[Sidenote: Montesquieu.]

Montesquieu, the most profound of the political writers of the eighteenth century, did his part in opening the eyes of thoughtful Frenchmen to the disadvantages of their government by his eulogy of the limited monarchy of England. He pointed out that the freedom which Englishmen enjoyed was due to the fact that the three powers of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—were not as in France in the same hands. Parliament made the laws, the king executed them, and the courts, independent of both, saw that they were observed. He believed that the English would lose their liberties so soon as these powers fell under the control of one person or body of persons. This principle of "the separation of powers" is now recognized in many modern governments, notably in that of the United States.

[Sidenote: The new science of political economy.]

215. About the middle of the eighteenth century the science of political economy was born. Scholars began to investigate far more thoroughly than ever before the sources and distribution of the wealth of the nation. The unjust system of taxation, which tended to exempt the richer classes from their just share of the public burdens; the wasteful and irritating methods of collecting the taxes; the interior customs lines, preventing the easy passage of goods from one part of France to another; the extravagance of the king's household; the pensions granted to undeserving persons; every evil of the bungling, iniquitous old rgime was brought under the scrutiny of the new thinkers, who tested the existing system by the light of reason and the welfare of the great mass of the people.

[Sidenote: Economists argue against government restrictions on trade and manufacture.]

The economists wrote treatises on taxation, scattered pamphlets about, and conducted a magazine or two. They not only brought the existing economic evils home to the intelligent reader, but suggested remedies for them.

The French government had been in the habit of regulating well-nigh everything. In order that the goods that were produced in France might find a ready sale abroad, the government fixed the quality and width of the cloth which might be manufactured and the character of the dyes which should be used.[387] The king's ministers kept a constant eye upon the dealers in grain and breadstuffs, forbidding the storing up of these products or their sale outside a market. In this way they had hoped to prevent speculators from accumulating grain in times of scarcity in order to sell it at a high rate.

It was now pointed out that these government restrictions produced some very bad results. They failed to prevent famine, and in the case of industry they discouraged new inventions and the adoption of better methods. The economists claimed that it would be far better to leave the manufacturer to carry on his business in his own way. They urged the king to adopt the motto, laissez faire, "Let things alone," if he would see his realms prosper.[388]

[Accession of Louis XVI.]

216. In 1774 the old king, Louis XV, died after a long and disgraceful reign. His unsuccessful wars had brought France to the verge of bankruptcy, and his ministers had been unable to meet the obligations of the government. The taxes were already so oppressive as to arouse great discontent, and yet the government was running behind seventy million dollars a year. His grandson and successor, Louis XVI (1774-1793), was a young man of excellent intentions. He was only twenty, and his wife, the beautiful Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, was still younger. The new king almost immediately summoned Turgot, the ablest of the economists, and placed him in the most important of the government offices, that of controller general.

[Sidenote: Turgot controller general, 1774-1776.]

Turgot was an experienced government official as well as a scholar. For thirteen years he had been the king's representative in Limoges, one of the least prosperous portions of France. There he had had ample opportunity to see the vices of the prevailing system of taxation. He had made every effort to induce the government to better its methods, and had tried to familiarize the people with the principles of political economy. Consequently, when he was put in charge of the nation's finances, it seemed as if he and the conscientious young king might find some remedy for the long-standing abuses.

[Sidenote: Turgot advocates economy.]

The first and most natural measure was economy, for only in that way could the government be saved from bankruptcy, and the burden of taxation be lightened. Turgot felt that the vast amount spent in maintaining the luxury of the royal court at Versailles should be reduced. The establishments of the king, the queen, and the princes of the blood royal cost the state annually toward twelve million dollars. Then the French king had long been accustomed to grant "pensions" in a reckless manner to his courtiers, and this required nearly twelve million dollars more. Any attempt, however, to reduce this amount would arouse the immediate opposition of the courtiers, and it was the courtiers who really governed France. They had every opportunity to influence the king's mind against a man whose economies they disliked. They were constantly about the monarch from the moment when he awoke in the morning until he went to bed at night; therefore they had an obvious advantage over the controller general, who only saw him in business hours.[389]

Although the privileged class so stoutly opposed Turgot's reforms that he did not succeed in abolishing the abuses himself,[390] he did a great deal to forward their destruction not many years after his retirement. Immediately after coming into power he removed a great part of the restrictions on the grain trade. He prefaced the edict with a very frank denunciation of the government's traditional policy of preventing persons from buying and selling their grain when and where they wished. He showed that this did not obviate famines, as the government hoped that it might, and that it caused great loss and hardship. If the government would only let matters alone the grain would always go to those provinces where it was most needed, for there it would bring the best price. Turgot seized this and every similar opportunity to impress important economic truths upon the minds of the people.[391]

[Sidenote: Turgot's position.]

An Italian economist, when he heard of Turgot's appointment, wrote to a friend in France as follows: "So Turgot is controller general! He will not remain in office long enough to carry out his plans. He will punish some scoundrels; he will bluster about and lose his temper; he will be anxious to do good, but will run against obstacles and rogues at every turn. Public credit will fall; he will be detested; it will be said that he is not fitted for his task. Enthusiasm will cool; he will retire or be sent off, and we shall have a new proof of the mistake of filling a position like his in a monarchy like yours with an upright man and a philosopher."

[Sidenote: Turgot dismissed, May 1776.]

The Italian could not have made a more accurate statement of the case had he waited until after the dismissal of Turgot, which took place in May, 1776, much to the satisfaction of the court. The king, although upright and well-intentioned, was not fond of the governmental duties to which Turgot was always calling his attention. It was much the easiest way to let things go along in the old way; for reforms not only required much extra work, but they also forced him to refuse the customary favors to those around him. The discontent of his young queen or of an intimate companion outweighed the woes of the distant peasant.

[Sidenote: Necker succeeds Turgot.]

[Sidenote: Necker's financial report.]

217. Necker, who after a brief interval succeeded Turgot, contributed to the progress of the coming revolution in two ways. He borrowed vast sums of money in order to carry on the war which France, as the ally of the United States, had undertaken against England. This greatly embarrassed the treasury later and helped to produce the financial crisis which was the immediate cause of the Revolution. Secondly, he gave the nation its first opportunity of learning what was done with the public funds, by presenting to the king (February, 1781) a report on the financial condition of the kingdom; this was publicly printed and eagerly read. There the people could see for the first time how much the taille and the salt tax actually took from them, and how much the king spent on himself and his favorites.[392]

[Sidenote: Calonne, controller general, 1783-1787.]

[Sidenote: Calonne informs the king that France is on the verge of bankruptcy, August, 1786.]

Necker was soon followed by Calonne, who may be said to have precipitated the momentous reform which constitutes the French Revolution. He was very popular at first with king and courtiers, for he spent the public funds far more recklessly than his predecessors. But, naturally, he soon found himself in a position where he could obtain no more money. The parlements would consent to no more loans in a period of peace, and the taxes were as high as it was deemed possible to make them. At last Calonne, finding himself desperately put to it, informed the astonished king that the state was on the verge of bankruptcy and that in order to save it a radical reformation of the whole public order was necessary. This report of Calonne's may be taken as the beginning of the French Revolution, for it was the first of the series of events that led to the calling of a representative assembly which abolished the old rgime and gave France a written constitution.

General Reading.—For general conditions in France before the Revolution, LOWELL, Eve of the French Revolution (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $2.00). MACLEHOSE, The Last Days of the French Monarchy (The Macmillan Company, $2.25). DE TOCQUEVILLE, State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789 (John Murray, $3.00), a very remarkable work. TAINE, The Ancient Rgime (Henry Holt & Co., $2.50) contains excellent chapters on the life at the king's court and upon the literature of the period. ARTHUR YOUNG, Travels in France in 1787-1789 (The Macmillan Company, $1.00), very interesting and valuable. For Turgot's reforms, STEPHENS, Life and Writings of Turgot (Longmans, Green & Co., $4.50), containing translations from Turgot's writings. MONTESQUIEU, The Spirit of Laws (The Macmillan Company, 2 vols., $2.00). ROUSSEAU, The Social Contract (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.25, or Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.00). Translations and Reprints, Vol. VI, No. 1, gives short extracts from some of the most noted writers of the eighteenth century. In Vol. V, No. 2, of the same series, may be found a "Protest of the Cour des Aides," one of the higher courts of France, issued in 1775, which casts a great deal of light upon the evils of the old rgime. John Morley has written a number of works upon France before the Revolution: Voltaire, Rousseau, 2 vols., Diderot and the Encyclopdists, 2 vols. (The Macmillan Company, $1.50 a volume).



CHAPTER XXXV

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: Reforms proposed by Calonne.]

218. It was necessary, in order to avoid ruin, Calonne claimed, "to reform everything vicious in the state." He proposed, therefore, to reduce the taille, reform the salt tax, do away with the interior customs lines, correct the abuses of the guilds, etc. But the chief reform, and by far the most difficult one, was to force the privileged classes to surrender their important exemptions from taxation. He hoped, however, that if certain concessions were made to them they might be brought to consent to a land tax to be paid by all alike. So he proposed to the king that he should summon an assembly of persons prominent in church and state, called Notables, to ratify certain changes which would increase the prosperity of the country and give the treasury money enough to meet the necessary expenses.

