Classic A Series

European Edited by
Historians Leonard Krieger

Jules
Michelet

History
of the
French
Revolution

Edited and with an Introduction by

Gordon Wright
CLASSIC EUROPEAN HISTORIANS

A SERIES EDITED BY LEONARD KRIEGER

 Jules Michelet

HISTORY OF THE

FRENCH

REVOLUTION

Translated by Charles Cocks

Edited and with an Introduction

by Gordon Wright

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO & LONDON

T H E U N I V E R S ITY O F CH ICA G O P R E S S
CHICAGO & LONDON

The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada

© 1967 by The University of Chicago

AU rights reserved
Published 1967

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-15315

Printed in the United States of America

Series Editor's Preface

TIm aim of the University of Chicago Press's

series, "The Classic European Historians," is the reproduction,
in a form easy to purchase and to use, of works that have been
milestones in the cumulative knowledge of the European past
and in the development of our historical consciousness. Since
the historical writing of a less scientific age usually belonged­
and still belongs-to literature in its belletristic sense, it is hoped
that the series will contribute to both of the fundamental func­
tions ever served by history-to entertainment and to the provi­
sion of materials for the disciplined study of humanity. The
criteria of the textual reprints and the purpose of the essays
that introduce them therefore are directed primarily toward
restoring the readability of historical classics.
The rules that guide the reproduction of each text are prod­
ucts of reverence for the original qualified by considerations
of utility. Each reprint comprises a single substantial volume
that cleaves to the original text and notes of the classic with a
minimum of editorial intrusion. For histories written in a for­
eign language-generally the case for this series-English trans­
lations are prOvided, or, as for this volume, older translations
are used if they have been adjudged generally satisfactory,
with revisions by the volume editor where they have been ad­
judged particularly unsatisfactory. For extended histories­
again a rule applicable to the present instance-selection is
made of a continuous volume-length section, as representative
of the work and as crucial for its subject as the editor may
find, on the assumption that the integrity of the literary crea-

v
 SERIES EDITOR 'S PREFACE

tion in each of its parts is more revealing of the whole than are
the insulated samples of its scope.
The introductions, written by volume editors who are au­
thorities in the special historical field of the work and
adepts in general historiography, are designed to locate the
classic along both of these axes and thereby to orient the mod­
ern reader in the setting of both the history and the historian.
The editors follow two main lines in the attainment of this
purpose. First, they analyze the distinctive contribution made
by the work to the historical knowledge of its subject and
estimate its current value in relation to subsequent studies and
their claims to have superseded it. Secondly, each essay ap­
proaches the historian as himself a historical subject, drawing
an intellectual portrait to show the circumstances and assump­
tions that conditioned his classic and to assess the particular
contribution of man and work to the historical sensibilities of
our culture.
Not surprisingly, considering the range of goals for the series,
each classic satisfies these purposes in a different ratio. Jules
Michelet's History of the French Revolution, partially re­
printed in this volume, ranks especially high among the lasting
monuments of historical writing for its entertainment value as
history and its representative function as historiography. The
two qualities, moreover, are connected, for the early- and mid­
nineteenth-century school of history that spanned the North
American and European continents and found in Michelet a
prime exemplar retained the hallowed humanistic view of his­
tory as a branch of literature and of literary excellence as an
essential ingredient of written history. Others of its character­
istic traits Michelet reHected too-indeed, so intensely and so
vividly as to become something close to what would later be
called the "ideal type" of the school. Like such well-known
contemporaries as Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, Motley, Macau­
lay, and Guizot, but unconfined, larger than life, Michelet
deemed freedom to be the thread of history, the nation to be
its vehicle, events its moments, the people its life-force, and

vi
 Series Editors Preface
individuals their agents. Michelet may thus stand for that whole
generation of historians between the Age of the Enlightenment
and the scientific era who have been variously labeled
"liberal," "nationalistic," "romantic," and "amateur."
But such labels, when applied to a group of historians or
indeed to any group of writers, initiate rather than conclude
the process of understanding. They raise problems that can be
solved not in terms of the abstract relations among general
tendencies but only in terms of the actual connections between
specific traits in the work of the individual historian. Thus, in
his illuminating sketch of Michelet and his work, Professor
Gordon Wright reveals not only that re-creative historian's per­
sonal contribution to the understanding of the French Revolu­
tion but also the living conjunction in him of the qualities he
shared with his contemporary historians. We learn from Profes­
sor Wright how those qualities, which in the large seem puz­
zling and ill-assorted to us, in the concrete did form compatible
components of a comprehensible historical mentality. We learn
how partisanship for the nation in history was part of a larger
faith in the liberal destiny of humanity; how the passionate
espousal of social and political values could fertilize the
authentic reconstruction of the past; how the romantic impulse
toward individuality in history extended rather than rejected
the Enlightenment's historiographical achievement of secular
universality; how the aesthetic impulse toward the communica­
ble evocation of the historical drama bore with grace the weight
of laborious archival research; how all the features that we
tend, from American examples, to associate with amateur or
popular-that is, non-professorial-history were ingrained in a
French history professor and had in fact more to do with his
approach than with his profession.
With Professor Wright as our guide, we become aware of a
certain familiarity when we read Michelet-of a kinship be­
yond the mere acknowledgment of a past stage of historical
consciousness that we can remember and have overcome. Be­
hind the archaic sentimentality and floridity we recognize

vii
 SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE

something of ourselves. In Michelet's combination of life, art,

and scholarship historians today see a reflection not so much
of their own achievements as of their own ambitions. When we
revive Michelet we salute not what we are but what we should
like again to become.
LEONARD KruEGER

viii
Editor's Introduction

TASTES in the writing of history, like those in

the arts, political oratory, or women's dress, change with the
times. Jules Michelet was viewed by many nineteenth-century
Frenchmen as one of the greatest masters of his craft: an artist
who sent life pulsing through his nation's history, who revived
in his countrymen a vivid memory of their common past, who
defined his goal as neither analysis nor synthesis but as "integral
resurrection." In our day, when most historical writing has come
to be soberly analytical and earthbound, Michelet's purple
rhetoric, his flights of lyriCism and his passionate prejudices
seem shockingly out of style. The newer historians of France
rarely cite him, save perhaps to list his works in their bibliog­
raphies. Who, in our prosaic age, would want to read Michelet?
Yet the publishers' lists over the past few decades show a
steady flow of books about Michelet's historical art; reports
from Paris tell us that a definitive edition of Michelet's com­
plete works is under way; and an advanced class in historiog­
raphy at the Sorbonne, asked to name the greatest historian
France ever produced, accords that supreme accolade to
Michelet. We are even told that the most eminent of living
Frenchmen, Charles de Gaulle, has found his own philosophy
of history in Michelet's famous aphorism, "England is an em­
pire, Germany a race, a country; France is a person."
Michelet belonged squarely in the romantic age and em­
bodied many of the most representative traits of its protean
spirit. The span of his life (1798-1874) closely coincided with

ix
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCI'lON

that of Victor Hugo, whose impassioned prose and verse bore

much resemblance to Michelefs historical poetry. Yet Michelet
always looked to the eighteenth century for his inspiration; his
intellectual heroes were Voltaire, Rousseau, and Giambattista
Vico, that curiously anachronistic Neapolitan scholar whom
Michelet always claimed as his real master. "Je suis ne de
Virgile et Vico," Michelet used to say. Vico sought what he
called "a new science" that would be total in nature, uniting
all of the human sciences in an organic whole. Michelet's
resurrection integrale sought the same goal. Vico stressed the
use of legends as valid expressions of a historical tradition, con­
veying the collective wisdom of one's ancestors. Michelet, in
his work on the Great Revolution, insisted on the use of "oral
tradition," which he defined as "that which everybody says and
repeats . . . , that which can be learned by an evening visit to
any village tavern." Vico insisted that men make their own
social world, create their own history; Michelet described man
as nis own Prometheus." Vico played down the role of great
men, and found the motive force of history in society as a
whole. Michelet declared that the Revolutionary leaders "are
usually but wrongfully considered as the sole actors. The fact is
that they rather received than communicated the impulse. The
chief actor is the people." Vico rejected the rigorous rationalism
of Descartes, and emphasized the intuitive path to under­
standing. Michelet, in his inaugural lecture at the Sorbonne in
1834, warned his students against those cold analytical tech­
niques that destroy rather than reveal life.
Michelefs heritage from Vieo has been often stressed; the
differences between them have been more neglected. Vico,
after all, stood astride the Middle Ages and the modern era,
whereas Michelet combined the Enlightenment and the nine­
teenth century. Vico's fervent Catholicism, his belief that men
were safely cradled in the divine hand of Providence, could
find no echo in Michelet. Nor did Vico's overarching concept of
corsi e ricorsi-of a cyclical or spiral process by which history
allegedly proceeded-attract Michelefs favor. Far closer to
Michelefs temper was the eighteenth century's concept of

x
 Editor's Introduction
history as linear progression: jerky, irregular, but in the end
always bearing upward toward greater freedom and justice.
If Michelet was Vico's disciple, his borrowing from the master
was highly selective; he took only those ideas that reinforced
his own intellectual and temperamental preferences. Perhaps
Michelet's "je suis ne de Vico" ought to be counterbalanced by
another bit of self-analysis from his diary (1841): "Nobody has
influenced me since my birth. I was born essentially solitary."
Until the age of thirty, Michelet remained somewhat un­
certain as to choice of a career. Although he began as a sec­
ondary school teacher of history, he was more strongly inclined
toward philosophy and the classics. The chair which he held at
the Ecole Normale Superieure during the late 1820's combined
philosophy and history, but in 1829 his superiors divided the
chair in two and insisted that Michelet take the historical half.
His compliance was grudging rather than enthusiastic; his­
torical writing in its currently orthodox form struck him as
pedantic and narrow. Still, with the help of Vico he might yet
free himself from the bonds of orthodoxy and soar off on his
own imaginative wings.
Inspiration struck him suddenly during the glorious days of
the 1830 revolution, and turned him to his life's work-the
history of his native land. Forty years later, in a new preface
to his seventeen-volume chef d'oeuvre, he was to recall that
"lightning flash of July," when "a great light dawned, and I
became aware of France." His glowing patriotism, his intense
sense of Frenchness merged with and absorbed his passion for
the brotherhood of all mankind. Modern France, he believed,
was the brilliant culmination of universal history. As he recalled
in later retrospect, "I arrived both through logic and through
history at the same conclusion: that my glOriOUS motherland is
henceforth the pilot of the vessel of humanity." The first volume
of the History of France came off the press in 1833, the seven­
teenth not until 1867. The literary brilliance of the work-espe­
Cially such portions as the famous province-by-province portrait
of the country and the chapters on Joan of Arc-dazzled his
readers, and securely established Michelet as the quasi-official
xi
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

national historian. At the age of thirty-six he became Guizot's

successor at the Sorbonne; four years later, he attained a chair
at the most prestigious of French institutions, the College de
France.
But already he was wearying of the seemingly endless task
of resurrecting the whole long history of his country. As he
plodded painfully through the Middle Ages, his attention was
constantly drawn toward the culmination of this whole process,
the high point of man's history-the Great Revolution. In 1841
he began to collect materials on the Revolution; in 1845 he gave
his first course of lectures on the subject at the College de
France; in 1846 he interrupted the History of France (which
had reached Louis XI) and plunged ahead three centuries
into his History of the French Revolution. It would, he thought,
leap uninterrupted from his pen, "like a long cry of love and
hate." The first two volumes did follow that jetlike course, and
were published within a year; the remaining five, however,
came more slowly, and the whole work was not completed
until 1853. Problems both personal and political intervened:
Michelet's second marriage, the unsettling upheaval of 1848,
his dismissal from the College de France after Louis Napoleons
coup d'etat, his self-exile to the provinces.
That the Revolution should have fascinated Michelet is
scarcely surprising. His earliest memories and his formative
years were suffused with recollections of the great upheaval.
His birthplace, in the heart of old Paris, was a former church
which had been secularized during the Revolution. His father,
a printer and a fervent republican, was ruined by Napoleon'S
rigorous press censorship and even jailed for debt for a time,
so that the boy grew up in poverty. The elder Michelet, along
with other family acquaintances, prOvided young Jules with
a rich storehouse of eyewitness tales. As a young man, never­
theless, Jules seemed indifferent to his father's fiercely anti­
clerical republican views. He chose to be baptized at age
eighteen, and accepted posts as official tutor to princesses of
first the Bourbon and then the Orleans house. As he neared
middle age, however, his outlook underwent a drastic change.

xii
 Editor's Introduction
By the time he embarked on his History of the French Revolu­
tion, his antagonism toward both the Church and the old
monarchy matched that of his father. The Revolution, he be­
lieved, was destined to provide Frenchmen with a new and
purer religion-a faith in justice and humanity, long since be­
trayed by decadent Catholicism.
Before Michelet's time, the Revolution had been a subject
for polemics rather than for serious historical research. Only
Mignet and Thiers had sought to examine the period in ac­
cordance with the canons of the historian's craft. Michelet was
thus venturing into almost virgin territory. His predecessors, he
declared, had all written "monarchical" histories that idealized
either the autocrat Louis XVI or the autocrat Robespierre.
"Mine," he asserted, "is the first republican history, the kind
that has destroyed both idols and gods. From the first page to
the last, it has had but one hero: the people." This intense
populism, this almost childlike faith in the virtues and the
perceptiveness of the common man, was revealed in his
emphaSiS on what he called "national tradition" (that is, the
ordinary Frenchman's view of the Revolution) as his most im­
portant source and inspiration. "Take careful note of the peo­
ple's judgments," he wrote; "sometimes, on specific details, they
are wrong, more often they don't know the facts. But about
men they are not mistaken, they are rarely deceived." His
populism was repeatedly reHected, too, in his treatment of the
Revolutionary events themselves. During each of the great
episodes when the crowd goes into action-the fall of the
Bastille, the march of the women on Versailles, the Festival
of the Federations in July, 1790-0ne gets a sense of direct
participation, as though the historian had been there in the
front ranks, fraternizing with the virtuous peuple. "Unforget­
table days I" wrote Michelet in his preface to the 1868 edition.
<Who am I to have recounted them? I still don't understand,
I shall never understand how I was able to recapture them.
The incredible joy of rediscovering them so alive, so ardent,
after sixty years, swelled my heart with heroic joy, and my
manuscript seemed intoxicated by my tears."
xiii
 EDITOR' S INTRODUCnON

Although Michelet saw the great leaders of the time as

mere agents of, and spokesmen for, the masses, he found him­
self attracted to many of them. In retrospect he recalled, "None
of these great actors of the Revolution left me cold." His par­
ticular favorites were Sieyes and Danton; his most intense
dislike was aimed at Robespierre. He prided himself, however,
on seeing men not as didactic caricatures but as highly human
mixtures of faults and virtues, whose conduct and even whose
personalities changed as the Revolution moved on. In suggest­
ing the development of character through a series of successive
scenes, there is a kind of Shakespearian quality in Michelet's
historical drama.
Michelet's history of the Revolution, rather surprisingly, was
not an immediate critical or commercial success. It appeared
almost Simultaneously with Lamartine's immensely popular
History of the Girondins and was closely followed by Louis
Blanc's massive twelve-volume account of the Revolution, in
which Blanc took perverse pleasure in listing all of the errors
he claimed to find in Michelet's work. Students and left-wing
republicans during the Second Empire were the first diSCiples;
but it was not until the Third Republic that it won a wide
circle of readers, thanks in part to the appearance of popular
editions. The founders of the Third Republic, it has been said,
cut their teeth on Michelet; his fervent patriotism, his passion­
ate anticlericalism, his lyric flights fitted the temper of the
radical republicans of the day. A few political leaders (Jules
Simon, for example) had once been Michelet's students; more
of them knew him through his glowing pages. Georges Clem­
enceau's father, a country doctor, inoculated his son with the
pure essence of Michelet; Jean Jaures, when he in tum under­
took a Socialist history of the Revolution, chose as his inspirers
Marx and Michelet.
The arrival of Marxian Socialism, however, dimmed Miche­
let's appeal to the left. Marxians found in Michelet's populism
a petty-bourgeois affection for the small independent artisan
or shopkeeper, a deep suspicion of state action for social re­
form. Indeed, Michelet's lack of interest in the economic
xiv
 Editor's Introduction
aspects of the Revolutionary period and in social analysis of
any precise kind, though quite understandable in a man of his
time, undoubtedly Haws the permanent value of his work.
Michelet's most direct heirs were certainly the bourgeois Rad­
ical Socialists of the Third Republic. Still, a Marxophile like
Jean-Paul Sartre could continue to describe Michelet in 1947
as an "authentic genius" and a "prosateur de grande classe,"
and could charge the twentieth-century bourgeOisie with "leav­
ing Michelet to vegetate in purgatory" because he had com­
mitted a cardinal sin-he had loved the people.
A second reason for Michelet's decline in stature toward the
end of the nineteenth century was the dominant mode of posi­
tivism and scientism in historical writing. It fed a growing
sentiment that Michelet was only a vulgarisateur, concerned to
fascinate the lay reader with colorful anecdotes and literary
fireworks. Even in Michelet's lifetime, some critics had com­
plained of his unwillingness to cite his sources and had implied
that the historian was drawing heavily on his fertile imagina­
tion. The charge irritated Michelet, who contended that any
intelligent reader ought to be capable of recognizing his
sources, and that batteries of footnotes would destroy the unity
of his art. Viewers of modem television, who sit through great
films interspersed with frequent commercials, may find Miche­
let's argument sympathetic. Michelet insisted, with consider­
able justice, that his work was "born from the womb of the
archives." From 1831 to 1852 he held a high post in the National
Archives, and spent several hours daily there; he could browse
at will through that rich depository, and later he dipped ex­
tenSively into the municipal records at the Hotel de Ville as
well. More than any predecessor, he wrote the history of the
Great Revolution from its official records, supplemented by
memoirs and eyewitness accounts. Still, it is undoubtedly true
that he used his sources as though he were a lawyer pleading
a case, seeking evidence to buttress his own deep predilections.
Michelet could never be the impartial judge, weighing the
evidence and letting it guide his decision. He was an historien
engage, the impaSSioned evangelizer of a new gospel.
xv
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

The modem student of the French Revolution, or of the

phenomenon of revolution in general, would not do well to
begin with Michelet.1 Several generations of scholarship since
his time have broadened our understanding of that formidable
episode, have given us a more sophisticated grasp of the social
and psychological forces at work in that microcosm of human­
ity that was Paris in the late eighteenth century. Yet there is
something here that can rarely be found in historical writing:
a sense of the color and passion of a great social upheaval,
conveyed to the reader as though he were one of the eye­
witnesses along the sidewalks opposite the Hotel de Ville or
at the entrance to the palace courtyard at Versailles. Perhaps
it is as well that European historiography has not produced
many Michelets; we can nevertheless rejOice that one such

1 The vast outpouring of Revolutionary scholarship and quasi-scholarship

that has £lIed the century since Michelet cannot be readily distilled into a
footnote. A few representative works may, however, be worth mentionin�.
On the heels of Michelet's final volume came Alexis de Tocqueville s
L'Ancien regime et la revolution (Paris, 1856; trans. S. Gilbert, New York,
1955), which has proved to be a far more durable analysis of the forces at
work in prerevolutionary France. Alphonse Aulard's Histoire politique de
la Revolution frangaise (Paris, 1901; trans. B. Miall, 4 vols., New York,
1910) eventually displaced Michelet as the bible of the Third Republic's
bourgeois elite, more attracted now to prose than to poetry. Aulard's
student Albert Mathiez, in his La Revolution frangaise (3 vols.; Paris,
1922-27; trans. C. A. Phillips, New York, 1929), shifted the bias farther
to the left, to a point just short of a Marxian stance. Then both were
pushed into the discard by their successor at the Sorbonne, Georges
Lefebvre, whose exhaustive monographic studies of rural France, colored
by a quasi-Marxian bias, introduced a more precise kind of analysis of
social groups and forces, solidly based on archival studies. Lefebvre s brief
essay Quatre-vingt-neuf (Paris, 1939; trans. R. R. Palmer as The Coming
of the French Revolution [Princeton, 1947]), and his general synthesis La
Revolution frangaise (2d ed.; Paris, 1957; trans. E. M. Evanson, 2 vols.,
New York, 1962-64) have come to represent the new orthodoxy of our
generation-an orthodoxy that for the first time since 1789 represents near­
consensus among students of the Revolution in France. Lefebvre's French
and British disciples have continued to push along the path he marked out,
notably in such works as Albert Soboul s Les sans-culottes parisiens (Paris,
1958; abridged trans. G. Lewis, Oxford, 1964); George F. Rude's The
Crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford, 1959); and Richard Cobb's Les
armees revolutionnaires (2 vols., Paris, 1961-63).
Any orthodoxy, however, eventually inspires its own critics. The most
xvi
 Editor's Introduction
phenomenon exists. And in reading his History of the French
Revolution, we may share the judgment of the historian
Gerard Walter: "Prodigious, paradoxical book which . . . still
remains a captivating enigma, an irritating miracle."

This edition of Michelet's most representative work is, I be­

lieve, the first to appear in English since 1902. It contains the
introduction and the first three of the twenty-one ''books'' into
which the original work was divided. This portion carries the
story from the convocation of the Estates-General in 1789 to
the Festival of the Federations on July 14, 1790. This latter
episode, Michelet believed, was the zenith of French history,
an apotheosis of brotherhood and unity toward which the na­
tion had been aspiring for centuries. It provides, therefore, a

vigorous and persuasive voice has been that of Alfred Cobban, whose The
Social Interpretation of the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1964)
challenges some of the most basic tenets of the Lefebvrians. And Elizabeth
L. Eisenstein, in a perceptive essay entitled "Who intervened in 1788? A
Commentary on The Coming of the French Revolution" (American
Historical Review, LXXI [1965]: 77-103), has suggested additional
reasons for reexamining the new orthodoxy.
Recent scholarship, too, provides correctives for some of Michelet's more
flagrant prejudices. His tendency to isolate events in France from those in
the rest of Europe may be counterbalanced by such studies as R. R.
Palmer's The Age of the Democratic Revolution (2 vols.; Princeton,
1959-64) and Jacques Godechot's Les revolutions (1770-1779) (Paris,
1963; trans. H. H. Rowen as France and the Atlantic Revolution in the
Eighteenth Century [New York, 1965]). His rabid anticlericalism requires
a look at Andre Latreille's L'Eglise catholique et La Revolution franyaise
(2 vols.; Paris, 1946-50). And his somewhat distorted Parisian view of
provincial France ought to be set alongside such careful monographs as
Henri Freville's L'Intendance de Bretagne 1689-1790 (3 vols.; Rennes,
1953); Robert Forster's The Nobility of Toulouse in the Eighteenth
Century (Baltimore, 1960); and Charles Tilly's The Vendee (Cambridge,
Mass., 1964).
Finally, it may be useful to compare Michelet's synthesis of the
Revolutionary years with some of the best general accounts published in
our own time: Crane Brinton's A Decade of Revolution 1789-1799 (New
York, 1934); J. M. Thompson's The French Revolution (New York, 1945);
A. Goodwin's The French Revolution 1789-1794 (London, 1956); Alfred
Cobban's A History of Modem France (vol. I, London, 1957); and
Norman Hampson's A Social History of the French Revolution (Toronto,
1963).
xvii
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

fitting culmination to his account of the Revolution's heroic pe­

riod of constructive refonn.
The translation was made in 1847 by Charles Cocks, profes­
sor of English in the College Royale in Paris. Cocks translated
a great many of Michelet's books, and won additional distinc­
tion by publishing a widely read work on the wines of
Bordeaux. His version retains some of the flavor of the mid­
nineteenth century, and may therefore render Michelet's prose
more faithfully than would a modern translation. I have cor­
rected a number of errors, however, and have altered an even
more considerable number of obscure or ambiguous passages.
as well as a few anglicisms potentially misleading to American
readers.

Stanford, California
GORDON WRIGHT

xviii
 Contents

Series Editors Preface v

Editors Introduction ix
Authors Preface 3
Authors Introduction 15
First Part ON THE RELIGION OF THE
�IDDLE AGES ................. 17
Second Part ON THE OLD �ONARCHY .......... 41
Book I (April to July, 1789)
Chapter I ELECTIONS OF 1789 .............. 83
II OPENING OF THE ESTATES-GENERAL 95
ill NATIONAL ASSEMBLy .... " ......108
IV OATH AT THE TENNIS COURT ......122
V �OVEMENT OF PARIS .............134
VI INSURRECTION OF PARIS ..........149
VII THE TAKING OF THE BASTILLE,
JULY 14TH, 1789 .............. 161
Book II (July 14 to October 6, 1789)
Chapter I THE HOLLOW TRUCE ............183
II POPULAR JUDGMENTS ............ 199
ill FRANCE IN ARMS ................ 215
IV THE RIGHTS OF �AN ............231
V THE CLERGY AND THE PEOPLE ....246
VI THE VETO . . . . . . 260
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VII THE PRESS ....................268

xix
 CONTENTS

vm THE PEOPLE Go TO FETCH THE

KING, OCTOBER 5TH, 1789......281
IX THE KING BROUGHT BACK TO PARIS .301
Book III (October 6, 1789, to July 14, 1790)
Chapter I UNANIMITY TO REVIVE THE KINGLY
POWER (OCTOBER, 1789)-BURST
OF FRATERNAL ENTHUSIASM­
ENTHUSIASTIC TRANSPORT OF
BROTHERHOOD (OCTOBER TO
JULY) . . . . . . 321
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

II RESISTANCE-THE CLERGY (OCTOBER

TO NOVEMBER, 1789) ..........328
m RESISTANCE-THE CLERGy-THE
PARLEMENTS-THE PROVINCIAL
ESTATES .....................335
IV RESISTANCE-PARLEMENTS-MOVE-
MENT OF THE FEDERATIONS .....345
V RESISTANCE-THE QUEEN AND
AUSTRIA (OCTOBER TO FEBRUARY) 355
VI CONTINUATION-THE QUEEN AND
AUSTRIA-THE QUEEN AND MIRA­
BEAU-THE ARMY (MARCH TO
MAY, 1790) ..................371
VII A RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE-THE
PASSION OF LOUIS XVI .. 387 . . . . . . . .

vm RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE-SUCCESS OF
THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION

(MAY, 1790) .................398

IX A RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE-THE
COUNTER-REVOLUTION QUELLED
IN THE SOUTH (JUNE, 1790) ..... 415
xx
 Contents

X THE NEW PruNCIPLE-SPONTANEOUS

ORGANIZATION OF FRANCE
(JULY 1789, TO JULY 1790) .....432
XI THE NEW RELIGION-FEDERATIONS
(JULY 1789 TO JULY 1790) . . . ...440
xu THE NEW RELIGION-GENERAL
FEDERATION (JULY 14, 1790) ....454
Index 467

XXI
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Preface

EVERY year, when I descend from my chair,

at the close of my academic labours, when I see the crowd
disperse,-another generation that I shall behold no more,-my
mind is lost in inward contemplation.
Summer comes on; the town is less peopled, the streets are
less noisy, the pavement grows more sonorous around my
Pantheon. Its large black and white slabs resound beneath my
feet.
I commune with my own mind. I interrogate myself as to
my teaching, my history, and its all-powerful interpreter,-the
spirit of the Revolution.
It possesses a knowledge of which others are ignorant. It
contains the secret of all bygone times. In it alone France be­
came conscious of herself. When, in a moment of weakness, we
may appear forgetful of our own worth, it is to this point that
we should recur in order to seek and recover ourselves again.
Here, the inextinguishable spark, the profound mystery of life,
is ever glowing within us.
The Revolution lives in ourselves,-in our souls; it has no
outward monument. Living spirit of France, where shall I seize
thee, but within myself?-The governments that have suc­
ceeded each other, hostile in all other respects, appear at least
agreed in this, to resuscitate, to awaken remote and departed
ages. But thee they would have wished to bury. Yet why? Thou,
thou alone dost live.
Thou livest! I feel this truth perpetually impressed upon me
at the present period of the year, when my teaching is sus-
3
 PREFACE

pended,-when labour grows fatiguing, and the season becomes

oppressive. Then I wander to the Champ de Mars, I sit me
down on the parched grass, and inhale the strong breeze that
is wafted across the arid plain.
The Champ de Mars! This is the only monument that the
Revolution has left. The Empire has its Column, and engrosses
almost exclusively the arch of Triumph; royalty has its Louvre,
its Hospital of Invalids; the feudal church of the twelfth cen­
tury is still enthroned at Notre Dame: nay, the very Romans
have their Imperial Ruins, the Thermae of the Caesars!
And the Revolution has for her monument-empty space.
Her monument is this sandy plain, flat as Arabia. A tumulus
on either hand, resembling those which Gaul was accustomed
to erect,-obscure and equivocal testimonial to her heroes' fame.
The Herol do you mean him who founded the bridge of
Jena? No, there is one here greater even than he, more power­
ful and more immortal, who fills this immensity.
'What God? We know not. But here a God doth dwell."
Yes, though a forgetful generation dares to select this spot
for the theatre of its vain amusements, borrowed from a for­
eign land,-though the English race-horse may gallop insolently
over the plain, a mighty breath yet traverses it, such as you
nowhere else perceive; a soul, and a spirit omnipotent.
And though that plain be arid, and the grass be withered,
it will, one day, renew its verdure.
For in that soil is profoundly mingled the fruitful sweat of
their brows who, on a sacred day, piled up those hills,-that
day when, aroused by the cannon of the Bastille, France from
the North and France from the South came forward and em­
braced; that day when three million heroes in arms rose with
the unanimity of one man, and decreed eternal peace.
Alasl poor Revolution. How confidingly on thy first day didst
thou invite the world to love and peace. "0 my enemies,"
didst thou exclaim, "there are no longer any enemies!" Thou
didst stretch forth thy hand to all, and offer them thy cup to
drink to the peace of nations-but they would not.
And even when they advanced to inflict a treacherous
4
 Preface
wound, the sword drawn by France was the sword of peace.
It was to deliver the nations, and give them true peace­
Liberty-that she struck the tyrants. Dante asserts Eternal Love
to be the founder of the gates of hell. And thus the Revolution
wrote Peace upon her flag of war.
Her heroes, lier invincible warriors, were the most pacific
of human beings. Hoche, Marceau, Desaix, and Kleber, are
deplored by friends and foes, as the champions of peace; they
are mourned by the Nile, and by the Rhine, nay, by war itself,
-by the inflexible Vendee.
France had so completely identified herself with this thought,
that she did her utmost to restrain herself from achieving con­
quests. Every nation needing the same blessing-liberty,-and
pursuing the same right, whence could war possibly arise?
Could the Revolution, which, in its principle, was but the
triumph of right, the resurrection of justice, the tardy reaction
of thought against brute force,-could it, without provocation,
have recourse to violence?
This utterly pacific, benevolent, loving character of the Revo­
lution seems to-day a paradox:-so unknown is its origin, so
misunderstood its nature, and so obscured its tradition, in so
short a time!
The violent, terrible efforts which it was obliged to make,
in order not to perish in a struggle with the conspiring world,
have been mistaken for the Revolution itself by a blind, for­
getful generation.
And from this confusion has resulted a serious, deeply­
rooted evil, very difficult to cure among this people; the
adoration of force.
The force of resistance, the desperate effort to defend unity,
1793. They shudder, and fall on their knees.
The force of invasion and conquest, 1800; the Alps brought
low, and the thunder of Austerlitz. They fall prostrate, and
adore.
Shall I add, that, in 1815, with too much tendency to over­
value force, and to mistake success for a judgment of God, they
found at the bottom of their hearts, in their grief and their
5
 PREFACE

anger, a miserable argument for justifying their enemy. Many

whispered to themselves, "they are strong, therefore they are
just."
Thus, two evils, the greatest that can afHict a people, fell
upon France at once. Her own tradition slipped away from
her, she forgot herself. And, every day more uncertain, paler,
and more fleeting, the doubtful image of Right flitted before
her eyes.
Let us not take the trouble to inquire why this nation con­
tinues to sink gradually lower, and becomes more weak. Attrib­
ute not its decline to outward causes; let it not accuse either
heaven or earth; the evil is in itself.
The reason why an insidious tyranny was able to render it a
prey to corruption is, that it was itself corruptible. Weak and
unarmed, and ready for temptation, it had lost sight of the idea
by which alone it had been sustained; like a wretched man
deprived of sight, it groped its way in a miry road; it no longer
saw its star. What I the star of victory? No, the sun of Justice
and of the Revolution.
That the powers of darkness should have laboured through­
out the earth to extinguish the light of France, and to smother
Right, was natural enough. But, in spite of all their endeavours,
success was impossible. The wonder is, that the friends of light
should help its enemies to veil and extinguish it.
The party who advocate liberty have evinced, of late, two
sad and serious symptoms of an inward evil. Let them permit
a friend, a solitary writer, to tell them his entire mind.
A perfidiOUS, an odious hand,-the hand of death,-has been
offered and stretched out to them, and they have not with­
drawn their own. They believed the foes of religious liberty
might become the friends of political freedom. Vain scholastic
distinctions, which obscured their viewl Liberty is liberty.
And to please their enemy, they have proved false to their
friend-nay, to their own father, the great eighteenth century.
They have forgotten that that century had founded liberty on
the enfranchisement of the mind-till then bound down by the
flesh, bound by the material principle of the double incarna-
6
 Preface
tion, theological a�d political, kingly and sacerdotal. That
century, that of the spirit, abolished the gods of flesh in the
state and in religion, so that there was no longer any idol, and
there was no god but God.
Yet why have sincere friends of liberty fonned a league with
the party of religious tyranny? Because they had reduced them­
selves to a feeble minority. They were astonished at their own
insignificance, and dared not refuse the advances of a great
party which seemed to make overtures to them.
Our fathers did not act thus. They never counted their num­
ber. When Voltaire, a child, in the reign of Louis XIV. entered
upon the perilous career of religiOUS contention, he appeared
to be alone. Rousseau stood alone, in the middle of the century,
when, in the dispute between the Christians and the philos­
ophers, he ventured to lay down the new dogma. He stood
alone. On the morrow the whole world was with him.
If the friends of liberty see their numbers decreasing, they
are themselves to blame. Not a few have invented a system of
progressive refinement, of minute orthodoxy, which aims at
making a party a sect,-a petty church. They reject first this,
and then that; they abound in restrictions, distinctions, exclu­
sions. Some new heresy is discovered every day.
For heaven's sake, let us dispute less about the light of
Tabor, like besieged Byzantium-Mahomet II. is at our gates.
When the Christian sects became multiplied, we could find
Jansenists, Molinists, &c., in abundance, but no longer any
Christians; and so, the sects which are the offspring of the
Revolution annul the Revolution itself; people became Consti­
tuants, Girondists, Montagnards; but the Revolutionists ceased
to exist.
Voltaire is but little valued, Mirabeau is laid aside, Madame
Roland is excluded, even Danton is not orthodox. What! must
none remain but Robespierre and Saint-Just?
Without disavowing these two men, without wishing to judge
them yet, let one word suffice here: if the Revolution excludes
and condemns their predecessors, it excludes preCisely those
who gave it a hold upon mankind, those who for a moment
7
 PREFACE

made the whole world revolutionary. If it looks only to Robes­

pierre and Saint-Just, if it places the images of these two
apostles alone upon its altar, the conversion will be slow,
French propaganda will be no threat, absolute governments
may sleep in perfect security.
Fraternity! fraternity! It is not enough to re-echo the word
to attract the world to our cause, as was the case at first. It must
acknowledge in us a fraternal heart. It must be won over by
the fraternity of love, and not by the guillotine.
Fraternity! Why who, since the creation, has not pronounced
that word? Do you imagine it was first coined by Robespierre
or Mably?
Every state of antiquity talked of fraternity; but the word
was addressed only to citizens,-to men; the slave was but a
thing. And in this case fraternity was exclusive and inhuman.
When slaves or freed-men govern the Empire,-when they
are named Terence, Horace, Phedrus, Epictetus, it is difficult
not to extend fraternity to the slave. "Let us be brethren," cries
Christianity. But, to be a brother, one must first exist; man
had no being; right and liberty alone constitute life. A theory
from which these are excluded, is but a speculative fraternity
between nought and nought.
"Fraternity, or death," as the reign of Terror subsequently
exclaimed. Once more a brotherhood of slaves. Why, by atro­
cious derision, impart to such an union the holy name of liberty?
Brethren who mutually fly from one another, who shudder
when they meet, who extend, who withdraw a dead and icy
hand. 0 odious and disgusting sight! Surely, if anything ought
to be free, it is the fraternal sentiment.
Liberty alone, as founded in the last century, has rendered
fraternity possible. Philosophy found man without right, or
rather a nonentity, entangled in a religious and political sys­
tem, of which despotism was the base. And she said, "Let us
create man, let him be, by liberty." No sooner was he created
than he loved.
It is by liberty moreover, that our age, awakened and re­
called to its true tradition, may likewise commence its work.
8
 Preface
It will no longer inscribe amongst its laws, "Be my brother, or
die!" But by a skilful culture of the best sentiments of the
human soul, it will attain its ends in such a manner that all,
without compulsion, shall wish to be brothers indeed. The state
will realise its destiny, and be a fraternal initiation, an educa­
tion, a constant exchange of the spontaneous ideas of inspira­
tion and faith, which are common to us all, and of the reflected
ideas of science and meditation, which are found among
thinkers.l
Such is the task for our age to accomplish. May it at last
set about the work in earnest!
It would indeed be a melancholy reflection, if, instead of
achieving something great for itself, its time were wasted in
censuring that age-so renowned for its labours, and to which
It is so immensely indebted. Our fathers, we must repeat, did
all that it was necessary then to do,-began precisely as it was
incumbent on them to begin.
They found despotism in heaven and on earth, and they
instituted law. They found individual man disarmed, bare, un­
protected, confounded, lost in a system of apparent unity,
which was no better than common death. And in order that
he might have no appeal, even to the supreme tribunal, the

1 Initiation, education, government, are three synonymous words.

Housseau had some notion of this, when, speaking of the states of
IIntiquity, and of the crowd of great men produced by that little city of
Athens, he says, "They were less governments than the most fruitful
systems of education that have ever been." Unfortunately, the age of
I\ousseau invoking only deliberate reason, and but little analysing the
faculties of instinct, of inspiration, could not well discern the mutual
connexion which constitutes all the mystery of education, initiation, and
government. The masters of the Revolution, the philosophers, famous
antagonists, and very subtle, excellent logicians, were endowed with every
gift, except that profound simplicity which alone enables one to
(�omprehend the child and the people. Therefore, the Revolution could not
organise the grand revolutionary machine: I mean that which, better than
IIIWS, ought to found fraternity-education That will be the work of the
.

lIineteenth century; it has already entered upon it, in feeble attempts. In

my little book, The People, I have, as far as in me lay, vindicated the
rights of instinct-of inspiration-against her aristocratic sister, reflection,
t he reasoning science, that pretends to be the queen of the world.

9
 PREFACE

religious dogma of the day held him bound for the penalty of
a transgression which he had not committed; this eminently
carnal dogma supposed that injustice is transmitted with our
blood from father to son.
It was necessary, above all things, to vindicate the rights of
man, which were thus so cruelly outraged, and to reestablish
this truth, which, though obscured, was yet undeniable: "Man
has rights, he is something; he cannot be disowned or annulled,
even in the name of God; he is a responsible creature but for
his own actions alone, for whatever good or evil he himself
commits."
Thus does this false liability for the actions of others dis­
appear from the world. The unjust transmission of good, per­
petuated by the rights of the nobility; the unjust transmission
of evil, by original sin, or the civil brand of being descended
from sinners, are effaced by the Revolution.
o men of the present age, is this the creed you tax with
individualism-is this what you term an egotistical law? But,
remember, that without these rights of the individual, by which
alone man was constituted, he really had no existence, was
incapable of action, and man, therefore, could not fraternize.
It was actually necessary to abolish the fraternity of death to
found that of life.
Speak not of egotism. History will answer here, quite as
strongly as logic. It was at the first moment of the Revolution,
at the moment she was proclaiming the rights of the individual,
it was then that the soul of France, far from shrinking, ex­
tended, embraced the whole world in sympathetic thought:
then did she offer peace to all, and wish to participate with
all her treasure,-liberty.
The moment of birth, the entrance upon a still dubious life,
seems to justify a feeling of egotism in every being. We may
observe that the newly-born infant, above all things, wishes to
live, to prolong its existence. Yet, in the case before us, it was
far otherwise. When young French Liberty first opened her
eyes to the light, and uttered that earliest cry which transports
every new creature,-"I am!" even in that moment her thoughts

10
 Preface
were not confined to self; she did not indulge in a selfish joy,
she extended to mankind her life and her hope; her first im­
pulse, in her cradle, was to open her affectionate arms. "I amI"
she exclaimed to all nations; "0 my brethren, you shall be alsol"
In this lay her gloriOUS error, her touching and sublime weak­
ness: the Revolution, it must be confessed, commenced by
lOving everything.
She loved even her enemy,-England.
She loved, and long she strove to save, royalty-the key-stone
of the abuses which she had just demolished. She wanted to
save the Church; she endeavoured to remain Christian, being
wilfully blind to the contradiction of the old principle,-Arbi­
trary Grace, and of the new one,-Justice.
This universal sympathy which, at first, made her adopt, and
indiscreetly mingle so many contradictory elements, led her
to inconsistency,-to wish and not to wish, to do and undo, at
the same time. Such is the strange result of our early assemblies.
The world has smiled at that work of hers: but let it not
forget, that whatever was discordant in it, was partly owing
to the too easy sympathy, to the indiscriminate benevolence
which was the first feature in our Revolution.
Genius utterly humane I I love to follow and watch its
progress, in those admirable fetes wherein a whole people, at
once the actors and spectators, gave and received the impulse
of moral enthusiasm; wherein every heart expanded with all
the sublimity of France,-of a country which, for its law, pro­
claimed the rights of humanity.
At the festival of the 14th of July, 1792, among the sacred
images of Liberty and the Law,-in the civic procession,-in
which figured, together with the magistrates, the representa­
tives, the widows and orphans of those killed at the Bastille,­
were seen divers emblems,-those of trades useful to men,
instruments of agriculture, ploughs, sheaves, branches loaded
with fruits; and the bearers were crowned with ears of com
and green vine-leaves. But others also were seen in mourning,
crowned with cypress; they were carrying a table covered with
crape, and, under the crape, a veiled sword,-that of the lawl

11
 PREFACE

A touching image! Justice, showing her sword in mourning,

was no longer distinguished from Humanity herself.
A year after, the lOth of August, 1793, a very different fes­
tival was celebrated. This one was heroic and gloomy. But the
law had been mutilated; the legislative power had been vio­
lated; the judiciary power, unguaranteed and annulled, was
the slave of violence. They dared no longer show the sword;
it was no longer that of Justice; the eye could have borne it
no longer.
A thing to be told to everybody, and which it is but too easy
to prove, is, that the humane and benevolent period of our
Revolution had for its actors the very people, the whole people,
-everybody. And the period of violence, the period of san­
guinary deeds, into which danger afterwards thrust it, had for
actors but an inconsiderable, an extremely small number of
men.
That is what I have found established and verified, either by
written testimony, or by such as I have gathered from the lips
of old men.
The remarkable exclamation of a man who belonged to the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine will never die: "We were all of us at
the 10th of August, and not one at the 2nd of September."
Another thing which this history will render most conspic­
uous, and which is true of every party, is, that the people were
generally much better than their leaders. The further I have
searched, the more generally have I found that the more de­
serving class was ever underneath, buried among the utterly
obscure. I have also found that those brilliant, powerful speak­
ers, who expressed the thoughts of the masses, are usually but
wrongfully considered as the sole actors. The fact is, that they
rather received than communicated the impulse. The chief
actor is the people. In order to find and restore the latter to its
proper position, I have been obliged to reduce to their propor­
tions those ambitious puppets whom they had set in motion,
and in whom, till now, people fancied they saw, and have
sought for, the secret transactions of history.
This Sight, I must confess, struck me with astonishment. In
12
 Preface
proportion as I entered more deeply into this study, I observed
that the mere party leaders, those heroes of the prepared scene,
neither foresaw nor prepared anything, that they were never
the first proposers of any grand measure,-more particularly of
those which were the unanimous work of the people at the
outset of the Revolution.
Left to themselves, at those decisive moments, by their pre­
tended leaders, they found out what was necessary to be done,
and did it.
Great, astonishing results I But how much greater was the
heart which conceived them I The deeds themselves are as
nothing in comparison. So astonishing, indeed, was that great­
ness of heart, that the future may draw upon it for ever, with­
out fearing to exhaust its resources. No one can approach its
contemplation, without retiring a better man. Every soul de­
jected, or crushed with grief, every human or national heart
has but to look there in order to find comfort: it is a mirror
wherein humanity, in beholding itself, becomes once more
heroic, magnanimous, disinterested; a singular purity, shrinking
from the contamination of lucre as from filth, appears to be
the characteristic glory of all.
I am endeavouring to describe to-day that epoch of unanim­
ity, that holy period, when a whole nation, free from all party
distinction, as yet a comparative stranger to the opposition of
classes, marched together under a Hag of brotherly love. No­
body can behold that marvellous unanimity, in which the self­
same heart beat together in the breasts of twenty millions of
men, without returning thanks to God. These are the sacred
days of the world-thrice happy days for history. For my part,
I have had my reward, in the mere narration of them. Never,
since the composition of my Maid of Orleans, have I received
such a ray from above, such a vivid inspiration from Heaven.
But as "our thread of life is of a mingled yam," whilst I en­
joyed so much happiness in reviving the annals of France, my
own peace has been disturbed for ever. I have lost him who so
often narrated the scenes of the Revolution to me, him whom
I revered as the image and venerable witness of the Great Age,
13
 PREFACE

that is, of the eighteenth century. I have lost my father, with

whom I had lived all my life,-forty-eight years.
When that blow fell upon me, I was lost in contemplation. I
was elsewhere, hastily realizing this work, so long the object of
my meditation. I was at the foot of the Bastille, taking that
fortress, and planting our immortal banner upon its towers.
That blow came upon me, unforeseen, like a shot from the
Bastille.
Many of these important questions, which have obliged me
to fathom deeply the foundations of my faith, have been inves­
tigated by me during the most awful circumstances that can
attend human life, between death and the grave,-when the
survivor, himself partly dead, has been sitting in judgment
between two worlds. Then I resumed my course, even to the
conclusion of this work, whilst death and life had equal claims
upon my mind. I struggled to keep my heart in the closest
communion with justice, strengthening myself in my faith by
my very bereavements and my hopes; and, in proportion as my
own household gods were shattered, I clung to the home of
my native land.

14
INTRODUCTION
 FIRST PART

On the Religion of
the Middle Ages

SECTION I

IS THE REVOLUTION CHRISTIAN OR ANTI-CHRISTIAN ?

I define the Revolution,-The advent of the

Law, the resurrection of Right, and the reaction of Justice.
Is the Law, such as it appeared in the Revolution, conform­
able, or contrary, to the religious law which preceded it? In
other words, is the Revolution Christian or Anti-Christian?
This question, historically, logically, precedes every other. It
reaches and penetrates even those which might be believed to
be exclusively political. All the institutions of the civil order
which the Revolution met with, had either emanated from
Christianity, or were traced upon its forms, and authorised by
it. Religious or politicaL the two questions are deeply, inex­
tricably intermingled. Confounded in ,the past, they will re­
appear to-morrow as they really are, one and identical.
Socialists' disputes, ideas which seem to-day new and para­
doxical, were discussed in the bosom of Christianity and of the
Revolution. There are few of those ideas into which the two
systems have not deeply entered. The Revolution especially, in
her rapid apparition, wherein she realised so little, saw, by
the flashes of the lightning, unknown depths, abysses of the
future.

17
 INTRODUCnON

Therefore, in spite of the developments which theories have

been able to take, notwithstanding new forms and new words,
I see upon the stage but two grand facts, two principles, two
actors and two persons, Christianity and the Revolution.
He who would describe the crisis whence the new principle
emerged and made room for itself, cannot dispense with in­
quiring what relation it bears to its predecessor, in what
respects it continues or outsteps, sways or abolishes it:-a seri­
ous problem, which nobody has yet encountered face to face.
It is curious to see so many persons approaching, and yet
nobody willing to look at this question seriously. Even those
who believe, or pretend to believe, the question obsolete, show
plainly enough, by their avoiding it, that it is extant, present,
perilous, and formidable. If you are not afraid of the pit, why
do you shrink back? Why do you tum aside your head? There
is here, apparently, a power of dangerous attraction, at which
the brain grows giddy.
Our great politicians have also, we must say, a mysterious
reason for avoiding these questions. They believe that Christi­
anity is still a great party, that it is better to treat it cautiously.
Why fall out with it? They prefer to smile at it, keeping them­
selves at a distance, and to act politely towards it, without
compromising themselves. They believe, moreover, that the
religiOUS world is generally very simple, and that to keep it in
play, it is merely sufficient to praise the Gospel a little. That
does not engage them very deeply. The Gospel, in its gentle
morality, contains hardly any of the dogmas which make Chris­
tianity a religion so positive, so assuming, and so absorbing, so
strong in its grasp upon man. All the philosophers, of every
religion, of every philosophy, would subscribe, without diffi­
culty, to the precepts of the Gospel. To say, with the Mahom­
etans, that Jesus is a great prophet, is not being a Christian.
Does the other party expostulate? Does the zeal of God
which devours them, fill their hearts with serious indignation
against this trifling of politicians? Not so; they declaim much,
but only about minor matters, being but too happy so long as

18
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
they are not molested in what is fundamental. The conduct of
politicians, often trilling and occasionally savouring of irony,
does not grieve them much. They pretend not to understand
the question. Ancient as that party is, it has still a strong hold
upon the world. Whilst their opponents are occupied in their
parliamentary displays, ever rolling their useless wheel and
exhausting themselves without advancing, that old party still
holds possession of all that constitutes the basis of life-the
family and the domestic hearth, woman, and, through her
instrumentality, the child. They who are the most hostile to this
party, nevertheless abandon to its influence all they love, and
all that makes them happy. They surrender to it every day the
infant, man unarmed and feeble, whose mind, still dreaming,
is incapable of defending itself. This gives the 'party many
chances. Let it but keep and fortify this vast, mute, undisputed
empire, its case is all the better; it may grumble and complain,
but it will take good care never to drive politicians to a state­
ment of their belief.
Politicians on either side! connivance against connivance!
Where shall I turn to find the friends of truth?
The friends of the holy and the just? Does the world then
contain no one who cares for God?
Children of Christianity, you who claim to be faithful, we
here adjure you. Thus to pass by God in silence, to omit in
every disputation what is truly the faith, as something too
dangerous, offensive to the ear-is this religion?
One day, when I was conversing with one of our best bishops
on the contradictions between Grace and Justice, which is the
very basis of the Christian faith, he stopped me and said:
"This question luckily no longer engages the attention of men.
On that subject we enjoy repose and silence. Let us maintain
it, and never go beyond. It is superfluous to return to that
discussion."
Yet that discussion, my lord, is no less than the question,
whether Grace and Salvation through Christ, the only basis of
Christianity, is reconcilable with justice; it is to examine

19
 INTRODUcnON

whether such a dogma is founded on justice, whether it can

subsist. Nothing lasts against justice. Does, then, the duration
of Christianity appear to you an accessory question?
I well know, that after a debate of several centuries, after
heaps of distinctions and scholastic subtleties had been piled
together, without throwing light on the question, the pope si­
lenced all parties, judging, like my bishop, that the question
might be laid aside with no hope of settling the matter, and
leaving justice and injustice in the arena to make up matters
as they could.
This is much more than has ever been done by the greatest
enemies of Christianity. To say the least, they have always
been respectful enough to examine the question, and not put
it out of court without deigning to grant it a hearing.
For how could we, who have no inimical feelings, reject
examination and debate? Ecclesiastical prudence, the trifling
of politicians, and their avoiding the question, do not suit us in
the least. We owe it to Christianity to see how far it may be
reconcilable with the Revolution, to know what regeneration
the old principle may find in the bosom of the new one. We
have desired fervently and heartily that it would transform
itself and live again! In what sense can this transformation be
achieved? What hope ought we to entertain that it is possible?
As the historian of the Revolution, I cannot, without this
inquiry, advance one step. But even though I were not invin­
cibly impelled towards it by the very nature of my subject, I
should be urged to the investigation by my own heart. The
miserable reluctance to grapple with the difficulty which either
party evinces, is one of the overwhelming causes of our moral
debasement,-a combat of condottieri, in which nobody fights;
they advance, retire, menace, without touching one another,­
contemptible sight! As long as fundamental questions remain
thus eluded, there can be no progress, either religious or social.
The world is waiting for a faith, to march forward again, to
breathe and to live. But, never can faith have a beginning in
deceit, cunning, or treaties of falsehood.
Single-handed and free from prejudices, I will attempt, in

20
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
my weakness, what the strong do not venture to perfor.qt. I
will fathom the question from which they recoil, and I shall
attain, perhaps, before I die, the prize of life; namely, to dis­
cover the truth, and to tell it according to one's heart.
Engaged as I am in the task of describing the heroic days of
Liberty, I may venture to entertain a hope that she herself
may deign to support me,-accomplish her own work through
the medium of this my book, and lay the deep foundation upon
which a better age may build the faith of the future.

SECTION II

IS THE REVOLUTION THE FULFILLING OF CHRISTIANITY?

SEVERAL eminent writers, with a laudable wish

for peace and reconciliation, have lately affirmed that the Revo­
lution was but the accomplishment of Christianity,-that it
came to continue and to realize the latter, and to make good
all it had promised.
If this assertion be well founded, the eighteenth century, the
philosophers, the precursors, the masters of the Revolution,
have grievously erred, and have acted very differently from
their real intentions. Generally, they aimed at anything rather
than the accomplishment of Christianity.
If the Revolution consisted in that, and nothing more, it
would then not be distinct from Christianity, but the actual
time of its existence, its virile age-its age of reason. It would be
nothing in itself. In this case, there would not be two actors,
but one,-Christianity. If there be but one actor, then no drama,
no crisis; the struggle we believe we see, is a mere illusion; the
world seems to be agitated, but, in reality, is motionless.
But no, it is not so. The struggle is but too real. There is no
sham fight here between one and the same person. There are
two distinct combatants.
Neither must it be said that the new principle is but a
criticism on the old one,-a doubt, a mere negation. Who ever

21
 INTRODUCTION

saw a negation? What is a living, an acting negation, one that

vivifies like this? A world sprang forth from it yesterday. No :
in order to produce, there must be existence.
Therefore, there are two things here, and not one,-it is
impossible to deny it. There are two principles, two spirits-the
old and the new.
In vain the former, confident of life, and for this reason so
much the more pacific, would whisper to the latter: "I come
to fulfil, and not to abolish." The old principle has no manner
of wish to be fulfilled. The very word sounds ominous and
sepulchral; it rejects that filial benediction, and desires neither
tears nor prayers; it flings aside the branch that is shaken over
it.
We must keep clear of misunderstandings, if we would know
whither we are going.
The Revolution continues Christianity, and it contradicts it.
It is, at the same time, its heir and its adversary.
In sentiment, and in all that is general and human between
them, the two principles agree, but in all that constitutes very
and special life,-in the operations of the mind, from which
both derive their birth,-they are adverse and thwart each
other.
They agree in the sentiment of human fraternity. This senti­
ment, born with man,-with the world, common to every soci­
ety, has nevertheless been made more extensive and profound
by Christianity. This is its glory, its eternal palm. It found
fraternity confined to the banquets of ancient states; it ex­
tended its influence, and spread it throughout the vast Chris­
tian world. In her tum, the Revolution, the daughter of
Christianity, has taught its lessons to the whole world, to every
race, and to every religion under the sun.
This is the whole of the resemblance. Now for the difference.
The Revolution founds fraternity on the love of man for
man, on mutual duty,-on Right and Justice. This base is funda­
mental, and no other is necessary.
It did not seek to add to this certain principle one derived
from dubious history. It did not ground fraternity on a common

22
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
relationship,-a filiation which transmits, with our blood, the
participation of crime from father to son.
This carnal, material principle, which introduces justice and
injustice into the blood, and transmits them, with the tide of
life, from one generation to another, violently contradicts the
spiritual notion of Justice which is implanted in the depths of
the human soul. No; Justice is not a fluid, to be transmitted with
generation. Will alone is just or unjust; the heart alone feels
itself responsible. Justice is entirely in the soul; the body has
nothing to do with it.
This barbarous material starting-point is astounding in a re­
ligion that has carried the subtlety of the dogma farther than
any other. It impresses upon the whole system a profound
character of arbitrariness, from which no subtlety will be able
to extricate it. Arbitrariness reaches, penetrates the develop­
ments of the dogma, all the religious institutions which are
derived from it; and, lastly, the civil order, which, in the mid­
dle ages, is itself derived from those institutions, imitates its
forms and is swayed by its spirit.
Let us consider this grand sight:
I. The starting-point is this: Crime comes from one alone,
salvation from one alone; Adam has lost, Christ has saved.
He has saved I Why? Because he wanted to save. No other
motive. No virtue, no work of man, no human merit can de­
serve this prodigious sacrifice of God saCrificing himself. He
gives himself, but for nothing : that is the miracle of love; he
asks of man no work,-no anterior merit.
II. What does he require in return for this immense sacri­
fice? One single thing: people to believe in him, to believe
themselves indeed saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Faith is
the condition of salvation, and not the works of justice.
No justice without faith. Whoever does not believe is unjust.
Is justice without faith of any use? No.
Saint Paul, in laying down this prinCiple of salvation by
faith alone, has dismissed the case for justice. Henceforth she
is, at most only an accessory, a sequel, one of the effects of
faith.

23
 INTRODUCTION

III. Having once qUitted justice, we must ever go on de­

scending into the arbitrary.
Believe, or perish! The question being thus laid down, peo­
ple discover with terror that they will perish, that salvation is
attached to a condition independent of the will. We do not
believe as we will.
Saint Paul had laid down that man can do nought by good
works, but only by faith. Saint Augustine demonstrates man's
helplessness with respect to faith as well. God alone gives it;
he gives it even gratuitously, without requiring anything,
neither faith nor justice. This gratuitous gift, this grace, is the
only cause of salvation. God gives grace to whom he pleases.
Saint Augustine has said: <1 believe, because it is absurd." He
might also say in this system : eel believe, because it is unjust."
Necessity goes no further. The system is consummated. God
loves; no other explanation; he loves whom he pleases, the
least of all, the sinner, the least deserving. Love is its own
reason; it requires no merit.
What then would be merit, if we may still employ this word?
To be loved, the elect of God, predestined to salvation.
And demerit, damnation! To be hated by God, condemned
beforehand, created for damnation.
Alas ! we believed just now that humanity was saved. The
sacrifice of a God seemed to have blotted out the sins of the
world. No more judgment, no more justice. Blind that we were!
we were rejoicing, believing justice drowned in the blood of
Jesus Christ. And lo! judgment re-appears more harsh,-a judg­
ment without justice, or at least the justice of which will be
hidden from us for ever. The elect of God, the favourite, re­
ceives from him, with the gift of faith, the gift of doing good
works,-the gift of salvation. That justice should be a gift! For
our part, we had thought it was active, the very act of the will.
Yet here we have it passive, transmitted as a present, from
God to the elect of his heart.
This doctrine, harshly formulated by the Protestants, is no
less that of the Catholic world, such as it is acknowledged by
the Council of Trent.

24
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
If graee ( it says with the apostle ) wete not gratuitous, as its
very name implies, if it ought to be merited by works of
righteousness, it would be righteousness, and no longer grace.
( Cone. Trid., sess. vi. cap. viii. )
Such, says that council, has been the permanent belief of the
church. And it could not be otherwise; it is the groundwork of
Christianity; beyond that, there is philosophy, but no longer
religion. The latter is the religion of grace,-of gratuitous, arbi­
trary salvation, and of the good pleasure of God.
Great was the embarrassment when Christianity, with this
doctrine opposed to justice, was called to govern, to judge the
world,-when Jurisprudence descended from her praetorium,
and said to the new faith: "Judge in my place."
Then were people able to see at the bottom of this doctrine,
which seemed to be sufficient for the world, an abyss of in­
sufficiency, uncertainty, and discouragement.
If he remained faithful to the prinCiple that salvation is a
gift, and not the reward of Justice, man would have folded his
arms, sat down, and waited; for well he knew that his works
could have no influence on his lot. All moral activity ceased in
this world. And how could civil life, order, human justice, be
maintained? God loves, and no longer judges. How shall man
judge? Every judgment, religious or political, is a flagrant con­
tradiction in a religion founded solely on a dogma foreign to
justice.
Without justice one cannot live. Therefore, the Christian
world must put up with the contradiction. This introduces into
many things something false and wrong; and this double posi­
tion is only surmounted by means of hypocritical formulae. The
church judges, yet judges not; kills, yet kills not. She has a
horror of shedding blood; therefore she burns-What do I say?
She does not burn. She hands over the culprit to another to
burn, and adds moreover a little prayer, as if to intercede-a
terrible comedy, wherein Justice, false and cruel justice, as­
sumes the mask of grace I
A strange punishment of the excessive ambition which de­
sired more than justice, and yet despised itl This church has

25
 INTRODUCfION

remained without justice. When, in the middle ages, she sees

the latter reviving again, she wants to draw nearer to her. She
tries to speak like her, to assume her language; she avows that
man can do something towards his salvation by works of right­
eousness. Vain efforts I Christianity can be reconciled with
Papinian only by withdrawing from Saint Paul-quitting its
proper base, and leaning aside at the risk of losing its equilib­
rium and being dashed to atoms.
Having the arbitrary for a starting-point, this system must
remain in the arbitrary; it cannot step beyond it,! All the
spurious attempts by which schoolmen, and others also since
their time, have vainly attempted to institute a dogma founded
upon reason, that is to say, a philosophical and jurist Christi­
anity, must be discarded. They are devoid alike of virtue and
strength. We can take no notice of them; they have passed into
silence and oblivion. We must examine the system in itself, in
its terrible purity, which constituted all its strength; we must
follow it through its reign in the middle ages, and, above all
things, mark its progress at the period when at length fixed,
armed, and inflexible, it exercised a sway over the whole world.

1 At the present day, people despair of reconciling these different views.

They no longer attempt to make peace between the dogma and justice.
They manage matters better. Now they show it, now they conceal it. To
simple confiding persons, to women, to children, whom they keep docile
and obedient, they teach the old doctrine which places a terrible
arbitrariness in God and in the man of God, and gives up the trembling
creature defenceless to the priest. This terror is ever the faith and the law
of the latter; the sword ever remains keen-edged for those poor hearts.
If, on the contrary, they speak to the strong, to thinkers and politicians,
they suddenly become indulgent: "Is Christianity, after all, anywhere but
in the Gospel? Axe faith and philosophy so at variance? The old dispute
between Grace and Justice (that is, the question of knowing whether
Christianity be just ) is quite obsolete."
This double policy has two effects, and both fatal. It weighs heavily
upon woman, upon the child, upon the family, in which it creates discord,
maintaining in opposition two contrary authorities,-two fathers.
It weighs heavily upon the world by a negative power, which does little,
but which impedes, especially by the facility of presenting either of two
aspects,-to some the elastic morality of the Gospel, to others immutable
fatality, adorned with the name of grace. Hence, many a misunderstand­
ing. Hence, many are tempted to connect modern faith,-that of Justice
and the Revolution,-with the dogma of ancient injustice.
26
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
A sombre doctrine this, which, at the destruction of the
Homan empire, when civil order perished and human justice
was, as it were, effaced, shut out all appeal to the supreme
tribunal, and for a thousand years veiled the face of eternal
justice.
The iniquity of conquest confirmed by decrees from God,
becomes authorised and believes itself just. The conquerors
ure the elect, the conquered are the damned. Damnation with·
out appeal. Ages may pass away and conquest be forgotten;
but Heaven, devoid of justice, will not the less oppress the
earth, though formed in its own image. Necessity, which con­
stitutes the basis of this theology, will everywhere reappear
with desperate fidelity in the political institutions, even in those
wherein man had thought to build an asylum for justice. All
monarchies, divine and human, govern for their elect.
Where then shall man take refuge? Grace reigns alone in
heaven, and favour here below. That Justice, twice proscribed
and banished, should venture to raise her head, requires indeed
Il difficult effort ( so completely is the common sense of man
extinguished beneath the weight of woes and the oppression
of ages ) ; it is necessary, in fact, that Justice should once more
believe herself just, that she should arouse, remember herself,
and resume the consciousness of right. This consciousness,
slowly endeavouring to awake throughout a period of six cen·
turies of religious efforts, burst forth in the year 1789 in the
political and social world.
The Revolution is nothing but the tardy reaction of justice
against the government of favour and the religion of grace.

SECTION III

LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES

IF you have sometimes travelled among moun·

tains, you may perhaps have observed the same spectacle
which I once met with.

27
 INTRODUCITON

From among a confused heap of rocks piled together, amid

a landscape diversified with trees and verdure, towered a gigan­
tic peak. That object, black, bare, and solitary, was but too
eVidently thrown up from the deep bowels of the earth. En­
livened by no verdure, no season changed its aspect; the very
birds would hardly venture to alight on it, as if they feared to
singe their wings on touching the mass which was projected
from earth's central fire. That gloomy evidence of the throes
of the interior world seemed still to muse over the scene, re­
gardless of surrounding objects, without ever rousing from its
savage melancholy.
What were then the subterraneous revolutions of the earth,
what incalculable powers combated in its bosom, for that mass,
disturbing mountains, piercing through rocks, shattering beds
of marble, to burst forth to the surface! What convulsions, what
agony forced from the entrails of the globe that prodigious
groan!
I sat down, and from my eyes tears of anguish, slow and
painful, began to How. Nature had but too well reminded me
of history. That chaos of mountain heaps oppressed me with
the same weight which had crushed the heart of man through­
out the middle ages; and in that desolate peak, which from her
inmost bowels the earth had hurled towards heaven, I saw
pictured the despair and the cry of the human race.
That Justice should have borne for a thousand years that
mountain of dogma upon her heart, and, crushed beneath its
weight, have counted the hours, the days, the years, so many
long years-is, for him who knows it, a source of eternal tears.
He who through the medium of history has participated in that
long torture, will never entirely recover from it; whatever may
happen he will be sad; the sun, the joy of the world, will never
more afford him comfort; he has lived too long in sorrow and in
darkness; and my very heart bled in contemplating the
long resignation, the meekness, the patience, and the efforts
of humanity to love that world of hate and malediction under
which it was crushed.
When man, resigning liberty and justice as something use-

28
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
less, entrusted himself blindly to the hands of Grace, and saw
it becoming concentrated on an imperceptible POint,-that is
to say the privileged, the elect,-and saw all other beings,
whether on earth or under the earth, lost for eternity, you
would suppose there arose everywhere a howl of blasphemyl
-No, only a groan.
And these affecting words : «If thou wilt that I be damned,
thy will be done, 0 LordI"
Then peaceful, submissive, and resigned, they folded them­
selves in the shroud of damnationI
This is, indeed, serious, worthy of remembrance; a thing
which theology had never foreseen. It had taught that the
damned could do nothing but hat�. But these still loved. These
damned souls trained themselves to love the elect, their mas­
ters. The priest, the lord, those chosen children of heaven,
found, for ages, only meekness, dOcility, love, and confidence
In that humble people. They served, they suffered, in silence;
trod upon, they returned thanks; they did not sin even with
their lips, as did the saintly Job.
What preserved them from death? One thing, we must say,
which reanimated, refreshed the sufferer in his long torment.
That astonishing meekness of soul which he preserved, gave
him bliss; from that heart, so wounded, yet so good, sprang
n living source of lovely and tender fancy, a Hood of popular
religion to counteract the dryness of the other. Watered by
those fruitful streams, the legend Hourished and grew; it
IIhaded the unfortunate with its compassionate Howers-Howers
of the native soil, blossoms of the fatherland, which somewhat
refreshed and occasionally buried in oblivion Byzantine meta­
physics and the theology of death.
Yet death was beneath ' those Howers. The patron, the good
lIaint of the place, was not potent enough to defend his protege
against a dogma of dread. The Devil hardly waited till man
expired in order to seize him. He beset him living. He was the
lord of this world; man was his property, his fief. It appeared
110 but too plainly in the social order of the time.
What a constant temptation to despair and doubtl How

29
 INTRODUcrrON
bondage here below was, with all its miseries, the beginning,­
the foretaste of eternal damnation! First, a life of suffering;
next, for consolation, hell!-Damned beforehand!-Then,
wherefore those comedies of Judgment represented in the
church-porches! Is it not barbarous to keep in uncertainty,
in dreadful anxiety, ever suspended over the abyss, him who,
before his birth, is adjudged to the bottomless pit, is due to it,
and belongs to it?
Before his birth!-The infant, the innocent, created expressly
for hell! Nay, did I say the innocent? This is the horror of the
system; innocence is no more. I know not, but I boldly and
unhesitatingly affirm this to be the insoluble knot at which the
human soul stopped short, and patience was staggered.
The infant damned! I have elsewhere pointed out that deep,
frightful wound of the maternal heart. I pointed it out, and
again drew the veil over it. In exploring its depths we should
find there much more than the terrors of death.
Thence it was, believe me, that the first sigh arose. Of protes­
tation? No! And yet, unknown to the heart whence it escaped,
there was a terrible remonstrance in that humble, low, ago­
nising groan.
So low, but so heart-rending! The man who heard it at night,
slept no more-not for many a night after: and in the morning,
before day-light, he went to his furrow; and there found many
things were changed. He found the valley and the field of
labour lower-much lower,-deep, like a sepulchre; and the
two towers in the horizon more lofty-more gloomy and heavy;
gloomy the church-steeple, and dismal the feudal castle. Then
he began to comprehend the sounds of the two bells. The
church-bell murmured, Ever; that of the donjon, Never. But, at
the same time, a mighty voice spoke louder in his heart. That
voice cried, One day! And that was the voice of God! One day
justice shall return! Leave those idle bells; let them prate to
the wind. Be not alarmed with thy doubt. That doubt is already
faith. Believe, hope! Right, though postponed, shall have its
advent; it will come to sit in judgment, on the dogma and on
the world. And that day of Judgment will be called the Rev­
olution.

30
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages

SECTION IV

THE CLERGY AND THE PEOPLE

I have often asked myself, whilst pursuing the

dismal study of the middle ages, through paths full of thorns
"tristis usque ad mortem," how a religion, which is the mildest
In its principle, and has its starting-point in love itself, could
over have covered the world with that vast sea of blood?
Pagan antiquity, entirely warlike, murderous, and destruc­
tive, had been lavish of human life, unconscious of its value.
Youthful and merciless, beautiful and cold, like the virgin of
Tauris, she killed and remained unmoved. You do not find in
her grand immolations so much passion, inveteracy, or fury of
hate, as characterise, in the middle ages, the combats and the
vengeances of the religion of love.
The first reason which I have assigned for this, in my book
Du Pretre, is the prodigious intoxication of pride which this
helief gives to its elect. What maddening dizziness! Every day,
to make God descend upon the altar, to be obeyed by God!­
Shall I say it? ( I hesitated for fear of blaspheming ) to make
God! How shall he be called who does this miracle of miracles
overy day? A God? That would not be enough.
The more strange, unnatural, and monstrous this greatness,
the more uneasy and full of misgiving is he who pretends to
It: he seems to me as though he were sitting on the steeple of
Strasburg, upon the point of the cross. Imagine his hatred and
violence towards any man who dares to touch him, shake him,
or try and make him descend!-Descend? There is no descend­
Ing. He must fall from such a place,-he must fall; but so heavy
Is the fall, that it would bury him into the earth.
You may be sure that if, to maintain his position, he can
destroy the world by a gesture; if he can exterminate with a
word what God created with a word, the world will be extermi­
tlated.
This state of uneasiness, anger, and trembling hate explains

31
 INTRODUCTION

alone the incredible fury of the church in the middle ages, in

proportion as she beheld her rival, Justice, arise against her.
The latter was scarcely perceptible at first. Nothing was
so low, so minute, so humble. A paltry blade of grass, for­
gotten in the furrow; even stooping, you would hardly have
perceived it.
Justice, thou who wast lately so feeble, how canst thou grow
so fast! If I but turn aside a moment, I know thee no longer.
I find thee every hour grown ten cubits higher. Theology
quakes, reddens with anger, and turns pale.
Then begins a terrible, frightful struggle, beyond the power
of language to express. Theology flinging aside the demure
mask of grace, abdicating, denying herself, in order to annihi­
late Justice, striving to absorb-to destroy her within herself,
to swallow her up. Behold them standing face to face; which
of them, at the end of this mortal combat, is found to have
absorbed, incorporated, assimilated the other?
Let the revolutionary reign of Terror beware of comparing
herself with the Inquisition. Let her never boast of having, in
her two or three years, paid back to the old system what it
did to us for six hundred years! The Inquisition would have
good cause to laugh! What are the twelve thousand men guil­
lotined by the one, to the millions of men butchered, hanged,
broken on the wheel,-to that pyramid of burning stakes,-to
those masses of burnt flesh, which the other piled up to heaven.
The Inquisition in one single province of Spain calculates, ac­
cording to an authentic monument, that in sixteen years it
burned twenty thousand men! But why speak of Spain, rather
than of the Albigenses, of the Vaudois of the Alps, of the Beg­
gars of Flanders, of the Protestants of France, or of the horrible
crusade against the Hussites, and so many nations whom the
pope abandoned to the sword?
History will inform us that in her most ferocious and impla­
cable moments the Revolution trembled at the thought of
aggravating death, that she shortened the sufferings of victims,
removed the hand of man, and invented a machine to abridge
the pangs of death.

32
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
And it will also inform us that the church of the middle ages
exhausted herself in inventions to augment suffering, to render
it poignant, intense; that she found out exquisite arts of tor­
ture, ingenious means to contrive that, without dying, one might
long taste of death-and that, being stopped in the path by
inflexible nature, who, at a certain degree of pain, mercifully
�rants death, she wept at not being able to make man suffer
longer.
I cannot, I will not agitate that sea of blood. If God allow
me one day to touch it, that blood shall boil again with life,
flow in torrents to drown false history and the hired flatterers
of murder, to fill their lying mouths.
Well do I know that the greater part of those grand
hutcheries can no longer be related. They have burnt the books,
hllrnt the men, burnt the calcined bones. over again, and flung
away the ashes. When, for instance, shall I recover the history
of the Vaudois, or of the Albigenses? The day when I shall
have the history of the star that I saw falling to-night. A
world, a whole world has sunk, perished, both men and things.
A poem has been recovered, and bones have been found at the
bottom of caverns; but no names, no signs. Is it with these
sad remnants that I can form that history again? Let our
enemies triumph that they have rendered us powerless, and
at having been so barbarous that one cannot, with certainty,
recount their barbarities I At least the desert speaks,-the
desert of Languedoc, the solitudes of the Alps, the unpeopled
mountains of Bohemia, and so many other places, where man
has disappeared, where the earth has become sterile for ever,
nnd where Nature, after man, seems itself exterminated.
But one thing cries louder than all their destructions ( and
this one thing is authentic ) , which is, that the system which
killed in the name of a principle, in the name of a faith, made
l ise indifferently of two opposite principles,-the tyranny of
kings, and the blind anarchy of nations. In one single century,
the sixteenth, Rome changed three times, throwing herself now
to the right, now to the left, without either prudence or de­
cency. First, she gives herself up to the kings; next, she throws
33
 INTRODUCTION

herself into the anns of the people; then again, she returns to
the kings. Three lines of policy, but one aim. How attained?
No matter. What aim? To destroy the power of thought.
A writer has discovered that the pope's nuncio had no fore­
knowledge of the Saint Bartholomew massacre. And I have
discovered that the pope had prepared it,-worked at it, for
ten years.
"A trifle," says another, "a mere local affair, a vengeance
of Paris."
In spite of the utter disgust, the contempt, the sickness,
which these theories occasion me, I have confronted them with
the records of history, with unexceptionable documents. And
I have found far and near, the blood-red traces of the mas­
sacre. I can prove that, from the day when Paris proposed
(1561) the general sale of the goods of the clergy, from the
day when the church beheld the king wavering, and tempted
by the hopes of that booty, she turned hastily, violently towards
the people, and employed every means in her power, by preach­
ing, by alms, by different influences, and by her immense
connection, her converts, trades-people, and mendicants, to
organize the massacre.
"A popular affair," say you. True. But tell us also by what
diabolical scheme, by what infernal perseverance, you worked
during the space of ten years to pervert the understanding of
the people, to excite and drive them mad.
o spirit of cunning and murder! I have lived too many cen­
turies in face of thee, throughout the middle ages, for thee
ever to deceive me. After having so long denied justice and
liberty, thou didst assume their name for thy shout of war. In
their name thou didst work a rich mine of hate,-that eternal
melancholy which inequality implants in the heart of man, the
envy of the poor for the rich. Thou tyrant, thou proprietor,
and the most ravenous in the world, didst unhesitatingly em­
brace on a sudden, and exceed, with one bound, the most
impracticable theories of the Levellers.
Before the Saint Bartholomew massacre, the clergy used to
say to the people, in order to excite them, "The Protestants
34
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
Clre nobles, provincial gentlemen." That was true; the clergy
having already exterminated, stifled Protestantism in the towns.
The castles alone being safe against attack, were still able to
remain Protestant. But read of their earlier martyrs; they were
the inhabitants of towns, petty tradesmen, and workmen. Those
creeds which were pointed out to the hatred of people as those
of the aristocracy, had sprung from the very people. Who does
not know that Calvin was the son of a cooper?
It would be too easy for me to show how all this has been
misrepresented in our time by writers subservient to the clergy,
lind then copied without consideration. I wanted only to show,
by one example, the ferocious address with which the clergy
urged the people, and made for themselves a deadly weapon of
social jealousy. The detail would be curious; I regret to post­
pone it. I could tell you the plans resorted to, in order to work
the ruin of an individual-or a set of men; calumny, skilfully
directed by a special press, slowly manipulated in the schools
lind seminaries, especially in the parlours of convents, directly
Intrusted ( in order to be more quickly diffused ) to penitents,
to the suborned trades-people of the curates and canons, was
put in motion among the people. How it worked itself into
fury in those establishments of gluttony, termed Brotherhoods,
to which, among other things, they abandoned the immense
wealth of the hospitals. Low, paltry, miserable details, but
without which the wholesale murders perpetrated by a Catholic
rabble would remain incomprehensible.
Occasionally, if it was sought to destroy a man of repute,
superior art was added to these manoeuvres. By means of
money or intimidation, some talented writer was found and
let loose upon him. Thus, the king's confessor, to succeed in
getting Vallee burnt, made Ronsard write against him. And
so to ruin Theophile, the confessor instigated Balzac, who could
not forgive Theophile for having drawn his sword for him, and
saved him from personal chastisement.
In our own times, I have had an opportunity of noticing how
the same set, in the name of the Church, arouse and foster
hatred and disturbance in the breasts of the obscure and lower
35
 INTRODUCTION

orders,-the very dregs of society. I once saw, in a city of

the west, a young professor of philosophy, whom the eccle­
siastics wanted to expel from his chair, followed, and pointed
at in the street by a mob of women. What did they know
about philosophical questions? Nothing, save what they were
taught in the confessional. They were not less furious on that
account, standing before their doors, pointing, and shouting:
"There he is!"
In a large city in eastern France, I was witness to another,
and, perhaps, stilI more odious spectacle. An old Protestant
pastor, almost blind, who, every day, and often several times
in the day, was followed and insulted by the children of a
school, who pulled him behind, and strove to throw him down.
That is their usual way of beginning their game; by innocent
agents, against whom you cannot defend yourself,-little chil­
dren, women. On more favourable occasions, in unenlightened
provinces, easy to be excited, men take a share in the game.
The master, who holds to the church, as a member of some
confrerie, as a tradesman or a lodger, grumbles, shouts, cabals,
and collects a mob. The journeyman and the valet get drunk
to do mischief; the apprentice follows-surpasses them-strikes,
without knowing why,-the very children sometimes assas­
sinate.
Next come false reasoners, foolish theorists, to baptize this
pious assassination with the name of fustice of the people, to
canonize the crime perpetrated by tyrants in the name of
liberty.
Thus it was, that, in the selfsame day, they found means to
slaughter, with one blow, all that formed the honour of France,
the first philosopher of the age, the first sculptor, and the first
musician,-Ramus, Jean Goujon, and Goudimel. How much
rather would they have butchered our great jurisconsult, the
enemy of Rome and the Jesuits, the genius of the law,
Dumoulin!
Happily, he was safe. He had spared them a crime; his
noble life had taken refuge in God. But, before that time,
he had seen riots organised four times by the clergy against

36
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
him and his home. That holy temple of study four times
violated and pillaged, his books profaned and dispersed, his
manuscripts, irreparable patrimony of mankind, flung into the
glitter and destroyed. They have not destroyed Justice; the liv­
Ing spirit contained in those books was emancipated by the
f1nmes; it expanded and pervaded everything, impregnating the
very atmosphere, so that, thanks to the murderous fury of
fanaticism, they could breathe no air but that of equity.

SECTION V

HOW FREE-THINKERS ESCAPED

AFTER a grand festival, a great carnage in the

Coliseum of Rome, when the sand had been moistened with
hlood, and the lions were lying down, cloyed, surfeited with
human flesh, then, in order to divert the people, to distract
their attention a little, a farce was enacted. An egg was put
Into the hand of a miserable slave condemned to the wild
beasts; and then he was cast into the arena. If he managed to
reach the end, if, by good fortune, he succeeded in carrying his
ogg and laying it upon the altar, he was saved. The distance
was not great, but how far it seemed to him! Those brutes,
glutted, asleep, or just going to sleep, would nevertheless, at the
sound of the light footstep, raise their heavy eyelids, and yawn
fearfully, in doubt apparently whether they ought to interrupt
their repose for such ridiculous prey. He, half dead with fear,
Ntooping, shrinking, cringing, as if to sink into the earth, would
hnve exclaimed, doubtless, could he have given utterance to his
thought: "Alas! alas! noble lions, I am so meagre! Pray allow
this living skeleton to pass; it is a meal unworthy of you."
Never did any buffoon, any mimic, produce such an effect
IIpon the people; the extraordinary comical contortions and
ngonies of fear convulsed all the spectators with laughter; they
rolled on their benches in the excess of their mirth; it was a
fearful tempest of merriment-a roar of joy.
37
 INTRODUCTION

I am obliged to say, in spite of every consideration, that

this spectacle was revived towards the close of the middle
ages, when the old principle, furious at the thought of dying,
imagined it would still have time to annihilate human thought.
Once more, as in the Coliseum, miserable slaves were seen
carrying among wild beasts, uncloyed, unglutted, furious,
atrocious and ravenous, the poor little deposit of proscribed
truth,-the fragile egg which might save the world, if it reached
the altar.
Others will laugh-and woe to theml But I can never laugh
on beholding that spectacle-that farce, those contortions,
those efforts to deceive, to dupe, the growling monsters, to
amuse that unworthy multitude, wound me to the heart. Those
slaves whom I see passing yonder across the bloody arena, are
the sovereigns of the mind, the benefactors of the human race.
o my fathers, 0 my brethren, Voltaire, Moliere, Rabelais,
beloved of my thoughts, it is you whom I behold trembling,
suffering and ridiculous, under that sad disguise! Sublime
geniuses, privileged to bear the sacred gift of God, have you
then accepted, on our account, that degraded martyrdom to be
the buffoons of fear?
Degradedl-Ohl no, never! From the centre of the amphi­
theatre they addressed me in a kind voice: "Friend, what
matters if they laugh at us? What do we care at being devoured
by wild beasts, at suffering the outrage of cruel men, if we
but reach the goal, provided this dear treasure, laid safely
upon the altar, be recovered by mankind, whom it will save
sooner or later. Do you know what this treasure is?-Liberty,
Justice, Truth, Reason."
When we reflect by what imperceptible degrees, through
what difficulties and obstacles, every grand design is accom­
plished, we are less surprised on beholding the humiliation, the
degradation, to which its originator is often subjected. Who
would undertake the task of following, from unknown depths
to the surface, the progress of a thought? Who can tell the
confused forms, the modifications, the fatal delays it has to
undergo for ages? With what slow steps does it emerge from
38
 On the Religion of the Middle Ages
Instinct to musing, to reverie, and thence to the poetical chiaro­
oscuro! How long is its progress confined to children and
fools, to poets and madmen? And yet one day that madness
proves to be the common sense of all! But this is not enough.
All men think, but nobody dares speak.-Why? Is courage
wanting?-Yes; and why is it wanting?-Because the discovered
truth is not yet clear enough; it must first shine out in all its
splendour for people to become its martyrs. At length it bursts
forth luminous in some genius, and it renders him heroic; it
Inflames him with devotion, love, and sacrifice. He lays it to
his heart and goes among the lions.
Hence that strange spectacle which I beheld just now, that
sublime yet terrible farce. Look, see how he quakes as he
passes, humble and trembling; how he clasps, conceals, presses
something to his heart. Ohl he trembles not for himself.­
Glorious trepidation! heroic fearl See you not that he is carrying
the salvation of mankind?
Only one thing gives me uneasiness.-Where is the place of
refuge in which that deposit is to be concealed? What altar
Is sacred enough to guard that holy treasure? And what god
Is sufficiently divine to protect what is no less than the concep­
tion of God himself? Great men, ye who are carrying that
deposit of salvation with the tender care of a mother nursing
her child, take heed, I beseech you; be wary in choosing the
asylum to which you intrust it. Beware of human idols, shun
the gods of :flesh or of wood, who, far from protecting others,
cannot protect themselves.
I behold you all, towards the close of the middle ages, from
the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, emulating one another
In building up and aggrandizing that sanctuary of refuge, the
Altar of Royalty. In order to dethrone idols, you erect an idol­
and you offer to her everything,-gold, incense, and myrrh. To
her, gentle wisdom; to her, tolerance, liberty, philosophy; to her,
the ultima ratio of society-the law.
How should this divinity not become colossal? The most
powerful minds in the world, pursued and hunted to death by
the old implacable principle, work hard to build up their asylum

39
 INTRODUCTION

ever higher and higher; they would like to raise it to heaven.

Hence, a series of legends, fables, adorned and amplified by
every effort of genius : in the thirteenth century, it is the saint­
king, more priest than the priest himself; the chevalier-king in
the sixteenth; the good-king in Henri IV., and the God-king in
Louis XIV.

40
,

SECOND PART

On the Old Monarchy

SECTION I

As early as the year 1300, I behold the great

Ghibelin poet, who, in opposition to the pope, strengthens
find exalts to heaven the Colossus of Caesar. Unity is salvation;
one monarch, one for the whole earth. Then, blindly following
up his austere, inflexible logic, he lays it down, that the greater
this monarch, the more he becomes omnipotent,-the more he
becomes a God, the less mankind must fear the abuse of his
power. If he has all, he desires nought; still less can he envy or
hate. He is perfect, and perfectly, sovereignly just; he governs
infallibly, like the justice of God.
Such is the ground-work of all the theories which have since
been heaped up in support of this principle: Unity, and the
supposed result of unity, peace. And since then we have hardly
ever had anything but wars.
We must dig lower than Dante, and discover and look into
the earth for the deep popular foundation whereon the Colossus
was built.
Man needs justice. A captive within the straight limits of
11 dogma reposing entirely on the arbitrary grace of God, he

thought to save justice in a political religion, and made unto

himself, of a man, a God of Justice, hoping that this visible
God would preserve for him the light of equity which had
heen darkened in the other.
I hear this exclamation escape from the bosom of ancient
41
 INTRODUCTION

France,-a tender expression of intense love : "0 my king!"

This is no flattery. Louis XIV., when young, was truly loved
by two persons,-by the people and La Valliere.
At that time, it was the faith of all. Even the priest seems
to remove his God from the altar, to make room for the new
God. The Jesuits banish Jesus from the door of their estab­
lishment to substitute Louis-Ie-Grand; I read on the vaults
of the chapel at Versailles : "Intrabit templum suum dominator."
The words had not two meanings : the court knew but one God.
The Bishop of Meaux, is afraid lest Louis XIV. should not
have enough faith in himself; he encourages him : "0 kings,
exercise your power boldly, for it is divine-Ye are gods!"
An astounding dogma, and yet the people were most willing
to believe it. They suffered so many local tyrannies, that, from
the most remote quarters, they invoked the distant God, the
God of the monarchy. No evil is imputed to him : if his people
suffer any, it is because he is too high or too distant.-"If the
king did but know!"
We have here a singular feature of France; this nation for
a long time comprehended politics only as devotion and love.
A vigorous, obstinate, blind love, which attributes as a merit
to their God all his imperfections; whatever human weakness
they perceive in him is a cause of thanksgiving rather than of
disgust. They believe he will be but so much the nearer to
them, less haughty, less hardhearted, and more compassionate
on that account. They feel obliged to Henri IV. for his love
of Gabrielle.
This love for royalty during the earlier days of Louis XIV.
and Colbert, was idolatry; the king's endeavours to do equal
justice to all, to lessen the odious inequality of taxation, gained
him the heart of the people. Colbert reduced forty thousand
pretended nobles, and subjected them to taxation; he forced
the leading burgesses to give an account at length of the
finances of the towns, which they used to turn to their own
advantage. The nobles of the provinces who, under favour of
the confusion, made themselves feudal barons, received the
formidable visits of the envoys of the parliament; royal justice

42
 On the Old Monarchy
was blessed for its severity. The king appeared as terrible, in
his Judgment Days, as on the Last Day of Judgment, between
the people and the nobility, the people being on his right, and
huddling together by the side of their judge, full of love and
confidence.
"Tremble, tyrants! Do you not see that we have God on
our side?" This is exactly the language of a poor simple
people, who believe they have the king in their favour. They
imagine they already behold in him the Angel of the Revolu­
tion, and, with outstretched arms, they invoke him, full of
tenderness and hope. Nothing is more affecting to read, among
other facts of this kind, than the account of the Grands iours
d'Auvergne, the ingenuous hope of the people, the quaking
of the nobility. A peasant, whilst speaking to a lord, had not
uncovered; the noble knocked his hat off: "If you do not pick
it up," said the peasant, "the Judgment Days are approaching,
nnd the king will cut your head off." The noble was afraid, and
picked it Up.l
Grand, sublime position of royalty! Would that she had
never forsaken it; would that the judge of all had not become
the judge of a few, and that his God of Justice had not, like
the God of the theologians, wished also to have his elect!

1 The gens du roi, or, parlementaires, who inspired the people with so

IIlnch confidence ( and who, it is true, have done important services ) did
lIot, however, represent Justice more seriously than the priests represented
Crace. This regal justice was, after all, subject to the king's good pleasure.
A great master of Machiavelism, Cardinal Dubois, explains, with much
!(lKld sense and precision, in a memorial to the regent against the Estates­
Ceneral ( vol. i. of the Moniteur ) , the very simple mechanism of this
Jlllrliamentary game, the steps of this minuet, the figures of this dance, up
In the lit de Justice which ends the whole affair, by putting Justice under
I he feet of the king's good pleasure. As to the Estates-General, which were
II subject of dread to Dubois, Saint Simon, his adversary, recommends
I hem as an expedient at once innocent, agreeable and easy, for dispensing
Cllle from paying one's debts, for rendering bankruptcy honourable,
/'/trlonizing it, to use his own expression; moreover, those Estates are never
M'riously effective, says he very properly: verba, voces, nothing more. I say
I hllt there was, both in the Estates and in the parlements, one thing most
HI·rious; which is, that those vain images of liberty occupied, employed, the
l i l lIe vigour and spirit of resistance that subsisted. The reason why France
....nld not have a constitution, is, that she believed she had one.

43
 INTRODUCTION

Such confidence, and such love! and yet, all betrayed! That
well-beloved king was hardhearted towards his people. Search
everywhere, in books and pictures, contemplate him in his
portraits : not a motion, not one look, reveals the least emotion
of the heart. The love of a whole people-that grand rarity,
that true miracle-has succeeded only in making of their idol a
miracle of egotism.
He took Adoration at its word, and believed himself a God.
But he comprehended nothing in that word God. To be a
God is to live for all; but he becomes more and more the
king of the court; the few he sees, that band of gilded beggars
who beset him, are his people. A strange Divinity, he con­
tracted and stifled a world in one man, instead of extending
and aggrandizing that man to the measure of a world. His
whole world now is Versailles; and even there, look narrowly;
if you find some petty, obscure, dismal closet, a living tomb,
that is all he wants; enough for one individua1.2

SECTION II

FAMINE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

I will presently investigate the idea on which

France subsisted-the government of grace and paternal mon­
archy; that inquiry will be much promoted perhaps, if I first
establish, by authentic proofs, the results in which this system
had at length terminated. A tree is known by its fruits.
First, nobody will deny that it secured for this people the
glory of a prodigious and incredible patience. Read the foreign
travellers of the last two centuries; you behold them stupefied,
when travelling through our plains, at their wretched appear­
ance, at the sadness, the solitude, the miserable poverty, the

• I allude to the little dark apartment of Madame de Maintenon, where

Louis XIV. expired. For his personal belief of his own divinity, see
especially his surprising Memoirs written before his face and revised by
himself.
44
 On the Old Monarchy
dismal, naked, empty cottages, and the starving, ragged popu­
lation. There they learn what man is able to endure without
dying; what nobody, neither the English, the Dutch, nor the
Germans, would have supported.
What astonishes them still more, is the resignation of this
people, their respect for their masters, lay or ecclesiastical, and
their idolatrous attachment for their kings. That they should
preserve, amid such sufferings, so much patience and meekness,
such goodness and docility, so little rancour for oppression, is
indeed a strange mystery. It perhaps explains itself partly by
the kind of careless philosophy, the too indifferent facility with
which the Frenchman welcomes bad weather; it will be fine
again sooner or later; rain to-day, sunshine to-morrow. He does
not grumble at a rainy day.
French sobriety also, that eminently military quality, aided
their resignation. Our soldiers, in this matter, as in every other,
have shown the limits of human endurance. Their fasting, in
painful marches and excessive toils, would have frightened
the lazy hermits of the Thebais, such as Anthony and Pachomus.
We must learn from Marshal Villars how the armies of
Louis XIV. used to live: "Several times we thought that bread
would absolutely fail us; then, by great efforts, we got together
enough for half a day: the next day is got over by fasting.
When M. d'Artagnan marched, the brigades not marching were
obliged to fast. Our sustenance is a miracle, and the virtue
nnd firmness of our soldiers are marvellous. Panem nostrum
quotidianum da nobis hodie, say they to me as I pass through
the ranks, after they have but the quarter and the half ration.
I encourage them and give them promises; they merely shrug
their shoulders, and gaze at me with a look of resignation that
affects me. 'The Marshal is right,' say they; 'we must learn to
suffer sometimes.' "
Patience! Virtue! Resignation! Can any one help being
affected, on meeting with such traces of the goodness of our
fathers?
Who will enable me to go through the history of their long
sufferings, their gentleness and moderation? It was long the
45
 INTRODUCTION

astonishment, sometimes the laughing-stock of Europe! Great

merriment was it for the English to see those soldiers half­
starved and almost naked, yet cheerful, amiable, and good
towards their officers; performing, without a murmur, immense
marches, and, if they found nothing in the evening, making
their supper of songs.
If patience merits heaven, this people, in the two last
centuries, truly surpassed all the merits of the saints; but how
can one recount the story? The evidence is scanty. Misery is
a general fact; the virtue to support it a virtue so common
among us, that historians seldom deign to notice it. Moreover,
history is defective in the eighteenth century; France, after the
cruel fatigues of the wars of Louis XIV., suffers too much to
relate her own story. No more memoirs; nobody has the courage
to write his individual life; even vanity is mute, having but
shame to tell. Till the philosophical movement, this country is
silent, like the deserted palace of Louis XIV. who outlived his
own family, like the bedroom of the dying man who still
governs, the old Cardinal Fleury.
It is difficult to describe properly the history of those times,
as they are unmarked by rebellions. No people ever had fewer.
This nation loved her masters; she had no rebellion,-nothing
but a Revolution.
It is from their very masters, their kings, princes, ministers,
prelates, magistrates, and intendants, that we may learn to
what extremities the people were reduced. It is they who are
about to describe the restraints in which the people were held.
The mournful procession in which they all advance one after
the other in order to recount the death of France, is led by
Colbert in 1681 : "One can go on no longer," says he, and he
dies.-They do go on however, for they expel half a million
industrious men about 1685, and kill still more, in a thirty
years' war. But, good God! how many more die of misery!
As early as 1698, the result is visible. The intendants them­
selves, who create the evil, reveal and deplore it. In the memo­
rials which they are asked to give for the young duke of
Burgundy, they declare that such a province has lost a quarter
46
 On the Old Monarchy
of its inhabitants, another a third, and another a half. And the
population is not renewed; the peasant is so miserable that his
children are all weak, sickly, and unable to live.
Let us follow attentively the series of years. That deplorable
period of 1698 becomes an object of regret. "Then," says
Boisguillebert, a magistrate, "there was still oil in the lamp.
To-day ( 1707 ) it goes out for want of nourishment."-A mourn­
ful expression; and he adds a threatening sentence; one would
think it was the year 1789: "The trial will now be between those
who pay, and those whose only function is to receive."
The preceptor to the grandson of Louis XlV., the Archbishop
of Cambrai, is not less revolutionnaire than this petty Norman
magistrate : "The people no longer live like men; it is no longer
safe to rely upon their patience. The old machine will break
up at the first shock. We dare not look upon the state of ex­
haustion which we have now attained; all we can do is to shut
our eyes, open our hands, and go on taking."
Louis XIV. dies at last, and the people thank God. Happily
we have the regent, that good duke of Orleans, who, if Fenelon
still lived, would take him for his counsellor; he prints Tele­
machus; France shall be a Salentum. No more wars. We are
now the friends of England; we give up to her our commerce,
our honour, nay even our State secrets. Who would believe
that, in the bosom of peace, this amiable prince, in only seven
years, finds means to add to the two billions and a half of
debts left by Louis XIV., seven hundred and fifty millions­
all of it paid off-in paper.
"If I were a subject," he used to say, "I would most certainly
revolt!" And when he was told that a disturbance was about
to take place, "The people are right," said he; "they are good­
natured fools to suffer so longl"
Fleury is as economical as the regent was lavish. Does
France improve? I doubt it, when I see that the bread presented
to Louis XV. as the bread that the people ate, is bread made of
fern.
The Bishop of Chartres told him, that, in his diocese, the
men browsed with the sheep. What is perhaps even more
47
 INTRODUCITON

outrageous is, that M. d'Argenson ( a minister ) speaking of the

sufferings of those times, contrasts them with the good time.
Guess which. That of the regent and the duke,-the time when
France, exhausted by Louis XIV., and bleeding at every pore,
sought a remedy in a bankruptcy of three billions!
Everybody sees the crisis approaching. Fenelon says, as early
as 1709: "The old machine will break up at the first shock." It
does not break up yet. Then Madame de Chateauroux, about
1742: "I see plainly that there will be a general overthrow,
if no remedy be used."-Yes, Madam, everybody sees it,-the
king and your successor, Madame de Pompadour, as well as
the economists, the philosophers, foreigners, everybody. All
admire the longsuffering nature of this people; it is Job sitting
among the nations. 0 meekness! 0 patience!-Walpole laughs
at it, but I mourn over it. That unfortunate people still loves;
still believes; is obstinate in hoping. It is ever waiting for its
saviour. Which? Its God-man, its king.
Ridiculous yet affecting idolatry-What will this God, this
king, do? He possesses neither the firm will, nor the power,
perhaps, to cure the deeply-rooted, inveterate, universal evil
now consuming, parching, famishing the community, draining
its life's blood from its veins,-from its very heart.
The evil consists in this, that the nation, from the highest to
the lowest, is organised so as to go on producing less and less,
and paying more and more. She will go on declining, wasting
away, giving, after her blood, her marrow; and there will be no
end to it, till having reached the last gasp, and just expiring,
the convulsion of the death-struggle arouses her once more,
and raises that pale feeble body on its legs-Feeble?-grown
strong perhaps by fury!
Let us minutely examine, if you will, these words producing
less and less. They are exact to the letter.
As early as under Louis XIV. the excise ( aides ) already
weighed so heavily, that at Mantes, Etampes, and elsewhere,
all the vines were uprooted.
The peasant having no goods to seize, the exchequer can lay
hold of nothing but the cattle; it is gradually exterminated.
48
 On the Old Monarchy
No more manure. The cultivation of wheat, though extended in
the seventeenth century, by immense clearings of waste land,
decreases in the eighteenth. The earth can no longer repair
as the cattle may become extinct, so also the land now appears
dead.
Not only does the land produce less, but it is less cultivated.
In many places, it is not worth while to cultivate it. Large
proprietors, tired of advancing to their peasants sums that
never return, neglect the land which would require expensive
improvements. The portion cultivated grows less, and the
desert expands. People talk of agriculture, write books on it,
make expensive experiments, paradoxical schemes of cultivation;
-and agriculture, devoid of succour, of cattle, grows wild. Men,
women, and children, yoke themselves to the plough. They
would dig the ground with their nails, if our ancient laws did
not, at least, defend the ploughshare,-the last poor implement
that furrows the earth. How can we be surprised that the crops
should fail with such half-starved husbandmen, or that the
land should suffer and refuse to yield? The yearly produce
no longer suffices for the year. As we approach 1789, Nature
yields less and less. Like a beast over-fatigued, unwilling to
move one step further, and preferring to lie down and die, she
waits, and produces no more. Liberty is not only the life of
man, but also that of nature.

SECTION III

DOES ANCIENT PATRONAGE SUBSIST IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY?

NEVER accuse Nature of being a bad mother.

