FOOTNOTES:[1]It will be understood that in the Pays d'État, the powers of the Intendants, as regarded taxation and public works, were limited and controlled by the rights of the local assemblies.[2]The expenses of the royal table amounted to nearly three hundred thousand pounds a year.[3]I have taken all these figures from M. Taine'sAncien Régime, and have reduced them roughly to their equivalents in English money of our own day. I have, however, throughout calculated thelivreat 10d., although Arthur Young puts it as high as 10-1/2d.; so that the amounts in the text are, if anything, understated.[4]One part of thetaille, that which fell upon the cultivator, reached the privileged orders indirectly through their farmers, but even then there were certain exemptions in their favour. The franc-fief was the tax of one year's revenue levied every twenty years on non-noble holders of noble lands. The calculation of income given here I take from the note on the subject contained in the appendix to M. Taine's volume on theAncien Régime, which is founded on theprocès-verbauxof the provincial assemblies. On an income of 100 francs, he estimates thetaille(with its accessories), the poll-tax, and the road-tax together, at 42 fr. 15 c.; the twovingtièmesat 11 fr., the tithe at 14 fr. 28 c., and the feudal dues at 14 fr. 28 c.; total 81 fr. 71 c.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]It will be understood that in the Pays d'État, the powers of the Intendants, as regarded taxation and public works, were limited and controlled by the rights of the local assemblies.
[1]It will be understood that in the Pays d'État, the powers of the Intendants, as regarded taxation and public works, were limited and controlled by the rights of the local assemblies.
[2]The expenses of the royal table amounted to nearly three hundred thousand pounds a year.
[2]The expenses of the royal table amounted to nearly three hundred thousand pounds a year.
[3]I have taken all these figures from M. Taine'sAncien Régime, and have reduced them roughly to their equivalents in English money of our own day. I have, however, throughout calculated thelivreat 10d., although Arthur Young puts it as high as 10-1/2d.; so that the amounts in the text are, if anything, understated.
[3]I have taken all these figures from M. Taine'sAncien Régime, and have reduced them roughly to their equivalents in English money of our own day. I have, however, throughout calculated thelivreat 10d., although Arthur Young puts it as high as 10-1/2d.; so that the amounts in the text are, if anything, understated.
[4]One part of thetaille, that which fell upon the cultivator, reached the privileged orders indirectly through their farmers, but even then there were certain exemptions in their favour. The franc-fief was the tax of one year's revenue levied every twenty years on non-noble holders of noble lands. The calculation of income given here I take from the note on the subject contained in the appendix to M. Taine's volume on theAncien Régime, which is founded on theprocès-verbauxof the provincial assemblies. On an income of 100 francs, he estimates thetaille(with its accessories), the poll-tax, and the road-tax together, at 42 fr. 15 c.; the twovingtièmesat 11 fr., the tithe at 14 fr. 28 c., and the feudal dues at 14 fr. 28 c.; total 81 fr. 71 c.
[4]One part of thetaille, that which fell upon the cultivator, reached the privileged orders indirectly through their farmers, but even then there were certain exemptions in their favour. The franc-fief was the tax of one year's revenue levied every twenty years on non-noble holders of noble lands. The calculation of income given here I take from the note on the subject contained in the appendix to M. Taine's volume on theAncien Régime, which is founded on theprocès-verbauxof the provincial assemblies. On an income of 100 francs, he estimates thetaille(with its accessories), the poll-tax, and the road-tax together, at 42 fr. 15 c.; the twovingtièmesat 11 fr., the tithe at 14 fr. 28 c., and the feudal dues at 14 fr. 28 c.; total 81 fr. 71 c.
CHAPTER II.
The Last Years of the Ancien Régime.
Thedecay of the old society was accompanied in France by a decay of the ideas which were inseparably associated with it, and which, long kept alive by authoritative sanctions, had exacted, not always without violence, the reverence of men. As the State had usurped the control of every department of action, so the Roman Catholic Church had usurped the control of every department of thought. Resting serenely upon authority and dogma, it had dictated and circumscribed the knowledge of its subjects, had directed their intellectual interests, and had aimed at supplying not only a religion to govern their conduct, but also a complete theory to govern their lives. Against this monopoly, and the conceptions on which it was established, the best minds of the eighteenth century rose in revolt, and their revolt was celebrated by an outbreak of active and intrepid thought. Beginning in the mysterious domain of physical science, with great discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, physics, geology and mathematics, the new spirit of enquiry spread like a flame to illumine other topics. Its votaries, rejecting ancient tradition and immemorial habit, turned with sudden enthusiasm toobservation and analysis, and built up for themselves step by step new systems of knowledge, based, not on what their teachers taught them, but on positive facts which they had ascertained and tested for themselves. The vivid curiosity thus aroused woke in them distrust of all preconceived notions, banished the reverent awe which had restrained earlier generations, and broke down the old barriers of belief.
Before long the passion for investigation passed beyond the limits of physical science, and ranging far afield, entered the domain of theology, of economics, of politics and social laws. In all fields alike there appeared the same disposition to repudiate opinions previously held, to examine afresh, under no restrictions, the principles which lay at the root of religion and government, the general laws which regulated human institutions, the origin of existing conceptions of society and property, of justice and right. Tradition was dethroned, and reason was set up in its seat, as the only test by which opinions could be determined, without regard to the subordinate place which reason fills in the conduct of men. The classical spirit, with its finish, its artificiality, its limitations, already dominant in France, set its stamp upon the new philosophy, and afforded the vehicle for conveying it to the world. In successive generations of polished intercourse, the French language had acquired extreme nicety and clearness of expression; it was admirably fitted for criticism, analysis, argument, definition; and it thus rendered the new ideas at once popular and lucid. A passion for philosophical discussion took hold of the educated world, and carried them past the facts whichthey ought to have noticed, to theories which seemed more distant and consequently more profound. All alike began to speculate, to generalise, to enquire into the meaning of many things, the current interpretation of which they had determined no longer to accept; while the necessity, from which all Frenchmen suffer, of never being dull, encouraged superficiality in the new search for truth, and checked the close study of history, which alone could have avoided error.
As the secrets of the universe unfolded, and as men learned how clear and simple were the laws of physical nature, they determined that there must be other laws of nature, equally clear and simple, to explain society and politics; and finding this theory lamentably contradicted by the confusion of institutions and abuses round them, they began to assail those institutions and abuses with the audacity which science gives. Law and religion in their actual forms were so corrupt that the shocked imagination of these dreamers fell back upon ideals of natural religion and natural law. Far aloof themselves from actual politics, untrained by that wisdom of many voices which free political discussion bestows, dissatisfied with their own political customs, but disdaining to study thoroughly the political customs of others and the origin of all, they proceeded to formulate, by the aid of pure reason, theories which would satisfy their newly roused emotions, and fit in with some apparently more simple and scientific formula of life. All those for whom politics in practice were a sealed book, took refuge in these politics of the imagination, and the political world in France found itself presently divided into two camps,one consisting of those who governed, the other of those who discoursed, the latter perpetually establishing principles, which the former perpetually broke. A society devoted to letters and to conversation embraced and disseminated the speculative literature of the age, and thus the great literary men of the eighteenth century became in France what politicians sometimes strive to be in happier lands, the fountains of political inspiration, and the real leaders of public thought.