[Sidenote: Summoning of the Notables, 1786.]

The summoning of the Notables in 1786 was really a revolution in itself. It was a confession on the part of the king that he found himself in a predicament from which he could not escape without the aid of his people. The Notables whom he selected—bishops, archbishops, dukes, judges, high government officials—were practically all members of the privileged classes; but they still represented the nation, after a fashion, as distinguished from the king's immediate circle of courtiers. At any rate it proved an easy step from calling the Notables to summoning the ancient Estates General, and that, in its turn, speedily became a modern representative body.

[Sidenote: Calonne denounces the abuses.]

In his opening address Calonne gave the Notables an idea of the sad financial condition of the country. The government was running behind some forty million dollars a year. He could not continue to borrow, and economy, however strict, would not suffice to cover the deficit. "What, then," he asked, "remains to fill this frightful void and enable us to raise the revenue to the desired level? The Abuses! Yes, gentlemen, the abuses offer a source of wealth which the state should appropriate, and which should serve to restablish order in the finances.... The abuses which must now be destroyed for the welfare of the people are the most important and the best guarded of all, the very ones which have the deepest roots and the most spreading branches. For example, those which weigh on the laboring classes, the pecuniary privileges, exceptions to the law which should be common to all, and many an unjust exemption which can only relieve certain taxpayers by embittering the condition of others; the general want of uniformity in the assessment of the taxes and the enormous difference which exists between the contributions of different provinces and of the subjects of the same sovereign; the severity and arbitrariness in the collection of the taille; the apprehensions, embarrassment, almost dishonor, associated with the trade in breadstuffs; the interior custom-houses and barriers which make the various parts of the kingdom like foreign countries to one another ...,"—all these evils, which public-spirited citizens had long deprecated, Calonne proposed to do away with forthwith.

[Sidenote: Calonne and the Notables dismissed.]

The Notables, however, had no confidence in Calonne, and refused to ratify his programme of reform. The king then dismissed him and soon sent them home, too (May, 1787). Louis XVI then attempted to carry through some of the more pressing financial reforms in the usual way by sending them to the parlements to be registered.

[Sidenote: The parlement of Paris refuses to register new taxes and calls for the Estates General.]

219. The parlement of Paris resolved, as usual, to make the king's ministry trouble and gain popularity for itself. This time it resorted to a truly extraordinary measure. It not only refused to register two new taxes which the king desired, but asserted that "Only the nation assembled in the Estates General can give the consent necessary to the establishment of a permanent tax." "Only the nation," the parlement continued, "after it has learned the true state of the finances can destroy the great abuses and open up important resources." This declaration was followed in a few days by the humble request that the king assemble the Estates General of his kingdom.

The refusal of the parlement to register the new taxes led to one of the old struggles between it and the king's ministers. A compromise was arranged in the autumn of 1787; the parlement agreed to register a great loan, and the king pledged himself to assemble the Estates General within five years. In the early months of 1788 many pamphlets appeared, criticising the system of taxation and the unjust privileges and exemptions enjoyed by a few of the citizens to the detriment of the great mass of the nation.

[Sidenote: The parlement of Paris protests against the 'reform' of the judicial system.]

Suddenly the parlement of Paris learned that the king's ministers were planning to put an end to its troublesome habit of opposing their measures. The ministers proposed to remodel the whole judicial system and take from the courts the right to register new decrees and consequently the right to protest. This the parlement loudly proclaimed was in reality a blow at the nation itself. The ministers were attacking the court simply because it had acknowledged its lack of power to grant new taxes and had requested the king to assemble the representatives of the nation. The ministers, it claimed, were bent upon establishing an out-and-out despotism in which there should no longer be any check whatever on the arbitrary power of the king.

[Sidenote: Protests from the provinces.]

Some of the provinces became very apprehensive when they learned that the king proposed to take from the local parlements the right to examine edicts before registering them. Might not the tyrannically inclined ministers proceed to make new laws for the whole realm and ignore the special privileges which the king had pledged himself to maintain when Brittany, Dauphiny, Bearn, and other important provinces were originally added to France? The cause of the parlements became in this way the cause of the people.

[Sidenote: The Estates General summoned.]

Meanwhile the ministers were becoming very hard pressed for funds to meet the regular expenses of the government. The parlements had not only refused to register taxes but had done everything that they could to embarrass the ministers and destroy the confidence of those who might otherwise have lent money to the government. There seemed no other resort except to call the representatives of the people together. The Estates General were accordingly summoned to meet on May 1, 1789.

[Sidenote: General ignorance in regard to the Estates General.]

[Sidenote: The old system of voting by classes in the Estates General.]

220. It was now discovered that no one knew much about this body of which every one was talking, for it had not met since 1614. The king accordingly issued a general invitation to scholars to find out all they could about the customs observed in the former meetings of the Estates. The public naturally became very much interested in a matter which touched them so closely, and there were plenty of readers for the pamphlets which now began to appear in greater numbers than ever before. The old Estates General had been organized in a way appropriate enough to the feudal conditions under which they originated.[393] All three of the estates of the realm—clergy, nobility, and third estate—each sent an equal number of representatives, who were expected to consider not the interests of the nation but the special interests of the particular social class to which they respectively belonged. Accordingly, the deputies of the three estates did not sit together, or vote as a single body. The members of each group first came to an agreement among themselves and then a single vote was cast for the whole order.

[Sidenote: Objections to this system.]

It was natural that this system should seem preposterous to the average Frenchman in 1788. If the estates should be convoked according to the ancient forms, the two privileged classes would be entitled to twice the number of representatives allotted to the other twenty-five million inhabitants of France. What was much worse, it seemed impossible that any important reforms could be adopted in an assembly where those who had every selfish reason for opposing the most necessary changes were given two votes out of three. Necker, whom the king had recalled in the hope that he might succeed in adjusting the finances, agreed that the third estate might have as many deputies as both the other orders put together, namely six hundred, but he would not consent to having the three orders sit and vote together like a modern representative body.

[Sidenote: The cahiers.]

Besides the great question as to whether the deputies should vote by head or by order, the pamphlets discussed what reforms the Estates should undertake.[394] We have, however, a still more interesting and important expression of public opinion in France at this time, in the cahiers,[395] or lists of grievances and suggestions for reform which, in pursuance of an old custom, the king asked the nation to prepare. Each village and town throughout France had an opportunity to tell quite frankly exactly what it suffered from the existing system, and what reforms it wished that the Estates General might bring about. These cahiers[396] were the "last will and testament" of the old rgime, and they constitute a unique historical document, of unparalleled completeness and authenticity. No one can read the cahiers without seeing that the whole nation was ready for the great transformation which within a year was to destroy a great part of the social and political system under which the French had lived for centuries.

[Sidenote: Desire of the nation for a constitutional, instead of an absolute, monarchy.]

Almost all the cahiers agreed that the prevailing disorder and the vast and ill-defined powers of the king and his ministers were perhaps the fundamental evils. One of the cahiers says: "Since arbitrary power has been the source of all the evils which afflict the state, our first desire is the establishment of a really national constitution, which shall define the rights of all and provide the laws to maintain them." No one dreamed at this time of displacing the king or of taking the government out of his hands. The people only wished to change an absolute monarchy into a limited, or constitutional, one. All that was necessary was that the things which the government might not do should be solemnly and irrevocably determined and put upon record, and that the Estates General should meet periodically to grant the taxes, give the king advice in national crises, and expostulate, if necessary, against any violations of the proposed charter of liberties.[397]

[Sidenote: The Estates General meet May 5, 1789.]

[Sidenote: The representatives of the third estate declare themselves a 'National Assembly.']

221. With these ideas in mind, the Estates assembled in Versailles and held their first session on May 5, 1789. The king had ordered the deputies to wear the same costumes that had been worn at the last meeting of the Estates in 1614; but no royal edict could call back the spirit of earlier centuries. In spite of the king's commands the representatives of the third estate refused to organize themselves in the old way as a separate order. They sent invitation after invitation to the deputies of the clergy and nobility, requesting them to join the people's representatives and deliberate in common on the great interests of the nation. Some of the more liberal of the nobles—Lafayette, for example—and a large minority of the clergy wished to meet with the deputies of the third estate. But they were outvoted, and the deputies of the third estate, losing patience, finally declared themselves, on June 17, a "National Assembly." They argued that, since they represented at least ninety-six per cent of the nation, the deputies of the privileged orders might be neglected altogether. This usurpation of power on the part of the third estate transformed the old feudal Estates, voting by orders, into the first modern national representative assembly on the continent of Europe.

[Sidenote: The 'Tennis-Court' oath.]

