CHAPTER III

FROM THE 6TH OF OCTOBER, 1789, TO THE DEATH OF MIRABEAU, APRIL, 1791

The period which forms the subject of this chapter was less remarkable for events than for the gradually decided separation of parties. In proportion as changes were introduced into the state and the laws, those whose interests or opinions they injured declared themselves against them. The revolution had had as enemies, from the beginning of the states-general, the court; from the union of orders and the abolition of privileges, the nobility; from the establishment of a single assembly and the rejection of the two chambers, the ministry and the partisans of the English form of government. It had, moreover, against it since the departmental organization, the provinces; since the decree respecting the property and civil constitution of the clergy, the whole ecclesiastical body; since the introduction of the new military laws, all the officers of the army. It might seem that the assembly ought not to have effected so many changes at once, so as to have avoided making so many enemies; but its general plans, its necessities, and the very plots of its adversaries, required all these innovations.

After the 5th and 6th of October, the assembly emigrated as the court had done after the 14th of July. Mounier and Lally-Tollendal deserted it, despairing of liberty from the moment their views ceased to be followed. Too absolute in their plans, they wanted the people, after having delivered the assembly on the 14th of July, suddenly to cease acting, which was displaying an entire ignorance of the impetus of revolutions. When the people have once been made use of, it is difficult to disband them, and the most prudent course is not to contest, but to regulate intervention. Lally-Tollendal renounced his title of Frenchman, and returned to England, the land of his ancestors. Mounier repaired to Dauphiné, his native province, which he endeavoured to excite to a revolt against the assembly. It was inconsistent to complain of an insurrection, and yet to provoke one, especially when it was to the profit of another party, for his was too weak to maintain itself against the ancient régime and the revolution.

Notwithstanding his influence in Dauphiné, whose former movements he had directed, Mounier was unable to establish there a centre of permanent resistance, but the assembly was thereby warned to destroy the ancient provincial organisation, which might become the frame- work of a civil war.

After the 5th and 6th of October, the national representatives followed the king to the capital, which their common presence had contributed greatly to tranquillise. The people were satisfied with possessing the king, the causes which had excited their ebullition had ceased. The duke of Orleans, who, rightly or wrongly, was considered the contriver of the insurrection, had just been sent away; he had accepted a mission to England; Lafayette was resolved to maintain order; the national guard, animated by a better spirit, acquired every day habits of discipline and obedience; the corporation, getting over the confusion of its first establishment, began to have authority. There remained but one cause of disturbance—the scarcity of provisions. Notwithstanding the zeal and foresight of the committee entrusted with the task of providing supplies, daily assemblages of the people threatened the public tranquillity. The people, so easily deceived when suffering, killed a baker called François, who was unjustly accused as a monopolist. On the 21st of October a martial law was proclaimed, authorizing the corporation to employ force to disperse the mob, after having summoned the citizens to retire.

Power was vested in a class interested in maintaining order; the districts and the national guard were obedient to the assembly. Submission to the law was the prevailing passion of that epoch. The deputies on their side only aspired at completing the constitution and effecting the re-organisation of the state. They had the more reason for hastening their task, as the enemies of the assembly made use of what remained of the ancient régime, to occasion it embarrassment. Accordingly, it replied to each of their endeavours by a decree, which, changing the ancient order of things, deprived them of one of their means of attack.

It began by dividing the kingdom more equally and regularly. The provinces, which had witnessed with regret the loss of their privileges, formed small states, the extent of which was too vast, and the administration too independent. It was essential to reduce their size, change their names, and subject them to the same government. On the 22nd of December, the assembly adopted in this respect the project conceived by Sieyès, and presented by Thouret in the name of the committee, which occupied itself constantly on this subject for two months.

France was divided into eighty-three departments, nearly equal in extent and population; the departments were subdivided into districts and cantons. Their administration received a uniform and hierarchical form. The department had an administrative council composed of thirty-six members, and an executive directory composed of five members: as the names indicate, the functions of the one were to decide, and of the other to act. The district was organised in the same way; although on a smaller scale, it had a council and a directory, fewer in number, and subordinate to the superior directory and council. The canton composed of five or six parishes, was an electoral not an administrative division; the active citizens, and to be considered such it was necessary to pay taxes amounting to three days' earnings, united in the canton to nominate their deputies and magistrates. Everything in the new plan was subject to election, but this had several degrees. It appeared imprudent to confide to the multitude the choice of its delegates, and illegal to exclude them from it; this difficult question was avoided by the double election.

