] I have to mention the
nuns, thirty-seven thousand in fifteen hundred convents. Here,
except in the twenty-five chapters of canonesses, which are a semi-
worldly rendezvous for poor young girls of noble birth, fervor,
frugality, and usefulness are almost everywhere incontestable. One
of the members of the Ecclesiastical Committee admits in the
Assembly tribunal that, in all their letters and addresses, the nuns
ask to be allowed to remain in their cloisters; their entreaties, in
fact, are as earnest as they are affecting.[44] One Community
writes,
"We should prefer the sacrifice of our lives to that of our
calling. . . . This is not the voice of some among our sisters,
but of all. The National Assembly has established the claims of
liberty-would it prevent the exercise of these by the only
disinterested beings who ardently desire to be useful, and have
renounced society solely to be of greater service to it?"
"The little contact we have with the world," writes another "is the
reason why our contentment is so little known. But it is not the
less real and substantial. We know of no distinctions, no
privileges amongst ourselves; our misfortunes and our property are
in common. One in heart and one in soul . . . we protest before
the nation, in the face of heaven and of earth, that it is not in
the power of any being to shake our fidelity to our vows, which vows
we renew with still more ardor than when we first pronounced
them."[45]
Many of the communities have no means of subsistence other than the
work of their own hands and the small dowries the nuns have brought
with them on entering the convent. So great, however is their
frugality and economy, that the total expenditure of each nun does
not surpass 250 livres a year. The Annonciades of Saint-Amour say,
"We, thirty-three nuns, both choristers and those of the white
veil, live on 4,400 livres net income, without being a charge to our
families or to the public. . . If we were living in society, our
expenses would be three times as much;"
and, not content with providing for themselves, they give in
charity.
Among these communities several hundreds are educational
establishments; a very great number give gratuitous primary
instruction. -- Now, in 1789, there are no other schools for
girls, and were these to be suppressed, every avenue of instruction
and culture would be closed to one of the two sexes, forming one-
half of the French population. Fourteen thousand sisters of
charity, distributed among four hundred and twenty convents, look
after the hospitals, attend upon the sick, serve the infirm, bring
up foundlings, provide for orphans, lying-in women, and repentant
prostitutes. The "Visitation" is an asylum for "those who are not
favored by nature," -- and, in those days, there were many more of
the disfigured than at present, since out of every eight deaths one
was caused by the smallpox. Widows are received here, as well as
girls without means and without protection, persons "worn out. with
the agitation of the world," those who are too feeble to support the
battle of life, those who withdraw from it wounded or invalid, and
"the rules of the order, not very strict, are not beyond the health
or strength of the most frail and delicate." Some ingenious device
of charity thus applies to each moral or social sore, with skill and
care, the proper and proportionate dressing. And finally, far from
falling off, nearly all these communities are in a flourishing
state, and whilst among the establishments for men there are only
nine, on the average, to each, in those for women there is an
average of twenty-four. Here, at Saint-Flour, is one which is
bringing up fifty boarders; another, at Beaulieu, instructs one
hundred; another, in Franche-Comté, has charge of eight hundred
abandoned children.[46] -- Evidently, in the presence of such
institutions one must pause, however. little one may care for
justice and the public interest; and, moreover, because it is
useless to act rigorously against them the legislator crushes them
in vain, for they spring up again of their own accord; they are in
the blood of every Catholic nation. In France, instead of thirty-
seven thousand nuns, at the present day (1866) there are eighty-six
thousand-that is to say, forty-five in every ten thousand women
instead of twenty-eight.[47]
In any case, if the State deprives them of their property, along
with that of other ecclesiastical bodies, it is not the State that
ought to claim the spoil. -- The State is not their heir, and
their land, furniture, and rentals are in their very nature devoted
to a special purpose, although they have no designated proprietor.
This treasure, which consists of the accumulations of fourteen
centuries, has been formed, increased, and preserved, in view of a
certain object. The millions of generous, repentant, or devout
souls who have made a gift of it, or have managed it, did so with a
certain intention. It was their desire to ensure education,
beneficence, and religion, and nothing else. Their legitimate
intentions should not be frustrated: the dead have rights in society
as well as the living, for it is the dead who have made the society
which the living enjoy, and we receive their heritage only on the
condition of executing their testamentary act. -- Should this be
of ancient date, it is undoubtedly necessary to make a liberal
interpretation of it; to supplement its scanty provisions, and to
take new circumstances into consideration. The requirements for
which it provided have often disappeared; for instance, after the
destruction of the Barbary pirates, there were no more Christians to
be ransomed; and only by transferring an endowment can it be
perpetuated. -- But if, in the original institution, several
accessory and special clauses have become antiquated, there remains
the one important, general intention, which manifestly continues
imperative and permanent, that of providing for a distinct service,
either of charity, of worship, or of instruction. Let the
administrators be changed, if necessary, also the apportionment of
the legacy bequeathed, but do not divert any of it to services of an
alien character; it is inapplicable to any but that purpose or to
others strictly analogous. The four milliards of investment in real
property, the two hundred millions of ecclesiastical income, form
for it an express and special endowment. This is not a pile of gold
abandoned on the highway, which the exchequer can appropriate or
assign to those who live by the roadside. Authentic titles to it
exist, which, declaring its origin, fix its destination, and your
business is simply to see that it reaches its destination. Such was
the principle under the ancient régime, in spite of grave abuses,
and under forced exactions. When the ecclesiastical commission
suppressed an ecclesiastical order, it was not for the purpose of
making its possessions over to the public treasury, but to apply
these to seminaries, schools, and hospitals. In 1789, the revenues
of Saint-Denis supported Saint-Cyr; those of Saint Germain went to
the Economats, and the Government, although absolute and needy, was
sufficiently honest to adjust that confiscation was robbery. The
greater our power, the greater the obligation to be just, and
honesty always proves in the end to be the best policy. -- It is,
therefore, both just and useful that the Church, as in England and
in America, that superior education, as in England and in Germany,
that special instruction, as in America, and that diverse endowments
for public assistance and utility, should be unreservedly secured in
the maintenance of their heritage. The State, as testamentary
executor of this inheritance, strangely abuses its mandate when it
pockets the bequest in order to choke the deficit of its own
treasury, risking it in bad speculations, and swallowing it up in
its own bankruptcy, until of this vast treasure, which has been
heaped up for generations for the benefit of children, the infirm,
the sick and the poor, not enough is left to pay the salary of a
school-mistress, the wages of a parish nurse, or for a bowl of broth
in a hospital.[48]
The Assembly remains deaf to all these arguments, and that which
makes its refuse to listen is not financial distress. -- The
Archbishop of Aix, M. de Boisjelin, offered, in the name of the
clergy, to liquidate at once the debt of three hundred millions,
which was urgent, by a mortgage-loan of four hundred millions on the
ecclesiastical property, which was a very good expedient; for at
this time the credit of the clergy is the only substantial one. It
generally borrows at less than five per cent., and more money has
always been offered to it than it wanted, whilst the State borrows
at ten per cent., and, at this moment, there are no lenders. --
But, to our new revolutionary statesmen, the cost-benefit of a
service is of much less consequence than the application of a
principle. In conformity with the Social Contract they establish
the maxim that in the State there is no need of corporate bodies:
they acknowledge nothing but, on the one hand, the State, the
depositary of all public powers, and, on the other hand, a myriad of
solitary individuals. Special associations, specific groups,
collateral corporations are not wanted, even to fulfill functions
which the State is incapable of fulfilling. "As soon as one enters
a corporation," says and orator, "one must love it as one loves a
family;"[49] whereas the affections and obedience are all to be
monopolized by the State. Moreover, on entering into an order a man
receives special aid and comfort from it, and whatever distinguishes
one man from another, is opposed to civil equality. Hence, if men
are to remain equal and become citizens they must be deprived of
every rallying point that might compete with that of the State, and
give to some an advantage over others. All natural or acquired
ties, consequently, which bound men together through geographical
position, through climate, history, pursuits, and trade, are
sundered. The old provinces, the old provincial governments, the
old municipal administrations, parliaments, guilds and masterships,
all are suppressed. The groups which spring up most naturally, those
which arise through a community of interests, are all dispersed, and
the broadest, most express, and most positive interdictions are
promulgated against their revival under any pretext whatever.[50]
France is cut up into geometrical sections like a chess-board, and,
within these improvised limits, which are destined for a long time
to remain artificial, nothing is allowed to subsist but isolated
individuals in juxtaposition. There is no desire to spare organized
bodies where the cohesion is great, and least of all that of the
clergy.
"Special associations," says Mirabeau,[51] "in the community at
large, break up the unity of its principles and destroy the
equilibrium of its forces. Large political bodies in a State are
dangerous through the strength which results from their coalition
and the resistance which is born out of their interests." ii --
That of the clergy, besides, is inherently bad,[52] because "its
system is in constant antagonism to the rights of man." An
institution in which a vow of obedience is necessary is
"incompatible" with the constitution. Congregations "subject to
independent chiefs are out of the social pale and incompatible with
public spirit." As to the right of society over these, and also over
the Church, this is not doubtful. " Corporate bodies exist only
through society, and, in destroying them, society merely takes back
the life she has imparted to them." "They are simply instruments
fabricated by the law.[53] What does the workman do when the tool
he works with no longer suits him? He breaks or alters it." -- This
primary sophism being admitted the conclusion is plain. Since
corporate bodies are abolished they no longer exist, and since they
no longer exist, they cannot again become proprietors.
"Your aim was to destroy ecclesiastical orders,[54] because their
destruction was essential to the safety of the State. If the clergy
preserve their property, the clerical order is not destroyed: you
necessarily leave it the right of assembling; you sanction its
independence." In no case must ecclesiastics hold possessions. "If
they are proprietors they are independent, and if they are
independent they will associate this independence with the exercise
of their functions." The clergy, cost what it will, must be in the
hands of the State, as simple functionaries and supported by its
subsidies. It would be too dangerous for a nation ,"to admit in its
bosom as proprietors a large body of men to whom so many sources of
credit already give so great power. As religion is the property of
all, its ministers, through this fact alone, should be in the pay of
the nation;" they are essentially "officers of morality and
instruction," and "salaried" like judges and professors. Let us
fetch them back to this condition of things, which is the only one
compatible with the rights of man, and ordain that " the clergy, as
well as all corporations and bodies with power of inheritance, are
now, and shall be for ever incapable of holding any personal or
landed estate."[55]
Who, now, is the legitimate heir of all these vacated possessions?
Through another sophism, the State, at once judge and party in the
cause, assigns them to the State:
"The founders presented them to the Church, that is to say, to the
nation."[56] "Since the nation has permitted their possession by the
clergy, she may re-demand that which is possessed only through her
authorization." "The principle must be maintained that every nation
is solely and veritably proprietor of the possessions of its
clergy."
This principle, it must be noted, as it is laid down, involves the
destruction of ecclesiastical and lay corporations, along with the
confiscation of all their possessions, and soon we shall see
appearing on the horizon the final and complete decree[57] by which
the Legislative Assembly,
"considering that a State truly free should not suffer any
corporation within its bosom, not even those which, devoted to
public instruction, deserve well of the country," not even those
"which are solely devoted to the service of the hospitals-and the
relief of the sick,"
suppresses all congregations, all associations of men or of women,
lay or ecclesiastical, all endowments for pious, charitable, and
missionary purposes, all houses of education, all seminaries and
colleges, and those of the Sorbonne and Navarre. Add to these the
last sweep of the broom: under the Legislative Assembly the division
of all communal property, except woods: under the Convention, the
abolition of all literary societies, academies of science and of
literature, the confiscation of all their property, their libraries,
museums, and botanical gardens; the confiscation of all communal
possessions not previously divided; and the confiscation of all the
property of hospitals and other philanthropic establishments.[58] --
The abstract principle, proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly,
reveals, by degrees, its exterminating virtues. France now, owing
to it, contains nothing but dispersed, powerless, ephemeral
individuals, and confronting them, the State, the sole, the only
permanent body that has devoured all the others, a veritable
Colossus, alone erect in the midst of these insignificant dwarfs.
Substituted for the others, it is henceforth to perform their
duties, and spend the money well which they have expended badly. --
In the first place, it abolishes tithes, not gradually and by means
of a process of redemption, as in England, but at one stroke, and
with no indemnity, on the ground that the tax, being an abusive,
illegitimate impost, a private tax levied by individuals in cowl and
cassock on others in smock frocks, is a vexatious usurpation, and
resembles the feudal dues. It is a radical operation, and in
conformity with principle. Unfortunately, the puerility of the
thing is so gross as to defeat its own object. In effect, since the
days of Charlemagne, all the estates in the country which have been
sold and resold over and over again have always paid tithes, and
have never been purchased except with this charge upon them, which
amounts to about one-seventh of the net revenue of the country.
Take off this tax and one-seventh is added to the income of the
proprietor, and, consequently, a seventh to his capital. A present
is made to him of one hundred francs if his land is worth seven
hundred-francs, and of one thousand if it is worth seven thousand,
of ten thousand if it is worth seventy thousand, and of one hundred
thousand if it is worth seven hundred thousand. Some people gain
six hundred thousand francs by this act, and thirty thousand francs
in Income.[59] Through this gratuitous and unexpected gift, one
hundred and twenty-three millions of revenue, and two milliards and
a half of capital, is divided among the holders of real estate in
France, and in a manner so ingenious that the rich receive the most.
Such is the effect of abstract principles. To afford a relief of
thirty millions a year to the peasants in wooden shoes, an assembly
of democrats adds thirty millions a year to the revenue of wealthy
bourgeois and thirty millions a year to opulent nobles. The first
part of this operation moreover, is but another burden to the State;
for, in taking off the load from the holders of real property, it
has encumbered itself, the State henceforth, without pocketing a
penny, being obliged to defray the expenses of worship in their
place. - As to the second part of the operation, which consists in
the confiscation of four milliards of real estate, it proves, after
all, to be ruinous, although promising to be lucrative. It makes
the same impression on our statesmen that the inheritance of a great
estate makes on a needy and fanciful upstart. Regarding it as a
bottomless well of gold, he draws upon it without stint and strives
to realize all his fancies; as he can afford to pay for it all, he
is free to smash it all. It is thus that the Assembly suppresses
and compensates magisterial offices to the amount of four hundred
and fifty millions; financial securities and obligations to the
amount of three hundred and twenty-one millions; the household
charges of the King, Queen, and princes, fifty-two millions;
military services and encumbrances, thirty-five millions; enfeoffed
tithes, one hundred millions, and so on.[60] "In the month of May,
1789," says Necker, "the re-establishment of order in the finances
were mere child's-play." At the end of a year, by dint of involving
itself in debt, by increasing its expenses, and by abolishing or
abandoning its income, the State lives now on the paper-currency it
issues, eats up its capital, and rapidly marches onward to
bankruptcy. Never was such a vast inheritance so quickly reduced to
nothing, and to less than nothing.
Meanwhile, we can demonstrate, from the first few months, what use
the administrators will be able to make of it, and the manner in
which they will endow the service to which it binds them. -- No
portion of this confiscated property is reserved for the maintenance
of public worship, or to keep up the hospitals, asylums, and
schools. Not only do all obligations and all productive real
property find their way into the great national crucible to be
converted into assignats[61], but a number of special buildings, all
monastic real estate and a portion of the ecclesiastical real
estate, diverted from its natural course, becomes swallowed up in
the same gulf. At Besançon,[62] three churches out of eight, with
their land and treasure, the funds of the chapter, all the money of
the monastic churches, the sacred vessels, shrines, crosses,
reliquaries, votive offerings, ivories, statues, pictures, tapestry,
sacerdotal dresses and ornaments, plate, jewels and precious
furniture, libraries, railings, bells, masterpieces of art and of
piety, all are broken up and melted in the Mint, or sold by auction
for almost nothing. This is the way in which the intentions of the
founders and donors are carried out. -- How are so many
communities, which are deprived of their rentals, to support their
schools, hospices, and asylums? Even after the decree[63] which,
exceptionally and provisionally, orders the whole of their revenue
to be accounted for to them, will it be paid over now that it is
collected by a local administration whose coffers are always empty,
and whose intentions are almost always hostile? Every establishment
for benevolent and educational purposes is evidently sinking, now
that the special streams which nourished them run into and are lost
in the dry bed of the public treasury.[64] Already, in 1790, there
are no funds with which to pay the monks and nuns their small
pensions for their maintenance. In Franche-Comté the Capuchins of
Baume have no bread, and, to live, they are obliged to re-sell, with
the consent of the district, a portion of the stores of their
monastery which had been confiscated. The Ursuline nuns of Ornans
live on the means furnished them by private individuals in order to
keep up the only school which the town possesses. The Bernardine
nuns of Pontarlier are reduced to the lowest stage of want: "We are
satisfied," the district reports, "that they have nothing to put
into their mouths. We have to contribute something every day
amongst ourselves to keep them from starving."[65] Only too
thankful are they when the local administration gives them something
to eat, or allows others to give them something. In many places it
strives to famish them, or takes delight in annoying them. In
March, 1791, the department of Doubs, in spite of the entreaties of
the district, reduces the pension of the Visitant nuns to one
hundred and one livres for the choristers, and fifty for the lay-
sisters. Two months before this, the municipality of Besançon,
putting its own interpretation on the decree which allowed nuns to
dress as they pleased, enjoins them all, including even the sisters
of charity, to abandon their old costume, which few among them had
the means of replacing. -- Helplessness, indifference, or
malevolence, such are the various dispositions which are encountered
among the new authorities whose duty it is to support and protect
them. To let loose persecution there is now only needed a decree
which puts the civil power in conflict with religious convictions.
That decree is promulgated, and, on the 12th of July, 1790, the
Assembly establishes the civil constitution of the clergy.
Notwithstanding the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, and the
dispersion of the monastic communities, the main body of the
ecclesiastical corps remains intact: seventy thousand priests ranged
under the bishops, with the Pope in the center as the commander-in-
chief. There is no corporation more solid, more incompatible, or
more attacked. For, against it are opposed implacable hatreds and
fixed opinions: the Gallicanism of the jurists who, from St. Louis
downwards, are the adversaries of ecclesiastical power; the doctrine
of the Jansenists who, since Louis XIII., desire to bring back the
Church to its primitive form; and the theory of the philosophers
who, for sixty years, have considered Christianity as a mistake and
Catholicism as a scourge. At the very least the institution of a
clergy in Catholicism is condemned, and they think that they are
moderate if they respect the rest.
"WE MIGHT CHANGE THE RELIGION,"
say the deputies in the tribune.[66] Now, the decree affects
neither dogma nor worship; it is confined to a revision of matters
of discipline, and on this particular domain which is claimed for
the civil power, it is pretended that demolition and re-construction
may be effected at discretion without the concurrence of the
ecclesiastical power.
Here there is an abuse of power, for an ecclesiastical as well as
civil society has the right to choose its own form, its own
hierarchy, its own government. - On this point, every argument that
can be advanced in favor of the former can be repeated in favor of
the latter, and the moment one becomes legitimate the other becomes
legitimate also. The justification for a civil or of a religious
community or society may be the performance of a long series of
services which, for centuries, it has rendered to its members, the
zeal and success with which it discharges its functions, the
feelings of gratitude they entertain for it, the importance they
attribute to its offices, the need they have of it, and their
attachment to it, the conviction imprinted in their minds that
without it they would be deprived of a benefit upon which they set
more store than upon any other. This benefit, in a civil society,
is the security of persons and property. In the religious society
it is the eternal salvation of the soul. iii In all other
particulars the resemblance is complete, and the titles of the
Church are as good as those of the State. Hence, if it be just for
one to be sovereign and free on its own domain, it is just for the
other to be equally sovereign and free, If the Church encroaches
when it assumes to regulate the constitution of the State, then the
State also encroaches when it pretends to regulate the constitution
of the Church. If the former claims the respect of the latter on
its domain, the latter must show equal respect for the former on its
ground. The boundary-line between the two territories is,
undoubtedly, not clearly defined and frequent contests arise between
the two. Sometimes these may be forestalled or terminated by each
shutting itself up within a wall of separation, and by their
remaining as much as possible indifferent to each other, as is the
case in America. At another, they may, by a carefully considered
contract,[67] each accord to the other specific rights on the
intermediate zone, and both exercise their divided authority on that
zone, which is the case in France. In both cases, however, the two
powers, like the two societies, must remain distinct. It is
necessary for each of them that the other should be an equal, and
not a subordinate to which it prescribes conditions. Whatever the
civil system may be, whether monarchical or republican, oligarchic
or democratic, the Church abuses its credit when it condemns or
attacks it. Whatever may be the ecclesiastical system, whether
papal, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or congregational, the State
abuses its strength when, without the assent of the faithful, it
abolishes their systems or imposes a new one upon them. Not only
does it violate right, but its violence, most frequently, is
fruitless. It may strike as it will, the root of the tree is beyond
its reach, and, in the unjust war which it wages against an
institution as vital as itself, it often ends in getting the worst
of it.
Unfortunately, the Assembly, in this as in other matters, being
preoccupied with principles, fails to look at practical facts; and,
aiming to remove only the dead bark, it injures the living trunk. --
For many centuries, and especially since the Council of Trent, the
vigorous element of Catholicism is much less religion itself than
the Church. Theology has retired into the background, while
discipline has come to the front. Believers who, according to
Church law, are required to regard spiritual authority as dogma, in
fact attach their faith to the spiritual authority much more than to
the dogma. -
Catholic Faith insists, in relation to discipline as well as to
dogma, that if one rejects the decision of the Roman Church one
ceases to be a Catholic; that the constitution of the Church is
monarchical, that the ordaining of priests and bishops is made from
above so that without communion with the Pope, its supreme head, one
is schismatic and that no schismatic priest legitimately can perform
a holy service, and that no true faithful may attend his service or
receive his blessings without committing a sin. - It is a fact that
the faithful, apart from a few Jansenists, are neither theologians
nor canonists; that they read neither prayers nor scriptures, and if
they accept the creed, it is in a lump, without investigation,
confiding in the hand which presents it; that their obedient
conscience is in the keeping of this pastoral guide; that the Church
of the third century is of little consequence to them; and that, as
far as the true form of the actual Church goes, the doctor whose
advice they follow is not St. Cyprian, of whom they know nothing,
but their visible bishop and their living curé.
Put these two premises together and the conclusion is self-evident:
it is clear that they will not believe that they are baptized,
absolved, or married except by this curé authorized by this bishop.
Let others be put in their places whom they condemn, and you
suppress worship, sacraments, and the most precious functions of
spiritual life to twenty-four millions of French people, to all the
peasantry, all the children, and to almost all the women; you stir
up in rebellion against you the two greatest forces which move the
mind, conscience and habit. -- And observe the result of this.
You not only convert the State into a policeman in the service of
heresy, but also, through this fruitless and tyrannous attempt of
Gallican Jansenism, you bring into permanent discredit Gallican
maxims and Jansenist doctrines. You cut away the last two roots by
which a liberal sentiment still vegetated in orthodox Catholicism.
You throw the clergy back on Rome; you attach them to the Pope from
whom you wish to separate them, and deprive them of the national
character which you wish to impose on them. They were French, and
you render them Ultramontane.[68] They excited ill-will and envy,
and you render them sympathetic and popular. They were a divided
body, and you give them unanimity. They were a straggling militia,
scattered about under several independent authorities, and rooted to
the soil through the possession of the ground; thanks to you, they
are to become a regular, manageable army, emancipated from every
local attachment, organized under one head, and always prepared to
take the field at the word of command. Compare the authority of a
bishop in his diocese in 1789 with that of a bishop sixty years
later. In 1789, the Archbishop of Besançon, out of fifteen hundred
offices and benefices, had the patronage of one hundred, In ninety-
three incumbencies the selections were made by the metropolitan
chapter; in eighteen it was made by the chapter of the Madeleine; in
seventy parishes by the noble founder or benefactor. One abbé had
thirteen incumbencies at his disposal, another thirty-four, another
thirty-five, a prior nine, an abbess twenty; five communes directly
nominated their own pastor, while abbeys, priories and canonries
were in the hands of the King.[69] At the present day (1880) in a
diocese the bishop appoints all the curés or officiating priests,
and may deprive nine out of ten of them; in the diocese above named,
from 1850 to 1860, scarcely one lay functionary was nominated
without the consent or intervention of the cardinal-archbishop.[70]
To comprehend the spirit, discipline, and influence of our
contemporary clergy, go back to the source of it, and you will find
it in the decree of the Constituent Assembly. A natural
organization cannot be broken up with impunity; it forms anew,
adapting itself to circumstances, and closes up its ranks in
proportion to its danger.
But even if, according to the maxims of the Assembly, faith and
worship are free, as far as the sovereign State is concerned, the
churches are subjects.-- For these are societies, administrations,
and hierarchies, and no society, administration, or hierarchy may
exist in the State without entering into its ---departments under
the title of subordinate, delegate, or employee. A priest is now
essentially a salaried officer like the rest, a functionary[71]
presiding over matters pertaining to worship and morality. If the
State is disposed to change the number, the mode of nomination, the
duties and the posts of its engineers, it is not bound to assemble
its engineers and ask their permission, least of all that of a
foreign engineer established at Rome. If it wishes to change the
condition of "its ecclesiastical officers," its right to do so is
the same, and therefore unquestioned. There is no need of asking
anybody's consent in the exercise of this right, and it allows no
interference between it and its clerks. The Assembly refuses to
call a Gallican council; it refuses to negotiate with the Pope, and,
on its own authority alone, it recasts the whole Constitution of the
Church. Henceforth this branch of the public administration is to
be organized on the model of the others. -- In the first
place[72] the diocese is to be in extent and limits the same as the
French department; consequently, all ecclesiastical districts are
marked out anew, and forty-eight episcopal sees disappear. -- In
the second place, the appointed bishop is forbidden "to refer to the
Pope to obtain any confirmation whatever." All he can do is to write
to him "in testimony of the unity of faith and of the communion
which he is to maintain with him." The bishop is thus no longer
installed by his canonical chief, and the Church of France becomes
schismatic. -- In the third place, the metropolitan or bishop is
forbidden to exact from the new bishops or curés "any oath other
than that they profess the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion."
Assisted by his council he may examine them on their doctrine and
morals, and refuse them canonical installation, but in this case his
reasons must be given in writing, and be signed by himself and his
council. His authority, in other respects, does not extend beyond
this for it is the civil tribunal which decides between contending
parties. Thus is the catholic hierarchy broken up; the
ecclesiastical superior has his hands tied; if he still delegates
sacerdotal functions it is only as a matter of form. Between the
curé and the bishop subordination ceases to exist just as it has
ceased to exist between the bishop and the Pope, and the Church of
France becomes Presbyterian. -- The people now, in effect, choose
their own ministers, as they do in the Presbyterian church; the
bishop is appointed by the electors of the department, the cure by
the district electors, and, what is an extraordinary aggravation,
these need not be of his communion. It is of no consequence whether
the electoral Assembly contains, as at Nîmes, Montauban, Strasbourg,
and Metz, a notable proportion of Calvinists, Lutherans, and Jews,
or whether its majority, furnished by the club, is notoriously
hostile to Catholicism, and even to Christianity itself. The bishop
and the curé must be chosen by the electoral body; the Holy Ghost
dwells with it, and with the civil tribunals, and these may install
its elect in spite of any resistance. -- To complete the
dependence of the clergy, every bishop is forbidden to absent
himself more than fifteen days without permission from the
department; every curé the same length of time without the
permission of the district, even to attend upon a dying father or to
undergo the operation of lithotomy. In default of this permission
his salary is suspended: as a functionary under salary, he owes all
his time to his bureau, and if he desires a leave of absence he must
ask for it from his chiefs in the Hôtel-de-Ville.[73] -- He must
assent to all these innovations, not only with passive obedience,
but by a solemn oath. All old or new ecclesiastics, archbishops,
bishops, curés, vicars, preachers, hospital and prison chaplains,
superiors and directors of seminaries, professors of seminaries and
colleges, are to state in writing that they are ready to take this
oath: moreover, they must take it publicly, in church, "in the
presence of the general council, the commune, and the faithful," and
promise "to maintain with all their power" a schismatic and
Presbyterian Church. -- For there can be no doubt about the sense
and bearing of the prescribed oath. It was all very well to
incorporate it with a broader one, that of maintaining the
Constitution. But the Constitution of the clergy is too clearly
comprised in the general Constitution, like a chapter in a book, and
to sign the book is to sign the chapter. Besides, in the formula to
which the ecclesiastics in the Assembly are obliged to swear in the
tribune, the chapter is precisely indicated, and no exception or
reservation is allowed.[74] The Bishop of Clermont, with all those
who have accepted the Constitution in full, save the decrees
affecting spiritual matters, are silenced. Where the spiritual
begins and where it ends the Assembly knows better than they, for it
has defined this, and it imposes its definition on canonist and
theologian; it is, in its turn, the Pope, and all consciences must
bow to its decision. Let them take the "oath, pure and simple," or
if they do not they are 'refractory." The fiat goes forth, and the
effect of it is immense, for, along with the clergy, the law reaches
to laymen. On the one hand, all the ecclesiastics who refuse the
oath are dismissed. If they continue "to interfere with public
functions which they have personally or corporately exercised" they
"shall be prosecuted as disturbers of the peace, and condemned as
rebels against the law," deprived of all rights as active citizens,
and declared incompetent to hold any public office. This is the
penalty already inflicted on the nonjuring bishop who persists in
considering himself a bishop, who ordains priests and who issues a
pastoral letter. Such is soon to be the penalty inflicted on the
nonjuring curé who presumes to hear confession or officiate at a
mass.[75] On the other hand, all citizens who refuse to take the
prescribed oath, all electors, municipal officers, judges and
administrative agents, shall lose their right of suffrage, have
their functions revoked, and be declared incompetent for all public
duties.[76] The result is that scrupulous Catholics are excluded
from every administrative post, from all elections, and especially
from ecclesiastical elections; from which it follows that, the
stronger one's faith the less one's share in the choice of a
priest.[77] -- What an admirable law, that which, under the pretext
of doing away with ecclesiastical abuses, places the faithful, lay
or clerical, outside the pale of the law!
This soon becomes apparent. One hundred and thirty four
archbishops, bishops, and coadjutors refuse to take the oath; there
are only four of them who do so, three of whom, MM. de Talleyrand,
de Jarente, and de Brienne, are unbelievers and notorious for their
licentiousness; the others are influenced by their consciences,
above all, by their esprit de corps and a point of honor. Most of
the curés rally around this staff of officers. In the diocese of
Besançon,[78] out of fourteen hundred priests, three hundred take
the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eighty retract. In the
department of Doubs, only four consent to swear. In the department
of Lozère, there are only "ten out of two hundred and fifty." It is
stated positively," writes the best informed of all observers that
everywhere in France two-thirds of the ecclesiastics have refused
the oath, or have only taken it with the same reservations as the
Bishop of Clermont."
Thus, out of seventy thousand priests, forty-six thousand are turned
out of office, and the majority of their parishioners are on their
side. This is apparent in the absence of electors convoked to
replace them: at Bordeaux only four hundred and fifty came to the
poll out of nine hundred, while elsewhere the summons brings
together only "a third or a quarter" In many places there are no
candidates, or those elected decline to accept. They are obliged,
in order to supply their places, to hunt up unfrocked monks of a
questionable character. There are two parties, after this, in each
parish; two faiths, two systems of worship, and permanent discord.
Even when the new and the old curés are accommodating, their
situations bring them into conflict. To the former the latter are
"intruders." To the latter the former are " refractories." By virtue
of his being a guardian of souls, the former cannot dispense with
telling his parishioners that the intruder is excommunicated, that
his sacraments are null or sacrilegious, and that it is a sin to
attend his mass. By virtue of his being a public functionary, the
latter does not fail to write to the authorities that the "
refractory " entraps the faithful, excites their consciences, saps
the Constitution, and that he ought to be put down by force. In
other words, the former draws everybody away from the latter, while
the latter sends the gendarmes against the former, and persecution
begins. - In a strange reversal, it is the majority which undergoes
persecution, and the minority which carries it out. The mass of the
constitutional curé is, everywhere, deserted.[79] In La Vendée there
are ten or twelve present in the church out of five or six hundred
parishioners; on Sundays and holidays whole villages and market-
towns travel from one to two leagues off to attend the orthodox
mass, the villagers declaring that "if the old curé can only be
restored to them, they will gladly pay a double tax." In Alsace,
"nine tenths, at least, of the Catholics refuse to recognize the
legally sworn priests." The same spectacle presents itself in
Franche-Comté, Artois, and in ten of the other provinces. --
Finally, as in a chemical composition, the analysis is complete.
Those who believe, or who recover their belief, are ranged around
the old curé; all who, through conviction or tradition, hold to the
sacraments, all who, through faith or habit, wish or feel a need to
attend the mass. The auditors of the new curé consist of
unbelievers, deists, the indifferent members of the clubs and of the
administration, who resort to the church as to the Hôtel-de-ville or
to a popular meeting, not through religious but through political
zeal, and who support the "intruder" in order to sustain the
Constitution. All this does not secure to him very fervent
followers, but it provides him with very zealous defenders; and, in
default of the faith which they do not possess, they give the force
which is at their disposal. All means are proper against an
intractable bishop or curé; not only the law which they aggravate
through their forced interpretation of it and through their
arbitrary verdicts, but also the riots which they stir up by their
instigation and which they sanction by their toleration.[80] He is
driven out of his parish, consigned to the county town, and kept in
a safe place. The Directory of Aisne denounces him as a disturber
of the public peace, and forbids him, under severe penalties, from
administering the sacraments. The municipality of Cahors shuts up
particular churches and orders the nonjuring ecclesiastics to leave
the town in twenty-four hours. The electoral corps of Lot denounces
them publicly as "ferocious brutes," incendiaries, and provokers of
civil war. The Directory of the Bas-Rhin banishes them to
Strasbourg or to fifteen leagues from the frontier. At Saint-Leon
the bishop is forced to fly. At Auch the archbishop is imprisoned;
at Lyons M. de Boisboissel, grand vicar, is confined in Pierre-
Encize, for having preserved an archiepiscopal mandate in his house;
brutality is everywhere the minister of intolerance. A certain cure
of Aisne who, in 1789, had fed two thousand poor, having presumed to
read from his pulpit a pastoral charge concerning the observance of
Lent, the mayor seizes him by the collar and prevents him from going
to the altar; "two of the National Yeomanry" draw their sabers on
him, and forthwith lead him away bareheaded, not allowing him to
return to his house, and drive him to a distance of two leagues by
beat of drum and under escort. At Paris, in the church of Saint-
Eustache, the curé is greeted with outcries, a pistol is pointed at
his head, he is seized by the hair, struck with fists, and only
reaches the sacristy through the intervention of the National Guard.
In the church of the Théatins, rented by the orthodox with all legal
formality, a furious band disperses the priests and their
assistants, upsets the altar and profanes the sacred vessels. A
placard, posted up by the department, calls upon the people to
respect the law, "I saw it," says an eye-witness, "torn down amidst
imprecations against the department, the priests, and the devout.
One of the chief haranguers, standing on the steps terminated his
speech by stating that schism ought to be stopped at any cost, that
no worship but his should be allowed, that women should be whipped
and priests knocked on the head." And, in fact, "a young lady
accompanied by her mother is whipped on the steps of the church."
Elsewhere nuns are the sufferers, even the sisters of Saint-Vincent
de Paul; and, from April, 1793, onward; the same outrages on modesty
and against life are propagated from town to town. At Dijon, rods
are nailed fast to the gates of all the convents; at Montpellier,
two or three hundred ruffians, armed with large iron--bound sticks,
murder the men and outrage the women. -- Nothing remains but to
put the gangsters under the shelter of an amnesty, which is done by
the Constituent Assembly, and to legally sanction the animosity of
local administrations, which is done by the Legislative
Assembly.[81] Henceforth the nonjuring ecclesiastics are deprived
of their sustenance; they are declared " suspected of revolt against
the law and of evil intentions against the country." - Thus, says a
contemporary Protestant, "on the strength of these suspicions and
these intentions, a Directory, to which the law interdicts judicial
functions, may arbitrarily drive out of his house the minister of a
God of peace and charity, grown gray in the shadow of the altar"
Thus, "everywhere, where disturbances occur on account of religious
opinions, and whether these troubles are due to the frantic
scourgers of the virtuous sisters of charity or to the ruffians
armed with cow-hides who, at Nîmes and Montpellier, outrage all the
laws of decorum and of liberty for six whole months, the non-juring
priests are to be punished with banishment. Torn from their
families whose means of living they share, they are sent away to
wander on the highways, abandoned to public pity or ferocity the
moment any scoundrel chooses to excite a disturbance that he can
impute to them." - Thus we see approaching the revolt of the
peasantry, the insurrections of Nîmes, Franche-Comté, la Vendée and
Brittany, emigration, transportation; imprisonment, the guillotine
or drowning for two thirds of the clergy of France, and likewise for
myriads of the loyal, for husbandmen, artisans, day-laborers,
seamstresses, and servants, and the humblest among the lower class
of the people. This is what the laws of the Constituent Assembly
are leading to. -- In the institution of the clergy, as in that of
the nobles and the King, it demolished a solid wall in order to dig
through it an open door, and it is nothing strange if the whole
structure tumbles down on the heads of its inmates. The true course
was to respect, to reform, to utilize rank and corporations: all
that the Assembly thought of was the abolition of these in the name
of abstract equality and of national sovereignty. In order to
abolish these it executed, tolerated, or initiated all the attacks
on persons and on property. Those it is about to commit are the
inevitable result of those which it has already committed; for,
through its Constitution, bad is changed to worse, and the social
edifice, already half in ruins through the clumsy havoc that is
effected in it, will fall in completely under the weight of the
incongruous or extravagant constructions which it proceeds to
extemporize.
___________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and V.
[2] Perhaps we are here at the core of why all regimes end up
becoming corrupt, inefficient and sick; their leaders take their
privileges for granted and become more and more inattentive to the
work which must be done if the people are to be kept at work and
possible adversaries kept under control. (SR.)
[3] A special tax paid the king by a plebeian owning a fief. (TR)
[4] The right to an income from trust funds. (SR.)
[5] Arthur Young, I. 209, 223. "If the communes steadily refuse
what is now offered to them, they put immense and certain benefits
to the chance of fortune, to that hazard which may make posterity
curse instead of bless their memories as real patriots who had
nothing in view but the happiness of their country.
[6] According to valuations by the Constituent Assembly, the tax on
real estate ought to bring 240,000,000 francs, and provide one-fifth
of the net revenue of France, estimated at 1,200,000,000.
Additionally, the personal tax on movable property, which replaced
the capitation, ought to bring 60,000,000. Total for direct
taxation, 300,000,000, or one-fourth -- that is to say, twenty-five
per cent, of the net revenue.-- If the direct taxation had been
maintained up to the rate of the ancient régime (190,000,000,
according to Necker's report in May, 1689), this impost would only
have provided one-sixth of the net revenue, or sixteen percent.
[7] Dumont, 267. (The words of Mirabeau three months before his
death:) "Ah, my friend, how right we were at the start when we
wanted to prevent the commons from declaring themselves the National
Assembly! That was the source of the evil. They wanted to rule the
King, instead of ruling through him."
[8] Gouverneur Morris, April 29, 1789 (on the principles of the
future constitution), "One generation at least will be required to
render the public familiar with them."
[9] Cf. "The Ancient Régime," book II, ch. III.
[10] French women did not obtain the right to vote until 1946. (SR.)
[11] According to Voltaire ("L'Homme aux Quarante Écus"), the
average duration of human life was only twenty-three years.
[12] Mercure, July 6, 1790. According to the report of Camus
(sitting of July 2nd), the official total of pensions amounted to
thirty-two millions; but if we add the gratuities and allowances out
of the various treasuries, the actual total was fifty-six millions.
[13] I note that today in 1998, 100 years after Taine's death,
Denmark, my country, has had total democracy, that is universal
suffrage for women and men of 18 years of age for a considerable
time, and a witty author has noted that the first rule of our
unwritten constitution is that "thou shalt not think that thou art
important". I have noted, however, that when a Dane praises Denmark
and the Danes even in the most excessive manner, then he is not
considered as a chauvinist but admired as being a man of truth. In
spite of the process of 'democratization' even socialist chieftains
seem to favor and protect their own children, send them to good
private schools and later abroad to study and help them to find
favorable employment in the party or with the public services. A
new élite is thus continuously created by the ruling political and
administrative upper class. (SR.).
[14] The Ancient Régime," p.388, and the following pages.-" Le Duc de
Broglie," by M. Goizot, p. 11. (Last words of Prince Victor de
Broglie, and the opinions of M. d'Argenson.)
[15] De Ferrières, I. p.2.
[16] Moniteur, sitting of September 7, 1790, I. 431-437. Speeches,
of MM. de Sillery, de Lanjuinais, Thouret, de Lameth, and Rabaut-
Saint-Etienne. Barnave wrote in 1791: "It was necessary to be
content with one single chamber; the instinct of equality required
it. A second Chamber would have been the refuge of the
aristocrats."
[17] Lenin should later create an elite, an aristocracy which, under
his leadership was to become the Communist party. Lenin could not
have imagined or at least would not have been concerned that the
leadership of this party would fall into the hands of tyrants later,
under the pressure of age and corruption, to be replaced by the KGB
and later the FSB. (SR.)
[18] "De Bouillé," p. 50: "All the old noble families, save two or
three hundred, were ruined."
[19] Cf. Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité."
[20] Moniteur, sitting of August 6, !789. Speech of Duport:
"Whatever is unjust cannot last. Similarly, no compensation for
these unjust rights can be maintained." Sitting of February 27,
1790. M. Populus: "As slavery could not spring from a legitimate
contract, because liberty cannot be alienated, you have abolished
without indemnity hereditary property in persons." Instructions and
decree of June 15-19, 1791: "The National Assembly has recognized in
the most emphatic manner that a man never could become the
proprietor of another man, and consequently, that the rights which
one had assumed to have over the person of the other, could not
become the property of the former." Cf. the diverse reports of
Merlin to the Committee of Feudality and the National Assembly.
[21] Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets." Laws of the 4-11
August, 1789; March 15-28, 1790; May 3-9, 1790; June 15-19, 1791.
[22] Agrier percières -- terms denoting taxes paid in the shape of
shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint, requint
belong to the taxes levied on real property. [Tr.]
[23] Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of the copy-
holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97-105.
[24] See further on, book III. ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III.
[25] Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin: "The
peasants have been made to believe that the annulation of the
banalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-press, and
oven, which belonged to the noble) carried along with it the loss to
the noble of all these; the peasants regarding themselves as
proprietors of them."
[26] Moniteur; sitting of June 9, !790. Speech of M. Charles de
Lameth -- Duvergier (laws of June 19-23 1790; September 27 and
October 16, 1791).
[27] Sauzay, V. 400 -410.
[28] Duvergier, laws of June 15-19, 1791; of June 18 -July 6, 1792;
of August 25-28, 1792.
[29] "Institution du Droit Français," par Argou, I.103. (He wrote
under the Regency.) "The origin of most of the feoffs is so ancient
that, if the seigneurs were obliged to produce the titles of the
original concession to obtain their rents, there would scarcely be
one able to produce them. This deficiency is made up by common
law."
[30] Duvergier (laws of April 8-15, 1791; March 7-11; October 26,
1791; January 6-10, 1794). -- Mirabeau had already proposed to
reduce the disposable portion to one-tenth.
[31] See farther on, book III, ch. III.
[32] Mercure, September 10, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan. - Ibid.
October 15, 1791.
[33] Should Hitler or Lenin have read and understood the
consequences of these events they would have deduced that given the
command from official sources or recognized leaders ordinary people
all over the world could easily be tempted to attack any group,
being it Jews, Protestants, Hindus or foreigners. (SR.)
[34] "Archives Nationales," II. 784. Letters of M. de Langeron,
October 16 and 18, 1789. -- Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes,"
letters addressed to the Chevalier de Poterats , July, 1790. --
"Archives Nationales," papers of the Committee on Reports, bundle 4,
letter of M. le Belin-Chatellenot to the to the President of the
National Assembly, July 1, 1791. -- Mercure, October 15, 1791.
Article by Mallet du Pan: "Such is literally the language of these
emigrants; I do not add a word." - Ibid. May 15, 1790. Letter of
the Baron de Bois d'Aizy, April 29,1790, demanding a decree of
protection fur the nobles. "We shall know (then) whether we are
outlawed or are of any account in the rights of man written out with
so much blood, or whether, finally, no other option is left to us
but that of carrying to distant skies the remains of our property
and our wretched existence."
[35] Mercure, October 15, 1791, and September 10, 1791. Read the
admirable letter of the Chevalier de Mesgrigny, appointed colonel
during the suspension of the King, and refusing his new rank.
[36] Cf. the "Mémoires" of M. de Boustaquet, a Norman gentleman.
[37] Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and II.
[38] Boivin- Champeaux, "Notice Historique sur la Révolution dans le
Département de L'Eure," the register of grievances. In 1788, at
Rouen, there was not a single profession made by men. In the
monastery of the Deux-Amants the chapter convoked in 1789 consisted
of two monks. -- "Archives Nationales," papers of the ecclesiastic
committee, passim.
[39] "Apologie de l'État Religieux" (1775), with statistics. Since
1768 the decline is "frightful." "It is easy to foresee that in ten
or twelve years most of the regular bodies will be absolutely
extinct, or reduced to a state of feebleness akin to death."
[40] Sanzay, I. 224 (November, 1790). At Besançon, out of 266
monks, "79 only showed any loyalty to their engements or any
affection for their calling." Others preferred to abandon it,
especially all the Dominicans but five, all but one of the bare
footed Carmelites, and all the Grand Carmelites. The same
disposition is apparent throughout the department, as, for instance,
with the Benedictines of Cluny except one, all the Minimes but
three, all the Capuchins but five, the Bernandins, Dominicans, and
Augustins, all preferring to leave. -- Montalembert, "Les Moines
d'Occident," introduction, pp. 105-164. Letter of a Benedictine of
Saint-Germain-des-Prés to a Benedictine of Vannes. "Of all the
members of your congregation which come here to lodge, I have
scarcely found one capable of edifying us. You may probably say the
same of those who came to you from our place." -- Cf. in the
"Mémoires" of Merlin de Thionville the description of the Chartreuse
of Val St. Pierre.
[41] Ch. Guerin, "Revue des Questions Historiques" (July 1, 1875;
April 1, 1876). -- Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise de France,"
XII, 128. ("Minutes of the meeting of l'Assemblée du Clergé," in
1780.) -- "Archives nationales," official reports and memorandums of
the States-General in 1789. The most obnoxious proceeding to the
chiefs of the order is the postponement of the age at which vows may
be taken, it being, in their view, the ruin of their institutions.
-- "The Ancient Régime," p. 403.
[42] In order for a modern uninstructed non-believing reader to
understand the motivation which moved thousands of self-less
sisters and brothers to do their useful and kind work read St.
Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 to 46 where Jesus predicts how he will
sit in judgment on mankind and separate the sheep from the goats. (SR.)
[43] "The Ancient Régime," P.33 -- Cf. Guerin "The monastery of the
Trois-Rois, in the north of Franche-Comté, founded four villages
collected from foreign colonists. It is the only center of charity
and civilization in a radius of three leagues. It took care of two
hundred of the sick in a recent epidemic; it lodges the troops which
pass from Alsace into Franche-Comté, and in the late hailstorm it
supplied the whole neighborhood with food."
[44] Moniteur, sitting of February 13,1790. (Speech of the Abbé de
Montesquiou). -- Archives Nationales," papers of the
Ecclesiastical Committee, DXIX. 6, Visitation de Limoges, DXIX.
25, Annonciades de Saint-Denis; ibid. Annonciades de Saint Amour,
Ursulines d'Auch, de Beaulieu, d'Eymoutier, de la Ciotat, de Pont
Saint-Esprit, Hospitalières d'Ernée, de Laval; Sainte Claire de
Laval, de Marseilles, etc. "
[45] Sauzay, I. 247. Out of three hundred and seventy-seven nuns
at Doubs, three hundred and fifty-eight preferred to remain as they
were, especially at Pontarlier, all the Bernardines, Annonciades,
and Ursulines; at Besançon, all the Carmelites, the Visitandines,
the Annonciades, the Clarisses, the Sisters of Refuge, the Nuns of
the Saint-Esprit and, save one, all the Benedictine Nuns.
[46] "Archives Nationales." Papers of the Ecclesiastical Committee,
passim.-- Suzay, I. 51. -- Statistics of France for 1866.
[47] In 1993 this number has once more fallen, and continues to
fall, to 55 900. "Quid", 1996 page 623. (SR.)
[48] Felix Rocquain, "La France aprés le 18 Brumaire." (Reports of
the Councillors of State dispatched on this service, passim).
[49] Moniteur, October 24, 1789. (Speech of Dupont de Nemours.) All
these speeches, often more fully reported and with various
renderings, may be found in "Les Archives Parlementaires," 1st
series, vols. VIII. and IX.
[50] Duvergier, decree of June 14-17, 1791. "The annihilation of
every corporation of citizens of any one condition or profession
being on of the foundation-stones of the French constitution, it is
forbidden to re-establish these de-facto under any pretext or form
whatever. Citizens of a like condition or profession, such as
contractors, shopkeepers, workmen of all classes, and associates in
any art whatever shall not, on assembling together, appoint either
president, or secretaries, or syndics, discuss or pass resolutions,
or frame any regulations in relation to their assumed common
interests."
[51] Moniteur, sitting of November 2nd, 1789.
[52] Moniteur, sitting of February 12, 1790. Speeches of Dally
d'Agier and Barnave.
[53] Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Garat;
February 12, 1790, speech by Pétion; October 30, 1789, speech by
Thouret.
[54] Moniteur, sitting of November 2, 1789. Speech by Chapelier;
October 24, 1789, speech by Garat; October 30, 1789, speech by
Mirabeau, and the sitting of August 10, 1789.
[55] Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by Thouret.
[56] Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by Treilhard;
October24th, speech by Garat; October 30, speech by Mirabeau. -- On
the 8th of August, 1789, Al. de Lameth says in the tribune: "When
an foundation was set up, it is to the nation, which the grant was
given."
[57] Duvergier, laws of August 18, 1792; August 8-14, 1793; July 11,
1794; July 14, 1792; August 24, 1793.
[58] Moniteur, sitting of July 31, 1792. Speech of M. Boistard;
the property of the hospitals, at this time was estimated at eight
hundred millions. -- Already in 1791 (sitting of January 30th) M.
de Larochefoucauld-Liancourt said to the Assembly: Nothing will more
readily restore confidence to the poor than to see the nation
assuming the right of rendering them assistance." He proposes to
decree; accordingly, that all hospitals and places of beneficence he
placed under the control of the nation. (Mercure, February 12,
1791.)
[59] Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Sieyès. --
The figures given here are deduced from the statistics already given
in the "Ancient Régime."
[60] Moniteur, v. 571.sitting of September 4, 1790. Report of the
Committee on Finances -- V. 675, sitting of September 17, 1790.
Report by Necker.
[61] A Revolutionary Government promissory bank note. (SR.)
[62] Sauzay, I. 228 (from October 10, 1790, to February 20, 1791).
"The total weight of the spoil of the monastic establishments in
gold, silver, and plated ware, sent to the Mint amounted to more
than 525 kilograms (for the department)."
[63] Duvergier, law of October 8-14.
[64] Moniteur, sitting of June 3,1792. Speech of M. Bernard, in
the name of the committee of Public Assistance: "Not a day passes in
which we do not receive the saddest news from the departments on the
penury of their hospitals." -- Mercure de France, December 17, 1791,
sitting of December 5. A number of deputies of the Department of
the North demand aid for their hospitals and municipalities. Out of
480,000 livres revenue there remains 10,000 to them. "The property
of the Communes is mortgaged, and no longer affords them any
resources. 280,000 persons are without bread.
[65] Sauzay, I. 252 (December 3, 1790. April 13, 1791).
[66] Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speeches by Camus,
Treilhard, etc.
[67] But on the assumption that all religion has been invented by
human beings for their own comfort or use, then what would be more
natural than clever rulers using their power to influence the
religious authorities to their own advantage. (SR.)
[68] Ultramontane: Extreme in favoring the Pope's supremacy. (SR.)