Under the influence of his courtiers the king tried to restore the old system by arranging a solemn joint session of the three orders, at which he presided in person. He presented a long programme of excellent reforms, and then bade the Estates sit apart, according to the old custom. But it was like bidding water to run up hill. Three days before, when the commons had found themselves excluded from their regular place of meeting on account of the preparations for the royal session, they had betaken themselves to a neighboring building called the "Tennis Court." Here, on June 20, they took the famous "Tennis-Court" oath, "to come together wherever circumstances may dictate, until the constitution of the kingdom shall be established." They were emboldened in their purpose to resist all schemes to frustrate a general reform by the support of over half of the deputies of the clergy, who joined them the day before the royal session.

[Sidenote: The nobility and clergy forced to join the third estate.]

Consequently, when the king finished his address and commanded the three orders to disperse immediately in order to resume their separate sessions, most of the bishops, some of the parish priests, and a great part of the nobility obeyed; the rest sat still, uncertain what they should do. When the master of ceremonies ordered them to comply with the king's commands, Mirabeau, the most distinguished statesman among the deputies, told him bluntly that they would not leave their places except at the point of the bayonet. The weak king almost immediately gave in and a few days later ordered all the deputies of the privileged orders who had not already done so to join the commons.

[Sidenote: The fall of the Bastille, July 14, 1789.]

222. The National Assembly now began in earnest the great task of preparing a constitution and regenerating France. It was soon interrupted, however, by events at Paris. The king had been advised by those about him to gather together the Swiss and German troops who formed the royal guard, so that if he decided to send the insolent deputies home he would be able to put down any disorder which might result. He was also induced to dismiss Necker, who enjoyed a popularity that he had done little to merit. When the people of Paris saw the troops gathering and when they heard of the dismissal of Necker, there was general excitement and some disorder.



On July 14 crowds of people assembled, determined to procure arms to protect themselves and mayhap to perform some daring "deed of patriotism." One of the bands, led by the old Parisian guards, turned to the ancient fortress of the Bastile, on the parapets of which guns had been mounted which made the inhabitants of that part of the city very nervous. The castle had long had a bad reputation as a place of confinement for prisoners of state and for those imprisoned by lettres de cachet. When the mob demanded admission, it was naturally denied them, and they were fired upon and nearly a hundred were killed. After a brief, courageous attack the place was surrendered, and the mob rushed into the gloomy pile. They found only seven prisoners, but one poor fellow had lost his wits and another had no idea why he had been kept there for years. The captives were freed amidst great enthusiasm, and the people soon set to work to demolish the walls.

[Sidenote: Formation of the 'national guard.']

The actual occurrences of this celebrated day were soon "disfigured and transfigured by legends," and the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile is still celebrated as the great national holiday of France.[398] The rising of the people to protect themselves against the machinations of the king's associates who, it was believed, wished to block reform, and the successful attack on a monument of ancient tyranny appeared to be the opening of a new era of freedom. The disorders of these July days led to the formation of the "national guard." This was made up of volunteers from among the more prosperous citizens, who organized themselves to maintain order and so took from the king every excuse for calling in the regular troops for that purpose. Lafayette was put in command of this body.

[Sidenote: Establishment of communes in Paris and other cities.]

The government of Paris was reorganized, and a mayor, chosen from among the members of the National Assembly, was put at the head of the new commune, as the municipal government was called. The other cities of France also began with one accord, after the dismissal of Necker and the fall of the Bastile, to promote the Revolution by displacing or supplementing their old royal or aristocratic governments by committees of their citizens. These improvised communes, or city governments, established national guards, as Paris had done, and thus maintained order. The news that the king had approved the Paris revolution confirmed the opinion that the citizens of other cities had done right in taking the control into their own hands. We shall hear a good deal of the commune of Paris later, as it played a very important rle in the Reign of Terror.

[Sidenote: Disorder in the country districts.]

By the end of the month of July the commotion reached the country districts. A curious panic swept over the land, which the peasants long remembered as "the great fear." A mysterious rumor arose that the "brigands" were coming! The terrified people did what they could to prepare for the danger; neighboring communities combined with one another for mutual protection. When the panic was over and people saw that there were no brigands after all, they turned their attention to an enemy by no means imaginary, i.e., the old rgime. The peasants assembled on the village common or in the parish church and voted to pay the feudal dues no longer. The next step was to burn the castles of the nobles in order to destroy the records of the peasants' obligations to their feudal lords.[399]

[Sidenote: The decree abolishing the survivals of serfdom and feudalism, August, 1789.]

223. About the first of August news began to reach the National Assembly of the serious disorders in the provinces. This led to the first important reforms of the Assembly. A momentous decree abolishing the survivals of serfdom and feudalism was passed in a night session (August 4-5) amid great excitement, the representatives of the privileged orders vying with each other in surrendering their ancient privileges. The exclusive right of the nobility to hunt and to maintain pigeon houses was abolished, and the peasant was permitted to kill game which he found on his land. The president of the Assembly was "commissioned to ask the king to recall those persons who had been sent to the galleys or exiled simply for the violation of the hunting regulations." The tithes of the church were done away with. Exemptions from the payment of taxes were abolished forever. It was decreed that "taxes shall be collected from all citizens and from all property in the same manner and in the same form," and that "all citizens, without distinction of birth, are eligible to any office or dignity." Moreover, inasmuch as a national constitution would be of more advantage to the provinces than the privileges which some of these enjoyed, and,—so the decree continues,—"inasmuch as the surrender of such privileges is essential to the intimate union of all parts of the realm, it is decreed that all the peculiar privileges, pecuniary or otherwise, of the provinces, principalities, districts, cantons, cities and communes, are once for all abolished and are absorbed into the law common to all Frenchmen."[400]



[Sidenote: Unification of France through the abolition of the ancient provinces and the creation of the present departments.]

This decree established the equality and uniformity for which the French people had sighed so long. The injustice of the former system of taxation could never be reintroduced. All France was to have the same laws, and its citizens were henceforth to be treated in the same way by the state, whether they lived in Brittany or Dauphiny. The Assembly soon went a step farther in consolidating and unifying France. It wiped out the old provinces altogether, by dividing the whole country into districts of convenient size, called departments. These were much more numerous than the ancient divisions, and were named after rivers and mountains. This obliterated from the map all reminiscences of the feudal disunion.

[Sidenote: The Declaration of the Rights of Man.]

224. Many of the cahiers had suggested that the Estates should draw up a clear statement of the rights of the individual citizen. It was urged that the recurrence of abuses and the insidious encroachments of despotism might in this way be forever prevented. The National Assembly consequently determined to prepare such a declaration in order to gratify and reassure the people and to form a basis for the new constitution.

This Declaration (completed August 26) is one of the most notable documents in the history of Europe. It not only aroused general enthusiasm when it was first published, but it appeared over and over again, in a modified form, in the succeeding French constitutions down to 1848, and has been the model for similar declarations in many of the other continental states. It was a dignified repudiation of the abuses described in the preceding chapter. Behind each article there was some crying evil of long standing against which the people wished to be forever protected.

[Sidenote: Contents of the Declaration.]

The Declaration sets forth that "Men are born and remain equal in rights. Social distinctions can only be founded upon the general good." "Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate, personally or through his representative, in its formation. It must be the same for all." "No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law." "No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided that their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law." "The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, being responsible, however, for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law." "All citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representative, as to the necessity of the public contribution, to grant this freely, to know to what uses it is put, and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection, and the duration of the taxes." "Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration." Well might the Assembly claim, in its address to the people, that "the rights of man had been misconceived and insulted for centuries," and boast that they were "restablished for all humanity in this declaration, which shall serve as an everlasting war cry against oppressors."



[Sidenote: Suspicion aroused against the court.]

225. The king hesitated to ratify the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and about the first of October rumors became current that, under the influence of the courtiers, he was calling together troops and preparing for another attempt to put an end to the Revolution, similar to that which the attack on the Bastile had frustrated. It was said that the new national colors—red, white, and blue—had been insulted at a banquet at Versailles. These things, along with the scarcity of food due to the poor crops of the year, aroused the excitable Paris populace.

[Sidenote: A Paris mob invades the king's palace and carries him off to Paris.]

On October 5 several thousand women and a number of armed men marched out to Versailles to ask bread of the king, in whom they had great confidence personally, however suspicious they might be of his friends and advisers. Lafayette marched after the mob with the national guard, but did not prevent some of the rabble from invading the king's palace the next morning and nearly murdering the queen, who had become very unpopular. She was believed to be still an Austrian at heart and to be in league with the counter-revolutionary party.

The mob declared that the king must accompany them to Paris, and he was obliged to consent. Far from being disloyal, they assumed that the presence of the royal family would insure plenty and prosperity. So they gayly escorted the "baker and the baker's wife and the baker's boy," as they jocularly termed the king and queen and the little dauphin, to the Palace of the Tuilleries, where the king took up his residence, practically a prisoner, as it proved. The National Assembly soon followed him and resumed its sittings in a riding school near the Tuilleries.

This transfer of the king and the Assembly to the capital was the first great misfortune of the Revolution. At a serious crisis the government was placed at the mercy of the leaders of the disorderly elements of Paris. We shall see how the municipal council of Paris finally usurped the powers of the national government.[401]

[Sidenote: Unjust apportionment of the revenue of the church.]