The active citizens of the canton named electors intrusted with nominating the members of the national assembly, the administrators of the department, those of the district, and the judges of tribunals; a criminal court was established in each department, a civil court in each district, and a police-court in each canton.

Such was the institution of the department. It remained to regulate that of the corporation: the administration of this was confided to a general council and a municipality, composed of members whose numbers were proportioned to the population of the towns. The municipal officers were named immediately by the people, and could alone authorize the employment of the armed force. The corporation formed the first step of the association, the kingdom formed the last; the department was intermediate between the corporation and the state, between universal interests and purely local interests.

The execution of this plan, which organized the sovereignty of the people, which enabled all citizens to concur in the election of their magistrates, and entrusted them with their own administration, and distributed them into a machinery which, by permitting the whole state to move, preserved a correspondence between its parts, and prevented their isolation, excited the discontent of some provinces. The states of Languedoc and Brittany protested against the new division of the kingdom, and on their side the parliaments of Metz, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Toulouse rose against the operations of the assembly which suppressed the Chambres de Vacations, abolished the orders, and declared the commissions of the states incompetent. The partisans of the ancient régime employed every means to disturb its progress; the nobility excited the provinces, the parliaments took resolutions, the clergy issued mandates, and writers took advantage of the liberty of the press to attack the revolution. Its two principal enemies were the nobles and the bishops.

Parliament, having no root in the nation, only formed a magistracy, whose attacks were prevented by destroying the magistracy itself, whereas the nobility and the clergy had means of action which survived the influence of the body. The misfortunes of these two classes were caused by themselves. After harassing the revolution in the assembly, they afterwards attacked it with open force— the clergy, by internal insurrections—the nobility, by arming Europe against it. They had great expectations from anarchy, which, it is true, caused France many evils, but which was far from rendering their own position better. Let us now see how the hostilities of the clergy were brought on; for this purpose we must go back a little.

The revolution had commenced with the finances, and had not yet been able to put an end to the embarrassments by which it was caused. More important objects had occupied the attention of the assembly. Summoned, no longer to defray the expenses of administration, but to constitute the state, it had suspended its legislative discussions, from time to time, in order to satisfy the more pressing necessities of the treasury. Necker had proposed provisional means, which had been adopted in confidence, and almost without discussion. Despite this zeal, he did not without displeasure see the finances considered as subordinate to the constitution, and the ministry to the assembly. A first loan of thirty millions (1,200,000l.), voted the 9th of August, had not succeeded; a subsequent loan of eighty millions (3,200,000l.), voted the 27th of the same month, had been insufficient. Duties were reduced or abolished, and they yielded scarcely anything, owing to the difficulty of collecting them.

It became useless to have recourse to public confidence, which refused its aid; and in September, Necker had proposed, as the only means, an extraordinary contribution of a fourth of the revenue, to be paid at once. Each citizen was to fix his proportion himself, making use of that simple form of oath, which well expressed these first days of honour and patriotism:—"I declare with truth."

Mirabeau now caused Necker to be invested with a complete financial dictatorship. He spoke of the urgent wants of the state, of the labours of the assembly which did not permit it to discuss the plan of the minister, and which at the same time prevented its examining any other; of Necker's skill, which ensured the success of his own measure; and urged the assembly to leave with him the responsibility of its success, by confidently adopting it. As some did not approve of the views of the minister, and others suspected the intentions of Mirabeau with respect to him, he closed his speech, one of the most eloquent he ever delivered, by displaying bankruptcy impending, and exclaiming, "Vote this extraordinary subsidy, and may it prove sufficient! Vote it; for if you have doubts respecting the means, you have none respecting the want, and our inability to supply it. Vote it, for the public circumstances will not bear delay, and we shall be accountable for all postponement. Beware of asking for time; misfortune never grants it.

