The French Revolution, Volume 1.

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PREFACE

BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.
CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV. PARIS.

BOOK SECOND. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, AND THE RESULT OF ITS LABORS.

CHAPTER I. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. - CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OF GOOD LAWS.
CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.
CHAPTER III. THE CONSTRUCTIONS - THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791.

BOOK THIRD. THE APPLICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.[1]

CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II. SOVEREIGNTY OF UNRESTRAINED PASSIONS.
CHAPTER III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE RULING PASSION.
NOTES:


This Etext prepared by Svend Rom svendrom@aol.com

PREFACE

This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" will consist of two volumes. - Popular insurrections and the laws of the Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France; this forms the subject of the present volume. - A party arises around an extreme doctrine, grabs control of the government, and rules in conformity with its doctrine. This will form the subject of the second volume.

A third volume would be required to criticize and evaluate the source material. I lack the necessary space: I merely state the rule that I have observed. The trustworthiest testimony will always be that of an eyewitness, especially

* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, and intelligent man,

* When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the dictate of the facts themselves,

* When it is obvious that his sole object is to preserve or furnish information,

* When his work instead of a piece of polemics planned for the needs of a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular effect is a legal deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a private letter, or a personal memento.

The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it merits confidence, and supplies superior material. - I have found many of this kind in the national archives, principally in the manuscript correspondence of ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, magistrates, and other functionaries; of military commanders, officers in the army, and gendarmerie; of royal commissioners, and of the Assembly; of administrators of departments, districts, and municipalities, besides persons in private life who address the King, the National Assembly, or the ministry. Among these are men of every rank, profession, education, and party. They are distributed by hundreds and thousands over the whole surface of the territory. They write apart, without being able to consult each other, and without even knowing each other. No one is so well placed for collecting and transmitting accurate information. None of them seek literary effect, or even imagine that what they write will ever be published. They draw up their statements at once, under the direct impression of local events. Testimony of this character, of the highest order, and at first hand, provides the means by which all other testimony ought to be verified. - The footnotes at the bottom of the pages indicate the condition, office, name, and address of those decisive witnesses. For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as possible their own words. In this way the reader, confronting the texts, can interpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he will have the same documents as myself for arriving at his conclusions, and, if he is pleased to do so, he may conclude otherwise. As for allusions, if he finds any, he himself will have introduced them, and if he applies them he is alone responsible for them. To my mind, the past has features of its own, and the portrait here presented resembles only the France of the past. I have drawn it without concerning myself with the discussions of the day; I have written as if my subject were the revolutions of Florence or Athens. This is history, and nothing more, and, if I may fully express myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too highly to make a cloak of it for the concealment of another.
(December 1877).

BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.

I. Dearth the first cause. - Bad crops. The winter of 1788 and 1789. - High price and poor quality of bread. - In the provinces. - At Paris.

During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld- Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him of the taking of the Bastille. "It is a revolt, then?" exclaimed the King. "Sire!" replied the Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even more serious. Not only had power slipped from the hands of the King, but also it had not fallen into those of the Assembly. It now lay on the ground, ready to the hands of the unchained populace, the violent and over-excited crowd, the mobs, which picked it up like some weapon that had been thrown away in the street. In fact, there was no longer any government; the artificial structure of human society was giving way entirely; things were returning to a state of nature. This was not a revolution, but a dissolution.

Two causes excite and maintain the universal upheaval. The first one is food shortages and dearth, which being constant, lasting for ten years, and aggravated by the very disturbances which it excites, bids fair to inflame the popular passions to madness, and change the whole course of the Revolution into a series of spasmodic stumbles.

When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices to cause an overflow. So was it with the extreme distress of the eighteenth century. A poor man, who finds it difficult to live when bread is cheap, sees death staring him in the face when it is dear. In this state of suffering the animal instinct revolts, and the universal obedience which constitutes public peace depends on a degree more or less of dryness or damp, heat or cold. In 1788, a year of severe drought, the crops had been poor. In addition to this, on the eve of the harvest,[1] a terrible hail-storm burst over the region around Paris, from Normandy to Champagne, devastating sixty leagues of the most fertile territory, and causing damage to the amount of one hundred millions of francs. Winter came on, the severest that had been seen since 1709. At the close of December the Seine was frozen over from Paris to Havre, while the thermometer stood at 180 below zero. A third of the olive-trees died in Provence, and the rest suffered to such an extent that they were considered incapable of bearing fruit for two years to come. The same disaster befell Languedoc. In Vivarais, and in the Cevennes, whole forests of chestnuts had perished, along with all the grain and grass crops on the uplands. On the plain the Rhone remained in a state of overflow for two months. After the spring of 1789 the famine spread everywhere, and it increased from month to month like a rising flood. In vain did the Government order the farmers, proprietors, and corn-dealers to keep the markets supplied. In vain did it double the bounty on imports, resort to all sorts of expedients, involve itself in debt, and expend over forty millions of francs to furnish France with wheat. In vain do individuals, princes, noblemen, bishops, chapters, and communities multiply their charities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a debt of 400,000 livres, one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning after the hailstorm, and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred poor persons for six weeks[2]. But it had been too devastating. Neither public measures nor private charity could meet the overwhelming need. In Normandy, where the last commercial treaty had ruined the manufacture of linen and of lace trimmings, forty thousand workmen were out of work. In many parishes one-fourth of the population[3] are beggars. Here, "nearly all the inhabitants, not excepting the farmers and landowners, are eating barley bread and drinking water;" there, "many poor creatures have to eat oat bread, and others soaked bran, which has caused the death of several children." -- "Above all," writes the Rouen Parliament, "let help be sent to a perishing people . . .. Sire, most of your subjects are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is given to those who do buy it " -- Arthur Young,[4] who was traveling through France at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and the distress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound -- that is to say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed artisans flock to the relief works, where they can earn only twelve sous a day. In Lorraine, according to the testimony of all observers, "the people are half dead with hunger." In Paris the number of paupers has been trebled; there are thirty thousand in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. Around Paris there is a short supply of grain, or it is spoilt[5]. In the beginning of July, at Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could not have baked" if the police officers had not increased the price of bread to five sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small consumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain." At Villeneuve- le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two lots last sent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed without wheat." At Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent that buyers of it throw the detestable bread, which it makes in the face of the sub-delegate. At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells bad; the " poor wretches," says an employee, "must be hard pressed with hunger to put up with it." At Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several times." This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it has come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often attacked on the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people." At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying more than two bushels in the same market." In short, provisions are so scarce that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the minister dispatches two letters one after another to order the cutting down of 250,000 bushels of rye before the harvest[6]. Paris thus, in a perfect state of tranquility, appears like a famished city put on rations at the end of a long siege, and the dearth will not be greater nor the food worse in December 1870, than in July 1789.

"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[7] "the more did the dearth increase." Every baker's shop was surrounded by a crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy. This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producing inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels. I have seen flour of detestable quality at the military school and at other depots. I have seen portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; some forming blocks so hard that they had to be broken into fragments by repeated blows of a hatchet. For my own part, wearied with the difficulty of procuring this poor bread, and disgusted with that offered to me at the tables d'hôte, I avoided this kind of food altogether. In the evening I went to the Café du Caveau, where, fortunately, they were kind enough to reserve for me two of those rolls which are called flutes, and this is the only bread I have eaten for a week at a time."

But this resource is only for the rich. As for the people, to get bread fit for dogs, they must stand in a line for hours. And here they fight for it; "they snatch food from one another." There is no more work to be had; "the work-rooms are deserted;" often, after waiting a whole day, the workman returns home empty-handed. When he does bring back a four-pound loaf it costs him 3 francs 12 sous; that is, 12 sous for the bread, and 3 francs for the lost day. In this long line of unemployed, excited men, swaying to and fro before the shop-door, dark thoughts are fermenting: "if the bakers find no flour to-night to bake with, we shall have nothing to eat to- morrow." An appalling idea; -- in presence of which the whole power of the Government is not too strong; for to keep order in the midst of famine nothing avails but the sight of an armed force, palpable and threatening. Under Louis XIV and Louis XV there had been even greater hunger and misery; but the outbreaks, which were roughly and promptly put down, were only partial and passing disorders. Some rioters were at once hung, and others were sent to the galleys. The peasant or the workman, convinced of his impotence, at once returned to his stall or his plow. When a wall is too high one does not even think of scaling it. -- But now the wall is cracking -- all its custodians, the clergy, the nobles, the Third-Estate, men of letters, the politicians, and even the Government itself, making the breach wider. The wretched, for the first time, discover an issue: they dash through it, at first in driblets, then in a mass, and rebellion becomes as universal as resignation was in the past.

II. Expectations the second cause. - Separation and laxity of the administrative forces. - Investigations of local assemblies. - The people become aware of their condition. - Convocation of the States-General. - Hope is born. The coincidence of early Assemblies with early difficulties.

It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of light, and gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For the last fifty years it has been rising, and its rays, which first illuminated the upper class in their splendid apartments in the first story, and next the middle class in their entresol and on the ground floor. They have now for two years penetrated to the cellars where the people toil, and even to the deep sinks and obscure corners where rogues and vagabonds and malefactors, a foul and swarming herd, crowd and hide themselves from the persecution of the law. -- To the first two provincial assemblies instituted by Necker in 1778 and 1779, Loménie de Brienne has in 1787 just added nineteen others; under each of these are assemblies of the arrondissement, under each assembly of the arrondissement are parish assemblies[8]. Thus the whole machinery of administration has been changed. It is the new assemblies which assess the taxes and superintend their collection; which determine upon and direct all public works; and which form the court of final appeal in regard to matters in dispute. The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected representative[9], thus lose three-quarters of their authority. Conflicts arise, consequently, between rival powers whose frontiers are not clearly defined; command shifts about, and obedience is diminished. The subject no longer feels on his shoulders the commanding weight of the one hand which, without possibility of interference or resistance, held him in, urged him forward, and made him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of the parish arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians, "husband- men,"[10] and often common farmers, sit by the side of lords and prelates. They listen to and remember the vast figure of the taxes which are paid exclusively, or almost exclusively, by them -- the taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and road dues, and assuredly on their return home they talk all this over with their neighbor. These figures are all printed; the village attorney discusses the matter with his clients, the artisans and rustics, on Sunday as they leave the mass, or in the evening in the large public room of the tavern. These little gatherings, moreover, are sanctioned, encouraged by the powers above. In the earliest days of 1788 the provincial assemblies order a board of inquiry to be held by the syndics and inhabitants of each parish. Knowledge is wanted in detail of their grievances. What part of the revenue is chargeable to each impost? What must the cultivator pay and how much does he suffer? How many privileged persons there are in the parish, what is the amount of their fortune, are they residents, and what their exemptions amount to? In replying, the attorney who holds the pen, names and points out with his finger each privileged individual, criticizes his way of living, and estimates his fortune, calculates the injury done to the village by his immunities, inveighs against the taxes and the tax-collectors. On leaving these assemblies the villager broods over what he has just heard. He sees his grievances no longer singly as before, but in mass, and coupled with the enormity of evils under which his fellows suffer. Besides this, they begin to disentangle the causes of their misery: the King is good -- why then do his collectors take so much of our money? This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind -- why then do they make us pay in their place? -- Imagine that a sudden gleam of reason should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its first ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who bridle and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured travelers and sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of the vehicle add their own and that of their luggage.

Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed brooding, a new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded: -- that of an oppressed multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd scattered far beyond the visible horizon, everywhere ill used, starved, and fleeced. Towards the end of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendants and military commandants the dull universal muttering of coming wrath. Men's characters seem to change; they become suspicious and restive. -- And just at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to direct themselves.[11]. In the month of November 1787, the King declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the 5th of July 1788, he calls for memoranda (des mémoires) on this subject from every competent person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes the date of the session. On the 5th of October he convokes the notables, in order to consider the subject with them. On the 27th of December he grants a double representation to the Third-Estate, because "its cause is allied with generous sentiments, and it will always obtain the support of public opinion." The same day he introduces into the electoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of curés[12], "because good and useful pastors are daily and closely associated with the indigence and relief of the people," from which it follows "that they are much more familiar with their sufferings" and necessities. On the 24th January 1789, he prescribes the procedure and method of the meetings. After the 7th of February writs of summons are sent out one after the other. Eight days after, each parish assembly begins to draw up its memorial of grievances, and becomes excited over the detailed enumeration of all the miseries which it sets down in writing. -- All these appeals and all these acts are so many strokes, which reverberate, in the popular imagination. "It is the desire of His Majesty," says the order issued, "that every one, from the extremities of his kingdom, and from the most obscure of its hamlets, should be certain of his wishes and protests reaching him." Thus, it is all quite true: there can be no mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are invited to speak out, they are summoned, and they are consulted. There is a disposition to relieve them; henceforth their misery shall be less; better times are coming. This is all they know about it. A few month after, in July,[13] the only answer a peasant girl can make to Arthur Young is, "something was to be done by some great folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how." The thing is too complicated, beyond the reach of a stupefied and mechanical brain. - One idea alone emerges, the hope of immediate relief. The persuasion that one is entitled to it, the resolution to aid it with every possible means. Consequently, an anxious waiting, a ready fervor, a tension of the will simply due to the waiting for the opportunity to let go and take off like a irresistible arrow towards the unknown end which will reveal itself all of a sudden. Hunger is to mark this sudden target out for them.

The market must be supplied with wheat; the farmers and land-owners must bring it; wholesale buyers, whether the Government or individuals, must not be allowed to send it elsewhere. The wheat must be sold at a low price; the price must be cut down and fixed, so that the baker can sell bread at two sous the pound. Grain, flour, wine, salt, and provisions must pay no more duties. Seignorial dues and claims, ecclesiastical tithes, and royal or municipal taxes must no longer exist. On the strength of this idea disturbances broke out on all sides in March, April, and May. Contemporaries " do not know what to think of such a scourge;[14] they cannot comprehend how such a vast number of criminals, without visible leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhere to commit the same excesses just at the time when the States-General are going to begin their sittings." The reason is that, under the ancient régime, the conflagration was smoldering in a closed chamber; the great door is suddenly opened, the air enters, and immediately the flame breaks out.

III. The provinces during the first six months of 1789. - Effects of the famine.

At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which are extinguished or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the same place, or very near it, the sparks again appear. Their number, like their recurrence, shows the vastness, depth, and heat of the combustible matter, which is about to explode. In the four months, which precede the taking of the Bastille, over three hundred outbreaks may be counted in France. They take place from month to month and from week to week, in Poitou, Brittany, Touraine, Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Provence. On the 28th of May the parliament of Rouen announces robberies of grain, "violent and bloody tumults, in which men on both sides have fallen," throughout the province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain, Granville, Evreux, Bernay, Pont-Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in other sections besides. On the 20th of April Baron de Bezenval, military commander in the Central Provinces, writes: "I once more lay before M. Necker a picture of the frightful condition of Touraine and of Orléanais. Every letter I receive from these two provinces is the narrative of three or four riots, which are put down with difficulty by the troops and constabulary,"[15] -- and throughout the whole extent of the kingdom a similar state of things is seen. The women, as is natural, are generally at the head of these outbreaks. It is they who, at Montlhéry, rip open the sacks of grain with their scissors. On learning each week, on market day that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four, or seven sous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread, with the small salaries of the men, and when work fails,[16] how can a family be fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the doors of the bakers. Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the crowd makes a push; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked down. The shop is invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the buyers and of the famished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no pay, and running away with the booty. -- Sometimes a party is made up beforehand[17] At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the villagers for four leagues around, armed with stones, knives, and cudgels, to the number of four thousand, compel the metayers and farmers, who have brought grain with them, to sell it at 3 livres, instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel. They threaten to do the same thing on the following market-day: but the farmers do not return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers must be at hand, or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, in Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town, threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are not given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it amongst themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the next crop comes round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two sous the pound, and to increase the day's wages four sous. -- Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is not the people who obey the authorities, but the authorities who obey the people. Consuls, sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows. Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd is mad, and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping that at the next market-day there will be more soldiers and better precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violent outbreak,"[18] they decide to take the wheat belonging to the Jacobin monks, and, protected by the troops, to sell it to the people at a third below its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is attacked, they are forced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At Angoulême, to avoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to renounce his dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of bread, and compensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated they let everything take its course; the people sack their dwellings and get the upper hand; they announce by sound of trumpet that all their demands are granted. On other occasions, the mob dispenses with their services and acts for itself. If there happens to be no grain on the market-place, the people go after it wherever they can find it -- to proprietors and farmers who are unable to bring it for fear of pillage; to convents, which by royal edict are obliged always to have one year's crop in store; to granaries where the Government keeps its supplies; and to convoys which are dispatched by the intendants to the relief of famished towns. Each for himself -- so much the worse for his neighbor. The inhabitants of Fougères beat and drive out those who come from Ernée to buy in their market; a similar violence is shown at Vitré to the in-habitants of Maine.[19] At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grain started for Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didier that ordered for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. In vain are escorts added to the convoys; troops of men and women, armed with hatchets and guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods along the road, and seize the horses by their bridles; the saber has to be used to secure any advance. In vain are arguments and kind words offered, "and in vain even is wheat offered for money; they refuse, shouting out that the convoy shall not go on." They have taken a stubborn stand, their resolution being that of a bull planted in the middle of the road and lowering his horns. Since the wheat is in the district, it is theirs; whoever carries it off or withholds it is a robber. This fixed idea cannot be driven out of their minds. At Chant-nay, near Mans,[20] they prevent a miller from carrying that which he had just bought to his mill. At Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act of sending his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in force to gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is found is nearly killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the taps running. At Nevers, the bakers not having put bread on their counters for four days, the mob force the granaries of private persons, of dealers and religious communities. "The frightened corn-dealers part with their grain at any price; most of it is stolen in the face of the guards," and, in the tumult of these searches of homes, a number of houses are sacked. -- In these days woe to all who are concerned in the acquisition, commerce, and manipulation of grain! Popular imagination requires living beings to who it may impute its misfortunes, and on whom it may gratify its resentments. To it, all such persons are monopolists, and, at any rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine establishment is invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[21] At Amiens "the people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the houses of two merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained by the soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other "groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three persons whom they suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur Geslin, being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and finding no wheat, a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an accomplice! The crowd rush at him, and he is wounded and almost cut in pieces. -- It is very evident that there is no more security in France; property, even life, is in danger. The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced and precarious. The local officials everywhere call for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand regular troops. And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which profit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political commotion frees from restraint.

IV.

Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.

We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt, poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[22] have become, and how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many recruits for the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbance each one of them fills his pouch. Around Caux,[23] even up to the environs of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quévrevilly, Préaux, Saint-Jacques, and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits force their way into the houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay their hands on whatever they please. To the south of Chartres "three or four hundred woodcutters, from the forests of Bellème, chop away everything that opposes them, and force grain to be given up to them at their own price." In the vicinity of Étampes, fifteen bandits enter the farmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him with a conflagration. In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, of Verger, and of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de Besselard, the estate of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing along the road to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy. "The seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy and Cambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license of that pursuit." The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by the bandits. Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one who is half-honest, and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in spite of himself; repeats the act, allured on by impunity or by gain. In fact, "it is not dire necessity which impels them;" they make a speculation of cupidity, a new sort of illicit trade. An old soldier, saber in hand, a forest-keeper, and "about eight persons sufficiently lax, put themselves at the head of four or five hundred men, go off each day to three or four villages. Here they force everybody who has any wheat to give it to them at 24 livres," and even at 18 livres, the sack. Those among the band, who say that they have no money, carry away their portion without payment. Others, after having paid what they please, re-sell at a profit, which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a good business, and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. At the next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatened to come and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle and sell the meat in the villages at the rate of two sous the pound." -- In every important insurrection there are similar evil- does and vagabonds, enemies to the law, savage, prowling desperadoes, who, like wolves, roam about wherever they scent a prey. It is they who serve as the directors and executioners of public or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-five masked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers along with the title-deeds and papers which be has in keeping for the Count de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.[24] -- They are known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and their rags. Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, the town is at their mercy.[25] The stores are forced open, train wagons are discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put to ransom. They invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begun proceedings against them, and want to tear him to pieces. They break his mirrors and his furniture, leave the premises laden with booty, and go into the town and its outskirts to pillage the manufactories and break up or burn all the machinery. -- Henceforth these constitute the new leaders: for in every mob it is the boldest and least scrupulous who march ahead and set the example in destruction. The example is contagious: the beginning was the craving for bread, the end is murder and arson; the savagery which is unchained adding its unlimited violence to the limited revolt of necessity.

Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.

Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in spite of the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it irresistible is the belief of its being authorized, and that by those whose duty it is to repress it. Here and there words and actions of a brutal frankness break forth, and reveal beyond the somber present a more threatening future -- After the 9th of January, 1789, among the mob which attacks the Hôtel-de-Ville and besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vive la Liberté![26] .mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard." A few months later, around Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes, alleging that the memorial of their seneschal's court demands their abolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in many places;" many of the communities even maintain that they will pay no more taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In Isère it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal dues" shall no longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this dare not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to the conclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease," and, on the 29th of June, on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, "astonished by the illuminations and signs of public rejoicing," they believe that the good time has come." They think of forcing the delivery of meat to them at four sous the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate to them the prospective abolition of octrois.[27] and that, meanwhile, the King, in favor of the re-assembling of the three orders, has granted three days' freedom from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons ought to enjoy the same privilege." Upon this the crowd, rushing off to the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and Perrache, and to the Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the registers, sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and pillage the wine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor has circulated all round through the country that there is free entrance into the town for all provisions. During the following days the peasantry stream in with enormous files of wagons loaded with wine and drawn by several oxen, so that, in spite of the re- established guard, it is necessary to let them enter all day without paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of July that these can again be collected. -- The same thing occurs in the southern provinces, where the principal imposts are levied on provisions. There also the collections are suspended in the name of public authority. At Agde,[28] "the people, considering the so-called will of the King as to equality of classes, are foolish enough to think that they are everything and can do everything." Thus do they interpret in their own way and in their own terms the double representation accorded to the Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently, with general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and if the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not suppressed. They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of their body." The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables, against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, are obliged to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their demands shall be granted. Three days afterwards they exact a diminution of one-half of the tax on grinding, and go in quest of the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill, sinks down in the street and seats himself on a stone; they compel him forthwith to sign an act of renunciation, and hence "his mill, valued at 15,000 livres, is reduced to 7,500 livres." -- At Limoux, under the pretext of searching for grain, they enter the houses of the comptroller and tax contractors, carry off their registers, and throw them into the water along with the furniture of their clerks. -- In Provence it is worse; for most unjustly, and through inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are all levied on flour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread is directly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest enemy, and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrections against the State.

VI. The first jacquerie in Province. - Feebleness or ineffectiveness of repressive measures.

Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the mass of gunpowder. Everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place on the very day on which the electoral assembly meets. From forty to fifty riots occur in the provinces in less than a fortnight. Popular imagination, like that of a child, goes straight to its mark. The reforms having been announced, people think them accomplished and, to make sure of them, steps are at once taken to carry them out. Now that we are to have relief, let us relieve ourselves. "This is not an isolated riot as usual," writes the commander of the troops;[29] "here the faction is united and governed by uniform principles; the same errors are diffused through all minds. . . . . The principles impressed on the people are that the King desires equality. No more bishops or lords, no more distinctions of rank, no tithes, and no seignorial privileges. Thus, these misguided people fancy that they are exercising their rights, and obeying the will of the King." -- The effect of sonorous phrases is apparent. The people have been told that the States-General were to bring about the "regeneration of the kingdom" The inference is "that the date of their assembly was to be one of an entire and absolute change of conditions and fortunes." Hence, "the insurrection against the nobles and the clergy is as active as it is widespread." "In many places it was distinctly announced that there was a sort of war declared against landowners and property," and "in the towns as well as in the rural districts the people persist in declaring that they will pay nothing, neither taxes, duties, nor debts." -- Naturally, the first assault is against the piquèt, or flour-tax. At Aix, Marseilles, Toulon, and in more than forty towns and market-villages, this is summarily abolished; at Aupt and at Luc nothing remains of the weighing-house but the four walls. At Marseilles the home of the slaughter-house contractor and at Brignolles that of the director of the leather excise, are sacked. The determination is "to purge the land of excise-men. " - - This is only a beginning; bread and other provisions must become cheap, and that without delay. At Arles, the Corporation of sailors, presided over by M. de Barras, consul, had just elected its representatives. By way of conclusion to the meeting, they pass a resolution insisting that M. de Barras should reduce the price of all comestibles. On his refusal, they "open the window, exclaiming, 'We hold him, and we have only to throw him into the street for the rest to pick him up.'" Compliance is inevitable. The resolution is proclaimed by the town-criers, and at each article which is reduced in price the crowd shout, "Vive le Roi, vive M. Barras !" -- One must yield to brute force. But the inconvenience is great for, through the suppression of the flour-tax, the towns have no longer a revenue. On the other hand, as they are obliged to indemnify the butchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of 2,500 livres a day.

In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion of having contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils, which the people endure! At Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor, who signs the tax-list, and of the keeper of the records. They are trodden under foot, and their houses are ransacked. At Manosque, the Bishop of Sisteron, who is visiting the seminary, is accused of favoring a monopolist. On his way to his carriage, on foot, he is hooted and menaced. He is first pelted with mud, and then with stones. The consuls in attendance, and the sub-delegate, who come to his assistance, are mauled and repulsed. Meanwhile, some of the most furious begin, before his eyes, "to dig a ditch to bury him in." Protected by five or six brave fellows, amidst a volley of stones, and wounded on the head and on many parts of his body, he succeeds in reaching his carriage. He is finally only saved because the horses, which are likewise stoned, run away. Foreigners, Italians, bandits, are mingled with the peasants and artisans, and expressions are heard and acts are seen which indicate a jacquerie.[30] "The most excited said to the bishop, 'we are poor and you are rich, and we mean to have all your property.'"[31] Elsewhere, "the seditious mob exacts contributions from all people in good circumstances. At Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged from top to bottom, and thirty others partly half. -- At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, in defending himself, is killed and "hacked to pieces." -- At La Seyne, the mob, led by a peasant, assembles by beat of drum. Some women fetch a bier, and set it down before the house of a leading bourgeois, telling him to prepare for death, and that "they will have the honor of burying him." He escapes; his house is pillaged, as well as the bureau of the flour-tax. The following day, the chief of the band "obliges the principal inhabitants to give him a sum of money to indemnify, as he states it, the peasants who have abandoned their work," and devoted the day to serving the public. -- At Peinier, the Président de Peinier, an octogenarian, is "besieged in his chateau by a band of a hundred and fifty artisans and peasants," who bring with them a consul and a notary. Aided by these two functionaries, they force the president "to pass an act by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every description " -- At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M. de Forbin-Janson. They sack the house of his business agent, pillage the château, and demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings, and escutcheons. They enter the cellars, stave in the casks, and carry away everything that can be carried, "the transportation taking two days;" all of which cause damages of a hundred thousand crowns to the marquis. -- At Riez they surround the episcopal palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and compromise with the bishop on a promise of fifty thousand livres," and want him to burn his archives. -- In short, the sedition is social for it singles out for attack all that profit by, or stand at the head of, the established order of things.

Seeing them act in this way, one would say that the theory of the Contrat-Social had been instilled into them. They treat magistrates as domestics, promulgate laws, and conduct themselves like sovereigns. They exercise public power, and establish, summarily, arbitrarily, and brutally, whatever they think to be in conformity with natural right. -- At Peinier they exact a second electoral assembly, and, for themselves, the right of suffrage. -- At Saint- Maximin they themselves elect new consuls and officers of justice. -- At Solliez they oblige the judge's lieutenant to give in his resignation, and they break his staff of office. -- At Barjols "they use consuls and judges as their town servants, announcing that they are masters and that they will themselves administer justice." -- In fact, they do administer it, as they understand it -- that is to say, through many exactions and robberies! One man has wheat; he must share it with him who has none. Another has money; he must give it to him who has not enough to buy bread with. On this principle, at Barjols, they tax the Ursulin nuns 1,800 livres, carry off fifty loads of wheat from the Chapter, eighteen from one poor artisan, and forty from another, and constrain canons and beneficiaries to give acquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with club in hand, they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon their claims on their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings, another to nullify a decree obtained, a third to reimburse the expenses of a lawsuit gained years before, a father to give his consent to the marriage of his son." -- All their grievances are brought to mind, and we all know the tenacity of a peasant's memory. Having become the master, he redresses wrongs, and especially those of which he thinks himself the object. There must be a general restitution; and first, of the feudal dues which have been collected. They take of M. de Montmeyan's business agent all the money he has as compensation for that received by him during fifteen years as a notary. A former consul of Brignolles had, in 1775, inflicted penalties to the amount of 1,500 or 1,800 francs, which had been given to the poor; this sum is taken from his strong box. Moreover, if consuls and law officers are wrongdoers, the title deeds, rent-rolls, and other documents by which they do their business are still worse. To the fire with all old writings -- not only office registers, but also, at Hyères, all the papers in the town hall and those of the principal notary. -- In the matter of papers none are good but new ones -- those which convey some discharge, quittance, or obligation to the advantage of the people. At Brignolles the owners of the gristmills are constrained to execute a contract of sale by which they convey their mills to the commune in consideration of 5,000 francs per annum, payable in ten years without interest -- an arrangement which ruins them. On seeing the contract signed the peasants shout and cheer, and so great is their faith in this piece of stamped paper that they at once cause a mass of thanksgiving to be celebrated in the Cordeliers. Formidable omens these! Which mark the inward purpose, the determined will, and the coming deeds of this rising power. If it prevails, its first work will be to destroy all ancient documents, all title deeds, rent-rolls, contracts, and claims to which force compels it to submit. By force likewise it will draw up others to its own advantage, and the scribes who do it will be its own deputies and administrators whom it holds in its rude grasp.

Those who are in high places are not alarmed; they even find that there is some good in the revolt, inasmuch as it compels the towns to suppress unjust taxation.[32] The new Marseilles guard, formed of young men, is allowed to march to Aubagne, "to insist that M. le lieutenant criminel and M. l'avocat du Roi release the prisoners." The disobedience of Marseilles, which refuses to receive the magistrates sent under letters patent to take testimony, is tolerated. And better still, in spite of the remonstrances of the parliament of Aix, a general amnesty is proclaimed; "no one is excepted but a few of the leaders, to whom is allowed the liberty of leaving the kingdom." The mildness of the King and of the military authorities is admirable. It is admitted that the people are children, that they err only through ignorance, that faith must be had in their repentance, and, as soon as they return to order, they must be received with paternal effusions. -- The truth is, that the child is a blind Colossus, exasperated by sufferings. hence whatever it takes hold of is shattered -- not only the local wheels of the provinces, which, if temporarily deranged, may be repaired, but even the incentive at the center which puts the rest in motion, and the destruction of which will throw the whole machinery into confusion.

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Notes:

[1] Marmontel, "Mémoires," II. 221. -- Albert Babeau, "Histoire de la Révolution Française," I. 91, 187. (Letter by Huez Mayor of Troyes, July 30, 1788.)- -- Archives Nationales, H. 1274. (Letter by M. de Caraman, April 22, 1789.) H. 942 (Cahier des demandes des Etats de Languedoc). - Buchez et Roux, "Histoire Parlementaire," I. 283.

[2] See " The Ancient Régime," p.34. Albert Babeau, I. 91. (The Bishop of Troyes gives 12,000 francs, and the chapter 6,000, for the relief workshops.)

[3] "The Ancient Regime," 350, 387.--Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII. 505-518. (Reports of the Parliament of Normandy, May 3,1788. Letter from the Parliament to the King, July 15, 1789.)

[4] Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," June 29th, July 2nd and 18th -- " Journal de Paris," January 2, 1789. Letter of the curé of Sainte-Marguerite.

[5] Buchez and Roux, IV. 79-82. (Letter from the intermediary bureau of Montereau, July 9, 1789; from the maire of Villeneuve-le- Roi, July 10th; from M. Baudry, July 10th; from M. Prioreau, July 11th, etc.) -- Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France," 2nd part, ch. XXI, p. 5.

[6] Roux et Buchez, ibid. "It is very unfortunate," writes the Marquis d'Autichamp, "to be obliged to cut down the standing crops ready to be gathered in; but it is dangerous to let the troops die of hunger."

[7] Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France," ch. XXXIX, V, 37. -- De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la Révolution," p. 5l3. -- Deposition of Maillard (Criminal Inquiry of the Châtelet concerning the events of October 5th and 6th).

[8] De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution," 272-290. De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées provinciales," 109. Procès-verbaux des assemblées provinciales, passim.

[9] A magistrate who gives judgment in a lower court in cases relative to taxation. These terms are retained because there are no equivalents in English. (Tr.)

[10] "Laboureurs," -- this term, at this epoch, is applied to those who till their own land. (Tr.)

[11] Duvergier. "Collection des lois et décrets," I. 1 to 23, and particularly p. 15.

[12] Parish priests. (SR.)

[13] Arthur Young, July 12th , 1789 (in Champagne).

[14] Montjoie, 1st part, 102.

[15] Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII. 508. -- " Archives Nationales," H. 1453.

[16] Arthur Young, June 29th (at Nangis).

[17] "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the Duc de Mortemart, Seigneur of Bray, May 4th; of M. de Ballainvilliers, intendant of Languedoc, April 15th.

[18] "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant, M. d'Agay, April 30th; of the municipal officers of Nantes, January 9th; of the intendant, M. Meulan d'Ablois, June 22nd; of M. de Ballainvilliers, April 15th.

[19] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de Langeron, July 4th; of M. de Meulan d'Ablois, June 5th; "Minutes of the meeting of la Maréchaussée de Bost," April 29th. Letters of M. de Chazerat, May 29th; of M. de Bezenval, June 2nd; of the intendant, M. Amelot, April 25th.

[20] '"Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of M. de Bezenval, May 27th; of M. de Ballainvilliers, April 25th; of M. de Foullonde, April 19th.

[21] "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant, M. d'Aine, March 12th; of M. d'Agay, April 30th; of M. Amelot, April 25th; of the municipal authorities of Nantes, January 9th, etc.

[22] "The Ancient Régime," pp. 380-389.

[23] Floquet, VII. 508, (Report of February 27th). - Hippeau, "La Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 377. (Letter of M. Perrot, June 23rd.) -- " Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. de Sainte-Suzanne, April 29th. Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of M. de Rochambeau, May 16th Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of the Abbé Duplaquet, Deputy of the Third Estate of Saint-Quentin, May 17th. Letter of three husbandmen in the environs of Saint-Quentin, May 14th.

[24] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de Perigord, military commandant of Languedoc, April 22nd.

[25] Floquet, VII. 511 (from the 11th to the 14th July).

[26] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the municipal authorities of Nantes, January 9th; of the sub-delegate of Ploërmel, July 4th; ibid. F7, 2353. Letter of the intermediary commission of Alsace, September 8th ibid. F7, 3227. Letter of the intendant, Caze de la Bove, June 16th ; ibid. H. 1453. Letter of Terray, intendant of Lyons, July 4th; of the prévot des échevins, July 5th and 7th.

[27] (A tax on all goods entering a town. SR.)

[28] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the mayor and councils of Agde, April 21st; of M. de Perigord, April 19th, May 5th.

[29] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. de Caraman, March 23rd, 26th 27th 28th; of the seneschal Missiessy, March 24th; of the mayor of Hyères, March 25th, etc.; ibid. H. 1274; of M. de Montmayran, April 2nd; of M. de Caraman, March 18th , April 12th; of the intendant, M. de la Tour, April 2nd; of the procureur-géneral, M. d'Antheman, April 17th, and the report of June 15th; of the municipal authorities of Toulon, April 11th; of the sub-delegate of Manosque, March 14th; of M. de Saint-Tropez, March 21st. - Minutes of the meeting, signed by 119 witnesses, of the insurrection at Aix, March 5th, etc.

[30] An uprising of the peasants. The term is used to indicate a country mob in contradistinction to a city or town mob.-Tr.

[31] "Archives Nationales," H.1274. Letter of M. de la Tour, April 2nd (with a detailed memorandum and depositions).

[32] "Archives Nationales," H. 1274. Letter of M. de Caraman, April 22nd: ---"One real benefit results from this misfortune. . . The well-to-do class is brought to sustain that which exceeded the strength of the poor daily laborers. We see the nobles and people in good circumstances a little more attentive to the poor peasants: they are now habituated to speaking to them with more gentleness." M. de Caraman was wounded, as well as his Son, at Aix, and if the Soldiery, who were stoned, at length fired on the crowd, he did not give the order. -- Ibid, letter of M. d'Anthéman, April 17th; of M. de Barentin, June 11th.

CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY.

I. Mob recruits in the vicinity.- Entry of vagabonds. - The number of paupers.

INDEED it is in the center that the convulsive shocks are strongest. Nothing is lacking to aggravate the insurrection -- neither the liveliest provocation to stimulate it, nor the most numerous bands to carry it out. The environs of Paris all furnish recruits for it; nowhere are there so many miserable wretches, so many of the famished, and so many rebellious beings. Robberies of grain take place everywhere -- at Orleans, at Cosne, at Rambouillet, at Jouy, at Pont-Saint-Maxence, at Bray-sur-Seine, at Sens, at Nangis.[1] Wheat flour is so scarce at Meudon, that every purchaser is ordered to buy at the same time an equal quantity of barley. At Viroflay, thirty women, with a rear-guard of men, stop on the main road vehicles, which they suppose to be loaded with grain. At Montlhéry stones and clubs disperse seven brigades of the police. An immense throng of eight thousand persons, women and men, provided with bags, fall upon the grain exposed for sale. They force the delivery to them of wheat worth 40 francs at 24 francs, pillaging the half of it and conveying it off without payment. "The constabulary is disheartened," writes the sub-delegate; "the determination of the people is wonderful; I am frightened at what I have seen and heard." -- After the 13th of July, 1788, the day of the hail-storm, despair seized the peasantry; well disposed as the proprietors may have been, it was impossible to assist them. "Not a workshop is open;[2] the noblemen and the bourgeois, obliged to grant delays in the payment of their incomes, can give no work." Accordingly, "the famished people are on the point of risking life for life," and, publicly and boldly, they seek food wherever it can be found. At Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Eragny, Neuville, Chenevières, at Cergy, Pontoise, Ile-Adam, Presle, and Beaumont, men, women, and children, the hole parish, range the country, set snares, and destroy the burrows. "The rumor is current that the Government, informed of the damage done by the game to cultivators, allows its destruction . . . and really the hares ravaged about a fifth of the crop. At first an arrest is made of nine of these poachers; but they are released, "taking circumstances into account." Consequently, for two months, there is a slaughter on the property of the Prince de Conti and of the Ambassador Mercy d'Argenteau; in default of bread they eat rabbits. -- Along with the abuse of property they are led, by a natural impulse, to attack property itself. Near Saint-Denis the woods belonging to the abbey are devastated. "The farmers of the neighborhood carry away loads of wood, drawn by four and five horses;" the inhabitants of the villages of Ville-Parisis, Tremblay, Vert-Galant, Villepinte, sell it publicly, and threaten the wood- rangers with a beating. On the 15th of June the damage is already estimated at 60,000 livres. -- It makes little difference whether the proprietor has been benevolent, like M. de Talaru,[3] who had supported the poor on his estate at Issy the preceding winter. The peasants destroy the dike which conducts water to his communal mill; condemned by the parliament to restore it, they declare that not only will they not obey. Should M. de Talaru try to rebuild it they will return with three hundred armed men, and tear it away the second time.

For those who are most compromised Paris is the nearest refuge. For the poorest and most exasperated, the door of nomadic life stands wide open. Bands rise up around the capital, just as in countries where human society has not yet been formed, or has ceased to exist. During the first two weeks of May[4] near Villejuif a band of five or six hundred vagabonds strive to force Bicêtre and approach Saint- Cloud. They arrive from thirty, forty, and sixty leagues off, from Champagne, from Lorraine, from the whole circuit of country devastated by the hailstorm. All hover around Paris and are there engulfed as in a sewer, the unfortunate along with criminals, some to find work, others to beg and to rove about under the injurious prompting of hunger and the rumors of the public thoroughfares. During the last days of April,[5] the clerks at the tollhouses note the entrance of "a frightful number of poorly clad men of sinister aspect." During the first days of May a change in the appearance of the crowd is remarked. There mingle in it "a number of foreigners, from all countries, most of them in rags, armed with big sticks, and whose very aspect announces what is to be feared from them." Already, before this final influx, the public sink is full to overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase of population in Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by recent demolition and constructions. Think of all the craftsmen whom the stagnation of manufactures, the augmentation of octrois, the rigor of winter, and the dearness of bread have reduced to extreme distress. Remember that in 1786 "two hundred thousand persons are counted whose property, all told, has not the intrinsic worth of fifty crowns." Remember that, from time immemorial, these have been at war with the city watchmen. Remember that in 1789 there are twenty thousand poachers in the capital and that, to provide them with work, it is found necessary to establish national workshops. Remember "that twelve thousand are kept uselessly occupied digging on the hill of Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and quays are covered with them, that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them, and that, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of disarmed justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors of the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of obtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which they will storm any obstacle to which their attention may be directed.

II. The Press.

Excitement of the press and of opinion. - The people make their choice.

Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two years, it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the entire ancient régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the people is sure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than he chooses to lead. -- The moment the Parliament of a large city refuses to register fiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service. On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads of the soldiery, and the military force is powerless. At Rennes, to put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent camp of four regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, under the command of a Marshal of France, is required.[6] - The following year, when the Parliaments now side with the privileged class, the disturbances again begin, but this time against the Parliaments. In February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, the magistrates are hooted at, chased in the streets, besieged in the town hall, and obliged to conceal themselves or take to flight. -- If such is the disposition in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the capital of the kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after the dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place Dauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy, disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody as this, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot bursts out a second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go and burn the residences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the lieutenant of police. -- Clearly a new ferment has been infused among the ignorant and brutal masses, and the new ideas are producing their effect. They have for a long time imperceptibly been filtering downwards from layer to layer After having gained over the aristocracy, the whole of the lettered portion of the Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all the young, they have insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousand fissures into the class which supports itself by the labor of its own hands. Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers, purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.

Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into political passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of the King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody, both speech and the press alter in tone.[7] Instead of general conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with a view to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand, preaching as shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet. Revolutionary pamphlets appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers?" by Sieyès; "Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti; "Considerations sur les Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint- Etienne; "Ma Pétition," by Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux," by M. d'Entraigues, and, a little later, "La France libre," par Camille Desmoulins, and others by hundreds and thousands.[8] All of which are repeated and amplified in the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to declaim and increase their own excitement.[9] The unanimous, universal and daily shout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs, into markets, workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789, Necker avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that even the troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the fisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls come to recommend the interests of the people to the bodies of electors, and to sing rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the month of June pamphlets are in all hands; "even lackeys are poring over them at the gates of hotels." In the month of July, as the King is signing an order, a patriotic valet becomes alarmed and reads it over his shoulder. -- There is no illusion here; it is not merely the bourgeoisie which ranges itself against the legal authorities and against the established regime. It is the entire people as well. The craftsmen, the shopkeepers and the domestics, workmen of every kind and degree, the mob underneath the people, the vagabonds, street rovers, and beggars, the whole multitude, which, bound down by anxiety for its daily bread, had never lifted its eyes to look at the great social order of which it is the lowest stratum, and the whole weight of which it bears.