Among the pioneers of the new doctrines two men stand out conspicuously in each half of the century,—Montesquieu and Voltaire in the first half, Diderot and Rousseau in the second. Montesquieu, the earliest of the philosophers, was a polished and eminent lawyer, well versed in history, serious, acute, a profound student of human institutions, and the master of a terse and pointed style. His writings, generally speaking, were no mere flights of pert fancy, but the result of systematised and careful thought, weighty, luminous, moderate in tone, and scientifically sane. It was Montesquieu, who, in hisLettres Persanes, initiated the philosophic movement, and unmasked the batteries of criticism and satire, which for two generations were to play so effectively upon the foundations of the old monarchy in France. It was Montesquieu, who, twenty seven years later, when he produced the great work of his life, theEsprit des Lois, analysed with clear and wide sagacity the laws which regulate human governments and customs, and thus destroyed the mysterious prestige which had never till then been stripped from the ancient institutions of France. It was Montesquieu, who first exposed those institutionsto a ruthless analysis which they could not stand. But the slow and careful method, which was Montesquieu's distinction, was less popular with his successors. It involved too much trouble. It ran the risk, except in a master's hands, of being dull. The classical spirit, the French temperament, the love of amusement combined to guide criticism into an easier groove, and the philosophic movement, without altogether deserting the studious atmosphere of facts, adopted a more becoming garment in the exquisite raillery of Voltaire.
Voltaire's life extended long past the middle of the century, and its closing years were the years of its greatest triumphs. But he yet belongs to the generation of Montesquieu rather than to that of Rousseau. Under him, the tone of the new movement altered. It became lighter, and bolder too. Its reserve vanished. Its intrepidity increased. It entered every field. It illumined every subject. In verse, in prose, in history, in drama, in romance, Voltaire assailed traditions, beliefs, abuses, exposing mercilessly their shortcomings and shifts, laughing aloud over their absurdities, denying the pretensions which they boasted, denouncing the iniquities to which they led. Voltaire's rare and versatile wit, his light touch, his unabashed scepticism, his brilliant common-sense, appealed irresistibly to the minds of his countrymen. He made the philosophic movement popular. He identified it with many errors, and with the gravest faults of taste. But with it all he taught men to despise many follies and to impeach many wrongs.
It was Voltaire who gave to the literary movement that decisive tone of irreligion, which it so long retained. The Church stood in the van of the opponents whom the philosophers had to encounter, and to attack the Church, her practice and her creeds, was to Voltaire an intellectual delight. More than any other institution the Church in France represented the spirit of tradition, of authority, of submission to formulas, of reverence for the past. As such, she was certain to view with alarm the new spirit of independent enquiry. Of all forms of political power, the political power of the Church was the most unpopular. She stepped in to support with mysterious sanctions the civil institutions which many felt were unjust. As the censor of the Press, she represented the Government at the very point where the Government and the philosophers came into conflict. Of all the supports of the old order, she was in many ways the most open to attack. Consequently, the philosophic movement from the first brought its forces to bear upon the Church, and Voltaire led the onslaught with the irreverent vivacity of his nature, and the rich splendour of his information and literary resource.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the conduct of the philosophic movement passed to a large extent into younger hands. In 1751, the first volume of the celebrated Encyclopaedia concentrated public attention on a group of writers of no common range and understanding, all inspired with the new spirit, and combined to carry it into every field of economic, political, and social action. The Encyclopaedists numbered among them many distinguished men. On the roll of their contributors we find the names ofTurgot, Rousseau, Buffon, Marmontel. D'Alembert, the accomplished mathematician, brought to the work his trained abilities, his admirable style, and the wisdom acquired by a student during a life spent in frugality and independence. But the greatest of the staff, the most original in genius, the most reckless in expression, and the most intense and imaginative in thought, was the brilliant, perverse, impetuous Diderot, with his extraordinary, magnetic conversation, his indomitable perseverance, his genuine consciousness of his own shortcomings, his ardent desire for the improvement of mankind. It is significant that nearly all the prominent members of the Enyclopaedic party had been brought up as pupils of the Jesuits, and unquestionably, as a party, they associated themselves with a pronounced attack upon the chief tenets of the Catholic Church. But it is difficult and not very profitable to attempt to assign definite names of obloquy to the varieties of disbelief within their ranks, and it is a grave mistake to regard that aspect of their writings as the most characteristic or important. What gave to the enterprise its force and success was the fact that it travelled far beyond the barren conflicts of theology, and brought the new ideas, the new habit of enquiry and analysis, the new fearlessness of social comment, and the new humanitarian zeal, to investigating political and economic phenomena, to preparing the way for practical reform. The glory of the Encyclopaedists lies not in their contempt for things holy, but in their hatred of things unjust, in their denunciation of the trade in slaves, of the inequalities of taxation, of the corruption ofjustice, of the wastefulness of wars, in their dreams of social progress, in their sympathy with the rising empire of industry, which was beginning to transform the world.
Posterity is more familiar with the defects than with the virtues of this strange episode in human thought. Its ideals were disfigured by many faults—by unreality, political ignorance, dangerous license, violent extremes. In its anxiety to escape from conventions, it relaxed necessary codes. It made impiety obstreperous. It hastily adopted a belief in the perfectibility of man, to fill the niche where once had rested a belief in the perfection of God. In place of the traditions and systems which it uprooted, it taught its followers to look for guidance to their own instincts, and to vague aspirations after imaginary systems of natural law. It planted in the French people an inextinguishable desire to abolish everything which reminded it of the past, however much they might suffer in the attempt. Its teaching seemed to discourage the impulses of virtue, and to offer no satisfaction for the spiritual needs of man. Helvetius' famous treatiseDe l'Espritlaid down, amid much shallow commonplace, the depressing doctrine that self-interest dictates both the conduct and the views of men, and that the attainment of pleasure is their only final aim. Holbach's not less famousSystème de la Naturetouched the climax of a century of philosophical commotion, in its passionate indictment of the vices of kings and the slavery of men, in its direct demand for revolution, in its remorseless rejection of every form of faith, in its insistence upon atheism and materialism as the only true philosophy of life. 'Religious and political errors,'cried Holbach, 'have changed the universe into a valley of tears.'
Beside the contributors to the Encyclopaedia, and sometimes among them, were men of different schools of thought, allied with them in advocating change. Quesnai and Turgot were conspicuous in the ranks of an eminent sect termed by some Economists, by others Physiocrats. The Economists shared with Diderot and his colleagues the zeal for reform, the contempt for the past, the democratic temper of the times. They were prepared to enforce equality even at the cost of despotism. They insisted on the subordination of all private rights to the public interest. They preached the necessity of national education as the first essential of national prosperity, and urged that the burden of taxation should be thrown upon the land, which they regarded as the sole source of wealth. They advocated free trade, free agriculture, free industry, while they cared little for freedom itself. Others like Morelly, the author of theCode de la Nature, accepted the Economist theory of the omnipotence of the State, but added other theories of their own. Morelly proposed to establish community of goods and uniformity of all conditions. He denounced the institution of private property, and he shadowed forth in their earliest shape many of those suggestions for the readjustment of the world, which have since assumed the name of Socialism and acquired the dimensions of a spectre in minds intolerant of change.