Believe not that God has withdrawn the beneficent light of his
countenance from the earth. The earth is always a good and
hountiful mother, ever ready and willing to help mankind;
though superficially she may appear sterile and ungrateful, yet
she loves him tenderly in her innermost depths.
It is man who has ceased to love,-man who is the enemy
49
 INTRODUCTION

of mankind. The malediction which weighs him down is his

own, the curse of egotism and injustice, the load of an unjust
society. Whom must he blame? Neither nature, nor God,
but himself, his work, his idols, his gods, whom he has created.
He has transferred his idolatry from one to another. To his
wooden gods he has said, "Protect me, be my saviours I" He
has said so to the priest, he has said so to the noble, he has said
so to the king.-Alasl poor man, be thy own saviour,-save
thyself.
He loved them,-that is his excuse; it explains his blindness.
How he loved, how he believed! What artless faith in the good
Lord, in the dear, holy man of God! How he would fall on his
knees before them on the public road, and kiss the dust long
after they had passed! How obstinately he put his trust and
his hopes in them, even when spurned and trampled onl Re­
maining ever a minor,-an infant, he felt a sort of filial delight
in concealing nothing from them, in intrusting to their hands
the whole care of his future. "I have nothing: I am poor; but I
am the baron's man, and belong to that fine chateau yonderl"
Or else, "I have the honour to be the serf of that famous
monastery. I can never want for anything."
Go now, go, good man, in the day of thy need; go and
knock at their gate.
At the chateau? But the gate is shut; the large table, where
so many once sat down, has long been empty; the hearth is
cold; there is no fire, no smoke. The lord is at Versailles. He
does not, however, forget thee. He has left his attorney behind,
and his bailiff, to take care of thee.
<WeIll I will go to the monastery. Is not that house of
charity the poor man's home? The Church says to me every
day: <God so loved the world I-He was made man, and became
food to nourish manl' Either the Church is nothing, or it must
be charity divine realised upon earth."
Knock, knock, poor Lazarusl Thou wilt wait long enough.
Dost thou not know that the Church has now withdrawn from
the world, and that all these affairs of poor people and charity
50
 On- the Old Monarchy
no longer concern her? There were two things in the middle
uges,-wealth and functions, of which she was very jealous;
more equitable, however, in modern times, she has made two
divisions of them; the functions, such as schools, hospitals,
ulms, and the patronage of the poor,-all these things which
mixed her up too much with worldly cares, she has generously
handed over to the laity.
Her other duties absorb all her attention,-those principally
which consist in defending till death the pious foundations of
which she is the trustee, in allowing no diminution of them,
ulld in transmitting them with increased wealth to future gen­
(�rations. In these respects she is truly heroic, ready for martyr­
dom, if necessary. In 1788, the State, weighed down with debt,
und driven to its last extremity, at a loss to devise new
schemes for draining a ruined people, applies as a suppliant to
the clergy, and entreats them to pay their taxes. Their answer
is admirable, and should never be forgotten: "No, the people
of France is not taxable at pleasure."
Whatl invoke the name of the people as a ground to excuse
themselves from succouring the people? That was the utmost,
tl'llly the sublimest pitch, which Phariseean wisdom could ever
hope to attain. Come at length to the ever-memorable year
of 1789. The clergy is after all but mortal. It must share the
common lot. But it can enjoy the thought, so consoling in our
lust moments, to have been consistent till death.
The mystery of Christianity, a God giving himself to man­
u God descending into man,-that doctrine, harsh to reason,
could be imposed on the heart only by the visible continuation
of the miracle,-alms ever floWing without a capability of ex­
haustion, and spiritual alms deriving a never-failing support
from a similar doctrine; in this you might see some evidence
of a God ever present in his Church. But the Church of the
eighteenth century, sterile, and no longer giving anything,
I'ither material or intellectual, demonstrates precisely the very
contrary of what religion teaches, ( Oh, impiety! ) I mean,
"The absence of God in man."
51
 INTRODUCTION

SECTION IV

ROYAL POPULARITY

IN the eighteenth century, the people no

longer hoped for anything from that patronage which sup­
ported them at other times,-the clergy and the nobility. These
will do nothing for them. But they still believe in the king; they
transfer to the infant Louis XV. both their faith and their neces­
sity of loving. He, the only remains of so great a family, saved
like the infant Joas, is preserved apparently that he may him­
self save others. They weep on beholding that child! How many
evil years have to run their course! But they wait with pa­
tience, and still hope; that minority, that long tuition of twenty
or thirty years, must have an end.
It was night when the news reached Paris, that Louis XV.,
on his way to the army, had been seized with illness at Metz.
"The people leaped from their beds, rushed out in a tumult,
without knowing whither. The churches were thrown open
in the middle of the night. Men assembled in the cross-roads,
accosted, and asked questions, without knowing one another.
In several churches, the priest who pronounced the prayer for
recovery of the king, interrupted the chanting with his sobs,
and the people responded by their cries and tears. The courier
who brought the news of his recovery, was hugged, and almost
stiHed; they kissed his horse, and led him in triumph. Every
street re-echoed the same joyful cry: 'Le Roi est gueril' "
This, in 1744. Louis XV. is named the Well-beloved. Ten
years pass. The same people believe that the well-beloved
takes baths of human blood; that, in order to renew his ex­
hausted frame, he bathes himself in children's blood. One day,
when the police, according to their atrocious custom, were
carrying off men, children wandering in the streets, and little
girls ( especially such as were pretty ) , the mothers screamed,
the people Hocked together, and a riot broke out. From that
52
 On the Old Monarchy
moment, the king never resided in Paris. He seldom passed
through it, except to go from Versailles to Compiegne. He had
n road made in great haste, which avoided Paris, and enabled
the king to escape the observation of his people. That road is
Ntill called Le Chemin de la Revolte.
These ten years ( 1744-1754 ) are the very crisis of the cen­
tury. The king, that God, that idol, becomes an object of horror.
The dogma of the regal incarnation perishes irrecoverably. And
In its place arises the sovereignty of the mind. Montesquieu,
BuiIon, and Voltaire, in that short interval publish their great
works; Rousseau was just beginning his.
Unity till then had reposed on the idea of an incarnation,
(lither religiOUS or political. A human God was an essential
requisite-a God of flesh, for the purpose of uniting either the
church or the state. Humanity, still feeble, placed its unity
In a sign, a visible living sign, a man, an individual. Hence­
forth, unity, more pure, and free from this material condition,
will consist in the union of hearts, the community of the mind,
the profound union of sentiments and ideas arising from iden­
tity of opinions.
The great doctors of the new church, mentioned before,
though dissenting in secondary matters, are admirably agreed
on two essential points, which constitute the genius of the age
In which they lived, as well as that of future times.
1st. Their mind is free from all forms of incarnation; dis­
entangled from that corporeal vesture which had so long
Invested it.
2dly. The mind, in their opinion, is not only intelligence, it
Is warmth, love, an ardent love for mankind: love in itself,
nnd not subject to certain dogmata, or conditions of religiOUS
policy. The charity of the middle ages, a slave to Theology,
hilt too easily followed her imperious mistress; too docile, in­
deed, and so conciliating as to admit whatever could be toler­
nted by hate. What is the value of a charity which could enact
the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, fire the faggots at the
Ntake, and organise the Inquisition?
Whilst endeavouring to divest religion of its carnal character,
53
 INTRODUCTION

and to reject the doctrine of a religious incarnation, this cen­

tury, at first timid in its audacity, remained for a long time
carnal in its politics, and seemed anxious to respect the doctrine
of a regal incarnation,-and through the king, that God-man,
to achieve the happiness of mankind. It is the chimera of the
philosophers and economists, of such men, I mean, as Voltaire
and Turgot, to accomplish the revolution by the king.
Nothing is more curious than to behold this idol disputed as
it were by both parties. The philosophers pull him to the
right, the priests to the left. Who will carry him off? Women.
This god is a god of flesh.
The woman who secures him for twenty years, Madame de
Pompadour ( whose maiden name was Poisson ) would like, at
first, to make an ally for herself of the public, against the
court. The philosophers are summoned. Voltaire writes the
king's history, and poems and dramas for the king; d'Argenson
is made minister; and the comptroller-general, Machault, de­
mands a statement of ecclesiastical property. That blow awakens
the clergy. The Jesuits do not waste time in arguing the point
with a woman; they bring another woman to oppose her, and
they triumph. But what woman? The king's own daughter. Here
we need Suetonius. Such things had never been since the days
of the twelve Caesars.
Voltaire was dismissed; and so was d'Argenson, and Machault
later. Madame de Pompadour humbled herself, took the Com­
munion, and put herself at the feet of the queen. Meanwhile,
she was preparing an infamous and pitiful machine, whereby
she regained and kept possession of the king till his death : a
seraglio, composed of children whom they bought.
And there slowly expired Louis XV. The god of flesh abdi­
cated every vestige of mind.
Avoiding Paris, shunning his people, ever shut up at
Versailles, he finds even there too many people, too much day­
light. He wants a shadowy retreat, the wood, the chace, the
secret lodge of Trianon, or his convent of the Parc-aux-cerfs.
How strange and inexplicable that those amours, at least
those shadows, those images of love, cannot soften his heart.
54
 On the Old Monarchy
lIe purchases the daughters of the people; by them he lives
with the people; he receives their childish caresses, and as­
Hilmes their language. Yet he remains the enemy of the people;
hard-hearted, seI£sh, and unfeeling; he transforms the king
Into a dealer in grain, a speculator in famine.
In that soul, so dead to sentiment, one thing still remained
ulive : the fear of dying. He was ever speaking of death, of
funerals, and of the grave. He would often forebode the death
of the monarchy; but provided it lasted his time, he desired no
more.
In a year of scarcity ( they were not uncommon then ) , he
was hunting, as usual, in the forest of Senart. He met a peasant
carrying a bier, and inquired "whither he was conveying it?­
To such a place.-For a man or woman?-A man.-What did
he die of?-Hunger."

SECTION V

NO HOPE BUT JUSTICE

THAT dead man is Old France, and that bier,

the coffin of the Old Monarchy. Therein let us bury, and for
ever, the dreams in which we once fondly trusted,-paternal
royalty, .the government of grace, the clemency of the mon­
arch, and the charity of the priest; filial confidence, implicit
belief in the gods here below.
That fiction of the old world,-that deceitful legend, which
was ever on its tongue,-was to substitute love in the place of
law.
If that world, almost annihilated under the title of love,
wounded by charity, and heart-broken by grace, can revive,
it will revive by means of law, justice, and equity.
o blasphemyI They had opposed grace to law, love to
justice. As if unjust grace could still be grace; as if those things
which our weakness divides, were not two aspects of the same
truth,-the right and the left-hand of God.

55
 INTRODUCTION

They have made justice a negative thing, which forbids,

prohibits, excludes,-an obstacle to impede, . and a knife to
slaughter. They do not know that justice is the eye of Prov­
idence. Love, blind among us, clear-sighted in God, sees by
justice-a vital-absorbing glance. A prolific power is in the
justice of God; whenever it touches the earth, the latter is
blest, and brings forth. The sun and the dew are not enough,
it must have Justice. Let her but appear, and the harvests
come. Harvests of men and nations will spring up, put forth,
and flourish in the sunshine of equity.
A day of justice, one single day, which is called the Revo­
lution, produced ten millions of men.
But how far off? Did it appear, in the middle of the eight­
eenth century, remote and impossible? Of what materials shall
I compose it? all is perishing around me. To build, I should
need stones, lime, and cement; and I am empty-handed. The
two saviours of this people-the priest and the king-have
destroyed them, beyond the possibility of restoration. Feudal
life and muniCipal life are no more,-both swallowed up in
royalty. Religious life became extinct with the clergy. Alasl
not even a local legend or national tradition remains :-no more
of those happy prejudices which constitute the life of an infant
people. They have destroyed everything, even popular delu­
sions. Behold them now stripped and empty,-tabula rasa; the
future must write as best it may.
0, pure spirit, last inhabitant of that destroyed world; uni­
versal heir of all those extinct powers, how wilt thou guide us
to the only bestower of life? How wilt thou restore to us
Justice and the idea of Right?
Here, thou beholdest nothing but stumbling-blocks, old ruins,
that one must pull down, crumble to powder, and neglect.
Nothing is standing, nothing living. Do what thou wilt, thou
wilt have at least the consolation of having destroyed only that
which was already dead.
The working of the pure spirit is even that of God-the art
of God is its art. Its construction is too profoundly harmo­
nious within, to appear so without. Seek not here the straight
56
 On the Old Monarchy
lines and the angles, the stiff regularity of your buildings of
stone and marble. In a living organisation, harmony of a far
superior strength is ever deeply seated within.
First, let this new world have material life; let us give it for
n beginning, for a first foundation,-the colossal Histoire
Naturelle: 3 let us put order in Nature; for her order is justice.
But order is as yet impossible. From the bosom of Nature,
-glowing, boiling, as when Etna awakes,-Hames forth an
Immense volcano.4 Every science and every art bursts forth.
The eruption over, a mass remains,-an enormous mass mingled
with dross and gold: the Encyclopedie.
Behold two ages of the young world,-two days of the crea­
tion. Order is lacking and so is unity. Let us create man, the
IInity of the world, and with him let order come, along with
that long-desired light of divine Justice for which we have
been waiting.
Man appears in three forms : Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Housseau. Three interpreters of the Just.
Let us take note of the Law, let us seek after the Law;
perhaps we may find it hidden in some comer of the globe.
There may perhaps be some clime favourable for justice,­
some better land which naturally yields the fruit of equity.
The traveller, the inquirer, who pursues it through the earth,
is the calm, majestic Montesquieu. But justice Hies before him;
it remains relative and moveable; law, in his estimation, is a
relation,-merely abstract, and inanimate; it is not endowed
with vitality.5
Montesquieu may be resigned to this result; but not so

• Buffon; the first volume, 1748. See the edition of MM. Geoffroy-Saint­
Hilaire.
• Diderot, who published the two first volumes of the Encyclopedie in
1751. M. Genin has just written an article on him, which everybody will
lind witty, brilliant, full of amusement, charming. I find it penetrating; it
goes to the very marrow of the subject.
• Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois appeared in 1748. I shall frequently
have occasion to explain how very little that great genius possessed the
perceftion of Right. He is unwittingly, the founder of our absurd English
Hehoo .
57
 IN'IRODUCTION

Voltaire. Voltaire is the one who suffers, who has taken upon
him all the agony of mankind, who feels and hunts out every
iniquity. All the ills that fanaticism and tyranny have ever
inflicted upon the world, have been inflicted upon Voltaire.
It was he, the martyr, the universal victim, whom they
slaughtered in their Saint Bartholomew, whom they buried in
the mines of the new world, whom they burned at Seville,
whom the parlement of Toulouse broke on the wheel with
Calas.-He weeps, he laughs, in his agonY,-a terrible laugh,
at which the bastilles of tyrants and the temples of the Phari­
sees fall to the ground.6
And down fell at the same time all those petty barriers
within which every church intrenched itself, calling itself uni­
versal, and wishing to destroy all others. They fall before
Voltaire, to make room for the human church, for that catholic
church which will receive and contain them all in justice and
in peace.
Voltaire is the witness of Right,-its apostle and its martyr.
He has settled the old question put from the origin of the
world : Is there religion without justice, without humanity?

SECTION VI

THE THREE MASTER MINDS

MONIESQUIEU is the writer, the interpreter of

Right; Voltaire weeps and clamours for it; and Rousseau founds
it.
It was a grand moment, which found Voltaire overwhelmed
by a new calamity, the disaster of Lisbon; when, blinded by
tears, and doubting Heaven, Rousseau comforted him, restored
God to him, and upon the ruins of the world proclaimed the
existence of Providence.

• Read, on Voltaire, four pages, stamped with the seal of genius, which
no man of mere talent could ever have written.-Quinet, Ultramontanism.
58
 On the Old Monarchy
Far more than Lisbon, it is the .world which is tumbling to
pieces. Religion and the State, morals and laws, everything is
perishing.-And where is the family? Where is love?-even the
child-the future? Ohl what must we think of a world wherein
cven maternal love is perishing?
And is it thou, poor, ignorant, lonely, abandoned workman,
hated by the philosophers and detested by the clergy, sick in
the depth of winter, dying upon the snow, in thy unprotected
pavilion of Montmorenci, who art willing to resist alone, and
to write ( though the ink freezes in thy pen ) to protest against
deathl
Is it indeed with thy spinet and thy "Village Curate," poor
musician, that thou art going to re-construct a world? Thou
hadst a slender voice, some energy and warmth of language on
thy arrival at Paris, rich in thy Pergolese, in music, and in hope.
It is long since then; soon thou wilt have lived half a century;
thou art old; all is over. Why dost thou speak of regeneration
to that dying society, when thou thyself art no more?
Yes, it was truly difficult, even for a man less cruelly treated
by fate, to extricate his feet from the quicksand, from that deep
mire where everything was swallowed up.
Where did he find his foothold, that strong man who,
digging in his feet, stopped and held fast-and all stood fast
with him?
Where did he find it, 0 feeble world, 0 weak and sickly
men who called for it, forgetful sons of Rousseau and of the
Revolution?
He found it in what has grown too faint among you-in
his heart. In the depths of his suffering he read, and read
distinctly, what the middle ages were never able to read: A
Just God. And what was said by a glOriOUS child of Rousseau?
"Right is the sovereign of the world."
That splendid motto was uttered only at the end of the
century; it is its revelation,-its profound and sublime formula.
Rousseau spoke by the mouth of another, by Mirabeau; yet
It is no less the soul of Rousseau's genius. When once he severed
himself from the false science of the time, and from a no less
59
 INTRODUCTION

false society, you behold in his writings the dawn of a celestial

effulgence,-Duty, Rightl
Its sweet and prolific power shines forth in all its brilliancy
in the profession of faith of the Vicar of Savoy. God himself
subject to Justice, subject to Rightl-Let us say rather that
God and Right are identical.
If Rousseau had spoken in the terms of Mirabeau, his lan­
guage would not have taken effect. Necessities change with
the times.-To a world ready to act, on the very day of action,
Mirabeau said: "Right is the sovereign of the world," you are
the subjects of Right.-To a world still slumbering, inert, feeble,
and devoid of energy, Rousseau said, and said well: "The
general will is right and reason." Your will is Right. Then arouse
yourselves, ye slaves!
"Your collective will is Reason herself." In other words, Ye
are Godsl
And who, indeed, without believing himself God, could ever
do anything great? Then it is that you may fearlessly cross
the bridge of Arcola; then it is, that, in the name of duty,
you sever yourself from your dearest affections, your heart.
Let us be Godl The impossible becomes possible and easy.
Then, to overthrow a world is a mere trifle; why, one creates
a world.
This it is which explains how a feeble breath from a manly
breast, a simple melody arising from the heart of the poor
musician, raised the dead.
France is moved in her innermost soul. All Europe is changed
by it. The vast massy German empire rocks on her old founda­
tions. They criticise, but obey. "Mere sentimentality," say they,
with an attempt to smile. And yet these dreamers follow it. The
very philosophers, the abstractors of quint-essence, take, in
spite of themselves, the simple path of the poor Vicar of Savoy.
What, then, has happened? What divine light has shone, to
produce so great a change? Is it the power of an idea, of a new
inspiration, of a revelation from above? Yes, there has been a
revelation. But the novelty of the doctrine is not what affects
us most. We have here a more strange, a more mysterious
60
 On the Old Monarchy
phenomenon,-an influence felt even by those who do not read,
and could never comprehend. Nobody knows why, but since
that glowing language impregnated the air, the temperature
has changed; it seems as though a breath of life had been wafted
over the world; the earth begins to bear fruits that she would
never else have borne.
What is it? Shall I tell you? It is what vivifies and melts
the heart; it is the breath of youth; and that is why we all
yield to its influence. In vain would you prove to us that this
language is weak, or overstrained, or of vulgar sentiment.
Such is youth and such is passion. Such have we been, and,
if we occasionally recognise therein the foibles of our early
youth, we do but feel more vividly the sweet yet bitter charms
of the time that will return no more.
Warmth and thrilling melody, such is the magic of Rousseau.
His power, as it is in his "Emile" and the "Social Contract,"
may be discussed and combated. But, by his "Confessions" and
his "Reveries," by his weakness, he has vanquished us, and
drawn tears from every eye.
Foreign, hostile geniuses were able to reject the light, but
they have all felt the influence of the warmth. They did not
listen to the words; but the music subdued them. The gods
of profound harmony, the rivals of the storm, which thundered
from the Rhine to the Alps, themselves felt the all-powerful
Incantation of that sweet melody, that soft human voice,-the
little morning ditty, sung for the first time beneath the vine
nt Charmettes.
That youthful affecting voice, that melody of the heart, is
heard long after that tender heart has been buried in the
earth. The "Confessions," which appeared after the death of
Rousseau, seem a sigh from the tomb. He returns-rises from
the dead, more potent, more admired, more adored than ever.
That miracle he shares' in common with his rival, Voltaire.
His rival?�No. Enemy?-No. Let them be forever upon the
snme pedestal, those two Apostles of Humanity.7
• A noble and tender idea of Madame Sand, which shows how genius
rises superior to those vain oppositions which the esprit de systeme creates

61
 INTRODUCITON

Voltaire, nearly octogenarian, buried among the snows of the

Alps, broken down by age and labour, nevertheless rises also
from the dead. The grand thought of the century, inaugurated
by him, is also to be closed by him; he who was the first to
open, is also to resume and finish the chorus. Glorious century!
Well does it deserve to be called forever the heroic age of the
mind. An old man on the verge of the grave; he has seen the
others, Montesquieu, Diderot, and Buffon pass away; he has
witnessed the extraordinary success of Rousseau,-three books
in three years. "And the earth was silent." Voltaire is not
discouraged; behold him entering, lively and young, upon a
new career. Where, then, is the old Voltaire? He was dead.
But a voice has roused him all alive from the tomb, that voice
which had ever given him life,-the voice of Humanity.
Ancient champion, to thee the crown! Here thou art again,
conqueror of conquerors. Throughout a century, in every kind
of warfare, with every weapon and doctrine, opposite, contrary,
no matter what, thou hast pursued, without ever deviating,
one interest, one cause-holy Humanity. And yet they have
called thee a sceptic! And they have termed thee changeable!
They thought to surprise thee in the seeming contradictions of
a flexible language ever serving the selfsame thought!
Thy faith shall be crowned by the very work of faith. Others
have spoken of Justice, but thou shalt perform it; thy words
are acts, realities. Thou defendest Calas and La Barre, thou
savest Sirven, and dost annihilate the scaffold of the Protestants.
Thou has conquered for religious liberty, and moreover, for
civil freedom, as advocate of the last serfs, for the reform of
our barbarous legislation and criminal laws, which themselves
were crimes.
Behold in all this the dawn of the Revolution. Thou dost make
it, and see it. Look for thy reward, look, behold it yonder!

for itself between those great witnesses, of truth not opposed, but
harmonising. When it was lately proposed to raise statues to Voltaire and
Rousseau, Madame Sand, in an adniirable letter, requested that the two
reconciled geniuses might be placed upon the same pedestal. Noble
thoughts come from the heart.
62
 On the Old Monarchy
Now thou mayest die; thy firm faith deserved that thou
shouldst not take thy flight before thou hadst seen the holy
land.

SECTION VII

THE REVOLUTION COMMENCES

WHEN those two men have passed, the Revolu­

tion is accomplished in the intellectual world.
Now it becomes the duty of their sons, legitimate and illegiti­
mate, to expound and diffuse it in a hundred ways : some in
eloquence and fiery satire, others will strike bronze medals
to transmit it from hand to hand; Mirabeau, Beaumarchais,
Raynal, Mably, and Sieyes, are now to do their work.
The Revolution is on her march, with Rousseau and Voltaire
still in front. Kings themselves are in her train; Frederick,
Catherine, Joseph, Leopold-that is the court of the two chief­
tains of the age. Reign, great men, ye true sovereigns of the
world; reign, 0 my kings I
All appear converted, all wish for the Revolution; though
every one, it is true, wishes it, not for himself, but for others.
The nobility would willingly carry it out against the clergy, and
the clergy against the nobility.
Turgot is the touchstone for all: he summons them to say
whether they wish truly to reform; they all unanimously answer:
No, let what ought to be done, be donel
Meanwhile, I see the Revolution everywhere, even in Ver­
sailles. All admit it to a certain limit, where it will not hurt
them: Louis XVI. as far as the plans of Fenelon and the
Duke of Burgundy, and the Count d'Artois as far as Figaro;
he forces the king to allow the trying drama to be played.
The queen wishes for the Revolution, at least in her palace,
for the parvenus; that queen, devoid of prejudices, turns all
her grand ladies out of doors, in order to keep her beautiful
friend Madame de Polignac.

63
 INTRODUCTION

Necker, the borrower, himself discredits his loans by pub­

lishing the misery of the monarchy. A revolutionnaire by
publicity, he believes he is so by his little provincial assemblies,
wherein the privileged are to say what must be taken from
the privileged.
The witty Calonne comes next, and being unable to glut the
privileged even by breaking into the public treasury, he takes
his course, accuses them, and hands them over to the hatred of
the people.
He has accomplished the Revolution against the notables;
Lomenie, a philosophical priest, accomplishes it against the
parlements.8
Calonne said admirably, when he avowed the deficit, and
pointed to the yawning gulf: 'What remains to fill it with?
The abuses."
That seemed clear to everybody; the only thing obscure was
whether Calonne did not speak in the name of the very Prince
of abuses, of him who sustained all others, and was the key­
stone of the whole wretched edifice? In two words, was Royalty
the support or the remedy of those abuses denounced by the
King's own creature.
That the clergy was an abuse, and the nobility an abuse,
seemed but too evident.
The privilege of the clergy, founded on teaching, and the
example they formerly set the people, had become nonsense;
nobody possessed the faith less. In their last assembly, they
strive hard to get the philosophers punished, and, to make the
demand, they are represented by an atheist and a sceptic:
Lomenie and Talleyrand.
The privilege of the nobility had likewise become nonsense:
formerly they paid nothing because they paid with their sword;
they furnished the regulars and the reserves; a vast undisci­
plined multitude, called together for the last time in 1674. They
continued to furnish the army with officers, by shutting out all
others from the career, and rendering the formation of a real

• The highest law courts in the old regime (Ed. note ) .

64
 On the Old Monarchy
army impossible. The civil army, the administration, the bu­
reaucracy, was invaded by the nobility; the ecclesiastical army,
in its higher ranks, was also filled with nobles. Those who
made it their profession to live in grand style, that is to say,
to do nothing, had undertaken to do all; and everything re­
mained undone.
Once more, the clergy and the nobility were a burden to the
land, the malediction of the country, a gangrene which it was
necessary to cut away; that was as clear as daylight to every­
body.
The only obscure question was that of Royalty; a question,
not of mere form, as people have so often repeated, but a
fundamental, intimate question, more vital than any other in
France; a question not only of politics, but of love and religion.
No people ever loved their kings so dearly.
The eyes of men, open under Louis XV., shut again under
Louis XVI., and the question remained once more in the dark.
The hope of the people still clung to royalty; Turgot hoped,
Voltaire hoped, that poor young king, so ill born and bred,
would have desired to do good. He struggled, and was dragged
away. The prejudices of his birth and education, even his
hereditary virtues, hurried him to his ruin-a sad historical
problemI Honest men have excused him, and honest men have
condemned him. DupliCity, mental reservations, ( but little sur­
prising, no doubt, in a pupil of the Jesuit party, ) such were
his faults; and lastly his crime, which led him to death, his
appeal to foreigners. With all that, let us not forget that he
had been sincerely anti-Austrian and anti-English; that he had
truly, fervently desired to improve our navy; that he had
founded Cherbourg at eighteen leagues from Portsmouth; that
he helped to cut England in two, and set one part of England
against the other. That tear which Carnot shed on signing
his death-warrant, remains for him in history; History, and even
J llstice, in judging him, will weep.
Every day brings on his punishment. This is not the time
for me to relate these things. Let it suffice to say here that
the best was the last-great lesson of Providence!-so that it
65
 INTRODUCTION

might appear plain to all that the evil was less in the man than
in the institution itself; that it might be more than the condem­
nation of the king-the condemnation of ancient royalty. That
religion is at an end. Louis XV. or Louis XVI., infamous or
honest, the god is nevertheless still a man; if he be not so by
vice, he is by virtue, by easy good nature. Human and feeble,
incapable of refusing, of resisting, every day sacrificing the
people to the courtiers, and like the God of the priests, damning
the many, and saving his elect.
As we have already said: The religion of grace, partial for
the elect, and the government of grace, in the hands of
favourites, are perfectly analogous. Privileged mendicity,
whether it be filthy and monastic, or gilded, as at Versailles,
is ever mendicity. Two paternal powers : ecclesiastical paternity,
characterised by the Inquisition; and monarchical paternity, by
the Red Book and the Bastille.

SECTION VIII

THE RED BOOK

WHEN Queen Anne of Austria was regent, "there

remained," says Cardinal Retz, "but two little words in the
language: <The queen is so good!' "
From that day France declines in energy; the elevation of
the lower classes, which notwithstanding the harsh adminis­
tration of Richelieu had been so remarkable, subsides and dis­
appears. Wherefore? Because the "queen is good," she loads
with presents the brilliant crowd besetting her palace; all the
provincial nobility who fled under Richelieu return, demand,
obtain, take, and pillage; the least they expect is to be exempted
from taxation. The peasant who has managed to purchase a
few acres has the sole duty of payment; he must bear all-he
is obliged to sell again, and once more becomes a tenant,
steward, or a poor domestic.
Louis XIV. is severe at first; no exemption from taxes; Colbert

66
 On the Old Monarchy
suppresses 40,000 such exemptions. The country thrives. But
Louis XIV. grows good-natured; he is more and more affected
by the fate of the poor nobility; everything is for them,­
ranks, places, pensions, even benefices, and Saint-Cyr for noble
young ladies. The nobility flourishes, and France is at her last
extremity.
Louis XVI. is also severe at first, grumbles, and even refuses;
the courtiers jest bitterly about his incivility and rough answers
( coups de boutoir ) . The reason is, he has a bad minister-that
inflexible Turgot : and, alas ! the queen has no power yet. In
L 778, the king at last yields; the reaction of nature acts
powerfully in favour of the queen; he can no longer refuse
anything, neither to her nor to her brother. The most amiable
man in France becomes comptroller-general; M. de Calonne uses
liS much wit and grace to give, as his predecessors had used

skill to elude and refuse. "Madam," he would say to the

' Iueen, "if it be possible, it is done; if impossible, it shall be
done." The queen purchases Saint Cloud; the king, so parsi­
monious till then, allows himself to be seduced, and buys Ram­
houillet. Vaudreuil, the disinterested friend of the Count
d'Artois, will receive nothing; he sells to the crown, for a million,
his estates in America, receives them back and keeps them.
Who can say how many estates and what sums Diane de
Polignac, by cleverly directing Jules de Polignac, managed to
secure? The crowned Rosina, having become in course of time
Countess Almaviva, could refuse nothing to Suzanne,-to the
versatile charms of her who was Suzanne or Cherubino.
The Revolution spoiled all. It roughly tore aside the graceful
veil that masked the public ruin. The veil, being removed,
rovealed the vessel of the Danaides. The monstrous affair of
the Puy Paulin and Fenestrange, those millions squandered
( hetween a famine and a bankruptcy ) , flung away by a silly
woman into a woman's lap, far surpassed anything that satire
had exposed. People laughed,-with horror.
The inflexible reporter of the Finance Committee apprised
the Assembly of a mystery of which no one knew: "In ex­
Iwnditures, the king is the sole authority."

67
 INTRODUCTION

The only standard of expenditure was the king's good nature.

Too tender-hearted to refuse-to grieve those whom he saw
about him-he found himself in reality dependent on them. At
the slightest inclination towards economy, they were moody and
sullen. He was obliged to yield. Several of them were still
bolder; they spoke out, loud and resolutely, and took the king
to task. M. de Coigny ( the queen's first or second lover, ac­
cording to dates ) , refused to submit to a retrenchment which
they had proposed in one of his enormous pensions; a scene
ensued, and he got into a passion with Louis XVI. The king
shrugged his shoulders, and made no answer. In the evening,
he said: "Indeed, had he beaten me, I should have submitted
to it."
No noble family in difficulties, no illustrious mother marrying
her daughter and son, but draws money from the king. "Those
great families contribute to the splendour of the monarchy
and the glory of the throne," &c. &c. The king signs with a
heavy heart, and copies into his Red Book: To Madam-,
500,000 francs. The lady carries the order to the minister:
"I have no money, Madam." She insists, threatens; she may
be troublesome, being in high favour with the queen. The
minister ultimately finds the money. He will rather postpone,
like Lomenie, the payment of the small pensioners; let them
starve, if they will; or else, as he did, he will take the charitable
funds intended to repair the disasters of storms and fire; nay,
even plunder the funds of the hospitals.
France is in good hands. Everything is going on well. So
good-natured a king, such an amiable queen. The only diffi­
culty is, that, independently of the privileged paupers at Ver­
sailles, there is another class, no less noble, and far more
numerous, the provincial privileged paupers, who have nothing,
receive nothing, say they; they rend the air with their excla­
mations. Those men, long before the people, will begin the
Revolution.
By-the-by, there is a people. Between these paupers and
those paupers, who are all persons of fortune, we had forgotten
the people.

68
 On the Old Monarchy
The people! Oh! that is the business of the farmers of the
revenue. Things are altered. Formerly, financiers were hard­
hearted men. Now they are all philanthropists, kind, amiable,
Ilnd magnificent; with one hand they starve, it is true; but
often they nourish with the other. They reduce thousands to
beggary, and give alms. They build hospitals, and fill them.
"Persepolis," says Voltaire, in one of his stories, 'bas thirty
kings of finance, who draw millions from the people and give
It little to the king." Out of the gabelle, for instance, which
hrought in one hundred and twenty millions, the Ferme gene­
rale kept back sixty, and deigned to leave some fifty or sixty
for the king.
Tax-gathering was nothing but an organised warfare; it
caused an army of two hundred thousand drones to oppress the
Noil. Those locusts devoured,-wasted everything. To drain
substance out of a people, thus devoured, it was necessary to
have cruel laws, terrible penalties, the galleys, gibbets, racks.
The farming agents were authorised to employ arms; they
murdered, and were afterwards judged by the special tribunals
of the Ferme generale.
The most shocking part of the system was the easy good
nature of the king and the farmers of the revenue. On one
hand the king, on the other the thirty kings of the exchequer,
gave away ( or sold cheap ) exemptions from taxation; the king
created nobles; the farmers created for themselves fictitious
employes, who, under that title, were exempt. Thus, the ex­
chequer was working against itself; whilst it was augmenting
the sum to be paid, it diminished the number of the payers;
the load weighing upon fewer shoulders, became more and
more oppressive.
The two privileged orders paid whatever they pleased,-the
clergy a gratuitous non-collectible tax; the nobles contributed
for certain imposts, but according to whatever they thought
proper to declare, which the treasury-agents registered with a
how, without either examination or verification. The neighbours
had to pay so much the more.
0, heaven! 0, earth! 0, justice! If it were through conquest,
69
 INTRODUCTION

or by a master's tyranny, that the people were perishing, they

could endure it. But they perish through good nature! They
would perhaps endure the hard-heartedness of a Richelieu;
but how can they endure the good nature of Lomenie and
Calonne, the tender-heartedness of the financiers, and the phi­
lanthropy of the farmers of the revenue!
To suffer and die, so be it! But to suffer by choice, so that a
kindness for one should be the death and ruin of another! That
is too much, oh, too much by half!
Kind-hearted men, you who weep over the evils of the Revo­
lution ( doubtless with too much reason ) , shed also a few tears
for the evils which occasioned it.
Come and see, I beseech you, this people lying in the dust,
like poor Job, amid their false friends, their patrons, their in­
fluential protectors-the clergy and royalty. Behold the look
of anguish that they turn upon their king, without speaking.
What language is in that look!
"0 king, whom I made my god, to whom I erected an
altar, and to whom I prayed even before God himself, from
whom, in the jaws of death, I implored salvation; you, my only
hope, you, whom I have adored. What! have you then felt
nothing?"

SECTION IX

THE BASTILLE

THE illustrious Quesnay, physician to Louis XV.

and to Madame de Pompadour, who lived in the house of the
latter at Versailles, saw the king one day rush in suddenly, and
felt alarmed. Madame du Hausset, the witty femme de cham­
bre, who has left such curious memoirs, inquired of him why he
seemed so uneasy. "Madam," returned he, "whenever I see the
king, I say to myself : 'There is a man who can cut my head
off: " "Oh!" said she "the king is too good!"
The lady's maid thus summed up, in one word, the guarantees
of the monarchy.

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 On the Old Monarchy
The king was too good to cut a man's head off; that was no
longer agreeable to custom. But he could, with one word, send
him to the Bastille, and there forget him.
It remains to be decided which is best,-to perish by one
hlow, or to suffer a lingering death for thirty or forty years.
There were some twenty Bastilles in France, of which six
only ( in 1775 ) contained three hundred prisoners. At Paris,
In 1779, there were about thirty prisons where people might be
Incarcerated without any sentence. An infinite number of con­
vents were subsidiary to these Bastilles.
All these state-prisons, towards the close of the reign of
Louis XIV., were, like everything else, controlled by the Jesuits.
They were, in their hands, instruments of torture for the Prot­
(�stants and the J ansenists-dens for conversion. A secrecy
more profound than that of the leads and the wells of Venice,
the oblivion of the tomb, enshrouded everything. The Jesuits
were the confessors of the Bastille, and of many other prisons;
the prisoners who died were buried under false names in the
church of the Jesuits. Every means of terror was in their hands,
especially those dungeons whence the prisoners occasionally
came out with their ears or noses gnawed away by the rats.
Not only of terror, but of Hattery also-both so potent with
female prisoners. The almoner, to render grace more effica­
cious, employed even culinary arguments, starving, feeding,
pampering the fair captive according as she yielded or resisted.
More than one state-prison is mentioned in which the gaolers
and the Jesuits paid alternate visits to the female prisoners, and
had children by them. One preferred to strangle herself.
The lieutenant of police went, from time to time, to breakfast
at the Bastille. That was reckoned as a visit,-a magisterial
supervision. That magistrate was ignorant of everything; and
yet it was he alone who gave an account to the minister.
One family, one dynasty, Chateauneuf, his son La Vrilliere, and
his grandson Saint-Florentin ( who died in 1777 ) possessed, for
11 century, the department of the state-prisons and the lettres­
de-cachet. For this dynasty to subsist, it was necessary to have
prisoners; when the Protestants were liberated, their places
were filled up with the Jansenists; next, they took men of letters,

71
 INTRODUCTION

philosophers, the Voltaires, Frerets, Diderots. The minister

used to give generously blank lettres-de-cachet to the intend­
ants, the bishops, and people in the administration. Saint-Flor­
entin, alone, gave away as many as 50,000. Never had man's
dearest treasure, liberty, been more lavishly squandered. These
letters were the object of a profitable traffic; they were sold
to fathers who wanted to get rid of their sons, and given to
pretty women, who were inconvenienced by their husbands.
This last cause of imprisonment was one of the most common.
And all through good-nature. The king was too good to refuse
a lettre-de-cachet to a great lord. The intendant was too good­
natured not to grant one at a lady's request. The government­
clerks, the mistresses of the clerks, and the friends of these
mistresses, through good-nature, civility, or mere politeness, ob­
tained, gave, or lent, those terrible orders by which a man was
buried alive. Buried;-for such was the carelessness and levity
of those amiable clerks,-almost all nobles, fashionable men,
all occupied with their pleasures,-that they never had the
time, when once the poor fellow was shut up, to think of his
position.
Thus, the government of grace, with all its advantages,­
descending from the king to the lowest clerk in the adminis­
tration,-disposed, according to caprice or fancy, of liberty, of
life.
Let us understand this system well. Why does such a one
succeed? What does he possess, that everything should thrive
with him? He has the grace of God, and the king's good
grace. Let him who is in disgrace, in this world of grace, go
out of the world,-banished, sentenced, and damned.
The Bastille, the lettre-de-cachet, is the king's excommunica­
tion.
Are the excommunicated to die? No. It would require a
decision of the king, a resolution painful to take, which would
grieve the king himself. It would be a judgment between him
and his conscience. Let us save him the task of judging, of
killing. There is a middle term between life and death; a
lifeless, buried life. Let us organize a world expressly for
oblivion. Let us set falsehood at the gates within and without,

72
 On the Old Monarchy
In order that life and death be ever uncertain. The 1iving
corpse no longer knew anything about his family. "But my
wife?" Thy wife is dead-I make a mistake-re-married. "Are
lilly of my friends alive? Do they ever remember me?" "Thy
friends, poor fool, why, they were the persons who betrayed
thee." Thus the soul of the miserable prisoner, a prey to their
ferocious merriment, is fed on derision, calumny, and lies.
Forgotten! 0 terrible word! That a soul should perish among
souls! Had not he whom God created for life the right to
live at least in the mind? What mortal shall dare inflict, even
on the most guilty, this worst of deaths,-to be eternally for­
gotten?
No, do not believe it. Nothing is forgotten,-neither man nor
thing. What once has been, cannot be thus annihilated. The
very walls will not forget, the pavement will become accom­
plice, and convey sounds and noises; the air will not forget;
from that small skylight, where a poor girl is sewing, at the
Porte Saint-Antoine, they have seen and understood. Nay,
the very Bastille itself will be affected. That surly turnkey
is still a man. I see inscribed upon the walls the hymn of a
prisoner to the glory of a gaoler, his benefactor.-Poor benefit!
A shirt that he gave to that Lazarus, barbarously abandoned,
devoured by vermin in his tomb!
Whilst I have been writing these lines, a mountain, a Bastille
has been crushing my breast. Alas! why stay so long talking
of dilapidated prisons, and wretches whom death has de­
livered? The world is covered with prisons, from Spielberg to
Siberia, from Spandau to Mont-St.-Michel. The world is a
prison!
Vast silence of the globe, stifled groans and sobs from the
ever-silent earth, I hear you but too plainly. The captive
mind, dumb among inferior animals, and musing in the bar­
barous world of Africa and Asia, thinks, and suffers in our
Europe!
Where does it speak, if not in France, in spite of chains? It
is ever here that the mute genius of the earth finds a voice,­
an organ. The world thinks, France speaks.
And it is precisely on that account that the Bastille of France,

73
 INTRODUCTION

the Bastille of Paris ( I would rather say the prison of thought ) ,

was, of all other Bastilles, execrable, infamous, and accursed.
From the last century, Paris was already the voice of the globe.
The earth spoke by the voice of three men-Voltaire, Jean­
Jacques, and Montesquieu. That the interpreters of the world
should behold unworthy threats perpetually suspended over
them, that the narrow issue through which the agony of mankind
could breathe its sighs, should ever be shut up, was beyond
human endurance.
Our fathers shivered that Bastille to pieces, tore away its
stones with their bleeding hands, and Hung them afar. Mter­
wards, they seized them again; and, having hewn them into a
different form, in order that they might be trampled under
foot by the people for ever, built with them the Bridge of
Revolution!
All other prisons had become more merciful; but this one
had become more cruel. From reign to reign, they diminished
what the gaolers would laughingly term,-the liberties of the
Bastille. The windows were walled up one after another, and
other bars were added. During the reign of Louis XVI., the
use of the garden and the walk on the towers were prohibited.
About this period two circumstances occurred which added
to the general indignation,-Linguet's memoirs, which made
people acquainted with the ignoble and ferocious interior; and,
what was more decisive, the unwritten, unprinted case of La­
tude : whispered mysteriously, and transmitted from mouth to
mouth, its effect was only rendered more terrible.
For my part, 1 must acknowledge the extremely agonizing
effect which the prisoner's letters produced on me. Though a
sworn enemy to barbarous fictions about everlasting punish­
ments, 1 found myself praying to God to construct a hell for
tyrants.
Ahl M. de Sartines, Ahl Madame de Pompadour, how heavy
is your burden! How plainly do we perceive, by that history,
how, having once embraced injustice, we go on from bad
to worse; how terror, descending from the tyrant to the slave,
returns again more forcibly to torment the tyrant. Having once

74
 On the Old Monarchy
kept this man a prisoner without judgment, for some trilling
fault, Madame de Pompadour and M. de Sartines are obliged
to hold him captive for ever, and seal over him with an
eternal stone the hell of silence.
But that cannot be. That stone is ever restless; and a low,
terrible voice-a sulphurous blast-is ever arising. In 1781, Sar­
tines feels its dread effect,-in 1784, the king himself is hurt
hy it,-in 1789, the people know all, see all, even the ladder by
which the prisoner escaped. In 1793, they guillotine the family
of Sartines.
For the confusion of tyrants, it so happened that they had
in that prisoner confined a daring, terrible man, whom nothing
tould subdue, whose voice shook the very walls, whose spirit
lind audaCity were invincible. A body of iron, indestructible,
which was to wear out all their prisons, the Bastille, Vincennes,
Charenton, and lastly the horrors of Bid�tre, wherein any other
would have perished.
What makes the accusation heavy, overwhelming, and without
appeal, is, that this man, good or bad, after escaping twice,
twice surrendered himself by his own acts. Once, from his
hiding-place, he wrote to Madame de Pompadour, and she
cnused him to be seized again! The second time, he goes to
Versailles, wishes to speak to the king, reaches his antechamber,
nnd she orders him again to be seized. What! Not even in the
klng's apartment a sacred asylum?
I am unfortunately obliged to say that in the feeble, effemi­
nnte, declining society of that period, there were a great many
philanthopists,-ministers, magistrates, and great lords, to
mourn over the adventure; but not one stirred. Malesherbes
wept, and so did Gourgues, and Lamoignon, and Rohan,-they
nIl wept bitterly.
He was lying upon his dunghill at Bicetre, literally devoured
hy vermin, lodged under ground, and often howling with
hunger. He had addressed one more memorial to some philan­
thropist or other, by means of a drunken turnkey. The latter
luckily lost it, and a woman picked it up. She read it, and
shuddered; she did not weep, but acted instantly.

75
 INTRODUCTION

Madame Legros was a poor mercer who lived by her work,­

by sewing in her shop; her husband was a private teacher of
Latin. She did not fear to embark in that terrible undertaking.
She saw with her firm good sense what others did not, or
would not, see : that the wretched man was not mad, but the
victim of a frightful necessity, by which the government was
obliged to conceal and perpetuate the infamy of its old trans­
gressions. She saw it, and was neither discouraged nor afraid.
No heroism was ever more complete: she had the courage to
undertake; the energy to persevere; and the obstinacy to sacri­
fice every day and every hour; the courage to despise the
threats, the sagacity, and saintly plots of every kind in order
to elude and foil the calumny of the tyrants.
For three consecutive years, she persevered in her endeavours
with an unheard-of obstinacy; employing in the pursuit of justice
and equity that singular eagerness peculiar to the huntsman
or the gamester, and to which we seldom resort but for the
gratification of our evil passions.
All kinds of misfortunes beset her; but she will not give up
the cause. Her father dies; then her mother; she, loses her little
business, is blamed by her relations, nay, subjected to villainous
suspicion. They tax her with being the mistress of that prisoner
in whom she is so much interested. The mistress of that spectre,
that corpse, devoured with filth and verminI
The temptation of temptations, the summit, the highest point
of the Calvary are the complaints, the injustices, the distrust
of that very man for whom she is wearing herself out, sacrificing
herselfl
Ohl It is a grand sight to see that poor woman, so ill­
dressed, begging from door to door, courting the valets to gain
admittance into the mansions, pleading her cause before
grandees, and demanding their assistance.
The police are furious and indignant. Madame Legros may
be kidnapped, shut up, lost for ever; everybody gives her warn­
ing. The lieutenant of police sends for her, and threatens her;
he finds her firm and unalterable; it is she who makes him
tremble.
Happily, they manage to get her the protection of Madame

76
 On the Old Monarchy
Duchesne, a femme de chambre to the princesses. She sets
out for Versailles, on foot, in the depth of winter; she was
in the seventh month of her pregnancy. The protectress was '
absent; she runs after her, sprains her foot, but still runs on.
Madame Duchesne sheds many tears, but alas! what can she
do? One femme de chambre against two or three ministers;­
it is a difficult game! She was holding the petition, when an
abbe of the court, who happened to be present, tore it out of
her hands, telling her that it was all about a miserable mad­
man, and that she must not interfere.
A word of this sort was enough to freeze the heart of Marie
Antoinette, who had been told about the matter. She had tears
in her eyes; someone spoke in jest; all was over.
There was hardly a better man in France than the king.
At length they applied to him. Cardinal de Rohan ( a debauchee,
hut charitable after all ) spoke three times to Louis XVI., who
thrice refused to interfere. Louis XVI. was too good not to
believe M. de Sartines. He was no longer in power, but that
was no reason for dishonouring him, and handing him over to
his enemies. Setting Sartines out of the question, we must say
that Louis XVI. was fond of the Bastille, and would not wrong
it, or injure its reputation.
The king was very humane. He had suppressed the deep
dungeons of the Chatelet, done away with Vincennes and cre­
ated La Force to receive prisoners for debt, to separate them
from criminals.
But the Bastille! the Bastille! That was an old servant not
to be lightly ill-treated by the ancient monarchy. It was a
mystery of terror, what Tacitus calls, "Instrumentum regni."
When the count d'Artois and the Queen, wishing to have
Figaro played, read it to him, he merely observed, as an un­
answerable objection, "Then must the Bastille be suppressed?"
When the Revolution of Paris took place, in July 1789, the
king, indifferent enough, seemed to be reconciled to the matter.
But when he was informed that the Parisian municipality had
ordered the demolition of the Bastille, he seemed as if he had
been shot to the heart; "Oh!" said he, "this is awful!"
He was unable, in 1781, to listen to a request that com-

77
 INTRODUCTION

promised the Bastille. He rejected also the one which Rohan

presented to him in favour of Latude. But noble ladies insisted.
He then made a conscientious study of the business, read all
the papers; they were few, save those of the police and people
interested in keeping the victim in prison until death. At length
he decided that he was a dangerous man, and that he could
never restore him to liberty.
Neverl Any other person would have stopped there. Well
then, what is not done by the king shall be done in spite of
him. Madame Legros persists. She is well received by the
Conde family, ever discontented and grumbling; welcomed by
the young duke of Orleans and his kind-hearted spouse, the
daughter of the good Penthievre; and hailed by the philosophers,
by the Marquis de Condorcet, perpetual secretary of the Acad­
emy of Sciences, by Dupaty, by Villette, Voltaire's quasi son­
in-law, &c. &c.
The public voice murmurs louder and louder, like a flood, or
the waves of the rising tide. Necker had dismissed Sartines;
his friend and successor, Lenoir, had also fallen in his tum.
Perseverance will presently be crowned. Latude is obstinately
bent on living, and Madame Legros as obstinately bent on
delivering Latude.
The queen's man, Breteuil, succeeds in 1783; he wants to win
admirers for her. He allows the Academy to award the prize
for virtue to Madame Legros, to crown her-on the singular
condition that no reasons for the award be given.
At length, in 1784, they force from Louis XVI, the deliver­
ance of Latude.9 And a few weeks after, comes a strange and
whimsical ordinance enjoining the intendants never more to
incarcerate anybody, at the request of families, without a well­
grounded reason, and to indicate the duration of confinement,
&c. That is to say, they unveiled the depth of the monstrous
abyss of arbitrariness into which France had been plunged.
She already knew much; but the government confessed still
more.

• Latude's admirable letters are still unpublished, save the few quoted
by Delort. They refute but too well the vain polemics of 1787.
78
 On the Old Monarchy
From the priest to the king, from the Inquisition to the
Bastille, the road is straight, but long. Holy, holy Revolution,
how slowly dost thou comet-I, who have been waiting for
thee for a thousand years in the furrows of the middle ages,­
what! must I wait still longer?-Oh! how slowly time passes!
Oh! how I have counted the hours!-Wilt thou never arrive?
Men believed no longer in its near approach. All had fore­
seen the Revolution in the middle of the century. Nobody, at
the end, believed in it. Far from Mont-Blanc, you see it; when
at its foot, you see it no more.
"Alas! it is all over," said Mably, in 1784; "we have fallen
too low; morals have become too depraved. Never, ohl never
now will the Revolution appear!"
o ye of little faith, do you not see that as long as it re­
mained among you, philosophers, orators, sophists, it could do
nothing? God be praised, now it is everywhere, among the
people and in women.-Here is one who, by her persevering,
unconquerable will, bursts open the prisons of State; she has
taken the Bastille beforehand.-The day when liberty-reason,
umerges from arguments, and descends into nature, into the
heart ( and the heart of hearts is woman ) , all is over. Everything
artificial is destroyed.-O Rousseau, now we understand thee;
thou wast truly right in saying, "Return to naturel"
A woman is fighting at the Bastille. Women accomplish the
5th of October. As early as February 1789, I read with emotion
the courageous letter of the women and girls of Angers : "Having
read the decrees of the male portion of our youthful community
( messieurs de la ieunesse ), we declare that we will join the
nation, reserving to ourselves the care of the baggage and
provisions, and such consolations and services as may depend
on us; we will perish rather than abandon our husbands, lovers,
sons, and brothers."
o France, you are saved I 0 world, you are saved I-Again do
I hehold in the heavens my youthful star in which I so long
placed my hope,-the star of Joan of Arc. What matters, if the
maid, changing her sex, has become a youth, Hache, Marceau,
J oubert, or Kleber!

79
 INTRODUCTION

Grand period, sublime moment, when the most warlike of

men are nevertheless the harbingers of peace! When Right, so
long wept for, is found at the end of ages; when Grace, in
whose name Tyranny had crushed us, is found to be consonant,
identical with Justice.
What is the old regime, the king and the priest in the old
monarchy? Tyranny, in the name of Grace.
What is the Revolution? The re-action of equity, the tardy
advent of Eternal Justice.
o Justice, my mother! Right, my father! ye who are but
one with God!
Whom else should I invoke, I, one of the crowd, one of those
ten millions of men, who would never have existed but for our
Revolution.
o Justice, pardon me! I believed you were austere and hard­
hearted, and I did not perceive that you were identical with
Love and Grace. And that is why I have been no enthusiast of
the middle ages, which have ever repeated the word Love
without performing the offices of Love.
But now, absorbed in deep reflection, and with all the ardour
of my heart, I humbly crave forgiveness, 0 heavenly Justice
of God.
For thou art truly Love, and identical with Grace.
And as thou art Justice, thou wilt support me in this book,
where my path has been marked out by the emotions of my
heart and not by private interest, nor by any thought of this
sublunar world. Thou wilt be just towards me, and I will be
so towards all. For whom then have I written this, but for
thee, Eternal Justice?
JANUARY 31ST, 1847

80
 BOOK I
APRIL TO JDLY, 1789
 I

Elections of 1789

THE convocation of the Estates-General, in

1789, is the true era of the birth of the people. It called the
whole nation to the exercise of their rights.
They could at least write their complaints, their wishes, and
choose the electors.
Small republican states had already admitted all their mem­
bers to a participation of political rights; but never had a great
kingdom,-an empire like France. The thing was new, not only
in French annals, but even in those of the world.
Accordingly, when, for the first time, in the course of ages,
these words were heard: All shall assemble to elect,l all shall
send in their complaints, there was an immense, profound
commotion, like an earthquake; the mass felt the shock even in
obscure and mute regions, where movement would have been
least expected.
All the towns elected, and not the good towns only, as in the
ancient Estates-General; country districts also elected, and not
the towns alone.
It is affirmed that five million men took part in the election.
Grand, strange, surprising scene I To see a whole people

1 See the Actes in the first vol. of the Moniteur. The tax-payers of more
than twenty-five years of age were to choose the electors, who were to
lIame the deputies, and concur in the drawing-up of the returns. As
laxation affected everybody, at least by poll-tax, the whole of the
population, excepting servants, was thus called upon.

83
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

emerging, at once, from nonentity to existence, who, till then

silent, suddenly found a voice.
The same appeal of equality was addressed to populations,
prodigiously unequal, not only in status, but in culture, in
their moral state and ideas. How would that people answer?
That was a great question. The exchequer on one side, feudal­
ity on the other,2 seemed striving to brutalise them under the
weight of miseries. Royalty had deprived them of their munici­
pal rights,-of that education which they derived from business
connected with the commune. The clergy, the teachers thrust
upon them, had not taught them for a long time past. They
seemed to have done everything to render them dull, dumb,
speechless, and senseless, and then they said to them, "Arise
now, walk, and speakl"
They had relied, too much relied, upon that incapacity;
otherwise they would never have ventured to make this great
move. The first who pronounced the name of the Estates­
General,-the parlements which demanded them,-the minis­
ters who promised them,-Necker who convoked them,-all,
believed the people incapable of taking any serious part
therein. They only thought, by this solemn convocation of a
great lifeless mass, to frighten the privileged classes. The court,
which was itself the privilege of privileges, the abuse of abuses,
had no desire to make war on them. It merely hoped, by the
forced contributions of the clergy and nobility, to fill the public
coffers, from which they filled their own.
And what did the queen desire? Given up to parvenus,
lampooned by the nobility, gradually despised, and alone, she
wanted to have a slight revenge on those revilers, to intimidate
them, and oblige them to rally round the king. She saw her
brother Joseph attempting, in the Netherlands, to oppose the
smaller towns to the larger, to the prelates and grandees.s That

• This expression is not ill-employed. Feudality was very oppressive in

1789, more fiscal than ever, being entirely in the hands of intendants,
attorneys, &c. Names and forms had changed,-nothing more.
S See, for the revolution in Brabant, so different from ours, the documents
collected by Gachard ( 1834 ) , Gerard (184 2 ) , and the histories by Gross-
84
 Elections of 1789
example, doubtless, rendered her less adverse to Necker's
ideas; she consented to give to the Tiers (or Third Estate ) as
many deputies as the nobility and clergy had together.
And what did Necker desire? Two things at once,-to pretend
much and do little.
For ostentation, for glory,-to be celebrated and extolled by
the salons and the immense body of the public, it was necessary
to double generously the number of the deputies of the Third
Estate.
In reality, they wanted to be generous at a cheap price.4
The Third Estate, more or less numerous, would never be any­
thing but one of three orders,-would have but one vote against
two; Necker reckoned surely on maintaining the voting by
orders, which had so often before paralysed the ancient Estates­
General. The Third Estate, moreover, had at all times been
very modest, very respectful, too well-bred to wish to be repre­
sented by men of its own class. It had often named nobles for
deputies, mostly newly-created nobles, parlement people and
others, who prided themselves on voting with the nobility,
against the interests of the Third Estate which had named
them.
A strange circumstance, but a proof that they had no real
intention,-that they merely wanted by this grand phantasma-

Hoffinger (1837 ) , Borgnet (1844 ) , and Ramshorn ( 1845 ) . That

revolution of abbes, of which the Capuchin-friars were the terrorists,
deceived everybody here (in France), both the court and our Jacobins.
Dumouriez alone comprehended, and said, that it was primitively the work
of the powerful abbes of the Netherlands. M. Mercy d'Argenteau, the
Austrian ambassador, believed at first, and doubtless made Marie­
Antoinette believe, that in France, as in Belgium, the peril was on the side
of the aristocracy. Hence, many false steps.
'For all this, one must see Necker's curious confessions, his p leading for
the Third Estate. (Oeuvres, vi., 419, 443, &c.) Therein, as in all his works,
one always perceives the foreigner anything but esteemed in France, a
clerk ever clerk-like, who stands bowing before the nobility,-a Protestant
who wants to find grace with the clergy. To reassure the privileged classes
about the poor Third Estate, he presents it to them feeble, timid, and
subservient; he seems to be secretly Signaling to them. He, moreover,
g ives them to understand that his client is an easy sort of person,-easily
d uped.

85
 BOOK I; APRIL TO JULY, 1789
goria, to overcome the selfishness of the privileged classes, and
open their purses, is, that in these Estates, called against them,
they managed nevertheless to secure them a predominant in­
fluence.5 The popular assemblies were to elect by acclamation
(a haute voix). They did not suppose that inferior people, in
such a mode of election, in presence of the nobles and nota­
bles, would possess sufficient firmness to oppose them,-enough
assurance to pronounce other names than those which were
dictated to them.
In calling the people of the country, of the villages, to the
election, Necker, no doubt, expected to do something very
political; in proportion as the democratic spirit was aroused in
the towns, in such proportion the country-places were influ­
enced by the nobles and the clergy,-the possessors of two
thirds of the lands. Millions of men arrived thus at election,
who were dependent on the privileged classes, as tenants,
cultivators, &c., or who indirectly would be influenced, or in­
timidated, by their agents, stewards, attorneys, and men of
business. Necker knew, from the experience of Switzerland and
the history of the petty cantons, that universal suffrage may be,
in certain conditions, the stay of the aristocracy. The notables
whom he consulted, so completely adopted this idea, that they
wanted to make even their servants electors. Necker would not
consent to it, as then the election would have fallen entirely
into the hands of the large proprietors.
The result deceived all their calculations.6 This people,
though wholly unprepared, showed a very sure instinct. When
they were called to election and informed of their rights, it was

• The l rivileged orders were doubly favoured: 1st. They were not
subjecte to the two degrees of election; they elected their deputies in a
direct manner. 2dly. The nobles were all electors, and not the nobles who
had fiefs exclusively, as in the ancient states; the privilege was the more
odious still, as being extended to a whole generation of nobles; the
pretensions were the more ridiculous.
• Very uncertain calculations. The king confesses, in the convocation of
Paris, that he does not know the number of the inhabitants of the best­
known town in the kingdom, that he cannot guess the number of the
electors, &c.
86
 Elections of 1789
found that little remained to be taught them. In that prodigious
movement of five or six millions of men, there was some sort of
hesitation, through their ignorance of forms, and especially,
because the majority knew not how to read. But they knew
how to speak; they knew how, in presence of their lords, with­
out infringing upon their respectful habits, or laying aside their
humble demeanour, to select worthy electors, who all nomi­
nated safe and certain deputies.
The admission of the country districts to election had the
unexpected result of placing even among the deputies of the
privileged orders a numerous democracy, of whom they had
never thought, two hundred cures and more, very hostile to
their bishops. In Brittany, and in the South, the peasant will­
ingly nominated his cure, who, moreover, alone knowing how
to write, received the votes, and directed all the election.7
The people of the towns, rather better prepared, having been
somewhat enlightened by the philosophy of the age, evinced
an admirable eagerness, a lively consciousness of their rights.
This appeared plain at the elections, by the rapidity, the cer­
tainty with which crowds of inexperienced men took this
their first political step. It appeared evident in the uniformity
of the memorials (cahiers) in which they recorded their com­
plaints,-an unexpected, powerful combination, which im­
parted irresistible strength to the will of the people. How long
had those complaints existed in every heart I It was but too
easy to write them. Many a memorial of our districts, contain­
ing almost a code, was begun at midnight, and finished at
three in the morning.s
A movement so vast, so varied, so wholly unprepared, and
yet so unanimous, is most wonderful! All took part in it, and
(except an insignificant number ) they all desired the same
thing.9

T However, in several communes, sworn scriveners were appointed to

write down the votes.-Duchatellier, La Revolution en Bretagne, i., 281.
• Memoires de Bailly, i., 12.
• The same thing in every essential point. To which every corporation

And every town added something special.

87
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

Unanimous! There was a complete and unreserved concord,

a perfectly simple state of things,-the nation on one side and
privilege on the other. Yet, there was no possible distinction
then in the nation between the people and the citizens; 10 only
one distinction appeared,-the instructed and the ignorant; the
educated alone spoke and wrote; but they wrote the thoughts
of all. They drew up into a formula the general demands; and
they were the demands of the mute masses as much as, and
more than their own.
Oh! who would not be touched by the remembrance of that
unrivalled moment, when we started into life? It was short­
lived; but it remains for us the ideal whereunto we shall ever
tend, the hope of the future! 0 sublime Concord, in which the
rising liberties of classes, subsequently in opposition, embraced
so tenderly, like brothers in the cradle,-shall we never more
see thee return upon our earth?
This union of the different classes, this grand appearance of
the people in their formidable unity, struck terror to the court
which used every effort with the king to prevail on him to
break his word. The Polignac faction had contrived, in order
to place him in an uncomfortable position, to get the princes
to write and sign an audacious letter in which they menaced
the king, assumed to be the chiefs of the privileged classes,
spoke of refusing taxes, of divisions, almost of civil war.
And yet, how could the king elude the Estates? Recom­
mended by the Court of Aids, demanded by the parlements
and by the Notables, promised by Brienne, and again by
Necker, they were at length to open on the 27th of April. They
were further prorogued till the 4th of May. A perilous delay!
To so many voices then arising another was added, alas! one
often heard in the eighteenth century,-the voice of the earth-

,. It was a vital error of the authors of the Histoire Parlementaire, to

mark this distinction at that important moment when nobody saw it. It
will come but too soon; we must wait. Thus to be blind to the real
consequence of facts, and to drag them forcibly forward before their time
by a sort of systematic pre-arrangement, is precisely contrary to history.

88
 Elections of 1789
the desolate, sterile earth refusing food to man! The winter had
been terrible; the summer was dry and gave nothing: and
famine began. The bakers being uneasy, and always in peril
before the starving riotous crowd, themselves denounced com­
panies who were monopolising the wheat. Only one thing
restrained the people, and made them fast patiently and
wait,-their hope in the Estates-General. A vague hope; but it
supported them; the forthcoming assembly was a Messiah; it
had only to speak, and the stones were to change into bread.
The elections, so long delayed, were still longer postponed
at Paris. They were not convoked till the eve of the assembling
of the Estates. It was hoped that the deputies would not be
present at the first sittings, and that before their arrival, they
would secure the separation of the three orders, which gave a
majority to the privileged.
There was another cause for discontent, and one most serious
for Paris. In that city, the most enlightened in the kingdom,
election was subjected to more severe conditions. A special
regulation, made after the convocation, called, as primary elec­
tors, not all who were taxed, but those only who paid a rate
of six francs.
Paris was filled with troops, every street with patrols, and
every place of election surrounded with soldiers. Arms were
loaded in the street, in face of the crowd.
In presence of these vain demonstrations, the electors were
very firm. Scarcely had they met, when they rejected the
presidents given to them by the king. Out of sixty districts,
three only re-appointed the president named by the monarch,
making him declare that he presided by election. A serious
measure,-the first act of the national sovereignty. And it was
indeed that which it was necessary to acquire,-it was Right
that it was necessary to found. Questions of finance and reform
would come afterwards. Without Right, what guarantee was
there, or what serious reform?
The electors, created by these district assemblies, acted in
preCisely the same manner. They elected as president the ad­
vocate Target; Camus, the advocate of the clergy, as vice-

89
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

president, and the academician Bailly and Doctor Guillotin, a

philanthropical physician, as secretaries.ll
The court was astonished at the decision, firmness, and reg­
ularity, with which twenty-five thousand primary electors, so
new to political life, then proceeded. There was no disturbance.
Assembled in the churches, they transferred thither the emo­
tion of the great and holy task they were accomplishing. The
boldest measure, the destitution of the presidents named by the
king, was effected without any noise or exclamation, with the
forcible simplicity imparted by a consciousness of right.
The electors, under a president of their choice, were sitting
at the Archbishop's Palace, and about to make a total of the
district polls, and to draw up one common resolution; they
were already agreed on one point, which Sieyes had recom­
mended,-the utility of prefacing with a declaration of the
rights of man. In the middle of this delicate and difficult meta­
physical task, they were interrupted by a terrible uproar. A
ragged multitude had come to demand the head of one of their
colleagues, of Reveillon, an elector,-a paper-manufacturer in
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Reveillon was concealed; but the
riot was not less dangerous on that account. It was now the
28th of April; the Estates-General, promised for the 27th, and
then postponed again till the 4th of May, ran a great risk, if
the riots lasted, of being adjourned once more.
The riot broke out precisely on the 27th, and it was but too
easy to spread, entertain, and increase it, among a starving
population. A report had been spread in the Faubourg Saint­
Antoine, that Reveillon, the paper-manufacturer,-a workman
grown rich,-had said unfeelingly that it was necessary to lower
wages to fifteen sous a day; and, it was added, that he was to

n This assembly, so finn in its flrst proceedings, was nevertheless

composed of notables, functionaries, merchants, or advocates. The latter
led the assembly; they were Camus, Target, Trellhard, the advocate of the
Ferme Generale, Lacretelle Senior, and Deseze. In the second rank came
the academicians,-Bailly, Thouin, and Cadet, Gaillard, Suard, Marmontel.
Next, the bankers, such as Lecouteulx, and the printers, librarians, and
stationers, Pankoucke, Baudouin, Reveillon, &c.
90
 Elections of 1789
receive the decoration of the cordon-nair. That report was fol­
lowed by a great commotion. First, a band, in front of Reveil­
Ion's door, take his effigy, decorated with the cordon, carry it in
procession to La Greve, and bum it with much ceremony be­
neath the windows of the Hotel-de-Ville, before the eyes of the
municipal authority, who remain perfectly unmoved. This au­
thority and the others, so vigilant just before, seemed fast
asleep. The lieutenant of police, the prevost Flesselles, and
Berthier the intendant,-all those court-agents, who lately sur­
rounded the elections with soldiers, had lost their activity.
The band exclaimed aloud that it would go, on the morrow,
to do justice at Reveillon's. It kept its word. The police, though
so well warned, used no precaution. The colonel of the French
Guards sends, of his own accord, some thirty rnen,-a ridiculous
force; in a compact crowd of a thousand or two thousand
pillagers and a hundred thousand idle spectators, the soldiers
will not, cannot, act. The house is broken open, and everything
demolished, shattered to pieces, and burnt. Nothing was car­
ried away, except five hundred louis d'or.12 Many took up their
quarters in the cellars, drank the wine, and the colours of the
manufactory, mistaking them for wine.
What seems incredible is, that this shameful scene lasted all
day. It took place too at the very entrance of the faubourg,

12 According to the statement of Reveillon himself: Expose fusti"ficatif, p.

422, (printed at the end of Ferrieres). The Histoire Parlementaire is again
Inexact here. It makes of all this, without the least proof, a war of the
people against the citizens. It exaggerates the extent of the riot, the
number of the dead, &c. Bailly, on the contrary, and no less wrongfully, in
p. 28 of his Memoirs, reduces it to nothing: "Nobody perished, as far as I
know." A very important testimony, on the Reveillon riot, is that of the
illustrious surgeon Desault, who received several of the wounded at the
1I6tel-Dieu: "lls n'avaient l'air que du crime foudroye; au contraire, lea
')lesses de la Bastille," &c.: See [,Oeuvre des sept lours, p. 411. What
showed plainly that the people did not consider the pillage of Reveillon's
house as a patriotic act is, that they were near hanging, on the 16th of
July, a man whom they mistook for the abbe Roy, accused of having
(lxcited this riot (Bailly, ii., p. 51), and of having subsequently offered to
the court a means of slaughtering Paris.-(Proces-verbal des Electeurs, ii,
p.46.)

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 89

under the cannon of the Bastille, at the gate of the fort. Reveil­
lon, who was concealed there, saw all from the towers.
A few companies of the French Guards were sent from time
to time, who fired, first with powder, and next with ball. The
pillagers paid no attention to them, though they had only stones
to throw in return. Late, very late, the commandant, Besenval,
sent some Swiss; the pillagers still resisted, and killed a few
men; the soldiers replied by some destructive discharges, which
left a number of dead and wounded on the pavement. Many
of these bodies in rags had money about them.
If, during those two long days, when the magistrates were
asleep and Besenval abstained from sending troops, the fau­
bourg Saint-Antoine had allowed itself to be seduced to follow
the band that was sacking Reveillon's house,-if fifty thousand
workmen, without either work or bread, had, on that example,
set about pillaging the rich mansions, everything would have
changed its aspect; the court would then have had an excellent
motive to concentrate an army on Paris and Versailles, and a
specious pretext for adjourning the Estates. But the great mass
of the faubourg remained honest, and abstained; it looked on,
without moving. The riot, thus confined to a few hundred peo­
ple, drunkards and thieves, became a disgrace to the authority
that permitted it. Besenval at length found his part too ridicu­
lous; he acted, and ended the whole affair abruptly. The court
did not thank him for it; it durst not blame him, but it did not
say one word to him.13
The parlement could not, for its honour, dispense with open­
ing an inquiry; but the inquiry stopped short. It has been said,

:Ill Memoires de Besenval, ii., p. 347. Madame de GenUs and other

friends of the ancien regime, Will have it, that these memoirs, so
overwhehning against them, were drawn up by the Vicomte de Segur. Let
it be so: he must then have written from the notes and memory of
Besenval. The memoirs do not the less belong to the latter. Besenval was,
I know, but little able to write; but without his confidence, the amiable
lampooner would never have made this book so strong, so historical under
an aspect of levity; the truth bursts forth and shines there, often with a
terrible light; nothing remains but to cast down our eyes.
92
 Elections of 1789
without sufficient proof, that it was forbidden in the king's
name to proceed.
Who were the instigators? Perhaps nobody. Fire, on those
stormy occasions, may burst forth of its own accord. People did
not fail to accuse "the revolutionary party." What was that
party? As yet, there was no active association.
It was said that the Duke of Orleans had given money. Why?
What did he then gain by it? The great movement then be­
ginning offered to his ambition too many legal chances, for
him, at that period, to need to have recourse to riots. True, he
was led on by intriguing persons, ready for anything; but their
plan at this period was entirely directed towards the Estates­
General; they felt sure, from their duke being the only popular
one among the princes, that he was about to take the lead.
Every event that might delay the Estates, appeared to them
a misfortune.
Who desired to delay them? Who found an advantage in
terrifying the electors? Who derived a profit from riot?
The court alone, we must confess. The affair happened so
exactly at the right time for it, that it might be believed to be
the author. It is nevertheless more probable that it did not
begin it, but saw it with pleasure, did nothing to prevent it, and
regretted it was so soon over. The faubourg Saint-Antoine had
not then its terrible reputation; a riot under the very cannon of
the Bastille did not seem dangerous.
The nobles of Brittany had given an example of troubling
the legal operations of the provincial Estates, by exciting the
peasants, and pitting against the people a populace mingled
with lackeys. Even at Paris, a newspaper, the Ami du Roi, a few
days before the Reveillon affair, seemed to be attempting the
same manoeuvre:-"What matter these elections?" said this
journal, in a hypocritical tone, "the poor will ever be poor; the
lot of the most interesting portion of the kingdom is forgotten,"
&c. As if the first results of the Revolution which these elections
were beginning,-the suppression of tithes and that of the octroi
duties, and the aides, and the sale, at a low price, of half the
Innds in the kingdom, had not produced the most sudden

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amelioration in the condition of the poor that any people had

ever witnessed!
On the morning of the 29th, all had become quiet again.
The assembly of the electors was able peaceably to resume its
labours. They lasted till the 20th of May; and the court ob­
tained the advantage that it had proposed to itself by this
tardy convocation,-the preventing the deputation of Paris
from being present at the first sittings of the Estates-General.
The last person elected by Paris, and by France, was he who,
in public opinion, was the first of all, he who had traced be­
forehand for the Revolution so straight and simple a path, and
had marked its first steps, one by one. Everything was march­
ing forward, according to the plan given by Sieyes with a
motion majestic, pacific, and firm, like the Law. Law alone
was about to reign; after so many ages of despotism and
caprice, the time was arriving when nobody would be right
against Right.
Let, then, those dreaded Estates-General at length assemble
and open. They who convoked them, and now would wish
they had never spoken of them, cannot alter the matter. It is
a rising ocean: causes infinite and profound, acting from the
depths of ages, agitate the boiling mass. Bring against it, I
pray you, all the armies in the world, or an infant's finger; it
makes no difference. God is urging it forward: tardy justice,
the expiation of the past, the salvation of the future!

94
 II

Opening of the Estates-General

ON the eve of the opening of the Estates-Gen­

eral, the Mass of the Holy Ghost was solemnly said at Versailles.
It was certainly that day or never, that they might sing the
prophetic hymn:-'Thou wilt create peoples, and the face of
the earth shall be renewed."
That great day was the 4th of May. The twelve hundred
deputies, the king, the queen, the whole court, heard the Veni
Creator at the Church of Notre-Dame. Next, the immense pro­
cession, passing through the whole town, repaired to Saint­
Louis. The broad streets of Versailles, lined with French guards
and Swiss, and hung with the crown tapestry, could not con­
tain the crowd. All Paris was there. The windows, the very
roofs, were loaded with people. The balconies were adorned
with precious stuffs, and ornamented with brilliant women, in
the coquettish and whimsical costume of that period, diversi­
fied with feathers and flowers. All that mass of beings was
moved, affected, full of anxiety and hope.14 Something grand
was beginning. What would be its progress, issue, and results?
who could tell? The splendour of such a Sight, so varied and
majestic, and the music which was heard at different intervals,
silenced every other thought.
A great day,-the last of peace, yet the first of an immense
future!

"See the eye-witnesses, Ferrieres, Stael, &c.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

The passions were doubtless strong, diverse, and opposite,

but not embittered, as they soon became. Even they who had
the least desired this new era, could not help sharing the com­
mon emotion. A deputy of the nobility confesses that he wept
for joy: "I saw France, my native land, reclining on Religion,
saying to us: 'Stifle your quarrels.' Tears flowed from my eyes.
My God, my country, my fellow-citizens, had become myself."
At the head of the procession appeared first a mass of men
clothed in black,-the strong, deep battalion of the five hun­
dred and fifty deputies of the Third Estate; in that number,
more than three hundred jurists, advocates, or magistrates, rep­
resented forcibly the advent of the law. Modest in their dress,
firm in their look and deportment, they marched forward still
united, without any distinction of party, all happy on that
grand day, which they had made and which was their victory.
The brilliant little troop of the deputies of the nobility came
next with their plumed hats, their laces, and gold ornaments.
The applause that had welcomed the Third Estate suddenly
ceased. Among those nobles, however, about forty seemed as
warm friends of the people as the men of the Third-Estate.
The same silence for the clergy. In this order, two orders
were distinctly perceptible: a Nobility and a Third Estate:
some thirty prelates in lawn sleeves and violet robes; and apart,
and separated from them by a choir of musicians, the humble
troop of the two hundred cures, in their black, priestly robes.
On beholding that imposing mass of twelve hundred men
animated with noble passion, an attentive spectator would have
been struck with one thing in particular. They presented very
few strongly-delineated individualities; doubtless many men
both honourable and of highly prized talents, but none of those
who, by the united authority of genius and character, have the
right to transport the multitude,-no great inventor,-no hero.
The powerful innovators who had opened the way for that
century, then existed no more. Their thought alone remained
to guide nations. Great orators arose to express and apply that
thought; but they did not add to it. The glory of the Revolution
in her earlier moments,-but her peril also,-which might ren-
96
 Opening of the Estates-General
der her less certain in her progress, was to go without men, to
go alone, by the transport of ideas, on the faith of pure reason,
without idols and false gods.
The body of the nobility, which presented itself as the
depositary and guardian of our military glory, showed not one
celebrated general. "Obscure men of illustrious origin were all
those grand lords of France." One alone perhaps excited some
interest, he who, in spite of the court, had been the first to take
n part in the American war,-the young and fair Lafayette.
Nobody then suspected the prominent part which fortune
was about to thrust upon him. The Third Estate, in its obscure
mass, already contained the Convention. But who could have
scen it? Who recognised, among that crowd of advocates, the
stiff form and pale face of a certain lawyer of Arras?
Two things were noticed: the absence of Sieyes, and the
presence of Mirabeau.
Sieyes had not yet come: in that grand movement, people
looked for him whose singular sagacity had seen, regulated,
calculated, and directed it beforehand.
Mirabeau was present, and attracted everybody's attention.
I1is immense mass of hair, his lion-like head, stamped with
llxtreme ugliness, were astounding, almost frightful; nobody
could take his eyes off him. He indeed was visibly a man, and
the others were but shadows,-a man, unfortunately, of his time
and class, vicious, like the higher society of the day, moreover
Ncandalous, noisy, and courageous in vice: that is what ruined
him. The world was full of the romance of his adventures,
"mours, and passions. For he had had passions, violent, furious
Cllles. Who then had such passions? And the tyranny of those
passions, so exacting and absorbing, had often led him very low.
Poor by the harsh treatment of his family, he suffered moral
misery, the vices of the poor besides those of the rich. Family
tyranny, state tyranny, moral, internal tyranny,-that of passion.
Ahl nobody could hail more fervently that aurora of liberty. He
did not despair of there finding liberty, the regeneration of the
NOIII; he used to say so to his friends.15 He was about to grow

I. Et. Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 27.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

young with France, and throw aside his old stained cloak.
Only, it was necessary to live longer; on the threshold of this
new life opening before him, though strong, ardent, and im­
passioned, he had nevertheless seriously injured his constitu­
tion; his complexion was altered, and his cheeks had fallen. No
matter! He still bore his enormous head erect, and his looks
were full of audacity. Everybody sensed that his would be the
resounding voice of France.
The Third Estate was in general applauded; next, among
the nobility, the Duke of Orleans alone; and lastly the King,
whom they thanked for having convoked the Estates. Such was
the justice of the people.
On the passage of the Queen, there were a few murmurs;
a few women shouted: "Vive Ie due ([Orleans'" thinking to
pique her the more by naming her enemy. This made a great
impression upon her; she was nearly fainting, and they had to
support her; 16 but she recovered very soon, carrying erect her
haughty and still handsome countenance. She attempted from
that moment to meet the public hatred with a steadfast, dis­
dainful stare. A sad effort, which did not heighten her beauty.
In her solemn portrait which was left us in 1788, by her painter,
Madame Lebrun, who loved her, and must have let her affec­
tion influence the work, we perceive nevertheless something al­
ready repulsive, disdainful, and hardened,17
Thus this grand festival of peace and union, showed symp­
toms of war. It pointed out a day for France to unite and
embrace in one common thought, and at the same time went the
very way to divide it. On merely beholding that diversity of
costumes imposed on the deputies, one found the harsh but

'" Camp an, ii., p. 37.

17 Compare the three portraits at Versailles. In the first (in white satin)
she is a coquette, still pleasing; she feels she is loved. In the second (in
red velvet and furs) surrounded by her children; her daughter is leaning
gently upon her; but all in vain; the want of feeling is incurable; her look
is fixed, dull, and singularly harsh ( 1787 ) . In the third (in blue velvet,
1788 ), alone, with a book in her hand, quite a queen, but melancholy and
unfeeling.

98
 Opening of the Estates-General
true expression of Sieyes at once realised: "Three orders? no :
three nations!"
The court had hunted into old books, to find out the odious
details of a gothic ceremonial, those oppositions of classes,
those signs of social distinctions and hatred which it should
rather have buried in oblivion. Blazonry, figures, and symbols,
after Voltaire, after Figaro! It was late. To tell the truth, it was
not so much the mania for old costumes that had guided the
court, as the secret pleasure of mortifying and lowering those
petty people who, at the elections, had been acting the part of
kings, and to remind them of their low origin. Weakness was
playing at the dangerous game of humiliating the strong for the
last time.
As early as the 3rd of May, on the eve of the Mass of the Holy
Ghost, the deputies being presented at Versailles, the king, at
that moment of cordiality and easy emotion, chilled the
deputies, who had almost all arrived favourably disposed to­
wards him. Instead of receiving them mingled together by
provinces, he made them enter by orders : the clergy, the
nobility first-then, after a pause, the Third Estate.
They would willingly have imputed such petty insolence to
the officers and valets; but Louis XVI. showed but too plainly
that he himself was tenacious of the old ceremonial. At the
sitting on the 5th, the king having covered himself, and the
nobility after him, the Third Estate wished to do the same; but
the king, to prevent it from thus assuming an equality with
the nobility, preferred to uncover himself.
Who would believe that this mad court remembered and
regretted the absurd custom of making the Third Estate
harangue on their knees. They were unwilling to dispense with
this ceremony expressly, and preferred deciding that the
president of the Third should make no speech whatever. That
is to say, that, at the end of two hundred years of separation
and silence, the king dismissed his people and forbade them to
speak.
On the 5th of May, the Assembly opened, not in the king's
palace, but in the Paris avenue, in the Salle des Menus. That

99
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

hall, which unfortunately no longer exists, was immense; it was

able to contain, besides the twelve hundred deputies, four
thousand auditors.
An eye-witness, Madame de StaeI, Necker's daughter, who
had gone thither to behold her father applauded, tells us ac­
cordingly that he was so, and that on Mirabeau taking his place,
a few murmurs were heard. Murmurs against the immoral man?
That brilliant society, dying of its vices, and present at its last
festival, had no right to be severe.1S
The Assembly had to endure three speeches,-the king's,
that of the keeper of the seals, and Necker's, all on the same
text, and all unworthy of the occasion. The king at length found
himself in presence of the nation, and he had no paternal
speech to utter, not one word from his heart for their hearts.
The exordium was an awkward, timid, sullen grumbling about
the spirit of innovation. He expressed his sensibility for the two
superior orders, "who showed themselves disposed to renounce
their pecuniary privileges." A preoccupation with money pre­
vailed throughout the three discourses; little or nothing on the
question of right, that which filled and exalted every soul, the
right of equality. The king and his two ministers, in awkward
phrase, in which bombastic style contends alternately with
baseness, seem convinced that the matter in question is merely
one of taxation, of money, subsistence,-a question of feeding.
They believe that if the privileged classes grant, as alms, to the
Third Estate an equality of taxation, everything will be ami­
cably settled at once.10 Hence, three eulogies, in the three

18 "When the king went and placed himself upon the throne, in the
middle of that assembly, I experienced, for the first time, a feeling of
dread. First, I noticed that the queen was much moved; she arrived later
than the hour appointed, and the colour of her complexion was altered."­
Stael, Considerations, i., ch. xvi.
'" First, to speak only of money, what was called the impot was but a
very small portion of the total impost, of what was paid under different
names to the clergy and nobility, as tithes or feudal tributes. And then
again, money was not all. For the people, the question was not to pick up
a few sous Hung to them, but indeed to assume their rights: nothing more
and nothing less.

100
 Opening of the Estates-General
speeches, on the sacrifice of the superior orders, who are so kind
as to forego their exemption. These eulogies go on even
crescendo up to Necker, who sees no heroism in history com­
parable to it.
These eulogies, which look rather like an invitation, announce
too clearly that this admirable and extolled sacrifice is not yet
made. Let it be made then, and quicklyI This is the whole
question for the king and the ministers, who have called the
Third Estate there as a bugbear, and would willingly send it
away. They have as yet but partial, dubious assurances of that
great sacrifice: a few lords have offered it, but they have been
laughed at by the others. Several members of the clergy,
contrary to the known opinion of the Assembly of the clergy,
have given the same hope, The two orders are in no great haste
to explain themselves in this matter; the decisive word cannot
leave their lips; it sticks in their throat. It requires two months,
nnd the most serious and terrible circumstances,-the victory
of the Third Estate,-for the clergy, on the 26th of June, at
length subdued, to renounce, and even then the nobility to
promise only to do the same.
Necker spoke for three hours on finance and morality:
"There is nothing," said he, "without public morality and
private morality." His speech was not the less on that account
an immoral enumeration of the means possessed by the king
to do without the Estates-General, and continue despotism.
The Estates, from that moment, were a pure gift, a granted
and revocable favour.
He avowed imprudently that the king was uneasy. He ex­
pressed the desire that the two superior orders, remaining
nlone and free, should accomplish their sacrifices, with the
exception that they might unite with the Third Estate in order
SII bsequently to discuss questions of common interest. A dan­
�erous insinuation I The minister being once free to derive the
tnxes from those rich sources of large property, would not have
Insisted much on obtaining the union of the orders. The
privileged classes would have preserved their false majority;
nnd two orders leagued against one would have prevented

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every reform. What matter! Bankruptcy being avoided, scarcity

having ceased, and public opinion slumbering again, the
question of right of security was adjourned, and inequality and
despotism strengthened; Necker reigned, or rather the court,
who, once safe from the danger, would have sent the senti­
mental banker back to Geneva.
On the 6th of May, the deputies of the Third Estate took
possession of the large hall, and the impatient crowd, that had
been besieging the doors, rushed in after them.
The nobility apart, and the clergy apart, take up their
quarters in their chambers, and, without losing time, decide
that the powers ought to be verified by each order and in its
own circle. The majority was great among the nobility, and
small among the clergy; a great many curates wanted to join
the Third Estate. The Third, strong in its great number, and
master of the large hall, declares that it is waiting for the two
other orders. The emptiness of that immense hall seemed to
accuse their absence : the very hall spoke.
The question of the union of the orders contained every other.
That of the Third, already double in number, was likely to
gain the votes of some fifty nobles and a hundred curates,
thereby commanding the two orders with an immense
majority, and becoming their judges in everything. Privilege
judged by those against whom it was established! It was easy
to foresee the sentence.
So, the Third waited for the clergy and the nobility : it
awaited in its strength, and patiently, like everything immortal.
The privileged were agitated; they turned round, when too
late, towards the source of privilege, the king, their natural
centre, which they themselves had disturbed. Thus, in that
time of expectation, which lasted a month or more, things be­
came classed according to their affinity: the privileged with
the king,-the Assembly with the people.
It lived with them, spoke with them, all the doors being wide
open; and as yet no barriers. Paris was sitting at Versailles,
pell-mell with the deputies. A continual communication existed
all along the road. The assembly of the electors of Paris, and

102
 Opening of the Estates-General
the irregular tumultuous assembly held by the crowd in the
Palais-Royal, were asking every moment for news of the
deputies; they questioned with avidity whoever came from
Versailles. The Third, that saw the court becoming more and
more irritated, and surrounding itself with soldiers, felt it had
hut one defence, the crowd that was listening to it, and the
press, which caused it to be listened to by the whole kingdom.
The very day of the opening of the Estates, the court
endeavoured to stifle the press; a decree of the Council sup­
pressed and condemned the journal of the Estates-General,
published by Mirabeau; another decree forbade the publica­
tion of any periodical without permission. Thus was censorship,
which for several months had remained inactive and as if
suspended, re-established in face of the assembled nation,­
re-established for the necessary and indispensable communi­
cations of the deputies and those who had deputed them.
Mirabeau paid but little attention to this, and went on
publishing under this title: Letters to my Constituents. The
assembly of the electors of Paris, still working at their written
resolutions (cahiers) left off (on the 7th of May), to protest
unanimously against the decree of the Counci1.20 This was the
first time Paris interfered in general affairs. The great and
C'npital question of the liberty of the press was thus carried in a
trice. The court might now bring together its cannon and its
nrmies; a more powerful artillery, that of the press, was hence­
forth thundering in the ears of the people; and all the kingdom
heard it.
On the 7th of May, the Third, on the proposal of Malouet
nnd Mounier, permitted some of its members to invite the
clergy and the nobility to come and take their seats. The
nobility went on and formed themselves into an assembly. The
clergy, more divided and more timorous, wanted to see what
('ourse things would take; the prelates, moreover, believing that,
In time, they should gain votes among the curates.
Six days lost. On the 12th of May, Rabaud de Saint-Etienne,

10 Proces-verbal des electeurs, redige par Bailly et Duveyrier, i., 34.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

a Protestant deputy from Nimes, and the son of the old Martyr
of Cevennes, proposed a conference to bring about the union.
To which the Breton Chapelier wished to have substituted
"a notification of the astonishment of the Third-Estate at the
absence of the other orders, of the impossibility of conferring
elsewhere than in a common union, and of the interest and
right that every deputy had to judge of the validity of the title
of all; the Estates being once opened, there is no longer any
deputy of order or province, but representatives of the
nation; the deputies of privilege gain by it, their functions be­
ing aggrandized."
Rabaut's motion was carried, as being the more moderate.
Conferences took place; but they only served to embitter
things. On the 27th of May, Mirabeau reproduced a motion
that he had already brought forward, to attempt to detach the
clergy from the nobility, and invite them to the union "in the
name of the God of peace." The motion was a very shrewd one;
a number of cures were waiting impatiently for an opportunity
to unite. This new invitation nearly carried away the whole
order. With great difficulty, the prelates obtained a delay. In
the evening, they ran to the castle, to the Polignac party. By
means of the queen?l they got from the king a letter in which
he declared "that he desired that the conferences might be
resumed in presence of the keeper of the seals and a royal
commission." The king thus impeded the union of the clergy
with the Third, and made himself visibly the agent of the
privileged classes.
This letter was a snare unworthy of royalty. If the Third
Estate accepted, the king, arbiter of the conferences, could
quash the question by a decree of the council, and the orders
remained divided. If the Third alone refused and the other
orders accepted, it bore alone the odium of the common in­
action; it alone, at that moment of misery and famine, would

In Droz, ii., 189.-The testimony of M. Droz has often the weight of a

contemporary authority; he frequently transmits to us the verbal
information and revelation of Malouet and other important actors of the
Revolution.

104
 Opening of the Estates-General
not take one step to succour the nation. Mirabeau, in pointing
out the snare, advised the assembly to appear duped, to
accept the conferences, whilst protesting by an address.
Another snare. In these conferences, Necker made an appeal
to sentiment, generosity, and confidence. He advised that each
order should intrust the validity of its elective returns to the
others; and, in case of difference of opinion, the king should
fudge. The clergy accepted without hesitation. If the nobility
had accepted, the Third would have remained alone against
two. Who drew it out of this danger? The nobility themselves,
mad, and running headlong to their ruin. The Polignac com­
mittee would not accept an expedient proposed by their
enemy, Necker. Even before reading the kings letter, the
nobility had decided in order to bar every chance of concilia­
tion, that deliberation by orders and the veto of each order
on the decisions of the others, were constituent principles of the
monarchy. Necker's plan tempted many moderate nobles; two
new nobles of great talent, only violent and weak-headed,
CazaI(�s and d'Epremesnil, embroiled the question and con­
trived to elude this last means of salvation,-to reject the plank
which the king presented to them in their shipwreck ( June 6th ) .
A month lost, after the delay of the three adjournments which
the convocation had suffered! One month, in open famine! Ob­
serve, that in this long expectation, the rich kept themselves
motionless, and postponed every kind of expenditure. Work
had ceased. He who had but his hands, his daily labour to
sllpply the day, went to look for work, found none, begged, got
nothing, robbed. Starving gangs overran the country; wherever
Ihey found any resistance, they became furious, killed, and
hurned. Horror spread far and near; communications ceased,
lind famine went on increasing. A thousand absurd stories
were in circulation. They were said to be brigands paid by the
murt. And the court flung back the accusation on the Duke of
Orleans.
The position of the Assembly was difficult. It was obliged to
sit inactive, when every remedy that could be hoped for was in
IIction. It was obliged to shut its ears, in a manner, to the pain-

105
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

ful cry of France, in order to save France herself, and found her
liberty!
The clergy aggravated that cruel position, and contrived a
truly Phariseean invention against the Third Estate. A prelate
came into the Assembly, to weep over the poor people and the
misery of the rural districts. Before the four thousand persons
present at that meeting, he drew from his pocket a hideous
lump of black bread : "Such," said he, "is the bread of the
peasant." The clergy proposed to act, to form a commission to
confer together on the question of food and the misery of the
poor. A dangerous snare. Either the Assembly yielded, became
active, and thus consecrated the separation of the orders, or else
it declared itself insensible to public misfortunes. The re­
sponsibility of the disorder which was everywhere beginning,
fell on it at once. The usual orators however remained silent
on this compromising question. But some obscure deputies,
MM. Populus and Robespierre,22 expressed forcibly and with
talent the general sentiment. They invited the clergy to come
into the common hall to deliberate on these public calamities
by which the Assembly was no less touched than they.
This answer did not lessen the danger. How easy would it
have been for the court, the nobles, and the priests, to turn
the people! What a fine text was a proud, ambitious assembly
of lawyers, that had promised to save France, and let her die
of misery, rather than give up any of their unjust pretensions!
The court seized this weapon with avidity, and expected to
destroy the Assembly. The king said to the president of the
clergy, who came to submit to him the charitable proposal of
his order on the question of food: "That he should see with
pleasure a commission formed of the Estates-General that
could assist him with its counsels."
Thus, the clergy were thinking of the people, and so was

22 Robesp ierre retorted felicitously. He said very cleverly: "The old

canons authorise, for the reli ef of the poor, to sell even the sacred vases."
The Moniteur, incomplete and inexact, as it so often is, needs to be
completed here by Etienne Dumont.-Souvenirs, p. 60.

106
 Opening of the Estates-General
the king; nothing prevented the nobility from uttering the same
words. And then, the Third would be quite alone. It would
he said that everybody desired the welfare of the people except
the Third Estate.

107
 III

National Assembly

ON the, 10th of June, Sieyes said, on entering

the Assembly: "Let us cut the cable; it is time." From that day,
the vessel of the Revolution, in spite of storms and calms, de­
layed, but never stopped, sails onwards to the future.
That great theoretician, who had beforehand calculated so
exactly, showed himself here truly a statesman; he had said
what ought to be done, and he did it at the right moment.
Everything has its right moment. Here, it was the lOth of
June, neither sooner nor later. Sooner, the nation was not
sufficiently convinced of the hard-heartedness of the privileged
classes; it required a month for them to display clearly all their
ill-will. Subsequently, two things were to be feared, either that
the people, driven to extremity, might abandon their freedom
for a bit of bread, and the privileged finish all, by renouncing
their exemption from taxes; or else, that the nobility, uniting
with the clergy, might form ( as they were advised) an upper
chamber. Such a chamber, which, in our own days, has no
part to play but that of being a machine convenient to royalty,
would, in '89, have been a power by itself: it would have
assembled together those who then possessed half or two-thirds
of the lands in the kingdom, those who, by their agents, tenants,
and innumerable servants, had so many means of influencing
the rural districts. The Netherlands had just given an example
of the concord of those two orders, which had won over the
people, driven out the Austrians, and dispossessed the emperor.

108
 National Assembly
On Wednesday, the 10th of June, 1789, Sieyes proposed to
summon the clergy and nobility for the last time, to warn them
that the call would be made in an hour, and that default would
be the sentence for non-appearance.
This summons in judiciary form, was an unexpected blow.
The deputies of the commons were taking, towards those who
contested equality with them, a superior position, somewhat
like that of judges.
This was wise; for there was too much risk in waiting; but it
was also bold. It has often been said, that they who had a
whole people behind them, and a city like Paris, had nothing
to fear; that they were the stronger party, and advanced with­
out any danger. After the event, and everything having suc­
ceeded, the thesis may be supported. Doubtless, they who took
that step felt themselves very strong; but this strength was by
no means organised; the people were not military as they be­
came at a later period. An army surrounded Versailles, partly
of Germans and Swiss ( nine regiments at least out of fifteen ) ;
11 battery o f cannon was before the Assembly. The glory o f the
great logician who reduced the national mind to a formula, and
the glory of the Assembly that accepted the formula, was to see
nothing of that, but to believe in logiC, and to advance in their
faith.
The court, very irresolute, could do nothing but assume a
disdainful silence. Twice the king avoided receiving the pres­
ident of the commons; he was out hunting, so they said, or else,
he was too much afflicted at the recent death of the Dauphin.
B ut it was known that he received every day the prelates,
nobles, and parlementaires. They were beginning to be
III armed, and now came to offer themselves to the king. The
court listened to them and then bargained and speculated on
their fears. However, it was evident that the king being be­
sieged by them, and their prisoner to a certain degree, would
hdong to them entirely, and show himself more and more what
he was, a partisan of privilege at the head of the privileged
classes. The situation of parties became clear and easy to be
defined,-privilege on one side and right on the other.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

The Assembly had spoken out. It expected its proceeding

would cause it to be jOined by a part of the clergy. The cures
felt they were the people, and wished to go and take their true
place by the side of the people. But habits of ecclesiastical sub­
ordination, the intrigues of the prelates, their authority and
menaces, with the court and the queen on the other hand, kept
them still immovable on their benches. Only three ventured,
then seven,-ten in all. Great was the merriment at court about
this fine conquest made by the Third Estate.
The Assembly must either perish or go on and take a second
step. It was necessary for it to look boldly on the plain but
terrible situation to which we alluded just now,-right
opposed to privilege-the right of the nation concentrated in
the Assembly. Neither was it sufficient to see that; it was
necessary to show it, cause it to be promulgated, and to give to
the Assembly its true name : The National Assembly.
In his famous pamphlet, which everybody knew by heart,
Sieyes had said these remarkable words, which were not uttered
in vain : "The Third alone, they will say, cannot form the
Estates-General.-Well! so much the better; it shall compose
a National Assembly."
To assume this title,-thus to entitle itself the nation, and
realize the revolutionary dogma laid down by Sieyes-The
Third is everything, was too bold a step to be taken all at once.
It was necessary to prepare minds for it, and march towards
that goal gradually and step by step.
At first the words National Assembly were not uttered in the
Assembly itself but at Paris, among the electors who had
elected Sieyes, and were not afraid to speak his language.
On the 15th of May, M. Boissy d'Anglas, then obscure and
without influence, pronounced the words, but only to set them
aside and adjourn them, warning the Chamber that it ought to
be on its guard against every kind of precipitation, and remain
free from the least reproach of leVity. Before the movement
began, he wanted already to efface the appellation.
The Assembly finally adopted the name of Communes,
which, in its humble and ill-defined significance, divested it

no
 National Assembly
however of the petty, inappropriate, and special name of Third
Estate. The nobility strongly protested.
On the 15th of June, Sieyes, with boldness and prudence,
demanded that the Commons should assume the title of
Assembly of the known and acknowledged representatives of
the French nation. It seemed to express only a fact impossible
to be contested; the deputies of the Commons had subjected
their powers to a public verification, made solemnly in the great
open hall and before the crowd. The two other orders had
verified among themselves with closed doors. The simple word,
acknowledged deputies, reduced the others to the name of
presumed deputies. Could the latter prevent the others from
acting? Could the absent paralyse the present? Sieyes reminded
them that the latter represented already the ninety-six hun­
dredths ( at least ) of the nation.
They knew Sieyes too well not to suspect that this proposal
was a step to lead to another, bolder and more decisive.
Mirabeau reproached him from the very first, "with starting
the Assembly on its course without showing it the goal which
he intended."
And indeed, on the second day of the battle, the light burst
forth. Two deputies served as precursors to Sieyes. M. Le­
grand proposed that the Assembly should constitute itself a
General Assembly, and allow itself to be stopped by nothing
that might be separate from the indiVisibility of a National
Assembly. M. Galand demanded that, as the clergy and
nobility were simply two corporations, and the nation one and
indivisible, the Assembly should constitute itself the legitimate
and active Assembly of the representatives of the French nation.
Sieyes then laid aside every obscurity and circumlocution, and
proposed the title of National Assembly.
Since the sitting of the 10th, Mirabeau had seen Sieyes ad­
vancing under ground, and was frightened. That march led
straight to a point, where it found itself face to face with
royalty and the aristocracy. Would it halt out of respect for that
worm-eaten idol? It did not appear likely. Now, in spite of the
eruel discipline by which tyranny formed Mirabeau for liberty,

III
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 78 9

w e must say that the famous tribune was an aristocrat by taste

and manners, and a royalist in heart; he was so in fact by birth
and blood. Two motives, one grand, and the other base, like­
wise impelled him. Surrounded by greedy women, he wanted
money; and monarchy appeared to him with open lavish hands,
squandering gold and favours. That royalty had been cruel and
hard-hearted to him; but even that now interested him the
more : he would have considered it noble to save a king who
had so often signed the order for his imprisonment. Such was
this poor great man, so magnanimous and generous, that one
would wish to be able to attribute his vices to his deplorable
acquaintances, and the paternal barbarity which excluded him
from his family. His father persecuted him throughout his life,
and yet he requested, with his dying breath, to be buried by
his side.23
On the 10th, when Sieyes proposed to pronounce default for
non-appearance, Mirabeau seconded that severe proposition,
and spoke with firmness and energy. But, in the evening seeing
the peril, he took upon himself to go and see his enemy,
Necker; 24 he wished to enlighten him on the situation of things,
and offer royalty the succour of his powerful oratory. Although
ill-received and offended, he did not the less undertake to
block the road against Sieyes, and he, the tribune, raised but
yesterday by the Revolution, and who had no power but in her,
even he wanted to throw himself before her, and imagined he
could stop her.
Any other would have perished at once, without ever being
able to extricate himself. That he should have fallen more than
once into unpopularity, and yet been able to regain his footing,
is what gives a very grand idea of the power of eloquence
upon this nation, sensitive beyond all others, to the genius of
oratory.
What could be more difficult than Mirabeau's thesis? In
presence of that excited and transported multitude, before a

.. Memoires de Mirabeau, Mite par M. Lucas de Montigny, t. viii., liv. x.