Gentlemen, on the occasion of a ridiculous motion at the Palais Royal, an absurd incursion, which had never had any importance, save in feeble imaginations, or the minds of men of ill designs and bad faith, you once heard these words, 'Catiline is at the gates of Rome, and yet they deliberate!' And yet there were around us neither Catiline, nor perils, nor factions, nor Rome. But now bankruptcy, hideous bankruptcy, is there; it threatens to consume you, your properties, your honour, and yet you deliberate!" Mirabeau had carried away the assembly by his oratory; and the patriotic contribution was voted with unanimous applause.

But this resource had only afforded momentary relief. The finances of the revolution depended on a more daring and more vast measure. It was necessary not only to support the revolution, but to repair the immense deficit which stopped its progress, and threatened its future destiny. One way alone remained—to declare ecclesiastical property national, and to sell it for the rescue of the state. Public interest prescribed this course; and it could be done with justice, the clergy not being the proprietors, but the simple administrators of this property, devoted to religion, and not to the priests. The nation, therefore, by taking on itself the expenses of the altar, and the support of its ministers might procure and appropriate an important financial resource, and obtain a great political result.

It was important not to leave an independent body, and especially an ancient body, any longer in the state; for in a time of revolution everything ancient is hostile. The clergy, by its formidable hierarchy and its opulence, a stranger to the new changes, would have remained as a republic in the kingdom. Its form belonged to another system: when there was no state, but only bodies, each order had provided for its own regulation and existence. The clergy had its decretals, the nobility its law of fiefs, the people its corporations; everything was independent, because everything was private. But now that functions were becoming public, it was necessary to make a magistracy of the priesthood as they had made one of royalty; and, in order to make them dependent on the state, it was essential they should be paid by it, and to resume from the monarch his domains, from the clergy its property, by bestowing on each of them suitable endowments. This great operation, which destroyed the ancient ecclesiastical régime, was effected in the following manner:

One of the most pressing necessities was the abolition of tithes. As these were a tax paid by the rural population to the clergy, the sacrifice would be for the advantage of those who were oppressed by them. Accordingly, after declaring they were redeemable, on the night of the 4th of August, they were suppressed on the 11th, without providing any equivalent. The clergy opposed the measure at first, but afterwards had the good sense to consent. The archbishop of Paris gave up tithes in the name of all his brethren, and by this act of prudence he showed himself faithful to the line of conduct adopted by the privileged classes on the night of the 4th of August; but this was the extent of his sacrifices.

A short time after, the debate respecting the possession of ecclesiastical property began. Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, proposed to the clergy that they should renounce it in favour of the nation, which would employ it in defraying the expenses of worship, and liquidating its debt. He proved the justice and propriety of this measure; and he showed the great advantages which would accrue to the state. The property of the clergy amounted to several thousand millions of francs. After paying its debts, providing for the ecclesiastical services and that of hospitals, and the endowment of its ministers, sufficient would still remain to extinguish the public debt, whether permanent or annuities, and to reimburse the money paid for judicial offices. The clergy rose against this proposition. The discussion became very animated; and it was decided, in spite of their resistance, that they were not proprietors, but simple depositaries of the wealth that the piety of kings and of the faithful had devoted to religion, and that the nation, on providing for the service of public worship, had a right to recall such property.

The decree which placed it at its disposal was passed on the 2nd of December, 1789.

From that moment the hatred of the clergy to the revolution broke out. At the commencement of the states-general it had been less intractable than the nobility, in order to preserve its riches; it now showed itself as opposed as they to the new régime, of which it became the most tenacious and furious foe. Yet, as the decree placed ecclesiastical property at the disposal of the nation, without, as yet, displacing it, it did not break out into opposition at once. The administration was still confided to it, and it hoped that the possessions of the church might serve as a mortgage for the debt, but would not be sold.

It was, indeed, difficult to effect the sale, which, however, could not be delayed, the treasury only subsisting on anticipations, and the exchequer, which supplied it with bills, beginning to lose all credit on account of the number it had issued.