But far above the sound of other voices rose the lofty tones and the sonorous rhetoric of Rousseau. Rousseau disdained the study and analysis of the past, in whichMontesquieu had sought laborious wisdom. He cared nothing for the diffusion of knowledge and art, of which Voltaire was the brilliant representative. He hardly understood the wide, ambitious projects, by which Diderot and Turgot hoped to benefit humanity. He resented the utilitarian theories of Helvetius. He hotly denied the material philosophy of the school of Holbach. To Rousseau's angry discontent with life, study, knowledge, cultivation, seemed to be only steps in the degradation of man. To his inflamed vision all society was artificial, all accepted forms of political organisation were tyranny and abuse. Man, he protested, was naturally good and just and loving, created by a just and loving God, until art, the bane of life, invaded his simplicity, tainted his virtue, and brought him face to face with suffering and sin. Sweep away therefore, he exhorted his hearers, all the false fabric of society, the world of ugly want and insolent riches miscalled civilization, the oppression miscalled order, the error miscalled knowledge! Level its inequalities, repudiate its learning, break its conventions, shatter its chains! Let men return to the simplicity of ancient days, to the idyllic state, when uncorrupted instinct only ruled them, and there once again, innocent and ignorant, as Nature made them, and guided only by the 'immortal and celestial voice' of reason, seek the high paths of felicity of life.
In a generation full of privilege and hardship, and weary of its own artificial ways, such teaching as this struck a resounding chord. It did not matter that the teacher reconciled a rather sordid practice with a gorgeoustheory, and was himself too often morbid, egotistical, unmanly, mean. The disciples, who drank in his doctrines, did not enquire critically into his motives. They did not ask—and possibly we have not the right to speculate—whether he assailed society, because he failed to shine in it, or whether he inveighed against riches, because he lacked the patient industry to earn them for himself. They did not know or care whether his quarrel with the world, his indictment of its usages and laws, his eloquent defence of human instinct, and his sensuous love for Nature, were or were not dictated by the feverish longing which possessed the man to follow every impulse of his mind, and to submit his impulses to no control. They did not see that the example of a master, who, whatever shameful faults he might commit, could still maintain that civilization, and not he, deserved the blame, and could still gravely describe himself to his friends as one of the best men that he had ever known, was only too well calculated to enable his disciples to persuade themselves that they were instruments of virtue, purity and justice, while they were permitting iniquity and palliating crime. They knew that his denunciation of oppression coincided with the bitter lessons which their experience taught. They found that his eloquent words renewed their self-respect, and raised their ideal of the dignity of man. They felt that he pleaded the cause of the unfortunate in tones and with a genius which made the fortunate attend, and that he brought to that exalted service the widest compassion, the readiest sympathy, and the most majestic language which the eighteenth century had heard.
In 1762, Rousseau published one of the most famous, and, in its consequences, probably one of the most important books ever written. 'Man was born free,' ran the prologue to theContrat Social,—'man was born free, and is everywhere in chains.' In theContrat SocialRousseau rejected altogether the historic method—that wise process of political philosophy, which patiently studies the circumstances of the past, in order, by the experience so obtained, to modify and to improve the present. Relying on the unsafe methods of abstract,a priorispeculation, he proceeded to develop, out of his ardent and imaginative brain, an ideal theory of society, which should establish by logical and conclusive argument the opinions which his sentiments had already espoused. The result of the enterprise was the celebrated doctrine of the Sovereignty of Peoples. The origin of every human society, argued Rousseau, was this:—At some remote epoch in the dawn of days, men, living in a state of nature, virtuous, rational, equal and free, had resolved to enter into an association to defend the persons and property of all, while every individual in it remained free. Accordingly, they had formed a Social Compact, under which each individual had submitted himself to the direction of the general will, and had been received as an inseparable part of the whole. The body formed by this Social Compact was the Sovereign. All citizens who belonged to it—and all did—had an equal share in the common sovereignty, and were bound to one another by a fraternal tie. Its sovereignty consisted in the exercise of the general will, and that sovereignty could not be alienated to any individual or group, norcould it be divided up into different parts and distributed among different officials. The will of the sovereign body was expressed in laws, and every member of it must take his part personally, and not by delegation, in the making of those laws. If he delegated that right to representatives, he surrendered his share of sovereign power. For the sake of convenience, the sovereign body might delegate to governments certain executive powers for a limited time; but the sovereign body still retained the right of resuming or modifying those powers at will, and must from time to time assemble, in order to enforce its right. When the whole sovereign people was thus assembled, the power of governments ceased, and all executive authority was suspended. If any government usurped the sovereignty, the Social Compact was thereby broken; all citizens resumed their liberty to act, and might rise in rebellion to assert it. Lastly, in religion, the sovereign body was entitled to impose a civil profession of faith, and to compel all its citizens, under penalties of banishment and death, to believe in the existence of a beneficent God, in an immortal life, in the reward of the just and the chastisement of the wicked, in the obligation of the Social Contract and of the laws.
It is easy in these days to criticise theContrat Social. The mistaken idea of compact as the basis of society; the rejection of representative legislatures, and the insistence on a principle which could only apply in a miniature State—the personal participation of every citizen in the making of the laws; the sanction given to the right of insurrection, when the imaginary compact was broken;the absence of any method of ascertaining whether the compact were broken or not;—these are flaws in its argument which will readily occur. It is easy also to point to certain characteristics which disfigure it throughout—to its disregard of facts, to its sophistry and inconsistencies, to the narrow intolerance of its sentimental theology, to its aloofness from the region of practice, to its reliance on dogma and on the logic of words. But it is not so easy to appreciate the extraordinary impression which in those days it produced, or the enthusiasm aroused in all who looked for liberty, by the fearless splendour of its phrases, by the fused argument and passion of its style, by its generous democratic temper, by the spiritual earnestness which inspired it, by its fine exaltation of patriotism and freedom. TheContrat Socialsupplied the text and lit the fire of revolution. It became the gospel of the Jacobin party, and of that party Robespierre constituted himself high-priest.
The seed sown by these remarkable writers fell upon fruitful soil. The years which immediately preceded the outbreak of the Revolution in France were years of vague but widespread agitation. An enthusiasm for the natural greatness of man, and a boundless contempt for the age and society in which he lived, pervaded the thought of the time. In almost every European country, observers noticed the same presentiment of impending change, and of a change which, on behalf of humanity, most people were prepared to welcome. Thinkers and talkers alike were full of illusions, full of curiosity, full of unselfishness, full of hope. Outside France, as within it, everyone plunged into philosophical debate. In thetrading cities of Germany, merchants and manufacturers would gather, after the day's work, to discuss the condition of the human race. Sovereigns like Frederick, Catherine, and Joseph affected the secure radicalism of despots. In Spain, in Portugal, in Tuscany, as well as in England and France, statesmen echoed the new humanitarian maxims. Aranda, Pombal and Manfredini exhibited the spirit, and emulated the reforms, of Turgot and Necker, of Fox and Pitt. The outbreak of the American Revolution roused the deepest interest in Europe. Volunteers from France poured over to America, to fight for the political ideals, about which they had for so long been dreaming, and the realisation of which in the New World seemed to bring home conviction to the Old. The tidings of the triumph of the American colonists were received with acclamation in the roadsteads of Elsinore. Strangely enough, the feverish unrest of the time produced, in an age which professed to have undertaken a war against superstition, a revival of the mysticism of an earlier day. On the eve of the French Revolution, the best educated classes in Europe were engrossed by secret societies and brotherhoods, like the Illuminati, the Swedenborgians, the Mesmerists, the Rosicrucians, dabbling on all sides in necromancy and occult science, and frequently the dupes of ridiculous impostors, who, catching the temper of the times, proposed to effect by charlatanism the regeneration of the world.