.. Compare the different, but reconcilable, versions of E. Dumont and
Droz, (who follow the oral testimony of Malouet).

1 12
 National Assembly
people exalted above themselves by the greatness of the crisis,
he endeavoured to establish "that the people were not inter­
ested in such discussions; that all they asked for was to pay
only what they could, and to bear their misery peaceably."
After these base, affiicting, discouraging words, false more­
over in terms, he ventured to put the question of principle :
"Who convoked you? The king. Do your mandates and written
resolutions authorize you to declare yourselves the Assembly
only of the known and acknowledged representatives? and if
the king refuses you his sanction? The consequence is evident.
You will have pillage and butcheries : you will not have even
the execrable honour of a civil war."
What title then was it necessary to take?
Mounier and the imitators of the English government pro­
posed : Representatives of the Maior part of the Nation, in the
absence of the Minor part. That divided the nation into two
parts, and led to the establishment of two Chambers.
Mirabeau preferred the formula : Representatives of the
French People. That word, said he, was elastic,-might mean
little or much.
This was precisely the reproach brought against him by two
eminent legists, Target ( of Paris ) , and Thouret ( of Rouen ) .
'!bey asked him whether people meant plebs or populus. The
equivocation was laid bare. The king, the clergy, and the
nobility would doubtless have interpreted people in the sense
of plebs, or inferior people,-a simple part of the nation.
Many had not perceived the equivocation, nor how much
ground it would have caused the Assembly to lose. But they
all understood it, when Malouet, Necker's friend, accepted the
word people.
The fear which Mirabeau attempted to inspire by his refer­
ence to the royal veto, excited only indignation. Camus, the
Jansenist, one of the firmest characters in the Assembly, replied
in these strong terms : 'We are what we are. Can the veto
prevent truth from being one and immutable? Can the royal
sanction change the order of things and alter their nature?"
Mirabeau, irritated by the contradiction, and losing all pru-

113
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

dence, became s o angry a s t o say: "I believe the king's veto

so necessary, that I would rather live at Constantinople than in
France if he had it not. Yes, I declare I know nothing more
terrible than the sovereign aristocracy of six hundred persons,
who might tomorrow render themselves irrevocable, hereditary
the day after, and end, like the aristocracies of every country
in the world, by invading everything."
Thus, of two evils, one possible, the other present, Mirabeau
preferred the one present and certain. In the hypothesis that
this Assembly might one day wish to perpetuate itself and
become an hereditary tyrant, he armed, with the tyrannical
power of preventing every reform, that incorrigible court which
it was expedient to reform. The king! the king! Why should they
always misuse that old religion? Who did not know that since
Louis XIV. there had been no king? The war was between
two republics : one, sitting in the Assembly, composed of the
master minds of the age, the best citizens, was France herself;
the other, the republic of abuses, held its council with the old
cabinets of such as Dubois, Pompadour, and Du Barry, in the
house of Diana de Polignac.
Mirabeau's speech was received with thunders of indignation
and a torrent of imprecations and abuse. The eloquent rhetoric
with which he refuted what nobody had said ( that the word
people is vile ) was unable to dupe his auditory.
It was nine in the evening. The discussion was closed in
order to take the votes. The singular precision with which the
question had been brought to bear on royalty itself, caused
some apprehension that the court might do the only thing that
it had to do to prevent the people from being king on the
morrow; it possessed brute force,-an army round Versailles,
which it might employ to carry off the principal deputies, dis­
solve the Estates, and, if Paris stirred, famish Paris. This bold
crime was its last cast, and people believed that it was going
to be played. They wished to prevent it by constituting the
Assembly that very night. This was the opinion of more than
four hundred deputies; a hundred, at most, were against it.
That small minority precluded, all night, by shouts and violence,

114
 National Assembly
every possibility of calling over the names. But this shameful
sight of a majority being tyrannized over, and the Assembly
endangered by a delay, together with the idea that, one
moment or other, the work of liberty, the salvation of the future,
might be annihilated,-all contributed to transport with fury
the crowd that filled the tribunes; a man rushed forward and
seized Malouet, the principal leader of the obstinate shouters,
by the collar.25
The man escaped. The shouts continued. In presence of that
tumult, says Bailly, who presided, the assembly remained firm
and worthy; as patient as strong, it waited in silence till that
turbulent band had exhausted itself with shouting. An hour
after midnight, the deputies being less numerous, voting was
formally postponed till the morrow.
On the following morning, at the moment of voting, the
president was informed that he was summoned to the chancel­
lerie to receive a letter from the king. This letter, in which he
reminded them that they could do nothing without the con­
currence of the three orders, would have arrived just at the
right moment to furnish a text for the hundred opponents, to
give rise to long speeches, and unsettle and disaffect many weak
minds. The Assembly, with royal gravity, adjourned the king's
letter, and forbade its president to leave the hall before the end
of the meeting. It wanted to vote and voted.
The different motions might be reduced to three, or rather
to two :-
1st. That of Sieyes-National Assembly.
2ndly. That of Mounier-Assembly of the Representatives of
the Major part of the Nation, in the absence of the Minor part.
The equivocal formula of Mirabeau was equivalent to
Mounier's, as the word people could be taken in a limited sense,
and as the major part of the nation.
Mounier had the apparent advantage of a judaic literal­
ness, an arithmetical exactness, but was fundamentally contrary

.. The principal witness, B ailly, does not give this circumstance, which
M. Droz alone relates, doubtless on the authority of Malouet.

1 15
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

t o justice. I t brought into symmetrical opposition, and com­

pared, as on a level, two things of an enormously different
value. The Assembly represented the nation, minus the privi­
leged; that is to say, 96 or 98 hundredths to 4 hundredths
(according to Sieyes ) , or 2 hundredths (according to Necker) .
Why should such an enormous importance b e given to these
2 or 4 hundredths? Certainly not for the moral power they
contained; they no longer had any. It was, in reality, because
all the large properties of the kingdom, two-thirds of the lands,
were in their possession. Mounier was the advocate of the
landed property against the population,-of the land against
man:-a feudal, English, and materialist point of view. Sieyes
had given the true French formula.
With Mounier's arithmetic and unjust justness, and with
Mirabeau's equivocation, the nation remained a class, and the
fixed property-the land-constituted also a class in face of the
nation. We remained in the injustice of antiquity; the Middle
Ages was perpetuated-the barbarous system by which the
ground was reckoned more precious than man; and the land,
manure, and ashes, were the liege lords of the mind.
Sieyes, being put to the vote at once, had near five hundred
votes for him, and not one hundred against him.26 Therefore
the Assembly was proclaimed National Assembly. Many cried,
Vive le Roil
Two interruptions again intervened, as if to stop the Assem­
bly,-one from the nobility, who sent for a mere pretext; the
other from certain deputies, who wanted to have a president
and a regular bureau created before everything else. The
Assembly proceeded immediately to the solemnity of the oath.
In presence of a multitude of four thousand deeply affected
spectators, the six hundred deputies, standing in profound
silence, with upraised hands and contemplating the calm,
honest countenance of their president, listened to him whilst
reading the formula, and exclaimed: 'We swear." A universal
sentiment of respect and religion filled every heart.

.. Four hundred and ninety-one votes against ninety. Mirabeau dared not
vote either for or against, and remained at home.

116
 National Assembly
The Assembly was founded; it existed; it lacked but strength,
the certainty of living. It secured this by asserting the right of
taxation. It declared that the impost, till then illegal, should be
collected provisionally "till the day of the separation of the
present Assembly." This was, with one blow, condemning all
the past and seizing upon the future.
It adopted openly the question of honour, the public debt,
and guaranteed it.
And all these royal acts were in royal language, in the very
formulae which the king alone had hitherto taken: "The As­
sembly intends and decrees."
Finally, it evinced much concern about public subsistences.
The administrative power having declined as much as the
others, the legislature, the only authority then respected, was
forced to interfere. It demanded, moreover, for its committee of
subsistence, what the king himself had offered to the deputa­
tion of the clergy,-a communication of the information that
would throw a light upon this matter. But what he had then
offered, he was no longer willing to grant.
The most surprised of all was Necker; he had, in his sim­
plicity, believed he could lead the world; and the world was
going on without him. He had ever regarded the young
Assembly as his daughter-his pupil; he warranted the king that
it would be docile and well-behaved; yet, behold, all of a
sudden, without consulting its tutor, it went alone, advanced
and climbed over the old barriers without deigning even to
look at them. When thus motionless with astonishment,
Necker received two counsels, one from a royalist, the other
from a republican, and both came to the same thing. The
royalist was the intendant Bertrand de Molleville,-an impas­
sioned and narrow-minded intendant of the ancien regime; the
republican was Durovray, one of those democrats whom the
king had driven from Geneva in 1782.
It is necessary to know who this foreigner was, who, in so
serious a crisis, took so great an interest in France, and ven­
tured to give advice. Durovray, settled in England, pensioned
by the English, and grown English in heart and maxims, was,

117
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 78 9

a little later, a leader of the emigrants. Meanwhile, h e formed

a part of a little Genevese coterie which, unfortunately for us,
was circumventing Mirabeau. England seemed to be surround­
ing the principal voice of French liberty.27 Unfavourable
towards the English till then, the great man had allowed him­
self to be taken by those ex-republicans,-the self-termed
martyrs of liberty. The Durovrays, the Dumonts, and other
indefatigable writers of mediocrity, were ever ready to assist
his idleness. He was already an invalid, and going the very
way to render himself worse and worse. His nights destroyed
his days. In the morning he remembered the Assembly and
business, and collected his thoughts; he had there, ready at
hand, the English policy, sketched by the Genevese; he re­
ceived it with his eyes shut, and embellished it with his
talent. Such was his readiness and his lack of preparation, that,
at the tribune, even his admirable language was occasionally
only a translation of the notes which these Genevese handed
to him from time to time.
Durovray, who was not in communication with Necker,
made himself his semi-official counsellor in this serious crisis.
Like Bertrand de Molleville, his opinion was that the king
should annul the decree of the Assembly, deprive it of its
name of National Assembly, command the union of the three
orders, declare himself the Provisional Legislator of France,
and do, by royal authority, what the Commons had done with­
out it. Bertrand believed justly, that, after this coup d'etat,
the Assembly could but dissolve. Durovray maintained that
the Assembly, crushed and humiliated under the royal pre-

., These Genevese were not precisely agents of England. But the

pensions they received from her,-the monstrous present of more than a
million ( of francs ) that she made them to found an Irish Geneva ( which
remained on paper ),-all that imposed on them the obligation to serve the
English. Moreover, they became two parties. Yvemois became English and
our most cruel enemy; Claviere alone was French. What shall we say of
Etienne Dumont, who pretends that those people, with their leaden pens,
wrote all Mirabeau's orations? His Souvenirs bear witness to a base
ingratitude towards the man of genius who honoured him with his
friendship.

118
 National Assembly
rogative, would accept its petty part, as a machine to make
laws.28
On the evening of the 17th, the heads of the clergy, Cardinal
de Larochefoucauld, and the Archbishop of Paris, had hastened
to Marly, and implored the king and the queen. On the 19th,
vain disputes in the Chamber of the nobility; Orleans proposed
to join the Third, and Montesquiou to unite with the clergy.
But there was no longer any order of the clergy. The very same
day, the cures had transferred the majority of their order to
form a union with the Third, and thus divided the order into
two. The cardinal and the archbishop return the same evening
to Marly, and fall at the feet of the king : "Religion is ruinedl"
Next, come the parlement people: "The monarchy is lost, unless
the Estates be dissolved."
Dangerous advice, and already impossible to follow. The
flood was rising higher every hour. Versailles and Paris were in
commotion. Necker had persuaded two or three of the
ministers, and even the king, that his project was the only
means of salvation. That project had been read over again in a
last and definitive council on Friday evening, the 19th; every­
thing was finished and agreed: "The portfolios were already
being shut up," says Necker, "when one of the royal servants
suddenly entered; he whispered to the king; and His Majesty
immediately arose, commanding his ministers to remain in
their places. M. de Montmorin, sitting by my side, said to me :
We have effected nothing; the queen alone could have ven­
tured to interrupt the Council of State; the princes, apparently,
have circumvented hoc: "
Everything was stopped: this might have been foreseen; it
was, doubtless, for this that the king had been brought to
Marly, away from Versailles and the people; and, alone with
the queen, more affectionate and liable to be influenced by her,

IS Compare the two plans in Bertrand's Memoires and Dumont's

Souvenirs. The latter confesses that the Genevese had taken good care not
to confide their fine project to Mirabeau; he was not informed of it till
after the event, and then said with much good sense: "This is the way
kings are led to the scaffold."

119
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

i n their common affiiction for the death o f their child. A fine

opportunity, an excellent chance for the suggestions of the
priests! Was not the Dauphin's death a severe judgment of
Providence, when the king was yielding to the dangerous inno­
vations of a Protestant minister?
The king, still undecided, but already almost overcome, was
content to command ( in order to prevent the clergy from
uniting with the Third Estate ) that the hall should be shut
on the morrow, ( Saturday June 20th ) ; the pretext was the
preparations necessary for a royal meeting to be held on
Monday.
All this was settled in the night, and placarded in Versailles
at six in the morning. The president of the National Assembly
learned, by mere chance, that it could not be held. It was past
seven when he received a letter, not from the king ( as was
natural, the king being accustomed to write with his own hand
to the president of the Parlement) , but simply a notice from
young Breze, the master of ceremonies. It was not to the
president, to M. Bailly, at his lodging, that such a notice ought
to have been given, but to the Assembly itself. Bailly had no
power to act of himself. At eight o'clock, the hour appointed
the night before, he repaired to the door of the hall with a
great number of deputies. Being stopped by the sentinels, he
protested against the hindrance, and declared the meeting con­
vened. Several young members made a show of breaking open
the door; the officer commanded his soldiers to take up arms,
thus announcing that his orders contained no reservation for
inviolability.
Behold our new kings, put out, kept out of doors, like unruly
scholars. Behold them wandering about in the rain, among
the people, on Paris avenue. All agree about the necessity of
holding the meeting and of assembling. Some shout, Let us go
to the Place d'Armes! Others, to Marly! Another, to Paris! This
last was an extreme measure; it was firing the powder-maga­
zine.
The deputy Guillotin made a less hazardous motion, to re­
pair to Old Versailles, and take up their quarters in the

120
 National Assembly
Tennis-court (Jeu-de-Paume ) ,-a miserable, ugly, poor, and un­
furnished building, but the better on that account. The As­
sembly also was poor, and represented the people, on that day,
so much the better. They remained standing all day long, hav­
ing scarcely a wooden bench. It was like the manger of the new
religion,-its stable of Bethlehem!
One of those intrepid cures who had decided the union of
the clergy-the illustrious Gregoire-long after, when the Em­
pire had so cruelly effaced every trace of the Revolution, its
parent, used often to go near Versailles to visit the ruins of
Port-Royal; one day ( doubtless on his return ) , he entered the
leu-de-Paume 29_the one in ruins, the other abandoned-tears
Howed from the eyes of that firm man, who had never shown
any weakness. Two religions to weep for! this was too much for
the heart of man.
We too revisited, in 1846, that cradle of Liberty, that place
whose echo repeated her first words, that received, and still
preserves her memorable oath. But what could we say to it?
What news could we give it of the world that it brought forth?
Oh! time has not Hown quickly; generations have succeeded
one another; but the work has not progressed. When we stepped
upon its venerable pavement, we felt ashamed in our heart
of what we are,-of the little we have done. We felt we were
unworthy, and quitted that sacred place.

.. Memoires de Gregoire, i., p. 380.

121
 IV

Oath at the Tennis Court

BEHOLD them now in the Tennis-court, assem­

bled in spite of the king. But what are they going to do?
Let us not forget that at that period the whole Assembly
was royalist, without excepting a single member.30
Let us not forget that on the 17th, when it assumed the
title of National Assembly, it shouted Vive Ie Roil And when it
attributed to itself the right of voting the impost, declaring
illegal the impost collected till then, the opposition members
had left the Assembly, unwilling to consecrate, by their
presence, this infringement of the royal authority.s1
The king, that shadow of the past, that ancient superstition,
so powedul in the hall of the Estates-General, grew pale in the
Tennis-court. The miserable building, entirely modern, bare,
and unfurnished, has not a single comer where the dreams of
the past can yet find shelter. Let, therefore, the pure spirit of
Reason and Justice, that king of the future, reign here!
That day there was no longer any opponent; 32 the Assembly
was one, in thought and heart. It was one of the moderate party,
Mounier of Grenoble, who proposed to the Assembly the

.. See further, the 22nd of July, a note relating to Robespierre.

f
III As ap ears to me by comparing the numbers of the votes. The
illegality 0 the impost not consented to, &c., was voted unanimously by
the four hundred and twenty-six deputies alone remaining in the hall.­
Archives du Royaume, Proces-verbaux MSS. de rAssembMe Nationale.
.. There was only one member who refused to take the oath. The ninety
opponents of the 17th of June joined the majority.

122
 Oath at the Tennis Court
celebrated declaration: That wherever it might be forced to
unite, there was ever the National Assembly; that nothing
could prevent it from continuing its deliberations. And, till
the completion and establishment of the constitution, it took an
oath never to separate.
Bailly was the first who took the oath; and he pronounced it
so loud and distinctly that the whole multitude of people
crowding without could hear, and applauded in the excess of
their enthusiasm. Shouts of Vive le Roil arose from the
Assembly and from the people. It was the shout of ancient
France, in her extreme transports, and it was now added to
the oath of resistance.33
In 1792, Mounier, then an emigrant, alone in a foreign land,
questions and asks himself whether his motion of the 20th of
June was founded on right; whether his loyalty as a royalist
was consistent with his duty as a citizen. And even there, in
emigration, and among all the prejudices of hatred and exile,
he replies, Yes!
"Yes," says he, "the oath was just; they wanted dissolution,
and it would have taken place without the oath; the court,
freed from the Estates, would never have convoked them; it
would have been necessary to renounce the founding of that
constitution claimed unanimously in the old writings of
France." That is what a royalist, the most moderate of the
moderate, a jurist accustomed to find moral decisions in
positive texts, pronounces on the primordial act of our Revolu­
tion.
What were they doing all this time at Marly? On Saturday
and Sunday, Necker was contending with the parlement people,
to whom the king had abandoned him, and who, with the cool­
ness sometimes possessed by madmen, were overthrowing his
project, abridging it of what might have caused it to pass, and

.. The Assembly went no further. It rejected the strong, but true motion
of Chapelier, who was bold enough to speak out plainly what was in the
minds of all. He proposed an address : "To inform His Majesty that the
enemies of the country were besieging the throne, and that their counsels
tended to place the monarch at the head of a PARTY."
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

took from it its bastard character, in order to convert it into a

simple but brutal coup d'etat, in the manner of Louis XV., a
simple lit de justice, as the parlement had suffered so many
times. The discussion lasted till the evening. It was not till mid­
night that the president, then in bed, was informed that the
royal meeting could not take place in the morning,-that it was
postponed till Tuesday.
The nobility had come to Marly on Sunday in great numbers
and with much turbulence. They had again showed the king.
in an address, that the question now concerned him much more
than the nobility. The court was animated with a chivalrous
daring; these swordsmen seemed to wait only for a signal to
resist the champions of the pen. The Count D'Artois, amid
these bravadoes, became so intoxicated with insolence, as to
send word to the Tennis-court that he would play on the mor­
row.
On Monday morning, therefore, the Assembly found itself
once more in the open streets of Versailles, wandering about,
without house or home. Fine amusement for the court! The
master of the hall was afraid; he feared the princes. The As­
sembly does not succeed better at the door of the Recollets
where it next knocks; the monks dare not compromise them­
selves. Who then are these vagrants, this dangerous band, be­
fore whom every door is shut? Nothing less than the Nation
itself.
But why not deliberate in the open air? What more noble
canopy than the sky? But on that day the majority of the
clergy wish to come and sit with the commons. Where are
they to receive them? Luckily, the hundred and thirty-four
cures, with a few prelates at their head, had already taken up
their quarters, in the morning, in the church of Saint-Louis.
The Assembly was introduced there into the nave; and the
ecclesiastics, at first assembled in the choir, then came forth,
and took their places among its members. A grand moment,
and one of sincere joy! "The temple of religion," says an orator,
with emotion, "became the temple of the native land!"
On that very day, Monday the 22nd, Necker was still con-
124
 Oath at the Tennis Court
tending, but in vain. His project, fatal to liberty because he
preserved in it a shadow of moderation, had to give way to
another more liberal and better calculated to place things in
their proper light. Necker was now nothing more than a guilty
mediator between good and evil, preserving a semblance of
equilibrium between the just and the unjust,-a courtier, at
the same time, of the people and the enemies of the people.
At the last council held on Monday at Versailles, the princes,
who were invited to it, did liberty the essential service of
removing this equivocal mediator, who prevented reason and
unreasonableness from seeing each other plainly face to face.
Before the sitting begins, I wish to examine both projects,­
Necker's and the court's. In what concerns the former, I will
believe none but Necker himself.
NECKER'S PROJECT
In his book of 1796, written at a time of decided reaction,
Necker avows to us confidentially what his project was; he
shows that that project was, bold, very bold-in favour of the
privileged. This confession is rather painful for him, and he
makes it with an effort. "The defect of my project was its being
too bold; I risked all that it was possible for me to risk. Ex­
plain yourself. I will, and I ought. Deign to listen to me." 34
He is speaking to the emigrants, to whom this apology is
addressed. A vain undertaking! How will they ever forgive
him for having called the people to political life, and made
five millions of electors?
1st. Those necessary, inevitable reforms, which the court
had so long refused, and which they accepted only by force, he
promulgated by the king. He, who knew, to his cost, that the
king was the puppet of the queen and the court, a mere cipher,
nothing more,-even he became a party for the continuing of
that sad comedy.
Liberty, that sacred right which exists of itself, he made a
present from the king, a granted charter, as was the charter of

.. Oeuvres de Necker, vi., p. 191.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

the invasion in 1814. But it required thirty years of war, and all
Europe at Paris, for France to accept that constitution of false­
hood.
2ndly. No legislative unity, two Chambers, at least. This
-

was like a tiInid advice to France to become English; in

which there were two advantages : to strengthen the privileged,
priests and nobles, henceforth concentrated in one upper Cham­
ber; next, to make it easier for the king to delude the people,
to refuse by the upper Chamber, instead of refusing by himself,
and of having ( as we see to-day ) two vetos for one.
3rdly. The king was to permit the three orders to deliberate
in common on general affairs; but as to privileges of personal
distinction, of honour, and as to rights attached to fiefs, no dis­
cussion in common. Now this was precisely what France con­
sidered as the superlatively general business. Who then dared
to see a special business in the question of honour?
4thly. These crippled Estates-General, now united, now sepa­
rated into three orders, at one time active, at another supine,
through their triple movement, Necker balances, shackles, and
neutralises still more, by provincial Estates, thus augmenting
division, when France is thirsting for unity.
5thly. That is what he gives, and as soon as given, he takes
away again. This fine legislative machine is never to be seen
at work by anybody; he grudges us the sight of it; it is to
work with closed doors: no publicity of its sittings. The law
is thus to be made, far from daylight, in the dark, as one
would make a plot against the law.
6thly.-The law? What does this word mean, without personal
liberty? Who can act, elect, or vote freely, when nobody is
sure of sleeping at home? This first condition of social life,
anterior to, and indispensable for political action, is not yet
secured by Necker. The king is to invite the Assembly to seek
the means that might permit the abolition of the lettres-de­
cachet. Meanwhile, he keeps them together with the arbitrary
power of kidnapping, the state-prisons, and the Bastille.
Such is the extreme concession which ancient royalty makes,
in its most favourable moment, and urged on by a popular
126
 Oath at the Tennis Coun
minister. Moreover, it cannot go even thus far. The nominal
king promises; the real king, the court-laughs at the promise.
Let them die in their sin!
THE KINGS DECLARATION ( JUNE 23, 1789 )
The plan of the court is worth more than the bastard plan of
Necker; at least it is plainer to understand. Whatever is bad
in Necker is preciously preserved, nay richly augmented.
This act, which may be called the testament of despotism, is
divided into two parts : 1st. The prohibition of guarantees:
under this head, Declaration concerning the present session of
the Estates. 2ndly. The reforms and benefits as they say,at;
Declaration of the king's intentions, of his wishes and desires
for future contingencies. The evil is sure, and the good pos­
sible. Let us see the detail.
I. The king annihilates the will of five millions of electors,
declaring that their demands merely provide information.
The king annihilates the decisions of the deputies of the
Third Estate, declaring them "null, illegal, unconstitutional."
The king will have the three orders remain distinct, that one
may be able to shackle the others ( that two hundredths of the
nation may weigh as much as the whole nation ) .
If they wish to meet, he permits it, but only for this time, and
also only for general business; in this general business is in­
cluded neither the rights of the three orders, the constitution
of the future Estates, the feudal and seigneurial properties, nor
the privileges of money or of honour. All the ancien regime
is thus found to be an exception.
All this was the work of the court. Here is, by all appearances,
the king's manifesto, the one he fondly cherished, and wrote
himself. The order of the clergy shall have a special veto

.. The style on a par with the matter; now bombastic, now Hat, and
.trongly savouring of false valour: "Never did a king do so much!"
Towards the end is a phrase of admirable impudence and awkwardness
( Necker claims it accordingly, tome ix., p. 196 ) : "ReHect, gentlemen, that
none of your projects can have the force of law without my special
IIpprobation."
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

( against the nobility and the Third Estate ) for everything

relating to religion, the discipline and government of the secular
and regular orders. Thus, not one monk less; no reform to be
made. And all those convents, every day more odious and
useless, for which recruits could no longer be found, the clergy
wanted to maintain. The nobility was furious. It lost its dearest
hope. It had reckoned that, one day or other, that prey would
fall into its hands; at the very least, it hoped that, if the king
and the people pressed it too much to make some sacrifice, it
would generously sacrifice the clergy.
Veto on veto. For what purpose? Here we have a refinement
of precautions, far more sure to render every result impossible.
In the common deliberations of the three orders, it is sufficient
that the two-thirds of one order protest against the deliberation,
for the decision to be referred to the king. Nay more, the thing
being decided, it is sufficient that a hundred members protest
for the decision to be referred to the king. That is to say, that
the words assembly, deliberation, and decision, are only a mys­
tification, a farce. And who could play it without laughing?
II. Now come the BENEFITS : publicity for finance, voting of
taxes, regulation of the expenditure for which the Estates will
indicate the means, and his Majesty "will adopt them, if they
be compatible with the kingly dignity, and the despatch of the
public service."
Second benefit: The king will sanction the equality of tax­
ation, when the clergy and the nobility shall be willing to re­
nounce their pecuniary privileges.
Third benefit: Properties shall be respected, especially tithes,
feudal rights, and duties.
Fourth benefit: Individual liberty? No. The king invites the
Estates to seek for and to propose to him means for reconcil­
ing the abolition of the lettres-de-cachet, with the precautions
necessary either for protecting the honour of families, or for
repressing the commencement of sedition, &c.
Fifth: Liberty of the press? No. The Estates shall seek the
means of reconciling the liberty of the press with the respect
due to religion, the morals, and the honour of the citizens.
128
 Oath at the Tennis Court
Sixth : Admission to every employment? No. Refused ex­
pressly for the army. The king declares, in the most decided
manner, that he will preserve entire, and without the slightest
alteration, the institution of the army. That is to say, that the
plebeian shall never attain any grade, &c. Thus does the idiotic
legislator subject everything to violence, force, and the
sword: and this is the very moment he chooses to break his
own. Let him now call soldiers, surround the assembly with
them, and urge them towards Paris; they are so many defenders
that he gives to the Revolution.
On the eve of the great day, three deputies of the nobility,
MM. d'Aiguillon, de Menou, and de Montmorency, came at
midnight to inform the president of the results of the last
council, held the same evening at Versailles : "M. Necker will
not countenance, by his presence, a project contrary to his
own; he will not come to the meeting; and will doubtless
depart." The meeting opened at ten o'clock; and Bailly was
able to tell the deputies, and the latter many others, the great
secret of the day. Opinions might have been divided and
duped, had the popular minister been seen sitting beside the
king; he being absent, the king remained discovered, and
forsaken by public opinion. The court had hoped to play their
game at Necker's expense, and to be sheltered by him; they
have never forgiven him for not having allowed himseH to be
abused and dishonoured by them.
What proves that everything was known is, that on his very
exit from the castle, the king found the crowd sullenly silent.a6
The affair had got abroad, and the grand scene, so highly
wrought, had not the least effect.
The miserable petty spirit of insolence which swayed the
court, had suggested the idea of causing the two superior
orders to enter in front, by the grand entrance, and the
commons behind, and to keep them under a shed, haH in
the rain. The Third Estate, thus humbled, wet and dirty,
was to have entered crest-fallen, to receive its lesson.

.. Dumont ( an eye-witness ), p. 91.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 89

Nobody to admit them; the door shut; and the guard within.
Mirabeau to the president: "Sir, conduct the nation into the
presence of the king!" The president knocks at the door. The
body-guards from within: "Presently." The president: "Gentle­
men, where is then the master of ceremonies?" The body­
guards : "We know nothing about it." The deputies: "Well then,
let us go; come away!" At last the president succeeds in
bringing forth the captain of the guards, who goes in quest of
Breze.
The deputies, filing in one by one, find, in the hall, the
clergy and the nobility, who, already in their places, and
holding the meeting, seem to be awaiting them, like judges.
In other respects, the hall was empty. Nothing could be more
desolate than that hall, from which the people were excluded.
The king read, with his usual plainness of manner, the
speech composed for him,-that despotic language so strange
from his lips. He perceived but little its provoking violence,
for he appeared surprised at the aspect of the Assembly. The
nobles having applauded the article consecrating feudal rights,
loud distinct voices were heard to utter: "Silence there!"
The king, after a moment's pause and astonishment, con­
cluded with a grave, intolerable sentence, which flung down
the gauntlet to the Assembly, and began the war: "If you
abandon me in so excellent an enterprise, I will, alone, effect
the welfare of my people; alone, [ shall consider myself as
their true representative!"
And at the end: "[ order you, gentlemen, to disperse im­
mediately, and to repair to-morrow morning to the chambers
appropriated to your order, there to resume your sitting."
The king departed, followed by the nobility and the clergy.
The commons remained seated, calm, and silent.37 The master

'" There was neither hesitation, nor consternation, notwithstanding what

Dumont says, who was not there. The ardent, like Gregoire (Mem., i.,
381 ), and the moderate, like Malouet, were perfectly agreed. The latter
says, on this head, these fine and simple words: "We had no other course
to take. We owed France a constitution."-Malouet, Compte-rendu Ii mes
Commettants.
130
 Oath at the Tennis Court
of ceremonies then entered, and said to the president in a
low tone: "Sir, you heard the king's order!" He replied: "The
Assembly adjourned after the royal meeting; I cannot dismiss
it till it has deliberated." Then turning towards his colleagues
near him: "It seems to me that the assembled nation cannot
receive any orders."
That sentence was admirably taken up by Mirabeau, who
addressed it to the master of ceremonies. With his powerful
and imposing voice, and with terrible dignity, he hurled back
these words : ''We have heard the intentions suggested to the
king; and you, sir who can never be his spokesman to the
National Assembly, you, who have here neither place, voice,
nor right to speak, you are not a man to remind us of his
discourse. Go and tell those who send you, that we are here by
the will of the people, and are to be driven hence only by the
power of bayonets." 38
Breze was disconcerted, thunderstruck; he felt the power
of that new royalty, and, rendering to the one what etiquette
commanded for the other, he retired walking backwards, as
was the custom before the king.39
The court had imagined another way to disperse the com­
mons,-a brutal means formerly employed with success in the
Estates-General,-merely to have the hall dismantled, to de­
molish the amphitheatre and the king's estrade. Workmen
accordingly enter! but, at one word from the president, they
stop, lay down their tools, contemplate with admiration the
calm majesty of the Assembly, and become attentive and
respectful auditors.
A deputy proposed to discuss the king's resolutions on the
morrow. He was not listened to. Camus laid down forcibly,
nnd it was declared: "That the sitting was but a ministerial

.. This version is the only one likely. Mirabeau was a royalist; he would
never have said: "Go and tell your master," nor the other words that have
IHlen added.
.. Related by M. Frochot, an eye-witness, to the son of Mirabeau.
( Mem., vi., p. 39 ) . That family has thought proper to contest a few
t\!ltllils of this well-known scene, forty-four years after the event.
131
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

act, and that the Assembly persisted in its decrees." Barnave,

the young member for Dauphiny: "You have declared what
you are; you need no sanction." Glezen, the Breton: "How
now! does the sovereign speak as a master, when he ought to
consult!" Petion, Buzot, Garat, Gregoire, spoke with equal
energy; and Sieyes, with simplicity: "Gentlemen, you are today
what you were yesterday."
The Assembly next declared, on Mirabeau's proposal, that
its members were inviolable; that whoever laid hands on a
deputy was a traitor, infamous, and worthy of death.
This decree was not useless. The body-guards had formed
in a line in front of the hall. It was expected that sixty depu­
ties would be kidnapped in the night.
The nobility, headed by their president, went straightway
to thank their protector, the Count d'Artois, and afterwards to
Monsieur, who was prudent and took care not to be at home.
Many of them went to see the queen, who, triumphant and
smiling, leading her daughter and carrying the dauphin, said
to them: "I intrust him to the nobility."
The king was far from sharing their joy. The silence of
the people, so new to him, had overwhelmed him. When
Breze, who came and informed him that the deputies of the
Third Estate remained sitting, asked for orders, he walked
about for a few minutes, and said at last, in the tone of one
tired to death : "Very well; leave them alone."
The king spoke Wisely. The moment was fraught with
danger. One step more and Paris would have marched against
Versailles. Versailles was already in commotion. Behold five or
six thousand men advancing towards the castle. The queen sees
with terror that strange and novel court, which, in a moment,
fills the gardens, the terraces, and even the apartments. She
begs, she entreats the king to undo what she has done, to
recall Necker. His return did not take long; he was there,
near at hand, convinced, as usual, that nothing could ever go
on without him. Louis XVI. said to him good-naturedly: "For
my part I am not at all tenacious of that declaration."
Necker required no more, and made no condition. His
132
 Oath at the Tennis Court
vanity once satisfied, his delight in hearing everybody shout
Necker! deprived him of every other thought. He went out,
overjoyed, into the great court of the castle, and to comfort
the multitude, passed in the midst of them. There a few silly
persons fell on their knees and kissed his hands. He, much
affected, said: "Yes, my children,-yes, my children,-I remain;
be comforted." He burst into tears, and then shut himself up in
his office.
The poor tool of the court remained without exacting any­
thing; he remained to shield the cabal with his name, to serve
them as an advertisement, and reassure them against the
people; he restored courage to those worthies, and gave them
the time to summon more troops.

133
 v

Movement of Paris

THE situation of things was strange,-evidently

temporary.
The Assembly had not obeyed. But the king had not re­
voked anything.
The king had recalled Necker; but he kept the Assembly
like a prisoner among his troops; he had excluded the public
from the sitting; the grand entrance remained shut; the As­
sembly entered by the small one, and debated with closed
doors.
The Assembly protested feebly and but slightly. The resist-
ance, on the 23rd, seemed to have exhausted its strength.
Paris did not imitate its weakness.
It was not content to see its deputies making laws in prison.
On the 24th the ferment was terrible.
On the 25th it burst out in three different ways at once; by
the electors, by the crowd, and by the soldiery.
The seat of the Revolution fIxes itself at Paris.
The electors had agreed to meet again after the elections, in
order to complete their instructions to the deputies whom they
had elected. Though the ministry refused its permission,40 the
coup d'etat, on the 23rd, urged them on; they had likewise
theircoup d'etat, and assembled, of their own accord, on
the 25th, in the Rue Dauphine. A wretched assembly-room,

.. Compare the Memoires de Bailly with the Proces-verbal des Electeurs,

drawn up by Bailly et Duveyrier.

134
 Movement of Paris
occupied at that moment by a wedding-party, which made
room for them, received, at first, the Assembly of the electors of
Paris. This was their Tennis-court. There Paris, through their
medium, made an engagement to support the National Assem­
bly. One of them, Thuriot, advised them to go to the Hotel­
de-Ville, into the great hall of Saint-Jean, which nobody dared
refuse them.
These electors were mostly rich men, citizens of note; the
aristocracy was numerous in this body; but among them were,
also, men of over-excited minds. First, two men, fervent
revolutionnaires, with a singular tendency to mysticism; one
was the abbe Fauchet, eloquent and intrepid; the other, his
friend Bonneville, ( the translator of Shakespeare ) . Both, in
the thirteenth century, would have caused themselves, most
certainly, to be burnt as heretics. In the eighteenth they
were as forward as any, or rather the first, to propose resistance;
which was scarcely to be expected from the burgess assembly
of the electors.41 On the 6th of June, Bonneville proposed that
Paris should be armed, and was the first to cry, "To arms." 42
Fauchet, Bonneville, Bertolio, and Carra, a violent journalist,
made these bold motions, which ought to have been made from
the first in the National Assembly:-firstly, the Citizen Guard;
secondly, the early organization of a true, elective, and annual
Commune; thirdly, an address to the King, for the removal of
the troops and the liberty of the Assembly, and for the revoca­
tion of the coup d'etat of the 23rd.
On the very day of the first assembly of the electors, as if
the cry to arms had resounded in the barracks, the soldiers of
the French Guards, confined for several days past, over­
powered their guard, walked about in Paris, and went to frat-

" Yet, nowhere had more reliance been placed on the weakness of the
people. The well-known gentleness of Parisian manners, the multitude of
government people, and financiers, who could but lose in a rebellion, the
crowds of those who lived on abuses, had altogether created a belief,
before the elections that Paris would prove very citizen-like, easy, and
timid. See Bailly, pp. 16, 150 .
.. Dussaulx, Oeuvre des Sept lours, p. 271, ( ed. 1822 ) .
135
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

ernise with the people i n the Palais Royal. For some time past,
secret societies had been forming among them; they swore they
would obey no orders that might be contrary to those of the
Assembly. The Act of the 23rd, in which the king declared, in
the strongest manner, that he would never change the institu­
tion of the army; that is to say, that the nobility should for ever
monopolize every grade, and that the plebeian could never
rise, but that the common soldier would die in the ranks :­
that unjustifiable declaration necessarily finished what the
revolutionary contagion had begun.
The French Guards, residents in Paris, and mostly married
men, had seen the school in which the children of the soldiers
were educated, free of expense, shortly before suppressed by
M. Du Chatelet, their hard-hearted colonel. The only change
made in the military institutions, was made against them.
In order to appreciate properly the words institution of the
army, we should know, that in the budget of that time, the
officers were reckoned at forty-six millions ( of francs ) , and
the soldiers at forty-four.43 We should know, that Jourdan, Jou­
bert, and Kleber, who had served at first, quit the military
profession, as a hopeless career,-a sort of no thoroughfare.
Augereau was an under-officer in the infantry, Hoche a ser­
geant in the French Guards, and Marceau a common soldier;
those noble-hearted and aspiring youths were fixed in this low
condition for ever. Hoche, who was twenty-one years of age,
nevertheless completed his own education, as if about to be a
General-in-Chief; he devoured everything, literature, politics,
and even philosophy; must we add, that this great man, in
order to purchase a few books, used to embroider officers'
waistcoats, and sell them in a coffee-house.44 The trifling pay of
a soldier was, under one pretence or other, absorbed by deduc­
tions, which the officers squandered away among themselves.45

4ll Necker, Administration, ii., 422, 435. ( 1784 ) .

.. Rousselin, Vie de Hoche, i., 20.

.. The single regiment of Beauce believed it was cheated of the sum of
240,727 francs.
136
 Movement of Paris
The insurrection of the French Guards was not a pretorian
mutiny, a brutal riot of the soldiery,-it came in support of the
declarations of the electors and the people. That truly French
troop, Parisian in a great measure, followed the lead of Paris,
followed the law, the living law,-the National Assembly.
They arrived in the Palais Royal, saluted, pressed, embraced,
and almost stifled by the crowd. The soldier, that true pariah
of the ancient monarchy, so ill-treated by the nobles, is wel­
comed by the people. And what is he, under his uniform, but
the very people? Two brothers have met each other, the soldier
and the citizen, two children of the same mother; they fall into
each other's arms, and burst into tears.
Hatred and party-spirit have vilified all that, disfigured those
grand scenes, and soiled the page of history, at pleasure. A
vast importance has been attached to this or that ridiculous
anecdote; a worthy amusement for petty minds 1 All these im­
mense commotions they have attributed to some miserable, in­
significant causes. Paltry fools 1 try to explain by a straw,
washed away by the waves, the agitation of the ocean.
No : those movements were those of a whole people, true,
sincere, immense, and unanimous; France had her share in
them, and so had Paris; all men, ( each in his own degree, )
acted, some with their hands and voices, others with their
minds, with their fervent wishes, from the depths of their hearts.
But why do I say France? It would be more true to say the
world. An envious enemy, a Genevese, imbued with every
English prejudice, cannot help avowing, that at that decisive
moment, the whole world was looking on, observing with un­
easy sympathy the march of our Revolution, and feeling that
France was doing, at her own risk and peril, the business of
mankind.46
Arthur Young, an English agriculturist, a positive, special
man, who had, whimsically enough, come to France, to study
Its modes of agriculture, at such a moment, is astonished at the
dcep silence reigning about Paris; no coach, hardly a man. The

.. E. Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 135.

137
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

terrible agitation concentrating everything within, made a

desert of all beyond. He enters; the tumult frightens him; he
traverses, in astonishment, that noisy capital. He is taken to the
Palais Royal, the centre of the conflagration, the burning focus
of the furnace. Ten thousand men were speaking at once; ten
thousand lights in the windows; it was a day of victory for the
people; fire-works were let off, and bonfires made. Dazzled and
confounded by that moving Babel, he hastily retires. Yet the
lively and excessive emotion of that people, united in one
common thought, soon gains upon the traveller; he gradually
becomes associated, without even being aware of his change
of sentiments, with the hopes of liberty; the Englishman prays
for France.47
All men forgot themselves. The place, that strange place
where the scene was passing, seemed, at such moments, to
forget itself. The Palais Royal was no longer the Palais Royal.
Vice, in the grandeur of so sincere a passion, in the heat of
enthusiasm, became pure for an instant. The most degraded
raised their heads, and gazed at the sky; their past life, like a
bad dream, was gone, at least for a day; they could not be
virtuous, but they felt themselves heroic, in the name of the
liberties of the world! Friends of the people, brothers to one
another, having no longer any selfish feeling, and quite ready
to share everything.
That there were interested agitators in that multitude, can­
not be doubted. The minority of the nobility, ambitious men,
fond of noise, such as Lameth and Duport, worked upon the
people by their pamphlets and agents. Others, still worse,
joined them. All that took place, we must say, beneath the
windows of the Duke of Orleans, before the eyes of that in­
triguing, greedy, polluted court. Alas! who would not pity our
Revolution? That ingenuous, disinterested, sublime movement,
spied and overlooked by those who hoped one day or other to
turn it to their advantage!
Let us look at those windows. There I see distinctly a pure

.. Of course with many exceptions, and on condition that France adopts

the constitution of England. Arthur Young's Travels, vol. i , passim.
.

138
 Movement of Paris
woman and a wicked man. These are Virtue and Vice, the
king's counsellors, Madame de Genlis and Choderlos de Laclos.
The parts are distinctly separated. In that house, where every­
thing is false, Virtue is represented by Madame de Genlis,­
hard-heartedness and mock sensibility, a torrent of tears and
ink, the quackery of a model education, and the constant exhi­
bition of the pretty Pamela.48 On this side of the palace is the
philanthropic bureau, where charity is organised with much
ostentation on the eve of elections.49
The time has gone by when the jockey-prince used to lay a
wager after supper to run stark naked from Paris to Bagatelle.
He is now the statesman before everything else, the head of a
party; his mistresses will have it so. They have fondly wished
for two things,-a good law for divorces, and a change of
dynasty. The political confidant of the prince is that gloomy
taciturn man, who seems to say: "I conspire, we conspire." That
mysterious Laclos who, by his little book, Liaisons dangereuses,
Hatters himself that he has caused the romantic to pass from
vice to crime, and insinuates therein that crafty gallantry is a
useful prelude to political villainy. That is the name he covets
of all others, and that part he acts to perfection. Many, in order
to Hatter the prince, say: "Lados is a villain."
It was not easy, however, to make a leader of this Duke of
Orleans; he was broken down at that period, wasted in body
and heart, and of very weak mind. Swindlers made him fabri­
cate gold in the garrets of the Palais Royal, and they had made
him acquainted with the devil. 50

.. Even so far as to send her, on horseback, into the middle of the riot,
followed by a domestic in the Orleans livery.-Read the Souvenirs ( i., p.
189, ) of Madame Lebrun, who was a witness of this scene.
,. Brissot worked there some time.-Memoires, ii., p. 430.
"" The prince made gold, as it is ever made, with gold. However, among
other ingredients, it was necessary to have a human skeleton that had been
huried so many years and days. They sought among such dead bodies as
wcre known, and it so happened that Pascal exactly fulfilled the conditions
required. They bribed the keepers of Saint Etienne-du-Mont, and poor
Pascal was handed over to the crucibles of the Palais Royal. Such, at least,
Is the account of a person, who, having long lived with Madame de Genlis,
received from her this strange anecdote.

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

Another difficulty was, that this prince, besides all his ac­
quired vices, possessed a natural one, both fundamental and
durable, which does not cease with exhaustion, like the others,
but remains faithful to its master: I mean avarice. "I would
give," he would say, "public opinion for a six-franc piece."
This was not an idle word. He had put it well in practice, when,
in spite of public clamour, he built the Palais Royal.
His political advisers were not skilful enough to raise him
from such abasement. They caused him to commit more than
one false and imprudent step.
In 1788, Madame de Genlis' brother, a youth without any
other title than that of officer in the house of Orleans, writes
to the king, to ask nothing less than to be prime minister,-to
get the place of Necker or Turgot; he will undertake to re­
establish in a moment the finances of the monarchy. The Duke
of Orleans allows himself to be the bearer of the incredible
missive, hands it to the king, recommends it, and becomes the
laughing-stock of the court.
The sage counsellors of the prince had hoped thus to bring
the government quietly into his hands. Deceived in their hopes,
they acted more openly, endeavoured to make a Guise a Crom­
well, and courted the people. There, also, they met with great
difficulties. All were not dupes; the city of Orleans did not elect
the prince; and, by way of retaliation, he unceremoniously
withdrew from it the benefits by which he had expected to
purchase his election.
And yet nothing had been spared, neither money nor in­
trigue. Those who had the management of the business had
had the precaution to attach a whole pamphlet of Sieyes to the
electoral instructions which the duke sent into his domains, and
thus to place their master under the name and patronage of
that great thinker, then so popular, who however had no kind
of connection with the Duke of Orleans.
When the Commons took the decisive step of assuming the
title of National Assembly, the Duke of Orleans was informed
that the time was come to show himself, to speak and act, and
that a leader of a party could not remain mute. They prevailed

140
 Movement of Paris
upon him at least to read a speech of some four lines to engage
the nobility to unite with the Third Estate. He did so; but
whilst reading, his heart failed him, and he fainted. On opening
his vest, they saw that, in the dread of being assassinated by
the court, this over-prudent prince used to wear, by way of
armor, five or six waistcoats. 51
The day the coup d'etat failed ( June 23 ) , the duke believed
the king lost, and himself king on the morrow, or next day; he
could not conceal his joy.52 The terrible fermentation in Paris
on that evening and the next morning, sufficiently announced
that a vast insurrection would burst forth. On the 25th, the
minority of the nobility, perceiving that they must decline in
importance if Paris should be the first to begin, went, with the
Duke of Orleans at their head, to join the Commons. The
prince's man, Sillery, the convenient husband of Madame de
Cenlis, pronounced, in the name of all, an ill-concocted dis­
course, such as might have been made by a mediator, an
accepted arbiter between the king and the people : "Let us
never lose sight of the respect that we owe to the best of kings.
He offers us peace; can we refuse to accept it?" &c. In the
evening, great was the rejoicing in Paris for this union of the
noble friends of the people. An address to the assembly was
lying at the Cafe de Foy; everybody signed it, as many as
three thousand persons, in haste, and most of them without
reading it. That article, drawn by an able hand, contained one
strange word respecting the Duke of Orleans: "This Prince, the
object of public veneration." Such a word, for such a man,
seemed cruelly derisive; an enemy would not have been more
bitter. The duke's awkward agents believed apparently that the
boldest eulogium would also be the best paid.
Thank Cod! the grandeur, the immensity of the movement,
spared the Revolution that unworthy mediator. Ever since the
25th, the excitement was so unanimous, and the concord so

III Ferrieres, i., p. 52 .

.. Arthur Young, who was dining with him and other deputies, was
shocked at seeing him laughing in his sleeve.
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

powerful, that the agitators themselves, hurried along by it,

were obliged to abandon every pretension of directing it. Paris
led the leaders. The Catalines of the salons and cates had only
to follow in its train. An authority was suddenly found to be in
Paris, which had been supposed to be without any chief or
guide, the assembly of the electors. On the other hand, as the
French Guards began to declare themselves, it was easy to
foresee that the new authority would not be wanting in force.
To sum up all in one word, these anxious mediators might re­
main quiet; if the assembly was a prisoner at Versailles, it had
its asylum here, in the very heart of France, and, if necessary,
Paris for an army.
The court, trembling with anger and indignation, and still
more with fear, decided, on the evening of the 26th, to grant
the re-union of the orders. The king invited the nobility to it,
and in order to reserve to himself a means of protesting against
all that was being done, the Count d'Artois was made to write
those imprudent words ( then untrue ) : "The kings life is in
danger."
On the 27th, therefore, the long-expected union at length
took place. The rejoicing at Versailles was excessive, foolish,
and ungovernable. The people made bonfires, and shouted
"Vive la Reine!" The queen was obliged to appear in the bal­
cony. The crowd then asked her to show them the dauphin,
as a token of complete reconciliation and oblivion. She con­
sented again, and re-appeared with her child. She did but so
much the more despise that credulous crowd; and she sent for
troops.
She had taken no part in the union of the orders. And could
it truly be called a union? They were still enemies, though
now assembled in the selfsame hall, brought into contact, and
looking at one another. The clergy had made their express
restrictions. The protests of the nobles were brought forward
one by one, like so many challenges, and engrossed the whole
time of the Assembly; such as came, did not condescend to sit,
but wandered about, or stood gazing like simple spectators.
They did sit, but elsewhere,-in a meeting of their own. Many

142
 Movement of Paris
had said that they were leaving, but still remained at Versailles;
evidently, they were waiting.
The Assembly was wasting time. The lawyers, who com­
posed the majority, spoke frequently and at great length,
trusting too much to language. According to them, if the con­
stitution were but made, everything was saved. As if a constitu­
tion can be anything with a government continually conspiring!
A paper liberty, written or verbal, whilst despotism possesses
the power and the sword! This is nonsense,-absurdityl
But neither the court nor Paris desired any compromise.
Everything was inclining towards open violence. The military
gentlemen of the court were impatient to act. M. Du Chatelet,
the colonel of the French Guards, had already sent to the
Abbaye eleven of those soldiers who had sworn to obey no
orders contrary to those of the Assembly. Neither did he stop
there. He wanted to remove them from the military prison,
and send them to the one for thieves, to that horrible sink, gaol
and hospital at once, which subjected to the same lash the
galley-slaves and the ventiriens.53 The terrible case of Latude,
cast there to die, had revealed Bicetre,-thrown the first light
upon it; and a recent book, by Mirabeau, had filled every heart
with disgust and every mind with terror. 54 And it was there
they were going to imprison men whose greatest offence was
to wish to be only the soldiers of the law.
The very day they were to be transferred to Bicetre, the
news reached the Palais Royal. A young man standing upon
a chair, called out, "To the Abbaye! and let us deliver those
who would not fire upon the people!" Soldiers offer themselves;
but the citizens thank them, and go alone. The crowd increases
on the road, and is joined by workmen with strong iron bars.
At the Abbaye, they were four thousand in number. They burst

63 Will it be believed that in 1790, they still executed at Bicetre the old

barbarous ordinances which prescribed that the medical treatment of such

patients should begin by a flagellation? The celebrated doctor Cullorier
stated the fact to one of my friends.
fit Observations d'un Anglais sur Bic�tre, trad. et commentees par

Mirabeau, 1788.
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

open the wicket, and break down the large inside doors with
their mallets, axes, and crow-bars. The victims are liberated.
As they were going out, they met a body of hussars and
dragoons, who were arriving full gallop with their swords
drawn. The people rush at their bridles; an explanation ensues;
the soldiers will not massacre the soldiers' deliverers; they
sheathe their swords, and take off their helmets; wine is
brought; and they all drink together to the king and the nation.
Everybody in the prison was set at liberty at the same time.
The crowd conduct their conquest home,-to the Palais Royal.
Among the prisoners delivered, they carried off an old soldier
who had been rotting many years in the Abbaye, and was no
longer able to walk. The poor fellow, who had so long been
accustomed to receive nothing but ill-treatment, was over­
powered by his emotion: "I shall die, gentlemen," said he, "so
much kindness will kill mel"
There was only one great criminal among them, and he was
taken back to prison. All the others, citizens, soldiers, and
prisoners, forming an immense procession, arrive at the Palais
Royal. There they place a table in the garden, and make them
all sit down. The difficulty was to lodge them. They house
them for the night in the Theatre des Varietes, and mount
guard at the door. The next morning, they were located in
a hotel, under the arcades, and paid for and fed by the people.
All night, either side of Paris had been illuminated, the neigh­
bourhood of the Abbaye and the Palais Royal. Citizens, work­
men, rich and poor, dragoons, hussars, and French Guards, all
walked about together, and no other noise was heard but the
shouts of "Vive la nation!" They all gave themselves up to the
transports of that fraternal union, to their dawning confidence
in the birth of liberty.
Early in the morning, the young men were at Versailles, at
the doors of the Assembly. There, everything wore a freezing
aspect. A military insurrection and a prison broken open, ap­
peared, at Versailles, most ill-omened. Mirabeau, aVOiding the
chief question, proposed an address to the Parisians, to advise
them to be orderly. They at length came to the conclusion ( not
144
 Movement of Paris
very comfortable for those who claimed the interference of the
Assembly ) of declaring that the affair belonged to nobody but
the king, and all they could do was to implore his clemency.
This was on the 1st of July. On the 2nd, the king wrote,­
not to the Assembly, but to the Archbishop of Paris,-that if the
culprits returned to prison, he might pardon them. The crowd
considered this promise so unsatisfactory, that they repaired to
the Hotel-de-Ville and demanded of the electors what they
were to believe. The latter hesitated a long time; but the crowd
insisted; and was increasing every instant. An hour after mid­
night, the electors promise to go on the morrow to Versailles,
and not to return without the pardon. Trusting to their word,
the liberated again returned to prison, and were soon released.
This was not a state of peace. Paris was surrounded by war:
all the foreign troops had arrived. The old Marshal De Broglie,
that Hercules and Achilles of the old monarchy, had been
called to command them. The queen had sent for Breteuil, her
confidential man, the ex-ambassador at Vienna, a valiant pen­
man, but who, for noise and bravado, was equal to any swords­
man. "His big manly voice sounded like energy; he used to
step heavily and stamp with his foot, as if he would conjure an
army out of the earth."
All this warlike preparation at length aroused the Assembly.
Mirabeau, who had read on the 27th an address for peace,
without being listened to, now proposed a new one for the
removal of the troops; that sonorous and harmonious speech,
extremely flattering for the king, was very much relished by
the Assembly. The best thing it contained, a demand for a
citizen guard, was the only part they suppressed. 55
The Paris electors, who had been the first to make this re­
quest now rejected by the Assembly, resumed it energetically
on the lOth of July. Carra, in a very abstract dissertation, in

... It is not unlikely that the Duke of Orleans, seeing that his mediation
was by no means solicited, urged Mirabeau to speak, in order to perplex
the court, before it had completed its preparations for war. M. Droz
assigns to this period the first connexion of Mirabeau with Lados, and
the money he received from him.
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

the manner of Sieyes, set forth the right of the Commune,-an

imprescriptible right, and, said he,
even anterior to that of the
monarchy, which right specially comprehends that of self­
protection. Bonneville demanded, in his own name, and in
that of his friend Fauchet, that they should pass on from theory
to practice, and think of constituting themselves as a com­
mune, temporarily preserving the self-styled corps municipal.
Charton wished moreover the sixty districts to be - assembled
again, their decisions to be transmitted to the National As­
sembly, and an understanding to be reached with the chief
cities of the kingdom. All these bold motions were made in the
great hall of Saint-Jean, in the Hotel de Ville, in presence of an
immense multitude. Paris seemed to crowd fondly about this
authority which it had created, and to trust to no other; it
wanted to obtain from it the permission to organize and arm
itself, and thus to work out its own salvation.
The weakness of the National Assembly was not calculated
to give it comfort. On the 11th of July it had received the
king's answer to the address, and remained satisfied with it.
Yet, what was the answer? That the troops were there to secure
the liberty of the Assembly; but that, if they gave umbrage, the
king would transfer it to Noyon or Soissons; that is, would place
it between two or three divisions of the army. Mirabeau could
not prevail on them to insist on the troops being removed. It
was evident that the junction of the five hundred deputies of
the clergy and nobility had enervated the Assembly. It set
the important business aside, and gave its attention to a decla­
ration of the rights of man presented by Lafayette.
One of the moderate, most moderate members, the philan­
thropic Guillotin, went to Paris on purpose to communicate this
state of tranquillity to the assembly of the electors. That honest
man, doubtless deceived, assured them that everything was
going well, and that M. Necker was stronger than ever. That
excellent news was hailed with loud applause, and the electors,
no less duped than the Assembly, amused themselves in like
manner with admiring the declaration of rights which, by good
fortune, was also just brought from Versailles. That very day,

146
 Movement of Paris
whilst honest Guillotin was speaking, M. Necker, dismissed,
was already very far on his road to Brussels.
When Necker received the order to depart immediately, it
was three o'clock, and he was sitting down to table. The poor
man, who always so tenderly embraced the ministry, and never
left it without weeping, contrived however to restrain his emo­
tion before his guests, and to keep his countenance. After
dinner he departed with his wife, without even giving notice
to his daughter, and took the nearest way out of the country,­
the road to the Netherlands. The queen's party, shameful to
relate, were anxious to have him arrested; they were so little
acquainted with Necker, that they were afraid he might dis­
obey the king, and throw himself into Paris.
MM. de Broglie and de Breteuil, the first day they were
summoned, had themselves been frightened to see the dangers
into which they were running. Broglie was unwilling that
Necker should be sent away. Breteuil is said to have exclaimed:
"Give us then a hundred thousand men and a hundred mil­
lions." "You shall have them," said the queen. And they set
about secretly fabricating paper-money.56
M. de Broglie, taken unawares, stooping beneath his burden
of seventy-one years, bustled about but did nothing. Orders
and counter-orders flew to and fro. His mansion was the head­
quarters, full of scribes, ordinances, and aides-de-camp, ready
to mount on horse-back. "They made out a list of genera]
officers and drew up an order of battle." 57
The military authorities were not too well agreed among
themselves. There were no less than three commanders. Brog­
lie, who was about to be minister, Puysegur, who was one still,
and lastly Besenval, who had had for eight years the command
of the provinces of the interior, and to whom they intimated
unceremoniously that he would have to obey the old marshal.
Besenval explained to him the dangerous position of things,
and that they were not en campagne, but before a city of

.. "Several of my colleagues told me they had seen printed ones."­

Bailly, i., pp. 395, 331.
67 Besenval, ii., 359.

147
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

eight hundred thousand souls in a state o f feverish excitement.

Broglie would not listen to him. Strong in his conceit of his
Seven Years' War, being acquainted with nothing but soldiers
and physical force, full of contempt for citizens, he felt per­
fectly convinced that at the mere sight of a uniform the peo­
ple would run away. He did not consider it necessary to send
troops to Paris; he merely surrounded it with foreign regiments,
being quite unconcerned about thus increasing the popular
excitement. All those German soldiers presented the appear­
ance of a Swiss or an Austrian invasion. The outlandish names
of the regiments sounded harsh to the ear: Royal-Cravate was
at Charenton, Reinach and Diesbach at Sevres, Nassau at
Versailles, Salis-Samade at Issy, the hussars of Bercheny at the
Military School; at other stations were Chateauvieux, Esterazy,
Roemer, &c.
The Bastille, sufficiently defended by its thick walls, had
just received a reinforcement of Swiss soldiers. It had ammuni­
tion and a monstrous quantity of gunpowder, enough to blow
up the town. The cannon, mounted en batterie upon the towers
ever since the 30th of June, frowned upon Paris, and ready
loaded, thrust their menacing jaws between the battlements.

148
 VI

Insurrection of Paris

FROM the 23rd of June to the 12th of July,

from the king's menace to the outbreak of the people, there was
a strange pause. It was, says an observer of those days, a stormy,
heavy, gloomy time, like a feverish, painful dream, full of
illusions and anxiety. There were false alarms, false news, and
all sorts of fables and inventions. People knew, but nothing
for certain. They wished to account for and guess at every­
thing. Profound causes were discovered even in indifferent
things. Partial risings began, without any author or project, of
their own accord, from a general fund of distrust and sullen
anger. The ground was burning, and as if undermined; and,
underneath, you might hear already the grumbling of the
volcano.
We have seen that, at the very first assembly of the electors,
Bonneville had cried: "To armsl"-a strange cry in that as­
sembly of the notables of Paris, and which expired of itself.
Many were indignant, others smiled, and one of them said
prophetically : "Young man, postpone your motion for a
fortnight."
To arms? What, against a ready organised army at the gates?
To arms? when that army could so easily famish the city, when
famine was already beginning to be felt, and when the crowd
was hourly growing larger at the doors of the bakers. The poor
of the neighbouring country were Hocking to town by every
road, wan and ragged, leaning on their long walking-staffs. A

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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

mass of twenty thousand beggars, employed at Montmartre,

was suspended over the town; and if Paris made a movement,
this other army might come down. A few had already at­
tempted to burn and pillage the barrier-houses.
It was almost certain that the court would strike the first
blow. It was necessary for it to compel the king to lay aside
his scruples, his hankering for peace, and do away at once with
every compromise. To effect this it was necessary to conquer.
Young officers in the hussars, such as Sombreuil and Polignac,
went even into the Palais Royal to defy the crowd, and left it
sword in hand. Evidently, the court fancied itself too strong;
it wished for violence.58
On Sunday morning, July 12th, nobody at Paris, up to 10
o'clock, had yet heard of Necker's dismissal. The first who spoke
of it in the Palais Royal was called an aristocrat, and insulted.
But the news is confirmed; it spreads; and so does the fury of
the people. It was then noon, and the cannon of the Palais Royal
was fired. "It is impossible," says the Ami du Roi, "to express
the gloomy feeling of terror which pervaded every soul on
hearing that report." A young man, Camille Desmoulins, rushed
from the Cafe de Foy, leaped upon a table, drew a sword, and
showed a pistol :-"To arms!" cried he; "the Germans in the
Champ de Mars will enter Paris to-night, to butcher the in­
habitants! Let us hoist a cockade!" He tore down a leaf from a
tree, and stuck it in his hat: everybody followed his example;
and the trees were stripped of their leaves.
"No theatres! no dancing! This is a day of mourning!" They
go and fetch, from a collection of wax-figures, a bust of Necker;
others, ever at hand to seize the opportunity, add one of the
Duke of Orleans. They cover them with crape, and carry them
through Paris : the procession, armed with staves, swords, pis­
tols, and hatchets, proceeds first up the Rue Richelieu, then

os "Take care," said Doctor Marat, a

J?hilanthropic physician, in one of
the innumerable pamphlets of the day, take care, consider what would be
•

the fatal consequences of a seditious movement. If you are so unfortunate

as to engage in it, you are treated as rebels; blood flows," &c. This
prudence was conspicuous in many people.
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 Insurrection of Paris
turning the boulevard, and the streets St. Martin, Saint-Denis,
and Saint-Honore, arrives at the Place Vendome. There, in
front of the town houses of the farmers of the revenue, a de­
tachment of dragoons was waiting for the people; it charged
them, put them to Hight, and destroyed their Necker; one of
the French guards, unarmed, stood his ground, and was killed.
The barriers, which were scarcely finished,-those oppressive
little bastilles of the farmers of the revenue,-were attacked
everywhere on that same Sunday, by the people, and but ill­
defended by the troops, who however killed a few persons.
They were burnt during the night.
The court, so near Paris, could not be ignorant of what was
passing. It remained motionless, and sent neither orders nor
troops. Apparently, it was waiting till the disturbance, increas­
ing to rebellion and war, should give it what the Reveillon riot
( too soon appeased ) had not been able to give-a specious pre­
text for dissolving the Assembly. Therefore, it allowed Paris to
go on doing mischief at pleasure. It guarded well Versailles,
the bridges of Sevres and Saint-Cloud, cut off all communica­
tion, and believed itself sure of being able, if things came to
the worst, to starve out the city of Paris. As for itself, sur­
rounded by troops, of which two-thirds were German, what
had it to fear? Nothing, but to lose France.
The minister of Paris ( there was one still ) remained at
Versailles. The other authorities, the lieutenant of police, Fles­
selles the provost, and Berthier the intendant, appeared
equally inactive. Flesselles, summoned to court, was unable
to go there; but it is likely he received instructions.59
Besenval, the commander, without any responsibility, since
he could act only by the orders of Broglie, remained idly at
the Military School. He dared not make use of the French
guards, and kept them confined. But he had several detach­
ments of different corps, and three disposable regiments, one
of Swiss, and two of German cavalry. Towards the afternoon,

50 As we learn from the king himself. See his first reply ( July 14th ) to
the National Assembly.
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

seeing the riot increasing, he posted his Swiss in the Champs­

Elysees with four pieces of cannon, and drew up his cavalry
on the Place Louis XV.
Before evening, before the hour at which people return
home on Sunday, the crowd was coming back by the Champs­
Elysees, and filling the gardens of the Tuileries; they were,
for the most part, quiet people taking their walk, families who
wanted to return home early "because there had been dis­
turbances." However, the sight of those German soldiers, drawn
up in order of battle on the spot, necessarily excited some indig­
nation. Some of the men abused them, and children threw
stones.60 Then Besenval, fearing at length lest he should be
reproached at Versailles with having done nothing, gave the
insensate, barbarous order, so like his thoughtlessness, to drive
the people forward with the dragoons. They could not move
in that dense crowd without trampling on some of them. Their
colonel, prince of Lambesc, entered the Tuileries, at first at a
slow pace. He was stopped by a barricade of chairs; and being
assailed by a shower of bottles and stones, he fired upon the
crowd. The women shrieked, and the men tried to shut the
gates behind the prince. He had the presence of mind to retire.
One man was thrown down and trampled upon; and an old
man whilst trying to escape was grievously wounded.
The crowd, rushing out of the Tuileries, with exclamations
of horror and indignation, filled Paris with the account of this
brutality, of those Germans driving their horses against women
and children, and even the old man wounded, so they said, by
the hand of the prince himself. Then they run to the gunsmiths
and take whatever they find. They hasten also to the Hotel de
Ville to demand arms and ring the alarm-bell. No municipal

00 If there had been any pistols fired by the people, or any dragoons
wounded, as Besenval has stated, Deseze, his very clever defender, would
not have failed to make the most of it in his Observations sur le rapport
d'accusation. See this report in the Histoire Parlementaire, iv., p. 69; and
Deseze, at the end of Besenval, ii., p. 369. Who is to be believed, Deseze,
who pretends that Besenval gave no orders, or Besenval, who confesses
before his judges that he had a strong desire to drive away that crowd,
and that he gave orders to charge? Hist. Parl., ii., p. 89.
-

152
 Insurrection of Paris
magistrate was at his post. A few electors, of their own good­
will, repaired thither about six in the evening, occupied their
reserved seats in the great hall, and tried to calm the multitude.
But behind that crowd, already entered, there was another in
the square, shouting "Armsl" who believed the town possessed
a secret arsenal, and were threatening to burn everything. They
overpowered the guard, invaded the hall, pushed down the
barriers, and pressed the electors as far as their office. Then
they related to them a thousand accounts at once of what
has just happened. The electors could not refuse the arms of
the city guards; but the crowd had sought, found, and taken
them; and already a man in his shirt, without either shoes or
stockings, had taken the place of the sentineL and with his gun
on his shoulder was resolutely mounting guard at the door of
the hall.61
The electors declined the responsibility of authorising the
insurrection. They only granted the convocation of the districts,
and sent a few of their friends "to the posts of the armed
citizens, to entreat them, in the name of their native land, to
suspend riotous meetings and acts of violence." They had be­
gun that evening in a very serious manner. Some French guards
having escaped from their barracks, formed in the Palais Royal,
marched against the Germans, and avenged their comrade.
They killed three of the cavalry on the boulevard, and then
marched to the Place Louis XV., which they found evacuated.
On Monday, July 13th, Guillotin the deputy, with two elec­
tors, went to Versailles, and entreated the Assembly to "concur
in establishing a citizen guard." They gave a terrible descrip­
tion of the crisis of Paris. The Assembly voted two deputations,
one to the king, the other to the city. That to the king obtained
from him only a cold unsatisfactory answer, and a very strange
one when blood was flOwing: That he could make no altera­
tions in the measures he had taken, that he was the only judge
of their necessities, and that the presence of the deputies at

.... Proces-Verbal des tlecteurs, i., p. 180. Compare Dussaulx, Oeuvre des
Sept lours. Dussaulx, who wrote some time after, often inverts the order
of the facts.
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 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 89

Paris could do no good. The indignant Assembly decreed:-lst,

that M. Necker bore with him the regret of the nation; 2ndly,
that it insisted on the removal of the troops; 3rdly, that not
only the ministers, but the king's counsellors, of whatever rank
they might be, were personally responsible for the present mis­
fortunes; 4thly, that no power had the right to pronounce the
infamous word "bankruptcy." The third article sufficiently
designated the queen and the princes, and the last branded
them with reproach. The Assembly thus resumed its noble at­
titude; unarmed in the middle of the troops, without any other
support than the law, threatened that very evening to be
dispersed or made away with, it yet bravely branded its ene­
mies on their brow with their true name :bankrupts. 62
After that vote, the Assembly had but one asylum-the As­
sembly itself, the room it occupied; beyond that, it had not an
inch of ground in the world; not one of its members dared any
longer sleep at home. It feared also lest the court should seize
upon its archives. On the preceding evening, Sunday, Gregoire,
one of the secretaries, had folded up, sealed, and hidden all the
papers in a house at Versailles.63
On Monday he presided, per interim, and sustained by his
courage the weak-hearted, by reminding them of the Tennis­
Court, and the words of the Roman: "Fearless amid the crush
of worlds." ( Impavidum ferient ruinae. )
The sitting was declared permanent, and it continued for
seventy-two hours. M. Lafayette, who had contributed not a
little to the vigorous decree, was named vice-president.
Meanwhile Paris was in the utmost anxiety. The Faubourg
Saint-Honore expected every moment to see the troops enter.
In spite of the efforts of the electors , who ran about all night to
make the people lay down their arms, everybody was arming;
nobody was disposed to receive the Croats and the Hungarian
hussars peaceably, and to carry the keys to the queen. As early

.. They were going to make payments with paper-money, without any

other guarantee than the signature of an insolvent king. See ante, p. 131.
.. Memoires de GregOire, i., p. 382.
154
 Insurrection of Paris
as six o'clock on Monday morning, all the bells in every Church
sounding alarm, a few electors repaired to the Hotel-de-Ville,
found the crowd already assembled, and sent it off to the
different districts. At eight o'clock, seeing the people were in
earnest, they affirmed that the citizen guard was authorised,
which was not yet the case. The people were perpetually shout­
ing for arms. To which the electors reply: If the town has any,
they can only be obtained through the mayor. 'Well then,"
cried they, "send for him!"
The mayor, or provost, Flesselles, was on that day sum­
moned to Versailles by the king, and to the Hotel-de-Ville by
the people. Whether he dared not refuse the summons of the
crowd, or thought he could better serve the King at Paris, he
went to the Hotel-de-Ville, was applauded in La Greve, and
said in a fatherly tone : "You shall be satisfied, my friends, I
am your father." He declared in the hall that he would preside
only by election of the people. Thereupon, a fresh burst of
enthusiasm.
Though there was as yet no Parisian army, they were already
discussing who should be its general. The American Moreau de
Saint-Mery, the president of the electors, pointed to a bust of
Lafayette, and that name was received with applause. Others
proposed and obtained that the command should be offered
to the Duke d'Aumont, who demanded twenty-four hours for
reflection, and then refused. The second in command was the
Marquis de la Salle, a well-tried soldier, a patriotic writer, full
of devotion and probity.
All this was wasting time, and the crowd was in a fever of
impatience; it was in a hurry to be armed, and not without
reason. The beggars of Montmartre, throwing away their pick­
axes, came down upon the town; crowds of unknown vagrants
were prowling about. The frightful misery of the rural districts
had poured, from all sides, their starving populations towards
Paris : it was peopled by famine.
That same morning, on a report that there was some grain
at Saint-Lazare, the crowd ran thither, and found indeed an
enormous quantity of flour, amassed by the good friars, enough

155
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to load more than fifty carts which were driven to market.

They broke open everything, and ate and drank what was in
the house; however, they carried nothing away; the :6.rst who
attempted to do so, was hanged by the people themselves.
The prisoners of Saint-Lazare had escaped. Those of La Force
who had been imprisoned for debt were set at liberty. The
criminals of Le Chatelet wanted to take advantage of the
opportunity, and were already breaking down the doors. The
gaoler called in a band of the people who were passing; it
entered, fired upon the rebels, and forced them to become
orderly again.
The arms of the store-room were carried off, but subsequently
all restored.
The electors, being unable to defer the arming any longer,
attempted to keep it within limits. They voted, and the provost
pronounced: That each of the sixty districts should elect and
arm two hundred men, and that all the rest should be dis­
armed. It was an army of twelve thousand respectable persons,
wonderfully good for police, but very bad for defence. Paris
would have been given up. In the afternoon of the same day, it
was decided: That the Parisian police should consist of forty­
eight thousand men. The cockade was to be of the colours of
the city, blue and red.(J4 This decree was confirmed on the
same day by all the districts.
A permanent committee is named to watch night and day
over public order. It is formed of electors. 'Why electors alone?"
said a man, stepping forward. 'Why, whom would you have
named?" "Myself," said he. He was appointed by acclamation.
The provost then ventured to put a very serious question:
"To whom shall the oath be taken?" "To the Assembly of the
Citizens," exclaimed an elector with energy.
The question of subsistence was as urgent as that of arms.
The lieutenant of police, on being summoned by the electors,

.. But as they were also those of the house of Orleans, white, the old
colour of France, was added, on the proposal of M. de Lafayette.-See his
Memoires, ii., p. 266. "1 give you," said he, "a cockade which will go
round the world."
156
 Insurrection of Paris
said that the supplies of grain were entirely beyond his juris­
diction. The town was necessarily obliged to think about ob­
taining provisions as it could. The roads in every direction were
occupied with troops; it was necessary for the farmers and
traders who brought their merchandise to run the risk of
passing through military posts and camps of foreigners, who
spoke nothing but German. And even supposing they did ar­
rive, they met with a thousand difficulties in re-passing the
barriers.
Paris was evidently to die of hunger, or conquer, and to
conquer in one day. How was this miracle to be expected?
It had the enemy in the very town, in the Bastille, and at the
Military School, and every barrier besieged; the French guards,
except a small number, remained in their barracks, and had
not yet made up their minds. That the miracle should be
wrought by the Parisians quite alone, was almost ridiculous to
suppose. They had the reputation of being a gentle, quiet,
good-natured sort of population. That such people should be­
come, all of a sudden, an army, and a warlike army, was most
unlikely.
This was certainly the opinion of the cool-headed notables
and citizens who composed the committee of the town. They
wanted to gain time, and not to increase the immense responsi­
bility which weighed already upon them. They had governed
Paris ever since the 12th; was it as electors? did the electoral
power extend so far? They expected every moment to see the
old Marshal de Broglie arrive with all his troops to call them
to account. Hence their hesitation, and their conduct so long
equivocal; hence, also, the distrust of the people, who found
in them their principal obstacle, and did business without them.
About the middle of the day, the electors who had been sent
to Versailles, returned with the king's threatening answer, and
the decree of the Assembly.
There was nothing left but war. The envoys had met on the
road the green cockade, the colour of the Count d'Artois. They
had passed through the cavalry and all the German troops
stationed along the road in their white Austrian cloaks.

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The situation was terrible, almost hopeless, s o far as equip­

ment was concerned. But the courage of the people was im­
mense; everybody felt his heart waxing hourly stronger within
his bosom. They all marched to the Hotel-de-Ville, to offer
themselves for the fight; there were whole corporations, whole
quarters of the town forming legions of volunteers. The com­
pany of arquebusiers offered its services. The school of surgery
came forward with Boyer at its head; the Basoche 65 wanted
to take the lead and fight in the vanguard: all those young
men swore they would die to the last man.
Fight? But with what? Without arms, guns, and powder?
The arsenal was said to be empty. The people however were
not so easily satisfied. An invalid and a peruke-maker kept
watch in the neighbourhood; and soon they saw a large quan­
tity of powder brought out, which was going to be embarked
for Rouen. They ran to the Hotel-de-Ville, and obliged the
electors to command the powder to be brought. A brave abbe
undertook the dangerous mission of guarding it and distributing
it among the people.66
Nothing was now wanting but guns. It was well known
that there was a large magazine of them in Paris. Berthier, the
intendant, had caused thirty thousand to be imported, and
had commanded two hundred thousand cartridges to be made.
The provost could not pOSSibly be ignorant of these active
measures at the intendant's office. Urged to point out the depot,
he said the manufactory at Charleville had promised him thirty
thousand guns, and moreover, twelve thousand were momen­
tarily expected. To support this falsehood, waggons inscribed
with the word Artillerie are seen passing through La Greve.
These must evidently be the guns. The provost orders the
cases to be stowed in the magazines. But he must have French

.. Body of clerks attached to the law courts ( Ed. note ) .

.. This heroic man was the abbe Lefebvre d'Ormesson. Nobody rendered
a greater service to the Revolution and the city of Paris. He remained
forty-eight hours upon that volcano, among madmen fighting for the
powder; they fired at him several times; a drunken man went and smoked
upon the open casks, &c.
158
 Insurrection of Paris
guards to distribute them. The people run to the barracks; but,
as they might have expected, the officers will not give a single
soldier. So the electors must distribute the guns themselves.
They open the cases! Judge what they find. Rags! The fury of
the people knows no bounds; they shout out "Treason!" Fles­
selles, not knowing what to say, thinks it best to send them to
the Celestin and the Chartreux friars, saying:-"The monks
have arms concealed." Another disappointment: the Chartreux
friars open and show everything; and not a gun is found after
the closest search.
The electors authorised the districts to manufacture fifty
thousand pikes; they were forged in thirty-six hours; yet even
that dispatch seemed too slow for such a crisis. Everything
might be decided in the night. The people, who always knew
things when their leaders did not, heard, in the evening, of the
great depot of guns at the Invalides. The deputies of one
district went, the same evening, to Besenval, the commandant,
and Sombreuil, the governor of the Hotel. "I will write to
Versailles about it," said Besenval, coldly. Accordingly, he gave
notice to the Marshal de Broglie. Most strange to say, he re­
ceived no answer!
This inconceivable silence was doubtless owing, as it has
been alleged, to the complete anarchy that reigned in the
council: all differing on every point, excepting a very decided
one, the dissolution of the National Assembly. It was likewise
owing, in my opinion, to the misconception of the court, who,
over cunning and subtle, looked upon that great insurrection
as the effect of a petty intrigue, believed that the Palais Royal
was doing everything, and that Orleans was paying for all.
A puerile explanation. Is it possible to bribe millions of men?
Had the duke financed also the insurrections at Lyons and in
Dauphine, which, at that very moment, had loudly refused to
pay the taxes? Had he bribed the cities of Brittany, which were
rising up in arms, or the soldiers, who, at Rennes, refused to fire
upon the citizens?
The prince's effigy had, it is true, been carried in triumph.
But the prince himself had come to Versailles to surrender to

159
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his enemies, and t o protest that h e was a s much afraid of the

riot as anybody, or even more so. He was requested to have
the goodness to sleep at the castle. The court, having him under
its hand, thought it held fast the fabricator of the whole mach­
ination, and felt more at its ease. The old marshal, to whom
all the military forces were intrusted at that moment, sur­
rounded himself well with troops, held the king in safety, put
Versailles, which nobody thought of, in a state of defence, and
looking upon the insurrection of Paris as so much smoke, left
it to subside of itself.

160
 VII

The Taking of the Bastille, July 14, 1789

VERSAILLES, with an organised government, a

king, ministers, a general, and an army, was all hesitation,
doubt, uncertainty, and in a state of the most complete moral
anarchy.
Paris, all commotion, destitute of every legal authority, and
in the utmost confusion, attained, on the 14th of July, what is
morally the highest degree of order,-unanimity of feeling.
On the 13th, Paris thought only of defending itself; on the
14th, it attacked.
On the evening of the 13th, some doubt still existed, but
none remained in the morning. The evening had been stormy,
agitated by a whirlwind of ungovernable frenzy. The morning
was still and serene,-an awful calm.
With daylight, one idea dawned upon Paris, and all were
illumined with the same ray of hope. A light broke upon
every mind, and the same voice thrilled through every heart:
"Go! and thou shalt take the Bastille!" That was impossible,
unreasonable, preposterous. And yet everybody believed it.
And the thing was done.
The Bastille, though an old fortress, was nevertheless im­
pregnable, unless besieged for several days and with an abun­
dance of artillery. The people had, in that crisis, neither the
time nor the means to make a regular siege. Had they done
so, the Bastille had no cause for fear, having enough provi­
sions to wait for succour so near at hand, and an immense

161
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

supply of ammunition. Its walls, ten feet thick at the top of

the towers, and thirty or forty at the base, might long laugh
at cannon-balls; and its batteries firing down upon Paris, could,
in the meantime, demolish the whole of the Marais and the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Its towers, pierced with windows and
loop-holes, protected by double and triple gratings, enabled the
garrison, in full security, to make a dreadful carnage of its
assailants.
The attack on the Bastille was by no means reasonable. It
was an act of faith.
Nobody proposed; but all believed, and all acted. Along the
streets, the quays, the bridges, and the boulevards, the crowd
shouted to the crowd : "To the Bastille! The Bastille!" And
the tolling of the tocsin thundered in every ear: "a la Bastille!"
Nobody, I repeat, gave the impulse. The orators of the Palais
Royal passed the time in drawing up a list of proscription, in
condemning the queen to death, as well as Madame de Polignac,
\ Artois, Flesselles the provost, and others. The names of the
conquerors of the Bastille do not include one of these makers
of motions. The Palais Royal was not the starting-point,
neither was it to the Palais Royal that the conquerors brought
back the spoils and prisoners.
Still less had the electors, assembled in the Hotel-de-Ville,
the idea of the attack. On the contrary, in order to prevent
it, as well as the carnage which the Bastille could so easily
make, they went so far as to promise the governor, that if he
withdrew his cannon he should not be attacked. The electors
did not behave treacherously, though they were accused of
having done so; but they had no faith.
Who had? They who had also the devotion and the strength
to accomplish their faith. Who? Why, the people,-everybody.
Old men who have had the happiness and the misery to see
all that has happened in this unprecedented half century, in
which ages seem to be crowded together, declare, that the
grand and national achievements of the Republic and the
Empire, had nevertheless a partial non-unanimous character,
but that the 14th of July alone was the day of the whole

162
 The Taking of the Bastille
people. Then let that great day remain ever one of the
eternal fetes of the human race, not only as having been the
first of deliverance, but as having been superlatively the day
of concord!
What had happened during that short night, on which no­
body slept, for every uncertainty and difference of opinion to
disappear with the shades of darkness, and all to have the
same thoughts in the morning?
What took place at the Palais Royal and the Hotel-de-Ville
is well known; but what would be far more important to
know, is, what took place on the domestic hearth of the people.
For there indeed, as we may sufficiently divine by what
followed, there every heart summoned the past to its day of
judgment, and every one, before a blow was struck, pronounced
its irrevocable condemnation. History returned that night a
long history of sufferings to the avenging instinct of the people.
The souls of fathers who, for so many ages, had suffered and
died in silence, descended into their sons, and spoke.
o brave men, you who till then had been so patient, so
pacific, who, on that day, were to inflict the heavy blow of
Providence, did not the sight of your families, whose only
resource is in you, daunt your hearts? Far from it: gazing
once more at your slumbering children, those children for
whom that day was to create a destiny, your expanding minds
embraced the free generations arising from their cradle, and
felt at that moment the whole battle of the future!
The future and the past both gave the same reply; both cried
Advance! And what is beyond all time,-beyond the future
and the past,-immutable right said the same. The immortal
sentiment of the Just imparted a temper of adamant to the
fluttering heart of man; it said to him : "Go in peace; what
matters? Whatever may happen, I am with thee, in death or
victory!"
And yet what was the Bastille to them? The lower orders
seldom or never entered it. Justice spoke to them, and, a
voice that speaks still louder to the heart, the voice of humanity
and mercy; that still small voice which seems so weak but

163
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

that overthrows towers, had, for ten years, been shaking the
very foundations of the doomed Bastille.
Let the truth be told; if any one had the glory of causing
its downfall, it was that intrepid woman who wrought so long
for the deliverance of Latude against all the powers in the
world. Royalty refused, and the nation forced it to pardon;
that woman, or that hero, was crowned in a public solemnity.
To crown her who had, so to speak, forced open the state­
prisons, was alrea dy
branding them with infamy, devoting
them to public execration, and demolishing them in the hearts
and desires of men. That woman had shaken the Bastille to
its foundations.
From that day, the people of the town and the faubourg,
who, in that much-frequented quarter, were ever passing and re­
passing in its shadow, never failed to curse it.67 And well did
it deserve their hatred. There were many other prisons, but
this one was the abode of capricious arbitrariness, wanton
despotism, and ecclesiastical and bureaucratic inquisition. The
court, so devoid of religion in that age, had made the Bastille
a dungeon for free minds,-the prison of thought. Less crowded
during the reign of Louis XVI., it had become more cruel; the
prisoners were deprived of their walk: more rigorous, and no
less unjust: we blush for France, to be obliged to say that the
crime of one of the prisoners was to have given a useful secret
to our navyl They were afraid lest he should tell it elsewhere.
The Bastille was known and detested by the whole world.
Bastille and tyranny were, in every language, synonymous
terms. Every nation, at the news of its destruction, believed
it had recovered its liberty.
In Russia, that empire of mystery and silence,-that mon­
strous Bastille between Europe and Asia, scarcely had the
news arrived when you might have seen men of every nation
shouting and weeping for joy in the open streets; they rushed

&1 Elle ecrasait la rue Saint-Antoine, is Linguet's energetical expression,

p. 147. The best known conquerors of the Bastille were, either men of the
Faubourg, or of the quarter Saint-Paul, of the Culture-Sainte-Catherine.
164
 The Taking of the Bastille
into each other's arms to tell the news : "Who can help weeping
for joy? The Bastille is taken." 68
On the very morning of that great day, the people had as
yet no arms.
The powder they had taken from the arsenal the night
before, and put in the Hotel-de-Ville, was slowly distributed to
them, during the night, by only three men. The distribution
having ceased for a moment, about two o'clock, the desperate
crowd hammered down the doors of the magazine, every blow
striking fire on the nails.
No gunst-It was necessary to go and take them, to carry
them off from the Invalides; that was very hazardous. The
Hotel des Invalides is, it is true, an open mansion; but
Sombreuil, the governor, a brave old soldier, had received a
strong detachment of artillery and some cannon, without count­
ing those he had already. Should those cannon be brought to
act, the crowd might be taken in the flank, and easily dispersed
by the regiments that Besenval had at the military school.
Would those foreign regiments have refused to act? In
spite of what Besenval says to the contrary, there is reason to
doubt it. What is much plainer, is, that being left without
orders, he was himself full of hesitation, and appeared paralysed
in mind. At five o'clock that same morning, he had received
a strange visit;-a man rushed in; his countenance was livid,
his eyes flashed fire, his language was impetuous and brief, and
his manner audacious. The old coxcomb, who was the most
frivolous officer of the ancien regime, but brave and collected,
gazed at the man, and was struck with admiration. "Baron,"
said the man, "I come to advise you to make no resistance;
the barriers will be burnt to-day; 69 I am sure of it, but cannot
prevent it; neither can you-do not try."

68 This fact is related by a witness above suspicion, Count de Segur,

ambassador at the court of Russia, who was far from sharing that
enthusiasm: '''This madness which I can hardly believe whilst relating it,"
&c. Segur, Memoires iii . , p. 508.
69 By these words we perceive that at five o'clock, no plan had been
formed. The man in question, who was not one of the people, repeated,
apparently, the rumours of the Palais Royal.-The Utopians had long been
165
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1789

Besenval was not afraid; but he had, nevertheless, felt the

shock, and suffered its moral effect. "There was something
eloquent in that man," says he, "that struck me; I ought to
have had him arrested, and yet I did not." It was the ancien
regime and the Revolution meeting face to face, and the latter
left the former lost in astonishment.
Before nine o'clock thirty thousand men were in front of the
Invalides; the Attorney General of the City was at their head :
the committee of the electors had not dared to refuse him.
Among them were seen a few companies of the French Guards,
who had escaped from their barracks, the Clerks of the
Basoche, in their old red dresses, and the Curate of Saint­
Etienne-du-Mont, who, being named president of the Assembly
formed in his church, did not decline the perilous office of
heading this armed multitude.
Old Sombreuil acted very adroitly. He showed himself at
the gate, said it was true he had guns, but that they had been
intrusted to him as a deposit, and that his honour, as a soldier
and a gentleman, did not allow him to be a traitor.
This unexpected argument stopped the crowd at once; a
proof of the admirable candour of the people in that early age
of the Revolution. Sombreuil added, that he had sent a
courier to Versailles, and was expecting the answer; backing
all this with numerous protestations of attachment and friend­
ship for the Hotel-de-Ville and the city in general.
The majority was willing to wait. Luckily, there was one man
present who was less scrupulous, and prevented the crowd
from being so easily mystified.70
"There is no time to be lost," said he, "and whose arms
are these but the nation's?" Then they leaped into the trenches,
and the Hotel was invaded; twenty-eight thousand muskets
were found in the cellars, and carried off, together with twenty
pieces of cannon.

talking of the utility of destroying the Bastille, fonning plans, &c.; but the
heroic, wild idea of taking it in one day, could be conceived only by the
people.
'70 One of the assembled citizens. Proces-verbal des electeurs, i., p. 300.

166
 The Taking of the Bastille
All this between nine and eleven o'clock; but, let us hasten
to the Bastille.
The governor, De Launey, had been under arms ever since
two o'clock in the morning of the 13th; no precaution had
been neglected; besides his cannon on the towers, he had
others from the arsenal, which he placed in the court, and
loaded with grape-shot. He caused six cart-loads of paving­
stones, cannon-balls, and old iron, to be carried to the tops of
the towers, in order to crush his assailants.71 In the bottom
loop-holes he had placed twelve large rampart guns, each of
which carried a pound and a half of bullets. He kept below
his trustiest soldiers, thirty-two Swiss, who had no scruple in
firing upon Frenchmen. His eighty-two Invalides 72 we,re mostly
distributed in different posts, far from the gates, upon the
towers. He had evacuated the outer buildings which covered
the foot of the fortress.
On the 13th, nothing save curses bestowed on the Bastille
by passersby.
On the 14th, about midnight, seven shots were fired at the
sentinels upon the towers.-Alarm!-The governor ascends with
staff, remains half-an-hour, listening to the distant murmuring
of the town; fInding all quiet he descends.
The next morning many people were about, and, from time
to time, young men ( from the Palais Royal, or others ) were
calling out that they must give them arms. They pay no at­
tention to them. They hear and introduce the pacific depu­
tation of the Hotel-de-Ville, which, about ten o'clock, intreats
the governor to withdraw his cannon, promising that if he does
not fIre, he shall not be attacked. He, willingly, accepts, having
no orders to fire, and highly delighted, obliges the envoys to
breakfast with him.
As they were leaving, a man arrives who speaks in a very
different tone.

n Biographie Michaud,-article De Launey, written from infonnation

furnished by his family.

.. Pensioned soldiers ( Ed. note ) .
167
 BOOK I: APlUL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

A violent, bold man, unacquainted with human respect, fear­

less and pitiless, knowing neither obstacle nor delay, and bear­
ing in his breast the passionate genius of the Revolution-he
came to summon the Bastille.
Terror accompanied him. The Bastille was afraid; the gov­
ernor, without knowing why, was troubled and stammered.
That man was Thuriot, a monster of ferocity, one of the
race of Danton. We meet with him twice, in the beginning
and at the end. And twice his words are deadly; he destroys
the Bastille,73 and he kills Robespierre.
He was not to pass the bridge; the governor would not allow
it; and yet he passed. From the first court, he marches to a
second; another refusal; but he passes on, and crosses the second
ditch by the draw-bridge. Behold him now in front of the
enormous iron gate by which the third court was shut. This
seemed a monstrous well rather than a court, its eight towers
united together, forming its inside walls. Those frightful gi­
gantic towers did not look towards the court, nor had they a
single window. At their feet, in their shadow, was the prisoners'
only walk. Lost at the bottom of the pit, and overwhelmed
by those enormous masses, he could contemplate only the stem
nudity of the walls. On one side only, had been placed a
clock, between two figures of captives in chains, as if to fetter
time itself, and make the slow succession of hours still more
burdensome.
There were the loaded cannon, the garrison, and the staff.
Thuriot was daunted by nothing. "Sir," said he to the governor,
"I summon you, in the name of the people, in the name of
honour, and of our native land, to withdraw your cannon, and
surrender the Bastille."-Then, turning towards the garrison, he
repeated the same words.
If M. De Launey had been a true soldier, he would not thus
have introduced the envoy into the heart of the citadel; still

... He destroyed it in two ways. He introduced division and de­

moralization, and when it was taken, it was he who proposed to have it
demolished. He killed Robespierre, by refusing to let him speak, on the 9th
thermidor. Thuriot was then president of the Convention.
168
 The Taking of the Bastille
less would he have let him address the garrison. But, it is
very necessary to remark, that the officers of the Bastille were
mostly officers by favour of the lieutenant of police; even
those who had never seen service, wore the cross of Saint
Louis. All of them, from the governor down to the scullions,
had bought their places, and turned them to the best advan­
tage. The governor found means to add every year to his
salary of sixty thousand francs, a sum quite as large by his
rapine. He supplied his establishment at the prisoners' expense;
he had reduced their supply of firewood, and made a profit
on their wine,74 and their miserable furniture. What was most
infamous and barbarous, was, that he let out to a gardener
the little garden of the Bastille, over a bastion; and, for that
miserable profit, he had deprived the prisoners of that walk,
as well as of that on the towers; that is to say, of air and light.
That greedy, sordid soul had moreover good reason to be
dispirited; he felt he was known; Linguet's terrible memoirs
had rendered De Launey infamous throughout Europe. The
Bastille was hated; but the governor was personally detested.
The furious imprecations of the people, which he heard, he ap­
propriated to himself; and he was full of anxiety and fear.
Thuriot's words acted differently on the Swiss and the
French. The Swiss did not understand them; their captain,
M. de Flue, was resolved to hold out. But the Staff and the
Invalides were much shaken; those old soldiers, in habitual
communication with the people of the faubourg, had no desire
to fire upon them. Thus the garrison was divided; what will
these two parties do? If they cannot agree, will they fire upon
each other?
The dispirited governor said, in an apologetic tone, what had
just been agreed with the town. He swore, and made the gar­
rison swear, that if they were not attacked they would not begin.

" The governor had the privilege of ordering in a hundred casks of wine
free of duty. He sold that right to a tavern, and received from it vinegar to
� ive to the prisoners; Linguet, p. 86. See in La Bastille Devoilee, the
history of a rich p risoner, whom De Launey used to conduct, at night, to
II female, whom he, De Launey, had kept, but would no longer pay.

169
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

Thuriot did not stop there. H e desired t o ascend to the top

of the towers, to see whether the cannon were really withdrawn.
De Launey, who had been all this time repenting of having
allowed him already to penetrate so far, refused; but, being
pressed by his officers, he ascended with Thuriot.
The cannon were drawn back and masked, but still pOinted.
The view from that height of a hundred and forty feet was
immense and startling; the streets and openings full of people,
and all the garden of the arsenal crowded with armed men.
But, on the other side, a black mass was advancing. It was
the faubourg Saint Antoine.
The governor turned pale. He grasped Thuriot by the arm:
"What have you done? You abuse your privilege as an envoy!
You have betrayed me!"
They were both standing on the brink, and De Launey had
a sentinel on the tower. Everybody in the Bastille was bound
by oath to the governor; in his fortress, he was king and the
law. He was still able to avenge himself.
But, on the contrary, it was Thuriot who made him afraid:
"Sir," said he, "one word more, and 1 swear to you that one
of us two shall be hurled headlong into the moat!" 75
At the same moment, the sentinel approached, as frightened
as the governor, and, addressing Thuriot : "Pray, Sir," said he,
"show yourself; there is no time to lose; they are marching
forward. Not seeing you, they will attack us." He leaned over
through the battlements; and the people seeing him alive, and
standing boldly upon the tower, uttered deafening shouts of
joy and approbation.
Thuriot descended with the governor, again crossed through
the court, and addressing the garrison once more: "I am going
to give my report," said he; "I hope the people will not refuse
to furnish a citizen guard 76 to keep the Bastille with you."

75 Account of M. Thuriot's conduct, at the end of Dussaulx, Oeuvre des

sept iours, p. 408.-Compare the Proces-verbal des electeurs, i., p. 310.
7. This bold dignified language is related by the besieged. See their
declaration at the end of Dussaulx, p. 449.
170
 The Taking of the Bastille
The people expected to enter the Bastille as soon as Thuriot
came forth. When they saw him depart, to make his report
to the Hotel-de-Ville, they took him for a traitor, and threatened
him. Their impatience was growing into fury. The crowd seized
on three Invalides, and wanted to tear them to pieces. They
also seized on a young lady whom they believed to be the
governor's daughter, and some wanted to burn her, if he refused
to surrender. Others dragged her from them.
What will become of us, said they, if the Bastille be not
taken before night? The burly Santerre, a brewer, whom the
faubourg had elected its commander, proposed to burn the
place by throwing into it poppyseed and spikenard oil 77 that
they had seized the night before, and which they could fire with
phosphorus. He sent off for the fire-engines.
A blacksmith, an old soldier, without wasting time in idle
talk, sets bravely to work. He marches forward, hatchet in
hand, leaps upon the roof of a small guard-house, near the first
drawbridge, and, under a shower of bullets, coolly plies his
hatchet, cuts away, and loosens the chains; down falls the
bridge. The crowd rush over it, and enter the court.
The firing began at once from the towers and from the loop­
holes below. The assailants fell in crowds, and did no harm
to the garrison. Of all the shots they fired that day, two took
effect: only one of the besieged was killed.
The committee of electors, who saw the wounded already
arriving at the Hotel-de-Ville, and deplored the shedding of
blood, would have wished to stop it. There was now but one
way of doing so, which was to summon the Bastille, in the name
of the city, to surrender, and to allow the citizen-guard to
enter. The provost hesitated for a long time; Fauchet insisted; 78
and other electors entreated him. They went as deputies; but
in the fire and smoke, they were not even seen; neither the
Bastille nor the people ceased firing. The deputies were in the

77 He himself boasts of this folly. Proces-verbal des electeurs, L, p. 385.

78 If we may believe him, he had the honour of being the first to propose
it. Fauchet, Discours sur Ia liberte prononce Ie 6 A6ut 89 d Saint Jacques,
p. 1 1 .