226. As we have seen, the church in France was very rich and retained many of its medival prerogatives and privileges. Its higher officials, the bishops and abbots, received very large revenues and often a single prelate held a number of rich benefices, the duties of which he utterly neglected. The parish priests, on the other hand, who really performed the manifold and important functions of the church, were scarcely able to live on their incomes. This unjust apportionment of the vast revenue of the church naturally suggested the idea that, if the state confiscated the ecclesiastical possessions, it could see that those who did the work were properly paid for it, and might, at the same time, secure a handsome sum which would help the government out of its financial troubles. Those who sympathized with Voltaire's views were naturally delighted to see their old enemy deprived of its independence and made subservient to the state, and even many good Catholics could not but hope that the new system would be an improvement upon the old.

[Sidenote: The property of the church confiscated by the government.]

The tithes had been abolished in August along with the feudal dues. That deprived the church of perhaps thirty million dollars a year. On November 2 a decree was passed providing that "All the ecclesiastical possessions are at the disposal of the nation on condition that it provides properly for the expenses of maintaining religious services, for the support of those who conduct them and for the succor of the poor." This decree deprived the bishops and priests of their benefices and made them dependent on salaries paid by the state. The monks, monasteries, and convents, too, lost their property.

[Sidenote: The assignats, or paper currency.]

The National Assembly resolved to issue a paper currency for which the newly acquired lands should serve as security. Of these assignats, as this paper money was called, we hear a great deal during the revolutionary period. They soon began to depreciate, and ultimately a great part of the forty billions of francs issued during the next seven years was repudiated.

[Sidenote: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy.]

The Assembly set to work completely to reorganize the church. The anxiety for simplification and complete uniformity shows itself in the reckless way that it dealt with this most venerable institution of France, the customs of which were hallowed not only by age, but by religious veneration. The one hundred and thirty-four ancient bishoprics, some of which dated back to the Roman Empire, were replaced by the eighty-three new departments into which France had already been divided.[402] Each of these became the diocese of a bishop, who was looked upon as an officer of the state and was to be elected by the people. The priests, too, were to be chosen by the people, and their salaries were much increased, so that even in the smallest villages they received over twice the minimum amount paid under the old rgime.

This Civil Constitution of the Clergy[403] was the first serious mistake on the part of the National Assembly. While the half-feudalized church had sadly needed reform, the worst abuses might have been remedied without shocking and alienating thousands of those who had hitherto enthusiastically applauded the great reforms which the Assembly had effected. The king gave his assent to the changes, but with the feeling that he might be losing his soul by so doing. From that time on, he became at heart an enemy of the Revolution.

[Sidenote: Harsh treatment of the 'non-juring' clergy.]

The discontent with the new system on the part of the clergy led to another serious error on the part of the Assembly. It required the clergy to take an oath to be faithful to the law and "to maintain with all their might the constitution decreed by the assembly." Only six of the bishops consented to this and but a third of the lower clergy, although they were much better off under the new system. Forty-six thousand parish priests refused to sacrifice their religious scruples, and before long the pope forbade them to take the required oath to the Constitution. As time went on, the "non-juring" clergy were dealt with more and more harshly by the government, and the way was prepared for the horrors of the Reign of Terror. The Revolution ceased to stand for liberty, order, and the abolition of ancient abuses, and came to mean, in the minds of many besides those who had lost their former privileges, irreligion, violence, and a new kind of oppression worse than the old.

General Reading.—There are a great many histories of the French Revolution. The best and most modern account is STEPHENS, The French Revolution (Charles Scribner's Sons, 3 vols., $2.50 each). SHAILER MATHEWS, The French Revolution (Longmans, Green & Co., $1.25), is an excellent short account. See also the brief but admirable chapters in ROSE, The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era (The Macmillan Company, $1.25). CARLYLE'Sfamous French Revolution is hardly a history but rather a series of vivid pictures, valuable only to those who already have some knowledge of the course of events. For Mirabeau see WILLERT, Mirabeau (The Macmillan Company, 75 cents).



CHAPTER XXXVI

THE FIRST FRENCH REPUBLIC

[Sidenote: The permanent reforms of 1789.]

227. We have now studied the progress and nature of the revolution which destroyed the old rgime and created modern France. Through it the unjust privileges, the perplexing irregularities, and the local differences were abolished, and the people admitted to a share in the government. This vast reform had been accomplished without serious disturbance and, with the exception of some of the changes in the church, it had been welcomed with enthusiasm by the French nation.

[Sidenote: The second revolution.]

This permanent, peaceful revolution, or reformation, was followed by a second revolution of unprecedented violence, which for a time destroyed the French monarchy. It also introduced a series of further changes many of which were absurd and unnecessary and could not endure since they were approved by only a few fanatical leaders. France, moreover, became involved in a war with most of the powers of western Europe. The weakness of her government which permitted the forces of disorder and fanaticism to prevail, combined with the imminent danger of an invasion by the united powers of Europe, produced the Reign of Terror. After a period of national excitement and disorder, France gladly accepted the rule of a foreigner, who proved himself far more despotic than its former kings had been. Napoleon did not, however, undo the great work of 1789; his colossal ambition was, indeed, the means of extending, directly or indirectly, many of the benefits of the Revolution to other parts of western Europe. When, after Napoleon's fall, the brother of Louis XVI came to the throne, the first thing that he did was solemnly to assure the people that all the great gains of the first revolution should be maintained.

[Sidenote: The emigration of the nobles.]

228. While practically the whole of the nation heartily rejoiced in the earlier reforms introduced by the National Assembly and celebrated the general satisfaction and harmony by a great national festival held at Paris on the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, some of the higher nobility refused to remain in France. The king's youngest brother, the count of Artois, set the example by leaving the country. He was followed by others who were terrified or disgusted by the burning of the chteaux, the loss of their privileges, and the unwise abolition of hereditary nobility by the National Assembly in June, 1790. Before long these emigrant nobles (migrs), among whom were many military officers, organized a little army across the Rhine, and the count of Artois began to plan an invasion of France. He was ready to ally himself with Austria, Prussia, or any other foreign government which he could induce to help undo the Revolution and give back to the French king his former absolute power and to the nobles their old privileges.

[Sidenote: The conduct of the emigrant nobles discredits the king and queen.]

The threats and insolence of the emigrant nobles and their shameful negotiations with foreign powers discredited the members of their class who still remained in France. The people suspected that the plans of the runaways met with the secret approval of the king, and more especially of the queen, whose brother was now emperor and ruler of the Austrian dominions. This, added to the opposition of the non-juring clergy, produced a bitter hostility between the so-called "patriots" and those who, on the other hand, were supposed to be secretly hoping for a counter revolution which would restablish the old rgime.

[Sidenote: The flight to Varennes, June 21, 1791.]

The worst fears of the people appeared to be justified by the secret flight of the royal family from Paris, in June, 1791. Ever since the king had reluctantly signed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, flight had seemed to him his only resource. There was a body of regular troops on the northeastern boundary; if he could escape from Paris and join them he hoped that, aided by a demonstration on the part of the queen's brother, he might march back and check the further progress of the revolutionary movement with which he could no longer sympathize. He had, it is true, no liking for the emigrants and heartily disapproved of their policy, nor did he believe that the old rgime could ever be restored. But, unfortunately, his plans led him to attempt to reach the boundary just at that point where the emigrants were collected. He and the queen were, however, arrested on the way, at Varennes, and speedily brought back to Paris.

[Sidenote: Effect of the king's flight.]

The desertion of the king appears to have terrified rather than angered the nation. The grief of the people at the thought of losing, and their joy at regaining, a poor weak ruler like Louis XVI clearly shows that France was still profoundly royalist in its sympathies. The National Assembly pretended that the king had not fled, but that he had been carried off. This gratified France at large; still in Paris there were some who advocated the deposition of the king, and for the first time a republican party appeared, though it was still small.

[Sidenote: The constitution completed, 1791.]

The National Assembly at last put the finishing touches to the new constitution upon which it had been working for two years, and the king readily swore to observe it faithfully. A general amnesty was then proclaimed. All the discord and suspicion of the past months were to be forgotten. The National Assembly had completed its appointed task, perhaps the greatest that a single body of men ever undertook. It had made France over and had given her an elaborate constitution. It was now ready to give way to the regular Legislative Assembly provided for in the constitution. This held its first session October 1, 1791.[404]

[Sidenote: Sources of danger at the opening of the Legislative Assembly, October, 1791.]

229. In spite of the great achievements of the National Assembly it left France in a critical situation. Besides the emigrant nobles abroad, there were the non-juring clergy at home, and a king who was secretly corresponding with foreign powers with the hope of securing their aid. When the news of the arrest of the king and queen at Varennes reached the ears of Marie Antoinette's brother, the Austrian ruler, Leopold II, he declared that the violent arrest of the king sealed with unlawfulness all that had been done in France and "compromised directly the honor of all the sovereigns and the security of every government." He therefore proposed to the rulers of Russia, England, Prussia, Spain, Naples, and Sardinia that they should come to some understanding between themselves as to how they might "restablish the liberty and honor of the most Christian king and his family, and place a check upon the dangerous excesses of the French Revolution, the fatal example of which it behooves every government to repress."