This vague perturbation of spirit did not, it is true, penetrate to the lowest or unlettered class. But in all above that rank it was conspicuous. The years of thereign of Louis XVI were in France, as in nearly all parts of Europe, years of national expansion. The trade of the country was advancing by leaps and bounds, and the commerce of Bordeaux already exceeded, in the sober judgment of Arthur Young, that of any English port save London. At the same time the wealth of the middle classes was increasing with similar rapidity. Year after year they lent more money to the Government; and year after year, as they saw the Government wasting it with reckless profusion, and falling steadily deeper into debt, they ranged themselves more decidedly in the ranks of opposition, and became more emphatic in their discontent. The gross mismanagement of the finances became a matter in which they felt they had a right to interfere. Their stake in the game of politics made them politicians, and not only that—it made them reformers too. And thus the growing wealth of the country tended indirectly to multiply the enemies of the Court, and to throw on to the side of revolution that important financial interest, which is generally a stable, sometimes an obstructive, element in a State.
In other ways also, by the end of the century, in their style of living, in their education, in their enlightenment, the middle classes had become the equals of the nobles. They had imbibed the same philosophy; they had cultivated the same tastes; they contemplated with the same sublime ignorance of history and politics the philanthropic ideas of the age; and they resented, even more bitterly than before, the exclusive and exacting privileges of caste. At the same time, the nobles, on their side, were losing, under the benign influence ofphilosophy, a great deal of the apathetic insolence, which had made their privileges hateful. The Court of Louis XVI was very different from that of his predecessors. It was less pompous, less artificial. The rules of etiquette were relaxed. A better tone prevailed in its society. The haughtiest nobles opened their doors freely to lowborn genius. They debated republican theories in their drawing-rooms. They applauded republican sentiments in the theatres. They began dimly to realise their public duties, and in a tentative way to perform them. They awoke to the distress of the poor about them, and endeavoured to alleviate it with a generous hand. Some of the nobility proposed to surrender their immunity from taxation. Others, headed by the King, emancipated the serfs who still remained on their estates. The Marquis de Mirabeau established a gratuitous office for the settlement of law-suits. The Duchesse de Bourbon rose early in the morning, to visit with alms the garrets of the poor. The Queen laid out a village at the Trianon, where, attired in a muslin gown and a straw hat, she could fish in the lake and see her cows milked. The King multiplied his private charities, and, one severe winter, commanded that all the poor, who came, should be fed daily in the royal kitchens. On all sides, among the upper classes of society, the same symptoms showed themselves. Extravagant but kindhearted sensibility became the mainspring of their actions; reform was their passion, limitless, radiant hope their creed. 'With no regret for the past,' says one of their number, looking back from the sere contemplation of later years on that entrancing morning of his life,—'with no regret for the past and noapprehensions for the future, we danced gaily along a carpet of flowers stretched over an abyss.'
The same spirit animated the Government of the time. In spite of his want of strength, his lamentable irresolution, and his well-intentioned lethargy of mind, Louis XVI possessed not a few of the qualities in which good kings excel—a high standard of morality and duty, a large fund of quiet simplicity and courage, a readiness to listen to the advice of wiser men, a marked sensitiveness to public opinion, and a genuine desire to serve his people. Louis had not been long upon the throne before he gave proof of his benevolent intentions by appointing to the office of Comptroller-General the greatest practical reformer of the day. Under Turgot the new spirit penetrated rapidly into every department. The extravagances of the Court were cut down. Useful changes were introduced into the system of farming and collecting the taxes. The Corvées were converted into a regular impost, from which the privileged classes were not exempt. The guilds, which monopolised and fettered trade, were suppressed. Fresh encouragement was offered to agriculture and commerce. Free trade in corn was established within the kingdom. The minister talked of commuting feudal dues, and dreamed of abolishing the inequalities of taxation. A spirit of gentleness and consideration came over the administration. The Government not only introduced reforms; it condescended to recommend them to the public, to point out their necessity, to explain their intention. 'The burden of this charge,' said the Royal edict which abolished the Corvées, 'falls solely upon those who possess nothing but the right to toil.''The right to work,' ran the preamble to the edict which suppressed the guilds, 'is the most sacred of all possessions, and every institution which infringes it, violates the natural rights of man.'
In the same way, Necker, when he succeeded Turgot, appealed for support to public opinion. He recognised the 'invisible power which commanded obedience even in the King's palace,' and endeavoured to justify his policy by publishing an account of the state of the finances. In the same way, though Turgot and Necker fell, and their schemes perished with them, the reforming spirit continued to affect the Government all through Louis' reign. Change after change, experiment after experiment, attested the readiness of the Crown to bend before the forces of the time. The measures taken, first of all to suppress, and afterwards partly to restore the guilds, destroyed the old relations between employers and workmen, while they did little to establish a more complete or satisfactory system in their place. And thus, when the Revolution came, there reigned generally among the artisans of the great towns a sense of uncertainty and discontent, which rendered discipline impossible and mischief easy.
Again, only a year before the Revolution, one royal decree transformed the administration of justice in France; while a year earlier, in 1787, another bold and memorable measure completed the reform begun as an experiment some years before, and established provincial assemblies in all the Pays d'Élection. The importance of this step, which has been sometimes overlooked among the graver changes of a later day, can hardly be exaggerated; for it introduced, almost without warning, a new principle into the government of the country. By the side of the autocratic Intendants, new provincial assemblies were created, which stripped the Intendants of most of their powers, or, if they resisted, entered into active competition with them. By the side of the autocratic Sub-Delegates, new district assemblies were formed, to pursue a similar course of action in a smaller sphere. In place of the ancient parochial assemblies, and in the midst of the inequalities and privileges, of which French villages were the familiar scene, and which in themselves remained unaltered, new, elective, municipal bodies sprang up to assert democratic methods, among conditions wholly irreconcilable with democratic ideas. When one considers the scope of these important changes, their novelty, their inconsistencies, and the suddenness with which they were made, one realises something of the confusion and paralysis which they must have produced in the public service, and one begins to understand why the agents of the Government proved so powerless, in spite of their prestige, when they had to face the crisis in 1789. On the very eve of the Revolution, Louis and his advisers, forgetful of the salutary maxim that the most dangerous moment for a bad Government is the moment when it meddles with reform, had deliberately destroyed the old, despotic, administrative system, which, at the end of the eighteenth century, formed the only certain mainstay of the throne.