[69] Sauzay, I. 168.
[70] Personal knowledge, as I visited Besançon four times between
1863 and 1867.
[71] Moniteur, sitting of May 30, 1790, and others following.
(Report of Treilhard, speech by Robespierre.)
[72] Duvergier, laws of July 12th-August 14th; November 14-25, 1790;
January 21-26, 1791.
[73] Moniteur, sitting of May 31, 1790. Robespierre, in covert
terms, demands the marriage of priests. -- Mirabeau prepared a
speech in the same sense, concluding that every priest and monk
should be able to contract marriage; on the priest or monk
presenting himself with his bride before the curé, the latter should
be obliged to give them the nuptial benediction etc. Mirabeau
wrote, June 2, 1790: "Robespierre... has juggled me out of my
motion on the marriage of priests." -- In general the germ of all
the laws of the Convention is found in the Constituent Assembly.
(Ph. Plan, "Un Collaborateur de Mirabeau," p.56, 144.)
[74] Duvergier, laws of November 27th -- December 26, 1790; February
5th, March 22nd, and April 5, 1791. -- Moniteur, sitting of
November 6, 1790, and those that follow, especially that of December
27th. "I swear to maintain with all my power the French
Constitution and especially the decrees relating to the Civil
Constitution of the clergy." -- Cf. sitting of January 2, 1791,
speech by the Bishop of Clermont.
[75] Duvergier, law of May 7, 1791, to maintain the right of
nonjuring priests to perform mass in national or private edifices.
(Demanded by Talleyrand and Sieyès.)
[76] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3235. Letter of M. de Château-
Randon, deputy of la Lozère, May 28, 1791. After the decree of May
23rd, all the functionaries of the department handed in their
resignations.
[77] Duvergier, law of May 21-29, 1791.
[78] Sauzay, I. 366, 538 to 593, 750. -- Archives Nationales," F7,
3235, Letter of M. de Chânteau-Randon, May 10, 1791. -- Mercure,
April 23rd, and April 16, 1701. Articles of Mallet du Pan, letter
from Bordeaux, March 20, 1791.
[79] Buchez and Roux, XII, 77. Report of Gallois and Gensonné sent
to La Vendée and the Deux Sévres (July 25, 1791). -- " Archives
Nationales," F7, 3253, letter of the Directory of the Bas-Rhin
(letter of January 7, 1792). -- " Le District de Machecoul de 1788
à 1793," by Lallier. --" Histoire de Joseph Lebon," by Paris. --
Sauzay, vol. I. and II. in full.
[80] Mercure, January 15th, April 23rd, May 16th and 30th, June 1st,
November 23rd, 1791. -- "Le District de Machecoul," by Lallier,
173. -- Sauzay, I. 295. -- Lavirotte, "Annales d'Arnay-le-Duc
(February 5, 1792). -- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Petition
of a number of the inhabitants of Montpellier, November 17, 1791.
[81] Duvergier, decree of November 29, 1791. -- Mercure, November
30, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan).
CHAPTER III. THE CONSTRUCTIONS - THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791..
That which is called a Government is a concert of powers, each with
a distinct function, and all working towards a final and complete
end. The merit of a Government consists in the attainment of this
end; the worth of a machine depends upon the work it accomplishes.
The important thing is not to produce a good mechanical design on
paper, but to see that the machine works well when set up on the
ground. In vain might its founders allege the beauty of their plan
and the logical connection of their theorems; they are not required
to furnish either plan or theorems, but an instrument.
Two conditions are requisite to render this instrument serviceable
and effective. In the first place, the public powers must harmonize
with each other, if not, one will neutralize the other; in the
second place they must be obeyed, or they are null.
The Constituent Assembly made no provision for securing this harmony
or this obedience. In the machine which it constructed the motions
all counteract each other; the impulse is not transmitted; the
gearing is not complete between the center and the extremities; the
large central and upper wheels turn to no purpose; the innumerable
small wheels near the ground break or get out of order: the machine,
by virtue of its own mechanism, remains useless, over-heated, under
clouds of waste steam, creaking and thumping in such a matter as to
show clearly that it must explode.
I.
Powers of the Central Government. - The Assembly on the partition of
power. - Rupture of every tie between the Legislature and the King.
- The Assembly on the subordination of the executive power. - How
this is nullified. - Certainty of a conflict. - The deposition of
the King is inevitable.
Let us first consider the two central powers, the Assembly and the
King. - Ordinarily when distinct powers of different origin are
established by a Constitution, it makes, in the case of conflict
between them, a provision for an arbiter in the institution of an
Upper Chamber. Each of these powers, at least, has a hold on the
other. The Assembly must have one on the King: which is the right
to refuse taxation. The King must have one on the Assembly: which
is the right of dissolving it. Otherwise, one of the two being
disarmed, the other becomes omnipotent, and, consequently, insane.
The peril here is as great for an omnipotent Assembly as it is for
an absolute King. If the former is desirous of remaining in its
right mind, it needs repression and control as much as the latter.
If it is proper for the Assembly to restrain the King by refusing
him subsidies, it is proper for him to be able to defend himself by
appealing to the electors. - But, besides these extreme measures,
which are dangerous and rarely resorted to, there is another which
is ordinarily employed and is safe, that is, the right for the King
to take his ministers from the Chamber. Generally, the leaders of
the majority form the ministry, their nomination being the means of
restoring harmony between the King and Assembly; they are at once
men belonging to the Assembly and men belonging to the King.
Through this expedient not only is the confidence of the Assembly
assured, since the Government remains in the hands of its leaders,
but also it is under restraint because these become simultaneously
both powerful and responsible. Placed at the head of all branches
of the service, they are, before proposing it or accepting it, in a
position to judge whether a law is useful and practicable. Nothing
is so healthy for a majority as a ministry composed of its own
chiefs; nothing is so effective in repressing rashness or
intemperance. A railway conductor is not willing that his
locomotive should be deprived of coal, nor to have the rails he is
about to run on broken up. - This arrangement, with all its
drawbacks and inconveniences, is the best one yet arrived at by
human experience for the security of societies against despotism and
anarchy. For the absolute power which establishes or saves them may
also oppress or exhaust them, there is a gradual substitution of
differentiated powers, held together through the mediation of a
third umpire, caused by reciprocal dependence and an which is common
to both.
Experience, however, is unimportant to the members of the
Constituent Assembly; under the banner of principles they sunder one
after another all the ties which keep the two powers together
harmoniously. - There must not be an Upper Chamber, because this
would be an asylum or a nursery for aristocrats. Moreover, "the
nation being of one mind," it is averse to "the creation of
different organs." So, applying ready-made formulas and metaphors,
they continue to produce ideological definitions and distinctions.
The King must not have a hold on the legislative body: the executive
is an arm, whose business it is to obey; it is absurd for the arm to
constrain or direct the head. Scarcely is the monarch allowed a
delaying veto. Sieyès here enters with his protest declaring that
this is a "lettre de cachet[1] launched against the universal will,"
and there is excluded from the action of the veto the articles of
the Constitution, all money-bills, and some other laws. - -Neither
the monarch nor the electors of the Assembly are to convoke the
Assembly; he has no voice in or oversight of the details of its
formation; the electors are to meet together and vote without his
summons or supervision. Once the Assembly is elected he can neither
adjourn nor dissolve it. He cannot even propose a law;[2] per-
mission is only granted to him "to invite it to take a subject into
consideration." He is limited to his executive duties; and still
more, a sort of wall is built up between him and the Assembly, and
the opening in it, by which each could take the other's hand, is
carefully closed up. The deputies are forbidden to become ministers
throughout the term of their service and for two years afterwards.
This is because fears are entertained that they might be corrupted
through contact with the Court, and, again, whoever the ministers
might be, there is no disposition to accept their ascendancy.[3] If
one of them is admitted into the Assembly it is not for the purpose
of giving advice, but to furnish information, reply to
interrogatories, and make protestations of his zeal in humble terms
and in a dubious position.[4] By virtue of being a royal agent he
is under suspicion like the King himself, and he is sequestered in
his bureau as the King is sequestered in his palace.- Such is the
spirit of the Constitution: by force of the theory, and the better
to secure a separation of the powers,[5] a common understanding
between them is for ever rendered impossible, and to make up for
this impossibility there remains nothing but to make one the master
and the other the clerk.
This they did not fail to do, and for greater security, the latter
is made an honorary clerk, The executive power is conferred on him
nominally and in appearance; he does not possess it in fact, care
having been taken to place it in other hands. - In effect, all
executive agents and all secondary and local powers are elective.
The King has no voice, directly or indirectly, in the choice of
judges, public prosecutors, bishops, curés, collectors and assessors
of the taxes, commissaries of police, district and departmental
administrators, mayors, and municipal officers. At most, should an
administrator violate a law, he may annul his acts and suspend him;
but the Assembly, the superior power, has the right to cancel this
suspension. - As to the armed force, of which he is supposed to be
the commander-in-chief, this escapes from him entirely: the National
Guard is not to receive orders from him; the gendarmerie and the
troops are bound to respond to the requisitions of the municipal
authorities, whom the King can neither select nor displace: in
short, local action of any kind - that is to say, all effective
action - is denied to him. - The executive instrument is purposely
destroyed. The connection which existed between the wheels of the
extremities and the central shaft is broken, and henceforth,
incapable of distributing its energy, this shaft, in the hands of
the monarch, stands still or else turns to no purpose. The King,
"supreme head of the general administration, of the army, and of the
navy, guardian of public peace and order, hereditary representative
of the nation," is without the means, in spite of his lofty titles,
of directly applying his pretended powers, of causing a schedule of
assessments to be drawn up in a refractory commune, of compelling
payment by a delinquent tax-payer, of enforcing the free circulation
of a convoy of grain, of executing the judgment of a court, of
suppressing an outbreak, or of securing protection to persons and
property. For he can bring no constraint to bear on the agents who
are declared to be subordinate to him; he has no resources but those
of warning and persuasion. He sends to each Departmental Assembly
the decrees which he has sanctioned, requesting it to transmit them
and cause them to be carried out; he receives its correspondence and
bestows his censure or approval - and that is all. He is merely a
powerless medium of communication, a herald or public advertiser, a
sort of central echo, sonorous and empty, to which news is brought,
and from which laws depart, to spread abroad like a common rumor.
Such as he is, and thus diminished, he is still considered to be too
strong. He is deprived of the right of pardon, "which severs the
last artery of monarchical government."[6] All sorts of precautions
are taken against him. He cannot declare war without a decree of
the Assembly; he is obliged to bring war to an end on the decree of
the Assembly; he cannot make a treaty of peace, an alliance, or a
commercial treaty, without the ratification of these by the
Assembly. It is expressly declared that he is to nominate but two-
thirds of the rear-admirals, one-half of the lieutenant-generals,
field-marshals, captains of Vessels and colonels of the gendarmerie,
one-third of the colonels and lieutenant-colonels of the line, and a
sixth of the naval lieutenants. He must not allow troops to stay or
pass within 30,000 yards of the Assembly. His guard must not
consist of more than 1,800 men, duly verified, and protected against
his seductions by the civil oath. The heir-presumptive must not
leave the country without the Assembly's assent. It is the Assembly
which is to regulate by law the education of his son during
minority. - All these precautions are accompanied with threats.
There are against him five possible causes of dethronement; against
his responsible Ministers, eight causes for condemnation to from
twelve to twenty years of constraint, and eight grounds for
condemnations to death.[7] Everywhere between the lines of the
Constitution, we read the constant disposition to assume an attitude
of defense, the secret dread of treachery, the conviction that
executive power, of whatever kind, is in its nature inimical to the
public welfare. - For withholding the nomination of judges, the
reason alleged is that "the Court and the Ministers are the most
contemptible portion of the nation."[8] If the nomination of
Ministers is conceded, it is on the ground that" Ministers appointed
by the people would necessarily be too highly esteemed." The
principle is that "the legislative body alone must possess the
confidence of the people," that royal authority corrupts its
depository, and that executive power is always tempted to commit
abuses and to engage in conspiracies. If it is provided for in the
Constitution it is with regret, through the necessity of the case,
and on the condition of its being trammeled by impediments; it will
prove so much the less baneful in proportion as it is restrained,
guarded, threatened, and denounced. - A position of this kind is
manifestly intolerable; and only a man as passive as Louis XVI.
could have put up with it. Do what he will, however, he cannot make
it a tenable one. In vain does he scrupulously adhere to the
Constitution, and fulfill it to the letter. Because he is powerless
the Assembly regards him as lukewarm, and imputes to him the
friction of the machine which is not under his control. If he
presumes once to exercise his veto it is rebellion, and the
rebellion of an official against his superior, which is the
Assembly; the rebellion of a subject against his Sovereign, which is
the people. In this case dethronement is proper, and the Assembly
has only to pass the decree; the people have simply to execute the
act, and the Constitution ends in a Revolution. - A piece of
machinery of this stamp breaks down through its own movement. In
conformity with the philosophic theory the two wheels of government
must be separated, and to do this they have to be disconnected and
isolated one from the other. In conformity with the popular creed,
the driving-wheel must be subordinated and its influence
neutralized: to do this it is necessary to reduce its energy to a
minimum, break up its connections, and raise it up in the air to
turn round like a top, or to remain there as an obstacle to
something else. It is certain that, after much ill-usage as a
plaything, it will finally be removed as a hindrance.
II. THE CREATION OF POPULAR DEMOCRACY.
Administrative powers. - The Assembly on the hierarchy. - Grades
abolished. - Collective powers. - Election introduced, and the
influence of subordinates in all branches of the service. -
Certainty of disorganization. - Power in the hands of municipal
bodies.
Let us leave the center of government and go to the extremities, and
observe the various administrations in working operation.[9]
For any service to work well and with precision, there must be a
single and unique chief who can appoint, pay, punish and dismiss his
subordinates. - For, on the one hand, he stands alone and feels his
responsibility; he brings to bear on the management of affairs a
degree of attention and consistency, a tact and a power of
initiation of which a committee is incapable; corporate follies or
defects do not involve any one in particular, and authority is
effective only when it is in one hand. - On the other hand, being
master, he can rely on the subalterns whom he has himself selected,
whom he controls through their hopes or fears, and whom he
discharges if they do not perform their duties; otherwise he has no
hold on them and they are not instruments to be depended on. Only
on these conditions can a railway manager be sure that his pointsmen
are on the job. Only on these conditions can the foreman of a
foundry engage to execute work by a given day. In every public or
private enterprise, direct, immediate authority is the only known,
the only human and possible way to ensure the obedience and
punctuality of agents. - Administration is thus carried on in all
countries, by one or several series of functionaries, each under
some central manager who holds the reins in his single grasp.[10]
This is all reversed in the new Constitution. In the eyes of our
legislators obedience must be spontaneous and never compulsory, and,
in the suppression of despotism, they suppress government. The
general rule in the hierarchy which they establish is that the
subordinates should be independent of their superior, for he must
neither appoint nor displace them: the only right he has is to give
them advice and remonstrate with them.[11] At best, in certain
cases, he can annul their acts and inflict on them a provisional
suspension of their functions, which can be contested and is
revocable.[12] We see, thus, that none of the local powers are
delegated by the central power; the latter is simply like a man
without either hands or arms, seated in a gilt chair. The Minister
of the Finances cannot appoint or dismiss either an assessor or a
collector; the Minister of the Interior, not one of the
departmental, district, or communal administrators; the Minister of
Justice, not one judge or public prosecutor. The King, in these
three branches of the service, has but one officer of his own, the
commissioner whose duty it is to advocate the observance of the laws
in the courts, and, on sentence being given, to enforce its
execution. - All the muscles of the central power are paralyzed by
this stroke, and henceforth each department is a State apart, living
by itself.
An similar amputation, however, in the department itself, has cut
away all the ties by which the superior could control and direct his
subordinate. - If the administrators of the department are suffered
to influence those of the district, and those of the district those
of the municipality, it is only, again, in the way of council and
solicitation. Nowhere is the superior a commander who orders and
constrains, but everywhere a censor who gives warnings and scolds.
To render this already feeble authority still more feeble at each
step of the hierarchy, it is divided among several bodies. These
consist of superposed councils, which administer the department, the
district, and the commune. There is no directing head in any of
these councils. Permanency and executive functions throughout are
vested in the directories of four or eight members, or in bureaus of
two, three, four, six, and even seven members whose elected chief, a
president or mayor,[13] has simply an honorary primacy. Decision
and action, everywhere blunted, delayed, or curtailed by talk and
the processes of discussion, are brought forth only after the
difficult, tumultuous assent of several discordant wills.[14]
Elective and collective as these powers are, measures are still
taken to guard against them. Not only are they subject to the
control of an elected council, one-half renewable every two years,
but, again, the mayor and public prosecutor of the commune after
serving four years, and the procureur-syndic of the department or
district after eight years service, and the district collector after
six years' service, are not re-elected. Should these officials have
deserved and won the confidence of the electors, should familiarity
with affairs have made them specially competent and valuable, so
much the worse for affairs and the public ; they are not to be
anchored to their post.[15] Should their continuance in office
introduce into the service a spirit of order and economy, that is of
no consequence; there is danger of their acquiring to much
influence, and the law sends them off as soon as they become expert
and entitled to rule. - Never has jealousy and suspicion been more
on the alert against power, even legal and legitimate. Sapping and
mining goes on even in services which are recognized as essential,
as the army and the gendarmerie.[16] In the army, on the
appointment of a non-commissioned officer, the other non-
commissioned officers make up a list of candidates, and the captain
selects three, one of whom is chosen by the colonel. In the choice
of a sub-lieutenant, all the officers of the regiment vote, and he
who receives a majority is appointed. In the gendarmerie, for the
appointment of a gendarme, the directory of the department forms a
list; the colonel designates five names on it, and the directory
selects one of them. For the choice of a corporal, quartermaster or
lieutenant, there is, besides the directory and the colonel, another
intervention, that of the officers, both commissioned and non-
commissioned. It is a system of elective complications and lot-
drawings; one which, giving a voice in the choice of officers to the
civil authorities and to military subordinates, leaves the colonel
with only a third or one-quarter of his former ascendancy. In
relation to the National Guard, the new principle is applied without
any reservation. All the officers and non-commissioned officers up
to the grade of captain are elected by their own men. All the
superior officers are elected by the inferior officers. All under-
officers and all inferior and superior officers are elected for one
year only, and are not eligible for re-election until after an
interval of a year, during which they must serve in the ranks.[17]
- The result is manifest: command, in every civil and in every
military order, becomes upset; subalterns are no longer precise and
trustworthy instruments; the chief no longer has any practical hold
on them; his orders, consequently, encounter only tame obedience,
doubtful deference, sometimes even open resistance; their execution
remains dilatory, uncertain, incomplete, and at length is utterly
neglected; a latent and soon flagrant system of disorganization is
instituted by the law. Step by step, in the hierarchy of
Government, power has slipped downwards, and henceforth belongs by
virtue of the Constitution to the authorities who sit at the bottom
of the ladder. It is not the King, or the minister, or the
directory of the department or of the district who rules, but its
municipal officers; and their sway is as omnipotent as it can be in
a small independent republic. They alone have the "strong hand"
with which to search the pockets of refractory tax-payers, and
ensure the collection of the revenue; to seize the rioter by the
throat, and protect life and property; in short, to convert the
promises and menaces of the law into acts. Every armed force, the
National Guard, the regulars, and the gendarmerie, must march on
their requisition. They alone, among the body of administrators,
are endowed with this sovereign right; all that the department or
the district can do is to invite them to exercise it. It is they
who proclaim martial law. Accordingly, the sword is in their
hands.[18] Assisted by commissioners who are appointed by the
council-general of the commune, they prepare the schedule of
taxation of real and personal property, fix the quota of each tax-
payer, adjust assessments, verify the registers and the collector's
receipts, audit his accounts, discharge the insolvent, answer for
returns and authorize prosecutions.[19] Private purses are, in this
way, at their mercy, and they take from them whatever they determine
to belong to the public. - With the purse and the sword in their
hands they lack nothing that is necessary to make them masters, and
all the more because the application of every law belongs to them;
because no orders of the Assembly to the King, of the King to the
ministers, of ministers to the departments, of departments to the
districts, of the districts to the communes, brings about any real
local result except through them; because each measure of general
application undergoes their special interpretation, and can always
be optionally disfigured, softened, or exaggerated according to
their timidity, inertia, violence or partiality. Moreover, they are
not long in discovering their strength. We see them on all sides
arguing with their superiors against district, departmental, and
ministerial orders, and even against the Assembly itself; alleging
circumstances; lack of means, their own danger and the public
safety, failing to obey, acting for themselves, openly disobeying
and glorying in the act,[20] and claiming, as a right, the
omnipotence which they exercise in point of fact. Those of Troyes,
at the festival of the Federation, refuse to submit to the
precedence of the department and claim it for themselves, as
"immediate representatives of the people." Those of Brest,
notwithstanding the reiterated prohibitions of their district,
dispatch four hundred men and two cannon to force the submission of
a neighboring commune to a cure' who has taken the oath. Those of
Arnay-le-Duc arrest Mesdames (the King's aunts), in spite of their
passport signed by the ministers, hold them in spite of departmental
and district orders, persist in barring the way to them in spite of
a special decree of the National Assembly, and send two deputies to
Paris to obtain the sanction of their decision. What with arsenals
pillaged, citadels invaded, convoys arrested, couriers stopped,
letters intercepted, constant and increasing insubordination,
usurpations without truce or measure, the municipalities arrogate to
themselves every species of license on their own territory and
frequently outside of it. Henceforth, forty thousand sovereign
bodies exist in the kingdom. Force is placed in their hands, and
they make good use of it. They make such good use of it that one of
them, the commune of Paris, taking advantage of its proximity, lays
siege to, mutilates, and rules the National Convention, and through
it France.
III. MUNICIPAL KINGDOMS.
The Municipal bodies. - Their great task. - Their incapacity. -
Their feeble authority.- Insufficiency of their means of action. -
The role of the National Guard. -
Let us follow these municipal kings into their own domain: the
burden on their shoulders is immense, and much beyond what human
strength can support. All the details of executive duty are
confided to them; they have not to busy themselves with a petty
routine, but with a complete social system which is being taken to
pieces, while another is reconstructed in its place. - They are in
possession of four milliards of ecclesiastical property, real and
personal, and soon there will be two and a half milliards of
property belonging to the emigrants, which must be sequestered,
valued, managed, inventoried, divided, sold, and the proceeds
received. They have seven or eight thousand monks and thirty
thousand nuns to displace, install, sanction, and provide for. They
have forty-six thousand ecclesiastics, bishops, canons, curés, and
vicars, to dispossess, replace, often by force, and later on to
expel, intern, imprison, and support. They are obliged to discuss,
trace out, teach and make public new territorial boundaries, those
of the commune, of the district and of the department. They have to
convoke, lodge, and protect the numerous primary and secondary
Assemblies, to supervise their operations, which sometimes last for
weeks. They must install those elected by them, justices of the
peace, officers of the National Guard, judges, public prosecutors,
curés, bishops, district and departmental administrators. They are
to form new lists of tax-payers, apportion amongst themselves,
according to a new system of impost, entirely new real and personal
taxes, decide on claims, appoint an assessor, regularly audit his
accounts and verify his books, aid him with force, use force in the
collection of the excise and salt duties, which being reduced,
equalized, and transformed in vain by the National Assembly, afford
no returns in spite of its decrees. They are obliged to find the
funds for dressing, equipping, and arming the National Guard, to
step in between it and the military commanders, and to maintain
concord between its diverse battalions. They have to protect
forests from pillage, communal land from being invaded, to maintain
the octroi, to protect former functionaries, ecclesiastics, and
nobles, suspected and threatened, and, above all, to provide, no
matter how, provisions for the commune which lacks food, and
consequently, to raise subscriptions, negotiate purchases at a
distance and even abroad, organize escorts, indemnify bakers, supply
the market every week notwithstanding the dearth, the insecurity of
roads, and the resistance of cultivators. - Even an absolute chief;
sent from a distance and from high place, the most energetic and
expert possible, supported by the best-disciplined and most obedient
troops, would scarcely succeed in such an undertaking; and there is
instead only a municipality which has neither the authority, the
means, the experience, the capacity, nor the will.
In the country, says an orator in the tribune,[21] "the municipal
officers, in twenty thousand out of forty thousand municipalities,
do not know how to read or write." The curé, in effect, is excluded
from such offices by law, and, save in La Vendée and the noble is
excluded by public opinion. Besides, in many of the provinces,
nothing but patois is spoken.[22] French, especially the philosophic
and abstract phraseology of the new laws and proclamations, remains
gibberish to their inhabitants. They cannot possibly understand and
apply the complicated decrees and fine-spun instructions which reach
them from Paris. They hurry off to the towns, get the duties of the
office imposed on them explained and commented on in detail, try to
comprehend, imagine they do, and then, the following week, come back
again without having understood anything, either the mode of keeping
state registers, the distinction between feudal rights which are
abolished and those retained, the regulations they should enforce in
cases of election, the limits which the law imposes as to their
powers and subordination. Nothing of all this finds its way into
their rude, untrained brains; instead of a peasant who has just left
his oxen, there is needed here a legal adept aided by a trained
clerk. - Prudential considerations must be added to their ignorance.
They do not wish to make enemies for themselves in their commune,
and they abstain from any positive action, especially in all tax
matters. Nine months after the decree on the patriotic
contribution, "twenty-eight thousand municipalities are overdue, not
having (yet) returned either rolls or estimates."[23] At the end of
January, 1792, "out of forty thousand nine hundred and eleven
municipalities, only five thousand four hundred and forty-eight have
deposited their registers; two thousand five hundred and eighty
rolls only are definitive and in process of collection. A large
number have not even begun their sectional statements."[24] - It is
much worse when, thinking that they do understand it, they undertake
to do their work. In their minds, incapable of abstraction, the law
is transformed and deformed by extraordinary interpretations. We
shall see what it becomes when it is brought to bear on feudal dues,
on the forests, on communal rights, on the circulation of corn, on
the taxes on provisions, on the supervision of the aristocrats, and
on the protection of persons and property. According to them, it
authorizes and invites them to do by force, and at once, whatever
they need or desire for the time being. - The municipal officers of
the large boroughs and towns, more acute and often able to
comprehend the decrees, are scarcely in a better condition to carry
them out effectively. They are undoubtedly intelligent, inspired by
the best disposition, and zealous for the public welfare. During
the first two years of the Revolution it is, on the whole, the best
informed and most liberal portion of the bourgeoisie which, in the
department as in the district, undertakes the management of affairs.
Almost all are men of the law, advocates, notaries, and attorneys,
with a small number of the old privileged class imbued with the same
spirit, a canon at Besançon, a gentleman at Nîmes. Their intentions
are of the very best; they love order and liberty, they give their
time and their money, they hold permanent sessions and accomplish an
incredible amount of work, and they often voluntarily expose
themselves to great danger. - But they are bourgeois philosophers,
and, in this latter particular, similar to their deputies in the
National Assembly, and, with this twofold character, as incapable as
their deputies of governing a disintegrated nation. In this twofold
character they are ill-disposed towards the ancient régime, hostile
to Catholicism and feudal rights, unfavorable to the clergy and the
nobility, inclined to extend the bearing and exaggerate the rigor of
recent decrees, partisans of the Rights of Man, and, therefore,
humanitarians and optimists, disposed to excuse the misdeeds of the
people, hesitating, tardy and often timid in the face of an outbreak
- in short, admirable writers, exhorters, and reformers, but good
for nothing when it comes to breaking heads and risking their own
bones. They have not been brought up in such a way as to become men
of action in a single day. Up to this time they have always lived
as passive administrators, as quiet individuals, as studious men and
clerks, domesticated, conversational, and polished, to whom words
concealed facts, and who, on their evening promenade, warmly
discussed important principles of government, without any
consciousness of the practical machinery which, with a police-system
for its ultimate wheel, rendered themselves, their promenade, and
their conversation perfectly secure. They are not imbued with that
sentiment of social danger which produces the veritable chief; the
man who subordinates the emotions of pity to the exigencies of the
public service. They are not aware that it is better to mow down a
hundred conscientious citizens rather than let them hang a culprit
without a trial. Repression, in their hands, is neither prompt,
rigid, nor constant. They continue to be in the Hôtel-de-Ville what
they were when they went into it, so many jurists and scribes,
fruitful in proclamations, reports, and correspondence. Such is
wholly their role, and, if any amongst them, with more energy,
desires to depart from it, he has no hold on the commune which,
according to the Constitution, he has to direct, and on that armed
force which is entrusted to him with a view to insure the observance
of the laws.
To insure respect for authority, indeed, it must not spring up on
the spot and under the hands of its subordinates. It loses its
prestige and independence when those who create it are precisely
those who have to submit to it. For, in submitting to it, they
remember that they have created it. This or that candidate among
them who has but lately solicited their suffrages is now a
magistrate who issues orders, and this sudden transformation is
their work. It is with difficulty that they pass from the role of
sovereign electors to that of docile subjects of the administration,
and recognize a commander in one of their own creatures.[25] On the
contrary, they will submit to his control only in their own fashion,
reserving to themselves in practice the powers the right to which
they have conferred on him.
"We gave him his place, and he must do as we want him to do,"
Such popular reasoning is the most natural in the world. It is as
applicable to the municipal officer wearing his scarf as to the
officer in the National Guard wearing his epaulettes; the former as
well as the latter being conferred by the arbitrary voice of the
electors, and always seeming to them a gift which is revocable at
their pleasure. The superior always, and more particularly in times
of danger or of great public excitement, seems, if directly
appointed by those whom he commands, to be their clerk. - Such is
municipal authority at this epoch, intermittent, uncertain, and
weak; and all the weaker because the sword, whose hilt the men of
the Hôtel-de-Ville seem to hold, does not always leave its scabbard
at their bidding. They alone are empowered to summon the National
Guard, but it does not depend on them, and it is not at their
disposal. To obtain its support it is needful that its independent
chiefs should be willing to respond to their requisition; that the
men should willingly obey their elected officers; that these
improvised soldiers should consent to quit their plow, their stores,
their workshops and offices, to lose their day, to patrol the
streets at night, to be pelted with stones, to fire on a riotous
crowd whose enmities and prejudices they often share. Undoubtedly,
they will fire on some occasions, but generally they will remain
quiet, with their arms at rest; and, at last, they will grow weary
of a trying, dangerous, and constant service, which is disagreeable
to them, and for which they are not fitted. They will not answer
the summons, or, if they do, they will come too late, and in too
small a number. In this event, the regulars who are sent for, will
do as they do and remain quiet, following their example, while the
municipal magistrate, into whose hands the sword has glided, will be
able to do no more than make grievous reports, to his superiors of
the department or district, concerning the popular violence of which
he is a powerless witness. - In other cases, and especially in the
country, his condition is worse. The National Guard, preceded by
its drums, will come and take him off to the town hall to authorize
by his presence, and to legalize by his orders, the outrages that it
is about to commit. He marches along seized by the collar, and
affixes his signature at the point of the bayonet. In this case not
only is his instrument taken away from him, but it is turned against
of holding it by the hilt, he feels the point: the armed force which
he ought to make use of makes use of him.
IV. On Universal Suffrage.
The National Guard as electors. - Its great power.- Its important
task. - The work imposed on active citizens. - They avoid it.
Behold, then, the true sovereign, the elector, both National Guard
and voter. They are the kings designed by the Constitution; there
he is, in every hierarchical stage, with his suffrage, with which to
delegate authority, and his gun to assure its exercise. - Through
his free choice he creates all local powers, intermediary, central,
legislative, administrative, ecclesiastical, and judiciary. He
appoints directly, and in the primary assemblies, the mayor, the
municipal board, the public prosecutor and council of the commune,
the justice of the peace and his assessors, and the electors of the
second degree. Indirectly, and through these elected electors, he
appoints the administrators and procureurs-syndics of both district
and department, the civil and criminal judges, the public
prosecutor, bishops, and priests, the members of the National
Assembly and jurors of the higher National Court[26]. All these
commissions which he issues are of short date, the principal ones,
those of municipal officer, elector, and deputy, having but two
years to run; at the end of this brief term their recipients are
again subject to his vote, in order that, if he is displeased with
them, he may replace them by others. He must not be fettered in his
choice; in every well-conducted establishment the legitimate
proprietor must be free easily and frequently to renew his staff of
clerks. He is the only one in whom confidence can be placed, and,
for greater security, all arms are given up to him. When his clerks
wish to employ force he is the one to place it at their disposal.
Whatever he desired as elector he executes as National Guard. On
two occasions he interferes, both times in a decisive manner; and
his control over the legal powers is irresistible because these are
born out of his vote and are obeyed only through his support. - But
these rights are, at the same time, burdens. The Constitution
describes him as an "active citizen," and this he eminently is or
should be, since public action begins and ends with him, since
everything depends on his zeal and capacity, since the machine is
good and only works well in proportion to his discernment,
punctuality, calmness, firmness, discipline at the polls, and in the
ranks. The law requires his services incessantly day and night, in
body and mind, as gendarme and as elector. - How burdensome this
service of gendarme must be, can be judged by the number of riots.
How burdensome that of elector must be, the list of elections will
show.
In February, March, April, and May, 1789, there are prolonged parish
meetings, for the purpose of choosing electors and writing out
grievances, also bailiwick meetings of still longer duration to
choose deputies and draw up the memorial. During the months of July
and August, 1789, there are spontaneous gatherings to elect or
confirm the municipal bodies; other spontaneous meetings by which
the militia is formed and officered; and then, following these,
constant meetings of this same militia to fuse themselves into a
National Guard, to renew officers and appoint deputies to the
federative assemblies. In December, 1789, and January, 1790, there
are primary meetings, to elect municipal officers and their
councils. In May, 1790, there are primary and secondary meetings,
to appoint district and departmental administrators. In October,
1790, there are primary meetings, to elect the justice of the peace
and his assessors, also secondary meetings, to elect the district
courts. In November, 1790, there are primary meetings, to renew
one-half of the municipal bodies. In February and March, 1791,
there are secondary meetings, to nominate the bishop and curés. In
June, July, August, September, 1791, there are primary and secondary
meetings, to renew one-half of the district and departmental
administrators, to nominate the president, the public prosecutor,
and the clerk of the criminal court, and to choose deputies. In
November, 1791, there are primary meetings to renew one-half of the
municipal council. Observe that many of these elections drag along
because the voters lack experience, because the formalities are
complicated, and because opinions are divided. In August and
September, 1791, at Tours, they are prolonged for thirteen days;[27]
at Troyes, in January, 1790, instead of three days they last for
three weeks; at Paris, in September and October, 1791, only for the
purpose of choosing deputies, they last for thirty-seven days; in
many places their proceedings are contested, annulled, and begun
over again. To these universal gatherings, which put all France in
motion, we must add the local gatherings by which a commune approves
or gainsays its municipal officers, makes claims on the department,
on the King, or on the Assembly, demands the maintenance of its
parish priest, the provisioning of its market, the arrival or
dispatch of a military detachment, - and think of all that these
meetings, petitions, and nominations presuppose in the way of
preparatory committees and preliminary meetings and debates! Every
public representation begins with rehearsals in secret session. In
the choice of a candidate, and, above all, of a list of candidates;
in the appointment in each commune of from three to twenty-one
municipal officers, and from six to forty-two notables; in the
selection of twelve district administrators and thirty-six
departmental administrators, especially as the list must be of a
double length and contain twice as many officers as there are places
to fill, immediate agreement is impossible. In every important
election the electors are sure to be in a state of agitation a month
beforehand, while four weeks of discussion and caucus is not too
much to give to inquiries about candidates, and to canvassing
voters. Let us add, accordingly, this long preface to each of the
elections, so long and so often repeated, and now sum up the
troubles and disturbances, all this loss of time, all the labor
which the process demands. Each convocation of the primary
assemblies, summons to the town-hall or principal town of the
canton, for one or for several days, about three million five
hundred thousand electors of the first degree. Each convocation of
the assemblies of the second class compels the attendance and
sojourn at the principal town of the department, and again in the
principal town of the district, of about three hundred and fifty
thousand elected electors. Each revision or re-election in the
National Guard gathers together on the public square, or subjects to
roll-call at the town-hall, three or four millions of National
Guards. Each federation, after exacting the same gathering or the
same roll-call, sends delegates by hundreds of thousands to the
principal towns of the districts and departments, and tens of
thousands to Paris. - The powers thus instituted at the cost of so
great an effort, require an equal effort to make them work; one
branch alone of the administration[28] keeps 2,988 officials busy in
the departments, 6,950 in the districts, 1,175,000 in the communes -
in all, nearly one million two hundred thousand administrators,
whose places, as we have seen above, are no sinecures. Never did a
political machine require so prodigious an expenditure of force to
set it up and keep it in motion. In the United States, where it is
now (around 1875) deranged by its own action, it has been estimated
that, to meet the intentions of the law and keep each wheel in its
proper place, it would be necessary for each citizen to give one
whole day in each week, or on-sixth of his time, to public business.
In France, under the newly adopted system, where disorder is
universal, where the duty of National Guard is added to and
complicates that of elector and administrator, I estimate that two
days would be necessary. This is what the Constitution comes to,
this is its essential and supreme requirement: each active citizen
has to give up one-third of his time to public affairs.
Now, these twelve hundred thousand administrators and three or four
million electors and National Guards, are just the men in France who
have the least leisure. The class of active citizens, indeed,
comprises about all the men who labor with their hands or with their
heads. The law exempts only domestics devoted to personal service
or common laborers who, possessing no property or income, earn less
than twenty-one sous a day. Every journeyman-miller, the smallest
farmer, every village proprietor of a cottage or of a vegetable-
garden, any ordinary workman, votes at the primary meetings, and may
become a municipal officer. Again, if he pays ten francs a year
direct tax, if he is a farmer or yeomen on any property which brings
him in four hundred francs, if his rent is one hundred and fifty
francs, he may become an elected elector and an administrator of the
district or department. According to this standard the eligible are
innumerable; in Doubs, in 1790,[29] they form two-thirds of the
active citizens. Thus, the way to office is open to all, or almost
all, and the law has taken no precaution whatever to reserve or
provide places for the elite, who could best fill them. On the
contrary, the nobles, the ecclesiastical dignitaries, the members of
the parliaments, the grand functionaries of the ancient regime, the
upper class of the bourgeoisie, almost all the rich who possess
leisure, are practically excluded from the elections by violence,
and from the various offices by public opinion: they soon retire
into private life, and, through discouragement or disgust, through
monarchical or religious scruples, abandon entirely a public career.
- The burden of the new system falls, accordingly, on the most
occupied portion of the community: on merchants, manufacturers,
agents of the law, employees, shopkeepers, artisans, and
cultivators. They are the people who must give up one-third of
their time already appropriated, neglect private for public
business, leave their harvests, their bench, their shop, or their
briefs to escort convoys and patrol the highways, to run off to the
principal town of the canton, district, or department, and stay and
sit there in the town-hall,[30] subject to a deluge of phrases and
papers, conscious that they are forced to gratuitous drudgery, and
that this drudgery is of little advantage to the public. - For the
first six months they do it with good grace; their zeal in penning
memorials, in providing themselves with arms against "brigands," and
in suppressing taxes, rents, and tithes, is active enough. But now
that this much is obtained or extorted, decreed as a right, or
accomplished in fact, they must not be further disturbed. They need
the whole of their time: they have their crops to get in, their
customers to serve, their orders to give, their books to make up,
their credits to adjust, all which are urgent matters, and neither
ought to be neglected or interrupted. Under the lash of necessity
and of the crisis they have put their backs to it, and, if we take
their word for it, they hauled the public cart out of the mud; but
they had no idea of putting themselves permanently in harness to
drag it along themselves. Confined as this class has been for
centuries to private life, each has his own wheelbarrow to trundle
along, and it is for this, before all and above all, that he holds
himself responsible. From the beginning of the year 1790 the
returns of the votes taken show that as many are absent as present;
at Besançon there are only nine hundred and fifty-nine voters out of
thirty-two hundred inscribed; four months after this more than one-
half of the electors fail to come to the polls;[31] and throughout
France, even at Paris, the indifference to voting keeps on
increasing. Puppets of such an administration as that of Louis XV.
and Louis XVI. do not become Florentine or Athenian citizens in a
single night. The hearts and heads of three or four millions of men
are not suddenly endowed with faculties and habits which render them
capable of diverting one-third of their energies to work which is
new, disproportionate, gratuitous, and supererogatory. - A fallacy
of monstrous duplicity lies at the basis of the political theories
of the day and of those which were invented during the following ten
years. Arbitrarily, and without any examination, a certain weight
and resistance are attributed to the human metal employed. It is
found on trial to have ten times less resistance and twenty times
more weight than was supposed.
V. The Ruling Minority.
The restless minority. - Its elements.- The clubs.- Their
ascendancy.- How they interpret the Rights of Man. - Their
usurpations and violence.
In default of the majority, who shirk their responsibilities, it is
the minority which does the work and assumes the power. The
majority having resigned, the minority becomes sovereign, and public
business, abandoned by the hesitating, weak, and absent multitude,
falls into the hands of the resolute, energetic, ever-present few
who find the leisure and the disposition to assume the
responsibility. In a system in which all offices are elective, and
in which elections are frequent, politics becomes a profession for
those who subordinate their private interests to it, and who find it
of personal advantage; every village contains five or six men of
this class, every borough twenty or thirty, every town its hundreds
and Paris its many thousands.[32] These are veritable active
citizens They alone give all their time and attention to public
matters, correspond with the newspapers and with the deputies at
Paris, receive and spread abroad the party watchword on every
important question, hold caucuses, get up meetings, make motions,
draw up addresses, overlook, rebuke, or denounce the local
magistrates, form themselves into committees, publish and push
candidates, and go into the suburbs and the country to canvass for
votes. They hold the power in recompense for their labor, for they
manage the elections, and are elected to office or provided with
places by the successful candidates. There is a prodigious number
of these offices and places, not only those of officers of the
National Guard and the administrators of the commune, the district,
and the department, whose duties are gratuitous, or little short of
it, but a quantity of others which are paid,[33] - eighty-three
bishops, seven hundred and fifty deputies, four hundred criminal
judges, three thousand and seven civil judges, five thousand
justices of the peace, twenty thousand assessors forty thousand
communal collectors, forty-six thousand curés, without counting the
accessory or insignificant places which exist by tens and hundreds
of thousands, from secretaries, clerks, bailiffs and notaries, to
gendarmes, constables, office-clerks, beadles, grave-diggers, and
keepers of sequestered goods. The pasture is vast for the
ambitious; it is not small for the needy, and they seize upon it.
Such is the rule in pure democracies: hence the swarm of politicians
in the United States. When the law incessantly calls all citizens
to political action, there are only a few who devote themselves to
it; these become expert in this particular work, and, consequently,
preponderant. But they must be paid for their trouble, and the
election secures to them their places because they manage the
elections.
Two sorts of men furnish the recruits for this dominant minority: on
the one hand the enthusiasts, and on the other those who have no
social position. Towards the end of 1789, moderate people, who are
minding their own business, retire into privacy, and are daily less
disposed to show themselves. The public square is occupied by
others who, through zeal and political passion, abandon their
pursuits, and by those who, finding themselves hampered in their
social sphere, or repelled from ordinary circles, were merely
awaiting a new opening to take a fresh start. In these utopian and
revolutionary times, there is no lack of either class. Flung out by
handfuls, the dogma of popular sovereignty falls like a seed
scattered around, to end up vegetating in heated brains, in the
narrow and rash minds which, once possessed by an idea, adhere to it
and are mastered by it. It falls amongst a class of reasoners who,
starting from a principle, dash forward like a horse who has had
blinders put on. This is especially the case with the legal class,
whose profession accustoms them to deductions; nor less with the
village attorney, the unfrocked monk, the "intruding" and
excommunicated curé, and above all, the journalist and the local
orator, who, for the first time in his life, finds that he has an
audience, applause, influence and a future before him. These are
the only people who can do the complicated and constant work which
the new Constitution calls for; for they are the only men whose
desires are unlimited, whose dreams are coherent, whose doctrine is
explicit, whose enthusiasm is contagious, who cherish no scruples,
and whose presumption is unbounded. Thus has the rigid will been
wrought and tempered within them, the inward spring of energy which,
being daily more tightly wound up, urges them on to propaganda and
to action. - During the second half of the year 1790 we see them
everywhere following the example of the Paris Jacobins, styling
themselves friends of the Constitution, and grouping themselves
together in popular associations. Each town and village gives birth
to a club of patriots who regularly every evening, or several times
a week, meet "for the purpose of co-operating for the safety of the
commonwealth."[34] This is a new and spontaneous organ,[35] an
cancer and a parasite, which develops itself in the social body
alongside of its legal organizations. Its growth insensibly
increases, attracting to itself the substance of the others,
employing them for its own ends, substituting itself for them,
acting by and for itself alone, a sort of omnivorous outgrowth the
encroachment of which is irresistible, not only because
circumstances and the working of the Constitution nourish it, but
also because its germ, deposited at a great depth, is a living
portion of the Constitution itself.
For, placed at the head of the Constitution, as well as of the
decrees which are attached to it, stands the Declaration of the
Rights of Man. According to this, and by the avowal of the
legislators themselves, there are two parts to be distinguished in
the law, the one superior, eternal, inviolable, which is the self-
evident principle, and the other inferior, temporary, and open to
discussion, which comprehends more or less exact or erroneous
applications of this principle. No application of the law is valid
if it derogates from the principle. No institution or authority is
entitled to obedience if it is opposed to the rights which it aims
to guarantee. These sacred rights, anterior to all society, take
precedence of every social convention, and whenever we would know if
a legal order is legitimate, we have merely to ascertain if it is in
conformity with natural right. Let us, accordingly, in every
doubtful or difficult case, refer to this philosophic gospel, to
this incontestable catechism, this primordial creed proclaimed by
the National Assembly. - The National Assembly itself invites us to
do so. For it announces that
"ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole
causes
of public misfortune, and of the corruption of governments."
It declares that
"the object of every political association is the preservation of
natural and
imprescriptible rights."
It enumerates them, "in order that the acts of legislative power and
the acts of executive power may at once be compared with the purpose
of every political institution." It desires "that every member of
the social body should have its declaration constantly in mind." -
Thus we are told to control all acts of application by the
principle, and also we are provided with the rule by which we may
and should accord, measure, or even refuse our submission to,
deference for, and toleration of established institutions and legal
authority.
What are these superior rights, and, in case of dispute, who will
decide as arbitrator? - There is nothing here like the precise
declarations of the American Constitution,[36] those positive
prescriptions which serve to sustain a judicial appeal, those
express prohibitions which prevent beforehand certain species of
laws from being passed, which prescribe limits to public powers,
which mark out the province not to be invaded by the State because
it is reserved to the individual.
On the contrary, in the declaration of the national Assembly, most
of the articles are abstract dogmas,[37] metaphysical definitions,
more or less literary axioms, that is to say, more or less false,
now vague and now contradictory, open to various interpretations and
to opposite constructions, These are good for platform display but
bad in practice, mere stage effect, a sort of pompous standard,
useless and heavy, which, hoisted in front of the Constitutional
house and shaken every day by violent hands, cannot fail soon to
tumble on the heads of passers by.[38] - Nothing is done to ward
off this visible danger. There is nothing here like that Supreme
Court which, in the United States, guards the Constitution even
against its Congress, and which, in the name of the Constitution,
actually invalidates a law, even when it has passed through all
formalities and been voted on by all the powers; which listens to
the complaints of the individual affected by an unconstitutional
law; which stays the sheriff's or collector's hand raised against
him, and which above their heads gives judgment on his interests and
wrongs. Ill-defined and discordant laws are proclaimed without any
provision being made for their interpretation, application or
sanction. No means are taken to have them specially expounded. No
district tribunal is assigned to consider the claims which grow out
of them, to put an end to litigation legally, peacefully, on a last
appeal, and through a final decision which becomes a precedent and
fixes the loose sense of the text. All this is made the duty of
everybody, that is to say of those who are disposed to charge
themselves with it, - in other words, the active minority in council
assembled. - Thus, in each town or village it is the local club
which, by the authorization of the legislator himself, becomes the
champion, judge, interpreter and administrator of the rights of man,
and which, in the name of these superior rights, may protest or
rebel, as it seems best, not only against the legitimate acts of
legal powers, but also against the authentic text of the
Constitution and the Laws.[39]
Consider, indeed, these rights as they are proclaimed, along with
the commentary of the speaker who expounds them at the club before
an audience of heated and daring spirits, or in the street to the
rude and fanatical multitude. Every article in the Declaration is a
dagger pointed at human society, and the handle has only to be
pressed to make the blade enter the flesh.[40] Among "these natural
and imprescriptible rights" the legislator has placed "resistance to
oppression." We are oppressed : let us resist and take up arms.
According to this legislator, "society has the right to bring every
public agent of the Administration to account." Let us away to the
Hôtel-de-Ville, and interrogate our lukewarm or suspected
magistrates, and watch their sessions to see if they prosecute
priests and disarm the aristocrats; let us stop their intrigues
against the people; let us force these slow clerks to hasten their
steps. - According to this legislator "all citizens have the right
to take part in person, or through their representatives, in the
formation of the law." There must thus be no more electors
privileged by their payment of a three-franc tax. Down with the new
aristocracy of active citizens! Let us restore to the two millions
of proletarians the right of suffrage, of which the Constitution has
unjustly defrauded them! - According to this legislator, "men are
born and remain free, and equal in their rights." Consequently, let
no one be excluded from the National Guard; let everybody, even the
pauper, have some kind of weapon, a pike or gun, to defend his
freedom! - In the very terms of the Declaration, "the law is the
expression of the universal will." Listen to these clamors in the
open streets, to these petitions flowing in from the towns on all
sides; behold the universal will, the living law which abolishes the
written law! On the strength of this the leader of a few clubs in
Paris are to depose the King, to violate the Legislative Assembly
and decimate the National Convention. - In other terms, the
turbulent, factious minority is to supplant the sovereign nation,
and henceforth there is nothing to hinder it from doing what it
pleases just when it pleases. The operation of the Constitution has
given to it the reality of power, while the preamble of the
Constitution clothes it with the semblance of right.
VI. Summary of the work of the Constituent Assembly.
Such is the work of the Constituent Assembly. In several of its
laws, especially those which relate to private interests, in the
institution of civil regulations, in the penal and rural codes,[41]
in the first attempts at, and the promise of, a uniform civil code,
in the enunciation of a few simple regulations regarding taxation,
procedure, and administration, it planted good seed. But in all
that relates to political institutions and social organization its
proceedings are those of an academy of Utopians, and not those of
practical legislators. - On the sick body entrusted to it, it
performed amputations which were as useless as they were excessive,
and applied bandages as inadequate as they were injurious. With the
exception of two or three restrictions admitted inadvertently, and
the maintenance of the show of royalty, also the obligation of a
small electoral qualification, it carried out its principle to the
end, the principle of Rousseau. It deliberately refused to consider
man as he really was under its own eyes, and persisted in seeing
nothing in him but the abstract being created in books.
Consequently, with the blindness and obstinacy characteristic of a
speculative surgeon, it destroyed, in the society submitted to its
scalpel and its theories, not only the tumors, the enlargements, and
the inflamed parts of the organs, but also the organs themselves,
and even the vital governing centers around which cells arrange
themselves to recompose an injured organ. That is, the Assembly
destroyed on the one hand the time-honored, spontaneous, and lasting
societies formed by geographical position, history, common
occupations and interests, and on the other, those natural chiefs
whose name, repute, education, independence, and earnestness
designated them as the best qualified to occupy high positions. In
one direction it despoils and permits the ruin and proscription of
the superior class, the nobles, the members of Parliament, and the
upper middle class. In another it dispossesses and breaks up all
historic or natural corporations, religious congregations, clerical
bodies, provinces, parliaments, societies of art and of all other
professions and pursuits. This done, every tie or bond which holds
men together is found to be severed; all subordination and every
graduated scale of rank have disappeared. There is no longer rank
and file, or commander-in-chief. Nothing remains but individual
particles, 26 millions of equal and disconnected atoms. Never was
so much disintegrated matter, less capable of resistance, offered to
hands undertaking to mold it. Harshness and violence will be
sufficient to ensure success. These brutal hands are ready for the
work, and the Assembly which has reduced the material to powder has
likewise provided the mortar and pestle. As awkward in destruction
as it is in construction, it invents for the restoration of order in
a society which is turned upside down a machine which would, of
itself, create disorder in a tranquil society. The most absolute
and most concentrated government would not be strong enough to
effect without disturbance a similar equalization of ranks, the same
dismemberment of associations, and the same displacement of
property. No social transformation can be peacefully accomplished
without a well-commanded army, obedient and everywhere present, as
was the case in the emancipation of the Russian serfs by Emperor
Alexander. The new Constitution,[42] on the contrary, reduces the
King to the position of an honorary president, suspected and called
in question by a disorganized State. Between him and the
legislative body it interposes nothing but sources of conflict, and
suppresses all means of concord. The monarch has no hold whatever
on the administrative departments which he must direct; the mutual
independence of the powers, from the center to the extremities of
the State, everywhere produces indifference, negligence, and
disobedience between the injunctions issued and their execution.