[Sidenote: The Declaration of Pillnitz, August 27, 1791.]

On August 27 Leopold had issued, in conjunction with the king of Prussia, the famous Declaration of Pillnitz. In this the two sovereigns state that, in accordance with the wishes of the king's brothers (the leaders of the emigrant nobles), they are ready to join the other European rulers in an attempt to place the king of France in a position to establish a form of government "that shall be once more in harmony with the rights of sovereigns and shall promote the welfare of the French nation." In the meantime they promised to prepare their troops for active service.

[Sidenote: Effect of the Declaration.]

The Declaration was little more than an empty threat; but it seemed to the French people a sufficient proof that the monarchs were ready to help the seditious French nobles to restablish the old rgime against the wishes of the nation and at the cost of infinite bloodshed. The idea of foreign rulers intermeddling with their internal affairs would in itself have been intolerable to a proud people like the French, even if the permanence of the new reforms had not been endangered. Had it been the object of the allied monarchs to hasten instead of to prevent the deposition of Louis XVI, they could hardly have chosen a more efficient means than the Declaration of Pillnitz.

[Sidenote: The newspapers.]

230. The political excitement and the enthusiasm for the Revolution were kept up by the newspapers which had been established, especially in Paris, since the meeting of the Estates General. The people did not need longer to rely upon an occasional pamphlet, as was the case before 1789. Many journals of the most divergent kinds and representing the most diverse opinions were published. Some were no more than a periodical editorial written by one man; for example, the notorious "Friend of the People," by the insane Marat. Others, like the famous "Moniteur," were much like our papers of to-day and contained news, reports of the debates in the assembly, announcements of theaters, etc. Some of the papers were illustrated, and the representations of contemporaneous events, especially the numerous caricatures, are highly diverting.

]

[Sidenote: The Jacobins.]

Of the numerous political clubs, by far the most famous was that of the Jacobins. When the Assembly moved into Paris, some of the provincial representatives of the third estate rented a large room in the monastery of the Jacobin monks, not far from the building where the National Assembly itself met. A hundred deputies perhaps were present at the first meeting. The next day the number had doubled. The aim of this society was to discuss questions which were about to come before the National Assembly. The club decided beforehand what should be the policy of its members and how they should vote; and in this way they successfully combined to counteract the schemes of the aristocratic party in the assembly. The club rapidly grew and soon admitted some who were not deputies to its sessions. In October, 1791, it decided to permit the public to attend its discussions.

Gradually similar societies were formed in the provinces.[406] These affiliated themselves with the "mother" society at Paris and kept in constant communication with it. In this way the Jacobins of Paris stimulated and controlled public opinion throughout France, and kept the opponents of the old rgime alert. When the Legislative Assembly met, the Jacobins had not as yet become republicans, but they believed that the king should have hardly more power than the president of a republic. They were even ready to promote his deposition if he failed to stand by the Revolution.

[Sidenote: The emigrant nobles declared traitors.]

231. The growing discord in the nation was increased by the severe edicts that the Legislative Assembly directed against the emigrant nobles and the non-juring clergy. "The Frenchmen assembled on the frontier" were declared under suspicion of conspiring against their country. If they did not return to France by January 1, 1792, they were to be regarded as convicted traitors, to be punished, if caught, with death; their property was to be confiscated.

[Sidenote: Harsh measures of the Assembly toward non-juring clergy.]

The harsh treatment of the emigrant nobles was perhaps justified by their desertion and treasonable intrigues; but the conduct of the Assembly toward the clergy was both unstatesmanlike and iniquitous. Those who had refused to take the oath to support a system which was in conflict with their religious convictions and which had been condemned by the pope, were commanded to do so within a week on penalty of losing their income from the state and being put under surveillance as suspects. As this failed to bring the clergy to terms, the Assembly later (May, 1792) ordered the deportation from the country of those who steadily persisted in their refusal to accept the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. In this way the Assembly aroused the active hostility of a great part of the most conscientious among the lower clergy, who had loyally supported the commons in their fight against the privileged orders. It also lost the confidence of the great mass of faithful Catholics,—merchants, artisans, and peasants,—who had gladly accepted the abolition of the old abuses, but who would not consent to desert their religious leaders.

[Sidenote: The Legislative Assembly precipitate a war with Europe.]

232. By far the most important act of the Legislative Assembly during the one year of its existence was its precipitation of a war between France and Austria. It little dreamed that this was the beginning of a war between revolutionary France and the rest of western Europe, which was to last, with slight interruptions, for over twenty years.

To many of the leaders in the Assembly it seemed that the existing conditions were intolerable. The emigrant nobles were forming little armies on the boundaries of France and had, as we have seen, induced Austria and Prussia to consider interfering in French affairs. The Assembly suspected that Louis was negotiating with foreign rulers and would be glad to have them intervene and restablish him in his old despotic power. The deputies argued, therefore, that a war against the hated Austria would unite the sympathies of the nation and force the king to show his true character; for he would be obliged either to become the nation's leader or show himself the traitor they suspected him to be.

[Sidenote: France declares war upon Austria, April, 1792.]

[Sidenote: The king suspected and his life threatened.]

It was with a heavy heart that the king, urged on by the clamors of the Assembly, declared war upon Austria in April, 1792. The unpopularity of the king only increased, however. He refused to ratify certain popular measures of the Assembly and dismissed the ministers who had been forced upon him. In June a mob of Parisians invaded the Palace of the Tuilleries, and the king might have been killed had he not consented to don the "cap of liberty," the badge of the "citizen patriots."

[Sidenote: Growth of republican feeling.]

When France declared war, Prussia immediately allied itself with Austria. Both powers collected their forces and, to the great joy of the emigrant nobles, who joined them, prepared to march upon France. The early attempts of the French to get a footing in the Austrian Netherlands were not successful, and the troops and people accused the nobles, who were in command of the French troops, of treason. As the allies approached the boundaries it became clearer and clearer that the king was utterly incapable of defending France, and the Assembly began to consider the question of deposing him. The duke of Brunswick, who was at the head of the Prussian forces, took the very worst means of helping the king, by issuing a manifesto in which he threatened utterly to destroy Paris should the king suffer any harm.

[Sidenote: Insurrection of August 10, 1792.]

Angered by this declaration and aroused by the danger, the populace of Paris again invaded the Tuilleries, August 10, 1792, and the king was obliged to take refuge in the building in which the Assembly was in session. Those who instigated the attack were men who had set their heart upon doing away with the king altogether and establishing a republic. A group of them had taken possession of the city hall, pushed the old members of the municipal council off from their seats, and taken the government in their own hands. In this way the members of the Paris commune became the leaders in the revolution which established the first French republic.

[Sidenote: France proclaimed a republic, September 22, 1792.]

233. The Assembly agreed with the commune in desiring a republic. If, as was proposed, France was henceforth to do without a king, it was obviously necessary that the monarchical constitution so recently completed should be replaced by a republican one. Consequently, the Assembly arranged that the people should elect delegates to a constitutional Convention, which should draw up a new system of government. The Convention met on the 21st of September, and its first act was to abolish the ancient monarchy and proclaim France a republic. It seemed to the enthusiasts of the time that a new era of liberty had dawned, now that the long oppression by "despots" was ended forever. The twenty-second day of September, 1792, was reckoned as the first day of the Year One of French liberty.[407]

[Sidenote: The September massacres, 1792.]

Meanwhile the usurping Paris commune had taken matters into its own hands and had brought discredit upon the cause of liberty by one of the most atrocious acts in history. On the pretext that Paris was full of traitors, who sympathized with the Austrians and the emigrant nobles, they had filled the prisons with three thousand innocent citizens. On September 2 and 3 hundreds of these were executed with scarcely a pretense of a trial. The members of the commune who perpetrated this deed probably hoped to terrify those who might still dream of returning to the old system of government.

[Sidenote: Progress of the war with Austria and Prussia.]

Late in August the Prussians crossed the French boundary and on September 2 took the fortress of Verdun. It now seemed as if there was nothing to prevent their marching upon Paris. The French general, Dumouriez, blocked their advance, however, and without a pitched battle caused the enemy to retreat. Notwithstanding the fears of the French, the king of Prussia had but little interest in the war; the Austrian troops were lagging far behind, and both powers were far more absorbed in a second partition of Poland, which was approaching, than in the fate of the French king. The French now invaded Germany and took several important towns on the Rhine, including Mayence, which gladly opened its gates to them. They also occupied the Spanish Netherlands and Savoy.

[Sidenote: Trial and execution of the king, January, 1793.]

Meanwhile the new Convention was puzzled to determine what would best be done with the king. A considerable party felt that he was guilty of treason in secretly encouraging the foreign powers to come to his aid. He was therefore brought to trial, and when it came to a final vote, he was, by a small majority, condemned to death. He mounted the scaffold on January 21, 1793, with the fortitude of a martyr. Nevertheless, one cannot but feel that through his earlier weakness and indecision he brought untold misery upon his own kingdom and upon Europe at large. The French people had not dreamed of a republic until his absolute incompetence forced them, in self-defense, to abolish the monarchy in the hope of securing a more efficient government.