It is not necessary to linger here over the episodes of Louis' reign. Turgot and Necker fell in turn; but Necker carried with him from office a reputation forsound finance, for disinterestedness, and for honest liberality of opinion, which won for him a name out of all proportion to his powers. He left behind him a problem of ever-increasing difficulty, and a deficit alarmingly enlarged by the intervention of France in the American war. For a time, after the overthrow of Necker, reactionary influences had their way. The wastefulness of the Treasury continued. The spectre of reform was for the moment laid. And at the head of that splendid and light-hearted Court, which combined the profuse traditions of the Grand Monarque with the gay philanthropy that was the fashion of the day, and resented all economies as mean, and radical innovations as thoroughly ill-bred, there stood, conspicuous in brilliancy and beauty, the figure of the Queen. Wilful and proud, unthinking and extravagant, intolerant of disagreeable facts, because she was wholly ignorant of their truth, already widely calumniated and misjudged, but destined to face far worse calumnies, which partisanship, in the mask of history, has repeated since, Marie Antoinette has never ceased to command the interest and attention of posterity, as her tragic story, and the fall to which her errors partly led, have never ceased to move its pity and respect. In 1783, Calonne took office as Comptroller-General, and for four years, encouraged by the favour of the Queen and Court, and helped by his own surprising agility and resource, Calonne maintained his place. Money was found at ruinous expense to supply the necessities of the Government and the rapacious claims of courtiers. Every day bankruptcy came more distinctly into view. At last Calonne, unable to carry on his system any longer, fellback upon a desperate expedient. He summoned, in February, 1787, an extraordinary assembly of Notables, consisting of nobles, bishops, magistrates and officials, laid before them frankly the situation of affairs, and gaily informed them that within the last ten years the Government had borrowed no less than fifty millions sterling.
It is curious to notice the attitude of this assembly, and the way in which its action was received by the country. As might be expected, the Notables, consisting almost entirely of members of the privileged orders, were not prepared to make large personal sacrifices to save the state. When Calonne audaciously proposed to them the abolition of privileges and exemptions, and asked them to submit to a heavy tax, he fell, amid a storm of reproaches from the courtiers, who regarded him as a deserter from their ranks. But instead of carrying popular sympathy with him, Calonne found that his opponents, although they were resisting reform, had usurped the popularity of reformers. The Notables adroitly shifted the ground of attack to the conduct of the Government. They demanded the public accounts. They censured the acts of the Administration. And simply because they assailed the Government, and ventured to criticise and oppose the Crown, they suddenly found themselves, to their own surprise, transformed into popular heroes, and their conduct and courage applauded all over the kingdom. The same thing happened after Calonne's fall. Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse, succeeded to Calonne's office, and found himself compelled to take up many of Calonne's plans. Thereupon the Parlement of Paris stepped to the front, and following the exampleof the Notables, accepted some of the Minister's reforms, and particularly the edict for the establishment of provincial assemblies, while they rejected the new taxes, which were an inseparable part of the Government's scheme. In vain the King threatened and punished the members of the Parlement. The Parlement, borrowing the language of the times, and forgetting that they themselves were only a privileged and exclusive corporation, posed as the representatives of the nation, and demanded that the States-General should be summoned to express the national will.
The Government attempted to carry its schemes through with a high hand. All over the kingdom, the local Parlements, the judicial magistracy of France, took up the cause of the exiled Parlement of Paris, echoed its tones, and even threatened dangerous rebellion. In Dauphiné, in particular, the clergy, nobles, and commons of the province, gathering at Vizille, and led by the courageous eloquence of Mounier, protested against the policy of the Minister, and defied the Crown. The nation, caring little for the rights or wrongs of the quarrel, but delighted to see the all-powerful Government baffled and assailed, welcomed the Parlements as national deliverers, and proclaimed them the champions of popular freedom. For a moment the strange spectacle offered of the privileged orders in France defending their privileges, with the enthusiastic support of the nation, against the Government, which wished to destroy them in the interests of all. In face of this extraordinary union, the Government recoiled. Alarmed by the increase of riots and disorder, by the high price of food, by the disaffection in the army, by theMinistry's total loss of credit, and by the prospect of bankruptcy in the immediate future, the King decided to consult the nation. He announced that the States-General, the ancient, representative Parliament of France, would again, after the lapse of a century and three-quarters, assemble to debate the destinies of the kingdom. Then the popularity of the privileged bodies died as suddenly as it had begun. In August, 1788, Necker was recalled to office, and a general outburst of rejoicing celebrated the astonishing surrender of the Crown.
A wise minister would have endeavoured by prompt and decisive action to allay the vague excitement of the time. Every day the feeling of restlessness was spreading in the country. Paris had become a great debating club. The tension in the public mind was already extreme. Instead, however, of hurrying on the elections, instead of showing a resolution to face the crisis with enlightenment and calmness, the Government hesitated, procrastinated, wavered, and allowed all the world to see that it had formed no policy, and hardly knew what its intentions were. The meeting of the States-General was delayed until the following spring, and in the meantime the Government stimulated the fever of opinion. All through the winter of 1788-9, France was flooded with political addresses and with democratic pamphlets—among which the audacious pamphlet of the Abbé Sieyès excited general remark—calculated to raise as high as possible the hopes and pride of the Tiers-État. To add to the war of words, the Government invited all classes to draw up Cahiers or petitions of grievances, to be laid before the States-General, when they met, and thus, byits own action, it focussed the attention of its subjects on the many abuses which had been borne silently so long.
Moreover, when the important question of the constitution of the new States-General arose, the Government found it impossible to make up its mind. In the electoral arrangements, as might be expected from the innumerable local and personal rights still existing in the country, there was very great complexity and confusion. But the general principle, at any rate in the Pays d'Élection, was this. The nobles and clergy of each Bailliage, as a rule, elected their representatives directly, though the rule was subject to a good many exceptions. In the election of the commons, on the other hand, the voting was in no case direct, but had two, or even three or four degrees. All Frenchmen over twenty-five, who had paid even the smallest amount of direct taxes, had votes. They might vote for any representatives they pleased, for there was no property qualification for candidates. But they could not vote for them directly. The electoral assembly of each Bailliage thus consisted of the nobles and clergy of the Bailliage, and of a number of representatives of the commons, who had been previously elected by primary assemblies of voters in the different towns and villages of the Bailliage. When the electoral assembly of the Bailliage had been formed, the nobles, the clergy, and the electors of the Tiers-État, who composed it, separated into three distinct bodies[5], and eachorder chose a certain number of deputies to represent it in the States-General at Versailles. The number of deputies allowed to each Bailliage varied according to circumstances, but was mainly determined by its population and wealth.
It was arranged without opposition that the nobles and the clergy in the States-General should have, according to usage, three hundred representatives each; but then the difficult question arose, how many deputies were the Tiers-État to elect. The advocates of democracy urged, amid enthusiastic applause from the public, that the commons infinitely out-numbered the other two orders, and ought therefore to have at least double the number of representatives. On this point Louis and Necker alike wavered undecided, besieged by the importunities of the democratic feeling which they had let loose in France. In vain Necker, in November, 1788, gathered another assembly of Notables, and tried to shift his responsibility on to them. The Government at last made up its mind to concession, and announced that the commons were to have 'the double representation'—six hundred representatives in the new Parliament. But the genius of irresolution still dogged its steps. It could not even then bring itself to decide whether the three orders should sit and vote in separate Houses, or whether they should all sit in one Chamber and vote together. The timidest intelligence must have perceived that, unless the three orders were to vote in one body, the numerical superiority which the commons had obtained would be without significance, and the Government's concession to popular feeling would be merely adelusion. And yet to the last this important question was left undecided by the Crown, as a fruitful source of quarrel out of which the troubles of the Revolution might begin. So, with a Government perplexed by fears, with a local administration paralysed by a variety of recent changes, with signs of disorder multiplying upon every side, with innumerable difficulties requiring settlement, and with the fixed spirit of old traditions vainly attempting to assimilate the new, the monarchy prepared to meet the representatives of the nation, who, already flushed with triumph, and intoxicated with self-confidence and hope, advanced to realise their long-delayed millennium, and with the aid of freedom and philosophy to readjust the destinies of France.