France is a federation of forty thousand municipal sovereignties, in
which the authority of legal magistrates varies according to the
caprice of active citizens. These active citizens, too heavily
loaded, shy away from the performance of public duty; in which a
minority of fanatics and ambitious men monopolize the right to
speak, to vote, all influence, the power and all action. They
justify their multiple ursurpations, their unbridled despotism, and
their increasing encroachments by the Declaration of the Rights of
Man. The masterpiece[43] of ideal abstractions and of practical
absurdities is accomplished. In accordance with the Constitution
spontaneous anarchy becomes legalized anarchy. The latter is
perfect; nothing finer of the kind has been seen since the ninth
century.
______________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] The name for the dreaded secret Royal warrant of arrest. (SR.)
[2] The initiative rests with the King on one point: war cannot be
decreed by the Assembly except on his formal and preliminary
proposition. This exception was secured only after a violent
struggle and a supreme effort by Mirabeau.
[3] Speech by Lanjuinais, November 7, 1789. "We determined on the
separation of the powers. Why, then, should the proposal he made to
us to unite the legislative power with the executive power in the
persons of the ministers?"
[4] See the attendance of the Ministers before the Legislative
Assembly.
[5] "Any society in which the separation of the powers is not
clearly defined has no constitution." (Declaration of Rights,
article XVI.) - This principle is borrowed from a text by
Montesquieu, also from the American Constitution. In the rest the
theory of Rousseau is followed.
[6] Mercure de France, an expression by Mallet du Pan.
[7] Constitution of 1791, ch. II. articles 5, 6, 7. -- Decree of
September 25 - October 6, 1791, section III. articles, 8 to 25.
[8] Speeches by Barnave and Roederer in the constituent Assembly. -
Speeches by Barnave and Duport in the Jacobin Club.
[9] Principal texts. (Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Decrets.")
- Laws on municipal and administrative organization, December 14 and
22, 1789; August 12-20, 1790; March 12, 1791. On the municipal
organization of Paris, May 21st, June 27, 1790. - Laws on the
organization of the Judiciary, August 16-24, 1790; September 16-29,
1791; September 29, October 21, 1791.- Laws on military
organization, September 23, October 29, 1790; January 16, 1791; July
27, 28, 1791 - Laws on the financial organization, November 14-
24,.1790; November 23, 1790; March 17, 1791; September 26, October
2, 1791.
[10] The removal of such managerial authority has since the second
World war taken place inside the United Nations and other Western
public administrations and seems to be the aim of much communist
trade union effort. The result has everywhere been added cost and
decreased efficiency. (SR.)
[11] This principle has been introduced in Western educational
systems when clever self-appointed psychologists told parents and
teacher alike that they could and should not punish their children
but only talk and explain to them. (SR.)
[12] This description fits the staff regulations of the United
Nations secretariat in which I served for 32 years. (SR.)
[13] Decrees of December 14 and December 22, 1789: "In
municipalities reduced to three members (communes below five hundred
inhabitants), all executive functions shall belong to the mayor
alone."
[14] Could it be that Lenin took note of this and had "it this
translated in Russian and made use of it in his and later in Stalin's
schools for international revolutionaries. It would in any case
have weakened the Bourgeois Capitalist countries. In any case such
measures have been introduced both in the international
organizations and in most Western Democratic Governments after World
War II. (SR.)
[15] This was in the United Nations called 'Rotation' and made the
administration of missions and forces difficult, expensive and
inefficient. This rotation was also used in the Indian and other
armies in order to prevent the officers to reach an understanding or
achieve any power over the troops under their command. (SR.)
[16] Laws of September 23 - October 29, 1790; January 16, 1791.
(Titles II. And VII.) - Cf. the legal prescriptions in relation to
the military tribunals. In every prosecuting or judicial jury one-
seventh of the sworn members are taken from the non-commissioned
officers, and one-seventh from the soldiers, and again, according to
the rank of the accused, the number of those of the same rank is
doubled.
[17] Law of July 28th, August 12, 1791.
[18] Laws of November 24, 1789 (article 52), August 10-14, 1789. -
Instruction of August 10-20, 1790; § 8 - Law of October 21,
November 21, 1789.
[19] Laws of November 14 and 23, 1790; January 13th, September 26th,
October 9, 1792.
[20] Albert Babeau, I. 327 (Féte of the Federation, July14, 1790).
- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215 (May 17,1791, Deliberation of the
council-general of the commune of Brest. May 17 and 19, Letters of
the directory of the district). - Mercure, March 5, 1791. "Mesdames
are stopped until the return of the two deputies, whom the Republic
of Arnay-le-Duc has sent to the representatives of the nation to
demonstrate to them the necessity of keeping the king's aunts in the
kingdom."
[21] Moniteur, X. 132. Speech by M. Labergerie, November 8, 1791.
[22] At Montauban, in the intendant's salon, the ladies of the place
spoke patois only, the grandmother of the gentleman who has informed
me of this fact did not understand any other language.
[23] Moniteur, V.163, sitting of July 18, 1791. Speech by M.
Lecoulteux, reporter.
[24] Moniteur, XI. 283, sitting of February 2, 1792. Speech by
Cambon: "They go away thinking that they understand what is
explained to them, but return the following day to obtain fresh
explanations. The attorneys refuse to give the municipalities any
assistance, stating that they know nothing about these matters."
[25] The same may happen when a subordinate is promoted to be placed
in charge of his or her former equals and colleagues. This is why
it is often preferably to transfer someone who is recognized as
being of superior talent whenever a promotions is to take place. (SR.)
[26] Law of May 11-15, 1791.
[27] Minutes of the meeting of the Electoral Assembly of the
Department of Indre-et-Loire (1791, printed).
[28] De Ferrières, I. 367.
[29] Suzay, I, 191 (21,711 are eligible out of 32,288 inscribed
citizens).
[30] Official report of the Electoral Assembly of the Department of
Indre-et-Loire, Aug. 27, 1791. "A member of the Assembly made a
motion that all the members composing it should be indemnified for
the expenses which would be incurred by their absence from home and
the long sojourn they had to make in the town where the Assembly was
held. He remarked that the inhabitants of the country were those
who suffered the most, their labor being their sole riches; that if
no attention was paid to this demand, they would be obliged, in
spite of their patriotism, to withdraw and abandon their important
mission; that the electoral assemblies would then be deserted, or
would be composed of those whose resources permitted them to make
this sacrifice."
[31] Sauzay, I. 147, 192.
[32] For the detail of these figures, see vol. II. Book IV.
[33] De Ferrières, I. 367. Cf. The various laws above mentioned.
[34] Constant, "Histoire d'un Club Jacobin en Province"
(Fontainebleau) p.15. (Procés-verbaux of the founding of the clubs
of Moret, Thomery, Nemours, and Montereau.)
[35] Later to change and become socialist and communist parties
everywhere. (SR.)
[36] Cf. The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 (except the
first phrase, which is a catchword thrown out for the European
philosophers). - Jefferson proposed a Declaration of Rights for the
Constitution of March 4, 1789, but it was refused. They were
content to add to it the eleven amendments which set forth the
fundamental rights of the citizen.
[37] Article I. "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights
common to all. Social distinctions are founded solely on public
utility."
The first phrase condemns the hereditary royalty which is
sanctioned by the Constitution. The second phrase can be used to
legitimate hereditary monarchy and an aristocracy. - Articles 10 and
11 bear upon the manifestations of religious convictions and on
freedom of speech and of the press. By virtue of these two articles
worship, speech, and the press may be made subject to the most
repressive restrictions, etc.
[38] The International Bill of Human Rights of 1948 is quite
different from the one approved in 1789. In 1948 there is no more
any mention of any "right to resistance to oppression", there is a
softening of the position on the right of property and new rights,
to free education, to a country, to rest and leisure, to a high
standard of health and to an adequate standard of living have been
introduced. (SR.)
[39] Stalin and his successors organized such a system of "clubs"
world-wide which even today remain active as "protectors" of the
environment, refugees, prisoners, animals and the environment.
(SR.)
[40] Buchez and Roux , XI. 237. (Speech by Malouet in relation to
the revision, August 5, 1791.) "You constantly tempt the people with
sovereignty without giving them the immediate use of it."
[41] Decrees of September 25 - October 6, 1791; September 28 -
October 6, 1791.
[42] Impartial contemporaries, those well qualified to judge, agree
as to the absurdity of the Constitution.
"The Constitution was a veritable monster. There was too much of
monarchy in it for a republic, and too much of a republic for a
monarchy. The King was a side-dish, un hors d'œuvre, everywhere
present in appearance but without any actual power." (Dumont, 339.)
"It is a general and almost universal conviction that this
Constitution is inexecutable. The makers of it to a man condemn it.
(G. Morris, September 30, 1791.)
"Every day proves more clearly that their new Constitution is good
for nothing." (ibid. , December 27, 1791.)
Cf. The sensible and prophetic speech made by Malouet (August 5,
1791, Buchez and Roux, XI. 237).
[43] Taine's vivid description is likely to have encouraged any
radical revolutionary having the luck to read his explicit
description of how to proceed with the destruction of a naïve
corrupt capitalist, bourgeois society. (SR.)
BOOK THIRD. THE APPLICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.[1]
CHAPTER I.
I. The Federations. - Popular application of philosophic theory. -
Idyllic celebration of the Contrat-Social. - The two strata of the
human mind. - Permanent disorder.
If there ever was an Utopia which seemed capable of realization, or,
what is still more to the purpose, was really applied, converted
into a fact, fully established, it is that of Rousseau, in 1789 and
during the three following years. For, not only are his principles
embodied in the laws, and the Constitution throughout animated with
his spirit, but it seems as if the nation looked upon his
ideological gambols, his abstract fiction, as serious. This fiction
it carried out in every particular. A social contract, at one
spontaneous and practical, an immense gathering of men associating
together freely for the first time for the recognition of their
respective rights, forming a specific compact, and binding
themselves by a solemn oath: such is the social recipe prescribed by
the philosophers, and which is carried out to the letter. Moreover,
as this recipe is esteemed infallible, the imagination is worked
upon and the sensibilities of the day are brought into play. It is
admitted that men, on again becoming equals, have again become
brothers.[2] A sudden and amazing harmony of all volitions and all
intelligences will restore the golden age on earth. It is proper,
accordingly, to regard the social contract as a festival, an
affecting, sublime idyll, in which, from one end of France to the
other, all, hand in hand, should assemble and swear to the new
compact, with song, with dance, with tears of joy, with shouts of
gladness, the worthy beginning of public felicity. With unanimous
assent, indeed, the idyll is performed as if according to a written
program.
On the 29th of November, 1789, at Etoile, near Valence, the
federations began.[3] Twelve thousand National Guards, from the two
banks of the Rhône, promise "to remain for ever united, to insure
the circulation of grain, and to maintain the laws passed by the
National Assembly." On the 13th of December, at Montélimart, six
thousand men, the representatives of 27 000 other men, take a
similar oath and confederate themselves with the foregoing. - Upon
this the excitement spreads from month to month and from province to
province. Fourteen towns of the bailiwicks of Franche-Comté form a
patriotic league. At Pontivy, Brittany enters into federal
relations with Anjou. One thousand National Guards of Vivarais and
Languedoc send their delegates to Voute. 48 000 in the Vosges send
their deputies to Epinal. During February, March, April, and May,
1790, in Alsace, Champagne, Dauphiny, Orléanais, Touraine, Lyonnais,
and Provence, there is the same spectacle. At Draguignan eight
thousand National Guards take the oath in the presence of 20 000
spectators. At Lyons 50 000 men, delegates of more than 500 000
others take the civic oath. - But local unions are not sufficient to
complete the organization of France ; a general union of all
Frenchmen must take place. Many of the various National Guards have
already written to Paris for the purpose of affiliating themselves
with the National Guard there; and, one the 5th of June, the
Parisian municipal body having proposed it, the Assembly decrees the
universal federation. It is to take place on the 14th of July,
everywhere on the same day, both at the center and at the
extremities of the kingdom. There is to be one in the principal
town of each district and of each department, and one in the
capital. To the latter each body of the National Guards is to send
deputies in the proportion of one man to every two hundred; and each
regiment one officer, one non-commissioned officer, and four
privates. Fourteen thousand representatives of the National Guard
of the provinces appear on the Champ de Mars, the theater of the
festival; also eleven to twelve thousand representatives of the land
and marine forces, besides the National Guard of Paris, and sixty
thousand spectators on the surrounding slopes, with a still greater
crowd on the heights of Chaillot and of Passy. All rise to their
feet and swear fidelity to the nation, to the law, to the King and
to the new Constitution. When the report of the cannon is heard
which announces the taking of the oath, those of the Parisians who
have remained at home, men, women, and children, raise their hands
in the direction of the Champ de Mars and likewise make their
affirmation. In every principal town of every district, department,
and commune in France there is the same oath on the same day. Never
was there a more perfect social compact heard of. Here, for the
first time in the world, everybody beholds a veritable legitimate
society, for it is founded on free pledges, on solemn stipulations,
and on actual consent. They possess the authentic act and the dated
official report of it.[4]
There is still something more - the time and the occasion betoken a
union of all hearts. The barriers which have hitherto separated men
from each other are all removed and without effort. Provincial
antagonisms are now to cease: the confederates of Brittany and Anjou
write that they no longer desire to be Angevins and Bretons, but
simply Frenchmen. All religious discords are to come to an end: at
Saint-Jean-du-Gard, near Alais, the Catholic curé and the Protestant
pastor embrace each other at the altar; the pastor occupies the best
seat in the church, and at the Protestant meeting-house the curé has
the place of honor, and listens to the sermon of the pastor.[5]
Distinctions of rank and condition will no longer exist; at Saint-
Andéol " the honor of taking the oath in the name of the people is
conferred on two old men, one ninety-three and the other ninety-four
years of age, one a noble and a colonel of the National Guard, and
the other a simple peasant." At Paris, two hundred thousand persons
of all conditions, ages, and sexes, officers and soldiers, monks and
actors, school-boys and masters, dandies and ragamuffins, elegant
ladies and fishwives, workmen of every class and the peasants from
the vicinity, all flocked to the Champ de Mars to dig the earth
which was not ready, and in a week, trundling wheelbarrows and
handling the pick-ax as equals and comrades, all voluntarily yoked
in the same service, converted a flat surface into a valley between
two hills. - At Strasbourg, General Luckner, commander-in-chief,
worked a whole afternoon in his shirt-sleeves just like the
commonest laborer. The confederates are fed, housed, and have their
expenses paid everywhere on all the roads. At Paris the publicans
and keepers of furnished houses lower their prices of their own
accord, and do not think of robbing their new guests. "The
districts," moreover, "feast the provincials to their heart's
content.[6] There are meals every day for from twelve to fifteen
hundred people." Provincials and Parisians, soldiers and bourgeois,
seated and mingled together, drink each other's health and embrace.
The soldiers, especially, and the inferior officers are surrounded,
welcomed, and entertained to such an extent that they lose their
heads, their health, and more besides. One "old trooper, who had
been over fifty years in the service, died on the way home, used up
with cordials and excess of pleasure." In short, the joy is
excessive, as it should be on the great day when the wish of an
entire century is accomplished. - Behold ideal felicity, as
displayed in the books and illustrations of the time! The natural
man buried underneath an artificial civilization is disinterred, and
again appears as in early days, as in Tahiti, as in philosophic and
literary pastorals, as in bucolic and mythological operas,
confiding, affectionate, and happy. "The sight of all these beings
again restored to the sweet sentiments of primitive brotherhood is
an exquisite delight almost too great for the soul to support," and
the Frenchman, more light-hearted and far more childlike than he is
to-day, gives himself up unrestrainedly to his social, sympathetic,
and generous instincts. Whatever the imagination of the day offers
him to increase his emotions, all the classical, rhetorical, and
dramatic material at his command, are employed for the embellishment
of his festival. Already wildly enthusiastic, he is anxious to
increase his enthusiasm. - At Lyons, the fifty thousand confederates
from the south range themselves in line of battle around an
artificial rock, fifty feet high, covered with shrubs, and
surmounted by a Temple of Concord in which stands a huge statue of
Liberty; the steps of the rock are decked with flags, and a solemn
mass precedes the administration of the oath. - At Paris, an alter
dedicated to the nation is erected in the middle of the Champ de
Mars, which is transformed into a colossal circus. The regular
troops and the federations of the departments stand in position
around it, the King being in front with the Queen and the dauphin,
while near them are the princes and princesses in a gallery, and the
members of the National Assembly in an amphitheater; two hundred
priests, draped in their albs and with tricolored belts, officiate
around Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun; three hundred drums and twelve
hundred musicians all play at once; forty piece of cannon are
discharged at one volley, and four hundred thousand cheers go up as
if from one threat. Never was such an effort made to intoxicate the
senses and strain the nerves beyond their powers of endurance! - The
moral machine is made to vibrate to the same and even to a greater
extent. For more than a year past, harangues, proclamations,
addresses, newspapers and events have daily added one degree more to
the pressure. On this occasion, thousands of speeches, multiplied
by myriads of newspapers, carry the enthusiasm to the highest pitch.
Declamation foams and rolls along in a steady stream of rhetoric
everywhere throughout France.[7] In this state of excitement the
difference between magniloquence and sincerity, between the false
and the true, between show and substance, is no longer
distinguishable. The Federation becomes an opera which is seriously
played in the open street - children have parts assigned them in it;
it occurs to no one that they are puppets, and that the words taken
for an expression of the heart are simply memorized speeches that
have been put into their mouths. At Besançon, on the return of the
confederates, hundreds of "youthful citizens" from twelve to
fourteen years of age,[8] in the national uniform, "with sword in
hand," march up to the standard of Liberty. Three little girls from
eleven to thirteen years old and two little boy of nine years each
pronounce "a discourse full of fire and breathing nothing but
patriotism;" after which, a young lady of fourteen, raising her
voice and pointing to the flag, harangues in turn the crowd, the
deputies, the National Guard, the mayor, and the commander of the
troops, the scene ending with a ball. This is the universal finale
- men and women, children and adults, common people and men of the
world, chiefs and subordinates, all, everywhere, frisk about as in
the last act of a pastoral drama. At Paris, - writes an eye-
witness, "I saw chevaliers of Saint-Louis and chaplains dancing in
the street with people belonging to their department."[9] At the
Champ de Mars, on the day of the Federation, notwithstanding that
rain was falling in torrents, "the first arrivals began to dance,
and those who came after them, joining in, formed a circle which
soon spread over a portion of the Champ de Mars. . . .Three
hundred thousand spectators kept time with their hands." On the
following days dancing is kept up on the Champ de Mars and in the
streets, and there is drinking and carousing; "there was a ball with
refreshments at the Corn-Exchange, and on the site of the Bastille."
- At Tours, where fifty-two detachments from the neighboring
provinces are collected, about four o'clock in the afternoon,[10]
through an irresistible outburst of insane gaiety, "the officers,
inferior officers, and soldiers, pell-mell, race through the
streets, some with saber in hand and others dancing and shouting
'Vive le Roi!' 'Vive la Nation!' flinging up their hats and
compelling every one they met to join in the dance. One of the
canons of the cathedral, who happens to be passing quietly along,
has a grenadier's cap put on his head," and is dragged into the
circle, and after him two monks; "they are often embraced," and then
allowed to depart. The carriages of the mayor and the Marquise de
Montausier arrive; people mount up behind, get inside, and seat
themselves in front, as many as can find room, and force the
coachmen to parade through the principal streets in this fashion.
There is no malice in it, nothing but sport and the overflow of
spirits. "Nobody was maltreated or insulted, although almost every
one was drunk." - Nevertheless, there is one bad symptom: the
soldiers of the Anjou regiment leave their barracks the following
day and "pass the whole night abroad, no one being able to hinder
them." And there is another of still graver aspect; at Orleans,
after the companies of the National Militia had danced on the square
in the evening, "a large number of volunteers marched in procession
through the town with drums, shouting out with all their might that
the aristocracy must be destroyed, and that priests and aristocrats
should be strung up to the lamp post. They enter a suspected
coffee-house, drive out the inmates with insults, lay hands on a
gentleman who is supposed not to have cried out as correctly and as
lustily as themselves, and come near to hanging him.[11] - Such is
the fruit of the philosophy and the attitudes of the eighteenth
century. Men believed that, for the organization of a perfect
society and the permanent establishment of freedom, justice, and
happiness on earth, an inspiration of sentiments and an act of the
will would suffice. The inspiration came and the act was fulfilled;
they have been carried away, delighted, affected and out of their
minds. Now comes the reaction, when they have to fall back upon
themselves. The effort has succeeded in accomplishing all that it
could accomplish, namely, a deluge of emotional demonstrations and
slogans, a verbal and not a real contract ostentatious fraternity
skin-deep, a well-meaning masquerade, an outpouring of feeling
evaporating through its own pageantry - in short, an agreeable
carnival of a day's duration.
The reason is that in the human mind there are two strata. One
superficial, of which men are conscious, the other deep down, of
which they are unconscious.[12] The former unstable and vacillating
like shifting sand, the latter stable and fixed like a solid rock,
to which their caprices and agitation never descend. The latter
alone determines the general inclination of the soil, the main
current of human activity necessarily following the bent thus
prepared for it. - Certainly embraces have been interchanged and
oaths have been taken; but after, as before the ceremony, men are
just what many centuries of administrative thralldom and one century
of political literature have made them. Their ignorance and
presumption, their prejudices, hatreds, and distrusts, their
inveterate intellectual and emotional habits are still preserved.
They are human, and their stomachs need to be filled daily. They
have imagination, and, if bread be scarce, they fear that they may
not get enough of it. They prefer to keep their money rather than
to give it away. For this reason they spurn the claims which the
State and individuals have upon them as much as possible. They
avoid paying their debts. They willingly lay their hands on public
property which is badly protected; finally they are disposed to
regard gendarmes and proprietors as detrimental, and all the more so
because this has been repeated to them over and over again, day
after day, for a whole year. - On the other hand there is no change
in the situation of things. They are ever living in a disorganized
community, under an impracticable constitution, the passions which
sap public order being only the more stimulated by the semblance of
fraternity under which they seemed to be allayed. Men cannot be
persuaded with impunity that the millennium has come, for they will
want to enjoy it immediately, and will tolerate no deception
practiced on their expectations. In this violent state, fired by
boundless expectations, all their whims appear reasonable and all
their opinions rational. They are no longer able to find faults
with or control themselves. In their brain, overflowing with
emotions and enthusiasm, there is no room but for one intense,
absorbing, fixed idea. Each is confident and over-confident in his
own opinion; all become impassioned, imperious, and intractable.
Having assumed that all obstacles are taken out of the way, they
grow indignant at each obstacle they actually encounter. Whatever
it may be, they shatter it on the instant, and their over-excited
imagination covers with the fine name of patriotism their natural
appetite for despotism and domination.
France, accordingly, in the three years which follow the taking of
the Bastille, presents a strange spectacle. In the words we find
charity and in the laws symmetry; while the actual events present a
spectacle of disorder and violence. Afar, is the reign of
philosophy; close up is the chaos of the Carlovingian era.
"Foreigners," remarks an observer,[13] "are not aware that, with a
great extension of political rights, the liberty of the individual
is in law reduced to nothing, while in practice it is subject to the
caprice of sixty thousand constitutional assemblies; that no citizen
enjoys any protection against the annoyances of these popular
assemblies; that, according to the opinions which they entertain of
persons and things, they act in one place in one way and in another
place in another way. Here, a department, acting for itself and
without referring elsewhere, puts an embargo on vessels, while
another orders the expulsion of a military detachment essential for
the security of places devastated by ruffians; and the minister, who
responds to the demands of those interested, replies: 'Such are the
orders of the department.' Elsewhere are administrative bodies
which, the moment the Assembly decrees relief of consciences and the
freedom of nonjuring priests, order the latter out of their homes
within 24 hours. Always in advance of or lagging behind the laws;
alternately bold and cowardly; daring all things when seconded by
public license, and daring nothing to repress it; eager to abuse
their momentary authority against the weak in order to acquire
titles to popularity in the future; incapable of maintaining order
except at the expense of public safety and tranquility; entangled
in the reins of their new and complex administration, adding the
fury of passion to incapacity and inexperience; such are, for the
most part, the men sprung from nothing, void of ideas and drunk with
pretension, on whom now rests responsibility for public powers and
resources, the interest of security, and the foundations of the
power of government. In all sections of the nation, in every branch
of the administration, in every report, we detect the confusion of
authorities, the uncertainty of obedience, the dissolution of all
restraints, the absence of all resources, the deplorable
complication of enervated springs, without any of the means of real
power, and, for their sole support, laws which, in supposing France
to be peopled with men without vices or passions, abandon humanity
to its primitive state of independence."
A few months after this, in the beginning of 1792, Malouet sums up
all in one phrase:
"It is the Government of Algiers without the Dey."
II.
Independence of the municipalities. - The causes of their
initiative. - Sentiment of danger.- Issy-l'Evêque in 1789. - Exalted
pride. - Brittany in 1790.- Usurpations of the municipalities. -
Capture of the citadels. - Violence increased against their
commanders. - Stoppage of convoys.- Powerlessness of the Directories
and the ministers. - Marseilles in 1790.
Things could not work otherwise. For, before the 6th of October,
and the King's captivity in Paris, the Government had already been
destroyed. Now, through the successive decrees of the Assembly, it
is legally done away with, and each local group is left to itself. -
The intendants have fled, military commanders are not obeyed, the
bailiwicks dare hold no courts, the parliaments are suspended, and
seven months elapse before the district and department
administrations are elected, a year before the new judgeships are
instituted, while afterwards, as well as before, the real power is
in the hands of the communes. - The commune must arm itself, appoint
its own chiefs, provide its own supplies, protect itself against
brigands, and feed its own poor. It has to sell its national
property, install the constitutional priest, and, amidst so many
eager passions and injured interest, accomplish the transformation
by which a new society replaces the ancient one. It alone has to
ward off the perpetual and constantly reviving dangers which assail
it or which it imagines. These are great, and it exaggerates them.
It is inexperienced and alarmed. It is not surprising that, in the
exercise of its extemporized power, it should pass beyond its
natural or legal limit, and without being aware of it, overstep the
metaphysical line which the Constitution defines between its rights
and the rights of the State. Neither hunger, fear, rage, nor any of
the popular passions can wait; there is no time to refer to Paris.
Action is necessary, immediate action, and, with the means at hand,
they must save themselves as well as they can. This or that mayor
of a village is soon to find himself a general and a legislator.
This or that petty town is to give itself a charter like Laon or
Vezelay in the twelfth century. "On the 6th of October, 1789,[14]
near Autun, the market-town of Issy-l'Evêque declares itself an
independent State. The parish assembly is convoked by the priest,
M. Carion, who is appointed member of the administrative committee
and of the new military staff. In full session he secures the
adoption of a complete code, political, judiciary, penal and
military, consisting of sixty articles. Nothing is overlooked; we
find ordinances concerning
"the town police, the laying out of streets and public squares, the
repairs of prisons, the road taxes and price of grain, the
administration of justice, fines, confiscations, and the diet of the
National Guards."
He is a provincial Solon,[15] zealous for the public welfare, and a
man of executive power, he expounds his ordinances from the pulpit,
and threatens the refractory. He passes decrees and renders
judgments in the town-hall: outside the town limits, at the head of
the National Guard, saber in hand, he will enforce his own
decisions. He causes it to be decided that, on the written order of
the committee, every citizen may be imprisoned. He imposes and
collects taxes; he has boundary walls torn down; he goes in person
to the houses of cultivators and makes requisitions for grain; he
seizes the convoys which have not deposited their quote in his own
richly stored granaries. One day, preceded by a drummer, he marches
outside the walls, makes proclamation of "his agrarian laws," and
proceeds at once to the partition of the territory, and, by virtue
of the ancient communal or church property rights, to assign to
himself a portion of it. All this is done in public and
consciously, the notary and the scrivener being called in to draw up
the official record of his acts; he is satisfied that human society
has come to an end, and that each local group has the right to begin
over again and apply in its own way the Constitution which it has
accorded to itself without reference to anybody else. - This man,
undoubtedly, talks too loudly, an proceeds too quickly; and first
the bailiwick, next the Châtelet, and afterwards the National
Assembly temporarily put a stop to his proceedings; but his
principle is a popular one, and the forty thousand communes of
France are about to act like so many distinct republics, under the
sentimental and constantly more powerless reprimands of the central
authority.
Excited and invigorated by a new sentiment, men now abandon
themselves to the proud consciousness of their own power and
independence. Nowhere is greater satisfaction found than among the
new local chiefs, the municipal officers and commanders of the
National Guard, for never before has such supreme authority and such
great dignity fallen upon men previously so submissive and so
insignificant. - Formerly the subordinates of an intendant or sub-
delegate, appointed, maintained, and ill-used by him, kept aloof
from transactions of any importance, unable to defend themselves
except by humble protestations against the aggravation of taxation,
concerned with precedence and the conflicts of etiquette,[16] plain
townspeople or peasants who never dreamt of interfering in military
matters, henceforth become sovereigns in all military and civil
affairs. This or that mayor or syndic of a little town or parish, a
petty bourgeois or villager in a blouse, whom the intendant or
military commander could imprison at will, now orders a gentleman, a
captain of dragoons, to march or stand still, and the captain stands
still or marches at his command. On the same bourgeois or villager
depends the safety of the neighboring chateau, of the large land-
owner and his family, of the prelate, and of all the prominent
personages of the district. in order that they may be out of harm's
way he must protect them; they will be pillaged if, in case of
insurrection, he does not send troops and the National Guard to
their assistance. It is he who, lending or refusing public force to
the collection of their rents, gives them or deprives them of the
means of living. He accordingly rules, and on the sole condition of
ruling according to the wishes of his equals, the vociferous
multitude, the restless, dominant mob which has elected him. - In
the towns, especially, and notably in the large towns, the contrast
between what he was and what he is immense, since to the plenitude
of his power is added the extent of his jurisdiction. Judge of the
effect on his brain in cities like those of Marseilles, Bordeaux,
Nantes, Rouen and Lyons, where he holds in his hand the lives and
property of eighty or a hundred thousand men. And the more as, amid
the municipal officers of the towns, three-quarters of them,
prosecutors or lawyers, are imbued with the new dogmas, and are
persuaded that in themselves alone, the directly elected of the
people, is vested all legitimate authority. Bewildered by their
recent elevation, distrustful as upstarts, in revolt against all
ancient or rival powers, they are additionally alarmed by their
imagination and ignorance, their minds being vaguely disturbed by
the contrast between their role in the past and their present role:
anxious on their own account, they find no security but in abuse and
use of power. The municipalities, on the strength of the reports
emanating from the coffee-houses, decide that the ministry are
traitors. With an obstinacy of conviction and a boldness of
presumption alike extraordinary, they believe that they have the
right to act without and against their orders, and against the
orders of the National Assembly itself, as if, in the now
disintegrated France, each municipality constituted the nation.
Thus, if the armed force of the country is now obedient to any body,
it is to them and to them alone, and not only the National Guard,
but also the regular troops which, placed under the orders of
municipalities by a decree of the National Assembly,[17] will comply
with no other. Military commanders in the provinces, after
September, 1787, declare themselves powerless; when they and the
municipality give orders, it is only those of the municipality which
the troops recognize. "However pressing may be the necessity for
moving the troops where their presence is required, they are stopped
by the resistance of the village committee."[18] "Without any
reasonable motive," writes the commander of the forces in Brittany,
"Vannes and Auray made opposition to the detachment which I thought
it prudent to send to Belle-Ile, to replace another one . . . The
Government cannot move without encountering obstacles. . . . The
Minister of War no longer has the direction of the army. . . .
No orders are executed. . . Every one wants to command, and no
one to obey. . . How could the King, the Government, or the
Minister of War send troops where they are wanted if the towns
believe that they have the right to countermand the orders given to
the regiments and change their destination? "-And it is still worse,
for, "on the false supposition of brigands and conspiracies which do
not exist,[19] the towns and villages make demands on me for arms
and even cannon. . . The whole of Brittany will soon be in a
frightful belligerent state on this account, for, having no real
enemies, they will turn their arms against each other." - This is
of no consequence. The panic is an "epidemic." People are
determined to believe in "brigands and enemies." At Nantes, the
assertion is constantly repeated that the Spaniards are going to
land, that the French regiments are going to make an attack, that an
army of brigands is approaching, that the castle is threatened, that
it is threatening, and that it contains too many engines of war.
The commandant of the province writes in vain to the mayor to
reassure him, and to explain to him that "the municipality, being
master of the chateau, is likewise master of its magazine. Why then
should it entertain fear about that which is in its own possession?
Why should any surprise be manifested at an arsenal containing arms
and gunpowder? " - Nothing is of any effect. The chateau is
invaded; two hundred workmen set to work to demolish the
fortifications; they listen only to their fears, and cannot exercise
too great precaution. However inoffensive the citadels may be, they
are held to be dangerous; however accommodating the commanders may
be, they are regarded with suspicion. The people chafe against the
bridle, relaxed and slack as it is. It is broken and cast aside,
that it may not be used again when occasion requires. Each
municipal body, each company of the National Guard, wants to reign
on its own plot of ground out of the way of any foreign control; and
this is what is called liberty. Its adversary, therefore, is the
central power. This must be disarmed for fear that it may
interpose. On all sides, with a sure and persistent instinct,
through the capture of fortresses, the pillage of arsenals, the
seduction of the soldiery, and the expulsion of generals, the
municipality ensures its omnipotence by guaranteeing itself
beforehand against all repression.
At Brest the municipal authorities insist that a naval officer shall
be surrendered to the people, and on the refusal of the King's
lieutenant to give him up, the permanent committee orders the
National Guard to load its guns.[20] At Nantes the municipal body
refuses to recognize M. d'Hervilly, sent to take command of a camp,
and the towns of the province write to declare that they will suffer
no other than the federated troops on their territory. At Lille the
permanent committee insists that the military authorities shall
place the keys of the town in its keeping every evening, and, a few
months after this, the National Guard, joined by mutinous soldiers,
seize the citadel and the person of Livarot, its commander. At
Toulon the commander of the arsenal, M. de Rioms, and several naval
officers, are put in the dungeon. At Montpellier the citadel is
surprised, and the club writes to the National Assembly to demand
its demolition. At Valence, the commandant, M. de Voisin, on
taking measures of defense, is massacred, and henceforth the
municipality issues all orders to the garrison. At Bastia, Colonel
de Rully falls under a shower of bullets, and the National Guard
takes possession of the citadel and the powder magazine. These are
not passing outbursts: at the end of two years the same
insubordinate spirit is apparent everywhere.[21] In vain do the
commissioners of the National Assembly seek to transfer the Nassau
regiment from Metz. Sedan refuses to receive it; while Thionville
declares that, if it comes, she will blow up the bridges, and
Sarrebuis threatens, if it approaches, that it will open fire on it.
At Caen neither the municipality nor the directory dares enforce the
law which assigns the castle to the troops of the line; the National
Guard refuses to leave it, and forbids the director of the artillery
to inspect the munitions. - In this state of things a Government
subsists in name but not in fact, for it no longer possesses the
means of enforcing obedience. Each commune arrogates to itself the
right of suspending or preventing the execution of the simplest and
most urgent orders. Arnay-le-Duc, in spite of passports and legal
injunctions, persists in retaining Mesdames; Arcis-sur-Aube retains
Necker, and Montigny is about to retain M. Caillard, Ambassador of
France.[22] - In the month of June, 1791, a convoy of eighty
thousand crowns of six livres sets out from Paris for Switzerland;
this is a repayment by the French Government to that of Soleure; the
date of payment is fixed, the itinerary marked out; all the
necessary documents are provided; it is important that it should
arrive on the day when the bill falls due. But they have counted
without the municipalities and the National Guards. Arrested at
Bar-sur-Aube, it is only at the end of a month, and on a decree of
the National Assembly, that the convoy can resume. its march. At
Belfort it is seized again, and it still remains there in the month
of November. In vain has the directory of the Bas-Rhin ordered its
release; the Belfort municipality paid no attention to the order.
In vain the same directory dispatches a commissioner, who is near
being cut to pieces. The personal interference of General Luckner,
with the strong arm, is necessary, before the convoy can pass the
frontier, after five months of delay.[23] In the month of July 1791,
a French vessel on the way from Rouen to Caudebec, said to be loaded
with kegs of gold and silver, is stopped. On the examination being
made, it has a right to leave; its papers are all correct, and the
department enjoins the district to respect the law. The district,
however, replies that it is impossible, since "all the
municipalities on the banks of the Seine have armed and are awaiting
the passing of the vessel," and the National Assembly itself is
obliged to pass a decree that the vessel shall be discharged.
If the rebellion of the small communes is of this stamp, what must
be that of the larger ones?[24] The departments and districts summon
the municipality in vain; it disobeys or pays no attention to the
summons.
"Since the session began," writes the directory of Saône-et-Loire;
"the municipality of Maçon has taken no step in relation to us which
has not been an encroachment. It has not uttered a word, which has
not been an insult. It has not entered upon a deliberation which
has not been an outrage."
"If the regiment of Aunis is not ordered here immediately," writes
the directory of Calvados, "if prompt and efficient measures are not
taken to provide us with an armed force, we shall abandon a post
which we can not longer hold due to insubordination, license,
contempt for all the authorities. We shall in this case be unable to
perform the duties which were imposed upon us."
The directory of the Bouches-du-Rhone, on being attacked, flies
before the bayonets of Marseilles. The members of the directory of
Gers, in conflict with the municipality of Auch, are almost beaten
to death. As to the ministers, who are distrusted by virtue of
their office, they are still less respected than the directories,
They are constantly denounced to the Assembly, while the
municipalities send back their dispatches without deigning to open
them,[25] and, towards the end of 1791, their increasing
powerlessness ends in complete annihilation. We can judge of this
by one example. In the month of December 1791, Limoges is not
allowed to carry away the grain, which it had just purchased in
Indre, a force of sixty horsemen being necessary to protect its
transportation. The directory of Indre at once calls upon the
ministers to furnish them with this small troop.[26] After trying
for three weeks, the minister replies that it is out of his power;
he has knocked at all doors in vain. "I have pointed out one way,"
he says, "to the deputies of your department in the National
Assembly, namely, to withdraw the 20th regiment of cavalry from
Orleans, and I have recommended them to broach the matter to the
deputies of Loiret." The answer is still delayed: the deputies of
the two departments have to come to an agreement, for, otherwise,
the minister dares not displace sixty men to protect a convoy of
grain. It is plain enough that there is no longer any executive
power. There is no longer a central authority. There is no longer
a France, but merely so many disintegrated and independent communes,
like Orleans and Limoges, which, through their representatives,
carry on negotiations with each other, one to secure itself from a
deficiency of troops, and the other to secure itself from a want of
bread.
Let us consider this general dissolution on the spot, and take up a
case in detail. On the 18th of January 1790, the new municipal
authorities of Marseilles enter upon their duties. As is generally
the case, the majority of the electors have had nothing to do with
the balloting. The mayor, Martin, having been elected by only an
eighth of the active citizens.[27] If, however, the dominant
minority is a small one, it is resolute and not inclined to stop at
trifles. "Scarcely is it organized,"[28] when it sends deputies to
the King to have him withdraw his troops from Marseilles. The King,
always weak and accommodating, finally consents; and, the orders to
march being prepared, the municipality is duly advised of them. But
the municipality will tolerate no delay, and immediately "draws up,
prints, and issues a denunciation to the National Assembly" against
the commandant and the two ministers who, according to it, are
guilty of having forged or suppressed the King's orders. In the
meantime it equips and fortifies itself as for a combat. At its
first establishment the municipality broke up the bourgeois guard,
which was too great a lover of order, and organized a National
Guard, in which those who have no property are soon to be admitted.
"Daily additions are made to its military apparatus;[29]
entrenchments and barricades at the Hôtel-de-Ville, are increasing,
the artillery is increased; the town is filled with the excitement
of a military camp in the immediate presence of an enemy." Thus, in
possession of force, it makes use of it, and in the first place
against justice. -- A popular insurrection had been suppressed in
the month of August 1789, and the three principal leaders, Rebecqui,
Pascal, and Granet, had been imprisoned in the Chateau d'If. They
are the friends of the municipal authorities, and they must be set
free. At the demand of this body the affair is taken out of the
hands of the grand-prévôt and put into those of the sénéchaussée,
the former, meanwhile, together with his councilors, undergoing
punishment for having performed their duty. The municipality, on
its own authority, forbids them from further exercise of their
functions. They are publicly denounced, "threatened with poniards,
the scaffold, and every species of assassination." [30] No printer
dares publish their defense, for fear of "municipal annoyances." It
is not long before the royal procureur and a councillor are reduced
to seeking refuge in Fort Saint-Jean, while the grand-prévôt after
having resisted a little longer, leaves Marseilles in order to save
his life. As to the three imprisoned men, the municipal authorities
visit them in a body and demand their provisional release. One of
them having made his escape, they refuse to give the commandant the
order for his re-arrest. The other two triumphantly leave the
chateau on the 11th of April, escorted by eight hundred National
Guards. They go, for form's sake, to the prisons of the
sénéchaussée but the next day are set at liberty, and further
prosecution ceases. As an offset to this, M. d'Ambert, colonel in
the Royal Marine, guilty of expressing himself too warmly against
the National Guard, although acquitted by the tribunal before which
he was brought, can be set at liberty only in secret and under the
protection of two thousand soldiers. The populace want to burn the
house of the criminal lieutenant that dared absolve him. The
magistrate himself is in danger, and is forced to take refuge in the
house of the military commander.[31] Meanwhile, printed and written
papers, insulting libels by the municipal body and the club, the
seditious or violent discussions of the district assemblies, and a
lot of pamphlets, are freely distributed among the people and the
soldiers: the latter are purposely stirred up in advance against
their chiefs. - - In vain are the officers mild, conciliatory, and
cautious. In vain does the commander-in-chief depart with a portion
of the troops. The object now is to dislodge the regiment occupying
the three forts. The club sets the ball in motion, and, forcibly or
otherwise, the will of the people must be carried out. On the 29th
of April, two actors, supported by fifty volunteers, surprise a
sentinel and get possession of Notre-Dame de la Garde. On the same
day, six thousand National Guards invest the forts of Saint-Jean and
Saint-Nicolas. The municipal authorities, summoned to respect the
fortresses, reply by demanding the opening of the gates to the
National Guard, that it may do duty jointly with the soldiers. The
commandants hesitate, refer to the law, and demand time to consult
their superiors. A second requisition, more urgent, is made; the
commandants are held responsible for the disturbances they provoke
by their refusal. If they resist they are declared promoters of
civil war.[32] They accordingly yield and sign a capitulation.
One among them, the Chevalier de Beausset, major in Fort Saint-Jean,
is opposed to this, and refuses his signature. On the following day
he is seized as he is about to enter the Hôtel-de-Ville, and
massacred, his head being borne about on the end of a pike, while
the band of assassins, the soldiers, and the rabble dance about and
shout over his remains. - " It is a sad accident," writes the
municipality.[33] How does it happen that, "after having thus far
merited and obtained all praise, a Beausset, whom we were unable to
protect against the decrees of Providence, should sully our laurels?
Having had nothing to do with this tragic affair, it is not for us
to prosecute the authors of it." Moreover, he was "culpable . . ..
rebellious, condemned by public opinion, and Providence itself seems
to have abandoned him to the irrevocable decrees of its vengeance."
- As to the taking of the forts, nothing is more legitimate. "These
places were in the hands of the enemies of the State, while now they
are in the hands of the defenders of the Constitution of the empire.
Woe to whoever would take them from us again, to convert them into a
focus of counter-revolution " - M. de Miran, commandant of the
province, has, it is true, made a demand for them. But, "is it not
somewhat pitiable to see the requisition of a Sieur de Miran, made
in the name of the King he betrays, to surrender to his Majesty's
troops places which, henceforth in our hands, guarantee public
security to the nation, to the law, and to the King?" In vain does
the King, at the request of the National Assembly,[34] order the
municipality to restore the forts to the commandants, and to make
the National Guards leave them. The municipal authorities become
indignant, and resist. According to them the wrong is all on the
side of the commandant and the ministers. It is the commandants
who, "with the threatening equipment of their citadels, their stores
of provisions and of artillery, are disturbers of the public peace.
What does the minister mean by driving the national troops out of
the forts, in order to entrust their guardianship to foreign troops?
His object is apparent in this plan . . . . he wants to kindle
civil war." - "All the misfortunes of Marseilles originate in the
secret under-standing existing between the ministers and the enemies
of the State." The municipal corps is at last obliged to evacuate
the forts, but it is determined not to give them up. The day
following that on which it receives the decree of the National
Assembly, it conceives the design of demolishing them. On the 17th
of May, two hundred laborers, paid in advance, begin the work of
destruction. To save appearances the municipal body betakes itself
at eleven o'clock in the morning to the different localities, and
orders them to stop. But, on its departure, the laborers keep on;
and, at six o'clock in the evening, a resolution is passed that, "to
prevent the entire demolition of the citadel, it is deemed advisable
to authorize only that of the part overlooking the town." On the
18th of May the Jacobin club, at once agent, accomplice, and
councilor of the municipal body, compels private individuals to
contribute something towards defraying the expenses of the
demolition. It "sends round to every house, and to the syndics of
all corporations, exacting their quotas, and making all citizens
subscribe a document by which they appear to sanction the action of
the municipal body, and to express their thanks to it. People had
to sign it, pay, and keep silent. Woe to any one that refused !" On
the 20th of May the municipal body presumes to write to the
Assembly, that "this threatening citadel, this odious monument of a
stupendous despotism, is about to disappear." To justify its
disobedience, it takes occasion to remark, "that the love of country
is the most powerful and most enduring of an empire's ramparts." On
the 28th of May it secures the performance in two theaters of a
piece representing the capture of the forts of Marseilles, for the
benefit of the men engaged in their demolition. Meanwhile, it has
summoned the Paris Jacobins to its support; it has proposed to
invite the Lyons federation and all the municipalities of the
kingdom to denounce the minister. It has forced M. de Miran,
threatened with death and watched by a party in ambush on the road,
to quit Aix, and then demands his recall.[35] Only on the 6th of
June does it decide, at the express command of the National
Assembly, to suspend the almost completed demolition. - ?Authorities
to which obedience is due could not be treated more insolently. The
end, however, is attained; there is no longer a citadel, and the
troops have departed; the regiment commanded by Ernest alone
remains, to be tampered with, insulted, and then sent off. It is
ordered to Aix, and the National Guard of Marseilles will go there
to disarm and disband it. Henceforth the municipal body has full
sway. It "observes only those laws which suit it, makes others to
its own liking, and, in short, governs in the most despotic and
arbitrary manner."[36] And not only at Marseilles, but throughout
the department where, under no authority but its own, it undertakes
armed expeditions and makes raids and sudden attacks.
III.
Independent Assemblies. - Why they took the initiative. - The people
in council. - Powerlessness of the municipalities. - the violence to
which they are subject. - Aix in 1790. - Government disobeyed and
perverted everywhere.
Were it but possible for the dissolution to stop here! But each
commune is far from being a tranquil little state under the rule of
a body of respected magistrates. The same causes which render
municipalities rebellious against the central authority render
individuals rebellious against local authority. They also feel that
they are in danger and want to provide for their own safety. They
also, in virtue of the Constitution and of circumstances, believe
themselves appointed to save the country. They also consider
themselves qualified to judge for themselves on all points and
entitled to carry out their judgments with their own hands. The
shopkeeper, workman or peasant, at once elector and National Guard,
furnished with his vote and a musket, suddenly becomes the equal and
master of his superiors; instead of obeying, he commands, while all
who see him again after some years' absence, find that "in his
demeanor and manner all is changed." "There was great agitation
everywhere,"[37] says M. de Ségur; "I noticed groups of men talking
earnestly in the streets and on the squares. The sound of the drum
struck my ear in the villages, while I was astonished at the great
number of armed men I encountered in the little towns. On
interrogating various persons among the lower classes they would
reply with a proud look and in a bold and confident tone. I
observed everywhere the effect of those sentiments of equality and
liberty which had then become such violent passions." - Thus
exalted in their own eyes they believed themselves qualified to take
the lead in everything, not only in local affairs, but also in
general matters. France is to be governed by them; by virtue of the
Constitution they arrogate to themselves the right, and, by dint of
ignorance, attribute to themselves the capacity, to govern it. A
torrent of new, shapeless, and disproportionate ideas have taken
possession of their brains in the space of a few months. Vast
interests about which they have never thought, have to be
considered. Government, royalty, the church, creeds, foreign
powers, internal and external dangers, what is occurring at Paris
and at Coblentz, the insurrection in the Low Countries, the acts of
the cabinets of London, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin; and, of all this,
they inform themselves as they best can. An officer,[38] who
traverses France at this time, narrates that at the post-stations
they made him wait for horses until he had "given them details. The
peasants stopped my carriage in the middle of the road and
overwhelmed me with questions. At Autun, I was obliged, in spite of
the cold, to talk out of a window opening upon the square and tell
what I knew about the Assembly." - These on-dits are all changed
and amplified in passing from mouth to mouth. They finally become
circumstantial stories adapted to the caliber of the minds they pass
into and to the dominant passion that propagates them. Trace the
effect of these fables in the house of a peasant or fish-woman in an
outlying village or a populous suburb, on brutish or almost brutal
minds, especially when they are lively, heated, and over-excited -
the effect is tremendous. For, in minds of this stamp, belief is at
once converted into action, and into rude and destructive action.
It is an acquired self-control, reflection, and culture which
interposes between belief and action the solicitude for social
interests, the observance of forms and respect for the law. These
restraints are all wanting in the new sovereign. He does not know
how to stop and will not suffer himself to be stopped. Why so many
delays when the peril is urgent? What is the use of observing
formalities when the safety of the people is at stake? What is there
sacred in the law when it protects public enemies? What is more
pernicious than passive deference and patient waiting under timid or
blind officials? What can be more just than to do one's self justice
at once and on the spot? - Precipitation and passion, in their
eyes, are both duties and merits. One day "the militia of Lorient
decide upon marching to Versailles and to Paris without considering
how they are to get over the ground or what they will do on their
arrival."[39] Were the central government within reach they would
lay their hands on it. In default of this they substitute
themselves for it on their own territory, and exercise its functions
with a full conviction of right, principally those of gendarme,
judge, and executioner.