III. The Réveillon affair.

Suddenly the people stirs, and the superposed scaffolding totters. It is the movement of a brute nature exasperated by want and maddened by suspicion. -- Have paid hands, which are invisible goaded it on from beneath? Contemporaries are convinced of this, and it is probably the case.[10] But the uproar made around the suffering brute would alone suffice to make it shy, and explain its arousal. - On the 21st of April the Electoral Assemblies have begun in Paris; there is one in each quarter, one for the clergy, one for the nobles, and one for the Third-Estate. Every day, for almost a month, files of electors are seen passing along the streets. Those of the first degree continue to meet after having nominated those of the second: the nation must needs watch its mandatories and maintain its imprescriptible rights. If this exercise of their rights has been delegated to them, they still belong to the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of interposing when it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels fast; immediately after the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it reaches the Third-Estate of the streets. Nothing is more natural than the desire to lead one's leaders: the first time any dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands on those who halt and make them march on as directed. On a Saturday, April 25th,[11] a rumor is current that Réveillon, an elector and manufacturer of wall- paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, a commissioner, have "spoken badly" at the Electoral Assembly of Sainte-Marguerite. To speak badly means to speak badly of the people. What has Réveillon said? Nobody knows, but popular imagination with its terrible powers of invention and precision, readily fabricates or welcomes a murderous phrase. He said that "a working-man with a wife and children could live on fifteen sous a day." Such a man is a traitor, and must be disposed of at once; "all his belongings must be put to fire and sword." The rumor, it must be noted, is false.[12] Réveillon pays his poorest workman twenty-five sous a day, he provides work for three hundred and fifty, and, in spite of a dull season the previous winter, he kept all on at the same rate of wages. He himself was once a workman, and obtained a medal for his inventions, and is benevolent and respected by all respectable persons. -- All this avails nothing; bands of vagabonds and foreigners, who have just passed through the barriers, do not look so closely into matters, while the Journeymen, the carters, the cobblers, the masons, the braziers, and the stone-cutters whom they go to solicit in their lodgings are just as ignorant as they are. When irritation has accumulated, it breaks out haphazardly.

Just at this time the clergy of Paris renounce their privileges in way of imposts,[13] and the people, taking friends for adversaries, add in their invectives the name of the clergy to that of Réveillon. During the whole of the day, and also during the leisure of Sunday, the fermentation increases; on Monday the 27th, another day of idleness and drunkenness, the bands begin to move. Certain witnesses encounter one of these in the Rue Saint-Sévérin, "armed with clubs," and so numerous as to bar the passage. "Shops and doors are closed on all sides, and the people cry out, 'There's the revolt!'" The seditious crowd belch out curses and invectives against the clergy, "and, catching sight of an abbé, shout 'Priest!'" Another band parades an effigy of Réveillon decorated with the ribbon of the order of St. Michael, which undergoes the parody of a sentence and is burnt on the Place de Grève, after which they threaten his house. Driven back by the guard, they invade that of a manufacturer of saltpeter, who is his friend, and burn and smash his effects and furniture.[14] It is only towards midnight that the crowd is dispersed and the insurrection is supposed to have ended. On the following day it begins again with greater violence; for, besides the ordinary stimulants of misery[15] and the craving for license, they have a new stimulant in the idea of a cause to defend, the conviction that they are fighting "for the Third- Estate." In a cause like this each one should help himself; and all should help each other. "We should be lost," one of them exclaimed, "if we did not sustain each other." Strong in this belief, they sent deputations three times into the Faubourg Saint-Marceau to obtain recruits, and on their way, with uplifted clubs they enrol, willingly or unwillingly, all they encounter. Others, at the gate of Saint-Antoine, arrest people who are returning from the races, demanding of them if they are for the nobles or for the Third- Estate, and force women to descend from their vehicles and to cry "Vive le Tiers-Etat "[16]. Meanwhile the crowd has increased before Réveillon's dwelling; the thirty men on guard are unable to resist; the house is invaded and sacked from top to bottom; the furniture, provisions, clothing, registers, wagons, even the poultry in the back-yard, all is cast into blazing bonfires lighted in three different places; five hundred louis d'or, the ready money, and the silver plate are stolen. Several roam through the cellars, drink liquor or varnish at haphazard until they fall down dead drunk or expire in convulsions. Against this howling horde, a corps of the watch, mounted and on foot, is seen approaching;[17] also a hundred cavalry of the "Royal Croats," the French Guards, and later on the Swiss Guards. "Tiles and chimneys are rained down on the soldiers," who fire back four files at a time. The rioters, drunk with brandy and rage, defend themselves desperately for several hours; more than two hundred are killed, and nearly three hundred are wounded; they are only put down by cannon, while the mob keeps active until far into the night. - Towards eight in the evening, in the rue Vieille-du-Temple, the Paris Guard continue to make charges in order to protect the doors which the miscreants try to force. Two doors are forced at half-past eleven o'clock in the Rue Saintonge and in the Rue de Bretagne, that of a pork-dealer and that of a baker. Even to this last wave of the outbreak which is subsiding we can distinguish the elements which have produced the insurrection, and which are about to produce the Revolution. -- Starvation is one of these: in the Rue de Bretagne the band robbing the baker's shop carries bread off to the women staying at the corner of the Rue Saintonge. -- Brigandage is another: in the middle of the night M. du Châtelet's spies, gliding alongside of a ditch, "see a group of ruffians" assembled beyond the Barrière du Trône, their leader, mounted on a little knoll, urging them to begin again; and the following days, on the highways, vagabonds are saying to each other, "We can do no more at Paris, because they are too sharp on the look- out; let us go to Lyons!" There are, finally, the patriots: on the evening of the insurrection, between the Pont-au-Change and the Pont-Marie, the half-naked ragamuffins, besmeared with dirt, bearing along their hand-barrows, are fully alive to their cause; they beg alms in a loud tone of voice, and stretch out their hats to the passers, saying, "Take pity on this poor Third-Estate!" -- The starving, the ruffians, and the patriots, all form one body, and henceforth misery, crime, and public spirit unite to provide an ever-ready insurrection for the agitators who desire to raise one.

IV. The Palais-Royal.

But the agitators are already in permanent session. The Palais- Royal is an open-air club where, all day and even far into the night, one excites the other and urges on the crowd to blows. In this enclosure, protected by the privileges of the House of Orleans, the police dare not enter. Speech is free, and the public who avail themselves of this freedom seem purposely chosen to abuse it. -- The public and the place are adapted to each other.[18] The Palais- Royal, the center of prostitution, of play, of idleness, and of pamphlets, attracts the whole of that uprooted population which floats about in a great city, and which, without occupation or home, lives only for curiosity or for pleasure -- the frequenters of the coffee-houses, the runners for gambling halls, adventurers, and social outcasts, the runaway children or forlorn hopefuls of literature, arts, and the bar, attorneys' clerks, students of the institutions of higher learning, the curious, loungers, strangers, and the occupants of furnished lodgings, these amounting, it is said, to forty thousand in Paris. They fill the garden and the galleries; "one would hardly find here one of what were called the "Six Bodies,"[19] a bourgeois settled down and occupied with his own affairs, a man whom business and family cares render serious and influential. There is no place here for industrious and orderly bees; it is the rendezvous of political and literary drones. They flock into it from every quarter of Paris, and the tumultuous, buzzing swarm covers the ground like an overturned hive. "Ten thousand people," writes Arthur Young,[20] "have been all this day in the Palais-Royal;" the press is so great that an apple thrown from a balcony on the moving floor of heads would not reach the ground. The condition of these heads may be imagined; they are emptier of ballast than any in France, the most inflated with speculative ideas, the most excitable and the most excited. In this pell-mell of improvised politicians no one knows who is speaking; nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there as in the theater, unknown among the unknown, requiring sensational impressions and strong emotions, a prey to the contagion of the passions around him, borne along in the whirl of sounding phrases, of ready-made news, growing rumors, and other exaggerations by which fanatics keep outdoing each other. There are shouting, tears, applause, stamping and clapping, as at the performance of a tragedy; one or another individual becomes so inflamed and hoarse that he dies on the spot with fever and exhaustion. In vain has Arthur Young been accustomed to the tumult of political liberty; he is dumb-founded at what he sees.[21] According to him, the excitement is "incredible. . . . We think sometimes that Debrett's or Stockdale's shops at London are crowded; but they are mere deserts compared to Desenne's and some others here, in which one can scarcely squeeze from the door to the counter . . . .Every hour produces its pamphlet; 13 came out to-day, 16 yesterday, and 92 last week. 95% of these productions are in favor of liberty;" and by liberty is meant the extinction of privileges, numerical sovereignty, the application of the Contrat-Social, "The Republic", and even more besides, a universal leveling, permanent anarchy, and even the jacquerie. Camille Desmoulins, one of the orators, commonly there, announces it and urges it in precise terms:

"Now that the animal is in the trap, let him be battered to death... Never will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand palaces, mansions, and châteaux, two-fifth of the property of France, will be the recompense of valor. Those who pretend to be the conquerors will be conquered in turn. The nation shall be purged."

Here, in advance, is the program of the Reign of Terror.

Now all this is not only read, but declaimed, amplified, and turned to practical account. In front of the coffee-houses "those who have stentorian lungs relieve each other every evening."[22] "They get up on a chair or a table, they read the strongest articles on current affairs, . .. . the eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of more than common hardiness or violence against the present Government, cannot easily be imagined." "Three days ago a child of four years, well taught and intelligent, was promenaded around the garden, in broad daylight, at least twenty times, borne on the shoulders of a street porter, crying out, 'Verdict of the French people: Polignac exiled one hundred leagues from Paris; Condé the same; Conti the same; Artois the same; the Queen, -- I dare not write it.'" A hall made of boards in the middle of the Palais-Royal is always full, especially of young men, who carry on their deliberations in parliamentary fashion : in the evening the president invites the spectators to come forward and sign motions passed during the day, and of which the originals are placed in the Café Foy.[23] They count on their fingers the enemies of the country; "and first two Royal Highnesses (Monsieur and the Count d'Artois), three Most Serene Highnesses (the Prince de Condé, Duc de Bourbon, and the Prince de Conti), one favorite (Madame de Polignac), MM. de Vandreuil, de la Trémoille, du Châtelet, de Villedeuil, de Barentin, de la Galaisière, Vidaud de la Tour, Berthier, Foulon, and also M. Linguet." Placards are posted demanding the pillory on the Pont-Neuf for the Abbeé Maury. One speaker proposes "to burn the house of M. d'Espréménil, his wife, children and furniture, and himself: this is passed unanimously." -- No opposition is tolerated. One of those present having manifested some horror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by the collar, obliged to kneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the ground. The punishment inflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one of the fountain-basins, after which they him over to the mob, who roll him in the mud." On the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot, and flung from hand to hand. A few days after, on the 22nd of June, there are two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all the functions of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those of the judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner. -- Its idols are sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty of lése-majesté, and at once punished. In the first week of July, an abbé who speaks ill of Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the bust of Necker is stripped by the fishwomen, and beaten until she is covered with blood. War is declared against suspicious uniforms. "On the appearance of a hussar," writes Desmoulins, "they shout, 'There goes Punch!' and the stone-cutters fling stones at him. Last night two officers of the hussars, MM. de Sombreuil and de Polignac, came to the Palais-Royal. . . chairs were flung at them, and they would have been knocked down if they had not run away. The day before yesterday they seized a spy of the police and gave him a ducking in the fountain. They ran him down like a stag, hustled him, pelted him with stones, struck him with canes, forced one of his eyes out of its socket, and finally, in spite of his entreaties and cries for mercy, plunged him a second time in the fountain. His torments lasted from noon until half-past five o'clock, and he had about ten thousand executioners." -- Consider the effect of such a focal center at a time like this. A new power has sprung up alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highways and public squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. It is driven onward by coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions and the vehemence of mountebanks, while the bare arms which have just accomplished the work of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, form its bodyguard and ministerial cabinet.

Popular mobs become a political force. - Pressure on the Assembly. - Defection of the soldiery.

This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming to its nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds resistance, it strikes. -- The people of Versailles, in the streets and at the doors of the Assembly, daily "come and insult those whom they call aristocrats."[24] On Monday, June 22nd, "d'Espréménil barely escapes being knocked down; the Abbé Maury. . . owes his escape to the strength of a curé, who takes him up in his arms and tosses him into the carriage of the Archbishop of Arles." On the 23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris and the Keeper of the Seals are hooted, railed at, scoffed at, and derided, until they almost sink with shame and rage." So formidable is the tempest of rage with which they are greeted, that Passeret, the King's secretary, who accompanies the minister, dies of the excitement that very day. On the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost knocked down by a stone striking him on the head. On the 25th, the Archbishop of Paris is saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude pursuing him and pelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the windows are all shattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the French Guards, the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise that he will join the deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way in which the rude hand of the people effects a reunion of the Orders. It bears as heavily on its own representatives as on its adversaries. "Although our hall was closed to the public," says Bailly, "there were always more than six hundred spectators."[25] These were not respectful and silent, but active and noisy, mingling with the deputies, raising their hands to vote in all cases, taking part in the deliberations, by their applause and hisses: a collateral Assembly which often imposes its own will on the other. They take note of and put down the names of their opponents, transmit them to the chair-bearers in attendance at the entrance of the hall, and from them to the mob waiting for the departure of the deputies, these names are from now considered as the names of public enemies.[26] Lists are made out and printed, and, at the Palais- Royal in the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed. -- It is under this brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and, amongst them, that by which the commons declare themselves the National Assembly and assume supreme power. The night before, Malouet had proposed to ascertain, by a preliminary vote, on which side the majority was. In an instant all those against had gathered around him to the number of three hundred. "Upon which a mans springs out from the galleries, falls upon him and takes him by the collar exclaiming, 'Hold your tongue, you false citizen!' " Malouet is released and the guard comes forward, "but terror has spread through the hall, threats are uttered against opponents, and the next day we were only ninety." Moreover, the lists of their names had been circulated; some of them, deputies from Paris, went to see Bailly that very evening. One amongst them, "a very honest man and good patriot," had been told that his house was to be set on fire. Now his wife had just given birth to a child, and the slightest tumult before the house would have been fatal. Such arguments are decisive. Consequently, three days afterwards, at the Tennis-court, but one deputy, Martin d'Auch, dares to write the word "opposing" after his name. Insulted by many of colleagues, "at once denounced to the people who had collected at the entrance of the building, he is obliged to escape by a side door to avoid being cut to pieces," and, for several days, to keep away from the meetings.[27] - Owing to this intervention of the galleries the radical minority, numbering about thirty,[28] lead the majority, and they do not allow them to free themselves. -- On the 28th of May, Malouet, having demanded a secret session to discuss the conciliatory measures which the King had proposed, the galleries hoot at him, and a deputy, M. Bourche, addresses him in very plain terms. "You must know, sir, that we are deliberating here in the presence of our masters, and that we must account to them for our opinions." This is the doctrine of the Contrat-Social. Through timidity, fear of the Court and of the privileged class, through optimism and faith in human nature, through enthusiasm and the necessity of adhering to previous actions, the deputies, who are novices, provincial, and given up to theories, neither dare nor know how to escape from the tyranny of the prevailing dogma. -- Henceforth it becomes the law. All the Assemblies, the Constituent, the Legislative, the Convention,[29] submit to it entirely. The public in the galleries is the admitted representatives of the people, under the same title, and even under a higher title, than the deputies. Now, this public is that of the Palais-Royal, consisting of strangers, idlers, lovers of novelties, Paris romancers, leaders of the coffee-houses, the future pillars of the clubs, in short, the wild enthusiasts among the middle-class, just as the crowd which threatens doors and throws stones is recruited from among the wild enthusiasts of the lowest class. Thus by an involuntary selection, the faction which constitutes itself a public power is composed of nothing but violent minds and violent hands. Spontaneously and without previous concert dangerous fanatics are joined with dangerous brutes, and in the increasing discord between the legal authorities this is the illegal league which is certain to overthrow all.

When a commanding general sits in council with his staff-officers and his counselors, and discusses the plan of a campaign, the chief public interest is that discipline should remain intact, and that intruders, soldiers, or menials, should not throw the weight of their turbulence and thoughtlessness into the scales which have to be cautiously and firmly held by their chiefs. This was the express demand of the Government;[30] but the demand was not regarded; and against the persistent usurpation of the multitude nothing is left to it but the employment of force. But force itself is slipping from its hands, while growing disobedience, like a contagion, after having gained the people is spreading among the troops. - From the 23rd of June,[31] two companies of the French Guards refused to do duty. Confined to their barracks, they on the 27th break out, and henceforth "they are seen every evening entering the Palais-Royal, marching in double file." They know the place well; it is the general rendezvous of the abandoned women whose lovers and parasites they are.[32] "The patriots all gather around them, treat them to ice cream and wine, and debauch them in the face of their officers." -- To this, moreover, must be added the fact that their colonel, M. du Châtelet, has long been odious to them, that he has fatigued them with forced drills, worried them and diminished the number of their sergeants; that he suppressed the school for the education of the children of their musicians; that he uses the stick in punishing the men, and picks quarrels with them about their appearance, their board, and their clothing. This regiment is lost to discipline: a secret society has been formed in it, and the soldiers have pledged themselves to their ensigns not to act against the National Assembly. Thus the confederation between them and the Palais-Royal is established. -- On the 30th of June, eleven of their leaders, taken off to the Abbaye, write to claim their assistance. A young man mounts a chair in front of the Café Foy and reads their letter aloud; a band sets out on the instant, forces the gate with a sledge-hammer and iron bars, brings back the prisoners in triumph, gives them a feast in the garden and mounts guard around them to prevent their being re-taken. -- When disorders of this kind go unpunished, order cannot be maintained; in fact, on the morning of the 14th of July, five out of six battalions had deserted. -- As to the other corps, they are no better and are also seduced. "Yesterday," Desmoulins writes, "the artillery regiment followed the example of the French Guards, overpowering the sentinels and coming over to mingle with the patriots in the Palais-Royal . . .. We see nothing but the rabble attaching themselves to soldiers whom they chance to encounter. 'Allons, Vive le Tiers-Etat!' and they lead them off to a tavern to drink the health of the Commons." Dragoons tell the officers who are marching them to Versailles: "We obey you, but you may tell the ministers on our arrival that if we are ordered to use the least violence against our fellow-citizens, the first shot shall be for you." At the Invalides twenty men, ordered to remove the cocks and ramrods from the guns stored in a threatened arsenal, devote six hours to rendering twenty guns useless; their object is to keep them intact for plunder and for the arming of the people.

In short, the largest portion of the army has deserted. However kind a superior officer might be, the fact of his being a superior officer secures for him the treatment of an enemy. The governor, "M. de Sombreuil, against whom these people could utter no reproach," will soon see his artillerists point their guns at his apartment, and will just escape being hung on the iron-railings by their own hands. Thus the force which is brought forward to suppress insurrection only serves to furnish it with recruits. And even worse, for the display of arms that was relied on to restrain the mob, furnished the instigation to rebellion.

VI. July 13th and 14th 1789.

The fatal moment has arrived; it is no longer a government which falls that it may give way to another; it is all government which ceases to exist in order to make way for an intermittent despotism, for factions blindly impelled on by enthusiasm, credulity, misery, and fear.[33] Like a tame elephant suddenly become wild again, the mob throws off it ordinary driver, and the new guides who it tolerates perched on its neck are there simply for show. In future it will move along as it pleases, freed from control, and abandoned to its own feelings, instincts, and appetites. -- Apparently, there was no desire to do more than anticipate its aberrations. The King has forbidden all violence; the commanders order the troops not to fire;[34] but the excited and wild animal takes all precautions for insults; in future, it intends to be its own conductor, and, to begin, it treads its guides under foot. -- On the 12th of July, near noon,[35] on the news of the dismissal of Necker, a cry of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille Desmoulins, mounted on a table, announces that the Court meditates "a St. Bartholomew of patriots." The crowd embrace him, adopt the green cockade which he has proposed, and oblige the dancing-saloons and theaters to close in sign of mourning: they hurry off to the residence of Curtius, and take the busts of the Duke of Orleans and of Necker and carry them about in triumph. -- Meanwhile, the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on the Place Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance of the Tuileries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and bottles.[36] Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hôtel Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the "Royal Allemand." - The alarm bell is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; fifteen or sixteen well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to be assembled and armed. -- The new sovereign, the people in arms and in the street, has declared himself.

The dregs of society at once come to the surface. During the night between the 12th and 13th of July,[37] "all the barriers, from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and set on fire." There is no longer an octroi; the city is without a revenue just at the moment when it is obliged to make the heaviest expenditures; but this is of no consequence to the mob, which, above all things, wants to have cheap wine. "Ruffians, armed with pikes and sticks, proceed in several parties to give up to pillage the houses of those who are regarded as enemies to the public welfare." "They go from door to door crying, 'Arms and bread!' During this fearful night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each trembling at home for himself and those belonging to him." On the following day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits and the lowest of the low. One of the bands hews down the gate of the Lazarists, destroys the library and clothes-presses, the pictures, the windows and laboratory, and rushes to the cellars; where it staves in the casks and gets drunk: twenty-four hours after this, about thirty of them are found dead and dying, drowned in wine, men and women, one of these being at the point of childbirth. In front of the house[38] the street is full of the wreckage, and of ruffians who hold in their hands, " some, eatables, others a jug, forcing the passers-by to drink, and pouring out wine to all comers. Wine runs down into the gutter, and the scent of it fills the air;" it is a drinking bout: meanwhile they carry away the grain and flour which the monks kept on hand according to law, fifty-two loads of it being taken to the market. Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver those imprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying away valuable arms and armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame de Breteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in order to punish their proprietors. M. de Crosne, one of the most liberal and most respected men of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant of the police, is pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is sacked. -- During the night between the 13th and 14th of May, the baker's shops and the wine shops are pillaged; "men of the vilest class, armed with guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people open their doors and give them something to eat and drink, as well as money and arms." Vagrants, ragged men, several of them "almost naked," and "most of them armed like savages, and of hideous appearance;" they are " such as one does not remember to have seen in broad daylight;" many of them are strangers, come from nobody knows where.[39] It is stated that there were 50,000 of them, and that they had taken possession of the principal guard-houses.

During these two days and nights, says Bailly, "Paris ran the risk of being pillaged, and was only saved from the marauders by the National Guard." Already, in the open street,[40] "these creatures tore off women's shoes and earrings," and the robbers were beginning to have full sway. -- Fortunately the militia organized itself and the principal inhabitants and gentlemen enrolled themselves; 48,000 men are formed into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie buy guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabers or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are hung on the spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again becomes political. But, whatever its object, it remains always wild, because it is in the hands of the mob. Dusaulx, its panegyrist, confesses[41] that "he thought he was witnessing the total dissolution of society." There is no leader, no management. The electors who have converted themselves into the representatives of Paris seem to command the crowd, but it is the crowd which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to send for six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants that he is about to blow everything into the air. The commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an hour, and, more than once, the whole committee is near being massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, "a concourse of fifteen hundred men pressed by a hundred thousand others who are forcing an entrance," the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset one over another, the enclosure of the bureau pushed back against the president's chair, a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of judgment," the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and "people beside themselves, for the most part not knowing where they are nor what they want." -- Each district is also a petty center, while the Palais-Royal is the main center. Propositions, " accusations, and deputations travel to and fro from one to the other, along with the human torrent which is obstructed or rushes ahead with no other guide than its own inclination and the chances of the way. One wave gathers here and another there, their strategy consisting in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is effected only because they are let in. If they get into the Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers. -- At the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning to five in the evening against walls forty feet high and thirty feet thick, and it is by chance that one of their shots reaches an invalid on the towers. They are treated the same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. The governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger dispatched from the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he receives several discharges without returning them, and lets the first bridge be carried without firing a shot.[42] When, at length, he does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is going to do so. In short, his forbearance and patience are excessive, in conformity with the humanity of the times. The people, in turn, are infatuated with the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their expedients being on a level with their tactics. A brewer fancies that he can set fire to this block of masonry by pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archaeological notions, proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think that they have seized the governor's daughter, and want to burn her in order to make the father surrender. Others set fire to a projecting mass of buildings filled with straw, and thus close up the passage. "The Bastille was not taken by main force," says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; "it surrendered before even it was attacked,"[43] by capitulation, on the promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing,[44] and, on the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense crowd. Eight or nine hundred men only[45] were concerned in the attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers and wine-dealers, mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille, however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded with the curious who came to witness the sight; "among them," says a witness,[46] "were a number of fashionable women of very good appearance, who had left their carriages at some distance." To the hundred and twenty men of the garrison looking down from their parapets it seemed as though all Paris had come out against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge an introduce the enemy: everybody has lost his head, the besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and the latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; "each one fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells." Sudden omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too strong for human nature; giddiness is the result; men see red, and their frenzy ends in ferocity.

For the peculiarity of a popular insurrection is that nobody obeys anybody; the bad passions are free as well as the generous ones; heroes are unable to restrain assassins. Elie, who is the first to enter the fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in advance, the French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of war, try to keep their word of honor; but the crowd pressing on behind them know not whom to strike, and they strike at random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who have fired at them, and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to be prisoners; on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fall furiously on the invalides who opened the gates to them; the man who prevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his wrist severed by the blow of a saber, is twice pierced with a sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one of the districts of Paris is promenaded through the streets in triumph. The officers are dragged along and five of them are killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the way. During the long hours of firing, the murderous instinct has become aroused, and the wish to kill, changed into a fixed idea, spreads afar among the crowd which has hitherto remained inactive. It is convinced by its own clamor; a hue and cry is all that it now needs; the moment one strikes, all want to strike. "Those who had no arms," says an officer, "threw stones at me;[47] the women ground their teeth and shook their fists at me. Two of my men had already been assassinated behind me. I finally got to within some hundreds of paces of the Hôtel-de-Ville, amidst a general cry that I should be hung, when a head, stuck on a pike, was presented to me to look at, while at. the same moment I was told that it was that of M. de Launay," the governor. - The latter, on going out, had received the cut of a sword on his right shoulder; n reaching the Rue Saint- Antoine "everybody pulled his hair out and struck him." Under the arcade of Saint-Jean he was already "severely wounded." Around him, some said, "his head ought to be struck off;" others, "let him be hung;" and others, "he ought to be tied to a horse's tail." Then, in despair, and wishing to put an end to his torments, he cried out, "Kill me," and, in struggling, kicked one of the men who held him in the lower abdomen. On the instant he is pierced with bayonets, dragged in the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the nation demands his head to exhibit to the public," and the man who was kicked is asked to cut it off. -- This man, an unemployed cook, a simpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going on," thinks that as it is the general opinion, the act is patriotic, and even believes that he "deserves a medal for destroying a monster." Taking a saber which is lent to him, he strikes the bare neck, but the dull saber not doing its work, he takes a small black- handled knife from his pocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he knows how to cut meat," he finishes the operation successfully. Then, placing the head on the end of a three-pronged pitchfork, and accompanied by over two hundred armed men, "not counting the mob," he marches along, and, in the Rue Saint-Honoré, he has two inscriptions attached to the head, to indicate without mistake whose head it is. -- They grow merry over it: after filing alongside of the Palais-Royal, the procession arrives at the Pont-Neuf, where, before the statue of Henry IV., they bow the head three times, saying, "Salute thy master ! " -- This is the last joke: it is to be found in every triumph, and inside the butcher, we find the rogue.

VII. Murders of Foulon and Berthier.

Meanwhile, at the Palais-Royal, other buffoons, who with the levity of gossips sport with lives as freely as with words, have drawn u. During the night between the 13th and 14th of July, a list of proscriptions, copies of which are hawked about. Care is taken to address one of them to each of the persons designated, the Comte d'Artois, Marshal de Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc, Baron de Bezenval, MM. de Breteuil, Foulon, Berthier, Maury, d'Espréménil, Lefèvre d'Amécourt, and others besides.[48] A reward is promised to whoever will bring their heads to the Café de Caveau. Here are names for the unchained multitude; all that now is necessary is that some band should encounter a man who is denounced; he will go as far as the lamppost at the street corner, but not beyond it. - Throughout the day of the 14th, this improvised tribunal holds a permanent session, and follows up its decisions with its actions. M. de Flesselles, provost of the merchants and president of the electors at the Hôtel-de-Ville, having shown himself somewhat lukewarm,[49] the Palais-Royal declares him a traitor and sends him off to be hung. On the way a young man fells him with a pistol- shot, others fall upon his body, while his head, borne upon a pike, goes to join that of M. de Launay. -- Equally deadly accusations and of equally speedy execution float in the air and from every direction. "On the slightest pretext," says an elector, "they denounced to us those whom they thought opposed to the Revolution, which already signified the same as enemies of the State. Without any investigation, there was only talk of the seizure of their persons, the ruin of their homes, and the razing of their houses. One young man exclaimed: 'Follow me at once, let us start off at once to Bezenval's!'" -- Their brains are so frightened, and their minds so distrustful, that at every step in the streets "one's name has to be given, one's profession declared, one's residence, and one's intentions . . .. One can neither enter nor leave Paris without being suspected of treason." The Prince de Montbarrey, advocate of the new ideas, and his wife, are stopped in their carriage at the barrier, and are on the point of being cut to pieces. A deputy of the nobles, on his way to the National Assembly, is seized in his cab and conducted to the Place de Grève; the corpse of M. de Launay is shown to him, and he is told that he is to be treated in the same fashion. - Every life hangs by a thread, and, on the following days, when the King had sent away his troops, dismissed his Ministers, recalled Necker, and granted everything, the danger remains just as great. The multitude, abandoned to the revolutionaries and to itself, continues the same bloody antics, while the municipal chiefs[50] whom it has elected, Bailly, Mayor of Paris, and Lafayette, commandant of the National Guard, are obliged to use cunning, to implore, to throw themselves between the multitude and the unfortunates whom they wish to destroy.

On the 15th of July, in the night, a woman disguised as a man is arrested in the court of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and so maltreated that she faints away; Bailly, in order to save her, is obliged to feign anger against her and have her sent immediately to prison. From the 14th to the 22nd of July, Lafayette, at the risk of his life, saves with his own hand seventeen persons in different quarters.[51] -- On the 22nd of July, upon the denunciations which multiply around Paris like trains of gunpowder, two administrators of high rank, M. Foulon, Councillor of State, and M. Berthier, his son-in-law, are arrested, one near Fontainebleau, and the other near Compiègne. M. Foulon, a strict master,[52] but intelligent and useful, expended sixty thousand francs the previous winter on his estate in giving employment to the poor. M. Berthier, an industrious and capable man, had officially surveyed and valued Ile-de-France, to equalize the taxes, and had reduced the overcharged quotas first one-eighth and then a quarter. But both of these gentlemen have arranged the details of the camp against which Paris has risen; both are publicly proscribed for eight days previously by the Palais-Royal, and, with a people frightened by disorder, exasperated by hunger, and stupefied by suspicion, an accused person is a guilty one. -- With regard to Foulon, as with Réveillon, a story is made up, coined in the same mint, a sort of currency for popular circulation, and which the people itself manufactures by casting into one tragic expression the sum of its sufferings and rankling memories:[53] "He said that we were worth no more than his horses; and that if we had no bread we had only to eat grass." -- The old man of seventy-four is brought to Paris, with a truss of hay on his head, a collar of thistles around his neck, and his mouth stuffed with hay. In vain does the electoral bureau order his imprisonment that he may be saved; the crowd yells out: "Sentenced and hung!" and, authoritatively, appoints the judges. In vain does Lafayette insist and entreat three times that the judgment be regularly rendered, and that the accused be sent to the Abbaye. A new wave of people comes up, and one man, "well dressed," cries out: "What is the need of a sentence for a man who has been condemned for thirty years?" Foulon is carried off; dragged across the square, and hung to the lamp post. The cord breaks twice, and twice he falls upon the pavement. Re- hung with a fresh cord and then cut down, his head is severed from his body and placed on the end of a pike.[54] Meanwhile, Berthier, sent away from Compiègne by the municipality, afraid to keep him in his prison where he was constantly menaced, arrives in a cabriolet under escort. The people carry placards around him filled with opprobrious epithets; in changing horses they threw hard black bread into the carriage, exclaiming, "There, wretch, see the bread you made us eat!" On reaching the church of Saint-Merry, a fearful storm of insults burst forth against him. He is called a monopolist, "although he had never bought or sold a grain of wheat." In the eyes of the multitude, who has to explain the evil as caused by some evil-doer, he is the author of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye, his escort is dispersed and he is pushed over to the lamp post. Then, seeing that all is lost, he snatches a gun from one of his murderers and bravely defends himself. A soldier of the "Royal Croats" gives him a cut with his saber across the stomach, and another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had cut off the head of M. de Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand him the heart to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go to the Hôtel- de-Ville to show their trophies to M. de Lafayette. On their return to the Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in a tavern, the people demand these two remains. They throw them out of the window and finish their supper, whilst the heart is marched about below in a bouquet of white carnations. -- Such are the spectacles which this garden presents where, a year before, "good society in full dress" came on leaving the Opera to chat, often until two o'clock in the morning, under the mild light of the moon, listening now to the violin of Saint-Georges, and now to the charming voice of Garat.

VIII. Paris in the hands of the people.

Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia nor the new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law. "They did not dare," says Bailly,[55] "oppose the people who, eight days before this, had taken the Bastille." -- In vain, after the last two murders, do Bailly and Lafayette indignantly threaten to withdraw; they are forced to remain; their protection, such as it is, is all that is left, and, if the National Guard is unable to prevent every murder, it prevents some of them. People live as they can under the constant expectation of fresh popular violence. "To every impartial man," says Malouet, "the Terror dates from the 14th of July". - On the 17th, before setting out for Paris, the King attends communion and makes his will in anticipation of assassination. From the 16th to the 18th, twenty personages of high rank, among others most of those on whose heads a price is set by the Palais-Royal, leave France: The Count d'Artois, Marshal de Broglie, the Princes de Condé, de Conti, de Lambesc, de Vaudemont, the Countess de Polignac, and the Duchesses de Polignac and de Guiche. -- The day following the two murders, M. de Crosne, M. Doumer, M. Sureau, the most zealous and most valuable members of the committee on subsistence, all those appointed to make purchases and to take care of the storehouses, conceal themselves or fly. On the eve of the two murders, the notaries of Paris, being menaced with a riot, had to advance 45,000 francs which were promised to the workmen of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; while the public treasury, almost empty, is drained of 30,000 livres per day to diminish the cost of bread. -- Persons and possessions, great and small, private individuals and public functionaries, the Government itself, all is in the hands of the mob. "From this moment," says a deputy,[56] "liberty did not exist even in the National Assembly . . . France stood dumb before thirty factious persons. The Assembly became in their hands a passive instrument, which they forced to serve them in the execution of their projects." -- They themselves do not lead, although they seem to lead. The great brute, which has taken the bit in its mouth, holds on to it, and it's plunging becomes more violent. Not only do both spurs which maddened it, I mean the desire for innovation and the daily scarcity of food, continue to prick it on. But also the political hornets which, increasing by thousands, buzz around its ears. And the license in which it revels for the first time, joined to the applause lavished upon it, urges it forward more violently each day. The insurrection is glorified. Not one of the assassins is sought out. It is against the conspiracy of Ministers that the Assembly institutes an inquiry. Rewards are bestowed upon the conquerors of the Bastille; it is declared that they have saved France. All honors are awarded to the people-to their good sense, their magnanimity, and their justice. Adoration is paid to this new sovereign: he is publicly and officially told, in the Assembly and by the press, that he possesses every virtue, all rights and all powers. If he spills blood it is inadvertently, on provocation, and always with an infallible instinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so pure?" The greater number of people prefers the theories of their books to the experience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they have fashioned for themselves. At the worst their dream, driven out from the present, takes refuge in the future. To-morrow, when the Constitution is complete, the people, made happy, will again become wise: let us endure the storm, which leads us on to so noble a harbor.

Meanwhile, beyond the King, inert and disarmed, beyond the Assembly, disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people - that is to say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand individuals gathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm, suddenly and irresistibly made legislators, judges, and executioners. A formidable power, undefined and destructive, on which no one has any hold, and which, with its mother, howling and misshapen Liberty, sits at the threshold of the Revolution like Milton's two specters at the gates of Hell.

. . Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape; The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, but ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep, If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb, And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd Within unseen . . . ........the other shape, If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd For each seem'd either: black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. * * * * * * The monster moving onward came as fast, With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.

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Notes:

[1] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Miron, lieutenant de police, April 26th; of M. Joly de Fleury, procureur-général, May 29th; of MM. Marchais and Berthier, April 18th and 27th, March 23rd, April 5th, May 5th. - Arthur Young, June 10th and 29th. "Archives Nationales," H. 1453 Letter of the sub-delegate of Montlhéry, April 14th.

[2] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the sub-delegate Gobert, March 17th; of the officers of police, June 15th : -- " On the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of March the inhabitants of Conflans generally rebelled against the game law in relation to the rabbit."

[3] Montjoie, 2nd part, ch. XXI. p.14 (the first week in June). Montjoie is a party man; but he gives dates and details, and his testimony, when it is confirmed elsewhere, deserves, to be admitted.

[4] Montjoie, 1st part, 92-101. - "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the officer of police of Saint-Denis: "A good many workmen arrive daily from Lorraine as well as from Champagne," which increases the prices.

[5] De Bezenval, "Mémoires," I.353. Cf. "The Ancient Regime," p.509. - Marmontel, II, 252 and following pages. - De Ferrières, I. 407.

[6] Arthur Young, September 1st, 1788

[7] Barrère, "Mémoires," I. 234.

[8] See, in the National Library, the long catalogue of those which have survived.

[9] Malouet, I. 255. Bailly, I. 43 (May 9th and 19th). -- D'Hezecques, "Souvenirs d'un page de Louis XV." 293. --De Bezenval, I. 368.

[10] Marmontel, II, 249. -- Montjoie, 1st part, p. 92. -- De Bezenval, I. 387: "These spies added that persons were seen exciting the tumult and were distributing money."

[11] "Archives Nationales," Y.11441. Interrogatory of the Abbé Roy, May 5th. -- Y.11033, Interrogatory (April 28th and May 4th) of twenty-three wounded persons brought to the Hôtel-Dieu -- These two documents are of prime importance in presenting the true aspect of the insurrection; to these must he added the narrative of M. de Bezenval, who was commandant at this time with M. de Châtelet. Almost all other narratives are amplified or falsified through party bias.

[12] De Ferrières, vol. III. note A. (justificatory explanation by Réveillon).

[13] Bailly I. 25 (April 26th).

[14] Hippeau, IV. 377 (Letters of M. Perrot, April 29th).

[15] Letter to the King by an inhabitant of the Faubourg Saint- Antoine -"Do not doubt, sire, that our recent misfortunes are due to the dearness of bread"

[16] Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes yeux," etc. I. 25: "We turned back and were held up by small bands of scoundrels, who insolently proposed to us to shout 'Vive Necker! Vive le Tiers-Etat !'" His two companions were knights of St. Louis, and their badges seemed an object of "increasing hatred." "The badge excited coarse mutterings, even on the part of persons who appeared superior to the agitators."

[17] Dampmartin, ibid. i. 25 : " I was dining this very day at the Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, in the Rue Saint-Louis." He leaves the house on foot and witnesses the disturbance. "Fifteen to Sixteen hundred wretches, the excrement of the nation, degraded by shameful vices, covered with rags, and gorged with brandy, presented the most disgusting and revolting spectacle. More than a hundred thousand persons of both sexes and of all ages and conditions interfered greatly with the operations of the troops. The firing soon commenced and blood flowed: two innocent persons were wounded near me."

[18] De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la Révolution." Thirty-one gambling-houses are counted here, while a pamphlet of the day is entitled "Pétition des deux mill cent filles du Palais- Royal."

[19] Montjoie, 2nd part, 144. -- Bailly, II, 130.

[20] Arthur Young, June 24th, 1789. - Montjoie, 2nd part, 69.

[21] Arthur Young, June 9th, 24th, and 26th. - "La France libre," passim, by C. Desmoulins.

[22] C. Desmoulins, letters to his father, and Arthur Young, June 9th.

[23] Montjoie, 2nd part, 69, 77, 124, 144. C. Desmoulins, letter, of June 24th and the following days.

[24] Etienne Dumont, "Souvenirs," p.72. - C. Desmoulins, letter of; June 24th. - Arthur Young, June 25th. - Buchez and Roux, II. 28.

[25] Bailly, I. 227 and 179. - Monnier, "Recherches sur les causes," etc. I. 289, 291; II.61; -- Malouet, I. 299; II. 10. -- "Actes des Apôtres," V.43. (Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31st, 1790). - Marmontel, I. 28: "The people came even into the Assembly, to encourage their partisans, to select and indicate their victims, and to terrify the feeble with the dreadful trial of open balloting."

[26] Manuscript letters of M. Boullé, deputy, to the municipal authorities of Pontivy, from May 1st, 1789, to September 4th, 1790 (communicated by M. Rosenzweig, archivist at Vannes). June 16th, 1789: "The crowd gathered around the hall . . . was, during these days, from 3,000 to 4,000 persons."

[27] Letters of M. Boullé, June 23rd. "How sublime the moment, that in which we enthusiastically bind ourselves to the country by a new oath! . . . . Why should this moment be selected by one of our number to dishonor himself? His name is now blasted throughout France. And the unfortunate man has children! Suddenly overwhelmed by public contempt he leaves, and falls fainting at the door, exclaiming, 'Ah! this will be my death!' I do not know what has become of him since. What is strange is, he had not behaved badly up to that time, and he voted for the Constitution."

[28] De Ferrières, I. 168. - Malouet, I. 298 (according to him the faction did not number more than ten members), -- idem II. 10. - Dumont, 250.

[29] "Convention nationale" governed France from 21st September 1792 until Oct. 26th 1796. We distinguish between three different assemblies, "la Convention Girondine" 1792-93, "the Mountain," 1793- 94 and "la Thermidorienne, from 1794-1795. (SR).

[30] Declaration of June 23rd, article 15.

[31] Montjoie, 2nd part, 118. -- C. Desmoulins, letters of June 24th and the following days. A faithful narrative by M. de Sainte- Fère, formerly an officer in the French Guard, p.9. -- De Bezenval, III, 413. - Buchez and Roux, II. 35. -- "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893..

[32] Peuchet ("Encyclopédie Méthodique," 1789, quoted by Parent Duchâtelet): "Almost all of the soldiers of the Guard belong to that class (the procurers of public women): many, indeed, only enlist in the corps that they may live at the expense of these unfortunates."

[33] Gouverneur Morris, "Liberty is now the general cry; authority is a name and no longer a reality." (Correspondence with Washington, July 19th.)

[34] Bailly. I. 302. "The King was very well-disposed; his measures were intended only to preserve order and the public peace. . . Du Châtelet was forced by facts to acquit M. de Bezenval of attempts against the people and the country." -- Cf. Marmontel, IV. 183; Mounier, II, 40.

[35] Desmoulins, letter of the 16th July. Buchez and Roux, II. 83.

[36] Trial of the Prince de Lambesc (Paris, 1790), with the eighty- three depositions and the discussion of the testimony. - It is the crowd which began the attack. The troops fired in the air. But one man, a sieur Chauvel, was wounded slightly by the Prince de Lambesc. (Testimony of M. Carboire, p.84, and of Captain de Reinack, p. 101.) "M. le Prince de Lambesc, mounted on a gray horse with a gray saddle without holsters or pistols, had scarcely entered the garden when a dozen persons jumped at the mane and bridle of his horse and made every effort to drag him off. A small man in gray clothes fired at him with a pistol. . . . The prince tried hard to free himself, and succeeded by making his horse rear up and by flourishing his sword; without, however, up to this time, wounding any one. . . . He deposes that he saw the prince strike a man on the head with the flat of his saber who was trying to close the turning-bridge, which would have cut off the retreat of his troops The troops did no more than try to keep off the crowd which assailed them with stones, and even with firearms, from the top of the terraces." -- The man who tried to close the bridge had seized the prince's horse with one hand; the wound he received was a scratch about 23 lines long, which was dressed and cured with a bandage soaked in brandy. All the details of the affair prove that the patience and humanity of the officer, were extreme. Nevertheless "on the following day, the 13th, some one posted a written placard on the crossing Bussy recommending the citizens of Paris to seize the prince and quarter him at once." -- (Deposition of M. Cosson, p.114.

[37] Bailly, I. 3, 6. -- Marmontel, IV. 310

[38] Montjoie, part 3, 86. "I talked with those who guarded the château of the Tuileries. They did not belong to Paris. . . . A frightful physiognomy and hideous apparel." Montjoie, not to be trusted in many places, merits consultation for little facts of which he was an eye-witness. -- Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 374. - Dusaulx, "L'�uvre des sept jours," 352. - Revue Historique," March, 1876. Interrogatory of Desnot. His occupation during the 13th of July (published by Guiffrey).

[39] Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I. 531. "Peaceable people fled at the sight of these groups of strange, frantic vagabonds. Everybody closed their houses . . . . When I reached home, in the Saint- Denis quarter, several of these brigands caused great alarm by firing off guns in the air."

[40] Dusaulx, 379.

[41] Dusaulx, 359, 360, 361, 288, 336. " In effect their entreaties resembled commands, and, more than once, it was impossible to resist them."