[Sidenote: The Convention proposes to aid other countries to rid themselves of their monarchs.]

[Sidenote: France declares war on England, February 1, 1793.]

234. The exultation of the Convention over the conquests which their armies were making, encouraged them to offer the assistance of the new republic to any country that wished to establish its freedom by throwing off the yoke of monarchy. They even proposed a republic to the English people. One of the French ministers declared, "We will hurl thither fifty thousand caps of liberty, we will plant there the sacred tree of liberty." February 1, 1793, France greatly added to her embarrassments by declaring war on England, a country which proved her most inveterate enemy.

[Sidenote: The allies settle their differences and renew the war against France.]

The war now began to go against the French. The allies had hitherto been suspicious of one another and fearful lest Russia should take advantage of their preoccupation with France to seize more than her share of Poland. They now came to an agreement. It was arranged that Prussia and Russia should each take another piece of Poland, while Austria agreed to go without her share if the powers would aid her in inducing the elector of Bavaria to exchange his possessions for the Spanish Netherlands.



[Sidenote: French driven from the Netherlands; desertion of Dumouriez.]

This adjustment of the differences between the allies gave a wholly new aspect to the war with France. When in March, 1793, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire joined the coalition, France was at war with all her neighbors. The Austrians defeated Dumouriez at Neerwinden and drove the French out of the Netherlands. Thereupon Dumouriez, disgusted by the failure of the Convention to support him and by their execution of the king, deserted to the enemy with a few hundred soldiers who consented to follow him.

[Sidenote: French government put in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, April, 1793.]

The loss of the Netherlands and the treason of their best general made a deep impression upon the members of the Convention. If the new French republic was to defend itself against the "tyrants" without and its many enemies within, it could not wait for the Convention to draw up an elaborate, permanent constitution. An efficient government must be devised immediately to maintain the loyalty of the nation to the republic, and to raise and equip armies and direct their commanders. The Convention accordingly put the government into the hands of a small committee, consisting originally of nine, later of twelve, of its members. This famous Committee of Public Safety was given practically unlimited powers. "We must," one of the leaders exclaimed, "establish the despotism of liberty in order to crush the despotism of kings."

[Sidenote: The Girondists.]

235. Within the Convention itself there were two groups of active men who came into bitter conflict over the policy to be pursued. There was, first, the party of the Girondists, so called because their leaders came from the department of Gironde, in which the great city of Bordeaux lay. They were moderate republicans and counted among their numbers some speakers of remarkable eloquence. The Girondists had enjoyed the control of the Legislative Assembly in 1792 and had been active in bringing on the war with Austria and Prussia. They hoped in that way to complete the Revolution by exposing the bad faith of the king and his sympathy with the emigrant nobles. They were not, however, men of sufficient decision to direct affairs in the terrible difficulties in which France found herself after the execution of the king. They consequently lost their influence, and a new party, called the "Mountain" from the high seats that they occupied in the Convention, gained the ascendency.

[Sidenote: The extreme republicans, called the 'Mountain.']

This was composed of the most vigorous and uncompromising republicans. They believed that the French people had been depraved by the slavery to which their kings had subjected them. Everything, they argued, which suggested the former rule of kings must be wiped out. A new France should be created, in which liberty, equality, and fraternity should take the place of the tyranny of princes, the insolence of nobles, and the impostures of the priests. The leaders of the Mountain held that the mass of the people were by nature good and upright, but that there were a number of adherents of the old system who would, if they could, undo the great work of the Revolution and lead the people back to slavery under king and church. All who were suspected by the Mountain of having the least sympathy with the nobles or persecuted priests were branded as counter-revolutionary. The Mountain was willing to resort to any measures, however shocking, to rid the nation of those suspected of counter-revolutionary tendencies, and its leaders relied upon the populace of Paris to aid them in reaching their ends.

[Sidenote: Girondist leaders expelled from the Convention, June 2, 1793.]

The Girondists, on the other hand, abhorred the furious Paris mob and the cruel fanatics who composed the commune of the capital. They argued that Paris was not France, and that it had no right to assume a despotic rule over the nation. They proposed that the commune should be dissolved and that the Convention should remove to another town where they would not be subject to the intimidation of the Paris mob. The Mountain thereupon accused the Girondists of an attempt to break up the republic, "one and indivisible," by questioning the supremacy of Paris and the duty of the provinces to follow the lead of the capital. The mob, thus encouraged, rose against the Girondists. On June 2 it surrounded the meeting place of the Convention, and deputies of the commune demanded the expulsion from the Convention of the Girondist leaders, who were placed under arrest.

[Sidenote: France threatened with civil war.]

[Sidenote: The revolt of the peasants of Brittany against the Convention.]

The conduct of the Mountain and its ally, the Paris commune, now began to arouse opposition in various parts of France, and the country was threatened with civil war at a time when it was absolutely necessary that all Frenchmen should combine in the loyal defense of their country against the invaders who were again approaching its boundaries. The first and most serious opposition came from the peasants of Brittany, especially in the department of La Vende. There the people still loved the monarchy and their priests and even the nobles; they refused to send their sons to fight for a republic which had killed their king and was persecuting the clergymen who declined to take an oath which their conscience forbade. The Vendean royalists defeated several corps of the national guard which the Convention sent against them, and it was not until autumn that the distinguished general, Klber, was able to put down the insurrection.

[Sidenote: Revolt of the cities against the Convention.]

The great cities of Marseilles and Bordeaux were indignant at the treatment to which the Girondist deputies were subjected in Paris, and organized a revolt against the Convention. In the manufacturing city of Lyons the merchants hated the Jacobins and their republic, since the demand for silk and other luxuries produced at Lyons had come from the nobility and clergy, who were now no longer in a position to buy. The prosperous classes were therefore exasperated when the commissioners of the Convention demanded money and troops. The citizens gathered an army of ten thousand men and placed it under a royalist leader. The Convention, however, called in troops from the armies on the frontier, bombarded and captured the city, and wreaked a terrible vengeance upon those who had dared to revolt against the Mountain. Frightened by the experience of Lyons, Bordeaux and Marseilles decided that resistance was futile and admitted the troops of the Convention. Some of the Girondist deputies had escaped from Paris and attempted to gather an army in Normandy; but they failed, too. The Convention's Committee of Public Safety showed itself far more efficient than the scattered and disunited opponents who questioned its right to govern France.

[Sidenote: The French repulse the English and Austrians.]

While the Committee of Public Safety had been suppressing the revolts within the country, it had taken active measures to meet its foreign enemies. The distinguished military organizer, Carnot, had become a member of the Committee in August and immediately called for a general levy of troops. He soon had five hundred and fifty thousand men; these he divided into thirteen armies and dispatched them against the allies. The English and Hanoverians, who were besieging Dunkirk, were driven off and the Austrians were defeated, so that by the close of the year 1793 all danger from invasion was past, for the time being at least.

[Sidenote: The Reign of Terror.]

[Sidenote: The Revolutionary Tribunal.]

236. In spite of the marvelous success with which the Committee of Public Safety had crushed its opponents at home and repelled the forces of the coalition, it continued its policy of stifling all opposition by terror. Even before the fall of the Girondists a special court had been established in Paris, known as the Revolutionary Tribunal. Its duty was to try all those who were suspected of treasonable acts. At first the cases were very carefully considered and few persons were condemned. In September, after the revolt of the cities, two new men, who had been implicated in the September massacres, were added to the Committee of Public Safety. They were selected with the particular purpose of intimidating the counter-revolutionary party by bringing all the disaffected to the guillotine.[408] A terrible law was passed, declaring all those to be suspects who by their conduct or remarks had shown themselves enemies of liberty. The former nobles, including the wives, fathers, mothers, and children of the "emigrants," unless they had constantly manifested their attachment to the Revolution, were ordered to be imprisoned.

[Sidenote: Execution of Marie Antoinette, October, 1793.]

In October, the queen, Marie Antoinette, after a trial in which the most false and atrocious charges were brought against her, was executed in Paris, and a number of high-minded and distinguished persons suffered a like fate. But the most horrible acts of the Reign of Terror were perpetrated in the provinces. A representative of the Convention had thousands of the people of Nantes shot down or drowned. The convention proposed to destroy the great city of Lyons altogether, and though this decree was only partially carried out, thousands of its citizens were executed.[409]

[Sidenote: Schism in the party of the Mountain.]

[Sidenote: Robespierre as dictator.]