During the month of October, 1789, at Paris, after the assassination
of the baker François, the leading murderer, who is a porter at the
grain depot, declares "that he wanted to avenge the nation." It is
quite probable that this declaration is sincere. In his mind,
assassination is one of the forms of patriotism, and it does not
take long for his way of thinking to become prevalent. In ordinary
times, social and political ideas slumber in uncultured minds in the
shape of vague antipathies, restrained aspirations, and fleeting
desires. Behold them aroused - energetic, imperious, stubborn, and
unbridled. Objection or opposition is not to be tolerated; dissent,
with them, is a sure sign of treachery. - Apropos of the nonjuring
priests,[40] five hundred and twenty-seven of the National Guards of
Arras write, "that no one could doubt their iniquity without being
suspected of being their accomplices. . . . Should the whole
town combine and express a contrary opinion, it would simply show
that it is filled with enemies of the Constitution;" and forthwith,
in spite of the law and the remonstrances of the authorities, they
insist on the closing of the churches. At Boulogne-sur-Mer, an
English vessel having shipped a quantity of poultry, game, and eggs,
"the National Guards, of their own authority," go on board and
remove the cargo. On the strength of this, the accommodating
municipal body approves of the act, declares the cargo confiscated,
orders it to be sold, and awards one-half of the proceeds to the
National Guards and the other half to charitable purposes. The
concession is a vain one, for the National Guards consider that one-
half is too little, "insult and threaten the municipal officers,"
and immediately proceed to divide the booty in kind, each one going
home with a share of stolen hams and chickens.[41] The magistrates
must necessarily keep quiet with the guns of those they govern
pointed at them. - Sometimes, and it is generally the case, they are
timid, and do not try to resist. At Douai,[42] the municipal
officers, on being summoned three times to proclaim martial law,
refuse, and end by avowing that they dare not unfold the red flag:
"Were we to take this course we should all be sacrificed on the
spot." Neither the troops nor the National Guards, in fact, are to
be relied on. In this universal state of apathy the field is open
to savages, and a dealer in wheat is hung. - Sometimes the
administrative corps tries to resist, but in the end it has to
succumb to violence. "For more than six hours," writes one of the
members of the district of Etampes,[43] "we were closed in by
bayonets leveled at us and with pistols at our breasts ; and they
were obliged to sign a dismissal of the troops which had arrived to
protect the market. At present "we are all away from Etampes; there
is no longer a district or a municipality;" almost all have handed
in their resignations, or are to return for that purpose. -
Sometimes, and this is the rarest case,[44] the officials do their
duty to the end, and perish. In this same town, six months later,
Simoneau, the mayor, having refused to cut down the price of wheat,
is beaten with iron-pointed sticks, and his corpse is riddled with
balls by the murderers. - Municipal bodies must take heed how they
undertake to stem the torrent; the, slightest opposition will soon
be at the expense of their lives. In Touraine,[45] "as the
publication of the tax-rolls takes place, riots break out against
the municipal authorities; they are forced to surrender the rolls
they have drawn up, and their papers are torn up." And still more,
"they kill, they assassinate the municipal authorities." In that
large commune men and women "beat and kick them with their fists and
sabots. . . . The mayor is laid up after it, and the procureur
of the commune died between nine and ten o'clock in the morning.
Véteau, a municipal officer, received the last sacrament this
morning ;" the rest have fled, being constantly threatened with
death and incendiarism. They do not, consequently, return, and "no
one now will take the office of either mayor or administrator." -
The outrages which the municipalities thus commit against their
superiors are committed against themselves. The National Guards,
the mob, the controlling faction, arrogating to themselves in the
commune the same violent sovereignty which the commune pretends to
exercise against the State.
I should never finish if I undertook to enumerate the outbreaks in
which the magistrates are constrained to tolerate or to sanction
popular usurpations, to shut up churches, to drive off or imprison
priests, to suppress octrois, tax grain, and allow clerks; bakers,
corn-dealers, ecclesiastics, nobles, and officers to be hung, beaten
to death, or to have their throats cut. Ninety-four thick files of
records in the national archives are filled with these acts of
violence, and do not contain two-thirds of them. It is worth while
to take in detail one case more, a special one, and one that is
authentic, which serves as a specimen, and which presents a
foreshortened image of France during one tranquil year. At Aix, in
the month of December, 1790,[46] in Opposition to the two Jacobin
clubs, a club had been organized, had complied with all the
formalities, and, like the " Club des Monarchiens" at Paris, claimed
the same right of meeting as the others. But here, as at Paris, the
Jacobins recognize no rights but for themselves alone, and refuse to
admit their adversaries to the privileges of the law. Moreover,
alarming rumors are circulated. A person who has arrived from Nice
states that he had "heard that there were twenty thousand men
between Turin and Nice, under the pay of the emigrants, and that at
Nice a neuvaine[47] was held in Saint François-de-Paule to pray God
to enlighten the French." A counter-revolution is certainly under
way. Some of the aristocrats have stated "with an air of triumph,
that the National Guard and municipalities are a mere toy, and that
this sort of thing will not last long." One of the leading members
of the new club, M. de Guiraitiand, an old officer of seventy-eight
years, makes speeches in public against the National Assembly, tries
to enlist artisans in his party, "affects to wear a white button on
his hat fastened by pins with their points jutting out," and, as it
is stated, he has given to several mercers a large order for white
cockades. In reality, on examination, not one is found in any shop,
and all the dealers in ribbons, on being interrogated, reply that
they know of no transaction of that description. But this simply
proves that the culprit is a clever dissimulator, and the more
dangerous because he is eager to save the country. - On the 12th of
December, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the two Jacobin clubs
fraternise, and pass in long procession before the place of meeting,
"where some of the members, a few officers of the Lyons regiment and
other individuals, are quietly engaged at play or seeing others
play." The crowd hoot, but they remain quiet. The procession passes
by again, and they hoot and shout, "Down with the aristocrats to the
lamp post with them! " Two or three of the officers standing on the
threshold of the door become irritated, and one of them, drawing his
sword, threatens to strike a young man if he keeps on. Upon this
the crowd cries out, "Guard! Help! An assassin!" and rushes at the
officer, who withdraws into the house, exclaiming, "To arms!" His
comrades, sword in hand, descend in order to defend the door; M. de
Guiramand fires two pistol shots and receives a stab in the thigh.
A shower of stones smashes in the windows, and the door is on the
point of being burst open when several of the members of the club
save themselves by taking to the roof. About a dozen others, most
of them officers, form in line, penetrate the crowd with uplifted
swords, strike and get struck, and escape, five of them being
wounded. The municipality orders the doors and windows of the club-
house to be walled up, sends the Lyons regiment away, decrees the
arrest of seven officers and of M. de Guiramand, and all this in a
few hours, with no other testimony than that of the conquerors.
But these prompt, vigorous and partial measures are not sufficient
for the Jacobin club; other conspirators must be seized, and it is
the club which designates them and goes to take them. - Three months
before this, M. Pascalis, an advocate, on addressing along with
some of his professional brethren the dissolved parliament, deplored
the blindness of the people, "exalted by prerogatives of which they
knew not the danger." A man who dared talk in this way is evidently
a traitor. - There is another, M. Morellet de la Roquette, who
refused to join the proscribed club. His former vassals, however,
had been obliged to bring an action against him to make him accept
the redemption of his feudal dues; also, six years before this, his
carriage, passing along the public promenade, had run over a child;
he likewise is an enemy of the people. While the municipal officers
are deliberating, "a few members of the club" get together and
decide that M. Pascalis and M. de la Roquette must be arrested.
At eleven o'clock at night eighty trustworthy National Guards, led
by the president of the club, travel a league off to seize them in
their beds and lodge them in the town prison. - Zeal of this kind
excites some uneasiness, and if the municipality tolerates the
arrests, it is because it is desirous of preventing murder.
Consequently, on the following day, December 13th, it sends to
Marseilles for four hundred men of the Swiss Guard commanded by
Ernest, and four hundred National Guards, adding to these the
National Guard of Aix, and orders this company to protect the prison
against any violence. But, along with the Marseilles National
Guards, there came a lot of armed people who are volunteers of
disorder. On the afternoon of the 13th the first mob strives to
force the prison, and the next day, fresh squads congregate around
it demanding the head of M. Pascalis. The members of the club head
the riot with "a crowd of unknown men from outside the town, who
give orders and carry them out." During the night the populace of
Aix are tampered with, and the dikes all give way at the same
moment. At the first clamors the National Guard on duty on the
public promenade disband and disperse, while, as there is no signal
for the assemblage of the others, notwithstanding the regulations,
the general alarm is not sounded. "The largest portion of the
National Guard draws off so as not to appear to authorize by its
presence outrages which it has not been ordered to prevent.
Peaceable Citizens are in great consternation;" each one takes to
flight or shuts himself up in his house, the streets being deserted
and silent. Meanwhile the prison gates are shattered with axes.
The procureur-syndic of the department, who requests the commandant
of the Swiss regiment to protect the prisoners, is seized, borne
off, and runs the risk of losing his life. Three municipal officers
in their scarves, who arrive on the ground, dare not give the order
required by the commandant. At this decisive moment, when it is
necessary to shed blood and kill a number of men, they obviously
fear to take the responsibility; their reply is, "We have no orders
to give." - An extraordinary spectacle now presents itself in this
barrack courtyard surrounding the prison. On the side of the law
stand eight hundred armed men, four hundred of the "Swiss" and four
hundred of the National Guard of Marseilles. They are drawn up in
battle array, with guns to their shoulders, with special orders
repeated the evening before at three different times by the
municipal district and departmental authorities and they have the
sympathies of all honest people and of most of the National Guard.
But the legal indispensable phrase does not pass the lips of those
who by virtue of the Constitution should utter it, and a small group
of convicts are found to be sovereign. -- The three municipal
officers are seized in their turn under the eyes of their own
soldiers who remain motionless, and "with bayonets at their breasts
they sign, under constraint, the order to give up M. Pascalis to
the people." M. de la Roquette is likewise surrendered. "The only
portion of the National Guard of Aix which was visible," that is to
say, the Jacobin minority, form a circle around the gate of the
prison and organize themselves into a council of war. And there
they stand; at once "accusers, witnesses, judges, and executioners."
A captain conducts the two victims to the public promenade where
they are hung. Very soon after this old M. de Guiramand, whom the
National Guard of his village have brought a prisoner to Aix, is
hung in the same manner.
There is no prosecution of the assassins. The new tribunal,
frightened or forestalled, has for some time back ranged itself on
the popular side; its writs, consequently, are served on the
oppressed, against the members of the assaulted dub. Writs of
arrest, summonses to attend court, searches, seizures of
correspondence, and other proceedings, rain down upon them. Three
hundred witnesses are examined. Some of the arrested officers are
"loaded with chains and thrust into dungeons." Henceforth the club
rules, and "makes everybody tremble."[48] "From the 23rd to the
27th of December, more than ten thousand passports are delivered at
Aix." "If the emigrations continue," write the commissioners, "there
will be no one left at Aix but workmen without work and with no
resources. Whole streets are uninhabited. . . . . As long as
such crimes can be permitted with impunity fear will drive out of
this town every one who has the means of living elsewhere." - ?Many
come back after the arrival of the commissioners, hoping to obtain
justice and security through them. But, "if a prosecution is not
ordered, we shall scarcely have departed from Aix when three or four
hundred families will abandon it. . . . And what man in his
senses would dare guarantee that each village will not soon have
some one hung in it? . . . Country valets arrest their masters.
. . . The expectation of impunity leads the inhabitants of
villages to commit all sorts of depredations in the forests, which
is very harmful in a region where woods are very scarce. They set
up the most absurd and most unjust pretensions against rich
proprietors, and the fatal rope is ever the interpreter and the
signal of their will." There is no refuge against these outrages.
"The department, the districts, the municipalities, administer only
in conformity with the multiplied petitions of the club." In the
sight of all, and on one solemn day, a crushing defeat has
demonstrated the weakness of the government officials; and, bowed
beneath the yoke of their new masters, they preserve their legal
authority only on the condition that it remains at the service of
the victorious party.
_____________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Festivals approving the federation of all the National Guards in
France. (SR.)
[2] See the address of the commune of Paris, June 5, 1790. "Let the
most touching of all utterances be heard on this day (the
anniversary of the taking of the Bastille), Frenchmen, we are
brothers! Yes, brothers, freemen and with a country!" Roux et
Buchez, VI. 275.
[3] Buchez and Roux, IV. 3, 309; V. 123; VI. 274, 399. -
Duvergier, Collection of Laws and Decrees. Decree of June 8 and 9,
1790.
[4] For one who, like myself, has lived for years among the Moslems,
the 5 daily ritual prayers all performed while turned towards Mecca,
this description of the French taking of the oath, has something
familiar in it. (SR.)
[5] Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution Française," II, 470, 474.
[6] De Ferrières, II. 91. - Albert Babeau, I. 340. (Letter
addressed to the Chevalier de Poterat, July 18, 1790.) - De
Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes yeux,"etc., 155.
[7] One may imagine the impression Taine's description made upon the
thousands of political science students and others in the years
after this book was printed and widely sold all over Europe. (SR.)
[8] Sauzay, I. 202.
[9] Albert Babeau, ib. I, 339 - De Ferrières, II, 92.
[10] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453, Correspondence of M. de
Bercheney, May 23, 1790.
[11] "Archives Nationales," ibid, May 13, 1790. "M. de la
Rifaudière was dragged from his carriage and brought to the guard-
house, which was immediately filled with people, shouting, 'To the
lamp post, the aristocrat!' - The fact is this: after his having
repeatedly shouted Vive le Roi et la Nation! They wanted him to
shout Vive la Nation! alone, upon which he gave Vive la Nation tant
qu'elle pourra." - At Blois, on the day of the Federation, a mob
promenades the streets with a wooden head covered with a wig, and a
placard stating that the aristocrats must be decapitated.
[12] Might Freud ( 1856- 1939) have been inspired, directly or
indirectly, by Taine's observation? 'La Révolution' vol. I, was
published in 1877 when Freud was 21 years old!! (SR.)
[13] Mercure de France, the articles by Mallet du Pan (June 18th and
August 16, 1791; April 14, 1792).
[14] Moniteur, IV. 560. (sitting of June 5, 1790) report of M.
Freteau. "These facts are attested by fifty witnesses." - Cf.
The number of April 19, 1791.
[15] Solon was a famous legislator who reformed Athens some 2500
years ago. (SR.)
[16] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. de
Thiard, military commandant in Brittany (September, 1789), "There
are in every petty village three conflicting powers, the présidial,
the bourgeois militia, and the permanent committee. Each is anxious
to outrank the other, and, on this occasion, a scene happened to
come under my eyes at Landivisiau which might have had a bloody
termination, but which turned out to be simply ridiculous. A lively
dispute arose between three speakers to determine which should make
the first address. They appealed to me to decide. Not to offend
either of the parties, I decided that all three should speak at the
same time; which decision was immediately carried out.
[17] Decree of August 10-14, 1789.
[18] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. de
Thiard, September 21, 1789. "The troops now obey the municipalities
only." -- Also July 30th, August 11, 1790.
[19] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of 31. M. de
Thiard, September 11 and 25, November 20, December 25 and 30, 1789.
[20] Buchez and Roux, V.304 (April, 1790). - "Archives Nationales,"
Papers of the committee of Investigation, DXXIX. I (note of M.
Latour-du-Pin, October 28, 1789) - ? Buchez and Roux, IV. 3
(December 1, 1789); IV. 390 (February, 1790); VI. 179 (April and
May, 1790).
[21] Mercure de France, Report of M. Emery, sitting of July 21,
1790, Number for July 32. -- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200.
Letter of the directory of Calvados, September 26 and October 20,
1791.
[22] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3207. Letter of the minister
Dumouriez, June 15, 1792. Report of M. Caillard, May 29, 1792.
[23] Mercure de France, No. for July, 1791 (sitting of the 6th);
Nos. for November 5 and 26, 1791.
[24] Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," vol. I. passim. -- "
Archives Nationales," F7, 3257. Address of the Directory of Saône-
et-Loire to the National Assembly, November 1, 1790. -- F7, 3200.
Letter of the Directory of Calvados, November 9, 1791. -- F 7,
3195. Minutes of the meeting of the municipality of Aix, March 1,
1792 (on the events of February 26th); letter of M. Villard,
President of the Directory, March 20, 1792. -- F7, 3220. Extracts
from the deliberations of the Directory of Gers, and a letter to the
King, January 28, 1792. Letter of M. Lafitau, President of the
Directory, January 30. (He was dragged along by his hair and
obliged to leave the town.)
[25] Mercure de France, No. for October 30, 1790.
[26] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3226. Letter of the directory of
Indre to M. Cahier, minister, December 6, 1791. -- Letter of M.
Delessart, minister, to the directory of Indre, December 31, 1791.
[27] Fabre, "Histoire de Marseille," II. 442. Martin had but 3,555
votes, when shortly after the National Guard numbered 24,000 men.
[28] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of the minister, M.
de Saint-Priest, to the President of the National Assembly, May 11,
1790.
[29] "Archives Nationales," F7 3196. Letters of the military
commandant, M. de Miran, March 6, 14, 30, 1790.
[30] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of M. de Bournissac,
grand-privot, March 6,1790.
[31] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letters of M. du Miran,
April 11th and 16th, and May 1, 1790.
[32] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Procés-verbal of events on
the 30th of April.
[33] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letters of the Municipality
of Marseilles to the National Assembly, May 5 and 20, 1790.
[34] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Order of the king, May10.
Letter of M. de Saint-Priest to the National Assembly, May 11.
Decree of the National Assembly, May 12. Letter of the Municipality
to the King. May 20. Letter of M. de Rubum, May 20. Note sent
from Marseilles, May 31. Address of the Municipality to the
President of the Friends of the Constitution, at Paris, May 5. In
his narration of the taking of the forts we read the following
sentence: "We arrived without hindrance in the presence of the
commandant, whom we brought to an agreement by means of the
influence which force, fear and reason give to persuasion."
[35] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196, Letter of M. de Miran, May 5.
-- The spirit of the ruling party at Marseilles is indicated by
several printed documents joined to the dossier, and, among others,
by a "Requéte à Desmoulins, procureur-général de la Lanterne." It
relates to a "patriotic inkstand," recently made out of the stones
of the demolished citadel, representing a hydra with four heads,
symbolizing the nobility, the clergy, the ministry and the judges.
"It is from the four patriotic skulls of the hydra that the ink of
proscription will he taken for the enemies of the Constitution.
This inkstand, cut out of the first stone that fell in the
demolition of Fort Saint-Nicolas, is dedicated to the patriotic
Assembly of Marseilles. The magic art of the hero of the liberty of
Marseilles, that Renaud who, under the mask of devotion, surprised
the watchful sentinel of Notre-Dame de la Garde, and whose manly
courage and cunning ensured the conquest of that key of the great
focus of counter-revolution, has just given birth to a new trait of
genius a new Deucalion, he personifies this stone which Liberty has
flung from the summit of our menacing Bastilles, etc."
[36] "Archives Nationales," F7. 3198. Letters of the royal
commissioners, April 13 and 5, 1791.
[37] De Ségur, "Memoires," III, 482 (early in 1790).
[38] De Dampmartin, I. 184 (January, 1791).
[39] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. de
Thiard (October 12, 1789).
[40] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Minutes from the meeting of
the directory of the department. March 28, 1792. "As the ferment
was at the highest point and fears were entertained that greater
evils would follow, M. le Président, with painful emotion declared
that he yielded and passed the unconstitutional act." Reply of the
minister, June 23: " If the constituted authorities are thus forced
to yield to the arbitrary will of a wild multitude, government no
longer exists and we are in the saddest stage of anarchy. If you
think it best I will propose to the King to reverse your last
decision."
[41] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Letter of M. Duport,
minister of justice, December 24, 1791.
[42] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248, Report of the members of the
department, finished March 18, 1792. -- Buchez and Roux, IX. 240
(Report of M. Alquier).
[43] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Extract from the
deliberations of the directory of Seine-et-Oise, with the documents
relating to the insurrection at Etampes, September 16, 1791. Letter
of M. Venard, administrator of the district, September 20 -- " I
shall not set foot in Etampes until the re-establishment of order
and tranquility, and the first thing I shall do will be to record
my resignation in the register. I am tired of making sacrifices,
for ungrateful wretches."
[44] Moniteur, March 16, 1792. -- Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire de la
Terreur" (Proceedings against the assassins of Simoneau), I. 381.
[45] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3226. Letter and memorandum of
Chenantin, cultivator, November 7, 1792. Extract from the
deliberations of the directory of Langeais, November 5, 1792
(sedition at Chapelle-Blanche, near Langeais, October 5, 1792).
[46] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3105. Report of the commissioners
sent by the National Assembly and the King, February 23, 1791. (On
the events of December 12 and 14, 1790) -- Mercure de France,
February 29, 5791. (Letters from Aix, and notably a letter from
seven officers shut up in prison at Aix, January 30, 1791.) The
oldest Jacobin Club formed in February, 1790, was entitled "(Club
des vrais amis de la Constitution." The second Jacobin club, formed
in October, 1790, was "composed from the beginning of artisans and
laborers from the faubourgs and suburbs." Its title was" Société des
frères anti-politiques," or "frères vrais, justes et utiles à la
patrie." The opposition club, formed in December, 1790, bore the
title, according to some, of "Les Amis du Roi, de la paix et de la
religion;" according to others, "Les amis de la paix;" and finally,
according to another report, "Les Défenseurs de la religion, des
personnes et des proprietés."
[47] A special series of religious services. (TR)
[48] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letters of the commissioners,
March 20, February 11, May 10, 1791.
CHAPTER II. SOVEREIGNTY OF UNRESTRAINED PASSIONS.
Under these conditions when passions are freed; any determined and
competent man who can gather a couple of hundred men may form a band
and slip through the enlarged or weakened meshes of the net held by
the passive or ineffective government. An experiment on a grand
scale is about to be made on human society; owing to the slackening
of the regular restraints which have maintained it, it is now
possible to measure the force of the permanent instincts which
attack it. They are always there even in ordinary times; we do not
notice them because they are kept in check; but they are not the
less energetic and effective, and, moreover, indestructible. The
moment their repression ceases, their power of mischief becomes
evident; just as that of the water which floats a ship, but which,
at the first leak enters into it and sinks it.
I.
Old Religious Grudges - Montauban and Nîmes in 1790.
Religious passions, to begin with, are not to be kept down by
federations, embraces, and effusions of fraternity. In the south,
where the Protestants have been persecuted for more than a century,
hatreds exist more than a century old.[1] In vain have the odious
edicts which oppressed them fallen into desuetude for the past
twenty years; in vain have civil rights been restored to them since
1787: The past still lives in transmitted recollections; and two
groups are confronting each other, one Protestant and the other
Catholic, each defiant, hostile, ready to act on the defensive, and
interpreting the preparations of its adversary as a plan of attack.
Under such circumstances the guns go off of their own accord. - On
a sudden alarm at Uzès[2] the Catholics, two thousand in number,
take possession of the bishop's palace and the Hôtel-de-Ville; while
the Protestants, numbering four hundred, assemble outside the walls
on the esplanade, and pass the night under arms, each troop
persuaded that the other is going to massacre it, one party
summoning the Catholics of Jalès to its aid, and the other the
Protestants of Gardonnenque. - There is but one way of avoiding
civil war between parties in such an attitude, and that is the
ascendancy of an energetic third party, impartial and on the spot.
A plan to this effect, which promises well, is proposed by the
military commandant of Languedoc.[3] According to him the two
firebrands are, on the one hand, the bishops of Lower Languedoc, and
on the other, MM. Rabaut-Saint-Etienne, father and two sons, all
three being pastors. Let them be responsible "with their heads" for
any mob, insurrection, or attempt to debauch the army; let a
tribunal of twelve judges be selected from the municipal bodies of
twelve towns, and all delinquents be brought before it; let this be
the court of final appeal, and its sentence immediately executed.
The system in vogue, however, is just the reverse. Both parties
being organized into a body of militia, each takes care of itself,
and is sure to fire on the other; and the more readily, inasmuch as
the new ecclesiastical regulations, which are issued from month to
month, strike like so many hammers on Catholic sensibility, and
scatter showers of sparks on the primings of the already loaded
guns.
At Montauban, on the 10th of May, 1790, the day of the inventory and
expropriation of the religious communities,[4] the commissioners are
not allowed to enter. Women in a state of frenzy lie across the
thresholds of the doors, and it would be necessary to pass over
their bodies; a large mob gathers around the "Cordeliers," and a
petition is signed to have the convents maintained. - The
Protestants who witness this commotion become alarmed, and eighty of
their National Guards march to the Hôtel-de-Ville, and take forcible
possession of the guard-house which protects it. The municipal
authorities order them to withdraw, which they refuse to do.
Thereupon the Catholics assembled at the "Cordeliers" begin a riot,
throw stones, and drive in the doors with pieces of timber, while a
cry is heard that the Protestants, who have taken refuge in the
guard-house, are firing from the windows. The enraged multitude
immediately invade the arsenal, seize all the guns they can lay
their hands on, and fire volleys on the guard-house, the effect of
which is to kill five of the Protestants and wound twenty-four
others. The rest are saved by a municipal officer and the police;
but they are obliged to appear, two and two, before the cathedral in
their shirts, and do public penance, after which they are put in
prison. During the tumult political shouts have been heard: "Hurrah
for the nobles! Hurrah for the aristocracy! Down with the nation!
Down with the tricolor flag!" Bordeaux, regarding Montauban as in
rebellion against France, dispatches fifteen hundred of its National
Guard to set the prisoners free. Toulouse gives its aid to
Bordeaux. The fermentation is frightful. Four thousand of the
Protestants of Montauban take flight; armed cities are about to
contend with each other, as formerly in Italy. It is necessary that
a commissioner of the National Assembly and of the King, Mathieu
Dumas, should be dispatched to harangue the people of Montauban,
obtain the release of the prisoners, and re-establish order.
One month after this a more bloody affray takes place at Nîmes[5]
against the Catholics. The Protestants, in fact, are but twelve
thousand out of fifty-four thousand inhabitants, but the principal
trade of the place is in their hands; they hold the manufactories
and support thirty thousand workmen; in the elections of 1789 they
furnished five out of the eight deputies. The sympathies of that
time were in their favor; nobody then imagined that the dominant
Church was exposed to any risk. It is to be attacked in its turn,
and the two parties are seen confronting each other. - The
Catholics sign a petition,[6] hunt up recruits among the market-
gardeners of the suburbs, retain the white cockade, and, when this
is prohibited, replace it with a red rosette, another sign of
recognition. At their head is an energetic man named Froment, who
has vast projects in view; but as the soil on which he treads is
undermined, he cannot prevent the explosion. It takes place
naturally, by chance, through the simple collision of two equally
distrustful bodies; and before the final day it has commenced and
recommenced twenty times, through mutual provocations and
denunciations, through insults, libels, scuffles, stone-throwing,
and gun-shots. - On the 13th of June, 1790, the question is which
party shall furnish administrators for the district and department,
and the conflict begins in relation to the elections. The Electoral
Assembly is held at the guard-house of the bishop's palace, where
the Protestant dragoons and patriots have come "three times as many
as usual, with loaded muskets and pistols, and with full cartridge-
boxes," and they patrol the surrounding neighborhood. On their
side, the red rosettes, royalists and Catholics, complain of being
threatened and "treated contemptuously" (nargués). They give notice
to the gate-keeper "not to let any dragoon enter the town either on
foot or mounted, at the peril of his life," and declare that "the
bishop's quarters were not made for a guard-house." - A mob
forms, and shouting takes place under the windows; stones are
thrown; the bugle of a dragoon, who sounds the roll-call, is broken
and two shots are fired.[7] The dragoons immediately fire a volley,
which wounds a good many people and kills seven. From this moment,
firing goes on during the evening and all night, in every quarter of
the town, each party believing that the other wants to exterminate
it, the Protestants satisfied that it is another St. Bartholomew,
and the Catholics that it is "a Michelade."[8] There is no one to
act between them. The municipality authorities, far from issuing
orders, receive them: they are roughly handled, hustled and jostled
about, and made to march about like servants. The patriots seize
the Abbé de Belmont, a municipal officer, at the Hôtel-de-Ville,
order him, on pain of death, to proclaim martial -law, and place the
red flag in his hand. "March, rascal, you bastard! Hold up your
flag - higher up still - you are big enough to do that!" Blows
follow with the but-ends of their muskets. The poor man spits
blood, but this is of no consequence; he must be in full sight at
the head of the crowd, like a target, whilst his conductors
prudently remain behind. Thus does he advance, exposed to bullets,
holding the flag, and finally becomes the prisoner of the red
rosettes, who release him, but keep his flag. There is a second
march with a red flag held by a town valet, and fresh gunshots; the
red rosettes capture this flag also, as well as another municipal
officer. The rest of the municipal body, with a royal commissioner,
take refuge in the barracks and order out the troops. Meanwhile
Froment, with his three companies, posted in their towers and in the
houses on the ramparts, resist to the last extremity. Daylight
comes, the tocsin is sounded, the drums beat to arms, and the
patriot militia of the neighborhood, the Protestants from the
mountains, the rude Cévenols, arrive in crowds. The red rosettes
are besieged; a Capuchin convent, from which it is pretended that
they have fired, is sacked, and five of the monks are killed.
Froment's tower is demolished with cannon and taken by assault. His
brother is massacred and thrown from the walls, while a Jacobin
convent next to the ramparts is sacked. Towards night, all the red
rosettes who have fought are slain or have fled, and there is no
longer any resistance.-- But the fury still lasts; the fifteen
thousand rustics who have flooded the town think that they have not
yet done enough. In vain are they told that the other fifteen
companies of red rosettes have not moved; that the pretended
aggressors "did not even put themselves in a state of defense;" that
during the battle they remained at home, and that afterwards,
through extra precaution, the municipal authorities had made them
give up their arms. In vain does the Electoral Assembly, preceded
by a white flag, march to the public square and exhort the people to
keep the peace. "Under the pretext of searching suspicious houses,
they pillage or destroy, and what-ever cannot be carried away is
broken." One hundred and twenty houses are sacked in Nîmes alone,
while the same ravages are committed in the environs, the damage, at
the end of three days, amounting to seven or eight hundred thousand
livres. A number of poor creatures, workmen, merchants, old and
infirm men, are massacred in their houses; some, "who have been
bedridden for many years, are dragged to the sills of their doors to
be shot." Others are hung on the esplanade and at the Cours Neuf,
while others have their noses, ears, feet, and hands cut off; and
are hacked to pieces with sabers and scythes. Horrible stories, as
is commonly the case, provoke the most atrocious acts.
A publican, who refuses to distribute anti-Catholic lists, is
supposed to have a mine in his cellar filled with kegs of gunpowder
and with sulfur matches all ready; he is hacked to pieces with a
saber, and twenty guns are discharged into his corpse: they expose
the body before his house with a long loaf of bread on his breast,
and they again stab him with bayonets, saying to him: "Eat, you
bastard, eat" - More than five hundred Catholics were
assassinated, and many others, covered with blood, "are crowded
together in the prisons, while the search for the proscribed is
continued; whenever they are seen, they are fired upon like so many
wolves." Thousands of the inhabitants, accordingly, demand their
passports and leave the town. The rural Catholics, meanwhile, on
their side, massacre six Protestants in the environs - an old man
of eighty-two years, a youth of fifteen, and a husband and his wife
in their farm-house. In order to put a stop to the murderous acts,
the National Guard of Montpellier have to be summoned. But the
restoration of order is for the benefit of the victorious party.
Three-fifths of the electors have fled; one-third of the district
and departmental administrators have been appointed in their
absence, and the majority of the new directories is taken from the
club of patriots. It is for this reason that the prisoners are
prejudged as guilty. "No bailiff of the court dares give them the
benefit of his services; they are not allowed to bring forward
justifying facts in evidence, while everybody knows that the judges
are not impartial."[9]
Thus do the violent measures of political and religious discord come
to an end. The victor stops the mouth of the law when it is about
to speak in his adversary's behalf; and, under the legal iniquity of
an administration which he has himself established, he crushes those
whom the illegal force of his own strong hand has stricken down.
II.
Passion Supreme. - Dread of hunger its most acute form. - The
non-circulation of grain. - Intervention and usurpations of the
electoral assemblies. - The rural code in Nivernais. - The four
central provinces in 1790. - Why high prices are kept up. -
Anxiety and insecurity. - Stagnation of the grain market. -
The departments near Paris in 1791. - The supply and price of
grain regulated by force. - The mobs in 1792. - Village armies
of Eure and of the lower Seine and of Aisne. - Aggravation of the
disorder after August 10th. - The dictatorship of unbridled
instinct. - Its practical and political expedients.
Passions of this stamp are the product of human cultivation, and
break loose only within narrow bounds. Another passion exists which
is neither historic nor local, but natural and universal, the most
indomitable, most imperious, and most formidable of all, namely, the
fear of hunger. There is no such thing with this passion as delay,
or reflection, or looking beyond itself. Each commune or canton
wants its bread, and a sure and unlimited supply of it. Our
neighbor may provide for himself as best he can, but let us look out
for ourselves first and then for other people. Each group of
people, accordingly, through its own decrees, or by main force,
keeps for itself whatever subsistence it possesses, or takes from
others the subsistence which it does not possess. ii
At the end of 1789,[10] "Roussillon refuses aid to Languedoc; Upper
Languedoc to the rest of the province, and Burgundy to Lyonnais;
Dauphiny shuts herself up, and Normandy retains the wheat purchased
for the relief of Paris." At Paris, sentinels are posted at the
doors of all the bakers; on the 21st of October one of the latter is
hung, and his head is borne about on a pike. On the 27th of
October, at Vernon, a corn-merchant named Planter, who the preceding
winter had supported the poor for six leagues around, has to take
his turn. At the present moment the people do not forgive him for
having sent flour to Paris, and he is hung twice, but is saved
through the breaking of the rope each time. -- It is only by force
and under an escort that it is possible to insure the arrival of
grain in a town; the excited people or the National Guards
constantly seize it on its passage. In Normandy the militia of Caen
stops wheat on the highways which is destined for Harcourt and
elsewhere.[11] In Brittany, Auray and Vannes retain the convoys for
Nantes, and Lannion those for Brest. Brest having attempted to
negotiate, its commissioners are seized, and, with knives at their
throats, are forced to sign a renunciation, pure and simple, of the
grain which they have paid for, and they are led out of Lannion and
stoned on the way. Eighteen hundred men, consequently, leave Brest
with four cannon, and go to recover their property with their guns
loaded. These are the customs prevalent during the great famines of
feudal times; and, from one end of France to the other, to say
nothing of the out-breaks of the famished in the large towns,
similar outrages or attempts at recovery are constantly occurring.
- " The armed population of Nantua, Saint-Claude, and Septmoncel,"
says a dispatch,[12] "have again cut off provisions from the Gex
region; there is no wheat coming there from any direction, all the
roads being guarded. Without the aid of the government of Geneva,
which is willing to lend to this region eight hundred Cuttings of
wheat, we should either die of starvation or be compelled to take
grain by force from the municipalities which keep it to themselves."
Narbonne starves Toulon; the navigation of the Languedoc canal is
intercepted; the people on its banks repulse two companies of
soldiers, burn a large building, and want to destroy the canal
itself." Boats are stopped, wagons are pillaged, bread is forcibly
lowered in price, stones are thrown and guns discharged; the
populace contend with the National Guard, peasants with townsmen,
purchasers with dealers, artisans and laborers with farmers and
land-owners, at Castelnaudary, Niort, Saint-Etienne, in Aisne, in
Pas-de-Calais, and especially along the line stretching from
Montbrison to Angers - that is to say, for almost the whole of the
extent of the vast basin of the Loire, - such is the spectacle
presented by the year 1790. - And yet the crop has not been a bad
one. But there is no circulation of grain. Each petty center has
formed a league for the monopoly of food; and hence the fasting of
others and the convulsions of the entire body are the first effects
of the unbridled freedom which the Constitution and circumstances
have conferred on each local group.
"We are told to assemble, vote, and elect men that will attend to
our business; let us attend to it ourselves. We have had enough of
talk and hypocrisy. Bread at two sous, and let us go after wheat
where it can be found!" Such is the reasoning of the peasantry, and,
in Nivernais, Bourbonnais, Berri, and Touraine, electoral gatherings
are the firebrands of the insurrections.[13] At Saint-Sauge, "the
first work of the primary meeting is to oblige the municipal
officers to fix the price of wheat under the penalty of being
decapitated." At Saint-Géran the same course is taken with regard to
bread, wheat, and meat; at Châtillon-en-Bayait it is done with all
supplies, and always a third or a half under the market price,
without mentioning other exactions. - They come by degrees to the
drafting of a tariff for all the valuables they know, proclaiming
the maximum price which an article may reach, and so establishing a
complete code of rural and social economy. We see in the turbulent
and spasmodic wording of this instrument their dispositions and
sentiments, as in a mirror.[14] It is the program of villagers.
Its diverse articles, save local variations, must be executed, now
one and now the other, according to the occasion, the need, and the
time, and, above all, whatever concerns provisions. - The wish, as
usual, is the father of the thought; the peasantry thinks that it is
acting by authority: here, through a decree of the King and the
National Assembly, there, by a commission directly entrusted to the
Comte d'Estrées. Even before this, in the market-place of Saint-
Amand, "a man jumped on a heap of wheat and cried out, 'In the name
of the King and the nation, wheat at one-half the market-price!"' An
old officer of the Royal Grenadiers, a chevalier of the order of
Saint-Louis, is reported to be marching at the head of several
parishes, and promulgating ordinances in his own name and that of
the King, imposing a fine of eight livres on whoever may refuse to
join him. - On all sides there is a swarm of working people, and
resistance is fruitless. There are too many of them, the
constabulary being drowned in the flood. For, these rustic
legislators are the National Guard itself, and when they vote
reductions upon, or requisitions for, supplies, they enforce their
demands with their guns. The municipal officials, willingly or
unwillingly, must needs serve the insurgents. At Donjon the
Electoral Assembly has seized the mayor of the place and threatened
to kill him, or to burn his house, if he did not put the cutting of
wheat at forty sous; whereupon he signs, and all the mayors with
him, "under the penalty of death." As soon as this is done the
peasants, "to the sound of fifes and drums," spread through the
neighboring parishes and force the delivery of wheat at forty sous,
and show such a determined spirit that the four brigades of
gendarmes sent out against them think it best to retire. - Not
content with taking what they want, they provide for reserve
supplies; wheat is a prisoner. In Nivernais and Bourbonnais, the
peasants trace a boundary line over which no sack of grain of that
region must pass; in case of any infraction of this law the rope and
the torch are close at hand for the delinquent. - It remains to
make sure that this rule is enforced. In Berri bands of peasants
visit the markets to see that their tariff is everywhere maintained.
In vain are they told that they are emptying the markets; "they
reply that they know how to make grain come, that they will take it
from private hands, and money besides, if necessary." In fact, the
granaries and cellars belonging to a large number of persons are
pillaged. Farmers are constrained to put their crops into a common
granary, and the rich are put to ransom; "the nobles are compelled
to contribute, and obliged to give entire domains as donations;
cattle are carried off; and they want to take the lives of the
proprietors," while the towns, which defend their storehouses and
markets, are openly attacked.[15] Bourbon-Lancy, Bourbon-
l'Archambault, Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, Montluçon, Saint-Amand,
Chateau-Gontier, Decises, each petty community is an islet assailed
by the mounting tide of rustic insurrection. The militia pass the
night under arms; detachments of the National Guards of the large
towns with regular troops come and garrison them. The red flag is
continuously raised for eight days at Bourbon-Lancy, and cannon
stand loaded and pointed in the public square. On the 24th of May
an attack is made on Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, and fusillades take
place all night on both sides. On the 2nd of June, Saint-Amand,
menaced by twenty-seven parishes, is saved only by the preparations
it makes and by the garrison. About the same time Bourbon-Lancy is
attacked by twelve parishes combined, and Chateau-Gontier by the
sabotiers of the forests in the vicinity. A band of from four to
five hundred villagers arrests the convoys of Saint-Amand, and
forces their escorts to capitulate; another band entrenches itself
in the Chateau de la Fin, and fires throughout the day on the
regulars and the National Guard. - The large towns themselves are
not safe. Three or four hundred rustics, led by their municipal
officers, forcibly enter Tours, to compel the municipality to lower
the price of corn and diminish the rate of leases. Two thousand
slate-quarry-men, armed with guns, spits, and forks, force their way
into Angers to obtain a reduction on bread, fire upon the guard, and
are charged by the troops and the National Guard; a number remain
dead in the streets, two are hung that very evening, and the red
flag is displayed for eight days. "The town," say the dispatches,
"would have been pillaged and burnt had it not been for the Picardy
regiment." Fortunately, as the crop promises to be a good one,
prices fall. As the Electoral Assemblies are closed, the
fermentation subsides; and towards the end of the year, like a clear
spell in a steady storm, the gleam of a truce appears in the civil
war excited by hunger.
But the truce does not last long, as it is broken in twenty places
by isolated explosions; and towards the month of July, 1791, the
disturbances arising from the uncertainty of basic food supplies
begin again, to cease no more. We will consider but one group in
this universal state of disorder - that of the eight or ten
departments which surround Paris and furnish it with supplies.
These districts, Brie and Beauce, are rich wheat regions, and not
only was the crop of 1790 good, but that of 1791 is ample.
Information is sent to the minister from Laon[16] that, in the
department of Aisne, "there is a supply of wheat for two years . .
. that the barns, generally empty by the month of April, will not
be so this season before July," and, consequently, "subsistence is
assured." But this does not suffice, for the source of the evil is
not in a scarcity of wheat. In order that everybody, in a vast and
populous country, where the soil, cultivation, and occupations
differ, may eat, it is essential that food should be attainable by
the non-producers; and for it to reach them freely, without delay,
solely by the natural operation of supply and demand, it is
essential that there should be a police able to protect property,
transactions, and transport. Just in proportion as the authority of
a State becomes weakened, and in proportion as security diminishes,
the distribution of subsistence becomes more and more difficult: a
gendarmerie, therefore, is an indispensable wheel in the machine by
which we are able to secure our daily bread. Hence it is that, in
1791, daily bread is wanting to a large number of men. Simply
through the working of the Constitution, all restraints, already
slackened both at the extremities and at the center, are becoming
looser and more loose each day. The municipalities, which are
really sovereign, repress the people more feebly, some because the
latter are the bolder and themselves more timid, and others because
they are more radical and always consider them in the right. The
National Guard is wearied, never comes forward, or refuses to use
its arms. The active citizens are disgusted, and remain at home.
At Étampes,[17] where they are convoked by the commissioners of the
department to take steps to re-establish some kind of order, only
twenty assemble; the others excuse themselves by saying that, if the
populace knew that they opposed its will, "their houses would be
burnt," and they accordingly stay away. "Thus," write the
commissioners, "the common-weal is given up to artisans and laborers
whose views are limited to their own existence." - It is,
accordingly, the lower class which rules, and the information upon
which it bases its decrees consists of rumors which it accepts or
manufactures, to hide by an appearance of right the outrages which
are due to its cupidity or to the brutalities of its hunger. At
Étampes, "they have been made to believe that the grain which had
been sold for supplying the departments below the Loire, is shipped
at Paimbœuf and taken out of the kingdom from there to be sold
abroad." In the suburbs of Rouen they imagine that grain is
purposely " engulfed in the swamps, ponds, and clay-pits." At Laon,
imbecile and Jacobin committees attribute the dearness of provisions
to the avidity of the rich and the malevolence of the aristocrats
according to them, "jealous millionaires grow rich at the expense of
the people. They know the popular strength," and, not daring to
measure their forces with it, "in an honorable fight," have recourse
"to treachery." To conquer the people easily they have determined to
reduce them in advance by extreme suffering and by the length of
their fast, and hence they monopolize "wheat, rye, and meal, soap,
sugar, and brandy."[18] - Similar reports suffice to excite a
suffering crowd to acts of violence, and it must inevitably accept
for its leaders and advisers those who urge it forward on the side
to which it is inclined. The people always require leaders, and
they are chosen wherever they can be found, at one time amongst the
elite, and at another amongst the dregs. Now that the nobles are
driven out, the bourgeoisie in retirement, the large cultivators
under suspicion, while animal necessities exercise their blind and
intermittent despotism, the appropriate popular ministers consist of
adventurers and of bandits. They need not be very numerous, for in
a place full of combustible matter a few firebrands suffice to start
the conflagration. "About twenty, at most, can be counted in the
towns of Étampes and Dourdan, men with nothing to lose and
everything to gain by disturbances; they are those who always
produce excitement and disorder, while other citizens afford them
the means through their indifference." Those whose names are known
among the new guides of the crowd are almost all escaped convicts
whose previous habits have accustomed them to blows, violence,
frequently to murder, and always to contempt for the law. At
Brunoy,[19] the leaders of the outbreak are "two deserters of the
18th regiment, sentenced and unpunished, who, in company with the
vilest and most desperate of the parish, always go about armed and
threatening." At Étampes, "the two principal assassins of the mayor
are a poacher repeatedly condemned for poaching, and an old
carabiniere dismissed from his regiment with a bad record against
him."[20] Around these are artisans "without a known residence,"
wandering workmen, journeymen and apprentices, vagrants and highway
rovers, who flock into the towns on market-days and are always -
ready for mischief when an opportunity occurs. Vagabonds, indeed,
now roam about the country everywhere, all restrictions against them
having ceased.
"For a year past," write several parishes in the neighborhood of
Versailles, "we have seen no gendarmes except those who come with
decrees," and hence the multiplication of "murders and brigandage "
between Étampes and Versailles, on the highways and in the country.
Bands of thirteen, fifteen, twenty and twenty-two beggars rob the
vineyards, enter farm-houses at night, and compel their inmates to
lodge and feed them, returning in the same way every fortnight, all
farms or isolated dwellings being their prey. An ecclesiastic is
killed in his own house in the suburbs of Versailles, on the 26th of
September, 1791, and, on the same day, a bourgeois and his wife are
garroted and robbed. On the 22nd of September, near Saint-Rémi-
Honoré, eight bandits ransack the dwelling of a farmer. On the 25th
of September, at Villers-le-Sec, thirteen others strip another
farmer, and then add with much politeness, "It is lucky for your
masters that they are not here, for we would have roasted them at
yonder fire." Six similar outrages are committed by armed ruffians
in dwelling-places, within a radius of from three to four leagues,
accompanied with the threats of the chauffeurs.[21] "After
enterprises of such force and boldness," write the people of this
region, "there is not a well-to-do man in the country who can rely
upon an hour's security in his house. Already many of our best
cultivators are giving up their business, while others threaten to
do the same in case these disorders continue." - What is worse
still is the fact that in these outrages most of the bandits were
"in the national uniform." The most ignorant, the poorest, and most
fanatical of the National Guard thus enlist for the sake of plunder.
It is so natural for men to believe in their right to that of which
they feel the need, that the possessors of wheat thus become its
monopolists, and the superfluity of the rich the property of the
poor! This is what the peasants say who devastate the forest of
Bruyères-le-Chatel: "We have neither wood, bread, nor work -
necessity knows no law."
The necessaries of life are not to be had cheap under such a system.
There is too much anxiety, and property is too precarious; there are
too many obstacles to commerce ; purchases, sales, shipments,
arrivals and payments are too uncertain. How are goods to be stored
and transported in a country where neither the central government,
the local authorities, the National Guard, nor the regular troops
perform their duties, and where every transaction in produce, even
the most legal and the most serviceable, is subject to the caprice
of a dozen villains whom the populace obey. - Wheat remains in the
barn, or is secreted, or is kept waiting, and only reaches by
stealth the hands of those who are rich enough to pay, not only its
price, but the extra cost of the risk. Thus forced into a narrow
channel, it rises to a rate which the depreciation of the assignats
augments, its dearness being not only maintained, but ever on the
increase. -- Thereupon popular instinct invents for the cure of the
evil a remedy which serves to aggravate it: henceforth, wheat must
not travel; it is impounded in the canton in which it is gathered.
At Laon, "the people have sworn to die rather than let their food be
carried off." At Étampes, to which the municipality of Angers
dispatches an administrator of its hospital to buy two hundred and
fifty sacks of flour, the commission cannot be executed, the
delegate not even daring to avow for several days the object of his
coming; all he can do is "to visit incognito, and at night, the
different flour-dealers in the valley, who would offer to furnish
the supply, but fear for their lives and dare not even leave their
houses." - The same violence is shown in the more distant circle of
departments which surround the first circle. At Aubigny, in
Cher,[22] grain-wagons are stopped, the district administrators are
menaced; two have a price set on their heads; a portion of the
National Guard sides with the mutineers. At Chaumont, in Haute-
Marne, the whole of the National Guard is in a state of mutiny; a
convoy of over three hundred sacks is stopped, the Hôtel-de-Ville
forced, and the insurrection lasts four days; the directory of the
department takes flight; and the people seize on the powder and
cannons. At Douai, in the "Nord," to save a grain-dealer, he is put
in prison; the mob forces the gates, the soldiers refuse to fire,
and the man is hung, while the directory of the department takes
refuge in Lille. At Montreuil-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais, the two
leaders of the insurrection, a brazier and a horse-shoer, "Bèquelin,
called Petit-Gueux," the latter with his saber in hand, reply to the
summons of the municipal authorities, that "not a grain shall go now
that they are masters," and that if they dare to make such
proclamations "they will cut off their heads." There are no means of
resistance. The National Guard, when it is convoked, does not
respond; the volunteers when called upon turn their muskets down,
and the crowd, assembled beneath the windows, shouts out its
huzzahs. So much the worse for the law when it opposes popular
passion: "We will not obey it," they say; "people make laws to
please themselves." - By way of practical illustration, at Tortes,
in Seine-Inférieure, six thousand armed men belonging to the
surrounding parishes form a deliberative armed body; the better to
establish their rights, they bring two cannon with them fastened by
ropes on a couple of carts; twenty-two companies of the National
Guard, each under its own banner, march beside them, while all
peaceable inhabitants are compelled to fall in "under penalty of
death," the municipal officers being at their head. This improvised
parliament promulgates a complete law in relation to grain, which,
as a matter of form, is sent for acceptance to the department, and
to the National Assembly; and one of its articles declares that all
husbandmen shall be forbidden "to sell their wheat elsewhere than on
the market-places." With no other outlet for it, wheat must be
brought to the corn markets (halles), and when these are full the
price must necessarily fall.
What a profound deception! Even in the granary of France wheat
remains dear, and costs about one-third more than would be necessary
to secure the sale of bread at two sous the pound, in conformity
with the will of the people. For instance,[23] at Gonesse, Dourdan,
Corbeil, Mennecy, Brunoy, Limours, Brie-Comte-Robert, and especially
at Étampes and Montlhéry, the holders of grain are compelled almost
weekly, through the clamors and violence of the people, to reduce
prices one-third and more. It is impossible for the authorities to
maintain, on their corn-exchange, the freedom of buying and selling.
The regular troops have been sent off by the people beforehand.
Whatever the tolerance or connivance of the soldiers may be, the
people have a vague sentiment that they are not there to permit the
ripping open of sacks of flour, or the seizing of farmers by the
throat. To get rid of all obstacles and of being watched, they make
use of the municipality itself, and force it to effect its own
disarmament. The municipal officers, besieged in the town-hall, at
times threatened with pistols and bayonets,[24] dispatch to the
detachments they are expecting an order to turn back, and entreat
the Directory not to send any more troops, for, if any come, they
have been told that "they will be sorry for it." Nowhere are there
regular troops. At Étampes, the people repeat that "they are sent
for and paid by the flour-dealers;" at Montlhéry, that "they merely
serve to arm citizens against each other;" at Limours, that "they
make grain dearer." All pretexts seem good in this direction; the
popular will is absolute, and the authorities complacently meet its
decrees half-way. At Montlhéry, the municipal body orders the
gendarmerie to remain at the gates of the town, which gives full
play to the insurrection. - The administrators, however, are not
relieved by leaving the people free to act; they are obliged to
sanction their exactions by ordinances. They are taken out of the
Hôtel-de-Ville, led to the marketplace, and there forthwith, under
the dictation of the uproar which establishes prices, they, like
simple clerks, proclaim the reduction. When, moreover, the armed
rabble of a village marches forth to tyrannize over a neighboring
market, it carries its mayor along with it in spite of himself, as
an official instrument which belongs to it.[25] "There is no
resistance against force," writes the mayor of Vert-le-Petit; "we
had to set forth immediately." - " They assured me," says the
Mayor of Fontenay, "that, if I did not obey them, they would hang
me." - On any municipal officer hazarding a remonstrance, they
tell him that "he is getting to be an aristocrat." Aristocrat and
hung, the argument is irresistible, and all the more so because it
is actually applied. At Corbeil, the procureur-syndic who tries to
enforce the law is almost beaten to death, and three houses in which
they try to find him are demolished. At Montlhéry, a seed merchant,
accused of mixing the flour of beans (twice as dear) with wheaten
flour, is massacred in his own house. At Étampes, the mayor who
promulgates the law is cudgeled to death. Mobs talk of nothing but
"burning and destroying," while the farmers, abused, hooted at,
forced to sell, threatened with death and robbed, run away,
declaring they will never return to the market again.