[42] Dusaulx, 447 (Deposition of the invalides).-- "Revue Rétrospective," IV. 282 (Narrative of the commander of the thirty- two Swiss Guards).

[43] Marmontel, IV. 317.

[44] Dusaulx, 454. "The soldiers replied that they would accept whatever happened rather than cause the destruction of so great a number of their fellow-citizens."

[45] Dusaulx, 447. The number of combatants, maimed, wounded, dead, and living, is 825. -- Marmontel, IV. 320. "To the number of victors, which has been carried up to 800, people have been added who were never near the place."

[46] "Memoires", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, 1767-1862), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. p.52. Pasquier was eye-witness. He leaned against the fence of the Beaumarchais garden and looked on, with mademoiselle Contat, the actress, at his side, who had left her carriage in the Place- Royale. -- Marat, "L'ami du peuple," No. 530. "When an unheard-of conjunction of circumstances had caused the fall of the badly defended walls of the Bastille, under the efforts of a handful of soldiers and a troop of unfortunate creatures, most of them Germans and almost all provincials, the Parisians presented themselves the fortress, curiosity alone having led them there."

[47] Narrative of the commander of the thirty-two Swiss. -- Narrative of Cholat, wine-dealer, one of the victors. -- Examination of Desnot (who cut off the head of M. de Launay).

[48] Montjoie, part 3, 85. -- Dusaulx, 355, 287, 368.

[49] Nothing more. No Witness states that he had seen the pretended note to M. do Launay. According to Dusaulx, he could not have had either the time or the means to write it.

[50] Bailly, II. 32, 74, 88, 90, 95, 108, 117, 137, 158, 174. "I gave orders which were neither obeyed nor listened to. . . . They gave me to understand that I was not safe." (July 15th.) "In these sad times one enemy and one calumnious report sufficed to excite the multitude. All who had formerly held power, all who had annoyed or restrained the insurrectionists, were sure of being arrested."

[51] M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," III. 264. Letter of July 16th, 1789. "I have already saved the lives of six persons whom they were hanging in different quarters."

[52] Poujoulat. "Histoire de la Révolution Française," p.100 (with supporting documents). Procès-verbaux of the Provincial Assembly, lle-de-France (1787), p.127.

[53] For instance: "He is severe with his peasants." -- "He gives them no bread, and he wants them then to eat grass." "He wants them to eat grass like horses."-- "He has said that they could very well eat hay, and that they are no better than horses." -- The same story is found in many of the contemporary jacqueries.

[54] Bailly, II. 108. "The people, less enlightened and as imperious as despots, recognize no positive signs of good administration but success."

[55] Bailly, II, 108, 95. - Malouet, II, 14.

[56] De Ferrières, I. 168.

CHAPTER III.

I. Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789. - Destruction of the Government. - To whom does real power belong?

However bad a particular government may be, there is something still worse, and that is the suppression of all government. For, it is owing to government that human wills form a harmony instead of chaos. It serves society as the brain serves a living being. Incapable, inconsiderate, extravagant, engrossing, it often abuses its position, overstraining or misleading the body for which it should care, and which it should direct. But, taking all things into account, whatever it may do, more good than harm is done, for through it the body stands erect, marches on and guides its steps. Without it there is no organized deliberate action, serviceable to the whole body. In it alone do we find the comprehensive views, knowledge of the members of which it consists and of their aims, an idea of outward relationships, full and accurate information, in short, the superior intelligence which conceives what is best for the common interests, and adapts means to ends. If it falters and is no longer obeyed, if it is forced and pushed from without by a violent pressure, it ceases to control public affairs, and the social organization retrogrades by many steps. Through the dissolution of society, and the isolation of individuals, each man returns to his original feeble state, while power is vested in passing aggregates that like whirlwinds spring up from the human dust. -- One may divine how this power, which the most competent find it difficult to apply properly, is exercised by bands of men springing out of nowhere. It is a matter of supplies, of their possessions, price and distribution. It is a matter of taxes, its proportion, apportionment and collection; of private property, its varieties, rights, and limitations It is a problem of public authority, its allocation and its limits; of all those delicate cogwheels which, working into each other, constitute the great economic, social, and political machine. Each band in its own canton lays its rude hands on the wheels within its reach. They wrench or break them haphazardly, under the impulse of the moment, heedless and indifferent to consequences, even when the reaction of to-morrow crushes them in the ruin that they cause to day. Thus do unchained Negroes, each pulling and hauling his own way, undertake to manage a ship of which they have just obtained mastery. -- In such a state of things white men are hardly worth more than black ones. For, not only is the band, whose aim is violence, composed of those who are most destitute, most wildly enthusiastic, and most inclined to destructiveness and to license. But also, as this band tumultuously carries out its violent action, each individual the most brutal, the most irrational, and most corrupt, descends lower than himself, even to the darkness, the madness, and the savagery of the dregs of society. In fact, a man who in the interchange of blows, would resist the excitement of murder, and not use his strength like a savage, must be familiar with arms. He must be accustomed to danger, be cool-blooded, alive to the sentiment of honor, and above all, sensitive to that stern military code which, to the imagination of the soldier, ever holds out to him the provost's gibbet to which he is sure to rise, should he strike one blow too many. Should all these restraints, inward as well as outward, be wanting, the man plunges into insurrection. He is a novice in the acts of violence, which he carries out. He has no fear of the law, because he abolishes it. The action begun carries him further than he intended to go. Peril and resistance exasperate his anger. He catches the fever from contact with those who are fevered, and follows robbers who have become his comrades.[1] Add to this the clamors, the drunkenness, the spectacle of destruction, the nervous tremor of the body strained beyond its powers of endurance, and we can comprehend how, from the peasant, the laborer, and the bourgeois, pacified and tamed by an old civilization, we see all of a sudden spring forth the barbarian. Or still worse, the primitive animal, the grinning, sanguinary, wanton baboon, who giggles while he slays, and gambols over the ruin he has accomplished. Such is the actual government to which France is given up, and after eighteen months' experience, the best qualified, most judicious and profoundest observer of the Revolution will find nothing to compare it to but the invasion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.[2] "The Huns, the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Goths will come neither from the north nor from the Black Sea; they are in our very midst."

II. The provinces. - Destruction of old Authorities. - Inadequacy of new Authorities

When in a building the principal beam gives way, cracks follow and multiply, and the secondary joists fall in one by one for lack of the prop, which supported them. In a similar manner the authority of the King being broken, all the powers, which he delegated, fall to the ground.[3] Intendants, parliaments, military commands, grand provosts, administrative, judicial, and police functionaries in every province, and of every branch of the service, who maintain order and protect property, taught by the murder of M. de Launey, the imprisonment of M. de Besenval, the flight of Marshal de Broglie, the assassinations of Foullon and Bertier, know what it costs should they try to perform their duties. Should it be forgotten local insurrections intervene, and keep them in mind of it.

The officer in command in Burgundy is a prisoner at Dijon, with a guard at his door; and he is not allowed to speak with any one without permission, and without the presence of witnesses.[4] The Commandant of Caen is besieged in the old palace and capitulates. The Commandant of Bordeaux surrenders Château-Trompette with its guns and equipment. The Commandant at Metz, who remains firm, suffers the insults and the orders of the populace. The Commandant of Brittany wanders about his province "like a vagabond," while at Rennes his people, furniture, and plate are kept as pledges. As soon as he sets foot in Normandy he is surrounded, and a sentinel is placed at his door. -- The Intendant of Besançon takes to flight; that of Rouen sees his dwelling sacked from top to bottom, and escapes amid the shouts of a mob demanding his head. - At Rennes, the Dean of the Parliament is arrested, maltreated, kept in his room with a guard over him, and then, although ill, sent out of the town under an escort. -- At Strasbourg "thirty-six houses of magistrates are marked for pillage."[5] -- At Besançon, the President of the Parliament is constrained to let out of prison the insurgents arrested in a late out-break, and to publicly burn the whole of the papers belonging to the prosecution. - In Alsace, since the beginning of the troubles, the provosts were obliged to fly, the bailiffs and manorial judges hid themselves, the forest-inspectors ran away, and the houses of the guards were demolished. One man, sixty years of age, is outrageously beaten and marched about the village, the people, meanwhile, pulling out his hair; nothing remains of his dwelling but the walls and a portion of the roof. All his furniture and effects are broken up, burnt or stolen. He is forced to sign, along with his wife, an act by which he binds himself to refund all penalties inflicted by him, and to abandon all claims for damages for the injuries to which he has just been subjected. -- In Franche-Comté the authorities dare not condemn delinquents, and the police do not arrest them; the military commandant writes that "crimes of every kind are on the increase, and that he has no means of punishing them." Insubordination is permanent in all the provinces; one of the provincial commissions states with sadness:

"When all powers are in confusion and annihilated, when public force no longer exists, when all ties are sundered, when every individual considers himself relieved from all kinds of obligation, when public authority no longer dares make itself felt, and it is a crime to have been clothed with it, what can be expected of our efforts to restore order? "[6]

All that remains of this great demolished State is forty thousand groups of people, each separated and isolated, in towns and small market villages where municipal bodies, elected committees, and improvised National Guards strive to prevent the worst excesses. -- But these local chiefs are novices; they are human, and they are timid. Chosen by acclamation they believe in popular rights; in the midst of riots they feel themselves in danger. Hence, they generally obey the crowd.

"Rarely," says one of the provincial commissions reports, "do the municipal authorities issue a summons; they allow the greatest excesses rather than enter upon prosecutions for which, sooner or later, they may be held responsible by their fellow-citizens. . . . Municipal bodies have no longer the power to resist anything."

Especially in the rural districts the mayor or syndic, who is a farmer, makes it his first aim to make no enemies, and would resign his place if it were to bring him any "unpleasantness" with it. His rule in the towns, and especially in large cities, is almost as lax and more precarious, because explosive material is accumulated here to a much larger extent, and the municipal officers, in their arm- chairs at the town-hall, sit over a mine which may explode at any time. To-morrow, perhaps, some resolution passed at a tavern in the suburbs, or some incendiary newspaper just received from Paris, will furnish the spark. - No other defense against the populace is at hand than the sentimental proclamations of the National Assembly, the useless presence of troops who stand by and look on, and the uncertain help of a National Guard which will arrive too late. Occasionally these townspeople, who are now the rulers, utter a cry of distress from under the hands of the sovereigns of the street who grasp them by the throat. At Puy-en-Velay,[7] a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, the présidial,[8] the committee of twenty-four commissioners, a body of two hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men of the guard of burgesses, are "paralyzed, and completely stupefied, by the vile populace. A mild treatment only increases its insubordination and insolence." This populace proscribes whomsoever it pleases, and six days ago a gibbet, erected by its hands, has announced to the new magistrates the fate that awaits them.

" What will become of us this winter," they exclaim, "in our impoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the prey of wild beasts!"

III. Public feeling. - Famine

These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, their misery has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid waste, and the soil broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce hailstorm, and a deluge of rain. In the south, the crop proved to be moderate and even insufficient.

"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc," writes the intendant,[9] "would be to give an account of calamities of every description. The panic which prevails in all communities, and which is stronger than all laws, stops traffic, and would cause famine even in the midst of plenty. Commodities are enormously expensive, and there is a lack of cash. Communities are ruined by the enormous outlays to which they are exposed: The payment of the deputies to the seneschal's court, the establishment of the burgess guards, guardhouses for this militia, and the purchase of arms, uniforms, and outlays in forming communes and permanent councils. To this must be add the cost of the printing of all kinds, and the publication of trivial deliberations. Further the loss of time due to disturbances occasioned by these circumstances, and the utter stagnation of manufactures and of trade." All these causes combined "have reduced Languedoc to the last extremity."-

In the Center, and in the North, where the crops are good, provisions are not less scarce, because wheat is not put in circulation, and is kept concealed.

"For five months," writes the municipal assembly of Louviers,[10] "not a farmer has made his appearance in the markets of this town. Such a circumstance was never known before, although, from time to time, high prices have prevailed to a considerable extent. On the contrary, the markets were always well supplied in proportion to the high price of grain."

In vain the municipality orders the surrounding forty-seven parishes to provide them with wheat. They pay no attention to the mandate; each for himself and each for his own house; the intendant is no longer present to compel local interests to give way to public interests.

"In the wheat districts around us," says a letter from one of the Burgundy towns, "we cannot rely on being able to make free purchases. Special regulations, supported by the civic guard, prevent grain from being sent out, and put a stop to its circulation. The adjacent markets are of no use to us. Not a sack of grain has been brought into our market for about eight months."

At Troyes, bread costs four sous per pound, at Bar-sur-Aube, and in the vicinity, four and a half sous per pound. The artisan who is out of work now earns twelve sous a day at the relief works, and, on going into the country, he sees that the grain crop is good. What conclusion can he come to but that the dearth is due to the monopolists, and that, if he should die of hunger, it would be because those scoundrels have starved him? -- By virtue of this reasoning whoever has to do with these provisions, whether proprietor, farmer, merchant or administrator, all are considered traitors. It is plain that there is a plot against the people: the government, the Queen, the clergy, the nobles are all parties to it; and likewise the magistrates and the wealthy amongst the bourgeoisie and the rich. A rumor is current in the Ile-de-France that sacks of flour are thrown into the Seine, and that the cavalry horses are purposely made to eat unripe wheat in stalk. In Brittany, it is maintained that grain is exported and stored up abroad. In Touraine, it is certain that this or that wholesale dealer allows it to sprout in his granaries rather than sell it. At Troyes, a story prevails that another has poisoned his flour with alum and arsenic, commissioned to do so by the bakers. -- Conceive the effect of suspicions like these upon a suffering multitude! A wave of hatred ascends from the empty stomach to the morbid brain. The people are everywhere in quest of their imaginary enemies, plunging forward with closed eyes no matter on whom or on what, not merely with all the weight of their mass, but with all the energy of their fury.

IV.

Panic. - General arming.

>From the earliest of these weeks they were already alarmed. Accustomed to being led, the human herd is scared at being left to itself; it misses its leaders who it has trodden under foot; in throwing off their trammels it has deprived itself of their protection. It feels lonely, in an unknown country, exposed to dangers of which it is ignorant, and against which it is unable to guard itself. Now that the shepherds are slain or disarmed, suppose the wolves should unexpectedly appear! - And there are wolves - I mean vagabonds and criminals - who have but just issued out of the darkness. They have robbed and burned, and are to be found at every insurrection. Now that the police force no longer puts them down, they show themselves instead of keeping themselves concealed. They have only to lie in wait and come forth in a band, and both life and property will be at their mercy. - Deep anxiety, a vague feeling of dread, spreads through both town and country: towards the end of July the panic, like a blinding, suffocating whirl of dusts, suddenly sweeps over hundreds of leagues of territory. The brigands are coming! They are burning the crops! They are only six leagues off, and then only two - the refugees who have run away from the disorder prove it.

On the 28th of July, at Angoulême,[11] the alarm bell is heard about three o'clock in the afternoon; the drums beat to arms, and cannon are mounted on the ramparts. The town has to be put in a state of defense against 15,000 bandits who are approaching, and from the walls a cloud of dust on the road is discovered with terror. It proves to be the post-wagon on its way to Bordeaux. After this the number of brigands is reduced to 1,500, but there is no doubt that they are ravaging the country. At nine o'clock in the evening 20,000 men are under arms, and thus they pass the night, always listening without hearing anything. Towards three o'clock in the morning there is another alarm, the church bells ringing and the people forming a battle array. They are convinced that the brigands have burned Ruffec, Vernenil, La Rochefoucauld, and other places. The next day countrymen flock in to give their aid against bandits who are still absent. "At nine o'clock," says a witness, "we had 40,000 men in the town, to whom we showed our gratitude." As the bandits do not show themselves, it must be because they are concealed; a hundred horsemen, a large number of men on foot, start out to search the forest of Braçonne, and to their great surprise they find nothing. But the terror is not allayed; "during the following days a guard is kept mounted, and companies are enrolled among the townsmen," while Bordeaux, duly informed, dispatches a courier to offer the support of 20,000 men and even 30,000. "What is surprising," adds the narrator, is that at ten leagues off in the neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbance took place, and at about the same hour." -- All that is required is that a girl, returning to the village at night, should meet two men who do not belong to the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne. Whole parishes, on the strength of this, betake themselves at night to the woods, abandoning their houses, and carrying away their furniture; "the fugitives trod down and destroyed their own crops; pregnant women were injured in the forests, and others lost their wits." Fear lends them wings. Two years after this, Madame Campan was shown a rocky peak on which a woman had taken refuge, and from which she was obliged to be let down with ropes. -- The people at last return to their homes, and resume their usual routines. But such large masses are not unsettled with impunity; a tumult like this is, in itself, a lively source of alarm. As the country did rise, it must have been on account of threatened danger and if the peril was not due to brigands, it must have come from some other quarter. Arthur Young, at Dijon and in Alsace,[12] hears at the public dinner tables that the Queen had formed a plot to undermine the National Assembly and to massacre all Paris. Later on he is arrested in a village near Clermont, and examined because he is evidently conspiring with the Queen and the Comte d'Entraigues to blow up the town and send the survivors to the galleys.

No argument, no experience has any effect against the multiplying phantoms of an over-excited imagination. Henceforth every commune, and every man, provide themselves with arms and keep them ready for use. The peasant searches his hoard, and "finds from ten to twelve francs for the purchase of a gun." "A national militia is found in the poorest village." Burgess guards and companies of volunteers patrol all the towns. Military commanders deliver arms, ammunition, and equipment, on the requisition of municipal bodies, while, in case of refusal, the arsenals are pillaged, and, voluntarily or by force, four hundred thousand guns thus pass into the hands of the people in six months.[13] Not content with this they must have cannon. Brest having demanded two, every town in Brittany does the same thing; their self-esteem is at stake as well as a need of feeling themselves strong. - They lack nothing now to render themselves masters. All authority, all force, every means of constraint and of intimidation is in their hands, and in theirs alone; and these sovereign hands have nothing to guide them in this actual interregnum of all legal powers, but the wild or murderous suggestions of hunger or distrust.

Attacks on public individuals and public property. - At Strasbourg. - At Cherbourg. - At Mauberge. - At Rouen. - At Besançon. - At Troyes.

It would take too much space to recount all the violent acts which were committed, - convoys arrested, grain pillaged, millers and corn merchants hung, decapitated, slaughtered, farmers called upon under the threats of death to give up even the seed reserved for sowing, proprietors ransomed and houses sacked.[14] These outrages, unpunished, tolerated and even excused or badly suppressed, are constantly repeated, and are, at first, directed against public men and public property. As is commonly the case, the rabble head the march and stamp the character of the whole insurrection.

On the 19th of July, at Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return to office, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, which it witnesses. Five or six hundred beggars,[15] their numbers soon increased by the petty tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the magistrates only having time to fly through a back door. The soldiers, on their part, with arms in their hands, allow all these things to go on, while several of them spur the assailants on. The windows are dashed to pieces under a hailstorm of stones, the doors are forced with iron crowbars, and the populace enter amid a burst of acclamations from the spectators. Immediately, through every opening in the building, which has a facade frontage of eighty feet, " there is a shower of shutters, sashes, chairs, tables, sofas, books and papers, and then another of tiles, boards, balconies and fragments of wood-work." The public archives are thrown to the wind, and the surrounding streets are strewed with them; the letters of enfranchisement, the charters of privileges, all the authentic acts which, since Louis XIV, have guaranteed the liberties of the town, perish in the flames. Some of the rabble in the cellars stave in casks of precious wine; fifteen thousand measures of it are lost, making a pool five feet deep in which several are drowned. Others, loaded with booty, go away under the eyes of the soldiers without being arrested. The havoc continues for three days; a number of houses belonging to some of the magistrates "are sacked from garret to cellar." When the honest citizens at last obtain arms and restore order, they are content with the hanging of one of the robbers; although, in order to please the people, the magistrates are changed and the price of bread and meat is reduced. - It is not surprising that after such tactics, and with such rewards, the riot should spread through the neighborhood far and near: in fact, starting from Strasbourg it overruns Alsace, while in the country as in the city, there are always drunkards and rascals found to head it.

No matter where, be it in the East, in the West, or in the North, the instigators are always of this stamp. At Cherbourg, on the 21st of July,[16] the two leaders of the riot are " highway robbers," who place themselves at the head of women of the suburbs, foreign sailors, the populace of the harbor, and it includes soldiers in workmen's smocks. They force the delivery of the keys of the grain warehouses, and wreck the dwellings of the three richest merchants, also that of M. de Garantot, the sub-delegate: "All records and papers are burnt; at M. de Garantot's alone the loss is estimated at more than 100,000 crowns at least." -- The same instinct of destruction prevails everywhere, a sort of envious fury against all who possess, command, or enjoy anything. At Maubeuge, on the 27th of July, at the very assembly of the representatives of the commune,[17] the rabble interferes directly in its usual fashion. A band of nail and gun-makers takes possession of the town-hall, and obliges the mayor to reduce the price of bread. Almost immediately after this another band follows uttering cries of death, and smashes the windows, while the garrison, which has been ordered out, quietly contemplates the damage done. Death to the mayor, to all rulers, and to all employees! The rioters force open the prisons, set the prisoners free, and attack the tax-offices. The octroi offices are demolished from top to bottom: they pull down the harbor offices and throw the scales and weights into the river. All the custom and excise stores are carried off; and the officials are compelled to give acquaintances. The houses of the registrar and of the sheriff, that of the revenue comptroller, two hundred yards outside the town, are sacked; the doors and the windows are smashed, the furniture and linen is torn to shreds, and the plate and jewelry is thrown into the wells. The same havoc is committed in the mayor's town-house, also in his country-house a league off. "Not a window, not a door, not one article or eatable " is preserved; their work, moreover, is conscientiously done, without stopping a moment, "from ten in the evening up to ten in the morning on the following day." In addition to this the mayor, who has served for thirty-four years, resigns his office at the solicitation of the well-disposed but terrified people, and leaves the country. -- At Rouen, after the 24th of July,[18] a written placard shows, by its orthography and its style, what sort of intellects composed it and what kind of actions are to follow it:

"Nation, you have here four heads to strike off, those of Pontcarry (the first president), Maussion (the intendant), Godard de Belb�uf (the attorney-general), and Durand (the attorney of the King in the town). Without this we are lost, and if you do not do it, people will take you for a heartless nation."

Nothing could be more explicit. The municipal body, however, to whom the Parliament denounces this list of proscriptions, replies, with its forced optimism, that

"no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed; he may and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling, satisfied that there is not a person in the city who would not fly to his rescue."

This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as it pleases. On the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on in security for ten days. One of them is a man named Jourdain, a lawyer of Lisieux, and, like most of his brethren, a demagogue in principles; the other is a strolling actor from Paris named Bordier, famous in the part of harlequin,[19] a bully in a house of ill-fame, "a night-rover and drunkard, and who, fearing neither God nor devil," has taken up patriotism, and comes down into the provinces to play tragedy, and that, tragedy in real life. The fifth act begins on the night of the 3rd of August, with Bordier and Jourdain as the principal actors, and behind them the rabble along with several companies of fresh volunteers. A shout is heard, "Death to the monopolists! death to Maussion! we must have his head!" They pillage his hotel: many of them become intoxicated and fall asleep in his cellar. The revenue offices, the toll-gates of the town, the excise office, all buildings in which the royal revenue is collected, are wrecked. Immense bonfires are lighted in the streets and on the old market square; furniture, clothes, papers, kitchen utensils, are all thrown in pell-mell, while carriages are dragged out and tumbled into the Seine. It is only when the town-hall is attacked that the National Guard, beginning to be alarmed, makes up its mind to seize Bordier and some others. The following morning, however, at the shout of Carabo, and led by Jourdain, the prison is forced, Bordier set free, and the intendant's residence, with its offices, is sacked a second time. When, finally, the two rascals are taken and led to the scaffold, the populace is so strongly in their favor as to require the pointing of loaded cannon on them to keep them down. -- At Besançon,[20] on the 13th of August, the leaders consist of the servant of an exhibitor of wild animals, two goal-birds of whom one has already been branded in consequence of a riot, and a number of "inhabitants of ill-repute," who, towards evening, spread through the town along with the soldiers. The gunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the throat and want to throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the commandant, M. de Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing to give it they tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong to the Third-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters: subsequently they demand the head of the intendant, M. de Caumartin, forcibly enter his dwelling and break up his furniture. On the following day the rabble and the soldiers enter the coffee-houses, the convents, and the inns, and demand to be served with wine and eatables as much as they want, and then, heated by drink, they burn the excise offices, force open several prisons, and set free all the smugglers and deserters. To put an end to this saturnalia a grand banquet in the open air is suggested, in which the National Guard is to fraternize with the whole garrison; but the banquet turns into a drinking-bout, entire companies remaining under the tables dead drunk; other companies carry away with them four hogsheads of wine, and the rest, finding themselves left in the lurch, are scattered abroad outside the walls in order to rob the cellars of the neighboring villages. The next day, encouraged by the example set them, a portion of the garrison, accompanied by a number of workmen, repeat the expedition in the country. Finally, after four days of this orgy, to prevent Besançon and its outskirts from being indefinitely treated as a conquered country, the burgess guard, in alliance with the soldiers who have remained loyal, rebel against the rebellion, go in quest of the marauders and hang two of them that same evening. -- Such is rioting![21] an irruption of brute force which, turned loose on the habitations of men, can do nothing but gorge itself, waste, break, destroy, and do damage to itself; and if we follow the details of local history, we see how, in these days, similar outbreaks of violence might be expected at any time.

At Troyes,[22] on the 18th of July, a market-day, the peasants refuse to pay the entrance duties; the octroi having been suppressed at Paris, it ought also to be suppressed at Troyes. The populace, excited by this first disorderly act, gather into a mob for the purpose of dividing the grain and arms amongst themselves, and the next day the town-hall is invested by seven or eight thousand men, armed with clubs and stones. The day after, a band, recruited in the surrounding villages, armed with flails, shovels, and pitch- forks, enters under the leadership of a joiner who marches at the head of it with a drawn saber; fortunately, "all the honest folks among the burgesses "immediately form themselves into a National Guard, and this first attempt at a Jacquerie is put down. But the agitation continues, and false rumors constantly keep it up. - On the 29th of July, on the report being circulated that five hundred "brigands" had left Paris and were coming to ravage the country, the alarm bell sounds in the villages, and the peasants go forth armed. Henceforth, a vague idea of some impending danger fills all minds; the necessity of defense and of guarding against enemies is maintained. The new demagogues avail themselves of this to keep their hold on the people, and when the time comes, to use it against their chiefs. - It is of no use to assure the people that the latter are patriots; that the recently welcomed Necker with enthusiastic shouts; that the priests, the monks, and canons were the first to adopt the national cockade; that the nobles of the city and its environs are the most liberal in France; that, on the 20th of July, the burgess guard saved the town; that all the wealthy give to the national workshops; that Mayor Huez, "a venerable and honest magistrate," is a benefactor to the poor and to the public. All the old leaders are objects of distrust. -- On the 8th of August, a mob demands the dismissal of the dragoons, arms for all volunteers, bread at two sous the pound, and the freedom of all prisoners. On the 19th of August the National Guard rejects its old officers as aristocrats, and elects new ones. On the 27th of August, the crowd invade the town-hall and distribute the arms amongst themselves. On the 5th of September, two hundred men, led by Truelle, president of the new committee, force the salt depot and have salt delivered to them at six sous per pound. -- Meanwhile, in the lowest quarters of the city, a story is concocted to the effect that if wheat is scarce it is because Huez, the mayor, and M. de St. Georges, the old commandant, are monopolists, and now they say of Huez what they said five weeks before of Foulon, that "he wants to make the people eat hay." The many-headed brute growls fiercely and is about to spring. As usual, instead of restraining him, they try to manage him.

"You must put your authority aside for a moment," writes the deputy of Troyes to the sheriffs," and act towards the people as to a friend; be as gentle with them as you would be with your equals, and rest assured that they are capable of responding to it."

Thus does Huez act, and he even does more, paying no attention to their menaces, refusing to provide for his own safety and almost offering himself as a sacrifice.

"I have wronged no one," he exclaimed; "why should any one bear me ill-will?"

His sole precaution is to provide something for the unfortunate poor when he is gone: he bequeaths in his will 18,000 livres to the poor, and, on the eve of his death, sends 100 crowns to the bureau of charity. But what avail self-abnegation and beneficence against blind, insane rage! On the 9th of September, three loads of flour proving to be unsound, the people collect and shout out,

"Down with the flour-dealers! Down with machinery! Down with the mayor! Death to the mayor, and let Truelle be put in his place! "

Huez, on leaving his court-room, is knocked down, murdered by kicks and blows, throttled, dragged to the reception hall, struck on his head with a wooden-shoe and pitched down the grand staircase. The municipal officers strive in vain to protect him; a rope is put around his neck and they begin to drag him along. A priest, who begs to be allowed at least to save his soul, is repulsed and beaten. A woman jumps on the prostrate old man, stamps on his face and repeatedly thrusts her scissors in his eyes. He is dragged along with the rope around his neck up to the Pont de la Selle, and thrown into the neighboring ford, and then drawn out, again dragged through the streets and in the gutters, with a bunch of hay crammed in his mouth.[23]

In the meantime, his house as well as that of the lieutenant of police, that of the notary Guyot, and that of M. de Saint-Georges, are sacked; the pillaging and destruction lasts four hours; at the notary's house, six hundred bottles of wine are consumed or carried off; objects of value are divided, and the rest, even down to the iron balcony, is demolished or broken; the rioters cry out, on leaving, that they have still to burn twenty-seven houses, and to take twenty-seven heads. "No one at Troyes went to bed that fatal night."- During the succeeding days, for nearly two weeks, society seems to be dissolved. Placards posted about the streets proscribe municipal officers, canons, divines, privileged persons, prominent merchants, and even ladies of charity; the latter are so frightened that they throw up their office, while a number of persons move off into the country; others barricade themselves in their dwellings and only open their doors with saber in hand. Not until the 26th does the orderly class rally sufficiently to resume the ascendancy and arrest the miscreants. -- Such is public life in France after the 14th of July: the magistrates in each town feel that they are at the mercy of a band of savages and sometimes of cannibals. Those of Troyes had just tortured Huez after the fashion of Hurons, while those of Caen did worse; Major de Belzance, not less innocent, and under sworn protection,[24] was cut to pieces like Laperouse in the Fiji Islands, and a woman ate his heart.

VI. Taxes are no longer paid. - Devastation of the Forests. - The new game laws.

It is, under such circumstances, possible to foretell whether taxes come in, and whether municipalities that sway about in every popular breeze will have the authority to collect the odious revenues. -- Towards the end of September,[25] I find a list of thirty-six committees or municipal bodies which, within a radius of fifty leagues around Paris, refuse to ensure the collection of taxes. One of them tolerates the sale of contraband salt, in order not to excite a riot. Another takes the precaution to disarm the employees in the excise department. In a third the municipal officers were the first to provide themselves with contraband salt and contraband tobacco.

At Peronne and at Ham, the order having come to restore the toll- houses, the people destroy the soldiers' quarters, conduct all the employees to their homes, and order them to leave within twenty-four hours, under penalty of death. After twenty months' resistance Paris will end the matter by forcing the National Assembly to give in and by obtaining the final suppression of its octroi.[26] -- Of all the creditors whose hand each one felt on his shoulders, that of the exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest; hence this is the first whose grasp is to be shaken off; there is none which is more heartily detested or which receives harsher treatment. Especially against collectors of the salt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the fury is universal. These, everywhere,[27] are in danger of their lives and are obliged to fly. At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to pieces the director of the excise." At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house is devastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife to the throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou must perish that there may be no more of thy race." For four hours the clerks are on the point of being torn to pieces; through the entreaties of the lord of the manor, who sees scythes and sabers aimed at his own head, they are released only on the condition that they "abjure their employment." -- Again, for two months following the taking of the Bastille, insurrections break out by hundreds, like a volley of musketry, against indirect taxation. >From the 23rd of July the Intendant of Champagne reports that "the uprising is general in almost all the towns under his command." On the following day the Intendant of Alençon writes that, in his province, "the royal dues will no longer be paid anywhere." On the 7th of August, M. Necker states to the National Assembly that in the two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon it has been necessary to reduce the price of salt one-half; that "in an infinity of places " the collection of the excise is stopped or suspended; that the smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by "convoys and by open force " in Picardy, in Lorraine, and in the Trois-Évêchés; that the indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general and the receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep their engagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to their energy.

"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a prey to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to constrain them and to secure to the State its dues? -- The clergy, the nobles, wealthy townsmen, and certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even sometimes give spontaneously. But in society those who possess intelligence, who are in easy circumstances and conscientious, form a small select class; the great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go only under constraint; there is but one way to collect the taxes, and that is to extort them. From time immemorial, direct taxes in France have been collected only by bailiffs and seizures; which is not surprising, as they take away a full half of the net income. Now that the peasants of each village are armed and form a band, let the collector come and make seizures if he dare ! -- " Immediately after the decree on the equality of the taxes," writes the provincial commission of Alsace,[28] "the people generally refused to make any payments, until those who were exempt and privileged should have been inscribed on the local lists." In many places the peasants threaten to obtain the reimbursement of their installments, while in others they insist that the decree should be retrospective and that the new rate-payers should pay for the past year. "No collector dare send an official to distrain; none that are sent dare fulfill their mission." -- " It is not the good bourgeois" of whom there is any fear, "but the rabble who make the latter and every one else afraid of them;" resistance and disorder everywhere come from "people that have nothing to lose." -- Not only do they shake off taxation, but they usurp property, and declare that, being the Nation, whatever belongs to the Nation belongs to them. The forests of Alsace are laid waste, the seignorial as well as communal, and wantonly destroyed with the wastefulness of children or of maniacs. "In many places, to avoid the trouble of removing the woods, they are burnt, and the people content themselves with carrying off the ashes." -- After the decrees of August 4th, and in spite of the law which licenses the proprietor only to hunt on his own grounds, the impulse to break the law becomes irresistible. Every man who can procure a gun begins operations;[29] the crops which are still standing are trodden under foot, the lordly residences are invaded and the palings are scaled; the King himself at Versailles is wakened by shots fired in his park. Stags, fawns, deer, wild boars, hares, and rabbits, are slain by thousands, cooked with stolen wood, and eaten up on the spot. There is a constant discharge of musketry throughout France for more than two months, and, as on an American prairie, every living animal belongs to him who kills it. At Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the hares and partridges of the barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhausted of fish; the court of the chateau even is entered, to fire on the pigeon-house and destroy the pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, of which they have too many, are offered to the proprietor for sale -- It is "the patriots" of the village with "smugglers and bad characters" belonging to the neighborhood who make this expedition; they are seen in the front ranks of every act of violence, and it is not difficult to foresee that, under their leadership, attacks on public persons and public property will be followed by attacks on private persons and private property.

VII.

Attack upon private individuals and private property. - Aristocrats denounced to the people as their enemies. - Effect of news from Paris.- Influence of the village attorneys. - Isolated acts of violence. - A general rising of the peasantry in the east. - War against the castles, feudal estates, and property. - Preparations for other Jacqueries.

Indeed, an outlawed class already exists, they are called " aristocrats." This deadly term, applied at first to the nobles and prelates in the States-General who declined to take part in the reunion of the three orders, is extended so as to embrace all whose titles, offices, alliances, and manner of living distinguish them from the multitude. That which entitled them to respect is that which marks them out as objects of ill-will; while the people, who, though suffering from their privileges, did not regard them personally with hatred, are now taught to consider them as their enemies. Each, on his own estate, is held accountable for the evil designs attributed to his brethren at Versailles, and, on the false report of a plot at the center, the peasants classify him as one of the conspirators.[30] Thus does the peasant jacquerie commence, and the fanatics who have fanned the flame in Paris are to do the same in the provinces. "You wish to know the authors of the agitation," writes a sensible man to the committee of investigation; "you will find them amongst the deputies of the Third-Estate," and especially among the attorneys and advocates. "These dispatch incendiary letters to their constituents, which letters are received by municipal bodies alike composed of attorneys and of advocates.... they are read aloud in the public squares, while copies of them are distributed among all the villages. In these villages, if any one knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the manor, it is the legal practitioner," the born enemy of the lord of the manor, whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered by his power, and never failing to blacken everything.[31] It is highly probable that he is the one who composes and circulates the placards calling on the people, in the King's name, to resort to violence. -- At Secondigny, in Poitou, on the 23rd of July,[32] the laborers in the forest receive a letter "which summons them to attack all the country gentlemen round about, and to massacre without mercy all those who refuse to renounce their privileges.... promising them that not only will their crimes go unpunished, but that they will even be rewarded." M. Despretz-Montpezat, correspondent of the deputies of the nobles, is seized, and dragged with his son to the dwelling of the procurator-fiscal, to force him to give his signature; the inhabitants are forbidden to render him assistance "on pain of death and fire." "Sign," they exclaim, "or we will tear out your heart, and set fire to this house !" At this moment the neighboring notary, who is doubtless an accomplice, appears with a stamped paper, and says to him, "Monsieur, I have just come from Niort, where the Third-Estate has done the same thing to all the gentlemen of the town; one, who refused, was cut to pieces before our eyes." -- "We are compelled to sign renunciations of our privileges, and give our assent to one and the same taxation, as if the nobles had not already done so." The band gives notice that it will proceed in the same fashion with all the chateaux in the vicinity, and terror precedes or follows them. "Nobody dares write," M. Despretz sends word; " I attempt it at the risk of my life." -- Nobles and prelates become objects of suspicion everywhere; village committees open their letters, and they have to suffer their houses to be searched.[33] They are forced to adopt the new cockade: to be a gentleman, and not wear it, is to deserve hanging. At Mamers, in Maine, M. de Beauvoir refuses to wear it, and is at the point of being put into the pillory and felled. Near La F1èche, M. de Brissac is arrested, and a message is sent to Paris to know if he shall be taken there, "or be beheaded in the meantime." Two deputies of the nobles, MM. de Montesson and de Vassé who had come to ask the consent of their constituents to their joining the Third-Estate, are recognized near Mans; their honorable scruples and their pledges to the constituents are considered of no importance, nor even the step that they are now taking to fulfill them; it suffices that they voted against the Third-Estate at Versailles; the populace pursues them and breaks up their carriages, and pillages their trunks. -- Woe to the nobles, especially if they have taken any part in local rule, and if they are opposed to popular panics! M. Cureau, deputy-mayor of Mans,[34] had issued orders during the famine, and, having retired to his chateau of Nouay, had told the peasants that the announcement of the coming of brigands was a false alarm; he thought that it was not necessary to sound the alarm bell, and all that was necessary was that they should remain quiet. Accordingly he is set down as being in league with the brigands, and besides this he is a monopolist, and a buyer of standing crops. The peasants lead him off; along with his son- in-law, M. de Montesson, to the neighboring village, where there are judges. On the way "they dragged their victims on the ground, pummeled them, trampled on them, spit in their faces, and besmeared them with filth." M. de Montesson is shot, while M. Cureau is killed by degrees; a carpenter cuts off the two heads with a double-edged ax, and children bear them along to the sound of drums and violins. Meanwhile, the judges of the place, brought by force, draw up an official report stating the finding of thirty louis and several bills of the Banque d'Escompte in the pockets of M. de Cureau, on the discovery of which a shout of triumph is set up: this evidence proves that they were going to buy up the standing wheat ! -- Such is the course of popular justice. Now that the Third-Estate has become the nation, every mob thinks that it has the right to pronounce sentences, which it carries out, on lives and on possessions.

These explosions are isolated in the western, central and southern provinces; the conflagration, however, is universal in the east. On a strip of ground from thirty to fifty leagues broad, extending from the extreme north down to Provence. Alsace, Franche-Comté, Burgundy, Mâconnais, Beaujolais, Auvergne, Viennois, Dauphiny, the whole of this territory resembles a continuous mine which explodes at the same time. The first column of flame which shoots up is on the frontiers of Alsace and Franche-Comté, in the vicinity of Belfort and Vésoul, a feudal district, in which the peasant, over- burdened with taxes, bears the heavier yoke with greater impatience. An instinctive argument is going on in his mind without his knowing it. "The good Assembly and the good King want us to be happy, suppose we help them! They say that the King has already relieved us of the taxes, suppose we relieve ourselves of paying rents! Down with the nobles! They are no better than the tax-collectors! " -- On the 16th of July, the chateau of Sancy, belonging to the Princesses de Beaufremont, is sacked, and on the 18th those of Lure, Bithaine, and Molans.[35] On the 29th, an accident which occurs with some fire-works at a popular festival at the house of M. de Mesmay, leads the lower class to believe that the invitation extended to them was a trap, and that there was a desire to get rid of them by treachery.[36] Seized with rage they set fire to the chateau, and during the following week[37] destroy three abbeys, ruin eleven chateaux and pillage others. " All records are destroyed, the registers and court-rolls are carried off; and the deposits violated." -- Starting from this spot, "the hurricane of insurrection" stretches over the whole of Alsace from Huningue to Landau.[38] The insurgents display placards, signed Louis, stating that for a certain lapse of time they shall be permitted to exercise justice themselves, and, in Sundgau, a well-dressed weaver, decorated with a blue belt, passes for a prince, the King's second son. They begin by falling on the Jews, their hereditary leeches; they sack their dwellings, divide their money among themselves, and hunt them down like so many fallow-deer. At Bâle alone, it is said that twelve hundred of these unfortunate fugitives arrived with their families. -- The distance between the Jew creditor and the Christian proprietor is not great, and this is soon cleared. Remiremont is only saved by a detachment of dragoons. Eight hundred men attack the chateau of Uberbrünn. The abbey of Neubourg is taken by storm. At Guebwiller, on the 31st of July, five hundred peasants, subjects of the abbey of Murbach, make a descent on the abbot's palace and on the house of the canons. Cupboards, chests, beds, windows, mirrors, frames, even the tiles of the roof and the hinges of the casements are hacked to pieces: "They kindle fires on the beautiful inlaid floors of the apartments, and there burn up the library and the title-deeds." The abbot's superb carriage is so broken up that not a wheel remains entire. "Wine streams through the cellars. One cask of sixteen hundred measures is half lost; the plate and the linen are carried off." -- Society is evidently being overthrown, while with the power, property is changing hands.

These are their very words. In Franche-Comte[39] the inhabitants of eight communes come and declare to the Bernardins of Grâce-Dieu and of Lieu-Croissant "that, being of the Third-Estate, it is time now for the people to rule over abbots and monks, considering that the domination of the latter has lasted too long," and thereupon they carry off all the titles to property and to rentals belonging to the abbey in their commune. In Upper Dauphiny, during the destruction of M. de Murat's chateau, a man named Ferréol struck the furniture with a big stick, exclaiming, "Hey, so much for you, Murat; you have been master a good while, now it's our turn!"[40] Those who rifle houses, and steal like highway robbers, think that they are defending a cause, and reply to the challenge, "Who goes there?" "We are for the brigand Third-Estate!" -- Everywhere the belief prevails that they are clothed with authority, and they conduct themselves like a conquering horde under the orders of an absent general. At Remiremont and at Luxeuil they produce an edict, stating that "all this brigandage, pillage, and destruction" is permitted. In Dauphiny, the leaders of the bands say that they possess the King's orders. In Auvergne, "they follow imperative orders, being advised that such is his Majesty's will." Nowhere do we see that an insurgent village exercises personal vengeance against its lord. If the people fire on the nobles they encounter, it is not through personal hatred. They are destroying the class, and do not pursue individuals. They detest feudal privileges, holders of charters, the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made to pay, but not the nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane intentions, compassionate, and even often beneficent. At Luxeuil, the abbot, who is forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment of his seignorial rights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among them for forty-six years, and has been wholly devoted to them.[41] In the canton of Crémieu, "where the havoc is immense," all the nobles, write the municipal officers, are "patriots and benevolent." In Dauphiny, the engineers, magistrates, and prelates, whose chateaux are sacked, were the first to espouse the cause of the people and of public liberties against the ministers. In Auvergne, the peasants themselves "manifest a good deal of repugnance to act in this way against such kind masters." But it must be done; the only concession which can be made in consideration of the kindness which had been extended to them is, not to burn the chateau of the ladies of Vanes, who had been so charitable; but they burn all their title-deeds, and torture the business agent at three different times by fire, to force him to deliver a document which he does not possess; they then only withdraw him from the fire half-broiled, because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy for him. They are like the soldiers on a campaign who execute orders with docility, for which necessity is the only plea, and who, without regarding themselves as brigands, commit acts of brigandage.