171
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

greatest danger. A second deputation, headed by the city proc­

tor, with a drum and a Hag of truce, was perceived from the
fortress. The soldiers who were upon the towers hoisted a
white Hag, and reversed their arms. The people ceased firing,
followed the deputation, and entered the court. There, they
were welcomed by a furious discharge, which brought down
several men by the side of the deputies. Very probably the
Swiss who were below with De Launey, paid no attention
to the signs made by the Invalides.79
The rage of the people was inexpressible. Ever since the
morning, it had been said that the governor had enticed the
crowd into the court to fire upon them; they believed them­
selves twice deceived, and resolved to perish, or to be revenged
on the traitors. To those who were calling them back, they
exclaimed in a transport of frenzy: "Our bodies at least shall
serve to fill the moats!" And on they rushed obstinately and
nothing daunted, amid a shower of bullets and against those
murderous towers, as if, by dying in heaps, they could at length
overthrow them.
But then, numbers of generous men, who had hitherto taken
no part in the action, beheld, with increased indignation, such
an unequal struggle, which was actual assassination. They
wanted to lend their assistance. It was no longer possible to
hold back the French Guards; they all sided with the people.
They repaired to the commandants nominated by the town, and
obliged them to surrender their five cannons. Two columns were
formed, one of workmen and citizens, the other of French
Guards. The former took for its chief a young man, of heroic
stature and strength, named Hullin, a clockmaker of Geneva,
but now a servant, being gamekeeper to the Marquis de Con­
Hans; his Hungarian costume as a chasseur was doubtless taken
for a uniform; and thus did the livery of servitude guide
the people to the combat of liberty. The leader of the other
column was Elie, an officer of fortune belonging to the Queen's

.,. This is the most satisfactory way of reconciling the apparently

contradictory declarations of the besieged and of the deputation.
172
 The Taking of the Bastille
regiment, who, changing his private dress for his brilliant uni­
form, showed himself bravely a conspicuous object to both
friends and foes.
Among his soldiers, was one admirable for his valour, youth,
and candour, Marceau, one of the glories of France, who re­
mained satisfied with fighting, and claimed no share in the
honour of the victory.
Things were not very far advanced when they arrived. Three
cart-loads of straw had been pushed forward and set on fire,
and the barracks and kitchens had been burnt down. They
knew not what else to do. The despair of the people was
vented upon the Hotel-de-Ville. They blamed the provost and
the electors, and urged them, in threatening language, to issue
formal orders for the siege of the Bastille. But they could
never induce them to give those orders.
Several strange and singular means were proposed to the
electors for taking the fortress. A carpenter advised the erection
of a Roman catapult, in wood-work, to hurl stones against the
walls. The commanders of the town said it was necessary to
attack in a regular way, and open a trench. During this long and
useless debate, a letter at that moment intercepted, was brought
in and read; it was from Besenval to de Launey, commanding
him to hold out to the last extremity.
To appreciate the value of time at that momentous crisis,
and understand the dread felt at any delay, we must know that
there were false alarms every instant. It was supposed that
the court, informed at two o'clock of the attack on the Bastille,
which had begun at noon, would take that opportunity of
pouring down its Swiss and German troops upon Paris. Again,
would those at the Military School pass the day in inaction?
That was unlikely. What Besenval says about the little reliance
he could place on his troops seems like an · excuse. The Swiss
showed themselves very :firm at the Bastille, as appeared from
the carnage; the German dragoons had, on the 12th, fired sev­
eral times, and killed some of the French Guards; the latter
had killed several dragoons; a spirit of mutual hatred ensured
fidelity.
173
 BOOK I: APRil.. TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

In the faubourg Saint Honore, the paving-stones were dug up,

the attack being expected every moment; La Villette was in
the same state, and a regiment really came and occupied it,
but too late.
Every appearance of dilatoriness appeared treason. The prov­
ost's shufBing conduct caused him to be suspected, as well
as the electors. The exasperated crowd perceived that it was
wasting time with them. An old man exclaimed: "Friends, why
do we remain with these traitors? Let us rather hasten to the
Bastillel" They all vanished. The electors, thunderstruck, found
themselves alone. One of them goes out, but returns with a
livid, spectral countenance: "You have not two minutes to live,"
says he, "if you remain here. La Greve is filled by a furious
crowd. Here they are coming." They did not, however, attempt
to fly; and that saved their lives.
All the fury of the people was now concentrated on the
provost. The envoys of the different districts came successively
to accuse him of treachery to his face. A part of the electors,
finding themselves compromised with the people, by his im­
prudence and falsehood, turned round and accused him. Others,
the good old Dussaulx ( the translator of Juvenal) , and the
intrepid Fauchet endeavoured to defend him, innocent or guilty,
and to save him from death. Being forced by the people to
move from their office into the great hall of Saint Jean,
they surrounded him, and Fauchet sat down by his side. The
terrors of death were impressed on his countenance. "I saw
him," says Dussaulx, "chewing his last mouthful of bread; it
stuck in his teeth, and he kept it in his mouth two hours
before he could swallow it." Surrounded with papers, letters,
and people who came to speak to him on business, and amid
shouts of death, he strove hard to reply with affability. The
crowds of the Palais Royal and from the district of Saint Roch,
being the most inveterate, Fauchet hastened to them to pray
for pardon. The district body was assembled in the church of
Saint Roch; twice did Fauchet ascend the pulpit, praying, weep­
ing, and uttering the fervent language which his noble heart
dictated in that hour of need; his robe, torn to tatters by the
174
 The Taking of the Bastille
bullets of the Bastille,80 was eloquent also; it prayed for the
people, for the honour of that great day, and that the cradle of
liberty might be left pure and undefiled.
The provost and the electors remained in the hall of Saint
Jean, between life and death, guns being levelled at them
several times. All those who were present, says Dussaulx, were
like savages; sometimes they would listen and look on in silence;
sometimes a terrible murmur, like distant thunder, arose from
the crowd. Many spoke and shouted; but the greater number
seemed astounded by the novelty of the sight. The uproar,
the exclamations, the news, the alarms, the intercepted letters,
the discoveries, true or false, so many secrets revealed, so
many men brought before the tribunal, perplexed the mind
and reason. One of the electors exclaimed: "Is not doomsday
come?" So dizzy, so confounded was the crowd, that they had
forgotten everything, even the provost and the Bastille.81
It was half-past five when a shout arose from La Greve.
An immense noise, like the growling of distant thunder, re­
sounds nearer and nearer, rushing on with the rapidity and
roaring of a tempest. The Bastille is taken.
That hall already so full is at once invaded by a thousand
men, and ten thousand pushing behind. The wood-work cracks,
the benches are thrown down, and the barrier driven upon the
bureau, the bureau upon the president.
All were armed in a fantastical manner; some almost naked,
others dressed in every colour. One man was borne aloft upon
their shoulders and crowned with laurel; it was Elie, with all
the spoils and prisoners around him. At the head, amid all
that din, which would have drowned a clap of thunder, ad­
vanced a young man full of meditation and religion; he carried
suspended and pierced with his bayonet a vile, a thrice­
accursed object,-the regulations of the Bastille.

80 Fauchet, Bouche de fer, No. XVI., No. 90, t. iii., p. 244.

81
The Proces verbal shows, however, that a new deputation was being
prepared, and that De la Salle, the commandant, meant at length to take
u part in the action.

175
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

The keys too were carried,-those monstrous, vile, ignoble

keys, worn out by centuries and the sufferings of men. Chance
or Providence directed that they should be intrusted to a man
who knew them but too well,-a former prisoner. The National
Assembly placed them in its Archives; the old machine of
tyrants thus lying beside the laws that had destroyed them.
We still keep possession of those keys, in the iron safe of the
Archives of France. Oh! would that the same iron-chest might
contain the keys of all the Bastilles in the worldl
Correctly speaking, the Bastille was not taken; it surren­
dered. Troubled by a bad conscience it went mad, and lost all
presence of mind.
Some wanted to surrender; others went on firing, especially
the Swiss, who, for five hours, pointed out, aimed at, and
brought down whomsoever they pleased, without any danger
or even the chance of being hurt in return. They killed eighty­
three men and wounded eighty-eight. Twenty of the slain were
poor fathers of families, who left wives and children to die of
hunger.
Shame for such cowardly warfare, and the horror of shed­
ding French blood, which but little affected the Swiss, at length
caused the Invalides to drop their arms. At four o'clock the
subaltern officers begged and prayed De Launey to put an
end to this massacre. He knew what he deserved; obliged to
die one way or other, he had, for a moment, the horribly fero­
cious idea of blowing up the citadel: he would have destroyed
one-third of Paris. His hundred and thirty-five barrels of gun­
powder would have blown the Bastille into the air, and shat­
tered or buried the whole faubourg, all the Marais, and the
whole of the quartier of the Arsenal. He seized a match from
a cannon. Two subaltern officers prevented the crime; they
crossed their bayonets and barred his passage to the magazines.
He then made a show of killing himself, and seized a knife,
which they snatched from him.
He had lost his senses and could give no orders.82 When
so Even in the morning, according to Thuriot's testimony. See the Proces­

verbal des electeurs.

176
 The Taking of the Bastille
the French Guards had ranged their cannon and fired ( accord­
ing to some ) , the captain of the Swiss saw plainly that it was
necessary to come to terms; he wrote and passed a note,83 in
which he asked to be allowed to go forth with the honours of
war. Refused. Next, that his life should be spared. Hullin
and Elie promised it. The difficulty was to fulfil their prom­
ise. To prevent a revenge accumulating for ages, and now
incensed by so many murders perpetrated by the Bastille, was
beyond the power of man. An authority of an hour's exist­
ence, that had but just come from La Greve, and was known
only to the two small bands of the vanguard, was not adequate
to keep in order the hundred thousand men behind.
The crowd was enraged, blind, drunk with the very sense of
their danger. And yet they killed but one man in the fortress.
They spared their enemies the Swiss, whom their smock-frocks
caused to pass for servants or prisoners; but they ill-treated
and wounded their friends the Invalides. They wished to have
annihilated the Bastille; they pelted and broke to pieces the
two slaves of the clock-dial; they ran up to the top of the
towers to spurn the cannon; several attacked the stones, and
tore their hands in dragging them away. They hastened to
the dungeons to deliver the prisoners : two had become mad.
One, frightened by the noise, wanted to defend himself, and
was quite astonished when those who had battered down his
door threw themselves into his arms and bathed him with their
tears. Another, whose beard reached to his waist, inquired about
the health of Louis XV., believing him to be still reigning. To
those who asked him his name, he replied that he was called
the Major of Immensity.
The conquerors were not yet at the end of their labours : in
the Rue Saint Antoine they had to fight a battle of a different
kind. On approaching La Greve, they came on successive crowds
of men, who, having been unable to take any part in the
fight, wanted at all events to do something, were it merely

lIB To fetch it, a plank was placed on the moat. The first who ventured,
(.,JI; the second ( Arne?-or Maillard? ) was more lucky and brought back
the note.

177
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

to massacre the prisoners. One was killed at the Rue des

Toumelles, and another on the quay. Women, with dishevelled
hair, came rushing forward, and recognizing their husbands
among the slain, left them to fly upon their assassins; one of
them, foaming at the mouth, ran about asking everybody for
a knife.
De Launey was conducted and supported in that extreme
danger by two men of extraordinary courage and strength,
Hullin, and another. The latter went with him as far as the
Petit Antoine, but was there tom from his side by the rush of
the crowd. Hullin held fast. To lead his man from that spot
to La Greve, which is so near, was more than the twelve
labours of Hercules. No longer knowing how to act, and per­
ceiving that they knew De Launey only by his being alone
without a hat, he conceived the heroic idea of putting his own
upon his head; and, from that moment, he received the blows
intended for the govemor.84 At length, he passed the Arcade
Saint Jean; if he could but get him on the flight of steps,
and push him toward the stairs, all was over. The crowd saw
that very plainly, and accordingly made a desperate onset. The
Herculean strength hitherto displayed by Hullin no longer
served him here. Stifled by the pressure of the crowd around
him, as in the crushing fold of an enormous boa, he lost his
footing, was hurled to and fro, and thrown upon the pavement.
Twice he regained his feet. The second time he beheld aloft
the head of De Launey at the end of a pike .

.. The royalist tradition which aspires to the difficult task of inspiring

interest for the least interesting of men, has pretended that De Launey,
still more heroic than Hullin, gave him his hat back again, wishing rather
to die than expose him. The same tradition attributes the honour of a
similar deed to Berthier, the intendant of Paris. Lastly, they relate that the
major of the Bastille, on being recognized and defended at La Greve, by
one of his former prisoners, whom he had treated with kindness, dismissed
him, saying: "You will ruin yourself without saving me." This last story,
being authentic, very probably gave rise to the two others. As for De
Launey and "Berthier, there is nothing in their previous conduct to incline
us to believe in the heroism of their last moments. The silence of Michaud,
the biographer, in the article De Launey, drawn up from information
furnished by that family, sufficiently shows that they did not believe in
that tradition.

178
 The Taking of the Bastille
Another scene was unfolding in the hall of Saint Jean. The
prisoners were there, in great danger of death. The crowd
was particularly bent on punishing three Invalides, whom they
supposed to have been the cannoneers of the Bastille. One
was wounded; De la Salle, the commandant, by incredible
efforts, and proclaiming loudly his title of commandant, at last
managed to save him; whilst he was leading him out, the two
others were dragged out and hung up to the lamp at the corner
of the Vannerie, facing the Hotel-de-Ville.
All this great commotion, which seemed to have caused
Flesselles to be forgotten, was nevertheless what caused his
destruction. His implacable accusers of the Palais Royal, few
in number, but discontented to see the crowd occupied with
any other business, kept close to the bureau, menacing him,
and summoning him to follow them. At length he yielded:
whether the long expectation of death appeared to him worse
than death itself, or that he hoped to escape in the universal
pre-occupation about the great event of the day. ''WeIll gentle­
men," said he, "let us go to the Palais Royal." He had not
reached the quay before a young man shot him through the
head with a pistol bullet.
The dense multitude crowding the hall did not wish for
bloodshed; according to an eye-witness, they were stupefied
on beholding it. They stared gaping at that strange, pro­
digious, grotesque, and maddening spectacle. Arms of the mid­
dle ages and of every age were mingled together; centuries
had come back again. Elie, standing on a table, with a helmet
on his brow, and a sword hacked in three places, in his hand,
seemed a Roman warrior. He was entirely surrounded by pris­
oners, and pleading for them. The French Guards demanded
the pardon of the prisoners as their reward.
At that moment, a man, followed by his wife, is brought or
rather carried in; it was the Prince de Montbarrey, a former
minister, arrested at the barrier. The lady fainted; her husband
was thrown upon the bureau, held down by the arms of twelve
men, and bent double. The poor man, in that strange posture,
explained that he had not been minister for a long time, and

179
 BOOK I: APRIL TO JULY, 1 7 8 9

that his son has taken a prominent part in the revolution of

his province. De la Salle, the commandant, spoke for him,
and exposed himself to great danger. Meanwhile, the people
relented a little, and for a moment let go their hold. De la Salle,
a very powerful man, caught him up, and carried him off.
This trial of strength pleased the people, and was received
with applause.
At the same moment, the brave and excellent Elie found
means to put an end at once to every intention of trial or con­
demnation. He perceived the children of the Bastille, and be­
gan to shout: "Pardon I for the children, pardonl"
Then you might have seen sunburnt faces and hands black­
ened with gunpowder, washed with big tears, falling like
heavy drops of rain after a shower. Justice and vengeance
were thought of no longer. The tribunal was broken up; for
Elie had conquered the conquerors of the Bastille. They made
the prisoners swear fidelity to the nation, and led them away;
the Invalides marched off in peace to their Hotel; the French
Guards took charge of the Swiss, placed them in safety within
their ranks, conducting them to their own barracks, and gave
them lodging and food.
What was most admirable, the widows showed themselves
equally magnanimous. Though needy, and burdened with chil­
dren, they were unwilling to receive alone a small sum allotted
to them; they shared it with the widow of a poor Invalide who
had prevented the Bastille from being blown up, but was killed
by mistake. The wife of the besieged was thus adopted, as
it were, by those of the besiegers.

180
 BOOK II

JULY 14 TO OCTOBER 6, 1789

 I

The Hollow Truee

THE Assembly passed the whole of the 14th of

July in a state of two-fold trepidation, between the violent
measures of the Court, the fury of Paris, and the chances of an
insurrection, which, if unsuccessful, would stifle liberty. They
listened to every rumour, and with their ears anxiously open
imagined they heard the faint thunder of a distant cannonade.
That moment might be their last; several members wished the
bases of the constitution to be hastily established, that the
Assembly, if it was to be dispersed and destroyed, should leave
that testamentary evidence behind, as a beacon for the op­
ponents of tyranny.
The Court was preparing the attack, and little was wanting
for its execution. At two o'clock, Berthier, the intendant, was
still at the military school, giving orders for the details of
the attack. Foulon, his father-in-law, the under-minister of war,
was at Versailles, completing the preparations. Paris was to
be attacked, that night, at seven points simultaneously.l The
council was discussing the list of the deputies who were to
be carried off that evening; one was proscribed, another ex­
cepted; M. de Breteuil defended the innocence of Bailly.
Meanwhile the queen and Madame de Polignac went into the
Orangerie to encourage the troops and to order wine to be
given to the soldiers, who were dancing about and singing
roundelays. To complete the general intoxication, this lovely

1 Bailly, i., pp. 391, 392.

183
 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1789

creature conducted the officers to her apartments, excited them

with liqueurs, with sweet words and glances. Those madmen,
once let loose, would have made a fearful night. Letters were
intercepted, wherein they had written: "We are marching
against the enemy." What enemy? The law and France.
But seel a cloud of dust is rising in the Avenue de Paris,
it is a body of cavalry, with Prince de Lambesc and all his
officers Hying before the people of Paris. But he meets with
those of Versailles: if they had not been afraid of wounding
the others, they would have fired upon him.
De Noailles arrives, saying: "The Bastille is taken." De Wimp­
fen arrives: "The governor is killed; he saw the deed, and
was nearly treated in the same way." At last, two envoys of
the electors come and acquaint the Assembly with the frightful
state of Paris. The Assembly is furious, and invokes against
the Court and the ministers the vengeance of Cod and
men. "Heads!" cried Mirabeau; "We must have De Broglie's
headl"2
A deputation of the Assembly waits upon the king, but it
can get from him only two equivocal expressions: he sends
officers to take the command of the local militia, and orders the
troops in the Champ-de-Mars to fall back. A movement very
well devised for the general attack.
The Assembly is furious and clamorous; it sends a second
deputation. "The king is heart-broken, but he can do no more."
Louis XVI., whose weakness has been so often deplored,
here made a show of deplorable firmness. Berthier had come
to stay with him; he was in his closet and comforted him,S
telling him there was no great harm done. In the present
troubled state of Paris, there was still every chance of the
great attack in the evening. However, they soon discovered
that the town was on its guard. It had already placed cannon
on Montmartre, which covered La Villette, and kept Saint-Denis
in check.

• i., p. 132.
Ferrii�res,
• Rapport d'Accusation, Rist. ParI., iv., p. 83.
184
 The Hollow Truce
Amid the contradictory reports, the king gave no orders;
and, faithful to his usual habits, retired to rest at an early
hour. The Duke de Liancourt, whose duties gave him the
privilege of entering at any hour, even in the night, could not
see him perish thus in his apathy and ignorance. He entered,
and awoke him. He loved the king, and wanted to save him.
He told him the extent of his danger, the importance of the
movement, its irresistible force; that he ought to meet it, get
the start of the Duke of Orleans, and secure the friendship
of the Assembly. Louis XVI., half asleep (and who was never
entirely awake): "What then," said he, "is it a revolt?" "Sire, it
is a Revolution."
The king concealed nothing from the queen; so everything
was known in the apartment of the Count d'Artois. His fol­
lowers were much alarmed; royalty might save itself at their
expense. One of them, who knew the prince, and that fear
was the weak point in his character, secured him by saying
that he was proscribed at the Palais Royal, like Flesselles and
De Launey, and that he might tranquillise every mind by
uniting with the king in the popular measure dictated by ne­
cessity. The same man, who was a deputy, ran to the Assembly
(it was then midnight); he there found the worthy Bailly.
who dared not retire to rest, and asked him, in the name
of the prince, for a speech that the king might read on the
morrow.
There was one man at Versailles who grieved as much as
any. I mean the Duke of Orleans. On the 12th of July, his
effigy had been carried in triumph, and then brutally broken
to pieces. There the matter rested; nobody had cared about
it. On the 13th, a few had spoken of the election of a lieutenant­
general, but the crowd seemed deaf, and either did not, or
would not, hear. On the morning of the 14th, Madame de
Cenlis took the daring and incredible step of sending her
Pamela with a lackey in red livery into the middle of the riot:'
Somebody exclaimed: "If it were only the queenl" And the

'Madame Lebrun, Souvenirs, i., p. 189.

185
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO oarOBER 6, 1 7 89

phrase was repeated.. . All their petty intrigues were

swamped in that immense commotion, every paltry interest
was smothered in the excitement of that sacred day.
The poor Duke of Orleans went on the morning of the 15th
to the council at the castle. But he had to stay at the door.
He waited; then wrote; not to demand the lieutenancy-general,
not to offer his mediation (as had been agreed between him,
Mirabeau, and a few others), but to assure the king, as a good
and loyal subject, that if matters grew worse, he would go
over to England.
He did not stir all day from the Assembly, or from Ver­
sailles, and went to the castle in the evening; 5 he thus made
good an alibi against every accusation of being an accomplice,
and washed his hands of the taking of the Bastille. Mirabeau
was furious, and left him from that moment. He said (I soften
the expression): "He is a eunuch for crime; he would, but
cannot I"
Whilst the duke was being kept waiting like a petitioner
at the council door, Sillery-Genlis, his warm partisan, was striv­
ing to avenge him; he read, and caused to be adopted, an
insidious project of address, calculated to diminish the effect
of the king's visit, deprive it of the merit of being spontaneous,
and chill, beforehand, every heart: "Come, sire, your majesty
will see the consternation of the Assembly, but you will be
perhaps astonished at its calmness," &c. And, at the same time,
he announced that loads of flour going to Paris had been
stopped at Sevres. "What if this news reached the capitall"
To which, Mirabeau, addressing the deputies whom they
were sending to the king, added these alarming words: "Go,
and tell the king that the foreign hordes by which we are
invested, were visited yesterday by the princes and princesses,
by his male and female favourites, who lavished on them their
caresses, presents, and exhortations. Tell him that all night long,
those foreign satellites, gorged with wine and gold, have pre­
dicted, in their impious songs, the servitude of France, and

G Ferrieres, i., p. 135. Droz, ii., p. 342.

186
 The Hollow Truce
that their brutal vows have invoked the destruction of the
National Assembly. Tell him that in his very palace, his courtiers
danced to the sounds of that barbarous music, and that such
was the prelude to the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Tell
him that king Henry, whose memory is adored by the universe,
that ancestor of his whom he affected to wish to take as his
model, ordered provisions to be sent into revolted Paris, which
he was besieging in person; whilst his ferocious counsellors
have driven back the grain which commerce was bringing to
his starving but faithful Paris."
As the deputation was departing, the king arrives. He enters
without his guards, accompanied only by his brothers. He ad­
vances a few paces into the hall, and, standing in front of the
Assembly, announces that he has given orders to the troops to
depart from Paris and Versailles, and he engages the Assembly
to give this information to Paris. A sad confession that his own
word will obtain little credit unless the Assembly affirmed that
the king has not told a lie I He added, however, more nobly
and adroitly: "People have dared to spread a report that your
persons are not in safety. Can it be necessary to reassure you
against such wicked rumours, already belied by my well-known
character? Well then, I, who am but one with the nation, I
come to intrust myself to youl"
To remove the troops from Paris and Versailles, without
stating any distance, was yet but an equivocal, uncertain prom­
ise, that gave but little comfort. But the Assembly were gen­
erally so alarmed at the obscure immensity opening before
them, so stupefied by the victory of Paris, and had so much
need of order, that they showed themselves credulous, enthu­
siastic for the king, even so far as to forget what they owed
to themselves.
They all rushed round him and followed him. He returned
on foot. The Assembly and the people crowded about him to
suffocation; the king, who was very corpulent, was quite ex­
hausted in crossing the Place d'Armes in such scorching
weather; deputies, among whom was the Duke of Orleans,
formed a circle around him. On his arrival, the Swiss band

187
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO oarOBER 6, 1789

played the air: "Ou peut on etre mieux qu'au sein de sa

famille?" A family too limited in number: the people formed
no part of it; the gates being shut against them. The king
gave orders to open them again. However, he declined to
receive the deputies who wished to see him once more; he
was going to his chapel to return thanks to God.6 The queen
appeared in the balcony with her children, and those of
the Count d'Artois, with all the appearance of great delight, and
hardly knowing what to think of an enthusiasm so ill deserved.
Versailles was overcome with joy. Paris, in spite of its vic­
tory, was still in alarm and afHiction. It was burying its dead;
many of them had left families without resource. Such as had
no family were paid their last respects by their companions.
They had placed a hat beside one of the dead, and said to pas­
sengers: "Sir, something for this poor fellow who was killed
for the nation! Madam, it is for this poor fellow who was
killed for the nation!" 7 An humble and simple funeral oration
for men whose death gave life to France.
Everybody was guarding Paris; nobody was working. There
was no work; food was scarce and dear. The Hotel-de-Ville
maintained that Paris had provision enough for a fortnight;
but it had not enough for three days. It was necessary to
order a tax for the subsistence of the poor. The supplies
of Hour had been stopped at Sevres and Saint-Denis. Two
fresh regiments arrived while they were promising to send
back the troops. The hussars came and reconnoitered the bar­
riers; and a report was spread that they had attempted to
surprise the Bastille. At length the alarm was so great, that,
at two o'clock, the electors could not refuse the people an order
to dig up the paving-stones of Paris.
At two o'clock precisely, a man arrives breathless and almost
fainting.8 He had run all the way from Sevres, where the

• Point du Jour, No. 35, t. i., p. 207.

7 Lettres ecrites de France Ii un Ami, p. 29, quoted in Dussaulx's Notes,

p. 333.
• Proces-verbal des P,lecteurs, fedige par Duveyrier, i, p. 431.
188
 The Hollow Truce
troops wanted to stop him. "It is all over; the Revolution is
finished; the king came into the Assembly, and said: 'I trust
myself to you.' A hundred deputies are now on their road
from Versailles, sent by the Assembly to the city of Paris."
Those deputies had immediately set forth; Bailly would not
dine. The electors had barely the time to run to meet them,
just as they were, in disorder, not having been to bed for
several nights. They wanted to fire the cannon; but they were
still ranged en batterie, and could not be got ready. There
was no need of them to solemnise the fete. Paris was grand
enough with its sun of July, its commotion, and all that popula­
tion in arms. The hundred deputies, preceded by the French
Guards, the Swiss, the officers of the city militia, and by the
deputies of the electors, marched up the Rue Saint Honore to
the sound of trumpets. Every arm was stretched towards them,
and every heart leaped with joy. From every window were
showered flowers, blessings, and tears.
The National Assembly and the people of Paris, the oath
of the Jeu-de-Paume and the taking of the Bastille; victory
and victory, kissed each other.
Several deputies kissed and wept over the flags of the French
Guards: "Flags of our native landl" cried they, "Hags of
libertyr'
On their arrival at the Hotel-de-Ville, Lafayette, Bailly, the
archbishop of Paris, Sieyes, and Clermont-Tonnerre were made
to sit at the bureau. Lafayette spoke coolly and prudently;
next, Lally Tollendal with his Irish impetuosity and easy tears.
It was at that same Greve that Lally's father, thirty years
before, had been gagged and beheaded by the ancien regime;
his speech, full of emotion, was nothing but a sort of amnesty
for the ancien regime, an amnesty certainly too premature,
whilst it still kept Paris surrounded by troops.
Emotion nevertheless took effect also in the citizen assembly
of the Hotel-de-Ville. "The fattest of tender-hearted men," as
Lally was called, was crowned with flowers, and led, or rather
(�Ilrried, to the window, and shown to the crowd. Resisting
liS much as he could, he put his crown on the head of Bailly,

189
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

th e first president the National Assembly had. Bailly likewise

refused; but it was held and fastened on his head by the
hand of the archbishop of Paris. A strange and whimsical spec­
tacle, which showed, in a strong light, the false position of
the parties. Here was the president of the Jeu-de-Paume,
crowned by the prelate, who advised the coup aetat, and forced
Paris to conquer. The contradiction was so little perceived,
that the archbishop did not fear to propose a Te Deum,
and everybody followed him to Notre Dame. It was rather
a De Profundis that he first owed to those whose deaths he
had occasioned.
Notwithstanding the general emotion, the people kept their
senses. They did not tamely allow their victory to be meddled
with; that, we must say, was neither fair nor useful; that
victory was not yet sufficiently complete to sacrifice and forget
it so soon. Its moral effect was immense, but its material
result still feeble and uncertain. Even in the Rue Saint Honore,
the citizen guard (then it was all the people) brought before
the deputies, with military music, that French Guardsman who
had been the first to arrest the governor of the Bastille; he
was led in triumph in De Launey's chariot, crowned with
laurel, and wearing the cross of Saint Louis, which the people
had snatched from the gaoler to put upon his conqueror. He
was unwilling to keep it; however, before he gave it back,
in presence of the deputies, he adorned himself with it, proudly
showing it upon his breast.1l The crowd applauded, and so did
the deputies, thus sanctioning with their approbation what had
been done the day before.
Another incident was still clearer. Among the speeches made
at the Hotel-de-Ville, M. De Liancourt, a good-natured, but

• Camllle Desmoulins, so amUSing here and everywhere else, triumphed

also in his manner: "I marched with my sword drawn," &c., (Cor­
respondance, p. 28, 1836). He took a fine gun with a bayonet and a pair
of pistols from the Invalides; if he did not make use of them, it is because
unfortunately the Bastille was taken so quickly! He ran there, but it was
too late. Several go so far as to say, that it was he who caused the
Revolution (p. 33); for his part, he is too modest to believe it.
190
 The Hollow Truce
inconsiderate man, said that the king willingly pardoned the
French Guards. Several of them, then present, stepped for­
ward, and one of them exclaimed: 'We need no pardon. In
serving the nation, we serve the king; the intentions which he
displays to-day prove sufficiently to France that we alone have
been faithful to the king and the country."
Bailly is proclaimed mayor, and Lafayette commandant of
the citizen militia. They depart for the Te Deum. The arch­
bishop gave his arm to that brave abbe Lefebvre who had
guarded and distributed the gunpowder, who left that den for
the first time, and was still quite black. Bailly was, in like
manner, conducted by Hullin, applauded by the crowd, pressed,
and almost stifled. Four fusileers followed him; but, notwith­
standing the rejoicings of that day and the unexpected honour
of his new position, he could not help thinking "that he looked
like a man being led to prison." Had he been able to foresee
better, he would have said: to deathl
What was that Te Deum, but a falsehood? Who could be­
lieve that the archbishop thanked God heartily for the taking
of the Bastille? Nothing had changed, neither men nor prin­
ciples. The court was still the court, the enemy ever the enemy.
What had been done was done. Neither the National Assembly
nor the electors of Paris, with all their omnipotence, could
alter the past. On the 14th of July, there had been a person
conquered, who was the king, and the conqueror was the
people. How then were they to undo that, cause that not to
be, blot out history, change the reality of actual events, and
dupe the king and the people, in such a manner that the former
should consider himself happy in being beaten, and the latter,
without distrust, should give themselves up again into the hands
of a master so cruelly provoked?
Mounier, whilst relating on the 16th, in the National As­
sembly, the visit of the hundred deputies to the city of Paris,
made the strange proposal (resumed on the morrow and voted
at the Hotel-de-Ville) to raise a statue to Louis XVI. on the site
of the demolished Bastille. A statue for a defeat I that was
something new and original. The ridicule of it was apparent.

191
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OcrOBER 6, 1 7 89

Who was to be thus deceived? Was the victory indeed to be

conjured away by thus allowing the vanquished to triumph?
The obstinacy of the king throughout the whole of the 14th
of July, made the most simple perceive that his conduct on the
15th was by no means spontaneous. At the very moment the
Assembly was conducting him back to the castle, amid this
enthusiasm, feigned or real, a woman fell at his knees, and was
not afraid to say: "Ohl Sire, are you really sincere? Will they
not make you change?"
The population of Paris was full of gloomy ideas. They
could not believe that with forty thousand men about Versailles,
the court would make no attempt. They believed the king's
conduct to be only intended to lull them into security, in order
to attack with greater advantage. They distrusted the electors;
two of the latter, deputed to Versailles on the 15th, were
brought back, menaced as traitors, and in great danger. The
French Guards were afraid of some ambush in their barracks,
and refused to return to them. The people persisted in believing,
that if the court dared not fight, it would be revenged by some
dark plot, that it might have somewhere a mine to blow Paris
into the air.
Fear was not ridiculous, but confidence most certainly was.
Why should they have felt secure? The troops, in spite of
the promise, did not withdraw. The baron de Falckenheim,
who commanded at Saint-Denis, said he had no orders. Two
of his officers who had come to reconnoitre, had been arrested
at the barrier. What was still more serious, was, that the lieu­
tenant of police had given in his resignation. Berthier the in­
tendant had escaped, and with him, all the persons charged
with the administration of provisions. In a day or two, perhaps,
the market would be without grain, and the people would go to
the Hotel-de-Ville to demand bread and the heads of the magis­
trates. The electors sent several of their body to fetch grain
from Senlis, Vernon, and even from Havre.
Paris was waiting for the king. It thought that if he had
spoken candidly and from his heart, he would leave his Ver­
sailles and his wicked advisers, and cast himself into the arms

192
 The Hollow Truce
of the people. Nothing would have been better timed, or have
had a greater effect on the 15th:-he should have departed for
Paris, on leaving the Assembly, and have trusted himself, not
in words only, but truly, and with his person, boldly entering
the crowd, and mingling with that armed population. The emo­
tion, still so great, would have turned entirely in his favour.
That is what the people expected, what they believed and
talked of. They said so at the Hotel-de-VilIe, and repeated it
in the streets. The king hesitated, consulted, postponed for
one day, and all was lost.
Where did he pass that irreparable day? From the evening
of the 15th to the morning of the 16th, he was still shut up with
those same ministers, whose audacious folly had filled Paris
with bloodshed, and shaken the throne for ever. At that council,
the queen wanted to fly, carry off the king, put him at the
head of the troops, and begin a civil war. But, were the
troops very sure? What would happen if war broke out in
the army itself, between the French soldiers and the foreign
mercenaries? Was it not better to temporise, gain time, and
deceive the people? Louis XVI., between these two opinions,
had none of his own,-no will; 10 he was ready to follow either
indifferently. The majority of the council were for the latter
opinion; so the king remained.
A mayor and a commandant of Paris appointed by the elec­
tors without the king's consent, those places accepted by men
of such importance as Bailly and Lafayette, and their nomina­
tions confirmed by the Assembly, without asking the king for any
permission, was no longer an insurrection, but a well and duly
organized Revolution. Lafayette, "not doubting but all the com­
munes would be willing to intrust their defence to armed
citizens," proposed to call the citizen militia National Guards
(a name already invented by Sieyes) . This name seemed to

,. The Histoire Parlementaire is wrong in quoting a pretended letter

j
from Louis XVI. to the Count d'Artois (v. ii" ' 101), an apocryphal and
ridiculous letter, like most of those publishe by Miss Williams, in the
Correspondance inedite, so well criticised and condemned by MM. Barbier
nnd Beuchot.
193
 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

generalize, and extend the anning o f Paris t o all the kingdom,

even as the blue and red cockade of the city, augmented with
white, the old French colours, became that of all France.
If the king remained at Versailles, if he delayed, he risked
Paris. Its attitude was becoming more hostile every moment.
On the districts being engaged to join their deputies to those of
the Hotel-de-Ville, in order to go and thank the king, several
replied, "There was no occasion yet to return thanks."
It was not till the evening of the 16th, that Bailly having
happened to see Vicq-d'Azyr, the queen's physician, gave him
notice that the city of Paris wished for and expected the king.
The king promised to go, and the same evening wrote to
M. Necker to engage him to return.
On the 17th, the king departed at nine o'clock, very serious,
melancholy, and pale; he had heard mass, taken the com­
munion, and given to Monsieur his nomination as lieutenant­
general, in case he was killed or detained prisoner; the queen,
in his absence, wrote, with a trembling hand, the speech she
would go and pronounce at the Assembly, if the king should be
detained.
Without guards, but surrounded by three or four hundred
deputies, he arrived at the (city) barrier at three o'clock. The
mayor, on presenting him the keys, said: "These are the same
keys that were presented to Henri IV.; he had reconquered
his people, now the people have re-conquered their king."
Those last words, so true and so strong, the full meaning of
which was not perceived, even by Bailly, were enthusiastically
applauded.
The Place Louis XV. presented a circle of troops, with the
French Guards, drawn up in a square battalion, in the centre.
The battalion opened and formed into file, displaying cannon in
the midst (perhaps those of the Bastille). It put itself at the
head of the procession, dragging its cannon after it-and the
king followed.
In front of the king's carriage rode Lafayette, the command­
ant, in a private dress, sword in hand, with the cockade and
plume in his hat. Everything was obedient to his slightest ges-

194
 The Hollow Truce
ture. There was complete order and silence too; not one cry
of Vive le Roi,11 Now and then, they cried Vive la Nation.
From the Point-du-Jour to Paris, and from the barrier to the
Hotel-de-Ville, there were two hundred thousand men under
arms, more than thirty thousand guns, fifty thousand pikes,
and, for the others, lances, sabres, swords, pitchforks, and
scythes. No uniforms, but two regular lines, throughout that
immense extent, of three, and sometimes of four or five men
deep.
A formidable apparition of the nation in arms. The king
could not misunderstand it; it was not a party. Amid so many
weapons and so many different dresses, there was the same
soul and the same silence I
Everybody was there; all had wanted to come; nobody was
missing at that solemn review. Even ladies were seen armed
beside their husbands, and girls with their fathers. A woman
figured among the conquerors of the Bastille.
Monks, believing also that they were men and citizens, had
come to take their part in that grand crusade. The Mathurins
were in their ranks under the banner of their order, now become
the standard of the district of that name. Capucins were there
shouldering the sword or the musket. The ladies of the Place­
Maubert had put the revolution of Paris under the protection of
Saint Genevieve, and offered on the preceding evening a picture
wherein the saint was encouraging the destroying angel to
overthrow the Bastille, which was seen falling to pieces with
brok�n crowns and sceptres.
Two men only were applauded, Bailly and Lafayette, and no
others. The deputies marched surrounding the king's carriage,
with sorrowful, uneasy looks; there was something gloomy
about that procession. Those strange looking weapons, those

11 Save one mishap; one gun went off, and a woman was killed. There
was no bad intention towards the king. Everybody was royalist, both the
Assembly and the people: even Marat was till 1791. In an unpublished
letter of Robespierre's (which M. De George communicated to me at
Arras), he seems to believe in the good faith of Louis XVI., whose visit to
the city of Paris is therein related, (23rd of July, 1789).
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 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OCTOBER 6, 1789

pitchforks and scythes, were not pleasing to the eye. Those can­
non reclining so quietly in the streets, silent, and bedecked with
flowers, seemed as though they would awake. Above all the
apparent signs of peace hovered a conspicuous and significant
image of war,-the tattered flag of the Bastille.
The king alights, and Bailly presents to him the new cockade
of the colours of the city, which had become those of France.
He begs of him to accept "that distinguishing symbol of
Frenchmen." The king put it in his hat, and, separated from
his suite by the crowd, ascended the gloomy stairs of the Hotel­
de-Ville. Overhead, swords placed crosswise formed a canopy
of steel; a Singular honour, borrowed from the masonic cus­
toms, which seemed to have a double meaning, and might lead
to suppose that the king was passing under the yoke.
There was no intention to cause either humilation or dis­
pleasure. On the contrary, he was received with extraordinary
emotion. The great hall, crowded with a confused mass of
notables and men of every class, presented a strange spectacle;
those in the middle remained kneeling, in order not to deprive
the others of the happiness of seeing the king, and all had
their hands raised towards the throne, and their eyes full of
tears.
Bailly, in his speech, had pronounced the word alliance be­
tween the king and the people. The president of the electors,
Moreau de Saint Mery (he who had been chairman during the
great days, and given three thousand orders in thirty hours)
ventured a word that seemed to engage the king: "You come
to promise your subjects that the authors of those disastrous
councils shall surround you no longer, and that Virtue, too long
exiled, shall remain your support." Virtue meant Necker.
The king, from timidity or prudence, said nothing. The city
proctor then made a proposal to raise a statue on the Place
de la Bastille; it was voted unanimously.
Next, Lally, always eloquent, only too tender-hearted and
lachrymose, avowed the king's chagrin, and the need he had of
consolation. This was showing him as conquered, instead of
associating him with the victory of the people over the minis-

196
 The Hollow Truce
ters who were departing. 'Well, citizens, are you satisfied! Be­
hold the king," &c. That Behold, thrice repeated, seemed like
a sad parody of Ecce Homo.
Those who had noticed that similitude found it exact and
complete, when Bailly showed the king at the window of the
Hotel-de-Ville, with the cockade in his hat. He remained there
a quarter of an hour, serious and silent. On his departure
it was intimated to him, in a whisper, that he ought to say
something himself. But all they could get from him was the
ratification of the citizen guard, the mayor, and the comman­
dant, and the very laconic sentence: "You may always rely on
my affection."
The electors were satisfied, but not so the people. They had
imagined that the king, rid of his bad advisers, had come
to fraternize with the city of Paris. But, what! not one word,
not one gesture! Nevertheless, the crowd applauded on his
return; they seemed to desire to give vent at length to their
long restrained feelings. Every weapon was reversed in sign
of peace. They shouted Vive Ie Roi, and he was carried to
his carriage. A market-woman flung her arms round his neck.
Men with bottles stopped his horses, poured out wine for his
coachman and valets, and drank with them the health of the
king. He smiled, but still said nothing. The least kind word,
uttered at that moment, would have been re-echoed and cele­
brated with immense effect.
It was past nine in the evening when he returned to the
castle. On the staircase he found the queen and his children
in tears, who came and threw themselves into his arms. Had
the king then incurred some alarming danger in going to visit
his people? Was his people his enemy? And what more would
they have done for a king set at liberty, for John or Francis I.,
returning from London or Madrid?
On the same day, Friday, the 17th, as if to protest that the
king neither said nor did anything at Paris but by force and
constraint, his brother the Count d'Artois, the Condes, the Con­
tis, the Polignacs, Vaudreuil, Broglie, Lambesc, and others, fled
France. It was no easy matter. They found everywhere their

197
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OcrOBER 6, 1789
names held in detestation, and the people rising against them.
The Polignacs and Vaudreuils were only able to escape by
declaiming along their road against Vaudreuil and Polignac.
The conspiracy of the court, aggravated with a thousand
popular accounts, both strange and horrible, had seized upon
every imagination, and rendered them incurably suspicious
and distrustful. Versailles, excited at least as much as Paris,
watched the castle night and day as the centre of treason.
That immense palace seemed a desert. Many dared no longer
enter it. The north wing, appropriated to the Condes, was
almost empty; the south wing, that of the Count d'Artois, and
the seven vast apartments of the ladies Polignac were shut
up for ever. Several of the king's servants would have liked
to forsake their master. They were beginning to entertain
strange ideas about him.
For three days, says Besenval, the king had scarcely any­
body about him but M. de Montmorin and myself. On the
19th, every minister being absent, I had entered the king's
apartment to ask him to sign an order to have horses given to
a colonel who was returning. As I was presenting that order
a footman placed himself between the king and me, in order
to see what he was writing. The king turned round, perceived
the insolent fellow, and snatched up the tongs. I prevented
him from following that impulse of very natural indignation;
he clasped my hand to thank me, and I perceived tears in his
eyes.

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Popular Judgments

ROYALTY remains alone. The privileged class go

into exile or submit; they declare they will henceforth vote in
the National Assembly and be subject to the majority. Being
isolated and laid bare, royalty appears what it had been funda­
mentally for a long time: a nonentity.
That nonentity was the ancient faith of France; and that
faith deceived now causes her distrust and incredulity; it makes
her excessively uneasy and suspicious. To have believed and
loved, and to have been for a century always deceived in that
love, is enough to make her no longer believe in anything.
Where will faith be now? At that question, they experience
a feeling of terror and solitude, like Louis XVI. himself in the
comer of his lonely palace. There will no longer be faith in any
mortal power.
The legislative power itself, that Assembly beloved by France,
is now so unfortunate as to have absorbed its enemies, five
or six hundred nobles and priests, and to contain them in
its bosom. Another evil is, that it has conquered too much;
it will now be the authority, the government, the king-when
a king is no longer possible.
The electoral power, which likewise found itself obliged to
govern, feels itself expiring at the end of a few days, and
entreats the districts to create its successor. During the can­
nonade of the Bastille, it had shuddered and doubted. Men of
little faith! But perfidious? No. That bourgeOisie of 1789, imbued
with the philosophy of that grand age, was certainly less egotisti-

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 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89
cal than our own. It was wavering and uncertain, bold in prin­
ciple, but timid in application; it had been so long in bondageI
It is the virtue of the judiciary power, when it remains entire
and strong, to compensate for every other; but itself is compen­
sated for by none. It was the mainstay and the resource of our
ancient France, in her most terrible moments. In the fourteenth
and sixteenth centuries, it sat immutable and firm, so that the
country, almost lost in the tempest, recovered and found itself
still in the inviolable sanctuary of civil justice.
Well! even that power is shattered. Shattered by its incon­
sistency and contradictions. Servile and bold at once, for the
king and against the king, for the pope and against the pope,
the defender of the law and the champion of privilege, it speaks
of liberty and resists for a century every liberal progress. It
also, and as much as the king, deceived the hope of the people.
What joy, what enthusiasm, when the parlement returned from
exile, on the accession of Louis XVI.! And it was in answer
to that confidence that it joined the privileged class, stopped all
reform, and caused Turgot to be dismissed! In 1787, the people
sustained it still, and, by way of recompense, the parlement
demanded that the Estates-General should be restored in imi­
tation of the old form of 1614, that is to say useless, powerless,
and derisive.
No, the people cannot confide in the judiciary power.
What is most strange, is, that it was this power, the guard­
ian of order and the laws, that began the riot. Disturbances
first begin about the Parlement, at every lit de justice. They
were encouraged by the smiles of the magistrate. Young coun­
sellors, such as d'Espremesnil or Duport, mindful of the Fronde,
would willingly have imitated Broussel and the Coadjutor. The
organised Basoche furnishes an army of clerks. It has its king,
its judgments, its provosts, old students, as was Moreau at
Rennes, or brilliant orators and duellists, like Barnave at Greno­
ble. The solemn prohibition that the clerks should not wear a
sword, did but make them the more pugnacious.
The first club was the one opened by counsellor Duport
at his house in the Rue du Chaume in the Marais. There

200
 Popular Judgments
he assembled the most forward of the parlement people, ad­
vocates and deputies, especially the Bretons. The club being
transferred to Versailles, was called the Breton Club. On its
return to Paris with the Assembly, and changing its character,
it took up its quarters at the convent of the Jacobins.
Mirabeau went but once to Duport's; he used to call Duport,
Barnave, and Lameth, the Triumgueusal.12 Sieyes also went
but would not return there. "It is a den of political banditti,
said he; they take outrages for expedients." Elsewhere he desig­
nates them still more harshly : "One may imagine them to
be a set of wicked blackguards, ever in action, shouting, in­
triguing, and rioting lawlessly, recklessly, and then laughing at
the mischief they had done. To them may be attributed the
greater part of the errors of the Revolution. Happy would it
have been for France, if the subaltern agents of those early
perturbators, on becoming leaders in their tum, by a sort of
customary hereditary right in long revolutions, had renounced
the spirit by which they had been so long agitated!"
These subalterns alluded to by Sieyes, who will succeed their
leaders (and who were far superior to them ) , were especially
two men,-two revolutionary levers, Camille Desmoulins and
Danton. Those two men, one the king of pamphleteers, the
other the thundering orator of the Palais Royal, before he was
that of the Convention, cannot be further mentioned in this
place. Besides, they are about to follow us, and will soon never
leave us. In them, or in nobody, are personified the comedy
and tragedy of the Revolution.
Presently they will let their masters form the club of the
Jacobins, and will go and found the Cordeliers. At the present,
ull is mingled together : the grand club of a hundred clubs,
umong the cates, the gaming-houses, and women, is still the
Palais Royal. There it was that on the 12th of July, Desmou­
lins cried: To arms! And there, on the night of the 13th,
sentence was passed on Flesselles and De Launey. Those

II
Meaning the Three Knaves,-a parody, of course, on triumvirate.­
(: c.
,

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 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO oaroBER 6, 1789

passed on the Count D'Artois, the Condes and the Polignacs,

were forwarded to them; and they had the astonishing effect,
hardly to be expected from several battles, of making them
depart from France. Hence arose a fatal predilection for the
means of terror which had so well succeeded. Desmoulins, in
the speech which he attributes to the lamp (lanterne) of La
Greve, makes it say, "That strangers gaze upon it in an ecstasy
of astonishment; that they wonder that a lamp should have
done more in two days than all their heroes in a hundred
years." 13
Desmoulins renews ever with inexhaustible wit the old jokes
that filled all the middle ages on the gallows, the rope, and the
persons hanged. That hideous, atrocious punishment, which
renders agony visible, was the usual text of the most joyous
stories, the amusement of the vulgar, the inspiration of the
Basoche. This found all its genius in Camille Desmoulins. That
young lawyer of Picardy, with a very light purse and a still
lighter character, was loitering briefless at the Palais, when
the Revolution made him suddenly plead at the Palais Royal.
A slight impediment in his speech did but render him the
more amusing. His lively sallies playing about his embarrassed
lips, escaped like darts. He followed his comic humour without
much considering whether it might not end in tragedy. The
famous judgments of the Basoche, those judicial farces which
had so much amused the old Palais, were not more merry
than the judgments of the Palais Royal,14 the difference was that
the latter were often executed in La Greve (the place of
execution ) .
What is most strange, and a subject for reflection, is, that Des­
moulins, with his roguish genius and mortal jests, and that bull
of a Danton, who bellows murder, are the very men who, four
years later, perish for having proposed The Committee of Clem­
ency!

18 Camille Desmoulins, Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens, p. 2. He

insinuates, however, rather adrOitly, that those rapid condemnations are
not without inconvenience, that they are liable to cause mistakes, &c.
14 See the judgment of Duval d'Espremesnil, related by C. Desmoulins
in his letters.
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 Popular Judgments
Mirabeau, Duport, the Lameths, and many others more mod­
erate, approved of the acts of violence; several said they had
advised them. In 1788, Sieyes demanded the death of the
ministers. On the 14th of July, Mirabeau demanded De Broglie's
head! Desmoulins lodged in his house. He marched willingly
between Desmoulins and Danton; and, being tired of his Gene­
vese, preferred these men, directing the former to write, and
the latter to speak.
Target, a very moderate, prudent, cool-headed man was in­
timate with Desmoulins, and gave his approbation to the pam­
phlet De la Lanterne.
This deserves an explanation: Nobody believed in justice,
save in that of the people.
The legists especially despised the law, the jurisprudence of
that time, in contradiction to all the ideas of the age. They
were well acquainted with the tribunals, and knew that the
Revolution had no more passionate adversaries than the Parle­
ment, the High Court of Justice ( le Chdtelet), and the judges
in general.
Such a judgment-seat was the enemy. To give up the trial
of the enemy to the enemy, and charge it to decide between the
Revolution and its adversaries, was to absolve the latter, render
them stronger and more haughty, and send them to the armies
to begin a civil war. Were they able to make one? Yes, in
spite of the enthusiasm of Paris and the taking of the Bastille.
They had foreign troops, and all the officers were for them;
they had especially a formidable body, which then constituted
the glory of France, the officers of the navy.
The people alone, in that rapid crisis, were able to seize and
strike such powerful criminals. But if the people should mis­
take? This objection did not embarrass the partisans of vio­
lence. They recriminated. "How many times," would they reply,
"have not the Parlement and the Chatelet made mistakes?"
They quoted the notorious mistakes in the cases of Calas
lind Sirven; they reminded their opponents of Dupaty's terrible
memorial for three men condemned to the wheel,-that me­
Illorial burnt by the Parlement that was unable to answer it.
What popular trials, would they again say, can ever be more

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 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

barbarous than the procedure of the regular tribunals, just as

they now are, in 1789?-Secret proceedings, made entirely on
documents that the defendant is not allowed to see; the accusa­
tions uncommunicated, the witnesses non-confronted, save that
last short moment when the defendant, but just emerging from
the utter darkness of his dungeon, bewildered by the light of
day, comes to sit on his bench, replies or not, and sees his judges
for the two minutes during which he hears himself condemned.15
-Barbarous procedure, more barbarous sentences, execrable
punishments!-We shudder to think of Damiens torn with
pincers, quartered, sprinkled with molten lead.-Just before the
Revolution, a man was burned at Strasbourg. On the 11th of
August 1789, the Parlement of Paris, itself expiring, once more
condemned a man to be broken on the wheel.
Such punishment, which was torture even for the spectator,
wounded the souls of men, made them furious, mad, con­
founded every idea of justice, and subverted justice itself; the
criminal who suffered such torture seemed no longer guilty;
the guilty party was the judge; and a world of maledictions
was heaped upon him. Sensibility was excited into fury, and
pity grew ferocious. History offers several instances of this
sort of furious sensibility which often transported the people
beyond all the bounds of respect and fear, and made them
rack and burn the officers of justice in place of the criminal.
A fact, too little noticed, but which enables us to understand
a great many things, is, that several of our terrorists were men
of an exquisite feverish sensibility, who felt cruelly the suffer­
ings of the people, and whose pity turned into fury.
This remarkable phenomenon chiefly showed itself in nervous
men, of a weak and irritable imagination, among artists of
every kind : the artist is a man-woman.16 The people whose
nerves are stronger followed that impulse, but in the earlier

ll5 A truly eloquent passage in Dupaty's memorial for three men

condemned to be broken on the wheel, p. 117 (1786, in 4to. ) .
16
I mean a complete man, who, having both sexes of the mind, is
fruitful; however, having almost always the sense of irritation and choler
predominant.
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 Popular Judgments
period never gave it. The acts of violence proceeded from the
Palais Royal, where the citizens, lawyers, artists, and men of
letters were predominant.
Even among these men, nobody incurred the whole respon­
sibility. A Camille Desmoulins might start the game and begin
the hunt; a Danton hunted it to death-in words, of course.
But there was no lack of mute actors for the execution, of
pale furious men to carry the thing to La Greve, where it
was urged on by inferior Dantons. In the miserable crowd
surrounding the latter, were strange looking figures, like beings
escaped from the other world; spectral looking men, mad with
hunger, delirious from fasting, and who were no longer men.
It was stated that several, on the 20th of July, had not eaten
for three days. Occasionally, they were resigned, and died
without injuring anybody. The women were not so reSigned;
they had children. They wandered about like lionesses. In
every riot they were the most inveterate and furious; they ut­
tered cries of frenzy, and made the men ashamed of their
delays; the summary judgments of La Greve were ever too
long for them. They hanged straightaway,17
England has had in this century her poetry of hunger.18
Who will give its history to France? A terrible history in the
last century, neglected by the historians, who have reserved
their pity for the artisans of famine. I have attempted to
descend into the regions of that hell, guided nearer and nearer
by deep groans of agony. I have shown the land more and
more sterile in proportion as the exchequer seized and de­
stroyed the cattle, and that the earth devoid of manure is
condemned to a perpetual fast. I have shown how, as the
nobles, the exempt from taxes, multiplied, the impost weighed
ever more heavily on an ever declining land. I have not suffi­
ciently shown how food became, from its very scarcity, the
object of an eminently productive traffic. The profits were so

,. They hanged thus on the 5th of October the honest abbe Lefebvre.
one of the heroes of the 14th of July; luckily the rope was cut.
18 Ebenezer Elliott, Corn-law Rhymes ( Manchester, 1834 ) , &c., &c.
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 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OcrOBER 6, 1 7 89

obvious, that the king wished also to take a part. The world
saw with astonishment a king trafficking with the lives of his
subjects, a king speculating on scarcity and death,-a king the
assassin of his people. Famine is no longer only the result
of the seasons,-a natural phenomenon; it is neither rain nor
hail. It is a deed of the civil order: people starve by order
of the king.
The king here is the system. The people were starving
under Louis XV., and they starve under Louis XVI.
Famine was then a science, a complicated art of administra­
tion and commerce. Its parents are the exchequer and monop­
oly. It engenders a race apart, a bastard breed of contractors,
bankers, financiers, revenue-farmers, intendants, counsellors,
and ministers. A profound expression on the alliance between
the speculators and politicians was uttered from the bowels of
the people : compact of famine.
Among those men was one who had long been famous. His
name Foulon ( very expressive,19 and which he strove to justify )
was in the mouth of the people as early as 1756. He had
begun his career as an intendant of the army, and in the
enemy's country. Truly terrible to Germany, he was even more
so to our soldiers. His manner of victualling was as fatal as
a battle of Rosbach. He had grown fat on the destitution
of the army, doubly rich by the fasting of the French and
the Germans.
Foulon was a speculator, financier, and contractor on one
hand, and on the other a member of the Council which alone
judged the contractors. He expected certainly to become min­
ister. He would have died of grief, if bankruptcy had been ef­
fected by any other than he. The laurels of the abbe Terray did
not allow him to sleep. He had the fault of preaching his system
too loudly; his tongue counteracted his doings and rendered it
impossible. The Court relished very much the idea of not pay­
ing, but it wanted to borrow, and calling the apostle of bank­
ruptcy to the ministry was not the way to entice lenders.

'" As if foulons: let us trample ( on the people ) .-c. c.

206
 Popular Judgments
Foulon was already an old man, one from the good old days of
Louis XV., one of that insolent school that gloried in its rapine,
boldly showing it, and which, for a trophy of depredation,
built on the boulevard the Pavillon of Hanover. For his part,
he had erected for himself, in the most frequented thorough­
fare, at the comer of the Rue du Temple, a delightful mansion,
which was still admired in 1845.
He was convinced that in France, as Figaro Beaumarchais
says, "Everything ends in a song;" therefore he must assume
a bold face, brave and laugh at public opinion. Hence those
words which were re-echoed everywhere : "If they are hungry,
let them browse grass. Wait till I am minister, I will make
them eat hay; my horses eat it." He is also stated to have
uttered this terrible threat : "France must be mowed." Il faut
faucher la France.
The old man believed, by such bravado, to please the young
military party, and recommend himself for the day he saw
approaching, when the Court, wanting to strike some desperate
blow, would look out for a hardened villain.
Foulon had a son-in-law after his own heart, Berthier, the
intendant of Paris, a clever, but hard-hearted man, as admitted
by the royalists,20 and unscrupulous, since he had espoused a
fortune acquired in such a manner.
Of humble extraction, being descended from a race of pro­
vincial attorneys or petty magistrates, he was hard-working,
active, and energetic. A libertine at the age of fifty, in spite
of his numerous family, he purchased, on all sides, so it was
said, little girls twelve years of age. He knew well that he
was detested by the Parisians, and was but too happy to find
an opportunity of making war upon them. With old FouIon,
he was the soul of the three days' ministry. Marshal de Broglie
expected no good of it : he obeyed.21 But Foulon and Berthier
were very ardent. The latter showed a diabolical activity
in collecting arms, troops, everything together, and in manu-

.. According to Beaulieu's confession, Memoires, ii., p. 10.

Ol Alex. de Lameth, Rist. de l'Assemblee constituante, i., p. 67.

207
 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

facturing cartridges. If Paris was not laid waste with fire and
sword, it was not his fault.
People feel astonished that persons so wealthy, so well-in­
fonned, of mature age and experience, should have cast them­
selves into such mad proceedings. The reason is, that all great
financial speculators partake of the manner of gamblers; they
have their temptations. Now, the most lucrative affair they
could ever find, was thus to undertake to effect bankruptcy
by military execution. That was hazardous. But what great
affair is without risk? A profit is made on stonn and fire;
why not then on war and famine? Nothing risk, nothing gain.
Famine and war, I mean Foulon and Berthier, who thought
they held Paris fast, were disconcerted by the taking of the
Bastille.
On the evening of the 14th, Berthier attempted to reassure
Louis XVI.; if he could but get from him the slightest order,
he could even then pour down his Gennans upon Paris.
Louis XVI. neither said nor did anything. From that moment,
those two ministers felt they were dead men. Berthier fled
towards the north, escaping by night from place to place; he
passed four nights without sleeping, or even stopping, and yet
had reached only Soissons. Foulon did not attempt to fly: first
of all, he spread the report everywhere that he had not wished
to be minister; next, that he was struck with apoplexy, and
lastly pretended he was dead. He had himself buried with
great pomp ( one of his servants having died at the right
moment. ) This being done, he repaired very quietly to the
house of his worthy friend Sartine, the fonner lieutenant of
police.
He had good reason to be afraid : the movement was terrible.
Let us go back a little. As early as the month of May, famine
had exiled whole populations, driving them one upon the other.
Caen and Rouen, Orleans, Lyons, and Nancy, had witnessed
struggles for grain. Marseilles had seen at her gates a band
of eight thousand famished people who must pillage or die;
the whole town, in spite of the Government, in spite of the
Parlement of Aix, had taken up arms, and remained armed.
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 Popular Judgments
The movement slackened a moment in June. All France,
with eyes fixed on the Assembly, was waiting for it to conquer:
no other hope of salvation. The most extreme sufferings were
for a moment silent; one thought was predominant over all
others.
Who can describe the rage, the horror of hope deceived, on
the news of Necker's dismissal? Necker was not a politician;
he was, as we have seen, timid, vain-glorious, and ridiculous.
But in what concerned subsistence, it is but justice to say, that
he was an indefatigable, ingenious administrator, full of in­
dustry and resources.22 What is far better, he showed himself
to be an honest, good, kind-hearted man; when nobody would
lend to the state, he borrowed in his own name, and engaged
his own credit as far as two millions of francs, the half of his for­
tune. When dismissed, he did not withdraw his security; but
wrote to the lenders that he maintained it. In a word, if he
knew not how to govern, he nourished the people, and fed
them with his own money.
Necker and subsistence were words that had the same sound
in the ears of the people. Necker's dismissal and famine, hope­
less, irremediable famine, was what France felt on the 12th
of July.
The provincial Bastilles, that of Caen and that of Bordeaux,
either surrendered, or were taken by force, at the same time
as that of Paris. At Rennes, Saint Malo, and Strasbourg, the
troops sided with the people. At Caen there was a fight among
the soldiers. A few men of the Artois regiment were wearing
the patriotic symbols; those of the Bourbon regiment, taking
advantage of their being unarmed, tore them away. It was
thought that Major Belzunce had paid them to offer this insult
to their companions. Belzunce was a smart, witty officer, but
impertinent, violent, and haughty. He was loud in expressing
his contempt for the National Assembly, for the people, the
canaille; he used to walk in the town, armed to the teeth, with

II See Necker, Oeuvres, vi., pp. 298-324.

209
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

a ferocious-looking servant.23 His looks were provoking. The

people lost patience, threatened, and besieged the barracks;
an officer had the imprudence to fire; and then the people ran
to fetch cannon; Belzunce surrendered, or was given up to be
conducted to prison; he could not reach it; he was fired upon
and killed, and his body tom piece-meal: a woman ate his
heart.
There was blood-shed at Rouen and Lyons : at Saint Ger­
main, a miller was beheaded : a monopolist baker was near
being put to death at Poissy; he was saved only by a depu­
tation of the Assembly, who showed themselves admirable for
courage and humanity, risked their lives, and preserved the
man only after having begged him of the people on their knees.
Foulon would perhaps have outlived the storm, if he had
not been hated by all France. His misfortune was to be so
by those who knew him best, by his vassals and servants.
They did not lose sight of him, neither had they been duped
by the pretended burial. They followed and found the dead
man alive and well, walking in M. de Sartine's park: "You
wanted to give us hay," said they, "you shall eat some your­
self!" They put a truss of hay on his back, and adorn him
with a nosegay of nettles, and a collar of thistles. They then
lead him on foot to Paris, to the Hotel-de-Ville, and demand
his trial of the electors, the only authority that remained. The
latter must then have regretted they had not hastened the
popular decision which was about to create a real municipal
power, give them successors, and put an end to their royalty.
Royalty is the word; the French Guards mounted guard at the
royal palace of Versailles only on orders received ( strange to
say ) from the electors of Paris.
That illegal power, invoked for everything, but powerless
in all things, weakened still further by its fortuitous association
with the former municipal magistrates, having nobody for its
head but the worthy Bailly, the new mayor, and for its arm
only Lafayette, the commander of a scarcely organised national

os Memoires de Dumouriez, ii. , p. 53.

210
 Popular Judgments
guard, was now about to find itself in face of a terrible neces­
sity.
They heard almost at the same time that Berthier had been
arrested at Compiegne, and that Foulon was being conducted
back again. For the former, they assumed a responsibility both
serious and bold (fear is so sometimes ) , that of telling the peo­
ple of Compiegne: "That there was no reason for detaining M.
Berthier." They replied that he would then be assuredly killed
at Compiegne, and that he could only be saved by conducting
him to Paris.
As to Foulon, it was decided: That henceforth delinquents
of that description should be lodged in the Abbaye, and that
these words should be inscribed over the door: "Prisoners en­
trusted to the care of the nation." This general measure, taken
in the interest of one man, secured for the ex-counsellor his
trial by his friends and colleagues, the former magistrates, the
only judges of that time.
All that was too evident; but also well watched by keen­
sighted men, the attorneys and the Basoche, by investors, ene­
mies of the minister of bankruptcy, and lastly, by many men
who held public securities and were ruined by the fall in the
funds. An attorney filed an indictment against Berthier, for his
deposits of guns. The Basoche maintained that he had more­
over one of those deposits with the abbess of Montmartre, and
obliged a search to be made. La Greve was full of men, stran­
gers to the people, "of a decent exterior," and some very well
dressed. The Stock Exchange was at La Greve.
People came at the same time to the Hotel-de-Ville, to de­
nounce Beaumarchais, another financier, who had stolen some
papers from the Bastille. They ordered them to be taken back.
It was thought that the poor, at all events, might be kept
silent by filling their mouths; so they lowered the price of
bread: by means of a sacrifice of thirty thousand francs per
day, the price was fixed at thirteen sous and a half the four
pounds (equal to twenty sous at the present time ) .
The multitude of La Greve did not vociferate the less. At
two, Bailly descends; all demand justice. "He expatiated on

211
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

principles," and made some impression o n those who were

within hearing. The others shouted : "Hang! Hang him!" Bailly
prudently withdrew, and shut himself up in the Bureau des
Subsistances. The guard was strong, said he, but M. de Lafay­
ette, who relied on his ascendancy, had the imprudence to
lessen it.
The crowd was in a terrible fever of uneasiness lest Foulon
should escape. He was shown to them at a window; neverthe­
less, they broke open the doors : it became necessary to place
him in a chair in front of the bureau, in the great hall of Saint­
Jean. There, they began to preach to the crowd again, to
"expatiate on principles," that he must be judged. "Judged
instantly, and hanged!" cried the crowd. So saying, they ap­
pointed judges, among others two cures, who refused. "Make
room there for M. de Lafayette!" He arrives, speaks in his turn,
avows that Foulon is a villain, but says it is necessary to dis­
cover his accomplices; "Let him be conducted to the Abbaye!"
The front ranks, who heard him, consented; not so the others.
"You are joking," exclaimed a well-dressed man, "does it re­
quire time to judge a man who has been judged these thirty
years?" At the same time, a shout is heard, and a new crowd
rushes in; some say: "It is the faubourg," others : "It is the
Palais Royal." Foulon is carried off and dragged to the lamp
opposite; they make him demand pardon of the nation. Then
hoist him.-The rope breaks twice. They persist, and go for
a new one. At length, having hanged him, they chop off his
head, and carry it through Paris.
Meanwhile, Berthier has just arrived by the Porte Saint­
Martin, through the most frightful mob that was ever seen:
he had been followed for twenty leagues. He was in a cabriolet,
the top of which they had broken to pieces in order to see him.
Beside him sat an elector, Etienne de la Riviere, who was
twenty times near being killed in defending him, and shield­
ing him with his body. A furious mob was dancing on before
him; others flung black bread into the carriage: -"Take that,
brigand, that is the bread you made us eat!"
What had also exasperated all the population about Paris was,

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 Popular ludgments
that amid the scarcity, the numerous cavalry collected by
Berthier and Foulon, had destroyed or eaten a great quantity
of young green wheat. This havoc was attributed to the orders
of the intendant, to his firm resolution to prevent there being
any crop and to starve the people.
To adorn that horrible procession of death, they carried be­
fore Berthier, as in the Roman triumphs, inscriptions to his
glory:-"He has robbed the king and France. He has devoured
the substance of the people. He has been the slave of the rich,
and the tyrant of the poor. He has drunk the blood of the
widow and the orphan. He has cheated the king. He has be­
trayed his country." 24
At the fountain Maubuee, they had the barbarity to show
him Foulon's head, livid, with the mouth full of hay. At that
sight his eyes were glazed; he smiled a ghastly smile.
They forced Bailly at the H6tel-de-Ville to interrogate him.
Berthier alleged superior orders. The minister was his father­
in-law, it was the sam� person. Moreover, if the hall of
Saint-Jean was inclined to listen a little, La Greve neither lis­
tened nor heard; the vociferations were so dreadful, that the
mayor and the electors felt more uneasy every moment. A new
crowd of people having forced its way through the very mass,
it was no longer possible to hold out. The mayor, on the advice
of the board, exclaimed: "To the Abbayel" adding that the
guards were answerable for the prisoner. They could not de­
fend him; but, seizing a gun, he defended himseH. He was
stabbed with a hundred bayonets; a dragoon, who imputed
his father's death to him, tore out his heart, and ran to show
it at the H6tel-de-Ville.
The spectators in La Greve, who had watched from the
windows the skill of the leaders in urging and exciting the
mob, believed that Berthier's accomplices had taken their meas­
ures well, in order that he might not have the time to make
any revelation. He alone, perhaps, possessed the real intentions

.. Histoire de la Revolution de '89, par deux amis de la liberte

f'
( Kerverseau et Claoelin, iusqu'au t. 7, ) t. 2, 130. See also the account
of Etienne de la Riviere, in the Proces-verba des 1!:lecteurs.

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of the party. They found i n his portfolio the description of the

persons of many friends of liberty, who, doubtless, had no
mercy to expect, if the court conquered.
However this may be, a great number of the comrades of
the dragoon declared to him, that having dishonoured the com­
pany he must die, and that they would all fight him till he was
killed. He was killed the same evening.

214
 III

France in A rms

THE vampires of the ancien regime, whose

lives had done so much hann to France, did still more by
their death.
Those people, whom Mirabeau tenned so well "the refuse
of public contempt," are as if restored to character by punish­
ment. The gallows becomes their apotheosis. They are now
become interesting victims, the martyrs of monarchy; their
legend will go on increasing in pathetic fictions. Mr. Burke
canonized them and prayed on their tomb.
The acts of violence of Paris, and those of which the prov­
inces were the theatre, placed the National Assembly in a diffi­
cult position, from which it could not well escape.
If it did not act, it would seem to encourage anarchy and
authorise murder, and thus furnish a text for eternal calumny.
If it attempted to remedy the disorder, and raise fallen au­
thority, it restored, not to the king, but to the queen and the
court, the sword that the people had shivered in their hands.
In either hypothesis, despotism and caprice were about to
be re-established, either for the old royalty or the royalty of
the mob. At that moment they were destroying the odious sym­
bol of despotism-the Bastille; and behold another Bastille­
arbitrary rule-again springing up.
England rubs her hands with glee at this, and is grateful to
the Lanterne. 'Thank God," says she, "the Bastille will never
disappear."

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What would you have done? Tell us, you officious counsellers.
you friendly enemies, sages of European aristocracy, you who
so carefully pour calumny on the hatred you have planted.
Sitting at your ease on the dead bodies of Ireland, Italy, and
Poland, deign to answer; have not your revolutions of interest
cost more blood than our revolutions of ideas?
What would you have done? Doubtless what was advised on
the eve and the morrow of the 22nd of July, by Lally-Tollendal,
Mounier, and Malouet; to re-establish order, they wished that
power should be restored to the king. Lally put his whole trust
in the king's virtues. Malouet wanted them to entreat the king
to use his power and lend a strong hand to the municipal
authority. The king would have armed, and not the people;
no national guard. Should the people complain, why then let
them apply to the Parlement and the Attorney-General. Have
we not magistrates? Foulon was a magistrate. So Malouet
would send Foulon to the tribunal of Foulon.
It is necessary, they very truly said, to repress disturbances.
Only it was necessary to come to a right understanding. This
word comprehended many things :
Thefts, other ordinary crimes, pillaging committed by a
starving population, murders of monopolists, irregular judg­
ment pronounced on the enemies of the people, resistance
offered to their plottings, legal resistance, resistance in arms.
All comprised in the word troubles. Did they wish to suppress
all with an equal hand? If royal authority was charged to re­
press the disturbances, the greatest in its estimation was, most
certainly, the taking of the Bastille; it would have punished
that first.
This was the reply made by Buzot and Robespierre on the
20th of July, two days before the death of Foulon; and this was
what Mirabeau said, in his journal, after the event. He set this
misfortune before the Assembly in its true light,-the absence
of all authority in Paris, the impotency of the electors, who,
without any lawful delegation of power, continued to exercise
the municipal functions. He wished municipalities to be organ­
ised, invested with stren gth, and authorized to undertake the

216
 France in Arms
maintenance of order. Indeed what other means were there
than to strengthen the local power, when the central power
was so justly suspected?
Barnave said three things were necessary: well-organized
muniCipalities, citizen guards, and a legal administration of the
law that might reassure the people.
What was that legal administration to be? A deputy-substi­
tute, Dufresnoy, sent by a district of Paris, demanded sixty
jurymen, chosen from the sixty districts. This proposition, sup­
ported by petition, was modified by another deputy, who
wished magistrates to be added to the jurymen.
The Assembly came to no decision. An hour after midnight,
being weary of contention, it adopted a proclamation, in which
it claimed the prosecution of crimes of lese-nation, reserving
to itself the right to indicate in the constitution the tribunal
thal should ;udge. This was postponing for a long time. It in­
vited to peace, for this reason : That the king had acquired
more rights than ever to the confidence of the people, that
there existed a perfect accord, &c.
ConfidenceI And yet there never was any confidence againl
At the very moment the Assembly was speaking of confidence,
a sad light burst forth, and fresh dangers were seen. The As­
sembly had been wrong; the people had been right. However
willing the poeple might be to be deceived, and believe all
was ended, common sense whispered that the ancien regime
being conquered, would wish to have its revenge. Was it pos­
sible that a power which had possessed, for ages, all the forces
of the country, administration, finances, armies, and tribunals,
that still had everywhere its agents, its officers, its judges,
without any change, and for compulsory partisans, two or three
hundred thousand nobles or priests, proprietors of one-half or
two-thirds of the kingdom,-could that immense and compli­
cated power, which covered all France, die like one man, at
once, by a single blow? Had it fallen down dead, shot by a
cannon-ball of July? That is what the most simple child could
not have been induced to believe.
It was not dead. It had been struck and wounded; morally

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i t was dead; physically i t was not. I t might rise again. How

would that phantom reappear? That was the whole question
put by the people I-the one that troubled the imagination.
Common sense here assumed a thousand forms of popular
superstition.
Everybody went to see the Bastille; all beheld with terror
the prodigious rope ladder by which Latude descended the
towe):"s. They visited those ominous towers, and those dark,
deep, fetid dungeons, where the prisoner, on a level with the
common sewers, lived besieged and menaced by rats, toads,
and ev�ry kind of foul vermin.
Beneath a staircase they found two skeletons, with a chain
and a cannon-ball which one of those unfortunates had doubt­
less to drag after him. Those dead bodies indicated crime. For
the prisoners were never buried within the fortress; they were
always carried by night to the cemetery of Saint Paul, the
church of the Jesuits (the confessors of the Bastille ) ; where
they were buried under names of servants, so that nobody ever
knew whether they were alive or dead. As for those two, the
workmen who found them gave them the only reparation the
dead could receive; twelve among them, bearing their imple­
ments, and holding the pall with respect, carried and buried
them honourably in the parish church.
They were even hoping to make other discoveries in that
old cavern of kings. Outraged humanity was taking its revenge;
people enjoyed a mingled sentiment of hatred, fear, and
curiosity,-an insatiable curiosity, which, when everything had
been seen, hunted and searched for more, wished to penetrate
further, suspected something else, imagined prisons under
prisons, dungeons under dungeons, into the very bowels of the
earth.
The imagination actually sickened at that Bastille. So many
centuries and generations of prisoners who had there suc­
ceeded each other, so many hearts broken by despair, so many
tears of rage, and heads dashed against the stones. What! had
nothing left a trace I At most, some poor inscription, scratched

218
 France in Arms
with a nail, and illegible? Cruel envy of time, the accomplice
of tyranny, conniving with it to efface every vestige of the
victims!
They could see nothing, but they listened. There were cer­
tainly some sounds, groans, and hollow moans. Was it imagi­
nation? Why, everybody heard them. Were they to believe that
wretched beings were still buried at the bottom of some secret
dungeon known only to the governor who had perished? The
district of the lIe Saint-Louis, and others, demanded that they
should seek the cause of those lamentable groans. Once, twice,
nay, several times, the people returned to the charge; in spite
of all these searches, they could not make up their minds : they
were full of trouble and uneasiness for those unfortunates,
perhaps 11uried alive.
Then again, if they were not prisoners, might they not be
enemies? Was there not some communication, under the fau­
bourg, between the subterraneous passages of the Bastille and
those of Vincennes? Might not gunpowder be passed from one
fortress to the other, and execute what De Launey had con­
ceived the idea of doing, to blow up the Bastille, and over­
whelm and crush the faubourg of liberty?
Public searches were made, and a solemn and authentic in­
quiry, in order to tranquillise the minds of the people. The
imagination then transported its dream elsewhere. It trans­
ferred its plot and its fears to the opposite side of Paris, into
those immense cavities whence our monuments were dug, those
abysses whence we have drawn the Louvre, Notre Dame, and
other churches. There, in 1786, had been cast, without there
being any appearance of it ( so vast are those caverns ) all who
had died in Paris for a thousand years, a terrible mass of dead
bodies, which, during that year, were transported by night in
funeral cars, preceded by the clergy, to seek, from the Inno­
cents to the Tombe Issoire, a final repose and complete oblivion.
Those dead bodies were calling for others, and it was doubt­
less there that a volcano was preparing; the mine, from the
Pantheon to the sky, was going to blow up Paris, and letting
219
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OcrOBER 6. 1 7 8 9

it fall again. would confound the shattered and disfigured mem­

bers of the living and the dead,-a chaos of palpitating limbs,
dead bodies, and skeletons.
Those means of extermination seemed unnecessary; famine
was sufficient. A bad year was followed by a worse; the little
grain that had grown up about Paris was trodden, spoilt. or
eaten by the numerous cavalry that had been collected. Nay.
the grain disappeared without horse-soldiers. People saw, or
fancied they saw, armed bands that came by night and cut the
unripe grain. Foulon, though dead, seemed to return on pur­
pose to perform to the letter what he had promised: "Mow
France:' To cut down the green grain and destroy it in the
second year of famine, was also to mow down men.
Terror went on spreading; the couriers, repeating those
rumours, spread it every day from one end of the kingdom to
the other. They had not seen the brigands, but others had;
they were at such and such places, marching forwards, numer­
ous, and armed to the teeth; they would arrive probably that
night or on the morrow without fail. At such a place, they had
cut down the grain in broad daylight, as the municipality of
Soissons wrote in despair to the National Assembly, demanding
assistance; a whole army of brigands were said to be marching
against that town. They hunted for them; but they had dis­
appeared in the mists of evening or in the morning fog.
What is more real, is, that to the dreadful scourge of famine,
some had conceived the idea of adding another, which makes
us shudder, when we do but remember the hundred years of
warfare which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, made
a cemetery of our unfortunate country, They wanted to bring
the English into France. This has been denied; yet why? It is
more than likely, since it was solicited at a subsequent period;
attempted, and foiled at Quiberon.
But then. the question was not to bring their fleet on a shore
difficult of access and destitute of defence, but to establish
them firmly in a good, defensible place, to hand over to them
the naval arsenal, wherein France, for a whole century, had
expended her millions, her labours, and her energies; the head,
220
 France in Arms
the prow of our great national vessel, and the stumbling-block
of England. The question was to give up Brest.
Ever since France had assisted in the deliverance of Amer­
ica, and cut the British empire asunder, England had desired
not its misery, but its ruin and utter destruction; that some
strong autumnal tide would raise the ocean from its bed, and
cover with one grand flood all the land from Calais to the
Vosges, the Pyrenees, and the Alps.
But, there was something still more desirable to be seen,
which was, that this new inundation should be one of blood,
the blood of france, drawn by herself from her own veins, that
she should commit suicide and tear out her intestines.
The conspiracy of Brest was a good beginning. Only, there
was reason to fear that England, by making friends with the
villains who were selling her their native land, might unite
against her all France reconciled in one common indignation,
and that there should be no longer any party.
Another thing might have sufficed to restrain the English
government, which is, that, in the first moments, England, in
spite of her hate, smiled upon our Revolution. She had no
suspicion of its extent; in that great French and European
movement, which was no less than the advent of eternal right,
she fancied she perceived an imitation of her own petty insular
and egotistical revolution of the seventeenth century. She ap­
plauded France as a mother encourages the child that is trying
to walk after her. A strange sort of mother, who was not quite
sure whether she would rather the child should walk or break
its neck.
Therefore, England withstood the temptation of Brest. She
was virtuous, and revealed the thing to the ministers of Louis
XV!., without mentioning the names of the parties. In that
half revelation, she found an immense advantage, that of per­
plexing France, to complete the measure of distrust and suspi­
cion, have a terrible hold on that feeble government, and take
n mortgage upon it. There was every chance of its not inquiring
IIcriously into the plot, fearful of finding more than it wished
nnd of smiting its own friends. And if it did not inquire, if it

221
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kept the secret to itself, England was able at any time to unveil
the awful mystery. It kept that sword suspended over the
head of Louis XVI.
Dorset, the English ambassador, was an agreeable man; he
never stirred from Versailles; many thought he had found
favour in the eyes of the queen, and had been well received.
Nevertheless, this did not prevent him, after the taking of the
Bastille, the importance of which he fully appreciated, as well
as the weight of the blow that the king had received, from
seizing every opportunity of ruining Louis, as far as lay in his
power.
A rather equivocal letter from Dorset to the Count d'Artois
having been intercepted by chance, he wrote to the minister
that they were wrong in suspecting him of having in the least
influenced the disturbances of Paris; far from it, added he
quietly, your Excellency knows well the eagerness I evinced in
imparting to you the infamous conspiracy of Brest, in the begin­
ning of June, the horror felt by my court, and the renewed
assurance of its sincere attachment for the king and the nation.
And then he entreated the minister to communicate his letter
to the National Assembly.
In other words, he begged him to hang himself. His letter
at the 26th of July stated, and published to the world, that the
court, for two whole months, had kept the secret, without
either acting or adopting, apparently reserving that plot as
a last weapon in case of civil war,-the dagger of mercy
( poignard de misericorde ) , as they called it in the middle
ages, which the warrior always kept, so that, when vanquished,
thrown on the ground, and his sword broken, he might, whilst
begging his life, assassinate his conqueror.
The minister Montmorin, dragged by the English into broad
daylight, before the National Assembly, had but a very poor
explanation to give, namely, that, not having the names of the
guilty parties, they had been unable to prosecute. The As­
sembly did not insist; but the blow was struck, and was but so
much the heavier. It was felt by all France.
Dorset's affirmation, which might have been believed to be

222
 France in Arms
false, a fiction, a brand cast at random by our enemies, ap­
peared confirmed by the imprudence of the officers in the
garrison of Brest, who, on the news of the taking of the Bastille,
made a demonstration of intrenching themselves in the castle,
menacing to subject the town to martial law, if it should stir.
This it instantly did, taking up arms, and overpowering the
guard of the port. The soldiers and sailors, bribed in vain by
their officers, sided with the people. The noble corps of the
marine was very aristocratic, but certainly anything but Eng­
lish. Suspicions nevertheless extended even to them, and even
further, to the nobles of Brittany. In vain were the latter indig­
nant, and vainly did they protest their loyalty.
This irritation carried to excess made people credit the foul­
est plots. The prolonged obstinacy of the nobility in remaining
separate from the Third in the Estates-General, the bitter,
desperate dispute which had arisen on that occasion in every
town, large or small, in villages and hamlets, often in the same
house, had inculcated an indelible idea in the people, that the
noble was an enemy.
A considerable portion of the higher nobility, illustrious and
memorable in history, did what was necessary to prove that
this idea was false, not at all fearful of the Revolution, and be­
lieving that, do what it might, it could not destroy history. But
the others, and smaller gentry, less proud of their rank, more
vain-glorious or more frank, moreover piqued every day by the
new rising of the people whom they saw approaching nearer
them, and who incommoded them more, declared themselves
boldly the enemies of the Revolution.
The new nobles and the Parlement people were the most
furious; the magistrates had become more warlike than the
military; they spoke of nothing but battles, and vowed death,
blood, and ruin. Those among them who had been till then
the vanguard in opposing the wishes of the court, who had the
most relished popularity, the love and enthusiasm of the public,
were astounded and enraged, to see themselves suddenly in­
different or hated. They hated with a boundless hate. They
often sought the cause of that very sudden change in the artful

223
 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89

machination of their personal enemies, and political enmities

were still further envenomed by ancient family feuds. At
QUimper, one Kersalaun, a member of the Parlement of Brit­
tany, one of the friends of Chalotais, and very lately the ardent
champion of parliamentary opposition, becoming suddenly a
still more ardent royalist and aristocrat, would walk gravely
among the hooting crowds, who, however, dared not touch
him, and naming his enemies aloud, used to say : "I shall judge
them shortly, and wash my hands in their blood." 25
One of these Parlement people, M. Memmay de Quincey, a
noble seigneur in Franche-Comte, did not confine himself to
threats. Envenomed probably by local animosity, and with his
mind in a fever of frenzy, urged likewise perhaps by that fatal
propensity of imitation which causes one infamous crime very
often to engender many others, he realized preCisely what De
Launey had wanted to do,-what the people of Paris believed
they had still to fear. He gave out at Vesoul, and in the neigh­
bourhood, that by way of rejoicings for the good news, he
would give a feast and keep open house. Citizens, peasants,
soldiers, all arrive, drink, and dance. The earth opens, and a
mine bursts, shatters, shivers, and destroys at random; the
ground is strewn with bleeding members. The whole was at­
tested by the cure, who confessed a few of the wounded who
survived, attested by the gendarmerie, and brought on the
25th of July before the National Assembly. The Assembly being
exasperated, obtained leave from the king that every power
should be written to, in order to demand that the guilty should
be delivered Up.26

• Duchatellier, La Revolution en Bretagne, i., p . 175.

• Later, M. de Memmay was restored on the pleading of M. Courvoisier.
He maintained that the accident had been occasioned by the barrel of
gunpowder, left by chance beside some drunken men. Three things had
contributed to create another suspicion: 1st. M. de Memmay's absence on
the day of the feast; he was unwilling to be present, he said, wishing to
give full scope to the rejoicings; 2ndly, his entire disappearance; 3rdly, the
Parlement, of which he was a former member, would not allow the
ordinary tribunals to make an inquiry, called the affair before a higher
court, and reserved the trial to itself.

224
 France in Arms
An opinion was gaining ground and growing stronger, that
the brigands who used to cut down the grain, in order to starve
the people, were not foreigners, as had been first supposed,
not Italians or Spaniards, as Marseilles believed in May, but
Frenchmen, enemies to France, furious enemies of the Revolu­
tion, their agents, their servants, and bands whom they paid.27
The horror of them increased, everybody believing he had
exterminating demons about him. In the morning, they would
run to the field, to see whether it was not laid waste. In the
evening, they were uneasy, fearing they might be burned in
the night. At the very name of these brigands, mothers would
snatch up their children and conceal them.
Where then was that royal protection, on the faith of which
the people had so long slept? Where that old guardianship
which had so well re-assured them that they had remained
minors, and had, as it were, grown up without ceasing to be
children? They began to perceive that, no matter what sort
of man Louis XVI. might be, royalty was the intimate friend
of the enemy.
The king's troops, which, at other times, would have ap­
peared a protection, were preCisely a subject of dread. Who
were at their head? The more insolent of the nobles, those who
the least concealed their hate. They used to excite, to bribe
when necessary the soldiers against the people, and to intoxi­
cate their Germans; they seemed to be preparing an attack.
Man was obliged to rely on himself, and on himself alone.
In that complete absence of authOrity and public protection, his

111 The historians all affirm, without the least proof, that these alarms and
accusations, all that great commotion, proceeded from Paris, from such
lind such persons. Doubtless, the leaders influenced the Palais Royal; the
Pulais Royal, Paris; and Paris, France. It is not less inexact to attribute
Ilverything to the Duke of Orleans, like most of the royalists; or to Duport,
like M. Droz; to Mirabeau, like Montgaillard, &c. See the very wise answer
of Alexandre de Lameth. What he ought to have added is, that Mirabeau,
1>1Iport, the Lameths, the Duke of Orleans, and most of the men of that
p!lriod, less energetic than is believed, were delighted in being thought to
possess so much money, such vast influence. They replied but little to such
Al'clIsations, smiled modestly, leaving such to believe as would, that they
wIlre great villains.
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 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

duty as a father of a family constituted him the defender of his

household. He became, in his house, the magistrate, the king,
the law, and the sword to execute the law, agreeably to the old
proverb: "The poor man in his home is king."
The hand of Justice, the sword of Justice: that king has his
scythe in default of gun, his mattock, or his iron fork. Now let
those brigands comel But he does not wait for them. Neigh­
bours unite, villagers unite, and go armed into the country to
see whether those villains dare come. They proceed and be­
hold a band. Do not fire however. Those are the people of
another village, friends and relations, who are also hunting
about.28
France was armed in a week. The National Assembly learn
every moment the miraculous progress of that Revolution; they
find themselves, in an instant, at the head of the most numerous
army ever seen since the crusades. Every courier that arrived
astonished and almost frightened them. One day, somebody
came and said: "You have two hundred thousand men." The
next day, another said: "You have five hundred thousand men,"
Others arrived: "A million men have armed this week,-two
millions, three millions."
And all that great armed multitude, rising suddenly from the
furrow, asked the Assembly what they were to do.
Where then is the old army? It seems to have disappeared.
The new one, being so numerous, must have stifled it without
fighting, merely by crowding together.
People have said France is a soldier, and so she has been
from that day. On that day a new race rose from the earth,­
children born with teeth to tear cartridges, and with strong
indefatigable limbs to march from Cairo to the Kremlin, and
with the admirable gift of being able to march and fight with­
out eating, of having only "their good spirits to feed and clothe
them."
Relying on their good spirits, joy and hope! Who then has
a right to hope, if it be not he who bears in his bosom the
enfranchisement of the world?

os Montiosier, Memoires, i., p. 233. Toulongeon, i., p. 56, &c., &c.

226
 France in Arms
Did France exist before that time? It might be denied. She
became at once a sword and a principle. To be thus armed is
to be. What has neither idea nor strength, exists but on
sufferance.
They were in fact; and they wanted to be by right.
The barbarous middle ages did not admit their existence,
denying them as men, and considering them only as things.
That period taught, in its Singular school-divinity, that souls
redeemed at the same price are all worth the blood of a God;
then debased those souls, thus exalted, to brutes, fastened them
�
to the earth, adjudged them to ete al bondage, and annihi­
lated liberty.
This lawless right they called conquest, that is to say, ancient
injustice. Conquest, would it say, made the nobles, the lords.
"If that be all," said Sieyes, "we will be conquerors in our turn."
Feudal right alleged, moreover, those hypocritical acts,
wherein it was supposed that man stipulated against himself:
wherein the weaker party, through fear or force, gave him­
self up without reserving anything, gave away the future, the
possible, his children unborn, and future generations. Those
guilty parchments, a disgrace to nature, had been sleeping
with impunity for ages in the archives of the castles.
Much was said about the grand example given by Louis
XVI., who had enfranchised the last serfs of his domains. An
imperceptible sacrifice that cost the treasury but little, and
which had scarcely any imitator in France.
What! it will be said, were the seigneurs in '89 hard-hearted.
merciless men?
By no means. They were a very varied class of men, but
generally feeble and physically decayed, frivolous, sensual, and
sensitive, so sensitive that they could not look closely at the
unfortunate.29 They saw them in idyls, operas, stories, and
romances, which caused them to shed tears of compassion; they
wept with Bernardin Saint-Pierre, with Gr<�try and Sedaine,
Berquin and Florian; they found merit in their tears, and would
say to themselves : "I have a good heart."

.. This is confessed by M. De Maitre, in his Considerations sur la

'Uvolution ( 1796 ) .
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Thus weak-hearted, easy, open-handed, and incapable of

withstanding the temptation of spending, they required
money, much money, more than their fathers. Hence the
necessity of deriving large profits from their lands, of handing
the peasant over to men of money, stewards, and agents. The
more feeling the masters possessed, the more generous and
philanthropic they were at Paris, and the more their vassals
died of hunger; they lived less at their castles, in order not to
see this misery, which would have been too painful for their
sensibility.
Such was in general that feeble, worn-out, effeminate society.
It willingly spared itself the sight of oppression, and oppressed
only by proxy. However, there were not wanting provincial
nobles, who prided themselves on maintaining in their castles
the rude feudal traditions, and governed their family and their
vassals harshly. Let us merely mention here the celebrated
Ami des hommes, Mirabeau's father, the enemy of his family,
who would lock up all his household, wife, sons, and daughters,
people the state-prisons, have law-suits with his neighbours,
and reduce his people to despair. He relates that, on giving a
f�te, he was himself astonished at the moody, savage aspect of
his peasants. I can easily believe it; those poor people were
probably afraid lest the Ami des hommes should take them for
his children.
We must not be surprised if the peasant, having once taken
up arms, made use of them, and had his revenge. Several lords
had cruelly vexed their districts, who remembered it when the
time had come. One of them had walled up the village well,
and monopolised it for his own use. Another had seized on the
common lands. They perished. Several other murders are
recorded, which, doubtless, were acts of revenge.
The general arming of the towns was imitated in the rural
districts. The taking of the Bastille encouraged them to attad.
their own bastilles. The only subject of astonishment, when
one knows what they underwent, is, that they began so late.
Sufferings and promises of revenge had accumulated by delay,
and been stored up to a frightful height. When that monstrous

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 France in Arms
avalanche, long pent up in a state of ice and snow, suddenly
thawed, such a mass gave way, that everything was over­
whelmed in its fall.
It would be necessary to distinguish, in that immense scene
of confusion what appertains to the wandering bands of pil­
lagers,-people driven about by famine, from what the domi­
ciled peasants, the communes, did against their lord.
The evil has been carefully collected, but not so the good.
Several lords found defenders in their vassals : for instance, the
Marquis de Montfermeil, who, )n the preceding year, had
borrowed a hundred thousand francs in order to relieve them.
Nay, the most furious sometimes stopped short in presence of
weak adversaries. In Dauphine, for instance, a castle was
respected, because they found in it only a sick lady, in bed,
with her children; they merely destroyed the feudal archives.
Generally, the peasant marched at once to the castle to de­
mand arms; then, more daring, he burned the acts and titles.
The greater part of those instruments of bondage, those which
were the most immediate and oppressive, were much oftener
in the register offices, with the attorneys and notaries. The
peasant rarely went there. He preferred attacking the antiq­
uities'-the original charters. Those primitive titles, on fine
parchments, adorned with triumphant seals, remained in the
treasury of the castle to be shown on grand days. They were
stored away in sumptuous cases, in velvet portfolios at the bot­
tom of an oaken ark,-the glory of the turret. No important
feudal manor but showed, near its feudal dove-cote, its tower
of archives.
Our country people went straight to the tower. There, in their
estimation, was the Bastille, tyranny, pride, insolence, and the
contempt of mankind; for many centuries, that tower had
seemed to sneer at the valley, sterilizing, blighting, and
oppressing it with its deadly shadow. A guardian of the country
in barbarous times, standing there as a sentinel, it became
later an object of horror. In 1789, what was it but the odious
witness of bondage, a perpetual outrage, to repeat every
morning to the man trudging to his labour, the everlasting

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humiliation of his race! 'Work, work on, son of serfs, earn for
another's profit; work, and without hope."
Every morning and every evening, for a thousand years, per­
haps more, that tower had been cursed. A day came when it
was to fall.
o glorious day, how long you have been in coming! How
long our fathers expected and dreamed of you in vain! The
hope that their sons would at length behold you, was alone
able to support them; otherwise, they would no longer have
consented to live; they would have died in their agony. And
what has enabled me, their companion labouring beside them
in the furrow of history, and drinking their bitter cup, to
revive the suffering middle ages, and yet not die of grief? Was
it not you, 0 glorious day, first day of liberty? I have lived in
order to relate your history!

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 IV

The Rights of Man

.ABOVE all that great commotion, in a region

more serene, the National Assembly, without allowing itself to
be molested by noise and clamour, was buried in thought and
meditation.
The violence of party spirit which had divided it, seemed
awed and restrained by the great discussion with which its
labours began. Then people plainly saw how profoundly that
aristocracy, the natural adversary of the interests of the Revolu­
tion, had been wounded in its ideas. They were all French­
men, after all, all sons of the eighteenth century and philosophy.
Either side of the Assembly, preserving its opposition, never­
theless entered upon the solemn examination of the declaration
of rights with due solemnity.
The question was not a petition of rights, as in England,
an appeal to the written law, to contested charters, or to the
true or false liberties of the Middle Ages.
The question was not, as in America, to go seeking from
state to state the principles which each of them acknowledged,
to sum up and generalize them, and construct with them ( a
posteriori ) the total formula which the confederation would
accept.
The question was to give from above, by virtue of a sover­
eign, imperial, pontifical authority, the credo of the new age.
What authority? Reason, discussed by a whole century of phi­
losophers, profound thinkers, accepted by every mind and

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penetrating social order, and lastly, fixed and reduced to a

formula by the logicians of the Constituent Assembly. The
question was to impose as authority on reason what reason had
found at the bottom of free inquiry.
It was the philosophy of the age, its legislator, its Moses,
descending from the mount, with the rays of glory on its brow,
and bearing the tables of the law in its hands.
There have been many disputations for and against the
declaration of rights, but nothing to the point.
First of all, we have nothing to say to such as Bentham and
Dumont, to utilitarians and quacks, who acknowledge no law
but the written law, who know not that right is right only so
far as it is conformable to right, to absolute reason. Mere
attorneys, nothing more, in the garb of philosophers; what
right have they to despise practical men? Like them, who
write the law upon paper and parchment, we would engrave
ours on tables of eternal right, on the rock that bears the world:
invariable justice and indestructible equity.
To answer our enemies, let us confine ourselves to them and
their contradictions. They sneer at the Declaration, and submit
to it; they wage war against it for thirty years, promising their
people the liberties which it consecrates. When conquerors in
1814, the first word they address to France they borrow from
the grand formula which she laid down.30 Conquerors did I
say? No, conquered rather, and conquered in their own hearts;
since their most personal act, the treaty of the Holy Alliance,
reproduces the right that they have trampled on.
The Declaration of Rights attests the Supreme Being, the
guarantee of human morality. It breathes the sentiment of duty.
Duty, though not expressed, is no less everywhere present;
everywhere you perceive its austere gravity. A few words bor­
rowed from the language of Condillac, do not prevent us from
recognising in the ensemble the true genius of the Revolution,­
a Roman gravity and a stoic spirit.

.. And very voluntarily borrowed; since it was done by all the kings of
Europe at the head of eight hundred thousand soldiers. They acknowledge
that every people has the right of choosing its government. See Alexandre
de Lameth, p. 121.