Such is the first effect of popular dictatorship. Like all
unintelligent forces, it operates in a direction the reverse of its
intention: to dearness it adds dearth, and empties, instead of
replenishing, the markets. That of Étampes often contained fifteen
or sixteen hundred sacks of flour; the week following this
insurrection there were, at most, sixty brought to it. At
Montlhéry, where six thousand men had collected together, each one
obtains for his share only a small measure, while the bakers of the
town have none at all. This being the case, the enraged National
Guards tell the farmers that they are coming to see them on their
farms. And they really go.[26] Drums roll constantly on the roads
around Montlhéry, Limours, and other large market-towns. Columns of
two, three, and four hundred men are seen passing under the lead of
their commandant and of the mayor whom they take along with them.
They enter each farm, mount into the granaries, estimate the
quantity of grain thrashed out, and force the proprietor to sign an
agreement to bring it to market the following week. Sometimes, as
they are hungry, they compel people to give them something to eat
and drink on the spot, and it will not do to enrage them, - a
farmer and his wife come near being hung in their own barn.
Their effort is useless: Wheat is impounded and hunted up in vain;
it takes to the earth or slips off like a frightened animal. In
vain do insurrections continue. In vain do armed mobs, in all the
market-towns of the department,[27] subject grain to a forced
reduction of price. Wheat becomes scarcer and dearer from month to
month, rising in price from twenty-six francs to thirty-three. And
because the outraged farmer "brings now a very little," just "what
is necessary to sacrifice in order to avoid threats, he sells at
home, or in the inns, to the flour-dealers from Paris." - The
people, in running after abundance, have thus fallen deeper down
into want: their brutality has aggravated their misery, and it is to
themselves that their starvation is owing. But they are far from
attributing all this to their own insubordination; the magistrates
are accused; these, in the eyes of the populace, are "in league with
the monopolists." On this incline no stoppage is possible. Distress
increases rage, and rage increases distress; and on this fatal
declivity men are precipitated from one outrage to another.
After the month of February, 1792, such outrages are innumerable;
the mobs which go in quest of grain or which cut down its price
consist of armies. One of six thousand men comes to control the
market of Montlhéry.[28] There are seven to eight -thousand men who
invade the market-place of Verneuil, and there is an army of ten and
another of twenty-five thousand men, who remain organized for ten
days near Laon. One hundred and fifty parishes have sounded the
tocsin, and the insurrection spreads for ten leagues around. Five
boats loaded with grain are stopped, and, in spite of the orders of
district, department, minister, King, and National Assembly, they
refuse to surrender them. Their contents, in the meantime, are made
the most of: "The municipal officers of the different parishes,
assembled together, pay themselves their fees, to wit : one hundred
sous per diem for the mayor, three livres for the municipal
officers, two livres ten sous for the guards, two livres for the
porters. They have ordered that these sums should be paid in grain,
and they reduce grain, it is said, fifteen livres the sack. It is
certain that they have divided it amongst themselves, and that
fourteen hundred sacks have been distributed." In vain do the
commissioners of the National Assembly make speeches to them three
hours in length. The discourse being finished, they deliberate, in
presence of the commissioners, whether the latter shall be hung,
drowned, or cut up, and their heads put on the five points of the
middle of the abbey railing. On being threatened with military
force, they make their dispositions accordingly. Nine hundred men
who relieve each other watch day and night on the ground, in a well
chosen and permanent encampment, while lookouts stationed in the
belfries of the surrounding villages have only to sound the alarm to
bring together twenty-five thousand men in a few hours. - So long
as the Government remains on its feet it carries on the combat as
well as it can; but it grows weaker from month to month, and, after
the 10th of August, when it lies on the ground, the mob takes its
place and becomes the universal sovereign. From this time forth not
only is the law which protects provisioning powerless against the
disturbers of sale and circulation, but the Assembly actually
sanctions their acts, since it decrees[29] the stoppage of all
proceedings commenced against them, remits sentences already passed,
and sets free all who are imprisoned or in irons. Behold every
administration, with merchants, proprietors, and farmers abandoned
to the famished, the furious, and to robbers; henceforth food
supplies are for those who are disposed and able to take them.
"You will be told," says a petition,[30] "that we violate the law.
We reply to these perfidious insinuations that the salvation of the
people is the supreme law. We come in order to keep the markets
supplied, and to insure an uniform price for wheat throughout the
Republic. For, there is no doubt about it, the purest patriotism
dies out (sic) when there is no bread to be had. . . .
Resistance to oppression - yes, resistance to oppression is the
most sacred of duties; is there any oppression more terrible than
that of wanting bread? Undoubtedly, no . . . . Join us and 'Ça
ira, ça ira!' We cannot end our petition better than with this
patriotic air."
This supplication was written on a drum, amidst a circle of
firearms; and with such accompaniments it is equivalent to a
command. - They are well aware of it, and of their own authority
they often confer upon themselves not only the right but also the
title. In Loire-et-Cher,[31] a band of from four to five thousand
men assume the name of "Sovereign Power." They go from one market-
town to another, to Saint-Calais, Montdoubleau, Blois, Vendôme,
reducing the cost of provisions, their troop increasing like a
snowball - for they threaten "to burn the effects and set fire to
the houses of all who are not as courageous as themselves."
In this state of social disintegration, insurrection is a gangrene
in which the healthy are infected by the morbid parts. Mobs are
everywhere produced and re-produced, incessantly, large and small,
like abscesses which break out side by side, and painfully irritate
each other and finally combine. There are the towns against the
rural districts and rural districts against the towns. On the one
hand "every farmer who transports anything to the market passes (at
home) for an aristocrat,[32] and becomes the horror of his fellow-
citizens in the village." On the other hand the National Guards of
the towns spread themselves through the rural districts and make
raids to save themselves from death by hunger.[33] It is admitted
in the rural districts that each municipality has the right to
isolate itself from the rest. It is admitted in the towns that each
town has the right to derive its provisions from the country. It is
admitted by the indigent of each commune that the commune must
provide bread gratis or at a cheap rate. On the strength of this
there is a shower of stones and a fusillade; department against
department, district against district, canton against canton, all
fight for food, and the strongest get it and keep it for themselves.
- I have simply described the North, where, for the past three
years, the crops are good. I have omitted the South, where trade is
interrupted on the canal of the Deux Mers, where the procureur-
syndic of Aude has lately been massacred for trying to secure the
passage of a convoy; where the harvest has been poor; where, in many
places, bread costs eight sous the pound; where, in almost every
department, a bushel of wheat is sold twice as dear as in the North!
Strange phenomenon! and the most instructive of all, for in it we
see down into the depths of humanity; for, as on a raft of
shipwrecked beings without food, there is a reversion to a state of
nature. The light tissue of habit and of rational ideas in which
civilization has enveloped man, is torn asunder and is floating in
rags around him; the bare arms of the savage show themselves, and
they are striking out. The only guide he has for his conduct is
that of primitive days, the startled instinct of a craving stomach.
Henceforth that which rules in him and through him is animal
necessity with its train of violent and narrow suggestions,
sometimes sanguinary and sometimes grotesque. Incompetent or
savage, in all respects like a Negro monarch, his sole political
expedients are either the methods of a slaughter house or the dreams
of a carnival. Two commissioners whom Roland, Minister of the
Interior, sends to Lyons, are able to see within a few days the
carnival and the slaughter-house.[34] - On the one hand the
peasants, all along the road, arrest everybody; the people regard
every traveler as an aristocrat who is running away - which is so
much the worse for those who fall into their hands. Near Autun,
four priests who, to obey the law, are betaking themselves to the
frontier, are put in prison "for their own protection;" they are
taken out a quarter of an hour later, and, in spite of thirty-two of
the mounted police, are massacred. "Their carriage was still
burning as I passed, and the corpses were stretched out not far off.
Their driver was still in durance, and it was it vain that I
solicited his release." - On the other hand, at Lyons, the power
has fallen into the hands of the degraded women of the streets.
"They seized the central club, constituted themselves commissaries
of police, signed notices as such, and paid visits of inspection to
store-houses;" they drew up a tariff of provisions, "from bread and
meat up to common peaches, and peaches of fine quality." They
announced that "whoever dared to dispute it would be considered a
traitor to the country, an adherent of the civil list, and
prosecuted as such." All this is published, proclaimed and applied
by "female commissaries of police," themselves the dregs of the
lowest sinks of corruption. Respectable housewives and workwomen
had nothing to do with it, nor "working-people of any class." The
sole actors of this administrative parody are " scamps, a few
bullies of houses of ill-fame, and a portion of the dregs of the
female sex." - To this end comes the dictatorship of instinct,
yonder let loose on the highway in a massacre of priests, and here,
in the second city of France, in the government of strumpets.
III.
Egotism of the tax-payer. - Issoudun in 1790. - Rebellion against
taxation. - Indirect taxes in 1789 and 1790. - Abolition of the
salt tax, excise, and octrois. - Direct taxation in 1789 and 1790.
- Delay and insufficiency of the returns. - New levies in 1791
and 1792. - Delays, partiality, and concealment in preparing the
rolls. - Insufficiency of, and the delay in, the returns. -
Payment in assignats.- The tax-payer relieves himself of one-half.
- Devastation of the forests. - Division of the communal
property.
The fear of starvation is only the sharper form of a more general
passion, which is the desire of possession and the determination not
to give anything up. No popular instinct, had been longer, more
rudely, more universally offended under the ancient régime; and
there is none which gushes out more readily under constraint, none
which requires a higher or broader public barrier, or one more
entirely constructed of solid blocks, to keep it in check. Hence it
is that this passion from the commencement breaks down or engulfs
the slight and low boundaries, the tottering embankments of
crumbling earth between which the Constitution pretends to confine
it. - The first flood sweeps away the pecuniary claims of the
State, of the clergy, and of the noblesse. The people regard them
as abolished, or, at least, they consider their debts discharged.
Their idea, in relation to this, is formed and fixed; for them it is
that which constitutes the Revolution. The people have no longer a
creditor; they are determined to have none, they will pay nobody,
and first of all, they will make no further payment to the State.
On the 14th of July, 1790, the day of the Federation, the population
of Issoudun, in Touraine, solemnly convoked for the purpose, had
just taken the solemn oath which was to ensure public peace, social
harmony, and respect for the law for evermore.[35] Here, probably,
as elsewhere, arrangements had been made for an stirring ceremonial;
there were young girls dressed in white, and learned and
impressionable magistrates were to pronounce philosophical
harangues. All at once they discover that the people gathered on
the public square are provided with clubs, scythes, and axes, and
that the National Guard will not prevent their use; on the contrary,
the Guard itself is composed almost wholly of wine growers and
others interested in the suppression of the duties on wine, of
coopers, innkeepers, workmen, carters of casks, and others of the
same stamp, all rough fellows who have their own way of interpreting
the Social Contract. The whole mass of decrees, acts, and
rhetorical flourishes which are dispatched to them from Paris, or
which emanate from the new authorities, are not worth a halfpenny
tax maintained on each bottle of wine. There are to be no more
excise duties; they will only take the civic oath on this express
condition, and that very evening they hang, in effigy, their two
deputies, who "had not supported their interests" in the National
Assembly. A few months later, of all the National Guard called upon
to protect the clerks, only the commandant and two officers respond
to the summons. If a docile taxpayer happens to be found, he is not
allowed to pay the dues; this seems a defection and almost
treachery. An entry of three puncheons of wine having been made,
they are stove in with stones, a portion is drunk, and the rest
taken to the barracks to debauch the soldiers; M. de Sauzay,
commandant of the "Royal Roussillon," who was bold enough to save
the clerks, is menaced, and for this misdeed he barely escapes being
hung himself. When the municipal body is called upon to interpose
and employ force, it replies that "for so small a matter, it is not
worth while to compromise the lives of the citizens," and the
regular troops sent to the Hôtel-de-Ville are ordered by the people
not to go except with the but-ends of their muskets in the air.
Five days after this the windows of the excise office are smashed,
and the public notices are torn down; the fermentation does not
subside, and M. de Sauzay writes that a regiment would be necessary
to restrain the town. At Saint-Amand the insurrection breaks out
violently, and is only put down by violence. At Saint-Étienne-en-
Forez, Bertheas, a clerk in the excise office, falsely accused of
monopolizing grain,[36] is fruitlessly defended by the National
Guard; he is put in prison, according to the usual custom, to save
his life, and, for greater security, the crowd insist on his being
fastened by an iron collar. But, suddenly changing its mind, it
breaks upon the door and drags him outside, beating him till he is
unconscious. Stretched on the ground, his head still moves and he
raises his hand to it, when a woman, picking up a large stone,
smashes his skull. - These are not isolated occurrences. During
the months of July and August, 1789, the tax offices are burnt in
almost every town in the kingdom. In vain does the National
Assembly order their reconstruction, insist on the maintenance of
duties and octrois, and explain to the people the public needs,
pathetically reminding them, moreover, that the Assembly has already
given them relief; - the people prefer to relieve themselves
instantly and entirely. Whatever is consumed must no longer be
taxed, either for the benefit of the State or for that of the towns.
"Entrance dues on wine and cattle," writes the municipality of
Saint-Etienne, "scarcely amount to anything, and our powers are
inadequate for their enforcement." At Cambrai, two successive
outbreaks compel the excise office and the magistracy of the
town[37] to reduce the duties on beer one-half. But "the evil, at
first confined to one corner of the province, soon spreads ;" the
grands baillis of Lille, Douai, and Orchies write that "we have
hardly a bureau which has not been molested, and in which the taxes
are not wholly subject to popular discretion." Those only pay who
are disposed to do so, and, consequently, "greater fraud could not
exist." The taxpayers, indeed, cunningly defend themselves, and find
plenty of arguments or quibbles to avoid paying their dues. At
Cambrai they allege that, as the privileged now pay as well as the
rest, the Treasury must be rich enough.[38] At Noyon, Ham, and
Chauny, and in the surrounding parishes, the butchers, innkeepers,
and publicans combined, who have refused to pay excise duties, pick
flaws in the special decree by which the Assembly subjects them to
the law, and a second special decree is necessary to circumvent
these new legal experts. The process at Lyons is simpler. Here the
thirty-two sections appoint commissioners; these decide against the
octroi, and request the municipal authorities to abolish it. They
must necessarily comply, for the people are at hand and are furious.
Without waiting, however, for any legal measures, they take the
authority on themselves, rush to the toll-houses and drive out the
clerks, while large quantities of provisions, which "through a
singular predestination" were waiting at the gates, come in free of
duty. - The Treasury defends itself as it best can against this
universally bad disposition of the tax-payer, against these
irruptions and infiltrations of fraud; it repairs the dike where it
has been carried away, stops up the fissures and again resumes
collections. But how can these be regular and complete in a State
where the courts dare not condemn delinquents, where public force
dares not support the courts,[39] where popular favor protects the
most notorious bandits and the worst vagabonds against the tribunals
and against the public powers? At Paris, where, After eight months
of impunity, proceedings are begun against the pillagers who, on the
13th of August, 1789, set fire to the tax offices, the officers of
the election, "considering that their audiences have become too
tumultuous, that the thronging of the people excites uneasiness,
that threats have been uttered of a kind calculated to create
reasonable alarm," are constrained to suspend their sittings and
refer matters to the National Assembly, while the latter,
considering that "if prosecutions are authorized in Paris it will be
necessary to authorize them throughout the kingdom," decides that it
is best "to veil the statue of the Law."[40]
Not only does the Assembly veil the statue of the Law, but it takes
to pieces, remakes, and mutilates it, according to the requirements
of the popular will; and, in the matter of indirect imposts all its
decrees are forced upon it. The outbreak against the salt impost
was terrible from the beginning; sixty thousand men in Anjou alone
combined to destroy it, and the price of salt had to be reduced from
sixteen to six sous.[41] The people, however, are not satisfied
with this. This monopoly has been the cause of so much suffering
that they are not disposed to put up with any remains of it, and are
always on the side of the smugglers against the excise officers. In
the month of January, 1790, at Béziers, thirty-two employees, who
had seized a quantity of contraband salt on the persons of armed
smugglers,[42] are pursued by the crowd to the Hôtel-de-Ville; the
consuls decline to defend them and run away; the troops defend them,
but in vain. Five are tortured, horribly mutilated, and then hung.
In the month of March, 1790, Necker states that, according to the
returns of the past three months, the deficit in the salt-tax
amounts to more than four millions a month, which is four-fifths of
the ordinary revenue, while the tobacco monopoly is no more
respected than that of salt. At Tours,[43] the bourgeois militia
refuse to give assistance to the employees, and "openly protect
smuggling," "and contraband tobacco is publicly sold at the fair,
under the eyes of the municipal authorities, who dare make no
Opposition to it." All receipts, consequently, diminish at the same
time.[44] From the 1st of May, 1789, to the 1st of May, 1790, the
general collections amount to 127 millions instead of 150 millions;
the dues and excise combined return only 31, instead of 50 millions.
The streams which filled the public exchequer are more and more
obstructed by popular resistance, and under the popular pressure,
the Assembly ends by closing them entirely. In the month of March,
1790,[45] it abolishes salt duties, internal customs-duties, taxes
on leather, on oil, on starch, and the stamp of iron. In February
and March, 1791, it abolishes octrois and entrance-dues in all the
cities and boroughs of the kingdom, all the excise duties and those
connected with the excise, especially all taxes which affect the
manufacture, sale, or circulation of beverages. The people have in
the end prevailed, and on the 1st of May, 1791, the day of the
application of the decree, the National Guard of Paris parades
around the walls playing patriotic airs. The cannon of the
Invalides and those on the Pont-Neuf thunder out as if for an
important victory. There is an illumination in the evening, there
is drinking all night, a universal revel. Beer, indeed, is to be
had at three sous the pot, and wine at six sous a pint, which is a
reduction of one-half; no conquest could be more popular, since it
brings intoxication within easy reach of the thirsty.[46]
The object, now, is to provide for the expenses which have been
defrayed by the suppressed octrois. In 1790, the octroi of Paris
had produced 35,910,859 francs, of which 25,059,446 went to the
State, and 10,851,413 went to the city. How is the city going to
pay for its watch, the lighting and cleaning of its streets, and the
support of its hospitals? What are the twelve hundred other cities
and boroughs going to do which are brought by the same stroke to the
same situation? What will the State do, which, in abolishing the
general revenue from all entrance-dues and excise, is suddenly
deprived of two-fifths of its revenue? - In the month of March,
1790, when the Assembly suppressed the salt and other duties, it
established in the place of these a tax of fifty millions, to be
divided between the direct imposts and dues on entrance to the
towns. Now, consequently, that the entrance-dues are abolished, the
new charge falls entirely upon the direct imposts. Do returns come
in, and will they come in? - In the face of so many outbreaks, any
indirect taxation (VAT) is, certainly, difficult to collect.
Nevertheless it is not so repulsive as the other because the levies
of the State disappear in the price of the article, the hand of the
Exchequer being hidden by the hand of the dealer. The Government
clerk formerly presented himself with his stamped paper and the
seller handed him the money without much grumbling, knowing that he
would soon be more than reimbursed by his customer: the indirect tax
is thus collected. Should any difficulty arise, it is between the
dealer and the taxpayer who comes to his shop to lay in his little
store; the latter grumbles, but it is at the high price which he
feels, and possibly at the seller who pockets his silver; he does
not find fault with the clerk of the Exchequer, whom he does not see
and who is not then present In the collection of the direct tax, on
the contrary, it is the clerk himself whom he sees before him, who
abstracts the precious piece of silver. This authorized robber,
moreover, gives him nothing in exchange; it is an entire loss. On
leaving the dealer's shop he goes away with a jug of wine, a pot of
salt, or similar commodities; on leaving the tax office he has
nothing in hand but an acquittance, a miserable bit of scribbled
paper. - But now he is master in his own commune, an elector, a
National Guard, mayor, the sole authority in the use of armed force,
and charged with his own taxation. Come and ask him to unearth the
buried mite on which he has set all his heart and all his soul, the
earthen pot wherein he has deposited his cherished pieces of silver
one by one, and which he has laid by for so many years at the cost
of so much misery and fasting, in the very face of the bailiff in
spite of the prosecutions of the sub-delegate, commissioner,
collector, and clerk!
>From the 1st of May, 1789, to the 1st of May, 1790,[47] the general
returns, the taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and
"twentieths," instead of yielding 161.000,000 francs, yield but
28,000,000 francs in the provinces which impose their own taxes
(pays d'Etats); instead of 28,000,000 francs, the Treasury obtains
but 6,000,000. On the patriotic contribution which was to deduct
one quarter of all incomes over four hundred livres, and to levy two
and a half per cent. on plate, jewels, and whatever gold and silver
each person has in reserve, the State received 9.700,000 francs. As
to patriotic gifts, their total, comprising the silver buckles of
the deputies, reaches only 361,587 francs; and the closer our
examination into the particulars of these figures, the more do we
see the contributions of the villager, artisan, and former subjects
of the taille diminish. - Since the month of October, 1789, the
privileged classes, in fact, appear in the tax-rolls, and they
certainly form the class which is best off, the most alive to
general ideas and the most truly patriotic. It is therefore
probable that, of the forty-three millions of returns from the
direct imposts and from the patriotic contribution, they have
furnished the larger portion, perhaps two thirds of it, or even
three-quarters. If this be the case, the peasant, the former tax-
payer, gave nothing or almost nothing from his pocket during the
first year of the Revolution. For instance, in regard to the
patriotic contribution, the Assembly left it to the conscience of
each person to fix his own quota; at the end of six months,
consciences are found too elastic, and the Assembly is obliged to
confer this right on the municipalities. The result is[48] that
this or that individual who taxed himself at forty-eight livres, is
taxed at a hundred and fifty; another, a cultivator, who had offered
six livres, is judged to be able to pay over one hundred. Every
regiment contains a small number of select brave men, and it is
always these who are ready to advance under fire. Every State
contains a select few of honest men who advance to meet the tax-
collector. Some effective constraint is essential in the regiment
to supply those with courage who have but little, and in the State
to supply those with probity who do not possess it. Hence, during
the eight months which follow, from May 1st, 1790, to January 1st,
1791, the patriotic contribution furnishes but 11,000,000 livres.
Two years later, on the 1st of February, 1793, out of the forty
thousand communal tax-rolls which should provide for it, there are
seven thousand which are not yet drawn up; out of 180,000,000 livres
which it ought to produce, there are 70,000,000 livres which are
still due. - The resistance of the tax-payer produces a similar
deficit, and similar delays in all branches of the national
income.[49] In the month of June, 1790, a deputy declares in the
tribune that "out of thirty-six millions of imposts which ought to
be returned each month only nine have been received."[50] In the
month of November, 1791, a reporter on the budget states that the
receipts, which should amount to forty or forty-eight millions a
month, do not reach eleven millions and a half. On February 1,
1793, there remains still due on the direct taxes of 1789 and 1790
one hundred and seventy-six millions. It is evident that the people
struggle with all their might against the old taxes, even authorized
and prolonged by the Constituent Assembly, and all that is obtained
from them is wrested from them.
Will the people be more docile under the new taxation? The Assembly
exhorts them to be so and shows them how, with the relief they have
gained and with the patriotism they ought to possess, they can and
should discharge their dues. The people are able to do it because,
having got rid of tithes, feudal dues, the salt-tax, octrois and
excise duties, they are in a comfortable position. They should do
so, because the taxation adopted is indispensable to the State,
equitable, assessed on all in proportion to their fortune, collected
and expended under rigid scrutiny, without perversion or waste,
according to precise, clear, periodical and audited accounts. No
doubt exists that, after the 1st of January, 1791, the date when the
new financial scheme comes into operation, each tax-payer will
gladly pay as a good citizen, and the two hundred and forty millions
of the new tax on real property, and the sixty millions of that on
personal property, leaving out the rest - registries, license, and
customs duties - will flow in regularly and easily of their own
accord.
Unfortunately, before the tax-gatherer can collect the first two
levies these have to be assessed, and as there are complicated
writings and formalities, claims to settle amidst great resistance
and local ignorance, the operation is indefinitely prolonged. The
personal and land-tax schedule of 1791 is not transmitted to the
departments by the Assembly until June, 1791. The departments do
not distribute it among the districts until the months of July,
August, and September, 1791. It is not distributed by the districts
among the communes before October, November, and December, 1791.
Thus in the last month of 1791 it is not yet distributed to the tax-
payers by the communes; from which it follows that on the budget of
1791 and throughout that year, the tax-payer has paid nothing. - At
last, in 1792, everybody begins to receive this assessment. It
would require a volume to set forth the partiality and dissimulation
of these assessments. In the first place the office of assessor is
one of danger; the municipal authorities, whose duty it is to assign
the quotas, are not comfortable in their town quarters. Already, in
1790,[51] the municipal officers of Monbazon have been threatened
with death if they dared to tax industrial pursuits on the tax-roll,
and they escaped to Tours in the middle of the night. Even at
Tours, three or four hundred insurgents of the vicinity, dragging
along with them the municipal officers of three market-towns, come
and declare to the town authorities "that for all taxes they will
not pay more than forty-five sous per household." I have already
narrated how, in 1792, in the same department, "they kill, they
assassinate the municipal officers" who presume to publish the tax-
rolls of personal property. In Creuse, at Clugnac, the moment the
clerk begins to read the document, the women spring upon him, seize
the tax-roll, and "tear it up with countless imprecations;" the
municipal council is assailed, and two hundred persons stone its
members, one of whom is thrown down, has his head shaved, and is
promenaded through the village in derision. - When the small tax-
payer defends himself in this manner, it is a warning that he must
be humored. The assessment, accordingly, in the village councils is
made amongst a knot of cronies. Each relieves himself of the burden
by shoving it off on somebody else. "They tax the large
proprietors, whom they want to make pay the whole tax." The noble,
the old seigneur, is the most taxed, and to such an extent that in
many places his income does not suffice to pay his quota. - In the
next place they make themselves out poor, and falsify or elude the
prescriptions of the law. "In most of the municipalities, houses,
tenements, and factories[52] are estimated according to the value of
the area they cover, and considered as land of the first class,
which reduces the quota to almost nothing." And this fraud is not
practiced in the villages alone. "Communes of eight or ten thousand
souls might be cited which have arranged matters so well amongst
themselves in this respect that not a house is to be found worth
more than fifty sous." - Last expedient of all, the commune defers
as long as it can the preparation of its tax-rolls. On the 30th of
January, 1792, out of 40,211, there are only 2,560 which are
complete; on the 5th of October, 1792, the schedules are not made
out in 4,800 municipalities, and it must be noted that all this
relates to a term of administration which has been finished for more
than nine months. At the same date, there are more than six
thousand communes which have not yet begun to collect the land-tax
of 1791, and more than fifteen thousand communes which have not yet
begun to collect the personal tax; the Treasury and the departments
have not yet received 152,000,000 francs, there being still
222,000,000 to collect. On the 1st February, 1793, there still
remains due on the same period 161,000,000 francs, while of the
50,000,000 assessed in 1790, to replace the salt-tax and other
suppressed duties, only 2,000,000 have been collected. Finally, at
the same date, out of the two direct taxes of 1792, which should
produce 300,000,000, less than 4,000,000 have been received. - It
is a maxim of the debtor that he must put off payment as long as
possible. Whoever the creditor may be, the State or a private
individual, a leg or a wing may be saved by dint of procrastination.
The maxim is true, and, on this occasion, success once more
demonstrates its soundness. During the year 1792, the peasant
begins to discharge a portion of his arrears, but it is with
assignats. In January, February, and March, 1792, the assignats
diminish thirty-four, forty-four, and forty-five per cent. in
value; in January, February, and March, 1793, forty-seven and fifty
percent.; in May, June, and July, 1793, fifty-four, sixty, and
sixty-seven per cent. Thus has the old credit of the State melted
away in its hands; those who have held on to their crowns gain fifty
per cent. and more. Again, the greater their delay the more their
debts diminish, and already, on the strength of this, the way to
release themselves at half-price is found.
Meanwhile, hands are laid on the badly defended landed property of
this feeble creditor. - It is always difficult for rude brains to
form any conception of the vague, invisible, abstract entity called
the State, to regard it as a veritable personage and a legitimate
proprietor, especially when they are persistently told that the
State is everybody. The property of all is the property of each,
and as the forests belong to the public, the first-comer has a right
to profit by them. In the month of December, 1789,[53] bands of
sixty men or more chop down the trees in the Bois de Boulogne and at
Vincennes. In April, 1790, in the forest of Saint-Germain, "the
patrols arrest all kinds of delinquents day and night:" handed over
to the National Guards and municipalities in the vicinity, these are
"almost immediately released, even with the wood which they have cut
down against the law." iii There is no means of repressing "the
reiterated threats and insults of the low class of people." A mob of
women, urged on by an old French guardsman, come and pillage under
the nose of the escort a load of faggots confiscated for the benefit
of a hospital; and in the forest itself, bands of marauders fire
upon the patrols. - At Chantilly, three game-keepers are mortally
wounded;[54] both parks are devastated for eighteen consecutive
days; the game is all killed, transported to Paris and sold. - At
Chambord the lieutenant of the constabulary writes to announce his
powerlessness; the woods are ravaged and even burnt; the poachers
are now masters of the situation; breaches in the wall are made by
them, and the water from the pond is drawn off to enable them to
catch the fish. - At Claix, in Dauphiny, an officer of the
jurisdiction of woods and forests, who has secured an injunction
against the inhabitants for cutting down trees on leased ground, is
seized, tortured during five hours, and then stoned to death. - In
vain does the National Assembly issue three decrees and regulations,
placing the forests under the supervision and protection of
administrative bodies, - he latter are too much afraid of their
charge. Between the central power, which is weak and remote, and
the people, present and strong, they always decide in favor of the
latter. Not one of the five municipalities surrounding Chantilly is
disposed to assist in the execution of the laws, while the
directories of the district and department respectively, sanction
their inertia. - Similarly, near Toulouse,[55] where the
magnificent forest of Larramet is devastated in open day and by an
armed force, where the wanton destruction by the populace leaves
nothing of the underwood and shrubbery but "a few scattered trees
and the remains of trunks cut at different heights," the
municipalities of Toulouse and of Tournefeuille refuse all aid. And
worse still, in other provinces, as for instance in Alsace, "whole
municipalities, with their mayors at the head, cut down woods which
are confided to them, and carry them off."[56] If some tribunal is
disposed to enforce the law, it is to no purpose; it takes the risk,
either of not being allowed to give judgment, or of being
constrained to reverse its decision. At Paris the judgment prepared
against the incendiaries of the tax-offices could not be given. At
Montargis, the sentence pronounced against the marauders who had
stolen cartloads of wood in the national forests had to be revised,
and by the judges themselves. The moment the tribunal announced the
confiscation of the carts and horses which had been seized, there
arose a furious outcry against it; the court was insulted by those
present; the condemned parties openly declared that they would have
their carts and horses back by force. Upon this "the judges
withdrew into the council-chamber, and when soon after they resumed
their seats, that part of their decision which related to the
confiscation was canceled."
And yet this administration of justice, ludicrous and flouted as it
may be, is still a sort of barrier. When it falls, along with the
Government, everything is exposed to plunder, and there is no such
thing as public property. - After August 10, 1792, each commune or
individual appropriates whatever comes in its way, either products
or the soil itself. Some of the plunderers go so far as to say
that, since the Government no longer represses them, they act under
its authority.[57] "They have destroyed even the recent plantation
of young trees." "One of the villages near Fontainebleau cleared off
and divided an entire grove. At Rambouillet, from August 10th to
the end of October," the loss is more than 100,000 crowns; the rural
agitators demand with threats the partition of the forest among the
inhabitants. "The destruction is enormous" everywhere, prolonged
for entire months, and of such a kind, says the minister, as to dry
up this source of public revenue for a long time to come. -
Communal property is no more respected than national property. In
each commune, these bold and needy folk, the rural populace, are
privileged to enjoy and make the most of it. Not content with
enjoying it, they desire to acquire ownership of it, and, for days
after the King's fall, the Legislative Assembly, losing its footing
in the universal breaking up, empowers the indigent to put in force
the agrarian law. Henceforth it suffices in any commune for one-
third of its inhabitants of both sexes, servants, common laborers,
shepherds, farm-hands or cowherds, and even paupers, to demand a
partition of the communal possessions. All that the commune owns,
save public edifices and woods, is to be cut up into as many equal
lots as there are heads, the lots to be drawn for, and each
individual to take possession of his or her portion.[58] The
Operation is carried out, for "those who are least well off are
infinitely flattered by it." In the district of Arcis-sur-Aube,
there are not a dozen communes out of ninety in which more than two-
thirds of the voters had the good sense to pronounce against it.
>From this time forth the commune ceases to be an independent
proprietor; it has nothing to fall back upon. In case of distress
it is obliged to lay on extra taxes and obtain, if it can, a few
additional sous. Its future revenue is at present in the tightly
buttoned pockets of the new proprietors. - The prevalence of
short-sighted views is once more due to the covetousness of
individuals. Whether national or communal, it is always public
interest which succumbs, and it succumbs always under the
usurpations of indigent minorities, at one time through the
feebleness of public authority, which dares not oppose their
violence, and at another through the complicity of public authority,
which has conferred upon them the rights of the majority.
IV.
Cupidity of tenants. - The third and fourth jacquerie. -
Brittany and other provinces in 1790 and 1791. - The burning of
chateaux. - Title-deeds destroyed. - Refusal of claims. -
Destruction of reservoirs. - Principal characteristics, prime
motive and ruling passion of the revolution
When there is a lack of public force for the protection of public
property, there is also a lack of it for the protection of private
property, for the same greed and the same needs attack both. Let a
man owe anything either to the State or to an individual, and the
temptation not to pay is equally the same. In both cases it
suffices to find a pretext for denying the debt; in finding this
pretext the cupidity of the tenant is as good as the selfishness of
the tax-payer. Now that the feudal system is abolished let nothing
remain of it: let there be no more seignorial claims. "If the
Assembly has maintained some of them, yonder in Paris, it did so
inadvertently or through corruption: we shall soon hear of all being
suppressed. In the meantime we will relieve ourselves, and burn the
agreements in the places where they are kept."
Such being the argument, the jacquerie breaks out afresh: in truth,
it is permanent and universal. Just as in a body in which some of
the elements of its vital substance are affected by an organic
disease, the evil is apparent in the parts which seem to be sound:
even where as yet no outbreak has occurred, one is imminent;
constant anxiety, a profound restlessness, a low fever, denote its
presence. Here, the debtor does not pay, and the creditor is afraid
to prosecute him. In other places isolated eruptions occur. At
Auxon,[59] on an estate spared by the great jacquerie of July, 1789,
the woods are ravaged, and the peasants, enraged at being denounced
by the keepers, march to the chateau, which is occupied by an old
man and a child; everybody belonging to the village is there, men
and women; they hew down the barricaded door with their axes, and
fire on the neighbors who come to the assistance of its inmates. -
In other places, in the districts of Saint-Étienne and Montbrison,
"the trees belonging to the proprietors are carried away with
impunity, and the walls of their grounds and terraces are
demolished, the complainants being threatened with death or with the
sight of the destruction of their dwellings." Near Paris, around
Montargis, Nemours, and Fontainebleau, a number of parishes refuse
to pay the tithes and ground-rent (champart) which the Assembly has
a second time sanctioned; gibbets are erected and the collectors are
threatened with hanging, while, in the neighborhood of Tonnerre, a
mob of debtors fire upon the body of police which comes to enforce
the claims. - Near Amiens, the Comtesse de la Mire,[60] on her
estate of Davencourt, is visited by the municipal authorities of the
village, who request her to renounce her right to ground-rent
(champart) and thirds (tiers). She refuses and they insist, and she
refuses again, when they inform her that " some misfortune will
happen to her." In effect, two of the municipal officers cause the
tocsin to be rung, and the whole village rushes to arms. One of the
domestics has an arm broken by a ball, and for three hours the
countess and her two children are subject to the grossest insults
and to blows: she is forced to sign a paper which she is not allowed
to read, and, in warding off the stroke of a saber, her arm is cleft
from the elbow to the wrist; the chateau is pillaged, and she owes
her escape to the zeal of some of her servants. - Large eruptions
take place at the same time over entire provinces; one succeeds the
other almost without interruption, the fever encroaching on parts
which were supposed to be cured, and to such an extent that the
virulent ulcers finally combine and form one over the whole surface
of the social body.
By the end of December, 1789, the chronic fermentation comes to a
head in Brittany. Imagination, as usual, has forged a plot, and, as
the people say, if they make an attack it is in their own defense.
- A report spreads[61] that M. de Goyon, near Lamballe, has
assembled in his chateau a number of gentlemen and six hundred
soldiers. The mayor and National Guard of Lamballe immediately
depart in force; they find everything tranquil there, and no company
but two or three friends, and no other arms than a few fowling-
pieces. - The impulse, however, is given, and, on the 15th of
January, the great federation of Pontivy has excited the wildest
enthusiasm. The people drink, sing, and shout in honor of the new
decrees before armed peasants who do not comprehend the French
tongue, still less legal terms, and who, on their return home,
arguing with each other in bas-breton, interpret the law in a
peculiar way. "A decree of the Assembly, in their eyes, is a decree
of arrest" and as the principal decrees of the Assembly are issued
against the nobles, they are so many decrees of arrest against them.
- Some days after this, about the end of January, during the whole
of February, and down to the month of April, the execution of this
theory is tumultuously carried out by mobs of villagers and
vagabonds around Nantes, Auray, Redon, Dinan, Ploërmel, Rennes,
Guingamp, and other villages. Everywhere, writes the Mayor of
Nantes,[62] "the country-people believe that in burning deeds and
contracts they get rid of their debts; the very best of them concur
in this belief," or let things take their course; the excesses are
enormous, because many gratify "special animosities, and all are
heated with wine. - At Beuvres, "the peasants and vassals of the
manor, after burning title-deeds, establish themselves in the
chateau, and threaten to fire it if other papers, which they allege
are concealed there, are not surrendered." Near Redon the Abbey of
Saint-Sauveur is reduced to ashes. Redon is menaced, and Ploërmel
almost besieged. At the end of a month thirty-seven chateaux are
enumerated as attacked: twenty-five in which the title-deeds are
burnt, and twelve in which the proprietors are obliged to sign an
abandonment of their rights. Two chateaux which began to burn are
saved by the National Guard. That of Bois-au-Voyer is entirely
consumed, and several have been sacked. By way of addition, "more
than fifteen procureurs-fiscaux, clerks, notaries, and officers of
seignorial courts have been plundered or burnt," while proprietors
take refuge in the towns because the country is now uninhabitable
for them.
A second tumor makes its appearance at the same time at another
point.[63] It showed itself in Lower Limousin in the beginning of
January. From thence the purulent inflammation spreads to Quercy,
Upper Languedoc, Perigord, and Rouergue, and in February from Tulle
to Montauban, and from Agen to Périgueux and Cahors, extending over
three departments. - Then, also, expectancy is the creator,
according to rule, of its own object. By dint of longing for a law
for the suppression of all claims, it is imagined that it is passed,
and the statement is current that "the King and the National
Assembly have ordered deputations to set up the maypole[64] and to
'light up' the chateaux." - Moreover, and always in accordance
with current practice, bandits, people without occupation, take the
lead of the furious crowd and manage things their own way. As soon
as a band is formed it arrests all the peaceable people it can find
on the roads, in the fields, and in isolated farmhouses, and takes
good care to put them in front in case of blows. - These
miscreants add terror to compulsion. They erect gibbets for any one
that pays casual duties or annual dues, while the parishes of Quercy
threaten their neighbors of Perigord with fire and sword in a week's
time if they do not do in Perigord as they have done in Quercy. -
The tocsin rings, the drums beat, and "the ceremony " is performed
from commune to commune. The keys of the church are forcibly taken
from the curé the seats are burned, and, frequently, the woodwork
marked with the seigneur's arms. They march to the seigneur's
mansion, tear down his weathercocks, and compel him to furnish his
finest tree, together with feathers and ribbons with which to deck
it, without omitting the three measures which he uses in the
collection of his dues in grain or flour. The maypole is planted in
the village square, and the weathercocks, ribbons, and feathers are
attached to its top, together with the three measures and this
inscription, "By order of the King and National Assembly, the final
quittance for all rentals." When this is done it is evident that the
seigneur, who no longer possesses weathercocks, or a seat in the
church, or measures to rate his dues by, is no longer a seigneur,
and can no longer put forth claims of any kind. Huzzahs and
acclamations accordingly burst forth, and there is a revel and an
orgy on the public square. All who can pay - the seigneur, the
curé, and the rich - are put under contribution for the festival,
while the people eat and drink "without any interval of sobriety."
- In this condition, being armed, they strike, and when resistance
is offered, they burn. In Agénois, a chateau belonging to M. de
Lameth, and another of M. d'Aiguillon; in Upper Languedoc, that of
M. de Bournazel, and in Perigord that of M. de Bar, are burnt down:
M. de Bar is almost beaten to death, while six others are killed in
Quercy. A number of chateaux in the environs of Montauban and in
Limousin are assaulted with firearms, and several are pillaged. -
Bands of twelve hundred men swarm the country; "they have a spite
against every estate;" they redress wrongs; "they try over again
cases disposed of thirty years ago, and give judgments which they
put into execution." - If anybody fails to conform to the new code
he is punished, and to the advantage of the new sovereigns. In
Agénois, a gentleman having paid the rent which was associated with
his fief the people take his receipt from him, mulct him in a sum
equal to that which he paid, and come under his windows to spend the
money on good cheer, in triumph and with derision.
Many of the National Guards who still possess some degree of energy,
several of the municipalities which still preserve some love of
order, and a number of the resident gentry, employ their arms
against these excited swarms of brutal usurpers. Some of the
ruffians, taken in the act, are judged somewhat after the fashion of
a drum-head court-martial, and immediately executed as examples.
Everybody in the country sees that the peril to society is great and
urgent, and that if such acts go unpunished, there will be no such
thing as law and property in France. The Bordeaux parliament,
moreover, insists upon prosecutions. Eighty-three boroughs and
cities sign addresses, and send a special deputation to the National
Assembly to urge on prosecutions already commenced, the punishment
of criminals under arrest, and, above all, the maintenance of the
prévôtés.[65] In reply to this, the Assembly inflicts upon the
parliament of Bordeaux its disapprobation in the rudest manner, and
enters upon the demolition of every judicial corporation.[66] After
this, the execution of all prévotal decisions is adjourned. A few
months later the Assembly will oblige the King to declare that the
proceedings begun against the jacquerie of Brittany shall be
regarded as null and void, and that the arrested insurgents shall be
set free. For repressive purposes, it dispatches a sentimental
exhortation to the French people, consisting of twelve pages of
literary insipidity, which Florian might have composed for his
Estilles and his Nemorins.[67] - New conflagrations, as an
inevitable consequence, kindle around live coals which have been
imperfectly extinguished. In the district of Saintes,[68] M.
Dupaty, counselor of the parliament of Bordeaux, after having
exhausted mild resources, and having concluded by issuing writs
against those of his tenantry who would not pay their rents, the
parish of Saint-Thomas de Cosnac, combined with five or six others,
puts itself in motion and assails his two chateaux of Bois-Roche and
Saint-George-des-Agouts; these are plundered and then set on fire,
his son escaping through a volley of musket-balls. They visit
Martin, the notary and steward, in the same fashion; his furniture
is pillaged and his money is taken, and "his daughter undergoes the
most frightful outrages." Another detachment pushes on to the house
of-the Marquis de Cumont, and forces him, under the penalty of
having his house burnt down, to give a discharge for all the claims
he has upon them. At the head of these incendiaries are the
municipal officers of Saint-Thomas, except the mayor, who has taken
to flight.
The electoral system organized by the Constituent Assembly is
beginning to take effect. "Almost everywhere," writes the royal
commissioner, "the large proprietors have been eliminated, and the
offices have been filled by men who strictly fulfill the conditions
of eligibility. The result is a sort of rage of the petty rich to
annoy those who enjoy large heritages." - Six months later, the
National Guards and village authorities in this same department at
Aujean, Migron, and Varaise, decide that no more tithes, agriers or
champarts, nor any of the dues which are retained, shall be paid.
In vain does the department annul the decision, and send its
commissioners, gendarmes, and law-officers. The commissioners are
driven away, and the officers and gendarmes are fired upon; the
vice-president of the district, who was on his way to make his
report to the department, is seized on the road and forced to give
in his resignation. Seven parishes have coalesced with Aujean and
ten with Migron; Varaise has sounded the tocsin, and the villages
for four leagues round have risen; fifteen hundred men, armed with
guns, scythes, hatchets and pitchforks, lend their aid. The object
is to set free the principal leader at Varaise, one Planche, who was
arrested, and to punish the mayor of Varaise, Latierce, who is
suspected of having denounced Planche. Latierce is unmercifully
beaten, and "forced to undergo a thousand torments during thirty
hours;" then they set out with him to Saint-Jean-d'Angely, and
demand the release of Planche. The municipality at first refuses,
but finally consents on the condition that Latierce be given up in
exchange for him. Planche, consequently, is set at liberty and
welcomed with shouts of triumph. Latierce, however, is not given
up; on the contrary, he is tormented for an hour and then massacred,
while the directory of the district, which is less submissive than
the municipal body, is forced to fly. - Symptoms of this kind are
not to be mistaken, and similar ones exist in Brittany. It is
evident that the minds of the people are permanently in revolt.
Instead of the social abscess being relieved by the discharge, it is
always filling up and getting more inflamed. It will burst a second
time in the same places; in 1791 as in 1790, the jacquerie spreads
throughout Brittany as it has spread over Limousin.
This is because the determination of the peasant is of another
nature than ours, his will being more firm and tenacious. When an
idea obtains a hold on him it takes root in an obscure and profound
conviction upon which neither discussion nor argument have any
effect; once planted, it vegetates according to his notions, not
according to ours, and no legislative text, no judicial verdict, no
administrative remonstrance can change in any respect the fruit it
produces. This fruit, developed during centuries, is the feeling of
an excessive plunder, and, consequently, the need of an absolute
release. Too much having been paid to everybody, the peasant now is
not disposed to pay anything to anybody, and this idea, vainly
repressed, always rises up in the manner of an instinct. - In the
month of January, 1791,[69] bands again form in Brittany, owing to
the proprietors of the ancient fiefs having insisted on the payment
of their rents. At first the coalesced parishes refuse to pay the
stewards, and after this the rustic National Guards enter the
chateaux to constrain the proprietors. Generally, it is the
commander of the National Guard, and sometimes the communal
attorney, who dictates to the lord of the manor the renunciation of
his claims; they oblige him, moreover, to sign notes for the benefit
of the parish, or for that of various private individuals. This is
considered by them to be compensation for damages; all feudal dues
being abolished, he must return what he received from them during
the past year, and as they have been put to inconvenience he must
indemnify them by "paying them for their time and journey." Such are
the operations of two of the principal bands, one of them numbering
fifteen hundred men, around Dinan and St. Malo; for greater
security they burn title-deeds in the chateaux of Saint-Tual, Besso,
Beaumanoir, La Rivière, La Bellière, Chateauneuf, Chenay,
Chausavoir, Tourdelon, and Chalonge; and as a climax they set fire
to Chateauneuf just before the arrival of the regular troops. - In
the beginning, a dim conception of legal and social order seems to
be floating in their brains; at Saint-Tual, before taking 2,000
livres from the steward, they oblige the mayor to give them his
consent in writing; at Yvignac, their chief, called upon to show the
authority under which he acted, declares that "he is authorized by
the general will of the populace of the nation."[70] - But when, at
the end of a month, they are beaten by the regular troops, made
furious by the blows given and taken, and excited by the weakness of
the municipal authorities who release their prisoners, they then
become bandits of the worst species. During the night of the 22nd
of February, the chateau of Villefranche, three leagues from
Malestroit, is attacked. Thirty-two rascals with their faces
masked, and led by a chief in the national uniform, break open the
door. The domestics are strangled. The proprietor, M. de la
Bourdonnaie, an old man, with his wife aged sixty, are half killed
by blows and tied fast to their bed, and after this a fire is
applied to their feet and they are warmed (chauffé). In the
meantime the plate, linen, stuffs, jewelry, two thousand francs in
silver, and even watches, buckles, and rings, - everything is
pillaged, piled on the backs of the eleven horses in the stables,
and carried off. - ?When property is concerned, one sort of
outrage provokes another, the narrow cupidity of the lease-holder
being completed by the unlimited rapacity of the brigand.
Meanwhile, in the south-western provinces, the same causes have
produced the same results; and towards the end of autumn, when the
crops are gathered in and the proprietors demand their dues in money
or in produce, the peasant, immovably fixed in his idea, again
refuses.[71] In his eyes, any law that may be against him is not
that of the National Assembly, but of the so-called seigneurs, who
have extorted or manufactured it; and therefore it is null. The
department and district administrators may promulgate it as much as
they please: it does not concern him, and if the opportunity occurs,
he knows how to make them smart for it. The village National
Guards, who are lease-holders like himself, side with him, and
instead of repressing him give him their support. As a
commencement, he replants the maypoles, as a sign of emancipation,
and erects the gibbet by way of a threat. - In the district of
Gourdon, the regulars and the police having been sent to put them
down, the tocsin is at once sounded: a crowd of peasants, amounting
to four or five thousand, arrives from every surrounding parish,
armed with scythes and guns; the soldiers, forming a body of one
hundred, retire into a church, where they capitulate after a siege
of twenty-four hours, being obliged to give the names of the
proprietors who demanded their intervention of the district, and who
are Messrs. Hébray, de Fontange, and many others. All their houses
are destroyed from top to bottom, and they effect their escape in
order not to be hung. The chateaux of Repaire and Salviat are
burned. At the expiration of eight days Quercy is in flames and
thirty chateaux are destroyed. - The leader of a band of rustic
National Guards, Joseph Linard, at the head of a village army,
penetrates into Gourdon, installs himself in the Hôtel-de-Ville,
declares himself the people's protector against the directory of the
district, writes to the department in the name of his "companions in
arms," and vaunts his patriotism. Meanwhile he commands as a
conqueror, throws open the prisons, and promises that, if the
regular troops and police be sent off; he and his companions will
withdraw in good order. - This species of tumultuous authority,
however, instituted by acclamation for attack, is powerless for
resistance. Scarcely has Linard retired when savagery is let loose.
"A price is set upon the heads of the administrators; their houses
are the first devastated; all the houses of wealthy citizens are
pillaged; and the same is the case with all chateaux and country
habitations which display any signs of luxury." - Fifteen
gentlemen, assembled together at the house of M. d'Escayrac, in
Castel, appeal to all good citizens to march to the assistance of
the proprietors who may be attacked in this jacquerie, which is
spreading everywhere;[72] but there are too few proprietors in the
country, and none of the towns have too many of them for their own
protection. M. d'Escayrac, after a few skirmishes, abandoned by the
municipal officers of his village, and wounded, withdraws to the
house of the Comte de Clarac, a major-general, in Languedoc. Here,
too, the chateau, is surrounded,[73] blockaded, and besieged by the
local National Guard. M. de Clarac descends and tries to hold a
parley with the attacking party, and is fired upon. He goes back
inside and throws money out of the window; the money is gathered up,
and he is again fired upon. The chateau is set on fire, and M.
d'Escayrac receives five shots, and is killed. M. de Clarac, with
another person, having taken refuge in a subterranean vault, are
taken out almost stifled the next morning but one by the National
Guard of the vicinity, who conduct them to Toulouse, where they are
kept in prison and where the public prosecutor takes proceedings
against them. The chateau of Bagat, near Montcuq, is demolished at
the same time. The abbey of Espagnac, near Figeac, is assaulted
with fire-arms; the abbess is forced to refund all rents she has
collected, and to restore four thousand livres for the expenses of a
trial which the convent had gained twenty years before.