Soon the radical party which was conducting the government began to disagree among themselves. Danton, a man of fiery zeal for the republic, who had hitherto enjoyed great popularity with the Jacobins, became tired of bloodshed, and believed that the system of terror was no longer necessary. On the other hand, Hbert the leader of the commune felt that the revolution was not yet complete. He proposed, for example, that the worship of Reason should be substituted for the worship of God, and arranged a service in the great church of Notre Dame, where Reason, in the person of a handsome actress, took her place on the altar. The most powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety was Robespierre, who, although he was insignificant in person and a tiresome speaker, enjoyed a great reputation for republican virtue. He disapproved alike of Danton's moderation and of the worship of Reason advocated by the commune. Through his influence the leaders of both the moderate and the extreme party were arrested and executed (March and April, 1794).

[Sidenote: Fall of Robespierre, July 27, 1794.]

It was, of course, impossible for Robespierre to maintain his dictatorship permanently. He had the revolutionary tribunal divided into sections, and greatly increased the rapidity of the executions with a view of destroying all his enemies; but his colleagues in the Convention began to fear that he would demand their heads next. A coalition was formed against him, and the Convention ordered his arrest.[410] He called upon the commune to defend him, but the Convention roused Paris against the commune, which was no longer powerful enough to intimidate the whole city, and he and his supporters were sent to the guillotine.

[Sidenote: Reaction after the overthrow of Robespierre.]

237. In successfully overthrowing Robespierre the Convention and Committee of Public Safety had rid the country of the only man, who, owing to his popularity and his reputation for uprightness, could have prolonged the Reign of Terror. There was an immediate reaction after his death, for the country was weary of executions. The Revolutionary Tribunal henceforth convicted very few indeed of those who were brought before it. It made an exception, however, of those who had themselves been the leaders in the worst atrocities, for example, as the public prosecutor, who had brought hundreds of victims to the guillotine in Paris, and the brutes who had ordered the massacres at Nantes and Lyons. Within a few months the Jacobin Club at Paris was closed by the Convention, and the commune abolished.

[Sidenote: Constitution of the year III.]

The Convention now at last turned its attention to the great work for which it had originally been summoned, and drew up a constitution for the republic. This provided that the lawmaking power should be vested in a legislative assembly consisting of two houses. The lower house was called the Council of the Five Hundred, and the upper chamber the Council of the Elders. Members of the latter were required to be at least forty years of age. The executive powers were put in the hands of a Directory of five persons to be chosen by the two chambers.

[Sidenote: The dissolution of the Convention, October, 1795, its achievements.]

In October, 1795, the Convention finally dissolved itself, having governed the country during three years of unprecedented excitement, danger, and disorder. While it was responsible for the horrors of the Reign of Terror, its committees had carried France through the terrible crisis of 1793. The civil war had been brought to a speedy end, and the coalition of foreign powers had been defeated. Meanwhile other committees appointed by the Convention had been quietly working upon the problem of bettering the system of education, which had been taken by the state out of the hands of the clergy. Progress had also been made toward establishing a single system of law for the whole country to replace the old confusion. The new republican calendar was not destined to survive many years, but the metric system of weights and measures introduced by the Convention has now been adopted by most European countries, and is used by men of science in England and America.

On the other hand, the Reign of Terror, the depreciated paper currency,[411] and many hasty and unwise laws passed by the Convention had produced all sorts of disorder and uncertainty. The Directory did little to better conditions, and it was not until Napoleon's strong hand grasped the helm of government in the year 1800 that order was really restored.

General Reading.—In addition to the references given at the end of the preceding chapter, BELLOC, Danton (Charles Scribner's Sons, $2.50) and Robespierre by the same author (same publisher, $2.00).



CHAPTER XXXVII

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

[Sidenote: The Napoleonic Period.]

238. The aristocratic military leaders of old France had either run away or been discredited along with the noble class to which they belonged. Among the commanders who, through exceptional ability, arose in their stead, one was soon to dominate the history of Europe as no man before him had ever done. For fifteen years, his biography and the political history of Europe are so nearly synonymous that the period that we are now entering upon may properly be called after him, the Napoleonic Period.

[Sidenote: Napoleon Bonaparte (b. 1769), a Corsican by birth, an Italian by descent.]

Napoleon Bonaparte was hardly a Frenchman in origin. It is true that the island of Corsica, where he was born August 15, 1769, had at that time belonged to France for a year. But Napoleon's native language was Italian, he was descended from Italian ancestors who had come to the island in the sixteenth century, and his career revives, on a magnificent scale, the ambitions and the policy of a condottiere despot of the fifteenth century.[412]

[Sidenote: The young Bonaparte in a French military school.]

When he was ten years old he was taken to France by his father. After learning a little of the French language, which he is said never to have mastered perfectly, he was put into a military school where he remained for six years. He soon came to hate the young French aristocrats with whom he was associated. He wrote to his father, "I am tired of exposing my poverty and seeing these shameless boys laughing over it, who are superior to me only in their wealth, but infinitely beneath me in noble sentiments." Gradually the ambition to free his little island country from French control developed in him.

[Sidenote: His political intrigues in Corsica.]

[Sidenote: The Bonapartes banished from Corsica, 1793.]

On completing his course in the military school he was made second lieutenant. Poor and without influence, he had little hope of any considerable advance in the French army, and he was drawn to his own country both by a desire to play a political rle there and to help his family, which had been left in straitened circumstances by his father's death. He therefore absented himself from his command as often and as long as he could, and engaged in a series of intrigues in Corsica with a hope of getting control of the forces of the island. He fell out, however, with the authorities, and he and his family were banished in 1793, and fled to France.

[Sidenote: Napoleon made commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, 1796.]

The following three years were for Bonaparte a period of great uncertainty. He had lost his love for Corsica and as yet he had no foothold in France. He managed, however, to demonstrate his military skill and decision on two occasions and gained thereby the friendship of the Directory. In the spring of 1796 he was made by the Directory commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. This important appointment at the age of twenty-seven forms the opening of a military career which in extent and grandeur hardly finds a parallel in history, except that of Alexander the Great. And of all Bonaparte's campaigns, none is more interesting perhaps than his first, that in Italy in 1796-1797.

[Sidenote: Prussia and Spain conclude peace with the French republic, 1795.]

[Sidenote: The campaign in Italy, 1796-1797.]

239. After the armies raised by the Committee of Public Safety had driven back their enemies in the autumn of 1793, the French occupied the Austrian Netherlands, Holland, and that portion of Germany which lies on the left, or west, bank of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were again busy with a new, and this time final, partition of Poland. As Prussia had little real interest in the war with France, she soon concluded peace with the new republic, April, 1795. Spain followed her example and left Austria, England, and Sardinia to carry on the war. General Bonaparte had to face the combined armies of Austria and of the king of Sardinia. By marching north from Savona he skillfully separated his two enemies, forced the Sardinian troops back toward Turin, and compelled the king of Sardinia to conclude a truce with France.



This left him free to advance against the Austrians. These he outflanked and forced to retreat. On May 15, 1796, he entered Milan. The Austrian commander then shut himself up in the impregnable fortress of Mantua, where Bonaparte promptly besieged him. There is no more fascinating chapter in the history of warfare than the story of the audacious maneuvers by which Bonaparte successfully repulsed four attempts on the part of the Austrians to relieve Mantua, which was finally forced to capitulate at the beginning of February of the following year. As soon as he had removed all danger of an attack in the rear, the young French general led his army toward Vienna, and by April, 1797, the Austrian court was glad to sign a preliminary peace.

[Sidenote: The treaty of Campo-Formio, 1797.]

[Sidenote: Creation of the Cisalpine republic.]

The provisions of the definitive peace which was concluded at Campo-Formio, October 17, 1797, illustrate the unscrupulous manner in which Austria and the French republic disposed of the helpless lesser states. It inaugurated the bewilderingly rapid territorial redistribution of Europe, which was so characteristic of the Napoleonic period. Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands and secretly agreed to use its good offices to secure for France a great part of the left bank of the Rhine. Austria also recognized the Cisalpine republic which Bonaparte had created out of the smaller states of northern Italy, and which was under the "protection" of France. This new state included Milan, Modena, some of the papal dominions, and, lastly, a part of the possessions of the venerable and renowned but defenseless republic of Venice which Napoleon had iniquitously destroyed. Austria received as a partial indemnity the rest of the possessions of the Venetian republic, including Venice itself.

[Sidenote: General Bonaparte holds court; his analysis of the French character and of his own aims.]

240. While the negotiations were going on at Campo-Formio, the young general had established a brilliant court. "His salons," an observer informs us, "were filled with a throng of generals, officials, and purveyors, as well as the highest nobility and the most distinguished men of Italy, who came to solicit the favor of a glance or a moment's conversation." He appears already to have conceived the rle that he was to play later. We have a report of a most extraordinary conversation which occurred at this time.

"What I have done so far," he declared, "is nothing. I am but at the opening of the career that I am to run. Do you suppose that I have gained my victories in Italy in order to advance the lawyers of the Directory?... Do you think either that my object is to establish a republic? What a notion!... What the French want is Glory and the satisfaction of their vanity; as for Liberty, of that they have no conception. Look at the army! The victories that we have just gained have given the French soldier his true character. I am everything to him. Let the Directory attempt to deprive me of my command and they will see who is the master. The nation must have a head, a head who is rendered illustrious by glory and not by theories of government, fine phrases, or the talk of idealists, of which the French understand not a whit."