But here the situation is more tragic, for it is war in the midst of peace, a war of the brutal and barbaric multitude against the highly cultivated, well-disposed and confiding, who had not anticipated anything of the kind, who had not even dreamt of defending themselves, and who had no protection. The Comte de Courtivron, with his family, was staying at the watering-place of Luxeuil with his uncle, the Abbé of Clermont-Tonnerre, an old man of seventy years. On the 19th of July, fifty peasants from Fougerolle break into and demolish everything in the houses of an usher and a collector of the excise. Thereupon the mayor of the place intimates to the nobles and magistrates who are taking the waters, that they had better leave the house in twenty-four hours, as "he had been advised of an intention to burn the houses in which they were staying," and he did not wish to have Luxeuil exposed to this danger on account of their presence there. The following day, the guard, as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town and to force the abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are extorted, records and cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects are stolen. M. de Courtivron escaping with his uncle during the night, the alarm bell is sounded and they are pursued, and with difficulty obtain refuge in Plombières. The bourgeoisie of Plombières, however, for fear of compromising themselves, oblige them to depart. On the road two hundred insurgents threaten to kill their horses and to smash their carriage, and they only find safety at last at Porentruy, outside of France. On his return, M. de Courtivron is shot at by the band which has just pillaged the abbey of Lure, and they shout out at him as he passes, "Let's massacre the nobles!" Meanwhile, the chateau of Vauvilliers, to which his sick wife had been carried, is devastated from top to bottom; the mob search for her everywhere, and she only escapes by hiding herself in a hay-loft. Both are anxious to fly into Burgundy, but word is sent them that at Dijon "the nobles are blockaded by the people," and that, in the country, they threaten to set their houses on fire. -- There is no asylum to be had, either in their own homes nor in the homes of others, nor in places along the roads, fugitives being stopped in all the small villages and market-towns. In Dauphiny[42] "the Abbess of St. Pierre de Lyon, one of the nuns, M. de Perrotin, M. de Bellegarde, the Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, and the Chevalier de Moidieu, are arrested at Champier by the armed population, led to the Côte Saint-André, confined in the town-hall, whence they send to Grenoble for assistance," and, to have them released, the Grenoble Committee is obliged to send commissioners. Their only refuge is in the large cities, where some semblance of a precarious order exists, and in the ranks of the City Guards, which march from Lyons, Dijon, and Grenoble, to keep the inundation down. Throughout the country scattered chateaux are swallowed up by the popular tide, and, as the feudal rights are often in plebeian hands, it insensibly rises beyond its first overflow. -- There is no limit to an insurrection against property. This one extends from abbeys and chateaux to the "houses of the bourgeoisie."[43] The grudge at first was confined to the holders of charters; now it is extended to all who possess anything. Well-to-do farmers and priests abandon their parishes and fly to the towns. Travelers are put to ransom. Thieves, robbers, and returned convicts, at the head of armed bands, seize whatever they can lay their hands on. Cupidity becomes inflamed by such examples; on domains which are deserted and in a state of confusion, where there is nothing to indicate a master's presence, all seems to lapse to the first comer. A small farmer of the neighborhood has carried away wine and returns the following day in search of hay. All the furniture of a chateau in Dauphin is removed, even to the hinges of the doors, by a large reinforcement of carts. -- " It is the war of the poor against the rich," says a deputy, "and, on the 3rd of August, the Committee on Reports declares to the National Assembly "that no kind of property has been spared." In Franche- Comté, "nearly forty chateaux and seignorial mansions have been pillaged or burnt."[44] From Lancers to Gray about three out of five chateaux are sacked. In Dauphin twenty-seven are burned or destroyed; five in the small district of Viennese, and, besides these, all the monasteries -- nine at least in Auvergne, seventy- two, it is said, in Mâconnais and Beaujolais, without counting those of Alsace. On the 31st of July, Lally-Tollendal, on entering the tribune, has his hands full of letters of distress, with a list of thirty-six chateaux burnt, demolished, or pillaged, in one province, and the details of still worse violence against persons:[45]

"in Languedoc, M. de Barras, cut to pieces in the presence of his wife who is about to be confined, and who is dead in consequence; in Normandy, a paralytic gentleman left on a burning pile and taken off from it with his hands burnt; in Franche-Comté, Madame de Bathilly compelled, with an ax over her head, to give up her title-deeds and even her estate; Madame de Listenay forced to do the same, with a pitchfork at her neck and her two daughters in a swoon at her feet; Comte de Montjustin, with his wife, having a pistol at his throat for three hours; and both dragged from their carriage to be thrown into a pond, where they are saved by a passing regiment of soldiers; Baron de Montjustin, one of the twenty-two popular noblemen, suspended for an hour in a well, listening to a discussion whether he shall be dropped down or whether he should die in some other way; the Chevalier d'Ambly, torn from his chateau and dragged naked into the village, placed on a dung-heap after having his eyebrows and all his hair pulled out, while the crowd kept on dancing around him."

In the midst of a disintegrated society, under the semblance only of a government, it is manifest that an invasion is under way, an invasion of barbarians which will complete by terror that which it has begun by violence, and which, like the invasions of the Normans in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ends in the conquest and dispossession of an entire class. In vain the National Guard and the other troops that remain loyal succeed in stemming the first torrent; in vain does the Assembly hollow out a bed for it and strive to bank it in by fixed boundaries. The decrees of the 4th of August and the regulations which follow are but so many spiders' webs stretched across a torrent. The peasants, moreover, putting their own interpretation on the decrees, convert the new laws into authority for continuing in their course or beginning over again. No more rents, however legitimate, however legal!

"Yesterday,"[46] writes a gentleman of Auvergne, we were notified that the fruit-tithe (percières) would no longer be paid, and that the example of other provinces was only being followed which no longer, even by royal order, pay tithes." In Franche-Comté "numerous communities are satisfied that they no longer owe anything either to the King or to their lords. . . . The villages divide amongst themselves the fields and woods belonging to the nobles." --

It must be noted that charter-holding and feudal titles are still intact in three-fourths of France, that it is the interest of the peasant to ensure their disappearance, and that he is always armed. To secure a new outbreak of jacqueries, it is only necessary that central control, already thrown into disorder, should be withdrawn. This is the work of Versailles and of Paris; and there, at Paris as well as at Versailles, some, through lack of foresight and infatuation, and others, through blindness and indecision -- the latter through weakness and the former through violence -- all are laboring to accomplish it.

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Notes:

[1] Dusaulx, 374. " I remarked that if there were a few among the people at that time who dared commit crime, there were several who wished it, and that every one endured it." -- " Archives Nationales," DXXIX, 3. (Letter of the municipal authorities of Crémieu, Dauphiny, November 3, 1789.) "The care taken to lead them first to the cellars and to intoxicate them, can alone give a conception of the incredible excesses of rage to which they gave themselves up in the sacking and burning of the chateaux."

[2] Mercure de France, January 4, 1792. ("Revue politique de l'année 1791," by Mallet du Pan.)

[3] Albert Babeau, I. 206. (Letter of the deputy Camuzet de Belombre, August 22, 1789.) The executive power is absolutely gone to-day." -- Gouverneur Morris, letter of July 31, 1789: "This country is now as near in a state of anarchy as it is possible for a community to be without breaking up."

[4] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Amelot, July 24th; H. 784, of M. de Langeron, October 16th and 18th . -- KK. 1105. correspondence of M. de Thiard, October 7th and 30th, September 4th. -- Floquet, VII. 527, 555. - Guadet, "Histoire des Girondins" (July 29, 1789).

[5] M. de Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353 (July 18th). - Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le Département de Doubs," I. 128 (July 19th.) -- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of the deputies of the provincial commission of Alsace, September 8th.) D. XXIX. I. note of M. de Latour-du-Pin, October 28, 1789. - Letter of M. de Langeron, September 3rd; of Breitman, garde-marteau, Val Saint-Amarin (Upper Alsace), July 26th.

[6] Léonce de Lavergne, 197. (Letter of the intermediate commission of Poitou, the last month in 1789.) -- Cf. Brissot (Le patriote français, August, 1789). "General insubordination prevails in the provinces because the restraints of executive power are no longer felt. What were but lately the guarantees of that power? The intendants, tribunals, and the army. The intendants are gone, the tribunals are silent, and the army is against the executive power and on the side of the people. Liberty is not a nourishment for unprepared stomachs."

[7] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of the clergy, consuls, présidial-councillors and principal merchants of Puy-en- Velay, September 16, 1789.) -- H. 1453. (letter of the Intendant or Alençon, July 18th). "I must not leave you in ignorance of the multiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of my jurisdiction. The impunity with which they flatter themselves, because the judges are afraid of irritating the people by examples of severity, only emboldens them. Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks, spread false reports about particular persons whom they accuse of concealing grain, or of not belonging to the Third-Estate, and, under this pretext, they pillage their houses, taking whatever they can find, the owners only avoiding death by flight."

[8] A body of magistrates forming one of the lower tribunals.-[Tr.]

[9] "Archives Nationales," H. 942. (Observations of M. de Ballainvilliers, October 30, 1789.)

[10] "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 1. Letter of the municipal assembly of Louviers, the end of August, 1789. - Letter of the communal assembly of Saint-Bris (bailiwick of Auxerre), September 25th. - Letter of the municipal officers of Ricey-Haut, near Bar- sur-Seine, August 25th; of the Chevalier d'Allouville, September 8th.

[11] "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. I. Letter of M. Briand- Delessart (Angoulême, August 1st). -- Of M. Bret, Lieutenant- General of the provostship of Mardogne, September 5th. -- Of the Chevalier de Castellas (Auvergue), September 15th (relating to the night between the 2nd and 3rd of August). - Madame Campan, II. 65.

[12] Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," July 24th and 31st, August 13th and 19th.

[13] De Bouillé, 108. - " Archives Nationales," KK. 1105. Correspondence of M. deThiard, September 20, 1789 (apropos of one hundred guns given to the town of Saint-Brieuc). "They are not of the slightest use, but this passion for arms is a temporary epidemic which must be allowed to subside of itself. People are determined to believe in brigands and in enemies, whereas neither exist." -- September 25th, "Vanity alone impels them, and the pride of having cannon is their sole motive."

[14] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. Amelot, July 17th and 24th. "Several wealthy private persons of the town (Auxonne) have been put to ransom by this band, of which the largest portion consists of ruffians." - Letter of nine cultivators of Breteuil (Picardy) July 23rd (their granaries were pillaged up to the last grain the previous evening). "They threaten to pillage our crops and set our barns on fire as soon as they are full. M. Tassard, the notary, has been visited in his house by the populace, and his life has been threatened." Letter of Moreau, Procureur du Roi at the Senechal's Court at Bar-le-Duc, September 15, 1789, D, XXIX, 1. "On the 27th of July the people rose and most cruelly assassinated a merchant trading in wheat. On the 27th and 28th his house and that of another were sacked," etc.

[15] Chronicle of Dominick Schmutz ("Revue d'Alsace," V. III. 3rd series. These are his own expressions: Gesindel, Lumpen-gesindel. -- De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353. - Arthur Young (an eye- witness), July 21st. -- Of Dampmartin (eye-witness), I. 105. M. de Rochambeau shows the usual indecision and want of vigor: whilst the mob are pillaging houses and throwing things out of the windows, he passes in front of his regiments (8,000 men) drawn up for action, and says, "My friends, my good friends, you see what is going on. How horrible! Alas! these are your papers, your titles and those of your parents." The soldiers smile at this sentimental prattle.

[16] Dumouriez (an eye-witness), book III. ch. 3. - The trial was begun and judgment given by twelve lawyers and an assessor, whom the people, in arms, had themselves appointed. -- Hippeau, IV. 382.

[17] Archives Nationales," F7 3248. (Letter of the mayor, M. Poussiaude de Thierri, September 11th.)

[18] Floquet, VII. 551.

[19] De Goncourt, "La Société française pendant la Révolution," 37.

[20] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the officers of the bailiwick of Dôle, August 24th. - Sauzay I. 128.

[21] There is a similar occurrence at Strasbourg, a few days after the sacking of the town-hall. The municipality having given each man of the garrison twenty sous, the soldiers abandon their post, set the prisoners free at the Pont-Couvert, feast publicly in the streets with the women taken out of the penitentiary, and force innkeepers and the keepers of drinking-places to give up their provisions. The shops are all closed, and, for twenty-four hours, the officers are not obeyed. (De Dampmartin, I. 105.)

[22] Albert Babeau, I. 187-273. -- Moniteur, II. 379. (Extract from the provost's verdict of November 27, 1789.)

[23] Moniteur, ibid. Picard, the principal murderer, confessed "that he had made him suffer a great deal; that the said sieur Huez did not die until they came near the Chaudron Inn ; that he nevertheless intended to make him suffer more by stabbing him in the neck at the corner of each street, (and) by contriving it so that he might do it often, as long as there was life in him; that the day on which M. Huez died yielded him ten francs, together with the neck- buckle of M. Hues, found on him when he was arrested in his flight."

[24] Mercure de France, , September 26, 1789. Letters of the officers of the Bourbon regiment and of members of the general committee of Caen. - Floquet, VII. 545.

[25] "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. - Ibid. D. XXIX. I. Note of M. de la Tour-du-Pin, October 28th.

[26] Decree, February 5, 1789, enforced May 1st following.

[27] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the count de Montausier, August 8th, with notes by M. Paulian, director of the excise (an admirable letter, modest and liberal, and ending by demanding a pardon for people led astray). -- H. 1453. Letter of the attorney of the election district of Falaise, July 17th, etc. - - Moniteur, I. 303, 387, 505 (sessions of August 7th and 27th and of September 23rd). "The royal revenues are diminishing steadily." -- Buchez and Roux, III. 219 (session of October 24, 1789). Discourse of a deputation from Anjou: "Sixty thousand men are armed; the barriers have been destroyed, the clerks' horses have been sold by auction; the employees have been told to withdraw from the province within eight days. The inhabitants have declared that they will not pay taxes so long as the salt-tax exists.

[28] "Archives Nationales,"F7 3253 (Letter of September 8, 1789).

[29] Arthur Young, September 30th. "It is being said that every rusty gun in Provence is at work, killing all sorts of birds; the shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about my ears." - - Beugnot, I.142. - "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the Chevalier d'Allonville, September 8, 1789 (Near Bar-sur- Aube). "The peasants go in armed bands into the woods belonging to the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines, which they cut down. They saw up the oaks and transport them on wagons to Pont-Saint-Dizier, where they sell them. In other places they fish in the ponds and break the embankments."

[30] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the assessor of the police of Saint-Flour, October 3, 1789. On the 31st of July, a rumor is spread that the brigands are coming. On the 1st of August the peasants arm themselves. "They amuse themselves by drinking, awaiting the arrival of the brigands; the excitement increases to such an extent as to make them believe that M. le Comte d'Espinchal had arrived in disguise the evening before at Massiac, that he was the author of the troubles disturbing the province at this time, and that he was concealed in his chateau." On the strength of this shots are fired into the windows, and there are searches, etc.

[31] "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX, I, Letter of Etienne Fermier, Naveinne, September 18th (it is possible that the author, for the sake of caution, took a fictitious name). - The manuscript correspondence of M. Boullé, deputy of Pontivy, to his constituents, is a type of this declamatory and incendiary writing. - Letter of the consuls, priests, and merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16th. - " The Ancient Régime," p. 396.

[32] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of M. Despretz- Montpezat, a former artillery officer, July 24th (with several other signatures). On the same day the alarm bell is sounded In fifty villages on the rumor spreading that 7,000 brigands, English and Breton, were invading the country.

[33] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of Briand- Delessart, August 1st (domiciliary visits to the Carmelites of Angoulême where it is pretended that Mme. de Polignac has just arrived. - Beugnot, I. 140. -- Arthur Young, July 20th, etc. - Buchez and Roux, IV. 166. Letter of Mamers, July 24th; of Mans, July 26th.

[34] Montjoie, ch. LXXII, p. 93 (according to acts of legal procedure). There was a soldier in the band who had served under M. de Montesson and who wanted to avenge himself for the punishments he had undergone in the regiment.

[35] Mercure de France, August 20th (Letter from Vésoul, August 13th).

[36] M. de Memmay proved his innocence later on, and was rehabilitated by a public decision after two years' proceedings (session of June 4, 1791; Mercure of June 11th).

[37] Journal des Débats et Décrets, I. 258. (Letter of the municipality of Vésoul, July 22nd. -- Discourse of M. de Toulougeon, July 29th.)

[38] De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353. -- "Archives Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of M. de Rochamheau, August 4th.) -- Chronicle of Schmutz (ibid. ), p. 284. "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of Mme. Ferrette, of Remiremont, August 9th.)

[39] Sauzay, I. 180. (Letters of monks, July 22nd and 26th.)

[40] "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of M. de Bergeron, attorney to the présidial of Valence, August 28th, with the details of the verdict stated.) Official report of the militia of Lyons, sent to the president of the National Assembly, August 10th. (Expedition to Serrière, in Dauphiny, July 31st.)

[41] Letter of the Count of Courtivron, deputy substitute (an eye- witness). -- "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the municipal officers of Crémieu (Dauphiny), November 3rd. Letter of the Vicomte de Carbonnière (Auvergne), August 3rd. -- Arthur Young, July 30th (Dijon) says, apropos of a noble family which escaped almost naked from its burning chateau, " they were esteemed by the neighbors; their virtues ought to have commanded the love of the poor, for whose resentment there was no cause."

[42] "Archives Nationales," XXIX. I. (Letter of the commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)

[43] "Désastres du Mâconnais," by Puthod de la Maison-Rouge (August, 1789). "Ravages du Mâconnais." -- Arthur Young, July 27th. - Buchez and Roux, IV. 215, 214. -- Mercure de France, September 12, 1789. (Letter by a volunteer of Orleans.) "On the 15th of August, eighty-eight ruffians, calling themselves reapers, present themselves at Bascon, in Beauce, and, the next day, at a chateau in the neighborhood, where they demand within an hour the head of the son of the lord of the manor, M. Tassin, who can only redeem himself by a contribution of 1,600 livres and the pillaging of his cellars.

[44] Letter of the Count de Courtivron. - Arthur Young, July 31st. - Buchez and Roux, II. 243. - Mercure de France, August 15, 1789 (sitting of the 8th, discourse of a deputy from Dauphiné.) -- Mermet, "Histoire de la Ville de Vienne," 445 -- " Archives Nationales," ibid. (Letter of the commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.) -- "The list of burnt or devastated chateaux is immense." The committee already cites sixteen of them. -- Puthod de la Maison-Rouge, ibid. : "Were all devastated places to be mentioned, it would be necessary to cite the whole province " (Letter from Mâcon). "They have not the less destroyed most of the chateaux and bourgeois dwellings, either burning them and or else tearing them down."

[45] Lally-Tollendal, "Second Letter to my Constituents," 104.

[46] Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité," p.60 (a few days after the 4th of August). - "Archives Nationales," H. 784. Letters of M. de Langeron, military commander at Besançon, October 16th and 18th . -- Ibid. , D. XXIX. I. Letter of the same, September 3rd.-- Arthur Young (in Provence, at the house of Baron de la Tour- d'Aignes). "The baron is an enormous sufferer by the Revolution; a great extent of country which belonged in absolute right to his ancestors, has been granted for quit-rents, ceus, and other feudal payments, so that there is no comparison between the lands retained and those thus granted by his family. . . . The solid payments which the Assembly have declared to be redeemable are every hour falling to nothing, without a shadow of recompense . . . The situation of the nobility in this country is pitiable; they are under apprehensions that nothing will be left them, but simply such houses as the mob allows to stand unburned; that the small farmers will retain their farms without paying the landlord his half of the produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there is actually neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it. This chateau, splendid even in ruins, with the fortune and lives of the owners, is at the mercy of an armed rabble."

CHAPTER IV. PARIS.

Paris. -- Powerlessness and discords of the authorities. -- The people, king.

THE powerlessness, indeed, of the heads of the Government, and the lack of discipline among all its subordinates, are much greater in the capital than in the provinces. -- Paris possesses a mayor, Bailly; but "from the first day, and in the easiest manner possible,"[1] his municipal council, that is to say, "the assembly of the representatives of the commune, has accustomed itself to carry on the government alone, overlooking him entirely." There is a central administration, the municipal council, presided over by the mayor; but, "at this time, authority is everywhere except where the preponderating authority should be; the districts have delegated it and at the same time retained it;" each of them acts as if it were alone and supreme. -- There are secondary powers, the district- committees, each with its president, its clerk, its offices, and commissioners; but the mobs of the street march on without awaiting their orders; while the people, shouting under their" windows, impose their will on them; -- in short, says Bailly again, "everybody knew how to command, but nobody knew how to obey."

"Imagine," writes Loustalot[2] himself; "a man whose feet, hands, and limbs possessed each its own intelligence and will, whose one leg would wish to walk when the other one wanted to rest, whose throat would close when the stomach demanded food, whose mouth would sing when the eyelids were weighed down with sleep; and you will have a striking picture of the condition of things in the capital"

There are "sixty Republics"[3] in Paris; each district is an independent, isolated power, which receives no order without criticizing it, always in disagreement and often in conflict with the central authority or with the other districts. It receives denunciations, orders domiciliary visits, sends deputations to the National Assembly, passes resolutions, posts its bills, not only in its own quarter but throughout the city, and sometimes even extends its jurisdiction outside of Paris. Everything comes within its province, and particularly that which ought not to do so. -- On the 18th of July, the district of Petits-Augustins[4] "decrees in its own name the establishment of justices of the peace," under the title of tribunes, and proceeds at once to elect its own, nominating the actor Molé. On the 30th, that of the Oratoire annuls the amnesty which the representatives of the commune in the Hôtel-de- Ville had granted, and orders two of its members to go to a distance of thirty leagues to arrest M. de Bezenval. On the 19th of August, that of Nazareth issues commissions to seize and bring to Paris the arms deposited in strong places. From the beginning each assembly sent to the Arsenal in its own name, and "obtained as many cartridges and as much powder as it desired." Others claim the right of keeping a watchful eye over the Hôtel-de-Ville and of reprimanding the National Assembly. The Oratoire decides that the representatives of the commune shall be invited to deliberate in public. Saint-Nicholas des Champs deliberates on the veto and begs the Assembly to suspend its vote. -- It is a strange spectacle, that of these various authorities each contradicting and destroying the other. To-day the Hôtel-de-Ville appropriates five loads of cloth which have been dispatched by the Government, and the district of Saint-Gervais opposes the decision of the Hôtel-de-Ville. To- morrow Versailles intercepts grain destined for Paris, while Paris threatens, if it is not restored, to march on Versailles. I omit the incidents that are ridiculous:[5] anarchy in its essence is both tragic and grotesque, and, in this universal breaking up of things, the capital, like the kingdom, resembles a bear-garden when it does not resemble a Babel.

But behind all these discordant authorities the real sovereign, who is the mob, is very soon apparent. -- On the 15th of July it undertakes the demolition of the Bastille of its own accord, and this popular act is sanctioned ; for it is necessary that appearances should be kept up; even to give orders after the blow is dealt, and to follow when it is impossible to lead.[6] A short time after this the collection of the octroi at the barriers is ordered to be resumed; forty armed individuals, however, present themselves in their district and say, that if guards are placed at the octroi stations, "they will resist force with force, and even make use of their cannon." -- On the false rumor that arms are concealed in the Abbey of Montmartre, the abbess, Madame de Montmorency, is accused of treachery, and twenty thousand persons invade the monastery. -- The commander of the National Guard and the mayor are constantly expecting a riot; they hardly dare absent themselves a day to attend the King fête at Versailles. As soon as the multitude can assemble in the streets, an explosion is imminent. "On rainy days," says Bailly, "I was quite at my ease." -- It is under this constant pressure that the Government is carried on; and the elect of the people, the most esteemed magistrates, those who are in best repute, are at the mercy of the throng who clamor at their doors. In the district of St. Roch,[7] after many useless refusals, the General Assembly, notwithstanding all the reproaches of its conscience and the resistance of its reason, is obliged to open letters addressed to Monsieur, to the Duke of Orleans, and to the Ministers of War, of Foreign Affairs, and of the Marine. In the committee on subsistence, M. Serreau, who is indispensable and who is confirmed by a public proclamation, is denounced, threatened, and constrained to leave Paris. M. de la Salle, one of the strongest patriots among the nobles, is on the point of being murdered for having signed an order for the transport of gunpowder;[8] the multitude, in pursuit of him, attach a rope to the nearest street-lamp, ransack the Hôtel- de-Ville, force every door, mount into the belfry, and seek for the traitor even under the carpet of the bureau and between the legs of the electors, and are only stayed in their course by the arrival of the National Guard.

The people not only sentence but they execute, and, as is always the case, blindly. At Saint-Denis, Chatel, the mayor's lieutenant, whose duty it is to distribute flour, had reduced the price of bread at his own expense: on the 3rd of August his house is forced open at two o'clock in the morning, and he takes refuge in a steeple; the mob follow him, cut his throat and drag his head along the streets. -- Not only do the people execute, but they pardon -- and with equal discernment. On the 11th of August, at Versailles, as a parricide is about to be broken on the wheel, the crowd demand his release, fly at the executioner, and set the man free.[9] Veritably this is sovereign power like that of the oriental sovereign who arbitrarily awards life or death! A woman who protests against this scandalous pardon is seized and comes near being hung; for the new monarch considers as a crime whatever is offensive to his new majesty. Again, he receives public and humble homage. The Prime Minister, on imploring the pardon of M. de Bezenval at the Hôtel-de-Ville, in the presence of the electors and of the public, has put it in appropriate words:

"It is before the most unknown, the obscurest citizen of Paris that I prostrate myself; at whose feet I kneel."

A few days before this, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and at Poissy, the deputies of the National Assembly not only kneel down in words, but actually, and for a long time, on the pavement in the street, and stretch forth their hands, weeping, to save two lives of which only one is granted to them. - Behold the monarch by these brilliant signs! Already do the young, who are eager imitators of all actions that are in fashion, ape them in miniature; during the month which follows the murder of Berthier and Foulon, Bailly is informed that the gamins in the streets are parading about with the heads of two cats stuck on the ends of two poles.[10]

II. .

The distress of the people. - The dearth and the lack of work. - How men of executive ability are recruited.

A pitiable monarch, whose recognized sovereignty leaves him more miserable than he was before! Bread is always scarce, and before the baker's doors the row of waiting people does not diminish. In vain Bailly passes his nights with the committee on supplies; they are always in a state of terrible anxiety. Every morning for two months there is only one or two days' supply of flour, and often, in the evening, there is not enough for the following morning.[11] The life of the capital depends on a convoy which is ten, fifteen, twenty leagues off; and which may never arrive: one convoy of twenty carts is pillaged on the 18th of July, on the Rouen road; another, on the 4th of August, in the vicinity of Louviers. Were it not for Salis' Swiss regiment, which, from the 14th of July to the end of September, marches day and night as an escort, not a boat-load of grain would reach Paris from Rouen.[12] -- The commissaries charged with making purchases or with supervising the expeditions are in danger of their lives. Those who are sent to provinces are seized, and a column of four hundred men with cannon has to be dispatched to deliver them. The one who is sent to Rouen learns that he will be hung if he dares to enter the place. At Mantes a mob surrounds his cabriolet, the people regarding whoever comes there for the purpose of carrying away grain as a public pest; he escapes with difficulty out of a back door and returns on foot to Paris. -- From the very beginning, according to a universal rule, the fear of a short supply helps to augment the famine. Every one lays in a stock for several days; on one occasion sixteen loaves of four pounds each are found in an old woman's garret. The bakings, consequently, which are estimated according to the quantity needed for a single day, become inadequate, and the last of those who wait at the bakers' shops for bread return home empty-handed. -- On the other hand the appropriations made by the city and the State to diminish the price of bread simply serve to lengthen the rows of those who wait for it; the countrymen flock in thither, and return home loaded to their villages. At Saint-Denis, bread having been reduced to two sous the pound, none is left for the inhabitants. To this constant anxiety add that of unemployment. Not only is there no certainty of there being bread at the bakers' during the coming week, but many know that they will not have money in the coming week with which to buy bread. Now that security has disappeared and the rights of property are shaken, work is wanting. The rich, deprived of their feudal dues, and, in addition thereto of their rents, have reduced their expenditure; many of them, threatened by the committee of investigation, exposed to domiciliary visits, and liable to be informed against by their servants, have emigrated. In the month of September M. Necker laments the delivery of six thousand passports in fifteen days to the wealthiest inhabitants. In the month of October ladies of high rank, refugees in Rome, send word that their domestics should be discharged and their daughters placed in convents. Before the end of 1789 there are so many fugitives in Switzerland that a house, it is said, brings in more rent than it is worth as capital. With this first emigration, which is that of the chief spendthrifts, the Count d'Artois, Prince de Conti, Duc de Bourbon, and so many others, the opulent foreigners have left, and, at the head of them, the Duchesse de l'Infantado, who spent 800,000 livres a year. There are only three Englishmen in Paris.

It used to be a city of luxury, it was the European hot-house of costly and refined pleasures, but once the glass was broken then the delicate plants perish, their lovers leave, and there is no employment now for the innumerable hands which cultivated them. Fortunate are they who at the relief works obtain a miserable sum by handling a pick-axe! "I saw," says Bailly, "mercers, jewellers, and merchants implore the favor of being employed at twenty sous the day." Enumerate, if you can, in one or two recognized callings, the hands which are doing nothing:[13] 1,200 hair-dressers keep about 6,000 journeymen; 2,000 others follow the same calling in private- houses; 6,000 lackeys do but little else than this work. The body of tailors is composed of 2,800 masters, who have under them 5,000 workmen. "Add to these the number privately employed -- the refugees in privileged places like the abbeys of Saint-Germain and Saint-Marcel, the vast enclosure of the Temple, that of Saint-John the Lateran, and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and you will find at least 12,000 persons cutting, fitting, and sewing." How many in these two groups are now idle! How many others are walking the streets, such as upholsterers, lace-makers, embroiderers, fan- makers, gilders, carnage-makers, binders, engravers, and all the other producers of Parisian nick-nacks! For those who are still at work how many days are lost at the doors of bakers' shops and in patrolling as National Guards! Gatherings are formed in spite of the prohibitions of the Hôtel-de-Ville,[14] and the crowd openly discuss their miserable condition: 3,000 journeymen-tailors near the Colonnade, as many journeymen-shoemakers in the Place Louis XV., the journeymen-hairdressers in the Champs-Elysees, 4,000 domestics without places on the approaches to the Louvre, -- and their propositions are on a level with their intelligence. Servants demand the expulsion from Paris of the Savoyards who enter into competition with them. Journeymen-tailors demand that a day's wages be fixed at forty sous, and that the old-clothes dealers shall not be allowed to make new ones. The journeymen-shoemakers declare that those who make shoes below the fixed price shall be driven out of the kingdom. Each of these irritated and agitated crowds contains the germ of an outbreak -- and, in truth, these germs are found on every pavement in Paris: at the relief works, which at Montmartre collect 17,000 paupers; in the Market, where the bakers want to hang the flour commissioners, and at the doors of the bakers, of whom two, on the 14th of September and on the 5th of October, are conducted to the lamp post and barely escape with their lives. -- In this suffering, mendicant crowd, enterprising men become more numerous every day: they consist of deserters, and from every regiment; they reach Paris in bands, often 250 in one day. There, "caressed and fed to the top of their bent,"[15] having received from the National Assembly 50 livres each, maintained by the King in the enjoyment of their advance-money, entertained by the districts, of which one alone incurs a debt of 14,000 livres for wine and sausages furnished to them, "they accustom themselves to greater expense," to greater license, and are followed by their companions. "During the night of the 31st of July the French Guards on duty at Versailles abandon the custody of the King and betake themselves to Paris, without their officers, but with their arms and baggage," that "they may take part in the cheer which the city of Paris extends to their regiment." At the beginning of September, 16,000 deserters of this stamp are counted.[16] Now, among those who commit murder these are in the first rank; and this is not surprising when we take the least account of their antecedents, education, and habits. It was a soldier of the "Royal Croat" who tore out the heart of Berthier. They were three soldiers of the regiment of Provence who forced the house of Chatel at Saint-Denis, and dragged his head through the streets. It is Swiss soldiers who, at Passy, knock down the commissioners of police with their guns. Their headquarters are at the Palais-Royal, amongst women whose instruments they are, and amongst agitators from whom they receive the word of command. Henceforth, all depends on this word, and we have only to contemplate the new popular leaders to know what it will be.

III.

The new popular leaders.- Their ascendancy .- Their education. - Their sentiments.- Their situation. - Their councils. - Their denunciations. -

Administrators and members of district assemblies, agitators of barracks, coffee-houses, clubs and public thoroughfares, writers of pamphlets, penny-a-liners are multiplying as fast as buzzing insects are hatched on a sultry night. After the 14th of July thousands of jobs have become available for released ambitions; "attorneys, notaries' clerks, artists, merchants, shopkeepers, comedians and especially advocates;[17] each wants to be either an officer, a director, a councillor, or a minister of the new reign; while journals, which are established by dozens,[18] form a permanent tribune, where speakers come to court the people to their personal advantage." Philosophy, fallen into such hands, seems to parody itself; and nothing equals its emptiness, unless it be its mischievousness and success. Lawyers, in the sixty assembly districts, roll out the high-sounding dogmas of the revolutionary catechism. This or that one, passing from the question of a party wall to the constitution of empires, becomes the improvised legislator, so much the more inexhaustible and the more applauded as his flow of words, showered upon his hearers, proves to them that every capacity and every right are naturally and legitimately theirs.

"When that man opened his mouth," says a cold-blooded witness, "we were sure of being inundated with quotations and maxims, often apropos of street lamp posts, or of the stall of a herb-dealer. His stentorian voice made the vaults ring; and after he had spoken for two hours, and his breath was completely exhausted, the admiring and enthusiastic shouts which greeted him amounted almost to frenzy. Thus the orator fancied himself a Mirabeau, while the spectators imagined themselves the Constituent Assembly, deciding the fate of France."

The journals and pamphlets are written in the same style. Every brain is filled with the fumes of conceit and of big words; the leader of the crowd is he who raves the most, and he guides the wild enthusiasm which he increases.

Let us consider the most popular of these chiefs ; they are the green or the dry fruit of literature, and of the bar. The newspaper is the stall which every morning offers them for sale, and if they suit the overexcited public it is simply owing to their acid or bitter flavor. Their empty, unpracticed minds are wholly void of political conceptions; they have no capacity or practical experience. Desmoulins is twenty-nine years of age, Loustalot twenty-seven, and their intellectual ballast consists of college reminiscences, souvenirs of the law schools, and the common-places picked up in the houses of Raynal and his associates. As to Brissot and Marat, who are ostentatious humanitarians, their knowledge of France and of foreign countries consists in what they have seen through the dormer windows of their garrets, and through utopian spectacles. In minds like these, empty or led astray, the Contrat- Social could not fail to become a gospel; for it reduces political science to a strict application of an elementary axiom which relieves them of all study, and hands society over to the caprice of the people, or, in other words, delivers it into their own hands. - - Hence they demolish all that remains of social institutions, and push on equalization until everything is brought down to the same level.

"With my principles," writes Desmoulins,[19] "is associated the satisfaction of putting myself where I belong, of showing my strength to those who have despised me, of lowering to my level all whom fortune has placed above me: my motto is that of all honest people: 'No superiors!'"

Thus, under the great name of Liberty, each vain spirit seeks its revenge and finds its nourishment. What is sweeter and more natural than to justify passion by theory, to be factious in the belief that this is patriotism, and to cloak the interests of ambition with the interests of humanity?

Let us picture to ourselves these directors of public opinion as they were three months earlier: Desmoulins, a briefless barrister, living in furnished lodgings with petty debts, and on a few louis extracted from his relations. Loustalot, still more unknown, was admitted the previous year to the Parliament of Bordeaux, and has landed at Paris in search of a career. Danton, another second-rate lawyer, coming out of a hovel in Champagne, borrowed the money to pay his expenses, while his stinted household is kept up only by means of a louis which is given to him weekly by his father-in-law, who is a coffee-house keeper. Brissot, a strolling Bohemian, formerly employee of literary pirates, has roamed over the world for fifteen years, without bringing back with him either from England or America anything but a coat out at elbows and false ideas; and, finally, Marat; a writer that has been hissed, an abortive scholar and philosopher, a misrepresenter of his own experiences, caught by the natural philosopher Charles in the act of committing a scientific fraud, and fallen from the top of his inordinate ambition to the subordinate post of doctor in the stables of the Comte d'Artois. -- At the present time, Danton, President of the Cordeliers, can arrest any one he pleases in his district, and his violent gestures and thundering voice secure to him, till something better turns up, the government of his section of the city. A word of Marat's has just caused Major Belzunce at Caen to be assassinated. Desmoulins announces, with a smile of triumph, that "a large section of the capital regards him as one among the principal instigators of the Revolution, and that many even go so far as to say that he is the author of it." Is it to be supposed that, borne so high by such a sudden jerk of fortune, they wish to put on the drag and again descend? and is it not clear that they will aid with all their might the revolt which hoists them towards the loftiest summits? -- Moreover, the brain reels at a height like this ; suddenly launched in the air and feeling as if everything was tottering around them, they utter exclamations of indignation and terror, they see plots on all sides, imagine invisible cords pulling in an opposite direction, and they call upon the people to cut them. With the full weight of their inexperience, incapacity, and improvidence, of their fears, credulity, and dogmatic obstinacy, they urge on popular attacks, and their newspaper articles or discourses are all summed up in the following phrases:

"Fellow-citizens, you, the people of the lower class, you who listen to me, you have enemies in the Court and the aristocracy. The Hôtel-de-Ville and the National Assembly are your servants. Seize your enemies with a strong hand, and hang them, and let your servants know that they must quicken their steps!"

Desmoulins styles himself "District-attorney of the gallows,"[20] and if he at all regrets the murders of Foulon and Berthier, it is because this too expeditious judgment has allowed the proofs of conspiracy to perish, thereby saving a number of traitors: he himself mentions twenty of them haphazard, and little does he care whether he makes mistakes.

"We are in the dark, and it is well that faithful dogs should bark, even at all who pass by, so that there may be no fear of robbers."

>From this time forth Marat[21] denounces the King, the ministers, the administration, the bench, the bar, the financial system and the academies, all as "suspicious;" at all events the people only suffer on their account.

"The Government is monopolizing grain, to make us to pay through the nose for a poisonous bread."

The Government, again, through a new conspiracy is about to blockade Paris, so as to starve it with greater ease. Utterances of this kind, at such a time, are firebrands thrown upon fear and hunger to kindle the flames of rage and cruelty. To this frightened and fasting crowd the agitators and newspaper writers continue to repeat that it must act, and act alongside of the authorities, and, if need be, against them. In other words, We will do as we please; we are the sole legitimate masters;

"in a well-constituted government, the people as a body are the real sovereign: our delegates are appointed only to execute our orders ; what right has the clay to rebel against the potter?"

On the strength of such principles, the tumultuous club which occupies the Palais-Royal substitutes itself for the Assembly at Versailles. Has it not all the titles for this office? The Palais- Royal "saved the nation" on the 12th and 13th of July. The Palais- Royal, "through its spokesmen and pamphlets," has made everybody and even the soldiers "philosophers." It is the house of patriotism, "the rendezvous of the select among the patriotic," whether provincials or Parisians, of all who possess the right of suffrage, and who cannot or will not exercise it in their own district. "It saves time to come to the Palais-Royal. There is no need there of appealing to the President for the right to speak, or to wait one's time for a couple of hours. The orator proposes his motion, and, if it finds supporters, mounts a chair. If he is applauded, it is put into proper shape. If he is hissed, he goes away. This was the way of the Romans." Behold the veritable National Assembly ! It is superior to the other semi-feudal affair, encumbered with "six hundred deputies of the clergy and nobility," who are so many intruders and who "should be sent out into the galleries." -- Hence the pure Assembly rules the impure Assembly, and "the Café Foy lays claim to the government of France."

IV.

Intervention by the popular leaders with the Government. - Their pressure on the Assembly.

On the 30th of July, the harlequin who led the insurrection at Rouen having been arrested, "it is openly proposed at the Palais Royal[22] to go in a body and demand his release." -- On the 1st of August, Thouret, whom the moderate party of the Assembly have just made President, is obliged to resign; the Palais-Royal threatens to send a band and murder him along with those who voted for him, and lists of proscriptions, in which several of the deputies are inscribed, begin to be circulated. -- From this time forth, on all great questions-the abolition of the feudal system, the suppression of tithes, a declaration of the rights of man, the dispute about the Chambers, the King's power of veto,[23] the pressure from without inclines the balance: in this way the Declaration of Rights, which is rejected in secret session by twenty-eight bureaus out of thirty, is forced through by the tribunes in a public sitting and passed by a majority. -- Just as before the 14th of July, and to a still greater extent, two kinds of compulsion influence the votes, and it is always the ruling faction which employs both its hands to throttle its opponents. On the one hand this faction takes post on the galleries in knots composed nearly always of the same persons, "five or six hundred permanent actors," who yell according to understood signals and at the word of command.[24] Many of these are French Guards, in civilian clothes, and who relieve each other: previously they have asked of their favorite deputy "at what hour they must come, whether all goes on well, and whether he is satisfied with those fools of parsons (calotins) and the aristocrats." Others consist of low women under the command of Théroigne de Méricourt, a virago courtesan, who assigns them their positions and gives them the signal for hooting or for applause. Publicly and in full session, on the occasion of the debate on the veto, "the deputies are applauded or insulted by the galleries according as they utter the word 'suspensive,' or the word 'indefinite.' " "Threats," (says one of them) "circulated; I heard them on all sides around me." These threats are repeated on going out: "Valets dismissed by their masters, deserters, and women in rags," threaten the refractory with the lamp post, "and thrust their fists in their faces. In the hall itself, and much more accurately than before the 14th of July, their names are taken down, and the lists, handed over to the populace," travel to the Palais-Royal, from where they are dispatched in correspondence and in newspapers to the provinces.[25] - Thus we see the second means of compulsion; each deputy is answerable for his vote, at Paris, with his own life, and, in the province, with those of his family. Members of the former Third-Estate avow that they abandon the idea of two Chambers, because "they are not disposed to get their wives' and children's throats cut." On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue, the most noisy of the Palais-Royal barkers, marches off to Versailles, at the head of 1,500 men, to complete the conversion of the Assembly. This garden club indeed, from the heights of its great learning, integrity, and immaculate reputation, decides that the ignorant, corrupt, and doubtful deputies must be got rid of." That they are such cannot be questioned, because they defend the royal sanction; there are over 600 and more, 120 are deputies of the communes, who must be expelled to begin with, and then must be brought to judgment.[26] In the meantime they are informed, as well as the Bishop of Langres, President of the National Assembly, that "15,000 men are ready to light up their chateaux and in particular yours, sir." To avoid all mistake, the secretaries of the Assembly are informed in writing that " 2,000 letters" will be sent into the provinces to denounce to the people the conduct of the malignant deputies: "Your houses are held as a surety for your opinions: keep this in mind, and save yourselves !" At last, on the morning of the 1st of August, five deputations from the Palais-Royal, one of them led by Loustalot, march in turn to the Hôtel-de-Ville, insisting that the drums should be beaten and the citizens be called together for the purpose of changing the deputies, or their instructions, and of ordering the National Assembly to suspend its discussion on the veto until the districts and provinces could give expression to their will: the people, in effect, alone being sovereign, and alone competent, always has the right to dismiss or instruct anew its servants, the deputies. On the following day, August 2nd, to make matters plainer, new delegates from the same Palais-Royal suit gestures to words; they place two fingers on their throats, on being introduced before the representatives of the commune, as a hint that, if the latter do not obey, they will be hung.