After such successes, the extension of the revolt is inevitable; and
at the end of some weeks and months it becomes permanent in the
three neighboring departments. - In Creuse,[74] the judges are
threatened with death if they order the payment of seignorial dues,
and the same fate awaits all proprietors who claim their rents. In
many places, and especially in the mountains, the peasants,
"considering that they form the nation, and that clerical
possessions are national," want to have these divided amongst
themselves, instead of their being sold. Fifty parishes around La
Souterraine receive incendiary letters inviting them to come in arms
to the town, in order to secure by force, and by staking their
lives, the production of all titles to rentals. The peasants, in a
circle of eight leagues, are all stirred up by the sound of the
tocsin, and preceded by the municipal officers in their scarves;
there are four thousand of them, and they drag with them a wagon
full of arms: this is for the revision and re-constitution of the
ownership of the soil. - In Dordogne,[75] self-appointed
arbitrators interpose imperiously between the proprietor and the
small farmer, at the time of harvest, to prevent the proprietor from
claiming, and the farmer from paying, the tithes or the réve;[76]
any agreement to this end is forbidden; whoever shall transgress the
new order of things, proprietor or farmer, shall be hung.
Accordingly, the rural militia in the districts of Bergerac,
Excideuil, Ribérac, Mucidan, Montignac, and Perigueux, led by the
municipal officers, go from commune to commune in order to force the
proprietors to sign an act of withdrawal; and these visits "are
always accompanied with robberies, outrages, and ill-treatment from
which there is no escape but in absolute submission." Moreover,
"they demand the abolition of every species of tax and the partition
of the soil. " - It is impossible for "proprietors moderately
rich " to remain in the country; on all sides they take refuge in
Perigueux, and there, organizing in companies, along with the
gendarmerie and the National Guard of the town, overrun the cantons
to restore order. But there is no way of persuading the peasantry
that it is order which they wish to restore. With that stubbornness
of the imagination which no obstacle arrests, and which, like a
vigorous spring, always finds some outlet, the people declare that
"the gendarmes and National Guard" who come to restrain them "are
priests and gentlemen in disguise." - The new theories, moreover,
have struck down to the lowest depths; and nothing is easier than to
draw from them the abolition of debts, and even the agrarian law.
At Ribérac, which is invaded by the people of the neighboring
parishes, a village tailor, taking the catechism of the Constitution
from his pocket, argues with the procureur-syndic, and proves to him
that the insurgents are only exercising the rights of man. The book
states, in the first place, "that Frenchmen are equals and brethren,
and that they should give each other aid;" and that "the masters
should share with their fellows, especially this year, which is one
of scarcity." In the next place, it is written that "all property
belongs to the nation," and that is the reason why "it has taken the
possessions of the Church." Now, all Frenchmen compose the nation,
and the conclusion is clearly apparent. Since, in the eyes of the
tailor, the property of individual Frenchmen belongs to all the
French, he, the tailor, has a right to at least the quota which
belongs to him. - One travels fast and far on this downhill road,
for every mob considers that this means immediate enjoyment, and
enjoyment according to its own ideas. There is no care for
neighbors or for consequences, even when imminent and physical, and
in twenty places the confiscated property perishes in the hands of
the usurpers.
This voluntary destruction of property can be best observed in the
third department, that of Corrèze.[77] Not only have the peasants
here refused to pay rents from the beginning of the Revolution; not
only have they "planted maypoles, supplied with iron hooks, to hang
" the first one that dared to claim or to pay them; not only are
violent acts of every description committed "by entire communes,"
"the National Guards of the small communes participating in them;"
not only do the culprits, whose arrest is ordered, remain at
liberty, while "nothing is spoken of but the hanging of the
constables who serve writs," but farther, together with the
ownership of the water-sources, the power of collecting, directing,
and distributing the water is overthrown, and, in a country of in a
country of steep slopes, the consequences of such an operation may
be imagined. Three leagues from Tulle, in a forming a semi-circle, a
pond twenty feet in depth, and covering an area of three hundred
acres, was enclosed by a broad embankment on the side of a very deep
gorge, which was completely covered with houses, mills, and
cultivation. On the 17th of April, 1791, a troop of five hundred
armed men assembled by the beat of a drum, and collected from three
villages in the vicinity, set themselves to demolish the dike. The
proprietor, M. de Sedières, a substitute-deputy in the National
Assembly, is not advised of it until eleven o'clock in the evening.
Mounting his horse, along with his guests and domestics, he makes a
charge on the insane wretches, and, with the aid of pistol and gun
shots, disperses them. It was time, for the trench they had dug was
already eight feet deep, and the water was nearly on a level with
it: a half-hour later and the terrible rolling mass of waters would
have poured out on the inhabitants of the gorge. - But such
vigorous strokes, which are rare and hardly ever successful, are no
defense against universal and continuous attacks. The regular
troops and the gendarmerie, both of which are in the way of
reorganization or of dissolution, are not trustworthy, or are too
weak. There are no more than thirty of the cavalry in Creuse, and
as many in Corrèze. The National Guards of the towns are knocked up
by expeditions into the country, and there is no money with which to
provide for their change of quarters. And finally, as the elections
are in the hands of the people, this brings into power men disposed
to tolerate popular excesses. At Tulle, the electors of the second
class, almost all chosen from among the cultivators, and, moreover,
catechized by the club, nominate for deputies and public prosecutor
only the candidates who are pledged against rentals and against
water privileges. - Accordingly, the general demolition of the
dikes begins as the month of May approaches. This operation
continues unopposed on a vast pond, a league and a half from the
town, and lasts for a whole week; elsewhere, on the arrival of the
guards or of the gendarmerie, they are fired upon. Towards the end
of September, all the embankments in the department are broken down:
nothing is left in the place of the ponds but fetid marshes; the
mill-wheels no longer turn, and the fields are no longer watered.
But those who demolish them carry away baskets full of fish, and the
soil of the ponds again becomes communal. - Hatred is not the
motive which impels them, but the instinct of acquisition: all these
violent outstretched hands, which rigidly resist the law, are
directed against property, but not against the proprietor; they are
more greedy than hostile. One of the noblemen of Corrèze,[78] M. de
Saint-Victour, has been absent for five years. From the beginning
of the Revolution, although his feudal dues constitute one-half of
the income of his estate, he has given orders that no rigorous
measures shall be employed in their collection, and the result is
that, since 1789, none of them were collected. Moreover, having a
reserve stock of wheat on hand, he lent grain, to the amount of four
thousand francs, to those of his tenants who had none. In short, he
is liberal, and, in the neighboring town, at Ussel, he even passes
for a Jacobin. In spite of all this, he is treated just like the
rest. It is because the parishes in his domain are "clubbist,"
governed by associations of moral and practical levelers; in one of
them "the brigands have organized themselves into a municipal body,"
and have chosen their leader as procureur-syndic. Consequently, on
the 22nd of August, eighty armed peasants opened the dam of his
large pond, at the risk of submerging a village in the neighborhood,
the inhabitants of which came and closed it up. Five other ponds
belonging to him are demolished in the course of the two following
weeks; fish to the value of from four to five thousand francs are
stolen, and the rest perish in the weeds. In order to make this
expropriation sure, an effort is made to burn his title-deeds; his
chateau, twice attacked in the night, is saved only by the National
Guard of Ussel. His farmers and domestics hesitate, for the time
being, whether or not to cultivate the ground, and come and ask the
steward if they could sow the seeds. There is no recourse to the
proper authorities: the administrators and judges, even when their
own property is concerned, "dare not openly show themselves,"
because "they do not find themselves protected by the shield of the
law. " - Popular will, traversing both the old and the new law,
obstinately persists in its work, and forcibly attains its ends.
Thus, whatever the grand terms of liberty, equality, and fraternity
may be, with which the Revolution graces itself, it is, in its
essence, a transfer of property; in this alone consists its chief
support, its enduring energy, its primary impulse and its historical
significance. - Formerly, in antiquity, similar movements were
accomplished, debts were abolished or lessened, the possessions of
the rich were confiscated, and the public lands were divided; but
this operation was confined to a city and limited to a small
territory. For the first time it takes place on a large scale and
in a modern State. - Thus far, in these vast States, when the
deeper foundations have been disturbed, it has ever been on account
of foreign domination or on account of an oppression of conscience.
In France in the fifteenth century, in Holland in the sixteenth and
in England in the seventeenth century, the peasant, the mechanic,
and the laborer had taken up arms against an enemy or in behalf of
their faith. On religious or patriotic zeal has followed the
craving for prosperity and comfort, and the new motive is as
powerful as the others; for in our industrial, democratic, and
utilitarian societies it is this which governs almost all lives, and
excites almost all efforts. Kept down for centuries, the passion
recovers itself by throwing off government and privilege, the two
great weights which have borne it down. At the present time this
passion launches itself impetuously with its whole force, with
brutal insensibility, athwart every kind of proprietorship that is
legal and legitimate, whether it be public or private. The
obstacles it encounters only render it the more destructive , beyond
property it attacks proprietors, and completes plunder with
proscriptions.
______________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] The expression is that of Jean Bon Saint-André to Mathieu Dumas,
sent to re-establish tranquillity in Montauban (1790): "The day of
vengeance, which we have been awaiting for a hundred years, has
come!"
[2] De Dampmartin, I. 187 (an eye-witness).
[3] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223 and 3216. Letters of M. de
Bouzols, major general, residing at Montpellier, May 21, 25, 28,
1790.
[4] Mary Lafon, "Histoire d'une Ville Protestante ".(with original
documents derived from the archives of Montauban).
[5] Archives Nationales," F7, 2216. Procés-verbal of the
Municipality of Nîmes and report of the Abbé de Belmont. - Report
of the Administrative commissioners, June 28, 1790. - Petition of
the Catholics, April 20. - Letters of the Municipality, the
commissioners, and M. de Nausel, on the events of May 2 and 3. -
Letter of M. Rabaut Saint-Etienne, May 12 - Petition of the widow
Gas, July 30. - Report (printed) of M. Alquier, February 19,
1791. - Memoir (printed) of the massacre of the Catholics at
Nîmes, by Froment (1790). - New address of the Municipality of
Nîmes, presented by M. de Marguerite, mayor and deputy (1790),
printed. Mercure de France, February 23, 1791.
[6] The petition is signed by 3,127 persons, besides 1560 who put a
cross declaring that they could not write. The counter-petition of
the club is signed by 262 persons.
[7] This last item, stated in M. Alquier's report, is denied by the
municipality. According to it, the red rosettes gathered around the
bishop's quarters had no guns.
[8] An insurrection in the sixteenth century, when the Protestants
fired on the Catholics on St. Michael's Day.-[TR.]
[9] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3216. Letter of M. de Lespin, Major
at Nîmes, to the commandant of Provence, M de Perigord, July 27,
1790: "The plots and conspiracies which were attributed to the
vanquished party, and which, it was believed, would be discovered in
the depositions of the four hundred men in prison, vanish as the
proceedings advance. The veritable culprits are to be found among
the informers.
[10] Buchez and Roux, III. 240 (Memorandum of the Ministers,
October 28, 1789). - " Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 3.
Deliberation of the Municipal council of Vernon (November 4, 1789)
[11] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. correspondence of M. de
Thiard, November 4, 1789. - See similar occurrences, September 4,
October 23, November 4 and 19, 1789, January 27 and March 27, 1790
[12] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3257. Letter from Gex, May 29,
1790. - Buchez and Roux, VII. 198, 369 (September, October,
1790).
[13] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. correspondence of M. de
Bercheny, Commandant of the four central provinces. Letters of May
25, June 11, 19, and 27, 1790. - " Archives Nationales," D.
XXIX. 4. Deliberations of the district administrators of Bourbon-
Lancy, May 26.
[14] "Archives Nationales," H. 2453. Minutes of the meeting of a
dozen parishes in Nivernais, June 4. "White bread is to be 2 sous,
and brown bread 11/2 sous. Husbandmen are to have 30 sous, reapers
10 sous, wheelwrights 10 sous, bailiffs 6 sous per league. Butter
is to be at 8 sous, meat at 5 sous, pork at 8 sous, oil at 8 sous
the pint, a square foot of masonry-work 40 sous, a pair of large
sabots 3 sous. All rights of pasturage and of forests are to he
surrendered. The roads are to be free everywhere, as formerly. All
seignorial rents arc to be suppressed. Millers are to take only one
thirty-second of a bushel. The seigneurs of our department are to
give up all servile holidays and ill-acquired property. The curé of
Bièze is simply to say mass at nine o'clock in the morning and
vespers at two o'clock in the afternoon, in summer and winter; he
must marry and bury gratis, it being reserved to us to pay him a
salary. He is to be paid 6 sous for masses, and not to leave his
curé except to repeat his breviary and make proper calls on the men
and women of his parish. Hats must be had from 3 livres to 30 sous.
Nails 3 livres the gross. Curés are to have none but circumspect
females of fifty for domestics. Curés are not to go to either fairs
or markets. All curés are to he on the same footing as the one at
Bièze. There must he no more wholesale dealers in wheat. Law
officers who make unjust seizures must return the money. Farm
leases must expire on St. Martin's Day. M. le Comte, although not
there, M. de Tontenelle, and M. de Commandant must sign this
document without difficulty. M. de Mingot is formally to resign his
place in writing: he went away with his servant-woman - he even
missed his mass on the first Friday of the Fête-Dieu, and it is
supposed that he slept in the woods. Joiners' wages shall he fixed
at the same rate as wheelwrights'. Ox-straps are not to cost over
40 sous, yokes 10 sous. Masters must pay one-half of the tailles .
Notaries are to take only the half of what they had formerly, as
well as comptrollers. The Commune claims the right of protest
against whatever it may have forgotten in the present article, in
fact or in law." (It is signed by about twenty persons, several of
them being mayors and municipal clerks.)
[15] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. The same correspondence, May
29, June 11 and 17, September 15, 1790. - ibid, F7, 3257. Letter of
the municipal authorities of Marsigny, May 3; of the municipal
officers of Bourbon-Lancy, June 5. Extract from letters written to
M. Amelot, June 1st.
[16] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3185, 3186. Letter of the President
of the Tribunal of the district of Laon, February 8, 1792.
[17] "Archives Nationales F7, 3268. Procés-verbal and observations
of the two commissioners sent to Étampes September 22-25, 1791.
[18] "Archives Nationales F7, 3265. The following document, among
many others, shows the expedients and conceptions of the popular
imagination. Petition of several inhabitants of the commune of
Forges (Seine Inférieure) "to the good and incorruptible Minister of
the Interior" (October 16, 1792). After three good crops in
succession, the famine still continues. Under the ancient régime
wheat was superabundant; hogs were fed with it, and calves were
fattened with bread. It is certain, therefore, that wheat is
diverted by monopolists and the enemies of the new regime. The
farms are too large; let them he divided. There is too much
pasture-ground: sow it with wheat. Compel each farmer and land-
owner to give a statement of his crop: let the quantity be published
at the church service, and in case of falsehood let the man be put
to death or imprisoned, and his grain he confiscated. Oblige all
the cultivators of the neighborhood to sell their wheat at Forges
only, etc."
[19] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Report of the commissioners
sent by the department, March 11, 1792 (apropos of the insurrection
of March 4). - Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 381.
[20] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Letters of several mayors,
district administrators, cultivators of Velizy, Villacoublay, La
celle-Saint-Cloud, Montigny, etc. November 12, 1791. - Letter of
M. de Narbonne, January 13, 1792; of M. Sureau, justice of the peace
in the canton of Étampes, September 17, 1791. - Letter of
Bruyères-le-Châtel, January 28, 1792.
[21] A term applied to brigands at this epoch who demand money and
objects of value, and force their delivery by exposing the soles of
the feet of their victims to a fire. - [TR.]
[22] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3203. Letter of the Directory of
Cher, August 25, 1791. - F7, 3240. Letter of the Directory of
Haute Marne, November 6, 1791. - F7, 3248. Minutes of the
meeting of the members of the department of the Nord, March 18,
1791. - F7, 3250. Minutes of the meeting of the municipal
officers of Montreuil-sur-Mer, October 16, 1791. - F7, 3265.
Letter of the Directory of Seine Infereure, July 22, 1791. - D,
XXIX. 4. Remonstrances of the municipalities assembled at Tostes,
July 21, 1791. - Petition, of the municipal officers of the
districts of Dieppe, Cany, and Caudebec, July 22, 1791.
[23] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim.
[24] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim.
Deliberations of the Directory of Seine-et-Oise, September 20, 1791
(apropos of the insurrection. September 16, at Étampes). -
Letter of Charpentier, president of the district, September 19. -
Report of the Department Commissioners, March 11, 1792 (on the
insurrection at Brunoy, March 4.) - Report of the Department
Commissioners, March 4, 1792 (on the insurrection at Montlhéry,
February 13 to 20). - Deliberation of the Directory of Seine-et-
Oise, September 16, 1791 (on the insurrection at Corbeil). -
Letters of the mayors of Limours, Lonjumeau, etc.
[25] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. - Minutes of
the meeting of the Municipality of Montlhéry, February 28, 1792: "We
cannot enter into fuller details without exposing ourselves to
extremities which would be only disastrous to us." - Letter of the
justice of the peace of the canton, February 25: "Public outcry
teaches me that if I issue writs of arrest against those who
massacred Thibault, the people would rise."
[26] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. Reports of
the gendarmerie, February 24, 1792, and the following days. -
Letter of the sergeant of Limours, March 2; of the manager of the
farm of Plessis-le-Comte, February 23.
[27] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. - Memorandum
to the National Assembly by the citizens of Rambouillet, September
17, 1792.
[28] "Archives Nationales," F7 3268 and 3269, Passim. Minutes of
the meeting of the Municipality of Montlhéry, February 27, 1792. -
Buchez and Roux, XIII. 421, (March, 1792); and XIII., 317. -
Mercure de France, February 25, 1792. (Letters of M. Dauchy,
President of the Directory of the Department; of M. de Gouy,
messenger sent by the minister, etc.) - Moniteur, sitting of
February 15, 1792.
[29] Decree of September 3, 1792.
[30] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269. Petition of the
citizens of Montfort-l'Amaury, Saint-Léger, Gros-Rouvre, Gelin,
Laqueue, and Méré, to the citizens of Rambouillet.
[31] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3230. Letter of an administrator of
the district of Vendôme, with the deliberation of the commune of
Vendôme, November 24, 1792.
[32] Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letter of the administrators
of the Department of Seine-Inférieure, Octobers 23, 1792. -
Letters of the Special Comittee of Rouen, October 22 and 23, 1792:
"The more the zeal and patriotism of the cultivators is stimulated,
the more do they seem determined to avoid the market-places, which
are always in a State of absolute destitution."
[33] Archives Nationales," F7, 3265. Letter of David, a cultivator,
October 20, 1792. - Letter of the Department Administrators,
October 13, 1792, etc. - Letter (printed) of the minister to the
convention, November 4. - Proclamation of the Provisional
Executive council, October 31, 1792. (The setier of grain of two
hundred and forty pounds is sold at 60 francs in the south, and at
half that sum in the north.)
[34] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letters of Bonnemant,
September 11, 1792; of Laussel, September 22, 1792.
[35] "Archives Nationales," H, 1453. Correspondence of M. de
Bercheny, July 28, October 24 and 26, 1790. - The same
disposition lasted. An insurrection occurred in Issoudun after the
three days of July, 1830, against the combined imposts. Seven or
eight thousand wine growers burnt the archives and tax-offices and
dragged an employee through the streets, shouting out at each
street-lamp, "Let him be hung!" The general sent to repress the
outbreak entered the town only through a capitulation; the moment he
reached the Hôtel-de-Ville a man of the Faubourg de Rome put his
pruning-book around his neck, exclaiming, "No more clerks where
there is nothing to do!"
[36] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3203. Letter of the Directory of
Cher, April 9, 1790. - Ibid, F7, 3255. Letter of August 4, 1790.
Verdict of the présidial, November 4, 1790. - Letter of the
Municipality of Saint-Etienne, August 5, 1790.
[37] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248. Letter of M. Sénac de
Mejlhan, April 10, 1790. - Letter of the grands baillis, June 30,
1790.
[38] Buchez and Roux, VI. 403. Report of Chabroud on the
insurrection at Lyons, July 9 and 10, 1790. - Duvergier,
"Collection des Décrets." Decrees of August 4 and 15, 1790.
[39] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letter of the Minister, July
2, 1790, to the Directory of Rhône-et-Loire. "The King is informed
that, throughout your department, and especially in the districts of
Saint-Etienne and Montbrison, license is carried to the extreme;
that the judges dare not prosecute; that in many places the
municipal officers are at the head of the disturbances; and that, in
others, the National Guard do not obey requisitions." - Letter of
September 5, 1790. "In the bourg of Thisy, brigands have invaded
divers cotton-spinning establishments and partially destroyed them
and after having plundered them, they have sold the goods by public
auction."
[40] Buchez and Roux, VI. 345. Report of M. Muguet, July 1, 1790.
[41] Minutes of the meeting of the National Assembly. (Sitting of
October 24, 1789.) - Decree of September 27, 1789, applicable the
1st of October. There are other alleviations applicable on the 1st
of January, 1790.
[42] Mercure de France, February 27, 1790. (Memorandum of the garde
des sceaux, January 16. - Observations of M. Necker on the report
made by the Financial committee, at the sitting of March 12, 1790.
[43] "Archives Nationales," H, 1453. Correspondence of M. de
Bercheny, April 24, May 4 and 6, 1790: "It is much to be feared that
the tobacco-tax will share the fate of the salt-tax."
[44] Mercure de France, July 31, 1790 (sitting of July 10.) M.
Lambert, Comptroller General of the Finances, informs the Assembly
of "the obstacles which continual outbreaks, brigandage, and the
maxims of anarchical freedom impose, from one end of France to the
other, on the collection of the taxes. On one side, the people are
led to believe that, if they stubbornly refuse a tax contrary to
their rights, it abolition will be secured. Elsewhere, smuggling is
openly carried on by force; the people favor it, while the National
Guards refuse to act against the nation. In other places hatred is
excited, and divisions between the troops and the overseers at the
toll-houses: the latter are massacred, the bureaus are pillaged, and
the prisons are forced open." - Memorandum from M. Necker to the
National Assembly, July 21, 1790.
[45] Decrees of March 21 and 22, 1790, applicable April 21
following. - Decrees of February 19 and March 2, 1791, applicable
May 1 following.
[46] De Goncourt, "La Societé Française pendant la Révolution," 204.
- Maxime Du Camp, "Paris, sa vie et ses organes," VI. 11.
[47] "Compte des Revenus et Dépenses au 1er Mai, 1789." -
Memorandum of M. Necker, July 21, 1790. - Memoranda presented by
M. de Montesquiou, September 9, 1791. - Comptes-rendus by the
minister, Clavières, October 5, 1792, February 1, 1792. - Report
of Cambon, February, 1793.
[48] Boivin-Champeaux, 231.
[49] Mercure de France, May 28, 1791. (Sitting of May 22.) -
Speech of M. d'Allarde: "Burgundy has paid nothing belonging to
1790."
[50] Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speech by M. Freteau. -
Mercure de France. November 26, 1791. Report by Lafont-Ladebat.
[51] "Archives Nationales," H, 2453. correspondence of M. de
Bercheny, June 5, 1790, etc. - F7, 3226. Letters of Chenantin,
cultivator, November 7, 1792, also of the prosecuting attorney ,
November 6. - F7, 3269. Minutes of the meeting of the
municipality of Clugnac, August 5th, 1792. - F7, 3202. Letter of
the Minister of Justice, Duport, January 3, 1792. "The utter
absence of public force in the district of Montargis renders every
operation of the Government and all execution of the laws
impossible. The arrears of taxes to be collected is here very
considerable, while all proceedings of constraint are dangerous and
impossible to execute, owing to the fears of the bailiffs, who dare
not perform their duties, and the violence of the tax-payers, on
whom there is no check."
[52] Report of the Committee on Finances, by Ramel, 19th Floréal,
year II (The Constituent Assembly had fixed the real tax of a house
at one-sixth of its letting value.)
[53] Mercure de France, December 12, 1789. - "Archives
Nationales," F7, 3268. Memorandum from the officers in command of
the detachment of the Paris National Guard stationed at Conflans-
Sainte-Honorine (April, 1790). Certificate of the Municipal
Officers of Poissy, March 31.
[54] Mercure de France, March 12 and 26, 1791. - "Archives
Nationales," H, 1453. Letter of the police-lieutenant of Blois,
April 22, 1790. - Mercure de France, July 24, 1790. Two of the
murderers exclaimed to those who tried to save one of the keepers,
"Hanging is well done at Paris! Bah, you are aristocrats! We shall
be talked about in the gazettes of Paris." (Deposition of
witnesses.) - Decrees and proclamations regarding the protection
of the forests, November 3 and December 11, 1789. - Another in
October, 1790. - Another June 29, 1791.
[55] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of the bailli de
Virieu, January 26, 1792.
[56] Mercure de France, December 3, 1791. (Letter from Sarreluis,
November 15, 1791.) - "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of
the Municipal Officers of Montargis. January 8, 1792.
[57] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Letter of the overseer of the
national domains at Rambouillet, October 31, 1792. - Report of
the minister Clavières, February 1. 1793.
[58] Decrees of August 14, 1792, June 10, 1793. - " Archives
Nationales," Missions des Représentants, D, § 7. (Deliberation of
the district of Troyes, 2 Ventose, an. III.) - At Thunelières,
the drawing took place on the 10th Fructidor, year II, and was done
over again in behalf of a servant of Billy, an influential municipal
officer who "was the soul of his colleagues." - Ibid. Abstract of
operations in the district of Arcis-sur-Aube, 30 Pluviose, year III.
"Two-thirds of the communes hold this kind of property. Most of
them have voted on and effected the partition, or are actually
engaged on it.
[59] Mercure de France, January 7, 1790. (Chateau of Auxon in
Haute-Saone.) - "Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. (Letter of the
minister to the Directory of Rhone-et-Loire, July 2, 1790.) -
Mercure de France, July 17, 1790. (Report of M. de Broglie, July
13, and decree of July 13-18.) - "Archives Nationales," H, 1453.
(Correspondence of M. de Bercheny, July 21, 1790.)
[60] Mercure de France, March 19, 1790. Letter from Amien, February
28. (Mallet du Pan publishes in the Mercure only letters which are
signed and authentic.)
[61] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. (Correspondence of M. de
Thiard; letters of Chevalier de Bévy, December 26, 1789, and others
up to April 5, 1790.) - Moniteur, sitting of February 9, 1790. -
Mercure de France, February 6 and March 6, 1790 (list of chateaux).
[62] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. (correspondence of M. de
Thiard.) Letters of the Mayor of Nantes, February 16, !790, of the
Municipality of Redon, February 19, etc.
[63] Mercure de France, February 6 and 27, 1790. (Speech of M. de
Foucault, sittings of February 2 and 5) - Moniteur (same dates).
(Report of Grégoire, February 9; speeches by MM. Sallé de Chaux and
de Noailles, February 9.) - Memorandum of the deputies of the town
of Tulle, drawn up by the Abbé Morellet (from the deliberations and
addresses of eighty-three boroughs and cities in the province).
[64] In allusion to the feudal custom of paying seignorial dues on
the first of May around a maypole. See further on. [TR]
[65] Criminal Courts without appeal.-[TR.)
[66] Moniteur, sitting of March 4, 1790. - Duvergier, decrees of
March 6, 1790, and August 6-10 1790
[67] The address is dated February 11, 1793. This singularly comic
document would alone suffice to make the history of the Revolution
perfectly comprehensible.
[68] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3203. (Letters of the royal
commissioner, April 30 and May 9, 1790.) - Letter of the Duc de
Maillé, May 6. - Report from the administrators of the
department, November 12, 1790. - Moniteur VI. 515.
[69] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3225. Letter of the Directory from
Ille-et-Vilaine, January 30, 1791, and letter from Dinan, January 29
- Mercure de France, April 2 and 16, 1791. Letters from Rennes,
March 20th; from Redon, March 12.
[70] So expressed in the minutes of the meeting.
[71] Moniteur, sitting of December 15, 1790. (Address of the
department of Lot, December 7.) - Sitting of December 20 (Speech
by M. de Foucault.) - Mercure de France, December 18, 1790.
(Letter from Belves, in Perigord, December 7.) - Ibid., January
22, 29, 1791. (Letter from M. de Clarac, January 18.)
[72] December 17, 1790.
[73] January 7, 1791.
[74] Revolutionary archives of the department of Creuse, by Duval.
(Letter of the administrators of the department, March 31, 1791.) -
" Archives Nationales," F7, 3209. (Deliberation of the Directory of
the Department, May 12, 1791 - Minutes of the meeting of the
municipality of La Souterraine, August 23, 1791.)
[75] "Archives Nationales", F7, 3269. - Order of the directory of
the district of Ribérac, August 5, 1791, and requisitions of the
prosecuting attorney of the department, August 24, and September 11.
- Letter of the king's commissioner, August 22.
[76] A sort of export duty.-[TR.]
[77] "Archives Nationales," P7, 3204. - Letter, from the
Directory of the Department, June 2, 1791; September 8 and 22. -
Letter from the Minister of Justice, May 15, 1791. - Letter from
M. de Lentilhac, September 2. - Letter from M. Melon-Padon, Royal
Commissioner, September. - Mercure de France, May 14, 1791.
(Letter of an eye-witness, M.de Loyac, April 25, 1791.)
[78] "Archives Nationales," F7. 3204. Letters from M. de Saint-
Victour, September 25, October 2 and 10, 1791. - Letter from the
steward of his estate, September 18.
CHAPTER III. Development of the ruling Passion.
I. Attitude of the nobles. Their moderate resistance.
IF popular passion ended in murder it was not because resistance was
great or violent. On the contrary, never did an aristocracy undergo
dispossession with so much patience, or employ less force in the
defense of its prerogatives, or even of its property. To speak with
exactness, the class in question receives blows without returning
them, and when it does take up arms, it is always with the bourgeois
and the National Guard, at the request of the magistrates, in
conformity with the law, and for the protection of persons and
property. The nobles try to avoid being either killed or robbed,
nothing more: for nearly three years they raise no political banner.
In the towns where they exert the most influence and which are
denounced as rebellious, for ex-ample in Mende and Arles, their
opposition is limited to the suppression of riots, the restraining
of the common people, and ensuring respect for the law, It is not
the new order of things against which they conspire, but against
brutal disorder. - At Mende," says the municipal body,[1] "we had
the honor of being the first to furnish the contributions of 1790.
We supplied the place of our bishop and installed his successor
without disturbance, and without the assistance of any foreign force
. . . . We dispersed the members of a cathedral body to which we
were attached by the ties of blood and friendship; we dismissed all,
from the bishop down to the children of the choir. We had but three
communities of mendicant monks, and all three have been suppressed.
We have sold all national possessions without exception." - The
commander of their gendarmerie is, in fact, an old member of the
body-guard, while the superior officers of the National Guard are
gentlemen, or belong to the order of Saint-Louis. It is very
evident that, if they defend themselves against Jacobins, they are
not insurgent against the National Assembly. - In Arles,[2] which
has put down its populace, which has armed itself, which has shut
its gates, and which passes for a focus of royalist conspiracy, the
commissioners sent by the King and by the National Assembly, men of
discretion and of consideration, find nothing, after a month's
investigation, but submission to the decrees and zeal for the public
welfare.
"Such," they say, "are the men who have been calumniated because,
cherishing the Constitution, they hold fanaticism, demagogues and
anarchy, in horror. If the citizens had not roused themselves when
the moment of danger arrived, they would have been slaughtered like
their neighbors (of Avignon). It is this insurrection against crime
which the brigands have slandered." If their gates were shut it was
because "the National Guard of Marseilles, the same which behaved so
badly in the Comtat, flocked there under the pretext of maintaining
liberty and of forestalling the counter-revolution, but, in reality,
to village the town."
Vive la Nation! Vive la Loi! Vive le Roi were the only cries heard
at the very quiet and orderly elections that had just taken place.
"The attachment of the citizens to the Constitution has been spoken
of. . . . Obedience to the laws, the readiest disposition to
discharge public contributions, were remarked by us among these
pretended counter-revolutionaries. Those who are subject to the
license-tax came in crowds to the Hôtel-de-Ville." Scarcely "was the
bureau of receipts opened when it was filled with respectable
people; those on the contrary who style themselves good patriots,
republicans or anarchists, were not conspicuous on this occasion;
but a very small number among them have made their submission. The
rest are surprised at being called upon for money; they had been
given a quite different hope."
In short, during more than thirty months, and under a steady fire of
threats, outrages, and plunder, the nobles who remain in France
neither commit nor undertake any hostile act against the Government
that persecutes them. None of them, not even M. de Bouillé, attempts
to carry out any real plan of civil war; I find but one resolute man
in their ranks at this date, ready for action, and who labors to
form one militant party against another militant party: he is really
a politician and conspirator; he has an understanding with the Comte
d'Artois; he gets petitions signed for the freedom of the King and
of the Church; he organizes armed companies; he recruits the
peasants; he prepares a Vendée for Languedoc and Provence; and this
person is a bourgeois, Froment of Nîmes.[3] But, at the moment of
action, he finds only three out of eighteen companies, supposed by
him to be enlisted in his cause, that are willing to march with him.
Others remain in their quarters until, Froment being overcome, they
are found there and slaughtered; the survivors, who escape to Jalès,
find, not a stronghold, but a temporary asylum, where they never
succeed in transforming their inclinations into determinations.[4]
- The nobles too, like other Frenchmen, have been subject to the
lasting pressure of monarchical centralization. They no longer form
one body.; they have lost the instinct of association. They no
longer know how to act for themselves; they are the puppets of
administration awaiting an impulse from the center, while at the
center the King, their hereditary general, a captive in the hands of
the people, commands them to be resigned and to do nothing.[5]
Moreover, like other Frenchmen, they have been brought up in the
philosophy of the eighteenth century. "Liberty is so precious,"
wrote the Duc de Brissac,[6] "that it may well be purchased with
some suffering; a destroyed feudalism will not prevent the good and
the true from being respected and loved." - They persist in this
illusion for a long time and remain optimists. As they feel kindly
towards the people, they cannot comprehend that the people should
entertain other sentiments toward them; they firmly believe that the
troubles are transient. Immediately on the proclamation of the
Constitution they return in crowds from Spain, Belgium, and Germany;
at Troyes there are not enough post-horses for many days to supply
the emigrants who are coming back.[7] Thus they accept not only the
abolition of feudalism with civil equality, but also political
equality and numerical sovereignty.
Some consideration for them, some outward signs of respect, a few
bows, would, in all probability, have rallied them sincerely to
democratic institutions. They would soon consent to be confounded
with the crowd, to submit to the common level, and to live as
private individuals. Had they been treated like the bourgeois or
the peasant, their neighbors, had their property and persons been
respected, they might have accepted the new régime without any
bitterness of feeling. That the leading emigrant nobles and those
forming a part of the old court carry on intrigues at Coblentz or at
Turin is natural, since they have lost everything: authority,
places, pensions, sinecures, pleasures, and the rest. But, to the
gentry and inferior nobles of the provinces, chevaliers of Saint-
Louis, subaltern officers and resident proprietors, the loss is
insignificant. The law has suppressed one-half of their seignorial
dues; but by virtue of the same law their lands are no longer
burdened with tithes. Popular elections will not provide them with
places, but they did not enjoy them under the arbitrary ministerial
rule. Little does it matter to them that power, whether ministerial
or popular, has changed hands: they are not accustomed to its
favors, and will pursue their ordinary avocations - the chase,
promenading, reading, visiting, and conversing - provided they,
like the first-comer, the grocer at the corner, or their farm-
servant, find protection, safety, and security on the public road
and in their dwellings.[8]
II.
Workings of the popular imagination with respect to them. - The
monomania of suspicion. - The nobles distrusted and treated as
enemies. - Situation of a gentleman on his domain. - M. de.
Bussy
Popular passion, unfortunately, is a blind power, and, for lack of
enlightenment, suffers itself to be guided by spectral illusions.
Imaginary conceptions work, and work in conformity with the
structure of the excited brain which has given birth to them:
What if the Ancient Regime should return!
What if we were obliged to restore the property of the clergy!
What if we should be again forced to pay the salt tax, the excise,
the taille, and other dues which, thanks to the law, we no longer
pay, besides other taxes and dues that we do not pay in spite of the
law!
What if all the nobles whose chateaux are burnt, and who have given
rent acquittances at the point of the sword, should find some way to
avenge themselves and recover their former privileges!
Undoubtedly they brood over these things, make agreements amongst
each other, and plot with the strangers; at the first opportunity
they will fall upon us: we must watch them, repress them, and, if
needs be, destroy them. - This instinctive process of reasoning
prevailed from the outset, and, in proportion as excesses increase,
prevails to a much greater extent. The noble is ever the past,
present, and future creditor, or, at the very least, a possible one,
which means that he is the worst and most odious of enemies. All
his ways are suspicious, even when he is doing nothing; whatever he
may do it is with a view of arming himself.
M. de Gilliers, who lives with his wife and sister one league out of
Romans in Dauphiny,[9] amuses himself by planting trees and flowers;
a few steps from his house, on another domain, M. de Montchorel, an
old soldier, and M. Osmond, an old lawyer from Paris, with their
wives and children, occupy their leisure hours in somewhat the same
manner. M. de Gilliers having ordered and received wooden water-
pipes, the report spreads that they are cannon. His guest, M.
Servan, receives an English traveling-trunk, which is said to be
full of pistols. When M. Osmond and M. Servan stroll about the
country with pencils and drawing-paper, it is averred that they are
preparing topographical plans for the Spaniards and Savoyards. The
four carriages belonging to the two families go to Romans to fetch
some guests: instead of four there are nineteen, and they are sent
for aristocrats who are coming to hide away in underground passages.
M. de Senneville, decorated with a cordon rouge (red ribbon), pays a
visit on his return from Algiers: the decoration becomes a blue one,
and the wearer is the Comte d'Artois[10] in person. There is
certainly a plot brewing, and at five o'clock in the morning
eighteen communes (two thousand armed men) arrive before the doors
of the two houses; shouts and threats of death last for eight hours;
a gun fired a few paces off at the suspects misfires; a peasant who
is aiming at them says to his neighbor, "Give me a decent gun and I
will plant both my balls in their bodies!" Finally, M. de Gilliers,
who was absent, attending a baptism, returns with the Royal
Chasseurs of Dauphiny and the National Guard of Romans, and with
their assistance delivers his family. - It is only in the towns,
that is, in a few towns, and for a very short time, that an
inoffensive noble who is attacked obtains any aid; the phantoms
which people create for themselves there are less gross; a certain
degree of enlightenment, and a remnant of common sense, prevent the
hatching of too absurd stories. - But in the dark recesses of
rustic brains nothing can arrest the monomania of suspicion.
Fancies multiply there like weeds in a dark hole: they take root and
vegetate until they become belief, conviction, and certainty; they
produce the fruit of hostility and hatred, homicidal and incendiary
ideas. With eyes constantly fixed on the chateau, the village
regards it as a Bastille which must be captured, and, instead of
saluting the lord of the manor, it thinks only of firing at him.
Let us take up one of these local histories in detail.[11] In the
month of July, 1789, during the jacquerie in Mâçonnais, the parish
of Villiers appealed for assistance to its lord, M. de Bussy, a
former colonel of dragoons. He had returned home, treated the
people of his village to a dinner, and attempted to form them into a
body of guards to protect themselves against incendiaries and
brigands; along with the well-disposed men of the place "he
patrolled every evening to restore tranquillity to the parish." On a
rumor spreading that "the wells were poisoned," he placed sentinels
alongside of all the wells except his own, "to prove that he was
acting for the parish and not for himself." In short, he did all he
could to conciliate the villagers, and to interest them in the
common safety. - But, by virtue of being a noble and an officer he
is distrusted, and it is Perron, the syndic of the commune, to whom
the commune now listens. Perron announces that the King "having
abjured his sworn word," no more confidence is to be placed in him,
and, consequently, neither in his officers nor in the gentry. On M.
de Bussy proposing to the National Guards that they should go to the
assistance of the chateau of Thil, which is in flames, Perron
prevents them, declaring that "these fires are kindled by the nobles
and the clergy." M. de Bussy insists, and entreats them to go,
offering to abandon "his terrier," that is to say all his seignorial
dues, if they will only accompany him and arrest this destruction.
They refuse to do so. He perseveres, and, on being informed that
the chateau of Juillenas is in peril, he collects, after great
efforts, a body of one hundred and fifty men of his parish, and,
marching with them, arrives in time to save the chateau, which a mob
was about to set on fire. But the popular excitement, which he had
just succeeded in calming at Juillenas, has gained the upper hand
amongst his own troop: the brigands have seduced his men, "which
obliges him to lead them back, while, along the road, they seem
inclined to fire at him." - Having returned, he is followed with
threats even to his own house: a band comes to attack his chateau;
finding it on the defensive, they insist on being led to that of
Courcelles. - ?In the midst of all this violence M. de Bussy, with
about fifteen friends and tenants, succeeds in protecting himself
and, by dint of patience, energy, and cool blood, without killing or
wounding a single man, ends in bringing back security throughout the
whole canton. The jacquerie subsides, and it seems as if the newly
restored order would be maintained. He sends for Madame de Bussy to
return, and some months pass away. - The popular imagination,
however, is poisoned, and whatever a gentleman may do, he is no
longer tolerated on his estate. A few leagues from there, on April
29, 1790, M. de Bois-d'Aisy, deputy to the National Assembly, had
returned to his parish to vote at the new elections.[12] "Scarcely
has he arrived," when the commune of Bois-d'Aisy gives him notice
through its mayor "that it will not regard him as eligible." He
attends the electoral meeting which is held in the church there, a
municipal officer in the pulpit inveighs against nobles and priests,
and declares that they must not take part in the elections. All
eyes turn upon M. de Boisd'Aisy, who is the only noble present.
Nevertheless, he takes the civic oath, which nearly costs him dear,
for murmurs arise around him, and the peasants say that he ought to
have been hanged like the lord of Sainte-Colombe, to prevent his
taking the oath. In fact, the evening before, the latter, M. de
Vitteaux, an old man of seventy-four years of age, was expelled from
the primary assembly, then torn out of the house in which he had
sought refuge, half killed with blows, and dragged through the
streets to the open square; his mouth was stuffed with manure, a
stick was thrust into his ears, and "he expired after a martyrdom of
three hours." The same day, in the church of the Capuchins, at
Sémur, the rural parishes which met together excluded their priests
and gentry in the same fashion. M. de Damas and M. de Sainte-Maure
were beaten with clubs and stones; the curé of Massigny died after
six stabs with a knife, and M. de Virieu saved himself as he best
could. - With such examples before them it is probable that many
of the nobles will no longer exercise their right of suffrage. M.
de Bussy does not pretend to do it. He merely tries to prove that
he is loyal to the nation, and that he meditates no wrong to the
National Guard or to the people. He proposed, at the out-set, to
the volunteers of Mâçon to join them, along with his little troop;
they refused to have him and thus the fault is not on his side. On
the 14th of July, 1790, the day of the Federation on his domain, he
sends all his people off to Villiers, furnished with the tricolour
cockade. He himself, with three of his friends, attends the
ceremony to take the oath, all four in uniform, with the cockade on
their hats, without any weapons but their swords and a light cane in
their hands. They salute the assembled National Guards of the three
neighboring parishes, and keep outside the enclosure so as not to
give offense. But they have not taken into account the prejudices
and animosities of the new municipal bodies. Perron, the former
syndic, is now mayor. A man named Bailly, who is the village
shoemaker, is another of the municipal officers; their councilor is
an old dragoon, one of those soldiers probably who have deserted or
been discharged, and who are the firebrands of almost every riot
that takes place. A squad of a dozen or fifteen men leave the ranks
and march up to the four gentlemen, who advance, hat in hand, to
meet them. Suddenly the men aim at them, and Bailly, with a furious
air, demands: "What the devil do you come here for?" M. de Bussy
replies that, having been informed of the Federation, he had come to
take the oath like the rest of the people. Bailly asks why he had
come armed. M. de Bussy remarks that "having been in the service,
the sword was inseparable from the uniform," and had they come there
without that badge they would have been at fault; besides, they must
have observed that they had no other arms. Bailly, still in a rage,
and, moreover, exasperated by such good reasons, turns round with
his gun in his hand towards the leader of the squad and asks him
three times in succession, "Commander, must I fire?" The commander
not daring to take the responsibility of so gratuitous a murder,
remains silent, and finally orders M. de Bussy to "clear out;"
"which I did," says M. de Bussy. - Nevertheless, on reaching home,
he writes to the municipal authorities clearly setting forth the
motive of his coming, and demands an explanation of the treatment he
had received. Mayor Perron throws aside his letter without reading
it, and, on the following day, on leaving the mass, the National
Guards come, by way of menace, to load their guns in sight of M. de
Bussy, round his garden. - A few days after this, at the instigation
of Bailly, two other proprietors in the neighborhood are
assassinated in their houses. Finally, on a journey to Lyons, M. de
Bussy learns "that the chateaux in Poitou are again in flames, and
that the work is to begin again everywhere." - Alarmed at all
these indications, "he resolves to form a company of volunteers,
which, taking up their quarters in his chateau, can serve the whole
canton on a legal requisition." He thinks that about fifteen brave
men will be sufficient. He has already six men with him in the
month of October, 1790; green coats are ordered for them, and
buttons are bought for the uniform. Seven or eight domestics may be
added to the number. In the way of arms and munitions the chateau
contains two kegs of gunpowder which were on hand before 1789, seven
blunderbusses, and five cavalry sabers, left there in passing by M.
de Bussy's old dragoons: to these must be added two double-barreled
fowling-pieces, three soldiers' muskets, five brace of pistols, two
poor common guns, two old swords, and a hunting-knife. Such is the
garrison, such the arsenal, and these are the preparations, so well
justified and so slight, which prejudice conjointly with gossip is
about to transform into a great conspiracy.
The chateau, in effect, was an object of suspicion in the village
from the very first day. All its visitors, whenever they went out
or came in, with all the details of their actions, were watched,
denounced, exaggerated, and misinterpreted. If through the
awkwardness or carelessness of so many inexperienced National
Guards, a stray ball reaches a farm-house one day in broad daylight,
it comes from the chateau; it is the aristocrats who have fired upon
the peasants. - There is the same state of suspicion in the
neighboring towns. The municipal body of Valence, hearing that two
youths had ordered coats made "of a color which seemed suspicious,"
send for the tailor; he confesses the fact, and adds that "they
intended to put the buttons on themselves." Such a detail is
alarming. An inquiry is set on foot and the alarm increases; people
in a strange uniform have been seen passing on their way to the
chateau of Villiers; from thence, on reaching the number of two
hundred, they will go and join the garrison of Besançon; they will
travel four at a time in order to avoid detection. At Besançon they
are to meet a corps of forty thousand men, commanded by M.
Autichamp, which corps is to march on to Paris to carry off the
King, and break up the National Assembly. The National Guards along
the whole route are to be forced into the lines. At a certain
distance each man is to receive 1,200 francs, and, at the end of the
expedition, is to be enrolled in the Artois Guard, or sent home with
a recompense of 12,000 francs. - ?Meanwhile, the Prince de Condé;
with forty thousand men, will come by the way of Pont Saint-Esprit
in Languedoc, rally the disaffected of Carpentras and of the Jalès
camp to his standard, and occupy Cette and the other seaports; and
finally, the Comte d'Artois, on his side, will enter by Pont-
Beauvoisin with thirty thousand men. - A horrible discovery! The
municipal authorities of Valence immediately inform those of Lyons,
Besançon, Châlons, Maçon, and others beside. On the strength of
this the municipal body of Maçon, "considering that the enemies of
the Revolution are ever making the most strenuous efforts to
annihilate the Constitution which secures the happiness of this
empire," and "that it is highly important to frustrate their
designs," sends two hundred men of its National Guard to the chateau
of Villiers," empowered to employ armed force in case of
resistance." For greater security, this troop is joined by the
National Guards of the three neighboring parishes. M. de Bussy, on
being told that they were climbing over the wall into his garden,
seizes a gun and takes aim, but does not fire, and then, the
requisition being legal, throws all open to them. There are found in
the house six green coats, seven dozens of large buttons, and
fifteen dozens of small ones. The proof is manifest. He explains
what his project was and states his motive - it is a mere pretext.
He makes a sign, as an order, to his valet - there is a positive
complicity. M. de Bussy, his six guests, and the valet, are
arrested and transported to Maçon. A trial takes place, with
depositions and interrogatories, in which the truth is elicited in
spite of the most adverse testimony; it is clear that M. de Bussy
never intended to do more than defend himself. - But prejudice is
a blindfold to hostile eyes. It cannot be admitted that, under a
constitution which is perfect, an innocent man could incur danger;
the objection is made to him that "it is not natural for an armed
company to be formed to resist a massacre by which it is not menaced
;" they are convinced beforehand that he is guilty. On a decree of
the National Assembly the minister had ordered all accused persons
to be brought to Paris by the constabulary and hussars; the National
Guard of Maçon, "in the greatest state of agitation," declares that,
"as it had arrested M. de Bussy, it would not consent to his
transport by any other body. . . Undoubtedly, the object is to
allow him to escape on the way," but it will know how to keep its
captive secure. The guard, in fine, of its own authority, escorts
M. de Bussy to Paris, into the Abbaye prison, where he is kept
confined for several months - so long, indeed, that, after a new
trial and investigation, the absurdity of the accusation being too
palpable, they are obliged to set him at liberty. - Such is the
situation of most of the gentry on their own estates, and M. de
Bussy, even acquitted and vindicated, will act wisely in not
returning home.
III.
Domiciliary visits. - The fifth jacquerie. - Burgundy and
Lyonnais in 1791. - M. de Chaponay and M. Guillin-Dumoutet
He would be nothing but a hostage there. Alone against thousands,
sole survivor and representative of an abolished régime which all
detest, it is the noble against whom everybody turns whenever a
political shock seems to shake the new régime. He is at least
disarmed, as he might be dangerous, and, in these popular
executions, brutal instincts and appetites break loose like a bull
that dashes through a door and rages through a dwelling-house. In
the same department, some months later, on the news arriving of the
arrest of the King at Varennes, "all nonjuring[13] priests and ci-
devant nobles are exposed to the horrors of persecution." Bands
forcibly enter houses to seize arms: Commarin, Grosbois, Montculot,
Chaudenay, Créancé, Toisy, Chatellenot, and other houses are thus
visited, and several are sacked. During the night of June 26-27,
1791, at the chateau of Créancé "there is pillaging throughout; the
mirrors are broken, the pictures are torn up, and the doors are
broken down." The master of the house, "M. de Comeau-Créncé, Knight
of St. Louis, horribly maltreated, is dragged to the foot of the
stairs, where he lies as if dead:" previous to this, "he was forced
to give a considerable contribution, and to refund all penalties
collected by him before the Revolution as the local lord of the
manor. " - Two other proprietors in the neighborhood, both
Knights of St. Louis, are treated in the same way. "That is the
way in which three old and brave soldiers are rewarded for their
services!" A fourth, a peaceable man, escapes beforehand, leaving
his keys in the locks and his gardener in the house.
Notwithstanding this, the doors and the clothes-presses were broken
open, the pillaging lasting five hours and a half; with threats of
setting the house on fire if the seigneur did not make his
appearance. Questions were asked "as to whether he attended the
mass of the new curé whether he had formerly exacted fines, and
finally, whether any of the inhabitants had any complaint to make
against him." No complaint is made; on the contrary, he is rather
beloved. - But, in tumults of this sort, a hundred madmen and
fifty rogues prescribe the law to the timid and the indifferent.
These outlaws declared that "they were acting under orders; they
compelled the mayor and prosecuting attorney to take part in their
robberies; they likewise took the precaution to force a few honest
citizens, by using the severest threats, to march along with them."
These people come the next day to apologize to the pillaged
proprietor, while the municipal officers draw up a statement of the
violence practiced against them. The violence nevertheless, is
accomplished, and, as it will go unpunished, it is soon to be
repeated.