232
 The Rights of Man
Right was the first thing to be spoken of at such a moment,S1
it was rights that it was necessary to attest and claim for the
people. People had believed till then that they had only duties.
However high and general such an act may be, and made to
last for ever, can one reasonably expect it to bear no marks of
the troublous period of its birth, no sign of the storm?
The first word was uttered three days before the 14th of July
and the taking 6f the Bastille; the last, a few days before the
people brought the king to Paris ( the 6th of October ), A sub­
lime apparition of right between two storms.
No circumstances were ever more terrible, nor any discus­
sion more majestic or more serious, even in the midst of emo­
tion. The crisis afforded specious arguments to both parties.
Take care, said one, you are teaching man his rights, when
he perceives them but too plainly himself; you are transporting
him to a high mountain, and showing him his boundless empire.
What will happen, when, on descending, he will find himself
stopped by the special laws that you are going to make, when
he will meet with boundaries at every step? 32
There was more than one answer, but certainly the strongest
was the state of affairs. The crisis was then at its height, and
the combat still doubtful. It was impossible to find too high a
mountain whereon to fix the standard. It was necessary to
place that Hag, if possible, so high that the whole world might
behold it, and that its tricolor streamer might rally the nations.
Recognised as the common standard of humanity, it became
invincible.
There are still people who think that great discussion excited
and armed the people, that it put the torch in their hand, and
promoted warfare and conflagration. The first stumbling-block
to that argument is, that the acts of violence began previous to
the discussion. The peasants did not need metaphysical formula
in order to rise in arms. Even afterwards it had but little in­
fluence. What armed the rural districts was, as we have already

81 Of right and liberty alone: nothing more at first in that charter of

enfranchisement. I explain myself more fully in the Introduction, and in
the other volumes.
os Discours de Malouet.
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said, the necessity of putting down pillage; it was the contagion

of cities taking up arms; and, above all, it was the frenzy and
enthusiasm caused by the taking of the Bastille.
The grandeur of that spectacle and the variety of its terrible
incidents troubled the vision of history. It has mixed together
and confounded three distinct and even opposite facts which
were taking place at the same time.
1st. The excursions of the famished vagrants, who cut down
the grain at night, and cleared the earth like locusts. Those
bands, when strong, would break open lone houses, farms, and
even castles.
2ndly. The peasant, in order to repel those bands, was in
need of arms, and demanded and exacted them from the
castles. Once armed and master, he destroyed the charters, in
which he beheld an instrument of oppression. Woe to detested
nobles! Then they did not attack his parchments alone, but his
person also.
3rdly. The cities, the arming of which had brought about that
of the rural districts, were obliged to repress them. The Na­
tional Guards, who then had nothing aristocratic about them,
since they included everybody, marched forth to restore
order; they went to the succour of those castles which they
detested. They often brought the peasants back to town as
prisoners, but soon released them. 33
I speak of the peasants domiciled in the neighbourhood. As
for the bands of lawless strollers, pillagers, and brigands, as they
were called, the tribunals, and even the municipalities, often
treated them with extreme severity: a great number of them
were put to death. Security was at length restored, and
agriculture protected. If the depredations had continued.
cultivation must have ceased, and France would have been
starved to death the follOWing year.
A strange situation for an Assembly to be discussing, cal.
culating, weighing syllables, at the summit of a world in Hames.

.. All this is very much embroiled by historians, according to their

passions. I have consulted old men, especially my illustrious and venerable
friends M M . Beranger and de Lamennais.

234
 The Rights of Man
Danger on the right and on the left. To repress the disorder,
they have, one would think, but one means : to restore the an­
cient order, which is but a worse disorder.
It is commonly supposed that they were impatient to lay
hold of power; that is true of certain of the members, but false,
very false, with respect to the great majority. The character of
that Assembly, considered in the mass, its originality, like that
of the period, was a singular faith in the power of ideas. It
firmly believed that truth, once found, and. written in the
formula of laws, was invincible. It would require but two
months ( such was the calculation, however, of very serious
men ) ; in two months the constitution was made; it would, by
its omnipotent virtue, overawe authority and the people : the
Revolution was then completed, and the world was to bloom
again.
Meanwhile, the position of affairs was truly singular;
AuthOrity was in one place destroyed, in another very strong;
organised on such a point, in complete dissolution on another,
feeble for general and regular action, though formidable still to
corruption, intrigue, and perhaps to violence. The accounts of
those latter years, which appeared later, sufficiently show
what resources were possessed by the court, and how they em­
ployed them,-how they tampered with the press, the news­
papers, and even with the Assembly. Emigration was beginning,
and with it an appeal to foreigners,-to the enemY,-a persever­
ing system of treason and calumny against France.
The Assembly felt it was sitting upon a volcano. For the
general safety, it was obliged to descend from the heights
where it was making laws, and take a nearer view of what
was passing on the earth. A stupendous descent I Solon,
Lycurgus, or Moses, debased to the miserable cares of public
surveillance, forced to watch over spies, and become an in­
spector of policeI
The first hint was given by Dorset's letters to Count d'Artois,
by his still more alarming explanations, and the notice of the
conspiracy of Brest, so long concealed by the court. On the
27th of July, Duport proposed to create a committee of inquiry,

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composed of four persons. He uttered these ominous words :

"Allow me to refrain from entering into any discussion. Plots
are forming. There must not be any question of sending before
the tribunals. We must acquire horrible and indispensable in­
formation."
The number four reminded them too much of the three
inquisitors of State. It was therefore raised to twelve.
The spirit of the Assembly, in spite of its necessities, was by
no means one of police and inquisition. A very serious discus­
sion took place as to whether the secrecy of letters was to be
violated, whether they ought to open that suspected corre­
spondence, addressed to a prince, who, by his precipitate Hight,
declared himself an enemy. Gouy d'Arcy and Robespierre
wished them to be opened. But the Assembly, on the opinion
of Chapelier, Mirabeau, and even of Duport, who had just de­
manded a sort of State inquisition, magnanimously declared
the secrecy of letters inviolable, refused to open them, and
caused them to be restored.
This decision restored courage to the partisans of the court.
They made three bold attempts. On Sieyes being proposed for
president, they opposed to him the eminent legist of Rouen,
Thouret, a man much esteemed, and very agreeable to the
Assembly. His merit in their estimation was his haVing voted,
on the 17th of June, against the title of National Assembly,
that simple formula of Sieyes which contained the Revolution.
To bring into opposition these two men, or rather those two
systems, in the question of the presidency, was putting the
Revolution on trial, and attempting to see whether it could not
be made to retrograde to the 16th of June.
The second attempt was to prevent the trial of Besenval.
That general of the queen against Paris had been arrested in
his Hight. To judge and condemn him was to condemn also the
orders according to which he had acted. Necker, in returning,
had seen him on his journey, and given him hopes. It was not
difficult to obtain from his kind heart the promise of a solemn
appeal to the city of Paris.84 To obtain a general amnesty, in the

.. He says expressly that he was speaking in the name of the king. See
his speech, Hist. de La Revolution, par deux amis de La liberte, ii., p. 235.
236
 The Rights of Man
joy of his return, end the Revolution, restore tranquillity, and
appear as after the deluge, the rainbow in the heavens, was
most charming to the vanity of Necker.
He went to the Hotel-de-Ville, and obtained everything of
those who happened to be there,-electors, representatives of
districts, simple citizens, a mixed, confused, multitude, with­
out any legal character. The joy of the people was extreme, both
in the hall ' and in the public square. He showed himself at the
window, with his wife on his right, and his d�ughter on his left,
both weeping and kissing his hands. His daughter, Madame
de Stael, fainted with delight.35
That done, nothing was done. The districts of Paris justly
protested; this clemency filched from an Assembly lost in
emotion, granted in the name of Paris by a crowd without
authority, a national question, settled at once by a single town,
-by a few of its inhabitants,-and that at the moment the
National Assembly was creating a committee of inquiry and
preparing a tribunal,-this was unprecedented and audacious.
In spite of Lally and Mounier, who defended the amnesty,
Mirabeau, Bamave, and Robespierre obtained a decision for
a trial. The court were again defeated; however, they had one
great consolation, worthy of their usual wisdom : they had com­
promised Necker, and destroyed the popularity of the only man
who had any chance of saving them.
The court failed in the affair of the Presidency. Thouret,
alarmed at the exasperation of the people, and the menaces of
Paris, retired.
A third and far more serious attempt of the royalist party
was made by Malouet; this was one of the strangest and most
dangerous trials that the Revolution had met with in her
perilous route, where her enemies were every day laying
stumbling-blocks, and digging pits at every step.
The reader may remember the day, when, before the Orders
had yet united, the clergy had gone hypocritically to show the
Third Estate the black bread which the people had to eat,
llnd to engage them, in the name of charity, to lay aside useless

• StaeI, COnsiderations, 1st part, cn. xxiii. See also Necker, t. vi., ix.
237
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89

disputes, in order to undertake with them the welfare of the

poor. This is precisely what was done by Malouet, in other
respects an honourable man, but a blind partisan of a royalty
then all but destroyed.
He proposed to organise a vast poor-relief system, bureaus
for relief and work, the first funds of which should be furnished
by the establishments of charity, the rest by a general tax on all,
and by a loan-a noble and honourable proposal, countenanced
at such a moment by pressing necessity, but giving the royalist
party a formidable political initiative. It placed in the hands
of the king a three-fold fund, the last portion of which, the loan,
was unlimited; it made him the leader of the poor, perhaps the
general of the beggars against the Assembly. It found him
dethroned, and placed him upon a throne, far more absolute,
more solid, by making him king of famine, reigning by what is
most imperious, food and bread.
What became of liberty?
For the thing to create less alarm, and appear a mere
trifle, Malouet lowered the number of the poor to four hundred
thousand,-a figure evidently false.
If he did not succeed, he nevertheless derived a great ad­
vantage, that of giving his party, the king's, a fine colouring in
the eyes of the people,-the glory of charity. The majority,
which would be too much compromised by refusing, was about
compulsorily to follow and obey, and to place that great popu­
lar machine in the hands of the king.
Malouet proposed, lastly, to consult the Chambers of Com­
merce and the manufacturing towns, in order to aid the work­
men, "to augment work and wages."
A sort of opposition bidding was about to be established be­
tween the two parties. The question was to obtain or to bring
back the people. The proposal of giving to the indigent could
only be met by one to authorise workmen to pay taxes no
longer,-one, at least, to authorise country labourers no longer
to pay the most odious of taxes, the feudal tributes.
Those rights were in great jeopardy. In order to destroy them
the more effectually and annihilate the acts by which they were

238
 The Rights of Man
consecrated, they burned even the castles. The large proprie­
tors, who were sitting in the Assembly, were full of uneasiness.
A property so detested and so dangerous, which compromised
all the rest of their fortune, began to appear to them a burden.
To save those rights, it was necessary either to sacrifice a part,
or to defend them by force of arms, rally all the friends, clients,
and domestics they might possess, and begin a terrible war
'
against the whole people.
Except an inconsiderable number of old men who had served
in the Seven Years War, and young men who had taken a part
in that of America, our nobles had taken part in no campaigns
save garrison maneuvers. They were, however, individually
brave in private quarrels. The petty nobles of Vendee and
Brittany, till then so unknown, suddenly stood forth and
showed themselves heroic. Many nobles and emigrants dis­
tinguished themselves also in the great wars of the empire.
Perhaps, if they had acted in concert and rallied together,
they might for some time have arrested the Revolution. It
found them dispersed, isolated, and weak in their loneliness.
Another cause of their weakness, very honourable for them,
was, that many of them were at heart against themselves,­
against the old feudal tyranny, and that they were at the same
time its heirs and its enemies; educated in the generous ideas
of the philosophy of the time, they applauded that marvellous
resuscitation of mankind, and offered up prayers for it, even
though it cost their own ruin.
The richest seigneur in feudal properties, after the king, was
the Duke d'AiguilIon.36 He possessed royal prerogatives in
two provinces of the South : all of odious origin, and which his
grand-uncle Richelieu had conferred upon himself. His father,
the colleague of Terray, minister of bankruptcy, had been
despised even more than he was detested. The young Duke
d'AiguilIon felt the more keenly the necessity of making him­
self popular; he was, with Duport and Chapelier, one of the
leaders of the Breton Club. There he made the generous and

.. Alex. de Lameth, Histoire de l'Assemblee Constituante, i., p. 96.

239
 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

shrewd proposition of building a backfire in that great confla­

gration, to throw down a part of the building in order to save
the rest; he wished, not to sacrifice the feudal rights ( many
nobles had no other fortune ) , but to offer to the peasant to
purchase his exemption at a moderate price.
Viscount de Noailles was not at the club, but he got scent of
the proposal, and filched away the honour of being the first
proposer. A younger son, and possessing no feudal rights, he
was still more generous than the Duke d'Aiguillon. He pro­
posed not only to permit a redemption from rights, but to
abolish without redemption seigneurial statute-labour ( cor­
vees ) and other personal bondage.
This was considered as an attack, a threat,-nothing more.
About two hundred deputies applauded the proposition. They
had just read a projected decree in which the Assembly
reminded people of the duty of respecting properties, of paying
rent, &c.
The Duke d'Aiguillon produced a very different effect. He
said that in voting, on the preceding evening, rigorous meas­
ures against those who attacked the castles, a scruple had
arisen in his mind, and he had asked himself whether those
men were really guilty. And he continued to declaim warmly,
violently, against feudal tyranny, that is to say, against himself.
That 4th of August, at eight in the evening, was a solemn
hour in which feudality, after a reign of a thousand years, ab­
dicates, abjures, and condemns itself.
Feudality has spoken. It is now the tum of the people. M. Le
Cuen de Kerengal, a Bas-Breton, in the costume of his region,
an unknown deputy, who never spoke either before or after,
ascends the tribune, and reads some twenty lines of an accusing,
menacing character. He reproached the Assembly with singular
energy and authority for not having prevented the burning of
the castles, by breaking, said he, the cruel arms they contain,­
those iniquitous acts which debase man to the brute, which
yoke man and beast to the plough, which outrage decency.
"Let us be just; let them bring to us those titles, monuments of
the barbarity of our fathers. Who among us would not make an

240
 The Rights of Man
expiatory pile to burn those infamous parchments? You have
not a moment to lose; a delay of one day occasions new con­
flagrations; the downfall of empires is announced with far less
uproar. Would you give laws only to France in ruins?" This
made a deep impression. Another Breton did but weaken it by
calling to mind several strange, cruel, incredible rights : the
right that the lord of the manor had had to cut open the bellies
of two of his vassals on returning from hunting, and of thrusting
his feet into their bleeding bodies.
A provincial nobleman, M. de Foucault, making an attack
on the great lords who had begun this lamentable discussion,
demanded that, before anything else, the great should sacrifice
their pensions and salaries,-the prodigious donations they drew
from the king, doubly ruining the people, both by the money
they extorted, and by the neglect into which the province fell,
all the rich following their example, deserting their lands, and
crowding about the court. MM. de Guiche and de Montemart
believed the attack to be personal, and replied sharply that the
persons alluded to would sacrifice everything.
Enthusiasm gained ground. M. de Beauharnais proposed that
penalties should henceforth be the same for all, nobles and
plebeians, and employments open to all. One asked for gratui­
tous justice; another, for the abolition of seigneurial justice,
the inferior agents of which were the scourge of the rural
districts.
M. de Custine said that the conditions of redemption pro­
posed by the Duke d'Aiguillon were difficult, that those dif­
ficulties ought to be removed, and succour granted to the
peasant.
M. de la Rochefoucault, extending the benevolence of
France to the human race, demanded an amelioration for
negro slavery.
Never did the French character shine forth more charmingly
in its benevolence, vivacity, and generous enthusiasm. These
men who had required so much time and study to discuss the
Declaration of Rights, counting and weighing every syllable,
having now an appeal made to their disinterestedness, replied

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unhesitatingly; they trod money under foot, and those rights

of nobility which they loved more than money. A grand ex­
ample which the expiring nobility bequeathed to our citizen
aristocracy I
Amid the general enthusiasm and emotion, there was also a
proud carelessness, the vivacity of a noble gamester who takes
delight in flinging down his gold. All those sacrifices were
made by rich and poor, with equal good humour, sometimes
with archness ( like Foucault's motion ) , and lively sallies.
"And what have I to offer?" said Count de Virieu. "At least
the sparrow of Catullus." He proposed the destruction of the
destroying pigeons, of the feudal dove-cot.
The young Montmorency demanded that all those prayers
should be immediately converted into laws. Lepelletier de
Saint-Fargeau desired that the people should immediately
enjoy those benefits. Himself immensely rich, he wished that
the rich, the nobles, the exempt from taxes, should assess them­
selves for this purpose.
Chapelier, the president, on being pressed to put the
question to the vote, archly observed that none of Messieurs
the clergy having yet been able to obtain a hearing, he should
have to reproach himself with having shut them out from the
tribune.37
The Bishop of Nancy then expressed, in the name of the
ecclesiastical lords, a wish that the price of redemption from
feudal rights should not accrue to the present possessor, but
be invested as funds useful to the benefice itself. 38
This was economy and husbandry rather than generosity.
The Bishop of Chartres, a sensible man, who spoke next, found

'" Omitted in the Moniteur and the Histoire Parlementaire. See the
Histoire des deux Amis de la Liberte, ii., p. 321.
.. Arranged and disfigured in the Moniteur and the historians who wish
to conceal the egotism of the clergy. The Proces-verbal says only: He
adhered, in his own name and in the name of several members of the
clergy, to this system of redeeming the feudal rights, by submitting ( by
the incumbents ) to the lodging and use of the funds arising from them.­
Archives du Royaume. Proce�-verbaux de l'Assemblee Nationale. 4 A6ut,
'89. B. 2.
242
 The Rights of Man
a way of being generous at the expense of the nobility. He
sacrificed the game rights ( droits de chasse ) , very important
for the nobles, but of little value for the clergy.
The nobles did not shrink; they demanded the consummation
of this renunciation. Several were reluctant. The Duke du
_

Chatelet said, Smiling at his neighbours: ccThe bishop deprives

us of hunting; 1 will take away his tithes." And he proposed that
tithes in kind should be converted into pecuniary dues redeem-
able at pleasure. _

The clergy allowed those dangerous words to fall without

observation, and followed their usual tactics of putting for­
ward the nobility; the archbishop of Aix spoke forcibly against
feudality, demanding that in future every kind of feudal con­
vention should be prohibited.
1 wish 1 had land," said the Bishop of Uzes, "I should delight
in giving it into the hands of the peasants. But we are only
depositaries."
The Bishop of Nimes and Montpellier gave nothing, but
demanded that the artisans and labourers should be exempt
from charges and taxation.
The poorer ecclesiastics were alone generous. Some cures
declared that their conscience did not allow them to have more
than one benefice. Others said: 'We offer our fees." Duport
objected that the deficiency must then be made up to them.
The Assembly was affected, and refused to accept the widow's
mite.
Emotion and enthusiasm had gradually increased to an ex­
traordinary degree. Nothing was heard in the Assembly but
applause, congratulations, and expressions of mutual benev­
olence. Foreigners, present at that meeting, were struck with
astonishment; then, for the first time, they beheld France, and
all the goodness of her heart. What ages of struggles had not
(lffected in their countries, she had just done in a few hours
hy disinterestedness and sacrifice. Money and pride trodden
under foot, together with the old hereditary tyranny, antiquity,
tradition itself,-the monstrous feudal oak, felled by one blow,­
that accursed tree, whose branches covered the whole earth
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with a deadly shade, whilst its innumerable roots shot forth into
the obscurest regions, probing and absorbing life, preventing
it from rising to the light of day.
Everything seemed finished. But a scene no less grand was
then beginning.
After the privileges of classes, came those of provinces. Such
as were called state provinces ( pays d'etat) , which had
privileges of their own, divers advantages for liberties and
taxation, were ashamed of their egotism; they wanted to be
France, in spite of what it might cost their personal interest
and their old fond reminiscences.
As early as 1788, Dauphine had magnanimously offered to
surrender its privileges, and advised the other provinces to do
the same. It renewed that offer. The most obstinate, the
Bretons, though bound by their mandates, and tied down by
the ancient treaties of their province with France, nevertheless
manifested the desire of uniting. Provence said the same, next
Burgundy and Bresse, Normandy, Poitou, Auvergne, and Artois.
Lorraine, in affecting language, said that it would not regret the
domination of its adored sovereigns who were the fathers of the
people, if it had the happiness of uniting with its brethren, and
of entering with them all together into the maternal mansion
of France,-into that vast and glorious family.
Next came the tum of the cities. Their deputies came in
crowds to lay their privileges upon the altar of their native
land.
The officers of justice were unable to pierce the crowd sur­
rounding the tribune, to bring their tribute. A member of the
Parlement of Paris imitated their example, renouncing the
hereditary succession of offices,-transmissible nobility.
The archbishop of Paris demanded that they should remem­
ber God on that great day, and sing a Te Deum.
''But the king, gentlemen," said Lally, "the king who has
convoked us after the long lapse of two centuries, shall he not
have his reward? Let us proclaim him the restorer of French
liberty I"
The night was far advanced: it was two o'clock. That night

244
 The Rights of Man
dispelled for ever the long and painful dream of the thousand
years of the middle ages. The approaching dawn was that of
liberty!
Since that marvellous ' night, no more classes, but French­
men; no more provinces, but one France!
God save France!

245
 v

The Clergy and the People

THE resurrection of the people who at length

burst their sepulchre, feudality itself rolling away the stone by
which it had kept them immured, the work of ages in one
night, such was the first miracle-the divine and authentic
miracle-of this new Gospel!
How applicable here are those words pronounced by Fau­
chet over the skeletons found in the Bastille! "Tyranny had
sealed them within the walls of those dungeons which she be­
lieved to be eternally impenetrable to the light. The day of
revelation is come! The bones have arisen at the voice of
French liberty; they depose against centuries of oppression
and death, prophesying the regeneration of human nature, and
the life of nations!" 311
Noble language of a true prophet. Let us cherish it in our
hearts, as the treasure of hope. Yes, they will rise again! The
resurrection begun on the ruins of the Bastille, continued
through the night of the 4th of August, will display in the light
of social life those crowds still languishing in the shadows of
death. Day dawned in 1789; next, the morn arose shrouded in
storms; then, a dark, total eclipse. The sun will yet shine out.
"Solem quis dicere falsum audeat?"

• Printed at the end of Dussaulx's Oeuvre des Sept lours. He says

admirably on another occasion: "We have reached the middle of time.
Tyrants are ripe." See his three speeches on liberty, spoken at Saint­
Jacques, Sainte-Marguerite, and Notre-Dame.
246
 The Clergy and the People
It was two hours after midnight when the Assembly con­
cluded its important work, and separated. In the morning
( August 5th ) , Fauchet was �aking, at Paris, his funeral oration
over the citizens killed before the Bastille. Those martyrs of
liberty had just gained, that very night, in the destruction of
the great feudal Bastille, their palm, and the price of their
blood.
Fauchet there found once more words worthy of eternal
remembrance : "How those false interpreters of divine oracles
have injured the world! They have consecrated despotism, and
made God the accomplice of tyrants. What says the Gospel?
'You will have to appear before kings; they will order you to
act unrighteously, and you shall resist them till death.' False
doctors triumph, because it is written: Give unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's. But must they also give unto Caesar
what is not Caesar's? Now liberty is not Caesar's; it belongs to
human nature."
Those eloquent words were still more so in the mouth of
him who, on the 14th of July, had shown himself doubly heroic
by courage and humanity. Twice had he attempted, at the
peril of his life, to save the lives of others, and stop the effu­
sion of blood. A true Christian and true citizen, he had wished
to save all, both men and doctrines. His blind charity defended
at the same time ideas hostile to one another, and contradic­
tory dogmas. He united the two Gospels in one bond of love,
without any attention to the difference of their principles, or
to their opposite characters. Spumed and excluded by the
priests, he looked upon what had caused his persecution as
something, for that very reason, that he ought to respect and
cherish. Who has not fallen into the very same error? Who has
not cherished the hope of saving the past by hastening the
future? Who would not have wished to quicken the spirit
without killing the old form?-to rekindle the Hame without
molesting the dead ashes? Vain endeavour! In vain would we
withhold our breath. It expands in the air, and Hies to the four
quarters of the world.
Who was then able to see all that? Fauchet was mistaken,

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and s o were many others. They endeavoured to believe the
struggle ended, and peace restored; they wondered to find that
the Revolution had been already in the Gospel. The heart of
every one who heard those glorious words leaped with joy. The
impression was so strong, the emotion so poignant, that they
crowned the apostle of liberty with a civic wreath. The people
and the armed population, the conquerors of the Bastille and
the citizen guard, with drums beating in front, led him back to
the Hotel-de-Ville; a herald carried a crown before him.
Was this the last triumph of the priest, or the first of the
citizen? Will those two characters, here confounded, be able to
blend together? The tattered raiment, glorified by the bullets
of the Bastille, allow us here to perceive the new man; in vain
would he extend that robe in order to cover the past.
A new creed is advancing towards us, and two others are
departing ( how can it be helped? )-the Church and Royalty.
Of the three branches of the antique oak,-Feudality,
Royalty, Church,-the first fell on the 4th of August; the two
others totter to and fro; I hear a loud wind in the branches;
they struggle, and resist strongly; their leaves are scattered
on the ground; nothing can withstand that storm. Let what is
doomed perish I
No regret, no useless tearsI Gracious Godl how long had that
which imagines it is now dying, been sterile, dead and uselessl
What bears an overwhelming testimony against the Church
in 1789, is the state of utter neglect in which she had left the
people. For two thousand years she alone had the duty of in­
structing them; and how had she performed it? What was the
end and aim of the pious foundations in the middle ages?
What duties did they impose on the clergy? The salvation of
souls, their religious improvement, the softening of manners,
the humanising of the people. They were your disciples, and
given to you alone. Masters, what have you taught them?
Ever since the twelfth century, you have continued to speak
to them a language no longer theirs, and the form of worship
has ceased to be a mode of instructing them. The deficiency
was supplied by preaching; but gradually it became silent, or

248
 The Clergy and the People
spoke for the rich alone. You have neglected the poor, dis­
dained the coarse mob. Coarse? Yes, through you. Through you,
two people exist: the upper, civilised and refined to excess; the
lower, rude and savage, much further removed from the other
than in the beginning. It was your duty to fill up the interval,
to be ever raising the lowly, and of the two to make one people.
Now the crisis has come; and I see no cultivation acquired,
no softening of manners among the classes of which you made
yourselves the masters; what they possess, they have naturally,
from the instinct of Nature, from the sap that she implants
within us. The good is innate; and to whom must I attribute the
evil, the anarchy, but to those who were answerable for their
souls, and yet abandoned them?
In 1789, what are your famous monasteries, your antique
schools? The abode of idleness and silence. Grass grows there,
and the spider spins her web. And your pulpits? Mute. And
your books? Empty.
The eighteenth century passes away, an age of attacks, in
which, from time to time, your adversaries summon you in vain
to speak and to act, if you be still alive.
One thing alone might be urged in your defence; many of
you believe it, though not one will avow it. It is, that, for a long
time past, doctrine was exhausted, that you no longer said
anything to the people, having nothing to say, that you had
lived your ages, an age of teaching,-an age of disputation­
that everything passes and changes; the heavens themselves
will pass away. Powerfully attached to outward forms, unable
to separate the spirit from them, not daring to aid the phoenix
to die to live again, you remained dumb and inactive in the
sanctuary, occupying the place of the priest. But the priest
was no longer there.
Depart from the temple. You were there for the people, to
give them light. Go, your lamp is extinct. They who built those
churches, and lent them to you, now demand them. Who were
they? The France of those times; restore them to the France
of to-day.
To-day ( August, 1789, ) France takes back the tithes, and to-

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morrow ( November 2nd ) , she will take back the estates. By

what right? A great jurisconsult has said: "By the right of de­
fault of heirs." The dead church has no heirs. To whom does
her patrimony revert? To her author, to that PATRIA, whence
the new church shall rise.
On the 6th of August, when the Assembly had been long
discussing a loan proposed by Necker, and which, as he con­
fessed, would not suffice for two months, a man who till then
had seldom spoken, suddenly ascended the tribune; this time
he said but these words : "The ecclesiastical estates belong to
the nation."
Loud murmurs. The man who had so frankly stated the
position of things was Buzot, one of the leaders of the future
Gironde party: his youthful, austere, fervent, yet melancholy
countenance,40 was one of those which bear impressed upon
their brow the promise of a short destiny.
The attempted loan failed, was again proposed, and at
length carried. It had been difficult to get it voted, and it was
more difficult to get it completed. To whom were the public
going to lend? To the ancien regime or the Revolution? Nobody
yet knew. A thing more sure, and clear to every mind, was
the uselessness of the clergy, their pedect unworthiness, and
the incontestable right that the nation had to the ecclesiastical
estates. Everybody was acquainted with the morals of the prel­
ates and the ignorance of the inferior clergy. The cures pos­
sessed some virtues, a few instincts of resistance, but no
information; wherever they ruled they were an obstacle to
every improvement of the people, and caused them to retro­
grade. To quote but one example, Poitou, civilised in the six­
teenth century, became barbarous under their influence; they
were preparing for us the civil war of Vendee.
The nobility saw this as plainly as the people; in their
resolutions they demand a more useful employment of such
and such church estates. The kings also had plainly seen it;
several times they had made partial reforms, the reform of the

.. See a description of him in the Memoires of Madame Roland, t. ii.

250
 The Clergy and the People
Templars, that of the Lazarists, and that of the Jesuits. There
remained something better to be done.
It was a member of the nobility, the Marquis de Lacoste,
who, on the 8th of August, was the first to propose in precise
formula : 1st. The ecclesiastical estates belong to the nation.
2ndly. Tithes are suppressed ( no mention of redeeming them ) .
3rdly. The titularies are pensioned. 4thly. The salaries of the
bishops and curates shall be determined by the provincial
Assemblies.
Another noble, Alexandre de Lameth, supported the propo­
sition by lengthened reflections on the matter and the right of
foundations, a right so well examined already by Turgot as
early as 1750, in the Encyclopedie. "Society," said Lameth,
"may always suppress every noxious institution." He concluded
by giving the ecclesiastical estates in pledge to the creditors of
the State.
All this was attacked by Gregoire and Lanjuinais. The Jan­
senists, though persecuted by the clergy, did none the less
defend them.
This is most remarkable, as it shows that privilege is very
tenacious, even more so than the tunic of Nessus, and could
not be tom off without tearing away the fleshI The greatest
minds in the Assembly, Sieyes and Mirabeau, absent on the
night of the 4th of August, deplored its results. Sieyes was a
priest, and Mirabeau a noble. Mirabeau would have wished to
defend the nobility and the king, unhesitatingly sacrificing the
clergy. Sieyes defended the clergy sacrificed by the nobility.H
He said that tithes were a real property. How so? By their
having been at first a voluntary gift, a valid donation. To which
they were able to reply in the terms of law, that a donation is
revocable for cause of ingratitude, for the forgetting or neglect­
ing the end for which it was given; that end was the instruction
of the people, so long abandoned by the clergy.
Sieyes urged adroitly that, in every case, tithes could not

.. He attempts to justify this, in his Notice on his life, but does not
lIucceed.
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 BOOK IT: JULY 1 4 TO OCI'OBER 6 , 1 7 8 9

benefit the present possessors, who had purchased with the

knowledge, prevision, and deduction of the tithes. This would
be, said he, to make them a present of an income of seventy
millions ( of francs ) . The tithes were worth more than a hun­
dred and thirty. To give them to the proprietors, was an
eminently political measure, engaging for ever the cultivator,
the firmest element of the people, in the cause of the Revolu­
tion.
That onerous, odious impost, variable according to the
provinces, which often amounted to one-third of the harvest!
which caused war between the priest and the peasant, which
obliged the former, in harvest-time, to make a contemptible
investigation, was nevertheless defended by the clergy, for
three whole days, with obstinate violence. "Whatl" exclaimed a
cure, "when you invited us to come and join you, in the name
of the God of peace! was it to cut our throatsl" So tithes were
then their very life,-what they held most precious. On the
third day, seeing everybody against them, they made the sac­
rifice. Some fifteen or twenty cures renounced, throwing them­
selves on the generosity of the nation. The great prelates, the
Archbishop of Paris, and Cardinal De Larochefoucauld, fol­
lowed that example, and renounced, in the name of the clergy.
Tithes were abolished without redemption for the future, but
maintained for the present, till provision had been made for
the support of the pastors ( August 11th ) .
The resistance of the clergy could not be availing. They had
almost the whole Assembly against them. Mirabeau spoke three
times; he was more than usually bold, haughty, and often
ironical, yet using respectful language. He knew well the assent
he must meet with both in the Assembly and among the people.
The great theses of the eighteenth century were reproduced,
as things consented to, admitted beforehand, and incontestable.
Voltaire returned there, a terrible, rapid conqueror. ReligiOUS
liberty was consecrated, in the Declaration of Rights, and not
tolerance, a ridiculous term, which supposes a right to tyranny.
That of predominant religion, predominant worship, which the
clergy demanded, was treated as it deserved. The great orator,

252
 The Clergy and the People
in this the organ both of the century and of France, put this
word under the ban of every legislation. "If you write it," said
he, "have also a predominant philosophy, and predominant
systems. Nothing ought to be predominant but right and
justice."
Those who know by history, by the study of the middle
ages, the prodigious tenacity of the clergy in defending their
least interest, may easily judge what efforts they would now
make to save their possessions, and their most precious posses­
sion, their cherished intolerance.
One thing gave them courage; which is, that the provincial
nobility, the Parlement people, all the ancien regime, had
sided with them in their common resistance to the resolutions
of the 4th of August. More than one who, on that night, pro­
posed or supported them, was beginning to repent.
That such resolutions should have been taken by their repre­
sentatives,-by nobles, was more than the privileged classes
could comprehend. They remained confounded, beside them­
selves with astonishment. The peasants who had commenced
by violence, now continued by the authority of the law. It was
the law that was levelling, throwing down the barriers, break­
ing the seigneurial boundary, defacing escutcheons, and open­
ing the chase throughout France to people in arms. All armed,
all sportsmen, and all nobles! And this very law which seemed
to ennoble the people and disennoble the nobility, had been
voted by the nobles themselves!
If privilege was perishing, the privileged classes, the nobles
and priests, preferred to perish also; they had for a long time
become identified and incorporated within equality and intol­
erance. Rather die a hundred times than cease to be unjust!
They could accept nothing of the Revolution, neither its prin­
ciple, written in its Declaration of Rights, nor the application
of that principle in its great social charter of the 4th of August.
However irresolute the king might be, his religious scruples
caused him to be on their side, and guaranteed his obstinacy.
He would, perhaps, have consented to a diminution of the
regal power; but tithes-that sacred property-and then the

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jurisdiction o f the clergy, their right of ascertaining secret trans­

gressions, disavowed by the Assembly, and the liberty of re­
ligious opinions proclaimed, that timorous prince could not
admit.
They might be sure that Louis XVI. would, of his own ac­
cord, and without needing any outward impulse, reject, or at
least attempt to elude, the Declaration of Rights, and the de­
crees of the 4th of August.
But between that and his being made to act and fight, the
distance was still great. He abhorred bloodshed. It might be
possible to place him in such a position as to oblige him to
make war; but to obtain it directly, or to get from him resolu­
tion or order, was what nobody could ever think of.
The queen had no assistance to expect from her brother
Joseph, too much occupied about his Belgium. From Austria
she received nothing but counsels, those of the ambassador,
M. Mercy d'Argenteau. The troops were not sure. What she
possessed, was a very great number of officers, of the navy
and others, and Swiss and German regiments. For her principal
forces, she had an excellent select army of from twenty-five to
thirty thousand troops in Metz and its environs, under M. de
BouilIe, a devoted, resolute officer, who had given proofs of
great vigour. He had kept those troops in severe discipline,
inculcating in them aversion and contempt for citizens and the
mob.
The queen's opinion had ever been to depart, to throw them­
selves into M. de BouilIe's camp, and begin a civil war.
Being unable to prevail upon the king, what remained but
to wait, to wear out Necker, to compromise him; to wear out
Bailly and Lafayette, to allow disorder and anarchy to con­
tinue; to see whether the people, whom they supposed to act
by the instigation of others, would not grow tired of their
leaders who left them to die of hunger. The excess of their
miseries must at length calm, wear out, and dispirit them. They
expected from day to day, to see them ask for the restoration
of the ancien regime, the good old time, and entreat the king to
resume his absolute authority.

254
 The Clergy and the People
"You had bread, when under the king: now that you have
twelve hundred kings, go and ask them for somel" These
words, attributed to a minister of those days,42 were, whether
uttered or not, the opinion of the court.
This policy was but too well aided by the sad state of Paris.
It is a terrible but certain fact, that, in that city of eight hun­
dred thousand souls, there was no public authority for the space
of three months, from July to October.
No municipal power:-That primitive, elementary authority
of societies was as it were dissolved. The sixty districts dis­
cussed but did nothing. Their representatives at the H6tel-de­
Ville were just as inactive. Only, they impeded the mayor,
prevented Bailly from acting. The latter, a studious man,
recently an astronomer and academician, quite unprepared
for his new role, always remained closeted in the bureau des
subsistances, uneasy, and never knowing whether he could
provision Paris.
No police:-It was in the powerless hands of Bailly. The
lieutenant of police had given in his resignation, and was not
replaced.
No justice:-The old criminal justice was suddenly found to
be so contrary to ideas and manners, and appeared so barba­
rous, that M. de Lafayette demanded its immediate reform.
The judges were obliged to change their old customs suddenly,
learn new forms, and follow a more humane but also a more
dilatory mode of procedure. The prisons became full, and
crowded to excess; what was henceforth the most to be feared,
was to be left there and forgotten.
No more corporation authorities:-The deans, syndics, &c.,
and the regulations of trades, were paralysed and annulled by
the simple effect of the 4th of August. The most jealous of the
trades, those the access to which had till then been difficult;
the butchers, whose shops were a sort of fief; the printers, and
the peruke-makers, multiplied exceedingly. Printing, it is true,

.. See the partial but curious article Saint-Priest, in the Biographi8

Michaud, evidently written from information given by his family.
255
 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

was increasing to an immense extent. The peruke-makers, on

the contrary, beheld at the same time their number increasing,
and their customers disappearing. All the rich were leaving
Paris. A journal affirms that in three months sixty thousand
passports were signed at the Hotel-de-Ville.43
Vast crowds of peruke-makers, tailors, and shoemakers, as­
sembled at the Louvre and in the Champs E:lysees. The Na­
tional Guard would go and disperse them, sometimes roughly
and unceremOniously. They addressed complaints and de­
mands to the town impOSSible to be granted,-to maintain the
old regulations, or else make new ones, to fix the price of daily
wages, &c. The servants, left out of place by the departure
of their masters, wanted to have all the Savoyards sent back to
their country.
What will always astonish those who are acquainted with
the history of other revolutions is, that in this miserable and
famished state of Paris, denuded of all authority, there were on
the whole but very few serious acts of violence. One word, one
reasonable observation, occasionally a jest, was sufficient to
check them. On the first days only, subsequent to the 14th of
July. there were instances of violence committed. The people,
full of the idea that they were betrayed, sought for their ene­
mies haphazard, and were near making some cruel mistakes.
M. de Lafayette interposed several times at the critical mo­
ment, and was listened to : he saved several persons.44
When I think of the times that followed, of our own time, so
listless and self-seeking, I cannot help wondering that extreme
misery did not in the least dispirit this people, nor drew from

.. Revolutions de Paris, t. ii., No. 9, p. 8.

.. On those occasions, M. de Lafayette was truly admirable. He found in
,Ii"
his heart, in his love for order and justice, words and happy sayings above
his nature, which was, we must say, rather ordinary. Just as he was
endeavouring to save Abbe Cordier, whom the people mistook for another,
a friend was conducting Lafayette's young son to the Hotel-de-Ville. He
seized the opportunity, and turning towards the crowd: "Gentlemen," said
he, "1 have the honour to present you my son." The crowd, lost in surprise
and emotion, stopped short Lafayette's friends led the abbe into the H8tel
and he was saved. See his Memoires, ii., p. 264.

256
 The Clergy and the People
them one regret for their ancient slavery. They could suffer
and fast. The great deeds achieved in so short a time, the oath
at the Jeu-de-Paume, the taking of the Bastille, the night of
the 4th of August, had exalted their courage, and inspired
everybody with a new idea of human dignity. Necker, who
had departed on the 11th of July, and returned three weeks
after, no longer recognised the same people. Dussaulx, who
had passed sixty years under the ancien regime, can find old
France nowhere. Everything is changed, says he, deportment,
costume, the appearance of the streets, and the signs. The
convents are full of soldiers; and stalls are turned into guard­
houses. Everywhere are young men performing military exer­
cises; the children try to imitate them, and follow them,
stepping to time. Men of fourscore are mounting guard with
their great-grandchildren: <Who would have believed," say
they to me, "that we should be so happy as to die free men?"
A thing little noticed is, that in spite of certain acts of vio­
lence of the people, their sensibility had increased; they no
longer beheld with sang froid those atrocious punishments
which under the old government had been a spectacle for
them. At Versailles, a man was going to be broken on the wheel
as a parricide; he had raised a knife against a woman, and his
father throwing himself between them, had been killed by the
blow. The people thought the punishment still more barbarous
than the act, prevented the execution, and overthrew the
scaffold.
The heart of man had expanded by the youthful warmth of
our Revolution. It beat quicker, was more impassioned than
ever, more violent, and more generous. Every meeting of the
Assembly presented the touching, interesting spectacle of
patriotic donations which people brought in crowds. The Na­
tional Assembly was obliged to become banker and receiver;
there they came for everything, and sent everything, petitions,
donations, and complaints. Its narrow enclosure was, as it were,
the mansion of France. The poor especially would give. Now,
it was a young man who sent his savings, six hundred francs,
painfully amassed. Then, again, poor artisans' wives, who

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brought whatever they had,-their jewels and ornaments that

they had received at their marriage. A peasant came to declare
that he gave a certain quantity of grain. A schoolboy offered
a purse collected and sent to him by his parents, his New­
year's gift perhaps, his little reward. Donations of children and
women, generosity of the poor, the widow's mite, so small, and
yet so great before their native landI-before Godl
Amid the commotion of ambition and dissension, and the
moral sufferings under which it laboured, the Assembly was
affected and transported beyond itself by this magnanimity of
the people. When M. Necker came to expose the misery and
destitution of France, and to solicit, in order to live at least
two months longer, a loan of thirty millions, several deputies
proposed that he should be guaranteed by their estates,-by
those of the members of the Assembly. M. de Foucault, like a
true nobleman, made the first proposition, and offered to pledge
six hundred thousand francs, which constituted his whole for­
tune.
A sacrifice far greater than any sacrifice of money, is that
which all, both rich and poor, made for the public welfare,­
that of their time, their constant thoughts, and all their activity.
The municipalities then forming, the departmental administra­
tions which were soon organized, absorbed the citizen entirely,
and without exception. Several of them had their beds carried
into the offices, and worked day and night.45
To the fatigue add also the danger. The suffering crowds
were ever distrustful; they blamed and threatened. The
treachery of the old administration caused the new one to be
treated with suspicion. It was at the peril of their lives that
those new magistrates worked for the salvation of France.
But the poor I Who can tell the sacrifices of the poor? At
night, the poor man mounted guard; in the morning, at four
or five o'clock, he took his turn ( a la queue ) at the baker's
door; and late, very late, he got his bread. The day was partly

<IS As did the administrators of Finistere. See, for what relates to this
truly admirable activity, Duchatellier's Revolution en Bretagne, passim.

258
 The Clergy and the People
lost, and the workshop shut. Why do I say workshop? They
were almost all closed. Why do I say the baker? Bread was
wanting, and still more often the money to buy bread. Sorrow­
ful and fasting, the unfortunate being wandered about,
crawled along the streets, preferring to be abroad to hearing at
home the complaints and sobs of his children. Thus the man
who had but his time and his hands wherewith to gain his
living and feed his family, devoted them in preference to the
grand business of public welfare. It caused him to forget his
own.
o noble, generous nation! Why must we be so imperfectly
acquainted with that heroic period? The terrible, violent,
heart-rending deeds which followed, have caused a world of
sacrifices which characterised the outset of the Revolution to
be forgotten. A phenomenon more grand than any political
event then appeared in the world; the power of man, by which
man is God-the power of sacrifice had augmented.

259
 VI

The Veto

THE situation was growing worse and worse.

France, between two systems, the old and the new, tossed
about without advancing; and she was starving.
Paris, we must say, was living at the mercy of chance. Its
subsistence, ever uncertain, depended on some arrival or other,
on a convoy from Beauce or a boat from Corbeil. The city, at
immense sacrifices, was lowering the price of bread; the conse­
quence was, that the population of the whole environs, for
more than ten leagues round, came to procure provisions at
Paris. Thus it was a whole vast area that had to be fed. The
bakers profited by selling in underhanded fashion to the peas­
ant, and afterwards, when the Parisians found their shops
empty, they laid the blame on the administration for not pro­
visioning Paris. The uncertainty of the morrow, and vain
alarms, further augmented the number of difficulties; every­
body reserved, stored up, and concealed provisions. The ad­
ministration, put to its last resources, sent in every direction,
and bought up by fair means or by force. Occasionally, loads
of Hour on the road were seized and detained on their passage
by the neighbouring localities whose wants were pressing. Ver­
sailles and Paris shared together; but Versailles kept, so it was
said, the finest part, and made a superior bread. This was a
great cause of jealousy. One day, when the people of Versailles
had been so imprudent as to tum aside for themselves a supply
intended for the Parisians, Bailly, the honest and respectful
260
 The Veto
Bailly, wrote to M. Necker, that if the Hour was not restored,
thirty thousand men would go and fetch it on the morrow. Fear
made him bold. His head was in danger if provisions failed. It
often happened that at midnight he had but the half of the
Hour necessary for the morning market.46
The provisioning of Paris was a kind of war. The national
guard was sent to protect such an arrival, or to secure certain
purchases; purchases were made by force of arms. Being in­
commoded in their trade, the farmers would not thrash any
longer, neither would the millers grind any more. The specu­
lators were afraid. A pamphlet by Camille Desmoulins desig­
nated and threatened the brothers Leleu, who had the
monopoly of the royal mills at Corbeil. Another, who passed
for the principal agent of a company of monopolists, killed
himself, or was killed, in a forest near Paris. His death brought
about his immense frightful bankruptcy, of more than fifty
millions of francs. It is not unlikely, that the court, who had
large sums lodged in his hands, suddenly drew them to pay
a multitude of officers who were invited to Versailles, and per­
haps to be carried off to Metz: without money they could not
begin the civil war. This was already war against Paris, and
the very worst perhaps, from their keeping the town in such a
state of peace. No work,-and famine!
"I used to see," says Bailly, "good tradespeople, mercers and
goldsmiths, who prayed to be admitted among the beggars
employed at Montmartre in digging the ground. Judge what I
suffered." He did not suffer enough. We see him, even in his
Memoires, too much taken up with petty vanities-questions
of precedence, to know by what honorary forms the speech for
the consecration of the Hags should begin, &c.
Neither did the National Assembly suffer enough from the
sufferings of the people. Otherwise it would not have pro­
longed the eternal debate of its political scolastique. It would
have understood that it ought to hasten on the movement of
reforms, remove every obstacle, and abridge that mortal transi-

.. Memoires de Bailly, passim.

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 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

tion where France remained between the old order and the
new. Everybody saw the question, yet the Assembly saw it not.
Though endowed with generally good intentions and vast in­
formation, it seemed to have but little perception of the real
state of things. Impeded in its progress by the opposition of
its royalist and aristocratic members, it was still more so by
those habits of the bar or of the Academy, which its most
illustrious members, men of letters or advocates, still preserved.
It was necessary to insist and obtain at once, at any price,
without wasting time in talking, the sanction of the decrees of
the 4th of August, and to bury the feudal world; it was neces­
sary to deduce from those general decrees political laws, and
those administrative laws which should determine the applica­
tion of the former; that is to say, to organise, to arm the Revolu­
tion, to give it form and power, and make it a living being. As
such it became less dangerous than by being left floating, over­
flowing, vague, and terrible, like an element,-like a flood, or
a conflagration.
It was especially necessary to use dispatch. It was a thunder­
bolt for Paris to learn that the Assembly was occupied only with
the inquiry whether it would recognise in the King the absolute
right of preventing ( absolute veto ) , or the right of adjourning,
of suspending for two years, four years, or six years. For such
pressing, mortal evils, this prospect was despair itself, a con­
demnation without appeal. Four years, six years, good Godl
for people who knew not whether they should live till the
morrow.
Far from progressing, the Assembly was evidently receding.
It made two retrograde and sadly significant choices. It named
as president La Luzerne, the bishop of Langres, a partisan of
the veto, and next Mounier, once more a partisan of the veto.
The warmth with which the people espoused this question
has been treated with derision. Several, so it was stated, be­
lieved that the veto was a person, or a tax.47 There is nothing
laughable in this but the sneerers themselves. Yes, the veto was

'" See Ferrieres, Molleville, Beaulieu, &c.

262
 The Veto
equal to a tax, if it prevented reforms and a diminution of the
taxes. Yes, the veto was eminently personal; a man had but to
say, I forbid, without any reason; it was quite enough.
M. de Seze thought to plead skilfully for this cause, by saying
that the question was not about a person, but a permanent will,
more steady than any Assembly.
Permanent? According to the influence of courtiers, confes­
sors, mistresses, passions, and interests. Supposing it permanent,
that will may be very personal and very oppressive, if, whilst
everything is changing about it, it neither change nor improve.
How will it be if one same policy, one self-same interest, pass
on with generation and tradition throughout a whole dynasty?
The cahiers, written under very different circumstances,
granted to the King the sanction and the refusal of sanction.
France had trusted to the royal power against the privileged
classes. But now that that power was the auxiliary of privilege,
were the cahiers still to be followed? As well restore the Bas­
tille.
The sheet-anchor left with the privileged classes was the
royal veto. They hugged and embraced the King in their ship­
wreck, wishing him to share their fate, and be saved or
drowned with them.
The Assembly discussed the question as if it had been a mere
struggle of systems. Paris perceived in it less a question than a
crisis, the grand crisis and the total cause of the Revolution,
which it was necessary to save or destroy: To be or not to be,
nothing less.
And Paris alone was right. The revelations of history. and
the confessions of the court party, authorise us now in this
decision. The 14th of July had wrought no change; the true
minister was Breteuil, the Queen's confidant. Necker was there
only for show. The Queen was ever looking forward to Hight
and civil war; her heart was at Metz, in Bouilles camp. Bouille's
sword was the only veto that pleased her.
The Assembly might have been supposed not to have per­
ceived there was a Revolution. Most of the speeches would have
lerved just as well for another century or any other people. One
263
 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

alone wi ll live, that of M. Sieyes, who rejected the veto. He

stated perfectly well that the real remedy for the reciprocal
encroachments of the powers, was not thus to constitute the
executive power an arbiter and a judge, but to make an appeal
to the constituent power which is in the people. An Assembly
may be mistaken; but how many more chances has not the
irrevocable depositary of an hereditary power of being mis­
taken, wittingly or unwittingly, of following some dynastic or
family interest?
He defined the veto as a simple lettre-de-cachet flung by an
individual against the general will.
One sensible thing was said by another deputy, which is,
that if the Assembly were divided into two Chambers, each
having a veto, there would be little fear of an abuse of the
legislative power; consequently, it was not necessary to op­
pose to it a new barrier, by giving the veto to the King.
There were five hundred votes for a single Chamber; and
the dividing into two Chambers could obtain only one hun­
dred. The multitude of nobles who had no chance of entering
the upper Chamber, took good care not to create for the grand
lords a peerage in the English fashion.
The arguments of the Anglomaniacs, which were then pre­
sented with ability by Lally, Mounier, &c., and subsequently
obstinately reproduced by Madame de Stael, Benjamin Con­
stant, and so many others, had been annihilated beforehand
by Sieyes, in a chapter of his book on the Third Estate. This is
truly admirable. That accomplished logician, by the sole power
of his mind, not having seen England, and but little acquainted
with her history, had already found those results which we ob­
tain from a minute study of her past and present history I 48 He

.. Her past, in my "History of France," wherein I meet with her every

moment; her present, in the fine work of Leon Faucher. That book has
given the English school a blow from which it will never recover. ( See
especially towards the end of the second volume ) . The English themselves
( Bentham, Bulwer, Senior, &c. ) agree to-day that their famous balance of
the three powers is only a theme for schoolboys.

264
 The Veto
saw perfectly well that that famous balance of the three
powers, which, if real, would prevent any progress whatsoever,
is a pure comedy, a mystification, for the profit of one of the
powers ( aristocratic in England, monarchical in France ) . Eng­
land has ever been, is, and will be an aristocracy. The art of
that aristocracy, what has perpetuated its power, is not its giv­
ing a share to the people, but in finding an exterior field for
their activity, to provide outlets for them; 49 it is thus it has
spread England all over the globe.
As for the veto, Necker's opinion which he addressed to the
Assembly, ( and which, in any case, it had independently ar­
rived at ) , was to grant the veto to the King,-the suspensive
veto; the right of adjourning as far as the second legislature
which should follow the one proposing the law.
That Assembly was ripe for dissolution. Created before the
great Revolution which had just taken place, it was profoundly
heterogeneous and confused, like the chaos of the ancien
regime, whence it sprang. In spite of the name of National
Assembly, with which it had been baptized by Sieyes, it re­
mained feudal, and was nothing else but the old Estates­
General. Ages had passed over it, from the 5th of May to the
31st of August. Elected in the antique form, and according to
barbarous law, ':it represented some two or three hundred thou­
sand nobles or priests just as much as the nation. By uniting
them to itself, the Third Estate had grown weak and feeble.
At every instant, even without being aware of it, it was com­
promising with them. It adopted scarcely any measures but
such as were prejudicial, illegitimate, powerless, and danger­
ous. The privileged classes, who were manoeuvring outside

.. England would have died, had she not found, from century to century,
nn exterior diversion for her interior evil ( aristocratic injustice ) : in the
sixteenth and seventeenth, North America and the spoliation of Spain; in
the eighteenth, the spoliation of France and the conquest of India; in the
nineteenth, a new colonial extension, and an immense manufacturing
development.
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with the court to undo the Revolution, obstructed it still more

certainly in the very bosom of the Assembly.
That Assembly, full as it was of talent and science, was
nevertheless monstrous, through the irremediable discordance
of its elements. What fecundity, what act of procreation can be
expected from a monster?
Such was the language of common sense and reason. The
moderate who ought, one would think, to have been more
keen-sighted and less dazzled, saw nothing of this. Strange
enough, passion took a better view; it perceived that everything
was danger and obstacle in this twofold situation, and strove
to get clear of it. But as passion and violence it inspired infinite
distrust, and met with immense difficulties; it became still more
violent in order to surmount them, and that very energy
created new obstacles.
The monster of the time, 1 mean the discord of the two
principles, their impotency for creating anything vital, must,
to be well perceived, be seen in one man. That unity of per­
son, that lofty combination of faculties which is called genius, is
of no use, if, in that man-that genius-ideas are warring to­
gether, if principles and doctrines carry on a furious struggle
in his bosom.
1 know not a more melancholy spectacle for human nature
than that now presented by Mirabeau. At Versailles he speaks
for the absolute veto, but in such obscure terms that nobody
distinctly understands whether he be for or against it. At Paris
his friends maintain, on the same day, at the Palais Royal, that
he has opposed the veto. He inspired so much personal attach­
ment in the young men about him, that they did not hesitate
to lie boldly in order to save him. "I loved him like a mistress,"
said Camille Desmoulins. It is well known that one of Mira­
beau's secretaries tried to commit suicide at his death.
Those liars, exaggerating, as it often happens, falsehood to
obtain the more credit, affirmed that on leaving the Assembly
he had been waited for, followed, and wounded, having been
stabbed with a sword! All the Palais Royal exclaimed that a
266
 The Veto
guard of two hundred men must be voted to guard poor Mira­
beau!
In that strange speech 50 he had maintained the old sophism,
that the royal sanction was a guarantee of liberty; that the King
was a sort of tribune of the people; their representative-an
irrevocable, irresponsible representative-one who is never to
be called to account!
He was sincerely a royalist, and, as such, made no scruple to '
receive later a pension to keep open house for the deputies.
He used to say to himself that after all he did but defend his
own opinion. One thing, we must confess, corrupted him more
than money, a thing which was the least to be suspected in that
man so proud in his deportment and his language. What was it?
Fear!
Fear of the rising, growing Revolution. He beheld that young
giant then prevailing over him, and which subsequently car­
ried him off like another man. And then he cast himself back
upon what was called the old order-true anarchy and a real
chaos. From that fruitless struggle he was saved by death.

10 He had received it from a dreamer named Cazeaux. He had not even

read it. On reading it at the tribune, he found it so bad that he was
bathed in a cold perspiration, and skipped half of it.-Etienne Dumont's
Souvenirs, p. 155.

267
 VII

The Press

WE have just seen two things : the situation of

affairs was intolerable, and the Assembly incapable of remedy­
ing it.
Would a popular movement settle the difficulty? That could
take place only on condition that it was truly a spontaneous,
vast, unanimous movement of the people, like that of the 14th
of July.
The fennentation was great, the agitation lively, but as yet
partial. From the very first day that the question of the veto
was put ( Sunday, August 30 ) , all Paris took alarm, for the
absolute veto appeared as the annihilation of the sovereignty
of the people. However, the Palais Royal alone stood forward.
There it was decided that they should go to Versailles, to warn
the Assembly that they perceived in its bosom a league for the
veto, that they knew the members, and that, unless they re­
nounced, Paris would march against them. A few hundred men
accordingly set forth at ten in the evening; a pertinacious vio­
lent man, the MarquiS de Saint-Hururge, a favourite with the
crowd on account of his herculean strength and stentorian
voice, had placed himself at their head. Having been im­
prisoned under the old government on the demand of his wife
( a pretty coquette who possessed some credit ) , Saint-Hururge,
as may be conceived, was already a furious enemy of the
ancien regime, and an ardent champion of the Revolution. On
reaching the Champs-Elysees, his band, already greatly di-
268
 The Press
minished, met with some national guards sent by Lafayette,
who prevented their further progress.
The Palais Royal dispatched, one after the other, three or
four deputations to the city authorities, to obtain leave to
pass. They wanted to make the riot legal, and with the consent
of the authority. It is superfluous to say that the latter did not
consent.
Meanwhile another attempt, far more serious, was preparing
in the Palais Royal. This attempt, whether successful or not,
would at least have one general result; to start discussion of
the great question of the day by the people as a whole. There
was, then, no longer any possibility of its being suddenly de­
cided, or carried by surprise, at Versailles; Paris was observing
and watching the Assembly, both by the press and by its own
assembly-the great Parisian assembly, united, though divided
into its sixty districts.
The author of the proposition was a young journalist. Before
relating it, we ought to give an idea of the movement operating
among the Press.
This sudden awaking of a people, called all at once to a
knowledge of their rights and to decide on their destiny, had
absorbed all the activity of the time in journalism. The most
speculative minds had been hurried to the field of the practical.
Every science, every branch of literature, stood still; political
life was everything.
Every great day in 1789 was accompanied with an eruption
of newspapers :-
1st. In May and June, at the opening of the Estates-General,
a multitude of them spring forth. Mirabeau patronised the
Courrfer de Provence; Gorsas, the Courrier de Versailles; Bris­
sot, the Patriote FranQais; Barere, the Point du Jour, &c. &c.
2ndly. On the night before the 14th of July, appeared the
most popular of all the newspapers, Les Revolutions de Paris,
edited by Loustalot.
3rdly. On the eve of the 5th and 6th of October appeared
the Ami du Peuple ( Marat ) and the Annales Patriotiques
( Carra and Mercier ) . Soon after, the Courrier de Brabant, by
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 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

Camille Desmoulins, certainly the most witty of all; next, one

of the most violent, the Orateur du Peuple, by Freron.
The general character of that great movement, and which
renders it the more admirable, is, that, in spite of shades of
opinion, there is almost unanimity. Except one conspicuous
newspaper, the Press presents the appearance of one vast coun­
cil, in which everybody speaks in his turn, and all being en­
gaged in a common aim, avoid every kind of hostility.
The Press, at that early age, struggling against the central
power, has generally a tendency to strengthen the local
powers, and to exaggerate the rights of the commune against
the State. If the language of after-times might be here em­
ployed, we should say, that at that period they all seem
federalistes. Mirabeau is as much so as Brissot or Lafayette.
This goes so far as to admit the independence of the provinces,
if liberty become impossible for all France. Mirabeau would
be contented to be Count of Provence; he says so in plain
terms.
Notwithstanding all this, the Press, struggling against the
King, is generally royalist. "At that time," says Camille Des­
moulins at a later period, "there were not ten of us republicans
in France." We must not allow ourselves to mistake the mean­
ing of certain bold expressions. In '88, the violent d'Epremesnil
had said: 'We must unbourbonise France." But it was only to
make the Parlement king.
Mirabeau, who was destined to complete the sum of contra­
dictions, caused Milton's violent little book against kings to be
translated and printed in his name in 1789 at the very moment
when he was undertaking the defence of royalty. It was sup­
pressed by his friends.
Two men were preaching the Republic: one of the most
prolific writers of the period, the indefatigable Brissot, and the
brilliant, eloquent, and bold Desmoulins. His book La France
libre contains a violently satirical brief history of the monarchy.
Therein he shows that principle of order and stability to have
been, in practice, a perpetual disorder. Hereditary royalty, in
order to redeem itself from so many inconveniences which are
270
 The Press
evidently inherent, has one general reply to everything: peace,
the maintenance of peace; which does not prevent it from
having, by minorities and quarrels of succession, kept France
in an almost perpetual state of war:-wars with the English,
wars with Italy, wars about the succession in Spain, &C.51
Robespierre said that the Republic crept in between the
parties, without anybody having suspected it. It is more exact
to say that royalty itself introduced the Republic, and urged
it upon the minds of men. If men refuse to govern themselves,
it is because royalty offers itself as a simplification which facil­
itates things, removes impediments, and dispenses with virtue
and efforts. But what if royalty itself is the obstacle? It may be
boldly affirmed that royalty showed the way to the Republic,
bore along a France that was far removed from it, distrusted
it or ignored it.
To return, the first of the journalists of that day was neither
Mirabeau, Camille Desmoulins, Brissot, Condorcet, Mercier,
Carra, Gorsas, Marat, nor Barere. They all published news­
papers, and some to a great extent. Mirabeau used to print ten
thousand copies of his famous Courrier de Provence. But of the
Revolutions de Paris there were ( of some numbers ) as many
as two hundred thousand copies printed. This was the greatest
publicity ever obtained. The editor's name did not appear. The
printer signed:-Prudhomme. That name has become one of
the best known in the world. The unknown editor was Lousta­
lot.
Loustalot, who died in 1792 at the age of twenty-nine, was a
serious, honest, laborious young man. A writer of mediocrity,
but grave, of an impassioned seriousness; his real originality
was his contrast with the frivolity of the journalists of the time.
In his very violence we perceive an effort to be just. He was the
writer preferred by the people. Nor was he unworthy of the

111 Sismondi has shown, by an exact calculation on a period of 500 years,

how much longer and more frequent wars have been in hereditary than in
elective monarchies: this is the natural effect of minorities, quarrels of
�uccession, &c. Sismondi, Etudes sur les Constitutions des Peuples libres,
I., 214-221.
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 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

preference. He gave, in the outbreak of the Revolution, more

than one proof of courageous moderation. When the French
guards were delivered by the people, he said there was but one
solution for the affair; that the prisoners should betake them­
selves to prison again, and that the electors and the National
Assembly should petition the king to pardon them. When a
mistake of the crowd had placed good Lasalle, the brave com­
mandant of the city, in peril, Loustalot undertook his defence,
justified him, and restored him to favour. In the affair of the
servants who wanted the Savoyards to be driven away, he
showed himself firm and severe as well as judicious. A true
journalist, he was the man of the day, and not of the morrow.
When Camille Desmoulins published his book, La France libre,
wherein he suppresses the king, Loustalot, whilst praising him,
finds him extravagant, and calls him a man of feverish imagi­
nation. Marat, then little known, had violently attacked Bailly
in the Ami du Peuple, both as a public character and as a man.
Loustalot defended him. He considered journalism as a public
function, a sort of magistracy. No tendency to abstractions. He
lives wholly and entirely in the crowd, and feels their wants
and sufferings; he applies himself especially to the problem of
provisions, and to the great question of the moment : bread.
He proposes machines for grinding wheat more expeditiously.
He visits the unfortunate beings employed at work at Mont­
martre. And those miserable objects, whose extreme wretched­
ness had almost divested them of the human form,-that
deplorable army of phantoms or skeletons, who inspire rather
fear than pity,-wound Loustalot to the heart, and he addresses
them in words of affection and tenderest compassion.
Paris could not remain in that position. It was necessary either
to restore absolute royalty or found liberty.
On Monday morning, August 31st, Loustalot, finding the
minds of the multitude more calm than on the Sunday evening,
harangued in the Palais Royal. He said the remedy was not to
go to Versailles, and made a less violent yet a bolder proposi­
tion. It was to go to the city authorities, obtain the convoca­
tion of the districts, and in those assemblies to put these ques-

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 The Press
tions :-1st. Does Paris believe that the king has the right to
block action? 2ndly. Does Paris confirm or revoke its deputies?
3dly. If deputies' be named, will they have a special mandate
to refuse the veto? 4thly. If the former deputies be confirmed,
cannot the Assembly be induced to adjourn the discussion?
The measure proposed, though eminently revolutionary and
illegal ( unconstitutional if there had been a constitution ) , nev­
ertheless was so perfectly adapted to the necessities of the day,
that it was, a few days later, reproduced, at least the principal
part of it, in the Assembly itself, by one of its most eminent
members.
Loustalot and the deputation of the Palais Royal were very
badly received, their proposition rejected at the H6tel-de-Ville,
and the next morning accused in the Assembly. A threatening
letter, received by the president and signed Saint-Hururge
( who, however, maintained it was a forgery ) , completed the
general irritation. They caused Saint-Hururge to be arrested,
and the National Guard took advantage of a momentary tumult
to shut up the Cafe de Foy. Meetings in the Palais Royal were
forbidden and dispersed by the municipal authority.
The piquant part of the affair is that the executor of these
measures, M. de Lafayette, was, at that time and always, a
republican at heart. Throughout his life he dreamed of the
republic and served royalty. A democratic royalty, or a royal
democracy, appeared to him a necessary transition. To unde­
ceive him it required no less than two experiments.
The court trilled with Necker and the Assembly. It did not
deceive Lafayette; and yet he served it, and kept Paris in check.
The horror of the former acts of violence of the people, and the
bloodshed, made him recoil before the idea of another 14th of
July. But would the civil war which the court was preparing
have cost less blood? A serious and delicate question for the
friend of humanity.
He was acquainted with everything. On the 13th of Septem­
ber, whilst receiving old Admiral d'Estaing, the commander
of the National Guards of Versailles, to dinner at his house, he
told him news of Versailles of which he was ignorant. That

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 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9
honest man, who thought he was very deep i n the confidence
of the king and the queen, now learned that they had returned
to the fatal project of taking the king to Metz, that is to say,
of beginning a civil war; that Breteuil was preparing every­
thing in concert with the ambassador of Austria; that they
were bringing towards Versailles the musketeers, the gen­
darmes, nine thousand of the king's household, two thirds of
whom were noblemen; that they were to seize on Montargis,
where they would be joined by the Baron de Viomenil, a man
of action. The latter, who had served in almost all the wars of
the century, recently in that of America, had cast himself vio­
lently into the counter-revolution party, perhaps out of jealousy
for Lafayette, who seemed to be playing the first part in the
Revolution. Eighteen regiments, and especially the Cara­
biniers, had not taken the oath. That was enough to block up
all the roads to Paris, cut off its supplies, and famish it. They
were no longer in want of money; they had collected it, raked
it in from all sides; they made sure of having fifteen hundred
thousand francs a month. The clergy would supply the re­
mainder; a steward of the Benedictins was bound, for himself
alone, in the sum of one hundred thousand crowns.
The old Admiral wrote to the queen on the Monday ( 14th ) :
"I have always slept well the night before a naval battle, but
since this terrible revelation, 1 have not been able to close my
eyes." On hearing it at M. de Lafayette's table, he shuddered
lest any one of the servants should hear it: "I remarked to him
that one word from his mouth might become a death warrallt."
To which Lafayette, with his American coolness, replied: "That
it would be advantageous for one to die for the salvation of all."
The only head in peril would have been the queen's.
The Spanish ambassador said as much to d'Estaing; he knew
it all from an eminent man who had been asked to sign a
membership list circulated by the court.
Thus, this profound secret, this mystery, was spread through
the salons on the 13th, and about the streets from the 14th to
the 16th. On the 16th, the grenadiers of the French Guards.
now become a paid national guard, declared they would go to

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 The Press
Versailles to resume their old duties, to guard the Chateau and
the king. On the 22nd, the great plot was printed in the
Revolutions de Paris, and read by all France.
M. de Lafayette, who believed himself strong, too strong,
according to his own expressions, wished on one hand to check
the Court by making them afraid of Paris, and on the other
hand, to check Paris, and repress agitation by his National
Guards. He used and abused their zeal, in quieting the rabble,
imposing silence on the Palais Royal, and preventing mobs;
he carried on a petty police warfare of annoyance against a
crowd excited by the fears which he himself shared; he knew
of the plot, and yet he dispersed and arrested those who spoke
of it. He managed so well that he created the most fatal ani­
mosity between the National Guards and the people. The latter
began to remark that the chiefs, the commanders, were nobles,
rich men, people of consequence. The National Guards in gen­
eral, reduced in number, proud of their uniform and their arms,
new to them, appeared to the people a sort of aristocracy.
Being citizens and merchants, they were great sufferers by the
riots, receiving nothing from their country estates, and gaining
nothing; they were every day called out, fatigued, and jaded;
every day, they wanted to bring matters to an end, and they
testified their impatience by some act of brutality which set
the crowd against them. Once, they drew their swords against
a mob of peruke-makers, and there was bloodshed; on another
occasion, they arrested some persons who had indulged in
jokes about the National Guard. A girl, having said she cared
not a rap for them, was taken and whipped.
The people were exasperated to such a degree, that they
brought against the National Guard the strangest accusation­
that of favouring the Court, and being in the plot of Versailles.
Lafayette was no hypocrite, but his position was equivocal.
He prevented the grenadiers from going to Versailles to resume
their duties as the king's guards, and gave warning to the
minister, Saint-Priest ( September 17th ) . His letter was turned
to advantage. They showed it to the municipality of Versailles,
making them take an oath of secrecy, and indUCing them to

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 BOOK II: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89

ask that the regiment of Flanders should be sent for. They

solicited the same step from a part of the National Guards of
Versailles, but the majority refused.
That regiment, strongly suspected, because it had hitherto
refused to take the new oath, arrived with its cannon, ammu­
nition, and baggage, and entered Versailles with much noise.
At the same time, the Chateau detained the body guards,
who had concluded their service, in order to have double the
number. A crowd of officers of every grade were daily arriving
en paste, as the old nobility used to do on the eve of a battle,
fearing to arrive too late.
Paris was uneasy. The French Guards were indignant; they
had been tried and tampered with without any other result
than to put them on their guard. Bailly could not help speaking
at the Hotel-de-Ville. A deputation was sent, headed by the
good old Dussaulx, to convey to the king the alarms of Paris.
The conduct of the Assembly in the meantime was strange.
Now it seemed to be asleep, and then it would suddenly start
up; one day violent, on the next moderate and timid.
One morning, the 12th of September, it remembers the 4th
of August, and the great social revolution it had voted. It was
five weeks since the decrees had been given; all France spoke
of them with joy; but the Assembly said not one word about
them. On the 12th, whilst a decree was being proposed in •

which the judicial committee demanded that the laws should

be put in force conformably to a decision of the 4th of August,
a deputy of Franche-Comte broke the ice and said: "Steps are
being taken to prevent the promulgation of those decrees of
the 4th of August; it is said they are not to appear. It is time
they should be seen, furnished with the royal seal. The people
are waiting." Those words were quickly taken up. The As­
sembly was roused. Malouet, the orator of the moderate party
-of the constitutional royalists,-even he ( singularly enough )
supported the proposition, and others with them. In spite of the
Abbe Maury, it was decided that the decrees of the 4th of
August should be presented for the king's sanction.
This sudden movement, this aggressive disposition of even

276
 The Press
the moderates, inclines one to suppose that the most influential
members were not ignorant of what Lafayette, the Spanish
ambassador, and many others, were saying at Paris.
The Assembly seemed on the morrow astonished at its vig­
our. Many thought that the Court would never let the king
sanction the decrees of the 4th of August, and foresaw that his
refusal would provoke a terrible movement-a second fit of the
Revolution. Mirabeau, Chapelier, and others, maintained that
these decrees, not being properly laws, but constitutional prin­
ciples, had no need of the royal sanction; that the promulga­
tion was sufficient. A bold, yet timid opinion : bold, in doing
without the king; timid, in dispensing with his examining,
sanctioning, or refusing: no refusal, no collision. Things would
have been decided ipso facto, according as either party was
predominant in this or that province. Here, they would have
applied the decisions of the 4th of August, as decreed by the
Assembly; there, they would have eluded them, as not sanc­
tioned by the king.
On the 15th, the royal inviolability, hereditary right, was
voted by acclamation, as if to dispose the king in their favour.
They nevertheless received from him a dilatory, equivocal
reply relative to the 4th of August. He sanctioned nothing, but
discussed, blaming this, commending that, and admitting
scarcely any article without some modification. The whole bore
the impress of Necker's usual style, his tergiversation, blunders,
and half measures. The Court, that was preparing something
very different, apparently expected to captivate public atten­
tion by this empty answer. The Assembly was in great agitation.
Chapelier, Mirabeau, Robespierre, Petion, and others usually
less energetic, affirmed that in demanding the sanction for these
preliminary articles, the Assembly expected only a pure and
simple promulgation. Then, a great discussion, and an unex­
pected, but very sensible motion from Volney : "This Assembly
Is too mixed in interests and passions. Let us determine the
new conditions of election, and retire." Applause, but nothing
more. Mirabeau objects that the Assembly has sworn not to
separate before having formed the constitution.

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O n the 21st, th e king being pressed to promulgate, laid aside

all circumlocution; the Court apparently believed itself stronger.
He replied that promulgation applied only to laws so drafted
as to require execution ( he meant to say sanction ) ; that he was
going to order the publication, and that he did not doubt but
the laws which the Assembly would decree, would be such as
he could sanction.
On the 24th, Necker came to make his confession to the As­
sembly. The first loan, thirty millions, had given but two. The
second, eighty, had given but ten. The general of finance, as
Necker's friends called him in their pamphlets, had been able to
do nothing; the credit which he expected to control and re­
store had perished in spite of him. He came to appeal to the
devotion of the nation. The only remedy was for the nation to
sacrifice itself: let everyone tax himself at a fourth of his in­
come.52
Necker had now ended his part. After having tried every
reasonable means, he trusted himself to the faith, the miracle,
the vague hope that a people unable to pay less was about to
pay more, and that they would tax themselves with the mon­
strous impost of a quarter of their revenue. The chimerical
financier brought forward as the last word of his balance-sheet,
as cash, a Utopia which the good Abbe of Saint-Pierre would
not have proposed.
The impotent willingly believes in the impossible; being in­
capacitated from acting himself, he imagines that chance, or
some unknown and unforeseen accident, will act for him. The
Assembly, no less impotent than the minister, shared his
credulity. A wonderful speech from Mirabeau overcame all
their doubts, and transported them out of their senses. He
showed them bankruptcy, a hideous bankruptcy opening its
monstrous abyss beneath them, and ready to devour both them­
selves and France. They voted. If the measure had been
serious, if money had come in, the effect would have been

It Necker, ever generous, for his own part exceeded the quarter; he
taxed himself at one hundred thousand francs.

278
 The Press
singular : Necker would have succeeded in raising up those who
were to drive Necker out of office, the Assembly would have
paid for a war designed to dissolve the Assembly. Impossibility,
contradiction, a perfect stand-still in every direction, was fun­
damentally the state of things for every man and every party.
To sum up all in one word: oobody can act.
The Assembly can do nothing. Discordant in elements and
principles, it was naturally incapable; but it becomes still more
so in presence of tumult, at the entirely novel noise of the press
which drowns its voice. It would willingly cling to the royal
power which it has demolished; but its ruins are hostile : they
would like to crush the Assembly. Thus Paris makes them
afraid, and so does the Chateau. After the king's refusal, they
dare no longer show their anger for fear of adding to the indig­
nation of Paris. Except the responsibility of the ministers which
they decree, they do nothing at all consonant with the situation
of affairs; the dividing of France into departments, and the
criminal law, are discussed in empty space; the hall is thinly
attended; scarcely do six hundred members assemble, and it is
to give the preSidency to Mounier, a personification of immo­
bility; to him who expresses best all the difficulties of acting,
and the general paralysis.
Can the Court do anything? It thinks so at that moment. It
sees the nobility and clergy rallying around it. It perceives the
Duke of Orleans unsupported in the Assembly; 53 it beholds
him, at Paris, spending much money, and gaining but little
ground; his popularity is surpassed by Lafayette.
All were ignorant of the situation, all overlooked the general
force of things, and attributed events to some person or other,
ridiculously exaggerating individual power. According to its
hatred or its love, passion believes miracles, monsters, heroes.
The Court accuse Orleans or Lafayette of everything. Lafayette
himself, though naturally firm and cool-headed, becomes imagi-

.. In regulating the succession, the Assembly spared its rival the King of
f
S ain, declaring it in no way prejudged the renunciations of the Bourbons
o Spain to the crown of France.

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 BOOK n: JULY 1 4 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

native; h e i s not far from believing likewise that all the dis­
turbances are the work of the Palais Royal. A visionary arises
in the press, the credulous, blind, furious Marat, who will vent
accusations dictated at random by his dreams, designating one
to-day, and to-morrow another to death; he begins by affirming
that the whole famine is the work of one man; that Necker
buys up grain on every side, in order that Paris may have none.
Marat is only beginning, however; as yet he has but little
influence. He stands conspicuously apart from all the press.
The press accuses, but vaguely; it complains, and is angry,
like the people, without too well knowing what ought to be
done. It sees plainly in general that there will be "a second fit
of the Revolution." But how? For what precise object? It cannot
exactly say. For the prescription of remedies, the press,-that
young power, suddenly grown so great through the impotency
of the others,-the press itself is powerless.
It does but little during the interval previous to the 5th of
October; the Assembly does little, and the Hotel-de-Ville little.
And yet everybody plainly perceives that some great deed is
about to be achieved. Mirabeau, on receiving one day his book­
seller of Versailles, sends away his three secretaries, shuts the
door, and says to him: "My dear Blaisot, you will see here soon
some great calamity-bloodshed. From friendship, I wished to
give you warning. But be not afraid; there is no danger for
honest men like you."

280
 VIII

The People Go to Fetch the King

(October 5th, 1789)

ON the 5th of October, eight or ten thousand

women went to Versailles, followed by crowds of people. The
National Guard forced M. de Lafayette to lead them there the
same evening. On the 6th, they brought back the king, and
obliged him to inhabit Paris.
This great movement is the most general, after the 14th of
July, that occurs in the Revolution. The one of October was
unanimous, almost as much so as the other; at least in this
sense, that they who took no part in it wished for its success,
and ,all rejoiced that the king should be at Paris.
Here we must not seek the action of parties. They acted,
but did very little.
The real, the certain cause, for the women and the most
miserable part of the crowd, was nothing but hunger. Having
dismounted a horseman at Versailles, they killed and ate his
horse almost raw.
For the majority of the men, both the people and the Na­
tional Guards, the cause of the movement was honour, the
outrage of the Court against the Parisian cockade, adopted by
all France as a symbol of the Revolution.
Whether the men, however, would have marched against
Versailles, if the women had not preceded them, is doubtful.
Nobody before them had the idea of going to fetch the king.

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The Palais Royal, on the 30th of August, departed with Saint­

Hururge, but it was to convey complaints and threats to the
Assembly then discussing the veto. But here, the people alone
are the first to propose; alone, they depart to take the king, as
alone they took the Bastille. What is most people in the people,
I mean most instinctive and inspired, is assuredly the women.
Their idea was this: "Bread is wanting, let us go and fetch the
king; they will take care, if he be with us, that bread be want­
ing no longer. Let us go and fetch the baker!"
A word of simple yet profound meaning! The king ought to
live with the people, see their sufferings, suffer with them, and
be of the same household with them. The ceremonies of mar­
riage and those of the coronation used to coincide in several
particulars; the king espoused the people. If royalty is not
tyranny, there must be marriage and community, and the
couple must live, according to the low but energetic motto of
the middle ages, 'With one loaf and one pot."
Was not the egotistical solitude in which the kings were
kept, with an artificial crowd of gilded beggars in order to make
them forget the people, something strange and unnatural, and
calculated to harden their hearts? How can we be surprised
if those kings become estranged, hard-hearted, and barbarous?
How could they, without their isolated retreat at Versailles,
ever have attained that degree of insensibility? The very sight
of it is immoral: a world made expressly for one man! There
only could a man forget the condition of humanity, and sign,
like Louis XIV., the expulsion of a million men; or, like Louis
XV., speculate on famine.
The unanimity of Paris had overthrown the Bastille. To con­
quer the king and the Assembly, it was necessary that it should
find itself once more unanimous. The National Guard and the
people were beginning to divide. In order to re-unite them,
and make them concur for the same end, it required no less
than a provocation from the Court. No political wisdom would
have brought about the event; an act of folly was necessary.
That was the real remedy, the only means of getting rid of
the intolerable position in which everybody seemed entangled.

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 The People Go to Fetch the King
This folly would have been done by the queen's party long
before, if it had not met with its chief stumbling-block and
difficulty in Louis XVI. Nobody could be more averse to a
change of habits. To deprive him of his hunting, his workshop,
and his early hour of retiring to rest; to interrupt the regularity
of his meals and prayers; to put him on horseback en cam­
pagne, and make an active partisan of him, as we see Charles
I., in the picture by Vandyck, was not easy. His own good
sense likewise told him that he ran much risk in declaring him­
self against the National Assembly.
On the other hand, this same attachment to his habits, to the
ideas of his education and childhood, made him against the
Revolution even more than the diminution of the royal au­
thority. He did not conceal his displeasure at the demolition
of the Bastille.5� The uniform of the National Guards worn by
his own people; his valets now become lieutenants-officers;
more than one musician of the chapel chanting mass in a cap­
tain's uniform; all that annoyed his sight: he caused his
servants to be forbidden "to appear in his presence in such an
inappropriate costume." 55
It was difficult to move the king, either one way or the other.
In every deliberation, he was very fluctuating, but in his old
habits, and in his rooted ideas, insuperably obstinate. Even the
queen, whom he dearly loved, would have gained nothing by
persuasion. Fear had still less influence upon him; he knew he
was the anointed of the Lord, inviolable and sacred; what
could he fear?
Meanwhile, the queen was surrounded by a whirlwind of
passions, intrigues, and interested zeal; prelates and lords, all
that aristocracy who had spoken so ill of her, and now were
trying to effect a reconciliation, crowded her apartments, fer­
vently conjuring her to save the monarchy. She alone, if they
were to be believed, possessed genius and courage; it was time
that she, the daughter of Maria-Theresa, should show herself.

.. Alexandre de Lameth.
II Camp an, ii.

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 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9

The queen derived courage, moreover, from two very different

sorts of people; on one hand, brave and worthy chevaliers of
Saint-Louis, officers or provincial noblemen, who offered her
their swords; on the other, plotters and schemers, who showed
plans, undertook to execute them, and warranted success. Ver­
sailles was as if besieged by these Figaros of royalty.
It was necessary to make a holy league, and for all honest
people to rally round the queen. The king would then be car­
ried away in the enthusiasm of their love, and unable to resist
any longer. The revolutionary party could make but one cam­
paign; once conquered, it would perish: on the contrary, the
other party, comprising all the large proprietors, was able to
suffice for several campaigns, and maintain the war for many
years. For such arguments to be good, it was only necessary
to suppose that the unanimity of the people would not affect
the soldier, and that he would never remember that he also
was the people.
The spirit of jealousy then rising between the National
Guard and the people doubtless emboldened the Court, and
made them believe Paris to be powerless; they risked a pre­
mature manifestation which was destined to ruin them. Fresh
body guards were arriving, for their three months' service;
these men, unacquainted with Paris or the Assembly, strangers
to the new spirit, good provincial royalists, imbued with all
their family prejudices, and paternal and maternal recommen­
dations to serve the king, and the king alone. That body of
guards, though some of its members were friends of liberty,
had not taken the oath, and still wore the white cockade. At­
tempts were made to use them to entice away the officers of the
regiment of Flanders, and those of a few other troops. In order
to bring them all together, a grand dinner was given, to which
were admitted a few officers selected from the National Guard
of Versailles, whom they hoped to attach to their cause.
We must know that the town in France which had the
greatest detestation for the Court, was the one that saw most
of it, namely, Versailles. Whoever was not a servant or an
employe belonging to the Chateau was a revolutionist. The

284
 The People Go to Fetch the King
constant sight of all that pomp, of those splendid equipages.
and those haughty, supercilious people, engendered envy and
hatred. This disposition of the inhabitants had caused them
to name one Lecointre, a linendraper, a firm patriot, but other­
wise a spiteful, virulent man, as lieutenant-colonel of their
National Guard. The invitation sent to a few of the officers was
but little Hattering to them, and a cause of great dissatisfaction
to the others.
A regimental dinner might have been given in the Orangerie
or anywhere else; but the king (an unprecedented favour)
granted the use of his magnificent theatre, in which no fete had
been given since the visit of the emperor Joseph II. Wines are
lavished with royal prodigality. They drink the health of the
king, the queen, and the dauphin; somebody, in a low, timid
voice, proposed that of the nation; but nobody would pay any
attention. At the dessert, the grenadiers of the regiment of
Flanders, the Swiss, and other soldiers are introduced. They all
drink and admire, dazzled by the fantastic brilliancy of that
singular fairy scene, where the boxes, lined with looking­
glasses, reHect a blaze of light in every direction.
The doors open. Behold the king and the queen I The king
has been prevailed on to visit them on his return from the
chase. The queen walks round to every table, looking beautiful,
and adorned with the child she bears in her arms. All those
young men are delighted, transported out of their senses. The
queen, we must confess, less majestic at other periods, had
never discouraged those who devoted their hearts to her serv­
ice; she had not disdained to wear in her head-dress a plume
from Lauzun's helmet.56 There was even a tradition that the
hold declaration of a private in the body guards had been
listened to without anger; and that, without any other punish­
ment than a benevolent irony, the queen had obtained his
promotion.
So beautiful, and yet so unfortunate I As she was departing

.. What does it si gnify whether Lauzun offered it, or she had asked for
It� See Memoires de Campan, and Lauzun (Revue retro spective), &c.

285
 BOOK II: JULY 14 TO OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89

with the king, the band played the affecting air: "0 Richard,
o my king, abandoned by the whole world!" Every heart
melted at that appeal. Several tore off their cockades, and took
that of the queen, the black Austrian cockade, devoting them­
selves to her service. At the very least, the tricolor cockade was
turned inside out, so as to appear white. The music continued,
ever more impassioned and ardent: it played the March des
Hulans, and sounded the charge. They all leaped to their feet,
looking about for the enemy. No enemy appeared; for want of
adversaries they scaled the boxes, rushed out, and reached the
marble court. Perseval, aide-de-camp to d'Estaing, scales the
grand balcony, and makes himself master of the interior posts,
shouting, "They are our prisoners." He adorns himself with the
white cockade. A grenadier of the regiment of Flanders like­
wise ascends, and Perseval tore off and gave him a decoration
which he then wore. A dragoon wanted also to ascend, but
being unsteady, he tumbled down, and would have killed
himself in his despair.
To complete the scene, another, half drunk and half mad,
goes shouting about that he is a spy of the Duke of Orleans
and inflicts a slight wound upon himself; his companions were
so disgusted that they kicked him almost to death.
The frenzy of that mad orgy seemed to infect the whole
court. The queen, on presenting Hags to the National Guards of
Versailles, said "that she was still enchanted by it." On the 3rd
of October, another dinner; they grow more daring, their
tongues are untied, and the counter-revolution showed itself
boldly; several of the National Guards withdrew in indignation.
The costume of National Guard is no longer received in the
palace. "You have no feeling," said one officer to another, "to
wear such a dress." In the long gallery, and in the apartments,
the ladies no longer allow the tricolor cockade to circulate.
With their handkerchiefs and ribands they make white cock­
ades, and tie them themselves. The damsels grow so bold as to
receive the vows of these new chevaliers, and allow them to
kiss their hands. "Take this cockade," said they, "and guard it
well; it is the true one, and alone shall be triumphant." How

286
 The People Go to Fetch the King
could they refuse, from such lovely hands, that symbol, that
souvenir? And yet it is civil war and death: to-morrow, La
Vendee! That fair and almost childlike form, standing by the
aunts of the king, will be Madame de Lescure and de La
Rochejaquelein.57
The brave National Guards of Versailles had much ado to
defend themselves. One of their captains had been, willingly
or unwillingly, decked out by the ladies with an enormous
white cockade. His colonel, Lecointre, the linendraper, was
furious. "Those cockades," said he, firmly, "shall be changed,
and within a week, or all is lost." He was right. Who could mis­
take the omnipotence of the symbol? The three colours were
the 14th of July and the victory of Paris, the Revolution itself.
Thereupon a chevalier of Saint-Louis runs after Lecointre, de­
claring himself the champion of the white cockade against all
comers. He follows, lies in wait for him, and insults him. This
passionate defender of the ancien regime was not, however, a
Montmorency, but simply the son-in-law of the queen's flower­
girl.
Lecointre marches off to the Assembly, and requests the
military committee to require the oath from the body guard.
Some old guards there present declared that it could never be
obtained. The committee did nothing, fearful of occasioning
some collision and bloodshed; but it was precisely this pru­
dence that occasioned it.
Paris felt keenly the insult offered to its cockade; it was said
to have been ignominiously torn to pieces and trodden under
foot. On the very day of the second dinner (Saturday evening,
the 3rd) Danton was thundering at the club of the Cordeliers.
On Sunday, there was a general onslaught on black or white
cockades. Mixed crowds of commoners and bourgeOiS, coats
Nlde by side with jackets, assembled in the cafes and before the
cafes, in the Palais Royal, at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, at the
onos of the bridges, and on the quays. Terrible rumours were

.. She was then at Versailles. See the novel, true in this particular, which
M. de Barante has published in her name.

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i n circulation about the approaching war; o n the league o f the

queen and the princes with the German princes; on the foreign
uniforms, red and green, then seen in Paris; on the supplies of
flour from Corbeil, which came now only every other day; on
the inevitably increasing scarcity, and on the approaching se­
vere winter. There is no time to be lost, said they; if people
want to prevent war and famine, the king must be brought
here; otherwise the Court will carry him off.
Nobody felt all that more keenly than the women. The fam­
ily, the household, had then become a scene of extreme suffer­
ing. A lady gave the alarm on the evening of Saturday, the 3rd.
Seeing her husband was not sufficiently listened to, she ran to
the Cafe de Foy, there denounced the anti-national cockades,
and exposed the public danger. On Monday a young girl took
a drum into the markets, beat the call to arms, and marched
off all the women in the quarter.
Such things are seen only in France; our women are brave,
and make others so. The country of Joan of Arc, Joan of Mont­
fort, and Joan Hachette, can cite a hundred heroines. There
was one at the Bastille, who afterwards departed for war, and
was made captain in the artillery; her husband was a soldier.
On the 18th of July, when the king went to Paris, many of the
women were armed. The women were in the van of our Revo­
lution. We must not be surprised; they suffered more.
Great miseries are ferocious; they strike the weak rather
than the strong; they ill-treat children and women rather than
men. The latter come and go, boldly hunt about, set their wits
to work, and at length find at least sufficient for the day.
Women, poor women, live, for the most part, shut up, sitting,
knitting or sewing; they are not fit, on the day when every­
thing is wanting, to seek their living. It is cruel to think that
woman, the dependent being, who can live only in company,
is more often alone than man. He finds company everywhere,
and forms new connexions. But she is nothing without family.
And yet her family overwhelms her; all the burden falls upon
her. She remains in her cold, desolate, unfurnished lodging,
with her children weeping, or sick and dying, who will weep

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 The People Go to Fetch the King
no more. A thing little remarked, but which gives perhaps
the greatest pang to the maternal heart, is, that the child is
unjust. Accustomed to find in the mother a universal all-suffi­
cient providence, he taxes her cruelly, unfeelingly, for what­
ever is wanting, is noisy and angry, adding to her grief a
greater agony.
Such is the mother. Let us take into account also many lonely
girls, sad creatures, without any family or support, who, too
ugly, or virtuous, have neither friend nor lover, know none of
the joys of life. Should their little work be no longer able to
support them, they know not how to make up the deficiency,
but return to their garret and wait; sometimes they are found
dead, chance revealing the fact to a neighbour.
These unfortunate beings possess not even enough energy to
complain, to make known their situation, and protest against
their fate. Such as act and agitate in times of great distress,
are the strong, the least exhausted by misery, poor rather than
indigent. Generally, the intrepid ones, who then make them­
selves conspicuous, are women of a noble heart, who suffer
little for themselves, but much for others; pity, inert and pas­
sive in men, who are more resigned to the sufferings of others,
is in women a very active, violent sentiment, which occasion­
ally becomes heroic, and impels them imperatively towards
the boldest achievements.
On the 5th of October, there was a multitude of unfortunate
creatures who had eaten nothing for thirty hours. 58 That pain­
ful sight affected everybody, yet nobody did anything for them;
everybody contented himself with deploring the hard necessity
of the times. On Sunday evening (4th) a courageous woman,
who could not behold this any longer, ran from the quarter
Saint-Denis to the Palais Royal, forced her way through a
noisy crowd of orators, and obtained a hearing. She was a
woman of thirty-six years of age, well dressed and respectable,

.. See the depositions of the witnesses, Moniteur, i., p. 568, col. 2. This
IN the principal source. Another, very important, abounding in details, and
which everybody copies, without quoting it, is the HWoire de deux Amis
do la Liberte, t. iii.

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but powerful and intrepid. She wants them t o g o t o Versailles,

and she will march at their head. Some laugh at her; she boxes
the ears of one of them for doing so. The next morning she
departed among the foremost, sword in hand, took a cannon
from the city, sat astride on it, and, with the match ready lit,
rode off to Versailles.
Among the failing trades which seemed to be perishing with
the ancien regime was that of carvers of wood. There used to
be much work of that kind, both for the churches and apart­
ments. Many women were sculptors. One of them, Madeleine
Chabry, being quite out of work, had set up as a flower-girl
( bou quetiere ) in the quarter of the Palais Royal, under the
name of Louison; she was a girl of seventeen, handsome and
witty. One may boldly venture to state that it was not hunger
that drove her to Versailles. She followed the general impulse
and the dictates of her good courageous heart. The women
placed her at their head and made her their orator.
There were many others who were not driven by hunger:
shopwomen, portresses, prostitutes, compassionate and charita­
ble, as they so often are. There was also a considerable number
of market-women; the latter were strict Royalists, but they
wanted so much the more to have the king at Paris. They had
already been to see him, on some occasion or other, some time
before; they had spoken to him with much affection, with a
laughable yet touching familiarity, which showed a perfect
sense of the situation of affairs: "Poor man," said they, looking
at the king, "poor dear man, good papal" And to the queen
more seriously: "Madam, madam, take compassion,-let us be
free with each other. Let us conceal nothing, but say frankly
what we have to say." .
These market-women are not those who suffer much from
misery: their trade consisting of the necessaries of life is subject
to less variation. But they see wretchedness more than any­
body, and feel it; passing their lives in the public streets, they
do not, like us, escape the scenes of suffering. Nobody is more
compassionate or kinder towards the wretchedly poor. With
their clownish forms and rude and violent language, they have

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 The People Go to Fetch the King
often a noble heart overflowing with good nature. We have
seen our women of Picardy, poor fruitwomen of the market of
Amiens, save the father of four children, who was going to be
guillotined. It was at the time of the coronation of Charles X.;
they left their business and their families, went off to Reims,
made the king weep with compassion, obtained the pardon,
and on their return, taking up a sizable collection among them­
selves, sent away the father, with his wife and children, safe
and loaded with presents.
On the 5th of October, at seven in the morning, they heard
the beating of a drum, and could no longer resist. A little girl
had taken a drum from the guard-house, and was beating the
call to arms. It was Monday; the markets were deserted, and
all marched forth. 'We will bring back," said they, "the baker
and the baker's wife. And we shall have the pleasure of hearing
our little mother Mirabeau."
The market people march forth, and the Faubourg Saint­
Antoine, on the other hand, was likewise marching. On the
road, the women hurry along with them all they happen to
meet, threatening such as are unwilling that they will cut their
hair off. First they go to the Hotel-de-Ville. There a baker had
just been brought who used to give false weight of seven ounces
in a two pound loaf. The lamp was lowered. Though the man
was guilty on his own confession, the National Guard contrived
to let him escape. They presented their bayonets to the four
or five hundred women already assembled. On the other side,
at the bottom of the square, stood the cavalry of the National
Guard. The women were by no means daunted. They charged
infantry and cavalry with a shower of stones; but the soldiers
could not make up their minds to fire on them. The women
then forced open the Hotel-de-Ville, and entered all the offices.
Many of them were well dressed: they had put on white gowns
for that grand day. They inquired curiously into the use of
every room, and entreated the representatives of the districts to
give a kind reception to the women they had forced to accom­
pany them, several of whom were enceinte, and ill, perhaps
from fear. Others, ravenous and wild, shouted out Bread and
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arn18!-that the men were cowards,-and they would show them

what courage was.-That the people of the Hotel-de-Ville were
only fit to be hanged,-that they must bum their writings and
waste paper. And they were going to do so, and to bum the
building perhaps. A man stopped them,-a man of gigantic
stature, dressed in black, and whose serious countenance
seemed more sombre than his dress. At first they were going to
kill him, thinking he belonged to the town, and calling him a
traitor. He replied he was no traitor, but a bailiff by profession,
and one of the conquerors of the Bastille. It was Stanislas
Maillard.
Early that morning, he had done good service in the Fau­
bourg Saint-Antoine. The volunteers of the Bastille under the
command of Hullin, were drawn up on the square in arms.
The workmen who were demolishing the fortress believed they
were sent against them. Maillard interposed and prevented the
collision. At the Hotel-de-Ville, he was lucky enough to prevent
its being burnt. The women even promised they would not
allow any men to enter: they had left armed sentinels at the
grand entrance. At eleven o'clock, the men attacked the small
door which opened under the arcade Saint-Jean. Armed with
levers, hammers, hatchets, and pick-axes, they broke open the
door, and forced the magazine of arms. Among them was a
French guardsman, who had wanted in the morning to ring
the tocsin, and had been caught in the act. He had, he said,
escaped by miracle; the moderate party, as furious as the
others, would have hanged him had it not been for the women;
he showed his bare neck, which they had relieved from the
rope. By way of retaliation, they took a man of the Hotel-de­
Ville in order to hang him. It was the brave Abbe Lefebvre,
who had distributed the gunpowder on the 14th of July. Some
women, or men disguised as women, hanged him accordingly to
the little steeple; one of them cut the rope, and he fell, alive
and only stunned, into a room twenty-five feet below.
Neither Bailly nor Lafayette had arrived. Maillard repaired
to the aide-major-general and told him there was only one
way of ending the business, which was that he, Maillard,

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 The People Go to Fetch the King
should lead the women to Versailles. That journey will give
time to collect the troops. He descends, beats the drum, and
obtains a hearing. The austere tragical countenance of that tall
man in black was very eHective in La Greve; he appeared a
prudent man, and likely to bring matters to a successful issue.
The women, who were already departing with the cannon of
the town, proclaimed him their captain. He put himself at their
head with eight or ten drums; seven or eight thousand women
followed, with a few hundred armed men, and a company of
the volunteers of the Bastille brought up the rear.
On arriving at the Tuileries, Maillard wanted to follow the
quay, but the women wished to pass triumphantly under the
clock, through the palace and the garden. Maillard, an observer
of ceremony, told them to remember that it was the king's
house and garden; and that to pass through without permission
was insulting the king.59 He politely approached the Swiss
guard, and told him that those ladies merely wished to pass
through, without doing any mischief. The Swiss drew his sword
and rushed upon Maillard, who drew his. A portress gave a
lucky stroke with a stick; the Swiss fell, and a man held his
bayonet to his breast. Maillard stopped him, coolly disarmed
them both, and carried off the bayonet and the swords.
The morning was passing, and their hunger increased. At
Chaillot, Auteuil, and Sevres, it was very difficult to prevent
the poor starving women from stealing food. Maillard would
not allow it. At Sevres the troop was exhausted; there, there
was nothing to be had, not even for money; every door was
closed except one, that of a sick man who had remained;
Maillard contrived to buy of him a few pitchers of wine. Then,
he chose seven men, and charged them to bring before him the
bakers of Sevres, with whatever they might have. There were
eight loaves in all, thirty-two pounds of bread for eight thou­
sand persons. They shared them among them and crawled
further. Fatigue induced most of the women to lay aside their
arms. Maillard, moreover, made them understand that as they

.. Deposition de Maillard, Moniteur, L, p. 572.