They obtained their end, and proceeded with the new financial organisation in the following manner: The necessities of this and the following year required a sale of this property to the amount of four hundred millions of francs; to facilitate it, the corporation of Paris made considerable subscriptions, and the municipalities of the kingdom followed the example of Paris. They were to return to the treasury the equivalent of the property they received from the state to sell to private individuals; but they wanted money, and they could not deliver the amount since they had not yet met with purchasers. What was to be done? They supplied municipal notes intended to reimburse the public creditors, until they should acquire the funds necessary for withdrawing the notes. Once arrived thus far, they saw that, instead of municipal notes, it would be better to create exchequer bills, which would have a compulsory circulation, and answer the purpose of specie: this was simplifying the operation by generalising it. In this way the assignats had their origin.

This invention was of great utility to the revolution, and alone secured the sale of ecclesiastical property. The assignats, which were a means of payment for the state, became a pledge to the creditors. The latter by receiving them were not obliged to accept payment in land for what they had furnished in money. But sooner or later the assignats would fall into the hands of men disposed to realise them, and then they were to be destroyed at the same time that they ceased to be a pledge. In order that they might fulfil their design, their forced circulation was required; to render them safe, the quantity was limited to the value of the property proposed for sale; and that they might not fall by too sudden a change, they were made to bear interest. The assembly, from the moment of their issue, wished to give them all the consistency of money. It was hoped that specie concealed by distrust would immediately re-appear, and that the assignats would enter into competition with it. Mortgage made them quite as sure, and interest made them more profitable; but this interest, which was attended with much inconvenience, disappeared after the first issue.

Such was the origin of the paper money issued under so much necessity, and with so much prudence, which enabled the revolution to accomplish such great things, and which was brought into discredit by causes that belonged less to its nature than to the subsequent use made of it.

When the clergy saw by a decree of the 29th of December the administration of church property transferred to the municipalities, the sale they were about to make of it to the value of four hundred millions of francs, and the creation of a paper money calculated to facilitate this spoliation, and render it definitive, it left nothing undone to secure the intervention of God in the cause of its wealth. It made a last attempt: it offered to realize in its own name the loan of four hundred millions of francs, which was rejected, because otherwise, after having decided that it was not the proprietor of church property, it would thus have again been admitted to be so. It then sought every means of impeding the operations of the municipalities. In the south, it raised catholics against protestants; in the pulpit, it alarmed consciences; in the confessional, it treated sales as sacrilegious, and in the tribune it strove to render the sentiments of the assembly suspected. It excited as much as possible religious questions for the purpose of compromising the assembly, and confounding the cause of its own interest with that of religion.

The abuses and inutility of monastic vows were at this period admitted by every one, even by the clergy. At their abolition on the 13th of February, 1790, the bishop of Nancy proposed incidentally and perfidiously that the catholic religion alone should have a public worship. The assembly were indignant at the motives that suggested such a proposition, and it was abandoned. But the same motion was again brought forward in another sitting, and after stormy debates the assembly declared that from respect to the Supreme Being and the catholic religion, the only one supported at the expense of the state, it conceived it ought not to decide upon the question submitted to it.

Such was the disposition of the clergy, when, in the months of June and July, 1790, the assembly turned its attention to its internal organization. The clergy waited with impatience for this opportunity of exciting a schism. This project, the adoption of which caused so much evil, went to re-establish the church on its ancient basis, and to restore the purity of its doctrine; it was not the work of philosophers, but of austere Christians, who wished to support religion by the state, and to make them concur mutually in promoting its happiness. The reduction of bishoprics to the same number as the departments, the conformity of the ecclesiastical circumscription with the civil circumscription, the nomination of bishops by electors, who also chose deputies and administrators, the suppression of chapters, and the substitution of vicars for canons, were the chief features of this plan; there was nothing in it that attacked the dogmas or worship of the church. For a long time the bishops and other ecclesiastics had been nominated by the people; as for diocesan limits, the operation was purely material, and in no respect religious.

It moreover generously provided for the support of the members of the church, and if the high dignitaries saw their revenues reduced, the curés, who formed the most numerous portion, had theirs augmented.