A beginning and an end are already made in the two neighboring
departments. There, especially in the south, nothing is more
instructive than to see how an outbreak stimulated by enthusiasm for
the public good immediately degenerates under the impulse of private
interest, and ends in crime. - Around Lyons,[14] under the same
pretext and at the same date, similar mobs perform similar
visitations, and, on all these occasions, "the rent-rolls are burnt,
and houses are pillaged and set on fire. Municipal authority,
organized for the security of property, is in many hands but one
facility more for its violation. The National Guard seems to be
armed merely for the protection of robbery and disorder." - For
more than thirty years, M. de Chaponay, the father of six children
of whom three are in the service, expended his vast income on his
estate of Beaulieu, giving occupation to a number of persons, men,
women, and children. After the hailstorm of 1761, which nearly
destroyed the village of Moranée, he rebuilt thirty-three houses,
furnished others with timber for the framework, supplied the
commune with wheat, and, for several years, obtained for the
inhabitants a diminution of their taxation. In 1790, he celebrated
the Federation Festival on a magnificent scale, giving two banquets,
one of a hundred and thirty seats, for the municipal bodies and
officers of the National Guards in the vicinity, and the other of a
thousand seats for the privates. If any of the gentry had reason to
believe himself popular and safe it was certainly this man. - On
the 24th of June, 1791, the municipal authorities of Moranée,
Lucenay, and Chazelai, with their mayors and National Guards, in all
nearly two thousand men, arrive at the chateau with drums beating
and flags flying. M. de Chaponay goes out to meet them, and begs to
know to what he owes "the pleasure" of their visit. They reply that
they do not come to offend him, but to carry out the orders of the
district, which oblige them to take possession of the chateau and to
place in it a guard of sixty men: on the following day the
"district" and the National Guard of Villefranche are to come and
inspect it. - Be it noted that these orders are imaginary, for M.
de Chaponay asks in vain to see them; they cannot be produced. The
cause of their setting out, probably, is the false rumor that the
National Guard of Villefranche is coming to deprive them of a booty
on which they had calculated. - Nevertheless M. de Chaponay
submits; he merely requests the municipal officers to make the
search themselves and in an orderly manner. Upon this the
commandant of the National Guard of Lucenay exclaims, with some
irritation, that "all are equal and all must go in," and at the same
moment all rush forward. "M. de Chaponay orders the apartments to
be opened; they immediately shut them up, purposely to let the
sappers break through the doors with their axes." - Everything is
pillaged, "plate, assignats, stocks of linen, laces and other
articles; the trees of the avenues are hacked and mutilated; the
cellars are emptied, the casks are rolled out on the terrace, the
wine is suffered to run out, and the chateau keep is demolished. .
. . The officers urge on those that are laggard." Towards nine
o'clock in the evening M. de Chaponay is informed by his servants
that the municipal authorities have determined upon forcing him to
sign an abandonment of his feudal dues and afterwards beheading him.
He escapes with his wife through the only door which is left
unguarded, wanders about all night, exposed to the gun-shots of the
squads which are on his track, and reaches Lyons only on the
following day. - ?Meanwhile the pillagers send him notice that if
he does not abandon his rentals, they will cut down his forests and
burn up everything on his estate. The chateau, indeed, is fired
three distinct times, while, in the interval, the band sack another
chateau at Bayère, and, on again passing by that of M. de Chaponay,
demolish a dam which had cost 10,000 livres. - The public
prosecutor, for his part, remains quiet, notwithstanding the appeals
to him: he doubtless says to himself that a gentleman whose house
has been searched is lucky to have saved his life, and that others,
like M. Guillin-Dumoutet, for example, have not been as fortunate.
The latter gentleman, formerly captain of a vessel belonging to the
India Company, afterwards Commandant at Senegal, now retired from
active life, occupied his chateau of Poleymieux with his young wife
and two infant children, his sisters, nieces, and sister-in-law -
in all, ten women belonging to his family and domestic service -
one Negro servant and himself; an old man of sixty years of age;
here is a haunt of militant conspirators which must be disarmed as
soon as possible.[15] Unfortunately, a brother of M. Guillin,
accused of treason to the nation, had been arrested ten months
previously, which was quite sufficient for the clubs in the
neighborhood. In the month of December, 1790, the chateau had
already been ransacked by the people of the parishes in the
vicinity: nothing was found, and the Department first censured and
afterwards interdicted these arbitrary searches. On this occasion
they will manage things better. - On the 26th of June, 1791, at
ten o'clock in the morning, the municipal body of Poleymicux, along
with two other bodies in their scarves, and three hundred National
Guards, are seen approaching, under the usual pretext of searching
for arms. Madame Guillin presents herself; reminds them of the
interdict of the Department, and demands the legal order under which
they act. They refuse to give it. M. Guillin descends in his turn
and offers to open his doors to them if they will produce the order.
They have no order to show him. During the colloquy a certain man
named Rosier, a former soldier who had deserted twice, and who is
now in command of the National Guard, seizes M. Guillin by the
throat; the old captain defends himself; presents a pistol at the
man, which misses fire, and then, throwing the fellow off, withdraws
into the house, closing the door behind him. - Soon after this, the
tocsin sounds in the neighborhood, thirty parishes start up, and two
thousand men arrive. Madame Guillin, by entreaties, succeeds in
having delegates appointed, chosen by the crowd, to inspect the
chateau. These delegates examine the apartments, and declare that
they can find nothing but the arms ordinarily kept on hand. This
declaration is of no effect: the multitude, whose excitement is
increased by waiting, feel their strength, and have no idea of
returning empty-handed. A volley is fired, and the chateau windows
are riddled with balls. As a last effort Madame Guillin, with her
two children in her arms, comes out, and going to the municipal
officers, calls upon them to do their duty. Far from doing this
they retain her as a hostage, and place her in such a position that,
if there is firing from the chateau, she may receive the bullets.
Meanwhile, the doors are forced, the house is pillaged from top to
bottom, and then set on fire; M. Guillin, who seeks refuge in the
keep, is almost reached by the flames. At this moment, some of the
assailants, less ferocious than the rest, prevail upon him to
descend, and they answer for his life. Scarcely has he shown
himself when others fall on him; they cry that he must be killed,
that he has a life-rent of 36,000 francs from the State, and "this
will be so much saved for the nation." "He is hacked to pieces
alive;" his head is cut off and borne upon a pike; his body is cut
up, and sent piece by piece to each parish; several wash their hands
in his blood, and besmear their faces with it. It seems as if
tumult, clamor, incendiarism, robbery, and murder had aroused in
them not only the cruel instincts of the savage, but the carnivorous
appetites of the brute; some of them, seized by the gendarmerie at
Chasselay, had roasted the dead man's arm and dined upon it.[16] -
Madame Guillin, who is saved through the compassion of two of the
inhabitants of the place, succeeds, after encountering many dangers,
in reaching Lyons; she and her children lost everything, "the
chateau, its dependencies, the crop of the preceding year, wine,
grain, furniture, plate, ready money, assignats, notes, and
contracts." Ten days later, the department gives notice to the
National Assembly that "similar projects are still being plotted and
arranged, and that there are (always) threats of burning chateaux
and rent-rolls;" that no doubt of this can possibly exist: "the
inhabitants of the country only await the opportunity, to renew
these scenes of horror."[17]
IV.
The nobles obliged to leave the rural districts. - They take
refuge in towns. - The dangers they incur. - The eighty-two
gentlemen of Caen
Amidst these multiplied and reviving Jacqueries there is nothing
left but flight, and the nobles, driven out of the rural districts,
seek refuge in the towns. But here also a jacquerie awaits them. As
the effects of the Constitution are developed, successive
administrations become feebler and more partial; the unbridled
populace has become more excitable and more violent; the enthroned
club has become more suspicious and more despotic. Henceforth the
club, through or in opposition to the administrative bodies, leads
the populace, and the nobles will find it as hostile as the
peasants. All their reunions, even when liberal, are closed like
that in Paris, through the illegal interference of mobs, or through
the iniquitous action of the popular magistrates. All their
associations, even when legal and salutary, are broken up by brute
force or by municipal intolerance, They are punished for having
thought of defending themselves, and slaughtered because they try to
avoid assassination. - Three or four hundred gentlemen, who were
threatened on their estates, sought refuge with their families in
Caen;[18] and they trusted to find one there, for, by three
different resolutions, the municipal body promised them aid and
protection. Unfortunately, the club thinks otherwise, and, on
August 23, 1791, prints and posts up a list of their names and
residences, declaring that since "their suspected opinions have
compelled them to abandon the rural districts," they are emigrants
in the interior;" from which it follows that "their conduct must be
scrupulously watched," because "it may be the effect of some
dangerous plot against the country." Fifteen are especially
designated; among others "the former curé of Saint-Loup, the great
bloodhound of the aristocrats, and all of them very suspicious
persons, harboring the worst intentions." - Thus denounced and
singled out, it is evident that they can no longer sleep peacefully:
moreover, now that their addresses are published, they are openly
threatened with domiciliary visits and violence. As to the
administrative authorities, their intervention cannot be expected
on; the department itself gives notice to the minister that, as the
law stands, it cannot put the chateau in the hands of the
regulars,[19] as this would, it is said, excite the National Guard.
Besides, how without an army is this post to be wrested from the
hands which hold it? It is impossible with only the resources which
the Constitution affords us." Thus, in the defense of the oppressed,
the Constitution is a dead letter. - Hence it is that the
refugees, finding protection only in themselves, undertake to help
each other. No association can be more justifiable, more pacific,
more innocent. Its object is "to demand the execution of the laws
constantly violated, and to protect persons and property." In each
quarter they will try to bring together "all good citizens;" they
will form a committee of eight members, and, in each committee,
there will always be "an officer of justice or a member of the
administrative body with an officer or subaltern of the National
Guard." Should any citizen be attacked in person or property the
association will draw up a petition in his favor. Should any
particular act of violence require the employment of public force,
the members of the district will assemble under the orders of the
officer of justice and of the National Guard to enforce obedience.
"In all possible cases" they "will avoid with the greatest care any
insult of individuals; they will consider that the object of the
meeting is solely to ensure public peace, and that protection from
the law to which every citizen is entitled." - In short, they are
volunteer constables. Turn the inquiry which way they will, a
hostile municipality and a prejudiced tribunal can put no other
construction upon it; they find nothing else. The only evidence
against one of the leaders is a letter in which he tries to prevent
a gentleman from going to Coblentz, striving to prove to him that he
will be more useful at Caen. The principal evidence against the
association is that of a townsman whom they wished to enroll, and of
whom they demanded his opinions. He had stated that he was in favor
of the execution of the laws; upon which they told him: "In this
case you belong to us, and are more of an aristocrat than you think
you are. Their aristocracy, in effect, consists wholly in the
suppression of brigandage. No claim is more unpalatable, because it
interposes an obstacle to the arbitrary acts of a party which thinks
it has a right to do as it pleases. On the 4th of October the
regiment of Aunis left the town, and all good citizens were handed
over to the militia, "in uniform or not," they alone being armed.
That day, for the first time in a long period, M. Bunel, the former
curé of Saint-Jean, with the consent and assistance of his sworn
successor, officiates at the mass. There is a large gathering of
the orthodox, which causes uneasiness among the patriots. The
following day M. Bunel is to say mass again; whereupon, through the
municipal authorities, the patriots forbid him to officiate, to
which he submits. Nevertheless, for lack of due notice, a crowd of
the faithful have arrived and the church is filled. A dangerous
mob! The patriots and National Guards arrive "to preserve order,"
which has not been disturbed, and which they alone disturb.
Threatening words are exchanged between the servants of the nobles
and the National Guard. The latter draw their swords, and a young
man is hewn down and trampled on; M. de Saffrey, who comes to his
assistance unarmed, is himself cut down and pierced with bayonets,
and two others are wounded. - Meanwhile, in a neighboring street,
M. Achard de Vagogne, seeing a man maltreated by armed men,
approaches, in order to make peace. The man is shot down and M.
Achard is covered with saber and bayonet gashes: "there is not a
thread on him which is not dyed with the blood that ran down even
into his shoes." In this condition he is led to the chateau along
with M. de Saifrey. Others break down the door of the house of M.
du Rosel, an old officer of seventy-five years, of which fifty-nine
have been passed in the service, and pursue him even over the wall
of his garden. A fourth squad seizes M. d'Héricy, another venerable
officer, who, like M. du Rosel, was ignorant of all that was going
on, and was quietly leaving for his country seat. - The town is
full of tumult, and, through the orders of the municipal
authorities, the general alarm is sounded.
The time for the special constables to act has come; about sixty
gentlemen, with a number of merchants and artisans, set out.
According to the rules of their association, and with significant
scruple, they beg an Officer of the National Guard, who happens to
be passing, to put himself at their head; they reach the Place
Saint-Sauveur, encounter the superior officer sent after them by the
municipal authorities, and, at his first command, follow him to the
Hôtel-de-Ville. On reaching this, without any resistance on their
part, they are arrested, disarmed, and searched. The rules and
regulations of their league are found on their persons; they are
evidently hatching a counter-revolution. The uproar against them is
terrible. "To keep them safe," they are conducted to the chateau,
while many of them are cruelly treated on the way by the crowd.
Others, seized in their houses - M. Levaillant and a servant of M.
d'Héricy - are carried off bleeding and pierced with bayonets.
Eighty-two prisoners are thus collected, while fears are constantly
entertained that they may escape. "Their bread and meat are cut up
into little pieces, to see that nothing is concealed therein; the
surgeons, who are likewise treated as aristocrats, are denied access
to them." Nocturnal visits are, at the same time, paid to their
houses; every stranger is ordered to present himself at the Hôtel-
de-Ville, to state why he comes to the town to reside, and to give
up his arms; every nonjuring priest is forbidden to say mass. The
Department, which is disposed to resist, has its hands tied and
confesses its powerlessness. "The people," it writes, "know their
strength: they know that we have no power; excited by disreputable
citizens, they permit whatever serves their passions or their
interests; they influence our deliberations, and force us to those
which, under other circumstances, we should carefully avoid." -
Three days after this the victors celebrate their triumph "with
drums, music, and lighted torches; the people are using hammers to
destroy on the mansions the coats-of-arms which had previously been
covered over with plaster;" the defeat of the aristocrats is
accomplished. - And yet their innocence is so clearly manifest
that the Legislative Assembly itself cannot help recognizing it.
After eleven weeks of durance the order is given to set them free,
with the exception of two, a youth of less than eighteen years and
an old man, almost an octogenarian, on whom two letters,
misunderstood, still leave a shadow of suspicion. - But it is not
certain that the people are disposed to give them up. The National
Guard refuses to discharge them in open daylight and serve as their
escort. Even the evening before numerous groups of women, a few men
mingled with them, talk of murdering all those fellows the moment
they set foot outside the chateau." They have to be let out at two
o'clock in the morning, secretly, under a strong guard, and to leave
the town at once as six months before they left the rural districts.
- Neither in country nor in the town[20] are they under the
protection of civil or religious law; a gentleman, who is not
compromised in the affair, remarks that their situation is worse
than that of Protestants and vagabonds during the worst years of the
Ancient Régime. of them and who abuse the use of them? Why should
one be on an equality for purposes of payment, and distinguished
"Does not the law allow (nonjuring) priests the liberty of saying
mass? Why then can we not listen to their mass except at the risk of
our lives? Does not the law command all citizens to preserve the
public peace? Why then are those whom the cry to arms has summoned
forth to maintain public order assailed as aristocrats? Why is the
refuge of citizens which the laws have declared sacred, violated
without orders, without accusation, without any appearance of wrong-
doing? Why are all prominent citizens and those who are well off
disarmed in preference to others? Are weapons exclusively made for
those but lately deprived only for purposes of annoyance and insult"
He has spoken right. Those who now rule form an aristocracy in an
inverse sense, contrary to the law, and yet more contrary to
nature.[21] For, by a violent inversion, the lower grades in the
graduated scale of civilization and culture now are found uppermost,
while the superior grades are found at the uniform. The Constitution
having suppressed inequality, this has again arisen in an inverse
sense. The populace, both of town and country, taxes, imprisons,
pillages, and slays more arbitrarily, more brutally, more unjustly
than feudal barons, and for its serfs or villains it has its ancient
chieftains.
V.
Persecutions in private life.
Let us suppose that, in order not to excite suspicion, they are
content to be without arms, to form no more associations, not to
attend elections, to shut themselves up at home, to strictly confine
themselves within the harmless precincts of domestic life. The same
distrust, the same animosity, still pursues them there. - At
Cahors,[22] where the municipal authorities, in spite of the law,
had just expelled the Carthusians who, under legal sanction, chose
to remain and live in common, two of the monks, before their
departure, give to M. de Beaumont, their friend and neighbor, four
dwarf pear-trees and some onions in blossom in their garden. On the
strength of this, the municipal body decree that
"the sieur Louis de Beaumont, formerly count, is guilty of having
audaciously and maliciously damaged national property," condemns him
to pay a fine of three hundred livres, and orders "that the four
pear-trees, pulled up in the so-called Carthusian garden, be brought
on the following day, Wednesday, to the door of the said sieur de
Beaumont, and there remain for four consecutive days, guarded, day
and night, by two fusiliers, at the expense of the said sieur de
Beaumont; and upon the said trees shall be placed the following
inscription, to wit: Louis de Beaumont, destroyer of the national
property. And the judgment herewith rendered shall be printed to
the number of one thousand copies, read, published, and posted at
the expense of the said sieur de Beaumont, and duly addressed
throughout the department of Lot to the districts and municipalities
thereof, as well as to all societies of the Friends of the
Constitution and of Liberty."
Every line of this legal invective discloses the malignant envy of
the local recorder, who revenges himself for having formerly bowed
too low. - The following year, M. de Beaumont, having formally and
under notarial sanction bought a church which was sold by the
district, along with the ornaments and objects of worship it
contained, the mayor and municipal officers, followed by a lot of
workmen, come and carry away and destroy everything -
confessionals, altars, and even the saint's canonised body, which
had been interred for one hundred and fifty years: so that, after
their departure, "the edifice resembled a vast barn filled with
ruins and rubbish."[23] It must be noted that, at this very time, M.
de Beaumont is military commandant at Perigord. The treatment he
undergoes shows what is in reserve for ordinary nobles. I do not
recommend them to attend official sales of property.[24] - Will
they even be free in their domestic enjoyments, and on entering a
drawing-room are they sure of quietly passing an evening there? -
At Paris, even, a number of persons of rank, among them the
ambassadors of Denmark and Venice, are listening to a concert in a
mansion in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré given by a foreign virtuoso,
when a cart enters the court loaded with fifty bundles of hay, the
monthly supply for the horses. A patriot, who sees the cart driven
in, imagines that the King is concealed underneath the hay, and that
he has come there for the purpose of plotting with the aristocrats
about his flight. A mob gathers, and the National Guard arrives,
along with a commissioner, while four grenadiers stand guard around
the cart. The commissioner, in the meantime, inspects the hotel; he
sees music-stands, and the arrangements for a supper; comes back,
has the cart unloaded, and states to the people that he has found
nothing suspicious. The people do not believe him, and demand a
second inspection. This is made by twenty-four delegates; the
bundles of hay, moreover, are counted, and several of them are
unbound, but all in vain. Disappointed and irritated, having
anticipated a spectacle, the crowd insists that all the invited
guests, men and women, should leave the house on foot, and only get
into their carriages at the end of the street. "First comes a file
of empty carriages;" next, "all the guests in their evening attire,
and the ladies in full dress, trembling with fear, with downcast
eyes, between two rows of men, women, and children, who stare them
in the face, and overwhelm them with insults."[25]
Suspected of holding secret meetings, and called to account in his
own house, has the noble at least the right to frequent a public
saloon, to eat in a restaurant, and to take the fresh air in a
balcony? - The Vicomte de Mirabeau, who has just dined in the
Palais-Royal, stands at the window to take the air, and is
recognized; there is a gathering, and the cry is soon heard, "Down
with Mirabeau-Tonneau (barrel-Mirabeau)!"[26] "Gravel is flung at
him from all sides, and occasionally stones. One of the window-
panes is broken by a stone. Immediately picking up the stone, he
shows it to the crowd, and, at the same time, quietly places it on
the sill of the window, in token of moderation." There is a loud
outcry; his friends force him to withdraw inside, and Bailly, the
mayor, comes in person to quiet the aggressors. In this case there
are good reasons for their hatred. The gentleman whom they stone is
a bon-vivant, large and fat, fond of rich epicurean Suppers; and on
this account the populace imagine him to be a monster, and even
worse, an ogre. With regard to these nobles, whose greatest
misfortune is to be over-polished and too worldly, the over-excited
imagination revives its old nursery tales. - M. de Montlosier,
living in the Rue Richelieu, finds that he is watched on his way to
the National Assembly. One woman especially, from thirty to thirty-
two years of age, who sold meat at a stall in the Passage Saint-
Guillaume, "regarded him with special attention. As soon as she saw
him coming she took up a long, broad knife which she sharpened
before him, casting furious looks at him." He asks his housekeeper
what this means. Two children of that quarter have disappeared,
carried off by gipsies, and the report is current that M. de
Montlosier, the Marquis de Mirabeau, and other deputies of the
"right," meet together "to hold orgies in which they eat little
children."
In this state of public opinion there is no crime which is not
imputed to them, no insult which is not freely bestowed on them.
"Traitors, tyrants, conspirators, assassins," such is the current
vocabulary of the clubs and newspapers in relation to them.
"Aristocrat" signifies all this, and whoever dares to refute the
calumny is himself an aristocrat. - At the Palais-Royal, it is
constantly repeated that M. de Castries, in his last duel, made use
of a poisoned sword, and an officer of the navy who protests against
this false report is himself accused, tried on the spot, and
condemned "to be shut up in the guard-house or thrown into the
fountain."[27] - The nobles must beware of defending their honor
in the usual way and of meeting an insult with a challenge! At
Castelnau, near Cahors,[28] one of those who, the preceding year,
marched against the incendiaries, M. de Bellud, Knight of Saint-
Louis, on coming down the public square with his brother, a
guardsman, is greeted with cries of "The aristocrat! to the lamp
post !" His brother is in a morning coat and slippers, and not
wishing to get into trouble they do not reply. A squad of the
National Guard, passing by, repeats the cry, but they still remain
silent. The shout continues, and M. de Bellud, after some time has
elapsed, begs the captain to order his men to be quiet. He refuses,
and M. de Bellud demands satisfaction outside the town. At these
words the National Guards rush at M. de Bellud with fixed bayonets.
His brother receives a saber-cut on the neck, while he, defending
himself with his sword, slightly wounds the captain and one of the
men. The two brothers, alone against the whole body, fight on,
retreating to their house, in which they are blockaded. Towards
seven o'clock in the evening, two or three hundred National Guards
from Cahors arrive to reinforce the besiegers. The house is taken,
and the guardsman, escaping across the fields, sprains his ankle and
is captured. M. de Bellud, who has found his way into another
house, continues to defend himself there: the house is set on fire
and burnt, together with two others alongside of it. Taking refuge
in a cellar he still keeps on firing. Bundles of lighted straw are
thrown in at the air-holes. Almost suffocated, he springs out,
kills his first assailant with a shot from one pistol, and himself
with another. His head is cut off with that of his servant. The
guardsman is made to kiss the two heads, and, on his demanding a
glass of water, they fill his mouth with the blood which drops from
the severed head of his brother. The victorious gang then set out
for Cahors, with the two heads stuck on bayonets, and the guardsman
in a cart. It comes to a halt before a house in which a literary
circle meets, suspected by the Jacobin club. The wounded man is
made to descend from the cart and is hung: his body is riddled with
balls, and everything the house contains is broken up, "the
furniture is thrown out of the windows, and the house pulled down."
- Every popular execution is of this character, at once prompt and
complete, similar to those of an Oriental monarch who, on the
instant, without inquiry or trial, avenges his offended majesty,
and. for every offense, knows no other punishment than death. At
Tulle, M. de Massy,[29] lieutenant of the "Royal Navarre," having
struck a man that insulted him, is seized in the house in which he
took refuge, and, in spite of the three administrative bodies, is at
once massacred. - At Brest, two anti-revolutionary caricatures
having been drawn with charcoal on the walls of the military coffee-
house, the excited crowd lay the blame of it on the officers; one of
these, M. Patry, takes it upon himself, and, on the point of being
torn to pieces, attempts to kill himself. He is disarmed, but, when
the municipal authorities come to his assistance, they find him
"already dead through an infinite number of wounds," and his head is
borne about on the end of a pike.[30] -
VI.
Conduct of officers. - Their self-sacrifice.- Disposition of the
soldiery. - Military outbreaks.- Spread and increase of
insubordination. - Resignation of the officers.
Much better would it be to live under an Eastern king, for he is not
found everywhere, nor always furious and mad, like the populace.
Nowhere are the nobles safe, neither in public nor in private life,
neither in the country nor in the towns, neither associated together
nor separate. Popular hostility hangs over them like a dark and
threatening cloud from one end of the territory to the other, and the
tempest bursts upon them in a continuous storm of vexations, outrages,
calumnies, robberies, and acts of violence; here, there, and almost
daily, bloody thunderbolts fall haphazard on the most inoffensive
heads, on an old man asleep, on a Knight of Saint-Louis taking a
walk, on a family at prayers in a church. But, in this aristocracy,
crushed down in some places and attacked everywhere, the thunderbolt
finds one predestined group which attracts it and on which it constantly
falls, and that is the corps of officers.
VI.
Conduct of the officers. - Their self-sacrifice. - Disposition
of the soldiery. - Military outbreaks. - Spread and increase of
insubordination. - Resignation of the officers.
With the exception of a few fops, frequenters of drawing-rooms, and
the court favorites who have reached a high rank through the
intrigues of the antechamber, it was in this group, especially in
the medium ranks, that true moral nobility was then found. Nowhere
in France was there so much tried, substantial merit. A man of
genius, who associated with them in his youth, rendered them this
homage: many among them are men possessing " the most amiable
characters and minds of the highest order."[31] Indeed, for most of
them, military service was not a career of ambition, but an
obligation of birth. It was the rule in each noble family for the
eldest son to enter the army, and advancement was of but little
consequence. He discharged the debt of his rank; this sufficed for
him, and, after twenty or thirty years of service, the order of
Saint-Louis, and sometimes a meager pension, were all he had a right
to expect. Amongst nine or ten thousand officers, the great
majority coming from the lower and poorer class of provincial
nobles, body-guards, lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant-
colonels, and even colonels, have no other pretension. Satisfied
with favors[32] restricted to their subordinate rank, they leave the
highest grades of the service to the heirs of the great families, to
the courtiers or to the parvenus at Versailles, and content
themselves with remaining the guardians of public order, and the
brave defenders of the State. Under this system, when the heart is
not depraved it becomes exalted; it is made a point of honor to
serve without compensation; there is nothing but the public welfare
in view, and all the more because, at this moment, it is the
absorbing topic of all minds and of all literature. Nowhere has
practical philosophy, that which consists in a spirit of abnegation,
more deeply penetrated than among this unrecognized nobility. Under
a polished, brilliant, and sometimes frivolous exterior, they have a
serious soul ; the old sentiment of honor is converted into one of
patriotism. Set to execute the laws, with force in hand to maintain
peace through fear, they feel the importance of their mission, and,
for two years, fulfill its duties with extraordinary moderation,
gentleness, and patience, not only at the risk of their lives, but
amidst great and multiplied humiliations, through the sacrifice of
their authority and self-esteem, through the subjection of their
intelligent will to the dictation and incapacity of the masters
imposed upon them. For a noble officer to respond to the
requisitions of an extemporized bourgeois municipal body,[33] to
subordinate his competence, courage, and prudence to the blunders
and alarms of five or six inexperienced, frightened, and timid
attorneys, to place his energy and daring at the service of their
presumption, feebleness, and lack of decision, even when their
orders or refusal of orders are manifestly absurd or injurious, even
when they are opposed to the previous instructions of his general or
of his minister, even when they end in the plundering of a market,
the burning of a chateau, the assassination of an innocent person,
even when they impose upon him the obligation of witnessing crime
with his sword sheathed and arms folded,[34] - this is a hard
task. It is hard for the noble officer to see independent, popular,
and bourgeois troops organized in the face of his own troops, rivals
and even hostile, in any case ten times as numerous and no less
exacting than sensitive - hard to be expected to show them
deference and extend civilities to them, to surrender to them posts,
arsenals, and citadels, to treat their chiefs as equals, however
ignorant or unworthy, and whatever they may be - here a lawyer,
there a Capuchin, elsewhere a brewer or a shoemaker, most generally
some demagogue, and, in many a town or village, some deserter or
soldier drummed out of his regiment for bad conduct, perhaps one of
the noble's own men, a scamp whom he has formerly discharged with
the yellow cartridge, telling him to go and be hung elsewhere. It
is hard for the noble officer to be publicly and daily calumniated
on account of his rank and title, to be characterized as a traitor
at the club and in the newspapers, to be designated by name as an
object of popular suspicion and fury, to be hooted at in the streets
and in the theater, to submit to the disobedience of his men, to be
denounced, insulted, arrested, fleeced, hunted down and slaughtered
by them and by the populace, to see before him a cruel, ignoble, and
unavenged death - that of M. de Launay, murdered at Paris -
that of M. de Belzunce, murdered at Caen - that of M. de
Beausset, murdered at Marseilles - that of M. de Voisins,
murdered at Valence - that of M. de Rully, murdered at Bastia, or
that of M. de Rochetailler, murdered at Port-au-Prince.[35] All
this is endured by the officers among the nobles. Not one of the
municipalities, even Jacobin, can find any pretext which will
warrant the charge of disobeying orders. Through tact and deference
they avoid all conflict with the National Guards. Never do they
give provocation, and, even when insulted, rarely defend themselves.
Their gravest faults consist of imprudent conversations, vivacious
expressions and witticisms. Like good watch-dogs amongst a
frightened herd which trample them under foot, or pierce them with
their horns, they allow themselves to be pierced and trampled on
without biting, and would remain at their post to the end were they
not driven away from it.
All to no purpose: doubly suspicious as members of a proscribed
class, and as heads of the army, it is against them that public
distrust excites the most frequent explosions, and so much the more
as the instrument they handle is singularly explosive. Recruited by
volunteer enlistment "amongst a passionate, turbulent, and somewhat
debauched people," the army is composed of "all that are most fiery,
most turbulent, and most debauched in the nation."[36] Add to these
the sweepings of the alms-houses, and you find a good many
blackguards in uniform! When we consider that the pay is small, the
food bad, discipline severe, no promotion, and desertion endemic, we
are no longer surprised at the general disorder: license, to such
men, is too powerful a temptation. With wine, women, and money they
have from the first been made turncoats, and from Paris the
contagion has spread to the provinces. In Brittany,[37] the
grenadiers and chasseurs of Ile-de-France "sell their coats, their
guns, and their shoes, exacting advances in order to consume it in
the tavern;" fifty-six soldiers of Penthièvre "wanted to murder
their officers," and it is foreseen that, left to themselves, they
will soon, for lack of pay, "betake themselves to the highways, to
rob and assassinate." In Euree-et-Loir, the dragoons,[38] with saber
and pistols in hand, visit the farmers' houses and take bread and
money, while the foot soldiers of the "Royal-Comtois" and the
dragoons of the "Colonel-Général" desert in bands in order to go to
Paris, where amusement is to be had. The main thing with them is
"to have a jolly time." In fact, the extensive military
insurrections of the earliest date, those of Paris, Versailles,
Besançon, and Strasbourg, began or ended with a revel. - Out of
these depths of gross desires there has sprung up natural or
legitimate ambitions. A number of soldiers, for twenty years past,
have learned how to read, and think themselves qualified to be
officers. One quarter of those enlisted, moreover, are young men
born in good circumstances, and whom a caprice has thrown into the
army. They choke in this narrow, low, dark, confined passage where
the privileged by birth close up the issue, and they will march over
their chiefs to secure advancement. These are the discontented, the
disputants, the orators of the mess-room, and between these barrack
politicians and the politicians of the street an alliance is at once
formed. - Starting from the same point they march on to the same
end, and the imagination which has labored to blacken the Government
in the minds of the people, blackens the officers in the minds of
the soldiers.
The Treasury is empty and there are arrears of pay. The towns,
burdened with debt, no longer furnish their quotas of supplies; and
at Orleans, with the distress of the municipality before them, the
Swiss of Chateauvieux were obliged to impose on themselves a
stoppage of one sou per day and per man to have wood in winter.[39]
Grain is scarce, the flour is spoilt, and the army bread, which was
bad, has become worse. The administration, worm-eaten by old
abuses, is deranged through the new disorder, the soldiers suffering
as well through its dissolution as through their extravagance. -
They think themselves robbed and they complain, at first with
moderation; and justice is done to their well-founded claims. Soon
they exact accounts, and these are made out for them. At Strasbourg,
on these being verified before Kellermann and a commissioner of the
National Assembly, it is proved that they have not been wronged out
of a sou; nevertheless a gratification of six francs a head is given
to them, and they cry out that they are content and have nothing
more to ask for. A few months after this fresh complaints arise,
and there is a new verification: an ensign, accused of embezzlement
and whom they wished to hang, is tried in their presence; his
accounting is tidy; none of them can cite against him a proven
charge, and, once more, they remain silent. On other occasions,
after hearing the reading of registers for several hours, they yawn,
cease to listen, and go outside to get something to drink. - But
the figures of their demands, as these have been summed up by their
mess-room calculators, remain implanted in their brains; they have
taken root there, and are constantly springing up without any
account or refutation being able to extirpate them. No more writings
nor speeches - what they want is money: 11,000 livres for the
Beaune regiment, 39,500 livres for that of Forez, 44,000 livres for
that of Salm, 200,000 livres for that of Chateauvieux, and similarly
for the rest. So much the worse for the officers if the money-chest
does not suffice for them; let them assess each other, or borrow on
their note of hand from the municipality, or from the rich men of
the town. - For greater security, in divers places, the soldiers
take possession of the military chest and mount guard around it: it
belongs to them, since they form the regiment, and, in any case, it
is better that it should be in their hands than in suspected hands.
- Already, on the 4th of June, 1790, the Minister of War announces
to the Assembly that "the military body threatens to fall into a
perfect state of anarchy." His report shows "the most incredible
pretensions put forth in the most plain-spoken way - orders
without force, chiefs without authority, the military chest and
flags carried away, the orders of the King himself openly defied,
the officers condemned, insulted, threatened, driven off; some of
them even captive amidst their own troops, leading a precarious life
in the midst of disgust and humiliations, and, as the climax of
horror, commanders having their throat cut under the eyes and almost
in the arms of their own soldiers."
It is much worse after the July Federation. Entertained, flattered,
and indoctrinated at the clubs, their delegates, inferior officers
and privates, return to the regiment Jacobins; and henceforth
correspond with the Jacobins of Paris, "receiving their instructions
and reporting to them,"[40] - Three weeks later, the Minister of
War gives notice to the National Assembly that there is no limit to
the license in the army. "Couriers, the bearers of fresh
complaints, are arriving constantly." In one place "a statement of
the fund is demanded, and it is proposed to divide it." Elsewhere, a
garrison, with drums beating, leaves the town, deposes its officers,
and comes back sword in hand. Each regiment is governed by a
committee of soldiers. "It is in this committee that the detention
of the lieutenant-colonel of Poitou has been twice arranged; here it
is that 'Royal-Champagne' conceived the insurrection" by which it
refused to recognize a sub-lieutenant sent to it. "Every day the
minister's cabinet is filled with soldiers who are sent as
representatives to him, and who proudly come and intimate to him the
will of their constituents." Finally, at Strasbourg, seven
regiments, each represented by three delegates, formed a military
congress. The same month, the terrible insurrection of Nancy breaks
out - three regiments in revolt, the populace with them, the
arsenal pillaged, three hours of furious fighting in the streets,
the insurgents firing from the windows of the houses and from the
cellar openings, five hundred dead among the victors, and three
thousand among the vanquished. - The following month, and for
six weeks,[41] there is another insurrection, less bloody, but more
extensive, better arranged and more obstinate, that of the whole
squadron at Brest, a mutiny of twenty thousand men, at first against
their admiral and their officers, then against the new penal code
and against the National Assembly itself. The latter, after
remonstrating in vain, is obliged not only not to take rigorous
measures, but again to revise its laws.[42]
>From this time forth, I cannot enumerate the constant outbreaks in
the fleet and in the army. - Authorized by the minister, the
soldier goes to the club, where he is repeatedly told that his
officers, being aristocrats, are traitors. At Dunkirk, he is
additionally taught how to get rid of them. Clamors, denunciations,
insults, musket-shots - these are the natural means, and they are
put in practice: but there is another, recently discovered, by which
an energetic officer of whom they are afraid may be driven away.
Some patriotic bully is found who comes and insults him. If the
officer fights and is not killed, the municipal authorities have him
arraigned, and his chiefs send him off along with his seconds "in
order not to disturb the harmony between the soldier and the
citizen." If he declines the proposed duel, the contempt of his men
obliges him to quit the regiment. In either case he is got out of
the way.[43] - They have no scruples in relation to him. Present
or absent, a noble officer must certainly be plotting with his
emigrant companions; and on this a story is concocted. Formerly, to
prove that sacks of flour were being thrown into the river, the
soldiers alleged that these sacks were tied with blue cords (cordons
bleus). Now, to confirm the belief that an officer is conspiring
with Coblentz, it suffices to state that he rides a white horse; a
certain captain, at Strasbourg, barely escapes being cut to pieces
for this crime; "the devil could not get it out of their heads that
he was acting as a spy, and that the little grey-hound" which
accompanies him on his rides "is used to make signals. " - One
year after, at the time when the National Assembly completes its
work, M. de Lameth, M. Fréteau, and M. Alquier state before it that
Luckner, Rochambeau, and the most popular generals, "no longer are
responsible for anything." The Auvergne regiment has driven away its
officers and forms a separate society, which obeys no one. The
second battalion of Beaune is on the point of setting fire to Arras.
It is almost necessary to lay siege to Phalsbourg, whose garrison
has mutinied. Here, "disobedience to the general's orders is
formal." There "are soldiers who have to be urged to stand sentinel;
whom they dare not put in confinement for discipline; who threaten
to fire on their officers; who stray off the road, pillage
everything, and take aim at the corporal who tries to bring them
back." At Blois, a part of the regiment "has just arrived without
either clothes or arms, the soldiers having sold all on the road to
provide for their debauchery." One among them, delegated by his
companions, proposes to the Jacobins at Paris to "de-aristocratise"
the army by cashiering all the nobles. Another declares, with the
applause of the club, that "seeing how the palisades of Givet are
constructed, he is going to denounce the Minister of War at the
tribunal of the. sixth arrondissement of Paris."
It is manifest that, for noble officers, the situation is no longer
tenable. After waiting patiently for twenty-three months, many of
them left through conscientiousness, when the National Assembly,
forcing a third oath upon them, struck out of the formula the name
of the King, their born general.[44] - Others depart at the end
of the Constituent Assembly, "because they risk being hung." A large
number resign at the end of 1791 and during the first months of
1792, in proportion as the new code and the new recruiting system
for the army develop their results.[45] In fact, on the one hand,
through the soldiers and inferior officers having a voice in the
election of their chiefs and a seat in the military courts, "there
is no longer the shadow of discipline; verdicts are given from pure
caprice; the soldier contracts the habit of despising his superiors,
of whose punishments he has no fear, and from whom he expects no
reward; the officers are paralyzed to such a degree as to become
entirely superfluous personages." On the other hand, the majority of
the National Volunteers are composed of "men bought by the communes
" and administrative bodies, worthless characters of the street-
corners, rustic vagabonds forced to march by lot or bribery,"[46]
and along with them, enthusiasts and fanatics to such an extent
that, from March, 1792, from the spot of their enlistment to the
frontier, their track is everywhere marked by pillage, robbery,
devastation, and assassinations. Naturally, on the road and at the
frontier, they denounce, drive away, imprison, or murder their
officers, and especially the nobles. 3/4 And yet, in this
extremity, numbers of noble officers, especially in the artillery
and engineer corps, persist in remaining at their posts, some
through liberal ideas, and others out of respect for their
instructions; even after the 10th of August, even after the 2nd of
September, even after the 21st of January, like their generals
Biron, Custine, de Flers, de Broglie, and de Montesquiou, with the
constant perspective of the guillotine that awaits them on leaving
the battlefield and even in the ministerial offices of Carnot.
VII.
Emigration and its causes. - The first laws against the emigrants.
It is, accordingly, necessary that the officers and nobles should go
away, should go abroad; and not only they, but also their families.
"Gentlemen who have scarcely six hundred livres income set out on
foot,"[47] and there is no doubt as to the motive of their
departure. "Whoever will impartially consider the sole and
veritable causes of the emigration," says an honest man, "will find
them in anarchy. If the liberty of the individual had not been
daily threatened, if;" in the civil as in the military order of
things, "the senseless dogma, preached by the factions, that crimes
committed by the mob are the judgments of heaven, had not been put
in practice, France would have preserved three fourths of her
fugitives. Exposed for two years to ignominious dangers, to every
species of outrage, to innumerable persecutions, to the steel of the
assassin, to the firebrands of incendiaries, to the most infamous
charges, 'to the denouncement of' their corrupted domestics, to
domiciliary visits" prompted by the commonest street rumor, "to
arbitrary imprisonment by the Committee of Inquiry," deprived of
their civil rights, driven out of primary meetings, "they are held
accountable for their murmurs, and punished for a sensibility which
would touch the heart in a suffering criminal." - " Resistance is
nowhere seen; from the prince's throne to the parsonage of the
priest, the tempest has prostrated all malcontents in resignation."
Abandoned "to the restless fury of the clubs, to informers, to
intimidated officials, they find executioners on all sides where
prudence and the safety of the State have enjoined them not even to
see enemies. . . . Whoever has detested the enormities of
fanaticism and of public ferocity, whoever has awarded pity to the
victims heaped together under the ruins of so many legitimate rights
and odious abuses, whoever, finally, has dared to raise a doubt or a
complaint, has been proclaimed an enemy of the nation. After this
representation of malcontents as so many conspirators, every crime
committed against them has been legitimated in public opinion.[48]
The public conscience, formed by the factions and by that band of
political corsairs who would be the disgrace of a barbarous nation,
have considered attacks against property and towns simply as
national justice, while, more than once, the news of the murder of
an innocent person, or of a sentence which threatened him with
death, has been welcomed with shouts of joy Two systems of natural
right, two orders of justice, two standards of morality were
accordingly established; by one of these it was allowable to do
against one's fellow-creature, a reputed aristocrat, that which
would be criminal if he were a patriot. . . . Was it foreseen
that, at the end of two years, France, teeming with laws, with
magistrates, with courts, with citizen-guards, bound by solemn oaths
in the defense of order and the public safety, would still and
continually be an arena in which wild beasts would devour unarmed
men " - With all, even with old men, widows and children, it is a
crime to escape from their clutches. Without distinguishing between
those who fly to avoid becoming a prey, and those who arm to attack
the frontier, the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies alike
condemn all absentees. The Constituent Assembly[49] trebled their
real and personal taxes, and prescribed that there should be a
triple lien on their rents and dues. The Legislative Assembly
sequestrates, confiscates, and puts into the market their
possessions, real and personal, amounting to nearly fifteen hundred
millions of cash value. Let them return and place themselves under
the knives of the populace; otherwise they and their posterity shall
all be beggars. - At this stroke indignation overflows, and a
bourgeois who is liberal and a foreigner, Mallet du Pan,
exclaims,[50] "What! twenty thousand families absolutely ignorant of
the Coblentz plans and of its assemblies, twenty thousand families
dispersed over the soil of Europe by the fury of clubs, by the
crimes of brigands, by constant lack of security, by the stupid and
cowardly inertia of petrified authorities, by the pillage of
estates, by the insolence of it cohort of tyrants without bread or
clothes, by assassinations and incendiarism, by the base servility
of silent ministers, by the whole series of revolutionary scourges,
- what' these twenty thousand desolate families, women and old men,
must see their inheritances become the prey of national robbery!
What! Madame Guillin, who was obliged to fly with horror from the
land where monsters have burnt her dwelling, slaughtered and eaten
her husband, and who live with impunity by the side of her home -
shall Madame Guillin see her fortune confiscated for the benefit of
the communities to which she owes her dreadful misfortunes! Shall M.
de Clarac, under penalty of the same punishment, go and restore the
ruins of his chateau, where an army of scoundrels failed to smother
him!" - So much the worse for them if they dare not come back!
They are to undergo civil death, perpetual banishment, and, in case
the ban be violated, they will be given up to the guillotine. In
the same case with them are others who, with still greater
innocence, have left the territory, magistrates, ordinary rich
people, burgesses, or peasants, Catholics, and particularly one
entire class, the nonjuring clergy, from the cardinal archbishop
down to the simple village vicar, all prosecuted, then despoiled,
then crushed by the same popular oppression and by the same
legislative oppression, each of these two persecutions exciting and
aggravating the other to such an extent that, at last, the populace
and the law, one the accomplice of the other, no longer leave a roof
nor a piece of bread, nor an hour's safety to a gentleman or to a
priest.[51]
VIII.
Attitude of the non-juring priests. - How they become distrusted.
- Illegal arrests by local administrations. - Violence or
complicity of the National Guards. - Outrages by the populace. -
Executive power in the south. - The sixth jacquerie. - Its two
causes. - Isolated outbreaks in the north, east, and west, -
General eruption in the south and in the center.
The ruling passion flings itself on all obstacles, even those placed
by itself across its own track. Through a vast usurpation the
minority of non-believers, indifferent or lukewarm, has striven to
impose its ecclesiastical forms on the Catholic majority, and the
situation thereby created for the Catholic priest is such that
unless he becomes schismatic, he cannot fail to appear as an enemy.
In vain has he obeyed! He has allowed his property to be taken, he
has left his parsonage, he has given the keys of the church to his
successor, he has kept aloof; he does not transgress, either by
omission or commission, any article of any decree. In vain does he
avail himself of his legal right to abstain from taking an oath
repugnant to his conscience. This alone makes him appear to refuse
the civic oath in which the ecclesiastical oath is included, to
reject the constitution which he accepts in full minus a parasite
chapter, to conspire against the new social and political order of
things which he often approves of; and to which he almost always
submits.[52] In vain does he confine himself to his special and
recognized domain, the spiritual direction of things. Through this
alone he resists the new legislators who pretend to furnish a
spiritual guidance, for, by virtue of being orthodox, he must
believe that the priest whom they elect is excommunicated, that his
sacraments are vain; and, in his office as pastor, he must prevent
his sheep from going to drink at an impure source. In vain might he
preach to them moderation and respect. Through the mere fact that
the schism is effected, its consequences unfold them selves, and the
peasants will not always remain as patient as their pastor. They
have known him for twenty years; he has baptized them and married
them; they believe that his is the only true mass; they are not
satisfied to be obliged to attend another two or three leagues away,
and to leave the church, their church which their ancestors built,
and where from father to son they have prayed for centuries, in the
hands of a stranger, an intruder and heretic, who officiates before
almost empty benches, and whom gendarmes, with guns in their hands,
have installed. Assuredly, as he passes through the street, they
will look upon him askance: it is not surprising that the women and
children soon hoot at him, that stones are thrown at night through
his windows, that in the strongly Catholic departments, Upper and
Lower Rhine, Doubs and Jura, Lozère, Deux-Sêvres and Vendée,
Finistère, Morbihan, and Côtes-du-Nord, he is greeted with universal
desertion, and then expelled through public ill-will. It is not
surprising that his mass is interrupted and that his person is
threatened;[53] that disaffection which thus far had only reached
the upper class, descends to the popular strata; that, from one end
of France to the other, a sullen hostility prevails against the new
institutions; for now the political and social constitution is
joined to the ecclesiastical constitution like an edifice to its
spire, and, through this sharp pinnacle, seeks the storm even within
the darkening clouds of heaven. The evil all springs out of this
unskillful, gratuitous, compulsory fusion, and, consequently, from
those who effected it.
But never will a victorious party admit that it has made a mistake.
In its eyes the nonjuring priests are alone culpable; it is
irritated against their factious conscience; and, to crush the
rebellion even in the inaccessible sanctuary of personal conviction,
there is no legal or brutal act of violence which it will not allow
itself to commit.
Behold, accordingly, a new sport thrown open; and the game is
immensely plentiful. For it comprises not only the black or gray
robes, more than forty thousand priests, over thirty thousand nuns,
and several thousand monks, but also the devoted orthodox, that is
to say the women of the low or middle class, and, without counting
provincial nobles, a majority of the serious, steady bourgeoisie, a
majority of the peasantry-almost the whole population of several
provinces, east, west, and in the south. A name is bestowed on
them, as lately on the nobles; it is that of fanatic, which is
equivalent to aristocrat, for it also designates public enemies
likewise placed by it beyond the pale of the law.
Little does it matter whether the law favors them, for it is
interpreted against them, arbitrarily construed and openly violated
by the partial or intimidated administrative bodies which the
Constitution has withdrawn from the control of the central authority
and subjected to the authority of popular gatherings. From the
first months of 1791, the hounding begins; the municipalities,
districts, and departments themselves often take the lead in beating
up the game. Six months later, the Legislative Assembly, by its
decree of November 29,[54] sounds the tally-ho, and, in spite of the
King's veto, the hounds on all sides dash forward. During the month
of April, 1792, forty-two departments pass against nonjuring priests
"acts which are neither prescribed nor authorized by the
Constitution," and, before the end of the Legislative Assembly,
forty-three others will have followed in their train. - Through
this series of illegal acts, without offense, without trial, non-
jurors are everywhere in France expelled from their parishes,
relegated to the principal town of the department or district, in
some places imprisoned, put on the same footing with the emigrants,
and despoiled of their property, real and personal.[55] Nothing
more is wanting against them but the general decree of deportation
which is to come as soon as the Assembly can get rid of the King.
In the meantime, the National Guards, who have extorted the laws,
endeavor to aggravate them in their application; and there is
nothing strange in their animosity. Commerce is at a standstill,
industry languishes, the artisan and shopkeeper suffer, and, in
order to account for the universal discontent, it is attributed to
the insubordination of the priest. Were it not for his stubbornness
all would go well, since the Constitution is perfect, and he is the
only one who does not accept it. But, in not accepting it, he
attacks it. He, therefore, is the last obstacle in the way of
public happiness; he is the scapegoat, let us drive the obnoxious
creature away! And the urban militia, sometimes on its own
authority, sometimes instigated by the municipal body its
accomplice; is seen disturbing public worship, dispersing
congregations, seizing priests by the collar, pushing them by the
shoulders out of the town, and threatening them with hanging if they
dare to return. At Douay,[56] with guns in hand, they force the
directory of the department to order the closing of all the
oratories and chapels in hospitals and convents. At Caen, with
loaded guns and with a cannon, they march forth against the
neighboring parish of Verson, break into houses, gather up fifteen
persons suspected of orthodoxy - canons, merchants, artisans,
workmen, women, girls, old men, and the infirm - cut off their
hair, strike them with the but-ends of their muskets, and lead them
back to Caen fastened to the breach of the cannon; and all this
because a nonjuring priest still officiated at Verson, and many
pious persons from Caen attended his mass: Verson, consequently, is
a focal center of counter-revolutionary gatherings. Moreover, in
the houses which were broken into, the furniture was smashed, casks
stove in, and the linen, money, and plate stolen, the rabble of Caen
having joined the expedition. - Here, and everywhere, there is
nothing to do but to let this rabble have its own way; and as it
operates against the possessions, the liberty; the life, and the
sense of propriety of dangerous persons, the National Militia is
careful not to interfere with it. Consequently, the orthodox, both
priests and believers, men and women, are now at its mercy, and,
thanks to the connivance of the armed force, which refuses to
interpose, the rabble satisfy on the proscribed class its customary
instincts of cruelty, pillage, wantonness, and destructiveness.