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wished t o pay a visit t o the king and the Assembly, and t o

move and affect them, i t was not proper t o arrive i n such a
warlike fashion. The cannon were placed in the rear, and in
a manner concealed. The sage bailiff wished it to be an amener
sans scandale, as they say in courts of law. At the entrance of
Versailles, in order to hint their pacific intention, he gave a
Signal to the women to sing the air of Henri IV.
The people of Versailles were delighted, and cried Vivent
nos Parisiennes! Foreigners among the spectators saw nothing
but what was innocent in that crowd coming to ask the king
for succour. The Genevese Dumont, a man unfriendly to the
Revolution, who was dining at the palace Des Petites-Ecuries,
looking out of window, says himself: "All that crowd only
wanted bread."
The Assembly had been that day full of stormy discussions.
The king, being unwilling to sanction either the declaration of
rights, or the decrees of the 4th of August, replied that consti­
tutional laws could be judged only in their ensemble; that he
acceded, however, in consideration of the alarming circum­
stances, and on the express condition that the executive power
would resume all its force.
"If you accept the king's letter," said Robespierre, there is
no longer any constitution, nor any right to have one." Duport,
Gregoire, and other deputies speak in the same manner. Petion
mentions and blames the orgy of the body guards. A deputy,
who had himself served among them, demands, for their hon­
our, that the denunciation be stated in a regular form, and
that the guilty parties be prosecuted. "I will denounce," cried
Mirabeau, "and I will sign, if the Assembly declare that the
person of the king is alone inviolable." This was deSignating the
queen. The whole Assembly recoiled from the motion, which
was withdrawn. On such a day, it would have provoked as­
sassination.
Mirabeau himself was not free from uneasiness for his back­
sliding, and his speech on the veto. He approached the presi­
dent, and said to him in an undertone: "Mounier, Paris is
marching against us,-believe me or not, forty thousand men

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 The People Go to Fetch the King
are marching against us. Feign illness, go to the palace, and
give them this notice; there is not a moment to be lost." «Is
Paris marching?" said Mounier, drily (he thought Mirabeau was
one of the authors of the movement) . "Well! so much the
betterl we shall have a republic the sooner."
The Assembly decide that they will send to the king to re­
quest the mere and simple acceptation of the Declaration of
Rights. At three o'clock, Target announces that a crowd had
appeared before the doors on the Avenue de Paris.
Everybody was acquainted with the event, except the king.
He had departed for the chase that morning as usual, and was
hunting in the woods of Meudon. They sent after him. Mean­
while, they beat the call to arms, the body guards mounted
their horses on the Place d'Armes, and stood with their backs
to the iron gates; the regiment of Flanders below, on their right,
near the Avenue de Sceaux. M. d'Estaing, in the name of the
municipality of Versailles, orders the troops to act in concert
with the National Guard, and oppose the rioters. The munic­
ipality had carried their precaution so far as to authorize
d'Estaing to follow the king, if he went far, on the singular
condition of bringing him back to Versailles as soon as possible.
D'Estaing adhered to the latter order, went up to the Chateau,
and left the National Guard of Versailles to manage as it
pleased. M. de Gouvernet, the second in command, likewise
left his post, and placed himself among the body guards, pre­
ferring, he said, to be with people who know how to fight and
use the sword. Lecointre, the lieutenant-colonel, remained
alone to command.
Meanwhile, Maillard arrived at the National Assembly. All
the women wanted to enter. He had the greatest trouble to
prevail on them to send in only fifteen of their number. They
placed themselves at the bar, having at their head the French
guardsman of whom we have spoken, a woman who carried
n tambourine at the end of a pole, and the gigantic bailiff in
the midst, in his tattered black coat, and sword in hand. The
soldier began by pertly telling the Assembly that, on no bread
heing found at the baker's that morning, he had wanted to

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ring the tocsin; that he had near been hanged, and owed his
safety to the ladies who accompanied him. "We come," said
he, "to demand bread, and the punishment of the body guard
who have insulted the cockade. We are good patriots; on our
road we have tom down the black cockades, and I will have
the pleasure of tearing one before the Assembly."
To which the other gravely added: "Everybody must cer­
tainly wear the patriotic cockade." This was received with a
few murmurs.
"And yet we are all brethren!" cried the sinister apparition.
Maillard alluded to what the municipal council of Paris had
declared the day before: that the tricolor cockade, having
been adopted as a symbol of fraternity, was the only one that
ought to be worn by citizens.
The women, being impatient, shouted together, "Bread!
Bread!" Maillard then began to speak of the horrible situation
of Paris, of the supplies being intercepted by the other towns,
or by the aristocrats. ''They want," said he, "to starve us. A
miller has received from somebody two hundred francs to in­
duce him not to grind, with a promise that he should receive
as much every week." The Assembly exclaimed, "Name him."
It was in the Assembly itself that Gregoire had spoken of that
current report; and Maillard had heard of it on the road.
"Name him!" some of the women shouted at random: "It is
the archbishop of Paris."
At that moment, when the lives of many men seemed
hanging by a thread, Robespierre took a serious step. Alone,
he supported Maillard; said that Abbe Gregoire had spoken of
the fact, and would doubtless give some information.60
Other members of the Assembly tried threats and caresses.
A deputy of the clergy, an abbe, or a prelate, offered his hand
to one of the women to kiss. She Hew into a passion, and said, "1
was not made to kiss a dog's paw." Another deputy, a military

eo All this has been disfigured and curtailed by the Moniteur. Luckily, it
gives later the depositions ( at the end of the 1st volume). See also the Deux
Amis de la Liberte, FerrU�res, &c. &c.
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 The People Go to Fetch the King
man, and wearing the cross of Saint-Louis, hearing Mail­
lard say that the clergy were the grand obstacle to the consti­
tution, exclaimed, in a passion, that he ought instantly to be
punished as an example. Maillard, nothing daunted, replied
that he inculpated no member of the Assembly; that the As­
sembly were doubtless ignorant of all; and that he thought he
was doing them a service in giving them this information. For
the second time, Robespierre supported Maillard, and calmed
the anger of the women. Those outside were growing impa­
tient, fearing for the safety of their orator. A report was spread­
ing among them that he had perished. He went out for a
moment, and showed himself.
Maillard, then resuming his speech, begged the Assembly to
engage the National Guards to make atonement for the insult
offered to the cockade. Some deputies gave him the lie. Mail­
lard insisted in unceremonious language. Mounier, the presi­
dent, reminded him of the respect due to the Assembly; and
added, foolishly, that they who wished to be citizens were
perfectly at liberty to be so. This gave an advantage to Mail­
lard; he replied: "Everybody ought to be proud of the name of
citizen; and if, in that august assembly, there were anybody
who considered it a dishonour, he ought to be excluded." The
Assembly started with emotion, and applauded: "Yes," cried
they, "we are all citizens!"
At that moment a tricolored cockade was brought in, sent by
the body guard. The women shouted, "God save the king and
the body guard!" Maillard, who was not so easily satisfied,
insisted on the necessity of sending away the regiment of
Flanders.
Mounier, then hoping to be able to get rid of them, said that
the Assembly had neglected nothing to obtain provisions,
neither had the king; that they would try to find some new
means, and that they might withdraw in peace. Maillard did
not stir, saying, "No, that is not enough."
A deputy then proposed to go and inform the king of the
miserable state of Paris. The Assembly voted it, and the women,
eagerly seizing that hope, threw their arms round the necks of

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the deputies, and embraced the president i n spite of his re­

sistance.
"But where is our Mirabeau?" said they, once more; "we
should like to see our Count de Mirabeau."
Mounier, surrounded, kissed, and almost stifled, then mood­
ily set out with the deputation and a crowd of women, who
insisted on following him. ''We were on foot," says he, "in the
mud, and it was raining in torrents. We had to pass through a
ragged noisy multitude, armed in a fantastic manner. Body
guards were patrolling and galloping about. Those guards on
beholding Mounier and the deputies, with their strange
cortege of honour, imagined they saw there the leaders of the
insurrection, and wanting to disperse that multitude, galloped
through them." en The inviolable deputies escaped as they
could, and ran for their lives through the mud. It is easy to
conceive the rage of the people, who had imagined that, with
them, they were sure of being respected!
Two women were wounded, and even by swords, according
to some witnesses.62 However, the people did nothing. From
three till eight in the evening, they were patient and motion­
less, only shouting and hooting whenever they beheld the
odious uniform of the body guard. A child threw stones.
The king had been found; he had returned from Meudon,
without hurrying himself. Mounier, being at length recognised,
was allowed to enter with twelve women. He spoke to the
king of the misery of Paris, and to the ministers of the request
of the Assembly, who were waiting for the pure and simple
acceptation of the Declaration of Rights and other constitu­
tional articles.
Meanwhile the king listened to the women with much kind­
ness. The young girl, Louison Chabry, had been charged to
speak for the others; but her emotion was so great in presence
of the king, that she could only articulate "Bread!" and fell

'" See Mounier, at the end of the Expose fustificatif.

.. If the king forbade the troops to act,· as people affinn, it was at a later
period, and too late.

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 The People Go to Fetch the King
down in a swoon. The king, much affected, ordered her to be
taken care of; and when, on departing, she wanted to kiss his
hand, he embraced her like a father.
She ran out a Royalist, and shouting "Vive le Roil" The
women, who were waiting for her in the square, were furious,
and began saying she had been bribed; in vain did she tum
her pockets inside out, to show that she had no money; the
women tied their garters round her neck to strangle her. She
was tom from them, but not without much difficulty. She was
obliged to return to the Chateau, and obtain from the king a
written order to send for grain, and remove every obstacle for
the provisioning of Paris.
To the demands of the president, the king had coolly re­
plied: "Return about nine o'clock." Mounier had nevertheless
remained at the castle, at the door of the council, insisting on
having an answer, knocking every hour, till ten in the evening.
But nothing was decided.
The minister of Paris, M. de Saint-Priest, had heard the news
very late (which proves how indecisive and spontaneous the
departure for Versailles had been). He proposed that the
queen should depart for Rambouillet, and that the king should
remain, resist, and fight if necessary; the departure of the queen
alone would have quieted the people and rendered fighting
unnecessary. M. Necker wanted the king to go to Paris, and
trust himself to the people; that is to say, that he should be
sincere and frank, and accept the Revolution. Louis XVI., with­
out coming to any resolution, dismissed the council, in order
to consult the queen.
She was very willing to depart, but with him, and not to
leave such an indecisive man to himself; the name of the king
was her weapon for beginning the civil war. Saint-Priest
heard, about seven o'clock, that Lafayette, urged by the Na­
tional Guard, was marching against Versailles. "We must de­
part immediately," said he; "the king at the head of the troops
will pass without any difficulty." But it was impossible to bring
him to any decision. He believed (but very wrongly) that, if
he departed, the Assembly would make the Duke of Orleans

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king. H e was also adverse t o flight; h e strode to and fro, re­

peating from time to time: "A king a fugitive! a king a fugi­
tive!" 63 The queen, however, having insisted on departing,
the order was given for the carriages. It was too late.

.. See Necker, and his daughter, Madame de Stael's Considerations.

300
 IX

The King Brought Back to Paris

ONE of the Paris militia, whom a crowd of

women had taken, in spite of himself, for their leader, and
who excited by the journey, had shown himself at Versailles
more enthusiastic than all the others, ventured to pass behind
the body guard there: seeing the iron gate shut, he began in­
sulting the sentinel stationed within, and menacing him with
his bayonet. A lieutenant of the guard and two others drew
their swords, and galloped after him. The man ran for his life,
tried to reach a shed, but tumbled over a tub, still shouting for
assistance. The horseman had come up with him, just as the
National Guard of Versailles could contain themselves no
longer: one of them, a retail wine-merchant, stepped from the
ranks, aimed, fired, and stopped him short; he had broken the
arm that held the uplifted sabre.
D'Estaing, the commander of this National Guard, was at the
castle, still believing that he was to depart with the king. Le­
cointre, the lieutenant-colonel, remained on the spot demand­
ing orders of the municipal council, who gave none. He was
justly fearful lest that famished multitude should overrun the
town and feed themselves. He went to them, inquired what
quantity of provisions was necessary, and entreated the coun­
cil to give them; but could only obtain a little rice, which was
nothing for such a multitude. Then he caused a search to be
made in every direction, and, by his laudable diligence, gave
some relief to the people.

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At the same time, h e addressed himself t o the regiment of

Flanders, and asked the officers and soldiers whether they
would fire. The latter were already under a far more powerful
influence. Women had cast themselves among them, entreat­
ing them not to hurt the people. A woman then appeared
among them, whom we shall often see again, who seemed not
to have walked in the mire with the others, but had, doubtless,
arrived later, and who now threw herself at once among the
soldiers. This was a handsome young lady, Mademoiselle The­
roigne de Mericourt, a native of Liege, lively and passionate,
like so many of the women of Liege who effected the Revolu­
tion of the fifteenth century,64 and fought valiantly against
Charles the Bold. Interesting, original, and strange, with her
riding-habit and hat, and a sabre by her side, speaking and
confounding equally French and the patois of Liege, and yet
eloquent. She was laughable, yet irresistible. Theroigne, im­
petuous, charming, and terrible, was insensible to every
obstacle. She had had amours; but then she felt but one pas­
sion,-one violent and mortal, which cost her more than life,65
her love for the Revolution; she followed it with enthusiasm,
never missed a meeting of the Assembly, frequented the clubs
and the public places, held a club at her own house, and
received many deputies. She would have no more lovers, and
declared that she would have none but the great metaphysi­
cian, the abstract, cold Abbe Sieyes, ever the enemy of women.
Theroigne, having addressed that regiment of Flanders, be­
wildered, gained them over, and disarmed them so completely
that they gave away their cartridges like brothers to the Na­
tional Guard of Versailles.
D'Estaing then sent word to the latter to withdraw. A few
departed; others replied that they would not go till the body
guards had first moved. The latter were then ordered to file off.
It was eight o'clock, and the evening was dark. The people

.. See my Histoire de France, t. vi.

.. A tragical story, terribly disfigured by Beaulieu and all the royalists.
I entreat the people of Liege to defend the honour of their heroine.

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followed, pressed upon the body guards, and hooted after
them. The guards force their way sword in hand. Some who
were behind, being more molested than the rest, fired their
pistols: three of the National Guard were hit, one in the face;
the two others received the bullets in their clothes. Their com­
rades fire also by way of answer; and the body guard reply
with their musquetoons.
Other National Guards entered the court-yard, surrounded
d'Estaing, and demanded ammunition. He was himself aston­
ished at their enthusiasm and the boldness they displayed
amid the troops: "True martyrs of enthusiasm," said he subse­
quently to the queen.66
A lieutenant of Versailles declared to the guard of the artil­
lery, that if he did not give him some gunpowder, he would
blow his brains out. He gave him a barrel which was opened
on the spot; and they loaded some cannon which they pointed
opposite the balustrade, so as to take in flank the troops which
still covered the castle, and the body guards who were re­
turning to the square.
The people of Versailles had shown the same firmness on
the other side of the Chateau. Five carriages drew up to the
iron gates in order to depart; they said it was the queen, who
was going to Trianon. The Swiss opened, but the guards shut.
"It would be dangerous for her Majesty," said the commandant,
"to leave the Chateau." The carriages were escorted back.
There was no longer any chance of escape. The king was a
prisoner.
The same commandant saved one of the body guard whom
the crowd wanted to tear to pieces, for haVing fired on the
people. He managed so well that they left the man; they were
satisfied with tearing the horse to pieces; and they began
roasting him on the Place D'Armes; but the crowd were too
hungry to wait, and devoured it almost raw.
It was a rainy night. The crowd took shelter where they
could; some burst open the gates of the great stables, where

.. See one of his letters at the end of vol. i., of Deux Amis de la Liberte.

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the regiment o f Flanders was stationed, and mixed pell-mell

with the soldiers. Others, about four thousand in number, had
remained in the Assembly. The men were quiet enough, but
the women were impatient at that state of inaction: they
talked, shouted, and made an uproar. Maillard alone could
keep them quiet, and he managed to do so only by haranguing
the Assembly.
What contributed to incense the crowd, was that the body
guards came to the dragoons, who were at the doors of the
Assembly, to ask whether they would assist them in seizing
the cannon that menaced the Chateau. The people were about
to rush upon them, when the dragoons contrived to let them
escape.
At eight o'clock, there was another attempt. They brought
a letter from the king, in which, without speaking of the Decla­
ration of Rights, he promised in vague terms to allow grain to
circulate freely. It is probable that, at that moment, the idea of
flight was predominant at the Chateau. Without giving any
answer to Mounier, who still remained at the door of the coun­
cil, they sent this letter to engage the attention of the impa­
tient crowd.
A singular apparition had added to the affright of the Court.
A young man enters, ill-dressed, like one of the mob, and quite
aghast.67 Everybody was astonished; it was the young Duke
of Richelieu who, in that disguise, had mingled with the crowd,
a fresh swarm of people who had marched from Paris; he had
left them half way on the road in order to give warning to the
royal family; he had heard horrible language, atrocious threats,
which made his hair stand on end. In saying this, he was so
livid, that everybody turned pale.
The king's heart was beginning to fail him; he perceived
that the queen was in peril. However agonizing it was to his
conscience to consecrate the legislative work of philosophy, at
ten o'clock in the evening he Signed the Declaration of Rights.
Mounier was at last able to depart. He hastened to resume

'" Stael, Considerations, 2nd part, ch. xi.

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 The King Brought Back to Paris
his place as president before the arrival of that vast army
from Paris, whose projects were not yet known. He re-entered
the hall; but there was no longer any Assembly; it had broken
up: the crowd, ever growing more clamorous and exacting,
had demanded that the prices of bread and meat should be
lowered. Mounier found in his place, in the president's chair,
a tall fine well-behaved woman, holding the bell in her hand,
and who left the chair with reluctance. He gave orders that
they were to try to collect the deputies again; meanwhile, he
announced to the people that the king had just accepted the
constitutional articles. The women crowding about him, then
entreated him to give them copies of them; others said : "But,
M. President, will this be very advantageous? Will this give
bread to the poor people of Paris?" Others exclaimed : 'We are
very hungry. We have eaten nothing to-day." Mounier ordered
bread to be fetched from the bakers'. Provisions then came in
on all sides. They all began eating in the hall with much
clamour.
The women, whilst eating, chatted with Mounier: "But, dear
President, why did you defend that villainous veto? Mind the
lanterne!" Mounier replied firmly, that they were not able to
judge,-that they were mistaken; that, for his part, he would
rather expose his life than betray his conscience. This reply
pleased them very much, and from that moment they showed
him great respect and friendship.68
Mirabeau alone would have been able to obtain a hearing,
and silence the uproar. He did not care to do so. He was cer­
tainly uneasy. According to several witnesses, he had walked
about in the evening among the people, with a large sabre,
saying to those he met, "Children, we are for you." Afterwards,
he had gone to bed. Dumont, the Genevese, went in quest
of him, and brought him back to the Assembly. As soon as he
arrived, he called out, in his voice of thunder, "I should like to
know how people have the assurance to come and trouble our
meeting. M. President, make them respect the Assemblyl" The

IS Monnier, at the end of the Expose justi/icatif.

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women shouted "Bravo!" They became more quiet. I n order

to kill time, they resumed the discussion on the criminal laws.
"I was in a gallery ( says Dumont ) where a fish-woman was
acting as commander-in-chief, and directing about a hundred
women, especially girls, who, at a signal from her, shouted or
remained silent. She was calling the deputies familiarly by their
names, or else would inquire, Who is that speaking yonder?
Make that chatterbox hold his prating! That is not the ques­
tion! The thing is to have bread! Let them rather hear our
little mother Mirabeau!' Then all the women would shout,
'Our little mother Mirabeau!' But he would not speak." 69
Lafayette, who had left Paris between five and six in the eve­
ning, did not arrive till after twelve. We must now go back,
and follow him from noon to midnight.
About eleven, being informed that the H6tel-de-Ville was
invaded, he repaired thither, found the crowd dispersed, and
began dictating a despatch for the king. La Greve was full of
the paid and unpaid National Guards, who were muttering
from rank to rank that they ought to march to Versailles. Many
French ex-guards, especially, regretted having lost their ancient
privilege of guarding the king, and wanted to recover it. Some
of them went to the H6tel-de-Ville, and knocked at the bu­
reau, where Lafayette was dictating. A handsome young
grenadier, who spoke admirably, said to him firmly :
"General, the people are without bread; misery i s extreme.
The committee of subsistence either deceives you, or are them­
selves deceived. This state of things cannot last; there is but
one remedy : let us go to Versailles. They say the king is a fool;
we will place the crown on the head of his son; a council
of regency shall be named, and everything will go on better."
Lafayette was very firm and obstinate, but the crowd was
still more so. He believed very properly in his influence over
the people: he was, however, able to see that he had over­
rated it. In vain did he harangue the people; in vain did he
remain several hours in the Greve on his white horse, some-

.. Etienne Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 181.

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 The King Brought Back to Paris
times speaking, sometimes imposing silence with a gesture, or
else, by way of having something to do, patting his horse with
his hand. The difficulty was growing more urgent; it was no
longer his National Guards who pressed him, but bands from
the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau,-men who
would listen to nothing. They spoke to the general by eloquent
gestures, preparing a noose for him, and taking aim at him.
Then he got down from his horse, and wanted to re-enter the
Hotel-de-Ville; but his grenadiers barred the passage : "Mor­
bleul general," said they, "you shall stay with us; you would
not abandon us!"
Luckily, a letter is brought down from the Hotel-de-Ville;
they authorise the general to depart, "seeing it is impossible
to refuse." "Let us march," said he, though he did so with re­
gret. The order was received with shouts of joy.
Of the thirty thousand men of the National Guard, fifteen
thousand marched forth. Add to this number a few thousands
of the people. The insult offered to the national cockade was
a noble motive for the expedition. Everybody applauded them
on their passage. An elegantly-dressed assemblage on the ter­
race by the water-side looked on and applauded. At Passy,
where the Duke of Orleans had hired a house, Madame de
Genlis was at her post, shouting, and waving her handkerchief,
doing all she could to be seen. The bad weather caused them
to march rather slowly. Many of the National Guards, so eager
before, now began to cool. This was not like the fine weather
on the 14th of July. They were drenched with a cold October
rain. Some of them stopped on the road; others grumbled, and
walked on. "It is disagreeable," said the rich tradesmen, "for
people who go to their country-houses in fine weather only in
coaches, to march four leagues in the rain." Others said, 'We
will not do all this drudgery for nothing." And they then laid
all the blame on the queen, uttering mad threats, and appear­
ing very malignant. The Chateau had been expecting them in
the greatest anxiety. They thought that Lafayette only pre­
tended that he was forced, but that really he availed himself
willingly of the opportunity. They wanted to see whether, at

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eleven o'clock, the crowd being then dispersed, the carriages

could pass through the Dragon gates. The National Guard of
Versailles was on the watch, and blocked the passage.
The queen, however, would not depart alone. She rightly
judged that there was no safe refuge for her, if she separated
from the king. About two hundred noblemen, several of whom
were deputies, offered themselves to defend her, and asked
her for an order to take horses from her stables. She authorised
them, in case, she said, the king should be in danger.
Lafayette, before entering Versailles, made his troops renew
their oath of fidelity to the law and the king. He sent him
notice of his arrival, and the king replied: "that he would see
him with pleasure, and that he had just accepted his Declara­
tion of Rights."
Lafayette entered the Chateau alone, to the great astonish­
ment of the guards and everybody else. In the oeil-de-boeuf,
one of the courtiers was so foolish as to say: "There goes Crom­
well." To which Lafayette replied very aptly, "Sir, Cromwell
would not have entered alone."
"He appeared very calm," says Madame De Stael ( who was
present ) ; "nobody ever saw him otherwise; his modesty suf­
fered from the importance of his position." The stronger he
appeared, the more respectful was his behaviour. The outrage,
moreover, to which he had been subjected, made him more
of a Royalist than ever.
The king intrusted to the National Guard the outer posts of
the castle; the body guards preserved those within. Even the
outside was not entirely intrusted to Lafayette. On one of his
patrols wishing to pass into the park, the entrance was refused.
The park was occupied by body guar.s and other troops; till
two in the morning 70 they awaited dte king, in case he should
at last resolve to Hy. At two o'clock only, having been pacified
by Lafayette, they told them they might go to Rambouillet.
The Assembly had broken up at three o'clock. The people

70 Till that hour, they still thought of doing so, if we may believe the
testimony of M. de la Tour-du-Pin.-Memoires de Lafayette, ii.

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 The King Brought Back to Paris
had dispersed, and retired to rest, as they could, in the churches
and elsewhere. Maillard and many of the women, among
whom was Louison Chabry, had departed for Paris, shortly
after the arrival of Lafayette, carrying with them the decrees
on grain and the Declaration of Rights.
Lafayette had much trouble to find lodging for his National
Guards; wet, and worn out, they were trying to dry them­
selves and to get food. At last, believing everything quiet, he
also went to the Hotel de Noailles, and slept, as a man sleeps
after twenty hours' fatigue and agitation.
Many people did not sleep : especially those who having
come from Paris in the evening, had not undergone the fatigue
of the preceding day. The first expedition, in which the
women were predominant, being very spontaneous, natural as
it were, and urged by necessity, had not cost any bloodshed.
Maillard had had the glory of maintaining some sort of order
in that disorderly crowd. The natural crescendo ever observ­
able in such insurrections, scarcely left room to hope that the
second expedition would pass off as quietly. True, it had been
formed before the eyes of the National Guard, and as if in con­
cert with it. Nevertheless there were men there who were
determined to act without them; many were furious fanatics,
who would have liked to kill the queen; 71 others who pre­
tended to be so, and seemed to be the most violent, were
simply a class of men ever superabundant when the police is
weak, namely, thieves. The latter calculated the chances of
breaking into the Chateau. They had not found much in the
Bastille worth taking. But, what a delightful prospect was
opened for pillage in the wonderful palace of Versailles, where
the riches of France had been amassed for more than a cen­
tury!

71 I do not see in the Ami du peuple how Marat can be accused of

having been the first to suggest sanguinary violence. What is certain is he
was very restless : "M. Marat flies to Versailles, returns like lightning and
makes alone as much noise as the four trumpets of the Day of Judgment,
shouting: '0 death! arise!' ''-Camille Desmoulins, Revolutions de France
et de Brabant, iii., p. 359.
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A t five in the morning, before daylight, a large crowd was

already prowling about the gates, armed with pikes, spits, and
scythes. They had no guns. Seeing some body guards as senti­
nels at the gates, they forced the National Guards to fire on
them; the latter obeyed, taking care to fire too high.
In that crowd, wandering or standing round fires that had
been made in the square, was a little hump-backed lawyer,
VerrU:res, mounted on a large horse; he was considered very
violent; they had been waiting for him ever since the preced­
ing evening, saying they would do nothing without him. Le­
cointre was likewise there, going to and fro haranguing the
crowd. The people of Versailles were perhaps more stirred up
than the Parisians, having been long enraged against the court
and the body guards; they had lost an opportunity, the night
before, of falling on them, which they regretted, and wanted
now to pay them what they owed them. Among them were
several locksmiths and blacksmiths, ( of the manufactory of
arms?) rough men, who strike hard, and who, moreover, ever
thirsty at the forge, are also hard drinkers.
About six o'clock, this crowd, composed of Parisians and peo­
ple of Versailles, scale or force the gates, and advance into
the courts with fear and hesitation. The first who was killed, if
we believe the Royalists, died from a fall, having slipped in
the marble court. According to another and a more likely ver­
sion, he was shot dead by the body guard.
Some took to the left, toward the queen's apartment, others
to the right, toward the chapel stairs, nearer the kings apart­
ment. On the left, a Parisian running unarmed, among the
foremost, met one of the body guard, who stabbed him with a
knife. The guardsman was killed. On the right, the foremost
was a militia-man of the guard of Versailles, a diminutive
locksmith, with sunken eyes, almost bald, and his hands
chapped by the heat of the forge.72 This man and another,
without answering the guard, who had come down a few steps

.. Deposition of Miomandre, one of the body guards.-Moniteur, L, p.

566.

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 The King Brought Back to Paris
and was speaking to him on the stairs, strove to pull him down
by his belt, and hand him over to the crowd rushing behind.
The guards pulled him towards them; but two of them were
killed. They all fled along the grand gallery, as far as the oeil­
de-boeuf, between the apartments of the king and the queen.
Other guards were already there.
The most furious attack had been made in the direction of
the queen's apartment. The sister of her femme-de-chambre
Madame de Campan, having half opened the door, saw a
guardsman covered with blood, trying to stop the furious rab­
ble. She quickly bolted that door and the next, put a petticoat
on the queen, and tried to lead her to the king. An awful
moment! The door was bolted on the other side! They knock
again and again. The king was not within; he had gone round
by another passage to reach the queen. At that moment a
pistol was fired, and then a gun, close to them. "My friends,
my dear friends," cried the queen, bursting into tears, "save me
and my children." They brought her the dauphin. At length
the door was opened, and she rushed into the king's apartment.
The crowd was knocking louder and louder to enter the
oeil-de-boeuf. The guards barricaded the place, piling up
benches, stools, and other pieces of furniture; the lower panel
was burst in. They expected nothing but death; but suddenly
the uproar ceased, and a kind clear voice exclaimed: "Open!"
As they did not obey, the same voice repeated: "Come, open
to us, body guard; we have not forgotten that you men saved
us French Guards at Fontenoy."
It was indeed the French Guards, now become National
Guards, with the brave and generous Hoche, then a simple
sergeant-major-it was the people, who had come to save the
nobility. They opened, threw themselves into one another's
arms, and wept.
At that moment, the king, believing the passage forced, and
mistaking his saviours for his assassins, opened his door himself,
by an impulse of courageous humanity, saying to those with­
out: "Do not hurt my guards."
The danger was past, and the crowd dispersed; the thieves
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alone were unwilling t o be inactive. Wholly engaged i n their

own business, they were pillaging and moving away the furni­
ture. The grenadiers turned that rabble out of the castle.
A scene of horror was passing in the court. A man with a
long beard was chopping with a hatchet to cut off the heads of
two dead bodies,-the guards killed on the stairs. That wretch,
whom some took for a famous brigand of the south, was merely
a modele who used to sit at the Academy of Painting; for that
day, he had put on the picturesque costume of an antique
slave, which astonished everybody, and added to their fear.73
Lafayette, awakened but too late, then arrived on horseback.
He saw one of the body guards whom they had taken and
dragged near the body of one of those killed by the guards,
in order to kill him by way of retaliation. "I have given my
word to the king," cried Lafayette, "to save his men. Cause
my word to be respected." The man was saved; not so Lafay­
ette. A furious fellow cried out: "Kill him!" He gave orders to
have him arrested, and the obedient crowd dragged him ac­
cordingly towards the general, dashing his head against the
pavement.
He then entered the castle. Madame Adelaide, the king's
aunt, went up to him and embraced him: "It is you," cried
she, "who have saved us." He ran to the kings cabinet. Who

.. His name was Nicolas. According to his landlord, the man had never
given any proof of violence or ill-nature. Children used to take that
terrible man by the beard. He was in fact a vain half-silly person who
fancied he was doing something grand, audacious, and original, and
perhaps wanted to realize the bloody scenes he had beheld in pictures or
at the theatre. When he had committed the horrible deed, and everybody
had recoiled from him, he suddenly felt the dreariness of that strange
solitude, and sought, under diHerent pretexts, to get into the conversation,
asking a servant for a pinch of snuH, and a Swiss of the castle for some
wine, which he paid for, boasting, and trying to encourage and comfort
himself.-See the depositions in the Moniteur. The heads were carried to
Paris on pikes; one by a child. According to some, they departed the same
morning; others say, a little before the king, and, consequently, in presence
of Lafayette, which is not likely. The body guard had killed five men of
the crowd or National Guards of Versailles, and the latter seven body
guards.

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 The King Brought Back to Paris
would believe that etiquette still subsisted? A grand officer
stopped him for a moment, and then allowed him to pass:
"Sir," said he seriously, "the king grants you les grandes
entrees."
The king showed himself at the balcony, and was welcomed
with the unanimous shout of "God save the King! Vive Ie Roil"
"The King at Paris!" was the second shout, which was taken
up by the people, and repeated by the whole army.
The queen was standing near a window with her daughter
beside her, and the dauphin before her. The child, playing with
his sister's hair, cried: "Mamma, I am hungry!" 0 hard re­
action of necessity! Hunger passes from the people to the king!
o Providence! Providence! Pardon! This one is but a child!
At that moment several voices raised a formidable shout:
"The queen!" The people wanted to see her in the balcony.
She hesitated: ''What!" said she, "all alone?" "Madam, be not
afraid," said Lafayette. She went, but not alone, holding an
admirable safeguard,-in one hand her daughter, in the other
her son. The court of marble was terrible, in awful commotion,
like the sea in its fury; the National Guards, lining every side,
could not answer for the centre; there were fire-arms, and men
blind with rage. Lafayette's conduct was admirable: for that
trembling woman, he risked his popularity, his destiny, his very
life; he appeared with her on the balcony, and kissed her
hand.74
The crowd felt all that; the emotion was unanimous. They
saw there the woman and the mother, nothing more. "Oh!

.. By far the most curious deposition is that of the woman La Varenne,­

the valiant portress of whom we have spoken. Therein we may perceive
how a legend begins. This woman was an eye-witness,-had a hand in the
business; she received a wound in saving one of the body guard; and she
sees and hears whatever is uppermost in her mind; she adds it honestly:
"The queen appeared in the balcony; M. de Lafayette said: 'The queen
has been deceived. She promises to love her people, to be attached to
them, as Jesus Christ is to his Church: And as a token of approval, the
queen, shedding tears, twice raised her hand. The king asked pardon for
his guards," &c.

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how beautiful she is! What! is that the queen? How she fondles
her children!" Noble people! may God bless you for your clem­
ency and forgetfulness!
The king was trembling with fear, when the queen went to
the balcony. The step having succeeded: "My guards," said
he to Lafayette, "could you not also do something for them?"
"Bring one forward." Lafayette led him to the balcony, told
him to take the oath, and show the national cockade in his
hat. The guard kissed it, and the people shouted: "Vivent les
gardes-du-corps!" The grenadiers, for more safety, exchanged
caps with the guards so that, by this mixture of costume, the
people could no longer fire on the guards without running
the risk of killing the grenadiers.
The king was very reluctant to quit Versailles. To leave the
royal residence was in his estimation the same thing as to
abandon royalty. A few days before, he had rejected the en­
treaties of Malouet and other deputies, who in order to be
further from Paris, had begged him to transfer the Assembly
to Compiegne. And now, he must leave Versailles to go to
Paris,-pass through that terrible crowd. What would befall the
queen? He shuddered to think.
The king sent to entreat the Assembly to meet at the
CMteau. Once there, the Assembly and the king being to­
gether, and supported by Lafayette, some of the deputies were
to beseech the king not to go to Paris. That request was to have
been represented to the people as the wish of the Assembly.
All that great commotion would subside; fatigue, lassitude,
and hunger would gradually disperse the people; they would
depart of their own accord.
The Assembly, which was then forming, appeared wavering
and undecided.
Nobody had any fixed resolution or determination. That popu­
lar movement had taken all by surprise. The most keen­
sighted had expected nothing of this. Mirabeau had not
foreseen it, neither had Sieyes. The latter said pettishly, when
he received the first tidings of it: "I cannot understand it; it
is going all wrong."
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 The King Brought Back to Paris
I think he meant to say: "contrary to the Revolution." Sieyes,
at that time, was still a revolutionist, and perhaps rather favour­
ably inclined towards the branch of Orleans. For the king to
quit Versailles, his old court, and live at Paris among the peo­
ple, was, doubtless, a fine chance for Louis XVI. to become
popular again. If the queen ( killed, or in exile ) had not fol­
lowed him, the Parisians would, very probably, have felt an
affection for the king. They had, at all times, entertained a
predilection for that fat, good-tempered man, whose very
corpulency gave him an air of pious paternal good-nature, quite
to the taste of the crowd. We have already seen that the
market-women used to call him a good papa: that was the very
idea of the people.
This removal to Paris, which so much frightened the king,
frightened, in a contrary manner, such as wanted to strengthen
and continue the Revolution, and, still more, those who, for
patriotic or personal views, would have liked to make the Duke
of Orleans lieutenant-general ( or something better. )
The very worst thing that could have happened for the lat­
ter, who was foolishly accused of wishing to kill the queen,
was, that the queen should have been killed, and that the king,
freed from that living cause of unpopularity, should return
to Paris, and fall into the hands of such men as Bailly or
Lafayette.
The Duke of Orleans was perfectly innocent of the move­
ment of the 5th of October. He could neither help it, nor take
advantage of it. On the 5th and the following night, he went
restlessly from place to place. Depositions prove that he was
seen everywhere between Paris and Versailles, but that he did
nothing.75 Between eight and nine in the morning of the 6th,
so soon after the massacre, that the court of the castle was

.. All that he appears to have done, was to authorise the purveyor of the
Assembly, on the evening of the 5th, to furnish provisions to the people
who were in the hall. There is nothing to show that he acted, to any
extent, from the 15th of July to the 5th of October, except in an awkward
and weak attempt which Danton made in his favour with Lafayette.-See
the M6molres of the latter.

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still stained with blood, he went and showed himself to the

people, with an enormous cockade in his hat, laughing, and
flourishing a switch in his hand.
To return to the Assembly. There were not forty members
who repaired to the castle. Most of them were already in the
entrance hall, and rather undecided how to act. The crowds
of persons who thronged the tribunes increased their indeci­
sion. At the first word said about sitting at the Chateau, they
began vociferating. Mirabeau then arose, and, according to his
custom of disguising his obedience to the people in haughty
language, said, "that the liberty of the Assembly would be com­
promised if they deliberated in the palace of kings; that it did
not become their dignity to quit their usual place of meeting;
and that a deputation was sufficient." Young Barnave sup­
ported the motion. Mounier, the president, opposed it, but in
vain.
At length, they heard that the king had consented to depart
for Paris; the Assembly, on Mirabeau's proposition, voted, that,
for their present session, they were inseparable from the king.
The day was advancing. It was not far from one o'clock.
They must depart, and quit Versailles. Farewell to ancient
monarchy!
A hundred deputies surround the king; a whole armY,-a
whole people. He departs from the palace of Louis XIV., never
to return.
The whole multitude begins to move: they march off towards
Paris, some before the king, and some behind. Men and women,
all go as they can, on foot or on horseback, in coaches and
carts, on carriages of cannon, or whatever they could find.
They had the good fortune to meet with a large convoy of
flour,-a blessing for the famished town. The women carried
large loaves on pikes, others, branches of poplar, already tinted
by autumn. They were all very merry, and amiable in their
own fashion, except a few jokes addressed to the queen. "We
are bringing back," cried they, "the baker, his wife, and the
little shop-boy." They all thought they could never starve, as
long as they had the king with them. They were all still royal-
316
 The King Brought Back to Paris
ists, and full of joy at being able at length to put their good
papa in good keeping: he was not very clever; he had broken
his word; it was his wife's fault; but, once in Paris, good women
would not be wanting, who would give him better advice.
The whole spectacle was at once gay, melancholy, joyous,
and gloomy. They were full of hope, but the sky was overcast,
and the weather unfortunately did not favour the holiday. The
rain fell in torrents; they marched but slowly, and in muddy
roads. Now and then, several fired off guns, by way of rejoicing,
or to discharge their arms.
The royal carriage, surrounded by an escort, and with La­
fayette at the door, moved like a hearse. The queen felt uneasy.
Was it sure she should arrive? She asked Lafayette what he
thought, and he inquired of Moreau de Saint-Mery, who, hav­
ing presided at the H6tel-de-Ville on the famous days of the
taking of the Bastille, was well acquainted with the matter. He
replied in these significant words : "I doubt whether the queen
could arrive alone at the Tuileries; but, once at the H6tel-de­
Ville, she will be able to return."
Behold the king at Paris, in the place where he ought to be,
in the very heart of France. Let us hope he will be worthy of it.
The Revolution of the 6th of October, necessary, natural,
and justifiable, if any ever was; entirely spontaneous, unfore­
seen, and truly popular; belongs especially to the women, as
that of the 14th of July does to the men. The men took the
Bastille, and the women took the king.
On the 1st of October, everything was marred by the ladies
of Versailles; on the 6th, all was repaired by the women of
Paris.

317
 BOOK III

OCTOBER 6, 1789, TO JULY 14, 1790

 I

Unanimity to Revive the Kingly Power

(October, 1789)

EARLY in the morning of the 7th of October,

the Tuileries were crowded with an excited multitude, impa­
tient to see their king. Throughout the day, whilst he was re­
ceiving the homage of the constituted authorities, the crowd
was watching without, and anxiously expecting to behold him.
They saw, or thought they saw him through the distant win­
dows; and whenever any one was happy enough to catch a
glimpse of him, he pointed him out to his neighbour, exclaim­
ing, "Look! there he is!" He was obliged to show himself in
the balcony, where he was received with unanimous acclama­
tions; nay, he felt obliged to descend even into the gardens, to
make a still closer demonstration of sympathy for the enthu­
siasm of the people.
His sister, Madame Elizabeth, an innocent young person,
was so affected by it, that she caused her windows to be
opened, and supped in presence of the multitude. Women
with their children drew near, blessing her, and extolling her
beauty.
On the very preceding evening, that of the 6th of October,
everybody had felt quite reassured about that people of whom
they had been so much afraid. When the king and the queen
appeared by torch-light at the Hotel-de-VilIe, a roar like thun­
der arose from La Greve,-shouts of joy, love, and gratitude,
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towards the king who had come to live among them. The men
wept like children, shook hands, and embraced each other.l
"The Revolution is ended," cried they; "here is the king de­
livered from that Palace of Versailles, from his courtiers and
advisers." And indeed that pernicious charm which for more
than a century had held royalty captive, remote from mankind,
in a world of statues and automata still more artificial, was
now, thank heaven, dissolved. The king was restored again to
true nature,-to life and truth. Returning from that long exile,
he was restored to his home; he resumed his proper place,
and found himself re-established in the kingly element,-which
is no other than the people. And where else could a king ever
I
breathe and live?
Live amongst us, 0 king, and be at length free; for, free
you have never been; but have ever acted, and let others act,
against your will. Every morning you have been made to do
what you repented of before night; yet you obeyed every day.
Mter having been so long the slave of caprice, reign at length
according to the law; for this is royalty,-this is liberty; and
such is the kingdom of God.
Such were the thoughts of the people, generous and sympa­
thetic, without either rancour or distrust. Mingling, for the first
time, in the crowd of lords and elegant ladies, they behaved
towards them with great respect. Nay, they looked kindly
upon the body-guards themselves, as they walked along arm
in arm with the brave French guards, their friends and protec­
tors. They cheered them both, in order to reassure and console
their enemies of the preceding day.
Let it be for ever remembered that at this period, so falsely
described, or perverted by hate, the heart of France was full
of magnanimity, clemency, and forgiveness. Nay, even in the
acts of resistance, provoked on all sides by the aristocracy,­
in those energetic measures whereby the people declare them-

1 All this, and the following, is quoted from royalist writers, Weber, i.,
257; Beaulieu, ii., 203, &c. Their testimony is conformable to that of the
Amis de la liberte, iv., 2-6.

322
 Unanimity to Revive the Kingly Power
selves ready to strike, they threaten but forgive. Metz de­
nounces its rebellious Parlement to the National Assembly, and
then intercedes for it. Brittany, in the formidable federation
that she formed in the middle of winter ( January ) , showed
herself both strong and merciful. One hundred and fifty thou­
sand armed men there engaged themselves to withstand the
enemies of the law; and the youthful commander, who, at the
head of their deputies, swore with his sword on the altar,
added to his oath: "If they become good citizens, we will for­
give them."
Those great federations,2 which were formed throughout
France for eight or nine months, are the characteristic feature,
the stamp of originality, of that period. They had at first a
defensive character, being formed for mutual protection against
unknown enemies, the brigands, and against the aristocracy.
Next, these brothers being up in arms together, wished also to
live together; they sympathised with the wants of their fellow­
citizens, and pledged themselves to secure a free circulation
for grain, and to forward provisions from one province to an­
other, from those who had but little to those who had none. At
length, confidence is restored, and food is less scarce; but the
federations continue, without any other necessity than that of
the heart: To unite, as they said, and love one another.
The towns at first unite together, in order to protect them­
selves against the nobles. Next, the nobles being attacked by
the peasants, or by wandering bands of paupers, and the
castles burnt; the townsmen sally forth in arms, and hasten to
protect the castles and defend the nobles, their enemies. These
nobles go in crowds to take refuge in the towns, among those
who have saved them, and take the civic oath ( February and
March ) .
Struggles between town and country places are happily of
short duration. The peasant soon perceives the course of
events, and, in his tum, confederates for order and the consti-

• Spontaneously-organized associations of citizens or towns, as expressions

of national unity ( Ed. note ) .

323
 BOOK ill: OCTOBER 6, 1789, TO JULY 14, 1790

tution. I have now before me the proces-verbaux of a number

of those rural federations, and I perceive in them the patriotic
spirit, in spite of the simple language in which it is expressed,
bursting forth as energetically as in the towns, and perhaps
even more so.
There is no longer any rampart between men. One would
think that the walls of cities had fallen. Great federations of
the cities often hold their meetings in the country; and often
the peasants, in orderly bands, with the mayor or cure at their
head, go and fraternise with the inhabitants of the towns.
All were orderly, and all armed. The National Guard, at that
period (a circumstance worthy of memory), was generally
composed of everybody.s
Everybody is in motion and all march forth as in the time
of the Crusades. Whither are they all marching thus in groups
of cities, villages, and provinces? What Jerusalem attracts thus
a whole nation, attracting it not abroad, but uniting it, con­
centrating it within itself . . . It is one more potent than that

• Everybody without exception in the rural districts. Amid the panic

terrors renewed every moment for more than a year, everybody was armed,
at least with agricultural implements, and appeared thus armed at the
reviews and most solemn festivals. In towns, the organisation varied; the
permanent committees which formed there, on the news of the taking of
the Bastille, opened registers in which the well-disposed of every class of
men went and wrote their names; wherever there was any danger, these
volunteers were absolutely everybody without exception. The unlucky
question about the uniform first gave rise to divisions; then select bodies
were formed, much disliked by all the others. The uniform was exacted
very early at Paris, and the National Guard there became reduced to some
thirty thousand men. But everywhere else there were but few uniforms; at
most facings were added varying in colour, according to each town. At
length the blue and red became predominant. The proposition to require
a uniform throughout France was not made till July 18th, 1790. On the
28th of April, 1791, the Assembly limited the title of national guard to
active citizens, or primary electors; the number of these electors (who, as
proprietors, or tenants, paid taxes to the value of three day s' labour, or
three francs at most) amounted to four million four hundred thousand
men. And even of this number the majority, being workmen and living
from hand to mouth by daily labour, were unable to continue the
enormous sacrifice of time which the Ilervice of the national guard then
required.

l
324
 Unanimity to Revive the Kingly Power
of Judea; it is the Jerusalem of hearts, the holy unity of frater­
nity, the great living city, made of men. It was built in less than
a year, and since then has been called Patrie.
Such is my course in this third book of the Revolution;
obstacles of every kind, outcries, acts of violence, and bitter
disputes may delay me, but shall not deter me from my task.
The 14th of July has proved to me the unanimity of Paris, and
another 14th of July will presently show me the unanimity of
France.
How was it possible that the king, the ancient object of the
people's affection, should alone be forgotten in this universal
brotherly embrace? On the contrary, he was its first object. In
spite of his being accompanied by the ever melancholy, hard­
hearted, and rancorous queen; and notwithstanding the abject
thraldom in which he was evidently held by his bigoted
scruples, and the bondage also in which his affection for his
wife enabled the latter to keep him, the people were obsti­
nately bent on placing all their hopes in the king.
A fact ridiculous to state, is, that the dread inspired by the
events of the 6th of October had created a multitude of royal­
ists. That terrible surprise, that nocturnal phantasmagoria, had
seriously startled the imagination; and people became more
closely attached to the king. The Assembly, especially, had
never felt so well disposed in his favour. They had been
frightened; and even ten days later it was with great repug­
nance that they went to assemble in that moody Paris of Oc­
tober, amid that stormy multitude. One hundred and fifty
deputies preferred to take passports; and Mounier and Lally
escaped.
The two first men in France, Lafayette and Mirabeau, one
the most popular, the other the most eloquent, were royalists
on their return to Paris.
Lafayette had been mortiSed at being led to Versailles,
though apparently the leader of the people. He was piqued
about his involuntary triumph almost as much as the king him­
self. He effected two measures on his return : he emboldened
the municipality to prosecute Marat's sanguinary newspaper at
325
 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

the CMtelet ( tribunal ) ; and h e went in person to the Duke of

Orleans, intimidated him, spoke to him in strong and resolute
terms, both at his house and before the king, giving him to
understand that after the 6th of October, his presence at Paris
was troublesome, furnished pretexts, and excluded tranquil­
lity. By these means he induced him to go to London; but
when the duke wanted to return, Lafayette sent him word
that, the day after his return, he would have to fight a duel
with him.
Mirabeau, thus deprived of his duke, and plainly perceiving
that he should never be able to derive any advantage from
him, turned, with all the assurance of superior power, like an
indispensable person whom it is impossible to reject, and went
over to the side of Lafayette. ( October lOth-20th ) . He frankly
proposed to him to overthrow Necker, and to share the govern­
ment between themselves.4 This was certainly the only chance
of safety that remained to the king. But Lafayette neither liked
nor esteemed Mirabeau; and the Court detested them both.
For a moment, a brief moment, the two remaining centers
of strength, popularity and genius, reached agreement to the
advantage of royalty. An accident that happened just at the
door of the Assembly, two or three days after they arrived in
Paris, alarmed them, and induced them to desire order, cost
what it would. A cruel mistake caused a baker to lose his life I
( October 21 ) .11 The murderer was immediately judged and j,
hanged. This was an opportunity for the municipality to de- 1
mand a law of severity and force. The Assembly decreed ,I
martial law, which armed the municipalities with the right of
calling out the troops and citizen guard for dispersing the mob.
At the same time, they decreed that crimes of lese-nation
should be tried by an old royal tribunal, at the Chab�let,-a
,II,
• Consult the three principal witnesses-Mirabeau, Lafayette, and
Alexandre de Lameth.
6 This crime, committed at the door of the Assembly, and which caused
them to vote forthwith coercive laws, could not have benefited any but the
royalists. I am, however, of opinion that it was the mere result of accident,
and of the distrust and animosity engendered by misery.

326
 Unanimity to Revive the Kingly Power
petty tribunal for so great a mission. Buzot and Robespierre
said it was necessary to create a high national court. Mirabeau
ventured so far as to say that all these measures were useless,
but that it was necessary to restore strength to the executive
power, and not allow it to take advantage of its own annihila­
tion.
This happened on the 21st of October. What progress since
the 6thl In the course of a fortnight, the king had recovered so
much ground, that the bold orator frankly placed the safety of
France in the strength of the kingly power.
Lafayette wrote to the fugitive Mounier in Dauphine, where
he was lamenting the kings captivity, and inciting people to
civil war: 6 that the king was by no means captive, that he
would habitually inhabit the capital, and that he was about to
recommence his hunting parties. This was not a falsehood. La­
fayette in fact entreated the king to go forth and show himself,
and not give credit to the report of his captivity by a voluntary
seclusion.7
No doubt but Louis XVI. could, at that period, have easily
withdrawn either to Rouen, as Mirabeau advised him, or to
Metz, and the army commanded by BouilIe, which the queen
desired.

• M. de Lally has himseH assured us that his friend Mounier used to

say, "1 think we must fight for it." -See Bailly, iii. , 223, note.
• Lafayette, ii., 418, note.

327
 II

Resistance-The Clergy
(October to November, 1789)

THE gloomy winter on which we are now

entering was not horribly cold like that of 1789; God took com­
passion on France. Otherwise, there would have been no possi­
bility either of enduring it or of living. The general misery had
increased: there was no labour, no work. At that period, the
nobles were emigrating, or at least quitting their castles and
the country, then hardly safe, and settling in the towns, where
they remained close and quiet, in the expectation of events;
several of them were preparing for flight, and quietly packing
up their trunks. If they acted on their estates, it was to demand
money and not to give relief; they collected in haste whatever
was owing, the arrears of feudal rights. Hence, a scarcity of
money, a cessation of labour, and a frightful increase of beggars
in every town,-nearly two hundred thousand in Paris! Others
would have come, by millions, if the municipalities were not
obliged to keep their own paupers. Each of them, throughout
the winter, drained itself in feeding its poor, till every resource
was exhausted; and the rich, no longer receiving any pensions,
descended almost to the level of paupers. Everybody com­
plains and implores the National Assembly. If things remain in
this state, its task will be no less than to feed the whole nation.
But the people must not die. There is, after all, one resource,
a patrimony in reserve, which they do not enjoy. It was on their
328
 Resistance
account and to feed them that our charitable ancestors ex­
hausted their fortunes in pious foundations, and endowed the
ecclesiastics, the dispensers of charity, with the best part of
their possessions. The clergy had so well kept and augmented
the property of the poor, that at length it comprised one-fifth
of the lands of the kingdom, and was estimated at four thou­
sand millions of francs ( 160,000,0001. )
The people, these paupers really so rich, now go and knock
at the door of the church, their own mansion, to ask for a part
of a property the whole of which is their own-Paneml propter
Deum! S.-It would be cruel to let this proprietor, this member
of the family, this lawful heir, starve on the threshold.
Give, if you are Christians; the poor are the members of
Christ. Give, if you are citizens; for the people are the living
city. Pay back, if you are honest; for this property was only a
deposit.
Restore, and the nation will give you more. The question is
not to cast yourselves into an abyss in order to fill it up; you
are not asked to sacrifice yourselves, as new martyrs, for the
people. On the contrary, the question is to come to your own
assistance and to save yourselves.
In order to understand this, it must be remembered that the
body of the clergy, monstrously rich in comparison to the na­
tion, was also, in itself, a monster of injustice and inequality.
Though the head of that body was enormously swollen and
bloated, its lower members were meagre and starving: whilst
one priest possessed an income of a million, another had but
two hundred francs a year.
In the project of the Assembly, which did not appear till the
spring, this was all altered. The country curates and vicars were
to receive from the state about sixty millions, and the bishops
only three. Hence their cry: religion is destroyed; Jesus is angry;
the Virgin is weeping in the churches of the south, and in La
Vendee; and hence all the phantasmagoria necessary to incite
the peasants to rebellion and slaughter.

8 "Bread I for the love of God!"

329
 BOOK ill : OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 79 0

The Assembly wished also to give pensions of thirty-three

millions to the monks and nuns, and twelve millions to separate
ecclesiastics, &c. They would have carried the general pay of
the clergy to the enormous sum of one hundred and thirty-three
millions; which, by suppressions, would have been reduced to
half. This was acting most generously. The most insignificant
curate was to have ( exclusive of house, presbytery, and garden )
at least twelve hundred francs a year. To tell the truth, the
whole of the clergy ( except a few hundred men ) would have
risen from misery to comfort; so that what was called the spolia­
tion of the clergy, was really a donation.
The prelates made a grand, heroic resistance. It was neces­
sary to return to the point three times and make three distinct
attacks ( October, December, and April) , to get from them what
was only justice and restitution. It is very easy to see upon
what these men of God had set their life and heart: their
property! They defended it, as the early Christians had de­
fended the faith I
Their arguments failed them, but not so their rhetoric. Now,
they indulged in threatening prophecies. If you touch a prop­
erty holy and sacred beyond all others, they will all be in
danger; the right of property expires in the mind of the people.
To-morrow, the people will come to demand the agrarian lawl
Another added meekly: Even though you ruin the clergy, you
would not gain much; the clergy, alasl are so poor, and in debt
moreover; their estates, if no longer administered by them,
would never cover their debts.
The debate had begun on the 10th of October. Talleyrand,
bishop of Autun, who had done the business of the clergy, and
now wanted to do business at their expense, was the first who
broke the ice and ventured upon this slippery ground, and
limped along avoiding the dangerous point of the question,
saying only: "That the clergy were not proprietors in the same
sense as other proprietors."
To which Mirabeau added: "Property belongs to the nation."
The legists of the Assembly proved superabundantly: first,
that the clergy were not proprietors ( able to use and abuse ) ;
330
 Resistance
secondly, that they were not possessors ( the canon law for­
bidding them to possess ) ; thirdly, that they were not even
tenants, but depositaries, administrators at most, and dis­
pensers.
What produced more effect than the dispute of words was,
that at the very moment when the axe was laid at the foot of
the tree, dumb witnesses appeared, who, without making any
deposition against it, showed all the injustice and barbarity that
this fatal tree had covered with its shadow.
The clergy still possessed serfs in the time of the Revolution.
The whole of the eighteenth century had passed away, to­
gether with all the liberators, both Rousseau and Voltaire,
whose last thought was the enfranchisement of the Jura. Yet
the priest had still his serfs I
Feudalism had blushed at its own misdeeds, and, in various
ways, had abdicated those shameful rights. Much to its honour,
it had rejected the last remnants on the night of the 4th of
August. But the priest still possessed his serfsI
On the 22nd of October, one of them, named Jean Jacob, a
peasant-tenant in mortmain of the Jura, a venerable man more
than a hundred and twenty years old, was led forward by his
children and requested the favour of thanking the Assembly for
their decrees of the 4th of August. Great was the emotion. The
National Assembly all arose in presence of that patriarch of
mankind, and made him sit covered. A noble mark of respect
paid to old age, and a reparation also to the poor serf, for so
long an insult to the rights of humanity. This man had been a
serf for half a century under Louis XIV., and for eighty years
since then. And he still remained a serf: the decrees of the
4th of August were only in a state of general declaration; noth­
ing had been executed. Bondage was not expressly abolished
till March, 1790; and the old man died in December; so, this
last of the serfs never saw the light of liberty.
On the same day ( October 22nd) M. de Castellane, taking
advantage of the emotion of the Assembly, demanded that the
thirty-five prisons in Paris, and those of France, should be
visited, and that prisons far more secret and horrible than the
331
 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

royal Bastilles, the ecclesiastical dungeons, should especially be

opened. It was at length most necessary that on such a day of
resurrection the sun should pierce through the veil of mystery,
and that the beneficent light of the law should, for the first
time, illumine those judgment-seats of darkness, those subter­
raneous dungeons, those in pace,9 where often in their furious
monastic hatred or jealousy, or on account of their amours,
still more atrocious than their hatred, the monks buried their
brethren alive.
Alasl what were convents altogether but so many in pace,
in which families abandoned and forgot such of their members
as happened to be a burden, and whom they sacrificed for the
others? These persons were not able, like the serf of Jura, to
crawl as far as the feet of the National Assembly to demand
their liberty, and embrace the tribunal instead of the altar. At
most, if they dared, they might with great difficulty, at a dis­
tance, and by letter, make known their complaints. A nun
wrote on the 28th of October, timidly, and in general terms,
asking nothing for herself, but entreating the Assembly to legis­
late on ecclesiastical vows. The Assembly dared not at that
time come to any resolution; they merely suspended the pro­
nouncing of vows, thus barring the entrance to fresh victims .
But how would they have hastened to open the gates for the
sad inhabitants of the cloisters, had they known the desperate
state of misery to which they had been reduced! I have said in
another book 10 how every kind of cultivation and intellectual
amusement had been gradually withdrawn from the poor
nuns, how the distrust of the clergy had deprived them of food
for the mind. They were literally dying, without a breath of
anything vital; the absence of religion was also as great as that
of worldly things, perhaps even greater. Death, ennui, vacancy;
nothing to-day; nothing to-morrow; nothing in the morning,
and nothing in the evening; only a confessor occasionally, and

• Cells in which the sup eriors imprisoned for life.-C. C.

,. "Priests, Women, and Families," passim.
332
 Resistance
a little immorality. Or else they ran violently to the opposite
extreme, from the cloister to Voltaire or Rousseau, into absolute
Revolution. I have known some who were outright unbelievers.
A few had a faith of their own; and theirs was so powerful
that they could have walked through fire. Witness Charlotte
Corday, nourished in the cloister, with the precepts of Plutarch
and Rousseau, beneath the vaulted roof of Matilda and William
the Conqueror.H
It was like a review of all the unfortunate; all the phantoms
of the middle ages reappeared in their turn before the face of
the clergy, the universal oppressor. The Jews came. After hav­
ing been annually smitten on the cheek at Toulouse, or hanged
between two dogs, they came modestly to ask whether they
were men. These ancestors of Christianity, so harshly treated
by their own sons, were also, in one sense, the ancestors of the
French Revolution; the latter, as a reaction of Right, would
necessarily bow down before that austere law, wherein Moses
foresaw the future triumph of Right.
Another victim of religious prejudices, the poor community
of actors, came also to claim their rights. 0 barbarous preju­
dices! The two first men of England and France, the author of
Othello and the author of Tartufe, were they not actors? And
was not the great man who spoke for them in the National
Assembly, even Mirabeau, a sublime actor? "Action, action,
action!" is what makes the orator, said Demosthenes.
The Assembly decided nothing for the actors, and nothing
for the Jews. On the account of the latter, they granted to non­
catholics access to civil employments. They also recalled from
foreign countries our unfortunate brethren, the Protestants,
driven away by the barbarous agents of Louis XIV., and prom­
ised to restore to them their property, as far as they were able.
Several returned, after an exile of a century; but few recovered
their fortune. This innocent and �njustly banished population

At the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen.-See her Biography, by Paul

II

Dclasalle, Louis Dubois, &c.

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did not find an indemnity of a milliard of francs ( 400,0001. ) , a

sum so lavishly squandered on the guilty emigrants.12
What they found was equality, the most honourable rehabili­
tation, France restored to justice, and raised from the dead,
and men of their belief in the foremost rank of the Assembly,
Rabaut and Barnave at the tribune. Too just retributionI These
two illustrious Protestants were members of the ecclesiastical
committee, and were now judging their ancient judges, and
deciding on the fate of those who banished, burnt, and broke
their fathers on the wheel. By way of vengeance, they pro­
posed to vote one hundred and thirty-three millions for the
Catholic clergy I
Rabaut Saint-Etienne was, as is well known, the son of the
old doctor, the persevering apostle and glorious martyr of
Cevennes, who for fifty years knew no other roof than leaves
and the canopy of heaven, hunted like a bandit, passing the
winters on the snow among wolves, without any other weapon
than his pen, with which he wrote his sermons in the woods.
His son, after working many years at the task of religious
liberty, had the happiness of voting it. It was he also who
proposed and proclaimed the unity and indiVisibility of France
( August 9, 1791 ) . A noble proposition, which all doubtless
would have made, but which was to spring first from the heart
of our Protestants, so long and so cruelly divorced from their
native land. The Assembly raised Rabaut to the dignity of
president, and he had the glorious happiness of writing to his
venerable parent these words of solemn rehabilitation and hon­
our for the proscribed: ''The President of the National Assembly
is at your feet."

III We must, however, make a distinction. There is the emigrant who goes
to side with the enemy; and the emigrant, more than excusable, who
departs through fear.

334
 III

Resistance-The Clergy-The Parlernents

-The Provincial Estates

THE discussion on ecclesiastical estates began

on the 8th of October; and on the 14th, the clergy raised the
shout of civil war.
On the 14th, it was a bishop of Brittany; on the 24th, the
clergy of the diocese of Toulouse: a tocsin in the west, and a
tocsin in the south.
We must not forget that in this same month of October, the
prelates and rich abbes of Belgium, whose estates were also in
danger, were creating an army and appointing a general.
Brabant and Flanders unfurled the banner of the blood-red
cross. The Capuchin friars, and other monks, were exciting the
peasantry, intoxicating them with savage sermons and furious
processions, and forcing upon them swords and daggers against
the Emperor. Our peasantry were less prompt in making the
movement. Their judgment in general is healthy, and far more
clear and sober than that of the Belgians. The old frolicsome
spirit of the fabliaux 13 and of Rabelais, but little favourable to
the clergy, is never entirely extinct in France. «Monsieur le
cure, and his housekeeper," is ever an inexhaustible text of
scandal for the long winter's evenings. The curate, however,
was rather lampooned than hated; but the bishops ( all nobles

1B Satirical Poems.

335
 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

at that time, Louis XVI. would elect n o others ) were, for the
most part, far more scandalous. Without confining their amours
to their provincial countesses, who used to do the honours of
the episcopal palace, they had intrigues also with the actresses
of Paris. These countesses, or marchionesses, mostly of the
poorer ranks of the nobility, occasionally honoured their half­
marriages by their real merit; more than one governed the
bishopric, and better than the bishop could have done it. One
of these women, not far from Paris, managed the elections of
'89 in her diocese, and strove energetically to send two excel­
lent deputies to the National Assembly.
An episcopacy so worldly, that remembered its religion only
as soon as its estates were about to be touched, had really a
difficult task in attempting to renew the ancient spirit of fanati­
cism in the rural districts. Even in Brittany, where the peas­
antry always belong to the priests, it was an imprudent blunder
of the bishop of Treguier to fling abroad the manifesto of civil
war on the 14th of October; he fired too soon; and his gun
missed fire. In his incendiary mandate he declared the king
was a prisoner, and religion overthrown; that the priests would
be nothing better than clerks paid by brigands that is to say,
-

the nation, the National Assembly. To be able to say such things

on the 14th, it would have been necessary to be ready to make
a civil war on the morrow. Indeed, a few giddy young nobles
made an attempt to excite the peasantry. But the peasant of
Brittany, so resolute when once on the road and bent on pro­
ceeding, is slow in making the first move; he found it difficult
to understand that the question of church lands, though doubt­
less very serious, comprised all religion. Whilst the peasant was
ruminating, and studying this knotty point, the town did not
wait to reflect, but acted, and with terrible vigour, without
consulting anybody. All the municipalities in the diocese in­
vaded Treguier, and proceeded without lOSing a day, against
the bishop and the noble instigators; interrogated them, and
took down the depositions of witnesses against them. The in­
timidation was so great, that the prelate and the others denied
everything, assuring that they had neither said nor done any-
336
 Resistance
thing to excite the country people to rebel. The municipalities
sent the whole of the proceedings thus begun to the National
Assembly, to the Keeper of the Seals; but, without waiting for
the judgment, they pronounced at once a provisional sentence:
"Whoever enlists for the nobles is a traitor to the commoners;
and the nobles themselves are unworthy of the protection of
the nation, if they attempt to obtain a rank in the national
guard." 14
The mandate came out on the 14th; and this violent retalia­
tion took place on the 18th ( at latest ) . During the week the
sword was drawn. Brest having purchased some grain for provi­
sion, some of the peasantry were paid and urged to stop the
grain-waggons, and the envoys of Brest, at Lannion; they were
in imminent danger of their lives, and obliged to sign a shame­
ful surrender. An army immediately marched forth from Brest,
and from all the different towns at once. Such as were too
remote, as QUimper, Lorient, and Hennebon, offered money and
assistance. Brest, Morlaix, Landernau, and several others,
marched in whole masses; on the road, they met all the com­
munes arriving also in arms, and were obliged to send some
of them back again. The wonder is that no violence was com­
mitted. This general mustering, rising like a storm along the
whole country, arrived at the heights above Lannion, and there
halted. The heroic manhood of Brittany was never more con­
spicuously displayed; she was firm against herself. They merely
took back the purchased grain, and handed the guilty parties
over to the judges, that is to say, their friends.
What rendered the privileged classes so' easy to be con­
quered at that period, was that they did not act in concert.
Several made an appeal to physical force at once; but the
greater number did not despair of resisting by the law, by
the old, and perhaps by the new, system.
The parlements had not yet acted. It was their vacation.
They intended to act on their return to business in November.
The majority of the nobles and upper clergy did not yet act.

U Bailly, iii., 209. Duchatellier gives but little infonnation in this matter.

337
 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

They still entertained one hope. Being the proprietors of the

greater part of the land, and predominant in the rural districts,
they held in their dependency a whole race of servants and
clients under different denominations. These country people
being called to vote by Necker's universal election in the spring
of 1789, had generally voted properly, because their patrons,
for the most part, gloried in bringing about the Estates-General,
which they considered a thing of no consequence. But ages
had passed away in a year. The same patrons at the present
time, the end of the year 1789, would certainly make desperate
efforts to get the rural population to vote against the Revolu­
tion; they were going to make the farmer choose between his
patriotism ( still very young ) and his daily bread, and to lead
their submissive, trembling labourers, in bands, to the elec­
toral urn, and make them vote by cudgel law. Things will
presently change, when the peasant will be able to catch a
glimpse of the way to acquire the church estates, and the
lands of the manors, and when the Assembly will have created,
by these sales, a legion of proprietors and free electors. At the
present moment, however, there is nothing of the kind. The
rural districts are still subject to electoral bondage: Necker's
universal suffrage, if the Assembly had adopted it, would in­
contestably have given the victory to the old state of affairs.
On the 22nd of October, the Assembly decreed that nobody
could be an elector unless he paid in direct taxes, as proprietor
or tenant, the value of three days' labour, ( that is to say, three
francs, at most ) .
With that one line, they swept away from the hands of the
aristocracy a million rural electors.
Of the five or six million electors produced by universal
suffrage, there remained four millions four hundred thousand 16
proprietors or tenants.
GregOire, Duport, Robespierre, and other worshippers of the
ideal, objected, but in vain, that men were equal and ought

111 This is, at least, the number found in 1791. We shall revert to this
important point.

338
 Resistance
therefore all to vote according to the dictates of natural law.
Two days previously, Montlosier, the royalist, had likewise
proved that all men are equal.
In the crisis in which they then were, nothing could have
been more futile and fatal than this thesis of natural law. These
Utopists thus bestowed a million electors on the enemies of
equality in the name of equality.
The glory of this truly revolutionary measure belongs to
Thouret, the illustrious legist of Normandy, a practical Sieyes,
who caused the Assembly to pass, or at least facilitated, the
great measures which it then enacted. Without either elo­
quence or effect, he severed with the power of his logic those
knotty questions with which the most intelligent, such as Sieyes
and Mirabeau, seemed to be puzzled.
He alone ends the discussion on the ecclesiastical estates, by
extricating it from the lower region of disputation, and boldly
raising it to the light of philosophical right. All his arguments,
in October and December, are summed up in this profound
sentence : "How could you possess?" said he to the clergy, "you
do not exist.
"You do not exist as a body. The moral bodies which the
state creates are not bodies in the proper sense of the word, are
not living beings. They have a moral ideal existence which is
imparted to them by the will of the state, their creator. The
state made them, and causes them to live. As useful, it main­
tained them; but having become noxious, it withdraws from
them its will, which constitutes all their life and rational being."
To which Maury replied: "No, the state did not create us;
we exist without the state." Which was equivalent to saying,
We are a state within the state, a principle in opposition to a
principle, a struggle, an organised warfare, permanent discord
in the name of charity and union.
On the 3rd of November, the Assembly decreed that the
property of the clergy was at the disposal of the nation. In
December it further decreed, in the terms laid down by
Thouret: That the clergy are no longer an order; that they do
not exist ( as a body ) .
339
 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9, TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

The 3rd o f November is a great day. It breaks up the parle­

ments and even the provincial estates.
On the same day appeared Thouret's report on the organisa­
tion of departments, the necessity of dividing the provinces, of
removing those false nationalities, so malevolent and hostile, in
order to constitute a real nation in the spirit of unity.
Who was interested in maintaining those ancient divisions,
all those feelings of bitter rivalry, to keep people Gascons,
Proven9aux, and Britons, and to prevent Frenchmen from be­
ing one France? Those who reigned in the provinces, the parle­
ments, and the provincial estates; those false phantoms of
liberty which for so long a time had made it but its shadow,
a snare, and even impeded its birth.
Well then, on the 3rd of November, at the moment when it
gives the first blow to the provincial estates, the Assembly ad­
journs the parlements for an indefinite period. Lameth made
the proposal, and Thouret drew up the decree. 'We have
buried them alive," said Lameth on leaving the Assembly.
All the old magistracy had suffiCiently proved what the Rev­
olution had to expect from it. The tribunals of Alsace, Beaujo­
lais, and Corsica; the prevosts of Champaign and Provence,
took upon themselves to choose between the diHerent laws;
they were perfectly acquainted with such as favoured the king,
but did not know the others. On the 27th of October, the judges
sent to Marseilles by the parlement of Aix acted according to
the ancient forms, with secret procedures, and all the old
barbarous practices, without paying any attention to the con­
trary decree, sanctioned on the 4th of October. The parlement
of Besan90n openly refused to register any decree of the
Assembly.
The latter had but to say one word to annihilate this inso­
lence. The people were trembling with indignation around
those rebellious tribunals. "Against those estates and parle­
ments," said Robespierre, "you need do nothing; the munici­
palities will act sufficiently."
On the 5th of November, the Assembly raised its arm to

340
 Resistance
strike. "Such tribunals as do not register within three days shall
be prosecuted for illegal behaviour."
These bodies had had under the feeble government now
expiring, a considerable power of resistance, both legal and
seditious. The whimsical mixture of functions which they com­
bined gave them abundant means of doing so.-Their sovereign,
absolute, hereditary jurisdiction, which never forgot an injury,
was dreaded by all; even ministers and great lords never
dared exasperate judges who would remember the circum­
stance, perhaps fifty years afterwards, in some trial or other
to ruin their families.-Their refusal to register, which gave
them a kind of veto against the king, had at least the effect
of affording a signal to sedition, and, in an indirect manner,
of proclaiming it legal.-Their administrative usurpations, the
superintendence of provisions in which they interfered, af­
forded them a thousand opportunities of causing a terrible
accusation to impend over people in power.-Lastly, a part of
the police was in their hands; that is to say, that they were
charged to repress on one hand the troubles they excited on
the other.
Was this dangerous power at least in safe hands that might
provide security? The parlement men in the eighteenth cen­
tury had been seriously corrupted by their intercourse with the
nobility. Even those among them who, as Jansenists, were
hostile to the court, devout, austere, and factious, were, in
spite of their surly haughtiness, not the less flattered to behold
duke or prince so-and-so in their antechamber. The great lords,
who laughed at them in secret, courted and flattered them, and
spoke subserviently to them in order to win unjust law-suits,
especially to be able to usurp the lands of the commons with
impunity. The meanness to which the courtiers stooped before
those bigwigs, involved them no further. They themselves
would laugh at it; occasionally, they condescended to marry
their daughters,-their fortunes, in order to replenish their own.
The younger of the parliamentarians, too much flattered by this
acquaintance and these alliances with personages of higher

341
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rank, strove hard to imitate them-to be, after their example,

good-natured profligates, and, like awkward imitators, they
outstepped their masters. They would lay aside their red robes,
and descend from the fleurs-de-lis to frequent houses of a
lower order, fashionable suppers, and to take part in private
theatricals.
o Justice, how low hast thou fallen! . . 0 degrading his­
.

tory! In the middle ages it was material, in the land and in

the race, in the fief and in the blood. The lord, or he who
succeeds all others, the lord of lords, the king, would say:
"Justice is mine; I can judge or cause to be judged." By whom?
"No matter by whom; by any one of my lieutenants, by my
servant, my steward, my porter. . . . Come here; I am pleased
with you and give you a magistracy." This man says, to the
same purpose : "I shall not be a judge myself, I shall sell this
magistracy."-Then comes the son of a merchant, who pur­
chases, to sell a second time, this most holy of sacred things;
thus justice passes from hand to hand, like a parcel of goods,
nay, passes into a heritage, a dowry . . . A strange marriage
settlement for a young bride, the right of hanging and breaking
a man on the wheel!
Hereditary right, venality, privilege, exception,-such were
the names of justice. And yet how otherwise should we term
injustice?-Privileges of pers'ons, judged by whom they chose.
Privilege of time: I judge thee, at my good pleasure, to-morrow,
in ten years, or never.-And privilege of place. The parlement
will summon from the distance of a hundred and fifty leagues
or more some poor fellow who is pleading against his lord.
I advise him to be resigned and give up his cause; let him
abandon it altogether rather than come and waste years per­
haps at Paris, in dirt and poverty, in soliciting a decree from
the good friends of his lord.
The parlements of latter years had provided, by decrees,
not promulgated, but avowed and faithfully executed, that
none but men of noble birth or newly-made nobles could any
longer be admitted among them.
Thence arose a deplorable decline of capacity. The study

342
 Resistance
of the law, debased in the schools,16 weakened among the law­
yers, was altogether wanting among the magistrates,-those
very men who applied the law for life or death. The lawyers'
corporation very seldom required the candidate to give proofs
of his science, if he proved his titles of nobility.
Thence also proceeded a line of conduct more and more
false and ambiguous. Those noble magistrates are constantly
advancing and retreating. They shout for liberty; Turgot be­
comes minister, and then they reject him. They raise a cry of
Estates-General! But the day they are given such a body, they
set out to render it null by organizing it on the lines of the old
powerless Estates.
On that day they expired.
When the Assembly decreed an indefinite vacation, they had
little expected such a blow. Those of Paris wanted to resist; 17
but the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the Keeper of the Seals, en­
treated them not to do so. November would have renewed the
great October movement. They registered and made the some­
what dilatory offer to give judgment gratuitously.
Those of Rouen also enregistered; but they wrote secretly
and prudently to the king, that they did so provisionally, and
from motives of obedience to him. Those of Metz said as much,
publicly and boldly, in a general meeting of all the chambers,
resolutely grounding this act on the non-liberty of the king.
Those men were able to swagger, being protected by Bouille's
artillery.
The timid Bishop, the Keeper of the Seals, was sore afraid.
He pOinted out the danger to the king: how the . Assembly
would retaliate, in anger, and let loose the people. The way to
save the parlements, was for the king to hasten to condemn
them himself. He would be in a better position to interfere and

,. The venerable M. Berriat Saint-Prix has often related to me some

singular facts relating to this matter. Ignorance and routine were becoming
the character of the tribunals more and more every day. On their
systematic opposition to d'Aguesseau's attempts to restore unity to the law,
see M. La Ferriere's fine Histoire du Droit Fra�ats.
17 See Sallier, the Parliamentarian, Annales, ii., p. 49.

343
 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4, 1 79 0

intercede. Indeed, the cities of Rouen and Metz were already

impeaching their parlements and demanding their punish­
ment. Those proud bodies saw themselves alone, with the
whole population against them: they retracted. Metz itself in­
terceded for its guilty parlement; and the Assembly pardoned
it ( November 25th, 1789).

344
 IV

Resistance-Parlements
-Movement of the Federations

THE most obstinate resistance was that of the

parlement of Brittany. Three separate times it refused to regis­
ter, and thought itself able to maintain its refusal. On one hand,
it had the nobility, who were mustering at Saint-Malo, the
numerous and very faithful servants of the nobles, its own
members and clients in the towns, its friends in the religiOUS
establishments ( confreries ) , and the corporations of trades;
add, moreover, the facility of obtaining recruits in that multi­
tude of workmen out of employ, and people wandering about
the streets, dying of hunger. The towns beheld them busily
engaged in preparing a civil war. Surrounded as they were by
hostile or doubtful rural districts, they might be reduced to
famine; they therefore resolved to settle the question at once.
Rennes and Nantes, Vannes and Saint Malo, sent overwhelm­
ing accusations to the Assembly, declaring that they abjured
all connection with the traitors. Without waiting for orders, the
national guard of Rennes entered the castle and secured the
cannon ( December 18, 1789 ) .
The Assembly took two measures. It summoned the parle­
ment of Brittany to its bar; and it gave a favourable reception
to the petition of Rennes soliciting the creation of other tribu­
nals. It began its great work, the organisation of a system of

345
 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9, TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

justice worthy of the name, neither paid, purchased, nor hered­

itary, but sprung from the people and for the people. The first
article of such an organisation was, of course, the suppression
of the parlements ( December 22, 1789 ) .
Thouret, the author of the report, well laid down this maxim,
sadly overlooked since then, that a revolution that wishes to be
durable ought, before everything else, to deprive its enemies
of the sword of justice.
It is a strange contradiction to say to the system overthrown:
"Thy principle is adverse to me; I blot it out of the laws and
government; but in all private matters, thou shalt apply it
against me." How was it possible thus to disown the quiet,
calm, but terrible omnipotence of the judicial power, which
must inevitably absorb it. Every other power is in need of it;
but it can do without the others. Give me but the judiCial
power, and keep your laws and ordinances, all that mountain­
heap of paper; and I will undertake to establish triumphantly
the system the most opposite to your laws. Those old parlia­
mentary tyrants were obliged, in spite of themselves, to come
and bow down to the National Assembly ( January 8th ) . If they
had not come by fair means, Brittany would even have raised
an army on purpose to drag them thither. They appeared
with an arrogant air and an ill-disguised contempt for that As­
sembly of lawyers, for whom they cared almost as little as they
did in days of yore, when, with a lofty demeanour, they over­
whelmed the bar with their severe lectures. But now the tables
were turned. Besides, what did individuals matter? It was be­
fore reason that they had to reply, before principles, set forth
for the first time.
Their haughtiness entirely disappeared, and they remained,
as it were, nailed to the ground, when, from that Assembly of
advocates, they listened to the following words : "You say Brit­
tany is not represented; and yet she has, in this Assembly, sixty­
six representatives. It is not in antiquated charters, in which
cunning, combined with power, found means to oppress the
people, that you must look for the rights of the nation; it is in

346
 Resistance
Reason; its rights are as ancient as time, and as sacred as
nature."
The president of the parlement of Brittany had not defended
the parlement which formed the matter of debate. He de­
fended Brittany, which neither wished nor needed to be de­
fended.
He alleged the clauses of the marriage of Anne of Brittany,
a marriage that was no better than a divorce organised and
stipulated for by Brittany and France. He pleaded for this
divorce, as a right that was to be eternal. A hateful insidious
defence, addressed not to the Assembly, but to provincial
pride,-a provocation exciting civil war.
Had Brittany to fear she would become less by becoming
France? Was it possible that such a separation should last for­
ever? Was it not necessary that a more real alliance should be
sooner or later eHected? Brittany has gained enough in sharing
the glory of so great an empire; and certainly this empire has
also gained, we must frankly confess, in espousing that poor
yet gloriOUS country, its bride of granite, that mother of noble
hearts and vigorous resistance.
Thus the defence of the parlements, being untenable, sub­
sided into a defence of provinces and provincial estates. But
these estates found themselves still weaker in one respect. The
parlements were homogeneous organised bodies; but the
estates were nothing better than monstrous and barbarous con­
structions, heterogeneous and discordant. The best to be said in
their favour was that a few of them, those of Languedoc, for
instance, had administered injustice wisely and prudently. Oth­
ers, those of Dauphine, under the able direction of Mounier,
had made a noble beginning on the eve of the Revolution.
This same Mounier, a fugitive, and belonging to the reaction­
party, had abused his influence over Dauphine to fix an early
convocation of the estates, "in which they would examine
whether the king were really free." At Toulouse one or two
hundred nobles and parliamentarians had made a show of as­
sembling the estates. Those of Cambresis, an imperceptible

347
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assembly in an imperceptible country, which termed them­

selves estates, had also claimed their privilege of not being
France, and said, like those of Brittany, "We are a nation."
The false and faithless representatives of these provinces
came boldly and spoke in their name; but they were violently
contradicted at the very same moment. The municipalities,
roused into life, and full of vigour and energy, came one after
the other before the National Assembly to say to those Estates
and Parlements: "Speak not in the name of the people; the
people do not know you; you represent only yourselves,-venal­
ity, hereditary right, and Gothic privilege."
The municipality, a real living body ( this we perceive from
the violence of its blows ) , used towards those old artificial
bodies, those ancient barbarous ruins, the equivalent of the
language already expressed to the body of the clergy : "You do
not existl"
They appeared pitiable to the Assembly. All it did to those
of Brittany was to declare them incapable of doing what they
refused to do,-to interdict them from all public functions, until
they had presented a request for leave to take the oath ( Jan­
uary 11th ) .
The same indulgence was granted, two months later, to the
parlement of Bordeaux, which, taking advantage of the troubles
in the south, ventured so far as to make a kind of suit against
the Revolution, declaring, in a public document, that it had
done nothing but mischief, and insolently terming the As­
sembly the deputies of the bailiwicks.
The Assembly had but little occasion to act with severity:
this was more than sufficiently carried out by the people. Brit­
tany quelled her parlement, and that of Bordeaux was accused
before the Assembly by the very city of Bordeaux which sent
the ardent and youthful Fonfrede expressly to support the
accusation ( March 4th ) .
These attempts at resistance became quite insignificant amid
the immense popular movement manifested on all sides.
Never, since the Crusades, had there been so general and deep

348
 Resistance
a commotion among all classes of the people. In 1790 it was
the enthusiasm of fraternity; about to become the enthusiasm
of war.
Where did this enthusiasm first begin? Everywhere. No pre­
cise origin can be assigned to these great spontaneous facts.
In the summer of 1789, from the general dread of brigands,
solitary habitations, and even the hamlets felt alarmed at their
isolated position: one hamlet united with another, their villages
with villages, and even the town with the country. Federation,
mutual assistance, brotherly friendship, fraternity,-such was
the idea, the title of their covenants. Few, very few are yet
written.
The idea of fraternity is at first rather limited. It implies
only the neighbours, or at most the province. The great fed­
eration of Brittany and Anjou has still this provincial character.
Convoked for the 26th of November, it was completed in Jan­
uary. At the central point of the peninsula, far from the roads,
and in the solitary little town of Pontivy the representatives of
a hundred and :fifty thousand national guards assembled to­
gether. Those on horseback alone wore a common uniform, a
red body with black facings; all the others, distinguished by
rose, amaranth, or chamois facings, reminded one in their very
union, of the diversity of the towns that deputed them. In
their covenant of union, to which they invite all the municipal­
ities in the kingdom, they insist nevertheless on always form­
ing a family of Brittany and Anjou, "whatever be the new
division of departments, necessary for the administration."
They establish a system of correspondence between their cities.
In the general disorganisation, in their continuing uncertainty
about the success of the new order, they take measures that
will ensure their own separate organization.
In less isolated places, in districts traversed by high roads,
and especially on rivers, this brotherly covenant assumes a more
extensive significance. The rivers which, under the old order of
things, by the vast number of tolls and interior custom-house
duties, were hardly anything better than barriers, obstacles,

349
 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

and impediments, become under the government of liberty,

the principal means of circulation, and bring men into a cor­
respondence of ideas and sentiments as much as of commerce.
It was near the Rh8ne, at the petty town Etoile, two leagues
from Valence, that the province was abjured for the first time;
fourteen rural communes of Dauphine unite together and de­
vote themselves to the grand unity of France ( Nov. 29th,
1789 ) ,-a noble answer from these peasants to politicians like
Mounier, who were making an appeal to provincial pride, to
the spirit of dissension, and were endeavouring to arm Dau­
phine against France.
This federation, renewed at Montelimart, is no longer that
of Dauphine alone, but composed of several provinces of either
bank, Dauphine and Vivarais, Provence and Languedoc; this
time, therefore, they are Frenchmen.-Grenoble sends to it, of
her own accord, in spite of her municipality and of politicians;
she no longer cares about her position as a capital-town; she
prefers being France.-All repeat together the sacred oath,
which the peasants had already taken in November:-No more
provinces I one native-landI and to give one another mutual aid
and provisions, passing grain from one place to another by the
RMne ( December 13th ) .
That sacred river, Howing by so many races of men, of differ­
ent nation and language, seems to hasten to exchange different
products, sentiments, and ideas; and is, in its varied course, the
universal mediator, the sociable Genius, the bond of fellowship
of the South. It was at its delightful and smiling point of junc­
tion with the Sa6ne, that, in the reign of Augustus, sixty na­
tions of the Gauls had raised their altar; and it is at the sternest
point, at the deep, melancholy passage commanded by the cop­
per mountains of the Ardeche, in the Roman province of Va­
lence, seated beneath her eternal arc, that was organized, on
the 31st of January, 1790, the first of our grand federations. Ten
thousand men were up in arms, who must have represented
several hundreds of thousands. There were thirty thousand
spectators. In presence of that immutable antiquity, those ever-
350
 Resistance
lasting mountains, and that noble river, ever changing yet ever
the same, the solemn oath was taken. The ten thousand bend­
ing one knee, and the thirty thousand kneeling, swore all to­
gether the holy unity of France.
The whole was grand; both the time and place; and, what is
more rare, the language was by no means inferior. It was full
of the wisdom of Dauphine and the simplicity of Vivarais, the
whole being animated with the breath of Languedoc and Prov­
ence. At the commencement of a career of sacrifices which they
clearly foresaw, at the moment they were beginning the great
but difficult task, those excellent citizens recommended to one
another to found liberty on its only solid base "virtue," on what
renders devotion easy, "simplicity, sobriety, and pureness of
heart."
I would also like to know what was said at Voute, almost
opposite, on the other side of the Rhone, by the hundred thou­
sand armed peasants who there cemented the union of the
province of Vivarais. It was still the month of February, a
rough season in those cold mountains; neither weather, misery,
nor the horrible roads, prevented those poor people from ar­
riving at the place of meeting. Neither torrents, ice, precipices,
nor the thaWing of the snow was able to arrest their march. A
new breath of life was in the air which inspired them with a
glow of enthusiasm; citizens for the first time, and summoned
from their remote snowy regions by the unknown name of
liberty, they set forth, like the kings and shepherds of the East
at the birth of Christ, seeing clearly in the middle of night,
and following unerringly, through the wintry mists, the dawn
of spring, and the star of France.
Long before this, the fourteen towns of Franche-Comte, feel­
ing uneasy between the castles and the pillagers forcing and
burning the castles, had united at Besan�on and promised one
another mutual assistance.
Thus, far above the riots, dangers, and fears, I hear a great
and mighty word, at once sweet and formidable, one that will
restrain and calm everything. Fraternity, gradually rising and

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 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89, TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

re-echoed by those imposing assemblies, each of which is a

great people.
And in proportion as these associations are formed, they as­
sociate also one with another: like those great farandoles of the
South, where each new company of dancers join hands with
another, and the same dance transports whole populations.
At the same period, the noble heart of Burgundy displayed
itself by two early illustrious examples.
In the very depth of winter, and during the general scarcity,
Dijon calls upon all the municipalities of Burgundy to hasten
to the assistance of starving Lyons.18
Lyons was starving, and Dijon grieves. Thus these words
fraternity and national bond of fellowship, are not words only.
but sincere sentiments, real and efficacious actions.
The same city of Dijon, joined to the federations of Dau­
phine and Vivarais ( themselves united to those of Provence
and Languedoc ) invites Burgundy to give her hand to the cities
of Franche-Comte. Thus, the immense farandole of the south­
east, joining and ever forming new links, advances as far as
Dijon, which is connected with Paris.
All abandoning egotism, all wishing to do good to all and to
feed one another, provisions begin to circulate easily, and
plenty is again restored; it seemed as though, by some miracle
of fraternity, a new harvest had been made in the dead of
winter.
In all this, there is not a vestige of that spirit of exclusion
and local isolation later designated by the name of federalism.
On the contrary, there is here a covenant sworn for the unity of
France. These federations of provinces look all towards the
centre; all invoke, join, and devote themselves to the National
Assembly, that is to say, to unity. They all thank Paris for its
brotherly summons; one town demands its assistance, another
to be affiliated to its national guard. Clermont had proposed
to it in November a general association of muniCipalities. At

11 Archives of Dijon. l owe this communication to the obliging service of

M. Garnier.

352
 Resistance
that period, indeed, threatened by the Estates, the Parlements,
and the Clergy, the rural districts being doubtful, all the safety
of France seemed to depend on a close union of the cities.
Thank heaven, the great federations gave a happier solution
to this difficulty.
In their movement they transported, with the towns, an im­
mense number of the rural population. This has been seen in
the case of Dauphine, Vivarais, and Languedoc.
In Brittany, Quercy, Rouergue, Limousin, and Perigord, the
country places are less peaceful; in February there were sev­
eral disturbances and acts of violence. The beggars, supported
till then with great difficulty by the municipalities, gradually
spread abroad over the whole country. The peasants begin
again to force the castles, burn the feudal charters, and execute
by main force the declarations of the 4th of August, the prom­
ises of the Assembly. Whilst the latter is ruminating, terror
reigns in the rural districts. The nobles forsake their castles and
remove to town to conceal themselves and seek safety among
their enemies. And those enemies defend them. The national
guards of Brittany, who have just sworn their league against
the nobles, now arm in their favour, and go to defend those
manors where they were conspiring against them.19 Those of
Quercy and the South in general were equally magnanimous.
The pillagers were checked, the peasantry kept in order, and
gradually initiated and interested in the march of the Revolu­
tion. To whom, indeed, could it be more profitable than to
them? It had delivered from tithes such of them as were pro-

llI The National Guards of 1790 were by no means an aristocracy, as

some writers, by a strange anachronism, have given us to understand. In
most of the towns, they were, as I have said, literally everybody . All were
interested in preventing the devastation of the rural districts, which would
have rendered cultivation impossible, and famished France. Besides, those
transient disturbances had by no means the character of a /acquerie. In
certain neighbourhoods of Brittany and Provence, the peasants themselves
repaired the damage that had been committed. In a castle where they
found only a sick lady with her children, they abstained from every kind
of disturbance, &c.

353
 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89, TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

prietors; and among the rest it was going to create proprietors

by hundreds and thousands. It was about to honour them with
the sword, to raise them in one day from serfs to nobles, to
conduct them throughout the earth to glory and adventures,
and to create from them princes and kings,-nay, more, heroes I

354
 v

Resistance-The Queen and Austria

(October to February)

FROM the sublime spectacle of fraternity, I fall,

alas! to the earth, among intrigues and plots.
Nobody appreciated the immensity of the movement; no­
body fathomed that rapid and invincible tide rising from
October to July. Whole populations, till then unknown to one
another, met and united. Distant towns and provinces, which
even lately were still divided by an ancient spirit of rivalry,
marched forth, as it were, to meet one another, embraced and
fraternised. This novel and striking fact was scarcely noticed
by the great thinkers of the age. If it had been possible for it
to be noticed by the queen and the Court, it would have dis­
couraged all useless opposition. For who, whilst the ocean is
rising, would dare to march against it?
The queen deceived herself at the very outset; and she re­
mained mistaken. She looked upon the 6th of October as an
affair prepared by the Duke of Orleans, a trick played against
her by the enemy. She yielded; but, before her departure, she
conjured the king, in the name of his son, to go to Paris only
to wait for an opportunity to escape.20
On the very first day, the Mayor of Paris, on entreating him
to fix his residence there, and telling him that the centre of

.. Beaulieu, ii., 203.

355
 BOOK III: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

the empire was the natural abode of the kings, obtained from
him only this answer: "That he would willingly make Paris his
most habitual residence."
On the 9th appeared the king's proclamation, in which he
announced that if he had not been in Paris, he feared that
there might have been great diiorder; that, the constitution
being made, he would realise his project of going to visit his
provinces; that he indulged in the hope of receiving from them
proofs of their affection, of seeing them encourage the National
Assembly, &c.
This ambiguous letter, which seemed to provoke Royalist
addresses, decided the commune of Paris to write also to the
provinces; it desired to comfort them, it said, against certain
insinuations, casting a veil over the plot which had nearly over­
thrown the new order of things; and it offered a sincere fra­
ternal alliance to all the communes in the kingdom.
The queen refused to receive the conquerors of the Bastille,
who had come to present to her their homage. She gave an
audience to the market-women ( dames de la Halle ) , but at a
distance, and as though separated and defended by the wide
skirts of the ladies of the court, who placed themselves before
her. By thus acting, she estranged from her a very royalist
class; several of the market-women disavowed the 6th of Oc­
tober; and themselves arrested some female vagrants who were
entering houses to extort money.
These sad mistakes committed by the queen were not calcu­
lated to increase confidence. And how indeed could it have
existed amid the attempts of the Court, ever miscarrying and
always discovered? Between October and March, a plot was dis­
covered nearly every month ( those of Augeard, Favras, Maille­
bois, &c. )
On the 25th of October, Augeard, the queen's keeper of the
seals, was arrested, and at his house was found a plan to con­
duct the king to Metz.
On the 21st of November, in the Assembly, the committee of
inquiry, provoked by Malouet, silences the latter by telling him
356
 Resistance
there exists a new plot to carry off the king to Metz, and that
he, Malouet, knows all about it.
On the 25th of December the Marquis de Favras, another
agent for carrying off the king, was arrested; he had been re­
cruiting partisans in Paris. If the purpose of all this had been
to complete the job of stirring up the people's imagination,
to drive them mad with distrust and fears by surrounding them
with shady plots and snares, this would have been just the
way to go about it. It would have been necessary to keep
showing the people, through a series of clumsy conspiracies,
the king in flight, the king at the head of the armies, the king
returning to starve out Paris.
Doubtless, supposing liberty to have been firmly established
and the opposition less vigorous, it would have been better to
have allowed the king and the queen to escape, to have con­
ducted them to their proper place,-the frontier, and made a
present of them to Austria.
But, in the fluctuating and uncertain state in which our poor
country then was, having for her director an assembly of meta­
physicians, and against her men of execution and vigour, like
M. de Bouille, our naval officers, and the nobles of Brittany,
it was very difficult to part with so great a hostage as the
king, and thus bestow on all those powers that unity of which
they were in want.
Therefore, the people kept watch night and day, prowling
around the Tuileries, and trusting to nobody. They went every
morning to see whether the king had not departed; and they
held the national guard and its commander responSible for his
presence. A thousand reports were in circulation, copied by
violent furious newspapers, which were denouncing plots at
random. The moderate party felt indignant, denied, and
would not believe them . . . And yet the plot was none the
less discovered the next day. The result of all this was that the
king, who was by no means a prisoner in October, was so in
November or December.
The queen had overlooked one admirable irreparable oppor-
357
 BOOK III : OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

tunity,-the moment when Lafayette and Mirabeau were

united in her favour ( the end of October) .
She was unwilling to be saved by the Revolution, or men
such as Mirabeau and Lafayette; this true princess of the house
of Lorraine, courageous and rancorous, desired to conquer and
be revenged.
She risked everything inconsiderately, evidently thinking,
that after all, as Henrietta of England said in a tempest, queens
could not be drowned.
Maria-Theresa had been on the point of perishing, and yet
had not perished. This heroic remembrance of the mother had
much influence over the daughter, though without reason; the
mother had the people on her side, and the daughter had them
against her.
Lafayette, though but little inclined to be a royalist before
the 6th of October, had become so sincerely ever since. He had
saved the queen and protected the king. Such actions form at­
tachments. The prodigious efforts he was obliged to make for
the maintenance of order, caused him to desire earnestly that
the kingly power should resume its strength; and he wrote
twice to M. de Bouille, intreating him to unite with him for
the safety of royalty. M. de BouilIe, in his memoirs, bitterly re­
grets his not having listened to him.
Lafayette had performed a service agreeable to the queen,
by driving away the Duke of Orleans. He seemed to be acting
the part of a courtier. It is curious to behold the general, the
man of business, following the queen to the churches, and
attending the service when she performed her Easter devo­
tions.21 For the sake of the queen and the king, Lafayette
overcame the repugnance he felt for Mirabeau.
As early as the 15th of October, Mirabeau had offered his
services, by a note, which his friend Lamarck, the queen's

1I1 By so doing, Lafayette wanted, I think, to pay also his court to his
devout and virtuous wife. He hastened to write and tell her this important
event.

358
 Resistance
attendant, did not show even to the king. On the 20th came
another note from Mirabeau; but this one was sent to Lafay­
ette, who had a conversation with the orator, and conducted
him to the house of the minister Montmorin.
This unexpected succour, though a god-send, was very badly
received. Mirabeau would have wished the king to be satisfied
with a million ( of francs ) for his whole expenditure; to with­
draw, not to the army at Metz, but to Rouen, and thence
publish ordinances more popular than the decrees of the As­
sembly.22 Thus there would be no civil war, the king making
himself more revolutionary than the Revolution itself.
A strange project, proving the confidence and easy credulity
of genius! If the Court had accepted it for a day, if it had
consented to act this borrowed part, it would have been to
hang Mirabeau on the morrow.
He might have seen very plainly, as far back as November,
what he had to expect from those whom he wished to save. He
wanted to be minister, and to keep at the same time his pre­
dominant position in the National Assembly. For this purpose,
he desired the Court to contrive to secure for him the support
and connivance, or at least the silence, of the royalist deputies;
but, so far from doing so, the Keeper of the Seals warned and
animated several deputies, even in the opposition, against the
project. In the ministry, and at the Jacobins ( this club was
scarcely open ) , they strove at the same time to disqualify Mira­
beau for the ministry. Two upright men, Montlosier on the
right side of the Assembly, and Lanjuinais on the left, spoke
to the same effect. They proposed, and caused it to be decreed,
"that no deputy, on duty, nor for three years afterwards, could
accept any place in the government." Thus the Royalists suc­
ceeded in debarring from the ministry the great orator, who
would have been the support of their party ( November 7th ) .
The queen, as we have said, was unwilling to b e saved by

.. See the documents quoted in the Histoire, by M. Droz, and in the

Memoires de Mirabeau.
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 BOOK III: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

the Revolution, neither would she b e so by the princes and the

emigrant party. She had been too well acquainted with the
Count d'Artois not to know that he was of very little value;
and she very properly distrusted Monsieur as a person of a
false and uncertain character.
What then were her hopes, her views, and her secret coun­
sellors?
We must not reckon Madame de Lamballe,23 a pretty, little,
insignificant woman, and a dear friend of the queen's, but de­
void of ideas and conversation, and little deserving the terrible
responsibility laid to her charge. She seemed to form a centre,
doing gracefully the honours of the queen's private salon, on
the ground floor of the Pavilion of Flora ( at the Tuileries ) .
Many of the nobility would go there; an indiscreet, frivolous,
inconsiderate race, who thought, as in the time of the Fronde,
to gain the day by satirical verses, witticisms, and lampoons.
There, they would read a very witty newspaper, called the
Acts of the Apostles, and sing ditties about the king's captiv­
ity, which made everybody weep, both friends and enemies.
The conneGtions of Marie-Antoinette were entirely with the
nobles, very little with the priests. She was no more a bigot
than her brother Joseph II.
The nobles were not a party; they were a numerous, divided,
and disconnected class; but the priests were a party, a very
close, and materially a very powerful body. The transient dis­
sension between the curates and the prelates made it appear
weak; but the power of the hierarchical system, the party spirit,
the Pope, the voice of the Holy-See, would presently restore
the unity of the clergy. Then, from its inferior members, it was
about to derive incalculable powers in the land, and in the men
of the land, the inhabitants of the rural districts; it was about

.. Pretty is the proper expression; nothing could be farther from beauty:

very small features, a very low forehead, and very little brain. Her hands
were rather large, says Madame de Genlis. The portrait at Versailles shows
very plainly her extraction and her country; she was a nice little Savoyard.
Her hair, concealed by powder, was luxuriant and admirable. ( Alas! this
appeared but too plainly! )

360
 Resistance
to bring against the people of the Revolution a whole nation,­
Vendee against France.
Marie-Antoinette saw nothing of all this. These great moral
powers were to her a dead letter. She was meditating victory,
physical force, BouilIe and Austria.
When the papers of Louis XVI. were found on the 10th of
August in the iron chest, people read with astonishment that,
during the first years of his marriage, he had looked upon his
youthful bride as a mere agent of Austria.24
Having been married by M. de Choiseul, against his will,
into that twice hostile house of Lorraine and Austria, and,
obliged to receive into his palace the abbe de Vermond, spy of
Maria-Theresa, he persevered so long in his distrust as to re­
main nineteen years without speaking to this Vermond.
It is well known how the pious empress had distributed
among her numerous family their several parts, employing her
daughters especially as the agents of her policy. By Caroline,
she governed Naples; and by Marie-Antoinette she expected
to govern France. The latter, a true Lorraine-Austrian, pestered
Louis XVI. for ten years to oblige him to give the ministry to
Choiseul, himself a Lorraine and the friend of the empress. She
succeeded at least in making him accept Breteuil, who, like
Choiseul, had been at first ambassador at Vienna, and, like him
again, belonged entirely to that court. It was again the same
influence ( Vermond's over the queen ) which, at a more recent
period, overcame the scruples of Louis XVI., and made him
take for his prime minister an atheist, the Archbishop of Tou­
louse.
The death of Maria-Theresa, and the severe language of
Joseph II. on his sister and Versailles, would, one would think,
have rendered the latter less favourable towards Austria. Yet
it was at this very time that she persuaded the king to grant
the millions which Joseph II. wanted to extort from the Dutch.