After this it is vain for the National Assembly to make any show of indignation, to declare that it despises threats, and to protest its independence; the impression is already produced. "More than 300 members of the communes," says Mounier, "had decided to support the absolute veto." At the end of ten days most of these had gone over, several of them through attachment to the King, because they were afraid of "a general uprising," and "were not willing to jeopardize the lives of the royal family." But concessions like these only provoke fresh extortions. The politicians of the street now know by experience the effect of brutal violence on legal authority. Emboldened by success and by impunity, they reckon up their strength and the weakness of the latter. One blow more, and they are undisputed masters. Besides, the issue is already apparent to clear-sighted men. When the agitators of the public thoroughfares, and the porters at the street-corners, convinced of their superior wisdom, impose decrees by the strength of their lungs, of their fists, and of their pikes, at that moment experience, knowledge, good sense, cool-blood, genius, and judgment, disappear from human affairs, and things revert back to chaos. Mirabeau, in favor of the veto for life, saw the crowd imploring him with tears in their eyes to change his opinion :

"Monsieur le Comte, if the King obtains this veto, what will be the use of a National Assembly? We shall all be slaves "[27]

Outbursts of this description are not to be resisted, and all is lost. Already, near the end of September, the remark applies which Mirabeau makes to the Comte de la Marck:

"Yes, all is lost; the King and Queen will be swept away, and you will see the populace trampling on their lifeless bodies."

Eight days after this, on the 5th and 6th of October, it breaks out against both King and Queen, against the National Assembly and the Government, against all government present and to come; the violent party which rules in Paris obtains possession of the chiefs of France to hold them under strict surveillance, and to justify its intermittent outrages by one permanent outrage.

The 5th and 6th of October.

Once more, two different currents combine into one torrent to hurry the crowd onward to a common end. -- On the one hand are the cravings of the stomach, and women excited by the famine:

"Now that bread cannot be had in Paris, let us go to Versailles and demand it there; once we have the King, Queen, and Dauphin in the midst of us, they will be obliged to feed us;" we will bring back "the Baker, the Bakeress, and the Baker's boy."

-- On the other hand, there is fanaticism, and men who are pushed on by the need to dominate.

"Now that our chiefs yonder disobey us, -- let us go and make them obey us forthwith; the King is quibbling over the Constitution and the Rights of Man -- make him approve them ; his guards refuse to wear our cockade -- make them accept it; they want to carry him off to Metz -- make him come to Paris, here, under our eyes and in our hands, he, and the lame Assembly too, will march straight on, and quickly, whether they like it or not, and always on the right road."

-- Under this confluence of ideas the expedition is arranged.[28] Ten days before this, it is publicly alluded to at Versailles. On the 4th of October, at Paris, a woman proposes it at the Palais- Royal; Danton roars at the Cordeliers; Marat, "alone, makes as much noise as the four trumpets on the Day of Judgment." Loustalot writes that a second revolutionary paroxysm is necessary." "The day passes," says Desmoulins, "in holding councils at the Palais-Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the ends of the bridges, and on the quays... in pulling off the cockades of but one color.... These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats of the lamp post, in case of fresh offense; a soldier who is trying to refasten his, changes his mind on seeing a hundred sticks raised against him."[29] These are the premonitory symptoms of a crisis; a huge ulcer has formed in this feverish, suffering body, and it is about to break.

But, as is usually the case, it is a purulent concentration of the most poisonous passions and the foulest motives. The vilest of men and women were engaged in it. Money was freely distributed. Was it done by intriguing subalterns who, playing upon the aspirations of the Duke of Orleans, extracted millions from him under the pretext of making him lieutenant-general of the kingdom? Or is it due to the fanatics who, from the end of April, clubbed together to debauch the soldiery, and stir up a body of ruffians for the purpose of leveling and destroying everything around them?[30] There are always Machiavellis of the highways and of houses of ill-fame ready to excite the foul and the vile of both sexes. On the first day that the Flemish regiment goes into garrison at Versailles an attempt is made to corrupt it with money and women. Sixty abandoned women are sent from Paris for this purpose, while the French Guards come and treat their new comrades. The latter have been treated at the Palais-Royal, while three of them, at Versailles, exclaim, showing some crown pieces of six livres, "What a pleasure it is to go to Paris! one always comes back with money !" In this way, resistance is overcome beforehand. As to the attack, women are to be the advanced guard, because the soldiers will scruple to fire at them; their ranks, however, will be reinforced by a number of men disguised as women. On looking closely at them they are easily recognized, notwithstanding their rouge, by their badly-shaven beards, and by their voices and gait.[31] No difficulty has been found in obtaining men and women among the prostitutes of the Palais-Royal and the military deserters who serve them as bullies. It is probable that the former lent their lovers the cast-off dresses they had to spare. At night all will meet again at the common rendezvous, on the benches of the National Assembly, where they are quite as much at home as in their own houses.[32] -- In any event, the first band which marches out is of this stamp, displaying the finery and the gaiety of the profession; "most of them young, dressed in white, with powdered hair and a sprightly air;" many of them "laughing, singing, and drinking," as they would do at setting out for a picnic in the country. Three or four of them are known by name -- one brandishing a sword, and another, the notorious Théroigne. Madeleine Chabry Louison, who is selected to address the King, is a pretty grisette who sells flowers, and, no doubt, something else, at the Palais-Royal. Some appear to belong to the first rank in their calling, and to have tact and the manners of society -- suppose, for instance, that Champfort and Laclos sent their mistresses. To these must be added washerwomen, beggars, bare-footed women, and fishwomen, enlisted for several days before and paid accordingly. This is the first nucleus, and it keeps on growing; for, by compulsion or consent, the troop incorporates into it, as it passes along, all the women it encounters -- seamstresses, portresses, housekeepers, and even respectable females, whose dwellings are entered with threats of cutting off their hair if they do not fall in. To these must be added vagrants, street-rovers, ruffians and robbers -- the lees of Paris, which accumulate and come to the surface every time agitation occurs: they are to be found already at the first hour, behind the troop of women at the Hôtel- de-Ville. Others are to follow during the evening and in the night. Others are waiting at Versailles. Many, both at Paris and Versailles, are under pay: one, in a dirty whitish vest, chinks gold and silver coin in his hand. -- Such is the foul scum which, both in front and in the rear, rolls along with the popular tide; whatever is done to stem the torrent, it widens out and will leave its mark at every stage of its overflow.

The first troop, consisting of four or five hundred women, begin operations by forcing the guard of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which is unwilling to make use of its bayonets. They spread through the rooms and try to burn all the written documents they can find, declaring that there has been nothing but scribbling since the Revolution began.[33] A crowd of men follow after them, bursting open doors, and pillaging the magazine of arms. Two hundred thousand francs in Treasury notes are stolen or disappear; several of the ruffians set fire to the building, while others hang an abbé. The abbé is cut down, and the fire extinguished only just in time: such are the interludes of the popular drama. In the meantime, the crowd of women increases on the Place de Grève, always with the same unceasing cry, "Bread!" and "To Versailles!" One of the conquerors of the Bastille; the usher Maillard, offers himself as a leader. He is accepted, and taps his drum; on leaving Paris, he has seven or eight thousand women with him, and, in addition, some hundreds of men ; by dint of remonstrances, he succeeds in maintaining some kind of order amongst this rabble as far as Versailles. -- But it is a rabble notwithstanding, and consequently so much brute force, at once anarchical and imperious. On the one hand, each, and the worst among them, does what he pleases -- which will be quite evident this very evening. On the other hand, its ponderous mass crushes all authority and overrides all rules and regulations -- which is at once apparent on reaching Versailles. -- Admitted into the Assembly, at first in small numbers, the women crowd against the door, push in with a rush, fill the galleries, then the hall, the men along with them, armed with clubs, halberds, and pikes, all pell-mell, side by side with the deputies, taking possession of their benches, voting along with them, and gathering about the President, who, surrounded, threatened, and insulted, finally abandons the position, while his chair is taken by a woman.[34] A fishwoman commands in a gallery, and about a hundred women around her shout or keep silence at her bidding, while she interrupts and abuses the deputies:

"Who is that speaker there? Silence that blabbermouth; he does not know what he is talking about. The question is how to get bread. Let papa Mirabeau speak -- we want to hear him."

A decree on subsistence having been passed, the leaders demand something in addition; they must be allowed to enter all places where they suspect any monopolizing to be going on, and the price of "bread must be fixed at six sous the four pounds, and meat at six sous per pound."

"You must not think that we are children to be played with. We are ready to strike. Do as you are bidden."

All their political injunctions emanate from this central idea. And further:

"Send back the Flemish regiment -- it is a thousand men more to feed, and they take bread out of our mouths." -- "Punish the aristocrats, who hinder the bakers from baking." "Down with the skull-cap; the priests are the cause of our trouble! " -- "Monsieur Mounier, why did you advocate that villainous veto? Beware of the lamp post ! "

Under this pressure, a deputation of the Assembly, with the President at its head, sets out on foot, in the mud, through the rain, and watched by a howling escort of women and men armed with pikes: after five hours of waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the King, besides the decree on subsistence, about which there was no difficulty, the acceptance, pure and simple, of the Declaration of Rights, and his sanction to the constitutional articles. -- Such is the independence of the King and the Assembly.[35] Thus are the new principles of justice established, the grand outlines of the Constitution, the abstract axioms of political truth under the dictatorship of a crowd which extorts not only blindly, but which is half-conscious of its blindness.

"Monsieur le President," some among the women say to Mounier, who returns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us? will it give poor folks bread in Paris?"

Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and the abandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling.[36] They slip through into the lines of the regiment drawn on the square, in spite of the sentinels. Théroigne, in an Amazonian red vest, distributes money among them.

"Side with us," some say to the men; "we shall soon beat the King's Guards, strip off their fine coats and sell them."

Others lie sprawling on the ground, alluring the soldiers, and make such offers as to lead one of them to exclaim, "We are going to have a jolly time of it !" Before the day is over, the regiment is seduced; the women have, according to their own idea, acted for a good motive. When a political idea finds its way into such heads, instead of ennobling them, it becomes degraded there; its only effect is to let loose vices which a remnant of modesty still keeps in subjection, and full play is given to luxurious or ferocious instincts under cover of the public good. -- The passions, moreover, become intensified through their mutual interaction; crowds, clamor, disorder, longings, and fasting, end in a state of frenzy, from which nothing can issue but dizzy madness and rage. -- This frenzy began to show itself on the way. Already, on setting out, a woman had exclaimed,

"We shall bring back the Queen's head on the end of a pike!"[37]

On reaching the Sèvres bridge others added,

"Let us cut her throat, and make cockades of her entrails!"

Rain is falling; they are cold, tired, and hungry, and get nothing to eat but a bit of bread, distributed at a late hour, and with difficulty, on the Place d'Armes. One of the bands cuts up a slaughtered horse, roasts it, and consumes it half raw, after the manner of savages. It is not surprising that, under the names of patriotism and "justice," savage ideas spring up in their minds against "members of the National Assembly who are not with the principles of the people," against "the Bishop of Langres, Mounier, and the rest." One man in a ragged old red coat declares that "he must have the head of the Abbé Maury to play nine-pins with." But it is especially against the Queen, who is a woman, and in sight, that the feminine imagination is the most aroused.

"She alone is the cause of the evils we endure .... she must be killed, and quartered."

-- Night advances; there are acts of violence, and violence engenders violence.

"How glad I should be," says one man, "if I could only lay my hand on that she-devil, and strike off her head on the first curbstone !"

Towards morning, some cry out,

"Where is that cursed cat? We must eat her heart out... We'll take off her head, cut her heart out, and fry her liver I "

-- With the first murders the appetite for blood has been awakened; the women from Paris say that "they have brought tubs to carry away the stumps of the Royal Guards," and at these words others clap their hands. Some of the riffraff of the crowd examine the rope of the lamp post in the court of the National Assembly, and judging it not to be sufficiently strong, are desirous of supplying its place with another "to hang the Archbishop of Paris, Maury, and d'Espréménil." -- This murderous, carnivorous rage penetrates even among those whose duty it is to maintain order, one of the National Guard being heard to say that "the body-guards must be killed to the last man, and their hearts torn out for a breakfast."

Finally, towards midnight, the National Guard of Paris arrives; but it only adds one insurrection to another, for it has likewise mutinied against its chiefs.[38]

"If M. de Lafayette is not disposed to accompany us," says one of the grenadiers, "we will take an old grenadier for our commander."

Having come to this decision, they sought the general at the Hôtel- de-Ville, and the delegates of six of the companies made their instructions known to him.

"General, we do not believe that you are a traitor, but we think that the Government is betraying us.... The committee on subsistence is deceiving us, and must be removed. We want to go to Versailles to exterminate the body-guard and the Flemish regiment who have trampled on the national cockade. If the King of France is too feeble to wear his crown, let him take it off; we will crown his son and things will go better."

In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Grève; in vain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing silence. Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare the lamp-post. He then dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hôtel-de-Ville, but his grenadiers bar the way:

"Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us !"

Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which is also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the Hôtel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order to march, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse."

Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and along with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness. On this side the National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, together with the people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, have closed up every outlet.[39] The King is prisoner in his own palace, he and his, with his ministers and his court, and with no defense. For, with his usual optimism, he has confided the outer posts of the chateau to Lafayette's soldiers, and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which he is to maintain up to the last,[40] he has forbidden his own guards to fire on the crowd, so that they are only there for show. With common right in his favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had just obliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear? What could be more effective with the people than trust in them and prudence? And by playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!

>From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace- railings. Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's repose,[41] which hour suffices for them.[42] A populace armed with pikes and clubs, men and women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight National Guards, forces them to fire on the King's Guards, bursts open a door, seizes two of the guards and chops their heads off. The executioner, who is a studio model, with a heavy beard, stretches out his blood-stained hands and glories in the act; and so great is the effect on the National Guard that they move off; through sensibility, in order not to witness such sights: such is the resistance! In the meantime the crowd invade the staircases, beat down and trample on the guards they encounter, and burst open the doors with imprecations against the Queen. The Queen runs off; just in time, in her underclothes; she takes refuge with the King and the rest of the royal family, who have in vain barricaded themselves in the �il-de-Boeuf, a door of which is broken in: here they stand, awaiting death, when Lafayette arrives with his grenadiers and saves all that can be save -- their lives, and nothing more. For, from the crowd huddled in the marble court the shout rises, "To Paris with the King !" a command to which the King submits.

Now that the great hostage is in their hands, will they deign to accept the second one? This is doubtful. On the Queen approaching the balcony with her son and daughter, a howl arises of "No children!" They want to have her alone in the sights of their guns, and she understands that. At this moment M. de Lafayette, throwing the shield of his popularity over her, appears on the balcony at her side and respectfully kisses her hand. The reaction is instantaneous in this over-excited crowd. Both the men and especially the women, in such a state of nervous tension, readily jump from one extreme to another, rage bordering on tears. A portress, who is a companion of Maillard's,[43] imagines that she hears Lafayette promise in the Queen's name "to love her people and be as much attached to them as Jesus Christ to his Church." People sob and embrace each other; the grenadiers shift their caps to the heads of the body-guard. Everything will be fine : "the people have won their King back." -- Nothing is to be done now but to rejoice; and the cortege moves on. The royal family and a hundred deputies, in carriages, form the center, and then comes the artillery, with a number of women bestriding the cannons; next, a convoy of flour. Round about are the King's Guards, each with a National Guard mounted behind him; then comes the National Guard of Paris, and after them men with pikes and women on foot, on horseback, in cabs, and on carts; in front is a band bearing two severed heads on the ends of two poles, which halts at a hairdresser's, in Sèvres, to have these heads powdered and curled;[44] they are made to bow by way of salutation, and are daubed all over with cream; there are jokes and shouts of laughter; the people stop to eat and drink on the road, and oblige the guards to clink glasses with them; they shout and fire salvos of musketry; men and women hold each other's hands and sing and dance about in the mud. -- Such is the new fraternity: a funeral procession of legal and legitimate authorities, a triumph of brutality over intelligence, a murderous and political Mardi-gras, a formidable masquerade which, preceded by the insignia of death, drags along with it the heads of France, the King, the ministers, and the deputies, that it may constrain them to rule to until according to its frenzy, that it may hold them under its them pikes until it is pleased to slaughter them.

VI.

The Government and the nation in the hands of the revolutionary party.

This time there can be no mistake: the Reign of Terror is fully and firmly established. On this very day the mob stops a vehicle, in which it hopes to find M. de Virieu, and declares, on searching it, that "they are looking for the deputy to massacre him, as well as others of whom they have a list."[45] Two days afterwards the Abbé Grégoire tells the National Assembly that not a day passes without ecclesiastics being insulted in Paris, and pursued with "horrible threats." Malouet is advised that "as soon as guns are distributed among the militia, the first use made of them will be to get rid of those deputies who are bad citizens," and among others of the Abbé Maury. "The moment I stepped out into the streets," writes Mounier, "I was publicly followed. It was a crime to be seen in my company. Wherever I happened to go, along with two or three of my companions, it was stated that an assembly of aristocrats was forming. I had become such an object of terror that they threatened to set fire to a country-house where I had passed twenty-four hours; and, to relieve their minds, a promise had to be given that neither myself nor my friends should be again received into it." In one week five or six hundred deputies have their passports[46] made out, and hold themselves ready to depart. During the following month one hundred and twenty give in their resignations, or no longer appear in the Assembly. Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, the Bishop of Langres, and others besides, quit Paris, and afterwards France. Mallet du Pan writes, "Opinion now dictates its judgment with steel in hand. Believe or die is the anathema which vehement spirits pronounce, and this in the name of Liberty. Moderation has become a crime." After the 7th of October, Mirabeau says to the Comte de la Marck:

"If you have any influence with the King or the Queen, persuade them that they and France are lost if the royal family does not leave Paris. I am busy with a plan for getting them away."

He prefers everything to the present situation, "even civil war;" for "war, at least, invigorates the soul," while here, "under the dictatorship of demagogues, we are being drowned in slime." Given up to itself, Paris, in three months, "will certainly be a hospital, and, perhaps, a theater of horrors." Against the rabble and its leaders, it is essential that the King should at once coalesce "with his people," that he should go to Rouen, appeal to the provinces, provide a Centre for public opinion, and, if necessary, resort to armed resistance. Malouet, on his side, declares that "the Revolution, since the 5th of October, "horrifies all sensible men, and every party, but that it is complete and irresistible." Thus the three best minds that are associated with the Revolution -- those whose verified prophecies attest genius or good sense; the only ones who, for two or three years, and from week to week, have always predicted wisely, and who have employed reason in their demonstrations -- these three, Mallet du Pan, Mirabeau, Mabuet, agree in their estimate of the event, and in measuring its consequences. The nation is gliding down a declivity, and no one possesses the means or the force to arrest it. The King cannot do it : "undecided and weak beyond all expression, his character resembles those oiled ivory balls which one vainly strives to keep together."[47] And as for the Assembly, blinded, violated, and impelled on by the theory it proclaims, and by the faction which supports it, each of its grand decrees only renders its fall the more precipitate.

________________________________________________________________

Notes:

[1] Bailly, " Mémoires," II. 195, 242.

[2] Elysée Loustalot, journalist, editor of the paper "Révolutions de Paris," was a young lawyer who had shown a natural genius for innovative journalism. He was to die already in 1790. (SR.)

[3] Montjoie, ch. LXX, p. 65.

[4] Bailly, II. 74, 174, 242, 261, 282, 345, 392.

[5] Such as domiciliary visits and arrests apparently made by lunatics. ("Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris.") -- And Montjoie, ch. LXX. p.67. Expedition of the National Guard against imaginary brigands who are cutting down the crops at Montmorency and the volley fired in the air. -- Conquest of Ile-Adam and Chantilly.

[6] Bailly, II. 46, 95, 232, 287, 296.

[7] "Archives de la Préfecture de Police," minutes of the meeting of the section of Butte des Moulins, October 5, 1789.

[8] Bailly, II. 224. -- Dusaulx, 418, 202, 257, 174, 158. The powder transported was called poudre de traite (transport); the people understood it as poudre de traître (traitor). M. de la Salle was near being killed through the addition of an r. It is he who had taken command of the National Guard on the 13th of July.

[9] Floquet, VII. 54. There is the same scene at Granville, in Normandy, on the 16th of October. A woman had assassinated her husband, while a soldier who was her lover is her accomplice; the woman was about to he hung and the man broken on the wheel, when the populace shout, "The nation has the right of pardon," upset the scaffold, and save the two assassins.

[10] Bailly, II. 274 (August 17th).

[11] Bailly, II, 83, 202, 230, 235, 283, 299.

[12] Mercure de France, the number for September 26th. - De Goncourt, p. 111.

[13] Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," I, 58; X. 151.

[14] De Ferrières, I. 178. -- Buchez and Roux, II. 311, 316. -- Bai11y, II. 104, 174, 207, 246, 257, 282.

[15] Mercure de France, September 5th, 1789. Horace Walpole's Letters, September 5, 1789. -- M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 272. During the week following the 14th of July, 6,000 soldiers deserted and went over to the people, besides 400 and 800 Swiss Guards and six battalions of the French Guards, who remain without officers, and do as they please. Vagabonds from the neighboring villages flock in, and there are more than "30,000 strangers and vagrants" in Paris.

[16] Bailly, II. 282. The crowd of deserters was so great that Lafayette was obliged to place a guard at the barriers to keep them from entering the city. "Without this precaution the whole army would have come in."

[17] De Ferrières, I. 103. -- De Lavalette, I. 39. -- Bailly, I. 53 (on the lawyers). "It may be said that the success of the Revolution is due to this class." -- Marmontel, II. 243 "Since the first elections of Paris, in 1789, I remarked," he says, "this species of restless intriguing men, contending with each other to be heard, impatient to make themselves prominent....It is well known what interest this body (the lawyers) had to change Reform into Revolution, the Monarchy into a Republic; the object was to organize for itself a perpetual aristocracy." -- Buchez and Roux, II. 358 (article by C. Desmoulins). "In the districts everybody exhausts his lungs and his time in trying to be president, vice-president, secretary or vice-secretary"

[18] Eugène Hatin, "Histoire de la Presse," vol. V. p. 113. "Le Patriote français" by Brissot, July 28, 1789. -- "L'Ami du Peuple," by Marat, September 12, 1789. -- "Annales patriotiques et littéraires," by Carra and Mercier, October 5, 1789, -- "Les Révolutions de Paris," chief editor Loustalot, July 17th, 1789. - "Le Tribun du peuple," letters by (middle of 1789). - "Révolutions de France et de Brabant," by C. Desmoulins, November 28, 1789; his "France libre" (I believe of the month of August, and his "Discours de la Lanterne" of the month of September). - "The Moniteur" does not make its appearance until November 24, 1789. In the seventy numbers which follow, up to February 3, 1790, the debates of the Assembly were afterwards written out, amplified, and put in a dramatic form. All numbers anterior to February 3, 1790, are the result of a compilation executed in the year IV. The narrative part during the first six months of the Revolution is of no value. The report of the sittings of the Assembly is more exact, but should be revised sitting by sitting and discourse by discourse for a detailed history of the National Assembly. The principal authorities which are really contemporary are, "Le Mercure de France," "Le Journal de Paris," "Le point de Jour" by Barrère, the "Courrier de Versailles," by Gorsas, the "Courrier de Provence" by Mirabeau, the "Journal des Débats et Décrets," the official reports of the National assembly, the "Bulletin de l'Asemblée Nationale," by Marat, besides the newspapers above cited for the period following the 14th of July, and the speeches, which are printed separately.

[19] C. Desmoulins, letters of September 20th and of subsequent dates. (He quote, a passage from Lucan in the sense indicated). -- Brissot, "Mémoires," passim. -- Biography of Danton by Robinet. (See the testimony of Madame Roland and of Rousselin de Saint-Albin.)

[20] "Discours de la Lanterne." See the epigraph of the engraving.

[21] Buchez and Roux; III. 55; article of Marat, October lst. "Sweep all the suspected men out of the Hôtel-de-Ville. . . . . Reduce the deputies of the communes to fifty; do not let them remain in office more than a month or six weeks, and compel them to transact business only in public." -- And II. 412, another article by Marat. -- Ibid. III. 21. An article by Loustalot. - C. Desmoulins, "Discours de la Lanterne," passim. -- Bailly, II. 326.

[22] Mounier, "Des causes qui ont empêche les Français d'être libre," I. 59. - Lally-Tollendal, second letter, 104. -- Bailly, II. 203.

[23] De Bouillé, 207. -- Lally-Tollendal, ibid, 141, 146. -- Mounier, ibid., 41, 60.

[24] Mercure de France, October 2, 1790 (article of Mallet du Pan: "I saw it"). Criminal proceedings at the Châtelet on the events of October 5th and 6th. Deposition of M. Feydel, a deputy, No. 178. - - De Montlosier, i. 259. -- Desmoulins (La Lanterne). "Some members of the communes are gradually won over by pensions, by plans for making a fortune and by flattery. Happily, the incorruptible galleries are always on the side of the patriots. They represent the tribunes of the people seated on a bench in attendance on the deliberations of the Senate and who had the veto. They represent the metropolis and, fortunately, it is under the batteries of the metropolis that the constitution is being framed." (C. Desmoulins, simple-minded politician, always let the cat out of the bag.)

[25] "Procédure du Châtelet," Ibid. Deposition of M. Malouet (No. 111). "I received every day, as well as MM. Lally and Mounier, anonymous letters and lists of proscriptions on which we were inscribed. These letters announced a prompt and violent death to every deputy that advocated the authority of the King."

[26] Buchez and Roux, I. 368, 376. -- -- Bailly, II. 326, 341. - Mounier, ibid., 62, 75.

[27] Etienne Dumont, 145. -- Correspondence between Comte de Mirabeau and Comte de la Marck.

[28] "Procédure criminelle du Châtelet," Deposition 148. - Buchez and Roux, III. 67, 65. (Narrative of Desmoulins, article of Loustalot.) Mercure de France, number for September 5, 1789. "Sunday evening, August 30, at the Palais-Royal, the expulsion of several deputies of every class was demanded, and especially some of those from Dauphiny. . . They spoke of bringing the King to Paris as well as the Dauphin. All virtuous citizens, every incorruptible patriot, was exhorted to set out immediately for Versailles."

[29] These acts of violence were not reprisals; nothing of the kind took place at the banquet of the body-guards (October 1st). "Amidst the general joy," says an eye-witness, I heard no insults against the National Assembly, nor against the popular party, nor against anybody. The only cries were 'Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! We will defend them to the death!'" (Madame de Larochejacquelein, p.40. - Ibid. Madame Campan, another eye-witness.) -- It appears to be certain, however, that the younger members of the National Guard at Versailles turned their cockades so as to be like other people, and it is also probable that some of the ladies distributed white cockades. The rest is a story made up before and after the event to justify the insurrection. -- Cf. Lerol, "Histoire de Versailles," II. 20-107. Ibid. p. 141. "As to that proscription of the national cockade, all witnesses deny it." The originator of the calumny is Gorsas, editor of the Courrier de Versailles.

[30] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 88, 110, 120, 126, 127, 140, 146, 148. -- Marmontel, "Mémoires," a conversation with Champfort, in May, 1789. -- Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 398. (According to the evidence of Garat, Champfort gave all his savings, 3,000 livres, to defray the expenses of maneuvers of this description.) -- Malouet (II. 2). knew four of the deputies "who took direct part in this conspiracy."

[31] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." 1st. On the Flemish soldiers. Depositions 17, 20, 24, 35, 87, 89, 98. -- 2nd. On the men disguised as women. Depositions 5, 10, 14, 44, 49, 59, 60, 110, 120, 139, 145, 146, 148. The prosecutor designates six of them to be seized. -- 3rd. On the condition of the women of the expedition. Depositions 35, 83, 91, 98, 146, and 24. -- 4th. On the money distributed. Depositions 49, 56, 71, 82, 110, 126.

[32] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 61. "During the night scenes, not very decent, occurred among these people, which the witness thought it useless to relate."

[33] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 35, 44, 81. -- Buchez and Roux, III. 120. (Minutes of the meeting of the Commune, October 5th.) Journal de Paris, October 12th. A few days after, M. Pic, clerk of the prosecutor, brought "a package of 100,000 francs which he had saved from the enemies' hands," and another package of notes was found thrown, in the hubbub, into a receipt-box.

[34] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 61, 77, 81, 148, 154. -- Dumont, 181. -- Mounier, "Exposé justificatif," and specially "Fait relatif à la dernière insurrection."

[35] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 168. The witness sees on leaving the King's apartment " several women dressed as fish-wives, one of whom, with a pretty face, has a paper in her hand, and who exclaims as she holds it up, 'He! F..., we have forced the guy to sign.' "

[36] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 89, 91, 98. "Promising all, even raising their petticoats before them."

[37] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet," Depositions 9, 20, 24, 30, 49, 61, 82, 115, 149, 155.

[38] Procédure criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 7, 30, 35, 40. - - Cf. Lafayette, "Mémoires," and Madame Campan, "Mémoires."

[39] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 24. A number of butcher-boys run after the carriages issuing from the Petite-Ecurie shouting out, "Don't let the curs escape!"

[40] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 101, 91, 89, and 17. M. de Miomandre, a body-guard, mildly says to the ruffians mounting the staircase: "My friends, you love your King, and yet you come to annoy him even in his palace!"

[41] Malouet, II. 2. "I felt no distrust," says Lafayette in 1798; "the people promised to remain quiet."

[42] "Procédure Criminelle du Chatelet." Depositions 9, 16, 60, 128, 129, 130, 139, 158, 168, 170. -- M. du Repaire, body-guard, being sentry at the railing from two o'clock in the morning, a man passes his pike through the bars saying, "You embroidered b. . . , your turn will come before long." M. de Repaire, " retires within the sentry-box without saying a word to this man, considering the orders that have been issued not to act."

[43] "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 82, 170 -- Madame Campan. II. 87. -- De Lavalette, I.33. -- Cf. Bertrand de Molleville, Mémoires."

[44] Duval," Souvenirs de la Terreur," I. 78. (Doubtful in almost everything, but here he is an eye-witness. He dined opposite the hair-dresser's, near the railing of the Park of Saint-Cloud.) -- M. de Lally-Tollendal's second letter to a friend. "At the moment the King entered his capital with two bishops of his council with him in the carriage, the cry was heard, "Off to the lamp post with the bishops!"

[45] De Montlosier, I. 303. -- Moniteur, sessions of the 8th, 9th, and 10th of October. -- Malouet, II. 9, 10, 20. -- Mounier, Recherches sur les Causes, etc.," and "Addresse aux Dauphinois."

[46] De Ferrières, I. 346. (On the 9th of October, 300 members have already taken their passports.) Mercure de France, No. of the 17th October. Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I. 116, 126, 364.

[47] Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I.175. (The words of Monsieur to M. de la Marck.)

BOOK SECOND. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, AND THE RESULT OF ITS LABORS.

CHAPTER I. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. - CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OF GOOD LAWS.

Among the most difficult undertakings in this world is the formulation of a national constitution, especially if this is to be a complete and comprehensive work. To replace the old structures inside which a great people has lived by a new, different, appropriate and durable set of laws, to apply a mold of one hundred thousand compartments on to the life of twenty-six million people, to construct it so harmoniously, adapt it so well, so closely, with such an exact appreciation of their needs and their faculties, that they enter it of themselves and move about it without collisions, and that their spontaneous activity should at once find the ease of familiar routine, - is an extraordinary undertaking and probably beyond the powers of the human mind. In any event, the mind requires all its powers to carry the undertaking out, and it cannot protect itself carefully enough against all sources of disturbance and error. An Assembly, especially a Constituent Assembly, requires, outwardly, security and independence, inwardly, silence and order, and generally, calmness, good sense, practical ability and discipline under competent and recognized leaders. Do we find anything of all this in the Constituent Assembly?

These conditions absent in the Assembly - Causes of disorder and irrationality - The place of meeting - The large number of deputies - Interference of the galleries - Rules of procedure wanting, defective, or disregarded.- The parliamentary leaders - Susceptibility and over-excitement of the Assembly - Its paroxysms of enthusiasm. - Its tendency to emotion. -It encourages theatrical display - Changes which these displays introduce in its good intentions.

We have only to look at it outwardly to have some doubts about it. At Versailles, and then at Paris, the sessions are held in an immense hall capable of seating 2,000 persons, in which the most powerful voice must be strained in order to be heard. It is not calculated for the moderate tone suitable for the discussion of business; the speaker is obliged to shout, and the strain on the voice communicates itself to the mind; the place itself suggests declamation; and this all the more readily because the assemblage consists of 1,200, that is to say, a crowd, and almost a mob. 'At the present day (1877), in our assemblies of five or six hundred deputies, there are constant interruptions and an incessant buzz; there is nothing so rare as self-control, and the firm resolve to give an hour's attention to a discourse opposed to the opinions of the hearers. -- What can be done here to compel silence and patience? Arthur Young on different occasions sees "a hundred members on the floor at once," shouting and gesticulating. "Gentlemen, you are killing me!" says Bailly, one day, sinking with exhaustion. Another president exclaims in despair, "Two hundred speaking at the same time cannot be heard; will you make it impossible then to restore order in the Assembly?" The rumbling, discordant din is further increased by the uproar of the galleries.[1]

"In the British Parliament," writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw the galleries cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happened unintentionally to laugh too loud."

Here, the thronging crowd of spectators, stringers, delegates from the Palais-Royal, soldiers disguised as citizens, and prostitutes collected and marshaled, applaud, clap their hands, stamp and hoot, at their pleasure. This is carried to so great an extent that M. de Montlosier ironically proposes "to give the galleries a voice in the deliberations."[2] Another member wishes to know whether the representatives are so many actors, whom the nation sends there to endure the hisses of the Paris public. Interruptions, in fact, take place as in a theater, and, frequently, if the members do not give satisfaction, they are forced to desist. On the other hand, the deputies who are popular with this energetic audience, on which they keep and eye, are actors before the footlights: they involuntarily yield to its influence, and exaggerate their ideas as well as their words to be in unison with it. Tumult and violence, under such circumstances, become a matter of course, and the chances of an Assembly acting wisely are diminished by one-half; on becoming a club of agitators, it ceases to be a conclave of legislators.

Let us enter and see how this one proceeds. Thus encumbered, thus surrounded and agitated, does it take at least those precautions without which no assembly of men can govern itself. When several hundred persons assemble together for deliberation, it is evident that some sort of an internal police is necessary; first of all, some code of accepted usage, some written precedents, by which its acts may be prepared and defined, considered in detail, and properly passed. The best of these codes it ready to hand: at the request of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over the standing orders of the English House of Commons.[3} But with the presumption of novices, they pay no attention to this code; they imagine it is needless for them; they will borrow nothing from foreigners; they accord no authority to experience, and, not content with rejecting the forms it prescribes, "it is with difficulty they can be made to follow any rule whatever." They leave the field open to the impulsiveness of individuals; any kind of influence, even that of a deputy, even of one elected by themselves, is suspected by them; hence their choice of a new president every fortnight. - They submit to no constraint or control, neither to the legal authority of a parliamentary code, nor to the moral authority of parliamentary chiefs. They are without any such; they are not organized in parties; neither on one side nor on the other is a recognized leader found who fixes the time, arranges the debate, draws up the motion, assigns parts, and gives the rein to or restrains his supporters. Mirabeau is the only one capable of obtaining this ascendancy; but, on the opening of the Assembly, he is discredited by the notoriety of his vices, and, towards the last, is compromised by his connections with the Court. No other is of sufficient eminence to have any influence; there is too much of average and too little of superior talent. - Their self-esteem is, moreover, as yet too strong to allow any concessions. Each of these improvised legislators has come satisfied with his own system, and to submit to a leader to whom he would entrust his political conscience, to make of him what three out of four of these deputies should be, a voting machine, would require an apprehension of danger, some painful experience, an enforced surrender which he is far from realizing.[4] For this reason, save in the violent party, each acts as his own chief, according to the impulse of the moment, and the confusion may be imagined. Strangers who witness it, lift their hands in pity and astonishment. "They discuss nothing in their Assembly," writes Gouverneur Morris,[5] "One large half of the time is spent in hallowing and bawling.... Each Man permitted to speak delivers the Result of his Lubrications," amidst this noise, taking his turn as inscribed, without replying to his predecessor, or being replied to by his successor, without ever meeting argument by argument; so that while the firing is interminable, "all their shots are fired in the air." Before this "frightful clatter" can be reported, the papers of the day are obliged to make all sorts of excisions, to prune away "nonsense," and reduce the "inflated and bombastic style." Chatter and clamor, that is the whole substance of most of these famous sittings.

"You would hear," says a journalist, "more yells than speeches; the sittings seemed more likely to end in fights than in decrees. . . . Twenty times I said to myself, on leaving, that if anything could arrest and turn the tide of the Revolution, it would be a picture of these meetings traced without caution or adaptation. . . All my efforts were therefore directed to represent the truth, without rendering it repulsive. Out of what had been merely a row, I concocted a scene. . . I gave all the sentiments, but not always in the same words. I translated their yells into words, their furious gestures into attitudes, and when I could not inspire esteem, I endeavored to rouse the emotions."

There is no remedy for this evil; for, besides the absence of discipline, there is an inward and fundamental cause for the disorder. These people are too susceptible. They are Frenchmen, and Frenchmen of the eighteenth century; brought up in the amenities of the utmost refinement, accustomed to deferential manners, to constant kind attentions and mutual obligations, so thoroughly imbued with the instinct of good breeding that their conversation seems almost insipid to strangers.[6] -- And suddenly they find themselves on the thorny soil of politics, exposed to insulting debates, flat contradictions, venomous denunciation, constant detraction and open invective; engaged in a battle in which every species of weapon peculiar to a parliamentary life is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely able to keep cool. Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highly strung nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the accommodations and amiabilities of universal urbanity. They are at once beside themselves. - And all the more so because they never anticipated a battle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming idyll, in which everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears around the throne and save the country amid mutual embraces. Necker himself arranges, like a theater, the chamber in which the sessions of the Assembly are to be held.[7] "He was not disposed to regard the Assemblies of the States-General as anything but a peaceful, imposing, solemn, august spectacle, which the people would enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenly changes into a drama, he is so frightened that it seems to him as if a landslide had occurred that threatened, during the night, to break down the framework of the building. - At the time of the meeting of the States-General, everybody is delighted; all imagine that they are about to enter the promised land. During the procession of the 4thof May,

"tears of joy," says the Marquis de Ferrières, "filled my eyes. . . . In a state of sweet rapture I beheld France supported by Religion" exhorting us all to concord. "The sacred ceremonies, the music, the incense, the priests in their sacrificial robes, that dais, that orb radiant with precious stones. .. I called to my mind the words of the prophet. . . . My God, my country, and my countrymen, all were one with myself! "

Such emotions repeatedly explode in the course of the session, and resulted in the passage of laws which no one could have imagined.

"Sometimes,"[8] writes the American ambassador, "a speaker gets up in the midst of a deliberation, makes a fine discourse on a different subject, and closes with a nice little resolution which is carried with a hurrah. Thus, in considering the plan of a national bank proposed by M. Necker, one of them took it into his head to move that every member should give his silver buckles, which was agreed to at once, and the honorable mover laid his upon the table, after which the business went on again."

Thus, over-excited, they do not know in the morning what they will do in the afternoon, and they are at the mercy of every surprise. When they are seized with these fits of enthusiasm, infatuation spreads over all the benches; prudence gives way, all foresight disappears and every objection is stifled. During the night of the 4th of August,[9] "nobody is master of himself . The Assembly presents the spectacle of an inebriated crowd in a shop of valuable furniture, breaking and smashing at will whatever they can lay their hands on."

"That which would have required a year of care and reflection," says a competent foreigner, "was proposed, deliberated over, and passed by general acclamation. The abolition of feudal rights, of titles, of the privileges of the provinces, three articles which alone embraced a whole system of jurisprudence and statesmanship, were decided with ten or twelve other measures in less time than is required in the English Parliament for the first reading of an important bill."

"Such are our Frenchmen," says Mirabeau again, "they spend a month in disputes about syllables, and overthrow, in a single night, the whole established system of the Monarchy !"[10]

The truth is, they display the nervousness of women, and, from one end of the Revolution to the other, this excitability keeps on increasing.

Not only are they excited, but the pitch of excitement must be maintained, and, like the drunkard who, once stimulated, has recourse again to strong waters, one would say that they carefully try to expel the last remnants of calmness and common sense from their brains. They delight in pompous phrases, in high-sounding rhetoric, in declamatory sentimental strokes of eloquence: this is the style of nearly all their speeches, and so strong is their taste, they are not satisfied with the orations made amongst themselves. Lally and Necker, having made "affecting and sublime" speeches at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Assembly wish them to be repeated before them:[11] this being the heart of France, it is proper for it to answer to the noble emotions of all Frenchmen. Let this heart throb on, and as strongly as possible, for that is its office, and day by day it receives fresh impulses. Almost all sittings begin with the reading of flattering addresses or of threatening denunciations. The petitioners frequently appear in person, and read their enthusiastic effusions, their imperious advice, their doctrines of dissolution. To-day it is Danton, in the name of Paris, with his bull visage and his voice that seems a tocsin of insurrection; to-morrow, the vanquishers of the Bastille, or some other troop, with a band of music which continues playing even into the hall. The meeting is not a conference for business, but a patriotic opera, where the eclogue, the melodrama, and sometimes the masquerade, mingle with the cheers and the clapping of hands.[12] -- A serf of the Jura is brought to the bar of the Assembly aged one hundred and twenty years, and one of the members of the cortège, " M. Bourbon de la Crosnière, director of a patriotic school, asks permission to take charge of an honorable old man, that he may be waited on by the young people of all ranks, and especially by the children of those whose fathers were killed in the attack on the Bastille." [13] Great is the hubbub and excitement. The scene seems to be in imitation of Berquin,[14] with the additional complication of a mercenary consideration.

But small matters are not closely looked into, and the Assembly, under the pressure of the galleries, stoops to shows, such as are held at fairs. Sixty vagabonds who are paid twelve francs a head, in the costumes of Spaniards, Dutchmen, Turks, Arabs, Tripolitans, Persians, Hindus, Mongols, and Chinese, conducted by the Prussian Anacharsis Clootz, enter, under the title of Ambassadors of the Human Race, to declaim against tyrants, and they are admitted to the honors of the sitting. On this occasion the masquerade is a stroke devised to hasten and extort the abolition of nobility.[15] At other times, there is little or no object in it; its ridiculousness is inexpressible, for the farce is played out as seriously and earnestly as in a village award of prizes. For three days, the children who have taken their first communion before the constitutional bishop have been promenaded through the streets of Paris; at the Jacobin club they recite the nonsense they have committed to memory; and, on the fourth day, admitted to the bar of the Assembly, their spokesman, a poor little thing of twelve years, repeats the parrot-like tirade. He winds up with the accustomed oath, upon which all the others cry out in their piping, shrill voices, " We swear ! " As a climax, the President, Trejlhard, a sober lawyer, replies to the little gamins with perfect gravity in a similar strain, employing metaphors, personifications, and everything else belonging to the stock-in-trade of a pedant on his platform:

"You merit a share in the glory of the founders of liberty, prepared as you are to shed your blood in her behalf."

Immense applause from the "left" and the galleries, and a decree ordering the speeches of both president and children to be printed. The children, probably, would rather have gone out to play; but, willingly or unwillingly, they receive or endure the honors of the sitting.[16]

Such are the tricks of the stage and of the platform by which the managers here move their political puppets. Emotional susceptibility, once recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrument of intrigue and constraint. The Assembly, having accepted theatrical exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest, is obliged to tolerate them when they become mere sham and buffoonery. At this vast national banquet, over which it meant to preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality; but it has touched glasses with the populace, and by degrees, under the pressure of its associates, it has descended to adulterated and burning drinks, to a grotesque unwholesome inebriety which is all the more grotesque and unwholesome, because it persists in believing itself to be reason.

II.

Inadequacy of its information - Its composition - The social standing and culture of the larger number - Their incapacity. Their presumption - Fruitless advice of competent men.- Deductive politics - Parties - The minority; its faults - The majority; its dogmatism.