But a pretext was wanting, and the civil constitution of the clergy was eagerly seized upon. From the outset of the discussion, the archbishop of Aix protested against the principles of the ecclesiastical committee. In his opinion, the appointment or suspension of bishops by civil authority was opposed to discipline; and when the decree was put to the vote, the bishop of Clermont recapitulated the principles advanced by the archbishop of Aix, and left the hall at the head of all the dissentient members. The decree passed, but the clergy declared war against the revolution. From that moment it leagued more closely with the dissentient nobility. Equally reduced to the common condition, the two privileged classes employed all their means to stop the progress of reform.

The departments were scarcely formed when agents were sent by them to assemble the electors, and try new nominations. They did not hope to obtain a favourable choice, but aimed at fomenting divisions between the assembly and the departments. This project was denounced from the tribune, and failed as soon as it was made known. Its authors then went to work in another way. The period allotted to the deputies of the states-general had expired, their power having been limited to one year, according to the desire of the districts. The aristocrats availed themselves of this circumstance to require a fresh election of the assembly. Had they gained this point, they would have acquired a great advantage, and with this view they themselves appealed to the sovereignty of the people." Without doubt," replied Chapelier, "all sovereignty rests with the people; but this principle has no application to the present case; it would be destroying the constitution and liberty to renew the assembly before the constitution is completed.

This is, indeed, the hope of those who wish to see liberty and the constitution perish, and to witness the return of the distinction of orders, of prodigality in the public expenditure, and of the abuses that spring from despotism." At this moment all eyes were turned to the Right, and rested on the abbé Maury." Send those people to the Châtelet," cried the latter, sharply; "or if you do not know them, do not speak of them." "The constitution," continued Chapelier, "can only be made by one assembly. Besides, the former electors no longer exist; the bailiwicks are absorbed in the departments, the orders are no longer separate. The clause respecting the limitation of power is consequently without value; it will therefore be contrary to the constitution, if the deputies do not retain their seats in this assembly; their oath commands them to continue there, and public interest requires it."

"You entangle us in sophisms," replied the abbé Maury; "how long have we been a national convention? You talk of the oath we took on the 20th of June, without considering that it cannot weaken that which we made to our constituents. Besides, gentlemen, the constitution is completed; you have, only now to declare that the king enjoys the plenitude of the executive power. We are here for the sole purpose of securing to the French nation the right of influencing its legislation, of establishing the principle that taxation shall be consented to by the people, and of securing our liberty. Yes, the constitution is made; and I will oppose every decree calculated to limit the rights of the people over their representatives. The founders of liberty ought to respect the liberty of the nation; the nation is above us all, and we destroy our authority by limiting the national authority."

The abbé Maury's speech was received with loud applause from the Right. Mirabeau immediately ascended the tribune. "It is asked," said he, "how long the deputies of the people have been a national convention? I answer, from the day when, finding the door of their session-house surrounded by soldiers, they went and assembled where they could, and swore to perish rather than betray or abandon the rights of the nation. Whatever our powers were, that day their nature was changed; and whatever powers we may have exercised, our efforts and labours have rendered them legitimate, and the adhesion of the nation has sanctified them. You all remember the saying of the great man of antiquity, who had neglected legal forms to save his country. Summoned by a factious tribune to declare whether he had observed the laws, he replied, 'I swear I have saved my country!' Gentlemen," he exclaimed, turning to the deputies of the commons, "I swear that you have saved France!"

The assembly then rose by a spontaneous movement, and declared that the session should not close till their task was accomplished.

Anti-revolutionary efforts were increasing, at the same time, without the assembly. Attempts were made to seduce or disorganize the army, but the assembly took prudent measures in this respect. It gained the affections of the troops by rendering promotion independent of the court, and of titles of nobility. The count d'Artois and the prince de Condé, who had retired to Turin after the 14th of July, corresponded with Lyons and the south; but the emigrants not having yet the external influence they afterwards acquired at Coblentz, and failing to meet with internal support, all their efforts were vain. The attempts at insurrection, originating with the clergy in Languedoc, had as little effect. They brought on some transient disturbances, but did not effect a religious war. Time is necessary to form a party; still more is required to induce it to decide on serious hostilities. A more practicable design was that of carrying off the king and conveying him to Peronne. The marquis de Favras, with the support of Monsieur, the king's brother, was preparing to execute it, when it was discovered.