.. He caused her correspondence with Vienna to be watched by Thugut,

in whom she confided.-Letter dated October 17th, 1774, quoted by
Brissot, Memoires, iv., 120.

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In 1789 the queen had three confidants,-three advisers,­

Vermond, ever in the Austrian interest; Breteuil, no less so;
and lastly, M. Mercy d'Argenteau, the Austrian ambassador.
Behind this old man, we may perceive another urging him for­
ward,-old Prince de Kaunitz, for seventy years a minister of
the Austrian monarchy; these two coxcombs, or rather these old
women, who seemed to be entirely occupied with toilet and
trifles, directed the queen of France.
A fatal direction, a dangerous alliance! Austria was then in
so bad a situation, that, far from serving Marie-Antoinette, she
could only be an obstacle to her in acting, a guide to lead to
evil, and impel her towards every absurd step that the Austrian
interest might require.
That Catholic and devout Austria having become half phil­
osophical in her ideas under Joseph II., had found means to
have nobody on her side. Hungary, her own sword, was turned
against her. The Belgian priests had robbed her of the Low­
Countries, with the encouragement of the three Protestant
powers, England, Holland, and Prussia. And what was Austria
doing in the meantime? She was turning her back on Europe,
marching through the deserts of the Turks, and exhausting her
best armies for the advantage of Russia.
The emperor was in no better plight than his empire. Joseph
II. was consumptive; he was dying and beyond the power of
remedy. He had showed, in the Belgian business, a deplorable
vacillation of conduct: first furious threats of fire and sword,
and barbarous executions which excited horror throughout
Europe; next ( on the 25th of November ) a general amnesty.
which nobody would accept.
Austria would have been lost if the Revolution of Belgium
had found support in the Revolution of France.25

.. Any vigorous movement, even a counter-revolutionary one, might have

been prejudicial to her. If our bishops, for instance, had been aided by the
king in their attempts, and obtained any advantage, their success would
have encouraged the Belgian prelates who had expelled Austria. She found
it expedient for the time being to turn moderate, nay, liberal, in order to
gain over the Belgian progressists, whose moderate liberal principles were

362
 Resistance
Here in France, everybody thought that the two revolutions
were about to act in concert and march forward together. The
most brilliant of our journalists, Camille Desmoulins, had, with­
out awaiting events, united in one hope these sister countries
by intitling his journal Revolutions of France and Brabant.
The obstacle to this was that the one was a revolution made
by priests, and the other by philosophers. The Belgians, how­
ever, being aware that they could not rely upon their protectors,
the three Protestant powers, applied to France. Vander Noot,
the champion of the clergy of the Low-Countries, the great
agitator of the Catholic mob, did not scruple to write to the
Assembly and the king. The letter was sent back ( December
10th ) . Louis XVI. showed himself the true brother-in-law of
the emperor.26 The Assembly despised a revolution made by
abbes. The Tuileries, entirely governed by the ambassador of
Austria, succeeded in lulling the honest Lafayette ( and he the
Assembly ) into security.
The queen's agent, Lamarck, departed in December to offer
his sword to the Belgians, his countrymen, against the Aus­
trians. He had, however, the queen's consent, and conse­
quently the Austrian ambassador's. They had hoped that
Lamarck, a nobleman of pleasing manners and fond of novelty,
might serve as a mediator, and perhaps induce the Belgians,
then the conquering party, to accept a middle course that
would reconcile everything,-a spurious constitution under an
Austrian prince. With the word constitution, they lull Lafay­
ette into security a second time.
Lamarck, very justly treated with suspicion by the party of

very similar to Lafayette's. If Lafayette had lent his support to those

progressists, they would most certainly have rejected the alliance of
Austria, and preferred the assistance of France. Therefore the interest of
Austria was, that nothing should be done in France, either one way or the
other.
.. I do not think that the idea of making the Duke of Orleans King of
Brabant was ever seriously entertained at the Tuileries, as some writers
have stated. The surest way of being in the good graces of the Court was
to testify much interest for the Emperor. This is also the line of conduct
followed by Livarot, the commandant of Lille.-( Correspondance inedite,
November 30th and December 13th, 1789. )

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the Belgian priests and the aristocracy, succeeded better with

those who were called progressists. Austria, in order to divide
her enemies, was then giving out that she was a partisan of
progress; and the accession of Leopold, the philanthropic re­
former, contributed much to give credit to this falsehood
( February 20th ) . In her indirect participation in all this, the
queen did herself much harm. She ought to have allied herself
more and more closely with the clergy. Austria, in her struggle
with the clergy, had interests diametrically opposite.
Apparently she hoped that, if the Emperor, coming to terms
with the Belgians, at length found himself free to act, she
would be able to find shelter under his protection, show the
Revolution a war ready to break out against France, and per­
haps strengthen Bouille's little army with a few Austrian troops.
This was a wrong calculation. All that required much time;
and there was none to spare. Austria, extremely egotistical, was
a very distant and very doubtful ally.
However this may be, the two brothers-in-law pursued
exactly the same line of conduct. In the same month, Louis
XVI. and Leopold both declared themselves the friends of
liberty, the zealous defenders of constitutions, &c.
The same conduct in two situations diametrically opposite.
Leopold was acting very well to recover Belgium : he was
dividing his enemies and strengthening his friends. Louis
XVI., on the contrary, far from strengthening his friends, was
casting them, by this parade, into utter discouragement; he was
paralysing the clergy, the nobility, and the counter-revolution.
Necker, Malouet, and the moderate party, believed that the
king, by making an almost revolutionary constitutional pro­
fession of faith, might constitute himself the leader of the Rev­
olution. It was thus that the counsellors of Henry III. had
induced him to take the false step of calling himself the Leader
of the League.
It is true the opportunity seemed favourable. The riots of
January had excited much alarm on the subject of property.
In presence of this great social interest, it was supposed that
364
 Resistance
every political interest would appear of minor importance. The
state of disorganisation was frightful; and the authority took
care not to remedy it; in one place it was really extinct; in
another it pretended to be dead, as one of the brothers Lameth
used to say. Many people had had revolution enough, and
more than enough; and from discouragement, would willingly
have sacrificed their golden dreams for peace and unity.
At the same time ( from the 1st to the 4th of February ) there
occurred two events of similar meaning:
First, the opening of the club of the Impartial ( composed of
Malouet, Virieu, &c. ) . Their impartiality consisted, as they tell
us in their declaration, in restoring power to the king, and
preserving church property, in submitting the alienation of the
ecclesiastical estate to the will of the provinces.
On the 4th of February, the king unexpectedly presents
himself before the Assembly, makes an affecting speech which
filles everybody with surprise and emotion. It was incredible,
marvellous! The king was secretly in love with that very con­
stitution which stripped him of his power. He commands and
admires, espeCially the beautiful division of the departments.
Only, he advises the Assembly to postpone a part of the re­
forms. He deplores the disorders, and defends and consoles
the clergy and the nobility; but, in short, he is, he declares,
before everything else, the friend of the constitution.
He presented himself thus before the Assembly, then embar­
rassed about the means of restoring order, and seemed to say:
You know not what to do? Well, give me back my power.
The scene had a prodigious effect. The Assembly lost its
reason. Barere was drowned in tears. The king withdrew, and
the Assembly crowded about him and escorted him back to the
queen, who received the deputation, in presence of the Dau­
phin. Still haughty and gracious : "Here is my son," said she,
"I will teach him to cherish liberty, and I hope he will be its
support."
On that day she was not the daughter of Maria-Theresa, but
the sister of Leopold. Shortly afterwards, her brother issued his
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hypocritical manifesto, in which he declared himself to be the

friend of liberty and of the constitution of the Belgians; nay,
he went so far as to tell them that after all they had the right
to take up arms against him, their emperor.
To return; the Assembly seemed completely delirious, no
longer knowing what it said. It arose in a mass and swore
fidelity to the constitution which, as yet, did not exist. The
galleries joined in those transports with inconceivable enthu­
siasm. Everybody began to take the oath, at the Hotel-de-Ville,
at La Greve, and in the streets. A Te Deum was sung; and Paris
illuminated in the evening. And, indeed, why should they not
rejoice? The Revolution is effected, and this time thoroughly.
From the 5th to the 15th of February, there was nothing
but a succession of fetes both at Paris and in the provinces. On
all sides, and in every public thoroughfare, the people crowded
together to take the oath. School-boys and children were led
thither in procession; and the whole country was transported
with joy and enthusiasm.
Many of the friends of liberty were frightened at this move­
ment, thinking it might turn to the king's advantage. This was
a mistake. The Revolution was so powerful in its nature, and
so buoyant in its spirit, that every new event, whether for or
against it, ever favoured it ultimately and impelled it still faster.
This affair of the oath ended in what always happens in every
strong emotion. In uttering words nobody attributed to them
any other meaning than what he felt in his heart. Many a one
who had taken the oath to the king, had meant nothing more
than swearing fidelity to his native land.
It was remarked that at the Te Deum, the king had not gone
to Notre-Dame; that he had not, as had been hoped, sworn at
the altar. He was very willing to lie, but not to perjure himself.
On the 9th of February, whilst the fetes still continued,
Gregoire and Lanjuinais said that the cause of the riots was
the non-execution of the decrees of the 4th of August; conse­
quently, that they ought not to halt, but to proceed.
The attempts of the Royalists to restore power and military
366
 Resistance
force to royal authority, were not happy. Many attempted a
ruse, saying that at least in the rural districts, it was necessary
to allow the military to act without the authorisation of the
municipalities. Cazales tril,'ld audacity, and broached the
strange advice to give the king a dictatorship for three months;
-a clumsy trick. Mirabeau, Buzot, and several others, frankly
declared that the executive power was not to be trusted. The
Assembly would confide in none but the municipalities, gave
them full power to act, and made them responsible for such
disturbances as they were able to prevent.
The extraordinary audacity of Cazales' proposal can only be
accounted for by its date ( February 20th ) . A sanguinary sacri­
fice had been made on the 18th, which appeared to answer for
the good faith of the court.
It had at that time two suits, two trials on its hands, those of
Besenval and Favras.
Besenval, accused for the events of the 14th of July, had
after all only executed the orders of his superior, the minister
-the king's own commands. However, his being considered
innocent would seem to condemn the taking of the Bastille and
even the Revolution. He was especially odious as being a
queen's man, the ex-confidant of her parties at Trianon, an old
friend of Choiseul's, and, as such, belonging to the Austrian
cabal.
The Court was less interested about Favras. He was an agent
of Monsieur; and had undertaken, in his name, to carry off the
king. Monsieur, probably, was to have been lieutenant-general,
perhaps regent, if the king had been suspended, as some of
the Parliamentarians and friends of the princes had proposed.
Lafayette says in his memoirs, that Favras was to have begun
by killing Bailly and Lafayette.
On Favras being arrested in the night of the 25th of Decem­
ber, Monsieur, much alarmed, took the singular step of going
to justify himself-( where do you suppose? Before what tri­
bunal? )-before the city of Paris. The municipal magistrates
were by no means qualified to receive such an act. Monsieur
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 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

denied all association with Favras, said he had no knowledge

of the business, and made a hypocritical parade of revolution­
ary sentiments and his love of liberty.
Favras displayed much courage, and ennobled his life by his
death. He made a very good defence, compromising nobody
any more than was necessary. He had been given to under­
stand that it was necessary that he should die discreetly, and
he did so. The long and cruel promenade to which he was
condemned, the penance at Notre-Dame, &c., did not shake his
resolution. At La Greve, he requested to depose once more,
and was not hanged until dark, by torchlight ( February 18th ) .
It was the first time a nobleman had been hanged. The people
testified a furious impatience, always believing that the Court
would find means to save him. His papers, taken possession
of by the magistrate in charge of civil cases, were ( says Lafay­
ette ) given up by the daughter of this magistrate to Monsieur,
on his succeeding to the throne as Louis XVIII., who burned
them in great haste.
On the Sunday following the execution, the widow of Favras
and her son attended in mourning at the public dinner of the
king and queen. The Royalists thought they would exalt and
welcome with affection the family of the victim. The queen
dared not even raise her eyes.
Then they perceived the state of impotency to which the
Court was reduced, and how little support they might expect
who devoted their lives to its service.
As early as the 4th of February, the king's visit to the As­
sembly and his profession of patriotic faith had much discour­
aged them. The Viscount de Mirabeau withdrew in despair
and broke his sword. For, indeed, what could he believe; or
what could it mean? The Royalists had the alternative, either
of believing the king to be a liar, a tum-coat, or a deserter
from his own party. Was it true that the king was no longer a
royalist? Or else, was he sacrificing his clergy and faithful no­
bility, in order to save a remnant of royalty?
BouilIe, left without orders, and absolutely ignorant of what
he had to do, then fell into the deepest despondency. Such
368
 Resistance
was also the feeling of many nobles, officers of the army or
navy, who then abandoned their country. BouiIle himself
requested permission to do the same, and serve abroad. The
king sent him word to remain, because he should need him.
People had begun to hope too soon. The Revolution was
finished on the 14th of July; finished on the 6th of October;
and finished on the 4th of February; and yet I begin to fear
that in March it is not quite ended.
What matter! Liberty, mature and powerful even in her
cradle, needs not be alarmed at her antagonists. In a moment,
she has just overcome the most formidable disorder and an­
archy. Those pillages in the rural districts, that warfare against
the castles, which, extending further and further, was threat­
ening the whole country with one immense conflagration; all
subsides in a moment. The movement of January and February
is already appeased in March. Whilst the king was presenting
himself as the only guarantee of public tranquillity, and the
Assembly was seeking but not finding the means of restoring it,
France had created it herself. The enthusiastic transport of
fraternity had outstepped the speed of legislation; the knotty
point which nobody could solve, had been settled for ever by
national magnanimity. The cities all in arms, had marched
forth for the defence of the chateaux, and protected the nobles,
their enemies.
The great meetings continue, and become more numerous
every day, so formidable, that without acting, by their mere
presence, they necessarily intimidate the two enemies of
France; on one hand, anarchy and pillage, on the other the
counter-revolution. They are no longer merely the more thin
and scattered populations of the South that now assemble; but
the massy and compact legions of the great provinces of the
north; now it is Champaign with her hundred thousand men;
now Lorraine with her hundred thousand; next, the Vosges,
Alsace, and others. A movement full of grandeur, disinterested,
and devoid of jealousy. All France is grouping, uniting, and
gravitating towards union. Paris summons the provinces, and
wishes to unite to herself every commune. And the provinces
369
 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

wish, of their own accord, without the least particle of envy, to

unite still more closely. On the 20th of March, Brittany de­
mands that France should send to Paris one man in every thou­
sand. Bordeaux has already demanded a civic festival for the
14th of July. These two propositions presently will make but
one. France will invite all France to this grand festival, the
first of the new religion.

370
 VI

Continuation-The Queen and Austria

-The Queen and Mirabeau-The Army
(March to May, 1790)

THE conspiracy of Favras was devised by

Monsieur; that of Maillebois ( discovered in March ) belonged
to the Count d'Artois and the emigrants. The Court, without
being ignorant of these, seemed to follow rather the counsel in
the memorial of Augeard, the queen's keeper of the seals : to
refuse, wait, feign confidence, and let five or six months slip
away. This same watchword was given at Vienna and at Paris.
Leopold was negotiating. He was putting the governments
self-styled the friends of liberty-those spurious revolutionists
( I mean England and Prussia )-to a serious trial: he was plac­
ing them opposite to the Revolution, and they were gradually
unmasking. Leopold said to the English: "Does it suit you that
I should be forced to yield to France a portion of the Low
Countries?" and England drew back; she sacrificed, to that
dread, the hope of seizing Ostend. To the Prussians and Ger­
mans in general, he said: "Can we abandon our German
princes established in Alsace, who are lOSing their feudal
rights?" As early as the 16th of February, Prussia had already
spoken in their favour, and proclaimed the right of the empire
to demand satisfaction of France.
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The whole of Europe belonging to either party,-on one hand

Austria and Russia, on the other England and Prussia, were
gradually gravitating towards the self-same thought,-the
hatred of the Revolution. However, there was this difference,
that liberal England and philosophical Prussia needed a little
time in order to pass from one pole to the other, to prevail
upon themselves to give themselves the lie, to abjure and dis­
own their principles, and avow that they were the enemies of
liberty. This worthy struggle between decency and shame was
to be treated delicately by Austria; therefore, by waiting, an
infinite advantage would be obtained. A little longer, and all
honest people would be agreed. Then, left quite alone, what
would France do? . . . What an enormous advantage would
Austria presently have over her, when assisted by all Europe!
Meanwhile, there was no harm in deluding the revolution­
ists of France and Belgium with fair words, in lulling them
into security, and, if possible, in dividing them.
As soon as ever Leopold was made emperor ( February 20th )
and published his strange manifesto, in which he adopted the
principles of the Belgian revolution, and acknowledged the
legality of the insurrection against the emperor ( March 2nd ) ,
his ambassador, M . Mercy d'Argenteau, prevailed upon Marie­
Antoinette to master her repugnance and form an alliance with
Mirabeau.
But, nothwithstanding the facility of the orator's character,
and his eternal need of money, this alliance was difficult to
execute. He had been slighted and rejected at the time when
he might have been useful. And now they came to court him,
when all was compromised, and perhaps even lost.
In November they had had an understanding with the most
revolutionary deputies to exclude Mirabeau from the ministry
forever; and now they invited him.
He was summoned for an enterprise that had l?ecome im­
possible, after so many acts of imprudence and three unsuccess­
ful plots.
The ambassador of Austria himself undertook to recall from
Belgium the man the most likely to prove the best mediator,
372
 Continuation
M. de Lamarck, Mirabeau's personal friend, and also personally
devoted to the queen.
He returned. On the 15th of March he took to Mirabeau the
overtures of the Court, but found him very cool; for his good
sense enabled him to perceive that the Court merely proposed
to him that they should sink together.
When pressed by Lamarck, he said that the throne could
only be restored by establishing it upon the basis of liberty;
that if the Court wanted anything else, he would oppose it
instead of serving it. And what guarantee had he for this? He
himself had just proclaimed before the Assembly how little con­
fidence he put in the executive power. In order to paCify him,
Louis XVI. wrote to Lamarck that he had never desired any­
thing but a power limited by the laws.
Whilst this negotiation was pending, the Court was carrying
on another with Lafayette. The king gave him a written prom­
ise of the most absolute confidence. On the 14th of April, he
asked him his opinion on the royal prerogative, and Lafayette
was simple enough to give it.
Now, seriously, what was it that the Court wanted? To gain
time,-nothing more; to delude Lafayette, neutralise Mirabeau,
annihilate his influence, keep him divided between opposite
principles, and, perhaps, also to compromise him, as it had
served Necker. The Court had ever shown its deepest policy in
ruining and destroying its deliverers.
Exactly at the same period, and in the very same manner,
the queen's brother, Leopold, was negotiating with the Belgian
progressists and compromising them; then, when menaced by
the people, denounced and prosecuted, they were at length
induced to desire the invasion and the re-establishment of
Austria.27
How can one believe that these precisely identical moves
by the brother and the sister occurred purely by chance?
Mirabeau, indeed, had reason to reflect twice before he

'" For the conduct of Leopold in Europe, and especially in Belgium, see
Hardenberg, Borgnet, &c.

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 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

trusted himself to the Court. It was the time when the king,
yielding to the importunate demands of the Assembly, gave
up to it the famous Red Book ( of which we shall presently
speak) and the honour of so many persons; all the secret pen­
sioners heard their names cried in the streets. Who could assure
Mirabeau that the Court might not think proper, in a short
time, to publish also his treaty with it? The negotiation was
not very encouraging; offers were made, and then withdrawn:
the Court put no confidence in him at all, but demanded his
secrets and the opinions of his party.
But a man like Mirabeau was not to be deluded so easily.
However great might be his tendency to royalty in his heart,
it was impossible to blind so keen-sighted a person. Mean­
while, he proceeded in his usual course: as the organ of the
Revolution, his voice was never wanting on decisive occasions;
he might have been won over, but he was neith,er to be si­
lenced, enervated, nor neutralised. Whenever the state of af­
fairs was urgent, the vicious and corrupt politician instantly
disappeared; the god of eloquence took possession of him, his
native land acted by him, and thundered by his voice.
In the single month of April, whilst the Court was hesitat­
ing, bargaining, and concluding, the power of his eloquence
smote it twice.
The first blow ( which we postpone to the next chapter, in
order to keep together whatever relates to the clergy ) was his
famous apostrophe on Charles IX. and the St. Bartholomew
massacre, which is to be found in every memoir: "From hence
I behold the window," &c. Never had the priests been stunned
by so terrible a blowl (April 13th. )
The second affair, no less serious, was on the question
whether the Assembly should dissolve; the powers of several
deputies were limited to one year, and this year was drawing
to a close. As far back as the 6th of October, a proposal had
been made ( and then very properly ) to dissolve the Assembly.
The Court was expecting and watching for the moment of dis­
solution,-the interregnum,-the ever perilous moment between
the Assembly that exists no longer, and the one not yet formed.
374
 Continuation
Who was to reign in the interval but the king, by ordinances?
And having once resumed his power and seized the sword,
it would be his business to keep it.
Maury and Cazalf:s in forcible, but irritating and provoking,
speeches, asked the Assembly whether its powers were un­
limited,-whether it considered itself a National Convention;
they insisted on this distinction between convention and legis­
lative assembly. These subtleties provoked Mirabeau into one
of those magnificent bursts of eloquence which reached the sub­
lime: "You ask," said he, "how, being deputies of bailiwicks,
we have made ourselves a convention? I will answer. The day
when, finding our assembly-room shut, bristling and defiled
with bayonets, we hastened to the first place that could con­
tain us, and swore we would rather perish,-on that day, if we
were not a convention, we became one. Let them now go and
hunt out of the useless nomenclature of civilians the definition
of the words National Convention! Gentlemen, you all know
the conduct of that Roman who, to save his country from a
great conspiracy, had been obliged to outstep the powers con­
ferred upon him by the laws. A captious tribune required from
him the oath that he had respected them. He thought, by that
insidious proposal, to leave the consul no alternative but per­
jury, or an embarrassing avowal. I swear, said that great man,
that I have saved the republic! Gentlemen, I swear also, that
you have saved the commonwealth!"
At that splendid oath, the whole Assembly arose, and de­
creed that there should be no elections till the constitution was
finished.
The Royalists were stunned by the blow. Several, neverthe­
less, thought that the hope of their party, the new election,
might even have turned against them; that it might, perhaps,
have brought about a more hostile and violent assembly. In
the immense fermentation of the kingdom, and the increasing
ebullition of public feeling, who could be sure of seeing his
way clearly? The mere organisation of the municipalities had
shaken France to her centre. Scarcely were they formed when,
by their side, societies and clubs were already organised to
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watch over them : formidable, but useful societies; eminently

useful in such a crisis; a necessary organ and instrument of
public distrust, in presence of so many conspiracies.
The clubs will grow greater and greater; it must be so : the
state of things requires it. This period is not yet that of their
greatest power. For the rest of France, it is the period of fed­
erations; but the clubs already reign at Paris.
Paris seems to be watching over France, panting and on the
alert; keeping its sixty districts permanently assembled; not
acting, but ever ready. It stands listening and uneasy, like a
sentinel in the neighbourhood of the enemy. The watch-word
"Bewarel" is heard every hour; and two voices are incessantly
urging it forward,-the club of the Cordeliers, and that of the
Jacobins. In the next book, I shall enter those formidable cav­
erns; in this place I abstain. The Jacobins are not yet char­
acterised, being in their infancy, or rather in a spurious
constitutional age, in which they are governed by such men as
Duport and the Lameths.
The principal character of those great laboratories of agita­
tion and public surveillance, of those powerful machines ( I
speak especially of the Jacobins ) , is that, as in the case with
all machinery, collective action was far more predominant than
individual influence; that the strongest and most heroic individ­
ual there lost his advantage. In societies of this kind, active
mediocrity rises to importance; but genius has very little
weight. Accordingly, Mirabeau never willingly frequented the
clubs, nor belonged exclusively to any; paying short visits, and
passing an hour at the Jacobins, and another in the same eve­
ning at the club of 1789, formed in the Palais-Royal by Sieyes,
Bailly, Lafayette, Chapelier, and Talleyrand ( May 13 ) .
This was a dignified and elegant club, but devoid of action :
true power resided in the old smoky convent of the Jacobins.
The dominion of intrigue and commonplace oratory, there
sovereignly swayed by the triumvirate of Duport, Bamave, and
Lameth, contributed not a little to render Mirabeau accessible
to the suggestions of the Court.
This man was contradiction personified. What was he in real-

376
 Continuation
ity? A royalist, a noble in the most absolute sense. And what
was his action? Exactly the contrary; he shattered royalty with
the thunders of his eloquence.
If he really wished to defend it, he had not a moment to
lose; it was hourly declining. It had lost Paris; but it still pos­
sessed large scattered crowds of adherents in the provinces. By
what art could these be collected into a body? This was the
dream of Mirabeau. He meditated organising a vast corre­
spondence, doubtless similar, and in opposition to that of the
Jacobins. Such was the groundwork of Mirabeau's treaty with
the Court ( May lOth ) . He would have constituted in his house
a sort of ministry of public opinion. For this purpose, or under
this pretext, he received money and a regular salary; and as
he was accustomed to do everything, whether good or evil,
boldly and publicly, he established himself in grand style, kept
his carriage and open house in the little mansion which still
exists in the Chaussee d'Antin.
All this was but too manifest; and it appeared still clearer,
when, from the midst of the left of the Assembly, he was seen
to speak with the right in favour of royalty, to obtain for the
king the initiative of making peace or war.
The king had lost the management of the interior, and after­
wards power in the law courts : the judges as well as the
municipal magistrates were being abstracted from his preroga­
tive. If he was now to lose war, what would remain of royalty?
Such was the argument of Cazales. Barnave and the opposite
side had a thousand ready answers without uttering a word
effectually. The truth was, that the king was distrusted; that
the Revolution had been made only by shattering the sword in
his hands; that of all his powers the most dangerous that they
could leave in his hands was war.
The occasion of the debate was this. England had been
alarmed at seeing Belgium offer its alliance to France. Like
the Emperor and Prussia, she began to be afraid of a vivacious
and contagious revolution which captivated both by its ardour
and a character of human ( more than national ) generality,
very contrary to the English genius. Burke, a talented, but pas-
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sionate and venal Irishman, a pupil of the Jesuits of Saint Orner,

vented, in parliament, a furious philippic against the Revolu­
tion, for which he was paid by his adversary Mr. Pitt. England
did not attack France; but she abandoned Belgium to the Em­
peror, and then went to the other end of the world to seek a
quarrel on the sea with Spain, our ally. Louis XVI. intimated
to the Assembly that he was arming fourteen vessels.
Thereupon, there arose a long and complicated theoretical
discussion on the general question,-to whom belonged the
initiative of making war. Little or nothing was said on the
particular question, which nevertheless commanded the other.
Everybody seemed to avoid it-to be afraid of considering it.
Paris was not afraid of it, but considered it attentively. All
the people perceived and said that if the king possessed the
sword, the Revolution must perish. There were fifty thousand
men at the Tuileries, in the Place Vendome, and the Rue Saint
Honore, waiting with inexpressible anxiety, and greedily de­
vouring the notes Hung to them from the windows of the As­
sembly, to enable them to keep pace every moment with the
progress of the discussion. They were all indignant and exas­
perated against Mirabeau. On his entering and leaving the
Assembly, one showed him a rope, another a pair of pistols.
He demonstrated great coolness. Even at moments when
Barnave was occupying the tribune with his long orations,
thinking the time had come to overthrow him, Mirabeau did
not even listen, but went out to take a walk in the garden of
the Tuileries amid the crowd, and paid his respects to the
youthful and enthusiastic Madame de Stael, who was there also
waiting with the people.
His courage did not make his cause the better. He triumphed
in speaking on the theoretical question, on the natural associa­
tion ( in the great act of war ) between thought and power,
between the Assembly and the king. But all this metaphysical
language could not disguise the state of affairs.
His enemies took every unparliamentary means, akin to
assassination, which might have caused him to be torn in pieces.
During the night they caused an atrocious libel to be written,
378
 Continuation
printed, and circulated. In the morning, on his way to the
Assembly, Mirabeau heard on all sides the cry of "The dis­
covery of the great treachery of Count de Mirabeau." The dan­
ger, as was always the case with him, inspired him admirably;
he overwhelmed his enemies: "I knew weII," cried he, "how
short was the distance from the Capitol to the Tarpeian rock,"
&c.
He thus triumphed on the personal question. And even on the
question in debate, he made a skilful retreat; at the first op­
portunity afforded him by the proposal of a less startling for­
mula, he turned about, yielded on the form but gained the
substance. It was decided that the king had the right to make
the preparations, to direct the forces as he would, that he
proposed war to the Assembly, which was to decide on nothing
that was not sanctioned by the king (May 22nd) .
On leaving the Assembly, Barnave, Duport, and Lameth,
who were retiring in despair, were applauded and almost car­
ried home by the people, who imagined they had gained the
day. They had not the courage to teII them the truth. In reality
the Court had the advantage.
It had just experienced on two occasions the power of Mira­
beau,-in April against it, and in May in its favour. On the latter
occasion, he had made superhuman efforts, sacrificed his popu­
larity, and risked his life. The queen granted him an inter­
view, the only one, in all probability, that he ever had.
There was another weak point in this man which cannot be
dissembled. A few proofs of confidence, doubtless exaggerated
by the zeal of Lamarck, who wished to bring them together,
excited the imagination of the great orator-a credulous being,
as such men ever are. He attributed to the queen a superiority
of genius and character of which she never gave any proof. On
the other hand, he easily believed, in his pride and the sense
of his superiority, that he whom nobody could resist would
easily captivate the mind of a woman. He would much rather
have been the minister of a queen than of a king-the minister,
or rather the lover.
The queen was then with the king at Saint Cloud. Sur-
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rounded b y the national guard, generally disposed in their

favour, they found themselves pretty free, in a sort of half
captivity, since they used to go every day to take long walks,
sometimes to the distance of several leagues, without guards.
There were, however, many kind good-natured persons who
could not bear the idea that a king and a queen should be the
prisoners of their subjects. One day, in the afternoon, the queen
heard a slight sound of lamentation in the solitary court of
Saint Cloud; she raised the curtain and saw beneath her bal­
cony about fifty persons, countrywomen, priests, and old cheva­
liers of Saint Louis, who were silently weeping and stifling
their sobs.
Mirabeau could not be callous to such impressions. Having
remained, in spite of all his vices, a man of ardent imagination
and violent passion, he found some happiness in feeling him­
self the supporter, the defender, perhaps the deliverer of a
handsome and captive queen. The mystery of the interview
added to his emotion. He went, not in his carriage, but on
horseback, in order not to attract any attention, and he was
received, not at the castle, but in a very solitary spot, at the
highest point in the private park, in a kiosk which crowned
that fairy garden. It was at the end of May.
Mirabeau was then very evidently suffering from the malady
that brought him to his grave. I do not allude to his excesses
and prodigious fatigues. No, Mirabeau died of nothing but the
hatred entertained towards him by the people. First adored
and then execrated! To have had his prodigious triumph in
Provence, where he felt himself pressed upon the bosom of his
native land; next, in May, 1790, the people in the Tuileries
demanding him that they might hang him! Himself facing the
storm, without being sustained by a good conscience, laying
his hand upon his breast and feeling there only the money re­
ceived in the morning from the Court! All this, anger, shame,
uncertain hope, were boiling in confusion in his troubled soul.
With a dull, leaden, unhealthy complexion, sore red eyes,
sunken cheeks, and symptoms of an unwieldy and unwhole­
some obesity, such appeared the violent Mirabeau, as he slowly
380
 Continuation
wended his way on horseback through the avenue of Saint
Cloud, injured and wounded, but not overthrown.
And how much also is that queen changed, who is waiting
in her pavilion. Her thirty-five years begin to appear, that af­
fecting age which Van-Dyck so often delighted to paint. Add,
moreover, those delicate and faint purple hues which betoken
profound grief-a malady, a deep-seated and incurable malady
-of the heart and of the body. It is evidently an incessant
internal struggle. Her carriage is haughty, and her eyes are dry;
yet they show but too plainly that every night is passed in
tears. Her natural dignity, and that of her courage and mis­
fortune which constitute another royalty, forbid any kind of
distrust. And much does he need to believe in her who now
devotes himself to her service.
She was surprised to see that this man so detested and de­
cried, this fatal man the first organ of the Revolution, this
monster, in short, was still a man; that he possessed a peculiar
charming delicacy, which the energy of his character would
seem to exclude. According to every appearance, their conver­
sation was vague and by no means conclusive. The queen had
her own intentions, which she kept to herself, and Mirabeau
his, which he took no pains to conceal,-to save at the same
time the king and liberty. How were they to understand each
other? At the close of the interview, Mirabeau addressing him­
self to the woman as much as to the queen by a gallantry at
once respectful and bold: "Madam," said he, "when your august
mother admitted one of her subjects to the honour of her pres­
ence, she never dismissed him without allowing him to kiss
her hand." The queen held forth her hand. Mirabeau bowed;
then, raising his head, he exclaimed in a tone of sincerity and
pride, "Madam, the monarchy is saved!"
He withdrew, affected, delighted,-and deceived! The queen
wrote to her agent in Germany. M. de Flachslanden, that they
were making use of Mirabeau, but that there was nothing seri­
ous in their connection with him.
At the time he had just gained, at the price of his popularity,
and nearly of his life, that dangerous decree which in reality
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restored to the king the right of making peace and war, the
king was causing a search to be made in the archives of
the parlement for the ancient forms of protestation against the
Estates-General, wishing to make a secret one against all the
decrees of the Assembly ( May 23rd ) .28
Thank heaven the salvation of France did not depend on
that great yet credulous man and that deceitful court. A decree
restores the sword to the king; but that sword is broken.
The soldier becomes again one of the people, and mingles
and fraternises with the people.
M. de Bouille informs us in his Memoirs that he left nothing
untried to set the soldiery and the people in opposition, and
inspire the military with hatred and contempt for the citizens.
The officers had eagerly seized an opportunity of raising this
hatred still higher, even to the National Assembly, and of
calumniating its conduct towards the soldiery. One of the
stanchest patriots, Dubois de Crance, had expounded· to the
Assembly the lamentable composition of the army, recruited
for the most part from vagabonds; and thence deduced the
necessity of a new organisation which would make the army
what it has been, the Hower of France. Now it was this lan­
guage, so well intentioned towards the military,-this attempt
to reform and rehabilitate the army, that they abused. The
officers went about saying and repeating everywhere to the
soldiers that the Assembly had insulted them. This gave great
hope to the Court; for it expected to be thus able to regain
possession of the army. These significant words were written
to the commandant of Lille from the office of the ministry:
"Every day we are gaining ground a little. Only just forget us
and reckon us as nothing, and soon we shall be everything"
(December 8th, January 3rd ) .
Vain hopeI Was it possible to believe that the soldier would

.. The king sent thither the keeper of the seals himself, who, during the
emigration, revealed the fact to Montgaillard. As to the queen's letter to
Flachslanden, the original still exists in a private collection, and has been
read, not by me, but by a very careful learned person, worthy of
confidence, employed in the archives.

382
 Continuation
long remain blind, that he would see without emotion that in­
toxicating spectacle of the fraternity of France, that, at a mo­
ment when his native land was found again, he alone would
obstinately remain outside his home, and that the barracks and
the camp would be like an isle separated from the rest of the
world?
It is doubtless alarming to see the army deliberating, distin­
guishing, and choOSing in its obedience. Yet, in this case, how
could it be otherwise? If the soldier were blindly obedient to
authority, he disobeyed that supreme authority whence all
others proceed; if docile to his officers, he found himself in­
fallibly a rebel to the commander of his commanders,-the Law.
Neither was he at liberty to abstain and remain neuter; the
counter-revolution had no intention to do so; it commanded
him to fire on the Revolution,-on France,-on the people,-on
his father and his brother, who were holding forth their arms
to embrace him.
The officers appeared to him what they were, the enemY,-a
nation apart, becoming more and more of another race and a
different nature. As inveterate hardened sinners bury them­
selves still deeper in sin on the approach of death, so the old
system towards its close was more cruel and unjust. The upper
grades were no longer given to any but the young men of the
Court, to youthful proteges of noble ladies; Montbarry, the
minister, has himself related the violent and shameful scene
between himself and the queen in favour of a young colonel.
The least important ranks, still accessible under Louis XIV.
and Louis XV., were, in the reign of Louis XVI., given only
to those who were able to prove four degrees of nobility. Fa­
bert, Catinat, and Chevert, would have been unable to attain
the rank of lieutenant.
I have said what was the budget for war (in 1784): forty-six
millions for the officer, and forty-four for the soldier. Why say
soldier? Beggar would be the proper term. The pay, compara­
tively high in the seventeenth century, is reduced to nothing
under Louis XV. It is true that under Louis XVI. another pay
was added, settled with the cudgel. This was to imitate the

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 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

famous discipline of Prussia; and was supposed to contain the

whole secret of the victories of Frederick the Great: man
driven like a machine, and punished like a child. This is most
assuredly the worst of all systems, thus uniting opposite evils,
-a system at the same time mechanical and non-mechanical;
on one hand fatally harsh, and on the other violently arbitrary.
The officers sovereignly despised the soldier, the citizen, and
every kind of man; and took no pains to conceal this contempt.
Yet, wherefore? What was their great merit? Only one, they
were good swordsmen. That respectable prejudice which sets
the life of a brave man at the discretion of the skilful consti­
tuted for the latter a kind of tyranny. They even tried this sort
of intimidation on the Assembly; in the chamber of the nobility,
certain members fought duels to prevent others from uniting
with the Third-Estate. Labourdonnaie, Noailles, Castries, Ca­
zales, challenged Barnave and Lameth. Some of them ad­
dressed gross insults to Mirabeau, in the hope of getting rid of
him; but he was immutable. Would to heaven that the greatest
seaman of that time, SuHren, had been equally impassible! Ac­
cording to a tradition which is but too probable, a young cox­
comb of noble birth had the culpable insolence to call out that
heroic man, whose sacred life belonged only to France: and he,
already in years, was simple enough to accept, and received
his death wound. The young man having friends at court, the
affair was hushed up. Who rejoiced? England; for so lucky a
stroke of the sword she would have given millions.
The people have never had the wit to understand this point
of honour. Men like Belzunce and Patrice, who defied every­
body, laboured in vain. The sword of the emigration broke
like glass under the sabre of the Republic.
If our land officers, who had done nothing, were neverthe­
less so insolent, good heavens I what were our officers of the
navy I Ever since their late successes (which, after all, were
only brilliant single fights of one vessel with another), they
could no longer contain themselves; their pride had fretted into
ferocity. One of them having been so remiss as to keep com­
pany with an old friend, then a land officer, they forced him to

384
 Continuation
fight a duel with him, to wash out the crime; and, horrible to
relate, he killed himl
Acton, a naval officer, was as if King of Naples; the Vau­
dreuils surrounded the queen and the Count d'Artois with their
violent counsels; other naval officers, the Bonchamps and
Marignis, as soon as France had to face the whole of Europe,
stabbed her behind with the poignard of La Vendee.
The first blow to their pride was given by Toulon. There
commanded the very brave, but very insolent and hard-hearted
Albert de Rioms, one of our best captains. He had thought he
could lead both towns, the Arsenal and Toulon, in precisely
the same manner, like a crew of galley-slaves, with a cat-o'­
nine-tails, protecting the black cockade, and punishing the tri­
colour. He trusted to an agreement which his naval officers had
made with those of the land, against the national guard. When
the latter came to make their complaints, headed by the mag­
istrates, he gave them the reception that he would have given
to the galley-slaves in the Arsenal. Then a furious multitude
besieged the commandant's hotel. He ordered the soldiers to
fire, but nobody obeyed. At last, he was obliged to entreat the
magistrates of the town to grant him their assistance. The na­
tional guard, whom he had insulted, had great difficulty in
defending him; and were only able to save him by putting him
in his own prison (November, December, 1789 ) .
At Lille, an attempt was made in the same manner to bring
the troops and the national guards to blows, and even to arm
one regiment against another. Livarot, the commandant (as ap­
pears in his unpublished letters), urged them on by speaking
to them of the alleged insult offered them by Dubois de Crance
in the National Assembly. The Assembly replied only by meas­
ures to improve the condition of the soldiery, testifying at least
some interest for them, as far as it could, by the augmentation
of a few deniers added to their pay. What encouraged them
much more, was to see that, at Paris, M. de Lafayette had
promoted all the subaltern officers to the superior grades. Thus
the insurmountable barrier was at length destroyed.
Poor soldiers of the ancient system, who had so long suffered

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beyond all hope and i n silence! . . . Without being the won­

derful soldiers of the Republic and the empire, they were not
unworthy of having also at last their day of liberty. All I read
of them in our old chronicles, astonishes me with their pa­
tience, and affects me with the kindness of their hearts. I be­
hold them, at La Rochelle, entering the famished city and
giving their bread to the inhabitants. Their tyrants, their offi­
cers, who shut them out from every career, found in them only
docility, respect, kindness, and benevolence. In some skirmish
or other under Louis XV., an officer fourteen years of age, who
had but just arrived from Versailles, was unable to march any
further: "Pass him on to me," said a gigantic grenadier, "I will
put him on my back; in case of a bullet, I will receive it for the
child."
It was inevitable that there should be at length a day for
justice, equality, and nature; happy were they who lived long
enough to behold it: it was indeed a day of happiness for all.
What joy for Brittany to find again the pilot of Duguay-Trouin,
nearly a hundred years of age, still in his humble profession;
he whose calm and resolute hand had steered the conqueror to
battle. Jean Robin, of the Isle of Batz, was recognised at the
elections, and with one accord placed by the side of the presi­
dent. People blushed for France for so long a period of in­
justice, and wished, in the person of this venerable man, to
honour so many heroic generations unworthily slighted and
trampled upon, during their lives, by the insolence of those
who profited by their services, and then, alas! condemned them
to oblivion.

386
 VII

A Religious Struggle:
The Passion oj Louis XVI
IT was too evident that the soldier was not to
be armed against the people; therefore, it became necessary
to find a way of arming the people against themselves,-against
a revolution made entirely on their account.
To the spirit of federation and union, to the new revolu­
tionary faith, nothing could be opposed but the ancient faith,
if it still existed.
In default of the old fanaticism, either extinct, or at least
profoundly torpid, the clergy had a hold that has seldom failed
them, the easy good-nature of the people, their blind sensibility,
their credulity towards those whom they love, their inveterate
respect for the priest and the king-the king, that ancient wor­
ship, that mystic personage, a compound of the two characters
of the priest and the magistrate, with a gleam of the grace of
Codl
There the people had even addressed their prayers and their
groans; and well do we know with what success,-what a sad
return. In vain did royalty trample them underfoot and crush
them, like a merciless machine; they still loved it as a person.
Nothing was easier to the priests than to make Louis XVI.
appear in the light of a saint or a martyr. His sanctified, pa­
ternal, and heavy-looking countenance (uniting the character­
istic features of the houses of Saxony and Bourbon) was that

387
 BOOK III: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9, TO JULY 14, 1790

of a cathedral saint, ready made for a church-porch. His short­

sighted air, and his indecision and insignificance, invested him
precisely with that vague mystery so very favourable for every
legend.
This was an admirable, pathetic text, well calculated to af­
fect the hearts of men. He had loved the people, desired
their welfare, and yet he was punished by them. Ungrateful
madmen had dared to raise their hand against that excellent
father, against God's anointed! The good king, the noble queen,
the saint-like princess Elizabeth, and the poor little dauphin,
were captives in that horrid Paris! How many tears flowed at
such a narration; how many prayers, vows, and masses to
heaven for their deliverance! What female heart was not burst­
ing when, on leaving the church, the priest whispered: "Pray
for the poor king I" Pray also for France,-is what they ought to
have said; pray for a poor people, betrayed and delivered up
to foreigners.
Another text, no less powerful for exciting civil war, was the
opening of the convents, the order for making an inventory of
the ecclesiastical possessions, and the reduction of the religious
houses. This reduction was nevertheless conducted with the
kindest solicitude. In every department, one house at least
was reserved for every order, whither those who wished to re­
main might always retire. Whoever was willing to come out,
came out and received a pension. All this was moderate, and
by no means violent. The municipalities, very kindly disposed
at that period, showed but too much indulgence in the execu­
tion of their orders. They often connived, and scarcely took an
inventory, frequently noting only half the objects, and half the
real value. No matterl Nothing was left untried to render their
task both difficult and dangerous. The day of the inventory, the
accursed day on which laymen were to invade the sacred clois­
ters, was clamorously noised abroad. To arrive even at the
gate, the municipal magistrates were first obliged, at the peril
of their lives, to pass through a collected mob, amid the screams
of women, and the threats of sturdy beggars fed by the mon­
asteries. The gentle lambs of the Lord confronted the men of

388
 A Religious Struggle
the law, whose task was to execute the law, with refusals, de­
lays, resistance, to the point of tearing them to pieces.
All that was prepared with much skill and remarkable ad­
dress. If it were possible to give a complete history of it, with
all its particulars, we should be very much edified on a curious
subject of transcendental philosophy; how, at a period of in­
difference and incredulity, politicians can make and rekindle
fanaticism? A grand chapter this would be to add to the book
imagined by a philosopher,-"The Mechanism of Enthusiasm."
The clergy were devoid of faith; but they found for instru­
ments persons who still possessed it, people of conviction, pious
souls, ardent visionaries with poetical and whimsical imagina­
tions, which are ever to be found, especially in Brittany. A
lady, named Madame de Pont-Leves, the wife of a naval officer,
published a fervent mystical little volume, called "The Com­
passion of the Virgin for France," a female composition well
adapted to females, calculated to excite their imagination, and
turn their brains.
The clergy had, moreover, another very easy means of acting
on those poor populations ignorant of the French language.
They allowed them to remain ignorant of the suppression of
the tithes and collections, said not a word about the successive
abolition of the indirect taxes, and plunged them in despair, by
pointing out to them the burden of taxation which oppressed
the land, and informing them that they were presently to be
deprived of one-third of their goods and cattle.
The south offered other elements of anarchy no less favour­
able; men of feverish passion, active, fervent, and political,
whose minds, full of intrigue and cunning, were well calculated
not only to create a revolt, but to organise, regulate, and direct
an insurrection.
The real secret of resistance, the only way that gave any
serious chance to the counter-revolution, the idea of the future
Vendee, was first reduced to a formula at Nimes: Against the
Revolution, no result is possible without a religious war. In other
words: Against faith, no other power but faith.
Terrible means, that make us shudder when we remember-

389
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when we see the ruins and deserts made by ancient fanaticism.

What would have happened, if all the South and the West, all
France, had become a Vendee?
But the counter-revolution had no other chance. To the
genius of fraternity only one could be opposed, that of the St.
Bartholomew massacre.
Such was, in general terms, the thesis which, as early as
January, 1790, was supported at Turin, before the general
council of the emigration, by the fervent envoy of Nimes, a
man sprung from the people, and possessed of little merit, but
obstinate and intrepid, who saw his way clearly and frankly
stated the question.
The man who, by special grace, was thus admitted to speak
before princes and lords, Charles Froment, for such was his
name, the son of a man accused of forgery (afterwards ac­
quitted) , was himself nothing more than a petty collector for
the clergy and their factotum. After being a revolutionist at
first, he had perceived that at Nimes there was more business
to be done on the opposite side. He had at once found himself
the leader of the Catholic populace, whom he let loose on the
Protestants. He himself was much less fanatical than factious,
a man fit for the period of the Gibelins. But he saw very plainly
that the true power was the people,-an appeal to the faith of
the multitude.
Froment was graciously received and listened to, but little
understood. They gave him some money, and the hope that
the commandant of Montpellier would furnish him with arms.
Moreover, they were so little aware how very useful he might
be, that subsequently, when he emigrated, he did not even
obtain from the princes permission to join the Spaniards and
put them in communication with his former friends.
"What ruined Louis XV!.," says Froment in his pamphlets,
"was his having philosophers for ministers." He might have
extended this still further, with no less reason. What rendered
the counter-revolution generally powerless, was that it pos­
sessed within itself, at different degrees, but still it possessed at

390
 A Religious Struggle
heart, the philosophy of the age, that is to say, the Revolution
itself.
I have said, in my Introduction, that everybody, even the
queen, the Count d'Artois, and the nobility, was, at that time,
though in a different degree, under the influence of the new
spirit.
The language of ancient fanaticism was for them a dead
letter. To rekindle it in the masses was for such minds an
operation quite incomprehensible. The idea of exciting the peo­
ple to rebel, even in their favour, gave them alarm. Besides,
to restore power to the priests, was a thing quite contrary to
the ideas of the nobility; they had ever been waiting and hop­
ing for the spoils of the clergy. The interests of these two orders
were adverse and hostile. The Revolution, which seemed likely
to bring them together, had caused a wider separation. Nobles
who were proprietors, in certain provinces, in Languedoc for
instance, gained by the suppression of church tithes more than
they lost by their feudal rights.
In the debate on the monastic vows (February), not one
noble sided with the clergy. They alone defended the old ty­
rannical system of irrevocable vows. The nobles voted with
their usual adversaries for the abolition of vows, the opening
of the monasteries, and the liberty of the monks and nuns.
The clergy take their revenge. When the question is to
abolish the feudal rights, the nobility cry out, in their tum,
about violence, atrocity, &c. The clergy, or at least the majority
of the clergy, let the nobility cry on, vote against them, and
help to ruin them.
The advisers of the Count d'Artois, M. de Calonne and oth­
ers, and the queen's Austrian advisers, were certainly, like the
party of the nobility in general, very favourable to the spolia­
tion of the clergy, prOvided it was performed by themselves.
But rather than employ ancient fanaticism as a weapon, they
much preferred making an appeal to foreigners. On his head
they had no repugnance. The queen beheld in the foreigners
her near relations; and the nobility had throughout Europe

391
 BOOK III: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

connexions of kindred, caste, and common culture, which ren­

dered them very philosophical on the subject of the vulgar
prejudices of nationality. What Frenchman was more a French­
man than the general of Austria, the charming Prince de Ligne!
And did not French philosophy reign triumphant at Berlin?
As for England, for our most enlightened nobles, she was pre­
cisely the ideal, the classic land of liberty. In their opinion
there were but two nations in Europe,-the polite and the im­
polite. Why should they not have called the former to France,
to reduce the others to reason?
So, we have here three counter-revolutions in operation with­
out being able to act in concert.
1st. The queen and the ambassador of Austria, her chief
adviser, are waiting till Austria, rid of her Belgian affair, and
securing the alliance of Europe, shall be able to threaten
France, and subdue her (if necessary) by physical force.
2nd. The emigration party, the Count d'Artois, and the bril­
liant chevaliers of the Oeil-de Boeuf, who, tired to death of
Turin and wanting to return to their mistresses and actresses,
would like the foreign powers to act at once, and open for them
a road to France, cost what it would; in 1790 they were already
wishing for 1815.
3rd. The clergy are still less inclined to wait. Sequestrated
by the Assembly, and gradually turned out of house and home,
they would like at once to arm their numerous clients, the
peasants and farmers;-at once, for to-morrow perhaps they
would all grow lukewarm. How would it be if the peasant
should think of purchasing the ecclesiastical lands? Why then
the Revolution would have conquered irrevocably.
We have seen them in October firing before the word was
given. In February, there was a new explosion even in the
Assembly. It was the time when the agent of Nimes, on his
return from Turin, was scouring the country, organising Cath­
olic societies, and thoroughly agitating the South.
In the midst of the debate on the inviolability of vows, a
member of the Assembly invoked the rights of nature, and
repelled as a crime of ancient barbarity this surprising of man's
392
 A Religious Struggle
will, which, on a word that has escaped his lips or been extorted
from him, binds him and buries him alive for ever. Thereupon
loud shouts of "Blasphemy! blasphemy! He has blasphemed!"
The Bishop of Nancy rushes to the tribune: "Do you acknowl­
edge," cried he, "that the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Re­
ligion, is the religion of the nation?" The Assembly perceived
the blow, and avoided it. The answer was, that the question
of the suppression of the convents was especially one of fi­
nances; that there was nobody who did not regard the Catholic
religion as the national religion; and that to confirm it by a
decree would be to compromise it.
This happened on the 13th of February. On the 18th, they
issued a libel, diffused in Normandy, wherein the Assembly
was devoted to the hatred of the people, as assassinating at the
same time religion and royalty. Easter was then approaching;
the opportunity was not lost: they sold and distributed about
the churches, a terrible pamphlet,-"The Passion of Louis XVI."
To this legend the Assembly was able to oppose another, of
equal interest, which was, that Louis XVI., who, on the 4th of
February, had sworn fidelity to the constitution, still kept a
permanent agent with his brother, amid the mortal enemies of
the constitution; that Turin, Treves, and Paris, were like the
same court, kept and paid by the king.
At Treves was his military establishment, paid and main­
tained by him, with his grand and private stables, under Prince
de Lambesc.29 Artois, Conde, Lambesc, and all the emigrants
were paid enormous pensions. And yet alimentary pensions of
widows and other unfortunates of two, three, or four hundred
francs were indefinitely postponed.
The king was paying the emigrants in defiance of a decree

.. Everything was carried on exactly as at Versailles; it was a ministry

that the king kept publicly abroad. Whatever was done at Paris was
regulated at Treves. The accounts of expenses and other unpublished
papers, show Lambesc signing the accounts, executing petitions sent from
Paris, appointing employes for Paris, pages for the Tuileries, &c. Uniforms
for the body-guards were made in France to be sent to Treves; and horses
were brought over from England for the officers at that place. The king
entreats Lambesc to be so good as to employ at least French horses.

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b y which the Assembly had, for the last two months, attempted
to withhold this money which was thus passing over to the
enemy; and this decree he had precisely forgotten to sanction.
The irritation increased, when Camus, the severe reporter of
the financial committee, declared he could not discover how a
sum of sixty million francs had been expended. The Assembly
enacted that, for every decree presented for royal sanction, the
keeper of the seals should render an account within eight days
of the royal sanction or refusal.
Great was the outcry and lamentation on this outrageous
exaction against the royal will. Camus replied by printing the
too celebrated "Red Book" (April 1) , which the king had
given up in the hope that it would remain a secret between
him and the committee. This impure book, defiled at every
page with the shameful corruption of the aristocracy, and the
criminal weaknesses of royalty, showed whether people had
been wrong in shutting up the filthy channel through which the
substance of France was Howing away. A glOrious book, in spite
of all thatl For it plunged the Revolution into the hearts of men.
"Ohl how rightly we have actedl" was the general cry; and
how far people were, even in their most violent accusations,
from suspecting the reality I At the same time, the faith grew
stronger that this monstrous old system of things, contrary to
nature and God, could never return. The Revolution, on be­
holding the hideous face of her adversary, unveiled and un­
masked, felt strong, living, and eternal. Yes, whatever may have
been the obstacles, delays, and villainies, she lives and will live
for ever!
A proof of this strong faith is that in the universal distress,
and during more than one insurrection against indirect taxa­
tion, direct taxes were punctually and religiously paid.
Ecclesiastical estates are set up for sale to the value of four
hundred million francs; the city of Paris alone purchases the
value of half, and all the muniCipalities follow this example.
This method was very good. Few individuals would have
wished themselves to have expropriated the clergy; the munici-
394
 A Religious Struggle
palities alone were able to undertake this painful operation.
They were to purchase, and then sell again. There was much
hesitation, especially among the peasantry; for this reason, the
cities were to give them the example in purchasing and selling
again, first the ecclesiastical houses; after which would come
the sale of the lands.
All those properties served as mortgage for the paper-money
created by the Assembly. To each note a lot was assigned and
affected; and these notes were called assignats. Every piece of
paper was property,-a portion of land; and had nothing in
common with those forged notes of the Regency, founded on
the Mississippi, on distant and future possessions.
Here the pledge was tangible. To this guarantee, add that of
the municipalities that had purchased of the State and were
selling again. Being divided among so many hands, those lots
of paper-money once given out and circulated, were about to
engage the whole nation in this great operation. Everybody
would have a part of this money, and thus both friends and
enemies would be equally interested in the safety of the Revo­
lution.
Nevertheless, the remembrance of Law, and the traditions of
so many families ruined by his system, were no slight obstacle.
France was far less accustomed than England or Holland to
behold real values circulating in the form of paper. It was
necessary for a whole nation to rise superior to their every­
day habits; it was an act of mystical quality, of revolutionary
faith, that the Assembly demanded.
The clergy were terrified on seeing that their spoils would
thus be in the hands of the whole people; for after having been
reduced to impalpable powder, it was very unlikely that they
should ever come again into their possession. They endeav­
oured at first to liken these solid assignats, each of which was
land, to the Mississippi rubbish: "I had thought," said the Arch­
bishop of Aix in a perfidious manner, "that you had really
renounced the idea of bankruptcy." The answer to this was
too easy. Then, they had recourse to another argument. "All

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this," said theys "is got u p by the Paris bankers; the provinces
will not accept it." Then, they were shown addresses from the
provinces demanding a speedy creation of assignats.
They had expected at least to gain time, and in the interval
to remain in possession, ever waiting and watching to seize
some good opportunity. But even this hope was taken from
them: 'What confidence," said Prieur, "will people have in the
mortgage that founds the assignats, if the mortgaged estates are
not really in our hands?" This tended to dispossess and dislodge
the clergy immediately, and to put all the property into the
hands of the municipalities and districts.
In vain did the Assembly offer them an enormous salary of a
hundred millions: they were inconsolable.
The Archbishop of Aix in a whining discourse, full of childish
and unconnected la�entations, inquired whether they would
really be so cruel as to ruin the poor, by depriving the clergy
of what was given for the poor. He ventured this paradox that
a bankruptcy would infallibly follow the operation intended to
prevent the bankruptcy; and he accused the Assembly of hav­
ing meddled with spiritual things by declaring vows invalid, &c.
Lastly, he went so far as to offer, in the name of the clergy,
a loan of four hundred millions, mortgaged upon their estates.
Whereupon Thouret replied with his Norman impassibility:
"An offer is made in the name of a body no longer existing."
And again: 'When the religion sent you into the world, did
it say to you: go, prosper, and acquire?"
There was then in the Assembly a good-natured simple Car­
thusian friar, named Dom CerIes, a well-meaning short-sighted
man,-a warm patriot, but no less a good Catholic. He believed
(or very probably he allowed himself to be persuaded by some
cunning ecclesiastic) that what gave so much uneasiness to the
prelates, was solely the spiritual danger, the fear lest the civil
power should meddle with the altar. "Nothing is more simple,"
said he; "in order to reply to persons who say that the Assembly
wishes to have no religion, or that it is willing to admit every
religion in France, it has only to decree: "That the Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman religion, is and shall ever be the religion
396
 A Religious Struggle
of the nation, and that its worship is the only one authorised"
(April 12, 1790) .
Charles de Lameth expected to escape the difficulty, as on
the 13th of February, by saying that the Assembly, which, in
its decrees, followed the spirit of the Gospel, had no need to
justify itself in this manner.
But the word was not allowed to drop. The Bishop of Cler­
mont bitterly rejoined, and pretended to be astonished that,
when there was a question of doing homage to the religion,
people should deliberate instead of replying by a hearty ac­
clamation.
All the right side of the Assembly arose, and gave a cheer.
In the evening they assembled at the Capucins, and-to be
provided in case the Assembly should not declare Catholicism
the national religion-prepared a violent protest to be carried
in solemn procession to the king, and published in a vast
number of copies throughout France, in order to make the
people well understand that the National Assembly desired to
have no kind of religion.

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 VIII

Religious Struggle-Success of the

Counter-Revolution (May,1790)

THE motion made by that plain man had won­

derfully changed the aspect of affairs. From a period of debate,
the revolution appeared suddenly transported into an age of
terror.
The Assembly had to contend with terror of two kinds. The
clergy had a silent formidable argument, well understood; they
exhibited to the Assembly a Medusa, civil war, the imminent
insurrection of the west and the south, the probable resurrec­
tion of the old wars of religion. And the Assembly felt within
itself the immense irresistible force of a revolution let loose,
that was to overthrow everything,-a revolution which had for
its principal organ the riots of Paris, thundering at its doors,
and often drowning the voices of the deputies.
In this affair, the clergy had the advantage of position;
first, because they seemed to be in personal danger; that very
danger sanctified them: many an unbelieving, licentious, in­
triguing prelate suddenly found himself, under favour of the
riots, exalted to the glory of martyrdom-a martyrdom never­
theless impossible, owing to the infinite precautions taken by
Lafayette, then so strong and popular, at the zenith of his
glory,-the real king of Paris.
The clergy had moreover in their favour the advantage of a
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 A Religious Struggle
clear position, and the outward appearances of faith. Hitherto
interrogated and placed at the bar by the spirit of the age, it
is now their tum to question, and they boldly demand "Are
you Catholics?" The Assembly replies timidly, in a disguised
equivocal tone, that it cannot answer, that it respects religion
too much to make any answer, that, by paying such a religion,
it has given sufficient proof, &c.
Mirabeau said hypocritically: "Must we decree that the sun
shines?" and another: '1 believe the Catholic religion to be
the only true one; I respect it infinitely. It is said the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. Are we then to confirm such
language by some miserable decree?" &c. &c.
But d'Espremesnil tore away this mask of hypocrisy by his
energetic language: "Yes," said he. "When the Jews crucified
Jesus Christ, they said, 'Hail, king of the Jews!' "
Nobody replied to this terrible attack. Mirabeau remained
silent, and crouched, like a lion about to make a spring. Then
seizing the opportunity afforded by a deputy who was quoting,
in favour of intolerance, some treaty or other made by Louis
XIV.: "And how," cried he, "should not every kind of intol­
erance have been consecrated in a reign signalised by the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. If you appeal to history,
forget not that hence, from this very tribune, I behold the
window whence a king, armed against his people by an ex­
ecrable faction, that disguised personal interest under the cloak
of religion, fired his arquebuss, and gave the signal for the
Saint Bartholomew!"
And, with his gesture and finger, he pointed to the window,
which from that place it was impossible to perceive; but he
mentally saw it, and everybody saw it.
The blow struck home. What the orator had said revealed
precisely what the clergy wanted to do. Their plan was to
carry to the king a violent protestation which would have
armed believers, and to put the arquebuss into the king's
hands, to fire the first shot.
Louis XVI. was not a Charles IX.; but, being very sincerely
convinced of the right of the clergy, he would have accepted
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the peril for what he considered the safety of religion. How­

ever, three things prevented him: his natural indecision, the
timidity of his ministry, and, lastly, more than all the rest,
his fears for the life of the queen,-the terror of the 6th of
October daily renewed, that violent menacing crowd beneath
his windows, that ocean-multitude beating against his walls.
At every resistance the queen seemed in peril. Moreover, she
herself had other views and different hopes, far removed from
the clergy.
An answer was returned, in the name of the king, that if
the protest were brought to the Tuileries, it would not be
received.
We have seen how the king, in February, had discouraged
Bouille, the officers, and the nobility. In April, his refusal to
support the clergy would deprive them of courage if they could
ever lose it when the question concerns their wealth. Maury
said in a rage that people should know in France in what hands
royalty found itself.
It now remained to act without the king. Were they to act
with the nobility? And yet the clergy could not rely much
even on their assistance. They still had the monopoly of all
the officers' ranks; but, not being sure of the soldiers, they were
afraid of an outbreak and were less impatient and less warlike
than the priests. Froment, the agent of the clergy at Nimes,
although he had obtained an order from the Count d'Artois,
was unable to persuade the commandant of the province to
allow him to make use of the arsenal, and yet the business
was urgent. The great federations of the Rhone had intoxicated
the whole country, and that of Orange in April had completed
the general enthusiasm. Avignon no longer remembered that
it belonged to the pope, but sent to Orange, with all the French
towns. Had they waited a moment longer, it would have es­
caped them. If the chief towns of aristocracy and fanaticism,
like Avignon and ArIes, with which the clergy were ever
threatening, themselves became revolutionary, the counter-rev­
olution, held moreover in close quarters by Marseilles and
400
 A Religious Struggle
Bordeaux, had no longer any hope. The explosion must take
place now or never.
We should not at all understand the eruptions of these old
volcanoes of the South, if we did not previously examine that
ever burning soil. The infernal flames of the stakes which
were there kindled so many times, those contagious sulphurous
flames seem to have gained the very soil, so that unknown
conflagrations are there ever undermining the land. It is like
those burning coal-pits in the Aveyron, the fire is not at the
surface; but, if you plunge a cane into that yellow turf, it
smokes, takes fire, and reveals the hell that is dormant at
your feet.
May animosity ever decline!-But it is necessary that remi­
niscences should remain, that so many woes and sufferings be
never lost for the experience of men. It is necessary that the
first and most sacred of our liberties, religious freedom, go to
strengthen itself and revive at the sight of the horrible ruins
left by fanaticism.
The very stones speak in default of men. Two monuments
especially deserve to be the objects of a frequent pilgrimage,­
two opposite yet instructive monuments,-the one infamous,
the other sacred.
The infamous one is the palace of Avignon, that Babel of
the popes, that Sodom of legates, that Gomorrah of cardinals;
a monstrous palace covering the whole brow of a mountain with
its obscene towers, the scene of lust and torture, where priests
showed to kings that, in comparison to them, they were mere
novices in the abominable arts of sensuality. The originality
of the construction is that the places of torture not being
far removed from the luxurious alcoves, ball rooms, and fes­
tive halls, they might very easily have heard, amid the singing
in the courts of love, the shrieks and groans of the tortured,
and the breaking and cracking of their bones. Priestly pru­
dence had provided against this by a scientific arrangement
of the vaults, proper to absorb every kind of noise. The superb
pyramidal hall where the flaming piles were erected (imagine
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the interior of a cone of sixty feet) testifies a frightful knowl­

edge of acoustics; only here and there a few traces of oily
soot still call to mind the burning of flesh.so
The other place, both holy and sacred, is the Bagne (for
galley-slaves) at Toulon, the Calvary of religious liberty, the
place where the confessors of the faith, the heroes of charity,
died a lingering death beneath the lash.
Be it remembered that several of these martyrs, condemned
to the galleys for life, were not Protestants, but men accused
of having allowed Protestants to escape!
Some were sold during the reign of Louis XV. For a fair
price (1201.) , a galley-slave might be purchased. M. de
Choiseul, to pay his court to Voltaire, gave him one as a free
gift.
This horrible code, which our Reign of Terror copied without
ever being able to equal it, armed children against their fathers,
gave them their property beforehand, so that the son was
interested in keeping his father at Toulon.
What is more curious than to witness the Church, the groan­
ing dove, groaning in 1682, when little children had just been
carried away from their heretical mothers-groaning to deliver
them? No, for the king to find laws more efficacious and severe.
Yet how could any ever be found more severe than these?
At every assembly of the clergy, the dove continues to groan.
Nay, even under Louis XVI., when they allowed the spirit of
the time to extort from them that glorious charter of enfran­
chisement which had always excluded the Protestants from
every public employment, the clergy address fresh groans to
the king by Lomenie, an atheistic priest.
I entered full of trembling and respect into that holy bagne
of Toulon. There I sought for the vestiges of the martyrs of
religion and those of humanity, killed there with ill-treatment,
for having had manly hearts, for having alone undertaken to
defend innocence and perform the work of God!

.. This pyramidal hall for burning victims, must not be confounded with
the Tour de la Glaciere, of which I shall speak hereafter.

402
 A Religious Struggle
Alas! nothing remains. Nothing remains of those atrocious
and superb galleys, gilded and sanguinary, more barbarous
than those of Barbary, and which the lash watered with the
blood of those saints. Even the registers, in which their names
were inscribed, have for the most part disappeared. In the
few that remain, there are only laconic indications, their en­
trance and their exit; and that exit was generally death.-Death
which came more or less speedily, thus indicating the degrees
of resignation or despair. A terrible brevity, two lines for a
saint, two or three for a martyr. No note has been taken of
the groans, the protestations, the appeals made to heaven, the
silent prayers, or the psalms chanted in a low voice amidst the
blasphemies of thieves and murderers.-Oh! all that must be
elsewhere. "Be comforted! The tears of men are engraved for
eternity in rock and marble!" said Christopher Columbus.
In marble? No, but in the human soul. In proportion as
I studied and learned, I was consoled to see that indeed those
obscure martyrs nevertheless bore their fruit,-admirable fruit:
the amelioration of those who saw or heard them, a melting
of the heart, a humanising of the soul in the eighteenth century,
an increasing horror of fanaticism and persecution. In course
of time, there remained nobody to enforce those barbarous
laws. The intendant Lenain (de Tillemont), a nephew of the
illustrious Jansenist, on being obliged to condemn to death one
of the last of those Protestant martyrs, said to him: "Alas! sir,
such are the king's orders." He burst into tears, and the convict
tried to comfort him.
Fanaticism was expiring of itself. It was not without trouble
and much labour, that, from time to time, politicians managed
to rekindle the Harne. When the parlement, accused of scepti­
cism, jansenism, and anti-jesuitism, seized the opportunity af­
forded by Calas, to recover its fonner reputation, when, in
concert with the clergy, it attempted to agitate the old fury of
the people, it was found to be quite dormant.
It succeeded only by means of brotherhoods, generally com­
posed of petty people, who, as tradespeople, or in some other
manner, were the clients of the clergy. In order to trouble,

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bewitch, alarm, and inflame the minds o f the people, they did
what is done at the races, where a hot coal is inserted under
the skin of a horse, which then becomes mad. Only the coal
in this case was an atrocious comedy, a frightful exhibition.
The brotherhoods, in their white ominous costume (the hood
concealing their faces, with two holes for the eyes) , solemnised
a death festival for the son that Calas had killed, as they said,
to prevent him from abjuring. Upon an enormous catafalque,
surrounded with wax-candles, a skeleton was seen, moved by
springs, holding in one hand the palm of martyrdom, and in
the other a pen to sign the abjuration of heresy.
We know how the blood of Calas recoiled upon the fanatics,
and the excommunication hurled upon the murderers, the false
judges and wicked priests by the old pontiff of Ferney. On
that day, struck by lightning, they began to tumble down a
declivity where it is impossible to stop; they rolled down head
foremost, the reprobates, till they plunged into the gulf of the
Revolution.
And on the eve, at the very brink of the abyss, royalty,
which they were dragging with them, in their fall, at length
thought proper just to be humane. An edict appeared (1787)
in which it was confessed that the Protestants were men; they
were permitted to be born, to marry, and to die. In other
respects, they were by no means citizens, being excluded from
civil employments, and unable either to administer, to judge, or
to teach; but admitted, as their only privilege, to pay the taxes
and their persecutors, the Catholic clergy, and to maintain,
with their money, the altar that cursed them.
The Protestants of the mountains cultivated their meagre
country. The Protestants of the cities carried on trade, the
only thing they were allowed to do, and, by degrees, as they
felt themselves more safe, a few of the industrious arts. Having
been kept down, in cruel subjection, out of every kind of em­
ployment, or influence, and excluded most especially for a
hundred years from every military grade, they no longer had
any resemblance with the hardy Huguenots of the sixteenth
century; and Protestantism was reduced to its starting point

404
 A Religious Struggle
of the middle ages,-industry and commerce. If we except the
Cevenols, incorporated in their rocks, the Protestants in general
possessed very little land; their riches, already considerable at
this period, were houses and factories, but especially and es­
sentially moveables, such as can always be transported.
The Protestants of the province of Gard, were, in 1789,
rather more than fifty thousand male inhabitants ( as in 1698,
and also in 1840, the number has varied very little ) , conse­
quently very weak, isolated, and totally unconnected with their
brethren of the other provinces, lost like a point, an atom, in a
vast multitude of Catholics, who were counted by millions. At
Nimes, the only town where the Protestants were assembled
in any considerable number, they were six thousand to twenty­
one thousand men of the other religion. Of the six thousand,
three or four thousand were workmen of manufactories, an
unwholesome diminutive race, miserable, and subject, as the
workman is everywhere, to frequent want of work.
But the Catholics were never out of work, being chiefly
tillers of the ground, and their very mild climate admitting of
that kind of labour in every season. Many of them had a bit
of land, and cultivated at the same time for the clergy, the
nobility, and the wealthy Catholic burgesses, who possessed the
whole of the environs.
The Protestants of the towns, well-informed, moderate, and
serious, confined to a sedentary life, and devoted to their
reminiscences, having in each family a subject of grief and
perhaps also of fear, were almost devoid of enterprise, and
lost to all hope. When they beheld the glorious dawn of the
first day of liberty, on the eve of the Revolution, they hardly
dared indulge in hope. They let the parlements and the nobility
advance boldly and speak in favour of the new ideas; but,
generally, they themselves remained silent. They knew per­
fectly well that to impede the Revolution, it would have been
sufficient to be seen expressing their sympathy.
It burst forth. The Catholics, be it said to their honour, the
great majority of the Catholics, were delighted to see the Prot­
estants at length become their equals. The unanimity was

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affecting, and one o f th e sights the most worthy to call down

the blessing of God upon earth. In many parts, the Catholics
went to the temple of the Protestants, and united with them
to return thanks to Providence together. On the other hand,
the Protestants attended the Catholic Te Deum. For, above
all the altars, every temple, and every church a divine ray had
appeared in heaven.
The 14th of July was welcomed by the South, as also by all
France, as a deliverance wrought by God,-a departure from
the land of Egypt; the people had crossed through the sea,
and, safe on the opposite shore, were singing the song of praise.
They were no longer Protestants and Catholics, but Frenchmen.
It happened, without any intention or premeditation, that the
permanent committee organised in the towns, was composed
of persons of either religion; so likewise was the national militia.
The officers were generally Catholics, because the Protestants,
strangers to military service, would hardly have been able to
command. To make amends, they constituted the cavalry al­
most entirely, many of them having horses for the necessities
of their trade.
However, after the lapse of two or three months, a project
was set on foot at Nimes and Montauban, to form new compa­
nies exclusively Catholic.
This glorious unanimity had disappeared. A serious and
solemn question, that of the property of the clergy, had caused
an entire change.
The clergy showed a remarkable power of organisation, and
an intelligent activity in creating a civil war in a population
that had no wish for it.
Three means were employed. First, the mendicant friars,
the Capuchins and the Dominicans, who became the distrib­
utors and propagators of a vast number of brochures and
pamphlets. Secondly, the publichouses ( cabarets) , and the
petty retail winesellers, who, dependent on the clergy, the
principal proprietors of vineyards, were on the other hand in
communication with the lower orders of the Catholics. espe-

406
 A Religious Struggle
cially with the rural electors among the peasantry. The latter,
on their way to town, used to halt at the cabaret; where they
spent ( and this includes our third article ) twenty-four sous
which the clergy gave them for every day they went to the
elections.
Froment, the agent of the priests in all these doings, was
more than a man; he was himself a legion,-acting at the same
time by a vast number of hands, by his brother Froment
( surnamed Tapage ) , his relations, and his friends. He had his
bureau, his friends, his library of pamphlets and his lair at the
elections, close by the church of the Dominicans; and his house
communicated with a tower commanding the ramparts : an
excellent position for civil war, which defied musketry and
was afraid of nothing but artillery.
Before having recourse to arms, Froment undermined the
Revolution by the Revolution itself,-by the National Guard
and the elections. Assemblies held at night in the church of the
White Penitents, prepared the municipal elections in such a
manner as to exclude all Protestants. The enormous powers
which the Assembly gave to the municipal authorities, the
right of calling out the troops, proclaiming martial law, and
hoisting the red Hag, are thus found to be placed, at Nimes and
Montauban, in the hands of the Catholics; and that Hag will be
hoisted for them, should they ever require it, and never against
them.
The National Guard was next. It had been composed in
July of the most fervent patriots, who hastened to enlist; of
those also who, possessing no other wealth than moveables,
were the most afraid of pillage; such were the merchants, for
the most part Protestants. As for the rich Catholics, who were
especially land proprietors, they could not lose their lands, and
therefore were more slow in arming. When their castles were
attacked, the National Guard, composed of Protestants and
Catholics, took every care to defend them; that of Montauban
saved a chateau belonging to Cazales the royalist.
To change this state of affairs, it was necessary to awaken

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envy and create a spirit of rivalry. This came soon enough of

itself by the force of circumstances, apart from every difference
of opinion and party. Every corps that seemed select, whether
aristocratic, like the volunteers of Lyon and Lille, or patriotic,
like the dragoons of Montauban and Nimes, was equally de­
tested. They excited against the latter those petty people who
formed the great mass of the Catholic companies, by spreading
a report among them that the others called them cebets or
onion-eaters. This was a gratuitous accusation; for why should
the Protestants have insulted the poor? Nobody at Nimes was
poorer than the Protestant workmen. And their friends and
defenders of the mountain, in the Cevennes, who often have no
other food than chestnuts, led a harder, poorer, and more
abstinent life than the onion-eaters at Nimes, who eat bread
also and often drink wine.
On the 20th of March, they heard that the Assembly, not
satisfied with having opened to Protestants the road to public
employment, had raised a Protestant, Rabaut Saint-Etienne, to
the highest of all, a position then higher than the throne,-to
the presidency of the nation. Nothing was yet ready,-few
arms, if any; nevertheless, the impression was so strong that
four Protestants were assassinated by way of expiation-a fact
contested, but certain.
Toulouse did penance for the sacrilege of the Assembly,
made a public confession of its sins, and offered up nine days'
prayers to avert the wrath of God. It was the period of an
execrable festival, an annual procession made in remembrance
of the massacre of the Albigenses. The brotherhoods of every
denomination repair in crowds to the chapel erected on the
field of slaughter; and the most furious motions are made in
the churches. Machinery is set to work in every direction. They
fetch from their old lumber-rooms those instruments of fanati­
cism which played their parts at the time of the Dragonnades
and the Saint-Bartholomew massacre: virgins who shed tears
praying for murders, and Christs to nod, &c. &c. Add, moreover,
a few more recent inventions; for instance, a Dominican to go

408
 A Religious Struggle
about the streets of Nimes, in his white monk-dress, begging his
bread and weeping over the decrees of the Assembly; at
Toulouse, a bust of the captive king, the martyr-king, placed
near the preacher and covered with a black veil, to be sud­
denly revealed at the pathetic moment in the sermon to ask
assistance of the good people of Toulouse.
All that was too clear. It meant blood! And the Protestants
understood it.
Isolated amidst a vast Catholic population, they saw them­
selves a small Hock marked for slaughter. The terrible remi­
niscences treasured in each family, would return to their minds
at night and frighten them out of their sleep. The effects of
this panic were whimsical enough; the dread of the brigands
which pervaded to rural districts, was often confounded in their
imaginations with that of Catholic assassins; and they hardly
knew whether they were in 1790 or in 1572. At Saint-Jean-de­
la-Gardonnenque, a small trading town, some couriers entered
one morning, crying: "Be on your guard! here they are!" They
ring the alarm-bell, run to arms, the women cling to their
husbands to prevent them from going out; they shut up their
houses, put themselves in a state of defence, with paving­
stones at the windows. And the town was indeed invaded, but
by friends, the Protestants of the country, who had arrived by
forced marches. Among them was seen a beautiful girl, armed,
and carrying a gun, between her two brothers. She was the
heroine of the day, and was crowned with laurel; all the trades­
people recovering from their panic, took up a collection for
their lovely deliverer; and she returned to her mountains with
her dowry in her apron.
Nothing could allay their fears but a permanent association
between the communes, an armed federation. They formed
one towards the end of March in a meadow of the Gard, a sort
of island between a canal and the river, sheltered from every
kind of surprise. Thousands of men repaired thither, and what
was more comforting, the Protestants saw a great number of
Catholics mingled with them under their banner. The peaceful

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Roman ruins which crown the landscape filled their minds with
loftier thoughts; they seemed to have survived in order to
despise and see decline those miserable quarrels of religion,
and to have the promise of a more noble age.
The two parties were drawn up in array and ready to act;
Nimes, Toulouse, and Montauban were watching Paris and
waiting. Let us compare dates. On the 13th of April, in the
bosom of the Assembly, they obtain from it a spark to kindle all
the South,-its refusal to declare Catholicism the predominant
religion; on the 19th the clergy protest. As early as the 18th
Toulouse protests with fire-arms; there they act the scene of the
kings bust; the patriots shout "Long live the king and the lawl"
and the soldiers fire on them.
On the 20th, at Nimes, is a great and solemn Catholic
declaration Signed by three thousand electors, and backed with
the signatures of fifteen hundred distinguished persons,-a
declaration forwarded to all the municipalities in the kingdom,
followed and copied at Montauban, Albi, Alais, Uzes, &c. This
article, planned at the White Penitents, was written by Fro­
ment's clerks, and Signed in his house by the populace. It
amounted to a criminal accusation against the National As­
sembly; and gave it notice that it had to restore power to the
king, and to bestow upon the Catholic religion the monopoly
of public worship.
At the same time, they were striving to form new companies
in every direction. These were strangely composed, consisting
of ecclesiastical agents, peasants, marquises and domestics,
nobles and porters. In default of guns, they had pitch-forks
and scythes; they were also secretly fabricating a terrible mur­
derous weapon,-pitchforks with edges like a saw.
The municipalities, created by the Catholics, pretended not
to see all this; they seemed to be very busily engaged in
strengthening the strong, and weakening the weak. At Mon­
tauban, the Protestants, six times less numerous than their
adversaries, wanted to accede to the federative covenant which
the Protestants of the rural districts had just formed; but the

410
 A Religiou8 Struggle
municipality would not allow it. They next attempted to
disarm their animosity by withdrawing from the public employ­
ments to which they had been raised, and causing Catholics to
be appointed in their stead. This was taken for weakness;
and the religious crusade was not the less preached in the
churches. The vicars-general excited the minds of the people
still more by causing prayers of forty hours to be said for the
safety of the religion in peril.
The municipality of Montauban at length threw off the mask
by an affair that could not fail to bring about an explosion. For
the execution of the decree of the Assembly ordering an in­
ventory to be made in the religious communities, it chose pre­
Cisely Rogation-Day, the 10th of May. It was also during a
Spring festival that the Sicilian Vespers took place. The season
added much to the general excitement. This festival of Roga­
tion is the moment when the whole population is out of doors,
and full of emotions aroused by worship and the season, feels
that intoxicating influence of Spring, so powerful in the South.
Though occasionally retarded by the hail-storms of the Py­
renees, it bursts out only with greater vigour. Everything seems
then to be emerging and springing forth at once-man from his
house, and the grass from the earth; and every creature leaps
with joy; it is like a coup d'etat of Providence-a revolution in
nature.
And well did they know that the women who go whining
about the streets their lachrymose canticles Te rogamu8, audi
n08-well did they know that they would urge their husbands
to the fight, and cause them to be killed, rather than allow the
magistrates to enter the convents.
The latter begin their march, but, as they might have fore­
seen, are stopped short by the impenetrable masses of the
people, and by women sitting and lying before the sacred
thresholds. It would be necessary to walk over them. They
therefore withdraw, and the crowd becomes aggressive; it even
threatens to burn down the house of the military commandant,
a Catholic, but a patriot. It marches towards the Hotel-de-Ville,

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 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

in order to force the arsenal. If it succeeded in doing so; if, in

that state of fury, it seized upon arms, the massacre of the
Protestants and patriots in general must have begun.
The municipality had the power of calling out the regiment
of Languedoc; but it declined doing so. The national guards
march of their own accord and occupy the military post that
covers the Hotel-de-Ville, where they are soon besieged. Far
from succouring them, assistance is sent to the furious populace,
who are supported by the persons employed in the excise. Five
or six hundred shots are fired against the windows. The un­
fortunate guards pierced with bullets, several being killed, a
great number wounded, and being without ammunition, show
a white handkerchief and ask them to spare their lives. The
firing continues all the same, and the wall, their only defence,
is demolished. Then the culpable municipality decides, in ex­
tremis, to do what it ought to have done before-to call out the
regiment of Languedoc, which, for a long time, had desired to
advance.
During this butchery, a noble lady had caused masses to be
said.
Those who have not been killed are therefore at length able
to go forth. But the fury of the populace was not exhausted.
Their dress, the national uniform, is tom from them, as is also
the cockade, which is trampled under foot. Bare-headed, hold­
ing tapers in their hands, and stripped to their shirts, they are
then dragged along the streets, stained with their blood, as far
as the cathedral, where they are made to kneel on the steps
to do penance. . . In front marches the mayor, bearing a
white flag.
For less cause, France had carried out the insurrection of the
6th of October; for a less outrage offered to the tri-coloured
cockade, she had overthrown a monarchy.
We tremble for Montauban when we perceive the terrible
exasperation that such an event would excite, and the strong
fellowship which, even at that time, bound together the whole
nation from north to south. If there had been nobody in the
south to avenge such an affront, all the centre and the north,

412
 A Religious Struggle
the whole of France would have marched. The outrage was
felt even in the most inconsiderable villages. I have now before
me the threatening addresses of the populations of Marne and
Seine-et-Marne on those indignities of the south.n
The north was able to remain quiet. The south was quite
sufficient. Bordeaux was the first to march; then Toulouse, on
which those of Montauban had relied; even Toulouse turned
against them and demanded they should be chastised. Bor­
deaux advanced; and, its numbers increasing, on its passage
through the different communes, was obliged to send many
away, being unable to feed such crowds of soldiers. The pris­
oners of Montauban were put in the van to receive the first
fire ( the only way of defending themselves imagined by the
assassins ) . But van there was nonel The regiment of Languedoc
fraternised with the people of Bordeaux.
Paris sent one of the king's commissioners, one of Lafayette's
officers, a kind, and too indulgent person, who rather declared
against his own party; he sent back the Bordeaux people and
entered into terms with the rioters. There was no inquiry as to
the bloodshed; the dead remained dead; the wounded kept
their wounded; and the imprisoned remained in prison; the
king's commissary thought of no other way of getting them out
than causing the favour to be asked of him by the very persons
who had placed them there.
Everything took place in the same manner at Nimes. The
Catholic volunteers boldly wore the white cockade and shouted
«Down with the nation!" The soldiers and subaltern officers of
the regiment of Guienne were indignant, and sought to quar­
rel with them. A single regiment, isolated amidst so vast a
multitude, having on its side only the Protestant portion of the
population, was in a hazardous position. Observe that it had
its own officers against it, they having declared themselves the

81 I believe I have read everything relating far or near to these riots of

Montauban, Nimes, &c., and have stated nothing till I had compared and
weighed the testimony, and formed my conviction with the attention of a
juryman.-This once for all. I quote but little, in order not to interrupt the
unity of my narration.

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partisans of the white cockade, and also the municipality, who

refused to proclaim martial law. Many persons were wounded;
and a grenadier was aimed at and killed by Froments own
brother.
The soldiers were imprisoned, and the assassin was allowed
to go free. So the counter-revolution was as triumphant at
Nimes as at Montauban.
In the last-mentioned town, the conquerors were not satisfied
with this, but had the audacity to go and make a collection
among the families of the victims, nay, even in the prisons
where they still remained. Oh horrorI They were not allowed
their liberty till they had paid their assassinsl

414
 IX

A Religious Struggle
-The Counter-Revolution Quelled
in the South (June, 1790)

WHAT was the National Assembly doing at

Paris at this time? It was following the clergy in the procession
of Corpus-Christi.
Its more than Christian meekness, in all this, is a surprising
spectacle. It was satisfied with a single concession which the
ministers obtained from the king. He forbade the white cock­
ade and condemned those who had signed the declaration of
Nimes. The latter got off easily by substituting, in place of their
cockade, the red tuft of the ancient Leaguers; and they boldly
protested that they persisted for the king against the kings
orders.
This was clear, simple, and vigorous; the clerical party knew
very well what they wanted. The Assembly knew it not. It was
then accomplishing a feeble, deceptive task, what was then
called the civil constitution of the clergy.
Nothing was more fatal to the Revolution than to be self­
ignorant from the view point of religion-not to know that it
bore a religion in itself.
It neither knew itself nor Christianity; it knew not exactly
whether it was conformable or contrary to it-whether it WaJ
to go back to it or march forward.
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In its easy confidence, it welcomed with pleasure the sym­

pathy shown towards it by the bulk of the lower clergy. It was
told, and it expected that it was about to realise the promises
of the Gospel; that it was called to reform and renew Chris­
tianity, and not to replace it. It believed this and marched in
this direction; but, as its second step, it found that the priests
had become priests again, the enemies of the Revolution; and
the Church appeared what it really was-the obstacle, the main
impediment, far more than even royalty.
The Revolution had done two services for the clergy: given
them an existence and an easy livelihood, and liberty to the
monks. And this is precisely what enabled Episcopacy to turn
them against it; the bishops designating every priest friendly
to the Revolution to the hatred and contempt of the people, as
won, bought over, and corrupted by temporal interests. Honour
and the spirit of party impelled the priests towards ingratitude;
and they quitted Revolution, their benefactress, for Episcopacy,
their tyrantI
Strange enough, it was to defend their prodigious fortunes,
their millions, their palaces, horses, and mistresses, that the
prelates imposed upon the priests the law of martyrdom. One,
for example, who wanted to keep an income of eight hundred
thousand livres denounced as · shameful a salary of twelve hun­
dred francs that a country curate accepted from the Assembly.
The lower clergy thus found themselves, from the very first,
and for a question of money, forced to make a choice. The
bishops did not allow them a moment for reflection; but de­
clared to them that, if they were for the nation, they were
against the Church,--out of the Catholic unity, beyond the
communion of the bishops and the Holy See, contaminated,
rejected, renegade, and apostate members.
What were those poor priests to do? Leave the old system,
in which so many generations had lived; become suddenly
rebels to that imposing authority, which they had ever re­
spected, and quit the known world for another? And what
other, what new system? It is necessary to have an idea, and a

416
 A Religious Struggle
faith in that idea, thus to leave the shore and embark in the
future.
A truly patriotic curate, he of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, who,
on the 14th of July, marched under the banner of the people,
at the head of his district, was overwhelmed and frightened
at the cruel alternative in which he was placed by the bishops.
He remained forty days in sackcloth, on his knees, before the
altar; and though he had remained there for ever, he would
not have found any answer to the insoluble question which
now presented itself.
Whatever ideas the Revolution possessed, it owed to the
eighteenth century, to Voltaire and Rousseau. During the
twenty years that had passed between the great period of those
two masters and the Revolution, between the thought and the
execution, nobody had seriously continued their work.
Therefore the Revolution found the human mind at the point
where they had left it: ardent humanity in Voltaire, fraternity
in Rousseau; two foundations, assuredly religious, but merely
laid, and with scarcely any superstructure.
The last testament of the century is in two pages of Rousseau,
of a very opposite tendency.
In one, in the "Social Contract," he establishes and proves,
that the Christian neither is, nor can be a citizen.
In the other, which is in "Emile," he yields to an affecting
enthusiasm for the Gospel and Jesus, so far as to say, "His
death is that of a Godl"
This effusion of sentiment and affection was noted and stored
up as a valuable avowal, a solemn self-denegation of the philos­
ophy of the eighteenth century. Thence arose an immense mis­
understanding, which still remains.
People began to read the Gospel again; and in that book of
resignation, submission, and obedience to authority, they read
every moment what they themselves had in their hearts,-lib­
erty and equality. Indeed, they appear there in every page;
only, we must not make a mistake, equality in obedience, as
the Romans had made it for every nation; and liberty internal,
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 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

inactive, entirely pent up in the soul, just as it was able to be

conceived, when, every national resistance having ceased, the
hopeless world saw the growing stability of the Eternal Empire.
Assuredly, if there be a situation of things opposite to that
of 1789, it is this. Nothing could be more strange than to seek
in that affecting legend of resignation, the code of a period
when man had claimed his rights.32
The Christian is that resigned man of the ancient empire,
who places no hope in his personal action, but believes he shall
be saved solely and exclusively by Christ. There are very few
Christians. There were three or four in the Constituent As­
sembly. At that period, Christianity ( doubtless living and
durable as a sentiment) was dead as a system. Many mistook
this point; among others, numbers of the friends of liberty, who,
being affected by the Gospel, imagined themselves, on that
account, to be Christians. As to popular life, Christianity pre­
served only what it owes to its anti-Christian part, borrowed
or imitated from paganism ( I mean the idolatry of the Virgin
and the Saints ) , and to the material and sensuous devotion of
the Sacred-Heart.
The true Christian principle, that man is saved only by the
grace of Christ, after being solemnly condemned by the Pope

.. And from this false study of the Gospel, they passed on to a no less
false interpretation of the whole Christian system. There also they found
just what they had in their thoughts, liberty; they found that Christianity,
which originates in a transgression committed by Adam, an abuse of
liberty, is the religion of liberty. Yes, of liberty lost; that is what ought to
have been added. Liberty appears at the starting-point of the system, but
to perish irrevocably. The fatality of the first transgression carries with it
the whole human race. The few that escape are saved, not by the use of
liberty, but by the arbitrary grace of Christ. If you insist that man's free­
will should be accounted as something, you lessen the merits of the
Saviour; if you will have it that we are saved by free-will, Christ is no
longer the Saviour.-To say all in one word: liberty is in every living
system; therefore it is in Christianity; it is even its starting-point, but it is
not its great, characteristic, and predominant law, that which constitutes
the life of the system. The Christian dogma is not the dogma of liberty,
but of a powerless liberty; it teaches the transmission of a liberty lost; it
places salvation in grace, which is the free activity of God, but not ours.
This explains why every kind of despotism, feudal, royal, no matter what,
has grounded itself on Christianity.
418
 A Religious Struggle
towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV., has only pined
away, its defenders ever diminishing in numbers, hiding, re­
signing themselves to their fate, and dying without either a
complaint or a struggle. And it is by so doing that this party
proves, as much as by its doctrine, that it is indeed and truly
Christian. It lies hid, as I have said, though it still possesses
men of a singular power, whom it might show to its great
advantage.
I, who seek my faith elsewhere, and who turn my eyes
towards the east, have nevertheless been unable to behold,
without the deepest emotion, these men of another age silently
becoming extinct. Forgotten by all men, except pagan-christian
authority, which practises towards them, unknown to the world,
the most cowardly persecution,33 they will die in worthy fash­
ion. I have had occasion to test them. One day, when in my
lectures I was about to encounter their great men of Port­
Royal, I expressed an intention of giving utterance to my
thoughts, and of disburdening my heart; of saying that then
and now, in these men as in Port-Royal, it was paganism perse­
cuting Christianity. They entreated me to do nothing of the
kind ( and may they forgive me for having violated their
secret ) : "No, sir," said they; "there are situations in which one
must learn to die in silence." And, as I insisted from sympathy,
they avowed to me ingenuously that, in their opinion, they
had not long to suffer; that the great and last day, which will
judge both men and doctrines, could not be far; the day when
the world will begin to live and cease to die. . . . He who, in
their name, told me these strange things, was a young man,
serious and pale, prematurely old, who would not tell me his
name, and whom I never saw afterwards. That apparition has
remained upon my mind as a noble farewell with the past. I

.. A truly cowardly persecution, which deals especially with females, the

last surviving Jansenist sisters, whom they are harassing to a lingering
death; cowardly also in its fury against the church of Saint Severin. It
has not been demolished, like Port-Royal, but transformed, abandoned to
the paganism of the Sacred-Heart, and periodically polluted with Jesuitical
preachers.

419
 BOOK III: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89, TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

seemed to hear the last words of the Bride of Corinth: "We

will go down into the tomb, to rejoin our ancient gods."
There were three such men in the Constituent Assembly;
none of them possessed genius, none was an orator, and yet
they exercised certainly a great,-too great influence. Heroic,
disinterested, sincere, and excellent citizens, they contributed
more than anybody to drive the Revolution into the old im­
practicable paths; and, as far as in them lay, they made it a
reformer, and yet prevented its being a founder, innovator,
a creator.
What was necessary to be done in 1790 and 1800? It was
necessary at least to wait, and make an appeal to the living
powers of the human mind.
Those powers are eternal, and in them is the inexhaustible
fountain of philosophical and religious life. No period ought to
be despaired of; the worst of modem times, that of the Thirty
Years' War, nevertheless produced Descartes, the regenerator
of the mind of Europe. It was necessary to appeal to life, and
not organise death.
The three men who impelled the Assembly to commit this
great blunder, were named Camus, Gregoire, and Lanjuinais.
Three men of unconquerable resolution. Those who saw
Camus lay his hand on Dumouriez amidst his army, and those
who, on the 31st of May, saw Lanjuinais, when hurled down
from the tribune, rushing back to it and holding on, between
daggers and pistols, know that few men would appear brave if
compared to those two. As to Bishop GregOire, after remaining
in the Convention, during the whole of the reign of Terror,
alone on his bench, in his violet robe, nobody daring to sit
near him, he has left behind him the reputation of the firmest
character that perhaps ever appeared. Terror recoiled before
that inflexible priest. During the most stormy days and the
most sombre nights of the Convention, it had in Gregoire the
immutable image of Christianity, its dumb protest, and its
threat of resurrection.
These men, so intrepid and pure, were none the less the
supreme temptation of the Revolution; they led it to commit
420
 A Religious Struggle
this serious blunder-to organise the Christian Church without
believing in Christianity.
Under their influence, and that of the legists who followed
their steps without perceiving the mistake, the Assembly, for
the most part sceptical and Voltairian in its ideas, imagined
that it might alter the exterior without changing the ground­
work. It presented the strange spectacle of a Voltaire reform­
ing the Church, and pretending to restore to it its apostolic
severity.
But setting aside the incurable defect of this suspicious
origin, the reformation was reasonable; it might be called a
charter of deliverance for the Church and the clergy.
The Assembly wishes that the clergy should be in future the
elect of the people, emancipated from the Concordat, a shame­
ful covenant by which two thieves, the king and the pope, had
shared the Church between them and cast lots for its vesture;
-enfranchised, by their superior remuneration of a regular
salary, from the odious necessity of exacting tithes, and such
like casualties, and fleecing the people;-enfranchised from an
unjust system of promotion and those petty court abbes who
used to spring from boudoirs and alcoves into the episcopacy;
-lastly, free from all locusts and big-bellied priests, and from
the ridiculous cages for fattening prebendaries. Add a better
division of the dioceses, henceforth of equal extent, with eighty­
three bishoprics, the same number as that of the departments,
the revenue fixed at seventy-seven million francs, and the
clergy better paid with this sum than with its three hundred
millions formerly, from which they derived so little advantage.
The debate was neither powerful nor profound. There was
only one bold sentence pronounced, and that was said by the
Jansenist Camus, and certainly it went beyond his meaning:
'We are a National Convention," said he; "we have assuredly
the power to change the religion; but we shall not do so."
Then, being frightened at his own audacity, he added very
quickly: 'We could not abandon it without crime" ( June 1st,
1790 ) . Being legists and theologians, they invoked only texts
and musty volumes: at every contested quotation they has-
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 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 89, TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

tened t o fetch their books, and were anxious to prove, not that
their opinion was good, but that it was old: "Thus did the
early Christians." A poor argumentl It was very doubtful
whether a thing proper at the age of Tiberius, remained so
eighteen hundred years afterwards, in the reign of Louis XVI.
It was necessary, without any tergiversation, to examine,
whether the right was above or below, in the king, the pope,
or in the people.
What would election by the people produce? Doubtless this
was unknown. But people knew perfectly well what was a
clergy after the fashion of the king, the pope, and the lords.84
What countenance would those loudly-protesting prelates
have put on if they had been obliged to show by what oil and
what hand they had been consecrated? The safest way for
them was not to enter too closely into this question of origin.
They declaimed by choice on the most temporal question, on
the most foreign to the spiritual order, the division of the
dioceses. In vain was it proved to them that this division, en­
tirely imperial in its Roman origin, and made by the govern­
ment, might be modified by another government. They would
not listen to reason, but held fast. This division was the only
thing, the holy of holies; no dogma of the Christian faith was
more deeply implanted in their hearts. If a council were not
convened, or if the matter were not referred to the pope, all
was over; France was about to become schismatical, and from
schismatical heretical; from heretical sacrilegious, athestic, &c.
These solemn farces, which at Paris only caused people to

.. The right of advowson, in the hands of the lords, had very curious
effects. One Samuel Bernard, a Jew, who had bought a certain seigneurial
manor, had, by that very fact, the right of appointing to such a benefice;
between title-deeds and sales, he acquired the Holy Ghost. The Holy
Ghost would descend, alas! from dOings still more sad. Such a one was
bishop by the grace of Madame de Polignac; another was appointed by La
Pompadour, whilst another owed his bishopric to the wanton sports of
Madame Du Barry with Louis XV. A handsome young abbe of twenty,
abbe de Bourbon, endowed with an income of a million francs, was the
offspring of a noble young lady, sold by her parents and long brought up
by the king for a momentary gratification.