If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals! But reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French Assembly, except the two following this, have there ever been fewer political intellects. - Strictly speaking, with careful search, there could undoubtedly be found in France, in 1789, five or six hundred experienced men, such as the intendants and military commanders of every province; next to these the prelates, administrators of large dioceses the members of the local "parlements," whose courts gave them influence, and who, besides judicial functions, possessed a portion of administrative power; and finally, the principal members of the Provincial Assemblies, all of them influential and sensible people who had exercised control over men and affairs, at once humane, liberal, moderate, and capable of understanding the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of a great reform; indeed, their correspondence, full of facts, stated with precision and judgment, when compared with the doctrinaire rubbish of the Assembly, presents the strongest possible contrast. - But most of these lights remain under a bushel; only a few of them get into the Assembly; these burn without illuminating, and are soon extinguished in the tempest.' I. The venerable Machault is not there, nor Malesherbes; there are none of the old ministers or the marshals of France. Not one of the intendants is there, except Malouet, and by the superiority of this man, the most judicious of the Assembly, one can judge the services which his colleagues would have rendered. Out of two hundred and ninety-one members of the clergy,[17] there are indeed forty-eight bishops or archbishops and thirty-five abbots or canons, but, being prelates and with large endowments, they excite the envy of their order, and are generals without any soldiers. We have the same spectacle among the nobles. Most of them, the gentry of the provinces, have been elected in opposition to the grandees of the Court. Moreover, neither the grandees of the Court, devoted to worldly pursuits, nor the gentry of the provinces, confined to private life, are practically familiar with public affairs. A small group among them, twenty-eight magistrates and about thirty superior officials who have held command or have been connected with the administration, probably have some idea of the peril of society; but it is precisely for this reason that they seem to be behind the age and remain without influence. - In the Third-Estate, out of five hundred and seventy-seven members, only ten have exercised any important functions, those of intendant, councillor of state, receiver-general, lieutenant of police, director of the mint, and others of the same category. The great majority is composed of unknown lawyers and people occupying inferior positions in the profession, notaries, royal attorneys, register commissaries, judges and assessors of; the présidial, bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple practitioners confined from their youth to the narrow circle of an inferior jurisdiction or to a routine of scribbling, with no escape but philosophical excursions in imaginary space under the guidance of Rousseau and Raynal. There are three hundred and seventy-three of this class, to whom may be added thirty-eight farmers and husbandmen, fifteen physicians, and, among the manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists, some fifty or sixty who are their equals in education and in political capacity. Scarcely one hundred and fifty proprietors are here from the middle class.[18] To these four hundred and fifty deputies, whose condition, education, instruction, and mental range qualified them for being good clerks, prominent men in a commune, honorable fathers of a family, or, at best, provincial academicians, add two hundred and eight curés, their equals; this makes six hundred and fifty out of eleven hundred and eighteen deputies, forming a positive majority, which, again, is augmented by about fifty philosophical nobles, leaving out the weak who follow the current, and the ambitious who range themselves on the strong side. - We may divine what a chamber thus made up can do, and those who are familiar with such matters prophesy what it will do.[19]

"There are some able men in the National Assembly," writes the American minister, "yet the best heads among them would not be injured by experience, and, unfortunately, there are great numbers who, with much imagination, have little knowledge, judgment, or reflection."

It would be just as sensible to select eleven hundred notables from an inland province and entrust them to the repair of an old frigate. They would conscientiously break the vessel up, and the frigate they would construct in its place would founder before it left port.

If they would only consult the pilots and professional shipbuilders! -- There are several of such to be found around them, whom they cannot suspect, for most of them are foreigners, born in free countries, impartial, sympathetic, and, what is more, unanimous. The Minister of the United States writes, two months before the convocation of the States-General:[20]

"I, a republican, and just, as it were, emerged from that Assembly which has formed one of the most republican of republican constitutions, - I preach incessantly respect for the prince, attention to the rights of the nobility, and moderation, not only in the object, but also in the pursuit of it."

Jefferson, a democrat and radical, expresses himself no differently. At the time of the oath of the Tennis Court, he redoubles his efforts to induce Lafayette and other patriots to make some arrangement with the King to secure freedom of the press, religious, liberty, trial by jury, the habeas corpus, and a national legislature, - things which he could certainly be made to adopt, - and then to retire into private life, and let these institutions act upon the condition of the people until they had rendered it capable of further progress, with the assurance that there would be no lack of opportunity for them to obtain still more.

"This was all," he continues, "that I thought your countrymen able to bear soberly and usefully."

Arthur Young, who studies the moral life of France so conscientiously, and who is so severe in depicting old abuses, cannot comprehend the conduct of the Commons.

"To set aside practice for theory . . . in establishing the interests of a great kingdom, in securing freedom to 25,000,000 of people, seems to me the very acme of imprudence, the very quintessence of insanity."

Undoubtedly, now that the Assembly is all-powerful, it is to be hoped that it will be reasonable:

"I will not allow myself to believe for a moment that the representatives of the people can ever so far forget their duty to the French nation, to humanity, and their own fame, as to suffer any inordinate and impracticable views - any visionary or theoretic systems - . . . to turn aside their exertions from that security which is in their hands, to place on the chance and hazard of public commotion and civil war the invaluable blessings which are certainly in their power. I will not conceive it possible that men who have eternal fame within their grasp will place the rich inheritance on the cast of a die, and, losing the venture, be damned among the worst and most profligate adventurers that ever disgraced humanity."

As their plan becomes more definite the remonstrances become more decided, and all the expert judges point out to them the importance of the wheels which they are willfully breaking.

"As they have[21] hitherto felt severely the authority exercised over them in the name of their princes, every limitation of that authority seems to them desirable. Never having felt the evils of too weak an executive, the disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet no impression" -- "They want an American Constitution,[22] but with a King instead of a President, without reflecting they have no American citizens to support that Constitution. . . If they have the good sense to give the nobles, as nobles, some portion of the national power, this free constitution will probably last, But otherwise it will degenerate either into a pure monarchy, or a vast republic, or a democracy. Will the latter last? I doubt it. I am sure that it will not, unless the whole nation is changed."

A little later, when they renounce a parliamentary monarchy to put in its place "a royal democracy," it is at once explained to them that such an institution applied to France can produce nothing but anarchy, and finally end in despotism.

"Nowhere[23] has liberty proved to be stable without a sacrifice of its excesses, without some barrier to its own omnipotence. . . . Under this miserable government . . . the people, soon weary of storms, and abandoned without legal protection to their seducers or to their oppressors, will shatter the helm, or hand it over to some audacious hand that stands ready to seize it."

Events occur from month to month in fulfillment of these predictions, and the predictions grow gloomier and more gloomy. It is a flock of wild birds:[24]

"It is very difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will settle when it flies so wild. . . . This unhappy country, bewildered in the pursuit of metaphysical whims, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. The Assembly, at once master and slave, new in power, wild in theory, raw in practice, engrossing all functions without being able to exercise any, has freed that fierce, ferocious people from every restraint of religion and respect. . . . Such a state of things cannot last . . . The glorious opportunity is lost and for this time, at least, the Revolution has failed."

We see, from the replies of Washington, that he is of the same opinion. On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, the ablest practician, and Burke, the ablest theorist, of political liberty, express the same judgment. Pitt, after 1789, declares that the French have overleaped freedom. After 1790, Burke, in a work which is a prophecy as well as a masterpiece, points to military dictatorship as the termination of the Revolution, "the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth." Nothing is of any effect. With the exception of the small powerless group around Malouet and Mounier, the warnings of Morris, Jefferson, Romilly, Dumont, Mallet du Pan, Arthur Young, Pitt and Burke, all of them men who have experience of free institutions, are received with indifference or repelled with disdain. Not only are our new politicians incapable, but they think themselves the contrary, and their incompetence is aggravated by their infatuation.

"I often used to say, "writes Dumont,[25] "that if a hundred persons were stopped at haphazard in the streets of London, and a hundred in the streets of Paris, and a proposal were made to them to take charge of the Government, ninety-nine would accept it in Paris and ninety-nine would refuse it in London . . . The Frenchman thinks that all difficulties can be overcome by a little quickness of wit. Mirabeau accepted the post of reporter to the Committee on Mines without having the slightest tincture of knowledge on the subject."

In short, most of them enter politics "like the gentleman who, on being asked if he knew how to play on the harpsichord, replied, 'I cannot tell, I never tried, but I will see.' "

"The Assembly had so high an opinion of itself, especially the left side of it, that it would willingly have undertaken the framing of the Code of Laws for all nations. . . Never has so many men been seen together, fancying that they were all legislators, and that they were there to correct all the errors of the past, to remedy all mistakes of the human mind, and ensure the happiness of all ages to come. Doubt had no place in their minds, and infallibility always presided over their contradictory decrees." --

This is because they have a theory and because, according to their notion, this theory renders special knowledge unnecessary. Herein they are thoroughly sincere, and it is of set purpose that they reverse all ordinary modes of procedure. Up to this time a constitution used to be organized or repaired like a ship. Experiments were made from time to time, or a model was taken from vessels in the neighborhood; the first aim was to make the ship sail; its construction was subordinated to its work; it was fashioned in this or that way according to the materials on hand; a beginning was made by examining these materials, and trying to estimate their rigidity, weight, and strength. - All this is reactionary; the age of Reason has come and the Assembly is too enlightened to drag on in a rut. In conformity with the fashion of the time it works by deduction, after the method of Rousseau, according to an abstract notion of right, of the State and of the social compact.[26] According to this process, by virtue of political geometry alone, they shall have the perfect vessel and since it perfect it follows that it will sail, and that much better than any empirical craft. - They legislate according to this principle, and one may imagine the nature of their discussions. There are no convincing facts, no pointed arguments; nobody would ever imagine that the speakers were gathered together to conduct real business. Through speech after speech, strings of hollow abstractions are endlessly renewed as in a meeting of students in rhetoric for the purpose of practice, or in a society of old bookworms for their own amusement. On the question of the veto "each orator in turn, armed with his portfolio, reads a dissertation which has no bearing whatever" on the preceding one, which makes a "sort of academical session,"[27] a succession of pamphlets fresh every morning for several days. On the question of the Rights of Man fifty-four speakers are placed on the list.

"I remember," says Dumont, "that long discussion, which lasted for weeks, as a period of deadly boredom, -- vain disputes over words, a metaphysical jumble, and most tedious babble; the Assembly was turned into a Sorbonne lecture-room,"

and all this while chateaux were burning, while town-halls were being sacked, and courts dared no longer hold assize, while the distribution of wheat was stopped, and while society was in course of dissolution. In the same manner the theologians of the Easter Roman Empire kept up their wrangles about the uncreated light of Mount Tabor while Mahomet II was battering the walls of Constantinople with his cannon. - Ours, of course, are another sort of men, juvenile in feeling, sincere, enthusiastic, even generous, and further, more devoted, laborious, and in some cases endowed with rare talent. But neither zeal, nor labor, nor talent are of any use when not employed in the service of a sound idea; and if in the service of a false one, the greater they are the more mischief they do.

Towards the end of the year 1789, there can be not doubt of this; and the parties now formed reveal their presumption, improvidence, incapacity, and obstinacy. "This Assembly," writes the American ambassador,[28] "may be divided into three parties; --

one called the aristocrats, consists of the high clergy, the parliamentary judges, and such of the nobility as think they ought to form a separate order." This is the party which offers resistance to follies and errors, but with follies and errors almost equally great. In the beginning "the prelates,[29] instead of conciliating the curés, kept them at a humiliating distance, affecting distinctions, exacting respect," and, in their own chamber, "ranging themselves apart on separate benches." The nobles, on the other hand, the more to alienate the commons, began by charging these with, "revolt, treachery, and treason," and by demanding the use of military force against them. Now that the victorious Third-Estate has again overcome them and overwhelms them with numbers, they become still more maladroit, and conduct the defense much less efficiently than the attack. "In the Assembly," says one of them, "they do not listen, but laugh and talk aloud;" they take pains to embitter their adversaries and the galleries by their impertinence. "They leave the chamber when the President puts the question and invite the deputies of their party to follow them, or cry out to them not to take part in the deliberation : through this desertion, the clubbists become the majority, and decree whatever they please." It is in this way that the appointment of judges and bishops is withdrawn from the King and assigned to the people. Again, after the return from Varennes, when the Assembly finds out that the result of its labors is impracticable and wants to make it less democratic, the whole of the right side refuses to share in the debates, and, what is worse, votes with the revolutionaries to exclude the members of the Constituent from the Legislative Assembly. Thus, not only does it abandon its own cause, but it commits self-destruction, and its desertion ends in suicide. --

A second party remains, "the middle party,"[30] which consists of well-intentioned people from every class, sincere partisans of a good government; but, unfortunately, they have acquired their ideas of government from books, and are admirable on paper. But as it happens that the men who live in the world are very different from imaginary men who dwell in the heads of philosophers, it is not to be wondered at if the systems taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be upset by another book. Intellects of this stamp are the natural prey of utopians. Lacking the ballast of experience they are carried away by pure logic and serve to enlarge the flock of theorists. - The latter form the third party, which is called the "enragés (the wild men), and who, at the expiration of six months, find themselves "the most numerous of all."

"It is composed," says Morris, "of that class which in America is known by the name of pettifogging lawyers, together with a host of curates and many of those persons who in all revolutions throng to the standard of change because they are not well.[31] This last party is in close alliance with the populace and derives from this circumstance very great authority."

All powerful passions are on its side, not merely the irritation of the people tormented by misery and suspicion, not merely the ambition and self-esteem of the bourgeois, in revolt against the ancient régime, but also the inveterate bitterness and fixed ideas of so many suffering minds and so many factious intellects, Protestants, Jansenists, economists, philosophers, men who, like Fréteau, Rabout-Saint-Etienne, Volney, Sieyès, are hatching out a long arrears of resentments or hopes, and who only await the opportunity to impose their system with all the intolerance of dogmatism and of faith. To minds of this stamp the past is a dead letter; example is no authority; realities are of no account; they live in their own Utopia. Sieyès, the most important of them all, judges that "the whole English constitution is charlatanism, designed for imposing on the people;"[32] he regards the English "as children in the matter of a constitution," and thinks that he is capable of giving France a much better one. Dumont, who sees the first committees at the houses of Brissot and Clavières, goes away with as much anxiety as "disgust."

"It is impossible," he says, "to depict the confusion of ideas, the license of the imagination, the burlesque of popular notions. One would think that they saw before them the world on the day after the Creation."

They seem to think, indeed, that human society does not exist, and that they are appointed to create it. Just as well might ambassadors "of hostile tribes, and of diverse interests, set themselves to arrange their common lot as if nothing had previously existed." There is no hesitation. They are satisfied that the thing can be easily done, and that, with two or three axioms of political philosophy, the first man that comes may make himself master of it. Immoderate conceit of this kind among men of experience would seem ridiculous; in this assembly of novices it is a strength. A flock which has lost its way follows those who appears to forge ahead; they are the most irrational but they are the most confident, and in the Chamber as in the nation it is the daredevils who become leaders.

III. THE POWER OF SIMPLE, GENERAL IDEAS.

Ascendancy of the revolutionary party - Theory in its favor - The constraint thus imposed on men's minds - Appeal to the passions - Brute force on the side of the party - It profits by this - Oppression of the minority.

Two advantages give this party the ascendancy, and these advantages are of such importance that henceforth whoever possesses them is sure of being master. - In the first place the prevailing theory is on the side of the revolutionaries, and they alone are, in the second place, determined thoroughly to apply it. This party, therefore, is the only one which is consistent and popular in the face of adversaries who are unpopular and inconsequent. Nearly all of the latter, indeed, defenders of the ancient régime, or partisans of a limited monarchy, are likewise imbued with abstract principles and philosophical speculation. The most refractory nobles have advocated the rights of man in their memorials. Mounier, the principal opponent of the demagogues, was the leader of the commons when they proclaimed themselves to be the National -Assembly.[33] This is enough: they have entered the narrow defile which leads to the abyss. They had no idea of it at the first start, but one step leads to another, and, willing or unwilling, they march on, or are pushed on. When the abyss comes in sight it is too late; they have been driven there by the logical results of their own concessions; they can do nothing but wax eloquent and indignant; having abandoned their vantage ground, they find no halting-place remaining. - There is an enormous power in general ideas, especially if they are simple, and appeal to the passions. None are simpler than these, since they are reducible to the axiom which assumes the rights of man, and subordinate to them every institution, old or new. None are better calculated to inflame the sentiments, since the doctrine enlists human arrogance and pride in its service, and, in the name of justice, consecrates all the demands of independence and domination. Consider three-fourths of the deputies, immature and prejudiced, possessing no information but a few formulas of the current philosophy, with no thread to guide them but pure logic, abandoned to the declamation of lawyers, to the wild utterances of the newspapers, to the promptings of self-esteem, to the hundred thousand tongues which, on all sides, at the bar of the Assembly, at the tribune, in the clubs, in the streets, in their own breasts, repeat unanimously to them, and every day, the same flattery:

"You are sovereign and omnipotent. Right is vested in you alone. The King exists only to execute your will. Every order, every corporation, every power, every civil or ecclesiastical association is illegitimate and null the moment you declare it to be so. You may even transform religion. You are the fathers of the country. You have saved France, you will regenerate humanity. The whole world looks on you in admiration; finish your glorious work -- forward, always forward."

Superior good sense and rooted convictions could alone stand firm against this flood of seductions and solicitations; but vacillating and ordinary men are carried away by it. In the harmony of applause which rises, they do not hear the crash of the ruins they produce. In any case, they stop their ears, and shun the cries of the oppressed; they refuse to admit that their work could possibly bring about evil results; they accept the sophisms and untruths which justify it; they allow the assassinated to be calumniated in order to excuse the assassins; they listen to Merlin de Douay, who, after three or four jacqueries, when pillaging, arson, and murder are going on in all the provinces, has just declared in the name of the Committee on Feudalism[34] that "a law must be presented to the people, the justice of which may enforce silence on the feudatory egoists who, for the past six months, so indecently protest against plunder; the wisdom of which may restore to a sense of duty the peasant who has been led astray for a moment by his resentment of a long oppression." And when Raynal, the surviving patriarch of the philosophic party, one day, for a wonder, takes the plain truth with him into their tribune, they resent his straightforwardness as an outrage, and excuse it solely on the ground of his imbecility. An omnipotent legislator cannot depreciate himself; like a king he is condemned to self-admiration in his public capacity. "There were not thirty deputies amongst us," says a witness, "who thought differently from Raynal," but "in each other's presence the credit of the Revolution, the perspective of its blessings, was an article of faith which had to be believed in;" and, against their own reason, against their conscience, the moderates, caught in the net of their own acts, join the revolutionaries to complete the Revolution.

Had they refused, they would have been compelled; for, to obtain the power, the Assembly has, from the very first, either tolerated or solicited the violence of the streets. But, in accepting insurrectionists for its allies, it makes them masters, and henceforth, in Paris as in the provinces, illegal and brutal force becomes the principal power of the State. "The triumph was accomplished through the people; it was impossible to be severe with them;"[35] hence, when insurrections were to be put down, the Assembly had neither the courage nor the force necessary. "They blame for the sake of decency; they frame their deeds by expediency." and in turn justly undergo the pressure which they themselves have sanctioned against others. Only three or four times do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too daring -- after the murder of the baker François, the insurrection of the Swiss Guard at Nancy, and the outbreak of the Champ de Mars -- feel that they themselves are menaced, vote for and apply martial law, and repel force with force. But, in general, when the despotism of the people is exercised only against the royalist minority, they allow their adversaries to be oppressed, and do not consider themselves affected by the violence which assails the party of the "right:" they are enemies, and may be given up to the wild beasts. In accordance with this, the "left " has made its arrangements; its fanaticism has no scruples; it is principle, it is absolute truth that is at stake; this must triumph at any cost. Besides, can there be any hesitation in having recourse to the people in the people's own cause? A little compulsion will help along the good cause, and hence the siege of the Assembly is continually renewed. This was the practice already at Versailles before the 6th of October, while now, at Paris, it is kept up more actively and with less disguise.

At the beginning of the year 1790,[36] the band under pay comprises seven hundred and fifty effective men, most of them deserters or soldiers drummed out of their regiments, who are at first paid five francs and then forty sous a day. It is their business to make or support motions in the coffee-houses and in the streets, to mix with the spectators at the sittings of the sections, with the groups at the Palais-Royal, and especially in the galleries of the National- Assembly, where they are to hoot or applaud at a given signal. Their leader is a Chevalier de Saint-Louis, to whom they swear obedience, and who receives his orders from the Committee of Jacobins. His first lieutenant at the Assembly is a M. Saule, "a stout, small, stunted old fellow, formerly an upholsterer, then a charlatan hawker of four penny boxes of grease (made from the fat of those that had been hung - for the cure of diseases of the kidneys) and all his life a sot .... who, by means of a tolerably shrill voice, which was always well moistened, has acquired some reputation in the galleries of the Assembly." In fact, he has forged admission tickets he has been turned out; he has been obliged to resume "the box of ointment, and travel for one or two months in the provinces with a man of letters for his companion." But on his return, "through the protection of a groom of the Court, he obtained a piece of ground for a coffee-house against the wall of the Tuileries garden, almost alongside of the National Assembly," and now it is at home in his coffee-shop behind his counter that the hirelings of the galleries " come to him to know what they must say, and to be told the order of the day in regard to applause." Besides this, he is there himself; "it is he who for three years is to regulate public sentiment in the galleries confided to his care, and, for his useful and satisfactory services, the Constituent Assembly will award him a recompense," to which the Legislative Assembly will add " a pension of six hundred livres, besides a lodging in an apartment of the Feuillants."

We can divine how men of this stamp, thus compensated, do their work. From the top of the galleries[37] they drown the demands of the "right" by the force of their lungs; this or that decree, as, for instance, the abolition of titles of nobility, is carried, "not by shouts, but by terrific howls."[38] On the arrival of the news of the sacking of the Hôtel de Castries by the populace, they applaud. On the question coming up as to the decision whether the Catholic faith shall be dominant, "they shout out that the aristocrats must all be hung, and then things will go on well." Their outrages not only remain unpunished, but are encouraged: this or that noble who complains of their hooting is called to order, while their interference and vociferations, their insults and their menaces, are from this time introduced as one of the regular wheels of legislative operations. Their pressure is still worse outside the Chamber.[39] The Assembly is obliged several times to double its guard. On the 27th of September, 1790, there are 40,000 men around the building to extort the dismissal of the Ministers, and "motions for assassination" are made under the windows, On the 4th of January, 1791, whilst on a call of the house the ecclesiastical deputies pass in turn to the tribune, to take or refuse the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, a furious clamor ascends in the Tuileries, and even penetrates into the Chamber. "To the lamp post with all those who refuse! " On the 27th of September, 1790, M. Dupont, economist, having spoken against the assignats, is surrounded on leaving the Chamber and hooted at, hustled, pushed against the basin of the Tuileries, into which he was being thrown when the guard rescued him. On the 21st of June, 1790, M. de Cazalès just misses "being torn to pieces by the people."[40] Deputies of the "right" are threatened over and over again by gestures in the streets and in the coffee-houses; effigies of them with ropes about the neck are publicly displayed. The Abbé Maury is several times on the point of being hung: he saves himself once by presenting a pistol. Another time the Vicomte de Mirabeau is obliged to draw his sword. M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, having voted against the annexation of the Comtat to France, is assailed with chairs and clubs in the Palais-Royal, pursued into a porter's room and from thence to his dwelling; the howling crowd break in the doors, and are only repelled with great difficulty. It is impossible for the members of the "right" to assemble together; they are "stoned" in the church of the Capuchins, then in the Salon Français in the Rue Royale, and then, to crown the whole, an ordinance of the new judges shuts up their hall, and punishes them for the violence which they have to suffer.[41] In short they are at the mercy of the mob. The most moderate, the most liberal, and the most manly both in heart and head, Malouet, declares that "in going to the Assembly he rarely forgot to carry his pistols with him."[42] "For two years," he says, "after the King's flight, we never enjoyed one moment of freedom and security."

" On going into a slaughter-house," writes another deputy, "you see some animals at the entrance which still have a short time to live, until the hour comes to dispatch them. Such was the impression which the assemblage of nobles, bishops, and parliamentarians[43] on the right side made on my mind every time I entered the Assembly, the executioners of the left side permitting them to breathe a little longer."

They are insulted and outraged even upon their benches; "placed between peril within and peril without, between the hostility of the galleries,"[44] and that of the howlers at the entrance, " between personal insults and the abbey of Saint-Germain, between shouts of laughter celebrating the burning of their chateaux and the clamors which, thirty times in a quarter of an hour, cry down their opinions," they are given over and denounced "to the ten thousand Cerberuses " of the journals and of the streets, who pursue them with their yells and "cover them with their slaver." Any expedient is good enough for putting down their opposition, and, at the end of the session, in full Assembly, they are threatened with "a recommendation to the departments," which means the excitement of riots and of the permanent jacquerie of the provinces against them in their own houses. - Parliamentary strategy of this sort, employed uninterruptedly for twenty-nine months, finally produces its effect. Many of the weak are gained over;[45] even on characters of firm temper fear has a hold; he who would march under fire with head erect shuddered at the idea of being dragged in the gutter by the rabble ; the brutality of the populace always exercises a material ascendancy over finely strung nerves. On the 12th of July, 1791,[46] the call of the house decreed against the absentees proves that one hundred and thirty-two deputies no longer appear in their places. Eleven days before, among those who take no further part in the proceedings. Thus, before the completion of the Constitution, the whole of the opposition, more than four hundred members, over one-third of the Assembly, is reduced to flight or to silence. By dint of oppression, the revolutionary party has got rid of all resistance, while the violence which gave to it ascendancy in the streets, now gives to it equal ascendance within the walls of Parliament.

IV.

Refusal to supply the ministry - Effects of this mistake - Misconception of the situation - The committee of investigation - Constant alarms - Effects of ignorance and fear on the work of the Constituent Assembly.

Generally in an omnipotent assembly, when a party takes the lead and forms a majority, it furnishes the Ministry; and this fact suffices to give, or to bring back to it, some glimpse of common sense. For its leaders, with the Government in their own hands, become responsible for it, and when they propose or pass a law, they are obliged to anticipate its effect. Rarely will a Secretary of War or of the Navy adopt a military code which goes to establish permanent disobedience in the army or in the navy. Rarely will a Secretary of the Treasury propose an expenditure for which there is not a sufficient revenue, or a system of taxation that provides no returns. Placed where full information can be procured, daily advised of every details, surrounded by skillful counselors and expert clerks, the chiefs of the majority, who thus become heads of the administration, immediately drop theory for practice; and the fumes of political speculation must be pretty dense in their minds if they exclude the multiplied rays of light which experience constantly sheds upon them. Let the most stubborn of theorists take his stand at the helm of a ship, and, whatever be the obstinacy of his principles or his prejudices, he will never, unless he is blind or led by the blind, persist in steering always to the right or always to the left. Just so after the flight to Varennes, when the Assembly, in full possession of the executive power, directly controls the Ministry, it comes to recognize for itself that its constitutional machine will not work, except in the way of destruction; and it is the principal revolutionaries, Barnave, Duport, the Lameths, Chapelier, and Thouret,[47] who undertake to make alterations in the mechanisms so as to lessen its friction. But this source of knowledge and reason, however, to which they are momentarily induced to draw, in spite of themselves and too late, has been turned off by themselves from the very beginning. On the 6th of November, 1789, in deference to principle and in dread of corruption, the Assembly had declared that none of its members should hold ministerial office. We see it in consequence deprived of all the instruction which comes from direct contact with affairs, surrendered without any counterpoise to the seductions of theory, reduced by its own decision to become a mere academy of legislation only.

Nay, still worse, through another effect of the same error, it condemns itself by its own act to constant fits of panic. For, having allowed the power which it was not willing to assume to slip into indifferent or suspect hands, it is always uneasy, and all its decrees bear an uniform stamp, not only of the willful ignorance within which it confines itself, but also of the exaggerated or chimerical fears in which its life is passed. - Imagine a ship conveying a company of lawyers, literary men, and other passengers, who, supported by a mutinous and poorly fed crew, take full command, but refuse to select one of their own number for a pilot or for the officer of the watch. The former captain continues to nominate them; through very shame, and because he is a good sort of man, his title is left to him, and he is retained for the transmission of orders. If these orders are absurd, so much the worse for him; if he resists them, a fresh mutiny forces him to yield; and even when they cannot be executed, he has to answer for their being carried out. In the meantime, in a room between decks, far away from the helm and the compass, our club of amateurs discuss the equilibrium of floating bodies, decree a new system of navigation, have the ballast thrown overboard, crowd on all sail, and are astonished to find that the ship heels over on its side. The officer of the watch and the pilot must, evidently, have managed the maneuver badly. They are accordingly dismissed and others put in their place, while the ship heels over farther yet and begins to leak in every joint. Enough: it is the fault of the captain and the old staff of officers, They are not well-disposed; for a beautiful system of navigation like this ought to work well; and if it fails to do so, it is because some one interferes with it. It is positively certain that some of those people belonging to the former régime must be traitors, who would rather have the ship go down than submit; they are public enemies and monsters. They must be seized, disarmed, put under surveillance, and punished. - Such is the reasoning of the Assembly. Evidently, to reassure it, a message from the Minister of the Interior chosen by the Assembly, to the lieutenant of police whom he had appointed, to come to his office every morning, would be all that was necessary. But it is deprived of this simple resource by its own act, and has no other expedient than to appoint a committee of investigation to discover crimes of "treason against the nation."[48] What could be more vague than such a term? What could be more mischievous than such an institution? -- Renewed every month, deprived of special agents, composed of credulous and inexperienced deputies, this committee, set to perform the work of a Lenoir or a Fouché, makes up for its incapacity by violence, and its proceedings anticipate those of the Jacobine inquisition.[49] Alarmist and suspicious, it encourages accusations, and, for lack of plots to discover, it invents them. Inclinations, in its eyes, stand for actions, and floating projects become accomplished outrages. On the denunciation of a domestic who has listened at a door, on the gossip of a washerwoman who has found a scrap of paper in a dressing-gown, on the false interpretation of a letter, on vague indications which it completes and patches together by the strength of its imagination, it forges a coup d'état, makes examinations, domiciliary visits, nocturnal surprises and arrests;[50] it exaggerates, blackens, and comes in public session to denounce the whole affair to the National Assembly. First comes the plot of the Breton nobles to deliver Brest to the English;[51] then the plot for hiring brigands to destroy the crops; then the plot of 14th of July to burn Paris; then the plot of Favras to murder Lafayette, Necker, and Bailly; then the plot of Augeard to carry off the King, and many others, week after week, not counting those which swarm in the brains of the journalists, and which Desmoulins, Fréron, and Marat reveal with a flourish of trumpets in each of their publications.

"All these alarms are cried daily in the streets like cabbages and turnips, the good people of Paris inhaling them along with the pestilential vapors of our mud."[52]

..............Now, in this aspect, as well as in a good many others, the Assembly is the people; satisfied that it is in danger,[53] it makes laws as the former make their insurrections, and protects itself by strokes of legislation as the former protects itself by blows with pikes. Failing to take hold of the motor spring by which it might direct the government machine, it distrusts all the old and all the new wheels. The old ones seem to it an obstacle, and, instead of utilizing them, it breaks them one by one -- parliaments, provincial states, religious orders, the church, the nobles, and royalty. The new ones are suspicious, and instead of harmonizing them, it puts them out of gear in advance -- the executive power, administrative powers, judicial powers, the police, the gendarmerie, and the army.[54] Thanks to these precautions it is impossible for any of them to be turned against itself; but, also, thanks to these precautions, none of them can perform their functions.[55]

In building, as well as in destroying, the Assembly had two bad counselors, on the one hand fear, on the other hand theory; and on the ruins of the old machine which it had demolished without discernment, the new machine, which it has constructed without forecast, will work only to its own ruin.

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Notes:

[1] Arthur Young, June 15, 1789. - Bailly, passim, -- Moniteur, IV. 522 (June 2, 1790). - Mercure de France (Feb. 11 1792).

[2] Moniteur, v. 631 (Sep. 12, 1790), and September 8th (what is said by the Abbé Maury). - Marmontel, book XIII. 237. - Malouet, I. 261. - Bailly, I. 227.

[3] Sir Samuel Romilly, "Mémoires," I. 102, 354. - Dumont, 158. (The official rules bear are dated July 29, 1789.)

[4] Cf. Ferrières, I. 3. His repentance is affecting.

[5] Letter from Morris to Washington, January 24, 1790 See page 382, "A diary of the French revolution", Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1972. - Dumont 125 - Garat, letter to Condorcet.

[6] Arthur Young, I. 46. "Tame and elegant, uninteresting and polite, the mingled mass of communicated ideas has power neither to offend nor instruct. . . . . All vigor of thought seems excluded from expression. . . . . Where there is much polish of character there is little argument." -- Cabinet des Estampes. See engravings of the day by Moreau, Prieur, Monet, representing the opening of the States-General. All the figures have a graceful, elegant, and genteel air.

[7] Marmontel, book XIII. 237. - Malouet, I. 261. - Ferrières, I. 19.

[8] Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790. - Likewise (De Ferrières, I.71) the decree on the abolition of nobility was not the order of the day, and was carried by surprise.

[9] Ferrières, I. 189. - Dumont, 146.

[10] Letter of Mirabeau to Sieyès, June 11, 1790. "Our nation of monkeys with the throats of parrots." -- Dumont, 146. "Sieyès and Mirabeau always entertained a contemptible opinion of the Constituent Assembly."

[11] Moniteur, I, 256, 431 (July 16 and 31, 1789). - Journal des Débats et Décrets, 105, July 16th "A member demands that M. de Lally should put his speech in writing. "The whole Assembly has repeated this request."

[12] Moniteur. (March 11, 1790). "A nun of St. Mandé, brought to the bar of the house, thanks the Assembly for the decree by which the cloisters are opened, and denounces the tricks, intrigues, and even violence exercised in the convents to prevent the execution of the decree." -- Ibid. March 29, 1790. See the various addresses which are read. " At Lagnon, the mother of a family assembled her ten children, and swore with them and for them to be loyal to the nation and to the King." -- Ibid. June 5, 1790. "M. Chambroud reads the letter of the collector of customs of Lannion, in Brittany, to a priest, a member of the National Assembly. He implores his influence to secure the acceptance of his civic oath and that of all his family, ready to wield either the censer, the cart, the scales, the sword, or the pen. On reading a number of these addresses the Assembly appears to be a supplement of the Petites Affiches (a small advertising journal in Paris).

[13] Moniteur, October 23, 1789.

[14] A well-known writer of children's stories.-[Tr.]

[15] Ferrières, II. 65 (June 10,1790). - De Montlosier, I. 402. "One of these puppets came the following day to get his money of the Comte de Billancourt, mistaking him for the Duc de Liancourt. 'Monsieur,' says he, 'I am the man who played the Chaldean yesterday.'

[16] Buchez and Roux, X. 118 (June 16, 1791).

[17] See the printed list of deputies, with the indication of their baillage or sénéchaussée, quality, condition, and profession.

[18] De Bouillé, 75. - When the King first saw the list of the deputies, he exclaimed," What would the nation have said if I had made up my council or the Notables in this way?" (Buchez and Roux, IV. 39.)

[19] Gouverneur Morris, July 31, 1789.

[20] Gouverneur Morris, February 25, 1789. - Lafayette, "Mémoires," V. 492. Letter of Jefferson, February 14, 1815. - Arthur Young, June 27 and 29, 1789.

[21] Morris, July 1, 1789.

[22] Morris, July 4, 1789.

[23] Mallet du Pan, Mercure, September 26, 1789.

[24] Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790; November 22, 1790.

[25] Dumont, 33, 58, 62.

[26] Sir Samuel. Romilly, "Mémoirs," I. 102. "It was their constant course first, decree the principle and leave the drawing up of what they had so resolved (or, as they called it, la rédaction) for later. It is astonishing how great an influence it had on their debates and measures. - Ibid. I. 354. Letter by Dumont, June 2, 1789. "They prefer their own folly to all the results of British experience. They revolt at the idea of borrowing anything from our government, which is scoffed at here as one of the iniquities of human reason; although they admit that you have two or three good laws; but that you should presume to have a constitution is not to be sustained."

[27] Dumont, 138, 151.

[28] Morris, January 24, 1790.

[29] Marmontel, XII. 265. - Ferrières, . I. 48¸ II. 50, 58, 126. - Dumont, 74.

[30] Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790. - According to Ferrières this party comprised about three hundred members.

[31] Here Ambassador Morris describes the kind of man who should form the backbone of all later revolutions whether communist or fascist ones. (SR.)

[32] Dumont, 33, 58, 62.

[33] De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées Provinciales," 384. Deliberations of the States of Dauphiny, drawn up by Mournier and signed by two hundred gentlemen (July, 1788). "The rights of man are derived from nature alone, and are independent of human conventions.

[34] Report by Merlin de Douai, February 8, 1790, p.2. -- Malouet, II, 51.

[35] Dumont, 133. - De Montlosier, I, 355, 361.

[36] Bertrand de Molleville, II. 221 (according to a police report). - Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution," I. 215. (Report of the agent Dutard, May 13, 1793) -- Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves," p.35. "It was about midnight when we went out in the rain, sleet, and snow, in the piercing cold, to the church of the Feuillants, to secure places for the galleries of the Assembly, which we were not to occupy till noon on the following day. We were obliged, moreover, to contend for them with a crowd animated by passions, and even by interests, very different from our own. We were not long in perceiving that a considerable part of the galleries was under pay, and that the scenes of cruelty which gave pain to us were joy to them. I cannot express the horror I felt on hearing those women, since called tricoteuses, take a delight in the already homicidal doctrines of Robespierre, enjoying his sharp voice and feasting their eyes on his ugly face, the living type of envy." (The first months of 1790.)

[37] Moniteur, V. 237 (July 26, 1790); V. 594. (September 8, 1790); V. 631 (September 12, 1790); VI. 310 (October 6, 1790). (Letter of the Abbé Peretti.)

[38] De Ferrières, II. 75. - Moniteur, VI. 373 (September 6, 1790). - M. de Virieu. "Those who insult certain members and hinder the freedom of debate by hooting or applause must be silenced. Is it the three hundred spectators who are to be our judges, or the nation?" M. Chasset, President: "Monsieur opinionist, I call you to order. You speak of hindrances to a free vote; there has never been anything of the kind in this Assembly."

[39] Sauzay, I 140. Letter of M. Lompré, liberal deputy, to M. Séguin, chanoine (towards the end of November, 1789). "The service becomes more difficult every day; we have become objects of popular fury, and, when no other resource was left to us to avoid the tempest but to get rid of the endowments of the clergy, we yielded to force. It had become a pressing necessity, and I should have been sorry to have had you still here, exposed to the outrages and violence with which I have been repeatedly threatened."

[40] Mercure de France, Nos. of January 15, 1791; October 2, 1790; May 14,1791.-- Buchez and Roux, V. 343 (April 13, 1790); VII. 76 (September 2, 1790); X. 225 ( June 21, 1791). - De Montlosier, I. 357. - Moniteur, IV, 427.

[41] Archives of the Police, exposed by the Committee of the district of Saint-Roch. Judgment of the Police Tribunal, May 15, 1790.

[42] Malouet, II. 68. - De Montlosier, II. 217, 257 (Speech of M. Lavie, September 18, 1791).

[43] I.e. members of the old local parlements.

[44] Mercure, October 1, 1791. (Article by Mallet du Pan.)

[45] Malouet II. 66. "Those only who were not intimidated by insults or threats, nor by actual blows, could come forward as opponents."

[46] Buchez and Roux, X. 432, 465.

[47] Malouet, II, 153.

[48] Decrees of July 23rd and 28th, 1789. - "Archives Nationales." Papers of Committee of Investigation, passim. Among other affairs see that of Madame de Persan (Moniteur, V. 611, sitting of September 9, 1790), and that of Malouet ("Mémoires II. 12).

[49] Buchez and Roux, IV. 56 (Report of Garan de Coulon); V. 49 (Decision of the Committee of Investigation, December 28, 1789).

[50] The arrests of M. de Riolles, M. de Bussy, etc., of Madame de Jumilhac, of two other ladies, one at Bar-le-Duc and the other of Nancy, etc.

[51] Sitting of July 28, 1789, the speeches of Duport and Rewbell, etc. - Mercure, No. of January 1, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan). - Buchez and Roux, V. 146l "Behold five or six successive conspiracies -- that of the sacks of flour, that of the sacks of money, etc. (Article by Camille Desmoulins.)

[52] "Archives de la Préfecture de Police." Extract from the registers of the deliberations of the Conseil-Général of the district of Saint-Roch, October 10 1789: Arrête: to request all the men in the commune to devote themselves, with all the prudence, activity, and force of which they are capable, to the discovery, exposure, and publication of the horrible plots and infernal treachery which are constantly meditated against the inhabitants of the capital; to denounce to the public the authors, abettors, and adherents of the said plots, whatever their rank may be; to secure their persons and insure their punishment with all the rigor which outrages of this kind call for." The commandant of the battalion and the district captains come daily to consult with the committee. "While the alarm lasts, the first story of each house is to be lighted with lamps during the night: all citizens of the district are requested to be at home by ten o'clock in the evening at the latest, unless they should be on duty. . . . All citizens are invited to communicate whatever they may learn or discover in relation to the abominable plots which are secretly going on in the capital."

[53] Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31, 1790 ("Actes des Apôtres," V. 56). "During these two nights (July 13th and 14th, 1789) that we remained in session I heard one deputy try to get it believed that an artillery corps had been ordered to point its guns against our hall; another, that it was undermined, and that it was to be blown up; another went so far as to declare that he smelt powder, upon which M. le Comte de Virieu replied that power had no odor until it was burnt."

[54] Dumont, 351. "Each constitutional law was a party triumph."

[55] Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceed to weaken a nation prior to their take-over.(SR.)

CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.

I. Two principal vices of the ancient régime. - Two principal reforms proposed by the King and the privileged classes. - They suffice for actual needs. - Impracticable if carried further.

In the structure of the old society there were two fundamental vices which called for two reforms of corresponding importance.[1]

In the first place, those who were privileged having ceased to render the services for which the advantages they enjoyed constituted their compensation and their privileges were no longer anything but a gratuitous charge imposed on one portion of the nation for the benefit of the other. Hence the necessity for suppressing them.

In the second place, the Government, being absolute, made use of public resources as if they were its own private property, arbitrarily and wastefully;[2] it was therefore necessary to impose upon it some effective and regular restraints.

To render all citizens equal before taxation, to put the purse of the tax-payers into the hands of their representatives, such was the twofold operation to be carried out in 1789; and the privileged class as well as the King willingly lent themselves to it. Not only, in this respect, were the memorials of nobles and clergy in perfect harmony, but the monarch himself; in his declaration of the 23rd of June, 1789, decreed the two articles. Henceforth, every tax or loan was to obtain the consent of the States-General; this consent was to be renewed at each new meeting of the States; the public estimates were to be annually published, discussed, specified, apportioned, voted on and verified by the States; there were to be no arbitrary assessments or use of public funds; allowances were to be specially assigned for all separate services, the household of the King included. In each province or district- general, there was to be an elected Provincial Assembly, one-half composed of ecclesiastics and nobles, and the other half of members of the Third-Estate, to apportion general taxes, to manage local affairs, to decree and direct public works, to administer hospitals, prisons, workhouses, and to continue its function, in the interval of the sessions, through an intermediary commission chosen by itself; so that, besides the principal control of the center, there were to be thirty subordinate controlling powers at the extremities. There was to be no more exemption or distinction in the matter of taxation; the roadtax (covée) was to be abolished, also the right of franc-fief[3] imposed on plebeians; the rights of mortmain,[4] subject to indemnity, and internal customs duties. There was to be a reduction of the captaincies, a modification of the salt-tax and of the excise, the transformation of civil justice, too costly for the poor, and of criminal justice, too severe for the humbler classes. Here we have, besides the principal reform, equalization of taxes; the beginning and inducement of the more complete operation which is to strike off the last of the feudal manacles. Moreover; six weeks later, on the 4th of August; the privileged, in an outburst of generosity, come forward of their own accord to cut off or undo the whole of them. This double reform thus encountered no obstacles, and, as Arthur Young reported to his friends, it merely required one vote to have it adopted.[5]

This was enough; for all real necessities were now satisfied. On the one hand, through the abolition of privileges in the matter of taxation, the burden of the peasant and, in general, on the small tax-payer was diminished one-half, and perhaps two thirds; instead of paying fifty-three francs on one hundred francs of net income, he paid no more than twenty-five or even sixteen;[6] an enormous relief, and one which, with the proposed revision of the excise and salt duties, made a complete change in his condition. Add to this the gradual redemption of ecclesiastical and feudal dues: and after twenty years the peasant, already proprietor of a fifth of the soil, would, without the violent events of the Revolution, in any case have attained the same degree of independence and well-being which he was to achieve by passing through it. On the other hand, through the annual vote on the taxes, not only were waste and arbitrariness in the employment of the public funds put a stop to, but also the foundations of the parliamentary system of government were laid: whoever holds the purse-strings is, or becomes, master of the rest; henceforth in the maintenance or establishment of any service, the assent of the States was to be necessary. Now, in the three Chambers which the three orders were thenceforward to form, there were two in which the plebeians predominated. Public opinion, moreover, was on their side, while the King, the true constitutional monarch, far from possessing the imperious inflexibility of a despot, did not now possess the initiative of an ordinary person. Thus the preponderance fell to the communes, and they could legally, without any collision, execute multiply, and complete, with the aid of the prince and through him, all useful reforms.[7] -- This was enough; for human society, like a living body, is seized with convulsions when it is subjected to operations on too great a scale, and these, although restricted, were probably all that France in 1789 could endure. To equitably reorganize afresh the whole system of direct and indirect taxation; to revise, recast, and transfer to the frontiers the customs-tariffs; to suppress, through negotiations and with indemnity, feudal and ecclesiastical claims, was an operation of the greatest magnitude, and as complex as it was delicate. Things could be satisfactorily arranged only through minute inquiries, verified calculations, prolonged essays, and mutual concessions. In England, in our day, a quarter of a century has been required to bring about a lesser reform, the transformation of tithes and manorial-rights; and time likewise was necessary for our Assemblies to perfect their political education,[8] to get of their theories, to learn, by contact with practical business, and in the study of details, the distance which separates speculation from practice; to discover that a new system of institutions works well only through a new system of habits, and that to decree a new system of habits is tantamount to attempting to build an old house. -- Such, however, is the work they undertake. They reject the King's proposals, the limited reforms, the gradual transformations. According to them, it is their right and their duty to re-make society from top to bottom. Such is the command of pure reason, which has discovered the Rights of Man and the conditions of the Social Contract.