Whether public or private, the order of the day is always to hinder
worship, while the means employed are worthy of those who carry them
out. - Here, a nonjuring priest having had the boldness to
minister to a sick person, the house which he has just entered is
taken by assault, and the door and windows of a house occupied by
another priest are smashed.[57] There, the lodgings of two workmen,
who are accused of having had their infants baptized by a refractory
priest, are sacked and nearly demolished. Elsewhere, a mob refuses
to allow the body of an old curé, who had died without taking the
oath, to enter the cemetery. Farther on, a church is assaulted
during vespers, and everything is broken to pieces: on the following
day it is the turn of a neighboring church, and, in addition, a
convent of Ursuline nuns is devastated. - At Lyons, on Easter-day,
1791, as the people are leaving the six o'clock mass, a troop, armed
with whips, falls upon the women.[58] Stripped, bruised, prostrated,
with their heads in the dirt, they are not left until they are
bleeding and half-dead; one young girl is actually at the point of
death; and this sort of outrage occurs so frequently that even
ladies attending the orthodox mass in Paris dare not go out without
sewing up their garments around them in the shape of drawers. -
Naturally, to make the most of the prey offered to them, hunting
associations are formed. These exist in Montpellier, Arles, Uzès,
Alais, Nîmes, Carpentras, and in most of the towns or burgs of Gard,
Vaucluse, and l'Hérault, in greater or less number according to the
population of the city: some counting from ten to twelve, and others
from two to three hundred determined men, of every description:
among them are found "strike-hards" (tape-dur), former brigands, and
escaped convicts with the brand still on their backs. Some of them
oblige their members to wear a medal as a visible mark of
recognition; all assume the title of executive power, and declare
that they act of their own authority, and that it is necessary to
"quicken the law."[59] Their pretext is the protection of sworn
priests; and for twenty months, beginning with April, 1791, they
operate to this effect with heavy knotted dubs garnished with iron
points," without counting sabers and bayonets. Generally, their
expeditions are nocturnal. Suddenly, the houses of "citizens
suspected of a want of patriotism," of nonjuring ecclesiastics, of
the monks of the Christian school, are invaded; everything is broken
or stolen, and the owner is ordered to leave the place in twenty-
four hours: sometimes, doubtless through an excess of precaution, he
is beaten to death on the spot. Besides this, the band also works
by day in the streets, lashes the women, enters the churches saber
in hand, and drives the nonjuring priest from the altar. All of
this is done with the connivance and in the sight of the paralyzed
or complaisant authorities, by a sort of occult and complementary
government, which not only supplies what is missing in the
ecclesiastical law, but also searches the pockets of private
individuals. - At Nîmes, under the leadership of a patriotic
dancing-master, not content with "decreeing proscriptions, killing,
scourging, and often murdering," these new champions of the Gallican
Church undertake to reanimate the zeal of those liable to
contribution. A subscription having been proposed for the support
of the families of the volunteers about to depart, the executive
power takes upon itself to revise the list of offerings: it
arbitrarily taxes those who have not given, or who, in its opinion,
have given too little some "poor workmen fifty livres, others two
hundred, three hundred, nine hundred, and a thousand, under penalty
of wrecked houses and severe treatment." Elsewhere, the volunteers
of Baux and other communes near Tarascon help themselves freely,
and, "under the pretext that they are to march for the defense of
the country, levy enormous contributions on proprietors," on one
four thousand, and on another five thousand livres. In default of
payment, they carry away all the grain on one farm, even to the
reserve seed, threatening to make havoc with everything, and even to
burn, in case of complaint, so that the owners dare not say a word,
while the attorney-general of the neighboring department, afraid on
his own account, begs that his denunciation may be kept secret. -
>From the slums of the towns the jacquerie has spread into the rural
districts. This is the sixth and the most extensive seen for three
years.[60]
Two spurs impel the peasant on. - On the one hand he is frightened
by the clash of arms, and the repeated announcements of an
approaching invasion. The clubs and the newspapers since the
declaration of Pilnitz, and the Orators in the Legislative Assembly
for four months past, have kept him alarmed with their trumpet-
blasts, and he urges on his oxen in the furrow with cries of "Woa,
Prussia!" to one, and to the other, "Gee up, Austria!" Austria and
Prussia, foreign kings and nobles in league with the emigrant
nobles, are going to return in force to re-establish the salt-tax,
the excise, feudal-dues, tithes, and to retake national property
already sold and re-sold, with the aid of the gentry who have not
left, or who have returned, and the connivance of non-juring priests
who declare the sale sacrilegious and refuse to absolve the
purchasers. - On the other hand, Holy Week is drawing near, and
for the past year qualms of conscience have disturbed the
purchasers. Up to March 24, 1791, the sales of national property
had amounted to only 180 millions; but, the Assembly having
prolonged the date of payment and facilitated further sales in
detail, the temptation proves too strong for the peasant; stockings
and buried pots are all emptied of their savings. In seven months
the peasant has bought to the amount of 1,346 millions,[61] and
finally possesses in full and complete ownership the morsel of land
which he has coveted for so many years, and sometimes an unexpected
plot, a wood, a mill, or a meadow. At the present time he has to
settle accounts with the church, and, if the pecuniary settlement is
postponed, the Catholic settlement comes on the appointed day.
According to immemorial tradition he is obliged to take the
communion at Easter,[62] his wife also, and likewise his mother; and
if he, exceptionally, does not think this of consequence, they do.
Moreover, he requires the sacraments for his old sick father, his
new-born child, and for his other child of an age to be confirmed.
Now, communion, baptism, confession, all the sacraments, to be of
good quality, must proceed from a safe source, just as is the case
with flour and coin; there is only too much counterfeit money now in
the world, and the sworn priests are daily losing credit, like the
assignats. There is no other course to pursue, consequently, but to
resort to the non-juror, who is the only one able to give valid
absolutions. And it so happens that he not only refuses this, but
be is said to be inimical to the whole new order of things. - In
this dilemma the peasant falls back upon his usual resource, the
strength of his arms; he seizes the priest by the throat, as
formerly his lord, and extorts an acquittance for his sins as
formerly for his feudal dues. At the very least he strives to
constrain the non-jurors to swear, to close their separatist
churches, and bring the entire canton to the same uniform faith. -
Occasionally also he avenges himself against the partisans of the
non-jurors, against chateaux and houses of the opulent, against the
nobles and the rich, against proprietors of every class.
Occasionally, likewise, as, since the amnesty of September, 1791,
the prisons have been emptied, as one-half of the courts are not yet
installed,[63] as there has been no police for thirty months, the
common robbers, bandits, and vagrants, who swarm about without
repression or surveillance, join the mob and fill their pockets.
Here, in Pas-de-Calais,[64] three hundred villagers, headed by a
drummer, burst open the doors of a Carthusian convent, steal
everything, eatables, beverages, linen, furniture, and effects,
whilst, in the neighboring parish, another band operates in the same
fashion in the houses of the mayor and of the old curé, threatening
"to kill and burn all," and promising to return on the following
Sunday. - There, in Bas-Rhin, near Fort Louis, twenty houses of
the aristocrats are pillaged. - Elsewhere in Ile-et-Vilaine,
bodies of rural militia, combined, go from parish to parish, and,
increasing in numbers in consequence of their very violence until
they form bands of two thousand men. They close churches, drive
away nonjuring priests, remove clappers from the bells, eat and
drink what they please at the expense of the inhabitants, and often,
in the houses of the mayor or tax-registrar, indulge in the pleasure
of breaking everything to pieces. Should any public officer
remonstrate with them they shout, "At the aristocrat!" One of these
unlucky counselors is struck on the back with the but-end of a
musket, and two others have guns aimed at them; the chiefs of the
expedition are in no better predicament, and, according to their own
admission, if they are at the head of the mob it is to make sure
they themselves will not be pillaged or hung. The same spectacle
presents itself in Mayenne, in Orne, in Moselle, and in the
Landes.[65] - These, however, are but isolated irruptions, and
very mild; in the south and in the center, the plague is apparent in
an immense leprous spot, which extending from Avignon to Perigueux,
and from Aurillac to Toulouse, suddenly covers, nearly without with
any discontinuity, ten departments, Vaucluse, Ardèche, Gard, Cantal,
Corrèze, Lot, Dordogne, Gers, Haute-Garonne, and Hérault. Vast
rural masses are set in motion at the same time, on all sides and
owing to the same causes: the approach of war and the coming of
Easter. - In Cantal, at the assembly of the canton held at
Aurillac for the recruitment of the army,[66] the commander of a
village National Guard demands vengeance "against those who are not
patriots," and the report is spread that an order has come from
Paris to destroy the chateaux. Moreover, the insurgents allege that
the priests, through their refusal to take the oath, are bringing
the nation into civil war: "we are tired of not having peace on
their account; let them become good citizens, so that everybody may
go to mass." On the strength of this, the insurgents enter houses,
put the inhabitants to ransom, not only priests and former nobles,
"but also those who are suspected of being their partisans, those
who do not attend the mass of the constitutional priest," and even
poor people, artisans and tillers of the ground, whom they tax five,
ten, twenty, and forty francs, and whose cellars and bread-bins they
empty. Eighteen chateaux are pillaged, burnt, or demolished, and
among others, those of several gentlemen and ladies who have not
left the country. One of these, M. d'Humières, is an old officer of
eighty years; Madame de Peyronenc saves her son only by disguising
him as a peasant; Madame de Beauclerc, who flies across the
mountain, sees her sick child die in her arms. At Aurillac, gibbets
are set up before the principal houses; M. de Niossel, a former
lieutenant of a criminal court, put in prison for his safety, is
dragged out, and his severed head is thrown on a dunghill; M.
Collinet, just arrived from Malta, and suspected of being an
aristocrat, is ripped open, cut to pieces, and his head is carried
about on the end of a pike. Finally, when the municipal officers,
judges, and royal commissioner commence proceedings against the
assassins, they find themselves in such great danger that they are
obliged to resign or to run away. In like manner, in Haute-
Garonne,[67] it is also "against non-jurors and their followers"
that the insurrection has begun. This is promoted by the fact that
in various parishes the constitutional curé belongs to the club, and
demands the riddance of his adversaries. One of them at Saint-Jean-
Lorne, "mounted on a cart, preaches pillage to a mob of eight
hundred persons." Each band, consequently, begins by expelling
refractory priests, and by forcing their supporters to attend the
mass of the sworn priest. - ?But such success, wholly abstract and
barren, is of little advantage, and peasants in a state of revolt
are not satisfied so easily. When parishes march forth by the dozen
and devote their day to the service of the public, they must have
some compensation in wood, wheat, wine, or money,[68] and the
expense of the expedition may be defrayed by the aristocrats. Not
merely the upholders of non-jurors are aristocrats, as, for example,
an old lady here and there, "very fanatical, and who for forty years
has devoted all her income to acts of philanthropy," "but well-to-do
persons, peasants or gentlemen;" for, "by keeping their wine and
grain unsold in their cellars and barns, and by not undertaking more
work than they need, so as to deprive workmen in the country of
their means of subsistence," they design "to starve out" the poor
folk. Thus, the greater the pillage, the greater the service to the
public. According to the insurgents, it is important "to diminish
revenues enjoyed by the enemies of the nation, in order that they
may not send their revenues to Coblentz and other places out of the
kingdom." Consequently, bands of six or eight hundred or a thousand
men overrun the districts of Toulouse and Castelsarrasin. All
proprietors, aristocrats, and patriots are put under contribution.
Here, in the house of "the philanthropic but fanatical old maid,
they break open everything, destroy the furniture, taking away
eighty-two bushels of wheat and sixteen hogsheads of wine."
Elsewhere, at Roqueferrière, feudal title-deeds are burnt, and a
chateau is pillaged. Farther on, at Lasserre, thirty thousand
francs are exacted and the ready money is all carried off. Almost
everywhere the municipal officers, willingly or unwillingly,
authorize pillaging. Moreover, "they cut down provisions to a price
in assignats very much less than their current rate in silver," and
they double the price of a day's work. In the meantime, other bands
devastate the national forests, and the gendarmes, in order not to
be called aristocrats, have no idea but of paying court to the
pillagers.
After all this, it is manifest that property no longer exists for
anybody except for paupers and robbers. - In effect, in
Dordogne,[69] under the pretext of driving away nonjuring priests,
frequently mobs gather to pillage and rob whatever comes in their
way. . . . All the grain that is found in houses with
weathercocks is sequestrated." The rustics exploit, as communal
property, all the forests, all the possessions of the emigrants; and
this operation is radical; for example, a band, on finding a new
barn of which the materials strike them as good, demolish it so as
to share with each other the tiles and timber. - In Corrèze,
fifteen thousand armed peasants, who have come to Tulle to disarm
and drive off the supporters of the non-jurors, break everything in
suspected houses, and a good deal of difficulty is found in sending
them off empty-handed. As soon as they get back home, they sack the
chateaux of Saint-Gal, Seilhac, Gourdon, Saint-Basile, and La
Rochette, besides a number of country-houses, even of absent
plebeians. They have found a quarry, and never was the removal of
property more complete. They carefully carry off, says an official
statement, all that can be carried - furniture, curtains, mirrors,
clothes-presses, pictures, wines, provisions, even floors and wooden
panels, "down to the smallest fragments of iron and wood-work,"
smashing the rest, so that nothing "remains of the house but its
four walls, the roof and the staircase." In Lot, where for two years
the insurrection is permanent, the damage is much greater. During
the night between the 30th and 31st of January, "all the best houses
in Souillac" are broken open, "sacked and pillaged from top to
bottom,"[70] their owners being obliged to fly, and so many
outbreaks occur in the department, that the directory has no time to
render an account of them to the minister. Entire districts are in
revolt; as, "in each commune all the inhabitants are accomplices,
witnesses cannot be had to support a criminal prosecution, and crime
remains unpunished." In the canton of Cabrerets, the restitution of
rents formerly collected is exacted, and the reimbursement of
charges paid during twenty years past. The small town of Lauzerte
is invaded by surrounding bodies of militia, and its disarmed
inhabitants are at the mercy of the Jacobin suburbs. For three
months, in the district of Figeac, "all the mansions of former
nobles are sacked and burnt;" next the pigeon-cots are attacked,
"and all country-houses which have a good appearance." Barefooted
gangs "enter the houses of well-to-do people, physicians, lawyers,
merchants, burst open the doors of cellars, drink the wine," and
riot like drunken victors. In several communes these expeditions
have become a custom; "a large number of individuals are found in
them who live on rapine alone," and the club sets them the example.
For six months, in the principal town, a coterie of the National
Guard, called the Black Band, expel all persons who are displeasing
to them, "pillaging houses at will, beating to death, wounding or
mutilating by saber-strokes, all who have been proscribed in their
assemblies," and no official or advocate dares lodge a complaint.
Brigandage, borrowing the mask of patriotism, and patriotism
borrowing the methods of brigandage, have combined against property
at the same time as against the ancient régime, and, to free
themselves from all that inspires them with fear, they seize all
which can provide them with booty.
And yet this is merely the outskirts of the storm; the center is
elsewhere, around Nîmes, Avignon, Arles, and Marseilles, in a
country where, for a long time, the conflict between cities and the
conflict between religions have kindled and accumulated malignant
passions.[71] Looking at the three departments of Gard, Bouches-de-
Rhône and Vaucluse, one would imagine one's self in the midst of a
war with savages. In fact, it is a Jacobin and plebeian invasion,
and, consequently, conquest, dispossession, and extermination, -
in Gard, a swarm of National Guards copy the jacquerie: the dregs of
the Comtat come to the surface and cover Vaucluse with its scum; an
army of six thousand from Marseilles sweeps down on Arles. - In
the districts of Nîmes, Sommières, Uzès, Alais, Jalais, and Saint-
Hippolyte, title-deeds are burnt, proprietors put to ransom, and
municipal officers threatened with death if they try to interpose;
twenty chateaux and forty country-houses are sacked, burnt, and
demolished. - The same month, Arles and Avignon,[72] given up to
the bands of Marseilles and of the Comtat, see confiscation and
massacres approaching. - Around the commandant, who has received
the order to evacuate Aries,[73] "the inhabitants of all parties"
gather as suppliants, "clasping his hands, entreating him with tears
in their eyes not to abandon them; women and children cling to his
boots," so that he does not know how to free himself without hurting
them; on his departure twelve hundred families emigrate. After the
entrance of the Marseilles band we see eighteen hundred electors
proscribed, their country-houses on the two banks of the Rhone
pillaged, "as in the times of Saracen pirates," a tax of 1,400,000
livres levied on all people in good circumstances, absent or
present, women and girls promenaded about half-naked on donkeys and
publicly whipped." "A saber committee" disposes of lives, proscribes
and executes: it is the reign of sailors, porters, and the dregs of
the populace. - At Avignon,[74] it is that of simple brigands,
incendiaries and assassins, who, six months previously, converted
the Glacière[75] into a charnel-house. They return in triumph and
state that "this time the Glacière will be full." Five hundred
families had already sought asylum in France before the first
massacre; now, the entire remainder of the honest bourgeoisie,
twelve hundred persons, take to flight, and the terror is so great
that the small neighboring towns dare not receive emigrants. In
fact, from this time forth, both departments throughout Vaucluse and
Bouches-de-Rhône are a prey: Bands of two thousand armed men, with
women, children, and other volunteer followers, travel from commune
to commune to live as they please at the expense of "fanatics." The
well-bred people are not the only ones they despoil. Plain
cultivators, taxed at 10,000 livres, have sixty men billeted on
them; their cattle are slain and eaten before their eyes, and
everything in their houses is broken up; they are driven out of
their lodgings and wander as fugitives in the reed-swamps of the
Rhone, awaiting a moment of respite to cross the river and take
refuge in the neighboring department.[76] Thus, from the spring of
1792, if any citizen is suspected of unfriendliness or even of
indifference towards the ruling faction, if, through but one opinion
conscientiously held, he risks the vague possibility of mistrust or
of suspicion, he undergoes popular hostility, pillage, exile, and
worse besides; no matter how loyal his conduct may be, nor how loyal
he may be at heart, no matter that he is disarmed and inoffensive;
it is all the same whether it be a noble, bourgeois, peasant, aged
priest, or woman; and this while public peril is yet neither great,
present, nor visible, since France is at peace with Europe, and the
government still subsists in its entirety.
IX.
General state of opinion. - The three convoys of non-juring
priests on the Seine. - Psychological aspects of the Revolution.
What will it be, then, now when the peril, already become palpable
and serious, is daily increasing, now when war has begun, when
Lafayette's army is falling back in confusion, when the Assembly
declares the country in danger, when the King is overthrown, when
Lafayette defects and goes abroad, when the soil of France is
invaded, when the frontier fortresses surrender without resistance,
when the Prussians are entering Champagne, when the insurrection in
La Vendée adds the lacerations of civil war to the threats of a
foreign war, and when the cry of treachery arises on all sides? -
Already, on the 14th of May, at Metz,[77] M. de Fiquelmont, a former
canon, seen chatting with a hussar on the Place Saint-Jacques, was
charged with tampering with people on behalf of the princes, carried
off in spite of a triple line of guards, and beaten, pierced, and
slashed with sticks, bayonets, and sabers, while the mad crowd
around the murderers uttered cries of rage: and from month to month,
in proportion as popular fears increase, popular imagination becomes
more heated and its delirium grows. - You can see this yourself by
one example. On the 31st of August, 1792,[78] eight thousand non-
juring priests, driven out of their parishes, are at Rouen, a town
less intolerant than the others, and, in conformity with the decree
which banishes them, are preparing to leave France. Two vessels
have just carried away about a hundred of them; one hundred and
twenty others are embarking for Ostend in a larger vessel. They
take nothing with them except a little money, some clothes, and one
or at most two portions of their breviary, because they intend to
return soon. Each has a regular passport, and, just at the moment
of leaving, the National Guard have made a thorough inspection so as
not to let a suspected person escape. It makes no difference. On
reaching Quilleboeuf the first two convoys are stopped. A report
has spread, indeed, that the priests are going to join the enemy and
enlist, and the people living round about jump into their boats and
surround the vessels. The priests are obliged to disembark amidst a
tempests of "yells, blasphemies, insults, and abuse:" one of them, a
white-headed old man, having fallen into the mud, the cries and
shouts redouble; if he is drowned so much the better, there will be
one less! On landing all are put in prison, on bare stones, without
straw or bread, and word is sent to Paris to know what must be done
with so many cassocks. In the meantime the third vessel, short of
provisions, has sent two priests to Quilleboeuf and to Pont-Audemer
to have twelve hundred pounds of bread baked: pointed out by the
village militia, they are chased out like wild beasts, pass the
night in a wood, and find their way back with difficulty empty-
handed. The vessel itself being signaled, is besieged. "In all the
municipalities on the banks of the river drums beat incessantly to
warn the population to be on their guard. The appearance of an
Algerian or Tripolitan corsair on the shores of the Adriatic would
cause less excitement. One of the seamen of the vessel published a
statement that the trunks of the priests transported were full of
every kind of arms." and the country people constantly imagine that
they are going to fall upon them sword and pistol in hand. For
several long days the famished convoy remains moored in the stream,
are carefully watched. Boats filled with volunteers and peasants
row around it uttering insults and threats: in the neighboring
meadows the National Guards form themselves in line of battle.
Finally, a decision is arrived at. The bravest, well armed get into
skiffs, approach the vessel cautiously, choose the most favorable
time and spot, rush on board, and take possession; and are perfectly
astonished to find neither enemies nor arms. - Nevertheless, the
priests are confined on board, and their deputies, must make their
appearance before the mayor. The latter, a former usher and good
Jacobin, being the most frightened, is the most violent. He refuses
to stamp the passports, and, seeing two priests approach, one
provided with a sword-cane and the other with an iron-pointed stick,
thinks that there is to be a sudden attack. "Here are two more of
them," he exclaims with terror; "they are all going to land. My
friends, the town is in danger! " - On hearing this the crowd
becomes alarmed, and threatens the deputies; the cry of "To the lamp
post!" is heard, and, to save them, National Guards are obliged to
conduct them to prison in the center of a circle of bayonets. -
It must be noted that these madmen are "at bottom the kindest people
in the world." After the boarding of the ship, one of the most
ferocious, by profession a barber, seeing the long beards of these
poor priests, instantly cools down, draws forth his tools, and good-
naturedly sets to work, spending several hours in shaving them. In
ordinary times ecclesiastics received nothing but salutations; three
years previously they were "respected as fathers and guides." But at
the present moment the rustic, the man of the lower class, is out of
his bearings. Forcibly and against nature, he has been made a
theologian, a politician, a police captain, a local independent
sovereign; and in such a position his head is turned. Among these
people who seem to have lost their senses, only one, an officer of
the National Guard, remains cool; he is, besides, very polite, well-
behaved, and an agreeable talker; he comes in the evening to comfort
the prisoners and to take tea with them in prison; in fact, he is
accustomed to tragedies and, thanks to his profession, his nerves
are in repose - this person is the executioner. The others, "whom
one would take for tigers," are bewildered sheep; but they are not
the less dangerous; for, carried away by their delirium, they bear
down with their mass on whatever gives them umbrage. - On the
road from Paris to Lyons[79] Roland's commissioners witness this
terrible fright. "The people are constantly asking what our
generals and armies are doing; they have vengeful expressions
frequently on their lips. Yes, they say, we will set out, but we
must (at first) purge the interior."
Something appalling is in preparation. The seventh jacquerie is
drawing near, this one universal and final - at first brutal, and
then legal and systematic, undertaken and carried out on the
strength of abstract principles by leaders worthy of the means they
employ. Nothing like it ever occurred in history; for the first
time we see brutes gone mad, operating on a grand scale and for a
long time, under the leadership of blockheads who have become
insane.
There is a certain strange malady commonly encountered in the
quarters of the poor. A workman, over-taxed with work, in misery
and badly fed, takes to drink; he drinks more and more every day,
and liquors of the strongest kind. After a few years his nervous
system, already weakened by spare diet, becomes over-excited and out
of balance. An hour comes when the brain, under a sudden stroke,
ceases to direct the machine; in vain does it command, for it is no
longer obeyed; each limb, each joint, each muscle, acting separately
and for itself starts convulsively through discordant impulses.
Meanwhile the man is gay; he thinks himself a millionaire, a king,
loved and admired by everybody; he is not aware of the mischief he
is doing to himself he does not comprehend the advice given him, he
refuses the remedies offered to him, he sings and shouts for entire
days, and, above all, drinks more than ever. - At last his face
grows dark and his eyes become blood-shot. Radiant visions give way
to black and monstrous phantoms; he sees nothing around him hut
menacing figures, traitors in ambush, ready to fall upon him
unawares, murderers with upraised arms ready to cut his throat,
executioners preparing torments for him; and he seems to be wading
in a pool of blood. So he precipitates, and, in order that he
himself may not be killed, he kills. No one is more to be dreaded,
for his delirium sustains him; his strength is prodigious, his
movements unforeseen, and he endures, without heeding them,
suffering and wounds under which a healthy man would succumb. -
France, like such a madman, exhausted by fasting under the monarchy,
drunk by the unhealthy drug of the Social-Contract, and by countless
other adulterated or fiery beverages, is suddenly struck with
paralysis of the brain; at once she is convulsed in every limb
through the incoherent play and contradictory twitching of her
discordant organs. At this time she has traversed the period of
joyous madness, and is about to enter upon the period of somber
delirium: behold her capable of daring, suffering, and doing all,
capable of incredible exploits and abominable barbarities, the
moment her guides, as erratic as herself, indicate an enemy or an
obstacle to her fury.
THE END.
__________________________________________________________________
NOTES:
[1] Moniteur, XI. 763. (Sitting of March 28, 1792.) - "Archives
Nationales," F7, 3235. (Deliberation of the Directory of the
Department, November 29, 1791, and January 27, 1792. - Petition
of the Municipality of Mende and of forty-three others, November 30,
1791.)
[2] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3198. Minutes of the meeting of the
municipal officers of Arles, September 2, 1791. - Letters of the
Royal Commissioners and of the National Assembly, October 24,
November 6, 14, 17, 21, and December 21, 1791. - The
Commissioners, to be impartial, attend in turn a mass by a nonjuring
priest and one by a priest of the opposite side. "The church is
full" with the former and always empty with the latter.
[3] "Mémoire" of M. Mérilhon, for Froment, passim. - Report of M.
Alquier, p. 54. - De Dampmartin, I. 208.
[4] - De Dampmartin, I. 208.They would exclaim to the catholic
peasants: "Allons, mes enfants, Vive le Roi!" (shouts of enthusiasm):
"those wretches of democrats, let us make an example of them, and
restore the sacred rights of the throne and the altar!" - "As you
please," replied the rustics in their patois, "but we must hold fast
to the Revolution, for there are some good things about it." - They
remain calm, refuse to march to the assistance of Uzès, and withdraw
into their mountains on the first sign of the approach of the
National Guard.
[5] This is what the author Soljenitsyne observed about his Russian
countrymen in an interview with M. Pivot in the French television in
1998. (SR.)
[6] Dauban, "La Demagogie à Paris," p.598; Letter of M. de Brissac,
August 25, 1789.
[7] Moniteur, X. 339. (Journal de Troyes, and a letter from
Perpignan, November, 1791.)
[8] Mercure de France, No. for September 3, 1791. "Let Liberty be
presented to us, and all France will kneel before her; but noble and
proud hearts will eternally resist the oppression which assumes her
sacred mask. They will invoke liberty, but liberty without crime,
the liberty which is maintained without dungeons, without
inquisitors, without incendiaries, without brigands, without forced
oaths, without illegal coalitions, without mob outrages; that
liberty, finally, which allows no oppressor to go unpunished, and
which does not crush peaceable citizens beneath the weight of the
chains it has broken."
[9] Rivarol, "Mémoires," p.367. (Letter of M. Servan, published in
the "Actes des Apôtres.")
[10] The King's brother, later to become King of France under the
name of Louis XVIII. (SR.)
[11] "Archives Nationa1es," F7. 3257. Official reports,
investigations, and correspondence in relation with the affair of M.
Bussy (October, 1790).
[12] Mercure de France, May 15, 1790. (Letter of Baron de Bois-
d'Aisy, April 29, read in the National Assembly.) - Moniteur, IV.
302. Sitting of May 6. (Official statement of the Justice of the
Peace of Vitteaux, April 28.)
[13] "Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 4. Letter of M. Belin-
Chatellenot (near Asnay-le-Duc) to the President of the National
Assembly, July 1, 1791. "In the realm of liberty we live under the
most cruel tyranny, and in a state of the most complete anarchy,
while the administrative bodies and the police, still in their
infancy, seem to act only in fear and trembling. . . . So far,
in all crimes, they are more concerned with extenuating the facts,
than in punishing the offense. The result is that the guilty have
had no other restraint on them than a few gentle phrases like this:
Dear brothers and friends, you are in the wrong, be careful," etc.
- Ibid. , F7, 3229. Letter of the Directory of the Department of
Marne, July 13, 1791. (Searches by the National Guard in chateaux
and the disarming of formerly privileged persons.) "None of our
injunctions were obeyed." For example, there is breakage and
violence in the residence of M. Guinaumont at Merry, the gun, shot
and powder of the game-keeper even are carried off. "M. de
Guinaumont is without the means of defending himself against a mad
dog or any other savage brute that might come into his woods or into
his courtyard." The Mayor of Merry, with the National Guard, under
compulsion, tells them in vain that they are breaking the law. -
Petition of Madame d'Ambly, wife of the deputy, June 28, 1791. Not
having the guns which she had already given up, she is made to pay
150 francs.
[14] Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 4. Letters of the Administrators
of the Department of Rhône-et-Loire, July 6, 1791. (M. Vilet is one
of the signers.) - Mercure de France, October 8, 1791.
[15] Mercure de France, August 20, 1791, the article by Mallet du
Pan. "The details of the picture I have just sketched were all
furnished me by Madame Dumoutet herself." I am "authorized by her
signature to guarantee the accuracy of this narrative."
[16] Mercure de France, August 20, 1791, the article by Mallet du
Pan. "The proceedings instituted at Lyons confirmed this banquet of
cannibals."
[17] The letter of the Department ends with this either naïve or
ironical expression: "You have now only one conquest to make, that
of making the people obey and submit to the law."
[18] "Archives Nationales," P7, 3,200. See documents relating to
the affair of November 5, 1792, and the events which preceded it or
followed it, and among others "Lettres du Directoire et du
Procureur-syndic du Departement;" "Pétition et Mémoire pour les
Déténus;" "Lettres d'un Témoin," M. de Morant. - Moniteur, X.
356. "Minutes of the meeting de la Municipalité de Caen" and of the
"Directoire du Departement," XI.1264, 206. "Rapport de Guadet," and
documents of the trial. - "Archives Nationales," ibid. . -
"Lettres de M. Cahier," Minister of the Interior, January 26, 1792,
of M. C. D. de Pontécoulant, President of the Department
Directory, February 3, 1792. - Proclamation by the Directory.
[19] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of September 26, 1791.
- Letter found on one of the arrested gentlemen. "A cowardly
bourgeoisie, directors in cellars, a clubbist (Jacobin)
municipality, waging the most illegal war against us."
[20] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of the Attorney-
General of Bayeux, May 14, 1792, and of the Directory of Bayeux, May
21, 1792. - At Bayeux, likewise; the refugees are denounced and in
peril. According to their verified statements they scarcely
amounted to one hundred. "Several nonjuring priests, indeed, are
found among them. (But) the rest, for the most part, consist of the
heads of families who are known to reside habitually in neighboring
districts, and who have been forced to leave their homes after
having been, or fearing to become, victims of religious intolerance
or of the threats of factions and of brigands."
[21] Lenin has probably read this during his studies in Paris and
maybe been confirmed in his plan to create a new elite, an elite he
eventually began to make use of from 1917 and onwards, an elite
which continues to rule Russia and a great part of the world today.
(SR.)
[22] Mercure de France, June 4, 1790 (letter from Cahors, May 17,
and an Act of the Municipality, May 10, 1790).
[23] "Archives Nationales," F7,, 1223. Letter of count Louis de
Beaumont, November 9, 1791. His letter, in a very moderate tone,
thus end: "You must admit, sir, that it is very disagreeable and
even incredible, that the Municipal Officers should be the
originators of the disorders which occur in this town."
[24] Mercure de France, January 7, 1792. M. Granchier de Riom
petitions the Directory of his Department in relation to the
purchase of the cemetery, where his father had been interred four
years before; his object is to prevent it from being dug up, which
was decreed, and to preserve the family vault. He at the same time
wishes to buy the church of Saint-Paul, in order to insure the
continuance of the masses in behalf of his father's soul. The
Directory replies (December 5, 1791): "considering that the motives
which have determined the petitioner in his declaration are a
pretense of good feeling under which there is hidden an illusion
powerless to pervert a sound mind, the Directory decides that the
application of the sieur Granchier cannot be granted."
[25] De Ferrières, II. 268 (April 19, 1791).
[26] De Montlosier, II. 307, 309, 312.
[27] Moniteur, VI. 556. Letter of M d'Aymar, commodore, November 18,
1790.
[28] Mercure de France, May 28, and June 16, 1791 (letters from
Cahors and Castelnau, May 18).
[29] Mercure de France, number of May 28, 1791. At the festival of
the Federation, M. de Massy would not order his cavalry to put their
chapeaux on the points of their swords, which was a difficult
maneuver. He was accused of treason to the nation on account of
this, and obliged to leave Tulle for several months. - " Archives
Nationales," F7, 3204. Extract from the minutes of the tribunal of
Tulle, May 10, 1791.
[30] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, "Minutes of the meeting des
Officiers Municipaux de Brest," June 23, 1791.
[31] "Mémoires de Cuvier" ("Eloges Historiques," by Flourens), I,
177. Cuvier, who was then in Havre (1788), had pursued the higher
studies in a German administrative school. "M. de Surville," he
says, an officer in the Artuis regiment, has one of the must refined
minds and most amiable characters I ever encountered. There were a
good many of this sort among his comrades, and I am always
astonished how such men could vegetate in the obscure ranks of an
infantry regiment."
[32] De Dampmartin, I. 133. At the beginning of the year 1790,
"inferior officers said: 'We ought to demand something, for we have
at least as many grievances as our troopers,' " - M. de la
Rochejacquelein, after his great success in La Vendée, said: "I hope
that the King, when once he is restored, will give me a regiment."
He aspired to nothing more ("Mémoires de Madame de la
Rochejacquelein"). - Cf. "Un Officier royaliste au Service de la
Republique," by M. de Bezancenet, in the letters and biography of
General de Dommartin killed in the expedition to Egypt.
[33] Correspondence of MM. de Thiard, de Caraman, de Miran, de
Bercheny, etc., above cited, passim. - Correspondence of M. de
Thiard, May 5, 1780: "The town of Vannes has an authoritative style
which begins to displease me. It wants the King to furnish drum-
sticks. The first log of wood would provide these, with greater
ease and promptness."
[34] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248, March 16, 1791. At Douai,
Nicolon, a grain-dealer, is hung because the municipal authorities
did not care to proclaim martial law. The commandant, M. de la
Noue, had not the right of ordering his men to move, and the murder
took place before his eyes.
[35] The last named, especially, died with heroic meekness (Mercure
de France, June 18, 1791). - Sitting of June 9, speeches by two
officers of the regiment of Port-au-Prince, one of them an eye-
witness.
[36] "De Dampmartin," II. 214. Desertion is very great, even in
ordinary times, supplying foreign armies with "a fourth of their
effective men." - Towards the end of 1789, Dubois de Crancé, an
old musketeer and one of the future "men of the mountain," stated to
the National Assembly that the old system of recruiting supplied the
army with "men without home or occupation, who often became soldiers
to avoid civil penalties" (Moniteur, II. 376, 381, sitting of
December 12, 1789).
[37] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. de
Thiard, September 4 and 7, 1789, November 20, 1789, April 28, and
May 29, 1790. "The spirit of insubordination which begins to show
itself in the Bassigny regiment is an epidemic disease which is
insensibly spreading among all the troops. . . . The troops are
all in a state of gangrene, while all the municipalities oppose the
orders they receive concerning the movements of troops."
[38] "Archives Nationales," H,1453. Correspondence of M. de
Bercheny, July 12, 1790.
[39] "Mémoire Justificatif" (by Grégoire), on behalf of two
soldiers, Emery and Delisle. - De Bouillé, "Mémoires." - De
Dampmartin, I.128, 144. - "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105,
Correspondence of M. de Thiard, July 2 and 9, 1790. - Moniteur,
sittings of September 3 and June 4, 1790.
[40] De Bouillé, p. 127. - Moniteur, sitting of August 6, 1790,
and that of May 27, 1790. - Full details in authentic documents
of the affair at Nancy, passim. - Report of M. Emmery, August 16,
1790, and other documents in Buchez and Roux, VII. 59-162. - De
Bezancenet, p.35. Letters of M. de Dommartin (Metz, August 4,
1790). "The Federation there passed off quietly, only, a short time
after, some soldiers of a regiment took it into their heads to
divide the (military) fund, and at once placed sentinels at the door
of the officer having charge of the chest, compelling him to open it
(désacquer). Another regiment has since put all its officers under
arrest. A third has mutinied, and wanted to take all its horses to
the market-place and sell them. . . . Everywhere the soldiers are
heard to say that if they want money they know where to find it."
[41] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, letters of the Royal
Commissioners, September 27, October 1, 4, 8, 11, 1790. the
commencement of the Revolution, had most to do with the
insurrections in the interior. "What means can four commissioners
employ to convince 20,000 men, most of whom are seduced by the real
enemies of the public welfare? In consequence of the replacing of
the men the crews are, for the most part, composed of those who are
almost ignorant of the sea, who know nothing of the rules of
subordination, and who, at the commencement of the Revolution, had
most to do with the insurrections in the interior."
[42] Mercure de France. October 2, 1790. Letter of the Admiral, M.
d'Albert de Rioms, September 16. The soldiers of the Majestueux
have refused to drill, and the sailors of the Patriote to obey. -
"I wished to ascertain beforehand if they had any complaint to make
against their captain? - No. - If they complained of myself? -
No. - If they had any complaints to make against their officers ?
- No. - It is the revolt of one class against another class;
their sole cry is 'Vive la Nation et les Aristocrates à la
lanterne!' The mob have set up a gibbet before the house of M. de
Marigny, major-general of marines; he has handed in his resignation.
M. d'Albert tenders his resignation." - Ibid, June 18, 1791
(letter from Dunkirk, June 3).
[43] De Dampmartin, I. 222, 219. Mercure de France, September 3,
1791. (Sitting of August 23.) - Cf. Moniteur (same date). "The
Ancient Régime," p.377.
[44] Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I. 24. "The sentiment I
entertained for the person of the King is difficult to define. . .
(It was) a sentiment of devotion of an almost religious character, a
profound respect as if due to a being of a superior order. At this
time the word king possessed a magic power in all pure and upright
hearts which nothing had changed. This delicate sentiment . . .
still existed in the mass of the nation, especially among the well-
born, who, sufficiently remote from power, were rather impressed by
its brilliancy than by its imperfections." De Bezancenet, 27.
Letter of M. de Dommartin, August 24, 1790. "We have just renewed
our oath. I hardly know what it all means. I, a soldier, know only
my King; in reality I obey two masters, who, we are told, will
secure my happiness and that of my brethren, if they agree
together."
[45] De Dampmartin, I. 179. See the details of his resignation
(III. 185) after June 20, 1792. - Mercure de France, April 14,
1792. Letter from the officers of the battalion of the Royal
chasseurs of Provence (March 9). They are confined to their
barracks by their soldiers, who refuse to obey their orders, and
they declare that, on this account, they abandon the service and
leave France.
[46] Rousset, "Les Volontaires de 1791 à 1794, p. 106. Letter of
M. de Biron to the minister (August, 1792); p.225, letter of Vezu,
commander of the 3rd battalion of Paris, to the army of the north
(July 24, 1793). - "A Residence in France from 1792 to 1795"
(September, 1792. Arras). See notes at the end of vol. II. for
the details of these violent proceedings.
[47] Mercure de France, March 5, June 4, September 3, October 22,
1791. (Articles by Mallet du Pan. - Ibid. , April 14, 1792. More
than six hundred naval officers resigned after the mutiny of the
squadron at Brest. "Twenty-two grave revolts in the ports on
shipboard remained unpunished, and several of them through the
decisions of the naval jury." "There is no instance of any
insurrection, in the ports or on shipboard, or any outrage upon a
naval officer, having been punished. . . . It is not necessary
to seek elsewhere for the causes of the abandonment of the service
by naval officers. According to their letters all offer their lives
to France, but refuse to command those who will not obey."
[48] This was done by Hitler against the Jews and by the Communists
against their "enemy" the bourgeois. (SR.)
[49] Duvergier, "Decrees of August 1-6, 1791; February 9-11, 1792;
March 30 to April 8, 1792; July 24-28, 1792; March 28 to April 5,
1793." - Report by Roland, January 6, 1793. He estimates this
property at 4,800 millions, of which 1,800 millions must he de-
ducted for the creditors of the emigrants; 3,000 millions remain.
Now, at this date, the assignats are at a discount of 55 per cent.
from their nominal figure.
[50] Mercure de France,, February 18, 1792.
[51] Already Tacitus noted some 2000 years ago that, "It is part of
human nature to hate the man you have hurt." (SR.)
[52] Cf. on this general attitude of the clergy, Sauzay, V. I.
and the whole of V. II. - Mercure de France, September 10, 1791:
"No impartial man will fail to see that, in the midst of this
oppression, amidst so many fanatical charges of which the reproach
of fanaticism and revolt is the pretext, not one act of resistance
has yet been manifest. Informers and municipal bodies, governed by
clubs, have caused a large number of non-jurors to be cast into
dungeons. All have come out of them, or groan there untried, and no
tribunal has found any of them guilty." - Report of M. Cahier,
Minister of the Interior, February 18, 1792. He declares that "he
had no knowledge of any priest being convicted by the courts as a
disturber of the public peace, although several had been accused."
- Moniteur May 6, 1792. (Report of Français de Nantes) "Not one
has been punished for thirty months."
[53] On these spontaneous brutal acts of the Catholic peasants, cf.
"Archives Nationales," F7, 3236 (Lozère, July-November, 1791).
Deliberation of the district of Florac, July 6, 1791, and the
official statement of the commissioner of the department on the
disturbances in Espagnac. On the 5th of July, Richard, a
constitutional curé, calls upon the municipality to proceed to his
installation. "The ceremony could not take place, owing to the
hooting, of the women and children, and the threats of various
persons who exclaimed: 'Kill him! strangle him, he is a Protestant,
is married, and has children;' and owing to the impossibility of
entering the church, the doors of which were obstructed by the large
number of women standing in front of them:"- On the 6th of July, he
is installed, but with difficulty. "Inside the church a crowd of
women uttered loud cries and bemoaned the removal of their old curé
On returning, in the streets, a large number of women, unsettled by
the sight of the constitutional cure, turned their faces aside . .
. and contented themselves with uttering disjointed words . -
without doing anything more than cover their faces with their
bonnets, casting themselves on the ground." - July 15. The clerk
will no longer serve at the mass nor ring the bells; the curé,
Richard, attempting to ring them himself, the people threaten him
with ill-treatment if he runs the risk. - September 8, 1791.
Letter from the curé of Fau, district of Saint-Chély. "That night I
was on the brink of death through a troop of bandits who took my
parsonage away from me, after having broken in the doors and
windows." - December 30, 1791. Another curé who goes to take
possession of his parsonage is assailed with stones by sixty women,
and thus pursued beyond the limits of the parish . - August 5,
1791. Petition of the constitutional bishop of Mende and his four
vicars. "Not a day passes that we are not insulted in the
performance of our duties. We cannot take a step without
encountering hooting. If we go out we are threatened with cowardly
assassination, and with being beaten with clubs."- F7, 3235 (Bas-
Rhin, letter from the Directory of the Department, April 9, 1792):
"Ten out of eleven, at least, of the Catholics refuse to recognize
sworn priests."
[54] Duvergier, decrees (not sanctioned) of November 29 and May 27,
1792. - Decree of August 26, 1792, after the fall of the throne.
- Moniteur, XII. 200 (sitting of April 23, 1793). Report of the
Minister of the Interior.
[55] Lallier, "Le District de Machecoul," p.261, 263. - "Archives
Nationales," F7, 3234. Demand of the prosecuting attorney of the
commune of Tonneins (December 21, 1791) for the arrest or expulsion
of eight priests "at the slightest act of internal or external
hostility." - Ibid., F7, 3264. Act of the Council-general of
Corrèze (July 16, 17, 18, 1792) to place in arrest all nonjuring
priests. - Between these two dates, act, of various kinds and of
increasing severity are found in nearly all the departments against
the non-jurors.
[56] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Official statement by the
directory of the department, March 18, 1791, with all the documents
in relation thereto. - F7, 3200. Letter of the Directory of
Calvados, June 13, 1792, with the interrogations. The damages are
estimated at 15,000 livres.
[57] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3234. An Act of the Directory of
Lot, February 24, 1792, on the disturbances at Marmande. - F7,
3239, official statement of the municipal body of Rheims, November
5, 6, 7, 1791. The two workmen are a harness-maker and a wool-
carder. The priest who administered the baptism is put in prison as
a disturber of the public peace. - F7, 3219. Letter of the royal
commissioner at the tribunal of Castelsarrasin, March 5, 1792. -
F7, 3203. Letter of the directory of the district of La Rochelle,
June 1, 1792. "The armed force, a witness of these crimes and
summoned to arrest these persons in the act, refused to obey."
[58] Memorandum by Camille Jourdan (Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du
Lundi," XII. 250). The guard refuses to give any assistance,
coming too late and merely "to witness the disorder, never to
repress it."
[59] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3217. Letters of the curé of Uzès,
January 29, 1792; of the curé of Alais, April 5, 1792; of the
administrators of Gard, July28, 1792; of the prosecuting attorney ,
M. Griolet, July 2, 1792 ; of Castanet, former gendarme, August 25,
1792; of M. Griolet, September 28, 1792. - Ibid. , F7, 3223.
Petition by M.M. Thueri and Devès in the name of the oppressed of
Montpellier, November 17, 1791; letter of the same to the minister,
October28, 1791; letter of M. Dupin, prosecuting attorney , August
23, 1791; Act of the Department, August 9, 1791; Petition of the
inhabitants of Courmonterral, August 25, 1791
[60] Moniteur, XII. 16, sitting of April 1, 1792. Speech by M.
Laureau. "Behold the provinces in flames, insurrection in nineteen
departments, and revolt everywhere declaring itself . . . The
only liberty is that of brigandage; we have no taxation, no order,
no government." Mercure de France, April 7, 1792. "More than twenty
departments are now participating in the horrors of anarchy and in a
more or less destructive insurrection."
[61] Moniteur, XII. 30. Speech by M. Caillasson. The total amount
of property sold up to November 1, 1791, is 1,526 millions; the
remainder for sale amounts to 669 millions.
[62] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3225. Letter of the Directory of
Ille-et-Vilaine, March 24, 1792. "The National Guards of the
district purposely expel all nonjuring priests, who have not been
replaced, under the pretext of the trouble they would not fail to
cause at Easter."
[63] Moniteur, XI. 420. (Sitting of February 18, 1792.) Report by
M. Cahier, Minister of the Interior.
[64] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Deposition of the municipal
officers of Gosnay and Hesdiguel (district of Béthune), May 18,
1792. Six parishes took part in this expedition; the mayor's wife
had a rope around her neck, and came near being hung. - Moniteur,
XII, 154, April 15, 1792. - "Archives Nationales," F7, 3225.
Letter of the Directory of Ile-et-Vilaine, March 24, 1792, and
official statement of the commissioners for the district of Vitré;
letter of the same directory, April 21, 1792, and report of the
commissioners sent to Acigné, April 6.
[65] Moniteur, XII. 200. Report of M. Cahier, April 23, 1792. The
directories of these four departments refuse to cancel their illegal
acts, alleging that "their armed National Guards pursue refractory
priests."
[66] Mercure de France, April 7, 1792. Letters written from
Aurillac. - "Archives Nationales," F7, 3202. - Letter of the
directory of the district of Aurillac, March 27, 1792 (with seven
official statements); of the directory of the district of Saint-
Flour, March 19 (with the report of its commissioners); of M.
Duranthon, minister of justice, April 22; petition of M. Lorus,
municipal officer of Aurillac. - Letter of M. Duranthon, June 9,
1792. "I am just informed by the royal commissioner of the district
of Saint-Flour that, since the departure of the troops, the
magistrates dare no longer exercise their functions in the midst of
the brigands who surround them."
[67] "Archives Nationales," F7,, 3219. Letters of M. Niel,
administrator of the department of Haute-Garonne, February 27, 1792;
of M. Sainfal, March 4; of the directory of the department, March 1;
of the royal commissioner, tribunal of Castelsarrasin, March 13.
[68] The following are some examples of these rustic desires:
At Lunel, 4000 peasants and village National Guards strive to enter,
to hang the aristocrats. Their wives are along with them, leading
their donkeys with "baskets which they hope to carry away full."
("Archives Nationales," F7, 3523. Letter of the municipal body of
Lunel, November 4, 1791.)
At Uzès it is with great difficulty that they can rid themselves of
the peasants who came in to drive out the Catholic royalists. In
vain "were they given plenty to eat and to drink;" they go away "in
bad humor, especially the women who led the mules and asses to carry
away the booty, and who had not anticipated returning home with
empty hands." (De Dampmartin, I. 195.)
In relation to the siege of Nantes by the Vendéans: "An old woman
said to me, 'Oh, yes, I was there, at the siege. My sister and
myself had brought along our sacks. We counted on entering at least
as far as the Rue de la Casserie'" (the street of jeweler's shops).
(Michelet, V 211.)
[69] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3209. Letters of the royal
commissioner at the tribunal of Mucidan, March 7, 1792; of the
public prosecutor of the district of Sarlat, January. 1792. -
Ibid. , F7, 3204. Letters of the administrators of the district of
Tulle, April 15, 1792; of the directory of the department, April 18;
petition of Jacques Labruc and his wife, with official statement of
the justice of the peace, April 24. "All these acts of violence
were committed under the eyes of the municipal authorities. They
took no steps to prevent them, although they had notice given them
in time."
[70] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letters of M. Brisson,
commissioner of the naval classes of Souillac, February 2, 1792; of
the directory of the department, March 14, 1792. - Petition of
the brothers Barrié (with supporting documents), October 11, 1791.
- Letter of the prosecuting attorney of the department, April 4,
1792. Report of the commissioners sent to the district of Figeac,
January 5, 1792. Letter of the administrators of the department,
May 27, 1792.
[71] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3217. Official reports of the
commissioners of the department of Gard, April 1, 2, 3, and 6, 1792,
and letter of April 6. One land-owner is taxed 100,000 francs. -
Ibid., F7, 3223. Letter of M Dupin, prosecuting attorney of
l'Hérault, February 17 and 26, 1792. "At the chateau of Pignan,
Madame de Lostanges has not one complete piece of furniture left.
The cause of these disturbances is religious passion. Five or six
nonjuring priests had retreated to the chateau," - Moniteur,
sitting of April 16, 1792. Letter from the directory of the
department of Gard. - De Dampmartin, II, 85. At Uzès, fifty or
sixty men in masks invade the ducal chateau at ten o'clock in the
evening, set fire to the archives, and the chateau is burnt.
[72] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Official statements of Augier
and Fabre, administrators of the Bouches-de-Rhône, sent to Avignon,
May 11, 1792. (The reappearance of Jourdan, Mainvielle, and the
assassins of La Glacière took place April 29.)
[73] De Dampmartin, II. 63. Portalis, "Il est temps de parler"
(pamphlet), passim. "Archives Nationales," F7, 7090. Memorandum of
the commissioners of the municipal administration of Arles, year
IV., Nivôse 22.
[74] Mercure de France, May 19, 1792. (Sitting of May 4.).
Petition of forty inhabitants of Avignon at the bar of the
Legislative Assembly. - "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter
of the royal commissioners at the tribunal of Apt, March 15, 1792;
official report of the municipality, March 22; Letters of the
Directory of Apt, March 23 and 28, 1792.
[75] Large cellar where the ice collected during the winter was kept
for later use. (SR.)
[76] "Archives Nationales," ibid. Letter of Amiel, president of the
bureau of conciliation at Avignon, October 28, 1792, and other
letters to the minister Roland. - F7, 3217, Letter of the Justice
of the Peace at Roque-Maure, October 31, 1792.
[77] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3246. Official report of the
municipality of Metz (with supporting documents), May 15, 1792.
[78] "Mémoires de l'Abbé Baton," one of the priests of the third
convoy (a bishop is appointed from Séez), p. 233.
[79] "Archives Nationales" F7, 3225. Letter of citizen Bonnemant,
commissioner to minister Roland, September 11, 1792.