422
 A Religious Struggle
shrug their shoulders with contempt, had nevertheless the in­
tended effect in the West and the South. There they were
printed and distributed in an immense number of copies, with
the famous protest in favour of the property of the clergy,
which, in two months, reached the thirtieth edition. Being
repeated in the pulpit in the morning, commented in the con­
fessional in the afternoon, and adorned with murderous annota­
tions, this text of hatred and discord continued more and more
to exasperate the women, rekindle religious strife, whet the
pOignards, and sharpen the pitchforks and scythes.
On the 29th and 31st of May, the Archbishop of Aix and the
Bishop of Clermont ( one of the principal leaders of the revolt,
and the king's confidential man ) notified the ecclesiastical ulti­
matum to the Assembly: That no change could be made with­
out the convocation of a council. And in the early part of the
month of June blood was Howing at Nimes.
Froment had armed his surest companies, and had, at great
expense, even dressed several of his men in the livery of the
Count d'Artois. They were the first of the notorious verdets
of the South. Being supported by an aide-de-camp of Prince de
Conde, and backed by several municipal officers, he had at
length extorted from the commandant of the province the
promise to open the arsenal and give guns to all the Catholic
companies : a last decisive act which the municipality and the
commandant could not commit without declaring themselves
frankly against the Revolution.
Let us wait a little longer, said the municipality; the elections
of the department begin at Nimes on the 4th; let us go on
gently till the voting, and manage to get places given to us.
Let us act, said Froment; the electors will vote better at the
sound of the musketry. The Protestants are being organised,
and they have established a powerful correspondence from
Nimes to Paris, and from Nimes to the Cevennes.
Was Nimes a very sure place for the clergy if they waited?
The town was about to feel, in its industry, an immediate
benefit from the Revolution, the suppression of the taxes on
salt, iron, leather, oil, soap, &c. And would the Catholic rural
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 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1789, TO JULY 14, 1790
districts, very catholic before harvest, be equally so afterwards,
when the clergy had exacted the tithes?
A trial was pending against the assassins of May, against
Froment's brother. That trial was coming on very slowly, but
still it was in preparation.
A last and decisive reason that forced Froment to act, was
that the Revolution of Avignon had been effected on the 11th
and the 12th, and that it was about to demoralise his party,
and cause its weapons to fall from its hands. Before news had
spread, he attacked, in the evening of the 13th, a favourable
day, the Sunday after the festival of Corpus-Christi, a great
portion of the populace having been drinking and become
excited.
Froment, and the historians of his faction, the conquered
party, make this incredible statement: that the Protestants be­
gan the trouble, that they themselves disrupted the elections
in which lay all their hopes; they maintain that it was the few
who undertook to slaughter the many ( six thousand men
against twenty thousand odd, without counting the suburbs ) .
And was that small body so very warlike and terrible? It
was a population that had remained for a century apart from
every kind of military practice; merchants, excessively afraid
of pillage; and feeble workmen, physically very inferior to the
porters, vine-dressers, and labourers, whom Froment had
armed. The dragoons of the National Guard, Protestants for
the most part, tradespeople and their sons, were not men likely
to stand against those strong hardy men who used to drink
their fill in the wine cabarets belonging to the clergy.
In every place where the Protestants were the majority, these
two forms of worship presented a spectacle of the most affect­
ing fraternity. At Saint-Hippolyte, for instance, the Protestants
had desired, on the 5th of June, to mount guard with the others,
for the procession of Corpus-Christi.
On the day of the outbreak at Nimes, the patriots, to the
number of fifteen hundred at least, and the most active, had
assembled at the club, without arms, and were deliberating;
424
 A Religious Struggle
the galleries were full of women. Horrible was their panic on
hearing the first discharge of musketry ( June 13th, 1790 ) .
At the opening of the elections, eight days before, trouble­
makers had begun to insult and frighten the electors. They
asked for a body of dragoons and patrols to disperse the
threatening crowd. But that mob threatened the patrols still
more; and then the complaisant municipality kept the dragoons
in their quarters. In the evening of the 13th, men wearing red
tufts come and tell the dragoons that if they do not march off,
they are dead men. They remain, and receive a discharge of
fire-arms. The regiment of Guienne was thirsting to march to
their assistance; but the officers shut the doors and keep them
to their quarters.
In presence of this unequal struggle, and seeing the elections
so criminally disturbed, the municipality had a sacred duty to
perform,-to display the red flag and call out the troops. But
no municipality could be found. The electoral assembly of the
department, in that hospitable town, is found to be abandoned
by the magistrates, amid the firing of the musketry.
Among Froment's Verdets were even the domestics of sev­
eral of the muniCipal officers mixed in with those of the clergy.
The troops, the National Guard receiving no requisition, Fro­
ment had the town all to himself; his people were able to
butcher freely, and had now begun to force open the houses
of the Protestants. Had he only been able to keep his momen­
tary advantage, he would have received from Sommieres, only
four leagues distant, a regiment of cavalry, whose colonel, a
warm partisan, offered him his men, his purse, and his service.
The affair then assuming the appearance of a real revolution,
the commandant of the province would at length have fol­
lowed the orders he had received from the Count d'Artois,
and have marched upon Nimes.
Contrary to every expectation, it was Nimes itself that spoilt
the whole affair. Of the eighteen Catholic companies formed
by Froment, only three followed him. The fifteen others never
stirred. A great lesson, clearly showing the clergy how much
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they had mistaken the real state o f the public mind. In the
hour of bloodshed, the old spirit of fanatical hatred, though
skilfully rekindled by social jealousy, was not quite strong
enough.
The great and powerful city of Nimes, which they had ex­
pected to be able to drive so easily into rebellion, remained
firm, like its indestructible monuments-its noble and eternal
arena.
An infinitely small portion only of each party came to blows.
The Verdets proved very brave, but furious and blind. Twice
the municipal authorities, when they were at last found, were
forced to confront them with the red flag; twice the verdets
carried them all off, red flag and municipal authorities, in the
very teeth of their enemies. They fired on the magistrates, the
electors, and the king's commissioners; the next day, they fired
on the attorney-general, and the royal magistrate for criminal
cases, who were taking an inventory of the dead. These crimes,
capital as they assuredly were, called for the most speedy and
severe repression; and yet all that the municipality claimed
from the troops was to serve as patrols!
If Froment had had more people, he would doubtless have
occupied the great position of the arenas, then easy to defend.
He left there a few men, and some others also in the convent
of the Capucins. As for himself, he withdrew to his fort, on the
ramparts, in the tower of the ancient castle. Once in his tower,
in safety, and firing at his ease, he wrote to SommU�res and
Montpellier to obtain assistance. He sent also into the Catholic
villages and caused them to ring their alarm-bells.
The Catholics were very slow, some even remained at home.
But the Protestants were immediately on the alert. At the news
of the danger in which the electors were placed, they marched
all night, and between four and six o'clock the next morning,
an army of Cevenols, with the tri-colour cockade, was at Nimes
in battle array, shouting, Vive la nation!
Then the electors acted. Forming a military committee, by
the help of a captain of artillery, they marched to the arsenal
to procure some cannon. The entrance to it was by the street,
426
 A Religious Struggle
or by the quarters of the regiment of Guienne. The officers,
malevolently, told them to pass through the street. There, they
were pierced with a volley of bullets, and withdrew; the offi­
cers, seeing their soldiers indignant, and about to tum against
them, at length delivered up the cannon. The tower, being
battered till a breach was made, was forced to parley. Fro­
ment, audacious to the last, sent an incredible missive, in which
.
he offered "to forget.". . . Then, there was no longer any
favour to be expected, the soldiery vowing death against the
besieged. An attempt was made to save them; but they rushed
upon their own ruin: they fired whilst capitulating. They were
forced into their tower, taken by storm, pursued, and mas­
sacred.
The second day, and the third, they were pursued every­
where, or, at least, under this pretext, many old quarrels were
avenged. The convents of the Capucins ( the pamphlet ware­
house, from which they had fired moreover ) , was also forced
and everybody put to death. The case was the same with a
celebrated cabaret, the head-quarters of the Verdets; and in
this den they discovered two municipal magistrates. All this
time, the two parties were firing at each other through the
streets or from the windows. The savages from the Cevennes
seldom gave any quarter; and in three days there were three
hundred people killed. No church was pillaged, nor any woman
insulted; they were temperate even in their fury. They would
never have imagined Hogging girls to death with a paddle
bearing a Heur de lis, as the verdets of 1815 were to do.
This cruel affair of Nimes, perfidiously arranged by the
counter-revolution, was curious, inasmuch as it destroyed its
perpetrators. The snarer was caught in his own trap; it was
the game hunting the huntsman!
Everything went wrong at once-at the moment of execution.
They had reckoned on Montpellier; but the commandant
dared not come. But the brave and patriotic National Guard,
the future frame-work of the legion of victory, the 32nd demi­
brigade came.
They had reckoned on ArIes; and indeed Arles offered its
427
 BOOK III : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

assistance; but it was to crush the counter-revolutionary party.

And as for Pont-Saint-Esprit, it arrested Froment's envoys!
Go, now, and summon the Catholics of the Rhone. Try to
puzzle their minds, and make them believe that in all this your
religion is in peril. No, the question is about our native land.
The whole of Catholic Rhone declares against you, and be­
comes far more revolutionary than the Protestants. Your own
saintly city of the RhOne, the petty Rome of the pope, even
Avignon, joins the Revolution.
o Avignon! Why could France ever have taken thee, thou
precious diamond, from her diadem! . . . 0 Vaucluse! 0 pure
eternal remembrance of Petrarch, noble asylum of the great
Italian who died of love for France, thou adorable symbol of
the future union of the two countries, why didst thou ever fall
into the polluted hands of the pope! . . . For money, and to
obtain absolution for a murder, a woman sold Avignon and
Vaucluse ( 1348 ) !
Avignon, without taking counsel, had, like France, made for
itself a national militia, a municipality. On the 10th of June,
all the nobility and partisans of the pope, being masters of the
Hotel-de-Ville and four pieces of cannon, shout: "Aristocracy
forever!" Then thirty persons are killed or wounded. But then
also the people begin to fight in earnest; they kill several, and
take twenty-two prisoners. All the French communes, Orange,
Bagnols, Pont-Saint-Esprit, hasten to assist Avignon, and save
the prisoners. They receive them from the hands of the con­
querors, and undertake to guard them.
On the 11th of June, they deface the arms of Rome, and
those of France are set up in their place. Avignon sends a
deputation to the bar of the National Assembly, and bestows
itself on its real country, pronouncing these magnificent words,
the testament of Roman genius: "Frenchmen, rule over the
world."
Let us enter further into the causes, and complete and ex­
plain more clearly this rapid drama.
To make a religious war, people must be religious. The clergy
were not sufficiently believers to fanaticise the people.
428
 A Religious Struggle
Neither were they very great politicians. That very year,
1790, when they stood so much in need of the people, whom
they bribed on all sides, they still exacted from them the tithes
abolished by the Assembly. In several places, insurrections
took place against them, especially in the north, on account
of those unfortunate tithes which they would not abandon.
That aristocratic clergy, without any comprehension of moral
powers, thought that a little money, wine, the influence of the
climate, and a single spark, would be sufficient. They ought to
have been aware that to rekindle fanaticism, it required time,
patience, secrecy, a country less observed, far from the high
roads and larger cities. Most certainly, they might thus create
a lasting agitation in the Bocage of La Vendee; but to act in
the open day, before the anxious eyes of the Protestants, and
in the neighbourhood of the great centres of civilisation, like
Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Montpellier, who saw everything, and
were able, at the slightest spark, to run and stamp out the fire.
was a childish attempt.
Froment did all he could. He showed much audaCity and
decision; and he was abandoned.s5
He began at the right moment, seeing that the affair at
Avignon was about to spoil that of Nimes, not over·calculating
his chances, but, like a brave man, trying to believe that the
dubious parties who till then had not dared to declare in his
favour, would at length make up their minds when they saw

• Froment escaped being massacred. However little disposed we may be

in favour of the man and his party, it is impOSSible not to feel interested in
his strange destiny. First, honoured, ennobled, and loaded with l'resents by
the Count d'Artois, and the emigrants; then, in 1816, abandoned and
disownedl The pamphlets which he then jublished, the proceedings of an
old servant against an ungrateful an heartless master, have been
everywhere carefully destroyed. Shall I add that this master went so far
as to deprive him, after the law suit, of the miserable petty pension which
he enjoyed? and that, after thirty years' gratuitous service, resolved that
the man, ruined, worn out, and in debt on his account, should die in the
street. Froment's pamphlets would deserve to be re.printed; so also would
the "Memoirs of Vauban," the emigrant, now become so scarce; and M.
Merilhou's very clever defence in favour of Froment ( 1823 ) .
429
 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4, 1 7 9 0

him engaged; and that they could not calmly see him
annihilated.
The municipality; in other words, the Catholic citizen-class,
was prudent; it dared not call upon the commandant of the
province.
The nobility was prudent. The commandant, and the officers
in general were unwilling to act without the proper and legal
requisition of the municipality.
It was not that the officers were wanting in courage; but
they were not sure of the soldiers. At the first extra-legal order,
they might answer with their guns. And to give this first order,
and make this dangerous experiment, it was necessary to have
made, beforehand, a sacrifice of one's life. But to what idea,
what faith? The majority of the nobility, though Royalists and
Aristocrats, were not the less imbued with philosophical and
Voltairian ideas, that is to say, in any one respect, won over
to the new spirit.
The Revolution, growing more and more harmonised and in
unison, appears every day more plainly what it is, a religion.
And the Counter-Revolution, dissenting and discordant, attests
the old faith in vain; it is not a religion.
It has no unity, no fixed principle. Its opposition is wavering,
tending several ways at once. It staggers, like a drunken man,
to the right and left. The king is for the clergy, and he refuses
to support the ecclesiastical protest. The clergy pay and arm
the people, and yet exact tithes of them. The nobility and
officers wait for orders from Turin, and at the same time those
of the Revolutionary authorities.
One thing is wanting in them all to render their action
simple and strong; a thing that abounds in the other party­
faith!
The other party is France; it has faith in the new faith, in
the legitimate authority, the Assembly, the true voice of the
nation.
On that side, everything is effulgent with light; on the other,
everything is equivocal, all uncertainty, and darkness.
Why should there be any hesitation? All together, the soldier
430
 A Religious Struggle
and the citizen, joining hands, will henceforth march with a
firm step, and under the self-same flag. From April to June,
almost all the regiments fraternize with the people. In Corsica,
at Caen, Brest, Montpellier, Valence, as at Montauban and
Nimes, the soldier declares for the people and the law. The
few officers who resist are killed, and on them are found
the proofs of their intelligence with the emigrants. As for the
latter, the people are ready to receive them. The cities of the
South do not slumber; Brian90n, Montpellier, Valence, and
lastly, great Marseilles, are willing to guard themselves; they
seize on their citadels and illl them with their citizens. Now,
let the emigrants and foreigners come, if they willi
One France, one faith, one oathl Here no doubtful man must
remain. If you wish to remain wavering, depart from the land
of loyalty, pass the Rhine, and cross over the Alps.
The king himself plainly perceives that his best sword,
BouilIe, would at length find himself alone, if he did not take
the oath like the others. The enemy of the federations, who
had placed himself between the army and the people, is
obliged to yield. People and soldiers, united in heart, are all
present at that grand spectacle; even the inflexible is now
obliged to give way; the king orders, and he obeys. He advances
between them, sad and moody, and on his sword, devoted to
royalty, takes the oath of fidelity to the Revolution.

431
 x

The New Principle-

Spontaneous Organisation of France
(July,1789 to July,1790)
I HAVE related fully the resistance offered by
the old principle,-the parlements, the nobility, and the clergy;
and I am now going to expound, in a few words, the new
principle, and state briefly the immense fact, by which their
resistance was confounded and annihilated. The fact, admira­
bly simple in its infinite variety, is the spontaneous organisation
of France.
That is history, the real, the positive, and the durable; and
the rest is nonentity.
It was, however, necessary to detail this nonentity at full
length. Evil, preCisely because it is nothing but an exception,
an irregularity, requires, in order to be understood, a minute
narration of particulars. Good, on the contrary, the natural,
which springs forth of itself, is almost known to us beforehand
by its conformity to the laws of our nature, by the eternal
image of good which we possess within us.
The sources whence we derive history have preciously pre­
served the least worthy of preservation,-the negative acciden­
tal element, the individual anecdote, this or that petty intrigue
or act of violence.
The great national facts, in which France has acted in con-
432
 The New Principle
cord, have been accomplished by immense, invincible, and,
for that very reason, by no means violent, powers. They have
excited less attention, and passed almost unperceived.
All that we are furnished on these general facts, are the
laws, which are derived from them, and have become their
last expression. People are never tired of the discussion of the
laws, and earnestly repeating the language of the Assemblies.
But, as for the great and social movements which brought
about those laws, which were their origin, the reason and ne­
cessity of their existence, there is scarcely a single line to recall
them to our minds.
And yet this is the great climax to which everything else in
this miraculous year from one July to the other tends: the law
is everywhere forestalled by the spontaneous working of life
and action,-an action which, among a few particular disturb­
ances, contains nevertheless the new order of things and real­
ises beforehand the law which will presently be made. The
Assembly believes it is leading, but it follows; it is the recorder
of France; what France does, it registers, more or less exactly,
reduces to a formula, and writes under her dictation.
Let the scribes come here and learn; let them quit, for a
moment, their den, the Bulletin des Lois, and throw aside
those huge piles of stamped paper which have screened them
from nature. If France could have been saved only by their
pens and paper, she would have perished a hundred times.
Serious and infinitely interesting is the moment when nature
recovers in time not to perish, when life, in presence of dan­
ger, follows instinct, its best guide, and finds therein its
salvation.
A worn-out society, in this crisis of resurrection, affords us a
spectacle of the origin of things. The civilians were musing
over the cradle of infant nations. Wherefore muse? You have
it before you.
Yes, it is the cradle of France that we now behold. May God
protect that cradle! May He save and sustain it upon that
great and boundless ocean where I tremble to behold it floating,
upon the ocean of futurity!
433
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France is born and started into life at the sound of the can­
non of the Bastille. In one day, without any preparation or
previous understanding, the whole of France, both cities and
villages, is organised at the same time.
The same thing happens in every locality: the people go to
the communal house, take the keys and assume the power in
the name of the nation. The electors ( everybody was an elector
in 1789 ) form committees, like that of Paris, which will pres­
ently produce the regular municipalities.
The governors and administrators of cities ( like those of the
State ) eschevins, notables, and others, withdraw and skulk
away by the back door, bequeathing to the commune they had
administered, debts as a souvenir.
The financial Bastille, which the oligarchy of notables had
concealed so well from every eye, the administrative den, ap­
pears in broad daylight; 36 the shapeless instruments of that
equivocal regime, the confusion of papers, the learned obscur­
ity of calculations, are all brought to light.
The first cry of that liberty ( which they call the spirit of
disorder) is, on the contrary, order and justice.
Order, in broad daylight. France said to God, like Ajax: "Let
me rather die in the light of heaven!"
What was most tyrannical in the old tyrannical system, was
its obscurity: obscurity between the king and the people, be­
tween the city authorities and the town, and a no less profound
obscurity between the land-proprietor and the tenant. What
was a man bound in his conscience to pay to the State, to the
Commune, and to the lord of the manor? Nobody could say.
Most people paid what they were unable even to read. The
utter ignorance in which the clergy, the privileged teachers
of the people, had kept them, abandoned them blind and de­
fenceless to those horrible cormorants, the limbs of the law.
Every year, their stamped papers returned, still more blotted

.. See, in Leber, the shameful picture of this ancient municipal

administration, the gratifications exacted by the eschevins, &c. &c. Lyons
was twenty-nine millions in debt!

434
 The New Principle
and scribbled, with additional expenses, for the horror of the
peasant. These mysterious and unknown extra-charges, whether
understood or not, he was obliged to pay; but they remained
stored up in his heart, as a treasure of vengeance, for which
he should require an indemnity. In 1789, several persons stated
that, in forty years, they had paid, with these extra-charges.
more than the estates, of which they were then proprietors,
were really worth.
In our rural districts, no damage was done to property ex­
cept in the name of property. The peasant interpreted it in his
own manner; but he never raised any doubt as to the idea of
this right. The rural labourer knows what it is to acquire; the
acquisition that he makes or sees made every day, by labour,
inspires him with a sort of religious respect for property.
It was in the name of property, long violated and perverted
by the agents of the lords of the manor, that the peasants
erected those Maypoles on which they suspended the insignia
of feudal and fiscal tyranny, the weathercocks of castles, the
measures of raising rents unjustly, and the sieves which sifted
the grain all to the advantage of the lord, and left only the
refuse.
The committees of July 1789 ( the origin of the municipalities
of 1790 ) were, for the towns especially, the insurrection of
liberty,-and for the villages that of property: I mean the most
sacred property-man's labour.
The village associations were societies for protection,-first,
against the legal agents; and secondly, against the brigands,­
two words often synonymous.
They confederated against the stewards, collectors, man­
agers, attorneys, and bailiffs,-against that horrible scrawl,
which, by some magic process, had parched up the land, de­
stroyed the cattle, and worn the peasant to the bone, reducing
him to a skeleton.
They confederated also against those troops of pillagers, who
were overrunning France, people starving for want of work,
beggars turned thieves, who, at night, cut down the grain, even
when unripe, thus destroying hope. If the villages had not

435
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taken up arms, a horrible famine must have been th e result,

a season like the year 1000 and several of the middle ages.
Those wandering bands, difficult to seize, and everywhere
expected, and which fear caused to appear everywhere pres­
ent, filled with dismay our rural population, then less military
than at the present day.
All the villages armed, and promised each other mutual pro­
tection. They agreed among themselves to unite, in case of
alarm, at a given spot, in a central position, or one command­
ing the principal passage by land or by water.
One fact will serve to elucidate this subject. It reminds us,
in some respects, of the panic at Saint-Jean-du-Gard, which I
have already related.
Early one morning in summer, the inhabitants of Chavignon
( Aisne ) beheld, not without trepidation, their street full of
armed men. They perceived, however, that, luckily, they were
their neighbours and friends, the national guards of all the
adjacent communes, who, under false alarm, had marched all
night to come to defend them against the brigands. They had
expected a fight, but they found a feast. All the inhabitants of
Chavignon, overjoyed, went forth from their houses to welcome
their friends. The women brought out and shared in common
all the provisions they had; and casks of wine were opened. In
the public square they displayed the flag of Chavignon, on
which are delineated grapes and wheat with a naked sword,­
a device that summed up very correctly the idea of the day:
abundance and security, liberty, fidelity, and concord. The cap­
tain-general of the national guards that had come, made a very
affecting speech on the eagerness of the communes to come
to the defence of their brethren: "At the first word," said he,
"we quitted our wives and children in tears; we left our ploughs
and implements in the fields, and marched, without taking even
the time to dress ourselves properly."
The inhabitants of Chavignon, in an address to the National
Assembly, relate every circumstance, as a child would to its
mother, and, full of gratitude, add this word from the heart:
''What men, gentlemen, what men they have become, since
you gave them a native landl"

436
 The New Principle
These spontaneous expeditions were thus made, like family
parties, with the curate marching at their head. At that of
Chavignon, four of the communes that came were accompanied
by their curates.
In certain districts, for instance in the Upper-Sa�ne, the
curates not only associated in these movements, but formed
their centre, and were their leaders and directors. As early as
the 27th of September, 1789, the rural communes, in the
environs of Luxeuil, confederated under the direction of the
curate of Saint Sauveur, and to him all the mayors took
the oath.
At Issy-l'Eveque ( also in Upper-Sa�ne ) there happened a
more extraordinary fact. In the general annihilation of every
kind of public authority, and seeing no longer any magistrate,
a valiant cure assumed himself all the different powers : he
enacted ordinances, re-judged law suits already tried, sent for
the mayors of the neighbourhood, and promulgated in their
presence the new laws which he gave to the country; then,
arming himself, he marched forth, sword in hand, to set about
sharing all the land into equal portions. It was necessary to
check his zeal and remind him that there was still a National
Assembly.
This is uncommon and remarkable. The movement in gen­
eral was regular, and took place with more order than could
have been expected under such circumstances. Though with­
out laws, everybody obeyed a law,-that of preservation and
safety.
Before the municipalities are organised, each village governs,
guards, and defends itself, as an armed association of inhabi­
tants of the same place.
Before there are any arrondissements and departments
created by the law, common necessities, especially that of mak­
ing the roads safe and transporting provisions, form associations
between villages and villages, towns and cities, great federa­
tions for mutual protection.
We feel inclined to thank those dangers when we see how
they force men to emerge from their isolated position, snatch
them from their egotism, accustom them to feel themselves

437
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live in others, and awaken in their souls, that had remained

dormant for so many centuries, the first spark of fraternity.
The law comes to acknowledge, authorise, and crown all
this; but it does not produce it.
The creation of municipalities, and the concentrating into
their hands even non-communal powers ( taxation, superior
police, the power of disposing of the military, &c. )-this con­
centration with which the Assembly has been reproached, was
not the effect of a system, but the mere acknowledgment of a
fact. Given the destruction of most agencies of public authority,
given the wilful ( and often perfidious ) inactivity of those that
remained, the instinct of self-preservation had produced the
usual result: the interested parties had themselves taken their
affairs in hand. And who is not interested in such a crisis?
Even he who has no property, who has nothing, as people say,
possesses, nevertheless, what is far dearer than any property,­
a wife and children to defend.
The new municipal law created twelve hundred thousand
municipal magistrates; and the judiciary organisation a hun­
dred thousand judges ( of whom five thousand were juges-de­
paix, and eighty thousand assistants to the juges-de-paix ) . All
these were chosen among the four million two hundred and
ninety-eight thousand primary electors 37 ( who, as proprietors
or tenants, paid taxes to the value of three days' labour, or
about three francs ) .
Universal suffrage had given six million votes; I shall explain
hereafter this limitation of the electoral right, and the different
principles which influenced the Assembly.
It is sufficient here to indicate the prodigious movement that
France must then have made, in the spring of 1790, this crea-

"' This is the number given in 1791 in the Atlas National de France,
intended for public instruction and dedicated to the Assembly. The Bishop
of Autun, in his speech of June 8, 1790, reckons only three million six
hundred thousand active citizens. This small number would be too
considerable if it meant only the proprietors, but it includes also those
who pay taxes to the value of about three francs as tenants. The larger
number is the more likely. Both, however, the larger and the smaller are
doubtless only approximative.

438
 The New Principle
tion of a multitude of judges and administrators,-thirteen hun­
dred thousand at once arising from the election!
It may be said that before the military conscription, France
had carried out a conscription of magistrates. A conscription of
peace, order, and fraternity! What appears predominant here,
in the judicial order, is this fine new element, unknown to all
ages, the five thousand arbiters or justices of the peace, and
their eighty thousand assistants; and, in the municipal order, it
is the dependence in which the military force finds itself with
respect to the magistrates of the people.
The municipal power inherited all the ruins of authority.
Between the ancient system destroyed, and the new one then
inactive, it alone remained standing. The king was disarmed,
the army disorganised, every state and parlement demolished,
the clergy dismantled, and the nobility about to be erased. The
Assembly itself, the great apparent power, ordered rather than
acted: it was a head without arms. But it had forty-four thou­
sand hands in the municipalities, and it left almost everything
to the twelve hundred thousand municipal magistrates.
The immensity of this number was a drawback to action;
but, as an education of the people, as an initiation to public
life, it was admirable. Being rapidly renewed, the magistracy
would soon exhaust, in many localities, the class from which it
was recruited ( the four millions of proprietors or tenants who
paid three francs taxes ) . It was necessary ( and it was a fine
necessity of this grand initiation ) to create a new class of pro­
prietors. The peasants of the clergy and the aristocracy, at
first excluded from election as clients of the ancient system,
would now, as purchasers of the estates set up for sale, find
themselves proprietors, electors, muniCipal magistrates, asses­
sors of justices of the peace, &c.; and, as such, become the
stanchest supporters of the Revolution.

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 XI

The New Religion-Federations

(July,1789 to July,1790)

NOTHING of all this existed in the winter of

1789: there were neither any regular municipalities nor any
departments; no laws, no authority, no public power. Every­
thing, one would think, is about to fall into chaos; and this is
the hope of the aristocracy . . . «Ahl you wanted to be freel
Look about you, and enjoy the order you have created." To
this what reply is made by France? At that formidable crisis,
she becomes her own law; and, without any assistance, springs,
with a powerful will, over the chasm between one world and
the other, passes, without stumbling, the narrow bridge over
the abyss, without heeding the danger, with her eyes fixed
on the goal. She advances courageously through that dark win­
ter, towards the wished-for spring which promises a new light
to the world.
What light? It is no longer, as in 1789 the vague love of
liberty; but a determined object, of a fixed and settled form,
which leads the whole nation, transporting and captivating the
heart; at every new step, it appears more delightful, and the
march is the more rapid. At length the shades of night dis­
appear, the mist is dispelled, and France beholds distinctly
what she had loved and followed, without ever having been
able to attain it-the unity of the native land.
All that had been believed painful, difficult, and insurmount-
440
 The New Religion
able, becomes possible and easy. People had asked themselves
how the sacrifice of provincial sentiments, reminiscences, and
inveterate prejudices, was to be accomplished. "How," said
they, «will Languedoc ever consent to cease to be Languedoc,
an interior empire governed by its own laws? How will ancient
Toulouse descend from her capitol, her royalty of the South?
And do you believe that Brittany will ever give way to France,
emerge from her barbarous language and obstinate character?
You will sooner see the rocks of Saint-Malo and Penmarck
change their nature and become soft."
But 101 the native land appears to them on the altar, opening
her arms and wishing to embrace them . . . And they all
rush towards her and forget themselves, no longer knowing
on that day to what province they belong . . . Like children
gone astray, and lost till then, they have at length found a
mother; they had been so humble as to imagine themselves
Bretons, Proven�aux. No, children, know well that you were
the sons of France; she herself tells you so; the sons of that
great mother, of her who is destined, in equality, to bring forth
nations.
Nothing is more grand than to see this people advancing
towards the light, without any law, but hand in hand. They
advance, but do not act; neither do they feel any necessity of
acting; they advance, that is sufficient; the mere sight of that
immense movement causes everything to recoil before them;
every obstacle vanishes, and all opposition is removed. Who
would think of standing up against this pacific and formidable
apparition of a great nation in arms?
The federations of November break up the provincial estates;
those of January put an end to the struggle of the parlements;
those of February put down the riots and pillages; in March
and April, those masses are organised which stifle in May and
June the first sparks of a war of religion; May, moreover,
witnesses the military federations, the soldier becoming once
more a citizen, and the sword of the counter-revolution, its last
weapon, shattered to pieces . . . What remains? Fraternity
has removed every obstacle, all the federations are about to

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 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9, TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

confederate together, and union tends to unity.-No more fed­

erations! They are useless, only one now is necessary,-France;
and it appears transfigured in the glory of July.
Is all this a miracle? Yes, and the greatest and most simple
of miracles, a return to nature. The fundamental basis of
human nature is sociability. It had required a whole world of
inventions against nature to prevent men from living together.
Interior custom-duties, innumerable tolls on roads and rivers,
an infinite diversity of laws and regulations, weights, measures,
and money, and rivalry carefully encouraged and maintained
between cities, countries, and corporations,-all these obstacles,
these old ramparts, crumble and fall in a day. Men then be­
hold one another, perceive they are alike, are astonished to
have been able to remain so long ignorant of one another,
regret the senseless animosity which had separated them for
so many centuries, and expiate it by advancing to meet and
embrace one another with a mutual effusion of the heart.
This is what rendered so easy and practicable the creation of
departments, which had been believed to be entirely impossi­
ble. If it had been a mere geometrical conception, emanating
from the brain of Sieyes, it would have possessed neither the
power nor the durability which we now behold; it would not
have survived the ruin of so many other revolutionary institu­
tions. It was, generally speaking, a natural creation, a legitimate
restoration of ancient relations between places and populations,
which the artificial institutions of despotism and fiscality had
kept divided. The rivers, for instance, which, under the ancient
system, were scarcely better than obstacles ( twenty-eight tolls
on the Loire! to give only one example ) , the rivers, I say, be­
came once more what nature intended them to be, the con­
necting bond of mankind. They formed and gave their names
to the greater number of the departments; the Seine, the Loire,
the Rhone, the Cironde, the Meuse, the Charente, the Allier,
the Card, and others, were like so many natural confederations
between the two banks of the rivers, which the state acknowl­
edged, proclaimed, and consecrated.
Most of the federations have themselves related their own

442
 The New Religion
history. They wrote it to their parent, the National Assembly,
faithfully and naturally, in a form often rustic and inexperi­
enced; they spoke as they could; whoever knew how to write,
wrote. It was not always possible to find in the rural districts a
skilful scribe worthy of consigning such things to posterity. But
good-will supplied the deficiency . . . Ye venerable monu­
ments of youthful fraternity, shapeless, but spontaneous and
inspired acts of France, you will remain for ever as witnesses of
the hearts of our fathers, and of their transports, when they
beheld for the first time the thrice blessed face of their native
landl
I have found all that entire and glowing, as though made
yesterday, when, sixty years afterwards, I lately opened those
papers, which few persons had read. At the first I perused, I
was overcome with respect; I perceived a singular, unparal­
leled fact, on which it is impossible to be mistaken : these
enthusiastic documents addressed to the country ( represented
by the Assembly ) are love-lettersI
There is nothing official or constrained; it is evidently the
language of the heart. The only art, rhetoric, or declamation
that appears therein, is precisely the absence of art, the em­
barrassment of a youth who knows not how to express the most
sincere sentiments, who employs the language of romance, for
want of better, to confess his true passion.
But, from time to time, a word springing from the heart,
protests against this being styled impotency of language, and
causes us to perceive the real depth of the sentiment . . . And
then the style is very verbose; for how, in such a moment, is it
possible to say enough; or how eve)' to feel satisfied? . . . The
material details likewise gave them much solicitude : no writ­
ing seemed handsome enough, no paper elegant enough, not
to mention the sumptuous little tri-coloured ribbons to tie the
papers with. When I saw them first, still gay and but little
faded, they reminded me of what Rousseau says of the extraor­
dinary care he took to write, embellish, and adorn, the manu­
script of his "Julia." Such were also the thoughts, and such the
care and solicitude of our fathers, when, from transient and

443
 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

imperfect objects, their love aspired to eternal beautyl

What affected me, and filled me with emotion and admira­
tion, is, that in so great a variety of men, characters, and local­
ities, with so many divers elements, which, for the most part,
were but yesterday strangers, nay, frequently hostile to one
another, there is nothing but what breathes the pure love of
unity.
Where, then, are the old distinctions of provinces and races
of men? Where those powerful and geographical contrasts? All
have disappeared: geography itself is annihilated. There are no
longer any mountains, rivers, or barriers between men. Their
language is still dissimilar, but their words agree so well that
they all seem to spring from the same place,-from the same
bosom. Everything has gravitated towards one point, and that
point now speaks forth; it is a unanimous prayer from the
heart of France.
Such is the power of love. To attain unity, nothing was able
to prove an impediment, no sacrifice was considered too dear.
All at once, and without even perceiving it, they have for­
gotten the things for which they would have sacrificed their
lives the day before, their provincial sentiment, local tradition,
and legends. Time and space, those material conditions to
which life is subject, are no more. A strange vita nuova, one
eminently spiritual, and making her whole Revolution a sort of
dream, at one time delightful, at another terrible, is now be­
ginning for France. It knew neither time nor space.
And yet it was antiquity, with its old habits, familiar objects,
customary signs, and revered symbols, that had hitherto con­
stituted life. All that now grows faint, or disappears. What re­
mains, for instance, the ceremonies of the old religion, now
called to consecrate these new festivals, is felt to be only an
accessory. In those immense assemblies wherein people of
every class and every communion have but one and the self­
same heart, there is something more sacred than an altar. No
special form of worship can confer holiness on the most holy of
holy things,-man fraternising in the presence of God.

444
 The New Religion
All the old emblems grow pale, and the new ones that are
tried have little significance. Whether people swear on the old
altar, before the Holy Sacrament, or take the oath before the
cold image of abstract liberty, the true symbol is elsewhere.
The beauty, the grandeur, the eternal charm of those festi­
vals, is that the symbol is a living one.
This symbol for man is man. All the conventional world
crumbling to pieces, a holy respect possesses him for the true
image of God. He does not mistake himself for God: he has no
vain pride. It is not as a ruler or a conqueror, but in far more
affecting and serious attributes that man appears here. The
noble harmonious sentiments of family, nature, and native land,
are sufficient to fill these festivals with a religious, pathetic
interest.
The president at first is some old man: the old man sur­
rounded with children, has the whole nation for his family. He
is conducted and escorted back with music. At the great federa­
tion of Rouen, where the national guards of sixty different
towns attended, they brought from the remote Andelis, a ven­
erable knight of Malta, eighty-five years of age, to preside over
the Assembly. At Saint-Andeol, the honour of taking the oath
at the head of all the people was conferred on two patriarchs,
one ninety-three, and the other ninety-four,-one a noble and
the colonel of the National Guard, the other a private labourer;
they embraced at the altar, thanking heaven that they had
lived to see that day. The people were full of emotion, believ­
ing they beheld in those venerable men the everlasting recon­
ciliation of classes. They rushed into each other's arms, and
joining hands, an immense farandole, comprising everybody,
without exception, spread throughout the town, into the fields,
across the mountains of Ardeche, and towards the meadows
of the Rhone; the wine Howed in the streets, tables were
spread, provisions placed in common, and all the people are
together in the evening, solemnising this love-feast, and prais­
ing God.
There was everywhere an old man at the head of the people,

445
 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

sitting i n th e first place, and presiding over the crowd, and

around him were girls, like a garland of flowers. In all these
solemnities, this lovely band marches dressed in white with
sashes a la nation ( that is to say, tri-coloured ) . Here, one of
them pronounces a few noble charming sentences, which will
create heroes to-morrow. Elsewhere ( in the civic procession of
Romans in Dauphine ) , a beautiful girl marched along, bearing
in her hand a palm with this superscription : to the best citi­
zen! . . Many returned from that procession lost in thought.
.

Dauphine, the serious and valiant province which opened

the Revolution, made numerous federations of the whole prov­
ince, and of the towns and villages. The rural communes of
the frontier nearest to Savoy, close to the emigrants, and tilling
the ground in the neighbourhood of their guns, did but have
still finer festivals. They had a battalion of children, another of
women, and another of maidens, all armed. At Maubec they
filed along in good order, headed by a banner, bearing and
handling their naked swords with that graceful skill peculiar
to the women of France.
I have related elsewhere 38 the heroic example of the women
and maidens of Angers. They wanted to depart and follow the
young army of Anjou and Brittany marching for Rennes, to
take their share in that first crusade of liberty, to feed the
combatants, and take care of the wounded. They swore they
would never marry any but loyal citizens, love only the valiant,
and associate for life only with those who devoted theirs to
France.
They thus inspired the enthusiasm of 1788. And now in the
federations of June and July, 1790, after the removal of so many
obstacles, none were more affected in these festivals of victory;
for, during the winter, in the complete absence of all public
protection, what dangers had not the family incurred! In these
great assemblages, so comforting in nature, they seized upon
the hope of safety. Their poor hearts were, however, still heavy
because of the past. And because of the future? But they

"' Page 79.

446
 The New Religion
wanted no future save the well-being of the country I They
evinced, as we may perceive in every written document, more
enthusiasm and fervour than even the men, and a greater im­
p atience to take the civic oath.
Women are kept back from public life; and people are too
apt to forget that they really have more right to it than any.
The stake they venture is very different from ours; man plays
only his life; but woman stakes her child. She is far more inter­
ested in acquiring information and foresight. In the solitary
sedentary life which most women lead, they follow, in their
anxious musings, the critical events of their country, and the
movements of the armies. The mind of this woman, whom you
believe to be entirely occupied with her household duties, is
wandering in Algeria, sharing all the privations and marches of
our , young soldiers in Africa, and suffering and fighting with
them. But, whether called or not, they took the most active
part in the fetes of the federations. In some village or other,
the men had assembled alone in a large building, to make a
common address to the National Assembly. The women draw
near, listen, enter, and, with tears in their eyes, entreat to be
allowed to join them. Then, the address is read to them, and
they agree to it heartily. This affecting union of the family and
the country filled every heart with an unknown sentiment. The
fete, though quite accidental, was but the more touching on
that account. It was short, like all human happiness, and lasted
but one day. The account of the proceedings ends with a
natural expression of melancholy and musing: "Thus passed
away the happiest moment of our lives."
The reason was, they had to work on the morrow and rise
early; for it was harvest time. The confederates of Etoile, near
Valence, express themselves in words to this effect, after having
mentioned their fire-works and farandoles : 'We who, on the
29th of November, 1789, gave France the example of the first
federation, have been able to devote to this festivity only one
day; and we withdrew in the evening to rest ourselves in order
to resume our labours on the morrow; for the labours of the
field are urgent, and we are sorry for it.". . . Good husband-

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men! They write all that to the National Assembly, convinced

that it is thinking of them, and that, like God, it beholds and
performs everything!
These memorials of rural communes are so many wild flowers
that seem to have sprung up in the midst of the harvest. In
reading them we seem to inhale the strong and vivifying per­
fume of the country at that glowing season of fecundity. It is
like walking among the ripe grain.
And in fact it was in the open country that all this took
place. No temple would have sufficed. The whole population
went forth, every man, woman, and child; and with them they
transported the old in their chairs, and infants in their cradles;
whilst villages and whole towns were left in the custody of
public faith. A few patrols, who cross through a town, depose
that they saw nothing on their way but dogs. Any one who,
on the 14th of July, 1790, had passed through those deserted
villages, at noon, without seeing the country, would have taken
them for Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Nobody was able to absent himself from the festival, for no
one was a mere spectator; all were actors, from the centenarian
to the new-born infant; and the latter more so than any.
He was carried like a living flower among the flowers of the
harvest, offered by his mother, and laid upon the altar. But it
was not the passive part of an offering alone that he had to
perform; he was active also; he was accounted a person; took
his civic oath by the lips of his mother; claimed his dignity as
a man and a Frenchman; was put at once in possession of his
native land, and received his share of hope.
Yes, the child, the future generation, was the principal actor.
At a festival in Dauphine, the commune itself is crowned, in
the person of its principal magistrate, by a young child. Such a
hand brings good fortune. These youths, whom I now behold
under the anxious eye of their mother, will, in two years' time,
at the age of fifteen or sixteen, depart in arms, full of military
enthusiasm; the year 1792 will have summoned them, and
they will follow their elders to Jemmapes. These again, still
younger, whose arms appear so feeble, are the future soldiers

448
 The New Religion
of Austerlitz. Their hand has brought good fortune; they have
accomplished the good omen, and crowned their native land;
and even to-day, though feeble and pale, France still wears
that eternal crown, and overawes nations.
How great and happy the generation born amidst such
things, and whose first gaze was gladdened by that sublime
spectacle I Children brought and blessed at the altar of their
native land, devoted by their weeping, but resigned and heroic
mothers, and bestowed by them on France. Ohl those who are
thus born can never die. You received on that day the cup of
immortality. Even those among you whom history has not men­
tioned, nevertheless fill the world with your nameless living
spirit, with that great unanimous idea which, sword in hand,
they extended throughout the world.
I do not believe that the heart of man was at any period
more teeming with a vast and comprehensive affection, or that
the distinctions of classes, fortunes, and parties, were ever so
much forgotten. In the villages, especially, there are no longer
either rich or poor, nobles or plebeians; there is but one general
table, and provisions are in common; social dissensions
and quarrels have disappeared; enemies become reconciled;
and opposite sects, believers and philosophers, Protestants and
Catholics, fraternise together.
At Saint-Jean-du-Gard, near Alais, the Catholic curate and
the Protestant minister embraced at the altar. The Catholics
led the Protestants to church, and the minister was made to sit
in the first place in the choir. Similar honours were done by
the Protestants to the curate, who, seated among them in the
most honourable place, listened to the minister's sermon. The
religions fraternise on their old battIe-field, at the entrance to
the Cevennes, upon the tombs of their ancestors who killed one
another, and on the still warm ashes of the faggots. God, so
long accused, was at length justified. All hearts overflowed
with love; prose was not sufficient; a burst of poetry could alone
express so profound a sentiment. The curate composed and
chanted a hymn to liberty; the mayor replied in stanzas, and
his wife, a respectable mother of a family, at the moment when

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she presented her children at the altar, poured forth the feel­
ings of her heart in a few pathetic verses.
'The open air, the fields, and the immense valleys, where
these festivals were generally held, seemed to contribute to this
effusion of the heart. Man had not only reconquered his rights,
but he had re-entered upon his possession of nature. Several of
these writings testify the emotion which those poor people felt
on beholding their country for the first time. Strange to relateI
those rivers, mountains, and noble landscapes, where they were
constantly passing, were discovered by them on that day:
they had never seen them before.
An instinct of nature, the natural inspiration of the genius
of the country, often caused them to choose for the scene of
these festivals the very places which had been preferred by our
ancient Cauls, the Druids. 'The islands held sacred by the an­
cestors, became sacred also for their posterity. In the depart­
ments of Card, Charente, and elsewhere, the altar was erected
on an island. 'That of AngouIeme received the representatives
of sixty thousand men; and there were, perhaps, as many upon
the admirable amphitheatre on which this town is situated,
above the river. In the evening, there was a banquet in the
illuminated island, with a whole people for guests and specta­
tors, from the top to the bottom of that gigantic coliseum.
At Maubec ( in the department of Isere ) , where many rural
communes assembled, the altar was erected in the middle of
an immense plain, opposite to an ancient monastery, with a
magnificent view, an unbounded horizon, and the reminiscence
of Rousseau, who had lived there some time! In a speech glow­
ing with enthusiasm, a priest extolled the glorious memory of
the philosopher, who, in that very place, had mused and pre­
pared that great day. In conclusion, he pOinted to heaven, and
called to witness the sun, then bursting from the clouds, as
though to enjoy also that sublime and affecting spectacle.
We, worshippers of the future, who put our faith in hope,
and look towards the east; we, whom the disfigured and per­
verted past, daily becoming more impossible, has banished
from every temple; we who, by its monopoly, are deprived of
450
 The New Religion
temple and altar, and often feel sad in the isolated communion
of our thoughts; we had a temple on that day,-such a temple as
had never existed before! No artificial church, but the universal
church; from the Vosges to the Cevennes, and from the Alps to
the Pyrenees.
No conventional symboll All nature, all mind, all truth!
Man who, in our old churches, never saw his fellows face to
face, saw them here,-saw himself for the first time, and from
the eyes of a whole people received a spark of God.
He perceived nature, seized it again, and found it still
sacred: for in it he perceived his God.
And he called that people and that country by the name he
had found,-Fatherland. And however large this Patrie may be,
he enlarges his heart so as to embrace it all. He beholds it with
the eyes of the mind, and clasps it with the longings of desire.
Ye mountains of our native land, which bound our sight, but
not our thoughts, be witness that if we do not clasp in one
brotherly embrace the great family of France, it is already con­
tained in our hearts.
Ye sacred rivers, ye holy islands, where our altar was erected,
may your waters, murmuring beneath the current of the spirit,
go and proclaim to every sea and every nation, that, to-day, at
the solemn banquet of liberty, we would not have broken
bread, without having invited them, and that on this day of
happiness, all humanity was present in the soul and wishes of
France I

"Thus ended the happiest day of our life." This sentence,

which the members of a village federation wrote, at the end of
their memorial, on the evening of their festival, I was very near
writing myself in concluding this chapter. It is ended, and
nothing like it is in store for me. I leave here an irreparable
moment of my life, a part of myself, which, I plainly feel, will
remain here and accompany me no more: I seem to depart
poor and needy. How many things that I wished to add, I have
been obliged to sacrifice I I have not indulged in a single note;
the least would have caused an interruption, and have been

451
 BOOK ill : OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

perhaps discordant, at this sacred moment. And yet it would

have been necessary to give several; a number of interesting
particulars presented themselves, and ought to have been in­
serted. Several of those memorials deserved to be printed en­
tire ( those of Romans, Maubec, Teste-de-Buche, Saint-Jean du
Card, &c. ) . The speeches are less valuable than the memorials;
yet many of these are affecting; the text that recurs the most
frequently, is that of the patriarch Simeon : "Now I may die."
See among others the proces-verbal of Regnianwez ( Ren­
wez? ) near Rocroi.
Each document taken singly is weak; but the whole possesses
an extraordinary charm : the greatest diversity ( provincial,
local, urban, rural, &c. ) in the most perfect unity. Each country
performs this great act of unity with its special Originality. The
federes of Quimper crown themselves with the oak-leaves of
Brittany; the inhabitants of Romans ( in Dauphine ) , on the
confines of the South, place a palm in the hand of the hand­
some maiden who leads the procession. A courageous serenity,
order, common sense, and a good heart, are very conspicuous
in these confederations of Dauphine.
In those of Brittany, there is a character of strength, of im­
passioned gravity, a seriousness allied to the tragic; they feel
that this is not child's play, and that they are in presence of the
enemy. In the mountains of Jura, in the country of the last of
the serfs, the character is that of amazement, the delight of
deliverance, on beholding themselves exalted from slavery to
liberty, "more than free, citizens I Frenchmen I superior to all
Europe." They founded an anniversary of the sacred night of
the 4th of August.
What is extremely affecting is the prodigious effort of good
will made by this people, so little prepared, to express the deep
feeling that entirely filled their hearts. The inhabitants of N a­
varreins, in the Pyrenees, poor people, as they themselves say,
lost in their mountains, devoid of every resource, not having
even a community of language, lisp the French of the north,
and offer to their country their hearts, their very impotency.
One of the most clownish memorials ( who would believe it? )

452
 The New Religion
is that of a commune near Versailles and Saint-Germain. The
rough common paper betokens extreme poverty, and the writ­
ing an utterly barbarous ignorance: most of these memorialists
can make only a cross for their signatures; but yet they all sign
one way or other; no one seems willing to be dispensed from
signing; after the mother's name, you see the child's, the grand­
daughter's, &c.
Their chief study, in general, in which they do not always
happily succeed, is to find out visible signs,-symbols,-to ex­
press their new faith. At Dole, the sacred fire, with which the
priest was to burn incense on the altar of the country, was, by
means of a burning-glass, extracted from the sun by the hand
of a young maiden.
At Saint-Pierre ( near Crepy ) , at Mello ( Oise ) , and at Saint
Maurice ( Charente ) , they placed the law itself and the decrees
of the Assembly upon the altar; at Mello, it was carried thither
in an arch of alliance. At Saint Maurice, it was laid upon a
map of the world which served to carpet the altar, and placed
with the sword, the plough, and the scales, between two can­
non-balls of the Bastille.
In other places, a happier inspiration leads them to choose
entirely human symbols of union; marriages celebrated at the
altar of the country, baptisms, or the adoption of children by
communes or clubs. Often also, the women go to perform a
funeral service for those who had been killed at the taking of
the Bastille. Add to this immense sums given in charity, and
distributions of provisiOns; or, far better than charity, provi­
sions placed in common, and tables laid for everybody. The
most touching proof of goodness of heart that I have met with,
in a subscription ( at Pleyssade, near Bergerac ) raised by a few
soldiers among themselves, amounting to the enormous sum
( relatively to the means of these poor people ) of one hundred
and twenty francsl for a widow of a man killed at the Bastillel
At Saint-J ean-du-Gard, the ceremony ends "with a solemn rec­
onciliation of those who had quarrelled." At Lons-le-Saulnier.
they 'drank to "All men, even our enemies, whom we swear to
love and defendl"
453
 XII

The New Religion-General Federation

(July 14, 1790)

THIS faith, this candour, this immense impulse

of concord, after a whole century of dispute, was a subject of
great astonishment for every nation; it was like a wonderful
dream; and 'they all remained dumb and affected.
Several of our federations had imagined a touching symbol
of union, that of celebrating marriages at the altar of the
native land. Confederation itself, a union of France with
France, seemed a prophetic symbol of the future alliance of
nations, of the general marriage of the world.
Another symbol, no less affecting, appeared at these festivals.
Occasionally they placed upon the altar a little child whom
everybody adopted, and who, endowed with the gifts, the
prayers, the tears of the whole assembly, became the relation
of everybody.
That child upon the altar is France, with all the world sur­
rounding her. In her, the common child of nations, they all feel
themselves united, and all participating heartily in her future
destiny, are anxiously praying around her, full of fear and hope .
. . . Not one of them beholds her without weeping.
How Italy wept! and Poland! and Ireland! ( Ahl sister suf­
ferers, remember that day forever! ) . . . Every oppressed na-

454
 The New Religion
tion, unmindful of its slavery at the sight of infant liberty,
exclaimed: "In thee I am free!" 39
In presence of that miracle, Germany remained lost in
thought,-in an ecstatic revery. Klopstock was at prayers; and
the author of ''Faust,'' unable any longer to maintain the part
of sceptical irony, found himself on the point of being con­
verted to faith.
In a remote region of the northern seas, there then existed
an extraordinary, powerful creature, a man, or rather a system,
a living monument of scholastic science, callous and impenetra­
ble,-a rock formed by adamant in the granite of the Baltic;
on which every religion, every system of philosophy had struck
and been shipwrecked. He alone remained immutable, and
invulnerable to the outward world. His name was Emmanuel
Kant; but he called himself Critic. For sixty years, this per­
fectly abstract being, devoid of all human connection, had gone
out at precisely the same hour, and, without speaking to any­
body, had taken precisely the same walk for a stated number
of minutes; just as we see in the old town-clocks, a man of iron
come forth, strike the hour and then withdraw. Wonderful to
relate, the inhabitants of Koenigsberg (who considered this as
an omen of the most extraordinary events) saw this planet
swerve and depart from its long habitual course. . . . They
followed him and saw him hastening towards the west, to the
road by which they expected the courier from France!
o humanity! . . . To behold Kant moved and anxious, going
forth on the road, like a woman, to inquire the news, was not
that a surprising and wonderful change? Why, no; no change
at all. That expansive intellect was following its course. What
he had, till then, in vain sought for in science, Spiritual Unity,
he now beheld forming itself by the heart and instinct.
Without any other guidance, the world seemed to be draw­
ing towards that unity, its true goal, towards which it is ever

.. These sentiments are to be found in a number of truly pathetic

addresses, from men of every nation, especially in the ever-memorable
address from the Belfast volunteers.

455
 BOOK ill : OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9, TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0
"
aspiring. <CAhI if I were one, says the world; "if I could at
length unite my scattered members, and bring my nations to­
"
getherl" "Ahl If I were one, says man; "if I could cease to be
the complex man that I am, rally my divided powers, and
establish concord within mel" This ever impotent desire both
of the world and the human soul, a nation seemed to be real­
ising at that fugitive hour, playing that divine comedy of union
and concord which we never behold but in our dreams.
Imagine, therefore, every nation watching attentively, and
irresistibly attracted towards France, in heart and soul. And in
France, also, behold every road thronged with men, travelling
from every comer of the country towards the centre : union is
gravitating towards unity.
We have already seen the unions forming, the groups rally­
ing together, and, united, seeking a common centralisation.
Each, a little France in itself, has tended towards its own
Paris, and sought for it first in its own bosom. A considerable
part of France believed, for a moment, it had found it at Lyons
( May 30th ) . There, there was so prodigious a concourse of
men, that it required no less than the wide plains of the RhOne
to receive them. The whole of the east and the south had sent
hither their representatives; the deputies of the national guard
alone amounted to fifty thousand men. Some of them had
travelled a hundred leagues, others two hundred, in order to
be present. Deputies from Sarre-Louis there shook hands with
those of Marseilles. Even a deputation from Corsica endeav­
oured to be present; but, in spite of all their haste, they did
not arrive till the morrow. 40
But it was not Lyons that was able to unite all France: it
required Paris.
This fact caused great alarm among politicians on either side.
Would it not be risking a fearful riot, pillage, and blood-

'" I have now before me a splendid article, which, to my extreme regret,

I am unable to insert, giving an account of this great Federation, and
written ( pu rp osely for me) by an octogenarian, with the most fervent and
�
affecting ent ?siasm.-"Oh, what must the Hame have been, since the ashes
are so warm!

456
 The New Religion
shed, to bring those undisciplined crowds to Paris, the very
centre of agitation? . . . And what would become of the king?
Such was the language of the terrified royalists.
The king, said the Jacobins, the king will assuredly win over
all those credulous people coming to us from the provinces.
This dangerous union will deaden the public spirit, lull suspi­
cion, and awaken once more their former idolatry : it will
royalize France.
But neither party was able to prevent it.
The mayor and the commune of Paris, impelled and forced
by the example and entreaties of the other towns, were abso­
lutely obliged to go and ask the Assembly for a general con­
federation; and the Assembly, whether willing or not, was
obliged to grant it. Nevertheless, it did all in its power to reduce
the number of those who desired to come. The thing was
decided very late, so that those who had to travel on foot from
the uttermost parts of the kingdom, would be scarcely able to
arrive in time : the expense also was to be defrayed by the
several localities,-an obstacle likely to prove insurmountable
for the poorer districts.
But how was it possible for obstacles to exist in so great a
movement? People raised subscriptions as well as they could;
and, as far as their means permitted, they equipped those who
were to pedorm the journey : several however came without
any uniform. Hospitality was universally and admirably dis­
played on every road; the people stopped the pilgrims of that
great festival, and disputed the favour of entertaining them.
They forced them to halt, to lodge, to eat, or at least to drink
on their passage. None were considered strangers : all were
regarded as relations, and forward they all went, national
guards, soldiers, and sailors, marching all together. These
bands, as they journeyed through the villages, presented an
affecting spectacle. They who were thus invited to Paris were
the oldest of the army and navy. Poor soldiers bent double by
the S�ven Years' War, gray-headed subaltern officers, brave offi­
cers of fortune, who had struggled through every hardship,
old pilots worn out by tempests,-all these living ruins of the

457
 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

ancient system, had nevertheless determined to come. It was

their holiday, their birthday! On the 14th of July, mariners
eighty years old were seen marching for twelve hours together;
they had recovered their strength, and felt themselves in the
hour of death participating in the youthful vigour of France-­
the eternal spirit of their native land.
And as these bands of patriots tramped through the towns
and villages, they chanted with all their might, and with heroic
cheerfulness, a song which the inhabitants re-echoed from their
thresholds. That song, the most national of all, with its em­
phatic and powerful rhymes, ever recurring in the self-same
tone ( like the commandments of God and the church ) , admir­
ably sustained the weary steps of the traveller by shortening his
journey, and the energy of the labourer by showing him the
progress of his work. It faithfully kept time with the progress
of the Revolution itself, using a more rapid movement when
that terrible traveller increased her speed. Abridged, and com­
prised in a rondo of fury and madness, it became the murder­
ous <;a ira! of 1793. That of 1790 was of a very different
character:-

Le peuple en ce jour sans cesse repete:

Ah! <;a ira! <;a ira! <;a ira!
Suivant les maximes de l'Evangile
(Ah! <;a ira! <;a ira! <;a ira ! )
Du legislateur tout s 'accomplira;
Celui qui s'eleve, on l'abaissera;
Et qui s'abaisse, on l'elevera, &c.

For the traveller who was slowly journeying towards Paris,

from the Pyrenees or the extremity of Brittany, under the
burning sun of July, this song was a viaticum, a support, like
the hymns chanted by the pilgrims who, in a revolutionary
spirit, built up the cathedrals of Chartres and Strasbourg, in
the middle ages. The Parisian sang it in quick time, and with
violent energy, in digging up the Field of Mars, to prepare it
for the field of the Federation. From being a flat plain, it was
to assume the fine majestic form which we now behold. The

458
 The New Religion
city of Paris had sent thither a few thousand idle workmen
who would have required years to execute so great a task.
The people saw through this ill-will, and the whole population
set to work. It was an extraordinary spectacle, to behold,
both day and night, men of every class, and every age, even
children, but all citizens,-soldiers, abbes, monks, actors, sisters
of charity, noble ladies, market-women, all handling the
pickaxe, rolling barrows, or driving carts. Children walked in
front, bearing torches; perambulating musicians played to en­
liven the workmen; and they themselves, whilst levelling the
earth, continued still to chant their levelling song: "Ah Qa ira!
Qa ira! Qa ira! He that exalteth himself shall be abasedl"
The song, the work, and the workmen, was one and the
same thing,-equality in action: the richest and the poorest
were all united in work; but the poor, we must say, contributed
the most. After their daily labour, it was a heavy task in
July that the water-carrier, the carpenter, or the mason of the
Bridge Louis XV!., which was then being constructed, had to
pedorm in digging up the Field of Mars. Although it was
harvest-time, the labourers did not excuse themselves from
attending; but, though worn out and exhausted, repaired
thither for recreation, and worked by torch-light.
This truly immense work, which converted a plain into a
valley between two hills, was pedormed ( who would believe
it? ) within a weekI-having been begun preCisely on the 7th
of July and ended before the 14th.
The thing was executed with a hearty good-will, as though
it had been a holy war. The authorities had hoped, by their
calculated dilatoriness, to impede and prevent the festival of
union; it was indeed becoming impossible. France was deter­
mined; and the thing was done.
Those wished-for guests were now arriving and filling every
part of Paris. The inn-keepers and masters of furnished Mtels
themselves reduced and fixed the moderate price at which
they would receive that crowd of strangers. The majority were
not allowed to go to the inns. The Parisians, though lodged, as

459
 BOOK m: OcroBER 6, 1789, TO JULY 14, 1790
is well known, in very close quarters, gladly put up with
every inconvenience, in order to be able to receive the con­
federates.
When the Bretons, those eldest born of liberty, arrived, the
conquerors of the Bastille advanced to meet them as far as
Versailles, even to Saint-Cyr; and, after mutual congratulations
and embraces, the two bodies united together, and forming but
one, marched back to Paris.
Every heart expanded with an unknown sentiment of peace
and concord, as we may judge from a fact, in my opinion, the
most conclusive of all : the journalists ceased wrangling. Those
fierce antagonists, those anxious guardians of liberty, whose
habitual strife so embitters the hearts of men, rose superior
to their inveterate habit; the emulation of the ancients, devoid
of hatred and jealousy, took possession of their hearts, and, for
a moment, dislodged the sad spirit of controversy. Loustalot,
the honest and indefatigable author of the Revolutions de
Paris, and the brilliant, fervent, but inconsistent, Camille Des­
moulins, both gave utterance, at the same time, to an affecting
and generous though impracticable idea,-a confederative
covenant between writers: no more opposition and jealousy,
no emulation but that for the public welfare.
The Assembly itself seemed won over by the universal en­
thusiasm. During a warm debate one evening in June, it felt
once more for a moment its inspiration of 1789, its young
excitement of the 4th of August. A deputy from Franche­
Comh� said that at a time when the confederates were arriving,
they ought to be spared the humiliation of beholding provinces
in chains at the feet of Louis XIV. on the Place des Victoires,
and that those statues ought to be removed. A deputy from
the South, taking advantage of the generous emotion which
this proposal excited in the Assembly, asked for the abolition
of all the pompous titles discordant with the idea of equality,­
the names of counts, marquises, armorial bearings, and liveries.
This motion, supported by Montmorency and Lafayette, was
principally opposed by Maury ( the son of a shoemaker, as is
well known ) . The Assembly, without adjourning, abolished

460
 The New Religion
hereditary nobility ( June 19th, 1790 ) . Most of those who voted,
regretted it on the morrow. This relinquishing of names of
estates, and returning to family names almost forgotten, put
everybody out of his element; Lafayette became an insignifi­
cant M. Mottier, and Mirabeau was enraged at being nothing
more than M. Riquetti.
This change was not, however, the effect of chance, a mere
caprice; but the natural and necessary application of the very
principle of the Revolution. This principle is no other than
Justice, which wishes that everybody should be answerable for
his own works, whether for good or evil. Whatever your an­
cestors may have done is set down to your ancestors' account,
not to yours. You have to act entirely for yourselfl In this
system, there can be no transmission of anterior merit, no
nobility; but, at the same time, no transmission of previous
transgressions. As early as the month of February, the barbarity
of our laws condemning two youths to the gallows for forgery,
the Assembly decided, on this occasion, that the families of
culprits should not be at all disgraced by their execution. The
public, touched with the youth and misfortune of these young
men, comforted their respectable parents with a thousand
proofs of sympathy; and several honourable citizens demanded
their sisters in marriage.
No more transmission of merit; the abolition of nobility.
No more transmission of evil; the scaffold no longer degrades
the family or the children of the guilty.
The Jewish and Christian principle reposes precisely on the
opposite idea, that crime is transmissible, and merit likewise;
that of Christ, or that of the Saints, is profitable to the greatest
undeservers.
On the day that the Assembly decreed the abolition of
nobility, it had received an extraordinary deputation, which
styled itself that of the deputies of the human race. A German
of the Rhine, Anacharsis Clootz, ( a whimsical character, to
whoIP we shall have occasion to revert ) , presented, at the bar
of the Assembly, a score of men from every nation in their
national costumes,-Europeans and Asiatics. He demanded, in

461
 BOOK m: OCTOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 7 9 0

their name, to be allowed to take a part in the federation

of the Field of Mars: "in the name of every people, that is to
say, of the legitimate sovereigns, everywhere oppressed by
kings."
Some deputies were affected, others laughed. And yet there
was something serious in that deputation; it comprised men
from Avignon, Liege, Savoy, and Belgium, who really desired
at that time to become French; besides refugees from England,
Prussia, Holland, and Austria, hostile to their governments,
who, at that very moment, were conspiring against France.
These refugees seemed a European committee, ready-formed
against Europe, the first outline of those foreign legions which
Carnot advised at a later period.
In opposition to the confederation of nations was formed one
of kings. Indeed, the queen of France had reason to enter­
tain hope, on seeing with what facility her brother Leopold
had rallied Europe to Austria. German diplomacy, usually so
slow, seemed to have found wings. The reason of this was
that diplomatists were entirely left out of the affair, which was
arranged personally by the kings themselves, without the
knowledge of their ministers and ambassadors. Leopold had
applied straight to the king of Prussia, pOinted out to him their
common danger, and opened a congress, in the very kingdom
of Prussia, at Reichembach, in concert with England and HoI­
land.
A dismal prospect for France: backed only by the powerless
good-wishes of nations, and presently besieged by the armies
and the malevolence of kingsl
Neither did France seem safer at home: the Court winning
over different members of the Assembly every day, and acting
no longer by the right side, but even by the left, by the club of
1789, by Mirabe.au and Sieyes, by corruption in different forms,
treachery and intimidation. By these means it carried trium­
phantly a civil list of twenty-five millions, and for the queen a
settlement of four. It obtained also coercive measures against
the press, and was even so bold as to prosecute parties for the
doings of the 5th and 6th of October.
462
 The New Religion
Such was the state of things that the confederates beheld on
arriving at Paris. Their idolatrous enthusiasm for the Assem­
bly and the king was put to a very severe trial. Most of them
had come inspired with a filial sentiment for their good citizen
king, uniting in their emotion the past and the future,-royalty
and liberty; and several, when admitted to an audience, fell
upon their knees, and offered him their swords and their hearts.
The king, timid by nature and by his false equivocal position,
found little to say in answer to this warm and cordial ex­
pression of youthful emotion; and the queen still less. With
the exception of her faithful Lorrains, the hereditary subjects
of her family, she behaved generally very coolly towards the
confederates.
At length arrived the great and long-desired day, the 14th
of July, for which these good people had undertaken their
arduous journey. Everything was in readiness. Even during
the night, for fear of missing the festival, many of the people
and the National Guard bivouacked in the Field of Mars. Day­
light at length appears; but, alas! it rains! And heavy showers,
with violent gusts of wind, continued throughout the day.
"The weather is aristocratic," said the people, who took their
places all the same; and their courageous persevering good
humour seemed willing to avert the ill omen by a thousand
mad jokes. One hundred and sixty thousand persons were
seated upon the hillocks in the Field of Mars, and one hundred
and fifty thousand remained standing; whilst, in the field itself
about fifty thousand men, of whom fourteen thousand National
Guards from the provinces, those of Paris, the deputies from
the army, the navy, and others, were to perform maneuvers.
The vast eminences of Chaillot and Passy were also crowded
with spectators : a magnificent, immense amphitheatre, itseH
commanded by the more distant circus formed by Montmartre,
Saint-Cloud, Meudon, and Sevres; such a place seemed des­
tined to receive the Estates-General of the world.
B�t, in spite of all this, it was raining! How slowly the
hours seemed to pass in expectation! The confederates and
the Parisian National Guards, who had been waiting ever since

463
 BOOK m: OcrOBER 6, 1 7 8 9 , TO JULY 1 4 , 1 79 0

five in the morning along the boulevards, though drenched

with rain, and dying of hunger, were still in good humour.
Loaves, hams, and bottles of wine are sent down to them by
ropes from the windows of the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue
Saint-Honore.
They now arrive, crossing the river over a wooden bridge,
built in front of Chaillot, and entering by a triumphal arch.
In the middle of the Field of Mars arose the altar of the native
land; and in front of the Military School the platforms to
receive the king and the Assembly.
Again, all this was very tedious and trying to the patience.
The first who arrived, to keep up their spirits in spite of the
rain and the bad weather, bravely set to dancing. Their joyous
farandoles, spreading further and further, in spite of the mud,
form at length vast rondos, each of which is a province, a
department, or several distinct races of men mingled together:
Brittany is seen dancing with Burgundy, and Flanders with
the Pyrenees. We beheld those groups commencing their merry
rondos in the winter of 1789; and the immense farandole
which has gradually formed itself of the whole of France, is
now completed and ended at the Field of Mars . . . This is
unity!
Farewell to the period of expectation, aspiration, and desire,
when everybody dreamed and longed for this day . . . Here it
is at last! What do we desire more? Why all this uneasi­
ness? . . . Alas! the experience of the world teaches us this
sad fact, so strange to tell, and yet so true, that union too
often diminishes in unity. The wish to unite was already the
union of hearts, perhaps the very best unity.
But, hush! The king has arrived and is seated; and so is
the Assembly, and also the queen in a gallery that commands
all the rest. Lafayette and his white horse have now reached
the foot of the throne; and the commandant is alighting and
receiving the king's orders. Amid two hundred priests, wear­
ing tricoloured sashes, Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, ascends,
with a limping equivocal gait, towards the altar: who but he
ought to officiate, when the ceremony is to take an oath?

464
 The New Religion
Twelve hundred musicians were playing, but their music
was scarcely heard. A dead silence ensues; but the plain is
suddenly shaken by the report of forty pieces of cannon. At
that clap of thunder, all arise and stretch forth their hands to
heaven . . . 0 king! 0 people! pause . . . Heaven is listen­
ing, and the sun is bursting expressly through the cloud . . .
Pay attention to your oaths!
Oh! how heartily the people swear! How credulous they still
are! . . . But why does the king not grant them the happiness
of seeing him swear at the altar? Why does he swear under
cover, in the shade, and half concealed from the people?
. . . For God's sake, sire, raise your hand so that everybody
may see it!
And you, madam, do you feel no compassion for this simple,
confiding, credulous people, who were dancing just now so
cheerfully, between their melancholy past and their formidable
future? Wherefore that doubtful expression in your handsome
blue eyes? A royalist has noticed it: "Do you see the en­
chantress?" exclaimed Count de Virieu . . . Can you then,
from this spot, behold your envoy who is even now receiving
and congratulating, at Nice, the agent of the massacres in the
South? Or else, do you imagine you perceive, in these crowds
of people, the distant armies of Leopold?
Listen! This is peace; but a peace of an entirely warlike
character. The three million armed men who have deputed
these, have among them more soldiers than all the kings of
Europe. They offer a brotherly peace, but they are nevertheless
quite ready for the fight. Even now several departments, Seine,
Charente, Gironde, and many others, are willing to give, arm,
and equip, each six thousand men to march to the frontier.
Presently, the Marseillais will also demand to march; and, re­
newing the oath of the Phocians, their ancestors, will fling a
stone into the sea, and swear that, unless they be conquerors,
they will not return till the day when that stone shall float upon
the . waters!

465
Index

Michelet's orthography with respect to famtly names was not always

immaculate. In cases where his version differs from the commonly accepted
spelling, the index lists the latter, with Michelet's variant in brackets.
[EDITOR'S NOTE]

Abbaye ( prison ) , 143, 144, 211-13 Aulard, Alphonse, xvi

Acton, Sir John, 386 Aumont, duc d', 155
Adelaide, Mme ( Marie-Adelaide de Austerlitz, 5, 449
France ) , 312 Austria, 65, 274, 357, 361-64, 367,
Aigulllon, duc d', 129, 239-40, 241 371-73, 392, 462
Aix, 208, 340 Austrian Netherlands, 84-85, 108,
Alais, 410, 449 335, 362-64, 366, 371-73, 377-78,
Albi, 410 462
Albigenses, 32-33, 408 Auvergne, 244
Alsace, 340, 369, 371 Aveyron, 401
Amiens, 291 Avignon, 400-402, 424, 428-29, 462
Angers, 79, 446
AngouIeme, 450 Bagnols, 428
Anjou, 349 Bailly, Jean-Sylvain, 90, 91, 1 15,
Anne of Austria, 66 120, 123, 183, 185, 189, 191,
Anne of Brittany, 347 193-97, 210-13, 254-55, 260-61,
Archbishop of Aix, 395-96, 423; of 272, 276, 292, 315, 367, 376
Bordeaux, 343; of Paris, 90, 119, Balzac ( Guez, Jean-Louis ) , 35
145, 189-91, 244, 252, 296; of Barere de Vieuzac, Bertrand, 269,
Toulouse, 361 271, 365
Ardeche, 350, 445 Bamave, Joseph, 132, 200-201, 217,
ArIes, 400, 427 237, 316, 334, 376--79, 384
Artois, 244 Barry, comtesse du, 114, 422
Artois, comte d', 63, 67, 77, 124, Bastille, xiii, 4, 14, 66, 70-79, 92-93,
132, 142, 157, 162, 185, 188, 126, 148, 157, 161-80, 186, 188,
197-98, 202, 222, 235, 360, 371, 190-91, 194-96, 199, 203, 208-9,
385, .391-93, 400, 423, 425, 429 215-19, 222-23, 228-29, 233-34,
Augeard, Jacques Matthieu, 356, 246--48, 257, 263, 282-83, 288,
371 292-93, 309, 317, 324, 356, 367,
Augereau, Pierre, 136 434, 453

467
 INDEX

Baudouin, Fran�ois Jean, 90 Breteuil, baron de, 78, 145, 147,

Beauce, 260 1 83, 263, 274, 361-62
Beauharnais, viscount Alexandre de, Breton Club, 201, 239
241 Breze; see Dreux-Breze
Beaujolais, 340 Brian�on, 431
Beaumarchais, Caron de, 63, 207, Brienne; see Lomenie de Brienne
211 Brinton, Crane, xvii
Belgium; see Austrian Netherlands Brissot, Jacques-Pierre, 139, 269-71
Belzunce, Major, 209--10, 384 Brittany, 87, 93, 159, 201, 223-24,
Bentham, Jeremy, 232, 264 239, 240-41, 244, 258, 323, 335-
Berlin, 392 37, 345-49, 353, 357, 370, 386,
Bernard, Samuel, 422 389, 441, 446, 452, 458
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Henri, Broglie, Victor-Fran�ois de, 145,
227 147-48, 151, 157, 159-60, 184,
Berquin, Arnaud, 227 197, 203, 207
Bertier de Sauvigny [Berthier], Broussel, Pierre, 200
Louis, 91, 151, 158, 178, 183-84, Buffon, comte de, 53, 57, 62
192, 207-8, 211-13 Bulwer-Lytton, Baron, 264
Bertolio, Antoine, 135 Burgundy, 244, 352
Bertrand de Moleville [Molleville], Burgundy, Duke of, 63
Antoine, 117-19 Burke, Edmund, 215, 377-78
Besan�on, 340, 351 Buzot, Fran�ois, 132, 216, 250, 327,
Besenval, Pierre, 92, 147-48, 151- 367
52, 159, 165-66, 173, 198, 236,
367 Cadet de Gassicourt, Louis-Claude,
Bic�tre ( mental hospital ) , 75, 143 90
Bishop of Autun, 330, 438; of Char­ Caen, 208-9, 333, 431
tres, 242; of Clermont, 397, 423; Calas, Jean, 58, 62, 203, 403-4
of Langres, 262; of Montpellier, Calonne, Charles-Alexandre de, 64,
243; of Nancy, 242, 393; of 67, 70, 391
Nimes, 243; of Treguier, 336 Cambresis, 347
Blaisot, 280 Campan, Mme Jeanne de, 3 1 1
Blanc, Louis, xiv Camus, Armand, 89-90, 1 1 3 , 131,
Boisguillebert, Pierre de, 47 394, 420-21
BOissy d'Anglas, Fran�ois-Antoine, Camot, Lazare, 65, 462
110 Caroline of Naples, 361
Bonaparte, LOuis-Napoleon, xii Carra, Jean-Louis, 135, 145, 269,
Bonchamps, marquis de, 385 271
Bonneville, Nicolas de, 135, 146, Castellane, marquis de, 331
149 Castries, Armand de, 384
Bordeaux, 209, 348, 370, 401, 413, Catherine II, 63
429 Catholic Church, xiii, 11, 17-36, 51}-
BouilIe, marquis de, 254, 263, 327, 51, 64-66, 87, 248-53, 329-39,
343, 357-58, 361, 364, 368-69, 360-61, 387-410, 415-23, 437,
382, 400, 431 449
Bourbon, abbe de, 422 Catinat, Nicolas, 383
Boyer, Alexis, 158 Cazales, Jacques de, 105, 367, 375,
Bresse, 244 377, 384, 407
Brest, 221-23, 235, 337, 431 Cazeaux, 267

468
 Index
Cevennes, 104, 334, 408, 423, 426- Corbeil, 260, 261, 288
27, 449, 451 Corday, Charlotte, 333
Chabry, Madeleine ( "Louison" ) , Cordeliers Club, 201, 287, 376
290, 298-99, 309 Cordier, abbe, 256
Chalotais, 224 Corsica, 340, 456
Champaign, 340, 369 Cromwell, Oliver, 308
Champ de Mars, 4, 184, 458-59, Custine, comte de, 241
462-65
Champs-Elysees, 152, 256, 268 Damiens, Robert, 204
Chapelier; see Le Chapelier Dante Alighieri, 5, 41
Charente, 450, 465 Danton, Georges-Jacques, xiv, 7,
Charenton ( mental hospital ) , 75 168, 201-3, 205, 287, 315
Charles the Bold, 302 Dauphine, 132, 159, 229, 244, 327,
Charles IX, 374, 399 347, 350-53, 446, 448, 452
Charles X, 291 De Gaulle, Charles, ix
Charleville, 158 Demosthenes, 333
Charton, 146 Desaix, Louis, 5
Chateauneuf, 71 Desault, Pierre-Joseph, 91
Chateauroux, duchesse de, 48 Descartes, Rene, x, 420
Chatelet ( prison and court of jus- Deseze, comte, 90, 152, 263
tice ) , 77, 156, 203, 326 Desmoulins, Camille, 150, 190, 202-
Chatelet, duc du, 136, 143, 243 3, 205, 261, 266, 270-72, 363,
Chavignon, 436-37 460
Cherbourg, 65 Diderot, Denis, 57, 62, 72
Chevert, Fran�ois de, 383 Dijon, 352
Choderlos de Lados, Pierre, 139, Dole, 453
145 Dorset, John Frederick, Duke of,
Choiseul, duc de, 361, 367, 402 222, 235
Claviere, Etienne, 118 Dreux-Breze, marquis de, 120, 130-
Clemenceau, Georges, xv 32
Clermont, 352 Droz, Jean-Pierre, 104, 145
Clermont-Tonnerre, comte de, 189 Dubois, Cardinal, 43, 114
Clootz, Anacharsis, 461-62 Dubois de Crance, Edmond, 382,
Club of 1789, 376, 462 385
Cobb, Richard, xvi Duchesne, Mme, 76-77
Cobban, Alfred, xvii Dudoz-Dufresnoy, Charles-Nicolas,
Cocks, Charles, xviii 217
Coigny, Marie-Fran�ois Henri de, 68 Duguay-Trouin, Rene, 386
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 42, 46, 66 Dumont, Etienne, 118-19, 129--30,
College de France, xii 232, 294, 305-6
Columbus, Christopher, 403 Dumoulin, Charles, 36
Compiegne, 53, 211, 314
Dumouriez, Charles-Fran�ois, 85,
Conde, prince de, 78, 197-98, 202,
420
393, 423
Condillac, Bonnot de, 232 Dupaty, Charles Mercier, 78, 203-4
Condorcet, marquis de, 78, 271 Duport, Adrien, 138, 200, 202, 225,
ConHans, marquis de, 172 236, 239, 243, 294, 338, 376, 379
Constant, Benjamin, 264 Durovray, 1 17-18
Conti, prince de, 197-98 Dusaulx [Dussaulx], Jean-Joseph,
Convention, 97, 201, 420 174-75, 257, 276

469
 INDEX

Ecole Militaire, 151, 157, 165, 173, Franche-Comte, 224, 276, 351-52,
183 460
Ecole Nonnale Supeneure, xi Frederick II, 63, 384
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., xvii French Guards, 135-37, 142-44,
Elie, Jacob, 172-73, 175, 177, 179- 151, 153, 157, 166, 172-73, 177,
80 179-80, 189-94, 210, 272, 274,
Elizabeth, princesse, 321, 388 276, 295, 306, 311, 322
England, ix, 4, 11, 57, 65, 116-18, Freret, Nicolas, 72
126, 137, 205, 215, 220-23, 231, Freron, Louis, 270
264-65, 271, 362, 371-72, 177-78, Freville, Henri, xvii
384, 392-93, 395, 462 Frochot, comte, 131
Epremesnil, Duval d', 105, 200, 202, Froment, Charles, 390, 392, 400,
270, 399 407, 410, 414, 423-29
Estaing, comte d', 273-74, 286, 295, Fronde, 200
301-3
Estates-General, 83-107, 110, 122, Gaillard, Gabriel-Henri, 90
126, 131, 200, 223, 265, 269, 338, Galland [Galand], Joseph-Nicolas,
343, 382 III
Etampes, 48 Garat, comte Joseph, 132
Etoile, 350, 447 Gard, 405, 409, 450
Geneva, 117-18, 137
Fabert, Abraham de, 383 Genlis, Mme Stephanie de, 92, 139-
Falckenheim, baron de, 192 41, 185, 307, 360
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, 12, 90, 92- Gedes, Dom, 396
93, 162, 164, 170, 287, 291-92, Germany, ix, 60, 206, 288, 371, 381,
307 455
Faubourg Saint-Honore, 154, 174 Girondins, 250
Faubourg Saint-Marceau, 307 Glezen, Jacques-Marie, 132
Faucher, Leon, 264 Godechot, Jacques, xvii
Fauchet, abbe, 135, 146, 171, 174- Goethe, Wolfgang von, 455
75, 246, 247 GoodWin, A., xvii
Favras, marquis de, 356-57, 367-68, Gorsas, Antoine-Joseph, 269, 271
371 Goudimel, Claude, 36
Fenelon, Salignac de La Mothe-, Goujon, Jean, 36
47-48, 63 Gourgues, 75
Flachslanden, 381-82 de Gouvernet, 295
Flesselles, Jacques de, 91, 151, 155- Gouy d'Arcy, marquis de, 236
59, 162, 171, 173-75, 179, 185, Gregoire, abbe Henri, 121, 130, 132,
201 154, 251, 294, 296, 338, 366, 420
Fleury, Cardinal de, 46-47 Grenoble, 122, 200, 350
Florian, Claris de, 227 Gretry, Andre, 227
de Flue, 169 Guiche, marquis de la, 241
Guillotin, Joseph, 90, 120, 146-47'
Fonfrede, Jean-Baptiste Boyer-, 348
153
Force, la ( prison ) , 77, 156
Guizot, Fran!;!ois, xii
Forster, Robert, xvii
Foucauld de Lardimalie [Foucault], Hachette, Joan, 288
marquis de, 241-42, 258 Hampson, Nonnan, xvii
Foullon [Foulon], Joseph-Fran!;Ois, Hausset, Mme de, 70
183, 206-8, 210-13, 216, 220 Hennebont, 337

470
 Index
Henri III, 364 398, 413, 460-61, 464
Henri IV, 40, 42, 187, 194 Lally-Tollendal, marquis de, 189,
Hoche, Lazare, 5, 79, 136, 311 196-97, 216, 237, 244, 264, 325,
Holland, 361-62, 395, 462 327
Hotel de Ville ( Paris ) , xv, xvi, 91, La Luzerne, cesar Guillaume de,
135, 145-46, 152, 155, 158, 162- 262
67, 171, 173, 179, 188-'97, 210- Lamarck, chevalier de, 358, 363,
13, 237, 248, 255-56, 273, 276, 373, 379
280, 291-92, 306-7, 317, 321, 366 Lamartine, Alphonse de, xiv
Hugo, Victor, x Lamballe, princesse de, 360
Hulin [Hullin], Pierre-Augustin, 172, Lambesc, prince de, 152, 184, 197,
177-78, 191, 292 393
Hungary, 362 Lameth, Alexandre de, 138, 202,
225, 251, 326, 340, 365, 376,
Invalides, Hotel des, 159, 165-66 379, 384
Ireland, 216, 454 Lameth, Charles de, 201, 376, 397
Issy-l'Eveque, 437 Lamoignon, Guillaume de, 75
Italy, 216, 271, 454 Landerneau, 337
Ivernois [Yvernois], Fran�ois d', 1 18 Languedoc, 347, 350-53, 391, 412,.-
13, 441
Jacob, Jean, 331 Lanjuinais, comte de, 251, 359, 366,
Jacobin Club, 201, 359, 376-77, 457 420
Jansenists, 7, 71, 113, 251, 341, 403, Lannion, 337
419, 421 Larochefoucauld, cardinal de, 119,
Jaures, Jean, xiv 252
Jesuits, 36, 42, 54, 65, 71, 218, 251, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, duc
378, 419 de, 241
Joan of Arc, xi, 79, 288 La Rochejaquelein, Mme de, 287
Joan of M ontfort, 288 La Rochelle, 386
Joseph II, 63, 84, 254, 285, 360-62 La Salle d'Offemont, marquis de,
Joubert, Barthelemy, 79, 136 155, 175, 179, 180, 272
Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, 136 Latreille, Andre, xvii
Jura, 331, 452 Latude, Jean-Henri de, 74-78, 143,
164, 218
Kant, Immanuel, 455 Launay [Launey], Bernard Jordan
Kaunitz, prince de, 362 de, 167-78, 185, 190, 201, 219,
Kersalaun, 224 224
Kleber, Jean-Baptiste, 5, 79, 136 Lauzun, duc de, 285
Klopstock, Friedrich, 455 La Valliere, duchesse de, 42
Koenigsberg, 455 La Varenne, Mme, 313
La Vrilliere, duc de, 71
La Barre, chevalier de, 62 Le Chapelier, Isaac, 104, 123, 236,
La Bourdonnaie, comte de, 384 239, 242, 277
Lacoste, marquiS de, 251 Lecointre, 285, 287, 295, 301, 310
Lacretelle, Pierre-Louis de, 90 Lecouteulx de Canteleu, Jean­
Lafayette, marquis de, 97, 146, 154- Barthelemy, 90
56, 189, 191, 193-95, 210, 212, Lefebvre, Georges, xvi
254-56, 269-70, 273-76, 279, 281, Lefebvre d'Ormesson, abbe, 158,
292, 299, 306-9, 312-17, 325-27, 191, 205, 292
358, 363, 367-68, 373, 376, 385, Legrand, Jerome, 1 1 1

471
 INDEX

Legros, Mme, 75-78, 164 Lyon, 159, 208, 210, 352, 408, 434,
,

Le Guen de Kerangal [Kerengal), 456 j

Guy-Gabriel, 240
Leleu, 261 Mably, B onnot de, 8, 63, 79 1
Le Nain de Tillemont, Louis­ Machault d'Arnouville, Jean-Baptiste
•

I
Sebastien, 403 de, 54
Lenoir, J ean-Charles-Pierre, 78 Maillard, Stanislas, 176, 292-97,
Leopold II, 63, 364-65, 371-73, 462, 304, 309
465 Maillebois, comte de, 356, 371
Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau [Lepel- Maintenon, marquise de, 44
letier) , Louis-Michel, 242 Malesherbes, Lamoignon de, 75
Lescure, Mme de, 287 Malouet, Pierre-Victor, 103-4, 1 12-
Liancourt, duc de, 185, 190-91 13, 1 15, 130, 216, 237-38, 276,
Liege, 302, 462 314, 356-57, 364, 365
Ligne, prince de, 392 Mantes, 48
Lille, 382, 385, 408 Marat, Jean-Paul, 150, 195, 269,
Limousin, 353 271-72, 280, 309, 325
Linguet, Simon-Nicolas-Henri, 74, Marceau, Fran�ois, 5, 79, 136, 173
164, 169 Maria Theresa, 283, 358, 361, 365
Lisbon, 58-59 Marie Antoinette, 63, 67-68, 77,
Livarot, 385 84-85, 98, 104, 119, 132, 142,
Lomenie de Brienne, Cardinal, 64, 147, 154, 162, 183, 185, 188,
68, 70, 402 193-94, 197, 222, 254, 263, 274,
London, 326 283-86, 294, 299-300, 303, 307-
Lons-Ie-Saulnier, 453 17, 325, 327, 355-65, 368, 372-
Lorient, 337 73, 379-81, 391, 400, 462-65
Lorraine, 244, 369 Marigny [MarigniJ, comte de, 385
Louis XI, xii Marly, 119, 123-24
Louis XIV, 7, 40, 42, 44-48, 66-67, Marmontel, Jean-Fran�ois, 90
71, 114, 282, 316, 331, 333, 383, Marne, 413
399, 419, 460 Marseille, 208, 225, 340, 400, 429,
431, 456, 465
Louis XV, 47, 52-55, 65-66, 70,
Marx, Karl, xiv
124, 177, 206-7, 282, 383, 386,
Mathiez, Albert, xvi
402, 422
Maubec, 446, 450, 452
Louis XVI, xill, 63, 65-68, 74, 77-
Maury, abbe, 276, 339, 375, 400,
78, 84, 89, 98-99, 102, 104, 109,
460
117, 1 19-20, 123, 126-32, 134,
Mello, 453
146, 153-57, 164, 184-87, 191-
Memmay de Quincey, 224
200, 206, 208, 216, 221-22, 225,
Menou, baron Jacques de, 129
227, 233, 254, 274, 277-78, 283-
Mercier, Louis-Sebastien, 269, 271
86, 294-95, 298-300, 304, 308,
Mercy d'Argenteau, comte de, 85,
31 1-19, 321, 325, 327, 336, 355-
254, 362, 372
58, 361-64, 366-69, 373, 378-83, Mericourt, Theroigne de, 302
387-90, 393, 399, 402, 415, 422,
Metz, 254, 261, 263, 274, 323, 327,
431, 463-65
343-44, 356-57, 359
Loustallot [Loustalot), Elisee, 269, Meudon, 295, 298
271-73, 460 Michelet, Jules, v-xviii
Louvre, 256 Mignet, Auguste, xill
Luxeuil, 437 Milton, John, 270

472
 Index
Mirabeau, marquis de, 7, 60, 63, 382-85, 392-99, 408-11, 415-16,
97, 100, 103-5, 111-18, 130-32, 420-21, 428, 433, 436-39, 443,
143-46, 184, 186, 201, 203, 215- 447-48, 457, 460-61, 464
16, 225, 228, 236-37, 251-52, National Guard, 193-94, 210-11,
266-71, 276-80, 291, 294-95, 298, 234, 256, 261, 269, 273-75, 281-
305-6, 314, 316, 325-27, 330, 87, 291, 295, 297, 299, 301-3,
333, 339, 358-59, 367-68, 372- 306-13, 324, 337, 349, 353, 357,
81, 384, 399, 461-62 380, 385, 407, 412, 424-25, 427,
Moliere, 38 436, 445, 456, 463
Monsieur ( later Louis XVIII ), 132, Navarreins, 452
194, 360, 367, 368 Necker, Jacques, 64, 85-86, 88, 100-
Montargis, 274 102, 105, 112-13, 116-19, 123,
Montauban, 406-14, 431 125-34, 140, 146-47, 150-51, 154,
Montbarry, prince de, 179-80, 383 194, 196, 209, 236-37, 250, 254,
Montelimart, 350 257-58, 260, 263, 265, 273, 277-
de Montemart, 241 80, 299, 326, 338, 364, 373
Montesquieu, baron de, 53, 57-58, Nimes, 104, 389-90, 392, 400, 405-
62, 74 10, 413-15, 423-27, 429, 431
Noailles, vicomte de, 184, 240, 384
Montesquieu-Fezensac, duc de, 119
Normandy, 244, 339, 393
Montfermeil, marquis de, 229
Notre Dame, 190, 366, 368
Montgaillard, 382
Noyon, 146
Montlosier, comte de, 339, 359
Montmartre, 150, 155, 184, 211, Orange, 400
261, 272 Orleans, 140, 208
Montmorency-Laval, duc de, 129, Orleans, Louis-Philippe-Joseph,
242, 287, 460 duc d', 78, 93, 98, 105, 119, 138-
Montmorin-Saint-Herem, comte de, 41, 145, 150, 159-60, 185-87, 225,
119, 198, 222, 359 279, 286, 299-300, 307, 315, 326,
Montpellier, 390, 426-27, 429, 431 355, 358
Moreau, 200 Orleans, Philippe, duc d', 47
Moreau de Saint-Mery, Mederic­ Ostend, 371
Louis, 155, 196, 317
Morlaix, 337 Palais-Royal, 103, 136-40, 143-44,
Mounier, Jean-Joseph, 103, 113, 150, 153, 159, 162-63, 165, 167,
115-16, 122-23, 191, 216, 237, 179, 185, 201-2, 205, 212, 266,
262, 264, 279, 294-99, 304-5, 268-69, 272-73, 275, 280, 282,
316, 325, 327, 347, 350 289, 290
Palmer, Robert R, xvii
Nancy, 208 Panckoucke [Pankoucke], Charles­
Nantes, 345 Joseph, 90
Naples, 361, 385 Paris, xvi, 53-54, 71, 74, 77, 86, 89-
National Assembly, 110-37, 142-46, 94, 102-3, 110, 114, 119, 132-80,
153-54, 157, 183-91, 199, 215-17, 186-201, 207-12, 215-19, 225,
220, 222, 224, 226, 231-45, 247, 237, 255, 260-63, 266-84, 287-
257-58, 261-68, 272-73, 276-80, 301, 305-6, 309, 313-17, 324-28,
283-84, 287, 294-98, 304, 314- 352, 355-57, 366, 369-70, 376-
16, 323-25, 328-34, 336-48, 352, 78, 385, 394, 398, 410, 413, 415,
356, 359, 363, 365-69, 373-79, 422, 456-65

473
 INDEX

Parlements, 43, 64, 84, 85, 88, 92, Quinet, Edgar, 58

109, 119-20, 123-24, 200-204,
208, 216, 223-24, 244, 253, 270, Rabaut-Saint-Etienne [Rabaud],
323, 337, 340-48, 353, 382, 403, Jean-Paul, 103-4, 334, 408
405, 432, 439, 441 Rabelais, Frangois, 38, 335
Pascal, Blaise, 139 Radical Socialists, xv
Patrice, 384 Rambouillet, 67, 299, 308
Penthiiwre, due de, 78 Ramus ( Pierre de La Ramee), 36
Perigord, 353 Raynal, abbe Guillaume, 63
Perseval, 286 Regniowez [Regnianwez], 453
Petion de Villeneuve, Jerflme, 132, Reims, 291
277, 294 Rennes, 159, 200, 209, 345, 446
Petrarch, 428 Retz, Cardinal de, 66
Picardy, 202, 291 Reveillon, 90-93, 151
Pitt, William, 378 Richelieu, Cardinal de, 66, 70, 239
Place de Greve, 91, 155, 158, 174- Richelieu, due de, 304
75, 177-78, 189, 202, 205, 211, Rioms, Albert de, 385
213, 293, 306, 321, 366, 368 la Riviere, Etienne, 212
Place Louis XV, 152-53, 194 Robespierre, Maximilien de, xiii, xiv,
Place Vendflme, 151, 378 7, 8, 97, 106, 122, 168, 195, 216,
Pleyssade, 453 236, 237, 271, 277, 294, 296-97,
Plutarch, 333 327, 338, 340
Poissy, 210 Robin, Jean, 386
Poitou, 244, 250 Rohan, Cardinal de, 75, 77-78
Poland, 216, 454 Roland, Manon, 7
Polignac, due de, 67, 88, 104-5, Romans, 446, 452
150, 197-98, 202 Ronsard, Pierre de, 35
Polignac, duchesse de, 63, 67, 114, Rouen, 158, 208, 210, 236, 327, 343-
162, 183, 197-98, 422 44, 359, 445
Pompadour, marquise de, 48, 54, 70, Rouergue, 353
74-75, 1 14, 422 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, x, 7, 9, 53,
Pontivy, 349 57-63, 74, 79, 331, 333, 417, 443,
Pont-Leves, Mme de, 389 450
Pont-Saint-Esprit, 428 Roy, abbe, 91
Populus, Marc-Etienne, 106 Rude, George F., xvi
Port-Royal, 121, 419 Russia, 164-65, 362, 372
Portsmouth, 65
Prieur, Pierre-Louis, 396 Saint-Andeol, 445
Protestants, 24, 32, 34-36, 62, 71, Saint Augustine, 24
85, 104, 120, 333-34, 362-63, Saint Bartholomew, massacre of,34,
390, 402-13, 423-29, 449 53, 58, 187, 374, 390, 399, 408
Provence, 244, 340, 350-53 Saint-Cloud, 67, 379-81
Prudhomme, Louis-Marie, 271 Saint-Denis, 188, 192, 289
Prussia, 362, 371-72, 377, 384, 462 Saint-Florentin, 71-72
Puysegur, 147
Saint-Germain, 210, 453
Quercy, 353 Saint-Hippolyte, 424
Quesnay, Frangois, 70 Saint-Hururge, marquis de, 268,
Quiberon, 220 273, 282
Quimper, 224, 337, 452 Saint-Jean-de-Ia-Gardonnenque, 409

474
 Index
Saint-Jean-du-Gard, 436, 449, 452- Swiss Guards, 148, 151-52, 167,
53 169, 172-73, 176-77, 180, 189,
Saint-Just, Louis de, 7, 8 254, 285, 293
Saint-Lazare ( prison ) , 155-56 Switzerland, 86
Saint-Louis ( church ) , 95, 124
Saint-Malo, 209, 345, 441 Tacitus, 77
Saint-Maurice, 453 Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles Mau­
Saint Paul, 23-24, 26 rice de, 64, 330, 376, 464
Saint-Pierre, 453 Target, Guy Jean-Baptiste, 89-90,
Saint-Pierre, abbe de, 278 1 13, 203, 295
Saint-Priest, comte de, 255, 275, 299 Tennis court, 121-23, 154, 190, 257
Saint-Roch ( church ) , 174 Terray, abbe Joseph-Marie, 206, 239
Saint-Sauveur, 437 Teste-de-Buche, 452
Saint-Simon, duc de, 43 Thiers, Adolphe, xiii
Sand, Georges, 61-62 Thompson, J. M., xvii
Santerre, Antoine, 171 Thouin, Andre, 90
Sarre-Louis, 456 Thouret, Jacques, 1 13, 236-37, 339-
Sartine [Sartinesj, Antoine de, 74- 40, 246, 396
75, 77-78, 208, 210 Thuriot de la ROziere, Jacques, 135,
Sartre, Jean-Paul, xv 168-71
Savoy, 462 Tilly, Charles, xvii
Sedaine, Michel-Jean, 227 Tocqueville, Alexis de, xvi
Segur, vicomte de, 92, 165 Toulon, 385, 402
Seine-et-Marne, 413 Toulouse, 58, 333, 335, 347, 408-
Senior, Nassau, 264 10, 413, 441
Seville, 58 Treilhard, comte Jean-Baptiste, 90
Sevres, 186, 188, 293
Treves, 393
Sieyes, abbe Emmanuel-Joseph, xiv,
Tuileries, 152, 293, 317, 321, 357,
63, 90, 94, 97, 99, 108-12, 115-
360, 363, 378, 380, 400
16, 132, 140, 146, 189, 193, 201,
Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 63,
203, 227, 236, 251-52, 264, 265,
302, 314-15, 339, 376, 442, 462 65, 67, 140, 200, 251, 343
Sillery, marquis de ( comte de Turin, 390, 392-93, 430
GenUs ) , 141, 186
Simon, Jules, xiv Upper-Saone, 437
Sirven, Pierre-Paul, 62, 203 Uzes, 410
Sismondi, Simonde de, 271
Soboul, Albert, xvi Valence, 350, 431, 447
Soissons, 146, 208, 220 Vallee, 35
Sombreuil, Charles Virot de, 150, Vander Noot, 363
159, 165-66 Vannes, 345
Sommieres, 425-26 Vaucluse, 428
Sorbonne, x, xii, xvi
Vaudreuil, marquis de, 67, 197-98,
Spain, 32, 271, 274, 277, 279, 378 385
Stael, Mme de, 100, 237, 264, 308,
Vendee, 5, 239, 250, 287, 329, 361,
378
385, 389-90, 429
Strasbourg, 204, 209
Suard, Jean-Baptiste, 90 Venice, 71
Suetonius, 54 Vermond, abbe de, 361
Suifren, Pierre-Andre, 384 Verrieres, 310

475
 INDEX

Versailles, xiii, xvi,

44, 50, 53-54, Virieu, comte de, 242, 365, 465
63, 66, 68, 70, 75, 77, 95-133, Vivarais, 350-53
142-46, 151-61, 166, 183-88, Volney, comte de, 277
192-94, 198, 201, 210, 257, Voltaire, x, 7, 38, 53-54, 57-58, 61-
260-61, 266, 268-69, 272-76, 63, 65, 69, 72, 74, 78, 99, 252,
280-84, 290, 293-317, 322, 325, 331, 333, 402, 417, 421
386, 393, 453, 460 Vosges, 369, 451
Vesoul, 224 Voute, 351
Vian, Theophile de, 35 Voyer d'Argenson, marquis, 48, 54
Vico, Giambattista, x-xi
Vicq-d'Azyr, Felix, 194 Walter, Gerard, xvii
Vigee-Lebrun, Mme Elisabeth, 98 William the Conqueror, 333
Villars, duc de, 45 Wimpffen [Wimpfen], baron de.
Villette, marquis de, 78 184
Vincennes ( prison ) , 75, 77, 219
Viomlmil, baron de, 274 Young, Arthur, 137-38, 141
Virgil, x Yvernois; see Ivernois

476