Nature of societies, and the principle of enduring constitutions.

Apply the Social Contract, if you like, but apply it only to those for whom it was drawn up. These were abstract beings, belonging neither to a period nor to a country, perfect creatures hatched out under the magic wand of a metaphysician. They had as a matter of fact come into existence by removing all the characteristics which distinguish one man from another,[9] a Frenchman from a Papuan, a modern Englishman from a Briton in the time of Caesar, and by retaining only the part which is common to all.[10] The essence thus obtained is a prodigiously meager one, an infinitely curtailed extract of human nature, that is, in the phraseology of the day,

"A BEING WITH A DESIRE TO BE HAPPY AND THE FACULTY OF REASONING,"

nothing more and nothing else. After this pattern several million individuals, all precisely alike, have been prepared while, through a second simplification, as extraordinary as the first one, they are all supposed to be free and all equal, without a past, without kindred, without responsibility, without traditions, without customs, like so many mathematical units, all separable and all equivalent, and then it is imagined that, assembled together for the first time, these proceed to make their primitive bargain. From the nature they are supposed to possess and the situation in which they are placed, no difficulty is found in deducing their interests, their wills, and the contract between them. But if this contract suits them, it does not follow that it suits others. On the contrary, if follows that is does not suit others; the inconvenience becomes extreme on its being imposed on a living society; the measure of that inconvenience will be the immensity of the distance which divides a hollow abstraction, a philosophical phantom, an empty insubstantial image from the real and complete man.

In any event we are not here considering a specimen, so reduced and mutilated as to be only an outline of a human being; no, we are to the contrary considering Frenchmen of the year 1789. It is for them alone that the constitution is being made: it is therefore they alone who should be considered; they are manifestly men of a particular species, having their peculiar temperament, their special aptitudes, their own inclinations, their religion, their history, all adding up into a mental and moral structure, hereditary and deeply rooted, bequeathed to them by the indigenous stock, and to which every great event, each political or literary phase for twenty centuries, has added a growth, a transformation or a custom. It is like some tree of a unique species whose trunk, thickened by age, preserves in its annual rings and in its knots, branches, and curvatures, the deposits which its sap has made and the imprint of the innumerable seasons through which it has passed. Using the philosophic definition, so vague and trite, to such an organism, is only a puerile label teaching us nothing. -- And all the more because extreme diversities and inequalities show themselves on this exceedingly elaborate and complicated background, -- those of age, education, faith, class and fortune; and these must be taken into account, for these contribute to the formation of interests, passions, and dispositions. To take only the most important of these, it is clear that, according to the average of human life,[11] one-half of the population is composed of children, and, besides this, one-half of the adults are women. In every twenty inhabitants eighteen are Catholic, of whom sixteen are believers, at least through habit and tradition. Twenty-five out of twenty-six millions of Frenchmen cannot read, one million at the most being able to do so; and in political matters only five or six hundred are competent. As to the condition of each class, its ideas, its sentiments, its kind and degree of culture, we should have to devote a large volume to a mere sketch of them.

There is still another feature and the most important of all. These men who are so different from each other are far from being independent, or from contracting together for the first time. They and their ancestors for eight hundred years form a national body, and it is because they belong to this body that they live, multiply, labor, make acquisitions, become enlightened and civilized, and accumulate the vast heritage of comforts and intelligence which they now enjoy. Each in this community is like the cell of an organized body; undoubtedly the body is only an accumulation of cells, but the cell is born, subsists, develops and attains its individual ends only be the healthy condition of the whole body. Its chief interest, accordingly, is the prosperity of the whole organism, and the fundamental requirement of all the little fragmentary lives, whether they know it or not, is the conservation of the great total life in which they are comprised as musical notes in a concert. -- Not only is this a necessity for them, but it is also a duty. We are all born with a debt to our country, and this debt increases while we grow up; it is with the assistance of our country, under the protection of the law, upheld by the authorities, that our ancestors and parents have given us life, property, and education. Each person's faculties, ideas, attitudes, his or her entire moral and physical being are the products to which the community has contributed, directly or indirectly, at least as tutor and guardian. By virtue of this the state is his creditor, just as a destitute father is of his able-bodied son; it can lay claim to nourishment, services, and, in all the force or resources of which he disposes, it deservedly demands a share. -- This he knows and feels, the notion of country is deeply implanted within him, and when occasion calls for it, it will show itself in ardent emotions, fueling steady sacrifice and heroic effort. -- Such are veritable Frenchmen, and we at once see how different they are from the simple, indistinguishable, detached monads which the philosophers insist on substituting for them. Their association need not be created, for it already exists; for eight centuries they have a "common weal " (la chose publique). The safety and prosperity of this common weal is at once their interest, their need, their duty, and even their most secret wish. If it is possible to speak here of a contract, their quasi-contract is made and settled for them beforehand. The first article, at all events, is stipulated for, and this overrides all the others. The nation must not be dissolved. Public authorities must, accordingly, exist, and these must be respected. If there are a number of these, they must be so defined and so balanced as to be of mutual assistance, instead of neutralizing each other by their opposition. Whatever government is adopted, it must place matters in the hands best qualified to conduct them. The law must not exist for the advantage of the minority, nor for that of the majority, but for the entire community. -- In regard to this first article no one must derogate from it, neither the minority nor the majority, neither the Assembly elected by the nation, nor the nation itself, even if unanimous. It has no right arbitrarily to dispose of the common weal, to put it in peril according to its caprice, to subordinate it to the application of a theory or to the interest of a single class, even if this class is the most numerous. For, that which is the common weal does not belong to it, but to the whole community, past, present, and to come. Each generation is simply the temporary manager and responsible trustee of a precious and glorious patrimony which it has received from the former generation, and which it has to transmit to the one that comes after it. In this perpetual endowment, to which all Frenchmen from the first days of France have brought their offerings, there is no doubt about the intentions of countless benefactors; they have made their gifts conditionally, that is, on the condition that the endowment should remain intact, and that each successive beneficiary should merely serve as the administrator of it. Should any of the beneficiaries, through presumption or levity, through rashness or one-sidedness, compromise the charge entrusted to them, they wrong all their predecessors whose sacrifices they invalidate, and all their successors whose hopes they frustrate. Accordingly, before undertaking to frame a constitution, let the whole community be considered in its entirety, not merely in the present but in the future, as far as the eye can reach. The interest of the public, viewed in this far-sighted manner, is the end to which all the rest must be subordinate, and for which a constitution provides. A constitution, whether oligarchic, monarchist, or aristocratic, is simply an instrument, good if it attains this end, and bad if it does not attain it, and which, to attain it, must, like every species of mechanism, vary according to the ground, materials, and circumstances. The most ingenious is illegitimate if it dissolves the State, while the clumsiest is legitimate if it keeps the State intact. There is none that springs out of an anterior, universal, and absolute right. According to the people, the epoch, and the degree of civilization, according to the outer or inner condition of things, all civil or political equality or inequality may, in turn, be or cease to be beneficial or hurtful, and therefore justify the legislator in removing or preserving it. It is according to this superior and salutary law, and not according to an imaginary and impossible contract, that he is to organize, limit, delegate and distribute from the center to the extremities, through inheritance or through election, through equalization or through privilege, the rights of the citizen and the power of the community.

III.

The estates of a society. - Political aptitude of the aristocracy. - Its disposition in 1789. - Special services which it might have rendered. - The principle of the Assembly as to original equality. - Rejection of an Upper Chamber. - The feudal rights of the aristocracy. - How far and why they were worthy of respect. - How they should have been transformed. - Principle of the Assembly as to original liberty. - Distinction established by it in feudal dues; application of its principle. - The lacunae of its law. - Difficulties of redemption. - Actual abolition of all feudal liens. - Abolition of titles and territorial names. - Growing prejudice against the aristocracy. - Its persecutions. - The emigration. -

Was it necessary to begin by making a clean sweep, and was it advisable to abolish or only to reform the various orders and corporations? -- Two prominent orders, the clergy and the nobles, enlarged by the ennobled plebeians who had grown wealthy and acquired titled estates, formed a privileged aristocracy side by side with the Government, whose favors it might receive on the condition of seeking them assiduously and with due acknowledgment, privileged on its own domains, and taking advantage there of all rights belonging to the feudal chieftain without performing his duties. This abuse was evidently an enormous one and had to be ended. But, it did not follow that, because the position of the privileged class on their domains and in connection with the Government was open to abuse, they should be deprived of protection for person and property on their domains, and of influence and occupation under the Government. -- A favored aristocracy, when it is unoccupied and renders none of the services which its rank admits of, when it monopolizes all honors, offices, promotions, preferences, and pensions,[12] to the detriment of others not less needy and deserving, is undoubtedly a serious evil. But when an aristocracy is subject to the common law, when it is occupied, especially when its occupation is in conformity with its aptitudes, and more particularly when it is available for the formation of an upper elective chamber or an hereditary peerage, it is a vast service. -- In any case it cannot be irreversibly suppressed; for, although it may be abolished by law, it is reconstituted by facts. The legislator must necessarily choose between two systems, that which lets it lie fallow, or that which enables it to be productive, that which drives it away from, or that which rallies it round, the public service. In every society which has lived for any length of time, a nucleus of families always exists whose fortunes and importance are of ancient date. Even when, as in France in 1789, this class seems to be exclusive, each half century introduces into it new families; judges, governors, rich businessmen or bankers who have risen to the tope of the social ladder through the wealth they have acquired or through the important offices they have filled; and here, in the medium thus constituted, the statesman and wise counselor of the people, the independent and able politician is most naturally developed. - Because, on the one hand, thanks to his fortune and his rank, a man of this class is above all vulgar ambitions and temptations. He is able to serve gratis; he is not obliged to concern himself about money or about providing for his family and making his way in the world. A political mission is no interruption to his career; he is not obliged, like the engineer, merchant, or physician, to sacrifice either his business, his advancement, or his clients. He can resign his post without injury to himself or to those dependent on him, follow his own convictions, resist the noisy deleterious opinions of the day, and be the loyal servant, not the low flatterer of the public. Whilst, consequently, in the inferior or average conditions of life, the incentive is self-interest, with him the grand motive is pride. Now, amongst the deeper feelings of man there is none which is more adapted for transformation into probity, patriotism, and conscientiousness; for the first requisite of the high-spirited man is self-respect, and, to obtain that, he is induced to deserve it. Compare, from this point of view, the gentry and nobility of England with the "politicians" of the United States. - On the other hand, with equal talents, a man who belongs to this sphere of life enjoys opportunities for acquiring a better comprehension of public affairs than a poor man of the lower classes. The information he requires is not the erudition obtained in libraries and in private study. He must be familiar with living men, and, besides these, with agglomerations of men, and even more with human organizations, with States, with Governments, with parties, with administrative systems, at home and abroad, in full operation and on the spot. There is but one way to reach this end, and that is to see for himself, with his own eyes, at once in general outline and in details, by intercourse with the heads of departments, with eminent men and specialists, in whom are gathered up the information and the ideas of a whole class. Now the young do not frequent society of this description, either at home or abroad, except on the condition of possessing a name, family, fortune, education and a knowledge of social observances. All this is necessary to enable a young man of twenty to find doors everywhere open to him to be received everywhere on an equal footing, to be able to speak and to write three or four living languages, to make long, expensive, and instructive sojourns in foreign lands, to select and vary his position in the different branches of the public service, without pay or nearly so, and with no object in view but that of his political culture Thus brought up a man, even of common capacity, is worthy of being consulted. If he is of superior ability, and there is employment for him, he may become a statesman before thirty; he may acquire ripe capacities, become prime Minister, the sole pilot, alone able, like Pitt, Canning, or Peel, to steer the ship of State between the reefs, or give in the nick of time the touch to the helm which will save the ship. -- Such is the service to which an upper class is adapted. Only this kind of specialized stud farm can furnish a regular supply of racers, and, now and then, the favorite winner that distances all his competitors in the European field.

But in order that they may prepare and educate themselves for this career, the way must be clear, and they must not be compelled to travel too repulsive a road. If rank, inherited fortune, personal dignity, and refined manners are sources of disfavor with the people; if, to obtain their votes, he is forced to treat as equals electoral brokers of low character; if impudent charlatanism, vulgar declamation, and servile flattery are the sole means by which votes can be secured, then, as nowadays in the United States, and formerly in Athens, the aristocratic body will retire into private life and soon settle down into a state of idleness. A man of culture and refinement, born with an income of a hundred thousand a year, is not tempted to become either manufacturer, lawyer, or physician. For want of other occupation he loiters about, entertains his friends, chats, indulges in the tastes and hobbies of an amateur, is bored or enjoys himself. As a result one of society's great forces is thus lost to the nation. In this way the best and largest acquisition of the past, the heaviest accumulation of material and of moral capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upper branches of the social tree, not only the old ones but the young ones, remain sterile. When a vigorous branch passes above the rest and reaches the top it ceases to bear fruit. The élite of the nation is thus condemned to constant and irremediable failures because it cannot find a suitable outlet for its activity. It wants no other outlet, for in all directions its rival, who are born below it, can serve as usefully and as well as itself. But this one it must have, for on this its aptitudes are superior, natural, unique, and the State which refuses to employ it resembles the gardener who in his fondness for a plane surface would repress his best shoots.[13] -- Hence, in the constructions which aim to utilize the permanent forces of society and yet maintain civil equality, the aristocracy is brought to take a part in public affairs by the duration and gratuitous character of its mission, by the institution of an hereditary character, by the application of various machinery, all of which is combined so as to develop the ambition, the culture, and the political capacity of the upper class, and to place power, or the control of power, in its hands, on the condition that it shows itself worthy of exercising it. -- Now, in 1789, the upper class was not unworthy of it. Members of the parliaments, the noblemen, bishops, capitalists, were the men amongst whom, and through whom, the philosophy of the eighteenth century was propagated. Never was an aristocracy more liberal, more humane, and more thoroughly converted to useful reforms;[14] many of them remain so under the knife of the guillotine. The magistrates of the superior tribunals, in particular, traditionally and by virtue of their institution, were the enemies of excessive expenditure and the critics of arbitrary acts. As to the gentry of the provinces, "they were so weary," says one of them,[15] "of the Court and the Ministers that most of them were democrats." For many years, in the Provincial Assemblies, the whole of the upper class, the clergy, nobles, and Third-Estate, furnishes abundant evidence of its good disposition, of its application to business, its capacity and even generosity. Its mode of studying, discussing, and assigning the local taxation indicates what it would have done with the general budget had this been entrusted to it. It is evident that it would have protected the general taxpayer as zealously as the taxpayer of the province, and kept as close an eye upon the public purse at Paris as on that of Bourges or of Montauban. -- Thus were the materials of a good chamber ready at hand, and the only thing that had to be done was to convene them. On having the facts presented to them, its members would have passed without difficulty from a hazardous theory to common-sense practice, and the aristocracy which had enthusiastically given an impetus to reform in its saloons would, in all probability, have carried it out effectively and with moderation in the Parliament.

Unhappily, the Assembly is not providing a Constitution for contemporary Frenchmen, but for abstract beings. Instead of seeing classes in society one placed above the other, it simply sees individuals in juxtaposition; its attention is not fixed on the advantage of the nation, but on the imaginary rights of man. As all men are equal, all must have an equal share in the government. There must be no orders in a State, no avowed or concealed political privileges, no constitutional complications or electoral combinations by which an aristocracy, however liberal and capable, may put its hands upon any portion of the public power. -- On the contrary, because it was once privileged to enjoy important and rewarding public employment, the candidacy of the upper classes is now suspect. All projects which, directly or indirectly, reserve or provide a place for it, are refused: At first the Royal Declaration, which, in conformity with historical precedents, maintained the three orders in three distinct chambers, and only summoned them to deliberate together "on matters of general utility." Then the plan of the Constitutional Committee, which proposed a second Chamber, appointed for life by the King on the nomination of the Provincial Assemblies. And finally the project of Mounier who proposed to confide to these same Assemblies the election of a Senate for six years, renewed by thirds every two years. This Senate was to be composed of men of at least thirty-five years of age, and with an income in real property of 30,000 livres per annum. The instinct of equality is too powerful and a second Chamber is not wanted, even if accessible to plebeians. Through it,[16]

"The smaller number would control the greater;" ... "we should fall back on the humiliating distinctions" of the ancient regime; "we should revivify the germ of an aristocracy which must be exterminated.".... "Moreover, whatever recalls or revives feudal Institutions is bad, and an Upper Chamber is one of its remnants." ...."If the English have one, it is because they have been forced to make a compromise with prejudice."

The National Assembly, sovereign and philosophic, soars above their errors, their trammel; and their example. The depository of truth, it has not to receive lessons from others, but to give them, and to offer to the world's admiration the first type of a Constitution which is perfect and in conformity with principle, the most effective of any in preventing the formation of a governing class; in closing the way to public business, not only to the old noblesse, but to the aristocracy of the future; in continuing and exaggerating the work of absolute monarchy; in preparing for a community of officials and administrators; in lowering the level of humanity; in reducing to sloth and brutalizing or blighting the elite of the families which maintain or raise themselves; and in withering the most precious of nurseries, that in which the State recruits its statesmen.[17]

Excluded from the Government, the aristocracy is about to retire into private life. Let us follow them to their estates: Feudal rights instituted for a barbarous State are certainly a great draw- back in a modern State. If appropriate in an epoch when property and sovereignty were fused together, when the Government was local, when life was militant, they form an incongruity at a time when sovereignty and property are separated, when the Government is centralized, when the regime is a pacific one. The bondage which, in the tenth century, was necessary to re-established security and agriculture, is, in the eighteenth century, purposeless thralldom which impoverishes the soil and fetters the peasant. But, because these ancient claims are liable to abuse and injurious at the present day, it does not follow that they never were useful and legitimate, nor that it is allowable to abolish them without indemnity On the contrary, for many centuries, and, on the whole, so long as the lord of the manor resided on his estates this primitive contract was advantageous to both parties, and to such an extent that it has led to the modern contract. Thanks to the pressure of this tight bandage, the broken fragments of the community can be again united, and society once more recover its solidity, force, and activity. -- In any event, that the institution, like all human institutions, took its rise in violence and was corrupted by abuses is of little consequence; the State, for eight hundred years, recognized these feudal claims, and, with its own consent and the concurrence of its Courts, they were transmitted, bequeathed, sold, mortgaged, and exchanged, like any other species of property. Only two or three hundred, at most, now remained in the families of the original proprietors. "The largest portion of the titled estates," says a contemporary,[18] "have become the property of capitalists, merchants, and their descendants; the fiefs, for the most part, being in the hands of the bourgeois of the towns." All the fiefs which, during two centuries past, have been bought by new men, now represent the economy and labor of their purchasers. -- Moreover; whoever the actual holders may be, whether old or whether new men, the State is under obligation to them, not only by general right -- and because, from the beginning, it is in its nature the guardian of all property, -- but also by a special right, because it has itself sanctioned this particular species of property. The buyers of yesterday paid their money only under its guarantee; its signature is affixed to the contract, and it has bound itself to secure to them the enjoyment of it. If it prevents them from doing so, let it make them compensation; in default of the thing promised to them, it owes them the value of it. Such is the law in cases of expropriation for public utility; in 1834, for instance, the English, for the legal abolition of slavery, paid to their planters the sum of £20,000,000. -- - But that is not sufficient: when, in the suppression of feudal rights, the legislator's thoughts are taken up with the creditors, he has only half performed his task; there are two sides to the question, and he must likewise think of the debtors. If he is not merely a lover of abstractions and of fine phrases, if that which interests him is men and not words, if he is bent upon the effective enfranchisement of the cultivator of the soil, he will not rest content with proclaiming a principle, with permitting the redemption of rents, with fixing the rate of redemption, and, in case of dispute, with sending parties before the tribunals. He will reflect that the peasantry, jointly responsible for the same debt will find difficulty in agreeing among themselves; that they are afraid of litigation; that, being ignorant, they will not know how to set about it; that, being poor, they will be unable to pay; and that, under the weight of discord, distrust, indigence, and inertia, the new law will remain a dead letter, and only exasperate their cupidity or kindle their resentment. In anticipation of this disorder the legislator will come to their assistance ; he will interpose commissions of arbitration between them and the lord of the manor; he will substitute a scale of annuities for a full and immediate redemption; he will lend them the capital which they cannot borrow elsewhere; he will establish a bank, rights, and a mode of procedure, -- in short, as in Savoy in 1771, in England in 1845,[19] and in Russia in 1861, he will relieve the poor without despoiling the rich; he will establish liberty without violating the rights of property; he will conciliate interests and classes; he will not let loose a brutal peasant revolt (Jacquerie) to enforce unjust confiscation; and he will terminate the social conflict not with strife but with peace.

It is just the reverse in 1789 In conformity with the doctrine of the social contract, the principle is set up that every man is born free, and that his freedom has always been inalienable. If he formerly submitted to slavery or to serfdom, it was owing to his having had a knife at his throat; a contract of this sort is essentially null and void. So much the worse for those who have the benefit of it at the present day; they are holders of stolen property, and must restore it to the legitimate owners. Let no one object that this property was acquired for cash down, and in good faith; they ought to have known beforehand that man and his liberty are not commercial matters, and that unjust acquisitions rightly perish in their hands.[20] Nobody dreams that the State which was a party to this transaction is the responsible guarantor. Only one scruple affects the Assembly ; its jurists and Merlin, its reporter, are obliged to yield to proof; they know that in current practice, and by innumerable ancient and modern titles, the noble in many cases is nothing but an ordinary lessor, and that if, in those cases, he collects his dues, it is simply in his capacity as a private person, by virtue of a mutual contract, because he has given a perpetual lease of a certain portion of his land; and he has given it only in consideration of an annual payment in money or produce, or services, together with another contingent claim which the farmer pays in case of the transmission of the lease. These two obligations could not be canceled without indemnity; if it were done, more than one-half of the proprietors in France would be dispossessed in favor of the farmers. Hence the distinction which the Assembly makes in the feudal dues. -- On the one hand it abolishes without indemnity all those dues which the noble receives by virtue of being the local sovereign, the ancient proprietor of persons and the usurper of public. powers; all those which the lessee paid as serf, subject to rights of inheritance, and as former vassal or dependent. On the other hand, it maintains and decrees as redeemable at a certain rate all those which the noble receives through his title of landed proprietor and of simple lessor; all those which the lessee pays by virtue of being a free contracting party, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of landed estate. -- By this division it fancies that it has respected lawful ownership by overthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the feudal scheme of obligations, it has separated the wheat from the chaff.[21]

But, through the principle, the drawing up and the omissions of its law, it condemns both to a common destruction; the fire on which it has thrown the chaff necessarily burns up the wheat. -- Both are in fact bound up together in the same sheaf. If the noble formerly brought men under subjection by the sword, it is also by the sword that he formerly acquired possession of the soil. If the subjection of persons is invalid on account of the original stain of violence, the usurpation of the soil is invalid for the same reason. And if the sanction and guarantee of the State could not justify the first act of brigandage, they could not justify the second; and, since the rights which are derived from unjust sovereignty are abolished without indemnity, the rights which are derived from unjust proprietorship should be likewise abolished without compensation. - - The Assembly, with remarkable imprudence, had declared in the preamble to its law that "it abolished the feudal system entirely," and, whatever its ulterior reservations might be, the fiat has gone forth. The forty thousand sovereign municipalities to which the text of the decree is read pay attention only to the first article, and the village attorney, imbued with the rights of man, easily proves to these assemblies of debtors that they owe nothing to their creditors. There must be no exceptions nor distinctions: no more annual rents, field-rents, dues on produce, nor contingent rents, nor lord's dues and fines, or fifths.[22] If these have been maintained by the Assembly, it is owing to misunderstanding, timidity, inconsistency, and on all sides, in the rural districts, the grumbling of disappointed greed or of unsatisfied necessities is heard:[23]

"You thought that you were destroying feudalism, while your redemption laws have done just the contrary. . . . Are you not aware that what was called a Seigneur was simply an unpunished usurper? . . That detestable decree of 1790 is the ruin of lease- holders. It has thrown the villages into a state of consternation. The nobles reap all the advantage of it. . Never will redemption be possible. Redemption of unreal claims! Redemption of dues that are detestable!"

In vain the Assembly insists, specifies and explains by examples and by detailed instructions the mode of procedure and the conditions of redemption. Neither the procedure nor its conditions are practicable. It has made no provisions for facilitating the agreement of parties and the satisfaction of feudal liens, no special arbitrators, nor bank for loans, nor system of annuities. And worse still, instead of clearing the road it has barred it by legal arrangements. The lease-holder is not to redeem his annual rent without at the same time compounding for the contingent rent: he is not allowed on his own to redeem his quota since he is tied up in solidarity with the other partners. Should his hoard be a small one, so much the worse for him. Not being able to redeem the whole, he is not allowed to redeem a part. Not having the money with which to relieve himself from both ground-rents and lord's dues he cannot relieve himself from ground-rents. Not having the money to liquidate the debt in full of those who are bound along with him- self, he remains a captive in his ancient chains by virtue of the new law which announces to him his freedom.

In the face of these unexpected trammels the peasant becomes furious: His fixed idea, from the outbreak of the Revolution, is that he no longer owes anything to anybody, and, among the speeches, decrees, proclamations, and instructions which rumor brings to his ears, he comprehends but one phrase, and is determined to comprehend no other, and that is, that henceforth his obligations are removed. He does not swerve from this, and since the law hinders, instead of aiding him, he will break the law. In fact, after the 4th of August, 1789, feudal dues cease to be collected. The claims which are maintained are not enforced any more than those which are suppressed. Whole communities come and give notice to the lord of the manor that they will not pay any more rent. Others, with sword in hand, compel him to give them acquittances. Others again, to be more secure, break open his safe, and throw his title-deeds into the fire.[24] Public force is nowhere strong enough to protect him in his legal rights. Officers dare not serve writs, the courts dare not give judgment, administrative bodies dare not decree in his favor. He is despoiled through the connivance, the neglect, or the impotence of all the authorities which ought to defend him. He is abandoned to the peasants who fell his forests, under the pretext that they formerly belonged to the commune; who take possession of his mill, his wine-press, and his oven, under the pretext that territorial privileges are suppressed.[25] Most of the gentry of the provinces are ruined, without any resource, and have not even their daily bread; for their income consisted in seignorial rights, and in rents derived from their real property, which they had let on perpetual leases, and now, in accordance with the law, one-half of this income ceases to be paid, while the other half ceases to be paid in spite of the law. One hundred and twenty-three millions of revenue, representing two thousand millions and a half of capital in the money of that time, double, at least, that of the present day, thus passes as a gift, or through the toleration of the National Assembly, from the hands of creditors into those of their debtors. To this must be added an equal sum for revenue and capital arising from the tithes which are suppressed without compensation, and by the same stroke. -- This is the commencement of the great revolutionary operation, that is to say, of the universal bankruptcy which, directly or indirectly, is to destroy all contracts, and abolish all debts in France. Violations of property, especially of private property, cannot be made with impunity. The Assembly desired to lop off only the feudal branch; but, in admitting that the State can annul, without compensation, the obligations which it has guaranteed, it put the ax to the root of the tree, and other rougher hands are already driving it in up to the haft.

Nothing now remains to the noble but his title, his territorial name, and his armorial bearings, which are innocent distinctions, since they no longer confer any jurisdiction or pre-eminence upon him, and which, as the law ceases to protect him, the first comer may borrow with impunity. Not only, moreover, do they do no harm, but they are even worthy of respect. With many of the nobles the title of the estate covers the family name, the former alone being made use of. If one were substituted for the other, the public would have difficulty in discovering M. de Mirabeau, Lafayette, and M. de Moutmorency, under the new names Riquetti, M. Mottié, and M. Bouchard. Besides, it would be wrong to the bearer of it, to whom the abolished title is a legitimate possession, often precious, it being a certificate of quality and descent, an authentic personal distinction of which he cannot be deprived without losing his position, rank, and worth, in the human world around him. -- The Assembly, however, with a popular principle at stake, gives no heed to public utility, nor to the rights of individuals. The feudal system being abolished, all that remains of it must be got rid of. A decree is passed that "hereditary nobility is offensive to reason and to true liberty;" that, where it exists, "there is no political equality."[26] Every French citizen is forbidden to assume or retain the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis, chevalier, and the like, and to bear any other than the "true name of his family;" he is prohibited from making his servants wear liveries, and from having coats-of-arms on his house or on his carriage. In case of any infraction of this law a penalty is inflicted upon him equal to six times the sum of his personal taxes; he is to be struck off the register of citizens, and declared incapable of holding any civil or military office. There is the same punishment if to any contract or acquittance he affixes his accustomed signature; if; through habit or inadvertence, he adds the title of his estate to his family name -- if; with a view to recognition, and to render his identity certain, he merely mentions that he once bore the former name. Any notary or public officer who shall write, or allow to be written, in any document the word ci-devant (formerly) is to be suspended from his functions. Not only are old names thus abolished, but an effort is made to efface all remembrance of them. In a little while, the childish law will become a murderous one. It will be but a little while and, according to the terms of this same decree, a military veteran of seventy-seven years, a loyal servant of the Republic, and a brigadier-general under the Convention, will be arrested on returning to his native village, because he has mechanically signed the register of the revolutionary committee as Montperreux instead of Vannod, and, for this infraction, he will be guillotined along with his brother and his sister-in-law.[27]

Once on this road, it is impossible to stop; for the principles which are proclaimed go beyond the decrees which are passed, and a bad law introduces a worse. The Constituent Assembly[28] had supposed that annual dues, like ground-rents, and contingent dues, like feudal duties (lods et rentes), were the price of an ancient concession of land, and, consequently, the proof to the contrary is to be thrown upon the tenant. The Legislative Assembly is about to assume that these same rentals are the result of an old feudal usurpation, and that, consequently, the proof to the contrary must rest with the proprietor. His rights cannot be established by possession from time immemorial, nor by innumerable and regular acquittances; he must produce the act of enfeoffment which is many centuries old, the lease which has never, perhaps, been written out, the primitive title already rare in 1720,[29] and since stolen or burnt in the recent jacqueries: otherwise he is despoiled without indemnity. All feudal claims are swept away by this act without exception and without compensation.

In a similar manner, the Constituent Assembly, setting common law aside in relation to inheritances ab intestato, had deprived all eldest sons and males of any advantages.[30] The Convention, suppressing the freedom of testamentary bequest, prohibits the father from disposing of more than one-tenth of his possessions; and again, going back to the past, it makes its decrees retrospective: every will opened after the 14th of July, 1789, is declared invalid if not in conformity with this decree; every succession from the 14th of June, 1789, which is administered after the same date, is re-divided if the division has not been equal; every donation which has been made among the heirs after the same date is void. Not only is the feudal family destroyed in this way, but it must never be reformed. The aristocracy, being once declared a venomous plant, it is not sufficient to prime it away, but it must be extirpated, not only dug up by the root, but its seed must be crushed out. -- A malignant prejudice is aroused against it, and this grows from day to day. The stings of self-conceit, the disappointments of ambition, and envious sentiments have prepared the way. Its hard, dry kernel consists of the abstract idea of equality. All around revolutionary fervor has caused blood to flow, has embittered tempers, intensified sensibilities, and created a painful abscess which daily irritation renders still more painful. Through steadily brooding over a purely speculative preference this has become a fixed idea, and is becoming a murderous one. It is a strange passion, one wholly of the brains, nourished by magniloquent phrases, but the more destructive, because phantoms are created out of words, and against phantoms no reasoning nor actual facts can prevail. This or that shopkeeper who, up to this time, had always formed his idea of nobles from his impressions of the members of the Parliament of his town or of the gentry of his canton, now pictures them according to the declamations of the club and the invectives of the newspapers. The imaginary figure, in his mind, has gradually absorbed the living figure: he no longer sees the calm and engaging countenance, but a grinning and distorted mask. Kindliness or indifference is replaced by animosity and distrust; they are overthrown tyrants, ancient evil-doers, And enemies of the public; he is satisfied beforehand and without further investigation that they are hatching plots. If they avoid being caught, it is owing to their address and perfidy, and they are only the more dangerous the more inoffensive they appear. Their sub-mission is merely a feint, their resignation hypocrisy, their favorable disposition, treachery. Against these conspirators who cannot be touched the law is inadequate; let us stretch it in practice, and as they wince at equality let us try to make them bow beneath the yoke.

In fact, illegal persecution precedes legal prosecution ; the privileged person who, by the late decrees, seems merely to be brought within the pale of the common law, is, in fact; driven outside of it. The King, disarmed, is no longer able to protect him; the partial Assembly repels his complaints ; the committee of inquiry regards him as a culprit when he is simply oppressed. His income, his property, his repose, his freedom, his home, his life, that of his wife and of his children, are in the hands of an administration elected by the crowd, directed by clubs, and threatened or violated by the mob. He is debarred from the elections. The newspapers denounce him. He undergoes domiciliary visits. In hundreds of places his chateau is sacked; the assassins and incendiaries who depart from it with their hands full and steeped in blood are not prosecuted, or are shielded by an amnesty:[31] it is established by innumerable precedents that he may be run down with impunity. To prevent him from defending himself, companies of the National Guard come and seize his arms: he must become a prey, and an easy prey, like game kept back in its enclosure for an approaching hunt. -- In vain he abstains from provocation and reduces himself to the standing of a private individual. In vain does he patiently endure numerous provocations and resist only extreme violence. I have read many hundreds of investigations in the original manuscripts, and almost always I have admired the humanity of the nobles, their forbearance, their horror of bloodshed. Not only are a great many of them men of courage and all men of honor, but also, educated in the philosophy of the eighteenth century, they are mild, sensitive, and deeds of violence are repugnant to them. Military officers especially are exemplary, their great defect being their weakness: rather than fire on the crowd they surrender the forts under their command, and allow themselves to be insulted and stoned by the people. For two years,[32] "exposed to a thousand outrages, to defamation, to daily peril, persecuted by clubs and misguided soldiers," disobeyed, menaced, put under arrest by their own men, they remain at their post to prevent the ranks from being broken up; "with stoic perseverance they put up with contempt of their authority that they may preserve its semblance, their courage is of that rarest kind which consists in remaining at the post of duty, impassive beneath both affronts and blows. -- Through a wrong of the greatest magnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors of the Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the common plebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege the antechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the nursery of the army and the fleet," the elite of the agricultural proprietors, also many gentlemen who look after and turn to account the little estates on which they live, and "who have not left their homes a year in their lives," become the pariahs of their canton.[33] After 1789, they begin to feel that their position is no longer tenable.[34]

" It is absolutely in opposition to the rights of man," says another letter from Franche-Comté, "to find one's self in perpetual fear of having one's throat cut by scoundrels who are daily confounding liberty with license."

"I never knew anything so wearying," says another letter from Champagne, "as this anxiety about property and security. Never was there a better reason for it. A moment suffices to let loose an intractable population which thinks that it may do what it pleases, and which is carefully sustained in that error"

"After the sacrifices that we have made," says a letter from Burgundy, "we could not expect such treatment. I thought that our property would be the last violated because the people owed us some return for staying at home in the country to expend among them the few resources that remain to us. . . (Now), I beg the Assembly to repeal the decree on emigration; otherwise it may be said that people are purposely kept here to be assassinated. . . In case it should refuse to do us this justice, I should be quite as willing to have it decree an act of proscription against us, for we should not then be lulled to sleep by the protection of laws which are doubtless very wise, but which are not respected anywhere."

" It is not our privileges," say several others, "it is not our nobility that we regret; but how is the persecution to which we are abandoned to be supported? There is no safety for us, for our property, or for our families. Wretches who are our debtors, the small farmers who rob us of our incomes, daily threaten us with the torch and the lamp post. We do not enjoy one hour of repose; not a night that we are certain to pass through without trouble. Our persons are given up to the vilest outrages, our dwellings to an inquisition of armed tyrants; we are robbed of our rentals with impunity, and our property is openly attacked. We, being now the only people to pay imposts, are unfairly taxed; in various places our entire incomes would not. suffice to pay the quota which crushes us. We can make no complaint without incurring the risk of being massacred. The tribunals and the administrative bodies, the tools of the multitude, daily sacrifice us to its attacks. Even the Government seems afraid of compromising itself by claiming the protection of the laws on our behalf. It is sufficient to be pointed out as an aristocrat to be without any security. If our peasants, in general, have shown more honesty, consideration, and attachment toward us, every bourgeois of importance, the wild members of clubs, the vilest of men who sully a uniform, consider themselves privileged to insult us, and these wretches go unpunished and are protected! Even our religion is not free. One of our number has had his house sacked for having shown hospitality to an old curé of eighty belonging to his parish who refused to take the oath. Such is our fate. We are not so base as to endure it. Our right to resist oppression is not due to a decree of the National Assembly, but to natural law. We are going to leave, and to die if necessary. But to live under such a revolting anarchy ! Should it not be broken up we shall never set foot in France again!"

The operation is successful. The Assembly, through its decrees and institutions, through the laws it enacts and the violence which it tolerates, has uprooted the aristocracy and cast it out of the country. The nobles, now the reverse of privileged, cannot remain in a country where, while respecting the law, they are really beyond its pale. Those who first emigrated on the 15th of July, 1789, along with the Prince de Condé, received at their houses the evening before they left a list of the proscribed on which their names appeared, and a reward was promised to whoever would bring their heads to the cellar of the Palais-Royal -- Others, in larger numbers, left after the occurrences of the 6th of October. -- During the last months of the Constituent Assembly,[35]

"the emigration goes on in companies composed of men of every condition. . .. Twelve hundred gentlemen have left Poitou alone; Auvergne, Limousin, and ten other provinces have been equally depopulated of their landowners. There are towns in which nobody remains but common. workmen, a club, and the crowd of devouring office-holders created by the Constitution. All the nobles in Brittany have left, and the emigration has begun in Normandy, and is going on in the frontier provinces.

"More than two-thirds of the army will be without officers." On being called upon to take the new oath in which the King's name is purposely omitted, "six thousand officers send in their resignation."

The example gradually becomes contagious; they are men of the sword, and their honor is at stake. Many of them join the princes at Coblentz, and. subsequently do battle against France in the belief that they are contending only against their executioners.

The treatment of the nobles by the Assembly is the same as the treatment of the Protestants by Louis XIV.[36] In both cases the oppressed are a superior class of men. In both cases France has been made uninhabitable for them. In both cases they are reduced to exile, and they are punished because they exiled them selves. In both cases it ended in a confiscation of their property, and in the penalty of death to all who should harbor them. In both cases, by dint of persecution, they are driven to revolt. The insurrection of La Vendée corresponds with the insurrection of the Cévennes; and the emigrants, like the refugees of former times, will be found under. the flags of Prussia and of England. One hundred thousand Frenchmen driven out at the end of the seventeenth century, and one hundred thousand driven out at the end of the eighteenth century! Mark how an intolerant democracy completes the work of an intolerant monarchy. The moral aristocracy was mowed down in the name of uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed down in the name of equality. For the second time, an absolute principle, and with the same effect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society.

The success is complete. One of the deputies of the Legislative Assembly, early in its session, on being informed of the great increase in emigration, joyfully exclaims,

"SO MUCH THE BETTER; FRANCE IS BEING PURGED!"

She is, in truth, being depleted of one-half of her best blood.

IV.

Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in the ecclesiastical bodies. - How the State used its right of overseeing and reforming them. - Social usefulness of corporations.- The sound part in the monastic institution. - Zeal and services of nuns. - How ecclesiastical possessions should be employed. - Principle of the Assembly as to private communities, feudal rights and trust-funds. - Abolition and expropriation all corporations. - Uncompensated suppression of tithes.- Confiscation of ecclesiastical possessions. - Effect on the Treasury and on expropriated services. -The civil constitution of the clergy.- Rights of the Church in relation to the State. - Certainty and effects of a conflict. - Priests considered as State- functionaries.- Principal stipulations of the law. - Obligations of the oath. - The majority of priests refuse to take it. - The majority of believes on their side. - Persecution of believers and of priests.

There remained the corporate, ecclesiastic, and lay bodies, and, notably, the oldest, most opulent, and most considerable of all the regular and secular clergy. -- Grave abuses existed here also, for, the institution being founded on ancient requirements, had not accommodated itself to new necessities.[37] There were too many episcopal sees, and these were arranged according to the Christian distribution of the population in the fourth century; a revenue still more badly apportioned -- bishops and abbés with one hundred thousand livres a year, leading the lives of amiable idlers, while curés, overburdened with work, have but seven hundred; in one monastery nineteen monks instead of eighty, and in another four instead of fifty;[38] a number of monasteries reduced to three or to two inhabitants, and even to one; almost all the congregations of men going to decay, and many of them dying out for lack of novices;[39] a general lukewarmness among the members, great laxity in many establishments, and with scandals in some of them; scarcely one-third taking an interest in their calling, while the remaining two-thirds wish to go back to the world,[40] -- it is evident from all this that the primitive inspiration has been diverted or has cooled; that the endowment only partially fulfills its ends; that one-half of its resources are employed in the wrong way or remain sterile; in short, that there is a need of reformation in the body. -- That this ought to be effected with the co-operation of the State and even under its direction is not less certain. For a corporation is not an individual like other individuals, and, in order that it may acquire or possess the privileges of an ordinary citizen, something supplementary must be added, some fiction, some expedient of the law. If the law is disposed to overlook the fact that a corporation is not a natural personage, if it gives to it a civil personality, if it declares it to be capable of inheriting, of acquiring and of selling, if it becomes a protected and respected proprietor, this is due to the favors of the State which places its tribunal and gendarmes at its service, and which, in exchange for this service, justly imposes conditions on it, and, among others, that of being useful and remaining useful, or at least that of never becoming harmful. Such was the rule under the Ancient Régime, and especially since the Government has for the last quarter of a century gradually and efficaciously worked out a reform. Not only, in 1749, had it prohibited the Church from accepting land, either by donation, by testament, or in exchange, without royal letters-patent registered in Parliament; not only in 1764 had it abolished the order of Jesuits, closed their colleges and sold their possessions, but also, since 1766, a permanent commission, formed by the King's order and instructed by him, had lopped off all the dying and dead branches of the ecclesiastical tree.[41] There was a revision of the primitive Constitutions; a prohibition to every institution to have more than two monasteries at Paris and more than one in other towns; a postponement of the age for taking vows -- that of sixteen being no longer permitted -- to twenty-one for men and eighteen for women; an obligatory minimum of monks and nuns for each establishment, which varies from fifteen to nine according to circumstances; if this is not kept up there follows a suppression or prohibition to receive novices: owing to these measures, rigorously executed, at the end of twelve years "the Grammontins, the Servites, the Celestins, the ancient order of Saint-Bénédict, that of the Holy Ghost of Montpellier, and those of Sainte-Brigitte, Sainte-Croix-de- la-Bretonnerie, Saint-Ruff, and Saint-Antoine," - in short, nine complete congregations had disappeared. At the end of twenty years three hundred and eighty-six establishments had been suppressed, the number of monks and nuns had diminished one-third, the larger portion of possessions which had escheated were usefully applied, and the congregations of men lacked novices and complained that they could not fill up their ranks. If the monks were still found to be too numerous, too wealthy, and too indolent, it was merely necessary to keep on in this way; before the end of the century, merely by the application of the edict, the institution would be brought back, without brutality or injustice, within the scope of the development, the limitations of fortune, and the class of functions acceptable to a modern State.