FOOTNOTES:[5]In three cases only, in Langres, Péronne, and Montfort l'Amaury, the three orders sat and voted together in the electoral assembly.
FOOTNOTES:
[5]In three cases only, in Langres, Péronne, and Montfort l'Amaury, the three orders sat and voted together in the electoral assembly.
[5]In three cases only, in Langres, Péronne, and Montfort l'Amaury, the three orders sat and voted together in the electoral assembly.
CHAPTER III.
The Early Days of the Revolution.
Onthe 5th May, 1789, the States-General were opened by Louis at Versailles. From the first the Government betrayed its helplessness, and its total inability to appreciate the situation. The Commons' deputies had come to Versailles for the most part with the largest expectations. They were fully alive to existing evils. They were full of schemes and ideals of reform. They foresaw, and were willing to foresee, no obstacles. They were prepared to transform the country; and they confidently expected, under the guidance of a benevolent King and of a liberal and experienced Minister, to begin without delay the work of national regeneration. But from the outset they encountered a series of checks and disillusionments, which increased in gravity as time went on. They found that the Government, instead of taking the lead with vigour, met them with no definite proposals for reform, and with little but vague philanthropic intentions over and above its desire to restore the finances. They found that the King and his advisers had not even made up their minds as to the constitutionof the new Parliament, and could not bring themselves to decide whether the three orders were to sit and vote together or apart. They found themselves in an atmosphere new to most of them, set to do work new to all, conscious in their own minds that a new era had begun and that they must assert themselves to mark it, but yet accustomed from immemorial habit to regard the nobles as their superiors, the King as their master, and the Government as irresistibly strong.
Accordingly, at first, the attitude of the Commons was one of great embarrassment. They had as yet no recognised leaders of their own, and the Ministers, to whom they looked for leadership, were silent and appeared to be as much perplexed as themselves. On one point only they were clearly resolved and determined to yield to no pressure. They insisted that the deputies of the nobles and clergy should join them, and should form one chamber with themselves. On their side, the nobles and clergy refused to listen to this innovation. The Commons steadily rejected a compromise, and on that point the deadlock arose. Instead of the States-General setting to work to repair the finances and to carry reforms, six weeks went by, occupied only with this preliminary quarrel, while all the time the excitement in Paris and in the country deepened, the conflict of class interests became more apparent and acute, and the reactionary courtiers rejoiced at the fiasco and used their influence to widen the breach. The Commons, growing more confident as they felt their strength, and as they realised the power of the forces behind them, held their ground, disregarded the pressureand the innumerable, little, social slights, to which they were daily exposed at Versailles, and became more and more pronounced in their policy of self-assertion; and the Government revealed more strikingly than ever, alike to the States-General and to the public, its entire lack of purpose and resolve.
At last, after six weeks of waiting, the Commons took matters into their own hands, and from that moment events moved fast. On the 17th June, the deputies of the Tiers-État resolved on a momentous step, and on the motion of Sieyès, constituted themselves alone the National Assembly of France. The Government, alarmed at this usurpation of power, determined to reassert its authority and, while offering a large programme of reform, to insist on the separation of the three orders. On the 20th, the Commons found themselves excluded from their hall, and their sittings consequently interrupted; but they persevered in the policy which they had adopted, and adjourning simultaneously to the Tennis Court, swore solemnly never to separate till they had given a constitution to France. On the 23rd, the King came down in state to the Assembly Hall, and while offering large concessions, annulled the resolutions of the Commons. But the Commons, inspired by the courageous words of Mirabeau, rejected the programme which Louis had laid before them, adhered to their resolutions, and defied the Crown. Within a few days, the nobles and the clergy were requested by Louis to abandon the struggle, and the union of the three orders was complete.
But the Court party bitterly resented the usurpation of the Commons. The disorder in Paris was increasing fast.Necker held ostentatiously aloof from his colleagues. The King, distressed and embarrassed, suffered himself to be persuaded by the haughtier spirits at Court, helped by the direct influence of the Queen, to make an attempt to recover the authority which he had allowed to slip from his grasp. The old Maréchal de Broglie, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, was summoned to the royal counsels. Great masses of troops, composed chiefly of Swiss and German regiments in the service of France, were concentrated, in spite of the protests of the Assembly, around Paris and Versailles. On the 11th July, Necker and three other Ministers were dismissed, and their places in the Government filled by decided adherents of the reactionary party. On the 12th, the news reached Paris, and the people, scared, famished and indignant, burst into revolt. On the 14th, that revolt culminated in the decisive movement which destroyed the Bastille, which shattered the plans of the Court party, and which completed the triumph of the Revolution and the humiliation of the Crown.
'With the 14th July,' said a wise and enlightened witness of the time, 'the terror began.' The rising in Paris was the signal for the first general outbreak of violent disorder in France, which proved that the distressed classes had taken the law into their own hands, and that the Government was utterly unable to cope with or control them. The strongest motive for disorder was unquestionably material want. For many years past, the condition of the poorer peasants and labourers, both in the towns and in the country side, had been almost intolerable, and in 1789, the chronic distress of this largeclass reached an acute stage. In 1788, a severe drought had been followed, on the eve of the harvest, by a hail-storm of extraordinary violence and extent, which had destroyed the crops for sixty leagues round Paris. That, in turn, had been followed by the severest winter known for eighty years, which had completed the ruin which the drought and the storm had begun. The consequence was that, in the spring and summer of 1789, the price of bread rose as in a siege, and on all sides the cry of famine spread. From all parts of France, in the spring of 1789, came the same alarming rumours of scarcity and distress. From all parts of France, in the months preceding the capture of the Bastille, came the same reports of disturbances and riots occasioned by the want of food. Discontented peasants, unemployed labourers, rapidly reduced to criminals by hunger, passed from patient misery to despair, and broke out into resistance. Compromised or defeated in the country, they took refuge in the towns; and thus, in April and May, observers noticed that 'frightful numbers of ill-clad men of sinister appearance,' many of them foreigners, all more or less destitute and dangerous, were pouring into Paris, where already bread was exorbitantly dear, and where already the number of unemployed and paupers bore a dangerous proportion to the population of the city.
The trouble caused by the scarcity of food was stimulated by another motive second to it only in importance—the feverish excitement of political hope. Depressed and ignorant as they were, the labouring class in France had, nevertheless, grasped the idea that in some vague way the meeting of the States-Generalmarked an era in their lives, and was somehow or other destined to ease the intolerable burden of their lot. With them political freedom and constitutional reform took the immediate shape of food, work, and relief from feudalism and taxation. Once the idea had been implanted in them, their restless anticipations rapidly increased. Every week of delay rendered them less manageable. Every check experienced by the Assembly was a spur to their impatience. Every step taken by the Government to assert its authority or to overawe the reformers filled them with indignation, suspicion and panic. In the poorer districts of Paris, and especially in the gardens of the Palais Royal—the headquarters of Bohemians, idlers, mischief-makers, crowds—the political excitement of the time found expression in perpetual demonstrations, not unmixed with rioting and outbreaks. The regular authorities of the city, unused to the spectacle, looked on, unable to control it. The police force of Paris under the Ancien Régime was so small as to be practically useless. The garrison, formed of the Gardes Françaises, who were responsible for the maintenance of order, sympathised with the citizens, who spared no hospitality or flatteries to gain them, and finally, mutinying against their officers, went over to the popular side. The other regiments in the neighbourhood showed a marked inclination to follow the example of the Gardes Françaises. The Government, deserted by its own agents, drew back; and the spirit of disorder, produced by the desire for food and the desire for freedom, obtained the mastery of Paris, and took command of the Revolution too.