The Châtelet condemned to death this intrepid adventurer, who had failed in his enterprise, through undertaking it with too much display. The king's flight, after the events of October, could only be effected furtively, as it subsequently happened at Varennes.

The position of the court was equivocal and embarrassing. It encouraged every anti-revolutionary enterprise and avowed none; it felt more than ever its weakness and dependence on the assembly; and while desirous of throwing off the yoke, feared to make the attempt because success appeared difficult. Accordingly, it excited opposition without openly co-operating in it; with some it dreamed of the restoration of the ancient régìme, with others it only aimed at modifying the revolution. Mirabeau had been recently in treaty with it. After having been one of the chief authors of reform, he sought to give it stability by enchaining faction. His object was to convert the court to the revolution, not to give up the revolution to the court. The support he offered was constitutional; he could not offer any other; for his power depended on his popularity, and his popularity on his principles. But he was wrong in suffering it to be bought. Had not his immense necessities obliged him to accept money and sell his counsels, he would not have been more blameable than the unalterable Lafayette, the Lameths and the Girondins, who successively negotiated with it.

But none of them gained the confidence of the court; it only had recourse to them in extremity. By their means it endeavoured to suspend the revolution, while by the means of the aristocracy it tried to destroy it. Of all the popular leaders, Mirabeau had perhaps the greatest ascendancy over the court, because he was the most winning, and had the strongest mind.

The assembly worked unceasingly at the constitution, in the midst of these intrigues and plots. It decreed the new judicial organization of France. All the new magistracies were temporary. Under the absolute monarchy, all powers emanated from the throne, and all functionaries were appointed by the king; under the constitutional monarchy, all powers emanating from the people, the functionaries were to be appointed by it. The throne alone was transmissible; the other powers being the property neither of a man nor of a family, were neither of life-tenure, nor hereditary. The legislation of that period depended on one sole principle, the sovereignty of the nation. The judicial functions had themselves that changeable character. Trial by jury, a democratic institution formerly common to nearly all the continent, but which in England alone had survived the encroachments of feudalism and the throne, was introduced into criminal causes. For civil causes special judges were nominated. Fixed courts were established, two courts of appeal to prevent error, and a cour de cassation intended to secure the preservation of the protecting forms of the law.

This formidable power, when it proceeds from the throne, can only be independent by being fixed; but it must be temporary when it proceeds from the people; because, while depending on all, it depends upon no one.

In another matter, quite as important, the right of making peace or war, the assembly decided a new and delicate question, and this in a sure, just, and prompt manner, after one of the most luminous and eloquent discussions that ever distinguished its sittings. As peace and war belonged more to action than to will, it confided, contrary to the usual rule, the initiative to the king. He who was best able to judge of its fitness was to propose the question, but it was left to the legislative body to decide it.

The popular torrent, after having burst forth against the ancient regime, gradually subsided into its bed; new dykes restrained it on all sides. The government of the revolution was rapidly becoming established. The assembly had given to the new régime its monarch, its national representation, its territorial division, its armed force, its municipal and administrative power, its popular tribunals, its currency, its clergy; it had made an arrangement with respect to its debt, and it had found means to reconstruct property without injustice.

The 14th of July approached: that day was regarded by the nation as the anniversary of its deliverance, and preparations were made to celebrate it with a solemnity calculated to elevate the souls of the citizens, and to strengthen the common bonds of union. A confederation of the whole kingdom was appointed to take place in the Champ de Mars; and there, in the open air, the deputies sent by the eighty-three departments, the national representatives, the Parisian guard, and the monarch, were to take the oath to the constitution. By way of prelude to this patriotic fête, the popular members of the nobility proposed the abolition of titles; and the assembly witnessed another sitting similar to that of the 4th of August. Titles, armorial bearings, liveries, and orders of knighthood, were abolished on the 20th of June, and vanity, as power had previously done, lost its privileges.