There is no doubt whom General Bonaparte had in mind when he spoke of the needed head of the French nation who should be "rendered illustrious by glory." This son of a poor Corsican lawyer, but yesterday a mere unlucky adventurer, had arranged his programme; two years and a half later he was the master of the French republic.

[Sidenote: Personal characteristics.]

We naturally ask what manner of person this was who could frame such audacious schemes at twenty-eight and realize them at thirty years of age. He was a little man, less than five feet two inches in height. At this time he was extremely thin, but his striking features, quick, searching eye, abrupt, animated gestures and rapid speech, incorrect as it was, made a deep impression upon those who came in contact with him. He possessed in a supreme degree two qualities that are ordinarily incompatible. He was a dreamer, and at the same time a man whose practical skill and mastery of detail amounted to genius. He once told a friend that he was wont, when a poor lieutenant, to allow his imagination full play and fancy things just as he would have them. Then he would coolly consider the exact steps to be taken if he were to try to make his dream come true.

[Sidenote: Sources of power in Napoleon's character.]

In order to explain Bonaparte's success it must be remembered that he was not hampered or held back by the fear of doing wrong. He was utterly unscrupulous, whether dealing with an individual or a nation, and appears to have been absolutely without any sense of moral responsibility. Affection for his friends and relatives never stood in the way of his personal aggrandizement. To these traits must be added unrivaled military genius and the power of intense and almost uninterrupted work.

[Sidenote: The political conditions which rendered Napoleon's wonderful successes possible.]

But even Bonaparte, unexampled as were his abilities, could never have extended his power over all of western Europe, had it not been for the peculiar political weakness of most of the states with which he had to deal. There was no strong German empire in his day, no united Italy, no Belgium whose neutrality was guaranteed—as it now is—by the other powers of Europe. The French republic was surrounded by petty independent, or practically independent, principalities which were defenseless against an unscrupulous invader. Prussia, much smaller than it now is, offered, as we shall see, no efficient opposition to the extension of French control. Austria had been forced to capitulate, after a short campaign, by an enemy far from its source of supplies and led by a young and inexperienced general.

[Sidenote: Napoleon conceives the idea of an expedition to Egypt.]

241. After arranging the Peace of Campo-Formio, General Bonaparte returned to Paris. He at once perceived that France, in spite of her enthusiasm for him, was not yet ready to accept him as her ruler. He saw, too, that he would soon sacrifice his prestige if he lived quietly in Paris like an ordinary person. His active mind soon conceived a plan which would forward his interests. France was still at war with England, its most persevering enemy during this period. Bonaparte convinced the Directory that England could best be ruined in the long run by seizing Egypt and threatening her commerce through the Mediterranean, and perhaps ultimately her dominion in the East. Bonaparte, fascinated by the career of Alexander the Great, pictured himself riding to India on the back of an elephant and dispossessing England of her most precious colonial dependencies. He had, however, still another and a characteristic reason for undertaking the expedition. France was on the eve of a new war with the European powers. Bonaparte foresaw that, if he could withdraw with him some of France's best officers, the Directory might soon find itself so embarrassed that he could return as a national savior. And even so it fell out.

[Sidenote: The campaign in Egypt, 1798-1799.]

[Sidenote: Nelson destroys the French fleet.]

The French fleet left Toulon, May 19, 1798. It was so fortunate as to escape the English squadron under Nelson, which sailed by it in the night. Bonaparte arrived at Alexandria, July 1, and easily defeated the Turkish troops in the famous battle of the Pyramids. Meanwhile Nelson, who did not know the destination of the enemy's fleet, had returned from the Syrian coast where he had looked for the French in vain. He discovered Bonaparte's ships in the harbor of Alexandria and completely annihilated them in the first battle of the Nile (August 1, 1798). The French troops were now completely cut off from Europe.[413]

[Sidenote: Syrian campaign.]

[Sidenote: Bonaparte deserts the army in Egypt and returns to Paris.]

The Porte (i.e., the Turkish government) declared war against France, and Bonaparte resolved to attack Turkey by land. He accordingly marched into Syria in the spring of 1799, but was repulsed at Acre, where the Turkish forces were aided by the English fleet. Pursued by pestilence, the army regained Cairo in June after terrible suffering and loss. It was still strong enough to annihilate a Turkish army that landed at Alexandria; but news now reached Bonaparte from Europe which convinced him that the time had come for him to hasten back. Northern Italy, which he had won, was lost; the allies were about to invade France, and the Directory was completely demoralized. Bonaparte accordingly secretly deserted his army and managed, by a series of happy accidents, to reach France by October 9, 1799.

[Sidenote: The coup d'tat of the 18th Brumaire, November 9, 1799.]

[Sidenote: Bonaparte made First Consul.]

242. The Directory, one of the most corrupt and inefficient governmental bodies that the world has ever seen, had completely disgraced itself.[414] Bonaparte readily found others to join with him in a conspiracy to overthrow it. A plan was formed for abruptly destroying the old government and replacing it by a new one without observing any constitutional forms. This is a procedure so familiar in France during the past century that it is known even in English as a coup d'tat (literally translated, a "stroke of state"). The conspirators had a good many friends in the two assemblies, especially among the "Elders." Nevertheless Bonaparte had to order his soldiers to invade the hall in which the Assembly of the Five Hundred was in session and scatter his opponents before he could accomplish his purpose. A chosen few were then reassembled under the presidency of Lucien Bonaparte, one of Napoleon's brothers, who was a member of the assembly. They voted to put the government in the hands of General Bonaparte and two others, to be called Consuls. These were to proceed, with the aid of a commission and of the "Elders," to draw up a new constitution.[415]

[Sidenote: The constitution of the year VIII.]

[Sidenote: The Council of State.]

The new constitution[416] was a very cumbrous and elaborate one. It provided for no less than four assemblies, one to propose the laws, one to consider them, one to vote upon them, and one to decide on their constitutionality. But Bonaparte saw to it that as First Consul he himself had practically all the power in his own hands. The Council of State, to which he called talented men from all parties and over which he presided, was the most important of the governmental bodies. This body and the administrative system which he soon established have endured, with a few changes, down to the present day. There is no surer proof of Napoleon's genius than that, with no previous experience, he could conceive a plan of government that should serve a great state like France, through all its vicissitudes, for a century.

[Sidenote: The administrative system instituted by Napoleon.]

In each department he put an officer called a prefect, in each subdivision of the department a subprefect. These, together with the mayors and police commissioners of the towns, were all appointed by the First Consul. The prefects, "little First Consuls," as Bonaparte called them, resembled the intendants—the king's officers under the old rgime. Indeed, the new government suggested in several important respects that of Louis XIV.

[Sidenote: The new government accepted by a plebiscite.]

The new ruler objected as decidedly as Louis XIV had done to the idea of being controlled by the people, who, he believed, knew nothing of public affairs. It was enough, he thought, if they were allowed to say whether they wished a certain form of government or not. He therefore introduced what he called a plebiscite. The new constitution when completed was submitted to the nation at large, and all were allowed to vote "yes" or "no" on the expediency of its adoption. Over three million voted in favor of it and only fifteen hundred and sixty-two against it. This did not necessarily mean, however, that practically the whole nation wished to have General Bonaparte as its ruler. A great many may have preferred what seemed to them an objectionable form of government to the risk of rejecting it. Herein lies the injustice of the plebiscite. There are many questions that cannot be answered by a simple "yes" or "no."

[Sidenote: Bonaparte generally acceptable to France as First Consul.]

Yet the accession of the popular young general to power was undoubtedly grateful to the majority of citizens, who longed above all for a stable government. The Swedish envoy wrote just after the coup d'tat: "A legitimate monarch has perhaps never found a people more ready to do his bidding than Bonaparte, and it would be inexcusable if this talented general did not take advantage of this to introduce a better form of government upon a firmer basis. It is literally true that France will perform impossibilities in order to aid him in this. The people (with the exception of a despicable horde of anarchists) are so sick and weary of revolutionary horrors and folly that they believe that any change cannot fail to be for the better.... Even the royalists, whatever their views may be, are sincerely devoted to Bonaparte, for they attribute to him the intention of gradually restoring the old order of things. The indifferent element cling to him as the one most likely to give France peace. The enlightened republicans, although they tremble for their form of government, prefer to see a single man of talent possess himself of the power than a club of intriguers."

[Sidenote: Necessity of renewing the war.]

243. Upon becoming First Consul, General Bonaparte found France at war with England, Russia, Austria, Turkey, and Naples. These powers had formed a coalition in December, 1798, had defeated the armies that the Directory sent against them, and undone Bonaparte's work in Italy. It now devolved upon him to restablish the prestige of France abroad, as well as to restore order and prosperity at home. A successful campaign would, moreover, fill the empty treasury of the state; for Bonaparte always exacted large contributions from the defeated enemy and from those of his allies, like the ephemeral Cisalpine republic, who were under the "protection" of France. Besides, he must keep himself before the people as a military hero if he wished to maintain his supremacy.