The example set by Paris was immediately followed in the provinces. At Strasbourg, Lyons, Dijon, Troyes, Besançon, Rouen, Caen, all over the country, spontaneous risings occurred, directed against the authorities or practices of the Ancien Régime, and often accompanied by violence and bloodshed. The people, stimulated by the pressure of famine and by the feverish excitement of the time, and believing that the hour of their deliverance had come, determined to deliver themselves. In different places the outbreak took a hundred different forms. In garrison cities the people, imitating the Parisians, attacked the nearest fortress or castle, and, as in Paris, the troops generally fraternised with the assailants. In some quarters popular indignation was directed against the tax-offices and custom-houses, in some against the local magistrates, in some against the tithes, in some against the newly-introduced machinery, in some against the Jews, in most against corn-dealers and all concerned in trafficking in grain. In the towns the distressed workmen rose against the bourgeois, and against the unjust economic system, which had long rendered their condition unbearable. In the country districts the peasants rose against the iniquities of feudalism, and burned the monasteries and châteaux, where the court-rolls, the records of their hated liabilities, were kept. No doubt, with the desire to redress abuses there mingled, in the minds of an ignorant and embittered peasantry, a great deal of ferocity and crime. In many places indiscriminate war was declared against all kinds of property, and the outbreak took the form of a struggle between rich and poor. But the most notablefeatures of the revolutionary movement were, first, its universality, and secondly, the powerlessness of the authorities to confront or to suppress it. Everywhere the agents of the administration collapsed. The Intendants, the law-courts, the police, completely paralysed, abdicated or disappeared, and the inhabitants of town and country alike, recognising the helplessness of the Government, gave way to an inevitable panic.
The consequence was that the months of July and August were signalised by a sense of insecurity amounting to terror. The wildest rumours pervaded the country, and the most extraordinary instances are found of places where the people, panic-stricken by some vague, unfounded report of the approach of brigands, who had no existence out of their imagination, rushed to arms or fled into concealment to protect themselves against their own alarm. One result of the 'great fear' was that volunteer forces of citizens, interested in restoring order, sprang up on all sides, in imitation of the National Guard just organised in Paris, to which they were destined before long to be assimilated; and these volunteer forces, though sometimes used by the bourgeois to repress the movements and to maintain the subjection of the labouring class, were still invaluable in restoring peace. Moreover, in place of the authorities of the Ancien Régime, there sprang up, to exercise the duties of administration, informal municipal committees composed of electors, which, usurping the powers abdicated by the Government, rapidly organised themselves, secured the obedience of their fellow-citizens, and set to work, as best they could, to reconstruct the administration of thecountry. The rapidity and skill with which these municipal committees and their volunteer forces organised themselves, clearly illustrate the readiness of the provinces to act on their own initiative and to take over the responsibilities of the Revolution, and show how completely the people of France at first kept pace with, if they did not outstrip, their leaders in Paris and Versailles.
The most obvious and the wisest course for the National Assembly to adopt, would have been to legalise as rapidly as possible the changes so suddenly effected, and to set to work without delay to organise the new administrative system. After the 14th July, the King had completely surrendered, and the Assembly had only to act in order to be obeyed. The task before it was, it is true, difficult and almost endless. It was imperatively necessary to restore order. But it was also imperatively necessary—and this the Assembly did not see—to construct, as quickly as it could be done, some form of local government, to replace the old order which had disappeared. It was imperative to provide by some means for the necessities of the revenue, until a permanent financial system could be organised, in place of the old taxes which people would no longer pay. It was imperative to take steps to convince, not only the bourgeois and the peasants, but the distressed artisans in the towns as well, that the Assembly was alive to the urgent necessities of the moment, had a real grasp of the situation of affairs, and would do all that could be done to protect their interests, and to save them from the starvation which they imminently feared. These were the measures which Mirabeau urged upon his colleagues, but unfortunately, there were fewmen in the Assembly who possessed the gift of practical statesmanship, which genius, lit by experience, had conferred on Mirabeau.
The character of that famous Assembly, read in its own day by the critical but far-seeing eyes of Burke, has excited the wonder of posterity. Its most notable feature was its want of practical experience. Among the upper clergy and the nobles, there were, it is true, certain deputies, who from their position had obtained some knowledge of affairs, but these men were liable to be distrusted by their colleagues, because the moderation which their experience taught them, obviously coincided with their interests. Among the Commons there were not a dozen men who had held important administrative posts. There was only one deputy, Malouet, who had held the great office of Intendant, and was in consequence really familiar with the working of the old administrative system. The great majority of the deputies of the Commons consisted of lawyers of little celebrity, who brought to the Assembly all the facility of expression, but little of the utilitarian caution, which in England is associated with their profession. The place of experience, in the case of most members of the Assembly, was taken by a large imagination, a boundless optimism, a vast store of philosophic tags and democratic phrases, a fatal fluency of speech, a fine belief in logic, an academic disregard of the rude facts of practical existence. Never was any body of men so much inspired by hope and confidence, so full of honourable enthusiasm, so convinced of its own ability, or so fixed in its honest desire, to regenerate the world.
Accordingly, the early history of the Assembly is marked by a series of strange scenes, only possible in a nation with whom extreme versatility of temperament takes the place of humour, illustrating the susceptibility, the emotion, the feverish excitement, the liability of the whole body to act on the impulse of the moment, regardless of what the consequences might be. A happy phrase, a witty saying, a burst of declamation, would carry it off its feet, and settle the fate of a division. The prodigious quantity of written rhetoric declaimed from the tribune wasted a prodigious quantity of time, but there was always an audience ready to applaud it. The debates were conducted with very little order. The entire absence of method in the Chamber often frustrated the business-like work done by its committees. In vain Mirabeau urged his colleagues to adopt the procedure of the English House of Commons. The French people, newly emancipated, disdained the example of any other nation. In the great halls at Paris and Versailles, where the Assembly successively sat, the process of legislation continued to be attended by a constant clatter of talk and movement, interrupted by noisy shouts and gestures, by obstruction and personal abuse, and aggravated by the presence in the galleries of large numbers of strangers, whom at first the Assembly welcomed, and whose turbulence it afterwards vainly attempted to control. The noisy demonstrations in the Strangers' Gallery encouraged extreme speeches and proposals, shouted down unpopular orators, and gradually organised a species of mob-rule. The occupants of the galleries ultimately became one of the greatest dangers and defects of the Assembly. By theintimidation which they practised, not only inside its walls, but outside in the streets as well, they daunted and terrorised even brave men; and before long they forced into silence or flight many politicians, whose influence would have been valuable to the cause of moderation and good sense.