But, because these ecclesiastical bodies stood in need of reform it does not follow that it was necessary to destroy them, nor, in general, that independent institutions are detrimental to a nation. Organized purposely for a public service, and possessing, nearly or remotely under the supervision of the State, the faculty of self- administration, these bodies are valuable organs and not malign tumors.

In the first place, through their institution, a great public benefit is secured without any cost to the government - worship, scientific research, primary or higher education, help for the poor, care of the sick - all set apart and sheltered from the cuts which public financial difficulties might make necessary, and supported by the private generosity which, finding a ready receptacle at hand, gathers together, century after century, its thousands of scattered springs: as an example, note the wealth, stability, and usefulness of the English and German universities.

In the second place, their institution furnishes an obstacle to the omnipotence of the State; their walls provide a protection against the leveling standardization of absolute monarchy or of pure democracy. A man can here freely develop himself without donning the livery of either courtier or demagogue, he can acquire wealth, consideration and authority, without being indebted to the caprices of either royal or popular favor; he can stand firm against established or prevailing opinions sheltered by associates bound by their esprit de corps. Such, at the present day (1885), is the situation of a professor at Oxford, Göttingen, and Harvard Such, under the Ancient Régime, were a bishop, a member of the French Parliaments, and even a plain attorney. What can be worse than universal bureaucracy, producing a mechanical and servile uniformity! Those who serve the public need not all be Government clerks; in countries where an aristocracy has perished, bodies of this kind are their last place of refuge.

In the third place, through such institutions, distinct original societies may come to be inside the great commonplace world. Here special personalities may find the only existence that suits them. If devout or laborious, not only do these afford an outlet for the deeper needs of conscience, of the imagination, of activity, and of discipline, but also they serve as dikes which restrain and direct them in a channel which will lead to the creation of a masterpiece of infinite value. In this way thousands of men and women fulfill at small cost, voluntarily and gratis, and with great effect, the least attractive and more repulsive social needs, thus performing in human society the role which, inside the ant-hill, we see assigned to the sexless worker-ant.[42]

Thus, at bottom, the institution was really good, and if it had to be cauterized it was merely essential to remove the inert or corrupted parts and preserve the healthy and sound parts. -- Now, if we take only the monastic bodies, there were more than one-half of these entitled to respect. I omit those monks, one-third of whom remained zealous and exemplary-the Benedictines, who continue the "Gallia Christiana," with others who, at sixty years of age, labor in rooms without a fire; the Trappists, who cultivate the ground with their own hands, and the innumerable monasteries which serve as educational seminaries, bureaus of charity, hospices for shelter, and of which all the villages in their neighborhood demand the conservation by the National Assembly.[43] I have to mention the nuns, thirty-seven thousand in fifteen hundred convents. Here, except in the twenty-five chapters of canonesses, which are a semi- worldly rendezvous for poor young girls of noble birth, fervor, frugality, and usefulness are almost everywhere incontestable. One of the members of the Ecclesiastical Committee admits in the Assembly tribunal that, in all their letters and addresses, the nuns ask to be allowed to remain in their cloisters; their entreaties, in fact, are as earnest as they are affecting.[44] One Community writes,

"We should prefer the sacrifice of our lives to that of our calling. . . . This is not the voice of some among our sisters, but of all. The National Assembly has established the claims of liberty-would it prevent the exercise of these by the only disinterested beings who ardently desire to be useful, and have renounced society solely to be of greater service to it?"

"The little contact we have with the world," writes another "is the reason why our contentment is so little known. But it is not the less real and substantial. We know of no distinctions, no privileges amongst ourselves; our misfortunes and our property are in common. One in heart and one in soul . . . we protest before the nation, in the face of heaven and of earth, that it is not in the power of any being to shake our fidelity to our vows, which vows we renew with still more ardor than when we first pronounced them."[45]

Many of the communities have no means of subsistence other than the work of their own hands and the small dowries the nuns have brought with them on entering the convent. So great, however is their frugality and economy, that the total expenditure of each nun does not surpass 250 livres a year. The Annonciades of Saint-Amour say,

"We, thirty-three nuns, both choristers and those of the white veil, live on 4,400 livres net income, without being a charge to our families or to the public. . . If we were living in society, our expenses would be three times as much;"

and, not content with providing for themselves, they give in charity.

Among these communities several hundreds are educational establishments; a very great number give gratuitous primary instruction. -- Now, in 1789, there are no other schools for girls, and were these to be suppressed, every avenue of instruction and culture would be closed to one of the two sexes, forming one- half of the French population. Fourteen thousand sisters of charity, distributed among four hundred and twenty convents, look after the hospitals, attend upon the sick, serve the infirm, bring up foundlings, provide for orphans, lying-in women, and repentant prostitutes. The "Visitation" is an asylum for "those who are not favored by nature," -- and, in those days, there were many more of the disfigured than at present, since out of every eight deaths one was caused by the smallpox. Widows are received here, as well as girls without means and without protection, persons "worn out. with the agitation of the world," those who are too feeble to support the battle of life, those who withdraw from it wounded or invalid, and "the rules of the order, not very strict, are not beyond the health or strength of the most frail and delicate." Some ingenious device of charity thus applies to each moral or social sore, with skill and care, the proper and proportionate dressing. And finally, far from falling off, nearly all these communities are in a flourishing state, and whilst among the establishments for men there are only nine, on the average, to each, in those for women there is an average of twenty-four. Here, at Saint-Flour, is one which is bringing up fifty boarders; another, at Beaulieu, instructs one hundred; another, in Franche-Comté, has charge of eight hundred abandoned children.[46] -- Evidently, in the presence of such institutions one must pause, however. little one may care for justice and the public interest; and, moreover, because it is useless to act rigorously against them the legislator crushes them in vain, for they spring up again of their own accord; they are in the blood of every Catholic nation. In France, instead of thirty- seven thousand nuns, at the present day (1866) there are eighty-six thousand-that is to say, forty-five in every ten thousand women instead of twenty-eight.[47]

In any case, if the State deprives them of their property, along with that of other ecclesiastical bodies, it is not the State that ought to claim the spoil. -- The State is not their heir, and their land, furniture, and rentals are in their very nature devoted to a special purpose, although they have no designated proprietor. This treasure, which consists of the accumulations of fourteen centuries, has been formed, increased, and preserved, in view of a certain object. The millions of generous, repentant, or devout souls who have made a gift of it, or have managed it, did so with a certain intention. It was their desire to ensure education, beneficence, and religion, and nothing else. Their legitimate intentions should not be frustrated: the dead have rights in society as well as the living, for it is the dead who have made the society which the living enjoy, and we receive their heritage only on the condition of executing their testamentary act. -- Should this be of ancient date, it is undoubtedly necessary to make a liberal interpretation of it; to supplement its scanty provisions, and to take new circumstances into consideration. The requirements for which it provided have often disappeared; for instance, after the destruction of the Barbary pirates, there were no more Christians to be ransomed; and only by transferring an endowment can it be perpetuated. -- But if, in the original institution, several accessory and special clauses have become antiquated, there remains the one important, general intention, which manifestly continues imperative and permanent, that of providing for a distinct service, either of charity, of worship, or of instruction. Let the administrators be changed, if necessary, also the apportionment of the legacy bequeathed, but do not divert any of it to services of an alien character; it is inapplicable to any but that purpose or to others strictly analogous. The four milliards of investment in real property, the two hundred millions of ecclesiastical income, form for it an express and special endowment. This is not a pile of gold abandoned on the highway, which the exchequer can appropriate or assign to those who live by the roadside. Authentic titles to it exist, which, declaring its origin, fix its destination, and your business is simply to see that it reaches its destination. Such was the principle under the ancient régime, in spite of grave abuses, and under forced exactions. When the ecclesiastical commission suppressed an ecclesiastical order, it was not for the purpose of making its possessions over to the public treasury, but to apply these to seminaries, schools, and hospitals. In 1789, the revenues of Saint-Denis supported Saint-Cyr; those of Saint Germain went to the Economats, and the Government, although absolute and needy, was sufficiently honest to adjust that confiscation was robbery. The greater our power, the greater the obligation to be just, and honesty always proves in the end to be the best policy. -- It is, therefore, both just and useful that the Church, as in England and in America, that superior education, as in England and in Germany, that special instruction, as in America, and that diverse endowments for public assistance and utility, should be unreservedly secured in the maintenance of their heritage. The State, as testamentary executor of this inheritance, strangely abuses its mandate when it pockets the bequest in order to choke the deficit of its own treasury, risking it in bad speculations, and swallowing it up in its own bankruptcy, until of this vast treasure, which has been heaped up for generations for the benefit of children, the infirm, the sick and the poor, not enough is left to pay the salary of a school-mistress, the wages of a parish nurse, or for a bowl of broth in a hospital.[48]

The Assembly remains deaf to all these arguments, and that which makes its refuse to listen is not financial distress. -- The Archbishop of Aix, M. de Boisjelin, offered, in the name of the clergy, to liquidate at once the debt of three hundred millions, which was urgent, by a mortgage-loan of four hundred millions on the ecclesiastical property, which was a very good expedient; for at this time the credit of the clergy is the only substantial one. It generally borrows at less than five per cent., and more money has always been offered to it than it wanted, whilst the State borrows at ten per cent., and, at this moment, there are no lenders. -- But, to our new revolutionary statesmen, the cost-benefit of a service is of much less consequence than the application of a principle. In conformity with the Social Contract they establish the maxim that in the State there is no need of corporate bodies: they acknowledge nothing but, on the one hand, the State, the depositary of all public powers, and, on the other hand, a myriad of solitary individuals. Special associations, specific groups, collateral corporations are not wanted, even to fulfill functions which the State is incapable of fulfilling. "As soon as one enters a corporation," says and orator, "one must love it as one loves a family;"[49] whereas the affections and obedience are all to be monopolized by the State. Moreover, on entering into an order a man receives special aid and comfort from it, and whatever distinguishes one man from another, is opposed to civil equality. Hence, if men are to remain equal and become citizens they must be deprived of every rallying point that might compete with that of the State, and give to some an advantage over others. All natural or acquired ties, consequently, which bound men together through geographical position, through climate, history, pursuits, and trade, are sundered. The old provinces, the old provincial governments, the old municipal administrations, parliaments, guilds and masterships, all are suppressed. The groups which spring up most naturally, those which arise through a community of interests, are all dispersed, and the broadest, most express, and most positive interdictions are promulgated against their revival under any pretext whatever.[50] France is cut up into geometrical sections like a chess-board, and, within these improvised limits, which are destined for a long time to remain artificial, nothing is allowed to subsist but isolated individuals in juxtaposition. There is no desire to spare organized bodies where the cohesion is great, and least of all that of the clergy. "Special associations," says Mirabeau,[51] "in the community at large, break up the unity of its principles and destroy the equilibrium of its forces. Large political bodies in a State are dangerous through the strength which results from their coalition and the resistance which is born out of their interests." ii -- That of the clergy, besides, is inherently bad,[52] because "its system is in constant antagonism to the rights of man." An institution in which a vow of obedience is necessary is "incompatible" with the constitution. Congregations "subject to independent chiefs are out of the social pale and incompatible with public spirit." As to the right of society over these, and also over the Church, this is not doubtful. " Corporate bodies exist only through society, and, in destroying them, society merely takes back the life she has imparted to them." "They are simply instruments fabricated by the law.[53] What does the workman do when the tool he works with no longer suits him? He breaks or alters it." -- This primary sophism being admitted the conclusion is plain. Since corporate bodies are abolished they no longer exist, and since they no longer exist, they cannot again become proprietors.

"Your aim was to destroy ecclesiastical orders,[54] because their destruction was essential to the safety of the State. If the clergy preserve their property, the clerical order is not destroyed: you necessarily leave it the right of assembling; you sanction its independence." In no case must ecclesiastics hold possessions. "If they are proprietors they are independent, and if they are independent they will associate this independence with the exercise of their functions." The clergy, cost what it will, must be in the hands of the State, as simple functionaries and supported by its subsidies. It would be too dangerous for a nation ,"to admit in its bosom as proprietors a large body of men to whom so many sources of credit already give so great power. As religion is the property of all, its ministers, through this fact alone, should be in the pay of the nation;" they are essentially "officers of morality and instruction," and "salaried" like judges and professors. Let us fetch them back to this condition of things, which is the only one compatible with the rights of man, and ordain that " the clergy, as well as all corporations and bodies with power of inheritance, are now, and shall be for ever incapable of holding any personal or landed estate."[55]

Who, now, is the legitimate heir of all these vacated possessions? Through another sophism, the State, at once judge and party in the cause, assigns them to the State:

"The founders presented them to the Church, that is to say, to the nation."[56] "Since the nation has permitted their possession by the clergy, she may re-demand that which is possessed only through her authorization." "The principle must be maintained that every nation is solely and veritably proprietor of the possessions of its clergy."

This principle, it must be noted, as it is laid down, involves the destruction of ecclesiastical and lay corporations, along with the confiscation of all their possessions, and soon we shall see appearing on the horizon the final and complete decree[57] by which the Legislative Assembly,

"considering that a State truly free should not suffer any corporation within its bosom, not even those which, devoted to public instruction, deserve well of the country," not even those "which are solely devoted to the service of the hospitals-and the relief of the sick,"

suppresses all congregations, all associations of men or of women, lay or ecclesiastical, all endowments for pious, charitable, and missionary purposes, all houses of education, all seminaries and colleges, and those of the Sorbonne and Navarre. Add to these the last sweep of the broom: under the Legislative Assembly the division of all communal property, except woods: under the Convention, the abolition of all literary societies, academies of science and of literature, the confiscation of all their property, their libraries, museums, and botanical gardens; the confiscation of all communal possessions not previously divided; and the confiscation of all the property of hospitals and other philanthropic establishments.[58] -- The abstract principle, proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly, reveals, by degrees, its exterminating virtues. France now, owing to it, contains nothing but dispersed, powerless, ephemeral individuals, and confronting them, the State, the sole, the only permanent body that has devoured all the others, a veritable Colossus, alone erect in the midst of these insignificant dwarfs.

Substituted for the others, it is henceforth to perform their duties, and spend the money well which they have expended badly. -- In the first place, it abolishes tithes, not gradually and by means of a process of redemption, as in England, but at one stroke, and with no indemnity, on the ground that the tax, being an abusive, illegitimate impost, a private tax levied by individuals in cowl and cassock on others in smock frocks, is a vexatious usurpation, and resembles the feudal dues. It is a radical operation, and in conformity with principle. Unfortunately, the puerility of the thing is so gross as to defeat its own object. In effect, since the days of Charlemagne, all the estates in the country which have been sold and resold over and over again have always paid tithes, and have never been purchased except with this charge upon them, which amounts to about one-seventh of the net revenue of the country. Take off this tax and one-seventh is added to the income of the proprietor, and, consequently, a seventh to his capital. A present is made to him of one hundred francs if his land is worth seven hundred-francs, and of one thousand if it is worth seven thousand, of ten thousand if it is worth seventy thousand, and of one hundred thousand if it is worth seven hundred thousand. Some people gain six hundred thousand francs by this act, and thirty thousand francs in Income.[59] Through this gratuitous and unexpected gift, one hundred and twenty-three millions of revenue, and two milliards and a half of capital, is divided among the holders of real estate in France, and in a manner so ingenious that the rich receive the most. Such is the effect of abstract principles. To afford a relief of thirty millions a year to the peasants in wooden shoes, an assembly of democrats adds thirty millions a year to the revenue of wealthy bourgeois and thirty millions a year to opulent nobles. The first part of this operation moreover, is but another burden to the State; for, in taking off the load from the holders of real property, it has encumbered itself, the State henceforth, without pocketing a penny, being obliged to defray the expenses of worship in their place. - As to the second part of the operation, which consists in the confiscation of four milliards of real estate, it proves, after all, to be ruinous, although promising to be lucrative. It makes the same impression on our statesmen that the inheritance of a great estate makes on a needy and fanciful upstart. Regarding it as a bottomless well of gold, he draws upon it without stint and strives to realize all his fancies; as he can afford to pay for it all, he is free to smash it all. It is thus that the Assembly suppresses and compensates magisterial offices to the amount of four hundred and fifty millions; financial securities and obligations to the amount of three hundred and twenty-one millions; the household charges of the King, Queen, and princes, fifty-two millions; military services and encumbrances, thirty-five millions; enfeoffed tithes, one hundred millions, and so on.[60] "In the month of May, 1789," says Necker, "the re-establishment of order in the finances were mere child's-play." At the end of a year, by dint of involving itself in debt, by increasing its expenses, and by abolishing or abandoning its income, the State lives now on the paper-currency it issues, eats up its capital, and rapidly marches onward to bankruptcy. Never was such a vast inheritance so quickly reduced to nothing, and to less than nothing.

Meanwhile, we can demonstrate, from the first few months, what use the administrators will be able to make of it, and the manner in which they will endow the service to which it binds them. -- No portion of this confiscated property is reserved for the maintenance of public worship, or to keep up the hospitals, asylums, and schools. Not only do all obligations and all productive real property find their way into the great national crucible to be converted into assignats[61], but a number of special buildings, all monastic real estate and a portion of the ecclesiastical real estate, diverted from its natural course, becomes swallowed up in the same gulf. At Besançon,[62] three churches out of eight, with their land and treasure, the funds of the chapter, all the money of the monastic churches, the sacred vessels, shrines, crosses, reliquaries, votive offerings, ivories, statues, pictures, tapestry, sacerdotal dresses and ornaments, plate, jewels and precious furniture, libraries, railings, bells, masterpieces of art and of piety, all are broken up and melted in the Mint, or sold by auction for almost nothing. This is the way in which the intentions of the founders and donors are carried out. -- How are so many communities, which are deprived of their rentals, to support their schools, hospices, and asylums? Even after the decree[63] which, exceptionally and provisionally, orders the whole of their revenue to be accounted for to them, will it be paid over now that it is collected by a local administration whose coffers are always empty, and whose intentions are almost always hostile? Every establishment for benevolent and educational purposes is evidently sinking, now that the special streams which nourished them run into and are lost in the dry bed of the public treasury.[64] Already, in 1790, there are no funds with which to pay the monks and nuns their small pensions for their maintenance. In Franche-Comté the Capuchins of Baume have no bread, and, to live, they are obliged to re-sell, with the consent of the district, a portion of the stores of their monastery which had been confiscated. The Ursuline nuns of Ornans live on the means furnished them by private individuals in order to keep up the only school which the town possesses. The Bernardine nuns of Pontarlier are reduced to the lowest stage of want: "We are satisfied," the district reports, "that they have nothing to put into their mouths. We have to contribute something every day amongst ourselves to keep them from starving."[65] Only too thankful are they when the local administration gives them something to eat, or allows others to give them something. In many places it strives to famish them, or takes delight in annoying them. In March, 1791, the department of Doubs, in spite of the entreaties of the district, reduces the pension of the Visitant nuns to one hundred and one livres for the choristers, and fifty for the lay- sisters. Two months before this, the municipality of Besançon, putting its own interpretation on the decree which allowed nuns to dress as they pleased, enjoins them all, including even the sisters of charity, to abandon their old costume, which few among them had the means of replacing. -- Helplessness, indifference, or malevolence, such are the various dispositions which are encountered among the new authorities whose duty it is to support and protect them. To let loose persecution there is now only needed a decree which puts the civil power in conflict with religious convictions. That decree is promulgated, and, on the 12th of July, 1790, the Assembly establishes the civil constitution of the clergy.

Notwithstanding the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, and the dispersion of the monastic communities, the main body of the ecclesiastical corps remains intact: seventy thousand priests ranged under the bishops, with the Pope in the center as the commander-in- chief. There is no corporation more solid, more incompatible, or more attacked. For, against it are opposed implacable hatreds and fixed opinions: the Gallicanism of the jurists who, from St. Louis downwards, are the adversaries of ecclesiastical power; the doctrine of the Jansenists who, since Louis XIII., desire to bring back the Church to its primitive form; and the theory of the philosophers who, for sixty years, have considered Christianity as a mistake and Catholicism as a scourge. At the very least the institution of a clergy in Catholicism is condemned, and they think that they are moderate if they respect the rest.

"WE MIGHT CHANGE THE RELIGION,"

say the deputies in the tribune.[66] Now, the decree affects neither dogma nor worship; it is confined to a revision of matters of discipline, and on this particular domain which is claimed for the civil power, it is pretended that demolition and re-construction may be effected at discretion without the concurrence of the ecclesiastical power.

Here there is an abuse of power, for an ecclesiastical as well as civil society has the right to choose its own form, its own hierarchy, its own government. - On this point, every argument that can be advanced in favor of the former can be repeated in favor of the latter, and the moment one becomes legitimate the other becomes legitimate also. The justification for a civil or of a religious community or society may be the performance of a long series of services which, for centuries, it has rendered to its members, the zeal and success with which it discharges its functions, the feelings of gratitude they entertain for it, the importance they attribute to its offices, the need they have of it, and their attachment to it, the conviction imprinted in their minds that without it they would be deprived of a benefit upon which they set more store than upon any other. This benefit, in a civil society, is the security of persons and property. In the religious society it is the eternal salvation of the soul. iii In all other particulars the resemblance is complete, and the titles of the Church are as good as those of the State. Hence, if it be just for one to be sovereign and free on its own domain, it is just for the other to be equally sovereign and free, If the Church encroaches when it assumes to regulate the constitution of the State, then the State also encroaches when it pretends to regulate the constitution of the Church. If the former claims the respect of the latter on its domain, the latter must show equal respect for the former on its ground. The boundary-line between the two territories is, undoubtedly, not clearly defined and frequent contests arise between the two. Sometimes these may be forestalled or terminated by each shutting itself up within a wall of separation, and by their remaining as much as possible indifferent to each other, as is the case in America. At another, they may, by a carefully considered contract,[67] each accord to the other specific rights on the intermediate zone, and both exercise their divided authority on that zone, which is the case in France. In both cases, however, the two powers, like the two societies, must remain distinct. It is necessary for each of them that the other should be an equal, and not a subordinate to which it prescribes conditions. Whatever the civil system may be, whether monarchical or republican, oligarchic or democratic, the Church abuses its credit when it condemns or attacks it. Whatever may be the ecclesiastical system, whether papal, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or congregational, the State abuses its strength when, without the assent of the faithful, it abolishes their systems or imposes a new one upon them. Not only does it violate right, but its violence, most frequently, is fruitless. It may strike as it will, the root of the tree is beyond its reach, and, in the unjust war which it wages against an institution as vital as itself, it often ends in getting the worst of it.

Unfortunately, the Assembly, in this as in other matters, being preoccupied with principles, fails to look at practical facts; and, aiming to remove only the dead bark, it injures the living trunk. -- For many centuries, and especially since the Council of Trent, the vigorous element of Catholicism is much less religion itself than the Church. Theology has retired into the background, while discipline has come to the front. Believers who, according to Church law, are required to regard spiritual authority as dogma, in fact attach their faith to the spiritual authority much more than to the dogma. -

Catholic Faith insists, in relation to discipline as well as to dogma, that if one rejects the decision of the Roman Church one ceases to be a Catholic; that the constitution of the Church is monarchical, that the ordaining of priests and bishops is made from above so that without communion with the Pope, its supreme head, one is schismatic and that no schismatic priest legitimately can perform a holy service, and that no true faithful may attend his service or receive his blessings without committing a sin. - It is a fact that the faithful, apart from a few Jansenists, are neither theologians nor canonists; that they read neither prayers nor scriptures, and if they accept the creed, it is in a lump, without investigation, confiding in the hand which presents it; that their obedient conscience is in the keeping of this pastoral guide; that the Church of the third century is of little consequence to them; and that, as far as the true form of the actual Church goes, the doctor whose advice they follow is not St. Cyprian, of whom they know nothing, but their visible bishop and their living curé. Put these two premises together and the conclusion is self-evident: it is clear that they will not believe that they are baptized, absolved, or married except by this curé authorized by this bishop. Let others be put in their places whom they condemn, and you suppress worship, sacraments, and the most precious functions of spiritual life to twenty-four millions of French people, to all the peasantry, all the children, and to almost all the women; you stir up in rebellion against you the two greatest forces which move the mind, conscience and habit. -- And observe the result of this. You not only convert the State into a policeman in the service of heresy, but also, through this fruitless and tyrannous attempt of Gallican Jansenism, you bring into permanent discredit Gallican maxims and Jansenist doctrines. You cut away the last two roots by which a liberal sentiment still vegetated in orthodox Catholicism. You throw the clergy back on Rome; you attach them to the Pope from whom you wish to separate them, and deprive them of the national character which you wish to impose on them. They were French, and you render them Ultramontane.[68] They excited ill-will and envy, and you render them sympathetic and popular. They were a divided body, and you give them unanimity. They were a straggling militia, scattered about under several independent authorities, and rooted to the soil through the possession of the ground; thanks to you, they are to become a regular, manageable army, emancipated from every local attachment, organized under one head, and always prepared to take the field at the word of command. Compare the authority of a bishop in his diocese in 1789 with that of a bishop sixty years later. In 1789, the Archbishop of Besançon, out of fifteen hundred offices and benefices, had the patronage of one hundred, In ninety- three incumbencies the selections were made by the metropolitan chapter; in eighteen it was made by the chapter of the Madeleine; in seventy parishes by the noble founder or benefactor. One abbé had thirteen incumbencies at his disposal, another thirty-four, another thirty-five, a prior nine, an abbess twenty; five communes directly nominated their own pastor, while abbeys, priories and canonries were in the hands of the King.[69] At the present day (1880) in a diocese the bishop appoints all the curés or officiating priests, and may deprive nine out of ten of them; in the diocese above named, from 1850 to 1860, scarcely one lay functionary was nominated without the consent or intervention of the cardinal-archbishop.[70] To comprehend the spirit, discipline, and influence of our contemporary clergy, go back to the source of it, and you will find it in the decree of the Constituent Assembly. A natural organization cannot be broken up with impunity; it forms anew, adapting itself to circumstances, and closes up its ranks in proportion to its danger.

But even if, according to the maxims of the Assembly, faith and worship are free, as far as the sovereign State is concerned, the churches are subjects.-- For these are societies, administrations, and hierarchies, and no society, administration, or hierarchy may exist in the State without entering into its ---departments under the title of subordinate, delegate, or employee. A priest is now essentially a salaried officer like the rest, a functionary[71] presiding over matters pertaining to worship and morality. If the State is disposed to change the number, the mode of nomination, the duties and the posts of its engineers, it is not bound to assemble its engineers and ask their permission, least of all that of a foreign engineer established at Rome. If it wishes to change the condition of "its ecclesiastical officers," its right to do so is the same, and therefore unquestioned. There is no need of asking anybody's consent in the exercise of this right, and it allows no interference between it and its clerks. The Assembly refuses to call a Gallican council; it refuses to negotiate with the Pope, and, on its own authority alone, it recasts the whole Constitution of the Church. Henceforth this branch of the public administration is to be organized on the model of the others. -- In the first place[72] the diocese is to be in extent and limits the same as the French department; consequently, all ecclesiastical districts are marked out anew, and forty-eight episcopal sees disappear. -- In the second place, the appointed bishop is forbidden "to refer to the Pope to obtain any confirmation whatever." All he can do is to write to him "in testimony of the unity of faith and of the communion which he is to maintain with him." The bishop is thus no longer installed by his canonical chief, and the Church of France becomes schismatic. -- In the third place, the metropolitan or bishop is forbidden to exact from the new bishops or curés "any oath other than that they profess the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion." Assisted by his council he may examine them on their doctrine and morals, and refuse them canonical installation, but in this case his reasons must be given in writing, and be signed by himself and his council. His authority, in other respects, does not extend beyond this for it is the civil tribunal which decides between contending parties. Thus is the catholic hierarchy broken up; the ecclesiastical superior has his hands tied; if he still delegates sacerdotal functions it is only as a matter of form. Between the curé and the bishop subordination ceases to exist just as it has ceased to exist between the bishop and the Pope, and the Church of France becomes Presbyterian. -- The people now, in effect, choose their own ministers, as they do in the Presbyterian church; the bishop is appointed by the electors of the department, the cure by the district electors, and, what is an extraordinary aggravation, these need not be of his communion. It is of no consequence whether the electoral Assembly contains, as at Nîmes, Montauban, Strasbourg, and Metz, a notable proportion of Calvinists, Lutherans, and Jews, or whether its majority, furnished by the club, is notoriously hostile to Catholicism, and even to Christianity itself. The bishop and the curé must be chosen by the electoral body; the Holy Ghost dwells with it, and with the civil tribunals, and these may install its elect in spite of any resistance. -- To complete the dependence of the clergy, every bishop is forbidden to absent himself more than fifteen days without permission from the department; every curé the same length of time without the permission of the district, even to attend upon a dying father or to undergo the operation of lithotomy. In default of this permission his salary is suspended: as a functionary under salary, he owes all his time to his bureau, and if he desires a leave of absence he must ask for it from his chiefs in the Hôtel-de-Ville.[73] -- He must assent to all these innovations, not only with passive obedience, but by a solemn oath. All old or new ecclesiastics, archbishops, bishops, curés, vicars, preachers, hospital and prison chaplains, superiors and directors of seminaries, professors of seminaries and colleges, are to state in writing that they are ready to take this oath: moreover, they must take it publicly, in church, "in the presence of the general council, the commune, and the faithful," and promise "to maintain with all their power" a schismatic and Presbyterian Church. -- For there can be no doubt about the sense and bearing of the prescribed oath. It was all very well to incorporate it with a broader one, that of maintaining the Constitution. But the Constitution of the clergy is too clearly comprised in the general Constitution, like a chapter in a book, and to sign the book is to sign the chapter. Besides, in the formula to which the ecclesiastics in the Assembly are obliged to swear in the tribune, the chapter is precisely indicated, and no exception or reservation is allowed.[74] The Bishop of Clermont, with all those who have accepted the Constitution in full, save the decrees affecting spiritual matters, are silenced. Where the spiritual begins and where it ends the Assembly knows better than they, for it has defined this, and it imposes its definition on canonist and theologian; it is, in its turn, the Pope, and all consciences must bow to its decision. Let them take the "oath, pure and simple," or if they do not they are 'refractory." The fiat goes forth, and the effect of it is immense, for, along with the clergy, the law reaches to laymen. On the one hand, all the ecclesiastics who refuse the oath are dismissed. If they continue "to interfere with public functions which they have personally or corporately exercised" they "shall be prosecuted as disturbers of the peace, and condemned as rebels against the law," deprived of all rights as active citizens, and declared incompetent to hold any public office. This is the penalty already inflicted on the nonjuring bishop who persists in considering himself a bishop, who ordains priests and who issues a pastoral letter. Such is soon to be the penalty inflicted on the nonjuring curé who presumes to hear confession or officiate at a mass.[75] On the other hand, all citizens who refuse to take the prescribed oath, all electors, municipal officers, judges and administrative agents, shall lose their right of suffrage, have their functions revoked, and be declared incompetent for all public duties.[76] The result is that scrupulous Catholics are excluded from every administrative post, from all elections, and especially from ecclesiastical elections; from which it follows that, the stronger one's faith the less one's share in the choice of a priest.[77] -- What an admirable law, that which, under the pretext of doing away with ecclesiastical abuses, places the faithful, lay or clerical, outside the pale of the law!

This soon becomes apparent. One hundred and thirty four archbishops, bishops, and coadjutors refuse to take the oath; there are only four of them who do so, three of whom, MM. de Talleyrand, de Jarente, and de Brienne, are unbelievers and notorious for their licentiousness; the others are influenced by their consciences, above all, by their esprit de corps and a point of honor. Most of the curés rally around this staff of officers. In the diocese of Besançon,[78] out of fourteen hundred priests, three hundred take the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eighty retract. In the department of Doubs, only four consent to swear. In the department of Lozère, there are only "ten out of two hundred and fifty." It is stated positively," writes the best informed of all observers that everywhere in France two-thirds of the ecclesiastics have refused the oath, or have only taken it with the same reservations as the Bishop of Clermont."

Thus, out of seventy thousand priests, forty-six thousand are turned out of office, and the majority of their parishioners are on their side. This is apparent in the absence of electors convoked to replace them: at Bordeaux only four hundred and fifty came to the poll out of nine hundred, while elsewhere the summons brings together only "a third or a quarter" In many places there are no candidates, or those elected decline to accept. They are obliged, in order to supply their places, to hunt up unfrocked monks of a questionable character. There are two parties, after this, in each parish; two faiths, two systems of worship, and permanent discord. Even when the new and the old curés are accommodating, their situations bring them into conflict. To the former the latter are "intruders." To the latter the former are " refractories." By virtue of his being a guardian of souls, the former cannot dispense with telling his parishioners that the intruder is excommunicated, that his sacraments are null or sacrilegious, and that it is a sin to attend his mass. By virtue of his being a public functionary, the latter does not fail to write to the authorities that the " refractory " entraps the faithful, excites their consciences, saps the Constitution, and that he ought to be put down by force. In other words, the former draws everybody away from the latter, while the latter sends the gendarmes against the former, and persecution begins. - In a strange reversal, it is the majority which undergoes persecution, and the minority which carries it out. The mass of the constitutional curé is, everywhere, deserted.[79] In La Vendée there are ten or twelve present in the church out of five or six hundred parishioners; on Sundays and holidays whole villages and market- towns travel from one to two leagues off to attend the orthodox mass, the villagers declaring that "if the old curé can only be restored to them, they will gladly pay a double tax." In Alsace, "nine tenths, at least, of the Catholics refuse to recognize the legally sworn priests." The same spectacle presents itself in Franche-Comté, Artois, and in ten of the other provinces. -- Finally, as in a chemical composition, the analysis is complete. Those who believe, or who recover their belief, are ranged around the old curé; all who, through conviction or tradition, hold to the sacraments, all who, through faith or habit, wish or feel a need to attend the mass. The auditors of the new curé consist of unbelievers, deists, the indifferent members of the clubs and of the administration, who resort to the church as to the Hôtel-de-ville or to a popular meeting, not through religious but through political zeal, and who support the "intruder" in order to sustain the Constitution. All this does not secure to him very fervent followers, but it provides him with very zealous defenders; and, in default of the faith which they do not possess, they give the force which is at their disposal. All means are proper against an intractable bishop or curé; not only the law which they aggravate through their forced interpretation of it and through their arbitrary verdicts, but also the riots which they stir up by their instigation and which they sanction by their toleration.[80] He is driven out of his parish, consigned to the county town, and kept in a safe place. The Directory of Aisne denounces him as a disturber of the public peace, and forbids him, under severe penalties, from administering the sacraments. The municipality of Cahors shuts up particular churches and orders the nonjuring ecclesiastics to leave the town in twenty-four hours. The electoral corps of Lot denounces them publicly as "ferocious brutes," incendiaries, and provokers of civil war. The Directory of the Bas-Rhin banishes them to Strasbourg or to fifteen leagues from the frontier. At Saint-Leon the bishop is forced to fly. At Auch the archbishop is imprisoned; at Lyons M. de Boisboissel, grand vicar, is confined in Pierre- Encize, for having preserved an archiepiscopal mandate in his house; brutality is everywhere the minister of intolerance. A certain cure of Aisne who, in 1789, had fed two thousand poor, having presumed to read from his pulpit a pastoral charge concerning the observance of Lent, the mayor seizes him by the collar and prevents him from going to the altar; "two of the National Yeomanry" draw their sabers on him, and forthwith lead him away bareheaded, not allowing him to return to his house, and drive him to a distance of two leagues by beat of drum and under escort. At Paris, in the church of Saint- Eustache, the curé is greeted with outcries, a pistol is pointed at his head, he is seized by the hair, struck with fists, and only reaches the sacristy through the intervention of the National Guard. In the church of the Théatins, rented by the orthodox with all legal formality, a furious band disperses the priests and their assistants, upsets the altar and profanes the sacred vessels. A placard, posted up by the department, calls upon the people to respect the law, "I saw it," says an eye-witness, "torn down amidst imprecations against the department, the priests, and the devout. One of the chief haranguers, standing on the steps terminated his speech by stating that schism ought to be stopped at any cost, that no worship but his should be allowed, that women should be whipped and priests knocked on the head." And, in fact, "a young lady accompanied by her mother is whipped on the steps of the church." Elsewhere nuns are the sufferers, even the sisters of Saint-Vincent de Paul; and, from April, 1793, onward; the same outrages on modesty and against life are propagated from town to town. At Dijon, rods are nailed fast to the gates of all the convents; at Montpellier, two or three hundred ruffians, armed with large iron--bound sticks, murder the men and outrage the women. -- Nothing remains but to put the gangsters under the shelter of an amnesty, which is done by the Constituent Assembly, and to legally sanction the animosity of local administrations, which is done by the Legislative Assembly.[81] Henceforth the nonjuring ecclesiastics are deprived of their sustenance; they are declared " suspected of revolt against the law and of evil intentions against the country." - Thus, says a contemporary Protestant, "on the strength of these suspicions and these intentions, a Directory, to which the law interdicts judicial functions, may arbitrarily drive out of his house the minister of a God of peace and charity, grown gray in the shadow of the altar" Thus, "everywhere, where disturbances occur on account of religious opinions, and whether these troubles are due to the frantic scourgers of the virtuous sisters of charity or to the ruffians armed with cow-hides who, at Nîmes and Montpellier, outrage all the laws of decorum and of liberty for six whole months, the non-juring priests are to be punished with banishment. Torn from their families whose means of living they share, they are sent away to wander on the highways, abandoned to public pity or ferocity the moment any scoundrel chooses to excite a disturbance that he can impute to them." - Thus we see approaching the revolt of the peasantry, the insurrections of Nîmes, Franche-Comté, la Vendée and Brittany, emigration, transportation; imprisonment, the guillotine or drowning for two thirds of the clergy of France, and likewise for myriads of the loyal, for husbandmen, artisans, day-laborers, seamstresses, and servants, and the humblest among the lower class of the people. This is what the laws of the Constituent Assembly are leading to. -- In the institution of the clergy, as in that of the nobles and the King, it demolished a solid wall in order to dig through it an open door, and it is nothing strange if the whole structure tumbles down on the heads of its inmates. The true course was to respect, to reform, to utilize rank and corporations: all that the Assembly thought of was the abolition of these in the name of abstract equality and of national sovereignty. In order to abolish these it executed, tolerated, or initiated all the attacks on persons and on property. Those it is about to commit are the inevitable result of those which it has already committed; for, through its Constitution, bad is changed to worse, and the social edifice, already half in ruins through the clumsy havoc that is effected in it, will fall in completely under the weight of the incongruous or extravagant constructions which it proceeds to extemporize.

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Notes:

[1] Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and V.

[2] Perhaps we are here at the core of why all regimes end up becoming corrupt, inefficient and sick; their leaders take their privileges for granted and become more and more inattentive to the work which must be done if the people are to be kept at work and possible adversaries kept under control. (SR.)

[3] A special tax paid the king by a plebeian owning a fief. (TR)

[4] The right to an income from trust funds. (SR.)

[5] Arthur Young, I. 209, 223. "If the communes steadily refuse what is now offered to them, they put immense and certain benefits to the chance of fortune, to that hazard which may make posterity curse instead of bless their memories as real patriots who had nothing in view but the happiness of their country.

[6] According to valuations by the Constituent Assembly, the tax on real estate ought to bring 240,000,000 francs, and provide one-fifth of the net revenue of France, estimated at 1,200,000,000. Additionally, the personal tax on movable property, which replaced the capitation, ought to bring 60,000,000. Total for direct taxation, 300,000,000, or one-fourth -- that is to say, twenty-five per cent, of the net revenue.-- If the direct taxation had been maintained up to the rate of the ancient régime (190,000,000, according to Necker's report in May, 1689), this impost would only have provided one-sixth of the net revenue, or sixteen percent.

[7] Dumont, 267. (The words of Mirabeau three months before his death:) "Ah, my friend, how right we were at the start when we wanted to prevent the commons from declaring themselves the National Assembly! That was the source of the evil. They wanted to rule the King, instead of ruling through him."

[8] Gouverneur Morris, April 29, 1789 (on the principles of the future constitution), "One generation at least will be required to render the public familiar with them."

[9] Cf. "The Ancient Régime," book II, ch. III.

[10] French women did not obtain the right to vote until 1946. (SR.)

[11] According to Voltaire ("L'Homme aux Quarante Écus"), the average duration of human life was only twenty-three years.

[12] Mercure, July 6, 1790. According to the report of Camus (sitting of July 2nd), the official total of pensions amounted to thirty-two millions; but if we add the gratuities and allowances out of the various treasuries, the actual total was fifty-six millions.

[13] I note that today in 1998, 100 years after Taine's death, Denmark, my country, has had total democracy, that is universal suffrage for women and men of 18 years of age for a considerable time, and a witty author has noted that the first rule of our unwritten constitution is that "thou shalt not think that thou art important". I have noted, however, that when a Dane praises Denmark and the Danes even in the most excessive manner, then he is not considered as a chauvinist but admired as being a man of truth. In spite of the process of 'democratization' even socialist chieftains seem to favor and protect their own children, send them to good private schools and later abroad to study and help them to find favorable employment in the party or with the public services. A new élite is thus continuously created by the ruling political and administrative upper class. (SR.).

[14] The Ancient Régime," p.388, and the following pages.-" Le Duc de Broglie," by M. Goizot, p. 11. (Last words of Prince Victor de Broglie, and the opinions of M. d'Argenson.)

[15] De Ferrières, I. p.2.

[16] Moniteur, sitting of September 7, 1790, I. 431-437. Speeches, of MM. de Sillery, de Lanjuinais, Thouret, de Lameth, and Rabaut- Saint-Etienne. Barnave wrote in 1791: "It was necessary to be content with one single chamber; the instinct of equality required it. A second Chamber would have been the refuge of the aristocrats."

[17] Lenin should later create an elite, an aristocracy which, under his leadership was to become the Communist party. Lenin could not have imagined or at least would not have been concerned that the leadership of this party would fall into the hands of tyrants later, under the pressure of age and corruption, to be replaced by the KGB and later the FSB. (SR.)

[18] "De Bouillé," p. 50: "All the old noble families, save two or three hundred, were ruined."

[19] Cf. Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité."

[20] Moniteur, sitting of August 6, !789. Speech of Duport: "Whatever is unjust cannot last. Similarly, no compensation for these unjust rights can be maintained." Sitting of February 27, 1790. M. Populus: "As slavery could not spring from a legitimate contract, because liberty cannot be alienated, you have abolished without indemnity hereditary property in persons." Instructions and decree of June 15-19, 1791: "The National Assembly has recognized in the most emphatic manner that a man never could become the proprietor of another man, and consequently, that the rights which one had assumed to have over the person of the other, could not become the property of the former." Cf. the diverse reports of Merlin to the Committee of Feudality and the National Assembly.

[21] Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets." Laws of the 4-11 August, 1789; March 15-28, 1790; May 3-9, 1790; June 15-19, 1791.

[22] Agrier percières -- terms denoting taxes paid in the shape of shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint, requint belong to the taxes levied on real property. [Tr.]

[23] Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of the copy- holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97-105.

[24] See further on, book III. ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III.

[25] Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin: "The peasants have been made to believe that the annulation of the banalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-press, and oven, which belonged to the noble) carried along with it the loss to the noble of all these; the peasants regarding themselves as proprietors of them."

[26] Moniteur; sitting of June 9, !790. Speech of M. Charles de Lameth -- Duvergier (laws of June 19-23 1790; September 27 and October 16, 1791).

[27] Sauzay, V. 400 -410.

[28] Duvergier, laws of June 15-19, 1791; of June 18 -July 6, 1792; of August 25-28, 1792.

[29] "Institution du Droit Français," par Argou, I.103. (He wrote under the Regency.) "The origin of most of the feoffs is so ancient that, if

The French Revolution, Volume 1.

Hippolyte A. Taine