These facts ought not to be forgotten when one is considering the action of the Assembly, for they help to explain the slowness of its procedure, and illustrate the inexperience which was its besetting, but inevitable, fault. Moreover, during the months of July and August, the Assembly was probably still amazed at its own success, and had scarcely realised its own omnipotence. Most of the deputies of the majority, although anxious for reform, had no very definite opinions, and as yet the machinery of political parties and political principles did not exist among them. The consequence was that instead of acting with vigour and precision, they gave themselves up to general discussions. They imagined that men already in rebellion, clamouring for food and for a fair opportunity to earn it, would be satisfied by reiterated assurances that they were equal, sovereign, free; and proceeded to debate, for weeks together, the Declaration of the Rights of Man. From that subject they passed at length to consider the bases of the new constitution, and in the month of September two important constitutional questions were decided. The Assembly rejected by an overwhelming majority the proposal for dividing the future Parliament into two Houses on the English model, and resolved that there should be only one Chamber in the constitution which they werebeginning to create. Secondly, jealous of the royal authority, and misled by unstatesmanlike counsels, the Assembly determined, against the wiser voice of Mirabeau, that the King should have, not an absolute, but only a suspensive veto on the laws passed by the future Parliament; in other words, that he should not be able to reject any measure which the Chamber approved, but might refuse his sanction to it until time or agitation compelled him to yield. Once only, in these early weeks, did the Assembly come near to the questions which were really agitating France, when, on the night of the 4th August, horrified by the report of its own committee, it gave way to the impulse of the moment, and abolished in a series of reckless resolutions all feudal survivals, serfdom, tithes, all exemptions from taxes, and every other exclusive privilege existing in the kingdom. And yet, unwise as the Assembly's conduct seems to us, and incapable as it unquestionably proved, nothing can be clearer than the uprightness of intention, which governed it as a whole in these early days, and the earnest enthusiasm for humanity and justice, which dictated its policy and distended its debates.
But while the Assembly debated, Paris starved. The victory of the 14th July had done little for the Parisians, and the disorder which had accompanied it, and which had broken out afresh, a week later, in the murder of the detested Intendant Foulon, had not by any means ceased. Three days after the fall of the Bastille, the King had come to Paris, to be publicly reconciled with his subjects, and Bailly and Lafayette had been informally elected, the one Mayor of Paris, the otherCommander-in-chief of the new National Guard. Lafayette at once set to work to form the National Guard of Paris into a civic army of thirty thousand men, and incorporated the Gardes Françaises with them as a paid battalion. He spared no pains to attach the force to his own person; and it seems clear that he designed to use it, not only to maintain order in the interests of the middle class, and to keep down the large discontented element which swarmed in the city, but also as a political instrument, to direct the Revolution in accordance with his own views. But even with this force behind him, Lafayette found that order was exceedingly difficult to keep; while Bailly, for his part, was overwhelmed with anxiety, working day and night with troublesome subordinates to supply the capital with bread, which daily became dearer and harder to obtain.
Meantime the causes which led to disturbance were steadily increasing rather than diminishing. The emigration of the aristocrats had begun. Paris, always a city of luxury, and depending largely on the sale of luxuries for her support, found herself deserted by the Court, the rich, the travelling public, by the great spending class to whose expensive wants she ministered, and whom the disorders of July had driven away. Thousands of journeymen tailors, shoemakers and hair-dressers, thrown out of work, thousands of domestic servants, thrown out of places, thousands of makers of lace and fans, of carriages and upholstery, of jewellery and nick-nacks, thrown out of employment by the cessation of their trades, began to gather and demonstrate in different quarters of the city. Beggars from the country and deserters from the armycontinued to pour in, to fraternise with the people, to join in the exciting politics of the Palais Royal, to add to the pressure upon the food supply. In vain the new municipal authorities opened relief works at Montmartre, and sold grain to the bakers at a heavy loss. The discontent became more general and threatening. The oratory of the Palais Royal, which followed with intense keenness the debates of the Assembly, and which was almost ready to take arms on behalf of the suspensive veto, increased in vehemence. The suspiciousness and distrust of the Court—suggested, it may be, by emissaries of the Duke of Orleans—which had so largely contributed to the outbreak in July, revived in full force as September went by. The Parisians knew or suspected that one party at Court was constantly urging the King to retire further from Paris. They believed that their troubles would never end until they had the King and the Assembly in their midst. And when, at the end of September, the Government, acting probably in the interests of order, brought up the Flanders regiment to Versailles, and the courtiers made the arrival of the troops the occasion for a great royalist demonstration, the excitement in the capital broke bounds again, and the extraordinary march of the women to Versailles effected the capture of the King.
The events of the 5th and 6th October need no description. Their origin is a mystery still. But their result was most important. The royal family and the National Assembly were removed to Paris, and were thenceforward kept in Paris, as hostages in the hands of the strongest party. The fortunes of Paris becamedecisive of the fortunes of the Revolution in France. But the democratic forces, which had won the day, did not reap the fruits of the victory. The advantage of the movement fell entirely to the party which represented the views and formed the following of Lafayette, the party of middle class reformers, who, by securing the person of the King, finally baffled the forces of reaction, and obtained the control of the Revolution themselves. It was this party which had organised the National Guard. Now that it was triumphant, it honestly wished to consolidate, in its own fashion, liberty and order. But, unfortunately, the charge is with some justice made against it, that, consciously or unconsciously, it did not care for the interests of the class below it, by whose assistance it had achieved its triumph, and by whom it was destined in its turn to be overthrown. The leader of this party was Lafayette; and the more the records of those two days are examined, the more difficult is it to resist the conclusion that Lafayette's action all through them was calculated to promote his own advantage, and that his intention was to use the forces of revolution just enough to frighten the King into submission, then to appear upon the scene as his deliverer, and to turn the King's submission to account. In that intention Lafayette succeeded, and the events of the 5th and 6th October made his views and his authority for a time the dominant influence in the State.
CHAPTER IV.
The Labours of the Constituent Assembly.
Afterits arrival in Paris, the Assembly continued, amid many interruptions, the work of constructing the new constitution, and the same blind attachment to captivating theories, which had wasted so many weeks in barren discussion at Versailles, pervaded its debates and its decrees in Paris. The great bulk of the members of the Assembly were determined to carry into practice the idea of the sovereignty of the people, and to observe, as far as logic could, the natural rights of man. If facts or experience conflicted with these theories, facts and experience must go to the wall. The circumstances, needs or traditions of nations seemed to them to be of little importance in comparison with the eternal principles which philosophy had laid down for the government of the world. In pursuance of these views, the slaves in the French colony of St. Domingo were immediately emancipated, without regard to the difficulties involved in so summary a proceeding, or the disaster certain to ensue. 'Let the colonies perish,' cried a member of the Assembly, 'rather than sacrifice a principle.' In pursuance also of these views, all titles of nobility were abolished, as being 'repugnant to reason and to true liberty.' It became anoffence and subsequently a crime for a nobleman to sign his name in the old style. The Assembly taught the people to regard rank as something wrong; and the people, taking up the idea, and colouring it with their own fears and ancient hatreds, soon came to look on all possessors of rank as evil-doers, who had no right to fair treatment or protection from the law, and for whom the proper destiny was the guillotine. On the same vague theories the constitution was built up. The desire to place sovereignty in the hands of the people led the Assembly to impose many complicated political duties upon the great mass of citizens, who had never as yet exercised any political functions at all. At the same time they curtailed as far as possible, and hampered by a system of elaborate checks, the power which they left to those at the head of affairs, who had long been accustomed to political duties, and who had certainly fulfilled them very ill. The result was a complete paralysis in the Government, and a constitution foredoomed to fail.